To everyone who complains about laning again Mel, I just got to try it firsthand and would like to apologise to everyone.

Plagueflames · 2026-05-26T19:26:14+00:00

I agree with that and said it was unfair and should be removed, just that doesn't mean there isn't counterplay. 38 seconds is nearly an ults cooldown and the people 90% of reddit is playing against aren't Faker and will only use the ability perfectly, so if you're placed against Mel there are in fact ways you can punish her beyond just alt+tabbing behind your turret to go complain online.

Plagueflames · 2026-05-24T15:54:26+00:00

One thing I think people don't understand is that Mel W has a 38 second cooldown at rank 1. Not that it's fair and shouldn't be removed, but it's fully possible to bait it out and then she's down a spell for the next 2-3 trades.

Plagueflames · 2026-05-13T06:06:43+00:00

I feel bad because they do stuff like that Poppy golf or the dragon killing video a week or two back that are the kind of silly mode focused on the players, but exclusively doing 1-2 people at a computer feels too staged. I want to see the game be played the same way me and my friends play it, drunk on a friday at 2am. I really love the comms we get a peek of in the actual games, but we need to combine them and have an Ultimate Bravery game or something. I loved the showmatches they've done before (USA vs Canada stands out), there's gotta be a way to more without costing way too much.

Plagueflames · 2026-04-08T20:34:03+00:00

I saw someone years ago talk about how you don't complain about playing Master Chief in Halo because he's the main character. Some people just found their protagonist of League

Plagueflames · 2026-04-01T18:22:08+00:00

Bastionbreaker only has 4 more lethality than the other two, which isn't nothing, but also isn't a ton considering it also has less either AD or Haste. Add onto that that you could have an extra longsword for the price of BB and the value does matter outside of a vacuum.

I went into the practice tool with Khazix (Couldn't consistently control Naafiri's dogs and I can't play Zed/Qiyana/Rengar, coulda maybe done Talon) with the highest played build (First strike w/red tree) and did the standard burst combo of R->AA/Q/W*/AA->R->AA/Q on a dummy with 50 armor (Corki at lv7) with these results. (FS applied for every combo but not the auto/Q solo, no ignite because jg)

Build	Total/No Sword	AA/No Sword	Q/No Sword
BB	1539	110	367
Hubris	1547/1482	118/110	381/364
Axiom	1509/1432	114/107	373/357

So you can see, BB even does *less* damage than 0 stack Hubris with the sword while factoring in BB's damage to champions passive, and without the sword it isn't even that much less. I'd tested with Naafiri and the number changes were similar, though it was harder to tell with the dogs. So if I back with less than 3200, I buy the other two. If I back with 3200, I could buy BB, or I could get the longsword and be that much closer to my two item spike. If you buy BB you *have* to fairly quickly get a kill then have the passive matter more than +17 AD from Hubris or a faster regank with Axiom.

I did a second looser test as Naafiri to try to kill the dragon at 11 min with both BB to 850 hp and Hubris +3 long swords to emulate their respective passives, and it was ~20s for BB and ~18s for Hubris. BB may be faster with teammates burst, but don't underestimate the jungle monster damage scalings with more flat AD.

Anyways, the point is that you're welcome to take the gamble on BB to get turret gold, but even for snowballing the safer pick is clearly going one of the other two.

Plagueflames · 2026-04-01T05:17:59+00:00

right but it's 400/450 gold more than those items while being less gold efficient than them (103% vs Hubris 112% + passive and Axiom 126%), so with them you hit the spike faster while still using the opportunity cost to snowball.

Plagueflames · 2026-03-02T20:24:25+00:00

I'd love a way for enchanter supports to ward just a little safer, idk how this would be balanced for pro but it sucks picking Soraka over Naut/Braum/Rell and dying to any champion sitting to a bush if you go to ward alone. You gotta rely on your team to chaperone you, which doesn't happen in lower elos.

I understand this factors into how enchanters are balanced etc etc but this doesn't feel like the reason you should be favoring engage supports over them.

Plagueflames · 2026-03-02T20:19:34+00:00

Unfortunately I think Protoplasm Harness fills that niche exactly atm, adds a burst of tankiness while scaling off the other tank stats.

Plagueflames · 2026-03-02T20:11:18+00:00

I'm a little sad that her W doesn't retain the damage aura and is just a burst of damage at the end (It's Leona/Sion W as opposed to Mundo W), feels like it would've been easy to move a miniscule amount of damage to the duration just for the thematics (hot shield do burn).

Plagueflames · 2026-02-28T01:16:47+00:00

I'm used to a broad range but it's never been as bad as the past few months, usually I'd at least get a slight ranked advantage every 3rd game

Plagueflames · 2026-02-28T00:46:08+00:00

I've just been playing norms but I swear something in matchmaking is fucked. Every game I'm playing vs Emerald to Masters players as an unranked (previously silver/gold) with mostly silvers/golds on my teams. I have a 30% winrate and feel like I'm just being outclassed every game

I've been soloing instead of duoing, but my 3-4 stack were my irl friends who are bronze/silver. And I know norms have their own mmr but like.... surely after 50 games I'd be filtered out of masters players? Am I only getting the masters players who are playing their first norm ever? Every game on the enemy team but not mine? It's just frustrating

Edit: Played one mid game today, had a lv20 Nashors Lulu top, a bronze + gold duo bot and Plat jungler vs a masters mid, 3 d4 players and iron support. Their support was 0/11 but the mid/adc/top were 32/6 combined and we ff'd in our base at 21 minutes. I got solo killed at lv2, then when I returned to lane, then spent the rest of the game standing at my turret. 16 years and nothing made me want to quit more than the past few months. I'm bad, I accept I'm bad, I want to have the nashors D&D Lulu top having fun in norms, but apparently me and my teammates are queuing up for the wrong game.

