Hey there, I just had a game where I was just about full build but was playing into riven/nocturne with deaths dance, jayce with maw, draven and leona.
I pretty much was just useless even though I was full build - I would one shot draven, almost oneshot jayce, and riven and noc would be half or higher health and just 2v5 with their tanky leona blocking all my shit, I couldn't run away either because of riven noc mobility/cc combos. Do you guys have any tips for playing into deaths dance bruiser comps?
I know about one shotting backline but first: thats not enough because the 2 bruisers will hardstomp my team and second: the bruisers and tank leona block my shit quite often.

Hello Jayce Mains,
I'm fairly new to Jayce but have been doing pretty well. The main aspect I'm struggling with is closing out games. I'm having a decent impact early to mid then struggle when it gets down to the 5v5 late game. I'm poking but by then I feel like I'm not as effective. Any tips on how to play late?
Also I'm slightly confused on builds. In what situations and match ups should I be using conquerephase/first strike and eclipse/goredrinker.
Cheers.

I know basic stuff about Shen, but I always have my lane pushed in and rarely ever end up winning lane without jungle help. Gpm is 700, average damage is 15k a game, building Divine Sunderer first and the rest with tank items. Kda 4.1/3.1/13.7.

• How do I improve? Especially when trade in laning phase, is there any trick aside from getting that 3 AA?

I feel like his 1v1 potential (or just my Shen potential) is quite bad. For what I experienced, here is the match up checklist. - Easy: Gragas, Sion, Tryndamere, Garen, Kayle - Alright: Akali, Yasuo, Camile, Irelia, Yone, Mundo, Nasus, Jax - Hard: Olaf, Jayce, Gwen, Sett, Darius, Vayne - Pls ban: Aatrox - Havent met: Wukong, Kennen, Singed
Is it correct? Or do I just experience bad/one trick people too often? Any further tip to 1v1 any champ is greatly appreciated!

I used to run a semi meme build last season and it was Prowler's Claw, Muramana, Grudge, Ravenous Hydra and Chainsword/Ghostblade with Ionian boots, and what this build does is at full 6 items you can shoot 2 Q out of 1 E turning Jayce into a full time poke machine. The problem with that build was that it takes way too long to get online, the build path is very static, and until you get full 6 items you're basically playing with a handicap (playing Jayce without Eclipse pepehands), but it's still a fun thing to do if I'm messing around or got so ahead I could sell my items and buy other items.
Now however because Eclipse has AH, and Spear of Shojin provides you with an absurd amount of AH and raw stats, you can opt for a normal classic Jayce build of Eclipse Muramana Grudge with Ionian boots and Transcendance rune and if the game isn't over at 2-3 items (when Jayce is usually the strongest) you can smoothly go SOJ 4th item and hit the overdrive button. Now you don't have to sacrifice early mid game because you're still building Eclipse like normal, you become AD Ziggs at 4 items, and you can save that last slot for GA which is basically the yolo button for ultra late game scenarios. Very nice.

What is the name of Jayce’s hairstyle? I’m building one and decided I’d like to just style my hair that way since it’s the same color and general length as his.

Started on arena arround eldraine release, never was a fan of drafting, but did a bunch of quickies every release because it was better than buying packs.
Always read some articles to prepare myself, but they were, at best, shallow, just talking about some good commons and that was it.
Avoided premier as a plague because it scared me. Only did the pass one and it was almost always a complete failure.
It was a hit or miss. Most games I would go between 0-3 and 3-3, rarely 5/6/7.
A bit before ONE release i discovered the podcast and the first thing that came to mind was "man, it seems much more interesting than I tougth, and easier!".
Decided to try premier for the first time, and man, it is a BLAST. Started with the pass token and 20k gold. Did over 20 drafts and I still have 1540 gems. Most my games are now 4-3, with the eventual 5/6/7 and rarely less than 3.
Arena feels like a completly different beast now. Its the first time in all my time playing I've had more than 20 rare wc's and no desire to use then because limited feels more enticing than constructed.
And this is a format everyone says its bad, cant wait to go deep on a good one (not trying strix because I already have most of the collection and it will not last enougth for me to study it deeply).
Even with everyone talking about the fast speed, most colors seem good enougth to break even, and blue was my most drafted by far because it was ALWAYS open, and i like the control playstyle alot (my first trophy was a dimir build with vraska and a jayce at p5)
Just a bit of positive feedback i wanted to share!

Hi all, I last played LoR when ViegaSenna Darkness was a deck, which apparently it's not anymore. I'm looking to get back into the game and have the resources to craft any 1 deck I want. I'm looking for something that is midrange to control, has a fairly even matchup spread, and isn't mono-Demacia Elites. Poking around Mobalytics and MaRu has given me a few ideas and I wanted to see if any kind souls out could tell me if I'm on the right track or not.

1. Eve/Viego: Always been partial to the aesthetic and playstyle of SI. The matchup spread looks decently well rounded, if less than stellar into the 5 most popular decks right now. I would also have to build this from scratch, leaving me quite resource-light once I'm done.
2. Jayce/Hiemer: IMO Heimerdinger is one of the best designed champs from the days of LoR, and I'm glad he's relevant again after losing Elusive on his 3-cost turrets and I wouldn't mind picking him up again. I already have 3 Hiemers so it would be easier on my shards and WCs than Eve/Viego.
3. Jayce/Lux: Not as excited about Lux, but it ticks all my boxes and I also have 3 copies of her.
4. Taliyah/Ziggs: Another one that ticks all my boxes, and I have 2x Ziggs to make crafting easier.
5. MF/TF Pirates: I can build this for minimal investment and save my stuff for rotation.

