Champ 9: Yorick

Looks cool.

 I was bored with my usual champs and my good friend urged me to use Yorick since he was free. I did. At first,I was like "How the hell did other people build him so tanky while my Yorick is no beefier than a Xin Zhao?". Took me a while to create my own Off-Tank Yorick. Oh wait,its not too complete yet,since I've only had 2 good games with him and my decision to play him was sort of on-the-fly.

Core item early game? I used to follow my friend's opinion and went for a Doran's Blade but it wouldn't help much since I was constantly mana starved and couldn't spam my skills as often as I needed to. Then I went for mana regeneration items early on(Meki Pendant). Build it into a Manamune,get some boots,build my Trinity Force,and the rest is purely situational,although I mostly go for a Warmog's Armor if I'm having a good game.

I'm still feeling my way around his ultimate (Omen of Death) which creates a copy of the target allied champion,which is quite similar to Mordekaiser's ultimate (Children of the Grave) which creates a copy of the target enemy. The advantage of this ultimate was we could create a copy of them even if they're still alive. It means there could be 2 Jarvan's whacking on the enemy within his 'territory'(Cataclysm) if I ult-ed on Jarvan during his glorious moment. Awesome,isn't it?

And I'm still struggling to find a way to be consistent with his skills,when to use them,HOW to use them,realizing my own limitations and whatnot. I sort of enjoy Yorick when he's having a good game,I'll keep on using him for now.(Sorry,Sejuani)

First ever good game with Yorick! I believe this was my 2nd ever game with Yorick. I admit that I was lucky that the enemy was gullible and weren't as skillful,and also that I was lucky some of the times. Still,this game gave me a great preview as to how a fed Yorick could wreck the enemy team.

 Ahhhhhh..This was a game I truly enjoyed. You could tell that this was a monster game from me. Of course,things weren't as simple as 'I just had a solid game'. I was laning top with Wukong and Sona with my friend (don.ask.me - Fiora). We got pressured early game and made a comeback minutes later into the game. While we started gaining momentum,the middle lane and bottom lane were being pressured. That's why our Fiora opted to give the other lanes a helping hand by ganking often. That left me alone at top lane. Sona noticed Fiora's ganks and went to other lanes to help out. Left me with Wukong to , 1-on-1 for the next 10 minutes at least.

During that stretch,I killed him twice and killed a fair amount of minions. I completed my Trinity Force and was far ahead of everyone else in terms of gold earned during that point of the game. I descended on the enemy team and gave them hell. The enemy team was fairly AD-heavy so I made a Warmog's Armor,Thornmail and Atma's Impaler as icing on the cake. They couldn't budge me,AT ALL. Their only hope of killing me was a 5-on-1,which worked 2 times. I was overconfident. :P

Yeah,Yorick's a fun dude,I'll stick with him for now. Stay tuned.

An arranged,5v5 normal game.Just look at our average assists man. Everyone had double-digit assists while I led the pack with 31. It was a real good game,no doubt.

Did what I could to help.

Stopping Yorick,for a while.

BACK!!!! God, Feeling awesome with the dead man here. (11/21/2012:)

Oh oh ohhh....!!

Champ 8: Sejuani

Next up,I wanted to look for a tank that could charge into the enemy team,deal chunks of AOE damage and get away with it alive. I looked no further when I thought of Sejuani - the Winter's Wrath. I've played against some Sejuani's before and they could take some damage while dishing out some insane crowd control (stun,slow). She had incredible mobility to boot.So,why not?

Of course,things were quite rough in the beginning. They still are,now. I decided to play Sejuani as a jungler because Phreak inspired me to. Not. Mobafire guides encouraged Sejuani to jungle instead of laning. I did some thinking myself,and figured I'd go with a jungling Sejuani,partially because I'd love the feeling of charging (Q skill) into the enemy and make them sh*t their pants by flashing away,or something.

As Udyr was the only champion that I ever jungled with before,I never thought of jungling as a hard thing. That's why I focused on Sejuani's late-game stats when deciding on masteries. Boy,was I wrong. Jungling was only easy for Udyr,it seems. Even with Smite,my Sejuani was struggling with the neutral creeps of the jungle. I had to compromise with Sejuani's difficult jungling and go with 5 potions and a cloth armor,but even then,jungling with her was very difficult,even after so much improvisation.

