Haven't played since season 4, what changed?

demolisher beast·May 22, 2015·1 votes·1,129 views

Haven't read the patch notes (until finished anyways), and I haven't played since season 4, right before preseason. What changed? What's the meta? Who's viable, who'd rito destroy, who's op? Is smite tp top a good thing now (my friend told me that)? Has the role of each lane changed? HAS THE RULES OF THE BOARDS CHANGED??? tell me plz

10 Comments

Mat7itanMay 22, 20151 votes

A lot has changed (pretty much everyone is playing a tank which makes playing assassins a pain in the ass), but I would recommend reading the patch notes because there is quite a bit that is going on that is different from season 4.

ShaftyMegeeMay 22, 20151 votes

The black cleaver, the jungle, tank meta, Taric is getting buffs. Essentially my closet

Angelofchaos16xMay 22, 20151 votes

Play tanks for the jungle. Avoid assassins blind pick, Urgot is a decent pick for mid lane , hyper carrys every match, late game mages that do percent health damage are key, gragas is full tank not Ap nor off tank and is better in the jungle.

SEKAIMay 22, 20151 votes

Season 4 introduced a new jungle scene, which was nice for the most part until the famous Feral Flare stepped onto the stage and destroyed everything in its path, which they nerfed it later. Otherwise S4 was really a blank, nothing much happened besides a few OP champ and some item releases. Major events:

(This probably should belong in S5 but whatever) CertainlyT striked again with his new "fun" champ of Kalista, who has theoretical infinite both mobility and burst, as an ADC.
Barum although a welcoming concept was poorly executed with a near broken release state, which then later nerfed.
Azir was released OP (I think, I really forgot), Gnar was released OP and dominated top lane with his unmeasurable presence.
Feral Flare's rise and demise.
Sion got a rework, although it originally was not approved by the community, however after the official release it quickly became one of the community's favourite rework.
7th item slot was being made. It's called a "Trinket slot". The slot can only be used to hold one of the 3 trinket items which are all used for vision purposes in one way or another, it was introduced to encourage team vision control. They all can get upgraded.
Gold items were re/introduced, mainly serve as an income for Supports.
The April Fool's game mode "URF", Ultra Rapid Fire mode, basically a "spam your spells with no cd mode", it was highly popular and received a come back later in 2015.

Season 5 on the other hand, has a lot of drama. Firstly they gave us the new Rift which took everyone by surprise, they also re-introduced the jungle and promised us "strategic diversity".

Jungle had the most of it, so I start it first.

The jungle items now divide into a few sub groups for different playstyles and each could access all enchantments, so theoretically everyone can play as junglers.
They introduced the concept of "smiting champs", that by getting jungle items one's Smite would upgrade with item specific bonus effects. Some were against it and some embraced the idea. Most people just run Stalker's anyways since it's an extra slow, why the hell won't you use it?
Then people realised the new jungle was simply too hardcore, many jungle mains got executed left and right and tank jungle was unplayable.
Riot tuned it a little and it was cool for a while, still not so much with tanks however.
Then a few jungle picks became way too dominating, so instead of nerfing them properly, they nerfed the whole jungle because logic right? Hence only making the matters worse.
Then later they finally nerfed people back to where they needed to be, tank junglers simply died due to their repeated bashing in the head.
Riot then saved the day by releasing Cinderhulk, replacing the original useless tank jungle item enchant, and it was rad! Tanks were suddenly viable once again, although a few became OP but it was definitely a welcome sight.
Then people started QQ because they built their usual 0 defense build and got rekt by tanks, so now Riot is both nerfing Cinderhulk and buffing BotRK. Fun right?
Baron and Dragon were changed, Dragon no longer grants pure gold but a stackable buff the grants actual power, and Baron's buff is more seiging focused. It's both good and bad really, since the Dragon change only serve to lock the meta even harder.
That's it for the jungle diversity.

Other parts of the game:

DFG was removed, many champ who built it as core were scheduled to have compensation buffs.
Ahri, the first on the compensation list was overtuned and became outright broken beyond belief, which later tuned back.
Patch 5.4, both Veigar and Morde received their compensation buffs by being straight gutted. "Compensation buff" then quickly became a running joke in the community.
The reason why Veigar was nerfed was due to him being picked as a support a few days before the patch, Morde was just unlucky because he was also on the compensation buff list.
On the same patch with Veigar and Morde's fall, Kassadin also got a gut into his stomach for no apparent reason.
Syndra, who were supposed to be compensated, is still ignored to this day.
With the introduction of Cinderhulk, a few people started running Cinderhulk TP+Smite top and was receiving critical responses similar to when ranged top was reigning supreme.
Urgot is no longer a joke pick anymore.
Ryze got a rework.
A pure Support/utility oriented champ Bard was released, and is currently enjoying a pitiful win and pick rate.
Black Cleaver was reworked.
Riot "rectonned" lore and Institute of War, the word is placed in quotation because they have nothing to replace it with when the old one was wiped. Hence many champs now have lores that either simply don't make sense or sporting just a single sentence.

There are ofc many things I have missed, or simply stated it falsely (maybe), but these are what happened during the time you were gone for the most part.

demolisher beastMay 22, 20151 votes

how about summoner spells, any changes? is it still flash ignite on EVERYONE? thx for the answers btw guys, reading is real tough :/

SEKAIMay 22, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=demolisher beast,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=0MgcEbI3,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2015-05-22T14:40:58.530+0000)

how about summoner spells, any changes? is it still flash ignite on EVERYONE? thx for the answers btw guys, reading is real tough :/

I forgot to mention the introduction of Support itemisations (or we can call them Gold items, everyone can buy it, just mostly bought by supports) in S4, so there's that too. There was also a time when everyone was running gold item start until they nerfed it a little.

Somewhere in S4 I think, Heal was reworked and the heal stacking restriction was removed, hence everyone was spamming Heal+Flash every game. They later re-applied the restriction back.

There was also a time when Barrier+Flash was considered essential on all ADC ever, which then later became a choice between Heal+Flash and Barrier+Flash later.

Top is mostly running Teleport+Flash now.

In short, summoner spell scene is no longer about Ignite on everyone, but Flash has yet to be really tuned in any meaningful way.

R110May 22, 20151 votes

Multiple versions of smite, depending on which jungle item you build from machete. Every jungle item is open for four different enchantements (think boots but with stats). Every small jungle camp gives a bonus when you smite it: Wolves release a spirit that gives vision that walks follows enemies in that quarter of the jungle Gromp (used to be big wraith) gives a buff that poisons enemies that attack you Raptors (used to be wraiths) notify you when a ward is nearby and gives true sight so you can clear it. Krugs (used to be double golems) give you a buff that stuns monsters every X autoattacks.

Dragon works with stacks that buff the team:

6% AD and AP buff
% extra tower damage
5% movement speed
% bonus minion and monster damage
Doubles all the previous buffs for a duration, stronger than baron buff. Dragon deals more damage to your team based on your teams amount of stacks while your team deals less damage to him based on your teams number of stacks.

Baron buff has been reworked, gives some AD and AP and provides every team member with an aura that boosts minions. Every minion type: their movement speed will be the same as 90% of your movement speed. Melee: %damage reduction (a lot) Caster: More range, more damage Cannon: Outranges towers, AOE damage shots that do bonus damage to towers. Super: % attackspeed buff

There is also a scuttle crab running in the river if you kill it will give a decent amount of gold and gives vision and movementspeed shrine infront of dragon/baron depending on which river. It won't attack you and flees when you damage it (won't leave the river), loses some armor and mr when you hard cc it.

A notable new item: item 3800 There were some other new items but aren't as important as the above.

Ashe had a minor rework, Urgot has been buffed and is picked in competetive, Ryze had a rework. I'm sure that I'm still missing some things.

demolisher beastMay 23, 20151 votes

Thanks for all the answers guys, just read the patch where cinderhulk was made. 25% HP? Rly rito? So damn op --" no wonder they say everyone's going tank.

demolisher beastMay 23, 20151 votes

Oh yeah, because tank jungle now, what do you use for top? Still tanks? Offtanks? Or the shudders RANGED TOPS?