Is there anything else that I'm missing? I have playsets of most heroes from Foundations, Rising Tide, and Call of the Mountain; after that it's hit or miss.

Good morning, afternoon, evening or whatever
First of all. WTF WAS THIS?! RITO PLZ, YOU'RE A MULTIMILLIONAIRE COMPANY, you are a company who made Rise, Awaken, The climb, The call and Warriors, although considering their LoL plz 2022 with "We don't think our champions are overloaded overall" followed via explaining issues they had with new overloaded champions, is honestly not unexpected and I feel stupid for thrusting them due to the LoL plz of pre S13 months ago. You know something is bad when NECRIT OF ALL PEOPLE goes against you (Although only 1 sweet word was enough to convince him otherwise. Is just like a relationship with an ex or drugs) and people start to use Morbius memes to refer about your cinematic, like them saying "It's shoveling time"... wait, that was not from the actual YouTube comments using Morbius memes, but from Shovel Knight of all things, and yes, it's on that game from day 1.
Yes, that was what I've been doing during Christmas, because indeed as a Christmas gift Steam sold the game at half cost. My opinion on Shovel Knight: Treasure trove? Is good, definitely better than Slay the Spiry, but not amazing like with Hollow Knight, Hades, Paper Mario or even Bowser's Inside Story, let alone a masterpiece like Super Metroid, is just a great homage to 8/16-bit platformers. Shovel of hope lacked an actual story and had an awkward battle system, Plague of Shadows was quite unintuitive to play despite the double jump and had a broken economy, King of Cards felt too rigid on controls and the multiple exits on almost every level got tiring quick, Showdown felt straight up unplayable due to forced control scheme, and Specter of torment... actually I have next to no complain there, but even then their systems felt underused (Outside speedruns, Why would I ever break checkpoints if I already have so much gold? Specially on Plague Knight). Again, the game is good to great in everything I haven't mentioned, it has a heart as big as the one Shield Knight has on her chest just like with Hollow Knight and is definitely something you should play if you like platformers or NES games (Or puzzles in case of King Knight. Seriously, I think I'm addicted to Joutsus), but I can definitely see why it mostly disappeared from public conscience, because again, is not a masterpiece or close to it, but at the same time it feels like the perfect retro gam...
Oh wait, this is about champion design, not platform design, sorry. This is the last part of the least favorite LoR reddit posts, a 4-part series of Champion design who now will cover all what was made in 2022, which involves the Gnar miniset and the whole Series 6... then I realized I can't post stuff so long, so i decided Instead to talk about Darkins because of how complex Darkin weapons are. Without further ado, let's see them 1 by 1.

S tier

Nothing: Yeah, no darkin is in the S-Tier. That being said, I search for borderline perfection on S tiers so that's not necessarily a bad thing.

A tier

A+
Aegis/Joraal: 2 mana equipment, 5 mana Darkin. As a weapon is a simple 2 mana tough weapon with some stats, while the darkin is 5 mana Challenger Tough who on attack increases enemy spells cost by 2 during that attack. This card is just BRILLIANT and what Galio should have been in a way (More on that later), it uses 2 underused parts of Demacia wonderfully of Tough and Mana taxing, being 2 underwhelming cards per se who will demand you to navigate through the situation; that being said, the weapon needs to be undertuned for this to work and it wasn't, it was fairly tuned, which made it overpowered due to the flexibility. Btw, if this was a champion it would be the best demacian one, which talks very poorly about Demacian's bland design.
A-
Bloodletters/Xolaani: 1 mana equip, 6 mana Darkin. The equipment generates a 11 can't block acolyte on last breath who gains +2+2 on equip but can't bring himself back with the Bloodletters, while the Darkin has overwhelm and requires a sacrifice to be played, who unlike other Darkins leaves behind her weapon. Is basically an Evelynn done right (More on that later), and although it may look too sticky, you have to remember you can't equip the same card twice in a round. There's a problem: SHE CAN BE REPLAYED, removing the nuance risk/reward balance equip is supposed to have; the amount of minus, tempo and mana inefficiency maybe justify it, but is to me enough of an issue to not consider her the best designed Darkin.

