Reign of Gaming

Knowledge and then the application of knowledge is really the best way to succeed in anything. I feel if your friend did a lot of studying and really committed himself to getting better that he would. This doesn't mean playing 20+ games a day and grinding it out, this means reading, watching, taking notes, studying those notes, applying the acquired knowledge over many, many games, watching and assessing replays, following any hint of new and useable information about the game (pro streams, blogs, forum posts, adding players who seem to really know what theyre doing and asking them questions). Look for free coachers like Worrdragon, put all of his interest in just this game. Pro players (and probably most platinum+ players) have a good chunk of their day-to-day life invested into this game. It's more than a hobby to those who aspire to and reach the highest levels.

Also, once you become a true professional or truly talented at anything through the merits of hard work, motivation, and inspiration, you've learned HOW to learn, so it becomes applicable to anything in life. This is probably the case with lots of good LoL players, they're simply better at learning from their mistakes and their victories.

I just wanted to say thanks for this because it really helped me get a grasp of what Aatrox is, which I've been struggling to do myself. Great post.

I haven't had him review any of my replays, but I've been chatting with him and he spectated part of one of my games. He's a nice guy and if you're open to criticism and truly want to improve I'm sure he can help.

Hey man, I'm not gonna ask you to review any of my replays, but I'd definitely be interested in some of the videos you mentioned you had ideas for. Keep us up to date.

Really love the guide, it's well put together but short and to the point. Thumbs up.

Alright, thanks alot : )

Hi guys. Relatively long time reader and occasional poster. I love RoG but the constant updates with news clog and distract me from being able to find and read all the strategy related articles. I always end up having to search through several pages to get everything i missed because sometimes I can only read once every few days. And I've found that lately, 90% of the articles I see are all League news, with the strategy articles sprinkled about here and there.

I understand patch notes and news is important for a lot of people and what not, but I actually come here specifically for the learning and was wondering if there's someway to filter which type of articles show up on the front page for me?

I'm not in anyway insulting you, but I feel that your choice examples are short-sighted. The first example I could understand, they had a pretty scary team to deal with in one pick. I do have a problem with your second example though. I don't take issue with your pick, Lulu is a good pick, especially with Graves and that team. I don't know bot matchups, so I don't know how Lulu/Graves would fare against Taric/Ezreal, but we seem to be focusing on teamfights and mid/late game rather than laning phase so that's what I have a problem with in your reasoning. I think your second example is more of an example of you trying to fit it to the article afterwards.

Graves doesn't synergize well with all of that AoE initiation and damage? That makes little sense, he's a strong skirmisher with good defensive stats and an escape/gap-closer, as well as an AoE ult to stack on top. He is strong when fending for himself along with a support like Lulu (good choice sir) and your team as-is was a well prepared team for what their team had to offer which seemed rather hodge-podge and not well thought out past counter picking Wukong with Riven (which isn't an impossible or entirely one-sided lane for WK anyways.)

Come skirmish and teamfights, they will have a hard time getting to your Graves and if they get clumped and initiated on it's unlikely they would be able to survive long enough to retaliate afterwards, your team is over all way stronger for teamfights if you're prepared and aren't diving 1 by 1.

So again, I feel that your choice was an extremely good one, but your assertion that their team looked better seems more like a hasty description to fit the theme. Your team, from the perspective of someone who's done a LOT of research recently on team composition and team versus team synergy, seems pretty well rounded versus their team, if not outright better thanks to the intense AoE CC your team has on top of all the damage. The only weakness before your pick that I thought was truly glaring was a peel for Graves in case of Noct and Riven, but you made a good choice against that weakness. Beef was semi-missing, but Wukong can do his job and do tons of damage while still building very, very hefty.

Also, beyond that, I want to thank you for the article, the second example was my only qualm about it, the rest was golden and very informative for players new to team composition theory and picking theory. Have a good one!

Jax: Jax is a melee fighter with a gap closer and high base stats. He is mana reliant, and his mana costs are relatively high. He cannot do any form of ranged damage. When he IS in range, it's his auto attacks that hurt you, so if you can prevent/mitigate those, you can potentially force him to waste mana on harass. Champions that come to mind who can deal with Jax with some measure of success.

