Spectating "Insert Name Here"

When a friend of mine is spectating a game, lots of the time it's fun to use the spectate of spectate function that was recently added and watch the game they're playing.

But one of the things that kind of bugs me is that you can't see who your friend is spectating before you hop into the game with him.

I think it would be a really nice if when you spectate someone, call the person you're spectating Friend X, your own friends will see "Spectating Friend X" instead of "Spectating."

There are a few reasons to do this.  One, it might help you decide whether or not you want to spectate off of their spectate.  If the person they are spectating is really cool, you can jump right in.  If it's someone you both know and you're not really interested, you can avoid it and save some time.

Like some of my other suggestions this one isn't really about balance, and is therefore not all that important, but I think it would be a nice change to see that shouldn't take much work.

If You Want To Help The Cause :D

Hey everyone.  I know a lot of you that read this blog get the links from other sources, meaning that what I am about to say is repetitive, but if anyone just reads this for itself:

If you could go here:

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3957360&highlight=harook

And give it a relevant bumb and a +1, that would be amazing :D

And a big shout out + thank you to everyone that already has :D

<3<3<3

(Just another attempt to get some notice from Riot so that I can go work for them :p)

Duo Queue - Part 2 of Explain the Ladder

A lot of people like to duo queue.  A lot of people hate to duo queue.  People duo queue for plenty of different reasons.  I'm gonna give a bit of a low down on duo queue.

How does duo affect your MMR?

When two people duo queue their MMR is averaged out and then raised.  It's hard to pin this down because MMR is hidden but from what I've seen it's generally around 1-3 divisions.

How does duo affect pick order?

Generally one of three things happens, the last of which is almost always at very high elo only.

1 - One of you is first pick and one of you is last pick.  If your MMRs aren't super close, this is usually what will happen.  The person with higher MMR will be first pick and the person with lower MMR will be last pick.

2 - You are 4th and 5th pick.  If your MMRs are close this will happen a good bit.  Because duo queue raises your average, if you're both close the average will be above both of your MMRs making you 4th and 5th pick.

3 - You are 1st and 2nd pick.  This only happens to people at high elo usually, where a duo queue can both have very high MMR and have troubles finding games with people at their inflated duo MMR so they are matched with people who are lower than them after being in queue for a while.

Other combinations can occur but they are generally rare and require odd combinations of teammate MMRs.

What are the advantages of duo queue?

Obviously if you duo queue you get to play with someone you know.  He or she is going to take your side if something goes down.  He or she will easily be able to swap champions.  General things that comes with playing with someone that you know who can talk with you outside of champ select.

If you're in Skype with your duo partner you can communicate more effectively.  You won't need to take time to chat in order to let him or her know things.  If you're duo bot you can talk about your lane strategy much more easily.  If your duo partner is a jungler or you are you can set up ganks etc.

Basically what duo brings you is guaranteed synergy.  You get to play with someone who you know you work well with.

When should I duo queue?

You should only duo queue when the synergy that you and your partner have more than makes up for the increase in MMR you get from duo queuing.

What I mean by this is that if the advantage in your team's strength because of your communication and synergy isn't worth the challenge increase of your raised MMR then you should NOT duo queue.

Think of it like this:

You are duo bot.  Both of you are less skilled than the enemy laners because of your increase in MMR.  So, the other laners play the lane slightly better than you.
However, because you and your partner have amazing synergy, you can make plays 2v2 more easily than they can and get ahead in the lane.
This would be an example of where duo is worth it.

Now think of being ADC yourself with your friend in Top lane.  If he only splitpushes all day and you never work together then you're both essentially increasing your MMR for no real reason.  You both are fighting better players in your lane without any real advantage to show for it.
This would be an example where duo isn't worth it.

MMR - Part 1 of Explain the Ladder

So one of the questions I always see people asking is how MMR works.  It's not always a direct question about MMR but the questions they ask can be answered with an understanding of MMR.

First off, let's answer the basic question:  What is MMR?

MMR stands for Matchmaking Rating.  Essentially, it is a hidden number that goes up and down as you win and lose that determines who you play against.

The next question, which is much harder to answer is:  How does MMR work?

