Thursday, November 29, 2012

IPL5 and January Sales Poll Results.

IPL 5 


IPL 5, the last major event of 20120, have started today with the participation of major teams such as the Finalist of Season 2 (TPA and M5), superstar Asian teams (Azubu, World Elite), major European teams (CLG.EU, Curse.EU), all time classics  (TSM, CLG.NA) and a lot of full hope and promises newcomers (Blackbeans ,Iceland). Do not forget we had quite a few Asian surprises the last period. A lot of fans would expect the popular SK Gaming team to take part to the event but they have not be able to go through the Qualifiers. On the other hand, the also disqualified FnaticRaidcall inherited Alternate's Qualifier spot. You can find more details about each team here.

The first games of the day have taken already place with a great game between Crs.NA and M5 with the later turning it in their favor in the last 5 minutes. The rest of the games so far went as expected with dominating victories of major teams over their weaker opponents. 

You can find full schedule and more information about IPL5 at leguepedia.
IPL FREE HD stream is here.
Two Twitch Streams are  also available here: 01 and 02.
VOD's would be uploaded here.

January Sales Poll


Results from the poll "What would you like to see included in the January sales event"  are up as well with Riots actions about them.

As Hippalus posted  The results of the poll are in and the result is a virtual dead heat between option #4 and #6, each with approximately 15.5K votes across the 4 regions that participated (NA, EUW, EUNE and BR). The combined vote tally is:
  • 1,522 - 50% off boosts
  • 5,076 - 50% off rune pages
  • 5,249 - RP purchases get extra bonus RP (similar to September)
  • 15,476 - 50% off skin super sale (10+ skins, including some never before on sale)
  • 11,679 - 75% off skin retirement (retiring several older skins to the legacy vault)
  • 15,487 - 50% off legacy skins (bringing back some retired skins not currently in the store)

The moves Riot is planning to do on January are the following: 
  • On January 11, the regular Friday sale will be replaced by a Skin Super Sale which will include some skins never before on sale (not Legendaries or other ineligible skins). As usual, three champions will also be on sale.


  •  At some point between now and the end of January, the 42 Legacy skins below will come back into the store for a limited time at 50% off their regular price (42 Skins in total):

Crimson Akali ,Matador Alistar , Pharaoh Amumu , Red Riding Annie , Annie In Wonderland , Safari Caitlyn , Nightmare ,Cho'Gath ,Red Baron Corki ,Mr. Mundoverse ,Toxic Dr. Mundo ,Masquerade Evelynn .Nottingham Ezreal ,Desert Trooper Garen ,Scuba Gragas , Alien Invader Heimerdinger , Angler Jax ,Phantom Karthus ,Unmasked Kayle ,Swamp Master Kennen ,Sonoran Kog'Maw ,Shamrock Malphite ,Vizier Malzahar ,Dragon Knight Mordekaiser ,Leopard Nidalee ,Sasquatch Nunu ,Blacksmith Poppy ,Noxus Poppy ,Professor Ryze ,Workshop Shaco ,Frozen Shen ,Yellow Jacket Shen,,Hextech Sion ,Spectacular Sivir ,Emerald Taric ,Badger Teemo ,Firefighter Tristana ,Highland Tryndamere 
The Magnificent Twisted Fate ,Kingpin Twitch ,Butcher Urgot ,Feral Warwick ,Time Machine Zilean

  • There was also a lot of interest in a skin retirement sale so we will pursue that a little later in 2013. The rune page sale and extra bonus RP promotions were well received in 2012 and will likely make comebacks later in 2013 as well. Boost sales, however, will go back into the idea dustbin.
You can find the link for the information above here.

Join us on Facebook here. It's Free ! ;)

Thursday, November 22, 2012

3-D Skin Preview. Skins for all the Tastes ! (All the Skins)

Interested in buying a new skin but not sure for the looks? A friend (Deleted on East) gave me this great link where you can find every skin in LoL in 3-D view for every Champion available so far up to Elise. There are also skins not released yet, for example you can check out Megaman-Tristana.


