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    posted a message on League of Legends Season IV
    I think you're vastly overstating Zyra's power. For example, Zyra's ult IS an amazing CC, but it's a very poor engage tool where Sona's is an amazing initiation if that's what you need. Zyra's ult is an amazing counterinitiation; Sona's is not quite the same level of counterinitiation but vastly more flexible. And you're discounting strategic mobility (which is freaking huge to actually winning games), heals and shields, which is just... Zyra's slows do not mitigate anywhere near the damage that Sona's W mitigates. It's good for other reasons but it's not the same thing.

    Incidentally:
    You also don't get hard-counterd by aoe comps as Zyra. Sona pretty much has to stay really close to someone for her auras to do anything.

    I've seen this sentiment a lot and I'm fairly sure it's the opposite of the real situation - it turns out that bringing a free, high tuned Locket (and you can still buy another locket!) is really good against AOE comps. It's not like it was hard to catch multiple people in an AOE before - you don't need a Sona on the enemy team for that to happen, that happens pretty much always, at every elo, anyway - but Sona blunts the effects a lot.

    Posted in: Video Games
  • 1

    posted a message on Here is why Shunning Racist is bad....
    Quote from billydaman
    Quote from Jay13x
    Quote from billydaman
    They can ban his team from playing in the NBA, they can not take the team. McDonald's can prevent you from using their logo but they cant take your employees, your restaurant or your ownership of the business. they can only take the name and any sort of support they provide. Get your facts straight before you preach to me how "frustrating I am". They can destroy his business but they cant take his personal property because he said something offensive. If you believe they should, I want your house because you offend me.


    Except we don't have any sort of legal agreement whereby I have to conduct myself in a manner that reflects well on you. You're making a whole lot of bad comparisons.

    In article 13 of the franchising agreement, it would have to be proved by the NBA, but by alienating sponsors and the fan base, he could be 'failing to meet his contractual obligations'. Hopefully the NBA actually has a case for this, which remains to be seen.


    Alienating people is not failing to meet a contractual obligation. There no legal agreement between Sterling and the NBA where it prohibits or denies him from having private and personal discussions. The contents of those discussions are irrelevant unless he willfully brings harm to the NBA. The NBA must prove he meant to harm the NBA. As far as forcing him to sell, Silver did nothing more than placate people who wanted vengeance. My example stands until you can prove what part of the contract Sterling failed to obligate.

    If you do some research, the sponsors are still liable for paying the Clippers despite them pulling their advertisements.


    Be careful, here. We do not know exactly what his contractual obligations are, because the NBA keeps its own bylaws secret. You're asserting things that you have no way of knowing, and everyone here knows it. I suspect they don't have anything strong enough to actually force a sale, but it's certainly possible, and in any case the value of his property is about to nosedive if he does fight a sale, because very few players are going to sign new contracts with his team as long as he owns it, and the players who ARE under contract may have a decent case fighting to get out of their contracts. Going along with a sale is probably financially in his best interests. But that'll be between him, the NBA and any new owners, of course.

    As for rehabilitating him, I don't see why we should care whether Donald Sterling is rehabilitated. It's been 40 years since ignorance was a plausible excuse. He should know better, and if he doesn't, he's willfully ignorant. If he comes around, great, but he probably won't, there's probably absolutely nothing anyone can do at this point to make him understand, and I don't think anyone needs to lose any sleep over it. Just marginalize him and move on.
    Posted in: Debate
  • 1

    posted a message on Diablo III
    Quote from AsianInvasion
    Quote from Drawmeomg
    Hit the Mystic, have her swap the int to something more useful!

    I expect the frustration comes more from the fact that it's not a level 70 item than the fact that the main stat was Int.


    Ah. I play almost exclusively hardcore now, so items that will help while leveling new characters (even the home stretch) are valuable to me whereas the end-game optimization of level capped characters is a relatively unimportant concern... went right over my head.
    Posted in: Video Games
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    posted a message on League of Legends Season III
    Hackworth - hold tab, the furthest icon to the right in each player's line is the mute for them. Use it liberally, whenever someone starts to get under your skin.
    Posted in: Video Games
  • 1

    posted a message on League of Legends Season III
    Uh, let's see.

    You want 2 axes up as much as possible. You need to be able to control where axes land and catch them with virtually 100% accuracy to play Draven effectively.

    Don't sweat the passive. It'll work itself out. That said, when I get in a fight in lane and get a kill and have to b, I check how much gold I got out of it - that tells me roughly where I'm at compared to my lane opponent.

    I take W or E second depending on the matchup, and virtually always take the other one third (then point Q again at 4 and 5). E wins all in engagements. W wins harass wars.

