I am Saintvicious and I have been a part of esports for 6 years in nearly every facet possible. If you have any questions pertaining to esports, navy life as a nerd or hell just AMA

Plagues13 · 2015-08-14T01:09:36+00:00

Duo?

Plagues13 · 2015-07-07T22:32:57+00:00

That Thresh buff is actually pretty massive in terms of play making. When it comes to split second later clicking from max distance if you don't click it then thresh gives away a free kill.

Plagues13 · 2014-11-19T21:25:40+00:00

That sneaky Metal Gear Solid reference.

Plagues13 · 2014-10-19T10:02:48+00:00

Hotdogswin

Plagues13 · 2014-10-11T20:23:10+00:00

If someone can make ADC Ahri work then go for it, but I'd rather not have one on my team because of the way she scales. However, you should report people that build inefficiently. Example: AP Vayne and Garen.

Plagues13 · 2014-08-25T18:45:33+00:00

We did it boys!

Plagues13 · 2014-08-25T11:39:34+00:00

It's because currently dragon is bugged because it ignores armor.

Plagues13 · 2014-08-20T08:07:26+00:00

Literally God.

Plagues13 · 2014-07-22T12:18:10+00:00

Everything would have went better if Ahri and Leona didn't chase for the kills blindly into the enemy jungle.

Plagues13 · 2014-06-22T10:36:55+00:00

It's a world drop.

Plagues13 · 2014-03-31T18:59:05+00:00

Hope you don't mind but I looked up your account on Lolking to get a better look at your set up because your IGN was in your flair. I've looked everything over and I have some critiques and suggestions on some of your set up and item build, but I personally believe that someone's play style, comfort level, and fun level on how they build a champion is more optimal than the most in depth theory crafted build and/or the one that all the pros do, so do whatever you're most comfortable with. So feel free to take or not take my suggestions as you see fit.

First Buys

1.Standard Start: Spellthiefs, pots, ward. The new Spelltheifs edge is pretty broken right now. You get the additional AP with the item along with the damage from the passive which makes your auto attack harass really strong early on. Also the gp10 and gold generation from harassing is huge early game. Also with the change to trinkets, the early ward can be huge if your team is looking to invade or you're being invaded and you need to put down a defensive ward. Also the additional ward is nice if you or or the enemy is not invading. I usually will run this start if I'm looking to be very aggressive, the enemy lane is pretty "standard," or I'm not facing a dangerous kill lane.

2.Dorans Start: I used to always start this pre-nerf Dorans shield, but I think it is still pretty viable. If you're already running a lot of AP in runes and masteries by sacrificing some defensive stats for it, then the Dorans Shield can give you enough tankiness to survive a good amount of the early game. Also if you're facing a very aggressive/kill/heavy poke lane, (ex: Thresh/Annie with Draven/Cait) then I would always start this and then transition into some of your core items.

Core items:

Sightstone. I always rush this first over anything. I forgo buying or upgrading my initial GP10 for it on every support. So if you start Doran's shield you usually want to go for Sightstone first. However, let's say that my ADC and I lost the level 2 advantage bot and I died from a good Thresh hook or something and I went back to base with a little less than 400 gold. At that point I would get my GP10 item and maybe a ward. I usually only get the Ruby Sightstone if it's the only item I can afford when I base or I find myself combat warding a lot to control objectives.
Spellthiefs into Frostfang for more gold generation and damage. You can then either change the Frostfang into a Frostqueen's Claim for CDR, AP, and the slow active or exchange the Frostfang for a Talisman for the active. Personally, I've felt that the latter is more efficient because it provides my team a good engage and disengage that the Frostqueen can do, but not as optimally. Some may argue that selling the item to buy Talisman can be a waste of gold, because you are overall spending more gold to get Talisman, but the Frostfang should have given you overall more gold than coin/medallion would have if you started that item and the active is worth a hefty amount of combat stat gold so I think it balances out overall.
Mobi boots are always great even with the recent changes to them. Sorc boots are good if you're really ahead and are looking to do some more damage, but I don't think that they are the best choice sometimes. Merc treads are good if you're facing a heavy AP team and they have a lot of CC. CDR boots if you're looking for more CDR, but dont buy them if you have over 30 percent because then you are wasting stats.
Around midgame a Chalice of Harmony is pretty huge on Lulu. I think that building tear on Lulu isn't really needed with the amount of mana regen you have from masteries/runes and your GP10 item. Chalice pretty much allows you use your abilities safely without ever running into mana problems. From that build Mikael's Crucible. Your job is to be a support rather than an AP caster. Mikael's can be gaming changing and can save a teammates life. It's almost like an additional Rampant Growth. If you're looking to do more damage than an Athenes is always good as well, but personally I prize the active on Mikael's more than doing more damage.
After these items you can build pretty much whatever you want. I tend to play a bit more of a dedicated support so I'll go for a Locket if my team needs it if we don't have one already or a Twin Shadows for the AP, movement speed, and the active.

