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[Techhead]

My viewpoint on the matter is that results matter more than methods.
If it works, do it. If it doesn't work...

[ansontan2000]

Meh. At this stage of LoL's meta, I mostly just screw around on ranked with RL friends. Things like all yordle or all mid AD carry. Makes league much more enjoyable.

[frostshotgg]

Yeah. League's design direction (Squash ALL the bugs!) has made it stagnate. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the meta isn't going to change until Riot makes some massive changes. Something like halving turret damage to champions, or maybe taking out Infinity Edge and Bloodthirster.

[Dariush]

...Am I the only one who gets almost exclusively sane people in my matches?

[penguinofhonor]

I'm back from the PBE, bearing reviews of Zara and Xin!

Zara is cool. She's about as complex as Orianna, though that doesn't mean she plays similarly. Her plants take 3 hits to go down, from anything. This means something that deals a ton of tiny hits will instakill them (see: trollpool). Other than that, their ward-like health makes them feel pretty durable. Overall her kit has a ton of depth and I'm definitely pretty bad at her.

The Xin rework is interesting. His passive is "challenge" which lowers the target's armor by 15% whenever he autoattacks them. His ult does the typical percent damage (but with AD scaling) and knocks back all non-challenged targets. This means you can jump on a guy with your E and knock everyone else back. The CDR on autoattacks has been shifted to his Q, meaning that you can't infinitely chain CC anyone. He's definitely a more versatile and complex champion now, but a bit harder than before to compensate.

Also PBE patch notes here.
Buffed: Ziggs, Gangplank, Orianna
Nerfed: Urgot, Nocturne, Malphite, Heart of Gold, Philosopher's Stone
Tweaked: Kassadin, Morgana

Yeah. League's design direction (Squash ALL the bugs!) has made it stagnate. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the meta isn't going to change until Riot makes some massive changes. Something like halving turret damage to champions, or maybe taking out Infinity Edge and Bloodthirster.

What would your idea of a meta change be?

Because there wasn't really anything that made the current metagame happen besides players figuring out that it was dumb to send AD carries mid. Riot didn't change AD carries to make them better than tanky DPS in bot, it's just that the metagame included the mistake of sending them to a subpar lane and when people figured out that was wrong, they stopped doing it.

Of course if you're talking about something besides lane setups then I could be wrong, it's just that's the most common part of the meta that gets talked about.

[frostshotgg]

And *why* is it a bad idea to send AD carries mid, or send 1 champ bot, or not have a jungle?

All of those are influenced by mechanics of the game. Unless Riot actively changes the way the game works (Let's make it random whether dragon and baron spawn top or bot!), there's never going to be a massive change in the meta.

[Bordellimies]

And *why* is it a bad idea to send AD carries mid, or send 1 champ bot, or not have a jungle?

All of those are influenced by mechanics of the game. Unless Riot actively changes the way the game works (Let's make it random whether dragon and baron spawn top or bot!), there's never going to be a massive change in the meta.

I love that idea. And since the map is symmetrical, this would work really well too.


And yeah, I also don't know why non-mages can't be mid. Many ranged carries can overpower them if they get early MR from runes, masteries and maybe early Hexdrinker/Merc treads. Yet still, even if I go mid with 70 MR at level 1, I'm going to be told that I'm going to lose miserably to the other guy, simply because I'm not AP.

[frostshotgg]

It's a matter of being optimal. APs scale more with levels, ADs scale more with gold. You get the same amount of gold whether it's solo or duo (With a 0cs support ofc), so there's no reason not to send the AP mid, where he'll scale faster.

There's another change you could make. Mid's minions give less XP, but the same amount of gold.

[Bluerobin]

I'd be curious about a Zyra/Lulu bot lane. Zyra has the "warding" that Caitlyn offers and some nice range on her skills and Lulu has her AP boost skill, which I can't imagine actually gets a lot of use on purpose in general. Plus they'd have so much CC it's completely ridiculous, so ganks would be neat.

Probably not super optimal, but it could be fun.

[frostshotgg]

Zyra's jungle looks to be very, very odd. She nearly drops level 1, but the moment she hits 2, she clears camps like a god.

EDIT: Good lord, Eve clears fast now. She's going to be terrifying at counterjungling.

[Cute Bebilith]

It's a matter of being optimal. APs scale more with levels, ADs scale more with gold. You get the same amount of gold whether it's solo or duo (With a 0cs support ofc), so there's no reason not to send the AP mid, where he'll scale faster.

While that's true in general, you have to factor in lane matchups. Some ADs can utterly demolish many APs. Sivir vs Annie, and anything vs Kassadin are brutal for example. Then you put your AP top and run double tank bottom to potentially deny the enemy AD. Or you just go standard for bot lane with a tanky support and jungler and have double AD.

[webadict]

And *why* is it a bad idea to send AD carries mid, or send 1 champ bot, or not have a jungle?

All of those are influenced by mechanics of the game. Unless Riot actively changes the way the game works (Let's make it random whether dragon and baron spawn top or bot!), there's never going to be a massive change in the meta.

