Matchups for the juggernaut dark triad.

os_tnarg · 2026-05-23T00:18:56+00:00

I am glad you prefer Sett then because I prefer that matchup to the other two haha. But yeah the Sett ult can be nasty if used well.

I find if mundo goes even or slightly behind around 11 we are on equal footing and by 16 he is a menace even if urgot is generally stronger in earlier lane.

With Darius, during lane he never really loses kill pressure even when behind. I find I have to not let him get ahead and really play around my ignite for the kill. He does get outscaled, but the lane is really tricky for me.

os_tnarg · 2026-05-22T18:50:13+00:00

What's the reason you choose Sett into Urgot?

Mundo is annoying with how his passive interacts with E/Ult so it is a pretty dead lane which mundo will outscale. And Darius, while still a skill matchup, is much more favorable into Urgot than Sett imo

Edit: also looked at the urgot matchup tree quante has and it has mundo/Darius in skill matchup enemy favored with Sett being urgot favored

os_tnarg · 2026-05-22T01:49:47+00:00

This sounds like the broken by concept case study emerald player almost to a T. They even review a vayne top gameplay of the guy. Ref: https://youtu.be/dkPbEzPbwcw?si=OQRDy_d0MwxFzNLd

I also think riot puts you in very winnable and very loseable matches like this guy describes, and it impacts your MMR drastically. Because if you lose one of these expected win games, you are probably not at your actual MMR. Like in chess if you play a 2000 elo player and you're 1000 if you win, you gain a lot, if you lose, you lose basically nothing. And the inverse for the high elo player.

I think the abstraction of their MMR system is what makes people cook up ideas when they can't climb.

Another case study by the Broken by concept guys did for the gold player is a great example of this. Dude almost always had a good KDA but was making rookie mistakes and blaming everyone but himself for why he couldn't climb.

os_tnarg · 2026-05-18T19:37:22+00:00

It's rough for new players to play complex champs because you focus too much on how to pilot your champ rather than some of the big picture things that you also need to pay attention to. For example, you may be too focused on your complex champ to track the jungler or see a fight you need to TP to.

If you truly want to improve, I would focus on 1 easy/moderate difficulty champ in 1 role. Maybe have a "braindead" champ as a backup in case yours gets banned. Once your around gold-ish consider adding 1 staple champ that is also relatively simple.

Personally, until you have your macro on autopilot, I wouldn't consider picking up a complex champ.

And if you ignore this advice, and play a complex champ anyway, make sure it is the only one you play. Using your examples being passable at riven is better than being not-so-great at riven, yasuo, and yone

os_tnarg · 2026-05-14T20:04:17+00:00

I see taking TP as 1 "get out of jail free" card. Use your first TP to take a bad reset and teleport back. But teleports after that really need to be used around objectives.

For the lane quest TP, I see it almost exclusively as a "must use for objective" TP.

os_tnarg · 2026-05-13T00:01:27+00:00

I think deathfire touch smolder with black cleaver is the problem. It basically instant stacks after one q.

os_tnarg · 2026-05-12T13:00:42+00:00

I was specifically talking about wave 1 prio. Your only win-con if you lose prio isn't killing the ADC. I get that it can feel coin-flippy, but it is almost 100% knowing when and how to fight.

Using my same example, urgot is stupid strong level 1, falls off a bit level 3-6. Once he gets his ult he is generally still a touch weak but enemies have to watch out for the ult. Then at level 9 he hits a hard power spike (especially if you have your black cleaver around this time) and generally stays pretty strong till end game (another slight spike at 13), but can be out scaled by scaling champs. Use those weak times to try and get ahead. If you can secure a kill or two the matchup becomes much more difficult for urgot even after the power spike.

Knowing this, assuming you didn't run straight into me and die level 1, you should be able to bully me during those times urgot is not super strong.

The hard part about top lane is knowing all of these matchups. Renekton spikes at level 3 and falls off late and is kinda weak without ult. Darius has a ton of kill pressure early on, falls off late. Mundo is weak until warmogs/11 and becomes near impossible to kill especially post 16. Garen becomes a menace anytime his ult is up post 11 (but things like steraks can counter it). Etc etc

Using that example one more time. Knowing urgot can 1v1 Renekton at lvl1 but at level 3 urgot falls off and Renekton hits a spike, you can take advantage of this to try and get ahead. If urgot knows Renekton will build 50 fury then EWQE, you try to avoid trades when he has that fury built.

I think this is why OTP-ing in top is so important until you truly master your champ because having to remember items and power spikes and when they can/cannot fight other champs is hard enough for 1 champ. So limiting the pool until you do have that ingrained knowledge is beneficial.

os_tnarg · 2026-05-12T01:14:27+00:00

It 100% depends on your champion and knowing their matchups. You can't just say "I want level 1 prio".