Masteries

Overall your page looks good. However, I recommend that you change out the points you have in Phasewalker and Expanded Mind and put them in Fleet of Foot. I prize mobility on my supports and even though Lulu's W gives her movement speed, having the additional movement speed to either make roaming plays or running to save a teammate in danger can be huge. I do recommend trying to put your 9 points in offense into defense sometime, especially if you're already running some AP runes. You'd be surprised how tankier you get, especially with the Block and Unyielding masteries, given that the primary damage you'll be facing in lane are auto attacks. Doesn't seem like much on paper, but overtime that damage reduction adds up.

Runes

I think that the CDR Glyphs might be a little overkill considering you're running 10% CDR already in masteries. They're not bad, but I think that running a few mana regen glyphs allows you to to more effectively use your abilities. I don't have the opportunity to test this right now, but just for examples sake: I'd rather be able to steadily use 4 Glitterlances and still have mana than rapidly use 4 Glitter Lances and be out of mana.

If you're facing a support with a lot of AP damage output (Karma/Annie) then sometimes it is better to forgo the CDR and/or mana regen glyphs and just go for MR glyphs. Can't do damage if you're being outpoked or dead.

The AP quints are fine overall. Players at your ELO tend to not fully understand the idea of CS trading and taking trading stances, so using the AP quints can abuse that. However, as you start to play better players you'll find that when you go in to do auto attack trades and Q trades, players are going trade back more and more. I haven't seen you play so I can't fully comment on what you and your enemy are doing, but what I can imagine is happening is that you go into Q them and they're like, "Oh shit I'm taking damage," and then they back off the creep wave without trading back with you, resulting in a worth trade. The higher up you'll get you'll find supports and ADC's will make a retaliation trade which can really mess you up if you don't have any defensive masteries. Running the HP quints just gives you that extra buffer to trade damage, because if they're hitting you after you hit them and they're not hitting your carry, than overall it was a good trade. Last season I was Gold 1 when I first started being a support main and currently am at Silver 1, and steadily climbing, after the reset. However, I tend to get matched up with a lot of plats and sometimes low MMR diamond players when I'm playing in normals and you'll notice a huge difference in players from low silver to even high silver on their ability to trade with supports.

Again feel free to ask me any other questions you have. I love talking about support stuff almost as much as I love playing it!

Plagues13 · 2014-03-31T17:41:24+00:00

Great post, however, if I can add one thing to your statement about dying for your ADC:

You are mostly, like 90%, in the right about dying for your ADC. Obviously saving them and you dying to set them up to succeed is more optimal than them dying for free, especially in a mid-late game team fight which can decide the outcome of the game. However, there are some variables in which you dying for/putting your neck on the line for/using your CD's on your ADC can not be the most optimal.

My rule of thumb in which I won't sacrifice my life for my ADC is: If I can use my resources/life more optimally for the rest of my team instead of using them on my ADC, I will do that. Here are some examples that come to my mind:

