Yesterday, I decided that I was going to start playing ranked games on Summoner’s Rift.

If you read the blog post from two days ago, you know that I’m very disappointed with the new Twisted Treeline update, and will be switching over to Summoner’s Rift unless they make drastic changes to the new Twisted Treeline. I decided there wasn’t much of a reason to linger in the past, so I got started with Summoner’s Rift.

I queued up for my first solo queue ranked game of all time, Upon entering the champion select lobby, I announced that I can either play middle lane, top lane, or jungle. Although jungle was my last preference (the other two roles I outright cannot play), I ended up getting jungle. Which was fine.

I picked Nocturne and started the game. I did not smite blue buff and went straight to red to do an early double-buff gank. My allied Lux missed her bind, which wasn’t a huge deal – I just went back into the jungle and continued ganking.

Several minutes into the game, I successfully pulled off a gank in bottom lane where I killed the enemy attack damage carry. Unfortunately, although I got first blood, my two allies in bottom lane overcommitted to the kill and ended up both dying to the enemy support Soraka, who simply hit her Q key and got a double kill.

By the time I made it up to top lane, it was too late – the enemy Nidalee had already reached level 6, and it was near-impossible to kill her. We had a Malphite who was building straight tank, so we didn’t have enough burst damage to kill Nidalee before she ran into the brush for her movement speed buff and leaped away.

Once laning phase was over, my team was terribly underfarmed and underleveled. Every time we would engage in a fight, I was the only one who had enough items to stay alive and deal damage, while the rest of my team would either melt immediately or have to disengage after three seconds of fighting.

My final score? Four kills, 4 deaths, and no assists. The team scores? Five kills for our team (yes, that means I had 80% of my team’s kills), compared to the enemy’s 15. We lost.

I decided that I just got unlucky with my team placement and that my allies were all just really bad. I queued up for another game, and played Swain in middle lane against an Ahri.

I unfortunately gave away first and second blood to Ahri because I was lagging, but once I stopped lagging, I killed her about four times in a row. Then, the enemy team realized that I was starting to get out of control, so people from other positions started coming to middle to gank me. I killed all of them too.

I ended the game with 13 kills, but, surprise, surprise, we still lost the game. Why? Because every other position on my team did terribly and lost their roles.

Except our support.

Our support got 6 kills.

-__-

Yesterday, there was a massive update to the Twisted Treeline map on the public beta environment on League of Legends.

If you tuned in to my stream yesterday early morning, you might have seen me showing a preview of the update. The stream was about five hours long and took place over night, so I was extremely sleepy and didn’t really have much brain processing power to be able to even think about what I was doing.

Now that a day has passed and I managed to get some sleep, I took a look back at the replay of the stream last night to come up with some well-thought-out reflections and opinions about the update.

I don’t think I really mentioned this yesterday because I was still in the thrill of trying out something completely new, but my overall feelings about the update is that I strongly dislike them.

I preferred Twisted Treeline over Summoner’s Rift before the update because I felt Twisted Treeline was a more high-action and fun map while still maintaining all of the fundamentals of Summoner’s Rift. The premise of the entire game was basically the same, but it took place with fewer players on a smaller map.

If you know my history as a gamer, you know that I have pretty good micro, but terrible macro. In the sense of League of Legends, that means that I’m great at fighting, but bad at keeping track of everything going on in the game and setting goals to push to achieve victory. I liked Twisted Treeline because there were fights breaking out all the time, and that was what I liked; there were also much fewer things to worry about because you only have to keep track of three enemies and a smaller map space with fewer objectives.

Basically, the old Twisted Treeline was just like a smaller Summoner’s Rift.

I unfortunately have to say that I feel the new Twisted Treeline is closer to a combination of Dominion and Summoner’s Rift, rather than just a smaller version of Summoner’s Rift.

When Riot wanted Twisted Treeline to have tons of action all the time, they reached an optimal level with the old map. When they tried to bump this up some more with the new map, it went over the edge, and now the fighting and action is in excess. The best way for me to describe it is that it’s basically mass chaos, now. If you truly want to secure a victory on the new map, you have to fight over and defend so many things that the entire game is basically constant fighting all over the map.

