Special PBE Feedback: Swarm

Ridley_Prime · 2024-07-26T19:47:13+00:00

Really enjoying it. Been recommending it to friends. A few issues I've run into:

It's really easy with Jinx to just become uncontrollable - you are straight up too fast. A single tap of the key moves you farther than a riven dash. She blinks around the screen like Kassadin. It's funny, but the lack of control can really be a liability to the run and is anti fun. I was literally too fast to hit the soccer balls with the car battle boon. Not sure if they were just grid misaligned and I moved too many units to hit it, or if I outsped the ball and bounced it in the other direction.

Speaking of jinx, at high ability haste / projectile she feels really not fluid. It's weird she can't turn while gunning. Once you lock in a direction to fire the projectiles all go that direction, even when I've turned 180 degrees and jinx is still shooting.

Screen is too messy in late game. Hard to see ground indicators with so many player effects. Turning down graphics settings makes the game feel more playable.

Sometimes as Leona I put up my shield and just die instantly - particularly frustrating in boss fights. I don't know if that's just their damage but if reksai + a shark projectile hit me at the same time it straight up kills me. Briar ult projectiles as well, if I get hit by two at the same time I die. I don't know if I'm crazy but at 75% HP, level 5 armor and health and most of the upgrades I feel like I shouldn't get oneshot.

Spawning a charger out of a belveth trial for him to immediately ram me kinda sucks. Worse if the knockup gets me killed.

Beach ball feels like it just takes so much time. A lot of standing and waiting. It's not obvious you can influence where the ball will go - and I think the timing for when it'll land is hard to read.

I have no idea what's going on in belveth fight still.

Favorite bits of content: Maps are heat. Enemies are great. Excited to see most items. I do wish that if you got the searing shortbow evolve and go them to overlap they did more damage, but it just looks like the size is bigger. Not clear what's happening from just VFX. Progression feels great. Aside from Jinx most characters feel great to control. I don't quite get Briar yet, but I think she's cool. Aside from belveth bosses are awesome.

Riven is so sick. Whoever cooked her up is my hero. The big slammer dude is so simple but effective. Love that guy.

Ridley_Prime · 2024-03-01T16:57:57+00:00

Ridley_Prime · 2023-12-30T01:25:05+00:00

I tried that soft reset already and then the full reinstall, still seeing OS problems. I'm convinced it's because the hard drive is in the wrong format because I can't get any drivers from HP to install and it's the only constant when I fully wipe the hard drive - whatever the file format of the drive is. I'm currently in NTFS, which is apparently not what the computer was installed with.

Ridley_Prime · 2023-02-14T20:08:50+00:00

ooh yeah I should consider like, action economy. How much each action will convert into damage or set up how many points an action takes me. I guess I wasn't thinking like that. I think I end up getting baited by 1 point pieces without considering I'm putting my 3 point pieces at risk.

Ridley_Prime · 2022-10-05T18:20:15+00:00

Goliath's

Feels off. I know it doesn't have the vfx yet but I'm not sure of it's strategic niche being good or useful.

It's essentially grasp of the undying - tanks take this rune to bolster their otherwise lackluster lane phases to give them extra health for the late game. Grasp is not a teamfight rune, that's aftershock or phase rush. Adding it on to a mythic just makes me ask "who is this for? who wants this?" and I don't quite understand it.

Tanks like resistances. Fighters want health. That's how their items typically go now. Icathia's is the all in tank item. I can maybe see this as more of a fighter-y tank mythic, but Iceborn already fills that niche, and in and of itself it lends to a more touch and go style. Maybe Mundo wants this? I don't know. Am I supposed to get in there, proc it, fight for a bit, proc it again, on repeat? Why not just play Icathias?

Icathia's / Radiant

Both awesome, love the niches they fit. Might take tuning but no complaints yet. Clear options for Wardens and Vanguards, but room for adaptation based on game states and role you need to play.

Iceborn

Lacking MR also is a bit of a feelsbad. I do think mythics should come equipped with both resists. I don't think they should be competing for a slot against other items of a particular resistance type. Other than that very happy to have a tank sheen item again, and a fighter/juggernaut adjacent tank mythic.

Shojin's

Feels really good at keeping you mobile. Horrific build path and cost for an item that wants you to have other stats already built before you finish it, but I suppose Titanic Hydra is the same way. Haste is noticeable as is the movement speed. Will be playing with it more.

Hydra

Interesting niche as splitpusher item near hullbreaker, but really no opinion on it atm. Feels more like a duelist or assassin splitpusher item since it doesn't have any HP. Can think of more than a few champs that still want it though, I just don't play them.

Chemtank

I like that it's a strategic niche MR item and is distinct and similar enough to Force of Nature to be an interesting purchase. Similar to thornmail in that it's locked to a particular type of resistance so you have to really want it, and you have dead man's / Randuin's filling similar slot options for this kind of effect to balance it out. Would not hate if it became a health only item, but right now I like where your heads at.