Rumble - Safe pick overall. Not mana reliant, mobile, shield, harass is all spells, can slow (x2), ult is really powerful. Jax can hurt him, but Jax will lose the mana efficiency game, and Rumble can hurt him back regardless of stun thanks to Flamespitter. If you abuse heat, you'll likely come out on top. Next to that, Rumble can freely and quickly push to tower, and this may force Jax to use Empowers and Leap Strikes (read: spend mana) to get all the last hits under turret.

Singed - Jax has to chase to hurt you, and everyone knows not to chase Singed. Jax's burst costs a lot of mana, and Singed itemizes into more sustain, so will likely just sustain through Jax's harass and farm like a madman regardless. Singed also has a strong kit for deterring harass with Fling and Poison Trail. Singed also transitions well with big farm and Jax likely can't shut down his farm, and Singed may even shut Jax's farm down with good play. Jax has to be in melee range to farm, so Singed can abuse that as well by leaving a Poison Trail tick or two over his almost dead minions or Flinging him into his own minion wave, forcing him to spend mana for Counterstrike or take a lot of free harass.

Teemo - Jax can do a lot of burst, but if Teemo plays well and Blinds right before Jax harasses, he can potentially waste tons and tons of Jax's mana. Teemo also has ranged poke, and post 6 Jax will dread chasing Teemo because of Shrooms.

Other Solid Picks - Jayce (Ranged poke, disengage), Cho'Gath (farm and out-sustain, lots of disruption), Vlad  (none-stop sustain and poke), Malphite (Ground Slam), Swain (Slow, stun, harass, sustain), Lee Sin (Cripple, Shield, Sustain, etc).

Post 6 he can do a lot of burst by queueing up a Grandmaster's Might proc and will combo you with Leap Strike > AA > Empower. He might also Counterstrike before hand to stun you as he lands or shortly after. He might also choose to use it to fend off your retaliation. Watch for him to AA a minion twice post-6.

Mordekaiser
Morde is a low-mobility, manaless AP caster who can be relatively hard to harass because of his shield, but he has a few draw backs. First, he has no built in sustain and in fact uses HP for his spells. His shield potency is completely reliant on how many units it hits. This can be abused by forcing him to A.) Blow it on your minions and push the wave + be unable to use it on you or B.) Blow it on you for almost no shield. This means angling yourself to the side of him basically forces him into one bad decision or the other. If he pushes your lane, you free farm and your jungler ganks his dick off, or he hits you for barely any shield and you counter harass. Strong early game harassers are very good picks versus Morde because of his inability to shield through their intense harass.

Riven - Mobile, shield, no cost for abilities, extremely high early game damage, after level 3 she should be leveling Mordekaiser and denying his farm. Dont let him near your minions and he won't be able to CS or shield himself from your harass.

Renekton - Same principle applies here as Riven, but Rene has no shield. He does however have Rage for an extreme damage buff, a stun, and gap closers/escapes. Built in sustain helps him stay alive and keep the wave from pushing in too hard.

Lee Sin - Shield, gap closer, sustain, burst, slow, knockback. Lee Sin has a very nice kit for dealing with Morde.

Garen - Extreme bursty harass, really high sustain, silence, movespeed buff, shield.

Other Strong Picks - Vlad (farmfest), Cho'Gath (better killing potential, WAY more sustain, CC).

Riven: Very strong early game and scales very hard with items and farm. She's a manaless AD caster with high mobility, a shield, mini-CC, and post 6 a big damage buff. She has no built in sustain. Riven is a lane bully, she aims to zone her enemy while farming, and securing kills where possible. Her weaknesses are most accentuated mid to late game, when she needs a strong front line to allow her to dive into the fray or she may be sub-par on her team for lack of the ability to do her job without getting focused down. Early game, you want to stop her from harassing you while harassing back, or at least force her to take a lot of damage for harassing you and then out-sustain her. She will combo by Q + AA + W + AA + Q + AA + Q. This will do a LOT of damage if pulled off well because her passive rewards her with bonus damage after spell-use, making AA's in between each cast successively stronger. She will also fit a shield in there to mitigate any retaliation.