I streamed for almost five hours today after the new Twisted Treeline map update, the new spider champion Elise, and the Harrowing skins were released. If you missed the stream, you can watch a replay of it below:

(Embedded player not working? Try this link. http://www.twitch.tv/parkzer/b/335979221)

I posted the link to my stream on the League of Legends forums and ended up getting around 200 viewers part-way through, which I found really funny because I wasn’t even playing that well and was curious why people would want to watch me die over and over again.

If you know about my League of Legends career, you know that I main on Twisted Treeline. At first, I was extremely excited that they were updating Twisted Treeline. Unfortunately, after playing it for five hours, my opinions have changed. I will be releasing a blog post tomorrow regarding some detailed feedback about the new map, and why I don’t like it.

Remember the post I made a few weeks ago about how I’ve lost hope in League of Legends?

It’s as if the game client read my blog post, and decided to add to my suffering by mocking me even more and making the game even worse.

On the Public Beta Environment, they’re currently testing out a few feature to go live on Korean servers when individuals play League of Legends from Korean PC clubs. One of the features of this is that there are full un­locks on champions.

Taking advantage of this, I decided to try out Darius. I’ve played him a few times before during his free week, but I never ended up playing him that much. Upon queuing up and joining a game, it loaded and I saw this. (Click on the image to view it in full size.)

This might be a little confusing for people who are unfamiliar with League of Legends, so let me explain. Nor­mally, when you start a game on Twisted Treeline (which is what this map is called), you’re supposed to see yourself and your two allies standing in the blue circle in the center of the screenshot. You’re also supposed to see three icons on the minimap, representing the location of the three characters.

As you can clearly see, the game decided it would be a great idea if it would turn myself and my allies invisible for the game.

I don’t even know anymore.

This week, I’ll be going over a champion who I have played quite a bit in the past, and a champion who is free this week – Sion.

Most people build Sion as AP (ability power) because the champion summary shows that he deals more damage through ability power than attack damage, and because two of his abilities scale pretty nicely off his ability power. However, I play Sion as AD (attack damage) because, during late game, it allows me to engage in 3 vs. 1 fights (or any disadvantaged fights) in Twisted Treeline and still come out victorious.

Sion is a relatively cheap champion that only costs 1350 IP; I highly recommend getting him if you’re looking for a very powerful champion (if used correctly) that requires very little champion-specific skills outside of memorizing his combo and routine during fights.

(Image courtesy of the League of Legends Wikia)

Sion’s passive is Feel No Pain. It gives Sion a 40% chance ignore anywhere between 30-50 damage (depending on his level) from basic attacks. This is obviously pretty powerful in the early game against enemies who rely on basic attacks as their main damage output, as it has a pretty good chance to block a pretty good chunk of their damage. Although not that effective against ability power champions, remember that it can also block incoming basic attacks from minions as well.

Sion’s Q is Cryptic Gaze. It is a single-opponent targeted ability that stuns the victim for a flat 1.5 seconds and deals magic damage. Of course, with AD Sion, the damage is not going to be significant, but because of its extreme utility, I almost always take a point in Q first.

Sion’s W is Death’s Caress. Upon activating the ability, Sion gains a shield that protects him for a particular amount of health. If the shield is completely damaged, it fades away. If the shield remains after ten seconds, it explodes, dealing a flat amount of damage regardless of how much it was damaged. Four seconds after activating the shield, Sion can manually detonate his shield by reactivating the ability. When using Death’s Caress, be sure to keep an eye on how much of the shield is remaining, and detonate it as close to its expiration as possible without having it fade away.

Sion’s E is Enrage. Enrage allows Sion to become extremely tanky and viable as an AD champion because of the two passives it provides while it is active. First, for a small health cost, Sion’s attack damage is increased by a flat amount. The health cost can be almost completely neutralized with a little bit of life steal from masteries and a Doran’s Blade. On top of that, while Enrage is active, every time Sion kills any unit, he permanently gains a flat amount of health that stacks indefinitely. Thus, the longer the game goes on, the more health Sion can get.

Sion’s ultimate is Cannibalism, another ability that makes Sion extremely powerful and viable as an AD champion. Cannibalism gives Sion insane amounts of life steal (50%, 75%, 100%) and a 50% attack speed bonus or 20 seconds. Allied units standing near Sion gain half of Sion’s additional life steal. You read that right – 100% life steal – that means that Sion regenerates health equal to the amount of damage he is dealing to his opponents with his basic attacks. Thus, building Sion as AD to maximize damage output allows Sion to regenerate health so fast that he becomes extremely difficult (and in some cases nearly impossible) to take down.