Join us on Facebook here. It's FREE! ;)

--->Here is the link for you. Enjoy!<---

P.S.
Season 3 Mastery Calculator here.



Friday, November 16, 2012

New Champion (Nami), Item Rewroks, Mastery Changes and more PBE news

Some information from the update on the PBE server.

We appriciate comments and you can join us at Facebook here to keep yourself updated!

So there are three main subjects:
  1. New Champion, Nami, abilities preview
  2. Item reworks and new HUD
  3. Masteries Changes

New Champion, Nami,abilities preview:



The nex champion abilities preview are shown below. Looks like great support to me, feel free to express your opinion! 

Abilities:
·         (Q - Hydro Blast) Sends a bubble into the air towards a targeted area, when it lands deals 75/130/185/240/295 (+0.75) magic damage to all enemies in the area of impact and encases them into bubbles. Enemies hit by the bubble are lifted into the air and stunned for 1.25/1.25/1.25/1.25/1.25 seconds before being dropped to the ground. [Cost: 65/65/65/65/65 Mana] [Cooldown: 16/14.5/13/11.5/10] [Range: 825.0]
·         (W - Surging Tides) Unleashes Surging Tides that alternates between allied and enemy champions.On Ally Hit: Heals for 50/80/110/140/170 (+) and will bounce to a nearby enemy champion.On Enemy Hit: Deals 50/90/130/170/210 (+0.5) magic damage, and bounces to any nearby allied champions.Can only bounce to each target once, hits up to 3/3/3/3/3 targets. [Cost: 60/75/90/105/120 Mana] [Cooldown: 9/9/9/9/9] [Range: 0.0]
·         (E - Aqueous Empowerment) Empowers an allied champion for 5/5/5/5/5 seconds or until they have attacked 3/3/3/3/3 times, their basic attacks deal 25/40/55/70/85 (+0.2) bonus magic damage and slow the target hit by 15/20/25/30/35% for 1/1/1/1/1 second. [Cost: 55/60/65/70/75 Mana] [Cooldown: 11/11/11/11/11] [Range: 0.0]
·         (R - Tidal Wave) Summons a Tidal Wave outward from Nami's position. The Tidal Wave briefly knocks up enemies that it comes in contact with and slows them by 60/65/70% and deals 150/250/350 (+0.8) magic damage. The slow duration increases based on how far the Tidal Wave has traveled, with a minimum duration of 3 seconds and a maximum of 5/5/5 seconds. [Cost: 100/150/200 Mana] [Cooldown: 150/130.5/110] [Range: 2200.0]

There is also a video at YouTube: 


Item reworks and new HUD


  Here is an image with the item reworks that they were anounced a few days ago.And a more detailed version of it at Imgur!



Source: Surrender@20


Lastly some of the HUD changes :

Masteries Changes



The images from Imgur on all three trees:

Offensive tree
Defensive tree
Utulity Tree


There are some interesting changes mostly on Defensive and Utility Tree, check em out!


Offensive Tree


  • ·         Summoner's Wrath: Exhaust lowers targets MR/Armor by 10, Ignite gives +5 AD / AP when on CD, Ghost speed increased to 35%, Allied Garrisoned turrets deal 50% splash damage.
  • ·         Fury: + 1/2/3/4% attack speed
  • ·         Sorcery: + 1/2/3/4% CDR
  • ·         Butcher: + 2/4 damage to minions.
  • ·         Deadliness: + 3/6/9/12 AD at level 18 ( .17 AD per rank per level )
  • ·         Blast: + 4.5/9/13.5/18 AP at level 18 ( .25 AP per rank per level )
  • ·         Destruction: Increase damage to turrets by 2.5/5%
  • ·         Havoc: Increase damage by 0.67/1.33/2%
  • ·         Weapon Expertise: 8% Armor Pen
  • ·         Arcane Knowledge: 8% Magic Pen
  • ·         Lethality: + 2.5/5% Critical Strike Damage (5%/10% for melee champs)
  • ·         Brute Force: + 1.5/3 AD
  • ·         Mental Force: + 1.5/3/4.5/6 AP
  • ·         Spellsword: deals 5% of your AP as magic damage in each autoattack
  • ·         Frenzy: Grants 10% attack speed for 2 seconds after landing a crit hit.
  • ·         Sunder: +2/4/6 Armor Pen
  • ·         Archmage: +1.25/2.5/3.75/5% bonus AP
  • ·         Executioner: Increase damage by 5% to targets below 50% health