The point of MMR is to attempt to pit you against opponents that you should go 50-50 against.  That means that MMR tries to put you in games with people that over time you would win half of the time and lose half of the time.

Obviously as you get better, get worse, go on win streaks or loss streaks, your MMR can change quite a bit.  Your MMR is the rating at which you should go 50-50 at that specific moment, so if you go in a win streak your MMR will start going up and reflect that.

Something people don't generally understand is that MMR is more fluid than LP or the old ELO.  If you were at your proper LP/Division/Tier for your MMR and you start winning game after game, your MMR will inflate more quickly than your LP/Division/Tier.

The reason they do this is because they want games to be balanced based on skill but they don't want people changing divisions quickly.

Let me explain this a little more.

First off, they do not want you to climb through the ladder very quickly because they don't want someone to get lucky or unlucky for that matter and see a massive change in their place in the ladder that they cannot sustain.
So, they make it so that unless you consistently are winning over and over like a pro would on a smurf, gains are generally smaller unless you just got into the ladder.

At the same time, they don't want this careful approach to ladder placement to ruin games.  If you are in fact good/bad and not simply lucky/unlucky they want to put you into games accordingly.  So, they make your MMR move at the pace your ladder placement would move if they could safely assume that no luck was involved in games.

A secondary benefit of this system is that since your MMR is moving up/down, if you're winning you start to play with better people to see if you can handle it or if you're losing you play with worse people to see if they are more your skill level.  All the while your actual ladder placement isn't going haywire.

Common Seemingly Contradictory Placements, Gains and Losses.

I went 5-5 in my placements and got Bronze 3 but my friend did the same and got Silver 4!  What's the deal?!

There are actually multiple logical answers to this question depending on the circumstances.  These are just some of them:

1 - Your friend was doing his placements for the first time, while you were doing yours after being in Bronze last season/during pre-season.
If your friend was doing placements for the first time and went 50-50 against Silver 4 players, it makes perfect sense for him to be put into Silver 4.  And at the same time if you did your placements against Bronze 3 players because of your previous season/pre-season MMR it makes perfect sense for you to be in Bronze 3.

2 - Your friend won his games earlier on in his placements while you won yours later on.
This seems unfair, but it's really not.  If you lost your first 5 placements you played against Silver players and only started winning against the lower Bronze players you got as your MMR crashed then your wins won't matter for much.
On the other hand if your friend won his first games against the mid to high Silver players but started to lose later in his placements against the low Gold players then his wins will have counted for much more.

3 - Your friend was simply put against better players because that's who was in queue.
If you went 50-50 against weaker players while he went 50-50 against better players, again, it makes sense that he will be put into a higher place in the ladder.  It can be a bummer that you didn't have the chance to play against better players in your promos but if you played worse players you Should have been doing better than your friend anyway.

Me and my friend are both Gold 5 but he gets 20 LP for wins with -15 for losses while I get 15 LP for wins and -20 for losses, how is this fair?  He can climb so much more easily!!

There is one really simple explanation for this.

Your MMR is lower than Gold 5, probably around Silver 1 or 2, while his is higher than Gold 5, probably Gold 4 or 3.
Most likely you have been in Gold 5 for a while where as your friend is new to Gold 5.  Another possibility is that your friend has recently been winning more games than losing while you have done the opposite.
Your wins count for less because you are playing worse players than he is.  In order to climb, you have to start winning more than losing against people that are at your current ladder placement, not against people that are lower than you.  In order to play against said people at your rating, you need to raise your MMR by doing well against the people you play currently.

In other words, you are probably in this position because it is impossible to drop Tiers in the ladder but it IS possible to drop tiers in your MMR.  You are essentially at the MMR of a Silver player while still Gold in the ladder.

I was getting 5 or 6 LP for every win and all of the sudden I got 20!  I'm not mad but this must prove the MMR system isn't logical!

Actually that isn't a logical assumption to make.  Once again, there are quite a few possibilities for why this happened.  Here are a few.

