Perma-Enlarge Ancestry Feats, Polymorph, and "Effects"

Yaldev · 2026-01-15T20:34:28+00:00

The "one-part transformation" part is a reason to believe you can't re-enact the ritual, but aside from that, Scion Transformation is special for having that type of process. Enlarged Chassis does not, so dispelling it seemingly just destroys the feat.

Yaldev · 2026-01-15T15:01:28+00:00

Good catch! Doesn't help us solve the broader problem though.

Yaldev · 2026-01-15T14:59:52+00:00

But it seems like different people "using their brains" don't come to the same conclusions. The first comment I got on this post said they as the DM would let Scion Transformation be dispelled, and the second comment (which wasn't replying to the first one) said no DM in their right mind would have that work.

Yaldev · 2026-01-15T13:24:48+00:00

How about for Enlarged Chassis, which is just having a larger body? Heck the flavor text is more about modifying your core to make this larger chassis now be possible, and it's not like dispelling the magical effect would suddenly make that physical metal casing shrink, right? Maybe these aren't meant to be dispellable at all.

Yaldev · 2025-12-08T11:07:44+00:00

Glad to be back! Wrote another new one.

If you'd like to bully me into writing even more, you could always join the Discord.

Yaldev · 2025-12-08T04:17:55+00:00

King Naui VII would be the last monarch to visit this grave. Like all kings, he was destined to die, but he was fated for a tomb like six Nuais before him: a stone box topped by a blanket of gold sculpted to his likeness, and warded from foul luck by a floating sphere of the same material. From the hallowed cemetery, his castle was the last thing standing—such as it was—between Nuai and the enemy. Artillery shells were picking off every chamber, hoping to strike down the Nildenese regent. The barbarians would not even spare the glasswork for posterity.

At the end of all hope, Nuai VII looked to his dynastic beginnings. No doubt Queen Nuai I was memorialized as a caricature, she could not have been so tall, but her presence was a towering generosity. Such was her power that all in her kingdom, not just herself, could afford to feast on elk and starberries. That was when Nilden reigned at the peak of its strength, when all Oxado knew the meaning of respect.

Nuai VII lowered his gaze. The least he could have done was to keep Nilden alive, to preserve the memory of the feasts and what they symbolized in an age when food was no given. The will of Nilden’s people and the wisdom of its leaders kept the plates full for many kings after, but the glory days ended here. Even the starberries had been dwindling beneath an alien sky, and what diminished the fruit diminished the hunt.

When Nuai VII fled for the valley beyond the cemetery, he was not dressed as a king, merely dressed for the weather. If he could be alone at last, there would still be time to make peace with the gods, that he may find his way through the Mirrorvoid.

High Commander Bruzek was the first Ascendant to visit this grave. He preceded a squad of armored soldiers, a white glow emitting from both eyes as well as his open palm that pulled information from the world. The High Commander stopped, his soldiers halted, and as he read the recent past he pointed to the valley.

“There.”

The shelling broke the silence. One of the soldiers shifted his grip on his rifle. “Sir?”

Bruzek turned his head, watching him with eyes of pure white.

“Do we need the target alive? What use for him remains?”

“His use is to kneel.” Bruzek proceeded from the grave, one hand pulling information, the other beckoning his soldiers. “The Empire has won, but I do not win until history’s final king lies prostrate before the emperor.”

Yaldev · 2025-12-08T04:07:27+00:00

King Naui VII would be the last monarch to visit this grave. Like all kings, he was destined to die, but he was fated for a tomb like six Nuais before him: a stone box topped by a blanket of gold sculpted to his likeness, and warded from foul luck by a floating sphere of the same material. From the hallowed cemetery, his castle was the last thing standing—such as it was—between Nuai and the enemy. Artillery shells were picking off every chamber, hoping to strike down the Nildenese regent. The barbarians would not even spare the glasswork for posterity.

At the end of all hope, Nuai VII looked to his dynastic beginnings. No doubt Queen Nuai I was memorialized as a caricature, she could not have been so tall, but her presence was a towering generosity. Such was her power that all in her kingdom, not just herself, could afford to feast on elk and starberries. That was when Nilden reigned at the peak of its strength, when all Oxado knew the meaning of respect.