B tier

B
Halberd/Taarosh: 1 mana equip, 10 mana Darkin. The equipment costs 1 mana and requires a tribute to be played, while the darkin has an on-attack Harrowing but with the units you've slain. Is not difficult to see why it’s such a fan favorite weapon, because it has cool risk-reward, has distinctive Shadow Isles flavor and has both utility, power and drawbacks. Sadly, the drawbacks are slightly too high atm but most importantly, YOU DON'T KNOW WHO IS WHO. What do I mean? That the card doesn't distinguish visually the unit you're killing and the one you're equipping, which might a big reason the weapon is underperforming. Such clarity mistakes make an otherwise amazing darkin in terms of design just good. I think is also good moment to mention every darkin returns as equipment if recalled, another slight clarity issue but honestly something understandable gameplay-wise, and there was no way of making it clear since it's the first true unit/"spell" hybrid.
Harp/Styraatu: 2 mana weapon, 8 Mana Darkin. As an equipment it has quick attack, stats and nothing more. As a darkin it has a mini progress day/solo drum effect on attack of drawing 2 and applying a discount. Normally I take an issue with mana cheating, but here is an 8 mana unit who lacks reach, so... I still consider that aspect slightly problematic, but honestly is not a big deal on practice, yet I still feel this kind of proofs how OP an 8 mana unit must be to see play nowadays. Oddly enough my main issue is the equipment being a bit overtuned and quick attack can cause problems if is this cheap and persistent.
B-
Fan/Praa: 2 mana Weapon, 9 mana darkin. As an equip it creates on attack a dragonling. The darkin is elusive and will summon 2 ephemeral copies but with lifesteal and challenger instead. What I like of the card is that it demands proactivity to have sustain, unlike Eye of the Dragon, a more obnoxious card due to being constantly in the backro providing survivability. What I think falls flat is the Darkin being just stats and keywords for 9 mana, which while fine it doesn't feel impactful for 9 mana, nor very conducive from the original dragonling style, altough it still makes sense considering Dragonlings are ephemeral lifesteal units.
Lodestone/Hozari: 2 mana equip, 8 mana darkin. As an equip it grants +1+1 on support, and as a Darkin it makes the unit have its stats and keywords (77 spellshield by default) on support for the rest of the round. It's the kind of card that I like but I notice there's 2 problems. 1°: Hozari has only 1 a instead of 2. 2°: the equip is overtuned while the darkin is undertuned, giving you very little reason to actually play Hozari unless your hand is dry, even during the lategame, which is a big shame because Targon loves to have big dumb minions.

C tier

C
SpeaAnaacka: 2 mana equip, 8 mana Darkin. As a weapon is basically a hawk effect on attack and some healt, and as a darkin it has a Call of the winter on attack alongside the +1+1 boost. Is just... alright, there's nothing wrong with the card in a lot of ways, but also not a lot of exciting stuff when playing because as a unit it lacks any self of protection or nexus threat that will realistically only attack once. Other issue with the card is that it can be quite random at times, just like hearthstone's Barnes which I'm sure some of you still have Vietnam flashbacks for him, but I guess at 8 mana is not that big of a deal compared to the highrolly Barnes.
C-
Staff/Ba\*****:* 1 mana equip, 8 mana Darkin. The equip is impact and refills spell mana on strike, while the darkin is impact and gains 1 impact for each time you use spell mana. The equip is fine, altough it makes me understand why combat reel uses attack insted, just more consistent and is less problematic. The darkin though is so undertuned is laughable; stats are not very relevant when you have 6 or more stats, and the benefit of 1 impact isn't worth even wasting a card for as kinda proven by Staff being somewhat underwhelming by itself. It has cohesion but it lacks power and dept.

D tier

D
Balista/Naganeka: 1 mana weapon without properties and an 8 mana darkin. As an equipment it lacks anything but attack. As a darkin it has overwhelm and on round end it applies a single combat effect to the strongest enemy at the end of each round. This darkin has to be one of the worst removal in the entire game being a single combat on a stick with a timing who can be exploited by enemy's pump spells and barrier; single combat is a 2 mana spell for a reason. Even if it was efficient it would still be not a well though Darkin, since the equip only has attack therefore its pure board pressure/tempo, making it an awful transition to the control-ish Darkin, just like Pre-rework Udyr being a poorly though champion due to disconnected gameplans. Maybe if it was more of a pressure tool
Harpoon/Ibaaros: 2 mana equip, 9 mana darkin. As an equip it has fearsome and Pool Shark effect on attack (draw 1 fleeting next round), and as a darkin it's huge and has "super fearsome". Honestly this is a big "WTF WERE THEY THINKING?!" case. 6 mana just stats are terrible, let alone 9, it lacks protection and has no relationship to his draw engine origins. The equip is also awful, but at least it seems another case of them overcorrecting due to Twisted Fate. Is just a mess who's also incredibly uninspired in the part who is supposed to be the most inspired one, but at least has a cool equip effect.
D-
Nothing

F tier or lower

Nothing: No darkin has an atrocious and actively detrimental design.

Conditional buffs and equipment

Let's do a fun game: Search "This game", and see if you notice a tendency... Nah, I'll do it myself. Not counting champions level ups in this btw, and there might be missing cards here and there. I mention it now because it is specially important

• Foundations: 12 Cards. Level 2 Thresh, 5 mageseekers, 2 "Giants", Legion General, Purrsuit of perfection, Scriber of sorrows and Back alley Barkeeper. Level 2 thresh is also there more of a "Once per game" clause than a condition.
• Rising tides: Literally just Mind Meld, 1 card.
• Call of the mountain: 9 cards. Spell thief, Duskrider, Powder Pandemonium, Burblefish, another Giant and the 7+ mana celestials.
• Empires of the ascended: 17 Cards. Those are Nasus and 2 of his support cards, a giant, 6 Taliyah/Malphite support cards, 2 predict support, the Watcher, "the Absolver's resurrection", a frostbite support and 2 random "once your champion has leveled up".
• Beyond the Bandlewood: 16 Cards all over the place. Those are Tristana, her champion spell, level 2 Pantheon and Udyr, "level 1 Sion", a Sion support, 3 Jayce support cards, 3 other Bandle tree support cards, 2 recall cards and 2 landmark support cards. Bandle Tree used to be here as well if I remember correctly.
• Worldwalker: 7 cards. The consevratorium, Rite of passage, Formal invitation, Frozen in fear, Void Abomination, Glory's call and Moral support, all supporting different archetypes.
• The Darkin Saga: 17 Cards. 14 of them are Equip support (I count world ender as equip support), 2 are Seraphine support and the final one is the amalgam of the tribes.

