On the main riot client game of League, realtalk: I actually really really like the troll build? It actually doesn't feel troll when I'm running it. Specifically, the Arcane Comet + Manaflow Band + Transcendence + Gathering Storm with secondary of Presence of Mind + Legend:Bloodline, building a tear into Manamune, with the ideal final items of Ionian Boots (but with the option to build Ninja Tabi if against a full-AD enemy team, Merc Treads if against heavy-CC and/or heavy-magic enemy team, or I suppose technically Boots of Swiftness if the enemy team has a ton of slowing effects that are negatively impacting engagement/disengagement opportunities), Abyssal Mask, Iceborn Gauntlet, Frozen Heart, and Essence Reaver.
For extra spice you can if you get into the late lategame and have the mindset of "boots don't deal damage, let's get an item which does" replace the boots with Righteous Glory for extra mana, armor, etc. to add tankiness, retain the 10% cdr of Ionian Boots, and give extra mana. But obviously that's kinda memeing.
The build works off of two angles. The first, a transformed Manamune/Muramana deals extra damage based off of both your maximum mana, and your current mana (two passives, one for current, one for maximum). The more mana you have, the more damage you deal. Abyssal Mask and Essence Reaver both replenish lost mana, and Presence of Mind also gives mana upon takedowns, too!
The second, cdr = damage due to transcendence. Transcendence + starting rune of CDR = 20% natural CDR. Essence Reaver =40%.
Then you throw in the extra CDR. Boots = 10% above maximum. Abyssal Mask = 10% above maximum. Frozen Heart = 20% above maximum. Iceborn Gauntlet = 20% above maximum. Combine them all into the full build, and that's 10 + 10 + 20 + 20% = 60% excess CDR.
Transcendence gives 1.2 attack damage per point of excess cdr--so 60 * 1.2 = 72 extra damage.
Frozen Heart and Iceborn Gauntlet in tandem makes you absurdly tanky. Between those two items, you get 165 armor.
Abyssal Mask gives you magic resistance for a start, but also in tandem with legend bloodline gives you a bunch of health. The item itself grants extra health, but more than that, it gives up to 25 HP per spell cast. Given volley spam pretty much every single second with 40% cdr and five ranks in volley (I think the actual time is like 1.2 seconds with 40% cdr and five ranks?), with volley costing 70, that's at least 14 health healed every time. (I'd have to double-check how a transformed Muramana interacts with it.)
It's not much healing. Rather than an infinite percentage, capped at a flat rate. Lifesteal items and runes, and hp regeneration items, would give more healing overall. But it gives just enough to keep me alive. The build gives a bunch of magic damage, a fair amount of physical damage, a little bit of healing, and an infinite supply of mana.
It has fairly good scaling, too; the later into the game it gets, the stronger the build becomes.
The build has a very very very heavy reliance on poke damage and really really really sucks at all-inning...but honestly? I really really suck at all-inning and rely very very heavily on poke damage so a build which plays into that style is playing into my strengths.
On a vaguely related note, in my games, I've also shifted my mindset a lot more towards a "play it safe" mentality. Specifically, "It is better to go 0/0/0 and not make plays, than to make plays that even for a good player would be 50/50 but for a player as terrible as I am are more like 20/80".
The plays that if they would work out would get me to 5/0, but have an 80% chance of making me go 0/5.
Playing to not die, to farm it out, to not get overaggressive.
I lose a ton of map pressure from this approach. I don't deal much damage to turrets. I often lose drakes. Heck, if I have to back when there's a wave dangerously close to crashing under my turret, I'll lose my turret, too. (This happens when I don't die, but get low enough in HP where I might as well have died, and need to back to stop myself from dieing, in spite of the lousy wave position, because if I stayed to try and reset/push the wave...one attack from the enemies connecting and I die.)
This is, obviously, not ideal.
But in spite of the lack of turret/drake pressure...I actually feel like I'm playing better?
Like.
I still apply a ton of pressure in terms of poking enemy champions, albeit trying to prioritize csing over damaging them (though in an ideal world, I can do both!). But I feel like preventing my own death is leading to the games stalling out longer, in my team's favor. A case of losing lane by playing safe, in order to have a chance at winning the game.
The enemy adc still gets fairly fed, from matching/exceeding my cs, getting more tower plates, and often, from roaming and getting kills which I don't match. (I've had a fair amount of times where the enemy botlane rotates mid to 3v1 or even 4v1 my midlaner. I do ping it out, of course, but if my midlaner ignores the pings or thinks that they can win a 1v4...free kill to the enemy team.)
But frequently, in the games where I've lost.
