I DID have queue problems (TT OR SR) a week ago, but mine have all resolved by now. Riot thinks they are as well - everytime you have a really long queue if you could submit your logs to Riot after it resolves, and note that that is the reason why, that'd be great.

@Vaultboy: If you were each level 4/5, at least one of you was detected as smurfs by the matchmaker and kicked out of newb island permanently. You were given a (small to large) Elo bump matching your presumed skill, and basically you're going to be in a (very slightly) lesser Elo bracket than your main, with a massively less powerful account.

For pleasant smurfing I recommend creating a new account each time you are kicked out of newb island, so only a handful of games per account. Do note that you're screwing over the games of 9 (or 8) other people when you do this, as you get kicked back to the first time players on each reset, so proceed with as much caution as your honor allows xD.

I'm sorry your ISP has been so shitty, I've missed playing games with ya. I really don't blame you at 500ms though.

When you're playing on a smurf, earlygame is the MOST painful part as Lasereth mentioned. The level difference often makes the most hard difference here and often compensates for less skill. Also, a newer account has MUCH more variance in its win ratio. A level 5 account has what....a dozen games on it? Having a lot of losses is just a factor of chance really at that point. MM is still out to give you a 50% ratio, but keep in mind it doesn't have you accurately pegged at that time yet, and possibly your allies or opponents either.

It does the best it can :P

Sweet Jesus Singed is REALLY good on TT. Been playing with him recently and it's been a blast. Take ghost and whatever spell you want, go defensive masteries, buy doran's as first item, HP quints, show up with poison to level 1 team fight and almost 800+ HP, win. Then the rest of the game is hilarious of course. Buy Rylai's and just press R and ghost and run around like an idiot with poison on and GG.

Singed has always been underrated IMO.

Singed is definitely fun. I am really loving playing poppy. She's probably my new favorite hero to play as of late.

Garen comes out today. I hate to repeat what others are saying but he DOES appear to be what Tryndamere should have been. Trynd is getting buffed though so we'll see if he's viable after today.

Hah, yes. And trynd barely got buffed. More like bug fixed. I don't know why its so hard for them to change trynd. Just a few simple buffs would fix him.

So how is garen? I'm debating on whether to buy him. I like mana-less heroes, but he seems boring for some reason.

So is the 3rd ninja next?

And this a random thought, but doesn't it seem like ezreal should have been manaless? No idea why I feel that way, i don't play him, just seems like his design was originally manaless.

Its amazing how Riot can get some heroes so right immediately (Mord, Nidalee, Garen) and take so long to get other heroes right (Udyr, Trynd, and even Ryze). I don't remember such imbalances in hero design in DotA, even when Icefrog and co completely redesigned a hero.

Udyr is OP as all hell.

But Udyr was extremely UP before they fixed his stance dance. The fact that there are heroes that are still not properly balanced is a slight concern, especially since all LoL games are still blind "all picks". I've been complaining about the lack of a counter-picking mode (e.g -cm and -rd in dota) and a random pick mode for sooooooo long. A counterpicking mode at least gives you the ability to negate an OP enemy, or to compensate for an UP ally.

At the very least, it adds yet another strategic element to the game, which cannot be a bad thing.

@Zeraph: The reason it's so hard to buff Trynd is we've seen what a MONSTER he is when even slightly OP. He's very, very snowbally. They're exceedingly careful about buffing him for this reason.

I also find Garen boring.

I believe the third ninja is next.

Ezreal needs a mana system in his current incarnation, he'd need several nerfs to go without it. As of right now a viable build on him is heavy on the regen so he can spam, but that takes up precious gold.

@Vaultboy: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha (I mean no offense). No game gets everything right the first time. Tauren Chieftain is the most recent example of this. Dearlord he was OP when he first released. There are STILL an entire handful of heroes hat are so godtier as to be picked/banned in virtually EVERY tournament. Unfortunately, DotA's version of balance seems to be "make sure there's at least 10 heroes at a similar power level, and forget the other 90". Almost.

@YaWhateva: Udyr has counters; he's a viable melee DPS though.

@Vaultboy: Aye, it's one reason I'm cooling my jets on LoL a bit until season 1 (a few more months I guess :/). The other being sc2 <_<.

Garen is fun as hell. I played 3 matches as him yesterday and won all 3.

I also played a match as Trynd and honestly couldn't tell a difference. Garen is so much better than Trynd early game that it's laughable. I will admit that I don't see Garen putting out the DPS of Trynd late game though. But it doesn't matter -- Garen can live through a melee fight, Trynd can't. Trynd has to build early crit to do anything worthwhile, but the funny part is that crit is the opposite of what he needs to stay alive in fights, so there's really no way to build him correctly for games that don't last an hour.

It's comical how OP Trynd was when in reality it was 85% Cleanse being OP, 15% Trynd being OP. He STILL has a lot of work before he's viable. But Joz is right, he snowballs so hard if he gets some early kills and is farmed so I don't know how they can fix him. Maybe if they buffed the range on spinning slash so he could hit and run? I don't know.