Did you noticed something? I did, since Empires of the ascended cards have become more conditional... Sorry, did I said conditional? I meant more archetype-locked. While in Targon the mechanics were reliant on play pattern conditions, In shurima onwards it was more about DECK conditions who became more and more obvious and lenient over time...
That would be half lying though. The truth is that the issue is more around equipment who is full of pseudo conditional cards which causes uneven powercreep and can break some fundamentals of the game, being yet another proof of why Ionia is not well designed as a region and why Malphite is so lame as a champion. You can make well designed cards who have conditions based around doing something through the game, like the celestial's scaling stats, the Conservatorium or Albus Ferros, but is definitely a problem when it's a condition you normally get on turn 2 like most of the equip support or makes cards much less interactive like with Void abomination.

20 lessons of game design

You might know by now that I LOVE to cite Mark Rosewater's 20th anniversary speak when referring to game design. Tbf, MTG is a very heavy inspiration to LoR design so it makes sense to learn through what those designers admit they failed upon and why. I would put it in the other one but, you know, memory.

1. Don't fight against human nature. They kinda fail this and kinda don't. The health system is surprisingly intuitive while the "0 Damage" is not explained properly. The attack system is intuitive but not the free attack, specially the spellshield on cataclysm not allowing you to manually block. That being said, sometimes mechanics can only be understood via practice due to how complex they are and how limited text space is.
2. Aesthetic matters. Unlike the LoL team, This team does understand the expected aesthetics of certain place and delivers properly, oftentimes fixing old mistakes; no wonder why the art team gets praised on social media.
3. Resonance is important. This is mostly a relation between attitude to effect and they do a wonderful job for the most part. A landmark destructor being a girl who is too carefree about norms, a toss guy being something who tosses and eats junk, an ice archer freezing, mageseekers becoming stronger when you use lots of magic in spells, a dragon priest summoning dragons earlier, Ekko being able to predict and alter the future... you get the point, they usually nail flavor to functionality.
4. Make use of Piggybacking. That in this game is mostly using LoL and Runaterra's lore. They're also good at that, like Xerath sniping your units, giving appropriate keywords to champions (Although Gwen is more of a "Barrier" kind of champion), and using themes for the followers.
5. Don't confuse interesting with fun. Ionia and half of Bandle in a nutshell. Other than those 2 regions and some outlier champions like Ezreal, they do understand what's fun and what's not. They even deliberately overnerf cards as soon as they discover they're not fun... THEN THEY BUFF RYZE, WHY?!
6. Understand what emotion your game is trying to evoke. If I had to guess LoR tries to give a strong attachment to the world of runaterra and a tension mixed with excitement due to the interaction dance where the winner is the one who activates their opponent's mother first. Do they understand this? Not too sure. They don't completely ignore it but is not clear if they understand either considering, again, RYZE.
7. Allow the player the ability to make the game personal. I honestly feel they sometimes go out of their way to not allow it. Guardians and boards are the main way of making the game personal, and it is more limited than they could.
8. The details are where the player fall in love with your game. Another version of "the difference between good and great is in the details". Those little backstories, the dialogue between champions or followers, the little details on the art, they're just great at nailing those aspects.
9. Allow the players to have a sense of ownership. Honestly this one is impossible to achieve by sheer design. Is a free to play service kind of game with an user friendly economy, so the feeling of owning something is next to none. If anything that sense of ownership would be morally questionable in best case scenario and Marvel snap in worst case.
10. Leave room for the player to explore. They kinda missed it during 2021 but recovered from it in 2022. Designs cannot be so restrictive it builds itself but it needs some direction, a mistake they were making on 2021 but recovered late that same year to be more free... but more questionable as well.
11. If everyone likes your game but no one loves it, it will fail. Basically is better to be hated by many than liked for many if that means you're loved by someone, just like in real life. Luckily I think there's quite a few people who does indeed love the game, precisely for being a well-crafted product with lot of care.
12. Don't design to prove you can do something. A card like that would be Bandle Tree, a design made to show you could make a region around wincons. I don't think they understand it considering they buffed RYZE, a very toxic card people was glad it was terrible. In general they're quite dumb on experiments we know is a bad idea.
13. Make the fun part the correct strategy to win. Mostly right, except on cases the meta just becomes awful. That being said those cards are oftentimes overnerfed precisely due to being toxic.
14. Don't be afraid to be blunt. LoR definitely fails on this. Seriously, they oftentimes are too subtle about how stuff is supposed to work due to not using idiot-proof writing, because even when written right people can get things wrong using cheap philosophical tricks (God I hated that grade back in high school, too subjective and irrelevant full of overthinking, and the first time I thanked my newly discovered Asperger due to being able to skip it). Whatever, regular people tend to be idiots with massive egos and pride, and a developer is responsible to tell them that indirectly with clear signals.
15. Design the component for the audience it's intended for. Basically, know your audience. That's honestly not something I'm sure they do in-game. Outside they certainly do (LoL Nerds with passion to Runaterra's world, as well as CCG fans who like the push and pull gameplay) but inside they kinda don't because there's not a clear direction of how the game should be.
16. Be more afraid of boring your players than challenging them. This means is worth to take risks if the result is amazing. I honestly don't think they understand this too well, since a lot of designs are incredibly bland and this repeats quite often, specially on more recent times.
17. You don't need to change much to change everything. Basically you don't need to make lots of efforts to get benefits from thinking outside of the box. Equipment is the best example of this, who are fundamentally unit speed spells who are replayable if the unit died, which gets massive praise in good part due to the Darkins.
18. Restrictions breed creativity. A very paradoxical thing but indeed when you're restricted you can focus better and therefore be more creative. They for the most part get this point, but there's a big stinker on this: Band... Nah, is actually Shurima. Seriously, what is Shurima even supposed to be? I say it because in practice they have tools who cover just about everything and don't necessarily play to its regional strengths like landmarks or champion protection; even Bandle has a clearer identity as a jack of all trades with focus on card generation who lacks consistency and ways of closing games reliably.
19. Your audience is good at recognizing problems but bad at solving them. The balance team rarely does what the community wants, which is great because they honestly know better than us, even though I know you hate hearing that; people becomes incredibly stupid and irrational when emotional, and they're very selfish beings, so you should take their opinions with a truckload of salt, and while still an overall useful compass, is an awful map.
20. Anti-consumer practices can put a beloved game in check. Not a tip he said but something they should have kept in mind last year because Hasbro's actions have fallen A LOT due to the infamous 30th anniversary. LoR is kinda the opposite, being too friendly for the consumer so they struggle to sustain the game.

