Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Volibear Patch New Skins!

Here are just the new patch skins for the volibear patch in League of Legends. They look pretty awesome. Good job riot for the Akali, Lux, Gangplank, Warwick, Janna, and Tristana skins. Enjoy. I also included the in game models for all the new volibear patch skins.

Silverfang Akali skin + In game model

Imperial Lux skin + In game Model
 Tristana Skin + In Game Model

 Warwick Skin + In Game Model

 Gangplank skin + In Game Model

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Volibear, The Thunders Roar

More information is provided for Volibear, The Thunders roar. Mechanics and pictures are included in this blog post. An in game model of Volibear is also included.

 
Volibear, The Thunders Roar

Abilties:
  • Rolling Thunder: Volibear drops to all fours and runs faster if chasing an enemy champion. The first enemy he attacks is knocked into the air.
  • Frenzy: Volibear's repeated attacks grant him additional attack speed. Once Volibear has repeatedly attacked four times, he can perform a vicious bite on his target.
  • Majestic Roar: Volibear lets out a powerful roar that damages and slows enemies. Minions and monsters are feared as well.
  • Thunder Claws (Ultimate): Volibear channels the power of the storm causing his attacks to blast his targets with lightning that bounces to other nearby enemies.
  • Chosen of the Storm (passive): Volibear heals rapidly for a few seconds when his health drops to a critical level.

Lore: 

Though the northern reaches of Freljord are some of the most unforgiving lands in Valoran, the Ursine have survived upon the region's barren, stormy tundra for centuries. As a fierce and respected warrior of the Ursine, Volibear devoted his life to the protection of his people and loyalty to his elder brother, the tribe's chief. When his brother was killed during a hunt on the tundra, the tribe looked to Volibear as his successor. It was an honor and a burden that Volibear had never expected, but he shouldered the charge with pride. However, by Ursine tradition, the tribe could not recognize Volibear as chief until he returned from a journey to the peak of their sacred mountain, a place forever shrouded in a thundering maelstrom. There, Ursine chieftains must speak to the storm itself, gaining clarity and wisdom to empower them as mighty leaders.

Donning the chieftain's traditional armor and enchanted gauntlets, Volibear began the long and perilous climb up the slopes of the mountain. When he reached the peak and gazed into the raging storm above, he saw a horrific vision of a Freljord utterly consumed by war. Amidst the carnage, the Ursine fell dead upon a bloody battlefield. Believing the vision to be an omen of things to come if he did not act against them, Volibear traveled to the capitol of Freljord. The Ursine had not ventured across the southern mountains in centuries and his appearance was met with unease. However, Queen Ashe recognized Volibear as a wise and powerful ally. In what Volibear considered the first step against a war-torn future, they forged an alliance. As part of their agreement, he joined the League of Legends in the name of a unified Freljord, representing the primal might of his nation on the Field of Justice. 

''Few can weather the storm that follows in the wake of Volibear's roar.'' - Ashe, the Frost Archer 

  
In Game Model of Volibear, The Thunders Roar

Jungle League of Legends Remake

To explain Jungle changes in the new League of legends patch, Guinsoo posted an in depth post to clarify any problems. With the new Jungle Remake it'll definitely be a different meta, so to get a head start you should read all the information guinsoo provided. This will help create ur league of legends jungle strategy

Hello all,


I don't intend for this to become anything like a blog but I want to address a few points I've been seeing on the forum, and expand a bit on what the Patch Preview showed/explained. I've been involved with the jungle adjustments since they got started about 6 months ago so I'd like to post some more detailed information about the changes and their intended effects.


The small camps are where the biggest changes have been made. As the patch preview noted, they all respawn faster and they all have a sigil, but it's just a one-shot heal that heals for an increasing flat amount based on health missing. It also doesn't scale with game length, although we are considering that on the backburner (unneeded for primary set of adjustments). The primary purpose of this heal is to support low-level summoners, who generally will remain at the lowest amount of health. The reward per respawn rate has been slightly increased; if we reduced the rewards of the small camps by the amount we reduced their respawn timer by, junglers would fall significantly behind due to the increased run times. The initial spawn timers for camps have not been increased; they remain at 1:40 and 1:55.