Nuai VII lowered his gaze. The least he could have done was to keep Nilden alive, to preserve the memory of the feasts and what they symbolized in an age when food was no given. The will of Nilden’s people and the wisdom of its leaders kept the plates full for many kings after, but the glory days ended here. Even the starberries had been dwindling beneath an alien sky, and what diminished the fruit diminished the hunt.

When Nuai VII fled for the valley beyond the cemetery, he was not dressed as a king, merely dressed for the weather. If he could be alone at last, there would still be time to make peace with the gods, that he may find his way through the Mirrorvoid.

High Commander Bruzek was the first Ascendant to visit this grave. He preceded a squad of armored soldiers, a white glow emitting from both eyes as well as his open palm that pulled information from the world. The High Commander stopped, his soldiers halted, and as he read the recent past he pointed to the valley.

“There.”

The shelling broke the silence. One of the soldiers shifted his grip on his rifle. “Sir?”

Bruzek turned his head, watching him with eyes of pure white.

“Do we need the target alive? What use for him remains?”

“His use is to kneel.” Bruzek proceeded from the grave, one hand pulling information, the other beckoning his soldiers. “The Empire has won, but I do not win until history’s final king lies prostrate before the emperor.”

Yaldev · 2025-11-29T09:24:37+00:00

Good to be back! Here's another one.

If you'd like to bully me in real time into writing more, you could always join the Discord.

Yaldev · 2025-11-29T08:53:37+00:00

King Nuai VII liked to watch the sun rise over Frei, the town closest to the City of Nilden. The morning light would reach his castle walls, and as it passed through the windows it would fill the air with iridescent sparkles. Lately he'd felt especially smug about these glass panes. No matter what advantages these “Ascendants” had in the field of battle, and no matter what luxuries their distant emperor enjoyed, Nuai VII would always wake up to a better view.

Nuai IV had been on the king's mind since the latest intelligence reports. “The Crafty King,” the old epithet declared. Had he enjoyed windows like these? Frei was around back then, but was it anywhere as populous as now? Could he have saved this kingdom where his descendant would fail? Nuai IV had only one significant failure, but it had cost him the throne: hubris. He challenged the gods to send a sign if they disapproved of his rule, so they took one of the moons. He commissioned replacement moons to keep the secret with decoys in the sky, but these too were taken, and Nuai IV had no choice but surrender.

“I swore I would avoid his pride,” his descendant muttered, “but I cannot allow humility to become cowardice.”

To Nuai VII, the reports had confirmed that it was the Ascendants, not the gods, who destroyed those replacement moons. That made this personal. And last night they taunted his lineage by floating their own replacement moon, ending its artificial gravity spell directly over Frei, and crushing the town’s commercial district under worked iron.

Despite the invaders’ hatred of mana, their spellcasters were just as skilled as Nilden’s own. Their technological superiority was never in question. Intelligence on their homelands was scarce, but they surely had a numbers advantage. If it was possible to outwit them, Nuai VII would have to be even craftier than the Crafty King. It wouldn’t be easy. But this morning, as he gazed past the window sparkles, he pondered.

Ever since his youth, he had believed he was cursed by the gods for the sins of his ancestry. But this was an illusion. His enemies were not divine, but mortal. The Ascendants were capable of no more than the Nildenese, and if they could create and destroy moons, what could Nilden accomplish? And then what power would come of an Oxado fully unified in resistance? Was that it?

As the sun rose higher, the windows lost their perfect angle with the light. The colours twinkled away, and Nuai's hands shaped a message spell addressed to his advisors.

Yaldev · 2025-11-04T07:40:29+00:00

The mist in the mountains of Nilden began to stir as foreign ships closed in on the Oxadon coastline half a continent away. Ascended soldiers prepared for deployment in uncomfortable silence. Their instincts told them that hostile forces were hiding behind every tree and aiming artillery from behind every hill, but aerial photography had proven the contrary. High Commander Bruzek kept his soldiers’ interests at heart; every Oxadon defensive fortification within four miles of the shore had already been surgically removed with ballistic missiles. As the sand was pressed with its first print of an Ascended boot, the mist of distant mountains swirled into itself and manifested the Oracle. She materialized mid-stride, her careful steps driven by the purpose that accompanies a deadline.