For the more popular AP Sion build, people will tell you to max your Q and W first, but that is exactly the opposite of what we want to do for AD Sion. Because Sion’s E will give him lots of damage output and help him get tanky, we want to max it first to gain the benefits of the skill as soon as possible. Then, W should be leveled second, as not only does it give a temporary shield to increase Sion’s survivability during fights, it also gives that extra bit of damage that might make the difference between a kill and a death in a close encounter. Although Q is important to take first because of its utility, the stun duration does not change as it is leveled up, so we want to max Q last. Of course, his ultimate should be leveled whenever it becomes available.

For masteries, I take all AD-enhancing masteries in the offense tree, and place all remaining points in the defense tree. I do not get any AP-based masteries in offense, as you should prioritize survivability over the tiny bit of extra damage output from his ability power skills.

For runes, I take flat armor seals, magic resist per level glyphs, flat armor quintessences, and armor penetration marks. The only two types of runes that are viable to change are quintessences and marks – you can either go with attack damage, attack speed, or stick with armor penetration. I prefer armor quintessences to increase survivability, and because a majority of viable champions on Twisted Treeline are bruiser fighters and base a majority of their damage output on physical damage.

For items, I build Sion as a standard AD carry. I start with a Doran’s Blade and get Berserker’s Greaves and Wriggle’s Lantern as quickly as possible for the mobility with the boots and utility with the wards. Then, my goal items are to get Infinity Edge, Phantom Dancer, and Bloodthirster. If the enemies are stacking armor, I might prioritize Last Whisper or Black Cleaver. If the opponents are heavy on crowd control, I might get Banshee’s Veil or Quicksilver Sash; if I end up getting targeted down and my allies don’t have enough damage output, I might get Guardian Angel so I can rejoin the fight.

I generally would not recommend getting any other defensive items on Sion. Even though many AD carries get Frozen Mallet, I would not recommend it on Sion because it takes up a valuable item slot. Although the health is useful, you should instead focus more on farming and killing minions to build up your health passively rather than using an item to do so. As for the slow, instead of getting an item-based slow, try to secure the Lizard Elder’s red buff.

A lot of people might challenge this build telling me that this essentially turns Sion into a glass cannon. He has extremely high damage output, but because he has to run in the middle of his opponents to attack, he essentially becomes useless because he’s not able to kite like most other glass cannon ranged AD carries. Again, this is not true because of Sion’s E, Enrage. As long as you are good with consistently farming throughout the entire game and make sure to focus on last-hitting minions, when you start engaging in team fights during mid- and late-game, you should have enough passive health that it should be as much as what an item would be able to give you. On top of that, Sion is naturally pretty bulky – as of today, not long after the release of Jayce, Sion is the third most bulkiest champion based solely on base stats. At level 18, Sion has 2275 health; this only comes behind Nunu’s 2381 and Alistar’s 2278.

An example of a good team fight would be to initiate by stunning the squishiest enemy champion, or any champion in range. Charge in to the champion, and begin to attack. When you feel as if you can actually engage and fight (and the enemies aren’t going to quickly disengage by Flashing over a wall), activate your ultimate. It is very important to only activate your ultimate when you know you will be dealing damage, as you do not want to waste it and get caught in a team fight without it. Once you start attacking, make sure you are ALWAYS ATTACKING SOMETHING. Life steal only works when you are dealing damage. Do NOT chase enemies who are running away, because that means you are not attacking. Even if you are not focusing one specific target down, make sure you are always attacking and keep dealing tons of damage to everyone on the entire enemy team. As long as you are attacking, you will stay alive; once you stop attacking and start running around trying to chase someone, you will die. If the enemies are starting to kite you, it is acceptable to start attacking minions or jungle monsters nearby to wait for the cooldown for your stun; as long as your opponents are not hyper carry champions, you should be able to life steal health more quickly than they are able to deal damage to you.

So, if Sion is able to defeat enemies 3 vs. 1, then why don’t more people play Sion? Unfortunately, there are a few issues with AD Sion.