It hasn't been because of the enemy adc/support. Usually it's actually been because my midlaner/jungler both lose, and then the enemy team dives botlane and I can't win a 2v4. (Except, by playing it safe...sometimes, I do! Well, relatively speaking. If in a 2v4 the enemy team doesn't get two kills for free...that's a win. So if they lose one, or two, or if they don't kill both me and my support...well, given the numbers severe disadvantage, that's still coming out ahead overall.)
Like.
I am a dumb stupid idiot who is utterly incompetent at the game.
When my team loses because of my actions, I will own up to it, admit fault. I know when I've made a mistake and will own up to it. I know when I've screwed up. I have a fairly good intuitive sense for how things are going in my lane in terms of me relative to my opponent. I know when I've made the enemy botlane too fed to win, more or less; I have a good sense for those sorts of things.
And given that.
I will fully own up to my shortcomings.
I know that, especially given the build I am running, that I am not applying the pressure that I as the adc for the team should be applying, that I am giving up on the in-current-meta critical earlygame in favor of a lategame which may never exist at all (though again, this is mostly from lack of forward pressure, in that I apply plenty of poke damage and harass the enemy champions, but because I avoid pushing the minion wave forward due to not wanting to overextend and be caught out of position, the earlygame push just isn't there), I am not doing things optimally.
But I actually feel like I am still playing better, playing smarter, playing with a greater awareness, than I would be if I tried to be more aggressive and take the 20/80 plays that inevitably get me killed.
My team still places a fair amount of blame on me.
And not unjustifiably so.
When I botch just about every gank attempted, that is on me, so calling me an idiot when I botch the gank is something I own up to and say: "Yeah I messed that up".
But I mean.
If you're the jungler, and you keep ganking for the person who admits they botched it and says that they probably will continue to botch it.
Even after the person asks you why you don't try ganking for the other lanes which are actually doing well and won't botch it.
When I as your adc ask you, "Hey, I will botch the ganks you make bot, so why don't you gank top?", when top was winning and bot due to me can't help in a gank.
...And then you as the jungler continue to gank bot anyway in spite of that.
In spite of me warning you that I can't do a gank right, and you knowing that I am an idiot, calling me as such. You deliberately choose to gank for someone you know to be an idiot.
I mean.
...I really don't think the blame for that lies on me?
When there was a toplane winning which you could've snowballed off of, but ignoring the toplane altogether and leaving them on an island whereas the enemy jungler gave pressure toplane to reverse the lead.
That's...really not good jungling?
A general rule of jungling is to not gank for a losing lane most of the time.
And with the nerfs to most drakes and dragon souls, and with the double summon of rift herald.
It's quite viable to build a lead toplane.
And adamantly refusing to visit top, giving the enemy team not one but two rift heralds (which results in basically two towers minimum being killed).
And not building a lead through the lane which is winning.
And ganking for someone who you said is an idiot and who flat-out agreed to that assessment, who told you not to gank for them more.
And then continuing to gank for that person anyway.
Like.
In games like that.
Is it really my fault?
Sure, yes. I'm incompetent. Yes, I botch ganks. Yes, I am an idiot. Yes, I'm playing in a way, using a build, which is not optimal, which doesn't apply good map pressure. But when I warn my team about these things. Tell them that I am playing safe. Tell them that I am going to hug my turret. When I have a visibly low mana bar due to not having my tear yet, when I am low on HP, when I am being blocked by a solid wall of minions that creepblock me preventing me from getting close enough to engage. When I own up to my mistakes and indicate that those mistakes will continue to be made.
And then the jungler and/or midlaner for my team continues to try and focus on botlane and gank/roam it repeatedly in spite of my provably, demonstrably, poor track record of actually capitalizing on that.
I really don't think that you can really say that's my fault?
I can take the blame for my own actions. I can take the blame for not being better. I can take the blame for things I mess up and decisions which result in us not having map pressure which I should be applying. But when I tell my team about these things and my team still tries to play around me anyway in spite of me telling them not to? That's...really not on me, and I don't think it's really fair to say anything otherwise.
Like, if mid/jungle have a negative k/da where they have double the deaths that they have in kills/assists and I have a neutral or positive k/da because of playing safe...I mean. Only so much of that blame can be placed on me for not taking a fight I know I'll lose, when my team decides that they want to take a fight that they should know they'll lose but for whatever reason think that they can win.
When the enemy team is at full HP/mana, and/or have a level advantage, and/or have the item advantage, and/or have the positioning advantage...I'm not going to donate another kill to them because I can take one look at that situation and know that we'll lose that fight.
I will go into a fight that I know I'll lose and die in, if I feel like our team gains something significant enough that it compensates for that death. Get a drake, probably worth it. Get a tower, or prevent a tower from falling, might be worth it. Prevent the enemy team from getting a shutdown on someone on my team who is doing well enough to get a bounty, and/or get someone on my team to cash in on a big enemy team bounty by killing them for the shutdown gold, then my death's probably worth it overall.