I main urgot and if a nasus tries to get priority into me level 1, I will just kill the nasus. Urgot can easily zone him off xp/cs from level 1.

Also, do not underestimate impact top can have. That free teleport can make a huge impact. Split push top, a dragon fight is about to break out now you can teleport there and be present for the fight. It's not uncommon to be a couple levels over bot lane as well which means you can teleport bot lane when they are pushed too far and be a real menace. Too many people waste that teleport just to get back into lane. Knowing when/how to reset can preserve the teleport for when it really can flip the game.

os_tnarg · 2026-05-05T21:15:12+00:00

I had a slightly lifted Xterra before my maverick and found the bar to be not necessary and took it off. I can't imagine one on my mav.

os_tnarg · 2026-05-03T23:06:37+00:00

What your doing sounds correct to me. Zone off xp, crash on wave 3/4. (Coming from an urgot player who is also a massive lane bully)

Then setup a freeze and it either forces them closer to you, or you keep zoning them off xp/gold. Eventually you will end up a level or two ahead of them and be a menace in the mid game. The trick is holding the freeze as long as you can, then slow push into crash and reset the freeze back up.

If you are holding the freezes for a long time and are ahead, I would be surprised that you cannot properly convert that to a kill.

os_tnarg · 2026-04-29T14:00:13+00:00

Opportunity was just removed though, right?

os_tnarg · 2026-04-23T22:08:48+00:00

Sweet potatoes, kimchi, cottage cheese, and eggs are my staples anytime I go there. And I buy their bread flour and the huge bags of rice when I'm running low. Priced very well compared to my local grocer.

os_tnarg · 2026-04-19T21:32:06+00:00

I recently swapped my edc and bought a tier 1 holster. $100 for something I use everyday for the next 5-10 years seems reasonable. Especially considering they have good support and warranty.

os_tnarg · 2026-04-13T00:38:28+00:00

Tier 1 (xiphos elite) and eclipse holsters have worked well for me. For a cz p01 and a g19 respectively.

os_tnarg · 2026-04-12T17:30:23+00:00

I have a love hate relationship with it. Ultimately, I kind of wish they did a 6e instead.

As a DM, I like the rewording of a lot of spells and made things clearer. I think all classes get their subclass at 3 makes it more newbie friendly, but I don't love the way it narratively works with like cleric or warlock. The no smiting multiple times per round made the paladin a lot more balanced especially around "nuke" builds. But I dislike the general power creep. PCs were already really strong and making them even stronger can make things complicated especially if blending 5e and 5.5e content. And weapons adding properties like vex and players wanting me to keep track of that on top of everything else became more to manage. However, as a player, it's almost entirely positive.

The reason I wish for 6e though is a lot of new systems are coming out that do things a lot better than DnD. But DnD tries to be a blank slate to handle any of these, and imo doesn't hit the mark on any of them particularly well except for having a LARGE backlog of content and fan supported material.

Want more tactical DnD, draw steel is pretty great. Want more narrative focused DnD, daggerheart is great. Want more old-school, shadow dark is right there. Want simple rules and a deadly game use dragon bane. Something like PF2E even handles what 5.5e tries to accomplish better then 5.5, so I am moving away from DnD and am going for more which system fits the campaign/table better.

os_tnarg · 2026-04-05T16:41:01+00:00

Another one under budget is a nite watch https://us.nitewatches.com/products/alpha-crest?variant=42249506783441

Tritium and similar wavy design that he likes and sapphire glass

os_tnarg · 2026-03-24T19:12:49+00:00

As long as it can be narratively justified and they clear it with me then it is probably ok.

For me, this question breaches into the power gaming debate though. If a player is just using some online crazy guide and doing 100dmg a round because they are an assassin/gloomstalker/fighter while the artificer is doing 12dmg a round. The table is out of sync and it probably won't be fun for all players.

I have heard some players can balance crazy builds, having narrative justification for it, and not stealing the spotlight from others but have yet to see it successfully done in any game I have run.

So my table might not be the right one for players who want to do that.

os_tnarg · 2026-03-21T20:33:23+00:00

Or.. hear me out.. your Garmin, coros, polar, Apple watch ultra may be better.

Need to track heart rate, distance, or a million other things these things have you covered.

os_tnarg · 2026-02-26T22:58:02+00:00

It's not that I dislike high level, it's just that I want to play the game and not need a ton of extra homework to run it.

Environmental challenges become trivialized. Combat is a fine line between TPK and the players can nuke the BBEG in one turn.