Can anyone tell me why anyone WANTS to change the meta? Why? Who cares? The meta is like that BECAUSE it's been shown to be effective.

These are really easy to answer questions. Sending an AD carry mid isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's just that many AP champs can throw an AD champ back to base. You end up playing passively, which again isn't necessarily a bad thing, but an aggressive mid will make you lose gold early, which you want. So they get stronger and stronger, and you only get just a tad better.

Now, if you manage to have an AD mid, then you've got a few choices bot. You can go double bruiser/tank bot. That is good if you manage to be huge bullies/they have weak sustain. You can also do AP and support/tank, which isn't nearly as great, since you lose out on levels. You can also do another AD bot with support/tank. This means double AD carry, which causes a few problems. You'll have more armor being built to mitigate two players on your team, meaning you'll either need an AP jungler (doesn't scale as well) or an AP top (does a pretty good job). If the AP top gets destroyed early, your team is not going to put out enough damage.

Now, let's look at the best choice, double bruiser bot. For this, you'll have an AP top, AD mid, and double bruiser bot with a wild card for jungler. Your bot lane won't be nearly as tanky as the other team, but there will be at least two of you manning the front lines, so that helps. However, unless you have a support jungle (actually pretty doable), you'll be down someone to support, which seems like a useless teammate, but basically can make or break a game.

As for sending one champ bottom, this is actually an occurrence that happens. You can send someone with either amazing sustain, long range, or incredible tankiness to fight two people bot. You only want to do this for a few reasons though: 1) If your solo does well with little cs, 2) if their top is someone that is very aggressive, or 3) if they have a passive lane bottom.

By sending one champion bottom, you lose dragon ward coverage, which is the main reason two people are sent bottom (instead of duo-lane tops). That means dragon gets hard to contest, and could subtly lose you the game.

For not having a jungle, that usually loses you the game. Having a jungler allows for ganks, which can literally win you the game. If you choose to do duo-lane top or mid instead, you get to dominate one lane in exchange for no jungle control, ganks against you, and overall stronger opponents.

Duo-lane mid would actually be the best choice, since you are free to gank top or bot from that lane. However, you will probably be outleveled by their jungler and mid, meaning that they will be able to hold that lane against you eventually. Your only real hope is to either crush their mid early on, invade the jungle, or gank top and bot a lot.

Basically, it just takes more effort to duo-mid than to have a jungler, who would do all of these things anyway. The only upside is the dominated mid, meaning he will be playing pretty passively.

While that's true in general, you have to factor in lane matchups. Some ADs can utterly demolish many APs. Sivir vs Annie, and anything vs Kassadin are brutal for example. Then you put your AP top and run double tank bottom to potentially deny the enemy AD. Or you just go standard for bot lane with a tanky support and jungler and have double AD.

And ninja'd. Yes, some APs are really hurt by ADs. All of the anti-mages REALLY suffer from ADs. Kassadin and Morgana are two that I can think of off the bat that would much rather fight an AP than an AD. Sivir laughs at many APs. But, usually, APs can stomp on an AD.

[frostshotgg]

I never said I wanted to change the meta, just responded to the conversation that the meta isn't going to change without sweeping changes in the game itself.
As for reasons people don't like the meta, it's presently afk farm until somebody decides not to play passive, which is pointlessly boring to some people, there's not much room for variation, oh, and don't forget the armies of sheep.
"Ashe why are you going mid"
"I counter a lot of mids"
"But your job is carry"
"Yeah, and?"
"Carries go bot"
"But I get just as much farm going mid"
"Ashe, your job is carry"
"The only reason carries are supposed to go bot is [explanation of meta]. I do that just fine mid."
"Carries go bot"

[webadict]

I never said I wanted to change the meta, just responded to the conversation that the meta isn't going to change without sweeping changes in the game itself.
As for reasons people don't like the meta, it's presently afk farm until somebody decides not to play passive, which is pointlessly boring to some people, there's not much room for variation, oh, and don't forget the armies of sheep.
"Ashe why are you going mid"
"I counter a lot of mids"
"But your job is carry"
"Yeah, and?"
"Carries go bot"
"But I get just as much farm going mid"
"Ashe, your job is carry"
"The only reason carries are supposed to go bot is [explanation of meta]. I do that just fine mid."
"Carries go bot"

Right, but these people tend not to understand WHY things are done. Usually, when I play a game and I see something off-meta, I'll tell them not to screw up. I've seen some people play off-beat things (heck, I won the game with duo-support bot), but I won't stop them. I'll just blame them if they screw up. Like people that play AP Yi like they've been dropped on their heads. "Stun coming my way? Better meditate."

Basically, the problem tends to be the player not knowing how to play. Not how to play that type of character. Literally not knowing how to play.

[Realmfighter]

That sounds like less like you're supporting the Meta and more like you hate stupid fucks.

Fuck the Meta. Assuming that it's not a first time thing done for testing then it probably at least has some point. And I'm fairly certain that stupid idiots blindly following the meta outnumber stupid idiots blindly disobeying it 10 to 1.