For those arguing that putting a preference for a third party doesn't matter because it'll be redistributed in a preferential voting system I'll present the case of a couple of federal parliament seats in Victoria.
For those unaware of Australian politics, main parties are Liberals (right-wing), Labor (left-wing) and the Greens (further left-wing, third party). So most seats would be Liberals vs Labor with Greens votes shifting to Labor.
For those seats (this has slowly built up over a few elections) the Greens primary vote has grown enough that the seats have turned into Labor vs Greens, with Liberal preferences deciding it.
The point being that being able to present a preference lets support for third parties to build up (without being a giant spoiler), and potentially flip around what the strongest two parties are in an area.
I just found that without some form of damage he's too lackluster compared to when he does build some. I think boomerang cd is low enough (if you catch it) that you can generally get a lot of procs off as mini Gnar, which works well with the kite and poke with autos playstyle he's got, and Mega Gnar I'd say gets a lot of benefit out of the movespeed (he's like the slowest champ in the game, or tied for that), and is just a lot scarier with the extra damage.
Course that's my opinion after only a few games of him, but my thoughts on him going full tank is kinda why would I pick him for that over something more reliable that does more damage, at the cost of a bit less disruption? I think he definitely wants one or two damage items to differentiate enough from say, Shyvana, as it gives him the power to burst people a lot harder than the other tanks.
Although I do think he could do with some faster animations when Mega on his Q and W. The W in particular is the clunkiest thing ever to use.
I honestly think Gnar is going to seem a lot less powerful than he actually can be for a while, until people learn how to properly manipulate his rage bar and how to teamfight/engage well with him. Mega Gnar is absurdly powerful used well in a teamfight, but being in the right spot at the right time with the right amount of rage is tricky.
Also, after trying him out for a few games, I'm pretty certain the best build is basically to channel Jax. Triforce and/or bork -> tank items gives him a LOT of damage and surviveability. If you skip the damage items then he lacks the punch to do anything more than be a nuisance/disruption (mini Gnar does like no damage when building tank, and Mega Gnar benefits so much from being able to really spike an adc/mage out). Laning is pretty interesting, he gets trashed by stuff that can do decent damage from his range or longer (a Zed wrecked me), but he does surprisingly well aginst stuff that has to run/dash at him (was able to slug it out with a Riven).
I think the transparancy of his transformations is fine, you can use an imminent Mega Gnar to zone people quite well, and for engages you probably want to flank from fog of war so you can jump on top of a squishy and utterly destroy them before they can start kiting you (Mega Gnar is SO DAMN SLOW). Mini Gnar is good at kiting anyways, so you can keep them off you while you wait for your rage to refill without a huge amount of difficulty.
Nah, that idea wouldn't be that good once people see it being used once or twice. With three people in the one lane not only do you have two people not getting any gold instead of one but you lose a lot of xp, and so those three eventually end up underleveled. If the other team runs a 2 person lane against it which can waveclear well (lulu+something?), or can at least hold the tower and not die your team is absolutely screwed, because without a jungler you should be losing mid and top (especially top) almost guaranteed. Their jungler just has to show top and mid and your laners are forced to give up cs/xp because you don't have a jungler to respond and put pressure elsewhere. And if it doesn't work really well your team is guaranteed to have a big gold deficit (their jungler has a lot more available without retaliation), so you end up weaker as a team.
And that's excluding the easy solutions of putting their jungler bot after 2 buffs for a 3v3 in which they'll be stronger (because the jungler will come in at a higher level and with double buffs), or just lane swapping, in which case we see the meta of the last 5 months of so play out again except you're considerably worse off because your second support can't help the top laner get enough farm at the start to be relevant later in the game as well as their jungler can.
Isn't it just at least partially the fact that Cait just happens to be the one sitting on the throne of highest range? Of course whichever adc has that position is going to get a natural lane bully advantage. I personally don't see the big deal with having to just sit back and try and farm out a lane safely, the range difference isn't THAT big (unless you're Sivir really) and you have a support to either provide sustain or engage threat on her.
Then again take my position with a bit of salt I guess, as I'm a top laner mainly (so having to deal with lane destroying bullies such as Renek or Darius is part of the job), with a lot of support on the side, who happily plays stuff like Nasus (so I don't find having to spend a lane just farming a big deal even on other champs). A range disadvantage up there means you either kill/maul them really early or you're likely utterly stuffed in terms of being bullied for the whole lane because it means melee vs ranged (even on say Renekton stuff like Nidalee or Ryze is just cancer if you don't get ahead really early).