My HP got low everytime I cleared 2 successive minion camps (golem,wraith,etc.) and thus couldn't gank the unsuspecting enemies as my health was much lower than theirs. As of yet,I still haven't figured out how to effectively jungle as a Sejuani. When I do..Damn,feeling ecstatic just thinking about it!

My first six games with Sejuani,no cheating. 6 games in total,3 where I was doing OK while 3 others where we died horrible deaths. Since all of these were losses,I assume that I'm the one who dragged the team down.

But I won't give Sejuani up,since I did spend 6,300 IP on her. Not only that,she is a little hot too,methinks. :3 I'll keep on using her from time to time to polish my Sejuani skills and hope that I'll be able to carry the team with her soon. =]

Champ 7: Shyvana

My dream skin of Shyvanna.The only one that makes her look HOT.

Sure,she's an off-tank,but what would suddenly have made me want to use her? Obviously,I got my @ss handed to me by good Shyvannas.

Thus far,I met two which turned the game around relying fully on their beefiness. They were tanks,but tanking as a Shyvanna had its perks. When she turned into a dragon,it was almost impossible to kill her,as she was very speedy when her W skill(burnout) was used and having 25 bonus armor/magic resistance from being in dragon form was the icing on the cake.

She was so annoying with her flashy skills(in dragon form) that everyone wanted to kill her,but everything was just in our minds. A tanky Shyvanna posted less of a threat than a tanky Sejuani,no doubt. But I'll make this clear : My off-tank Shyvanna will tank out 10 times the damage that those tanky models did,while being able to tank at least half as much as they did!

Beware,world,here comes LolG's Off-tank Shyvana!

The one in the bottom was my second-ever game with Shyvanna. That said, I've done quite well with her,even as a starter,agreed?

Note that I decided to use her on the 2nd of March , and also broke my personal record of Kills with her(explained in further detail below) on the same day. In a nutshell,I used and was satisfied with my Shyvanna play on the same day,which was very new for me,since it normally took me a few days of dedicated play to be able to have a good game with my champions.

But this by no means implies that Shyvanna is 'easy'.. No it doesn't..And to the haters who wanna make me NOT feel good about myself,go hate somewhere else. :D

My first ever dominant game with the Half-Dragon! Wow,feels GREAT to carry with her. The team would have lost if I didn't burn the enemy's arses like I did. The enemy even went "Pro Shyvanna,salute!".. Hahaha...Huge boost in confidence(and ego) when the game ended,it was a good game from start to finish,and a very close one too.

Wow.Just...Wow.Never killed more people with any champion in my entire LoL career. 36 kills,5 deaths,on a losing team! I wonder if there's many other people who can boast of such accomplishments like I can. :D

I'm satisfied with my Shyvanna as of now,but...I believe that I can still do MUCH better than I did tonight. I need some time to cool off from this legendary game.

 Off to another tank for now,a jungling tank to be precise,Sejuani!

BACK.

This time,I'm not laning with her,I tried to jungle with her on a whim and..turns out a jungling Shyvanna is a Shyvanna that's potential can be utilised much more readily! To show that My jungle Shyvanna isn't all talk..Observe.

4 straight games jungling as Shyvanna.

 The first 3 games were good,but the fourth one was,you gotta admit,BEAST. Killed 18 without dying even once! There were close calls and the game wasn't as one sided as you thought it was,well,at least not until late game. :P  Man,she's my type! Might consider being an Iron Shyvanna soon. :P

Nice right.Yeah I know.

Too beast right.Yeah I know >:)

Hey guys! Shyvana here. :P Now that I look at it. I notice that ever since I'd gotten the Darkflare Shyvana skin I haven't really played her, not to mention have good games with her. Hmmmm... Anyways.. BACK!
(24/11/2012:)

Oh ho! And mind you, I wasn't even trying THAT hard!! xD

Champ 6: Shen

*Sigh*,I'm always influenced by opinions,and my transition from one champion to another isn't as whimsical as you would imagine..

From Garen to Mordekaiser : Garen is easy!
From Mordekaiser to Nasus : Mordekaiser is OP!

A bit of background story needs to be shared before you guys can understand my sudden transition of being a traditional off-tank in mindset into a tank.

First of all,why am I so fixated on off-tanks,and have an apparent off-tank fetish?Why do I always beg for solo lanes when possible? I believe this reflects what I am deep down. I beg for solo lanes because I don't want my lane partner to pull me down,I want to go mano-a-mano against the opposing champion and boast when I completely dominate him in lane. And even if I am dominated by him,its because I played bad and there is no one besides myself to blame.