First of all, he is extremely boring to play. The game will literally consist of endless farming, then stunning people, dealing damage with basic attacks, then repeating the process. There is absolutely no champion-specific skill involved other than being able to constantly attack something in order to regenerate health.

On top of that, AD Sion can easily be shut down by many counter picks, and can be overall disabled by a light to moderate amount of hard crowd control. For example, if you were to solo top lane, the enemy might send up a Sivir to counter you (yes, this has happened to me before). Sivir has an ability set that is perfect for countering Sion. Sion initiates fights with his stun, but Sivir can easily use her spell shield to block the incoming projectile. Sivir is a ranged champion with a long-range harassment ability, so even if Sion is far away from Sivir, he will still take damage. If Sion decides to walk towards Sivir to start a fight, Sivir can easily back off and kite Sion, dealing tons of damage in the process and forcing Sion to retreat to avoid death.

As for crowd control, literally any form of crowd control except slows will completely shut down Sion’s ability to both tank and have massive damage output at the same time. For example, if Sion is stunned, he cannot continue attacking. If Sion is airborne, he cannot continue attacking. If Sion is feared, he cannot continue attacking. If Sion is snared or rooted, he might still be able to attack, but most people will most likely be smart enough to take a step away from him so he cannot continue attacking. As you can see, any hard crowd control easily prevents Sion from doing the most important thing that he exists to do.

So, if he’s so easily shut down, why did I mention earlier that Sion is a strong champion? First, if you get items with tenacity (such as Mercury’s Treads), you can drastically reduce the length of the disables and might be able to hang in there long enough to start attacking again. Next, Twisted Treeline is a 3 vs. 3, not a 3 vs. 1. If your allies are half-decent, they will also be participating in team fights, and they should be able to help out enough such that even if the team fight doesn’t go perfectly and you don’t get to execute your role to perfection, it will still work out thanks to the overall combined effort of your team.

For the past week and a half or so, I’ve been playing Singed, the Mad Chemist.

Singed is a melee, off-tank disruptor based primarily off ability power. In the current meta game, Singed would normally be played either solo top or middle lane on Summoner’s Rift. However, I am going to focus on Singed in Twisted Treeline, as that map is where he really shines.

For an extremely long time, I used to hate Singed. If I were to name a list of champions I hated the most, Singed would always be #1. Even when I started playing him a little bit on Summoner’s Rift, I still didn’t like him very much because I felt as if I wasn’t being very effective at using him.

After browsing some websites and forums, I saw a consistent theme that Singed was extremely overpowered on Twisted Treeline, and should always be banned in competitive ranked play. He seemed to be a strange champion to be overpowered; I understood that he was basically a bulky ability power bruiser, but I didn’t see what made him more special than other bruisers. But, of course, I love playing overpowered champions so I can get easy wins and confuse my opponents as to why they feel so weak compared to me, so I set my mind to playing Singed for at least 10-20 games and really finding out why he was so effective on Twisted Treeline, then exploit those advantages.

After playing a few games, I realized that Singed is unlike any other champion I have played before. In most of the disruptor champions I play, I have to actively scan my opponents pick off weak targets, and try to deal as much damage as possible within a short period of time while still surviving the fight. This places me in an edge-of-my-seat, aggressive state in team fights, as I am basically out for blood. When playing Singed for the first time, I entered the game with a very similar mindset. After playing him for a few more games, I realized that not only is Singed a different type of disruptor, but he needs to be played with a completely different mindset.

Singed players should always have a “trololol” attitude in the back of their minds when playing. They should never get too aggressive or try to deal nukes of damage. Instead, they should play in a relaxed manner and run around, enjoying the scenery. Singed’s primary damage output is damage over time, so if you are not patient and not relaxed, you will start overextending and playing Singed incorrectly.

So you can get an idea of what Singed is able to do, we’ll start by going over his abilities.

Singed’s passive ability is called Empowered Bulwark. This innate ability allows Singed to receive 25% of his mana as health. This allows Singed to build ability power and utility items, and still become extremely bulky and tanky without having any straight defense items. There are some good items that go along with this passive that I will mention later when I go over my build.