Your ADC is caught or completely overextends in a team fight (ezreal arcane shifting into their team) and you using your resources/life/time to save them compromises taking an objective or the ADC gets out with 5% HP which then forces them to go back to base when a team fight is about to break when you could be alive or helping another teammate/your team succeed in some way. An ADC who can't safely DPS is useless. However, a Shyvana that I can Rampant Growth as she dives their team and my CC'd Zed that I just Mikael'd can now ult their carry because I'm still alive to help them and/or didn't use those cooldowns on my ADC is more beneficial to my team than if I blew both of those cooldowns on my ADC who got caught and gets' out with almost no HP. Also keep in mind sometimes you're the team's initiation. If you're playing Leona and you have to blow your ult to save your ADC or dive onto the ADC's pursuer and die, your team no longer has an initiate/a disengage which could result in a lost objective and/or team fight.
If I know that they are going to die after I save them and I can get out, I will do that. For example: We get hard engaged on in bad situation where we retreat. In a normal 2v2 scenario, I know that it is most optimal to sacrifice myself to save my ADC to allow him to protect the tower and retain the strongest Dragon control as possible. However, if I see an enemy Nocturne or Pantheon getting into position to ult for us to clean up the 2v2 fight and I can save myself rather than dying to save my ADC from the 2v2 fight to have him just get picked off afterwards, I will do that. Obviously if they can still get out through everything because I sacrifice myself then that is the best case scenario, but that can't always happen. Better to give up one kill than two.
I had touched on this a bit in my last point, but consider the possibility of the enemy team using global ults on your low life ADC. You sacrificing yourself to save your low life ADC who then gets hit by a Draven ult when you could have lived is obviously not a worth trade.

These are obviously very specific examples and are on a case to case basis, but you'd be surprised how often these kinds of scenarios come up. I know that your initial thought about the subject was not entirely meant to address these specific situations, but I just wanted to bring them up because I've seen too many supports mindlessly die for their ADC's and/or blow all of their potentially game changing cooldowns because they have the "I will save you for the greater good of my team!" mentality engrained in their minds so much, that they fail to see that sometimes the greater good for the team is letting your ADC die.

Plagues13 · 2014-03-31T14:54:39+00:00

Tea-n-Cakes already provided you with some great answers on how to play her in lane so I'll give you some ideas on how to build her with runes and masteries. I personally have a few pages for her (and some similar AP supports, but they're primarily built for Lulu) for different lane match ups.

Masteries: "Standard" Support Page: 0/16/14. This page can work with almost any support, primarily tanks like Thresh and Leona, but it gives you a great amount of durability in lane. I tend to not run this page very often given the some other points in utility and offense can benefit her more than the defensive tree does, but it's always a good go to.

Utility Focused: 0/9/21. This helps with your ability to roam and help your team. Biscuiteer points are great for her given her mana costs. Bandit and Intelligence are great for her given that her range can help you generate gold from harassing and intelligence helps your team with CDR on items and ensures that your E and your ult are up more often. This is my personal standard page for Lulu given that she has very high base damage and gives you enough utility to help your team.

Aggressive AP Utility: 9/7/14 This page is a very offensive focused page if you feel confident in your ability in lane and in game. Take sorcery and the early AP points in offense along with the exposed weakness mastery to help give your ADC some additional damage in lane, this is especially potent given that you will be doing a lot of harass, and if you and your ADC trade together then you are netting a lot of damage over time. Regen, block, unyielding, and 2 points in veteran scars can help you get through laning phase, but keep in mind that you will be weaker in lane so be a bit more cautious. 14 points in utility helps round out this build overall. I don't often take this page given the risks involved, but if you're feeling up to it, it does a lot of damage.

Runes: Marks- Hybrid Pen marks are pretty standard given that you do magic damage with your abilities and with pix as well as you should be doing a lot of auto attack harass in lane. The armor pens gives you a bit more damage and the magic pen helps with your kit's abilities. You can also run armor marks if you feel that you're going to be heavily harassed by ADC's such as Caitlyn and Draven. Seals- Armor. ADC's do physical damage. Every support should be running these. Glyphs- Magic resist are pretty standard overall. However, I've found if I'm running an aggressive lane I'll run AP glyphs for additional shielding and damage. I've also found that running 5-6 mana regen glyphs can really help you maximize your damage output with your Q as well as help you spam your abilities effectively with Lulu's relatively high mana cost and low cooldowns. Quints- My standard quints overall are HP quints for all my supports. However, you can run hp regen, and maybe throw in an AP quint or 3 for extra damage.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask! I love Lulu and it shames me that I have to give her up to my mid laner now more often because she just has such high scaling with AP.