As an off-tank,if I have a good start,I'll be unstoppable going into late game. I'll be able to KILL like a carry,AND survive whatever they throw at me like a TANK. Hence,off-tanks(Offensive tanks). I wouldn't like to lean towards being carries or tanks,since as a carry,I'd have to rely on a good tank to divert the enemy's attention while I eradicate them 1 by 1 ; If I'm playing as a tank,I'd hate to divert the enemy's attention if my carry doesn't know how to position herself/himself or doesn't deal enough damage to scorch the opposition while my ass is being scorched by the enemy.

That said,playing as off-tanks is my way of not wanting to rely on others nor being relied upon by others while in the game,but take credit when I carry my team to the victory and boast about it. Sounds like a person with an overinflated ego,huh? I'm not denying it,though. "GG,Noobs." is what I say 90% of the time when I dominate so much and force the enemy team to surrender. Often,I feel good about it too.

The times (10%) when I don't tease the surrendering enemies with "GG Noobs" is when they say "Good Udyr/Morde/Gar/Nasus" when they decide to surrender,it means they're sporting about the loss and I'd look stupid and childish if I came out with a "GG Noobs" after they said that. Of course,even then I'd feel egotistical after carrying the team to a W.

Oh yeah,after hearing what I said about wins,I guess you don't need to be a genius to know what I do when we lose. I bash on my teammates,particularly the ones that're negative in scores ("Feeding") really hard,which never helps the team no matter the situation.

Some of the times I'm being an exceptional @sshole is when the team is winning,but we're already in late-game,and although they want to win the game as bad as I do,one of us go out of the base alone,either to clear up a creep wave(greedy) or to chase a dying enemy. Most of the time,both of these scenarios lead to the our isolated teammates being destroyed 1 by 1,leading to an ACE,and the enemy ending the game before we have the chance to respawn. (At very late game,it takes +- 70 seconds for us to respawn,it hurts,trust me.) When this happens,I rage on the guy who made the wrong move so hard that I think he might have lost some self-esteem at the end of the game sometimes.

 I've talked too much.But this was and is still a HUGE part of me,something I'm hoping to change,by immersing more of myself into teamplay within League of Legends,by playing as..a tank. Of course this was the main reason I decided to play a tank. But there were  few sub-reasons which were noteworthy:

• RP promotion of Shen (355 down to 199) and Blood Moon Shen (350 down to 99). I had around 300 RP remaining at the time,which made me purchase Shen on a whim.(Happened really long ago)

Bought him on a whim and played him,thinking I'd be a beast. Couldn't be more wrong. Played so bad with him (0K/17D) that I quit him and never wanted to touch him again..until

• My friend said I'm always hogging the spotlight when I play with them,I always carry them and they don't get to shine,making them look like scrubs even though they are quite good when they play alone. (True story,even I cannot deny the fact)

Hearing them say this was bittersweet for me,I felt a boost in ego but also felt torn apart of the thought that they don't enjoy playing with me,and thus I tried to find a way for us to enjoy the game together,without me having less fun than usual and also having them feel great after we get a W.

What my decision was,you guessed it,play a tank!If having lots of kills make my friends feel good about the game,then I'll find something else to make myself feel good about the a winning game,to lead in assists!
(And no,I can't be a support,I'm still not THAT skillful yet. And a part of me absolutely HATES dying a lot of times,being negative in the kill/death department. I'll leave being a support to until I become better in the game.)

• Riot buffed Shen 3 times consecutively without any nerfing,and the latest patch being his biggest buff. When I was scratching my head on which tank to start playing on, these recent patches to Shen made me think : "Yeah,he's the one!"

There you have it,enter..Shen,the Eye of Twilight.

I've had A LOT of problems when I was starting as a Shen,as I did with the other champions. I won't brag about being good with them right off the bat,but I will brag when I'm good with them after I persevere through a streak of bad games and truly shine after that.

My gosh,it wasn't in my intentions to kill so many! And don't worry,guys,this isn't the pro shen that I envision myself to be,in the not-so-far off future. Still,My assists were tied with Gragas for the game-high,that's why I think nobody could complain about the tank killing even if they wanted to. Overall,very enjoyable game. ^_^

Aha...now THIS is the type of 'pro' Shen that I want to be when all is said and done!Undisputable game-high in assists,not too many kills,not too many deaths,either! So far,this is my best game as Shen,hands down.