But if I see that we're going to lose and get nothing from the lost fight, I'm not going to fight it even if the entire rest of my team thinks that for whatever godforsaken reason the fight is somehow winnable even though it is painfully obviously very much not winnable. Being that cowardly doesn't seem like a mistake; it seems like it's recognizing the situation and making the smart call to give the enemy team the least amount from their advantage as is possible.
The enemy team will always get an advantage when playing against me. I suck. I am trash. And even if I wasn't trash by running off-meta builds like I do I am innately, inherently, playing sub-optimally because if the off-meta builds weren't flawed, then they would actually be meta builds. (Basically, they're off-meta for good reason! I suck enough to not be able to properly break down with proper reasoning why they're not optimal, but I'm not disillusioned enough to believe they are.)
The build I am running is really really fun, is quite suited to my style, has a decent theory behind it, and when it gets the items for the build, actually fares fairly well. But I know that it's not optimal and I know that I am a trash player. So given that. I want to give the enemy team the smallest possible advantage given that they will always get one when playing against someone as bad as me with a build as bad as mine.
And when I more or less tell my team that this is what I am doing.
And the team decides to make a different call.
And that different call is obviously something which will get the enemy team ahead even more than they already are.
I don't think you can place all that blame on me.
Some, yes. Due to me being incompetent and innately, inherently, always giving the enemy team an advantage.
In games where I am ahead early I fall behind late; in games where I am behind early I might go even late but I never go ahead late and frequently am still behind late. I never do well. Just adequately. So there is always some blame on me and I will always own up to it.
But I mean...I am very very very rarely getting caught out; I am very very frequently pinging things, letting my team know about positions of the enemy champions, ults usage, summs usage, when I am low on mana/hp, when I have a lot of gold and am looking to back, and when I can spare the time to type, telling them with things other than pings. I respond to the pings of my teammates, too; whenever I think that I can help, I do.
I don't ping these things perfectly. I can make misjudgments. I can think a fight is winnable, a drake can be taken, a tower/plate can be taken, etc., when it turns out that it wasn't, or when it turns out that the only way it was doable is if I didn't play incompetently and thanks to my incompetence it turns out to not be doable.
And I am sure that vice-versa is true, too. That there are situations I chicken out of, where I refuse to try on them due to my cowardice, which were easily winnable if I had actually tried. Where my team is stronger than I thought, and where we could with my help even with me incompetent, get what we're after.
So that lessens the rant above, in that there will be situations which were my fault which I didn't think were my fault because my team was stronger than I thought.
But no matter how many times I make those misjudgments.
I can't take literally all the blame for it. I still won't intentionally flame my teammates. (I dunno, is saying, "Question for you: why are you ganking for an idiot who will botch it? Why not gank for mid/top?", flaming? It's not intended to be inflammatory; it was a genuine question because I couldn't really figure out why the hell the jungler who knew I was botching their botlane ganks, kept on trying to gank botlane, ignoring top altogether. That felt like a misplay on their part to me but I know I am trash at the game so if they had a good justification for it, then that would be something that I could take into consideration. But when the only response to that question is to be told, 'shut up'...I don't get how that's meant to improve our odds at winning? So I do have to wonder if the question was taken as flaming because I mean...why would they respond to it with that toxicity otherwise?)
So even when I think that they are partially to blame. I'm not going to say as much. I'll say things like "We can't win that fight" (which is true), I'll apologize for mistakes I made, acknowledge them, admit to shortcomings, etc. But I'm not going to singlehandedly claim responsibility for 100% of the blame when my team is very obviously making mistakes that were misplays?
And I think that's not an unfair stance to take. To admit to things I did wrong, to not flame my teammates, to advise them of things, to explain my mindset, to let them know what I am, and was, doing, and to try and direct them in the area where they can best compensate for my incompetence.
To take blame for what I did which was a mistake, and to admit to the consequences of what I chose in the game, but to not take the blame for what my teammates do.
Plus, I feel like I have a fairly good sense for what situations/games are winnable and what situations/games are not. If we have a win condition, I feel like I can usually identify it fairly well. There's been plenty of games where I've had the mindset of more or less, "Okay so we suck at this game...but so, too, do these members of the enemy team. If we can kill all their incompetent members without losing any of our own, and/or if we can down the competent member(s) so that their competent members can't 1v9, then we have a chance at winning".
And sure enough, a lot of my clutch Ashe ults have been to deliver the crippling blows necessary to achieve exactly those ends--either take out multiple less-competent members of the enemy team, or take out a single competent member of the enemy team, to give us a window to take an objective or at the very least stop the enemy team from taking an objective.