Singed’s Q and his primary damage output is Poison Trail. By spending 13 mana per second, Singed leaves a trail of poison clouds, each with a radius of 20, that deals magic damage per second. Enemies entering the cloud will take damage for the next three seconds; remaining in the cloud will continue to renew the duration of the damage over time.

Singed’s W is Mega Adhesive. As the name suggests, it produces a puddle of glue on the ground that slows enemies walking over the glue by a significant amount. The speed reduction lasts for one second after enemies leave the radius of the puddle. The placement of the puddle has a relatively long range of 1000, which allows Singed to be able to catch up to enemies even if they are a good distance away. Mega Adhesive is an extremely powerful instant slow; at level 5, it slows enemies by 75%.

Singed’s E is Fling. This unique ability throws enemies over Singed’s shoulder and places them a short dis­tance away behind Singed. This is different from Volibear’s flip, as Volibear’s enemies land immediately behind Volibear. If used properly at the right angle, Fling can be used to throw opponents over walls (which is an extremely effective strategy on Twisted Treeline that will be discussed later). Fling also deals magic damage on impact.

Singed’s ultimate is Insanity Potion. Upon activation, Singed enhances his ability power, armor, magic resist, movement speed, regeneration, and crowd control reduction. Basically, it turns Singed into a more powerful, bulkier version of what he was before. I have read in various locations that it essentially the equivalent of instantly temporarily increasing your level by 2; I’m not sure how accurate that is, but nevertheless, it’s still extremely powerful.

All of Singed’s abilities work extremely well together. For example, an enemy might approach you to attack or harass. Turn on your Poison Trail so when they come into range, they get poison and start taking damage over time. Once you begin running away, if they decide to chase you, they will constantly be refreshing the duration of their poison, and consistently be taking more damage over time.

Once they realize they are suffocating and are effectively killing their own self, they will probably disengage from the fight. This is when you turn the tables and start chasing them. Landing your Mega Adhesive will slow them enough for you to catch up to them. They will most likely keep on running away; when they reach the edge of your glue puddle, wait one second, then fling them back into the puddle to extend the duration of the slow and land them back into your poison.

At this point, while your slow and fling are on cooldown, keep chasing the opponent, either by running slightly ahead of them or right next to them so they are constantly exposed to your poison. If they are too fast, activate your ultimate for the movement speed boost and to finish off your opponent more quickly with increased damage on your poison. Keep on running around them until they realize they have no chance of getting away and decide to fight. When they start attacking you, run away and make them chase you again through your poison. Repeat this process until they are dead.

Yes, you just won a fight almost exclusively by running around like a headless chicken.

There are some other strategies on Twisted Treeline that are extremely effective that make Singed over­powered, especially against champions who have no ways of dashing through walls. Singed should usually be played in the top lane. When enemies come close to you, angle yourself with your back against the wall to the dragon’s den and wait for them to close in on you. When your opponent reaches within the range of Fling, throw them back into the dragon den.

Champions with dashing abilities will have to wait for their dash to come off cooldown to return into the lane. If they are out of mana or energy, they will have to spend precious time stuck in the dragon’s den before being able to return to the lane and continue getting last hits on minions. If they don’t have a dashing ability all together, they will have to walk all the around the outside border of the dragon’s den through the jungle to get back in lane, wasting tons of time (only to have you do it to them again). If they are smart, they will stop trying to harass you in fear of getting thrown over the wall again; this means you have effectively created a situation where you are free from harassment while you get minion kills.

Another important strategy on Twisted Treeline is to always capture and secure the Wraith’s buff, which gives +20% movement speed. The Wraith’s buff is found in the inner two zones of monsters in the top jungle; it should not be a huge problem to monitor and get these buffs, as you should already be laning in the top lane anyway. Keep in mind that this buff only exists on Twisted Treeline, and not on Summoner’s Rift – this is one of the reasons Singed works better in Twisted Treeline than in Summoner’s Rift.

As you saw in the example above on how to get kills with Singed, the most important stat you have is movement speed. This will allow you to prevent anyone from getting away from you when you chase them, and prevent anyone from catching you when you are the one being chased. This massive movement speed buff will make you so threatening that people will start to avoid you all together; when they see you nearby, they’ll start running right away to get a head start, and if they are near walls, they will Flash over them just to prevent you from initiating a fight.