    The trick for harassing when you're out of range is to land an axe on a minion and step so that it lands towards your opponents, pop W, run up to catch the axe and chuck an axe at them. If they try to stay and trade, throw E at them and triple Q them (if you have two axes spinning, after the first one is in the air press Q, you get three consecutive enhanced auto attacks) before either finishing them or backing off. His damage comes in such an incredible burst using that technique that as often as not you'll panic your opponent, at which point you just force the all in and win. Even if they don't panic, they can't just stay and trade unless they already had a big lead on you. This technique is mana intensive - you must already have two axes going, you're going to cast W at least once and possibly twice, you're going to cast Q again in the fight, you might cast E in the fight, and you're not very likely to catch even 2 of the 3 axes while maintaining the engagement, so you use this when you're sure you can get to grips with them. If they're mostly outside your range, you're just going to pop W, run up, throw one axe and back off, and even that will run you OOM with repeated uses.

    Your worst nightmare in lane is an enemy bot lane with a bunch of slows. Lulu can really hammer you just by forcing you to drop a few axes, which runs you through your mana pool really fast.

    DO NOT PLAY DRAVEN PASSIVELY. You are playing a champ who literally cannot function without attacking stuff a lot. If you let yourself become zoned, you are screwed.

    EDIT: Oh, and many ADCs - even some diamond players I've played against - underestimate his ability to close. I've been in a lot of lanes where I was being edged out, not really winning, where I'd come back to lane and just run down the enemy ADC for a quick kill. No ADC in the game can duel Draven on relatively equal gold except MAYBE Vayne, so if you can force a 1v1 with the enemy ADC, even if they have a slight item lead on you, that's an easy kill.
    Posted in: Video Games
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    posted a message on League of Legends Season III
    Swain is an absolutely vicious pubstomper with a hardcore dedicated fanbase (which always drives win rates up, when its only the hardcore fans playing something). He just runs into trouble when the enemy teams are organized enough to take him down. You'll do fine with him, based on the impression of your current level of opponents that I get from your posts.
    Posted in: Video Games
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    posted a message on League of Legends Season III
    Swain has no lategame role as soon as the enemy team has a couple ignites or a morellonomicon. If the enemy team is disorganized and isn't going to be able to reliably get grievous wounds on you in a teamfight, he's amazing, but as soon as he gets a grievous wounds effect the primary thing he does - constant damage while sustaining off almost all incoming damage - doesn't really work, and if he can't operate in point blank range without dying, he's useless. Been the same story for years with him. If you need to be in the middle of the fray and the only thing keeping you from dying when you get focused is sustain (contrast with mundo right now with the current defense tree - he's got a ton of sustain in his kit, but he ends up with so much raw defense that he's near impossible to kill even without it), you're gonna have a bad time against semi-organized opponents.

    They really ought to take the grievous wounds clause off ignite - it kills sustain tanks and mages while making their desired paradigm for healer-style supports (clutch heals and saves rather than consistent sustain) almost impossible, since in mid-late game the person who needs a clutch save is often ignited.

    Yes, they'd have to retune a whole lot of champs since the sustain guys tend to be overpowered if nobody has grievous wounds to bring against them, but sooner or later they should take that whole project on.
    Posted in: Video Games
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    posted a message on League of Legends Season III
    Quote from Soulbanana
    Quote from Drawmeomg
    Always Draven. Way cooler, but also way stronger right now. But they're different roles - which role do you need to reinforce your roster at?

    I kind of need to fill up on both XD But it's probably ADC though. My only ADCs at the moment are Quinn and Ashe :p


    Well, Draven is a great ADC right now, has virtually no bad lanes while being a true hypercarry - but its going to take you 15 or 20 games just to get reasonably comfortable on his mechanics before you can even start learning the strategy and tactics of playing him (lots of start/stop aggro stuff). He's a "Play me all the time or not at all" type champ.
    Posted in: Video Games
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    posted a message on Planning on Proposing
    +1 for live with her for at least 6 months to a year first. When you don't live together, it's easy to gloss over the annoying habits that she's bound to have (and for her to gloss over your annoying habits). When you do, those things are unavoidable. You don't want to find out that you just cannot deal anymore after you get married.

    Also +1 for don't ask her father's permission. It's traditional, but it's a truly offensive tradition. She might be ok with it, but she might not. And what if he says no? You go ahead anyway, because you're both adults and he has absolutely no say in it whatsoever, you were just putting on a show for him. Only now it's awkward and you've got a hostile relationship with your father-in-law-to-be.
    Posted in: Real-Life Advice
  • 1

    posted a message on League of Legends Season III
    Quote from Soulbanana
    I kind of feel bad that everyone is something like gold+ when I'm still only lvl 25 -.-
    Oh well, I'll get better eventually Grin


    You should feel bad!

    ...just kidding :p

    It's definitely a long grind.
    Posted in: Video Games
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