- Joined
- Nov 3, 2006
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I've noticed that my jungling build for Legion Commander ouperforms mid/safelane/offlane build for her as far as winrate is concerned - and I believe I've realized why this is so. In pubs, people are more likely to gank a solo laner than they are to gank a jungler. Meanwhile, your team has 4 heroes farming instead of 3, and as there's little coordination and things are left up to chance, having level and gold advantage often translates into a won game. Also people forget you exist, so you just show up to duel an enemy at 50hp.
Jungling LC for me has a ridiculous ~95% winrate, while it drops to around 45-50% when going solo or dual lane, so I believe that in lower level pubs, which I am obviously a part of - jungling is actually a better choice if you want to increase your odds of winning. As a solo laner, you'll mostly be against a dual lane, often double ranged one, as a dual laner, you'll be teamed up with a support that wreckes your lane more than he helps you. So instead of being 2v2, you have a 1v3 lane and you're gonna lose it badly and not get much gold. I'm actually pretty decent with last hitting, and using OO is good to make it even better, so this is less of an issue.
However, when jungling, I know I can reliably get my armlet/boots/tp at around minute 9-10 depending on camps I get, and I am not the most efficient farmer with her either. Then I try to get kills all over the map and build a quick shadowblade or blink. Armlet rush is so that I can actually, reliably solo kill people, even semi-tanky mid heroes, since I am often the same level as them.
The downside to laning LC is that, while you can dominate a dual lane with your Q, it is actually less useful for dueling early on. Yes, OO is an amazing spell for lane control, but if you actually intend to focus on farming that damage up, having maxed out W and E by the time you hit level 8 or 9 is largely benefical, as you are sure you'll survive the ordeal, get max attack speed bonus to ensure you actually get a kill and in the end - farm damage up.
Against uncoordinated opponents I've had 400 bonus damage from my ult, and essentially I've just build silver edge, boots of travel, bkb, armlet and blademail. Silver Edge is pretty much used to stalk enemies and then disable annoying passives if they have one (that's how I killed PA even without MKB, blademail notwithstanding).
However, when I get a solo lane against two opponents, my farm is obviously going to be worse, I am actually going to acquire my key items way later, I am not going to have a skill build that's optimized for ganking, and in the end, they'll follow my item/farm progress more obviously since I am in the lane, not to remember - they'll be aware of my presence, which I do not like.
So, what are your thoughts? I can obviously see why in high mmr matches LC is doing good with a blink dagger instead of shadowblade (people actually put a lot of wards so you do not need to stalk enemies yourself, and people have good reflexes so they don't let you initiate on them just like that, and are more likely to go together against a LC), not to mention they actually buy and place detection, and I can see why running her mid is going to have more early presence, which can be crucial, but what are your thoughts for running her jungle/shadow blade/boots of travel for pubs? Also, according to Dotabuff, some of the top LC players actually use shadowblade/silver edge, but mostly coupled with a blink. I can see why this makes sense, though, as silver edge makes you an excellent anti-fucked-up-passives hero, so you can duel razor without bkb, and PA without fear of dying, or void, troll, slardar and sb without fear of being just bashed to death.
I often end games with ridiculous amounts of gold too, as I terrorize my enemies into being unable to farm alone, so they lack levels and gold, and I do not really need expensive items to kill them at that point, with BKB and Silver Edge being the most expensive ones (though I spend around 15 minutes of the match with boots of speed, not really building power treads, since I know I am better off with getting BoTs early on, so I can have practically global presence. Also, my favorite target is Nature's Prophet. Every single time somebody picks NP after I've picked LC, it puts a smile on my face. He's going to push the lane into a place where he's kind of uncomfortable, you just teleport to one creep wave behind, activate your sb, sneak up on him and just murder him for easy gold. If he's pretty fed and has desolator and mjollnir for example, you can stll kill him with blademail, since you'll have more survivability than even a medium-fed NP, just by stat gain alone.
Jungling LC for me has a ridiculous ~95% winrate, while it drops to around 45-50% when going solo or dual lane, so I believe that in lower level pubs, which I am obviously a part of - jungling is actually a better choice if you want to increase your odds of winning. As a solo laner, you'll mostly be against a dual lane, often double ranged one, as a dual laner, you'll be teamed up with a support that wreckes your lane more than he helps you. So instead of being 2v2, you have a 1v3 lane and you're gonna lose it badly and not get much gold. I'm actually pretty decent with last hitting, and using OO is good to make it even better, so this is less of an issue.
However, when jungling, I know I can reliably get my armlet/boots/tp at around minute 9-10 depending on camps I get, and I am not the most efficient farmer with her either. Then I try to get kills all over the map and build a quick shadowblade or blink. Armlet rush is so that I can actually, reliably solo kill people, even semi-tanky mid heroes, since I am often the same level as them.
The downside to laning LC is that, while you can dominate a dual lane with your Q, it is actually less useful for dueling early on. Yes, OO is an amazing spell for lane control, but if you actually intend to focus on farming that damage up, having maxed out W and E by the time you hit level 8 or 9 is largely benefical, as you are sure you'll survive the ordeal, get max attack speed bonus to ensure you actually get a kill and in the end - farm damage up.
Against uncoordinated opponents I've had 400 bonus damage from my ult, and essentially I've just build silver edge, boots of travel, bkb, armlet and blademail. Silver Edge is pretty much used to stalk enemies and then disable annoying passives if they have one (that's how I killed PA even without MKB, blademail notwithstanding).
However, when I get a solo lane against two opponents, my farm is obviously going to be worse, I am actually going to acquire my key items way later, I am not going to have a skill build that's optimized for ganking, and in the end, they'll follow my item/farm progress more obviously since I am in the lane, not to remember - they'll be aware of my presence, which I do not like.
So, what are your thoughts? I can obviously see why in high mmr matches LC is doing good with a blink dagger instead of shadowblade (people actually put a lot of wards so you do not need to stalk enemies yourself, and people have good reflexes so they don't let you initiate on them just like that, and are more likely to go together against a LC), not to mention they actually buy and place detection, and I can see why running her mid is going to have more early presence, which can be crucial, but what are your thoughts for running her jungle/shadow blade/boots of travel for pubs? Also, according to Dotabuff, some of the top LC players actually use shadowblade/silver edge, but mostly coupled with a blink. I can see why this makes sense, though, as silver edge makes you an excellent anti-fucked-up-passives hero, so you can duel razor without bkb, and PA without fear of dying, or void, troll, slardar and sb without fear of being just bashed to death.
I often end games with ridiculous amounts of gold too, as I terrorize my enemies into being unable to farm alone, so they lack levels and gold, and I do not really need expensive items to kill them at that point, with BKB and Silver Edge being the most expensive ones (though I spend around 15 minutes of the match with boots of speed, not really building power treads, since I know I am better off with getting BoTs early on, so I can have practically global presence. Also, my favorite target is Nature's Prophet. Every single time somebody picks NP after I've picked LC, it puts a smile on my face. He's going to push the lane into a place where he's kind of uncomfortable, you just teleport to one creep wave behind, activate your sb, sneak up on him and just murder him for easy gold. If he's pretty fed and has desolator and mjollnir for example, you can stll kill him with blademail, since you'll have more survivability than even a medium-fed NP, just by stat gain alone.