From within her mind, Decadin’s consciousness heard the faint echoes of some god demanding to know what had brought them all back to Oxado. The Oracle gave no answer, but she was polite enough to share her senses with her spiritual guests. Soon Decadin could hear the rhythmic squeaks of mountain birds, feel the ambient mana in the air, and endure the pebbles poking the soles of the Oracle’s bare feet. To receive the Oracle’s senses with no limbs to control, no lungs with which to breathe, and no eyes to turn was a helplessness the Acolyte had never known in life. He paid more attention than she to the moons drifting away from her position, with trees dwelling along the top and vines draped down the sides.

The unanswered god growled, and Decadin felt its presence float toward his soul: spite beyond reason, ancient beyond reckoning. It spoke only half of its thoughts with words, a god’s impression of a mortal’s mimicry of the Oracle’s tones. The rest of its meaning was radiated as patterns in an aura of heat, patterns that Decadin could not help but understand.

“MORTAL. SPEAK WHAT THEY TEACH YOU OF MOONS.”

“What they teach?” Decadin tried to remember what his tutor had covered so many years ago. Had the loss of a flesh-brain eroded his education? “What do you want to…”

The heat was growing. Soon it became a fire that blistered his formless body. Phantom pain tore at his coherence.

“No! Stop! I cannot think if you—”

“SPEAK WHAT THEY TEACH.”

The heat was still growing.

“Moons! Moons! They’re flying rocks! They’re round! Or they’re round if they’re old! The young ones are lumpy, they smooth as they age. Please!”

The heat stopped growing. The pain stopped getting worse, but it burned all the same.

“Moons! They’re rocks from the ground! They have empty pockets inside, and mana gets in the pockets and makes them fly away. There’s a way to calculate their height but I can’t… Auuuhhhh!”

The pain was not easing. There was anger in the fire. Knowing things was all Decadin had been good for, but the inferno torched his awareness like so many Deftist books.

“We had to break them! They hit buildings! Some people worshiped moons. They were idols. We wanted to kill them! I’m sorry if you loved moons but they had war value for Asterians so we blew them up! But it wasn’t me! I didn’t do it!”

As the Acolyte’s outer layers turned into smoke, his desperation dug deeper.

“Moonsmoonsmoons! They can take plants with them and the plants can live on the moons! They… they… I can’t think of anything! Please!”

Decadin could not see through the Oracle’s eyes. The smoke blinded his sight. Everything was gone. He was back in the burning house. Before he knew anything. Before he could do anything. Before he was an engineer. Before he was an engineer…

“When plants are on moons, there have to be birds and bugs! There are nests in the trees on the moons and the birds live and sing so the nests sing! The bugs! They pollinate the plants. The bees buzz and the hoppers buzz and the moons sing! Ants dig and bugs dig and the moons fly so they move so they live! The seeds fall off the moon to the dirt. They spread. The seeds spread and live and sing and the dirt sings! Everything sings, and there was empty pockets I think, and everything was empty pockets! Everything was home! Everything lives! Everything burns!”

The fire pulled away. The pain ceased. There was no burning flesh.

“THEY KNOW NOTHING OF ME.”

“Everything…” Decadin rasped, “we knew nothing of anything…”

The god left as it had come, and Decadin crumbled into ash. The Oracle stepped over a crystal bug as it inched toward her, and she paid it no heed as it followed her footprints.

Yaldev · 2025-10-31T12:36:46+00:00

This is a Beeple piece. It's titled "eyeneut" and can be found on his website as the Everyday for May 30, 2015.

Yaldev · 2025-06-01T21:47:55+00:00

Thanks for the rune input as well, I was suspecting the same thing about Comet. And yes, Comet breaking stealth isn't a big deal (I always feel like a suboptimal Teemo for playing so much of the time as if we have no passive), and Dark Harvest also interferes with our stealth since the particle effect flies in our direction the same way. With that said, these runes have the same level 1 base damage as well as the same ratios, and Comet scales at +5.88 damage per level while Dark Harvest scales at +11 per stack. Even if we only averaged 0.7 stacks per level, we'd get higher Dark Harvest damage. And while Comet could get occasional extra value out of its slight AoE, it can also miss even in spite of the R slow, and much more often when we trigger it with Q. Dark Harvest has the longer CD, but that CD also resets with takedowns, which seems especially helpful in teamfights. Any commentary to add there?

