League of Legends Season 14 Tips and Tricks

Image Via: Riot Games

Have you been struggling to adjust to the changes that Riot brought with Season 14 of League of Legends? Cause honestly same. As a diamond player, I have been playing flex and unranked draft exclusively purely because I just feel lost playing right now. I've played my fair share of games, but until now, I hadn't sat down to read what all the exact changes are, purely due to the fact that the patch notes are like a 20-minute read. So, I'm going to break down some of the things that I've identified from playing the game and now that I have read the patch notes.

Void Grubs

These little things, at first sight, are just another large jungle camp, but in reality, the Void Grubs are an absolute game changer. These ugly lil creatures spawn at exactly 5 minutes, and each of the Grubs you kill gives you a stack. Each stack grants your auto attacks 4 (melee) or 3 (ranged) true damage over time to towers. After they are first slain, they respawn in 4 minutes, and if you are lucky enough to have killed five of them, you get another buff. This buff spawns one of the Void Mites (the mini guys) every 15 seconds and they have the same damage and armour as a melee minion but have 40% less health. Now this may seem small, but you can easily get all 5 turret plates with this buff, snowballing you with an extra 1750 gold if you get the first tower (1300 without the first tower bonus)! Which we all know is absolutely massive.

AP Items

Oh my, AP mages are on another level right now. The new AP items are absolutely disgusting. The top one is Stormsurge, this item gives you 100 ability power, 10 magic penetration, 5% move speed, and 2 passives. The first passive Stormraider, deals 35% of a champ's max health within 3 seconds, applies Stormsurge and gives you 25% move speed for 2 seconds. The second passive is Stormsurge, which causes a lightning strike after 2 seconds dealing magic damage (that scales with 40% of your AP), and if they die from the lightning or before it strikes, it causes a massive lightning strike dealing damage in a bigger area and giving you gold. All of this is for a mere 2900 gold. If you've seen any of those videos of burst mages literally one-shotting people, it's probably because of this item. It is absolutely huge for burst mages right now, and it's actually so good that Riot nerfed the AP scaling on the passive to 30%.

If you're really going for the one-shot build, Luden's Companion is a good combo with Stormsurge, as it functions similarly to Luden's Echo of last season but does more damage as you gain a charge every 3 seconds maxing out at 6 charges. When you hit an enemy with an ability, all charges are consumed, and each deals 40 (+8% of your AP) damage to the target and one nearby enemy. To top it off, if there isn't a nearby enemy, it repeats the damage on the primary target for 35% of the damage. This is huge as it can be the difference maker in dealing 35% of a champion's max health (which activates Stormsurges passive). Riftmaker also got a buff as it now grants health, increases your damage, and grants 2% of your bonus health as AP.

All in all, it is a great time to play mages, especially burst mages, and just AP champions overall.

Lethality

Lethality got a hidden buff as Riot reverted an old nerf to Lethality, which has made Lethality nasty again. Previously Lethality was calculated as 0.6 armour penetration per lethality, increasing with your level, but Riot has reverted this back to a 1 to 1 ratio. So for every 1 lethality, you ignore 1 armour. So once again, assassins have gained damage and will be able to one-shot squishy targets as they honestly should. It was a little odd having to build half bruiser in order to kill anyone as an assassin. Just keep in mind that late-game lethality will always fall off, as even base armour for most champs ends up being near 100. So you'll have to get something that gives you % armour penetration, like Serylda's Grudge, if you want to do damage late game, especially against tankier foes.

Tank Builds

Tank players rejoice as your champions all got stronger this season with a whole slew of reworked and new tank items. It is so much easier than before to build MR, and with mages being capable of way more damage, this is perfect. My personal favourite item is Hollow Radiance, this item is basically the magic resistance version of Sunfire cape, but better. Because whenever you kill an enemy (includes minions and jungle camps), they explode and deal 20 plus 3.5% of your max health as magic damage. Wave clear for dayyyys. Another great item that was added is Kaenic Rookern. This Item has 80 MR and gives you a passive that, after 12 seconds of not taking damage, you get a magic shield equal to 20% of your max health. Such a good item when you are playing into mages as it negates a lot of the upfront burst that some of the mages are capable of now.