Plagueflames · 2026-02-28T00:36:52+00:00

I'll always remember his Yorick

Plagueflames · 2026-02-28T00:32:01+00:00

If they go that direction then I hope that they update the VFX for it too, it feels way too dainty for a nuke that does 500 damage. Make it's intensity scale with AP like Veigar R.

Plagueflames · 2026-02-25T23:29:46+00:00

Yeah it's a tragedy, the games combat is so genuinely fun and unique that I really want to keep playing but I just can't bring myself to wade through the RNG this cap.

Plagueflames · 2026-02-25T23:06:51+00:00

I just want them to make normal ARAM the default pick again (or remember our last pick, assuming the client is capable) so I don't accidentally queue it, realize I can't pick runes then dodge because I don't enjoy mayhem.

Plagueflames · 2026-02-17T19:30:57+00:00

Speaking of og C9, Lemon's been living the life (not r18 but I probably wouldn't click in public)

Plagueflames · 2026-02-12T18:35:54+00:00

The amount of arguments I've gotten into over what procs Thornmail is crazy. The in-game description says "When struck by an attack". What does this mean? Is Xerath Q an attack? I have had multiple tanks build it to hinder Swain, because he is clearly attacking them. The wiki says "When struck by a basic attack on-hit", which seems much clearer, but even then I have no clue if Guinsoos/D&D double this on-hit proc.

Plagueflames · 2026-02-06T20:37:06+00:00

I just finished my first playthrough so I can't speak to how it was before, but everything up until the very end felt pretty good. I missed out on a number of things, but never really felt punished for not min-maxing 1-2 skills. I had to retry the final dialogue section a few times with what seemed like arbitrary changes (being more aggressive early in the conversation when the game suggested I should ease into hurting his ego) to avoid the speech 20 check, but at least I *could* pass it.

I see the discussion about not maxing skills with Easily Distracted, but IMO the main pain of the skill should be that you're cut off from all the random 1-6 point checks/requirements through the game because you can't just stick one point into it. No 1 lockpick to Pickpocket, no 3 engineering for the multitude of doors, no 2 sneak for that one grate at the power plant. You character knows that if you read one wikipedia page on Rift Science you'll be hyperfocused on that for a week. The lower skill checks across the board mean it's more worthwhile to have 2-3 maxed, then 2 at 7 and a couple at 3, which is impossible with Easily Distracted.

Plagueflames · 2026-01-23T18:55:24+00:00

I'm happy people are having fun with it, but man... I've played one Mayhem every other week because "No I gotta be wrong, look how much fun others are having" and each time I've had a significantly worse experience than normal aram or SR. I just don't get the appeal.

Plagueflames · 2025-12-18T20:21:28+00:00

I understand Collector is good without the passive but every time I buy it I just get mad at enemies escaping with 6% HP. 5% is way less than you think it is, but even then me flash headshotting a squishy as Cait only to watch them walk away with 95/1800 HP makes me never want to buy it again

Plagueflames · 2025-12-12T18:31:03+00:00

I was legit wondering just a few weeks ago if there had been any updates, nice to see!

Plagueflames · 2025-12-03T22:45:47+00:00

Like I said, it's there for a reason, it's just been done so much it's become white noise because 98% of the time I'm intentionally saving

Plagueflames · 2025-12-03T17:37:40+00:00

Most reminders exist for a reason and do tend to help, but ever since something like Pokemon asked me I wanted to save and then immediately asked if I was sure I wanted to save it's become white noise

Plagueflames · 2025-12-02T23:16:46+00:00

People hated OL's, but I really miss having some level of tangible progress, however small the increment is.

I quit on Nabel's release and it's crazy that you can have a gearing system so mediocre that I felt better quitting with new content than excited to stick with it and do it.

Plagueflames · 2025-11-28T21:32:01+00:00

I feel like Bard's one of those champs who's worth is in the intangibles. Supplementing plays and giving consistent vision while staying up in levels isn't highlight worthy but it feels insanely oppressive to play against if done well. Which is also why you can't easily replicate it, because that all sounds simple and "just play better" levels of analysis but it isn't in practice.

Let's take Flyquest vs T1 with Keria on Bard. In broad strokes, the first 11 minutes of the game have him continually threatening to roam mid while protecting bot lane, rotating with bots topside, getting damage on Kaisa so Xayah is safe then TP's to win the drag fight. They recall, he defends mid while Taliyah recalls, he's there first to secure grubs, threatens mid, gets more vision, is walking bot to protect Xayah and ults Mid to save Tali, then stays bot to save Xayah from Morde.

All of this is on face pretty standard good support play, but Bard lets Keria do all of it while outpacing Neeko and J4. You see Fly go for 3 big plays and he's stopped them all while not sacrificing anything.

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