Reign of Gaming

VVinrar's 4-in-1 Megablog

So in case you guys didn't figure out already, not every idea can be hashed out into a full blog post. There are some brilliant ideas that can be explained in a few paragraphs or in a short YouTube video, which means that only ideas that are "the best of the best" will be given their own article. I hate having a post that is less than 1500 words or so, which means there are always some awesome thoughts that can't make it for the extra mile. So here's a bunch of them clumped together in one post, in no particular order of awesomeness:

1. Elixir of Fortitude didn't deserve the gold nerf
2. The difference between good players and great players
3. Underrated and overrated champions
4. The League system is absolute bs and doesn't reflect true skill

Champion Gudes: Gangplank Edition

Yoooooo Reign of Gaming, it was my birthday yesterday and I was feeling hella lazy, so instead of making a normal blog post I decided to take a leaf out of Emeraldw's book and make an article about Gangplank. Coincidentally, I might be the most qualified person to make a GP guide because I'm 90% sure I'm the only platinum Gangplank main in North America right now.  Other top Gangplank guides are either heavily outdated (S2) or are made by low Elo players, so yeah.

If we were to look up the stats for Gangplank, he'd probably be in the top 5 least picked bruisers in the game. Few players are scared of him, and for good reason. He doesn't win any lanes, he doesn't jungle well, he isn't a top-tier support, yet he still has a higher win rate than many popular picks. Enter one of the most underrated champions in the game. This fun guy runs fast, slows people, is almost a ranged carry, has a global ultimate, soft cc, free sustain, debuffs, good teamfights, good split push, good anticarry ability, and the potential to do 1000 damage crits at the 20 minute mark without being fed. Seriously, what's not to love about Gangplank?

Lux's Early Game: Cooldowns or Ability Power?

If you've been following my smurf's progress, I have been rampaging between Silver V and Gold I in the last 3 weeks (lost my first platinum promo series yesterday, hooray!). Apart from the obvious differences that come from different skill levels, I've noticed a huge difference between Bronze/Silver and Gold/Platinum player builds, especially on everyone's favorite AP carry, Luxanna Crownguard, the Lady of Luminosity. Currently picked in almost one-third of all ranked games, Lux is the go-to carry because she is both safe in lane and difficult to kill at all stages of the game.

Despite her immense popularity at all skill ranges, I've noticed that players in the Silver range favor rushing a quick Rabadon's Deathcap, while as you approach the Gold level of play you begin to see more Tear of the Goddess and Chalice of Harmony as the first purchase. Today's edition of #VVinning seeks to investigate the superior build between the two.

Gaming on an IP Budget -- What to Buy

Today's post may not apply to people that have been playing League of Legends for a long time, but rather for those who always seem to run out of IP.  For those who are constantly running out of Influence Points because they need to buy new runes or champions, you should pay close attention. The average summoner earns around 60,000 IP by the time they hit level 30, and many of these players jump straight into ranked. My assumption is that the average player spend 20,000 on bad purchases, which leaves around 40,000 IP for relevant purchases to ranked play. Listed in today's article is my personal recommendation/guide for those players who want to optimize the use of their IP for relevant use into solo queue play.

Most players would recommend not jumping straight into ranked after you hit level 30. My opinion is that as long as you:

1. Own at least two champions in each role
2. Know how to play these champions
3. Have the runepages to play each of these champions optimally

You should be able to jump straight into ranked without hesitation, regardless of number of wins. Especially with the transition from the Elo system into the League system, you have less disincentives to play ranked because you won't be constantly losing Elo; instead, you're more likely to be placed into a division and league that you belong to straight out of your placement matches. This goal of today's edition of #VVinning is to show how an IP-savvy level 30 (or smurf) can jump straight into ranked and be prepared for the horrors of solo queue.

10 Tips to Improve Your Elo (+$25 RP Contest!)

It's been a while since I (or anyone else at Reign of Gaming) has made a tip list, so I thought we'd return to this classic format in today's edition of #VVinning. In League of Legends, you can win through skill or through the intangibles. Actual ingame skills like reaction times, positioning, and last hitting are key, but there are also non-skill factors; good champion selection and a level head will exponentially increase your chance to have a good game.

Today's list of tips take into account both of these things. Enjoy, and remember to read through the end of today's article for a chance to win $25 in Riot Points!

Tip #1: Don't rage (and keep a thick skin!)

The first tip of the day is rather simple. We've all seen the loading screen tips: if you flame one of your teammates after a mistake, you're more likely to lose. If you want to win the game, do not lower the morale of your team by arguing or making fun of their mistakes, no matter how bad they are. Even harmless comments can be taken offensively by someone who may already be angry from dying, and commenting on other players' mistakes is probably the worst thing you can do if you want to improve your rating. People have feelings, and if you hurt those feelings you are less likely to take home a win.