Overall, they mostly understand how to make games but they're kinda lacking in certain areas. It feels just all over the place without a direction to take, unlike Hearthstone where you know how the game will play due to investing heavily in new play patterns, even though people could and should criticize them for always abandoning good ideas as well as introducing ideas who are clearly terrible like the demon seed, the Hunter Questline or how overcentralizing Denatrius was. I hope rotation brings up that needed focus, because it would be a waste of time otherwise.

Overall performance and Darkin tweak ideas

The number of the darkin weapons are honestly quite impressive. It has a score of 2.400 of average, a median of 2.500 and a variance of 0.940. Those numbers are quite similar, albeit lower, to the performance in Call of the Mountain, consisting of mostly well designed cards with a few outliers in either direction. They're for the most part delayed enough to justify their power, are interactive due to the unit speed and requiring units to work, are mostly fairly costed and are dynamic in functionality. The support of it is not well though but it doesn't make darkin equipment are poorly designed, because it's overall almost to the level of late 2020 which might explain why people liked it so much compared to most champions.
Darkin tweak proposal
Joraal: 43 44. Because Demacia and to compensate for the nerfs to the Aegis.
Xolaani: No changes. Her balance is just too delicate to risk any of her moving parts, considering her numbers look alright for now.
Halberd: New: Now it indicates, just like Concert strike, the unit that will be sacrificed followed by the unit who will be equipped. This should increase the effectivity of the card significantly.
Harp: 20 11. This is to calm down some uninteractive strategies related to this weapon, mostly involving Valor, catch and Vayne.
Lodestone/Hozari: Grant/Give Give/Grant. To make the equipment less overtuned and the Darkin more appealing to play; you're on turn 8, 77 spellshields shouldn't be impossible to manage.
Anaaka: 68 88. A small push on the darkin to become more useful.
Praa: 54 55. Mostly to make her worth the 9 mana cost and the board more difficult to disrupt.
Ba******: 8 mana 7 mana. 79 68. 8 mana for a woodball and impact is just not worth it.
Naganeka: 8 mana 7 mana. 513 511. 8 mana for a bad board clear with a body isn't worth it either. I have an idea of making the darkin strike the weakest enemy instead but dealing burn damage through the excess damage aka a free attack, but that might demand some heavier changes and people get easily triggered by extra attacks, so that sounds like a bad idea.
Harpoon: 2 mana 1 mana. 10 00. 2 mana for fearsome and a delayed fleeting draw isn't worth it considering sharp pool isn't that good. It might break Twisted fate but I doubt it for the simple reason they nerfed eye of nagakabourus.
Ibaaros: 9 mana 8 mana. A meatball is just so underwhelming at 9 mana.

Conclusion

As much as I dislike some of the decisions Riot makes, the darkins is not one of them; in fact it might be the best thing that happened in 2022 as a whole, even though its support is questionable, and even the worst ones are still intriguing and fixable without betraying what they're supposed to be. It's also obvious the LoR team wants to move things forward with the Darkin event we had, but it gets restricted by the writing team (Makes sense. We don't want another Lady of Clouds incident) who by itself gets restricted by the headquarters at Riot, to the point it has only allowed 2 non-presentation stories last year, one of them being the June rainbow quota therefore cannot realistically move the plot forward in a meaningful way, the other being about Tybaulk and Amoline aka Tibbers and Annie's mom before being those. That forced the event to be a "what if" instead of "and then this happened".
Those events showed me two things; 1°: When the lore team and the LoR team act on synchrony we get masterpieces like LoR Annie being respalded by new lore, and 2°: The Riot HQ just doesn't care about the health of the League of Legends IP, just how profitable it is. I hope this doesn't damage LoR, but who am I kidding? Is almost guaranteed it will. after all, LoR is in a way the heart of the LoL IP.
Farewell and seriously, Plague Knight's campaign gave me those awkward memories of 13 year old me, even though I'm Chilean, not an Argentinian to have such big nose... I guess that's how empathy works.

