League of Legends

[Keeloth]

One thing I question about this build are the quints of shielding vs.  warding.  At 18, you get +6.66 MR per quint, for a total of +20 MR, while warding only gives you a flat 4.5 MR throughout the game, 13.5 for all 3.  I have to wonder, though, if that extra 6.5 MR is really making a difference endgame, or if it's better to have the 13 right from the get-go.

[Da6onet]

I'm always trying to max late game builds as much as possible, that's just my personal preference, the 6.5 difference shouldn't make that huge of a difference, I'm just a perfectionist.

[Dandira]

every point of MR or Armor is another 1% effective health.  so 6.5 mr  is  6.5% more effective health against magical attacks.

[Da6onet]

Indeed, so between 3100-3700 hp 6.5 mr that gives you a difference of 200-240 effective hp vs magic.

[Da6onet]

So as some of you may know I've been on a quest to find a melee character that serves as my tanky dps fighter, but there were two things that bothered me, it seems like you can build them to be damage dealers or tanky, but when you try to do both it generally fails.

For the purposes of comparing damage output (which does not translate directly to what happens in game), I am just repeating the same method I used to calculate previous character's total damage of attacks/abilities over 8 seconds. I call this Theoretical Damage Rating (TDR) with AoE estimate, defense pen, and ehp.

For Reference
Ashe - 8200 (460 AoE), 40% arpen (4700 ehp)
Post Nerf Ryze - 6000 (2400 AoE), 58mpen/red + 15% mpen (8100 ehp)
Offensive Amumu - 5800 (4200 AoE), 63mpen/red (8400-8700 ehp)
Tankish Amumu - 5100 (3700 AoE), 63mpen/red (9800-10000 ehp)
Tank Shen - 1550 (0 AoE), 15arpen (12,000 ehp)

The closest I've gotten so far is with Renekton
TDR - 6200 (1600 AoE), 90arpen/red (7600 ehp)

It's not bad, and I have on occassion done well with Renekton.

The way I understand melee champions is that they need to move through the front line of the fight and kill the other team's carry, usually the nuker or ranged ad. Because of that distance to cover, most melee characters have some form of dash, ability to absorb damage and some cc that keeps the carry from functioning while they complete their objectice. This is the sole reason "tanky dps" was created.

Enter my latest theorycraft, Garen. I think people don't see him as a viable pick because he doesn't have that "oh shit it's so-and-so" scare factor, but just doing the numbers, here is what I've come up with.

Offensive - 8752 (2232 AoE) 96arpen/red (7570 ehp)
Defensive - 6650 (2440 AoE) 96arpen/red (9620 ehp)

There are two more inbetween builds that take elements of both, but you get the idea.

Jarvan can be built similar, but I'll admit, he's more complicated than Garen, so I'm sticking with this for now.

I plan on testing this out today in usual normal solo queue fashion (die alot and then get better).

[Arawn]

Ok, so I just bought Nasus and so far I played 3 games... The first I lost, even thou it was my first time with Nasus I did my part as a Tank. I let the others get the champion kills (unless i was alone into a 1v1 or 2v1, in which case, i just raped and did as much dmg as i could and ran cause i dint wanna get greedy and feed just to get a kill) but the others in the team sucked and fed the hell out of everyone. The second game was a VERY interesting one... I think matchmaking dumped me into a premade, because they let me Solo Top and 2 of them went mid. So lane composition was 1/2/2 which I have never seen that... (I have played against a premade where 3 of em went mid and they just sucked the entire game because they where underleveled and underfed, obviously) I think we should look into this 2 mid strategy... The point of it is to rush the mid tower AND let me farm as Nasus, since Nasus is like Veigar, he gotta get minions kills to pump up his Q Skill. Another pros with having 2 mid is more gankage. It could easily become 3v2 Top or 4v2 Bottom, Or just 2v2 Top and 3v2 Bottom at the same time.

I lost the 3rd game too because Matchmaking dumped me into a retarded team.

[Arawn]

So I have to get this out of my chest.... List of Useless Champs:

Lee Sin, Irelia, Kayle, Teemo, Karma, Karthus. Thats it so far.

I din't put Malphite because i guess hes kinda hard to play... I dunno why but I have seen some very good malphites but most of the time they just suck...

