pacov&#39;s League of Legends general discussion thread - strategies, etc

I can't believe you are actually playing that Udyr build in ranked.

BELIEVE, Justin Bieber.

Quoting Krazikarl,

I "DON'T" get why you do the Udyr thing - it puts up huge stats if your other 4 players are much better than their other 4 players.

ftfy. That's not why I'd play it. I think any strat that requires the other team to be garbage to work is a bad strategy and I don't think that is the case. Here's what I think are the pros/cons:

cons

low gank potential for 1st 11 minutes of the game
lanes must ward for themselves (mostly) and live through ganks if they occur
you need at least 1 lane to do well or break even (eg everyone does crap early and this becomes a REALLY bad idea)
Any 1 lane giving up a super early tower hurts the play style - possibly crippling it.
low to zero pressure output as jungler 1st 11 minutes.

pros

power farming results in being higher level than anyone in the game in most instances - often 1-3 levels ahead
flare completed at 11 minutes resulting in strong counter jungling/dmg increased kill potential on ganks, etc.
incredibly strong split pushing - you can force the enemy team to react to you over and over resulting in additional objectives taken

Here's the way I see it primarily, though - its a setup that requires your folks in lane to not be crap. 1-2 lanes can be crappy, but you need to keep those towers up. You are trading early game ganks for a higher powered udyr (eg you trade POTENTIAL pressure early for mid/late game) - with the added bonus that their jungler will likely fall way off mid/late due to counter jungling, etc. Anyway, I think its a perfectly viable strategy which shouldn't be dismissed as something that only works if the enemy team is bad. That said, the strategy fails if folks are bad and give up towers early. This is true of all junglers - you lose control of your jungle mid/early, you are going to have a bad time on any jungler.

I think its really incorrect to equate this strategy to that of grabbing a meija on mid... unless your mid gets full stacks at 11 minutes and never loses a stack...

anyway, recaps and then addressing a few more of your comments.

recap on game 1 - I don't even fugging know.... I did a good job counter jungling the enemy amumu for a bit. Got 3 buffs 1st rotation, our team got 1st tower down easily before the enemy team could and I got the team a dragon then, then store (barely) the enemy red. That was a bit of a ballsy call and then I made a misplay shortly after that. The rest was just our team being a bag of monkeys. None of the team rotations make much sense after that while the enemy team picks off people at random.

my adc lucian game - I kick arse - decent support with me. Going to play lucian more.

my last udyr game - I execute the strategy fine overall. Lose my net for about 5-8 minutes and was pleasantly surprised that my team got work done (would have been really bummed if the game was thrown or lost while I was stuck dc'd). Can't really say much else and I agree - the enemy team was weak.

OK - back to some of your other comments

Quoting Krazikarl,

If your 4 can hold even against their 4 plus jungler for the first 15-20 minutes, you get to put up absolutely monster numbers. But you just can't count on Silver players to do that for you.

hmm... fairish point. But really - its silver - can you count on your team consistently to do anything? I've got just as good odds of getting a team that all does well in lane and doesn't feed as I do of having absolute idiots. If I somehow only get 1 idiot on my team, am I going to gain a ton by trying to gank for that guy?

Quoting Krazikarl,

My advice would be to get a build that wins games with the highest efficiency, not a win-more build that puts up the biggest kill numbers.

That's good advice. I'm not sure what is the best, most efficient setup on FF udyr and am continuing to tweak. All thought for me re: udyr is currently built around ff though. The rest of the build I'm thinking through and up for feedback. Trick2g tried out getting a razor and spirit stone on first back (11 gold). That enables additional ganking options and makes it so that you don't really need to back... but its like 700 in sunk gold. Not really sure I dig it, but it compensates for lack of turtle stance. I've also been toying around with getting a point in turtle early as well.

Other item stuff - I typically go wriggles/mercs/sunfire. I've been toying around with what I usually do on xin - wriggles/mercs/botrk/tank item(s). Still maxing turtle last - just getting a point here and there earlier. All a bit in flux. Power leveling still a priority. With characters like xin, I'm much more likely to gank, but maintain a similar playstyle. Xin has really nice built in sustain so its even easier to work the jungle and still be healthy enough to gank with plenty of mana. Wriggles udyr loses a lot of mana clearing his jungle and even more if you are swapping to turtle for more health.