I am currently sitting 250 LP Masters on Garen. Countless COUNTLESS posts about needing reworks to Garen. I agree, yes, Garen does need buffs, but any reworks kinda fuck the way he is meant to be played.
95% of the time I am playing weakside top. There is no winning lane against Jayce, Morde, Darius, Camille, etc… in high elo. Everyone knows how to limit test and the extent of what their champion can do into Garen. you HAVE TO sit there and take it. Learn how to maneuver your E in a way that you can farm each minion under tower. This pattern is the same I’ve seen from watching I am Sunlight and AddictedToBacon’s VODs.
Itemization WILL NOT help you climb. Theorycrafting that Lucidity boots will give you 1.5 extra damage per fight vs. Berserker Greaves will just fuck you up while playing. Every single garen game that I play i do not deviate from the “golden” build (beserker > stride > zeal > BC > DMP > steraks > PD). Play into a build that you feel comfortable with and stick with it (even if it’s crit garen 🤢🤢).
Now here’s where garen shines, movement speed. garen’s MS allows him to rotate to fights/jg prio and gank better than all other top laners unless they have TP. Garen with ghost/flash will outrotate anybody with ignite/flash top. If you look at high elo VODs, every single garen player is playing for the mid game.
Hope this helps, spin on friends.

Jayce build is abysmally different in wr in comparison to pc league, for example why is manamune never in wr but a core item in pc league, why is jayce built full assasin in wr and not in pc, just why is he used só djfferently, im starting to use jayce and the jayce tutorials in wr and in pc are so different

This has just occurred to me. At the beginning of s1e9, after his “unsanctioned activities,” Jayce is understandably shaken and wonders what to do with the dead kid’s body. So far, so good. But then, in the next scene (a while later, presumably), we see Silco et al. inspecting the damage and the body is still there. The scene works well in terms of building whatshername’s outrage toward her eventual participation in the attempt to kill Silco, but it occurs to me that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Would Jayce and the enforces, however shellshocked (or corrupt/jaded, if you prefer), just leave the site untended and with a child’s corpse splayed on the ground, uncovered? Am I off in finding this a bit unsettling and illogical in terms of Jayce’s (belated) crisis of conscience?

Here me out with the new cleaver eclipse hydra build I’m trying to theory craft runes.
As some of you might know if you play jayce or senna there is an interesting interaction with eclipse/Aery and Black Cleaver when building together. Instant 6 stack cleaver and eclipse procs
Some may argue that riven needs early game dmg with conquerer but that can be compensated with scorch and sudden impact. I haven’t done number comparisons only in game testing.
Runes; Aery, nimbus, transcendence, scorch Sudden impact, ingenious hunter
With ingenious and ionion boots you can proc multiple eclipse procs
Build: Eclipse, cleaver, Hydra Rest is situational I like Essenes reaver for the item haste synergy maybe navori combo/ shojin or def items

Hey, I recently started playing mordekaiser in SR before that i only played him in ARAM. I know he's a strong champ and can be a lane bully with his meta build. But is there any itemization that you can build specially to annoy the likes of ranged top lanes like, Vayne, Kayle, Quinn and Jayce and all. I am finding troubles with ranged champs, tho it's easy to one shot them if they get caught in Morde Q and Ult is a sure kill. But still sometimes them getting ganks from a jungler is where i fall. And I do like to Jungle sometimes with him too. He is a great jungler. And one more thing i wanna ask is when to build "Riftmaker" and when to build "Jaksho". Cuz both feels great overall.

In modern League, damage can be tagged as more than just belonging to a basic attack; Riot can control whether the individual instance of damage also counts as a spell, a proc or whether it should trigger on-hit effects or lifesteal for example. These tags and properties are pretty hidden as they're supposed to be mostly intuitive. As a reminder, Plated Steelcaps' passive mitigates the damage taken from attacks by 12%. Until today's patch, Steelcaps' effect was rather scared when it saw damage tagged as coming from an attack or attack-like hit additionally have the tag to count as spell or proc damage. That changes now, and I compiled a list of how Steelcaps interacts with every unique instance of champion damage pre-and post patch below:

Affected by Plated Steelcaps's 12% reduction before the patch already:

• ALL basic attacks except from turrets (without bonus damage from systemic on-hit effects or procs)
  
• Runaan's Hurricane bolts
  
• Akshan P's 2nd hit
  
• Akshan E hits
  
• Aphelios follow up attacks (after both SnipeFlamethrower Q and R hits)
  
• Aphelios Camibrum (Sniper) first mark damage (on both Q and R follow up)
  
• Aphelios Severum (Pistol) Q (Onslaught) hits
  
• Aphelios Infernum (Flamethrower) attacks against primary target (excluding pass-trough and splash damage)
  
• Aphelios Infernum (Flamethrower) unique Runaan's missiles hits to their primary targets
  
• Aphelios Crescendum (Boomerang) main attack hit (excluding the many bonus mini-boomerang hits)
  
• Ashe Q (including unique Runaan's hits spread randomly onto nearby targets)
  
• Caitlyn Headshots (but not the trapped bonus damage)
  
• Camille Q's true damage portion (but not converted Sheen) [5] (there is actually a hilarious note on this, see below)
  
• Corki P (both physical and magic damage is reduced)
  
• Draven Q's full damage
  
• Fiora E (both hits)
  
• Galio P to primary target (converted to magic damage)
  
• Graves' attacks (all pellets)
  