Deensive Tree

  • ·         Summoner's Resolve: Increases the duration of Cleanses disable reduction by 1 sec,  gives +5 champion HP per level on heal, +10 gold on smite use, increases Barrier amount by 20
  • ·         Perseverance: up to 2/4/6 health per 5 based on missing health
  • ·         Durability: + 27/54/81/108 health at level 18 ( 1.5 hp per rank per level )
  • ·         Tough Skin: reduce damage taken from monsters by 1/2
  • ·         Hardiness: + 2/4/6 armor
  • ·         Resistance: + 2/4/6 MR
  • ·         Bladed Armor: Deals 6 damage to any enemy monster that attacks you
  • ·         Unyielding: Reduce damage taken by champions by 1/2
  • ·         Relentless: Reduce effectiveness of slows by 7.5/15%
  • ·         Veteran's Scars: +30 health
  • ·         Safeguard: Reduce damage taken from turrets by 5%
  • ·         Block: Reduce damage taken from champion basic attacks by 3
  • ·         Tenacious: Reduces the duration of crowd control effects by 5/10/15%
  • ·         Juggernaut: Increase your max health by 1.5/2.75/4%
  • ·         Defender: + 1 armor and MR per nearby enemy champion
  • ·         Legendary Armor: + 1.25/2.5/3.75/5% armor and MR
  • ·         Good Hands: Reduce time spent dead by 10%
  • ·         Reinforced Armor: Reduce damage taken from critical strikes by 5/10%
  • ·         Honor Guard: Reduce damage taken from all sources by 3%

Utility Tree

  • ·         Summoner's Insight: Grants bonus health on Revive for 2 min, reduces teleport cast time by .5 sec, reduces cooldown of flash by 15 seconds, increases Clarity's mana restore by 25%, Grants additional vision of enemy units revealed.
  • ·         Wanderer: + 0.66/1.33/2% MS when out of combat
  • ·         Meditation: +1/2/3 mana per 5
  • ·         Improved Recall: Reduces cast time of recall by 1 sec and improved Recall by .5
  • ·         Scout: Wards gain 25% increased vision for the first 3 seconds
  • ·         Mastermind: Reduces the cooldown of Summoner Spells by 4/7/10%
  • ·         Expanded Mind: + 72/126/180 mana at level 18 ( +4 per rank per level )
  • ·         Artifacer: Cooldown of activated items are reduced by 7.5/15%
  • ·         Greed: +0.5/1/1.5/2 GP10
  • ·         Runic Affinity: +20% buff duration
  • ·         Strength of Spirit: + up to 1/2/3 HP per 5 for each 400 points of mana you posses
  • ·         Biscuiteer: Start the game with a regenerative biscuit that restores 80 health and 50 mana over 10 seconds
  • ·         Wealth: Increase starting gold by 25/50
  • ·         Awareness: increase experience earned by 1.25/2.5/3.75/5%
  • ·         Vampirism: +1/2/3% lifesteal and spellvamp
  • ·         Explorer: On Summoner's Rift, grants a ward at the start of the game that can be placed to reveal the surrounding area for 60 seconds. On all other maps, +25 starting gold
  • ·         Pickpocket: +3 gold ( ranged)/+5 gold melee for each basic attack against an enemy champion has a 5 second cooldown 
  • ·         Intelligence: +2/4/6% CDR
  •          Nimble: +3% MS



You can chech more Detailed information and more stuff (about Nidalee, skins and more) on  Surrender@20
If you prefer the Greek language, Pentakil.gr has nice info aswell.

