Reign of Gaming

While win rates are not an absolute, I do believe they mean more as far as viability (i.e. tier placement) is concerned than for other maps. Because champion selection is random, it removes a number of biases that might otherwise heavily skew results. Obviously not all biases are removed and there is always a margin of error but it's much harder than argue that, say, Poppy is more than maybe mediocre at best.

I rarely start without a Philo Stone on champions that use mana. Sometimes I'll start with it anyway on manaless champs if I have Heal. Starting Kage's makes sense on (manaless) AP champs and of course if you're building anything out of them, both Pick/Blade are perfectly fine starts. And please don't forget that they still do have other stats on them; you're not paying full price for gold generation alone, you're paying a small premium beyond the cost of a basic regen, AP, crit item. Philo Stone in particular is actually cost-efficient still, plus it's the only one that didn't get nerfed in Season 3 as far as gold/10 is concerned. ;[ Besides, ain't any different than Tear as far as trading earlygame power for lategame strength is concerned.

^Blitzcrank is a DPS monster if you don't blow your ult at every opportunity. Between the passive from that, his steroid, his 2x damage autoattack reset, not to mention the ridiculous tankiness when his passive is up, Blitzcrank is one of the scariest six-item champs in the game and he's literally a CC bot. He certainly has no damn trouble sticking to targets either, seeing as how he has a massive movespeed advantage on most champions and a knockup on a three-second cooldown (at max CDR).

Other than that, yeah I already stated myself that I think Sona is the next (or second) best champion behind Blitz. Sustain is even more important than poke, if not better, because there are so few champions that have it, particularly those that can heal others. Alistar and Sona are by far the best of the bunch that do and it's not like they're otherwise lackluster champions either.

I've always been of the mind that Alistar and Sona are the two best ARAM champions next to Blitzcrank. Their early sustain is just a godsend and both have valuable utilities that continue to carry them into a possible lategame. (In other words, I'm saying you're underestimating sustain.) Max CDR and go heavy on the mana regen for Sona (I start Tear and rush Grail), eventually you get to the point where you're almost literally rolling your face on the keyboard and rotating through a ton of auras: high uptime on a team-wide 20 AD + AP, 15 Armor + MR, and 20 + 14% movespeed. It's a hell of a lot of free stats, not to mention her AoE stun. Or if you otherwise lack physical damage, she's honestly a perfectly serviceable AD carry. She's versatile like that. :P

Alistar's heal, being the only team-wide one (besides Janna ult), is simply ludicrously efficient. He's a better healer than Sona. Yeah, you need plenty of regen to power it -- same with Sona really, just Alistar's base mana stats are worse and he needs to keep more in reserve for his combo -- but it's completely worth it. He doesn't even need any other spells and he's already better than most every no-poke melee champion. And while his damage is lacking, that's no more important to him in ARAM than it is anywhere else. It's still enough to flatten squishies with some AP or a Trinity Force, especially since his ult gives him free reign to do whatever he wants (and is a rather large AD steroid). It's not like he needs to do much damage himself anyway, he's such an effective protector and disruptor that he sets his team up to do more overall damage than the opponents. His ability to dive towers like few can is a strong point.

Zilean's better than you give him credit. His passive is pretty much the single most broken ability in ARAM. Experience comes incredibly slowly in a five-man lane you know, regardless of the map's XP aura, and his entire team hitting Level 6 first can be a big early swing if you have the hard engage to force a fight while the enemy team is still Level 5. The fact that Time Bomb is so strong early on, when most ARAM games are decided in the first ten minutes or so, and his ult is a game-changer... Well, he's probably straddling the border between T2 and T3 anyway, so I'm not complaining about his placement per se. I'm just saying he's better than you make him sound.

I do kinda agree with your assess that Caitlyn is the best AD carry. I might say Varus is better because his poke is brutal, his ult is just stupid considering the map basically forces an entire team to get caught in it no matter who you hit, and he outputs way more damage in longer games. But to keep my words short, Caitlyn is arguably the single most dominant laner in the game and the best tower siege carry for her extreme range and zoning potential... That's all ARAM is, laning and sieging! I mean yeah it's a 5v5 lane but her silly autoattack range and traps are still awesome lane control tools.