About Karma... shes support... and also kinda hard, but people keep playing her and sucking so hard!

About Karthus.... I really dont know what the eff is going on... Hes not the same as he used to be T_T all he does now is wait for enemies to go low to KS. So yeah im dumping him... GG to him thou...

Im THIS close to put Nasus into the list... but i like him T_T Even thou i got my full match history in all lost with him lol

Note: Sorry Setun... I know you like Lee Sin and ur good with it... but he sucks :S... Now, can you prove me wrong and pull a penta some time soon with him?

[Da6onet]

So I have to get this out of my chest.... List of Useless Champs:

Lee Sin, Irelia, Kayle, Teemo, Karma. that's it so far.

I din't put Malphite because I guess hes kinda hard to play... I dunno why but I have seen some very good malphites but most of the time they just suck...

About Karma... shes support... and also kinda hard, but people keep playing her and sucking so hard!

Note: Sorry Setun... I know you like Lee Sin and your good with it... but he sucks :S... Now, can you prove me wrong and pull a penta some time soon with him?

You forgot Soraka, Cass, Late Game Cait, Mundo, Most Ezreals, Galio, New Gangplank, Most Gragas, Maokai, Most Yi, Most Pantheons, Most Trundles, New Xin.

[Keeloth]

I have to disagree about Teemo.  It does take a skilled hand, though, because if you're not using your mushrooms to ward effectively as well as place them in paces where the enemy is constantly slowed, then you lose a lot of your function.  He's also an excellent anti ranged AD carry, missing 100% of your auto-attacks = suck.

[Arawn]

Soraka is kinda useless... shes the third best support imo... first and second being sona and alistar... in any order.

Cass is a good champion, gotta learn how to play her thou.

Cait's early game make up for her late game suckyness...

Mundo is good.

Ezreal is bleh, but not useless.

Galio is the best tank.

The others are good.

My list is for Useless champs... not sucky champs.

[Da6onet]

Tested out my offensive Garen today in an ultra late game vs a Yi, Akali, Urgot, Rumble and Rammus.

Yi comes at me with ult and youmuu's... he dies
Then Akali and Urgot ambush me as I run back toward team... Akali dies while hiding in stealth (me spinning), Urgot kills me with a dot, but not before I ult him to death.

Long story short, this is a very anti-carry build, I like it :-)

Still feeling it out though, but went 15/12/11 that game, and that last triple kill got our team the win at the 54 minute mark.

Items for offensive Garen
Youmuu's, Atmas, Lucidity Boots, Wits End, Frozen Mallet, Black Cleaver (plus red/green/blue elixirs).

Rammus does give melee people problems, he should be dealt with by ability casters (had a malz on my team).

Rumble on the other hand, fun as shit to ult him through his shield :-)

[Da6onet]

I still need to do some more testing (explain on that later) but here is my preliminary Garen Build/Guide if you're looking for a tanky dps melee character. He may be in Elementz tier 4 group, but I think that's because people generally play him straight tank with no damage output and Garen is incredibly easy to ignore if he has no damage output. Enter my "you noob, what a fail build.... oh shit I'm dead" build.

Highlights
~2800-3200hp + elixirs
~225-312 AD + elixirs
~1.1-1.4 AS + youmuu's + elixirs
~51 armor pen + 45 armor reduction (96 total)
~116-292 Armor
~101-227 MR
~33-38% CDR + elixirs

My assessment, A "fighter" with staying power.

Runes
Marks 9x Desolation
Seals 9x Defense
Glyphs 9x Shielding
Quints 3x Desolation

Masteries
21/0/9  
Offensive
1-Crit chance x 3, exhaust x 1
2-Cooldown x 4, Attack Speed x 4
3-Armor Pen x 3
4-Attack Damage x 2
5-Crit Damage x 3
6-Attack Damage x 1

Utility
1-Teleport x 1, Regen x 3
2-Experience x 4
3-Gold/10

Summoner Spells
Teleport, for map control, his Q on short cooldown is a free ghost already
Exhaust, always a handy spell for both defensive and offensive purposes

This is just my preference, you could go more defensive
9/21/0

Grabbing Cleanse or Flash along with Exhaust

Garen's natural tankiness synergizes with defensive masteries, but it does lower his damage output, which he doesn't have naturally. Thus I go with the offensive to try and squeeze out some more damage.