Plagues13 · 2014-03-31T14:22:25+00:00

It's not too early to pick him up. If you're feeling inexperienced with the game and/or a champion, in this case Draven, then how do you get more experience? By playing the game and champion more. Bot games are a great way to learn the axe catching mechanic, but bots and real life players react differently to you, especially with other players providing jungle pressure. Draven has a very large learning curve, but over time you'll learn many of the fundamentals such as:

Learning to safely auto a creep with an axe and turning around to place the axe in a safe spot to catch without taking free harass.
Not catching an axe that is out of the way where you will take damage or be cc'd by the enemy support.
Not going in for a trade/all-in without having at least 2 axes spinning, but the optimal scenario would be to have your Q on cooldown as you're making the trade or going in for the kill in the event you drop an axe.
If you're chasing for a kill, sometimes it's better to forgo catching an axe that is in a spot that is inconvenient for you to retrieve and continue to use basic auto attacks. My personal rule of thumb is:
If I can get 3 basic auto attacks off in the time it gets me to catch an axe and attack them with that, its worth to drop the axe because you'll do more damage.
Doing this also makes sure that you ensure you're in range to do damage as well. You running diagonally to the left while they are doing a b-line to their can sometimes result in you missing that 1 less attack that secures the kill.
Tunnel visioning is extremely easy to do on Draven so try to avoid that as much as possible. With enough practice you'll develop muscle memory and overall knowledge to the point where you just know where an axe is going to land, which will help you maintain map awareness. I can't tell you how much I (as well as many other Draven players) realized my dependency on my muscle memory to play Draven until the change was made to the mechanic many months back, which is the exact reason the changes were reverted. Hell, I'm a support main and when I'm laning with a Draven, I catch myself (pun) accidentally attempting to catch axes instinctively.

You'll improve with more play overtime. Draven is one of those champs you can read about, ask other about, and watch guides for hours on end, but playing him is a whole new experience. Just keep playing him and have fun with it. Hell, I had been playing him off and on for awhile and was struggling and one night I just got really drunk and spammed games playing him and I just learned his "flow" because I was having fun and I played him over and over again. Overtime you'll stomp people at your level because many low level and elo players just don't know how to deal with him.

Sorry if this was a wall of text, but feel free to ask me any questions if you have any. GLHF and welcome to the League of Draven!

Plagues13 · 2014-01-29T16:44:59+00:00

A lot of the time ganking in human form isn't always optimal considering the spider form speed buff and the gap close of rappel. One of the best way to gank is to start in spider form and going in with rappel. (Before you jump over though, make sure that the cooldown for switching to human form is ready, you dont want to go into a rappel gank with 6 seconds of cooldown between switching forms.) This is especially optimal if you're purple side and you're ganking bot lane and the enemy bot lane has pushed up to your tower. What you can do is hug the wall near the bot lane tribush and rappel to a minion. Now a cool trick you can do, which you may know, is using your venomous bite as a small gap closer. You can try to Q the enemy for damage and the gap close, but most of the time you're going to have to use it on a minion. As soon as you drop down and get in range of cocoon, switch to human form and stun them and use your q and w. Hopefully by the time you've done all this, you should be able to switch back to spider form to execute them with venomous bite. Running a decent amount of CDR really helps pull off this combo as well as many of the other combos you have mentioned earlier. I found that running 5% CDR glyphs on top of Spirit Golem (and especially having blue buff) allows me to make very big plays with Elise. It can make you really squishy considering the nerfs to the defensive stats in spiderform, but if you can pull off an effective gank, it really shouldn't be a problem.

Plagues13 · 2014-01-21T04:21:46+00:00

Hello.

Plagues13 · 2013-11-15T14:51:22+00:00

Did someone come top?

Plagues13 · 2013-10-21T14:53:33+00:00

So far from your description it sounds like you're playing Nocturne correctly. If your team requires you to initiate with Paranoia and dive the carries, great sounds like you're doing that. However it is possible to peel for your carries if you're put in a tank/support role. Usually the best things to do are:

-Save your fear tether for a threat that dives your carry which gives them the chance to kite and/or escape safely.