Join the club, been having a really bad run of games the last few days (won like 2/9 or something horrible, my MMR has probably gone to crap), topped off by the 3 games I've just played today being nothing but people raging at each other and threatening to afk from the word go. Game simply stopped being fun and I was tilting hard by the end of the 3rd so I'm probably taking a break for a few days (clearing win of the day since I want the IP to buy 2 lots of rune pages when they go on sale later this month but that's it). I simply don't understand the attitude of people who instantly rage, and then threaten to afk if you try and get them to calm down...
Unfortunately Riot in their wisdom has disabled normal draft games for the Oceania server, so I don't actually have any other mode to fall back on from ranked now... (blind pick is just cancer, ARAMs are boring, team builder is basically blind pick without arguing, but a 20+ minute wait time).
Also, anyone else get annoyed by people who complain at the thought any unusual champion picks? It's like there's 110+ champs in the game, believe it or not there are more that are viable for any given role than just the 6-8 most common. I really want to be playing top lane Soraka more often (it's so brutal against most things up there provided you ward well) but half the time I just can't be bothered dealing with the whinging that'll result, especially in ranked.
You need to try Soraka top. You crush most top laners even harder (watch what happens to say a Nasus, it's just brutal) but in return you spend the whole lane thinking "please don't gank me please don't gank me", although sometimes you can tank it out with the help of summoner Heal.
Is it a decent sign that you're improving past a level when you start noticing the common flaws people tend to make at it (and not doing them youself, hopefully!)?
Because right now, all I want as a top laner being matched against high silver/low gold players and generally winning my lane is a team that knows how to take advantage of a top lane with a massive advantage. Practically nobody at this level knows what to do when you have a guy who can split push and wreck anyone that comes up to 1v1, which is basically either play defensively in a 4v4 or 4v5 (I usually take teleport which means I can join in fights provided they don't get caught out and blown to bits) and let the split pusher do his stuff, or take advantage of the enemy team sending multiple people up to deal with him.
I just had a game where as an ahead Nasus I got 5 man ganked up in top lane (which still took them a while to kill me as I just stalled it out) in response to me finishing off a tower. What was my team doing? 2 people were in river clearly unsure whether to help or not, the other two were in mid lane sort of milling around the creep wave. It's so frustrating, I do my job about as well as I can and the entire rest of the team does literally nothing to take advantage of it in response.
*the sadness of a top laner who wants just one game where he can split push to infinity*
And yep, I know I can transition a lane win into stronger teamfighting (which I usually end up doing, luckily one of my main champs is Wukong), but it feels riskier unless we're winning in several lanes (or else it's basically hope I have a stronger teamfight contribution than whoever on their team is fed), and it's like I have teleport guys please let me spend more than a minute pushing a lane without someone getting caught stupidly.
Yeah honestly having to buy champions in LoL is annoying but not having all the champions really isn't that big a disadvantage, as you're generally going to focus on getting good with a handful. I mean sure, if I had all of them and I got to pick after my lane opponent I could go for as hard a counterpick as I could find... and then get stomped because I have no idea how to play that champ and/or matchup, when I could have gone with something I'm much better with and played better.
I doubt you'll find someone who LIKES buying champions, but calling it pay2win is over the top, as being good at a disadvantageous matchup (and thus knowing how to win it or come out ahead long-run) is better than being bad at a theoretically stompy one. It'd be nice in order to learn some that I am interested in, but even with a pretty small pool I have enough that I can just re-pickup some I haven't touched for a while if I want more variety.
Concerning people getting punished for only playing one champ, it certainly happens at very high level ranked, where the player pool is small enough that people know who's probably on the other team and to know what they play from experience/word of mouth. Watching high-ranked streams you see a lot of "this guy is probably on the other team since he was in my last game, so ban X as that's all he plays", it's pretty funny. Stating predictibility in strategy isn't punished in a mode where all the other players are different each game, and thus making the ability to get punished by playing the same thing repeatedly near impossible, and that this is a huge flaw in the game seems odd. If that's your argument then you should be focusing more on the competitive scene and trying to apply that argument there.
