So League of Legends Season 3...

[Wingflier]

Has anyone tried the new patch?

Holy crap, complete game makeover.  I've only played 1 match, but so far I'm really impressed with the changes.

The item changes specifically are awesome!  I'm quite shocked that Riot is willing to change their game so dramatically.

I'll have to see if my first impressions hold.  What are the community's thoughts?

[Lancefighter]

There is exactly one part of the patchnotes I find unforgivable - Exhaust now reduces attackspeed by 50%.

I hate attackspeed debuffs. They are quite literally the bane of my existence - I spend all game working on my mechanics to the point where I can precisely orbwalk without wasting any time or dps, and then BAM YOU DONE GOT ATTACKSPEED DEBUFFED SON. Not only is it a HUGE reduction in dps (well, der, a 50% reduction. I hate you multiplicative attackspeed debuffs. Also of note, 30% on top of that as 'damage reduction', so youre dealing ~35% dps), but it means it screws up my mechanics a TON. Its probably not a big deal to other people, but to me even minor attackspeed debuffs throw me off a lot.

Honestly ,other than that, I dont see much has changed. I think a lot of the melee items are different.. I am interested to see how the damage block actually plays out (5 through masteries, another 6? on dshield). I really like damage block in league, as it gives melee heros a chance to stand up against ranged heros.

I havent actually had a lot of time to play the game, mostly because I dont actually play league without my 5man team (and finalstime coming up real soon, so thats probably not going to happen much..). It looks like most of the ad carry items are the same (honorable mention to the shiv and hurricane, but like.. I am having difficulty justifying those over the standard ie/pd/lw/bt build?

[Mánagarmr]

Oh man, that's going to mess massively with the meta...

[chemical_art]

Have only read patch notes but am excited.to play after work
I

[keith.lamothe]

Oh man, that's going to mess massively with the meta...

Something tells me that was exactly what they wanted

[Hearteater]

There is exactly one part of the patchnotes I find unforgivable - Exhaust now reduces attackspeed by 50%.

I hate attackspeed debuffs. They are quite literally the bane of my existence - I spend all game working on my mechanics to the point where I can precisely orbwalk without wasting any time or dps, and then BAM YOU DONE GOT ATTACKSPEED DEBUFFED SON. Not only is it a HUGE reduction in dps (well, der, a 50% reduction. I hate you multiplicative attackspeed debuffs. Also of note, 30% on top of that as 'damage reduction', so youre dealing ~35% dps), but it means it screws up my mechanics a TON. Its probably not a big deal to other people, but to me even minor attackspeed debuffs throw me off a lot.

They changed it from -70% auto-attack damage to -50% speed and -30% auto-attack damage.  So it actually works out to slightly less damage reduction.  I'm guessing they spread the damage reduction out between actual damage and attack speed so Exhaust is more even in shutting down carries.  Before, champions with on-hit trigger were a lot stronger under Exhaust.  And since Exhaust is so great at shutting down carries, the team whose carry isn't really shut down by Exhaust has a huge advantage.

[Wingflier]

After further testing, it seems blink has been further nerfed in 2 ways:

1) With the longer cooldown (I guess it's a 5 min cooldown now), there's more time between uses.

2) With many of the other Summoner Spells improving, it's nerfed by proxy.

I played the jungler in all 3 games last night (Amumu specifically), and I remember ganking a Vlad's top.  He flashed out of the first gank so we didn't get him.  But I was able to gank him 3 more times before his Flash even came back up, which was a huge improvement over before.

I still think, despite all the nerfs, Flash will still be the most-used Summoner Spell by far, but maybe it won't be absolutely necessary like it has been since League's beginning.  So far I think the item changes have been mostly positive.  I'm a little surprised and shocked that they added the bottle from DotA, but I guess they want to keep the game more fast-paced and away from the base all the time.  A 225 gold item that replaces potions and can always be refilled is a hell of a deal in my opinion.  I wish they would have buffed the Teleport Spell (I'm surprised they didn't).  I still think the cooldown is way too long to be practical, and obviously quite useless in the heat of battle.  I would love to take it as one of mine, being so used to the teleport mechanic from DotA, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

I still think they have a LOT of work to do on champion balance.  Rengar still seems OP as f*ck, and many other champions just seem leagues (pun intended) above the others.  I'm not sure who or what Riot uses to balance champions, but there is still a lot of work to be done in that area.

[Hearteater]

I don't know if you watched the S2 LoL finals, but check out game 2.  Actually, I seem to remember the entire set was excellent, but game 2 had some excellent use of teleport if I recall correctly.  Just checking, go 25 minutes and watch the insane coordination.  Or just watch the whole game because it's worth it.  There is like 10 minutes or such of some babble/setup at the start you can skip to find the start of the game, or at least start of the picks/bans.

[Wingflier]

So I've gained a new found respect for LoL.

These Season 3 changes have just been absolutely fantastic.  I love the items now, and I love how tanks aren't impossible to kill anymore without someone like Vayne or Kogmaw.  Everything just seems to make more sense, and the gameplay seems a lot more enjoyable. 

After Lancefighter taught me how to play Ashe, it's a lot more fun

Now it's a game I play when I'm in the mood for a MOBA, but don't want to try as hard as I would have to in DotA 2 ;p

[Mánagarmr]

So I've gained a new found respect for LoL.

These Season 3 changes have just been absolutely fantastic.  I love the items now, and I love how tanks aren't impossible to kill anymore without someone like Vayne or Kogmaw.  Everything just seems to make more sense, and the gameplay seems a lot more enjoyable. 

After Lancefighter taught me how to play Ashe, it's a lot more fun

Now it's a game I play when I'm in the mood for a MOBA, but don't want to try as hard as I would have to in DotA 2 ;p

Aww crap...time to run for the hills!

[Lancefighter]

Glad to hear that my mostly incoherent rambling actually did make sense to someone 

[Wingflier]

So I think Brolibear is my new favorite Champion <3

[Lancefighter]

I never actually understood what volibear actually brought to a team. I'm not quite sure if its because my favorite carries tend to have their ways of countering him (trist explosive shot, ashe frost shot, vayne silver bolts actually I'm a terrible vayne. For some reason I cant pretend shes ashe. I wish vayne had a passive.) But really, I just never quite understood what volibear was supposed to do that singed doesnt do like 50 times better.

[Hearteater]

Voli is more damage oriented, and physical instead of pure magic like Singed.  If you have a team that already has a lot of magic damage, Voli might be better than Singed.  Voli is also better if you are planning to do a lot of 5v5 team fights, where Singed is better at split pushing or skirmishes.

[Lancefighter]

I just feel like voli has some huge squishy issues - He lacks the ms/ar/mr/tenacity of singed's ult (instead getting a pure damage ult). His passive is ok? its honestly not particularly amazing, particularly against a tristana/mf/varus(kinda), anyone with ignite or a tome or executioners.

I just feel that singed will, given the same farm, be a lot harder to kill over the course of a teamfight, and be able to actually use his fling and slow much better can volibear can use his.