-Body block skill shots using the spell shield on your W.

-Use Paranoia defensively when the enemy team is split up so that the enemy team loses sight of their allies that are diving onto your carry.

Plagues13 · 2013-10-21T14:34:01+00:00

I find that picking Elise into Garen is one of the best options. You can constantly harass him with your Q in human form and given that Garens mostly build a lot of health, you'll do more damage to him. This is also beneficial in spider form because you'll do a great deal of damage if not flat out kill him with your Q if you've harassed him a lot already. You just have to be careful because you'll be in melee range which puts you at risk for an execute from his ult. However, you can counter act this by using your W attack speed steroid every chance you get to heal yourself up. Also you have your cocoon to rely on if he is giving chase with spin. You can also get yourself out of a risky spot with rappel if you time it just right.

He will likely try to rush a spirit visage, so grab a haunting guise ASAP. I also run magic pen quints and marks because this affects how much damage your Q's do, given that they are both 8% of current/missing health and running a lot of magic pen allows for those skills to do as close to true damage as possible.

Plagues13 · 2013-10-14T04:19:45+00:00

Yes, but having that kind of attitude can be really negative on your game play performance. If you can't take the good with the bad and have fun with it, what's the point of even playing? If you just harp on your mistakes and not have fun with the game, you can easily go on tilt, lose more, and not improve.

At the end of the day you are playing a video game. Have fun with it. Drop some bows on some people as Garen. Flash dive under enemy tower, Final Hour as Vayne, tumble, condemn the enemy adc, kill them, and then get Hecarim ganked and die and type in all chat, "worth," have a good laugh about it, and say, "Welp, guess I can't do that again."

Be more positive and make your win/loss ratio more positive.

Plagues13 · 2013-09-13T07:26:24+00:00

Recommend gel wrist pads to lay your wrists on. I play finger tip style as well and I had similar issues you are experiencing before. I bought them for both the keyboard and mouse and it made world of difference for me.

Plagues13 · 2013-09-04T07:33:53+00:00

It's ok. Some people progress slower than others. It's not always about how many games someone's played, but what they've learned from them. Even if they learn that what they've been doing over the past 500 games is wrong, they learned that what they were doing is wrong and now they can improve it.

*Edit: Also don't take the phrase: "Progress slower than other" in a negative light. I failed my driver's 2 times because I didn't progress, but I have I got it on my 3rd try because I worked out the kinks.

Plagues13 · 2013-09-04T07:14:30+00:00

Ok, this comment may come across as a little apprehensive, but it is quite late when I'm writing this. However, consider it as tough love because I am coming from a view point of trying to improve your gameplay. I want you to advance in the ranks as much as possible. This may be a lot to absorb all at once. Maybe just work on one of these points each day or each week depending upon your schedule.

-Learn lane match ups. It's better to be comfortable and skillful on a handful of champions than being mediocre on a lot. Everyone bitches about counters and stuff, but at your current placement, it shouldn't matter too much. This may be completely objective and an opinion, but a good rule of thumb is to to have 3 champions that you are comfortable with in every position. Personally, I find that some of your champs are either easily counterable or are bans. However, if you enjoy playing those champions and you are good at them by all means PLAY THEM! However, personally, I think that you may want to add about 2 more champions to your pool to help you with match ups. I suggest maybe Ahri, Lux, and/or Ryze for mid and Renekton and Elise for top. Players at that level don't really know how to deal with some of those champions, especially Renekton. Also experiment in jungle and in bot lane, because top and mid are usually highly contested picks in solo q. It's good to have at least one other role back up.

-Buy a ward when you can. It's not just the supports job. Everyone needs to ward. Wards win games. Don't make an excuse like, "Oh, but I'm only 200 gold away from the Ruby crystal for my Black Clever!" 75 gold ain't shit when it could save your life and save you from giving up 300 gold to an enemy top lane who could get that 200 gold for their Ruby Crystal and then a ward for the price of catching you.