• Jayce ranged W (Hypercharge) attacks
  
• Jhin FOUR
  
• Jinx Q (Fishbones rockets) to primary target (including unique Runaan's missiles primary target hits)
  
• Kayle base E physical portion
  
• Kayle Arisen E physical to primary target and AOE targets
  
• Kled W's last hit's additional damage
  
• Lucian P's 2nd hit
  
• Malphite W against primary target
  
• Master Yi P's 2nd hit
  
• Nautilus P attack's full damage
  
• Nocturne P to primary target
  
• Nunu P AOE cleave damage
  
• Pantheon Empowered W all hits
  
• Quinn P attack's full damage
  
• Rek'Sai unborrowed Q (Queen's Wrath)'s to primary target
  
• Renekton W (both versions all hits)
  
• Rengar P leap attack (incl. via R)
  
• Rengar Q
  
• Samira P on-CC flurry attack all hits
  
• Sett P attacks
  
• Sett Q attacks
  
• Shaco P attack
  
• Shaco Q attack
  
• Shaco R (clone) attacks
  
• Shyvana human Q first hit
  
• Sivir W initial hit
  
• Sylas P to primary target
  
• Twitch R (both selected target and AOE)
  
• Udyr E (stun) attack
  
• Urgot W hits
  
• Vi E to primary target [3]
  
• Viego double-attacks against spell-marked enemies (Q passive) both hits
  
• Viego Q passive bonus damage triggered when hitting spell-marked enemies
  
• Wukong W (clone) attacks
  
• Xayah P attack to primary target
  
• Xin Zhao Q all attacks
  
• Yasuo Q (thrust, spin and whirlwind) to first/closest target
  
• Yone P (both physical and magic damage is reduced)
  
• Yone Q (thrust and dash/whirlwind) to first/closest target
  
• Zeri Q (all hits, including 3-missile version during R)
  
• Zeri EQ (pierce AOE hits against all targets)
  
• This list is comprehensive. If a special attack is not mentioned here, it has its original 100% AD physical damage portion reduced but not the bonus damage. This is unchanged.
  
  • Examples of this so they can be found by CTRL + F: Aatrox P, Akali P, Ekko E, Gragas W, Fizz W, Jarvan P, Jax W, Kassadin W, Kha'Zix P, Leona Q, Ornn Brittle clap, Shen Q, Sion P, Udyr Q, Ziggs P, Zoe P

Now also affected by Ninja Tabi's 12% reduction after the patch:

• All of the above are affected still.
  
• Heartsteel item proc
  
• Annie R attacks [2]
  
• Bel'Veth Q hit
  
• Bel'Veth E hits
  
• Blitzcrank E [1]
  
• Camille Q1 and Q2's physical hit [1]
  
• Camille Q2 true damage (but not converted Sheen) [5]
  
• Darius W [1]
  
• Mundo E [1]
  
• Ezreal Q
  
• Fiora Q
  
• Fizz Q physical portion [4]
  
• Gangplank Q
  
• Garen Q [1]
  
• Hecarim E [1]
  
• Illaoi W (both melee and leap versions)
  
• Irelia Q
  
• Ivern Daisy attacks (not Knockup's damage) [2]
  
• Malzahar Voidling attacks [2]
  
• Miss Fortune Q (both hits, excluding passive)
  
• Nasus Q [1]
  
• Nidalee Cougar Q (Takedown) attack
  
• Senna Q (both primary target and AOE)
  
• Shyvana human Q second hit [1]
  
• Shyvana dragon Q both hits to primary target and AOE targets [1]
  
• Trundle Q [1]
  
• Udyr W empowered (healing) attacks
  
• Vayne Q (excluding the bonus damage) [1]
  
• Viego R to most wounded target
  
• Viktor Q attack
  
• Volibear Q
  
• Volibear W
  
• Warwick Q
  
• Warwick R all hits
  
• Wukong Q, including from clone [1]
  
• Yorick Q [1]
  
• Yorick E leap attacks of ghouls [2]
  
• Yorick R maiden attack (succ) [2]
  

[Notes]

• [1] This empowered attack stopped being reduced by Plated Steelcaps' passive when it was changed to trigger spell effects in patch 11.21 (11.19 for Nasus Q). That unintended change is now reverted.
  
• [2] These pet hits are tagged as Basic Attack damage. Feels unintuitive to me that they'll be reduced by Tabis now since most other pets' attacks (e.g. Heimer turrets, Shaco boxes, Zyra plants) still aren't. Discuss, maybe?
  
• [3] Vi E triggers spell effects but the trigger isn't on the attack's damage
  
• [4] Fizz Q used to be affected until last patch (13.4) where it finally got the innate ability to trigger spell effects. The hit's magic damage is only proc so it's otherwise unaffected.
  