The converse is also true: if someone is verbally abusing you, the best thing to do is to keep your mouth shut and not respond to the ragers. Even if you cannot keep a level head, responding to verbal abuse will increase the likelihood of future negative comments. Don't blow off steam on other players. Instead, ignore or mute, and keep the emotions inside.

Remember, actions speak louder than words. If you make good plays later on the game, people will probably stop harassing you. Keep morale up: don't rage, don't respond to rage, and ignore negative comments. Do all of these things, and increase your chances of winning.

Is League of Legends the e-NBA?

A couple of days ago, I was reading a post by our eSports guru Tuck and a thought occurred to me: "Man, this guy loves comparing League of Legends to basketball." I mean, the guy practically writes an article comparing a recent event in LoL to the NBA at least once a month. And then when I thought many more thoughts about this thought I just had,  I realized that out of any traditional sport, the professional League of Legends scene most closely resembles that of the National Basketball Association in image, structure, and execution.

For those of you who don't follow basketball, I'll try to simplify my comparisons, but I think you'll find that there simply too many parallels between the sport and eSports to ignore.  While MLG isn't a Riot-controlled organization, there are some striking similarities between the NBA and MLG logos...

red, white, and blue: not just the colors of the American flag

Is Riot Trying to Revert the Metagame?

 Compare the statistics of the two items above: do the statistics look familiar?

If the answer is yes, you've probably been playing since at least Season One.  The item bonuses on the left hand side are those of The Last Whisper circa fall 2010, and the item bonuses to the right are those of Blade of the Ruined King right now.  The Last Whisper of a few years ago was reworked to its current version in December '10.  The reason cited by Riot for the rework was that Last Whisper was too good of an offensive option. As a carry, you were going to buy LW at some point in your item build because it simply gave too many good offensive stats.  Once you had some basic attack damage, all you had to do was build a LW for instant attack speed and armor penetration to win a game, in addition to some free attack damage.

I see some parallels between the Last Whisper of S1 and the Blade of the Ruined King of today.  Like Last Whisper, BotRK gives too many useful offensive stats: increased damage output and increased survivability.  While the stats given aren't pure offensive like with LW, it is too easy to take advantage of all the stats given, especially when you factor in BotRK's unique passive giving a free heal and movement speed.  At some point in the game, it becomes worth it for most AD carries to buy BotRK to kill tanky enemies, which makes it very similar to the role played by the previous Last Whisper.

The return of items that look similar to reworked/removed items from Season One is not isolated to the LW/BotRK combination. Many of the items that have been recently buffed or added for the recent season show alarming similarity to those removed in Season One and Two.  More of these items are inside this post.

All About Baron Buff!

So the other day, I was looking through some old posts for inspiration and I realized that nobody has really valued the worth of baron's buff yet on Reign of Gaming.  Almost universally, players recognize that killing baron for his buff, also known as Exalted with Baron Nashor, can completely change the fate of a game.  A team that is seemingly winning at the 30 or 40 minute mark can easily have its fortunes reversed if baron is taken, and a baron steal can seal the end of a game.

Today's post investigates, among other things:

1. The gold efficiency of Exalted with Baron Nashor.
2. How long does it take to solo Baron Nashor.
3. How to 'easily' counter Baron buff.

More after the jump!

Overpowered: Perception vs. Reality

Since the beginning of Season 3, we've seen a number of trends of rushing certain overpowered items. The key culprits in these 'Rush the OP' trends have included The Black Cleaver, Warmog's Armor, and Blade of the Ruined King, and now (potentially) Randuin's Omen. These fads while sometimes justifiable also highlight a disturbing trend. Community perception of 'too much power' is often misguided in that we claim something is OP and then loudly complain about it without finding the logical counter to that problem.

While statistical data is important when balancing (especially for PBE), it isn't used as the sole decision maker in balancing decisions. Riot has confirmed to us that game balance is partially decided by player perception of power rather than the champions/item's true power. With that statement, we also have an implication: has anything ever been buffed or nerfed when it shouldn't have been?

The Fallacies of Item Efficiency

It's come to my attention in recent months that the theories of "item efficiency" and "gold efficiency" are making a resurgence in popularity among League of Legends fans as well as theorycrafters. With this tick in interest, I've also seen many new problems rise in the system, which is what I want to talk about today. A lot of people are using the system (as I see it) incorrectly, and thats leading to many misleading assumptions in itemization theorycraft. No graphs, no charts, just a discussion of what I think are the merits and flaws of this system.