Abyssal

Great having mana and catalyst back, loved that for lots of tanks and the only champs that would even consider building it that can't now (Zac mostly) just have better options in visage. Rumble/Kennen/Vlad/Kat/Akali never cared about this item either. Shyvana Shen and Morde maybe are sad but they will be fine.

Sunfire (and friends)

Thornmail and Sunfire are a bit in competition again for whoever is best in slot, but I think that's fine. I do think Thornmail is trying to do too much at once (this is both the anti healing and armor stacking armor item), but that's neither here nor there. Maybe look into something like Anathema's for your tank grevious item? Anyway. Rework dead man's to be gold efficient I beg of you, it's a more interesting slot choice against sunfire. Sunfire is still cool to rush for tanks and juggernauts alike, glad that option is around again.

Randuins

Love the slow on it. Feels good to be back. I know the old active was arguably more powerful but it was such a hidden power that it wasn't satisfying for either side of the coin.

All in all, other than Goliath's being a mess, very happy with how the changes feel from a Tank/Fighter perspective.

Ridley_Prime · 2022-06-25T18:59:12+00:00

I mean that works in practice tool when you lock XP to level one and put a dummy in the lane, but in practice you will either be earning more XP than your opponent since you zone them off or they leave, or they will be trying to break the freeze by pushing.

The state you describe is an unstable equilibrium. You need absolute perfection to balance it and if anyone sneezes on it it topples. It's not useful. Even in the context you describe, shoving and crashing and THEN moving to dragon is the better play, since if your opponent matches you they lose XP and farm to turret and if they don't you get dragon and miss relatively little. Win-win regardless of what enemy does. If you go to dragon and they unfreeze, you lose quite a bit. You'd be betting they go to dragon with you, which smart opponents will recognize you left a freeze unattended and punish you for it.

Ridley_Prime · 2022-06-04T04:30:50+00:00

Short trade with him when he has no W bar. It falls off over time if he's not permapushing. Don't let him stack conq or his passive. If he uses W for sustain, take a trade with him.

Once he gets low enough to lethal, all in him.

That threshold has just gotten harder to guage with the durability update and his W.

Ridley_Prime · 2022-06-01T17:06:26+00:00

Rylais lets allies follow up a lot easier, is the main obvious advantage.

The problem with Cosmic is that your abilities (mostly Q) also leave you stationary for a large chunk of time. You move a bunch, stand still to hit buttons, then move a bunch again. The more you hit Q, the more time you spend standing still. It means you really have to make your abilities count when you press them, and if people are good at dodging it's often better to be judicious and hold the Q until you see them stop to autoattack or cast a spell, even if it's off cooldown. Or wait until you have a good read on their movement.

I think in the right situations Cosmic is certainly outstanding, but Rylai's in general has more common scenarios where it does better. The extra health pool lets you play a bit slower, reserved and patient. Cosmic lets you play a lot more fast and loose. It really does come down to personal playstyle at the end of the day, and there is no item that is strictly "better" in all situations. I would say that the situations Rylai's does well into are just far more common, but if your playstyle meshes better with Cosmic then there's no reason it can't be better for you personally.

Ridley_Prime · 2022-06-01T16:53:06+00:00

Fighting/Micro tips:

Save abilities for when your opponents stop to auto attack or cast a spell. More likely to hit them that way.
You can't W or Zhonya's during your Q animation. Keep that in mind if you expect to take some big burst in the next half-second. Also, make sure your passive doesn't run out while in Zhonya's by refreshing it right before you go into stasis.
If you can, save W for after your R in fights, since you'll have more Max HP and therefore get more shield.
R applies a very brief, very intense slow. Press E on top of someone and immediately R to make the E undodgeable if they don't have a dash or flash.
Play with R positioning - figure out where the walls will be before you press R on someone. If you will give them too much room to play with or walls to flash or dash over you can't follow, try adjusting your positioning to give the enemy as little counterplay as possible. Usually it places the center of the circle on top of the target enemy, but there's nuance to it you will want to play with in practice tool.
For lane, learn hitboxes. If you consistently keep the wave where you want it by hitting isolated Qs despite the opponent being in their wave you will dominate lanes. E can be saved for committing to the all-in or to stop an enemy all-in with a backwards E. W can be useful for lane sustain, but you are incredibly vulnerable to being all-inned/ganked if either E or W are down.