Finally, the last overpowered strategy that I was able to come up with (for now) is to always drag team fights into the jungle. The jungle lanes are very narrow, and Singed’s Mega Adhesive is relatively wide; throwing down your puddle of glue will essentially block off an entire jungle lane for five seconds. Because of the large range on Mega Adhesive, you will be able to throw your glue down across the concaves and convexes of the jungle, allowing your team to catch up without having to run in circles around walls hoping to predict your opponent’s jukes. Your adhesive will not only prevent opponents from getting away, but it helps your allies disengage from the fight when they are low of health without having someone chase them.

I build Singed primarily with straight ability power and utility items. My starting item is always Sapphire Crystal – not only does it give me mana, it also gives me extra health and durability due to my passive. I also occasionally grab a health potion to help out with the initial first blood level 1 team fight that usually occurs at the beginning of most Twisted Treeline matches.

For boots, I am usually split between Boots of Speed or Mercury’s Treads. I get Boots of Speed a majority of the time because, as mentioned before, movement speed is very important for Singed. Note that I get Boots of Speed and not Boots of Mobility, because the extra movement speed bonus on Boots of Mobility only works when you’re outside of combat, and the most important time when you need extra movement speed is when you’re in combat kiting opponents. However, if my opponents have heavy crowd control effects (such as stuns, silences, and disables), I get Mercury’s Treads for the tenacity.

The first two items that I build unconditionally are Rod of Ages and Rylai’s Crystal Scepter. Both of these items work well for turning Singed into an off-tank, as they both give good amounts of health. Remember that Rod of Ages works nicely with Singed’s passive, as, not only does it give health to begin with, it also gives bonus health because it gives mana. Rylai’s Crystal Scepter allows Singed’s poison to have a slowing effect as well. Even though it’s only 15% for area-of-effect abilities, that is usually enough to make kiting your opponents easier, or making it possible to even kite them at all. And of course, both items provide ability power boosts, which increase Singed’s damage output. I always get Rod of Ages first before Rylai’s Crystal Scepter because Rod of Ages has a passive stacking ability that provides more stats the longer you have it (up to a cap, but the sooner in the game you get the stats, the better).

The fourth item I get depends on how the game is going and who my allies are. If I have at least one ability power ally, or if the game is going relatively normally, I get Will of the Ancients, which provides an ability power boost and an aura that gives surrounding allies ability power and spell vamp (remember, auras also work on yourself). Because almost all of Singed’s damage is based off abilities, the spell vamp will significantly help you increase your sustainability. Frequently, an opponent will start chasing you when you are low of health and they are full; by the time they have chased you for several seconds, you will be back up to about half health, and they will have lost about half of their own health – you are quite literally leeching off their health.

If the game happens to be going one-sidedly in my team’s favor, or if my allies are building a lot of heavy defense items, I will get Rabbadon’s Deathcap instead of Will of the Ancients to make sure our team can continue dealing out heavy damage. If I get Will of the Ancients fourth, I usually end up getting Rabbadon’s Deathcap as my fifth item anyway; its ability power boost makes your poison a lot more threatening.

Although it is very rare to have a game with Singed go on long enough to get your sixth item, it’s important to consider what items to get if it ends up happening. In the games where it happened to me, I usually resorted to getting a straight defense item, as, by that time, my opponents were also dealing pretty heavy damage. Three straight defense items that I like to get are Force of Nature, Thornmail, and Guardian Angel.

Force of Nature not only gives you health regeneration, but it also gives you movement speed, making Singed even faster. Thornmail works well with Singed because, with the build mentioned above, Singed will have a lot of health; this means he’ll be able to return a lot of damage to most champions based on attack damage, and can frequently defeat many AD carry champions passively by standing there without even attacking them back. Guardian Angel is more or less a troll item; it’s annoying enough to kill Singed once, but then he respawns, spews out more poison and glue, and is fast enough to run away before you can kill him again.

Reiterating the most important point as mentioned earlier, if you have the proper “trololol” mindset when playing Singed, he is definitely a fun champion to play, especially when you think about how badly you are annoying your opponents. Although it’s not likely to ever see a Singed in competitive ranked play, as he is banned in most games, if you want to try him out, you can play him on some normal games and watch your win/loss ratio skyrocket.