In case if you guys were wondering,Ashe,Fizz and Teemo's last 2 items were so stupid that I had to hide them by scrolling over Atma's Impaler. And the three of them earned over 20K gold with 300+ minion kills...Not! I was just trying to be funny..I accidentally scrolled over to Atma's Impaler when I captured the screen image.

Aha! This game could have been better than the last one (^) depending on how you look at it. Fundamentally,they are the same in the way that I don't kill a lot (0), I'm not negative in score(0) and I have the game-high in assists by FAR.(19,while the second highest is 9)

What made this game potentially better was the last one was,my team's total kills were 24,and I had a hand in NINETEEN of them(helping in 19/24 kills)!! It literally meant I was all over Summoner's Rift,messing up the opposing team and making them crazy.

Not much highlights in Shen yet,huh? I'm still getting better at him,tune in next time for more epic tanking! I'm moving on to Shyvanna for now(off-tank). No matter how I try to change for my friends,I am still who I am. :D

Champ 5: Udyr

Decided that this would be the 4th champion that I was going to master in League of Legends. Guess what,another offensive-tank (haha.) His item build is quite expensive,so I don't need to worry about having excess money (5k extra money with Vladimir/Mordekaiser >.>) by late game.

Once,I thought to jungle,you needed skills,lots of it,to be successful with the neutral creeps. That's why,being afraid to step out of my comfort zone,I have used champions which lane exclusively for at least the first 700 games(including custom games,Co-Op vs. AI games) of my League of Legends career.

After Garen,Mordekaiser,Vladimir,Nasus,I decided to look for other off-tanks, leaning towards Sion,of the other potential off-tanks. Then,somewhere along the 700 games,I got ganked by Udyrs which were very good at messing our team up with his awesome skill set and exceptional beefiness,despite not being a tank. That's when I thought : Maybe this is the next one.. But..A jungler?

Hurrah,seems that Udyr is the true KING of junglers,surpassing even warwick when it comes to jungling efficiency and ganking from the woods. I'm glad Udyr was the first champion I selected for jungling,because his skills made jungling so much easier for a newbie jungler like me,and thanks to that I haven't stopped using him,even though I sucked and went into a slump for the first 10~20 games with Udyr. What are the results of holding on to Udyr - the Animal Spirit? Observe,my friends.

Not VERY consistent,but still.

Not bad eh?  His skills seemed so confusing at first that I randomly used them and most of the times my timing was off. Now I'm more accustomed as of WHEN I should use his skills,but believe it or not,even NOW I still haven't completely mastered the Animal Spirit yet. I believe I can go one or two levels higher in my Udyr plays,but that would be a topic for the future.

Might be the proudest game I'll have,in a long time.

Why? Obviously this wasn't a one-sided game. In fact,as you might have guessed,our team was losing for the first 40 minutes or so,as Akali was on a rampage. But somewhere after the 40 minute mark,I started picking up my game and our team gave Akali five straight deaths which drastically reduced the opposition's momentum. We made her go from 18 kills and 6 deaths (18/6) into 18 kills and 11 deaths (18/11). This might have been the turning point for our team.

I went in,focused on their main damager(Akali),and conquered the teamfights once she was down. My score was undisputably the nicest on the end-game score sheets too. Hurrah,Udyr,hurrah,LolG!

Here is one of the bad games that I had with Udyr. And whats worse,the enemy had a fed volibear. You wouldn't know how big of a sh*t that is until you faced one. So far,I've encountered at least 5 fed Volibears,and at least 3 have carried their team to give me a crushing defeat each time. They are so beefy and their HP can NEVER seem to go down,with their OP(overpowered) passive,Chosen of the Storm,which....Nevermind. Look it up yourself. =/

Oh yeah,I strayed from the point. I was like sh*t in this game,which can be seen when even the CARRY vayne had as much assists as I did,and obviously I died 11 times while only killing 5 champs. My brother (MrFang221) stepped up his game when needed,which is why I respect him,to this day,as a LoL player. This game was all about HIM(my brother),respect.

Arguably the best team I was ever a part of.

Again,this match wasn't about ME,but this time its about the team. Look at the assist column. EACH of us had OVER 20 assists,and that's saying something! If each team I joined was like this,then I think I'd never have to lose for the rest of my life,such cohesive teamwork will ensure a victory 99% of the time,I believe.

SOLID game,400th win. :D

Definitely pimpin'. 0 deaths,mind you!

