evelynn
Latest
The Summoner's Guidebook: The allure of new LoL champions
Picking new champions in League of Legends is akin to picking a role. There are a few major schools of thought: Either you pick a small number of characters and stand by them or you grab every new character that strikes your fancy. Of course, there's a middle road where you get a lot of characters but you still focus on getting new characters that add something to your roster. There's less of an opportunity cost with picking up a new character than there is with picking a new role. Learning a new champion takes some practice, but many of the things you learn while playing your new character are applicable to every character in the same role.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Evelynn, League of Legends' new top jungler
It shouldn't be a surprise that Evelynn is one of my favorite characters in League of Legends. Before the 3.14 patch, she was one of my go-to picks in the jungle. Now, I have not yet played a normal or ranked game in 3.14 that was on a character other than Evelynn save for one game where I was stuck playing mid (and lost horribly). I probably could have played Eve there too. Every game thus far I've gone 5/1 or better in the laning phase. She's just that good now. While there are a few other junglers that are considered to be very strong, I feel that Evelynn is the best of the best right now. She clears fast, deals tons of damage, and scales well with items. But more importantly, she can do what few other junglers do well: gank.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Stealth mechanics, stiletto heels, and League of Legends
Recently my League of Legends games have included a lot of solo mid (mostly by choice), and while I play Syndra quite a bit because she's really fun, I've had the most success playing Evelynn. I've had a fair number of games where I've carried my team kicking and screaming over the goal line despite their insistence on making awful decisions. I just walked into teamfights, hit R, and proceeded to steamroll their entire team after a completely dominating laning phase where I ganked everywhere including the enemy jungle. Evelynn's pretty much the polar opposite of Poppy. They both have blue skin, but the similarities pretty much end there. Poppy is a tiny tomboyish warrior in plate and chain with a mighty hammer and a direct approach to problems. Evelynn is a subtle temptress with stealth, vampiric abilities, a supermodel figure, and an outfit that suggests that "lady of the night" might have a double meaning.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Selecting a League of Legends jungler
As sometimes happens in The Summoner's Guidebook, one of you asks for a more in-depth article on a particular subject. This time I was asked to look more at character selection for junglers. As we've already discussed, the jungler is frequently the leader of a League of Legends team, but as the reader mentioned, the character you choose makes a big difference in what you can or can't do. If you're thinking of getting into jungling, the first character you buy for the job is important. Who you pick determines a lot about how you go into the job, what types of skills you develop, and how you think about the entire jungle concept. If your first jungler is a speed-clearer like Shyvana or Master Yi, you're going to look at things differently than if you choose a powerful ganker like Nautilus. Regardless of the character you select, the jungler is a playmaker. If he's not making plays that get his team ahead, he is going to hurt his team if the enemy jungler is.
The Summoner's Guidebook: How do assassins work in League of Legends?
In case you didn't notice, the title of this week's column is a question. It's not because I know the answer; it's because I've been thinking a lot about it lately and don't have a really good answer. Assassins are in a strange state when it comes to teamfights. In League of Legends, there's a period when teams tend to group up to fight over objectives. This marks the midgame in Summoner's Rift, it happens after altars unlock in Twisted Treeline, and it occurs anytime both teams know where the other team is on the Crystal Scar. We've discussed teamfights a lot already, but what is troubling is the presence of assassins in these fights. Assassins are best when they're able to jump in and kill an unprepared target, ideally before a teamfight starts. Once that's done, their team can jump in with a numbers advantage and take the objective or wipe out the enemy. When both teams are grouped up ahead of time, assassins lose a lot of their might. Assassins can't kill without exposing themselves to heavy risk, which makes them a liability to their team until they jump in. After they jump in, they're still likely to be the first ones to get focused down. What do we do about this? What's the solution? I don't have a clear answer -- but I can still share my observations.
The Summoner's Guidebook: Why big metagame changes to League of Legends could be bad
It's fairly common knowledge now that League of Legends is undertaking a massive rework of its two permastealth champions, Evelynn and Twitch, in the next big patch. These changes were desperately needed. Evelynn was in horrible shape; she's the least-selected champion in the game by far, and her gameplay needed a tremendous amount of work. Twitch was in better shape, but he was a poor selection on Summoner's Rift for either of his two roles (jungle and carry). Twitch was considered a strong pick on Dominion, however. Riot Games chose to completely rework these two champions, weakening Twitch's stealth aspects in order to make him a more normal carry. Evelynn was completely reworked, and she is so much different from her old self that she's basically a new character. Both of these champions are still "weird," however; despite the changes, neither character exemplifies any element of the current metagame. I think that this is sort of dangerous. Riot has already introduced one very weird champion recently that has turned out to be viable (if not strong), Jayce. The stealth rework patch will also be succeeded by Zyra, who has very weird caster/pet mechanics. With all of these dramatic meta changes, League will become very unpredictable, especially at the middle levels of skill where I reside. I think that this is somewhat of a bad thing.
