LCS Coverage and Patch 3.6 Thoughts

I got the chance to attend LCS this past weekend, giving coverage for LoLKing/ZAM.  You can find the three articles (match summaries and interviews) here, here, and here.

And changes to botlane in the 3.6 patch...

Corki:  This is actually pretty huge.  I think he should be at least decently viable if not strong.  He might even be strong enough to make Corki-Leona a good lane again.

Draven:  We knew this was coming, it's definitely a change for the better.

Ezreal: I hate Pulsefire Ezreal anyway.

Karma:  I think her cooldowns are still too long for botlane given what they do.  Her skills seem like they would make her a sustain/trading support, but they're basically the same as Lulu's cooldowns, don't do that much extra base damage, and she doesn't have the bonus on her autoattacks that Lulu does.  And her level 6 isn't going to let her save her ADC from the enemy support's ult (like Alistar's or Lulu's) or get a kill on the enemy ADC (like Sona's or Nami's)...definitely she's more of an AP mid.  That said, if you're a god at hitting your Qs, she does have the potential to output a good amount of damage.  I'd put her in the same class of support as Nidalee, where if you're able to outplay with skillshots it can be strong, but overall even if it wins early, it's probably going to lose late.

Lulu:  Aaaahh now I need to rewrite the Lulu article I wrote the other day.  Grr.  Help, Pix! is now more damage/mana efficient at all levels if you only hit one target with Glitterlance (more on that when I update the Lulu article).  Her E mana efficiency goes from 1.3 to 2.8; Q goes from 1.1 to 2.  [edit: done!]

Nunu:  It was actually kind of annoying when Consume expended Visionary but didn't cast.  Not really going to affect his viability that much, this is almost so minor as to be a QOL change.

Quinn:  Haven't seen enough of her to say whether this is going to affect her in a major way.  The Vault change is honestly probably the most important part of all of this.  She no longer has the highest-cooldown ult at all three levels though (Urgot's was already longer at level 3, but Urgot typically builds some CDR).

Sivir:  Don't think this is gonna help enough.

Sona:  To be honest, I thought her W-chord already didn't reduce Baron/Dragon damage.  Oops.

Thresh:  Thank god he finally got nerfed, but this isn't enough.  Like Sona, you can nerf him so that he's only barely viable if that at all levels of play below plat/diamond, but he's still gonna be insanely OP in the right hands.  His scaling with team communication is higher than that of any other champion I think.  Maybe Twisted Fate.

Vayne:  What.  I thought they realized that this would make her too strong so they weren't gonna do it.  She's gonna be REALLY strong now.  Not strong enough to win lane without massive outplay, but still a lot stronger.  Auto-Q-auto-condemn for 3 procs of silver bolts is way easier now.

Things I need to update:  My Lulu article, like I said [done].  And also some cooldown information in my Sona guide [jk don't need to do this].  I also intend to, at some point, add much more detailed information to the matchups sections (important cooldown timers, relative mana sustain, etc.) but that's gonna be about 5-10 hours worth of work, and I'm not sure when I'll have the time [yeah, soon^tm].


SNSS is on SATURDAY this week!