I agree with the cleanse comment las. I think buff trynd was mostly only OP because of that. If they returned him to that buff state now that cleanse has been fixed I don't think he'd be anywhere near as crazy.

As it is now though, even with early game kills he still doesn't hold up. I played a game to try the minor changes with him and got the first 2 kills (lucky). A decent garen was on our team and he still ended up with a better score.

On a whim I unlocked ezreal, he is now my favorite champ after I got used to his odd play style. He has serious mana problems, even with a chalice I still end up running dry (and mregen runes and + mana items). They need to lesson his mana costs by a bit and he'd be perfect. Maybe buff his health slightly ...I think he is the lowest HP champ in the game. Not sure why as there are many characters who have either better escapability, better burst, or better sustained damage. He's still surprisingly survivable though considering. Its more of an irksome factor than a true concern. They do need to lessen his mana costs though. Poor kennen seems even worse now in comparison.

Anyone play shen a lot? How is his new feint holding up? I saw a few forum posts crying havoc about the buff on test realm, but now that its out no one is really complaining much.

I'm glad jax got toned down a bit, now we'll see if he needs a bit more (probably but not much.)

PS wtf -30% to TT IP rewards >< Just make IP rewards a per minute thing with a cap around 30-40 minutes. So uncool. I loved TT but now I have to go get my win of the day on slow SR. Plus TT games can still go longer than SR ones. I had one yesterday that went on for ~40 minutes and I lost. I got like 40Ip for that... :(

Oh I know Udyr has counters but it just makes me mad when he throws that shield on early game and my Devastating Blow barely does anything haha. Late game he stops being that much of a threat as far as I've seen.

pot meet kettle :)

(poppy's passive...)

I wholly agree most of the Trynd OP was cleanse.

The IP award nerf is :(, but understandable. It just FEELS pennypinching from Riot's end (couldn't they have buffed SR IP :P?)

Re: Udyr's shield - it's got a very short duration. As Udyr v Poppy, when he pops turtle, wait it out for like 1 second then smash him. Dun blow your big deeps when he's got it up imo.

;)

Yeah I'm not complaining too much haha

Last night I decided to try Cardmaster since his redesign. Holy cow, talk about fun!!!!!!

I sucked as the old version but this version is EZ. All 3 cards are viable now and I actually found myself using all 3 during the matches. I played some practice matches vs real people and did pretty darn good.

I show up at mid with 750ish HP at level 1 with a doran's shield, 24 armor penetration with runes and he's just beastly. I think I may have found my new flavor of the month! He's pretty ridiculous with lizard buff.

Ugh, I just had a terrible losing streak trying to get my win of the day on SR yesterday. It was only a 4 or 5 game streak, but each game was like ~40 minutes and was sooo boring. This is why I hate SR....

I miss the old TF.

Akali is quite fun, for anyone interested. She's the only one that truly feels like a ninja. Shen looks the part but I don't think of tanks when I think ninja. And Kennen is basically a pokemon, he doesn't really have anything to do with ninjas. Her builds are interesting, the abilities require just enough thought to be fun and her passive is neat.

I'm still not sure how I'd want to build her though. When I check stats after a game about 80% of dmg is physical. But building her purely physical loses out on a lot of extra damage from her passive. Not sure what the best balance is. Let me know if anyone has any good item builds.

The enemy Akali just wrecked our team on SR. Our Akali didn't do much. :(

What's everyone's thoughts on manaless champions? There's a huge debate going on about it in LoL right now. They're supposed to be balanced with mana users but I think some champs can simply spam away with no balancing at all (Katarina for example).

I think energy users are at a small disadvantage because there's less itemization for them, and they run out with 1 combo, meaning they can't spam in team fights when it really matters.

Garen and kat are probably also balanced, but I have less of an opinion on them. Garen has no range and kat is squishy without a tanky build.

My main issue is that things like wit's end (not too big a deal) and Veigar (big deal) are much less useful against them. But that's more of a design flaw than a question of power.

Essentially energy/free champs have a small advantage early game, but energy users have a big disadvantage late game. Late game most champs mine as well have cost free abilities with how mana scales and they have better itemization *and* their abilities are often more powerful.

OMG ha ha ha ha ha. I just played against Pendragon. I queued with 2 friends (1 level 30, 1 level 20) and for some reason it put us against him. I went Tryndamere and laned against Pendragon (Akali) and I stomped his ass in the ground ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!!! Mordekaiser was my lane partner and Akali had Teemo on his side so it shouldn't have went that well.

I ended up going 15-9-13 and we won the match. It was glorious. I think Tryndamere's recent buffs have finally made him viable (at least with defensive masteries, a good rune set up, and ghost).

Well -done-.

I later found out that Pendragon was actually running a 3-man premade as well. Makes me feel even better!!!!!!