First, let's hit a quick review of the history of theorycrafting and gold efficiency. Strategizing the best way to play a game, also known as theorycrafting, has been in existence as long as games have existed, whether it be finding the fastest way to beat Super Mario Bros. or how to stay alive playing Pac-Man. But that was just the beginning -- the game that became best known for in-depth theorycrafting was World of Warcraft -- from its reputation, calculations in League of Legends don't even come close to the math needed to calculate DPS output in WoW. Despite it being complex, we should give credit to Warcraft for making it possible for having sites with dedicated theorycraft -- such as Reign of Gaming -- be popular in the present day. Theorycrafting, since that time, has grown from a niche interest to a word commonly used in gaming lexicon.

(This is a guest post and its views do not necessarily reflect upon those of Reign of Gaming staff)

If you've played League for long enough, it's a safe bet that you've encountered the cheesy goodness that is a gimmicky lane. There will always be arguments if strategies such as these are simple cheese strategies, or if there is a bit of skillful play combined with being in a contra-meta strategy being employed, but if you are concerned with winning, these must be considered overall as an attempt to gain a temporary advantage in game.

So what exactly is a gimmick lane or a gimmick team composition?

The definition of what qualifies as a gimmick will vary from individual to individual, but some general themes are generally quite common. These often revolve around crowd control, but sometimes simply involve use of AoE abilities, shield and revive mechanics, installing a champion or two somewhere unexpected, or building one or more champions in a very unconventional fashion. There are also varying degrees of this, from running an all-support composition in a blind-pick match (pretty troll-heavy), to simply abusing certain AoE wombo-combo setups in serious games. Obviously there are different applications to each of these ideas, but the goal is to destroy the opposing team's nexus first, I feel that some serious evaluation is in order.

One of the next logical questions from a theorycrafting standpoint is this:
Is it true innovation, or just novel application of a champion better known for performance elsewhere?

Early Game Builds: What Is Best for AD Carries?

In last week's edition of #VVinning, we investigated the damage output of mid-game and late-game builds with a damage analysis of the buffed Blade of the Ruined King.  Today, I thought that we could take a small step back and look at the damage output of the early game before we have enough gold to get a major item.  If you remember what we found last week, the damage output from rushing an Infinity Edge over a Bloodthirster or Blade of the Ruined King did not change much by the items that you built first.  

But before you get to your first big damage, there are a lot of item choices to be made.  Your damage output will vary depending on what you build, and among the good item choices there are also many bad ones.  Should you rush a vamp scepter into a Zeal?  Is a Doran's Blade enough?  Will these items give enough of an early game advantage to delay that Bloodthirster?  Or should you go for that big item right away?  Keep reading to find out!

Damage Analysis - Blade of the Ruined King

Welcome back to the Thursday edition of #VVinning!  Last week, I released an interactive model for calculating the damage of AD Carries and since I'm pretty proud of my final product, I thought I'd make a few posts in the coming week based on what we get from the model.  Today's post will be examining Blade of the Ruined King and when it is beneficial to build a BotRK against tanky champions as an AD carry.  You should be able to recreate all of the damage results in the public release of the spreadsheet while the graphs inside are from a modified private version that I use myself.

With the patch 3.02 buff to Blade of the Ruined King (40 AD -> 45 AD, 4% -> 5% current health passive), we see some interesting interaction.  Previously, BotRK was generally limited to being a bruiser item...but now, it looks like a viable and optimal offensive item on AD carries.  Although much of the information within this post could also be used in the context of optimizing AD Carry damage, the primary focus is on Blade of the Ruined King.  Read on for the mathcraft!

Giving Back to the Community: VVinrar's ADC Spreadsheet

Last week, I made a post talking about how there aren't enough people making quality content in the theorycrafting community.  Between the statements that I've been sucking recently and the actual constructive comments, one of the prominent points of discussion concerning that post was that there simply wasn't enough central information to do work with -- most math in League is relatively straightforward, but there are no publicly available models for League of Legends players to use for AD carry calculations, which is the most complex math in the game.  So since the weekend, I've been working on an Excel model to help you guys out: with this spreadsheet, you can calculate how long it takes to kill an enemy with different offensive and defensive items.  The link to download the spreadsheet is below, and I'll walk you through a guide on how to use it inside this post.