Some things you can expect from the new jungle:


1. The time to 4 is slightly longer for most (likely all) champions. I have seen a lot of threads suggesting that the jungle has become more OP, and while I can't say that's not the case, one consequence of the shorter spawn times on small camps is that a full clear will not quite get you to 4. However, a full clear plus any small camp will get you to 4, so you have a lot of flexibility in terms of where you start and end, and if you want to gank at 4, you can set your route up to end at any small camp to gank where you want.


2. The jungle is a little less survival limited, and a little more time limited. In the current jungle on live, you have to be able to sustain yourself at least until 4, because the jungle is hard, and that's the primary inhibition. Only once a champion meets this primary criteria do others come into consideration like clear time, gank ability, transition to endgame, etc. In the new jungle, it's a little more about ability to clear the camps and ability to optimize your time. As the patch preview noted, the fact that the small camps are generally constantly respawning means you are choosing between farming your jungle, ganking, going back to shop, or counterjungling/map control, and this was a primary goal: inject more choice, unpredictability, and decision-making into jungling. However just because you're not farming your jungle constantly doesn't mean it's a waste, there's no reason that while you're ganking top bottom can't send one person to quick clear Golems. They will be back up before the jungler gets back there. Same with Wraiths, mid can clear them quickly between waves. With good coordination a team can get more farm out of the jungle, and more ganks from their jungler.


2b. By shortening the respawn timers, the jungler must choose between multiple strong actions. Currently with long gaps between jungle respawns, it creates situations with less choice than we'd like. With more things that must be tended to, the junglers job is made more difficult, while the physical jungle is made a little easier. This also ties into the predictability of ganks.


3. Ganks are a little more unpredictable. #1 and #2 (among other factors) create a scenario where the jungler has more health at all times, and the jungle is basically ready to clear at any time, so if there is a good opportunity to gank he might be more likely to take it. On the test realm we have seen more level 2 and 3 ganks than we initially expected. Ideally this should be lane-mandated and flexible: for example if a lane is being pushed hard, it should be easier for the jungler to get the gank without setting his team too far behind.


4. Counterjungling is probably a little stronger. We pushed a lot of the small camp rewards out of the small monsters and into the big ones. Taking the healing sigil and 95% of a camp's reward while leaving a monster to hold the respawn is quite strong. Additionally, Ancient Golem and Lizard Elder camps give a little more exp reward and is a little more central to a jungler's fast clear to 4, so we may see more tension and fights around these enemy camps early in the game. Still, feedback has been consistent that counterjungling feels less bad to play against because of the faster respawning camps, so that sounds like a win-win to me. I note that I say probably because we adjusted this ratio down about 2 weeks ago due to feedback that counterjungling was still too strong. We do have a feature ready where counterjungled camps respawn 100% slower (X%), but in testing counterjungling proved strong enough that we did not move forward with it. I suspect this is related to the increased time scarcity for junglers.


5. Nashor and Dragon are now immune to shreds. No more 15 second Nashors. Yay! Dragon might be a little undertuned health-wise, and we're watching it. He's tougher 1v1 or 1v2 but probably a little easier for a full group, especially later in the game.


6. I don't think the jungle has been oversimplified for experienced players. It is a little easier for new players, and they will struggle to some degree in the jungle anyway (unless prepared), but with newer players the game in general is very unpredictable. Have you ever watched a game full of new players? Lanes can go untended for long periods of time, farm is very low, kills are usually very high. The jungler should learn quickly that other things must be done to be successful; plus who doesn't want to get involved in some fights? For level 30 summoners, the easier jungle is offset by more frequent encounters with monsters, an increased need to gank due to health potion and minion changes, increased incentive to counterjungle, etc. There are a lot of moving levers within the jungle and a harsh incoming-damage-based barrier to entry is not necessarily the only way to make the jungle interesting, varied, and have sufficient balancing mechanics.


7. Similar to above, while I think there might be more champions it's possible to jungle with, I don't think there will be many more good junglers. As with any class, there are the better options and there are the worse options, to varying degree. The biggest 'class' of jungler that probably got weaker the sustain junglers; almost all of which are good in lane, and still, having high/full health when you gank at a less predictable time is always good. We did initially see some weird stuff like jungle Annie, but it kind of fizzled out because all she really has going for her is the vicious 6 gank. She's too gold-reliant to jungle.