Note the trolling Croc',a very decent effort by the opposing Nasus and my great game.^_^

BACK.

My last game of constantly using Udyr for a while,as I move on to my next champion.

You won't believe it when I say this is one of my BEST Udyr games. I felt good dishing out assists all game. I would have preferred it if I killed 2 more but...No one was even CLOSE to my assist score..Damn,I'm good.

w00t.

(11/21/2012:)
Hi guys,beast Udyr is BACK. =]]]

Champ 4: Nasus

My fantasy skin..when will it ever come..

Welcome to the third champion of the LoL exploits blog,known as Nasus - The Curator of the Sands.(Here,the curator may mean guardian/keeper/watch dog)

Although he is sold at only 450IP in the stores,he's as strong or even stronger than Mordekaiser/Garen in certain situations late game. (Morde/Gar sold at 3150IP)

Why?  Its due to one of his two skills which are my favourite in game,which is his W skill(Wither). Wither is a single target slow which is the most powerful anti-carry crowd control in the game,take my word for it. When its at level 5, it can slow the target's movement AND attack speed by 95%(yes,NINETY FIVE PERCENT) which makes them sort of stand still on the spot when the skill takes effect. A fed Tryndamere/Caitlyn destroying your team? Fear not,a well timed W can literally change the tides of war.

Something else about him that seizes my affection is his Q skill (Siphoning Strike),which buffs his next basic attack making it deal additional damage. Sounds so plain,doesn't it? Here comes the catch : Everytime Nasus deals the finishing strike to any living being,be it an enemy champion or minions,he gains 3 bonus damage to the skill which is PERMANENT and STACKS. Example? At the beginning of the game,Siphoning Strike deals 100(50)(0) damage to the target,100 being the original damage addition,50 being the basic attack damage and 0 being the bonus damage. If I last hit a minion with my Q,the skill damage which results is 100(50)(3). If I last hit 100 creeps with this skill,it becomes 100(50)(300). See? If you're good at using Nasus,this skill can be a BOMB late game.

I enjoy my games with the Curator of the Sands,but sometimes I dominate with him so badly that things feel a bit boring,like it does with Mordekaiser. :P Well,I'll let my scores do the talking,feast your eyes...

Quite consistent scores,eh?

For this match,I had a pretty solid game,yeah,but this match isn't an extraordinary one for me. What I wanted to remember by the end of this match was the stellar performance by my friend,BernardNg. I've played around 100 matches with him,and this might be one of the few matches where he DOES NOT go negative in scoring (feed) and actually CARRY the team! (Although Cassiopeia carried half of the load and maybe our opponents were sub-par)

Still,whenever my friend has a bad game(which he does,most of the time) , I'd like to show this picture to him to remember how potentially dominant he can be in game.

Most of us in the team had a good game,but I think I topped the charts with the least deaths,most kills and most assists in this one. Really outdid myself here. ^_^

If my memory doesn't fail me,this should be my SECOND ever Nasus game since I decided to play him seriously.

To be honest,I think I was the second biggest,if not biggest part of this victory. Sure,there were 2 others who killed more than I did and scored better overall,but my using W on the right place and the right time shut the carries down effectively , not to mention my beefiness that could be on the same par as a dedicated tank,with 4000HP and some nice damage to top it all off. My best assist score with an offensive tank thus far! (Had 32 assists with Shen)

I haven't used Nasus for some time and was thinking of using him for a while since I really like his 'Q' skill. At the champion loading screen,all of us thought that this game was going to be easy since Mordekaiser and Morgana seemed to be lagging,and they all didn't have flash,to boot. We expected an easy blowout victory or at least having the enemy surrender. We were wrong.

The most passive game I have played in like,forever. Even until the 20 minute mark,first blood hadn't been taken yet. Nice,eh? After I took first blood,things started to open up and we were en route to a total ownage game.Each of their first outer turret was broken while ours was unscathed,and they surrendered. GG.

Carried.

Had a bad start,disconnected at the start of the game and every lane was doing bad. All our outer 3 were broken while theirs were intact. Well,things changed when my friend Vayne and Viktor went into the zone and,fwoosh,epic turnaround win. "Turnaround?Looks more like a one-sided massacre" is what you guys would think. Not at all. Contrary to the score displayed,they were actually winning. Well,we pulled off an epic W,GGWP.

MVP ! MVP ! MVP ! Nah just kidding,everyone had a hand in this win. GG

I'm good,believe it!