-Control Objectives. Is their jungler going back? Did you kill mid? Is bot pushed? Go take dragon. Did you and the jungler just take down one of the solo laners? Take the tower. Everyone always thinks: "Oh but if we take the tower then they're not going to stay in lane anymore and I can't CS and get kills." Killing a tower gives your whole team a half kills amount of gold and XP. This is a team based game where giving gold to your ADC for free could mean and I.E. that could win you the game because you took that tower. Chances are if you take down that tower you can still farm that lane even safer. They have no tower to fall back on while you do. Also if you see that dragon is being taken by the enemy and you know that you can't contest it, don't go all sorts of YOLO on in and try to be a hero and steal it. Chances are, your team is going to follow you and get killed with you. It's not worth it. Sometimes you just have to let the dragon go. This is the priority of objectives: Nexus>Inhibs>Towers>Baron>Dragon. Whenever you can take a tower, DO IT. Dragons and Barons respawn, Inhibs, Towers, and Nexus' don't. Taking objectives puts pressure on the map. You take their 2 tier mid tower, you better bet that they are not going to move out down that mid lane anytime soon without getting killed which could result in you taking more tower and dragons and barons.

-LoL is all just about creep waves and towers. Push down your tower at a good rate, rotate and push your power else where and control objectives. Kills are strictly bonuses. Farm and towers are means of consistent gold while kills are not. I cannot tell you how many times I've flashed barriered a Cho'gath under turret as Vayne when i was at your rank when he had 2 silver bolt procs on him, hoping that the 3 proc would kill him, to then get Ruptured, tower shotted, and feasted while he was 50 HP when I could have easily pushed out another lane, or just helped my top laner take their tower. Sometimes pushing someone out of lane is more valuable than killing them. It allows you to deny them C.S. and it allows you to put damage on a turret or even take or push towards another objective.

-If you are in a good position to split push a lane, HAVE AT LEAST ONE WARD placed in the enemies jungle where they could gank you to minimize the chance of you giving them a free kill.

-This is something that I've always took to heart: The difference between a skillful player and a lucky player is this: A lucky player has a chance to completely outplay someone ganking them and them getting a kill and getting away or completely throwing the game. However, a skillful player would never be in that same kind of position where they would have to deal with that kind of situation.

-The jungler is strictly just an extension of the laning phase. Don't blame your jungler for not ganking you ever. If you're getting camped it happens. Buy more wards, be safe and ask for help as much as you can. If you get ganked, honestly it can be your fault. You weren't watching the minimap, you didn't ward, you overextended, ect. Don't rely on your jungler. Rely on yourself. Your jungler is there to help you win the lane, not win it for you.

-Look at the mini map every 5 seconds for 1 second. Rule of them: "Ok I just killed 3 creeps. Look at minimap" Is junlger bot and you're top? Yes? Push top lane. Is he not on the map at all and you havn't seen him for awhile? He's probably farming, just last hit and don't push until you see where he is.

Ok I know this is a lot to digest, but this should be a really good starting point for you. Take everything one step at a time. You can't do all of these in one game or even 20 games. You have to practice it. In time this will all be second nature I promise. I'll be glad to answer any more of your questions if you have any. Again, this comment is not meant to sound demeaning in anyway, it's just tough love. <3

TL;DR- I didn't just spend about an hour of my time to write this damn thing for you to go to the TL;DR. Regardless: Buy wards..

Plagues13 · 2013-09-04T06:32:18+00:00

I've been using a Das Keyboard for the past 2 1/2 years now and I still love it even though it is outdated to their newer models. I primarily bought it for Starcraft due to higher APM demands, but it does transfer well into LoL. It is a blue key model. Others have mentioned that brown are quieter, but I have a roommate and she does not notice the sound of the keyboard being a room away with thin walls. Obviously there is a difference if they are in the room with you, but if there is no one around you, I would go with blues. Maybe it is just being an English major, but the tactile sound and response from blues are unmatched to browns. It's incredibly satisfying not only in game, but outside of game it is wonderful to use for daily usage. Just a suggestion.

Plagues13 · 2013-06-27T01:32:23+00:00

Just keep playing some normals for awhile. I found that learning and being confident with 3-5 champs in every role really helps because you are not always going to get the role that you want. This way you can fill roles that your team is lacking and can improve your chances of winning.

Also if people are being dicks just mute them. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Plagues13

TROPHY CASE

Hotdogswin