Rumble!

So there's a new champion in town this week, using a new heat system. Rumble, the mechanized menace looks like an interesting addition to the roster of the league.

Here's the spotlight for those who haven't seen it:

Riot have tried to introduce a new targeting system using Rumbles ultimate, much reminiscent to bombardier from HoN. Whilst I applaud their attempts to create a wider variety of spell possibilities, it does seem a little overcomplicated to aim.

A list of his abilities:

• Flamespitter: Rumble torches the area in front of him with his flamethrower dealing damage to all units in a cone for several seconds. While in the “Danger Zone,” this spell deals additional damage.
• Scrap Shield: Rumble creates a shield blocking incoming damage for several seconds and granting a short duration speed boost. While in the “Danger Zone,” the shield’s strength and speed boost increase.
• Electro-Harpoon: Rumble launches a missile that deals magic damage and applies a stackable slow on the target. A second shot can be fired for no additional cost within several seconds. While in the “Danger Zone,” the damage and slow percentage is increased.
• The Equalizer (Ultimate): Rumble calls down a line of rockets over the target location. Enemies in the scorched area take damage over time and are slowed.
• Junkyard Titan (Passive): Rumble's abilities generate heat. When Rumble is above 50 heat, he is in the "Danger Zone," causing all his basic spells to have additional effects. When Rumble reaches 100 heat he overheats, silencing himself and causing his physical attacks to deal additional magic damage. Rumble loses heat over time.

I don't think I'll be buying this one, but we'll see in 2 weeks when he come out as free to play.

Recent patch changes

So, the whole Lee Sin April fool joke just annoyed me to be honest. They delayed the release of Lee for what, a bad video which was obviously a joke.

Here's a link:

Has anyone else noticed the huge influx of teemo players? He's flavor of the month so expect nerfs on our cute little friend. I love to play him, but a despise going against him.

Although I'd love to complain a little more, today I decided it would be a good time to take a look at the recent patch notes from the past couple of weeks.

Here are the changes, directly from the League website:

Caitlyn

• Attack speed per level increased to 3 from 2.6
• Yordle Snap Trap max trap count increased to 3 from 2

Dr. Mundo

• Fixed a bug where Infected Cleaver was slowing targets additively instead of multiplicatively

Ezreal

• Fixed a bug where Ezreal's Arcane Shot could target unseen minions such as wards

Galio

• Idol of Durand area of effect increased to 550 from 500

Garen

• Base movement speed increased to 320 from 315
• Courage damage reduction increased to 20/24/28/32/36 from 10/15/20/25/30

Jax

• Leap Strike now prefers to target enemies over allies when your cursor overlaps both

Karma

• Fixed a bug where the Mantra version of Heavenly Wave was not granting assists for healing allies
• Spirit Bond's leash range has been increased by a small amount
• Mantra now scales with level on a 30/25/20 second cooldown at levels 1/7/13 respectively instead of on 25 second cooldown at all levels

Katarina

• Shunpo now prefers to target enemies over allies when your cursor overlaps both

LeBlanc

• Fixed a bug where Distortion and Mimicked Distortion would break the target's spell shield and still deal damage

Maokai

• Fixed a bug where Vengeful Maelstrom was reducing true damage

Nocturne

• Made Shroud of Darkness shield brighter and easier to see

Pantheon

• Fixed a bug where Aegis Protection triggered after every 4 attacks, but every 5 spell casts (reduced casts required to 4)

Poppy

• Updated the shield texture on Paragon of Demacia
• Fixed several unintended interactions between Heroic Charge and spell shields. Notably, Poppy won't push herself past the target anymore.

Shen

• Updated Feint's tooltips to properly match the functionality and adjusted Shen's playing tips referencing Feint
• Ki Strike can now be cancelled mid-attack (and will not say 'Cannot Move While Casting')
• Fixed a bug where Ki Strike could kill a target and not trigger Vorpal Blade's heal effect
• Fixed a bug where Shadow Dash could move a shorter distance than intended if Shen was greatly slowed

Sivir

• Fixed a bug where some of her tooltips referred to 'Spiral Blade' instead of 'Boomerang Blade'

Soraka

• Infuse now prefers to target enemies over allies

Urgot

• Base health reduced to 526 from 546
• Acid Hunter base damage reduced to 10/40/70/100/130 from 15/45/75/105/135
• Fixed a bug where Terror Capacitor's slow was stacking
• Fixed a bug where Zaun-Touched Bolt Augmenter was reducing true damage.

So we have some small buffs here, unwarranted, but the most of the patch is bug fixes. Since the new patch is on the horizon, I rushed this post out so I can stay up to date. Sorry folks.