1 - You played against a team that is much higher MMR than you or even what you normally play against.
If you beat a team that should have beaten you, the system will take this into account.
Think about it, if you were beating a bunch of Silver 3s and getting 5 or 6 LP then all of the sudden you beat a group of Gold 5s, logically you Should see a higher gain in LP and MMR.

2 - You went on enough of a winning spree that your MMR has become more fluid and has finally started to rise quickly again.
MMR for accounts that have played a lot of games is still more fluid than LP, but has become less fluid as games keep getting played.
However, going on a streak, good or bad, will start to make MMR change more quickly like when you first started plying ranked.
So if you were seeing low gains but you kept winning over and over most likely your MMR has finally started to move quickly again and you will see higher and higher LP gains until your spree stops or clams down.

These aren't all of the common questions but I feel like this covers MMR fairly well.  In other parts of "Explain the Ladder" I'll be covering duo queuing as well as a few other topics people ask about.
Feel free to comment any other scenarios you'd like me to try and explain or things that you'd like me to blog about!

Ward Charges - Ruby Sightstone Buff

While this won't have much affect on higher levels of play, especially the LCS and tournaments, I think it would be nice if you could actually buy ward charges on Top of sightstone baseline charges that pretty much counted as normal wards.

Let  me explain this a little:

Essentially, a Ruby Sightstone has 5 charges and can keep three sightstone wards on the map at once.  I think there should be a new consumable, perhaps called a Ward Satchel or something, that you buy and it puts 5 extra charges on top of he baseline 5, giving it 10 charges.  Every ward you place 10-6 will be a normal ward, not attached to the Sightstone once it's placed down.  At 5 charges the Sightstone will act as it always has.

What this will do:

As of now, supports are basically shoehorned into buying a sightstone and keeping vision on the entire map.  There's no real way to keep vision on the map with only 3 wards at once, so they must also use an item slot for normal wards.  I think this kinda sucks.

If a support has enough income to keep the map warded, buy an oracles, and still get items, they should be able to do this.  They shouldn't have to use 1/3 of their item slots just to keep vision on the map.

This ward satchel idea would allow supports to have a Sightstone but not need an extra slot for wards.  They would still need to buy them, but they could have a 5 item build instead of 4.

Follow Up - Ward Radius

A while ago I posted about how I would love to see a ward radius when you're setting down a ward.  And I still think that would be a really nice thing to add Riot!!!  Plz.

But the other day I was thinking about a different addition to wards that I would love to see.  Basically, if you've placed a ward, when you mouse over it, you should be able to see the vision radius.  Now some people will say you should just Know the vision radius.  To them I respond that it's the same idea as smartcasting spells.  Just because you have a very good grasp of a spell does not mean you should never normal cast a spell, even pros do it all the time.

The reason I want to see this in-game is because there will be plenty of times where you will have vision of the area that a ward covers through other means than the ward.  For instance, if you or a teammate is standing near a ward, or you have two wards close together.  You shouldn't have to leave a wards area to see it's radius.  And other than instinctively knowing the radius, you won't be able to distinguish between two wards radii.

But what's the actual point?  Good question!  True sight.  If one of these hypothetical wards is a pink ward, you'll want to know what area it actually covers before you leave it or before any wards close to it expire. It's also nice to actually know what you can see and what you can't if your video settings aren't the best.

Cutlass/BotRK Nerf

BotRK is incredibly strong on a lot of champions.  It provides flat damage, % current health damage, lifesteal , attack speed and then an active that not only does damage and gives you a speed boost but slows down the opponent as well.

I believe that BotRK simply does too much.  It actually gives you More damage than a BT at many levels of health even without the active.  When you throw in the burst heal, burst damage, and kitting ability of the active, BotRK is simply too strong in my opinion.

Another problem is that BotRK has pushed other items aside.  It had pushed aside Trinity until the buff, it still pushes aside items like Wit's End as an on-hit and Gunblade as another cutlass option most of the time.

So, I suggest that the slow and speed up on the active of BotRK should be removed, at the Very least for ranged champions.  This would make BotRK into a damage/healing item instead of a damage/healing/kiting item.  (Removing the slow/speed from BotRK would necessitate the slow being removed from cutlass).

By making BotRK do less, other items can have a chance to shine without needing changes of their own like Trinity.