True, fair enough I stand corrected but those picks are very niche aside from Ryze (who builds pretty beefy for a mage), at least in NA LCS, but having the pool for a lane be limited to tanky bruisers and people who counter Renekton feels unhealthy to the game for a lot of people, which is why he's probably going to get some nerfs (for the record I don't think they should be big, just enough so a small advantage doesn't snowball so hard for him).
I'd disagree about when they can safely dive you, but that's a much more complicated discussion and really situation dependant.
Yeah, a non-bruiser is a much riskier proposition in top lane, but it shouldn't be completely unviable. I just think Renekton locks out far too much by himself, while other bullies don't as they have more well defined weaknesses (for instance keeping with Garen he has no proper gap closers so you can position well and fight back).
I think Renekton definitely needs a nerf, as by himself he shuts out a huge amount of champs from top lane. Being strong early is fine, but he's strong to a point where if you take someone that's a bit squishy without good sustain and make a single mistake early you're going to get utterly crushed in lane (and eventually you won't even be safe under turret due to his ult), while against other lane bullies there's at least options to recover.
Against stuff like Mundo/Shyv/Trundle he's fine, but nerfing him would just open up so many more options up there.
I really don't think that Renekton is that bad, so long as you play smart against him. You just have to know that he's going to leave lane with a CS advantage over you, but you're going to end up scaling better into the late game than him. Honestly, I can't think of anyone top lane that he makes un-viable by being picked.
Yeah, that's standard against all lane bullies. But with Renek more than most others I've seen if you make one small mis-step in positioning you can get chunked badly, and he snowballs a small lead in lane really really hard if you aren't tanky enough to either trade back well with him and/or survive his dives. I just think he's too unforgiving to play against unless you're a handful of champs. Like I'll take Nasus into him any day of the week and just farm up, but with squishier champs I've seen a small-ish lead quickly lead to a point where Renekton can dive 1v1 and kill an opponent from say 80% hp.
I think the main thing is just the point where you can't even sit at your tower happens much quicker against Renek than say a Garen.
For those unaware of Australian politics, main parties are Liberals (right-wing), Labor (left-wing) and the Greens (further left-wing, third party). So most seats would be Liberals vs Labor with Greens votes shifting to Labor.
For those seats (this has slowly built up over a few elections) the Greens primary vote has grown enough that the seats have turned into Labor vs Greens, with Liberal preferences deciding it.
The point being that being able to present a preference lets support for third parties to build up (without being a giant spoiler), and potentially flip around what the strongest two parties are in an area.
Course that's my opinion after only a few games of him, but my thoughts on him going full tank is kinda why would I pick him for that over something more reliable that does more damage, at the cost of a bit less disruption? I think he definitely wants one or two damage items to differentiate enough from say, Shyvana, as it gives him the power to burst people a lot harder than the other tanks.
Although I do think he could do with some faster animations when Mega on his Q and W. The W in particular is the clunkiest thing ever to use.
Also, after trying him out for a few games, I'm pretty certain the best build is basically to channel Jax. Triforce and/or bork -> tank items gives him a LOT of damage and surviveability. If you skip the damage items then he lacks the punch to do anything more than be a nuisance/disruption (mini Gnar does like no damage when building tank, and Mega Gnar benefits so much from being able to really spike an adc/mage out). Laning is pretty interesting, he gets trashed by stuff that can do decent damage from his range or longer (a Zed wrecked me), but he does surprisingly well aginst stuff that has to run/dash at him (was able to slug it out with a Riven).
I think the transparancy of his transformations is fine, you can use an imminent Mega Gnar to zone people quite well, and for engages you probably want to flank from fog of war so you can jump on top of a squishy and utterly destroy them before they can start kiting you (Mega Gnar is SO DAMN SLOW). Mini Gnar is good at kiting anyways, so you can keep them off you while you wait for your rage to refill without a huge amount of difficulty.
But Blitz with Eve passive is the worst thing ever to run into. The unseen hook is the deadliest.
And that's excluding the easy solutions of putting their jungler bot after 2 buffs for a 3v3 in which they'll be stronger (because the jungler will come in at a higher level and with double buffs), or just lane swapping, in which case we see the meta of the last 5 months of so play out again except you're considerably worse off because your second support can't help the top laner get enough farm at the start to be relevant later in the game as well as their jungler can.