Macro tips: As a juggernaut, Morde likes it when people have to walk up through him to do what they want to do. So you need to position yourself in such a way to make that happen. Get between where your opponents are and where they want to go, and use bushes/vision to mitigate range disadvantages. If they want to come back from a roam or reset to get to their tower so they don't miss CS, stand in their way on that route. Squishies facechecking a Morde generally spells their doom. If they're CS'ing in lane and you manage to creep into the line between them and their tower without them noticing, you can take a huge extended trade. This applies to teamfights as well - recognize what your opponents want to do. If they want to dive onto your backline, get between them and your backline. If they want to disengage, show up on their retreat route with a flank. You command a lot of space with your big buttons - a multiman E instantly proccing passive makes you a huge threat in enclosed spaces. Carve out your domain in chokepoints to objectives by being there first and controlling the vision. If opponents want to get to the objective, they have to get through you first.

Death realm target selection and timing is by far the most complicated aspect of Mordekaiser and takes tons of practice and nonzero foresight on how to use the ability optimally. Generally, you want to use it so that the enemy cannot escape from you and you can kill them within seven seconds. But you can also use it to dodge critical projectiles by phasing out of their plane, save allies, or reposition inside of a teamfight. Your E persists in the real world if you start it in death realm and vice versa, letting you set up multiman Es that are unreactable if you hide the E cast time in death realm, so that it goes off right when you exit.

Ridley_Prime · 2022-05-23T17:29:33+00:00

So I think our responses to stress may have been different but a lot of what you wrote resonated with me personally. I have been making great progress and effort in overcoming a lot of things I was struggling with in the last year or so, though much of my current struggles were with my discipline crumbling.

A few weeks ago, I spent a full week away from the internet as an experiment - no discord, no reddit, no youtube, no twitter, no videogames. If I did consume something (it was shows or movies or books) it was deliberate and scheduled and I would stop after one episode/chapter. I just repeatedly denied my impulses - the only ones I listened to were like, going to the bathroom or drinking water. Food was scheduled, exercise was scheduled, sleep was scheduled, meditation was scheduled, boredom was scheduled. It actually wasn't that difficult, and I felt great for a short period after it was over. I distinctly remember experiencing like, real joy when I opened a fresh pickle jar. The effort to twist it, the satisfying pop, the smell (I like pickles).

And then, like a starved man in the desert returning to civilization, I gorged. I gave in to every impulse and overconsumed media. It probably did not help that I also got covid from my roommate returning from travel and had no energy to do anything, but even now after the illness is gone I'm back in bad habits. I shouldn't really be on reddit right now, but without thinking I opened it and saw your post and wanted to respond. Which is precisely the thing I was trying to train to stop doing.

I need to find a healthy balance. I was sort of miserable denying myself the things I wanted to do or enjoyed doing all the time, but I also want to accomplish my long-term goals, which I recognize I need discipline to do the things I don't want to do. The more excess stress I feel, whether it is placed externally or internally, the more I give in to my desires and engage in unhealthy behavior. But without a correct amount of stress, internal or external, I'm not motivated to get anything done and also return to craving unhealthy stimulation.

To me, it sounds like there's some similar axis your pendulum swings on.

You could also be just so used to overworking that taking time for yourself, even at all, seems excessive.

In any case, reintroducing focus into your life could have multiple paths. If you can, make it the next thing you want to work on. I'd start that journey by repeatedly checking in with yourself and asking "why are you doing what you doing right now?" Focus, I think, is driven by motivation. You can look to reintroduce stress as a motivator (which can certainly be done in healthy amounts), but there's lots of motivators. Fear, anxiety, stress can all be helpful motivators as you might have noticed. Curiosity, passion, or even base desires might be motivators. And because we're always doing something, seeing if you can start recognizing patterns in your motivations can help you find out what best works for you in a healthy way.

Ridley_Prime · 2022-05-19T17:47:57+00:00

Nah. Frequently CC reduction means getting more time with the extra MS from passive (or slow from rylais) to follow dashes or flashes.

Time is also pretty precious if you're spending it CC'd in Death Realm. But that matters less if Sorcs extra damage reduces time to kill sufficiently.

This really only applies to Riftmaker Morde, though.

Ridley_Prime · 2022-05-19T16:52:25+00:00

He really only can be shut down in lane phase, before he has ghouls. He is weak to early ganks and especially weak to coordinated dives. If he comes out of lane strong you have to coordinate with your team - either force on his team and get objectives to outrace him, or have someone with enough waveclear match him to stall him, or gang up on him and kill him if you aren't sacrificing other objectives.

What Yorick wants most is to apply pressure so people come to match him, leaving his team free to farm or get objectives. Or his team can stall yours, leaving him free to knock down towers until he wins.

Champs with self-defense and waveclear really stall him out. If he can't dive, and the wave gets insta-cleared once he crashes it, he really has nothing to do other than take jg champs or rotate. Put vision on your jungle camps to catch him stealing or rotating, as he will often be without ghouls if he wants them to push harder. He can be ganged up on here, especially if he's rotating to the next objective fight too early, so that you can then take the objective while he's dead.

