Heroes in Strange Places #1: Yarr har harr, har har harrr!

So, I've decided to commit myself to playing almost exclusively heroes that you don't see very often. Like, as you probably know, Hecarim. But there's more than just the choice of hero, it's also the placement. Which brings me to this article regarding the now-forgotten pirate, Gangplank. Unfortunately, due to his poor harass versus top laners like Irelia and Warwick, coupled with his poor jungling speeds, he's fallen out of flavor and is a very rare sight these days.

Unless you're playing with me. A lot of the time, I'll pick Gangplank and shove him bottom with everybody's favorite battery, Soraka. Running Attack Damage and Critical Strike runes, you'd be surprised at how much damage can randomly come out of that little pistol. A long time ago, back before so many standards were set in the League, you'd see Gangplank running around with what was essentially the same build as an AD carry. Infinity Edge. Phantom Dancers. The occasional Trinity Force. And back then, before a few tweaks to his stats and abilities, and before new heroes came out and a lot of power creep, it wasn't uncommon to see a single Parrley! crit force you all the way back to base, or possibly death.

Well that's how I build him now. At bottom lane with a good Soraka support, the man is nigh-impossible to gank with his magical oranges. The harass from Parrley! often is enough to send back a non-sustain lane like Janna/Ashe in a few shots, less if you manage to land a couple of crits. Not to mention the additional gold from last-hitting with the pistol shot, which allow him to accelerate into builds much faster than most characters. And the global presence he gets at level 6, with the ability to slow in a massive area at any point on the map makes him very valuable.

Now there's a downside with this sort of choice, the fact that lategame, you'll lack a proper AD carry. But instead, with a similar build to the one outlined above, every 4-6 seconds you'll get a burst of around 800-1k+ damage on a crit. That's a lot. And sometimes this sort of damage comes out around the 30-35 minute mark. Not to mention with a bit of lifesteal, Gankplank can easily go toe-to-toe with the toughest bruisers and come out alive, simply through sheer damage output. If he gets in trouble, just nom those oranges and run away, because there's few heroes that can catch the pirate. You give up constant ranged damage for an extremely powerful poke, and an extremely strong duelist. Sometimes that trade-off isn't worth it. In my experience, a lot of the time it is.

So if you're looking to change things up a little and have a good duo-queue partner, give it a try. If people want I'll make up a build for him and post it, but it's fairly easy to figure out. You might just find that the good Captain isn't as mediocre as everyone thinks.

Underrated Heroes #1: Suffering is Magic

Hey League Enthusiasts. So one of the things I really enjoy about League of Legends is the amount of choice you have in terms of characters. But I find that in most games, mostly in Ranked, but sometimes in normals, out of the current 99 heroes, only about 30 or 40 of them are considered "viable" by the general playerbase. This is by no account Riot's fault, as the other sixty odd heroes are definitely strong in their own rights (Except for those left deliberately weak. I'm looking at you, Evelynn). The playerbase has just come under the impression that because you don't see them on streams, or in big league tournaments, that there's no reason to play them.

That's not an unfair opinion. I understand that when you see the best of the best playing a hero on more than one occasion, it lends to the idea that the hero is really good. But it also causes a little bit of stagnation. Every single game almost the same heroes are either banned or picked, because apparently, there's just no other choice. Ahri and Morgana dominate middle lane. Jax, Lee Sin and Vladimir are always top lane, and so on. I'm seeing less and less choice being available, despite how much choice there actually is.

My favorite hero at the moment is probably Hecarim. You know, that ghost centaur with the huge lance/scythe and yells a lot when you see him. But you might not know that. Because the last time I saw a Hecarim that wasn't me was on release, and everyone's forgotten he exists. I've played him a few times recently and in every game I've done really well, ganking and counterganking, initiating and just being downright scary and trampling over everybody.

The last game I played him, in champ select, a person told me that Hecarim isn't a real champion, that I should play a jungler that makes a difference. It's discouraging, how people think that certain heroes are absolute trash, that I'm considered a troll for picking a character that I personally like a lot, and can do really well with. Because beyond what everybody thinks, player skill has a lot more to do with the game than the character you're playing.

I understand where they're coming from though. Most players wouldn't be able to tell me without looking it up that Hecarim's W heals him based on the damage that enemies take as a whole, not just what the centaur slaps them for personally. And that's because nobody who's anybody plays him. I might be wrong, but I do watch a lot of streams and keep up with the scene, and I very, very rarely see anyone talking about Hecarim beyond saying he's not very good. And that flows down to the lower ELO players, because if so and so said it, it must be true. Well, I'm going to say different. And I'll be saying it about other heroes as well, ones that most people consider bad, unplayable, too weak to pick.

I know his weaknesses and I know his strengths. His jungle speed before levels 7-9 and beyond is a bit slow, and he can be a little crippled if counterjungled. His gank, while strong, isn't as good as Lee Sin's or Alistar's, and his Devastating Charge can often bug out and lose you a kill if used improperly. But after those initial bumps, which can be prevented through good map awareness and wards, he becomes an absolute monster. His damage output, considering his bruiser class and mobility, is insane. His W heals him for a surprising amount in a teamfight, and his ultimate is crazy good for initiation and peeling. He puts out a large amount of initial burst, and has the tools to do incredible sustained damage as well. And unless you're Rammus or Master Yi, it's very hard to get away from him.

So I'll keep picking him. And I'll keep securing victories where it's possible, to try and prove that my favorite horse-man is good enough to stand up. Hopefully, people will give him a chance.

This'll be a blast!

Hey there, and welcome to The Bottom Lane. I'm BMan, you might remember me from the couple of posts I created over at my brother's Retreviews page, which unfortunately due to some time constraints due to a shift in employment workload, I am unable to regularly contribute to that particular blog. If you do remember me from my posts over there, you'll already know a bit about me. If you don't know who I am, and you actually care, please read on.

I'm a gamer. A rather competitive one, at that. Though my definition of competitive differs from many others. There's a detailed post in the Retreviews page (which, by the way, is an awesome blog and you should go read it if you're at all interested in games that came out before Modern Warfare became the staple FPS), but to cut it short, when I play a game, I play to win. I do my best with what I'm given and I don't give up until Victory or Defeat appears on that end of game screen.

I love League of Legends. I've been playing for close to or over two years now, I forget which. Two years is a long time to be playing a game that isn't World of Warcraft, and I still get at least an hour, normally much more, of LoL in a night. I would love to get in on the professional LoL scene, but being that I play from Australia and don't have heaps of spare time at the moment, that's not a option (Yet.).

In this blog I'll be trying to detail my thoughts and feelings, as well as a bit of theorycrafting and discussions which I absolutely welcome you to join in on. League of Legends is the biggest game in the world right now, not just for me, but for an incredible amount of people. If you haven't played it, please, give it a try. Play a few games versus bots, it's totally free to download, and you might find that you enjoy it as much as I do.

The Bottom Lane

Welcome to The Bottom Lane.

You've heard of Solomid. They're the guys that play League of Legends.

That's kind of us too, except we're not.

I play League, sure I do. It's fun, I'm a 1400 solo ranked support class. My specialities are healing and trying not to die. I also ward.

What's The Bottom Lane? It's all round LoL, analysis provided by BMan and I about the most popular MOBA on the market.