Fiddlesticks is pure Tier 1, the base damage on Dark Wind over multiple bounces is too ridiculous in an environment where that's usually what you get out of it. Yeah minions sometimes eat bounces but hey, even 3/5 hits on champions makes for an above-average poke and the silence is pretty boss when it comes to teamfights. Having self-sustain doesn't hurt either, even if the range makes it not-easy to utilize sometimes, and you can't go wrong with CC on top of CC.

Poppy's complete garbage in my book. She has zero poke, zero sustain, and takes way too long to get going because she's so item-dependent. A team with Poppy is basically playing a 4v5 for the first ten minutes of the game, then she's only useful while her ult is up for long enough that most games end before she ever gets big enough to start becoming a force. It takes more than a Sheen to start blowing people up, you need like DFG + Gunblade or Lich Bane. And you have to fix her severe mana problems first!

Gangplank could stand to be higher, probably others in your T4-T5 too. Few melee champions have a poke spell comparable to Parrrley, that alone should make GP a serviceable T3, and he also has strong sustain through oranges. Raise Morale is a good aura effect and his ult, while losing some of the usefulness of its global range, is an incredible teamfighting tool nonetheless. He scales like a carry. Pantheon gets a lot of bonus points just because he can execute at-will with his ult but since his passive blocks autoattacks and his poke spell is targetted, he can often position is way into winning small trades early. He's better off than all those no-poke melee champs at least. Shen has an AoE taunt and is at least fairly survivable early on with his manaless shield, Vorpal healing can be had by both himself and allies.

Since you've been discussing Swain specifically, he's also pretty much Tier 3 alone based on his snare being able to set up easy earlygame kills just like Lux / Morgana. And I don't think his mana needs really cripple his survivability, if anything it hurts his damage. Grail is already incredible on basically everyone and doubles as your MR item, RoA will complement it nicely with a base mana pool buff and it's kinda the second (Warmog's unavailable on the new map) largest health item in the game, or Seraph's provides a little more damage and mana with slightly less "health" (the shield can easily break 500). However, the extra mana item likely requires he skip one of Deathcap or Void Staff if he ever reaches full build... but yeah, it's all about dat snare early on. His high sustain post-6 should also be more appreciated, the ability to recover from poke is a top-shelf champion attribute in ARAM.

Fiora is worthless garbage, just move her down. Nasus isn't so terrible, Spirit Fire is at least decent harass for a melee champ and Wither still shuts down opposing AD carries pretty hard in teamfights. Nocturne's Q is a decent poke and his spell shield is strong utility on a melee champ especially. Warwick at least sustains very well for all the poke he can't retaliate against and if you have long-range poke allies they'll appreciate keeping vision on the backline with Blood Scent. And since you asked about Trundle, his Pillar plays very well with poke champs (even if he can't contribute himself) and, like Warwick, his high sustain is appreciated to weather the abuse he'll be put through early on.

As just as an aside, you don't think support builds exist in ARAM? I disagree. Someone has to rock those auras. Bulwark's the only "required" one but depending on the team comp, and the willingness of potentially less intelligent, more selfish allies, I can sometimes find myself being a support whore. I had Teemo in a game yesterday where I picked up Bulwark and Zeke's, because we didn't really have any tanky bruisers that might otherwise look to pick up the Bulwark and I had multiple AD carries (a Vayne and a Graves) to boost with the Zeke's. I always focus on CDR and mana regen on Sona so I can roll my face on my keyboard for maximum uptime and overlap on her auras: so many free stats! More important than slightly larger heals and damage. I mean yeah, certain active items are less common and you have more gold in general to play with as a "support" because there's no wards to buy, but you can successfully build for utility over pure damage/survivability. And that's what I think when you say "support build." Maybe that wasn't your intention, though.

Quote from Veretes_Mortem»

That isn't terribly accurate. If a blue side bot lane gets level two before purple and does their all in correctly, they can win the game. From level 2.

My point was you go stop them at their golems, not afterward. Obviously, the point of blue side doing golems is to hit Level 2 first in lane so they can all-in and win. What they can't do is win an all-in if purple ATTACKS THEM AT GOLEMS. They'll have to disengage because if they stand their ground to fight, the golems will get a bunch of free damage on them and they'll lose. No more XP advantage!

And as stated, of course, any five-man invade also works. Either bot lane helps defend, in which case they're not doing golems, or they do golems at the cost of their team losing a buff. Purple has multiple, trivial solutions to the "golem problem" without resorting to top-bot lane swapping that forces them to give up early dragon control and without requiring any further nerfs from Riot, like making the golems spawn later or whatever.