VVinrar's AD Carry Spreadsheet can be downloaded at:
www.dropbox.com/s/ncmaah7b9zyvv3u/VVinrar%27s%20ADC%20Spreadsheet%20v1.0.2.xlsm

The Fall of the Theorycrafter

Hello Reign of Gaming. Today's article is a break from the usual: instead of a fun analysis on some aspect of the game, I want to have a 'real talk' with you guys. In this point in time, I've been blogging at Reign of Gaming for a little over a year, so in today's post I wanted to reflect upon the time I've spent writing and discuss a worrying trend I've noticed recently in the community.  The scope of this article is not only the readers of Reign of Gaming, who only make up two parts (news and articles) of the League audience, but rather the League of Legends community as a whole.

When 'A DIFFerent View' was first started as a blog by DiffTheEnder, there wasn't a central source of theorycraft information in the scene like there is today. There were a whole lot of individuals doing theory work, like myself with the Item Efficiency Spreadsheet, but there were no individuals that were prominent in the theorycrafting scene.  From the time between when I started writing and now, the scene has barely grown in comparison to other aspects of League, such as news coverage, the competitive scene, or even competitive coverage.  I'm disappointed in this, and I want to see growth and not apathy towards analysis.

I attribute lack of growth in blogging to two factors, greed, and the lack of greed: on one hand, there are budding writers who will only do their work if they are compensated (something that would never have happened a year ago), and on the other side, individuals going so in depth with their analyses that they fail to draw in anybody but the hardcore League-heads.  There appears to be an inability in the scene to balance the two interests: there don't appear to be writers that can sustain both mass appeal and drill down to the specifics at the same time.

And yes, if you didn't notice, I'm calling out the League community in this post.

Sightstone: Worth It?

Question of the day: Is it ever worth it to not buy Sightstone?  From what we saw at IEM Katowice, professional support players tend to build a sightstone between the 10-15 minute mark depending on performance -- if they choose to build one at all.  Despite being explicitly designed for supports, players like Gambit Edward have disavowed always buying the item, choosing instead to take items and wards for increased survivability and item versatility.  In today's article, we'll be investigating the viability of Sightstone and discover if there are ever cases where we don't want to buy the item.

Using the PBE value of health on Giant's belt (380HP for 1000g) as a baseline, Sightstone has a gold value of 437 gold for wards. This means that you will need to use at least 6 wards before the item becomes gold efficient. Using a "generous" number of wards in a solo queue environment, say two wards every 3 minutes, it would take about 9 minutes for Sightstone to pay for itself in a best case scenario.

Why is Warmog's Armor so strong?

You build Warmog's.  Pros build Warmog's.  Heck, even your mom needs Warmog's once in a while.  It's the next big fad, and everybody plus their dog is buying into it.  Stacking health items such as Warmog's Armor has been extremely popular in Season 3, but it's a bit of a mystery as to why, given that the price decrease from attack damage was much greater than the decrease in the cost of health.  Today's post will examine the trend behind rushing health items such as Warmog's Armor on bruisers versus traditional builds.

Item fads come and go, but nerfs will always stay the same

Let's quickly review what has been popular in the last few months.  Prior to December, stacking Guardian Angels was all the rage in competitive play, and the popularity quickly spilled into solo queue games.  As a direct result, Guardian Angel took a very heavy nerfbat to the face during the Season 3 patch.  At the same time, resistances became more difficult to itemize for and attack damage became much cheaper.  As a direct result, we saw a huge popularity in stacking resistance shred items, in particular The Black Cleaver.  In response to the extreme BC-stacking trends and the subsequent rise to the AD caster class, players began to stack health in order to ensure they would not be instagibbed by a single combo of spells.  And what better way to stack health than to build Warmog's Armor?  As we are about to see, Warmog's has become much more effective in keeping tanks tanky with unintended results for the rest of the game.

Written with statistical assistance by Mdaz from Leaguepedia

Tomorrow, the Season 3 North American qualifiers start and 16 of North America's best teams will duke it up for a chance to qualify as one of the top 8 teams.  The top 5 finishers in this qualifier will win a Season 3 salary of $175,000 for each team, exposure for opportunity to pick up new sponsors, and the chance for glory and fame.  Today, I'll be bringing you a comprehensive preview of each of the contending teams, along with an introduction of their players, recent team performance, and expected picks during the tournament.

The first round of the tournament will be played in a Korean dual tournament format in four groups.  The top two finishers in each group will advance and the winner of the first bracket match (quarterfinals) afterwards will automatically qualify for Season 3.  The fifth qualifying spot will go to run-off winner of the quarterfinals losers.  While most of the top 8 teams are expected to move on to the group stage, watch out for an upset: each of the teams playing tomorrow represent the best of the best, so don't be surprised if the third or even the fourth team from each group knocks out a favorite to advance.