Now I would point out that you can also abuse this crazy strategy where both the Support and ADC take support item, and they both just get crazy gold. It's honestly the weirdest strat, but it works; it has even happened in pro play in the LCK. However, it is going to be impossible to do so in the next patch :(

TIPS

Okay, first things first, if you are playing Top or Mid, you need to help your Jungler secure the first set of Voidgrubs, and if you're the Jungler, go get the Voidgrubs. After that, just do your best to get damage on the towers and try to get plates or even the first turret.

Second, all of the lanes have massive access to the river, which now makes it harder for junglers to sneak up on the laners. So use this to your advantage, and as a Jungler, you need to get creative with your gank approach; try coming from closer to the enemy's tower as there are new paths that have opened up in these areas, and it is easy to catch a laner lacking. The easiest one is Mid, as there is a path directly behind them at all times.

Third, the item that you build first in this meta can easily swing how your lane is going or can absolutely throw your lane. This is key, as you do not want to put yourself in a position where you have no choice but to play from behind. For example, a few games ago, I played Teemo top against a Shen, and for whatever reason, the first item Shen went was Sunfire. Now if this person had noticed that; A) they were laning against an AP champion, and B) 3 of the 5 members on my team were AP aside from the ADC and my support was a tank, then they would not have gone sunfire first and ideally went an MR item first like Hollow Radiance or even just Merc Treads they would have been fine! But they didn't, so it was the easiest lane of my life, and every time they tried to use their R, they got absolutely demolished because all they had was a Sunfire Cape! It's also just important in general to choose the right starting item. You either want to get something to help deal with your lane or to counter the entire team. My personal strategy is to buy a component from the first item I think is good for the game, so on Teemo, my first item is Berserker's Greaves, but if we're not including boots, then Nashor's Tooth. So I will buy the recurve bow from Nashors tooth first, as I feel like it helps me both in the lane and overall in the game. And then, I move on to a component that counters or weakens the enemy I am directly against in my lane. For someone like Shen, maybe you want to get a Heartsteel to start stacking health early or maybe against a Teemo, you want something with Tenacity like Mercury Treads. In the laning phase, it's really up to you how it goes, so do your best to pick out the enemy champions' strengths and buy items or adapt so that you are able to make them weaker (ex., grievous wounds against a Garen or Sett early).

Fourth, do not go directly by whatever build the internet (DANG THATS ME) or companion apps tell you to buy. Every game is different and sometimes the items it recommends are either too general or are just useless depending on the enemy team comp. Like Shen's Sunfire. Learn to adapt your builds to the enemy champions. If the other team has a Darius and a Soraka, it might be a good item to get some sort of Grevious Wounds to diminish their healing.

Finally, most people are in the same position as us. It is a brand new season, and everyone is adjusting to all the changes. So take it slow; give yourself a few warm-up games to get familiar with all the changes before you jump into ranked. Especially the items, take a few minutes and read the new items and the changed items for your lane and fav champs. It will greatly help you.

OH AND THE BEST THING OF ALL

Riot added fist bumps. At any point, press U and you will initiate a fist bump, any nearby teammates can also press U, and you'll fist bump. It's pretty sick, especially when you either do something amazing or you steal your junglers scuttle and then try to fist bump like I do to one of my friends (you know who you are).

Image Via: Riot Games

Just a final note, if the enemy team has a Hecarim...

Good luck.

Every game I have played with the enemy jungler playing Hecarim, I swear the horseman has 10+ kills by first herald (in all honesty, he's still easy to kill, and I usually win anyway, but still, it's not fun).

Thanks for reading y'all! Good luck on the rift!