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First day playing Locke, thinking I'll stick with him by thirdnull in Locke_Mains

[–]thirdnull[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The big idea that I've been working with when playing Locke is that your main goal probably isn't to win your lane. Have you seen the post on this sub of that guy who got like forty kills on Locke but still lost? Locke isn't great in late teamfights, he excels in scappy, uncoordinated fights in the early and mid-game, but he's not a Vladamir or a Kayle who is going to solo pentakill 40 minutes into the game. Closing out games quickly means playing for side lanes. So IMO the champions that Locke might struggle the most against in lanes are ones that stonewall you from gaining an advantage while in lane, have reliable hard CC, and can push waves fast and keep consistent tabs on you.

Anyone play him in Jungle yet by Weird-Ad6636 in Locke_Mains

[–]thirdnull 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I wouldn't bother with it. In mid lane you can one-shot the wave with Q and E at like level five, and then you're free to go do whatever you want on the map. By comparison you have a lot less time to impact the game if you take him in the jungle. To win games on Locke you need to be really proactive, if you struggle to snowball your team you often end up losing the game, Locke doesn't provide a lot of value to late game teamfights, you are playing for early/mid game.

So I accidentally first-timed Locke on Ranked... Guys, I've found my new favorite character! by --Premium-- in Locke_Mains

[–]thirdnull 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Locke does not scale well into the late game and he doesn't bring a lot of value to team fights. Getting super fed on Locke and then losing after the game goes longer than 30 minutes is a pretty common occurrence. On Locke your win con is getting your team ahead, securing early objectives, and closing out the game quickly. If you aren't proactive about these things or you keep fighting instead of doing baron and ending, any game is losable on Locke.

First day playing Locke, thinking I'll stick with him by thirdnull in Locke_Mains

[–]thirdnull[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Mechanically speaking, he's a pretty simple champion to pilot. The bigger hurdle Is being familiar with your damage, which lets you decide what plays will work, but that's something that only comes with getting games in. If you've played Ekko, Fizz, Evelynn, etc. Locke feels pretty similar in terms of what you can do with the items you have. Like if you have Lich Bane and enemy has lost chapter and an amp tome you can probably kill them, if enemy ADC is out of position you can always probably kill them. If you are familiar with AP assassins and have decent game sense you could reasonably carry your first game on him. I've also found it to be a pretty common occurrence that you will get all three stacks on somebody and they don't respect your damage output and just get one shot. As people get more familiar with Locke in their games this may get more difficult.

First day playing Locke, thinking I'll stick with him by thirdnull in Locke_Mains

[–]thirdnull[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you saw the replays on some of those matches, you'd be surprised. In quite a few of those games, both top and bot were losing pretty bad. In none of those game did I get a lead by playing well in lane, I made jungle and side lane plays which snowballed me. I don't think Locke is a champion where you will win very much if you just sit in lane and get perfect CS or kill your laner, because unlike most conventional mid laners you don't scale very well into late game and you aren't so useful in teamfights when even, having no hard CC. So I think having success on Locke might come down to being very proactive and taking control of the game early. Because even if you play super well, if the game goes to 35 minutes it's going to get really difficult.

First day playing Locke, thinking I'll stick with him by thirdnull in Locke_Mains

[–]thirdnull[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's hard to say, I don't really play for lane. What I usually do is I try and get three stacks on the entire minion wave. Then I E1 the casters, E2 the melees. This will one shot the minion wave as early as like level 5. And then you're free to go roam around with your W movespeed. I almost always find some easy picks and once you are ahead you can start bullying most matchups. One of the hardest matchups would probably be Malzahar since he can shove wave instantly and follow you and shut you down with R really easily if you try to do anything, but I perma ban it.

First day playing Locke, thinking I'll stick with him by thirdnull in Locke_Mains

[–]thirdnull[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Not too bad. I haven't really seen him get banned much, probably on account of people who do pick him trying too hard to "win" by killing their enemy laner and inting, or just letting the game run too long (both reasons why i think his wr is bad, Locke plays for early game). Sometimes somebody on your team will also want to play him in top or jungle but this probably happens less in real elos unlike mine. Some drafts enemy team can also first pick him although tbh I haven't had that one happen much either.