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Your times are 5+ minutes slow. First game you got FF at 19:55, second game around 16 minutes (less sure about timing on second game, but it wasn't close to 11 minutes).

The problem is that your team is left hanging 4v5 for 15-20 minutes consistently unless its a bot game where everything goes perfectly. If you get counter jungled, its a 17 minute FF (because your build is the one Udyr build that sucks against counter jungling). If a lane gets collapsed too hard, you get screwed. If you have to protect towers too much, you get screwed. Etc. Basically, you need one very specific game type to happen, and if that one specific game type doesnt happen, your whole team suffers greatly. This is not good.

I mean, consider your first game. You start out great. 3 buffs, you get a first tower. Yet you STILL get out jungled by a silver Amumu because your build came online too slowly. I'm sure that you are a better player than that Amumu was, but he just was better than you in that game because he was doing something all game despite a slow start, while you basically were useless because your build never came online due to a 20 minute FF. Seriously, go back and watch that game and ask yourself "who did more for his team". It was obviously the Amumu despite the fact that you are the better player.

Why are you playing a build where silver Amumus are going to be outjungling you just because your silver teammates play like silver level players?

Quoting pacov,

reply 4934

That said, the strategy fails if folks are bad and give up towers early. This is true of all junglers - you lose control of your jungle mid/early, you are going to have a bad time on any jungler.

Yes, but most junglers can prevent or slow down bad things from happening in lanes. If you afk farm the jungle for 15-20 minutes, you can't. Thats the difference.

I mean, I watched your games. In the first 15 minutes of the two games, you had exactly 1 half hearted gank that was never going to work. Thats 1 lane gank as a jungler in 2 games, and you only did that because you felt bad about giving the top Renekton red buff (which your Jax was thankfully good enough to play around).

Quoting pacov,

reply 4934

But really - its silver - can you count on your team consistently to do anything?

Exactly. But you count on your team to not lose towers, to protect you in jungle against invades while you farm (you can't really protect yourself well due to build), to not lose lanes too hard, etc so that you can farm up a FF. You intentionally choose a build in which all this stuff must happen, or you are screwed. Thats the whole point - I'm suggesting that you play a jungle style that doesn't rely on your team doing very specific things for the first 15-20 minutes of a game.

Your strategy is probably pretty good in Diamond - losing a lane there is more about bad farm and a death or two rather than feeding 5 kills and losing multiple towers. But you are not in Diamond.

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Quoting Krazikarl,

Your times are 5+ minutes slow. First game you got FF at 19:55, second game around 16 minutes (less sure about timing on second game, but it wasn't close to 11 minutes).

Ideal time is sticking with 11 minutes... but that's literally doing nothing for the team with minimal, if any, counter jungling outside of the open. With how game 1 went, if I hit 19:55, I'm impressed... but its kind of my thought that ff isn't worth it if you don't have it early enough for an impact early mid game. Perhaps that's an incorrect theory, but that's where I've found the biggest initial power spike. 2nd game was prob a bit more tight in the jungle unless that's the game where both their bot lane and mid lane rotated twice in short order to try to save their junglers buffs - that might have been 1st game tho.

Quoting Krazikarl,

Seriously, go back and watch that game and ask yourself "who did more for his team". It was obviously the Amumu despite the fact that you are the better player.

You go back and watch it. Then tell me that game 1 was lost by my udyr and that i was out jungled. I thought you said it yourself, but there was a slim to no chance we were winning that game. That goes back to my point about it being silver and the odds of having a good or crap team. I do get your overall point, but in that specific instances, I do not think any character with any style of play as a jungler was going to win us the game. You toss yourself in my shoes and you'd have lost the game. You just wouldn't have been ff udyr... that's about it. Lost game is lost game. Definitely not the example I'd site for why ff udyr in this style is bad.

Quoting Krazikarl,

Yes, but most junglers can prevent or slow down bad things from happening in lanes. If you afk farm the jungle for 15-20 minutes, you can't. That's the difference.