Then again take my position with a bit of salt I guess, as I'm a top laner mainly (so having to deal with lane destroying bullies such as Renek or Darius is part of the job), with a lot of support on the side, who happily plays stuff like Nasus (so I don't find having to spend a lane just farming a big deal even on other champs). A range disadvantage up there means you either kill/maul them really early or you're likely utterly stuffed in terms of being bullied for the whole lane because it means melee vs ranged (even on say Renekton stuff like Nidalee or Ryze is just cancer if you don't get ahead really early).
Unfortunately Riot in their wisdom has disabled normal draft games for the Oceania server, so I don't actually have any other mode to fall back on from ranked now... (blind pick is just cancer, ARAMs are boring, team builder is basically blind pick without arguing, but a 20+ minute wait time).
Also, anyone else get annoyed by people who complain at the thought any unusual champion picks? It's like there's 110+ champs in the game, believe it or not there are more that are viable for any given role than just the 6-8 most common. I really want to be playing top lane Soraka more often (it's so brutal against most things up there provided you ward well) but half the time I just can't be bothered dealing with the whinging that'll result, especially in ranked.
Because right now, all I want as a top laner being matched against high silver/low gold players and generally winning my lane is a team that knows how to take advantage of a top lane with a massive advantage. Practically nobody at this level knows what to do when you have a guy who can split push and wreck anyone that comes up to 1v1, which is basically either play defensively in a 4v4 or 4v5 (I usually take teleport which means I can join in fights provided they don't get caught out and blown to bits) and let the split pusher do his stuff, or take advantage of the enemy team sending multiple people up to deal with him.
I just had a game where as an ahead Nasus I got 5 man ganked up in top lane (which still took them a while to kill me as I just stalled it out) in response to me finishing off a tower. What was my team doing? 2 people were in river clearly unsure whether to help or not, the other two were in mid lane sort of milling around the creep wave. It's so frustrating, I do my job about as well as I can and the entire rest of the team does literally nothing to take advantage of it in response.
*the sadness of a top laner who wants just one game where he can split push to infinity*
And yep, I know I can transition a lane win into stronger teamfighting (which I usually end up doing, luckily one of my main champs is Wukong), but it feels riskier unless we're winning in several lanes (or else it's basically hope I have a stronger teamfight contribution than whoever on their team is fed), and it's like I have teleport guys please let me spend more than a minute pushing a lane without someone getting caught stupidly.
I doubt you'll find someone who LIKES buying champions, but calling it pay2win is over the top, as being good at a disadvantageous matchup (and thus knowing how to win it or come out ahead long-run) is better than being bad at a theoretically stompy one. It'd be nice in order to learn some that I am interested in, but even with a pretty small pool I have enough that I can just re-pickup some I haven't touched for a while if I want more variety.
Concerning people getting punished for only playing one champ, it certainly happens at very high level ranked, where the player pool is small enough that people know who's probably on the other team and to know what they play from experience/word of mouth. Watching high-ranked streams you see a lot of "this guy is probably on the other team since he was in my last game, so ban X as that's all he plays", it's pretty funny. Stating predictibility in strategy isn't punished in a mode where all the other players are different each game, and thus making the ability to get punished by playing the same thing repeatedly near impossible, and that this is a huge flaw in the game seems odd. If that's your argument then you should be focusing more on the competitive scene and trying to apply that argument there.
Yeah, a non-bruiser is a much riskier proposition in top lane, but it shouldn't be completely unviable. I just think Renekton locks out far too much by himself, while other bullies don't as they have more well defined weaknesses (for instance keeping with Garen he has no proper gap closers so you can position well and fight back).
Yeah, that's standard against all lane bullies. But with Renek more than most others I've seen if you make one small mis-step in positioning you can get chunked badly, and he snowballs a small lead in lane really really hard if you aren't tanky enough to either trade back well with him and/or survive his dives. I just think he's too unforgiving to play against unless you're a handful of champs. Like I'll take Nasus into him any day of the week and just farm up, but with squishier champs I've seen a small-ish lead quickly lead to a point where Renekton can dive 1v1 and kill an opponent from say 80% hp.
I think the main thing is just the point where you can't even sit at your tower happens much quicker against Renek than say a Garen.