League of Legends - Season 1

[Pentarctagon]

just finished a match were as Taric I laned with Sona against an AD ezrael and a malzahar. we had their second turret down before 25 mins

[Joram]

I was planning to get some Vlad games in when he was free, because that seems like the only way I'm ever going to get to play anything resembling a tank. I hate melee champs, absolutely can't play them.

There is a huge difference between playing a melee Yi and a melee Amumu, so lumping them together is a bit odd to me.

With Yi, you close, and if you are targetted by more than one person at a time (sometimes even if it is just one), then you are down like a shot. He requires finesse, and timing. You have to enter at precisely the right time, react to new developments in a split second, and carefully gauge whether your chances of surviving are better if you run, or if you stay and burst down the enemy with lifesteal healing. One mistake, and you're finished, especially since you are a prime target. All that decision making crunched down into 2.5 seconds of game time.

With Amumu, you hover in the front lines, then suddenly launch out a bandage, then mash R, W, and E, in that order. Keep mashing E till the fight is done. The only thing you need to do is keep track of the relative levels of green and red champions in the fight. If you're suddenly outnumbered, start moving back. If the enemy starts retreating, give chase to anyone whose really injured, otherwise just sit mashing E to finish the enemies foolish enough to remain. If the enemy is targeting you, you'll have three and a half months to watch your health falling and decide if it is time to retreat out. You don't have to worry about kills, just about AoEing the life out of them. Let your carries do all the thinking.

The point of that huge block of text is that melee champs is an extremely broad category, and are you sure that you couldn't narrow it down at all?

[styles1005]

Mmmn. True, but melee champs seem to have a lot of disadvantages to overcome. They can't push as well, because they have to get out of the tower's range sooner. They can't chase or gank as well - a lot of them have teleport/pull/push/CC abilities, but you just used an ability to do what a ranged champ can do on its own. It seems like they only really shine when the enemy commits to a battle. Mind you, this may just be my inexperience talking - I can't seem to get an actual multiplayer team game going (the two times I've tried, either I've been kicked or someone left, both before the game even started - not encouraging experiences) and I suppose that the team fights in which melee champs would probably do better do occur more in actual MP.

[Valinor]

Funny thing about this latest discussion is that none of my mains are ranged.

@Pentarctagon they must not have been very good, malzahar and ezreal should have been able to make the lane a very hot place for you.

[Joram]

@Valinor
I disagree. Taric and Sona both have heals, meaning that they will win the harassing game. Plus, Taric is just incredibly hard to take down anyway. I'm not familiar enough with Sona to comment more, but I understand she's a super good support hero.

[Valinor]

Harassing game? Sona and Taric don't really have anything to harass with, so they will just be able to survive the harassment from the other team. So maybe it would be more accurate to say that Ez and Malz must have been worse than Pent and his ally, or else they would have harassed them into underleveled status.

[Pentarctagon]

i can actually harass with Taric. for spells I go heal, stun, then shatter as much as possible. then once I get some decent mana regen i can basically stun them, shatter, auto-attack once or twice, run away. any damage I take is healed almost immediately while they can easily take 400+ damage once shatter gets upgraded a few times, but have no real way to heal it. I can repeat this every 16 seconds. throw in sona's ult and we basically have a guaranteed kill.

[Joram]

Harassing game? Sona and Taric don't really have anything to harass with, so they will just be able to survive the harassment from the other team. So maybe it would be more accurate to say that Ez and Malz must have been worse than Pent and his ally, or else they would have harassed them into underleveled status.

You appear to be envisioning a scene where Ez and Malz keep hitting Taric and Sona with their spells till at last Taric and Sona have to retreat, unable to deal with the ranged barrage.

But what about their heals? Suppose that instead of fleeing feebly before the (nerfed) might of Ez, Taric and Sona jump forward and slam what they have into him? A single shatter will do more to Ez than he did to you (especially if you're good at dodging skill shots), and a few auto attacks put you ahead.

And when the dust has cleared? You heal back all the damage. They don't.