Renekton - Renekton is good at getting in, bursting, and getting out without retaliation thanks to Ruthless Predator and Slice n' Dice. He also has built in sustain and can stop Riven mid combo, which shuts down a lot of her damage. His strength versus Riven really is Ruthless Predator and Slice n' Dice. Try to bait her combos and counter harass when shes on CD if you can.

Olaf - Slow + True damage. He can win trades, especially if he can bait a Q or two without taking damage, and his sustain is pretty strong. Post 6 he will likely win all-out 1v1s, since Riven will not be able to get him low enough to execute with Ult + Vicious Strikes keeping him too high to 1 shot but low enough to keep his attack speed pretty high. His biggest drawback is mana reliance.

Jayce - Will poke her to death and free farm all day, he also has a disengage in case she tries to combo him. Mana reliance is his only weakness.?

Jax - A lot of Rivens strength comes from having extremely strong trades, Jax can greatly mitigate her trade damage with Counterstrike. He can leap away if put in a dangerous position. Well timed harass post-6 will leave Riven at low HP, making her unable to trade, which is her strength. She likely wont be able to stop your harass with shield because of how quick it happens, and if she does, immediately Counterstrike to fend off retaliation.

Kennen - Harass and farm all day till his jungler comes for the free kills. Kennen will farm safely till six then become a huge threat, he's also mobile and therefore hard to catch in a full combo.

Other Strong Picks - Garen (Manaless, mobile, silence, harass, sustain), Cho'Gath (out-sustain, transitions better into mid and late, lots of CC to stop Riven harass), Kayle (slow, ranged poke, OP ult, slight sustain.)

Hope this helped. =)

Well, to answer your question, take a look at not just The Black Cleaver, but the build up to it. I am merely going to give you information, you should think critically on this information and then make that decision each game, on your own.

So.

The Black Cleaver
Total Cost: 3,000g
Components: Ruby Crystal (475) + Brutalizer (1337) + Recipe (1188)
Stats
250 HP
50 AD
10% CDR
10 Flat Armor Pen
Passive: Dealing physical damage to an enemy champion reduces their armor by 6.25% for 4 seconds. This effect stacks up to 4 times.

HP is currently one of the strongest and cheapest (read: cost-effective) stats in the game. Also, 250 HP early to mid game is quite a good chunk of HP. You get AD, ArPen, and CDR from The Brutalizer all in 1 slot. All 3 of those work extremely well with an AD caster-assassin because they rely on their AD scaling [read: augmented by ArPen and AD] abilities for damage, which is tantamount to saying that they rely on their AD scaling cooldowns to do their job.

Most AD caster-assassins are probably already running ArPen in their masteries and possibly on their runes as well, and so they are likely doing close to True damage with a Brutalizer early to mid game, where arguably they shine the brightest due to lower HP and resistances.

So, should you rush that upgrade for The Black Cleaver? Don't forget that when you upgrade to TBC, you're paying 1188g for 25 AD and the passive. I do not point this out to say that the upgrade is cost-deficient, but to say that the hit-and-run playstyle of an Assassin may force you to retreat before you can use your auto-attacks on your target, therefore wasting the passive you payed for. It may (but not unquestionably) be more worthwhile to spend that 1188 gold on something else (depending on each particular match-up and circumstances) and upgrading later when you might be able to stay alive and on-target for longer periods of time.

Don't forget to make the decision proactively, if you're not able to dive your target anyways, you might want to consider sticking with a Brutalizer and working on remedying that situation first. Always consider that if you're in a lane that you're getting your toosh stomped in, it may be more important to make it through that laning phase maintaining at least some farm and without feeding rather than itemizing to kill. If this is the scenario, it's probably sustain (pots, life steal, etc) you need to focus on rather than damage.

When considering whether or not to rush an item, it's always important to look at the bigger picture, each particular scenario is different. It's also important to remember the importance of component-parts. Pros and high elo players build LOTS of components and sometimes upgrade much later. That's because during early and mid game, component parts are as powerful as their upgrade for that game period because of their price and because of how powerful raw stats are during this period.

Homework: Go right now and research price-premiums on upgrades and gold-stat coefficients. The wiki is a great place to start, so are RoG blogs.