Build Order
Crystal->HoG->Avarice Blade->Lucidity Boots->Brutalizer->Phage->Black Cleaver->Frozen Mallet->Youmuu's + Situational->Last Situational item

Skill Order
R>W as it gets capped>Q>E (spin does 50% less damage to creeps, so it's actually kind of a shitty farming skill until late game).

Laning Phase
Play passive looking for opportunities to last hit minions and harass squishy champions. Generally speaking, you will be outpoked (you're melee), so lane with a ranged partner and/or play passive, last hitting minions only enough so that you can chill by the tower and let your passive heal you. If you work well with your laning partner or are 1v1, you can play more aggressively, utilizing your shield to bait/absorb counter harass from the enemy. Once you hit level 6, it's game on to finish off any low health people, especially people who tower dive you.

Mid game
Finish maxing out courage with creep waves and minor jungle spawns (you can grab red, but you'll be slow in getting it, so make sure your team doesn't need you before you grab it). In team fights/roaming ganks you're looking for targets of opportunity (read: squishy high damage dealers). Silence casters, and especially be ready to silence channeled spells (nunu's ult, malzahar, etc). One thing you should be aware of, until you get your tank items, you can't 1v3, so don't initiate without backup, and if possible, don't always be the one initiating, sometimes your silence can help save a teammate and turn the tide of a fight. Moral of the story, timing is everything. If you're defending a tower, scare people off with your spin move and tank damage with your shield, Ult people who get low hp tower diving.

Late game
Now comes the really fun part. Depending on the enemy team composition you'll have a few options for finishing your build, but only focusing on items that offer magic resist and armor. With these items, you can initiate alongside the tank on your team. If you are the only beefy person on the team, that's fine too, but realize that your role then becomes crowd control with silence and spreading the enemy team out with your spin (people's natural reaction) and focusing people focusing your carries rather than pure anti-carry.

Situational Items (2 Slots)
Vs Balanced Team and you're the only tanky person or your team tank is an idiot/afk (tanky)
-Randuins
-Force of Nature

Vs Balanced Team and you have a dedicated tank on the team doing a good job and you're generally not getting focused down too fast (DPS)
-Atmas
-Wit's End

Vs AD heavy team tanky
-Randuins
-Thormail

Vs AD heavy team dps
-Atmas
-Madreds

Vs AP heavy team tanky
-Banshees
-Force of Nature

Vs AP heavy team dps
-Wit's End
-Hexdrinker (absolutely awesome item vs Karthus)

note*
If you're building these on Leaguecraft, remember that it doesn't take into account your maxed out courage (+25 armor and mr)

You can mix and match the tanky and dps items to your liking for even more combinations, giving this build a good amount of flexibility.

Made it this far? Remember I said I need to do more testing. The biggest problem with this build, and in my opinion, with most melee dps builds, there is really only room for one of them on the team. For whatever reason, most of the games today, even though I insta-locked Garen, people still feel hellbent on picking tryndamere, renekton, yi, gp, poppy, etc.

I firmly believe a team needs three core people to succeed.
AP carry
Ranged AD carry
Tank

If you sacrifice one of those slots with a melee person, your team is missing out on alot in a 5v5 setup vs a competent balanced team.

Now I will say it's ok to have a melee dps and a melee assasin as they serve two different functions (and akali/kat are AP anyway).

So an ideal balanced team set up with Garen would look like this.
Anivia
Ashe
Amumu
Garen
Lux

Lots of CC and a good mix of support/utility, tank, and damage.

Worst case scenario (yes this happened today)
Yi
Renekton
Garen (me)
Tryndamere
Gangplank

[Da6onet]

So I've gotten a lot of shit lately from people in LoL for incorporating gold/10 items in several of my builds. In case any of you are considering getting gold/10 items with your champion builds, a few rules and myths busted to follow so you can shrug off the crap you'll get from "l33t" players.