• [5] Update: Camille Q2 interacts with Tabi weirdly because she abuses her target's buff slots for functionality and thus whether the True Damage portion gets reduced or not depends on the order of Tabis and the conversion buff in the target's buff slots (pretty technical, just take this as a fact for now), and on whether or not the initially started physical Q2 hit gets reduced. Because Q2's physical damage wasn't reduced by Tabi between 11.21 and today's patch 13.5, the true damage portion wasn't reduced either. Now, the true damage portion is affected again but only if the Tabi reduction on the physical damage happens before the conversion of the temporary buff Camille Q2 puts on her target creates the true damage instance in order of buff slots. Both Q2 physical and true damage are now reduced by Tabis again under normal circumstances. When Tabis is bought or acquired under unusual circumstances (buying while you have a couple temporary buffs running on you, or Viego swapping his inventory during combat a couple of times) the conversion can happen before Tabis reduces the Q2 physical damage, so then the True damage is not reduced.
  Here's a clip to prove this fact, if you care to download 19MB: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/969264440602132491/1083195448409468968/2023-03-09_02-11-13.mp4
  Tabis itself doesn't reduce true damage. I made a bunch of comments wrongly stating the fact because I only had experimental testing (from before 11.21) where it reduced Camille Q2's true damage and that was my only true damage attack to test with. In hindsight I should have known something was up here, because Old Stoneplate self-buff had a similar reducing mechanic affecting Camille Q2's true damage. My bad.
  Camille Q2's true damage being reduced by Tabis again was intended originally (though I don't know under what circumstances that design decision came to be) and is intended now.
  

Champion damage instances that were and still are unaffected but may be worth noting:

(This list isn't comprehensive but I'll keep expanding it to accomodate your questions in the comments)

• Some special attacks like Jax R and Aatrox passive apply bonus damage on-hit or post-apply that counts as proc and is unaffected. Yes this is a bit inconsistent with e.g. Kled W4 whose also doing a chunk of additional damage separately but has it all tagged as BasicAttack. It's very much up to the special attack on how it's handled right now, might be worth to look into a consistency pass in the future. If it triggers spell effects via an extra instance of damage (Jax W, Ekko E), only the base physical damage of the attack is ever affected.
  
• MF passive damage (used to be Basic Attack and thus reduced a long time ago, got the proc tag because she one-shot Zyra plants which was not okay, lost the Basic Attack tag a few patches ago because of Navori so it won't return to being reduced by Tabi now).
  
• Some special attacks deal entirely increasted/modified damage in a single instance (Draven Q, Nautilus P, Quinn P, Nidalee CougarQ, Darius W), others as noted right above deal additional non-attack damage (Riven P, MF P, Jax W). Tabi reduces the former's damage by 12% in their entirety regardless of how the champion's AD scales into them, and doesn't reduce the latter's additional damage.
  
• Twisted Fate W's attack part is 0 damage, the entire magic damage including the AD scaling is just one big instance of spell damage.
  
• Evelynn E (both versions) may trigger on-hit effects, but are only spells, not attacks.
  

TL:DR:

• If it feels like an attack and it comes from a champion it's actually always going to be reduced now, at least part of the damage based on how the hit made up. That includes attacks cast entirely as a spell, independent of the attack time cycle (e.g. Fiora Q, Irelia Q, Ezreal Q).
  
• GP Q poke is actually reduced now when you build Tabis (previously you just got the armor). The Sheen bonus damage is still unaffected though, so is barrel splash of course.
  
• Yorick's kit gets several damage hits reduced now that weren't before (Shovel Bonk (Q), Ghoul leap attacks and Maiden main attacks). Ghoul's normal autos don't have the basic attack flag because pet interactions can be tricky to design interactions around when you don't have a global list of everything like what I've been using to write this post.
  
• Found anything else big or notable? I'll add it to the TL:DR.
  

That's everything for today. I'm happy I finally got this reported successfully, I thought I'd had to wait for a Tabi's balance change to be planned before I could point it out.
Created based on a database built with great care and effort by u/FrankTheBoxMonster

Ok so it’s agreed upon act 2-3 happens in a week with the first night being Jinx raiding the academy and the 7th night the explosion of the Council. (If you think it’s shorter than this is more impressive.)
so let’s look at a quick timeline of how quick she understood hextech and built fishbones.
So day 1 she gets the crystal and works on her gadgets the rest of the night
Day 2: Noonish? silco asks her to unlock hextech for Zaun and she begins her work
Day 3: Baptism scene seems to happen at night. Then the same night has her cracking hextech we know this because it’s overlapped with Silco finding out Vi is alive which that scene happens the third night.
Day 4:Jinx finds out Vi is alive while Chuck is looking to open up Last drop let’s say it’s around Noon. Spends rest of day interrogating and finding sister
Right here let’s say she had 48 hours from silco asking her to figure out hextech to the chuck scene where she just worked on hextech then focused on Vi
Day 5: jinx spends some of the day working on Hextech (maybe if she’s not too obsessed with finding Vi) she waits in the bridge for a few hours knowing Cait/vi will want to bring crystal back to council. Fights ekko out of commission for at least 8 hours give or take, with how long it takes silco to wake up and singed to operate on her+ heal time.
Day 6: Silco don’t know where Jinx is so she can’t be in the workshop and her emotions/trust are shattered. Perhaps she’s there some at the end of the day working on the rocket maybe but considering that Silco went to go “look for her” she couldn’t have been in her lab most the day.
Day 7: Jinx spends the day finding and capturing everyone so she’s already got the rocket done. (I paid your girlfriend a visit “this morning”.) so the rocket launcher had to be built by the time she got Cupcake.
The point of this is with EVERYTHING jinx had going on she still managed to understand and build fishbones in 5 days (days 2-6) with one of those days she got blown up by her grenade. Jayce took years to understand Hextech. Jinx took probably the most complicated science notes there is and cracked it while on the worst emotional rollercoaster of her life. Jeez she’s smart. Maybe my timeline is off but the point is she didn’t have a ton of time.