Quote from FleurDeLiz »

Quote from TheDevicer »

They need the pots to take the ADC and support's poke all day.

I still don't understand why purple side basically gives up all pretense of dragon control just to even out the golems problem.

I feel like "the golems problem" has always been overstated. It isn't a problem at all. You don't need to lane swap so you can do your own golems, you can just stop them from taking theirs! It's not like blue team bot lane can win an all-in taking free damage from the golems, they have no choice but to back off. Or you get your entire team to go steal a buff and if their bot lane is preparing to do golems instead of grouped with their team to defend/invade in kind, their jungler is set back more than their bot lane gained by taking golems.

If Last Whisper on a large majority of pro Vayne players is any indication, their itemization choices are not even close to always correct. :P

I have to imagine at least one current or future LCS (if it endures) player has read this article. Some of the better minds probably read damn near everything just to absorb any potentially useful information, you know?

If anything, Maw/Hexdrinker are more valuable on an AD carry without much other defenses since it effectively combines MR and health, though only against magic damage. Most bruisers are probably going to be better off with Spirit Visage for the CDR or picking up the team's Bulwark, plus they're more likely to get incidental MR from Mercs and have scaling base MR.

Even so, you're simply better off with something else most of the time. Both Banshee's and QSS/Scimitar give you protection beyond what simple defensive stats can offer, sometimes they're necessary regardless of MR. Stacking health will likely give you better pure survivability as well, as you already get a decent amount of MR from allied auras and glyphs without the HP to back it up, and against all damage types to boot.

Quote from killermelga »

i kust tried it, for example in wraiths, and if i pressed A+move, if i still was in range of an autuattack, it wouldnt move, just continue attacking, im feeling really dumb, honestly, but i cant seem to understand it lol

That's because so long as neutral monsters aren't in combat, they're not considered hostile. Attack-move won't pick them up as valid targets. This was how you cleared wards placed under Baron if you couldn't click them, for example, until Riot made him start tossing those wards away.

As a Morgana main, she can't "carry" (i.e. kill people) baddies even in a solo lane. I'm not sure how she's supposed to do it from a support role.

Anyone remember when support GP was a thing? It's still perfectly good. GP farms like a boss if he's left alone (whether your carry is dead or you're pushing a lane out or whatever) and he's about as close as you're going to get to an actual carry without being one... actually is one, just not ranged.

Kass and TF don't like to be pulled out of mid lane because it stifles their ability to roam, Morg and Kennen couldn't care less where they solo. Lux is a burst caster, Vlad is sustained DPS. Orianna has utility coming out of her ass, Brand mostly exists simply to deal tons of damage. On a basic level they're all "AP carries" but they each have a niche.

Are my teammates going to be mad if I queue up as AP caster and want to play Malphite as an assassin? Is Cho'Gath a bruiser or a tank or an AP caster? Is Tryndamere an AD carry or is that tag reserved for ranged champs? There are simply too many fine details that role-based (or lane-based) queueing can't answer. The only way to make it work would be for Riot to pick a particular team comp as "default" and railroad it onto everyone, which they've stated many times won't be happening. Then everyone will be pissed if you want to go against the meta (e.g. suggest double AP) and you probably won't have the right players to pull it off anyway.

"The meta" is less restrictive than people think it is anyway. The only certainties in this game are:

• Teams need a jungler to optimize the experience and gold available from neutral monsters. Laners can periodically clear but there's generally too much distance between jungle camps and the minion frontline in lanes to take full advantage of them.
• Teams need a high-utility champion that can operate on low income (i.e. play support). There are only four revenue streams for five champions and it makes more sense for one champion that scales well with gold/items to take the entirety of the fourth revenue stream than for two champions to share.
• Teams should be relatively balanced between physical and magical damage, such that the enemy team can't too easily itemize defense against them. And even this one has come into question in Season 3, with so much armor shredding possible and MR simply being too difficult to itemize en masse.

But your support? Doesn't have to go with the AD carry, is no more obligated to purchase wards or aura items than anyone else is. Hell, you don't necessarily need an AD carry... or you can have two! Magic damage can be had from more than just an AP mage. Even metasheep realize that junglers can play any role. The "jungler" tag simply denotes champions that can adequately clear neutral monsters at low levels but there are support junglers, carry junglers, and even some AP junglers.