Reign of Gaming

New Sejuani is so much fun, I hope she doesn't get nerfed.  One thing I've found to be more impactful than I thought is the slow-reducing portion of her passive.  I noticed certain junglers in the last couple weeks of LCS were getting Golem Spirit and Boots of Swiftness together for maximum team fight mobility.  Reduced slow effectiveness stacks additively (unlike tenacity) so if you do this build on Sej and get the defensive masteries you'll have 45% tenacity and 65% reduced slow effectiveness late game. That feeling when you ghost into an Ashe-Lulu lane, eat everything they throw at you and still trample them anyways.

I can't believe they buffed Sej's ultimate since it was already game-breaking in teamfights if you were patient with it, but hey I'm down.  Overall I like their strategy in remaking her: instead of trying to round her out they left her weaknesses intact but buffed her strengths.  If they gave her actual innate tankiness (well they did but as noted her passive still sucks), any form of sustain or dueling capability they would have to take away other things, lowering her risk but also the potential payoff to anyone who can navigate her difficulties.  And her animations are vastly better now, especially because she actually uses that giant mace she's holding.

The thing about always picking the OP champs is that they are always changing. So if you're always picking whatever is OP you're diversifying your champion pool but not really mastering anyone, except for the champs that are more or less perma-OP thanks to their broken kits like Singed.  I think it's better to dabble in whatever is FotM but also to get really good at some champions and stick with them through the ups and downs of balance and meta. I played Riven on release when she was considered trash, then when she got across the board buffs and became OP, then after that when she was nerfed to a balanced state, then after that when she started to get outclassed by the newer top lane releases, and now after she just got random nerfs.  She feels a little on the weaker side of balanced right now but since I have so many games with her I honestly feel like I have a better chance to win playing her top lane than any of the OP champs.  I'll still play them and obviously try to counterpick but having a champion that you've mastered is a real asset and I'm glad I didn't just jump around to whatever was OP this entire time.

This is what you're guaranteed when you play Nasus: the use of a completely broken ability in Wither, the ability to carry the late game, and a mess of problems to navigate until that point.  The problems are different in top or jungle but the basic dynamic is the same.  It seems like the pros in Europe that have been picking him are maxing E first and just last hitting the big creep with Q at each camp and maybe one other one now and then. It will be interesting to see if he's a passing fad or stays in competitive play for a while.

There are a lot of choices you have to make playing Riven. Sure her standard all in (E,Q,auto, Q,W,auto,Q,auto,ult) and her standard harass (Q,W,auto, dash away) are the same so in lane its just positioning, animation canceling, baiting abilities etc., the standard MOBA things as you say. But in a team fight you're never going to get out that full all in on one person so you have to make a lot of choices. Burn all escapes for damage/timely shield or save some? Try to auto in between Qs or not because there's no time? Use ult active to take out first person or save it? Use dashes to close gap or flash?  There are also way more ways to combo your skills and you have to pick the path immediately.

To your larger point I agree that perfect synergy doesn't equal perfect fun, but some synergy is necessary to be fun.  When I play Ziggs and hit everyone with all my abilities it doesn't feel like I hit some cool combo, it just feels like I did a lot of damage with skills that aren't interacting with each other at all.  He's still fun but if he had some synergy he'd be a lot more fun.

Imo it's too tailored for a specific build that doesn't really exist right now.  For it to be efficient you need to build AD, crit and have a large hp pool.  So it's good on AD Sion, also AD Sion, and for another example: AD Sion. It's more niche than Season 2 Manamune. They should take off that crit and either reduce the cost a lot or replace the stat with something that bruisers actually use.

Yeah it should still block the Unstoppable Forces, Enchanted Crystal Arrows and Glacial Prisons of the world but it does suck that it gets popped by the examples he gave and others.  Maybe use the "non-periodic spell damage" semantics to fix the problem?

I agree, if it's an action-packed laning phase and I'm running around doing all sorts of stuff I don't mind to hear a ping from top lane to notify me that the enemy is pushing or their ward just died or something.  But there's a huge difference between *ping* "Elise pushing, no flash" and *ping* *ping **ping* *ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping**ping* "OMG WHY YOU NO GNAK NOOB JANGLER!!!!11!"

Panth-Leona is a legit kill lane, have won many ranked games with my friend playing it.  The lvl 3 burst is crazy and if Leona can stun someone in the center of Panth's ult it's even cheesier. Panth can function bot because of his block and spear farming even without diving all the time, but yeah it does get outscaled pretty bad if it doesn't snowball.  Though this can be fixed by simply putting an adc mid or something

My personal favorite non-conventional jungler is Ziggs. In S2 you had to alter your build pretty drastically to sustain yourself in the jungle but now you can just rush Spectral Wraith and then resume building like you normally would.  5 damage spells, slow field, huge gap closer that doubles as a dispacement move and an ult to finish people out of reach makes him a god of ganking...if everything goes to plan.  Which, of course, it rarely does.  His ganking is ridiculously clunky XD.  But I play him from time to time because he's really fun, somehow much more fun than he is in a lane.