General Guidelines
-Gold items work best in 5v5 games because the longer average match length-35minutes-means you'll maximize their benefit. As such, they are best suited to those who focus on late game builds (opposite of say, double doran stackers).
-You will be weaker early game than someone who builds for early game, but you will be stronger mid and especially late game (assuming you don't feed them-key point).
-Only get the item/s if the stats will truly benefit your character (good example-health on a tank, crit chance on a physical carry. bad examples-straight ability power on ryze, mana regen on renekton).
-Build your first one before the 4 minute mark preferably.
-Build your second (if getting one) before the 8 minute mark preferably.
-Three is tempting mathematically, but generally there aren't 3 that with stats that all synergize with your character and it's hard (read inconsistent) to get 3 before the 10 minute mark (my cutoff point for their benefit). Also, by that point you will want to have boots or some other utility/beneficial item to help your general gaming.
-Don't upgrade/sell before the 17/21 minute mark (unless you somehow managed to get fed enough to buy your 5th and 6th items by then---nearly impossible)

All the arguments I've seen people use against gold/10 items are narrow minded.

Argument 1
They don't pay for themselves until 30+ minute into a game, and after that point the game doesn't usually last long enough to make the profit worth it.

Why this is a stupid argument:
This argument makes a few bold assumptions
1. That you're never going to sell/upgrade the item.
-if gold items are part of your planned 6 item final game build, then this is true, and you're build sucks.
2. That you didn't buy the item until the 17+ minute mark. (they actually pay for themselves in 12-13 minutes because you will either sell or upgrade them).
-gold items are more cost effective the earlier you get them. As a general rule, I don't buy them after the 10 minute mark for this reason.

Argument 2
Buying "pure" items will allow you to earn gold faster through kills and faster creep farm.

-This one is hard to prove one way or the other, therefore my opinion is such that if you can get through your early game without feeding the enemy, your farming ability really shouldn't be so gimped that it makes a discernible difference for the first 10 minutes of the game when you're going to be weak/slow anyway  (tested zeal on ashe vs philostone + avarice, creep scores the same) . The opposite benefit is if you get kills early game with gold items, you're really going to snowball.

Argument 3
The stats on gold items suck!

-They are relatively cheap items (765-825), of course they're going to be low stats. However, they are only useless stats if you buy items that don't work well with your character, i.e. avarice blade on a mage, kages on a ad carry, etc. I can tell you from personal experience that having a regrowth pendant->philo stone (~3min usually) on Ashe early game is incredibly useful for keeping her harass shot up and not having to buy hp pots to start, more useful than say, a doran's blade which frankly offers crummy stats outside of the health; a heart of gold offers better cost efficiency.

The Math
Here is the sexy part.
Average 35 minute game
One item at 3:30 + Greed earns you ~1547 gold (assuming you sell at 35)
~763 pure profit
Second item at 7:30 + Greed earns you ~2372 gold (assuming you sell at 35) ~1588 pure profit
If you upgrade they are even more efficient, adding an additional 392 in average value.

I don't know about you, but I thoroughly enjoy having an extra 1600 gold late game. It allows me to invest in 5th and 6th items without having to be ultra fed or go for 60 minutes and helps me catch up if underfed. The beauty of it is that if I don't get kills/farm and can't build 5th and 6th items around 35 minutes, the gold items earn even more pure profit as they await being sold. This especially helpful on tank characters that aren't supposed to be farming off kills in the first place.

Bringing it home
This all really boils down to risk vs reward. If you're a dorans/mejais kind of person, gold items are not for you. Your goal is to farm kills for amassing late game gold and/or go for the early surrender with your constant ownage. If you're like me however, you strive for consistency and try to maximize a lower risk method of gameplay. It always brings a smile to my face when I have amazing stats at the 40 minute mark and that underfed vlad is still holding onto his mejais and doran's ring.

[Keeloth]

Hmmm.  This intrigues me for Tristana.  See, early game I can usually get 1-2 kills with her, while everyone has crap for health, but past that I usually don't get the last hit in kills, being a steady auto-attack DPS as opposed to a bursty nuke type who can time their burst to snatch away that last bit of health and get the kill + gold.  Granted, she can farm like a pro, but I wonder if you think an avarice blade or two would be worthwhile on her early game.

[Da6onet]

If you plan to build a crit chance item like phantom dancer anyway, then grabbing an early avarice blade (brawlers + 2 pots to start probably) is worthwhile in my opinion. One thing I also forgot to mention, porting back to base to pick up gold items as soon as you have the money is more cost effective if you have the teleport summoner spell to get right back to the lane and farm.