8. I do see these changes actually making jungling a little less required. I think currently there are some interesting things you can do in a 2v1 lane, but the disadvantage of not having a jungler vs theirs (when he has full farm on higher-yield monsters, plus the only team with repeated available ganks) is too great. In other words I think teams always have to take a jungler right now because giving the other team the only jungler is too strong. I can see one team running a 2-1-2 comp or a 1-1-2 with a roaming support that can jungle (Alistar, Maokai), or on the other end of the fence a team with a jungler and a roamer that can counterjungle. This may not happen, and isn't really a primary focus of the changes, but I'd be curious and excited if it did.


Overall the set of jungle changes have been the result of a lot of iteration and have been testing in a pretty stable state for some time now. This post was pretty impromptu so it really doesn't reflect the full attention we have given to these set of changes, but I was hoping to shed a little more detail into the changes than the patch preview and a lot more information as to the reasoning behind the changes, and what sorts of behavior and action we've seen in testing. I might have a few additional thoughts that I will edit in.


Guinsoo

As well, Stonewall008 made a short video on all the jungle league of legends changes, enjoy the strategies for the remake

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Raise your ELO in League of Legends (How To Play) Guide

 Want to raise your ELO in LoL? Read this league of legends guide an make sure to follow it. Teaches you everything on how to play well in League of Legends.

Know your Role. What does this mean?