Source: Surrender@20
Images: moobeat

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Leaving Elo-Hell and Climbing on the Elo-Ladder. A Comprehensive Guide for the Average LoL player



Hey everyone,

This is my first try to write a guide but I hope that you will like it. I summed up a few info instead of making a lengthy paragraph ( as you will notice the guide too long)
Name: Kostas, Summoner names: fouf123 on East and foufeX on west
Role: Jungler
Highest elo: 1820
Info: I am not a skilled player but I try to counter that with experience and knowledge of the game.

This guide is on how to get your ELO higher. By saying higher I don’t intend to give you guidelines on how to get from 1900 to 2400 but some useful tips and ideas on how to get out of elo-hell and do your first steps towards 1800ish rating.

As we do in business it will be good to have a plan. You should answer some questions like:
Where am I? Do you feel that you belong at 1500 elo, 1800 one or you are a professional that was so unlucky with his teammates and got stuck in elo-hell?

Where do I want to be? After you decide how good player you are it is good to set realistic targets. So I you think you are a 1600 player, 1650 rating is a realistic target. After you achieve your current targets you can set new ones.

How I will get there?  Well that’s what this guide is talking about. Hope you can find some useful information in it.


List of topics:
·         Play roles you are familiar with
·         Play heroes you are familiar with
·         Lane control
·         Map awareness
·         Information, information, information…
      Objectives     
·         Try to be the leader (if you can).
·         Feedback yourself
·         Play when you perform best!
·         Duo Queue with someone you can co-operate.
·         Try to avoid bad players
·         Do not flame.
·         Try to make a winning streak at the begging.

·         Play roles you are familiar with!

I know it’s hard sometimes to get the role you like but at least you have to tell your teammates, at the champion selection screen, that you would like to play a particular role because you perform better at it. Also a back-up plan is a good idea.

 Your back-up plan would be to be able to play a second role in an acceptable level other than your main role. For example, I try to get the role of the Jungle but it is not always possible so my second choice is always support. If that is not possible either I am able to play a couple of safe farming heroes at Top and Mid. I choose heroes that can farm safely because when I play in a lane I am not familiar with, I will probably lose it because the opposite player will be more experienced than me. So what I try to do is farm till mid game and try not to feed the opponents. If that is the case, I will recommend (at least for the lanning phase) not to do weird/Gosu stuff that you have seen on streams just farm and do not feed.

·         Play heroes you are familiar with.

Similarly, you should always try to play champions that you are familiar and good with. Some argue that if you can play a single champion amazingly can carry you around. I would recommend a middle way. Depending on your role you should have a champion pool that you are comfortable with so you can pick the hero that fits better in the situation. Do not try champions you are not familiar with because their counter to your opponent’s champion. If your opponent knows how to use his hero, you will probably fail.

Taking myself for example, I can play at competitive level at least 2 Junglers from each of the following categories: a) Counter-junglers, b) Safe Farming Junglers, c) Strong Gagners, d) Tanky Junglers, e) Bruisers Junglers, f)Heavy-CC/Support Junglers, g) AP based. Having a variety of champions I am able to adapt depending on factors such as:
i)                    What does my team need (CC, Tank, Dmg, AP) .
ii)                   What will counter the opponent team (do they have heavy physical/magical dmg or heavy CC?).
iii)                 What will counter the enemy jungler (if they pick a weak jungler, I will go for a counter-jungler etc).
Regarding your secondary role you should be able to have a few champs you should be familiar with

·         Lane control

Moving from champions selection to lanning phase. In order to perform well you will need to have items which means that you need to farm CS safely. To do that you should know the basic of lanning and a few lanning techniques. Because this guide is getting too long and other people have written before me about it, if you do not know how to: i) Deny CS, ii) Freeze your lane, iii) Push your lane strategically and farm safely you should read another guide : )
BeeJ have written a nice, extensive guide on NA League of legends forum regarding lane control, here is the link.

·         Map awareness

In my opinion map awareness is one of the most important factors to win the game. It is really important to know at all times what’s going on at the map. The map awareness depends mainly in two things: i) vision of the map (through towers, minions and wards yes you should buy wards no matter your role) and ii) if you actually look on the map once in a while. You should be aware at all times where your teammates are and have an idea if possible of where your enemies are.