I've lost 13 out of the past 15 games I played. RAGE

I think the game is shifting to mega push mode. Ganks aren't even common now, they just gang up to push turrets. Every match I lose is because one of the lanes loses a turret first.

What's with the patch and the new champ? I wish Riot would say if it was being delayed a week or not so I could spend my saved up IP.

Yup, I'm experiencing the same. I find that Janna is pretty much a must right now.

Even so, games are over either quickly (25-8 mins) if it is pushers vs cc/hero killers, or last very long(50 mins), if both teams adopt a pushing/support base. Just one more reason Riot should move beyond blind picks. Seriously, the ability to counterpick (and not mirror-pick) will change the meta in a big way.

Just had two games that were a huge headache. Guess who was on the enemy team? Janna + Soraka... they both went nearly an hour. The last game I was twitch, had ~17 kills. Full dmg items so nearly the best sustained damage one can get in the game. I couldn't out damage their heal...focused janna... and we broke even! Healing has gotten so ridiculous now. I never understood why they nerfed EC.

Just finished a 65 minute game with Akali. I really like her. Went 21-8. Not bad. Now that summer is here I can start playing more, hurray.

Oh yeah it's all about the healing and outlasting trend now. Janna pretty much wins games on TT AND SR now. Combine it with Soraka and they don't do amazing damage, but they just live and live and live. So your 1 death compared to their 0 from a team fight starts to add up over time. 3 of them should have died but didn't. Then they push your turret down with 1/10th HP left on their whole team while you're dead.

Anyone have an impression on Malzahar? I'm a bit jaded after riots last 6300 ip champ (kennen..)

My standard advice: never buy something until you've played it.

Blah. I used to be +55 wins at one point. Something like 275/220. Now I'm only +30 wins after playing with my premade friends for about 200ish games. My Elo is definitely lower than it used to be. My premade sucks. People automatically assume that if you get on vent with a premade, you win win win but it's bullcrap. The people I play with are like 100-200 wins and I'm at 375 and they just aren't as good as me, plain and simple. They don't push when they should and they over extend when they shouldn't. They are decent at the game but they don't see the big picture. Now I have to make the decision whether to play with them and keep losing (lost probably 35 out of the last 50 games I played) because they haven't adapted to the new LoL strategy (pushing down turrets at all costs), or start playing with my friend again (me and him both got up to +55 wins-ish with just a 2-man, no vent premade).

Which do you enjoy more? Who cares about W/L, it's not even ranked yet. Do what makes you happy.

Hmm. I do rage a lot less when I lose with my premade because they're not obnoxious like the randoms you get with solo queue. I was just really proud of my W:L and now it's embarrassing.

---------- Post added at 12:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:16 PM ----------

Haven't played him yet. He's the only champ I don't own at the moment. I just now have enough to buy him but I think I'll save for Olaf first. Malzahars seem to be good or really bad from what I've seen. Nothing over the top good, but definitely some over the top bads. He can do some early game odd burst damage though. Within a span of seconds all of a sudden you're at 1/4th from full.

---------- Post added at 12:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:17 PM ----------

Hmm. I did some forum browsing and it seems like I'm not the only one with a recent huge losing streak. People are complaining that with and without their premades, their W:L have plummeted with the last 2 patches which would coincide with my losing streaks as well. One guy used to be +120 wins and now he's at +50........

It just seems like my opponents are playing perfectly and know something that I don't, and my teammates (solo queuing or not) are back on newbie island.

I know W:L and wins overall doesn't mean you're low or high elo, but when I see someone with 100 wins in the same match of someone with 1000 wins, I can't help but wonder how their elos are similar.

I also think it's odd how MM works in general. It averages your elos together to make a match, but having a 1750 1750 1750 vs 1400 1850 1850 is NOT a fair fight even if the elo comes out to about the same on average. One guy complained about this and Zileas looked it up. Sure enough, there was 2 high elo people on one team paired with a much lower elo guy, but on average it was the same as the other team. Obviously the lower elo guy couldn't keep up and lost it for their team.

I find the whole averaging system to be a little unfair.

On a slightly different topic, another guy was complaining that he was better than his elo showed, but his shitty solo queue teammates were keeping him from rising. Zileas called him out on it and boosted him up to 2100 Elo as an experiment. After like 15 games the guy's elo had RISEN +15. Since then he's dropped to 2050 or so but he's still doing fine. A permanent elo boost to see if your teammates are holding you back..and they were.

What does THIS say about the MM system, particularly with solo queuing?

Elo does not average like that; it only sticks high/low together (and gives them an average+ Elo rating) when they are premaking together. At least, that's how it has always worked. There have been some tweaks lately and I haven't seen that Zileas post.

Season 1 looks amazing.

Yes. Yes it does. I'm a bit surprised by the release date they set for season 1 (I figured it was still another week or two out). I hope this release goes smoother than the other ones :P.

Should be great though :D.

I do believe the S1 release vid is one of the sickest trailers I have seen.

$10 to everyone if the servers are up tonight, period. :)