Warding Everyone has to do this, whatever lane you are in FUCKING WARD IT! your team can help you of course, but don't always rely on them when you are in base buy 1 ward 75g is not that hard to get. Here is a link of good warding! locations. I have marked them in black dots on the map, based on the side you are on warding their jungle is only good when you have pushed passed that tower. If they have pushed your tower then warding your jungle is a must!!!!!
Support: Well if you are going to play support no matter what the class is (you asshole last pick not taking an actual support). This commonly happens with 4th and 5th pick, they refuse to see that they will have to play support and do not pick the sustain they need to IE Soraka, Sona, Ali etc. Which is fine no problem, but not only do you hurt yourself, but the team as well. As support having good map awareness is key, know jungle routes and how long it will take for a jungler to clear. With CV changes this is very helpful so you can make sure you see where they are without having to waste CV all on searching for jungler. Also with CV you need to check to see if your team is going for a gank light up the are the enemy player is heading to.
AD Carry Know when to go in, i can't stress this enough. People assume just because you initiate the fight the support has to be there and when you die it's their fault for not following you. If AD carry is your best that is great no problem, but know what your support and the enemy support is capable of. Very important, question why don't you ever harass if enemy has a Sona early on? Well her Q will do double damage and her W will lower your damage by 20% when she has 3 stacks. People wonder why Sona can burst early on or why their AD didn't die when you do so much damage. Just fucking farm to victory. You know you did your job well if you keep up with the CS of enemy team even if they are pushing into your tower.
Top and Mid These other 2 lanes have the same basic function. Farm, farm, and farm some more. Get those items if you can get the kill great, but focus on farm more. 16 creep kills is ~300 gold so roughly 3 waves. These do not diminish like hero kills. They are constant so 100 CS is 3 hero kills and more. So even if you die in your lane because you did something stupid keep farming. Furthermore, WARD YOUR FUCKING LANE. Know how much your items cost most top and mid will save for catalyst or brutalizer both around 1300 gold mark. But you had to go back you are low hp out of mana etc. 2 Options when in base (1. buy complete item) or (2. buy 1 ward, pot if need be, and part of the item). Almost always go with option 2 unless you are dominating your lane, but even then option 2 is safer, better, and you will still dominate your lane.
Also, if you are playing mid or top simply staying in your lane and farming and killing your enemy is not enough. Go gank other lanes. Mid especially. You have free range to go top and bottom and help gank with or without the jungler. Top it is a little tougher to do that with, but Mid has no excuses. But what about my tower? Simple push your creeps into enemy tower if they had to go back, this option works great even if they are there to deny them CS. When you go back see if you can help gank bottom or top and do it. You will either get a kill or make them use a flash and thus making it easier for jungler to gank.
Jungler Finally the hardest role to play in my opinion is jungler. A jungler is only as good as his team. Plain and simple if your teammates are good they will set you up for ganks this is the dream of every jungler. If you are stuck with this role, key things to remember is while clearing your jungle also look around the map. You have a few seconds while auto attacking to look at top, mid, and bottom see who will need your help the most. Which lane is over extended. Look at chat your team should be telling you who has used their flash etc. Keep track of time. Blue/Red 5 minute respawn, Dragon 6 minutes, Baron 7 minutes. Keep track, tell your team Dragon times when to be ready. You have to tell Top to be ready 2 minutes ahead of time. TOP GET YOUR ASS DOWN THERE FUCK YOUR TOWER! Read section above for what you need to do ahead of time. I know i have been discourage from jungling in ranked, because the majority of blame will fall on you if you lose, but i know how to set my jungler up making both our lives simpler. As a jungler also know how much money you will have from clearing, possible ganks factoring in wards every time you go back. Since as a jungler you will spend the most time going back to base, you have to help top mid and bottom ward as well. What bugs me the most and i have seen this done with many junglers is they don't get an escape IE Flash or Ghost. This is a must not only for escaping, but for ganking too! These spells are better then exhaust, cleanse, ignite simple as that.
But the things above are not something you can just read and will know how to do. You MUST play every role to know their weakness and strengths. I'm not saying you need to be great at every role, but you must be great at least with 2 and with many heroes. You can't play ranked knowing only 2 heroes and have 3 rune page setup all for Top or Mid that will not work. Play in normals as the roles you need practice on or just plain need to learn how they work.
Lastly, just because you watch the streams of high elo players and see them do something crazy with a hero. DON'T DO IT you are not as good, you suck. Yeah i know it hurts, but you do and that is half the battle. Knowing you suck, knowing you will fuck up so plan ahead. Those guys in top ELO are not up there by themselves they duo queue to get up there. But once up there, life is golden right? FUCK NO! Even up there people either choose to ignore the simple rules above or are just fucking bad, and those lucky fucks got carried up there. Now please don't take this as me saying not to watch CLG, Epik or any of the TSM streams. In fact do watch them. My suggestion is pick the stream that fits with the role you want to play the most. You will pick up things from them. IE Reginald running movement quints on his Cassi( not confirmed yet, but i saw his movement speed vs Cassi's normal speed ). Great idea they will not tell you these things, because they don't think about it or care to share etc. That is their right and i'm sure they want to keep as much of their strat a secret as possible. But if you pay attention to their buys/stats you will see the rules above i got from watching their streams. Everything i've learned is from them and by playing 200+ games of ranked myself.
If you got through all of this, Thank you. I hope this helps you because i will probably end up playing with you. I got so frustrated the last few times i've played went from 1500 to 1390 because my team doesn't know what to do. I try to type most of this in game when i can. But i figure this will be a better to do here and hopefully come across more people who follow these rules.
Oh almost forgot. Here are a few rules i've created for myself to follow(sometimes).
  1. If you are on a losing streak, stop playing for a little take a breather, smoke some trees, rub one out, do some exercise whatever to take your mind off the game for an hour. You will get angry and become jaded and you wont help anyone in that state of mind.
  2. If you are 1st or 2nd pick, imo you should go AD bot mainly because i think this takes more skill to play and if you think you are better then everyone on your team do it. The others will gladly take mid top since they are calling it anyway. If you are 4th and 5th pick SHUT THE FUCK UP. Look at what your team is picking and harden the fuck up and play the other roles your team needs. 3rd pick, i think you have it the best and also the most important pick. You of all the picks should be counter picking the lane you are going into. Know what most heroes counter.
  3. If you are captain and are in the 1200 to 1300 elo range. Don't ban akali, morgana or shaco. People that low suck with those heroes and won't be able to bring out the best of those heroes. Which only helps you!!!! Sometimes it all about the mind games let them have those heroes. if they are amazing players it wont matter what hero they play you are fucked. If they are average or shit and saw high elo players do great with them and made it look easy, "HEY I CAN DO THAT TOO LETS TRY!" WRONG! WRONG! that akali just fed teemo top gg.
  4. Know the best time for you to play in your time zone. This isn't a proven science, but there is some logic to it. Avoid weekends anytime. Hell take weekends as practice champs time. Weekdays is the best time to play imo. People who have jobs/family/school will have something to do. For me i found playing early and late weekdays was the best time. The pool of idiots is lower and increasing your chance of wins.
But again even i break my own rules and i hate myself for it later by raging like a BITCH!
Please feel free to add in anything i have missed or you think might be helpful. I want this to reach the top and help all those looking to get higher rating and GOOD LUCK!

Giant Armored Bear Champion, Volibear, The Thunders Roar

Golden Compass anyone? The new champion for LoL will be a giant armored bear, named Volibear. We dont know what he does yet but if its anything like the movie its probably gonna be pretty cool. Anyone wanna play an armored bear champion? Wish I knew who was the designer for this one.