Brand should be out tomorrow, and his skills look really damn good. Check back for a post about him (fo sho).

Lee Sin

So nobody is quite sure about whether this guy is an April fools or not. I vaguely remember a red post at Riot stating they had no intentions of ever releasing this energy based melee champion.

EDIT: An anonymous has kindly informed me the red post may have possibly deconfirmed Lee instead of cancelling him. Whether that makes an impact on whether they will release him or not I do not know.

Riot have released a genuine image of Lee Sin:

I'm pretty sure he's really going to be released this time. There's a small following on the forums that dictate Urf will be the new character instead. Urf is a seal Warwick killed in the lore, he can be seen floating around ingame.

It's possible Riot will release both characters on April fools, which would be the best solution to avoid the ridiculous complaints spamming the LoL forums.

Here is a list of abilities Lee Sin will allegedly have, directly from the LoL website:


Sonic Wave / Resonating Strike:

• Sonic Wave: Lee Sin projects a discordant wave of sound to locate his enemies, dealing physical damage to the first enemy it encounters. If Sonic Wave hits, Lee Sin can cast Resonating Strike for the next 3 seconds.
• Resonating Strike: Lee Sin dashes to the enemy hit by Sonic Wave, dealing physical damage plus 10% of their missing health.

Safeguard / Iron Will

• Safeguard: Lee Sin rushes towards a target ally, shielding them both from damage. If a shield is broken, half the energy cost is returned. After using Safeguard, Lee Sin can cast Iron Will for the next 3 seconds.
• Iron Will: Lee Sin's intense training allows him to thrive in battle. For 5 seconds, Lee Sin gains lifesteal, spell vamp, and armor.

Tempest / Cripple

• Tempest: Lee Sin smashes the ground sending out a shockwave that deals magic damage and reveals enemy units hit. If Tempest hits an enemy, Lee Sin can cast cripple for the next 3 seconds.
• Cripple: Lee Sin cripples nearby enemies revealed by Tempest, reducing their Movement and Attack Speed for 4 seconds. Movement and Attack Speed recover gradually over the duration.

Dragon's Rage (Ultimate)

• Lee Sin performs a powerful roundhouse kick launching his target back, dealing physical damage to the target and any enemies they collide with. Enemies the target collides with are knocked into the air for a short duration.

Flurry (Passive)

• After Lee Sin uses an ability, his next 2 basic attacks gain 50% Attack Speed and return 10 energy each.

As you can see, Riot have inserted both Lee and Urf into this screenshot, so it could go either way at this point. Guess we'll have to wait til wednesday eh?

My next post will be regarding the recent buffs and nerfs to the game, and what direction Riot are taking it. Check back in a couple days if you're interested.

Upcoming content

Welcome back everyone, I hope you like the new layout. I didn't make any drastic changes because blogger isn't exactly known for doing exactly what you want it to, so frustration got the best of me when attempting to add some of my own HTML code into the blog.

I bet you guys are all sick of seeing Nocturne in the majority of your games this week, despite half of them being terribad noobs. His ultimate gets annoying when it gets casted over and over, and I've stopped playing squishy characters because he's always picking me as a target.

There's a lot to talk about with the changes this patch by Riot. However, I've also decided to cover several other things over the next week, such as:

Recent skins

The blind monk Lee Sin

Recent nerfs and buffs

Videos of the best players

Farming IP

Lane dominance and map control

Make sure you check back if you're interested in any of these topics.

As for me, I've been playing a lot of games recently, and have obtained an array of new characters because of it. Ranked matches have always seemed to be more tard ridden than normal games, which is why I stick to normal. With all the new matches, it's got to the point sometimes where I just pick a faceroll character because I'm feeling lazy. Don't you just love realising the enemies in the lane are feeders? You'll love it even more when playing someone like Teemo or Xin.

I'm going to start preparing my next article now, so check back on monday.

Nocturne!

Allegedly a new stealth hero finally joins the ranks of the League next week, Nocturne.

I'm one of those people who just loves playing characters with invisibility, or any escape ability for that matter. Here's an image of our shadowy champion, for those who haven't seen the awesome. The fact that he uses stealth has not been clarified.

Riot have released a little information on Nocturne, but not much so far.

Nocturne is an assassin type character who functions very differently than the traditional archetypes. Unlike a traditional stealth character such as Twitch who becomes personally invisible, or a character such as Nidalee who has special synergy with the brush, Nocturne’s ultimate ability afflicts the entire enemy team with a specialized debuff. This ultimate – dubbed Paranoia – removes the player’s shared vision with allied units, leaving them blind to anything beyond the sight range of their own champion. In this way, Nocturne is able to sow confusion amongst the enemy team, striking quickly and taking down enemy champions while their allies are blind to their need for assistance.