It is virtually impossible to harass a single healing hero (take a look at Vlad's laning power). When you combine two, harassing is not an option. You will lose over time. Even if they don't attack you, you'll put no damage on them till they're out of mana. And it is likely that you'll run out at the same time they will. Far from being equal players, if an Ez and a Malz managed to harass a Taric and Sona into underleveled status, I would assert it is because the healers comparatively suck.

[Valinor]

setting aside ap and taric's ult, sona and Taric together can heal 380 with their heals at top level(and Pent says he maxes shatter instead). Ez and Malzahar of equal level can using call of the void and essence flux with one shot deal 580 to both of them. Admitting that they have to be able to land them, Taric stuns Ez: Malz silences before he shatters and lays out void zone. Taric stuns Malz: Ez eats him, especially after he shatters.

just because Ez was nerfed doesn't mean he can't still dish loads of damage. At level 9 with Shatter top level: 300 damage, Arcane shift which can't be dodged 275 + Essence flux 180 = 455. Tell me again who dealt the most damage?

[Joram]

Your post is assuming high level characters. Lvl 9? Most harassment is done at levels 2-5. Essenc flux and call of the void? Call of the void is easy to dodge, and essence flux will only hit both if they let Ez line up, which shouldn't be done.

Admitting that they have to be able to land them, Taric stuns Ez: Malz silences before he shatters and lays out void zone. Taric stuns Malz: Ez eats him, especially after he shatters.

You have Taric initiating. Why? You made the claim that Ez and Malz would be able to harass him into the ground, so you should have Ez initiating. In order to support your claim, you need to show an example of Ez and Malz harassing, not an example of Taric charging them. You are also ignoring Sona completely, putting it at a 1v2 battle. Anybody can be made to lose in that situation. So your assertion that "Ez eats him" is unsupported and doesn't mean much, especially since you don't seem to be thinking about the fact that Taric has more than a 100 extra base health (+10 per level) AND more than 10 higher base damage (+1 per level). And popping his heal takes a fraction of a second, and can be done mid fight easily enough. So nothing in that comparison is fair.

In fact, looking at the website, Taric even has higher base mana.

just because Ez was nerfed doesn't mean he can't still dish loads of damage. At level 9 with Shatter top level: 300 damage, Arcane shift which can't be dodged 275 + Essence flux 180 = 455. Tell me again who dealt the most damage?

I can't. I never told you in the first place. I haven't claimed that Taric and Sona deal more damage.

I did say that a single shatter would deal more to Ez. But that statement was made assuming a) low level characters (none of this lvl 9 business), b) that he was going for Mystic Shot first, being his most spammable skill, and thus the best for harassing (since you were speaking about how Ez should have been harassing, this is a reasonable assumption). This is true. Compare the damage, and Shatter is much better than Mystic Shot.

I did not say that Taric and Sona were better late game heroes, or that they are superior to Ez and Malzahar. I am merely positing that Ez and Malzahar would NOT be able to "harass" Taric and Sona down to underleveled status.



A NOTE TO ALL OBSERVERS: I find it really funny that Valinor and I are arguing this online when we could do it in person even easier.

[Joram]

Ooh! Ooh!

Setting aside the question of how good Ez would be at harassing Taric, I had a brilliant thought.

Lane Blitzcrank and Rammus together.

[Valinor]

Okay low level, level 1 Ez and Malz each will deal 80 damage, taric can shatter for 100, but has to be face to face to deal it, sona brings very little to a fight at the beginning(which is why I didn't really mention her), can deal 70 but only to the closest enemies. Why do you say call of the void is easy to dodge? sure it has a second delay, but if it is slightly behind you it will hit you. Where are you getting this 100 extra health and 10 extra damage? Taric may have more base mana, but has slower regen and shatter costs 20 more mana than mystic shot. Besides, if Sona joins the fight guess who is going to get targeted? without his stun taric can't really interfere all that much with them picking on sona.

Phrased it wrong, you said that Taric and sona would "just heal back whatever damage was dealt" and so I meant that they can't.

I have Taric initiating because if he doesn't he will never get off a shatter to deal any damage to them. I will give you an example anytime Ez and taric are free Please don't make blanket statements like "nothing in that comparison is fair", Malzahar's actions on taric stunning Ez are perfectly valid, perhaps Ez wouldn't "Eat Taric" but he would certainly deal a large amount of damage to taric while he is stunning, running up to, and shattering Malz.