For example, you don’t want to go counter-jungling when your mid is at base, their Mid and Bot have pushed their lanes and you don’t have an idea where the enemy jungler is. If you take all the above into consideration you will understand that the risk for taking a couple of minions is too high. On the same way you don’t want to put ward on the river if all 5 enemy members are missing and you don’t have an idea of where they might be.

Especially for initiators, you should be always aware where your teammates and enemies are if you want to do a proper initiation. I know you all (including me) have experience times that you initiated because you were 5 and they were 3, but 3 seconds later you were alone and they were 5 because your teammates went back to farm and you didn’t notice.

·         Information, information, information…
 

 A really important aspect of the game is information. Your ability to get information and to interpret it correctly is a difficult task that needs experience and awareness of what’s happening around you and on the map. Information is the line that separates a good call from a bad call. You should always have information regarding all the players on their position on the map, their cool downs, their items, their score, the timers of the neutral monsters etc. By having that information in mind you can calculate your friends and opponents strength and even predict their next move on the map.

For example, if you know that a player has used his summoners, will give you a window of a few minutes to take advantage of it by pressuring his lane or even ganging him. If you know the timers for the neutral monsters you can be prepared to fight for them or even take them fast enough without anyone noticing. If you see the mid player at top, you can use this information and pressure put pressure on a tower Bot or take the dragon etc etc.

·          Objectives

You all have been to games that you were carring so hard but you lost the game at the end. If you have 11-0-2 doesn't really matter unless you destroy the enemy Nexus. So you have to define the objectives and then puss for them.  Your early game objective should be to win your lane. That means more CS than your opponent, more kills and if possible a Tier 1 tower down. This way  you put pressure on the map and lead your team to mid-game objectives. Mid-game objectives should be the Drake, Tier 2 towers and then if your team is doing well you should end the game by try to take the enemys inhibitors, Baron and finally The Nexus.

·         Try to be the leader (if you can).

It always a good tactic to work as a team and every good team needs a good leader. In case none is presenting leadership skill and you think you are able to lead your team to the victory then start organizing.

There are few basic things to do as a leader.
i)                    First more important and more difficult is to make your team trust you as a leader. There are not tips for that; usually if you make a good call once or you have the most kills of your team will work. Otherwise people tend to follow people with high elo, so a small lie would not always be that bad.
ii)                   Ping the map and call the SS, share the information you have.
iii)                 Make your team to push for the objectives, by instructing them, being present for the goal, proper warding in order to achieve the objective etc

Unfortunately the leader role is a hard one and needs a lot of experience to make good calls. It fits better to the positions of mid and jungler because of their ability to roam and put pressure on specific objectives.

·         Feedback yourself

At the end of each I would recommend to take 1 minute before Queuing again and think about you in the game you just played. Think what have you done wrong and what have you done right.
Was your CS score acceptable? If you were mid player, did you put pressure on the map? Did you have a good Kill/Death ratio? Why did you lost the baron smite? Can you improve next time? Do not try to follow the common way of thinking...I lost my lane because my jungler did not help me. Even if that is the case… try to think what you could have done better in order to win your lane? Did you made a bad move and gave your opponent your advantage? Did you use wards? You think you should have played more defensively?  What went wrong and you lost the lane? Most of the times its either are points in the game we messed up by making a bad call which our opponent took advantage of it and then the game snowballed.

·         Play when you perform best!

If you are planning to get your elo high you will have to win. In order to win the best think you can do is to perform at least above than average. If all your teams perform above average you will probably win. Keeping that in mind it can prove useful sometimes to play when you know that you can perform the best.
For example, try to be rested. If you haven’t slept for one day the chances you will fail are higher. Try to avoid playing ranked games for 10 hours in a row; there are a lot of chances that after your first games your effectiveness will drop

·         Duo Queue with someone you can co-operate.

When you play solo Queue, you are playing with 4 random people that can perform from really good to really bad. By playing Duo Queue (DQ) you are reducing players that can potentially miss-perform by one.