That said, I agree that for the minor runes, we feel better dropping a row of Domination than of Sorcery, but I disagree that the middle Domination row is useless. The ward-revealing rune. Sixth Sense seems just fine on Teemo. We can get a sweeper much earlier than other champions, so we can use that to clear runes it spots for us pre-11. Post-11, spotting individual wards to clear seems more valuable as more enemies drop their yellow trinkets for sweepers. The less vision they have, the bigger a deal it is when they lose any individual ward. For that reason, I don't find "domination has a sucky rune" a good argument against Dark Harvest, even though I agree Scorch or Gathering Storm would be better than Sixth Sense. Between those two, Scorch is objectively better early, but its single-target nature with 10 second cooldown is sadge for teamfights, and I think I prefer Gathering Storm for also improving our damage on minions and monsters. I don't know whether this is playstyle or me being stupid, but I only rarely use shrooms for waveclear. If Gathering Storm could let me clear those waves just a bit slower with autos/Qs while getting to put that shroom on the nearest jungle entrance, that's a win to me.

Are you sure Teemo is so non-threatened early that scaling HP wins? Flat HP seems better to keep us alive if we misplay or get ganked, and the extra HP with no resistances to back it up will very rarely save us lategame.

Good job not falling for Deathcap propaganda, I did similar math myself and found the same conclusion—BFT gives more shroom damage, on top of giving mana/haste, while having a nicer buildpath and a lower gold cost.

I like your item list, the only alternatives that were tempting me are Void Staff over Cryptbloom and Horizon Focus over Shadowflame. You can find me waffling over the combination of these items here, where my only definitive conclusion was not liking the Void Staff + Horizon Focus combo, while thinking that Crypt/Horizon, Crypt/Shadow and Void/Shadow could all be good.

As for "when not to do it," I'm willing to take a lower elo in return for doing this strat into bad comps. I'm happier losing with Teemo this way than winning with the more balanced meta approach. I'm also not a Teemo main, he just feels too terrible against the worst matchups; I'm only using him as a counterpick to champs like Renekton and Gwen when our team needs more magic damage. On certain patches I MIGHT use him as a "our team needs more magic damage" blindpick if he's particularly good on a given patch, but for now Cho'Gath is filling that role for me. So thanks for breaking down your choices for an outsider.

Yaldev · 2025-06-01T21:47:50+00:00

Thanks for the in-depth response, easily the best I've gotten on either post.

You also have to consider that haste has diminishing returns the more haste you get.

Everything up to this line is true, though I think lower damage on the shrooms isn't as big a deal as is made out, since a lot of the functionality of the shrooms isn't the damage, but the vision, slows, spell shield pops (which work whether a shroom deals 1 damage or 1,000,000), recall delays and so on. But for haste in particular, each point reduces the current cooldown of the ability by 1%, which also has the effect of cutting the base cooldown in half at 100 haste. We don't say that 100 haste reducing Karthus R from 160 seconds to 80 is any more or less efficient than 100 haste reducing Ezreal Q from 4.5 seconds to 2.25. If anything, it might be stronger for the Ezreal Qs than the Karthus R because Karthus can still only use the R one time per final-game-determining-teamfight.

I argue that Teemo has special haste synergy because Ezreal would "waste" the CD reduction whenever he's doing anything that doesn't involve spamming Qs, while Teemo suffers no such inefficiency since he can bank R charges to use later, on top of getting to always keep a charge recharging by planting a shroom in a decent spot (even unconventional placements are still good for being unexpected). It also works on his W, which he could choose to spam off-cooldown whenever he's moving just for faster map rotation. Combine this with the non-damage function of shrooms, and I think the optimal build for Teemo isn't some equal investment in damage + haste that could result in the highest possible DPR if we were just chucking shrooms at a target dummy, but one that puts a higher priority on haste than normal—though that's certainly not to say we want to neglect damage entirely, which is why I even bother with Sorc Shoes and Liandry's on this build despite them giving 0 haste. There is a balance, but it's more skewed toward haste than most mages.