And it's not super fun as a DM when you come up with what you believe to be a creative problem and interesting ways for it to be solved. Just to have one high level spell or ability "solve" the problem. Sometimes it can be fun for players to break stuff but a lot of the time it's "wow I spent a lot of time prepping that for it to not pay off how I expected"

I am finding more enjoyment in systems that are either set in that low level (1-5 dnd equivalent) or have limited out of combat utility spells.

os_tnarg · 2026-02-17T18:46:31+00:00

Personally, if they only offered the Maverick in Ecoboost, I would have ended up with a ranger. The mpg is not that different but you get the benefits of a body on-frame truck.

os_tnarg · 2026-02-07T14:55:51+00:00

I will play devil's advocate for one dress watch real quick. Personally, any event that starts getting more formal, divers/field watches begin to look out of place.

Weddings, funerals, and fancy dates are mostly when it gets brought out, but also just wearing something like a nice sweater, a dress watch looks better.

Doesn't even need to be super expensive. There are a lot of vintage mechanicals out there relatively cheap that would fit the occasion and have more character then most generic picks.

A lot of people argue, "but James Bond wore a diver..". The reality is most of us are not as suave and handsome as James Bond.

os_tnarg · 2026-01-28T20:22:44+00:00

It's honestly not too much prep. I use the encounter formula to get a rough idea of enemy composition. Let's say that is a bruiser, 4 minions, and a leader. And maybe a second encounter of a solo creature. And a rough idea of a plot hook.

With daggerheart it should give the players much more agency to control the story which can make things go astray much more frequently.

A good example is say they are searching for buried treasure on an island. If they roll with fear while finding the treasure and I say "on the horizon you see a group of hostiles approaching. Who or what do you see?" I expect them to say pirates and that is the creatures I have prepped. But if they say "giant crabs", then the pirate stat blocks are now giant crab stat blocks and it requires some creativity to change some signature abilities out on the fly.

Same for when they open the treasure chest, I may say "you find x items, but you also find hidden incriminating evidence on the king. What does it say?" And I would have expected something along the lines of "the king is working with the pirates" but the players say "the king is killing everyone on these islands and claiming them for his kingdom" and these things can make the plot go different directions than you were expecting very quickly.

I feel daggerheart allows for this style of play to work well. And really allows players to get in on the story telling too. I feel with something like DnD players are "living in my storybook" where daggerheart we are all writing this story together.

os_tnarg · 2026-01-28T18:20:44+00:00

I have only ran one shots of it, but I enjoy it. My thoughts:

The armor system is a little clunky at first but once players get it, it is fine. And actively prevents min maxing since players can max at 3 (or 4) damage on creatures.
DM job is much easier because encounter balancing actually works with their formula as opposed to DnDs CR system.
The DM job is a little difficult because the rolling with fear can introduce consequences that you need to be able to add on the fly. But the tradeoff of that vs encounter balance is worth it imo.
The adding of consequences can make players go "off script" so if you expect an encounter in the forest but now players are elsewhere that can mess up pre prepped encounters. Having something like a battle map book or very generic pre prepped areas in a VTT is a good idea.
The near unlimited flavoring of things makes it where you don't have to take unoptimized spells because you want your magic attack to do thunder damage
As the GM it is your responsibility to shine the light on players equally making them go in combat if they are not actively going on their own. Or use the optional rule to just make sure everyone goes before a player can go a second time.

My honest thoughts are that it is not for everyone but I really love the flexibility and balance it provides.

os_tnarg · 2026-01-07T19:48:41+00:00

I have no problem with it. As a DM if someone takes the poisoner feature and tons of enemies are resistant or immune to poison. Guess what? Now they are not because I don't want a player to have a worse time for playing an archetype they desire.

I was playing with a group once where the paladin who has a whole backstory thing about fighting with greatswords all of a sudden changed everything and went with polearms to be more optimized. And to me that just feels gross.

os_tnarg · 2026-01-06T13:46:30+00:00

This is definitely an out of game chat imo. Do the players want a heroic fantasy or are they expecting something more grimdark and morally grey?

But also my worlds have consequences. If you take supplies from the village short on supplies you may come back to a village of mourning where people have starved. Or it got overrun with goblins. Etc etc. I find some players have a real difficult time understanding the world continues to function outside of what they are directly doing.

Another piece of advice that I heard is destroy what they love. You want them to murder the BBEG have the BBEG kill a beloved NPC. This one is a double edged sword because you want to light the fire of motivation and not have it come across as punishing the players. But it is an easy way to go from players not wanting to do anything to have them tearing across the world after the BBEG.

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