To have a successful DQ, it would be wise to pick up a friend that you can co-operate with. By co-operation I mean two things:
i)                    You both have the same play-style (aggressive, defensive, objective based) and
ii)            Your main roles can synergize (mid-jungle, top-jungle, ad-support). If you both feel really confident about yourself you can try to pick solo lanes and carry the game for the rest of the team. Other than that it would be great if you and your duo partner are playing along time together so you can synergize better. Software and microphone for online talking are strongly recommended!

·         Try to avoid bad players.

That goes mostly for lower elo people. I have noticed a lot of times that people (for some reason) leave the game resulting in putting you back in the Queue. Sometimes, you will be able to get some information about your teammates through this time. If for any reason you think that you team is not going to be good (have played before with that player, he was flaming at the champion selection, he was acting like a child etc), LEAVE THE QUEUE! The chances are really high that you will get on the same team with some of those people when the game window pop-up again.

·         Do not flame.

As Riot mentions to its new “Tips in game” feature, people that flame have 16% more chances to lose the game that those who do not. I believe that the “Do not blame” is not a tip or advice but a rule.

By flaming you are not magically transforming your teammates to professional players. Most possible is to get them play even worse. Additionally, you are not focused anymore on the game but you are typing a lot and thinking of good lines to make fun of the other players reducing your performance.

My personal advice is play your game and do not criticize the rest. On the same way there will be times that you will have bad games and you will be flamed, just ignore them and keep playing your game. Constructive criticism in a good manner is always welcome!

·         Try to make a winning streak at the begging.

Well that’s a small one but helped me a lot in Season 2. It is better to wait a few days before starting playing because at the moment at 1500 elo they are players that used to be a lot higher. So it would be a good idea to let them get higher so you can play with people at your level or worse. As you have noticed the first game of each Season are ranking games, this means that you gain 30+ rating per win and lose 30+ rating per defeat. So it will be easier to get elo if you win at the beginning of the Season.

For example, at Season 2 I began playing kind of late. As a result most of the top players have left elo hell and I was able to make a score of 11-1 which meant that I was at 1750 rating with only 12 games! After that point even if I lost a game I was penalized with only 10-12 points instead of 30. The hard part is to maintain and increase your rating after that point.

Stay tuned! Join us on Facebook!

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Dominion Cinematic(Duels included)!!

I have noticed that the video on youtube has still very few views so I though to rebroadcast it.

Inlcudes a lot dueling between champions and of course team-Demacia is owning!

 Jarvan IV(for) the WIN!

Join us on facebook or leave a comment, they are both free!

Enjoy!


Regarding this video RiotRomulus said:
"Hey guys, just a heads up, this was an unfinished prototype we ended up not moving forward with. Due to a small miscommunication associated with assets for the stream in Brazil it ended up being utilized unintentionally. Sorry for the confusion.Glad you thought it was cool though ;)" 

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

All-Star team-setups of Season 2 Championship, Final Stage (part 3)

This is the 3rd part of the series.


Combining those statistics I have reached to the following table.

I know some teams are missing but there was a huge amount of data, so I picked some of my favorites



This table is about the most common picks in every role for each team. Below there is the table with maybe the most picked champions in Final Stage of Season 2 Championship. ( I say maybe because some stats are missing as I said before)


Stay tuned! Join us on Facebook!

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Statistics on LoL Season 2 World Championship, Top-Bot lanes (part 2)

Here is the 2nd part of the statistics and some comments including Top and Bottom lane. You can find the 1st part with Middle Lane and Jungle here. There is gonna be a 3rd part of this post as well so stay tuned ! 

Don't forget to join us at facebook and feel free to post your comments below, I realy appreciate it!

For our Greek fans Void Gaming won Pentakill.gr at the  Greek Go4LoL Cup final! Congratulations to both teams.

Top


  • Another TPA player, Stanley this time seems to be the more effective top lane (always regarding K/D ratio).
  • Azubu Shy had a really aggressive tournament, having the most kills and deaths per game.
  • Kenin and Voyboy contributed the less to their team but still the games they have are too few to make an accurate conclusion.
  • Shen and Jayce look like the most commonly used champions.