If I think that the game can be won...then if enough of my team shares that belief, often, it can be, until that thought disappears. (Often, games will have a chance to be won...but if one thing goes catastrophically wrong, that wincon disappears and the game becomes unwinnable. So, there's the mindset of, the game is winnable...up until the point where it isn't.)
But enough ranting about League. (I have said a lot on the subject; to sum it up: I am incompetent, use a suboptimal build, have a suboptimal playstyle, and I own up to that all, but I think that I am improving, can't be solely responsible for the losses and can't take all the blame, and even if what I am doing isn't optimal...it is hella fun.)
I also wanted to talk about Minecraft some more.
In the game, I've still got a ton of projects to do.
I need to build a second netherportal given that my first...doesn't work as intended. (It takes me into the netherrealm but when I leave...it takes me out at a different location than it put me in.)
I want to build the church/cathedral that I have planned.
I need to finish the documentation of my mine along with ideally using proper railings for as much of it as is possible. (Given the setup for my mine...I'm somewhat doubtful that I'd be able to get a track that can switch to be...what, eight different directions? A four-way track would need to have a way to switch between straight north/south |, straight east/west -, north-east, north-west ˥, south-east L, and south-west. Am I missing any? I feel like I am, though if I did get them all I guess that's only six. But six is still four more than I have ever gotten to work.)
And probably more.
But I wanted to talk more about the railings.
Railings are...somewhat tricky.
For railings on a slope, for the life of me, I can't figure out what I did wrong which causes the minecart to not stop at the end of the track and to catapult itself to be literally inside the block which is meant to be the terminal point of the rail. In theory, the cart could go up...if not for the fact that it keeps catapulting inside of the end block at the bottom. (I have tested it and managed to get a cart to go up--but once the cart comes back down...stuck inside the stone brick slab that was meant to stop the cart just before.)
When it comes to the railings inside of my mine, I actually have them working the way I want them to! A minecart is put at the end, you hop in, and then you move forward, catapulting to the endpoint of that railing. The minecart stays there, usually, and you can hop out just fine, usually. It sometimes doesn't work as intended, but sometimes it works the way I want it to.
But when I made a rail on the surface, going from near my house to the nearby village, it...
...Had a rather...interesting result.
Minecarts placed on the track will move from one end to the other end...and then, immediately. Start moving towards the other end. And when back to the end they started on...begin traveling to the other end...and keep going...and keep going...and keep going...
...And never stop.
There's like, 3, 4, minecarts on the railing.
And they are.
Continuously.
Moving.
From one end to the other end and back and forth and back and forth.
I accidentally invented an automatic public transportation method.
Where I can wait.
And wait.
For the cart.
Then hop in.
Get to my destination, hop out quickly.
Then wait.
And wait.
And hop back in.
And return to my origin point.
The travel is fairly fast!
It's just that it's a little inconvenient.
I find it fairly neat and kinda funny; it feels somehow appropriate and rather suiting that I somehow managed to completely and totally accidentally invent an automatic transportation.
So if there's a fix for it...even if the fix would make it function as intended and make things more convenient...I'm not actually sure that I would want to?
Soyeah.
That's what's been going on.
Mostly I've been focusing on refurbishing my mine to make it aesthetically pleasing, making the travel time between locations less, getting the appropriate farming network so that I have a near-infinite amount of the resources I need (especially for trading--I want to stock up on Emeralds and need Wheat, Potatoes, and Beatroot for it; I also need to get more leather even though I really don't like killing cows because I find the animals in Minecraft to be so cute and cow, pig, chicken, sheep, doesn't matter: if they are staring directly at me they are adorable and I feel like a monster when I need to kill them).
Eventually my goal is to more or less instantly be able to travel anywhere I want to go. Some via Netherportals, but mostly by minecart since it's one of the fastest methods of travel. (I realize another method of fastly traveling is to have an animal you ride, e.g. a horse. But minecarts are something I have access to and some knowledge of, and don't require me to drag around an animal everywhere.)
I'm also working on exploring. I've done a little surface spelunking, but my current undertaking: taking a glass bridge to island hop. Working my way to a sunken ship which I believe my friend looted when I was new to the server. But which if it isn't already looted...might be worth exploring a bit. (Yes, a glass bridge. I stole the idea from a streamer though I am putting far far less glass and far far less effort into the glass bridge compared to him.)
I'm hoping to at some point to be able to map out my area so that I, personally, can navigate between important areas in the server, without a need for a netherportal. Like, to know how to get the fastest route from the spawn area to my house, and maybe vice-versa. And other similar things.
So, I've been keeping busy there. Been playing almost every single day.