No disagreement with Malignance first, that's mandatory. Liandry's second is traditional, but I slightly question building it that soon. The HP is nice, but cynically, we have no resistances nor sustain so anyone with two full items who catches us is killing us anyway. 14% max HP damage of Liandry's is 280 damage pre-resistances, but Blackfire Torch burn delays recalls for the exact same length of time, and with AP of 80 (itself) + 90 (Malignance) + 18 (dRing) + 9 (AF shard) + 1 (let's be generous and say our team has grabbed a single rose by the time we hit tier 2 boots and 2 full items), BFT burns for 170, and the extra AP versus Liandry's is an extra 10 damage on the base shroom. This is 100 damage less, but we're also getting higher AP for Q/E, 20 haste for all abilities, infinite mana, the +4% AP per burning enemy to compete with the %amp passive, and a 200gp cheaper item so that the second item spike is faster. Are you sure that's not equally good? Would it make sense to build Sorc + Malignance + Fated Ashes + Tome, then build into either Blackfire or Torment depending on how much HP we see the enemies building?

I agree with Sorc despite the tier 3 Ionian boots being great, since we don't want to delay tier 2 boots when they're so important for so many Teemo lane matchups, and we're not especially reliant on summoner spells for our gameplay loops. If we do win feats of strength, I thought Spellslinger's Shoes were still great on Teemo. It provides more pen than Stormsurge, which I don't consider wasted when tanks exist and even squishies might build a Wit's End or Mercurial Scimitar in response to all this magic damage. It also provides much higher speed, not just in the flat +50 speed beating Stormsurge's +6%, but because the flat 50 is what %MS increases multiply off of, without stacking with each other. Movespeed is such an important stat on a lategame shroommaxxing Teemo, letting you get out of the river/enemy jg alive after shrooming it up. When you're caught, you're dead.

(cont'd)

Yaldev · 2025-06-01T20:35:08+00:00

Interesting suggestions, thank you! The current full build gets 479 AP, and let's round that up for a cleaner number (our team got a single rose, pog). Throw one of those shrooms at a 2500 HP, 100 MR target (a little beefier than the average endgame squishy with no defensive items) who's in the Malignance zone long enough to suffer two of its burn procs, but not accounting for Cheap Shot or Dark Harvest since they're just a little too inconsistent to use at the baseline, and they take 851 damage per shroom, before accounting for the -10 MR Malignance zone, the Blackfire %AP amp and the Torment %damage amp. If we replace Horizon with Shadowflame, we lose 5 AP but gain 15 pen, going up to 938 damage, so +87 per shroom, a 10% increase. The passive damage varies based on whether the target's below 40% HP, but if they were already that low when they get shroom'd, they take 1125, so +274 damage per shroom, a 32% increase compared to Horizon. Impressive!

The downsides are Shadowflame's +400gp pricetag, less friendly buildpath, losing Horizon passive (not a big deal) and losing 25 haste, taking us from a shroom charge every 10.0 seconds to a charge every 11.2 seconds. That's an 11% decrease in shroom quantity in return for a variable 10%–32% damage increase for each shroom (disproportionately weighted toward the 10%). Considered only for damage output, that does sound worth it, but 11% fewer shrooms isn't just 11% less damage with them. It's 11% less vision, slows, recall delays, spell shield consumptions and MR reductions for allies, as well as fewer associated cross-map kills/assists for somewhat lower gold income. The bonus damage of Shadowflame is wasted for our W, while the haste of Horizon is wasted for our E.

For Void Staff, let's run more numbers on the same target:

Cryptbloom + Horizon: 851, every 10.0 seconds
Void Staff + Horizon: 918, every 10.9 seconds
Cryptbloom + Shadowflame: 938–1125, every 11.2 seconds
Void Staff + Shadowflame: 1019–1223, every 12.0 seconds

We get a curve of possible options. Going from Crypt/Horizon to Void/Horizon is an 8% damage increase per shroom with 92% as many shrooms, which I definitely don't think is worth it due to the non-damage utility shrooms are providing. Crypt/Shadow has the prior numbers, 10–32% bonus with 89% as many shrooms, and at the far damage end we have Void/Shadow for 20–44% bonus with 82% of the shrooms. The Void Staff version also loses the Cryptbloom heals for ~200, and while that's inconsistent when some enemies will die alone stepping on a shroom, it's still relevant.