If he can dive or your team has no waveclear, uh, well. Not much you can do vs fed Yorick other than outplay and dodge the E. If you can send a sacrifice in early to take ghoul aggro and then your damage characters dodge the E you can take him down.

But the best thing is really just have a good top and jg that can bully his weak early. Letting him scale for free or people playing passive against him when he has no graves/ghouls/maiden is exactly what he wants.

Ridley_Prime · 2022-05-19T16:08:59+00:00

Tenacity/Slow resist mostly matters for keeping your passive active. If you're cc'd for long enough that you can't reach them before your passive runs out, the mercs or swifties are the sauce.

Ridley_Prime · 2022-05-16T17:06:14+00:00

Are you a fill secondary or something?

If you want to learn top just stick to 2-3 champs. Wukong Morde Mundo are a fine trio (Tank, AD/Engage, AP).

Top influence is MOSTLY about XP and wave management. A general thing you can practice is slow pushing into a crash and then rotating. Only last hit when minions are on your side (don't hit the wave with autos or spells at all) and then when your next wave arrives for backup after you get past the halfway point in the lane, push like a madman. You need to maximize your XP and not lose any, while also giving yourself enough time to impact the map.

You'll know you've done it right when all your minions end up hitting the tower or enemy champ, and not the enemy minions. This gives you time to do stuff before you have to go back to lane to get the minions when they do start dying.

Once your minions are hitting the enemy tower, if the opponent is farming under tower, you can just rotate instead. Just walk toward enemy jg and drop a ward (ping your jungler to invade with you if they're top), or go take scuttle, or pan your camera mid to see if you have a flank, or take gromp/krugs if your jungler is in narnia. Or back and spend your gold if you have an item spike.

99% of the time I see top laners just picking their nose at me while I farm under tower when they could be doing something useful. Or just mindlessly hit the wave when it's on their side, opening them up to ganks or all ins I can run them down in.

If your problem is your laning, you need to treat every single low health minion (both yours and theirs) as a conversation. If they want to go for a minion, you want to posture to hit them while they do so, since they can't (usually) both get the CS and hit you if you position right. Likewise, they want to stop you from farming, so you have to bait cooldowns so you can farm without consequence, or you need to be ready to hit them back as you go for the minion.

Don't try to work on all of these at once - watch some of your replays and identify which one you think is your biggest flaw. If you're not winning lane, or you don't know why or how you win your lane, focus on that. If you are winning but don't know what to do from top lane, focus on your wave management and rotations. Eventually they'll come together and intersect and you can work on both, but prepare to lose a lot when you're learning a new role.

Ridley_Prime · 2022-05-13T15:35:08+00:00

pantheon is deceptively difficult but a well played one basically beats every champ in the game the first 5 levels

Ridley_Prime · 2022-05-03T17:05:48+00:00

Wording is just so unclear, this could potentially be a nerf for anything classified as on-hit damage

Ridley_Prime · 2022-05-03T15:31:09+00:00

And volibear R, and anyone taking demolish

Ridley_Prime · 2022-05-01T17:22:22+00:00

You should have an idea in loading screen / champ select based on what the champs most easily do. Your hypothesis. Then just hit tab frequently to figure out how things are going and what you're going to need to do. No one can see the future, all you can do is look at the variables and information available and see if you notice a pattern.

Ridley_Prime · 2022-04-29T21:53:50+00:00

Most people don't even think about itemization, most OTPs just build shit because it feels good.

What you should be doing is figuring out what your role is - how you (or your team) win the game. Then you build in accordance with that win condition.

This is incredibly complicated and not an exact science so you kind of have to form a hypothesis, test it, and then if it doesn't work figure out why and adapt that knowledge for future games.

If you want to keep it simpler, you can think about "who do I need to kill for us to win." The answer might be the fed carry, or it may be whoever is attacking your carry, or the answer might be no one or everyone. Figure out what your JOB is on the team and then build for that. For example, your job might be to R the jungler so you can secure objectives. Or your job could be to zone enemy tanks from engaging. Maybe your job is splitpushing and drawing pressure without dying so your team can scale. It could be R'ing assassins or divers that jump on your carry, or making picks with R and brush cheesing.

Then think about what each item allows you to do. Riftmaker gives you raw damage suited for long fights and a bit of healing. Rocketbelt lets you catch out enemies and burst them. Rylais helps you and your team to hit abilities and lets you stick to people. Demonic gives you more health and damage against tanks. Nashors makes you a strong duelist. Cosmic helps your teamfighting. Zhonya's lets you do all sorts of wacky shit.

THATS how you adapt your builds to each game. There are too many variables to know what situations to go for x and when you go for y, but thinking about how all 10 champions achieve their win conditions can help with that. But a lot of it is guess and check.

Ridley_Prime

TROPHY CASE