You consider 100 damage at melee range to be "much better" than 80 at 1100 range?

going back a couple post you make a complete blanket statement "It is virtually impossible to harass a single healing hero" heals in general heal so little early that they make little difference in my experience. The difference between us probably lies in the fact that you play Tanks and I play DPS.

@Pentarctagon stunning and charging is not harassing, that's full blown initiation if they let you do that without a fight then my original opinion was accurate, they suck. and sona's ult making guaranteed kill? what if they don't let you line it up? what about malzahars ult? void zone will take Taric apart if he stands in it to attack them. and their is also malzahars voidling to be considered, ult from Ez(from brush so you can't dodge) then they hit sona with everything in their arsenal and they have a practically guaranteed kill on you.

Bottom line, I think that a good Ezreal and Malzahar could out lane Taric and Sona. The only true test is one the field of battle! why can't Ezreal be free?

[Jozrael]

Why not just play them in a TT lane 2v2 and leave top open? I'm down for this experiment at some point. Switch teams when you're out of the laning phase.

@Styles:...what do you mean a multiplayer game? Are you playing practice with bots atm? I am confused.

[Pentarctagon]

Better Explanation:

I have 9 slots of the +0.1 MR per lvl plus 3 of +1.49 MR as well as 3 health quints and +60 hp from masteries and the +6 armor/MR, so I start off with more than 700 hp and higher than average MR.

We both had the summoner's healing spell, we can both heal each other and ourselves at the same time, and Taric's healing heals 40% more when he targets himself.

upping Tarics shatter spell first drastically helps reduce AD ez's damage for both me and Sona. Combine that with her defensive aura and by lvl 8 I have ~90 armor at least.

at lvl 4 upping shatter is not an option, so I upgrade healing which puts it at 120, not 80.

Okay low level, level 1 Ez and Malz each will deal 80 damage, taric can shatter for 100, but has to be face to face to deal it, sona brings very little to a fight at the beginning(which is why I didn't really mention her), can deal 70 but only to the closest enemies. Why do you say call of the void is easy to dodge? sure it has a second delay, but if it is slightly behind you it will hit you. Where are you getting this 100 extra health and 10 extra damage? Taric may have more base mana, but has slower regen and shatter costs 20 more mana than mystic shot. Besides, if Sona joins the fight guess who is going to get targeted? without his stun taric can't really interfere all that much with them picking on sona.

easy. we don't attack them before lvl 6 or 7. AD ez can't do anything really, since all we need to do is stay behind minions to dodge mystic shot. even if we do get hit by a few, its easy enough to heal back since they really can't kill me at that lvl. similar story with malz, he can use visions all he wants, we can just heal it back, especially given Sona's cd time for healing and that every time I hit something my healing cd gets reduced by 2 seconds.

@Pentarctagon stunning and charging is not harassing, that's full blown initiation if they let you do that without a fight then my original opinion was accurate, they suck. and sona's ult making guaranteed kill? what if they don't let you line it up? what about malzahars ult? void zone will take Taric apart if he stands in it to attack them. and their is also malzahars voidling to be considered, ult from Ez(from brush so you can't dodge) then they hit sona with everything in their arsenal and they have a practically guaranteed kill on you.

and what exactly can they do that we can't go back and have healed completely in less than 30 seconds? plus I can stun malz, which knocks out his ult before it even really does any damage. Our combined defensive buffs give even Sona armor on the high 50s low 60s by lvl 6. at max range i can stun them for for 2 seconds, so once malz is out ez has no slow/stun/whatever to keep sona from running away. Targeting me is a waste of time since i have a decent amount of MR, even more armor, and ~1200 hp. Then of course there's me healing for 120, my summoner spell, her summoner spell, and her own healing.


basically this isn't a game of 'who can burst out the most damage' since we fail badly at that. its a game of constantly lowering their hp, even if it costs us more of our own, since our hp is much more expendable than theirs. Then bursting them down when they are at half health or less.

[Joram]

EDIT: Text removed. No point in arguing.