Volibear, The Thunders Roar


Every once in a while, there comes a champion so controversial that even the executives can’t agree on what to do with them. Some might claim that the combination of two awesome elements can only yield up an even greater awesome of truly epic proportions, while others might cling to the superstition that too much awesome isolated in one particular being can only lead inevitably to disaster.

The two awesome elements that we’re talking about in this case are, of course: bears and gigantic suits of armor.
For many of you, Volibear, the Thunder’s Roar is no doubt the best news you will get in the time of your natural lives. For others, we understand the anxiety that might accompany the thought of facing down a massive, armored bear. If you’re one of those summoners afflicted by a phobia of bear armory, we’ve arranged to include the following comic to help you face down your fears.
Ursine enthusiasts everywhere rejoice! Your bear in shining armor has nearly arrived!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Black Friday League of Legends Sale

A bunch of skins will be on sale for that day in league of legends, Riot will be putting 21 skins all for sale 75% off of regular price. The post below will show the exact offers of which skins go on sale. This is the best time to stock up on skins! Legacy skins will be sold this day, then will be retired.

Summoners!

On Monday, the 28th of November, we will be retiring 21 of our more classic skins from the League of Legends store to make room for the next generation of awesome champion apparel. These retired skins, known as Legacy Skins, will no longer be available for purchase, but may reappear in the store under very special circumstances. But before this happens, we will be hosting a massive sale on Friday, November 25, to commemorate their departure. 

Naturally, all Legacy Skins will still be playable for anyone who owns them after they have been retired, and will still be visible to other players in game and at the load screen. You will have to own a Legacy Skin, however, in order to be able to view it in a champion’s profile. In the event that you’re the owner of a champion with only two skins remaining for purchase following this initiative, don’t worry! These champions have some fantastic new skins in development that we’ll be releasing in the near future.

And so, in preparation for the kickoff of the Legacy Skin Project, we’ve decided to offer one of our most ambitious sales to date. Starting next Friday, the 25th of November and running through midnight Pacific Time on Monday the 28th of November, we will be placing 21 classic League of Legends skins on sale for 75% off! Don’t miss your chance to pick up these awesome skins as they become collector’s items!

Additionally, if you want to pick up one of these highly collectable skins, but don’t yet own the champion in question, we’ll also be offering any champion that sports a prospective Legacy Skin at 20% off for the duration of the sale.

A full list of all 21 skins that will be reduced by 75% before they go into the vault as part of the League of Legends Legacy Skins Project can be found below:
  • Sasquatch Nunu
  • Nottingham Ezreal
  • Blacksmith Poppy
  • Masquerade Evelynn
  • Scuba Gragas
  • Spectacular Sivir
  • Mr. Mundoverse
  • Toxic Dr. Mundo
  • Swamp Master Kennen
  • Hextech Sion
  • Yellow Jacket Shen
  • Red Riding Annie
  • Leopard Nidalee
  • Dragon Knight Mordekaiser
  • Sonoran Kog'Maw
  • Kingpin Twitch
  • Professor Ryze
  • Shamrock Malphite
  • Highland Tryndamere
  • Pharaoh Amumu
  • Badger Teemo

A full list of the champions that will be discounted by 20% during the sale can be found below:

  • Nunu
  • Ezreal
  • Poppy
  • Evelynn
  • Gragas
  • Sivir
  • Dr. Mundo
  • Kennen
  • Sion
  • Shen
  • Annie
  • Nidalee
  • Mordekaiser
  • Kog'Maw
  • Twitch
  • Ryze
  • Malphite
  • Tryndamere
  • Amumu
  • Teemo

But remember that bargains this good only come around once in a great while! Don’t miss your chance to pick up these collectible Legacy Skins at massively reduced prices starting this coming Friday, the 25th of November!


Hopefully you dont empty out all your pockets on these black friday sales for league of legends! And happy shopping. Feel free to browse around my blog as well, I try to keep updated

Friday, November 18, 2011

League of Legends Skin Viewer

If you wanna see what any skin looks like before you buy it, I came across a great website to do so. There you can see any skin you are thinking of purchasing in LoL and make a better decision on what you want. Very useful site, cause who likes wasting 10$ on a skin that doesn't even look good in game? Try before you buy!

http://lolskinviewer.com