While this ulti is copied directly from HoN, and probably the DotA equivalent as well, I think it's an excellent addition to the ranks which can disrupt the enemy effectively. Most pub teams will split up and get wiped out during Paranoia, but I believe the good teams will quickly batten down the hatches and ride it out.

I'm a little excited about this guy, more excited than Jarvan anyway! I think a LOT of people are going to be buying him, mainly because of how he looks so awesome. Good one Riot!

Welcome back, Okairinasai

Yeah yeah, I've been gone for a week, I've been very busy with personal issues in real life, therefore I wasn't able to post. Also, I have been working on revamping my hilarious images blog entirely (changes will appear soon). I apologise for the delay, but now the blog will be back on track with plenty of updates and information on the league. This is not a lie fabricated by me because I was watching anime and playing LoL all week (the last few episodes of Bleach were awesome, shame about the filler).

So what do we have since I last posted? There's a new champion out and about, Jarvan IV.

From my experience so far (around 40 games with Jarvan in them), Jarvan is a very strong hero with some excellent utility. He is essentially a tankier version of Xin Zhao. I have fought him 1 on 1 as Xin, and  I lost most fights unless it was late game.

I expect there to be a fair amount of complaining about his ultimate, because trapping 3+ people in a ring while Fiddlesticks or Katarina AoE stomps them is practically GG. For those of you who want to see a video of Jarvan, here is HotshotGG playing his first games with him (skip the first few minutes to get to the game).

Whilst I'd love to chat about Jarvan all day, I'm going to move on to something more important, that was announced today.

League of Legends has been officially confirmed as a title in the 2011 World Cyber Games. This is great news for casual and hardcore player alike, since the League will be featured among some of the greatest games that have ever been produced. Here is a list of the 2011 games:

WCG 2011 Official Game Titles:

Fighting

    * Tekken 6 (Namco Bandai Games)



FPS (First Person Shooting)

    * Counter-Strike 1.6 (Valve)
    * Crossfire (Neowiz Games/Smilegate)
    * Special Force (Dragonfly)



MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game)

    * World of Warcraft®: Cataclysm™ (Blizzard Entertainment)



RTS (Real Time Strategy)

    * League of Legends (Riot Games)
    * StarCraft® II: Wings of Liberty™ (Blizzard Entertainment)
    * Warcraft® III: The Frozen Throne™ (Blizzard Entertainment)



Sports

    * FIFA 11 (Electronic Arts)

WCG is the longest running esports event in history, so with coverage like this expect a fair few new players ingame. Last year League of Legends was only presented as a promotional title in WCG, so they've managed to take a step up the ladder this year. I am personally looking forward to this, considering it's a step towards more competitive play.

On another note, I've been on an incredible win streak this week, I can't remember the last time I've lost more than one game in a row. Touchwood. If you wish to play with me on the US servers, add my summoner name: ByakuyaYO. I know the Yo on the end makes me look like a pleb, deal with it.

News update

So what's been happening this week at Riot?

They have finally announced the release of Jarvan IV, the long awaited Exemplar of Demacia. Xin Zhao is this guys bodyguard, so surely he's going to be overpowered. Here is the only picture that has been released of Jarvan, a long time ago. This is the only interesting news Riot have posted this week, apart from the various skin price reductions and summoner showcase.

He is allegedly a dps character, hence the giant spear. However, to me he looks like he could easily be implemented as another skin for Xin Zhao. Riot are going to have to be careful with his skills, or he could just end up as Xin mark II.

So what else happened this week? The european servers were horribly broken for the better part of the week, with countless chat and ingame errors. It seems to have cleared up now though, so congratulations EU players, it's a shame you had so much downtime.

I saw some freedom fighters on the EU forums who decided since their forums and client weren't working properly, they thought they could fix the problem by spamming the US servers until they broke down. This was pretty damn funny, because I can't see a grain of logic behind that inspired plan.

Derp.

The free champions of the week have inspired a lot of QQ on the forums throughout the week, namely about Irelia. I don't have any problem with her balance whatsoever, but since the casuals do; Irelia players buckle down for the incoming nerf.

Other than that, this week has been incredibly baaawring for LoL, maybe they've decided to keep some cards up their sleeve instead of drooling them all over the table which seems to be the usual plan.

I personally am working for a couple more interviews, so hopefully you'll get to see those in the next couple of days. Until then, have a good weekend folks, or what's left of it.