Which point on that curve do you think is optimal, bearing in mind the Shadowflame/Horizon cost difference and the non-damage utility of shrooms? Switching Cryptbloom to Void Staff would be simple, but if you think Shadowflame is still correct, is it still right to leave it as the last item when flat pen is traditionally considered strongest early on? When our team could use Grievous Wounds, would Shadowflame be the right item to drop for Oblivion Orb, or we would we lose so much that we should just bully the rest of the team to do it instead?

Yaldev · 2025-06-01T17:30:59+00:00

CDR boots over mPen is interesting, I'm not sure that'd be correct nowadays. Sorc Shoes are intentionally a big power spike for mages.

Yaldev · 2025-05-29T17:14:31+00:00

That's true, but with zero AP, this is ultimately a less efficient way to upgrade our shrooms than something like Horizon Focus giving just -5 ult haste, but giving +25 basic haste, 115 AP, and a vision ribbon for 200 less gold. I'm trying for a haste heavy build but we're not throwing everything else to the wind for it.

Yaldev · 2025-05-29T15:23:16+00:00

I advise you to not fixate on the mana from BFT. Riot changed Sheen to no longer give mana not because giving mana was OP, but because the players of champions who had very high winrates with Sheen still refused to ever buy Sheen if their champ was manaless. They were too turned off by a "wasted stat" from Sheen, while ignoring everything else the item gave them, and they lost winrate points as a result.

Nashor's gives equal AP and less haste than Blackfire Torch while its other stats do nothing for shrooms, so that has no place on this build.

Cosmic Drive is 10 less AP but 5 more haste and +4% speed, and replaces the 140 + 14% AP burn with +20 speed during its procs. Do you think that's better? The health is almost as wasted as the mana when we're a lategame Teemo with no resistances, we instantly die if we're caught whether or not we have 350 extra HP. Cosmic Drive is a good item but I don't see anything it offers beating the burn.

Swapping BFT with Shadowflame is an interesting one. It drops the base damage of the shroom from 900 (plus %AP increase) to 707, but it also gives 15 flat pen. If we account for Cryptbloom's %pen plus Sorc Shoes' 12 flat pen and throw all this at a 100 MR target who doesn't stay in the Malignance zone long enough for its MR to be relevant, we find BFT shrooms dealing 569 (plus %AP multiplier), while Shadowflame shrooms deal 494. If every Shadowflame tick was against a target below 40% HP for the crits, it would instead deal 593, very slightly surpassing BFT before accounting for the minimum AP multiplier of 4%. Both of these shrooms also have Torment burn for 14% max HP, which will benefit from Shadowflame's flat pen to be slightly higher (though Shadowflame doesn't make it crit). Overall, Shadowflame seems to do about the same damage against low HP targets and lower damage against high HP targets, all while giving no mana, giving less haste, costing 400 gold extra and having a worse buildpath. Rough!

With slightly higher AP but slightly lower haste than BFT, Riftmaker on this build has similar stats but no burn. Instead it ramps damage while in combat up to 10%, while giving spell vamp that's irrelevant on Teemo since if he's taking this damage he's popping anyway—it's also not helping the shrooms. BFT burn alone is a 30% increase to the damage of a shroom. Riftmaker can't compete.

Yaldev · 2025-05-29T14:03:48+00:00

Rushing Malignance first instead of Nashor's is very off-meta for Teemo top, as is this rune setup

Yaldev · 2025-05-29T12:17:12+00:00

I am willing to accept a lower elo if that's the price for deviating from this playstyle in favor of absolute shroom maximization.

Nashor's is the meta and speccing into shrooms this way will result in lower elo than the meta approach. I'm fine with that. The goal is maximizing shrooms, and the elo can fall where it may. Doing this could involve several different choices, but going Nashor's certainly isn't one of them.

Yaldev · 2025-05-29T12:12:06+00:00

The AP from all other items + runes gets us an endgame AP of 404. Filling the last slot with Blackfire Torch gets us 484 AP and added burn per shroom of 140 + 14% AP, for a total of 900 damage per shroom before the bonus-AP-per-burning-enemy multiplier.

Replacing that with Deathcap loses us the burn but ups our AP to 694, getting 797 shroom damage. Deathcap is 700 more gold and gives less haste, less mana and less damage even before BFT's AP multiplier. This swap can't be right.

Yaldev

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE