When I'm playing aram, it feels more like I play Dark Harvest instead of the individual champion

my waifu Taliyah·May 14, 2018·21 votes·10,525 views

Part of what used to make aram is never knowing what champion you'll get, and part of that is learning the new champions. Yeah I might underperform and lose the first couple of times, but that's okay. First timing a champion right now is pretty trivial, honestly. Even a supposedly difficult champion, I'll just take Dark Harvest and play exactly the same way as I would on any other champion: Wait for a Dark Harvest proc, proc it, disengage.

35 Comments

warpenguin555May 14, 20184 votes

ADHAM

And yet I still have more fun than SR

Professor WardMay 14, 20183 votes

People seem to think this is a "one rune fits all" and while thats not true, there is some note to dark harvest.

And for the people saying they arent seeing it, thats insane.

I have around 7500 arams played over 2 accounts and i can say that without a single shadow of a doubt that dark harvest is overpowered in aram. And everyone knows it. The design is obviously not balanced around how frequent procs are in aram.

Tie in the fact that dark harvest resets on kills, and you have a recipe for some severe power spike throughout entire teamfights. Not unheard of to get around 35 stacks in a single fight. And over 6000 damage done from this rune alone in a single game.

I like to use it with Caitlyn headshots and long range. Last night i picked up a kill from Orianna ulting me onto a dark harvest proc, then my headshot-crit-dark harvest doing 80% of her health in one shot. Felt bad to feel good.

Baka RedMay 14, 20182 votes

Weird. I don't feel like I need that Dark Harvest and I don't see it that much on the bridge. Yes, I hear some people telling it is that overpowered, but I don't see that happening in my matches on champions that should not have it. To utilize it, their team needs kills and those are harder to get if you aren't using the proper runes. Maybe it is MMR thing, but I don't know since you have decided to hide behind a smurf account. Smurf account use eats your credibility on gameplay matters and even ARAM balance is 'gameplay' matter.

But anyways; since there is quite a lot of complaining about Dark Harvest, Riot could consider (maybe even do) some ARAM nerf on it. I personally don't feel it to be that mandatory, but maybe. However, like we all know, Riot doesn't usually do ARAM balancing and that is part of the fun of ARAM imo. However, the fact is that "people die if they are killed", or "OP is OP".

veien om molMay 14, 20185 votes

I post on my NA smurf for convinience, but since you question my credibility, you can have my eune smurf.

https://eune.whatismymmr.com/veien%20om%20mol

Dark Harvest will get exceptionaly powerful with kills, true but it's in no way useless without kills. You get a proc +4 souls every 25 seconds from the cannon minion alternating between red and blue. Also consider that your allies will also drop souls for you to pick up, and also it's aram, fighting all the time. Snowball runes should be banned for the exact same reason snowball items were banned when aram was a custom game mode in 2010.

Baka RedMay 14, 20184 votes

Wow. I haven't seen that kind of MMR before there.

Well, maybe it is a problem in the really high MMR part of ARAM. I don't see it happening that much at my level, around 10 percent below you on that same site. Some people use it, but I don't see them rule the match unless their champion can actually utilize it well.

Edited; Fixed sentence structure to a more clear meaning.

RocketRelmMay 14, 20183 votes

Yeah, my mmr on aram right now's 2559, and I generally stay within the top 1%. At high levels, harvest, while not taken on everyone, is fairly strong on most champions. I pretty much only don't take it if my champion doesn't have an auto attack (Karthus, Cassopeia), or really likes Aftershock.

Dark Harvest isn't just a problem because it's a snowball rune, but it's also a late game scaling rune, and ARAM always comes down to late game (unless one team rolled so much better they stomp and end at 12 minutes). Even on champions like Vel'Koz and Brand who have absolutely no business taking it, I can score over 3k damage.

Often Dark Harvest doesn't take over a game because and only because aram's meta at high levels means the team with the initiator typically wins and that's a larger issue, poke isn't so bad when you get to high levels cause people understand how to sidestep them. But Dark Harvest is still a problem and crushes diversity.

FilDaFunkMay 14, 20182 votes

XinZhao Take DH Diana Take DH Corki Take DH Soraka Take DH

Pika FoxMay 14, 20181 votes

Then youre not playing the game? Waiting for a harvest proc is suboptimal, especially since you get free procs if anyone dies.

Professor WardMay 14, 20189 votes

[{quoted}](name=Pika Fox,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=4hev00i6,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2018-05-14T13:22:59.675+0000)

Then youre not playing the game? Waiting for a harvest proc is suboptimal, especially since you get free procs if anyone dies.

To be fair, waiting is not something you actually do for dark harvest procs in this mode.

I Love ThreshMay 14, 20181 votes

I don't see it THAT often either. But it's really fun to play as and if your team has enough cc/is beefy enough, not too much of a problem to play against. But if really everybody takes it, then everybody is on an equal ground rune-wise and it plays off like any ARAM game would: whoever got lucky at champ select wins. I hope they keep it because Dark Harvest Thresh is life.

MhihnjMay 14, 20181 votes

here's an aram tip:

presence of mind is a really good rune.

if assassin, domination then presence of mind and Coup de Grace

if a mage, domination/sorcery into presence of mind

if support, sorcery/inspiration into presence of mind

if ADC, fleet footwork into presence of mind

if tank, resolve into presence of mind then legend tenacity.

GrReaper96May 14, 20186 votes

Dude triumph is WAY better than presence of mind. MFB or Clarity easily solves any mana probs. Triumph on the other hand usually nets me 3000+ healing and 1000+ gold due

RocketRelmMay 14, 20181 votes

The Triumph healing is pretty inconsistent, and depending on both champion and the type of match. Sometimes it'll heal you for 300, sometimes for 3000.

The gold alone is worth the rune slot though, so that doesn't always matter.

fƒ15May 15, 20181 votes

1000+ gold.. you'd need more than 67 kills/assists in total- I'd expect about half that in a normal aram game lol. Presence of mind is almost always better. Think Kayle Zyra Maokai etc

GrReaper96May 15, 20181 votes

50 kills/assist. Trust me thats not uncommon in ARAM. Kayle Zyra can work perfectly well with MFB. Maokai just gets item 3001 for all his mana costs. Champions like Syndra Xerath would have mana problems but getting either item 3003 or summoner 13 completely solves it

fƒ15May 15, 20181 votes

See, I get the rune because it gives the 20% max ult cd. Do you know what getting multiple 20% max ult cd off in one fight can do? Ah it's so nice, even just getting picks is really nice for the rune- the mana cost thing is pretty cool too tho you can just build full ap with it lol

veien om molMay 15, 20181 votes

I have a response prepared for you, feel free to check out the faq if you are going for more common objections

Presence of Mind is in the same row as Triumph. So for Presence of Mind to be taken, it has to be superior to Triumph in the relevant scenarios.

Winning game scenario: With Presence of Mind, you gain more ults and more mana. You will use them at every opportunity to snowball the game even harder. With Triumph, you stack up a lot of bonus gold and become harder to kill.

Losing game scenario : With Presence of Mind, you'll get the honor of dying with more unspent mana. You'll also get to have your ult off cooldown slightly more often, but you can't use it, because you'll just lose the hard engage. With Triumph you stack up some bonus gold and become slightly harder to kill.

The winning game scenario are the one you will remember, because memory bias ( see choice-support-bias on Wikipedia). Setting the bias aside, we are not going to care about the winning game scenario. If you are winning a game in aram in the current snowbally meta, you’ve won the game anyways. The average scenario is somewhere in between, meaning that some fights, you’ll be able to ult earlier, and some fights you can’t. Triumph has no such limiting factor, and will always be useful.

That being said, of course there are some very mana-intensive champions that can opt for this, but you should try other mana options, there’s a lot of mana items/summoner spells/runes not a lot of healing. Presence of Mind can be compared to training wheels, because you are better off without them in the long run, but if you have either a combination of poor itemization, mana management, and/or refusing to die when out of mana, then Presence of Mind should be taken.

Also worth noting is that without directly comparing Presence of Mind to Triumph, Presence of Mind would be pretty OP. When Triumph gets disabled, then Presence of Mind would take its place as a must take rune for most champions.

cocacolalipsMay 15, 20181 votes

you are writing a lot...

presence of mind is good on mages + some supports (high mana usage, very powerful R) while triumph is good on everyone else (high bonus health, low income for melee champions)

that information is available here

https://lolalytics.com/aram/worldwide/platinum/plus/champions/

veien om molMay 15, 20182 votes

Well sure, I write a lot, but you should probably still read it if you want to make a response. Win rates of Presence of Mind is inflated because of the training wheels effect. There's still a few champions you can take it on however.

cocacolalipsMay 15, 20181 votes

I read it...

it's not inflated... it's just really good on some champions while triumph is only mediocre on those same champions...

Bob the ToastrMay 15, 20184 votes

Here's an even better ARAM tip:

Dark harvest is a really good rune.

If assassin, take dark harvest

If a mage, take dark harvest

If support, take dark harvest

If ADC, take dark harvest

If tank, take dark harvest

GrReaper96May 15, 20181 votes

Actually poke mages like Lux are better off with Comet. And tanks work better with aftershock for the bonus resistance.

AyzevMay 14, 20181 votes

So far the highest percentage of my total damage dealt that Harvest made up in one game is 28% as Warwick, and the average percentage over a couple hundred ARAMs is something close to 20% without forcing it on every random champion. Pretty insane for just a keystone.

cocacolalipsMay 15, 20181 votes

what about the lowest tho?

I remember a 300 total damage done with dark harvest in 18 minutes game on VI, can you beat that?

JohnnyNeverSinsMay 14, 20181 votes

Unless its a tank i only run dark harvest since many champins buy something built with sheen (so more aa damage) or duskblade or they are an adc

VoraciousXMay 15, 20181 votes

Just so you know Dark Harvest is actually nerfed on ARAM compared to SR. They did this because they knew it would be oppressive otherwise. This topic was covered before and Riot asked if people felt it was still overperforming and also said that according to their data it was not.

veien om molMay 15, 20181 votes

The data is useless try this and you see high mmr games where people take it on classes that should have no buisniess at all going Domination primary. Also keep in mind that if I gave a shit about winning, I'd likely would pick Dark Harvest instead of Grasp. Low mmr players are pretty unaware of how OP Dark Harvest actually is, so the pick rate will be lower when you just make an average graph like that. Also keep in mind that Dark Harvest can coupled with some other things putting down the win rate. Consider that almost every Caitlyn will build normal item 3087 item 3031 item 3094 , while a Dark Harvest Caitlyn will sometimes item 3142 item 3147 item 3036 dropping the rune's win rate. Meanwhile having this discussion in the first place proves that there's an issues. Taking an assassin rune on an adc would be considered trolling if the runes were balanced and shold hava similar win rate to Arcane Comet or Summon Aerie. You will probably just disregard everything. It's very common tactic amongst my opponent to use the Dark Harvest was nerfed as a kind of "shut up" tactic. Of course I know that Dark Harvest was nerfed. The nerf was way too light.

VoraciousXMay 15, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=veien om mol,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=4hev00i6,comment-id=00090000,timestamp=2018-05-15T06:11:06.722+0000)

The data is useless try this and you see high mmr games where people take it on classes that should have no buisniess at all going Domination primary. Also keep in mind that if I gave a shit about winning, I'd likely would pick Dark Harvest instead of Grasp. Low mmr players are pretty unaware of how OP Dark Harvest actually is, so the pick rate will be lower when you just make an average graph like that. Also keep in mind that Dark Harvest can coupled with some other things putting down the win rate. Consider that almost every will build normal , while a Dark Harvest will sometimes dropping the rune's win rate. Meanwhile having this discussion in the first place proves that there's an issues. Taking an assassin rune on an adc would be considered trolling if the runes were balanced and shold hava similar win rate to Arcane Comet or Summon Aerie. You will probably just disregard everything. It's very common tactic amongst my opponent to use the Dark Harvest was nerfed as a kind of "shut up" tactic. Of course I know that Dark Harvest was nerfed. The nerf was way too light.

I honestly never felt that OP using Dark Harvest on Katarina in Howling Abyss. I don't play ARAM much but considering Katarina can actually use Dark Harvest potentially the best out of anyone(she can proc it easily, and if she gets one kill she can snowball it into multiple kills while chain proccing it on everyone), I don't think it's that oppressive. Again Riot also claims it isn't as powerful as people believe it is on ARAM. There was a whole conversation on it a while back.

cocacolalipsMay 15, 20181 votes

tidbit: Katarina doesn't really AA when she combo her spells, she casts everything too fast with a bazillion resets to bother attacking with her crappy attack speed, she can but it's suboptimal and as such, she doesn't use dark harvest very well. best user would be maybe master yi.

VoraciousXMay 15, 20181 votes

{quoted}

tidbit: Katarina doesn't really AA when she combo her spells, she casts everything too fast with a bazillion resets to bother attacking with her crappy attack speed, she can but it's suboptimal and as such, she doesn't use dark harvest very well. best user would be maybe master yi.

Katarina automatically attacks the nearest target she shunpos to. Shunpo is also an auto reset. It can be cancelled if you move instantly after shunpoing but there's no point in doing that.

cocacolalipsMay 15, 20181 votes

An auto attack has an animation, whether that animation is slow or fast depends on your attack speed, Katarina doesn't buy attack speed... if she stops for one second every time to AA a champion, it would take her say 5+ seconds to score a penta when in reality she can do it in 2 seconds casting all her spells back to back, trying to AA in between combos is actively detrimental and lowers your dps, you do AA when you duel since you don't get any reset really in a 1V1, but not in a teamifght.

VoraciousXMay 16, 20181 votes

{quoted}

An auto attack has an animation, whether that animation is slow or fast depends on your attack speed, Katarina doesn't buy attack speed... if she stops for one second every time to AA a champion, it would take her say 5+ seconds to score a penta when in reality she can do it in 2 seconds casting all her spells back to back, trying to AA in between combos is actively detrimental and lowers your dps, you do AA when you duel since you don't get any reset really in a 1V1, but not in a teamifght.

No, attack speed has no bearing on the animation(I mean if you attack twice per second it does, but a smooth animation completes faster than a non-smooth one. Attack speed determines how many times you can attack per second, the animation has no bearing on that unless you buy attack speed. Katarina's attack is instant, and unless you intentionally cancel it, it will happen. When you E>W, you will attack long before the W completes. I play enough Dark Harvest Katarina to know well enough about her attack reset after Shunpo. You have to practically TRY to cancel it. Also Dark Harvest Katarina would be built around lich bane, so no, it wouldn't take her longer to get a penta, and I've gotten several pentas with Dark Harvest Katarina in Summoner's Rift. I know what I'm talking about.

veien om molMay 15, 20181 votes

Best users of Dark Harvet are ranged champions as they can safetly proc it from range.

cocacolalipsMay 15, 20181 votes

nop, best dark harvest users are assassins because they naturally collect the orbs on the ground when they teamfight since said orb always drop at your target's feet after they die, whereas for ranged champions to collect the orbs in a teamfight they would have to walk in melee range and be out of position which they really don't wanna do

a melee champion will always trigger dark harvest as many times as there are kills, but a ranged champion will only trigger it once or twice max per fight (on average)

what makes dark harvest good isn't the poke damage once in a while, but the resets in a fight, and only mobile melee champions really get to use that reset part in a fight to its full potential.

(also ranged champions have good alternatives, marksmen have the entire precision tree for themselves, and mages have sorcery, whereas melee damage dealer champions really only have dark harvest and maybe the new conqueror on some on them, the gap between their best rune and their 2nd best rune is more significant)