That's a fair criticism/observation. But again, that 15-20 afk farm is on me for failing the strategy. The goal is 11 min. I maintain that if it takes 20 minutes, you should not be doing this. That's literally farming up the jungle for 9 minutes of active game time, getting a damage boost from a completely ff along with a level advantage (I'm likely the highest level player in the game at 11 min - generally at least 2 levels ahead of most/all.

Quoting Krazikarl,

and you only did that because you felt bad about giving the top Renekton red buff (which your Jax was thankfully good enough to play around).

heh... true...

Quoting Krazikarl,

I'm suggesting that you play a jungle style that doesn't rely on your team doing very specific things for the first 15-20 minutes of a game.

This all comes down to a risk/reward assessment. You prefer to be a tight poker player, while I'm a bit more loose and am willing to gamble a bit more. The reward for this type of udyr is the ability to carry a game and create pressure anywhere on the map. The risk is your team baulking early/mid due to no ganks from you and/or ganks from the enemy jungler.

You can say, ok pacov - do your feral flare thing, but you need to have more flexibility so you can gank/defend yourself better if you are counter jungled. I say - ok - I'm thinking through ways to do this, but my goal is still getting feral flare farmed up as fast as possible. I'm not married to the play style - I'm working on it and trying things out.

I also get the general thought - its silver - stfu and gank/countergank.

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ooo - braum is out now

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Quoting pacov,

This all comes down to a risk/reward assessment.

Right, but my point is that you are evaluating the reward incorrectly.

Currently, you are taking games where you win with big stats and say "hey, we won and I had great stats. Obvious it was worth it". This is questionable in most cases.

In those games, your lanes generally won or at least held even 4v5 where they had to go up against substantial jungle pressure. In such games, your team is simply better, so you are going to win those games the VAST majority of the time. Your team doesn't need a carry to suddenly appear out of the jungle at 18 minutes and carry them to victory. They had it already. So it is not a reward to win that game. You could jungle almost anything and have won the game - jungling that Udyr build and getting huge stats is just classic "win more" scenario.

On the other hand, you are actually risking quite a bit as discussed earlier. You can provide no help to your lanes for 15-20 minutes most of the time in games that are in doubt (e.g. games where your team doesn't crush on their own without your help).

So, in fact there is very little reward to be had. After all, there is a very very narrow spectrum of games where your team will come out ahead in lane phase playing 4v5, but needs help from a super carry jungler despite being the better team. You are just going to win those games harder and with better personal stats. On the other hand, you are risking quite a bit by sacrificing a hell of a lot of early game power.

Quoting pacov,

But again, that 15-20 afk farm is on me for failing the strategy.

Then you fail your strategy ~2/3 of the time - I'd suggest that you go back to your records and actually look at your times. The only time I see you get FF at anything close to 11 or 12 minutes is when your lanes just straight up win 4v5. And as pointed out earlier, if I know going into the game that my lanes can win 4v5 WITHOUT my help, I can virtually guarantee that we will win the game WITH my help. So playing that Udyr build is just a classic "win more".

Quoting pacov,

I thought you said it yourself, but there was a slim to no chance we were winning that game.

I'd say that your build gave your team a 0% chance to win that game. I might have been able to give that team a 5% chance to win the game. Now, mabe that doesn't seem like a huge deal. But over the course of 100 ranked games, that is going to work out to something like 200 LP difference between our respective strategies. 2 full divisions over just 100 games is a big deal.

So this is exactly the kind of game I want to be talking about - this Udyr build doesn't allow you to sometimes scratch and claw bad teams to a win like good junglers should be able to. It only allows already good teams to win harder.

And my objection isn't all about taking FF. I sometimes take FF on Udyr. Its more about taking Phoenix at level 1 and Tiger at level 2, and then doing a bunch of stuff which makes it difficult for you to fight champions until around level 10+ (including sometimes building both Wriggles and Spirit Stone). Oh, and while you are doing all this non fighting stuff, you insist on taking all the blues, while their mids are often getting blues. But you won't be using the blue to fight the other team. Its just being used to farm harder.

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Quoting pacov,