The Weekly Innervate - Infinite Crisis - Arcane Green Lantern - The Emerald Tank - Support Guide

(Author's Note: This guide was made 09/20/2013 with the Closed Beta Patch 4. Any future updates to the game can render this guide out-of-date.)

Welcome everyone to the first edition of support guides for Infinite Crisis. Anyone who follows my stream has noticed that I have been playing a lot of really late night Infinite Crisis lately. It is a game I have been in Beta in for quite a long time (since the second week of testing) but was unable to stream due to NDA. I eventually lost a bit of interest because the map they launched with was a Dominion style map and as I put it "there is only so many times you can run around in a circle until that gets tiring". I picked the game back up recently when I discovered that the NDA had lifted for screenshots, videos and streams. Within the first night of streaming and I had fallen in with a group of other streamers, with the game being so small and new everyone knew everyone and all of the streamers knew each other as well, and began playing for hours every night.

Arcane Green Lantern is Turbine's Infinite Crisis' newest champion and is a support champion (as well as other roles most notably jungle) that specializes in crowd control and tanking. Supports in Infinite Crisis are different from those in many other Moba's as they tend to focus more of burst and crowd control over healing and helping with sustaining from the backline. Arcane Green Lantern is no exception as he is most useful taking damage in the middle of a team fight.

Abilities and How to Use Them

Emerald Light (Passive) - Targets hit by your basic attack that leaves a debuff called Emerald Light upon them. This debuff lasts for 4 seconds and if the target is struck again by yourself or any of your allies you receive a 4 second buff that gives you health over time. There is a 10 second cool down on this ability so it isn't reapplied with every auto attack. Put this debuff on your large drone in lane or on the focused target in team fights so allies can get some of their help back during fights or just passively in lane.

Construct Champion (Q) - This sends a large constructed statue in a straight that deals damage and knocks down every thing in it's path for one second. You can click this ability again and be instantly teleported to where your construct is on the field and have the construct instantly destroyed. It is important to note that this ability will knock down everyone it hits just people at the end of it's cast like Poison Ivy's Q. There are many different uses for this ability such as getting over walls in lane for ganks/escapes as well as having a mini flash for quick getaways. This also helps you get in the middle of team fights for quick Q, E, W combos.

Shackles (W) - This ability snares any enemy champion within the radius of your lantern. After several seconds, if the enemy stays within the radius and stays connected the chains, they will become rooted for a short time. However, the time between the initial shackle and the root affect is quite a long one and it is easy for enemies to simply walk out of the radius and break the chains at early levels. This is why it is important to combo your W with your E.

Emerald Lantern (E) - You toss your lantern on a selected location. The lantern will deal a moderate amount of damage and will move the radius of the lantern to the location. You can pick up the lantern at any time to reduce it's cool down by half it's amount. The lantern also gives passive Attack Armor to whoever is in the lanterns radius. The radius is pretty small but it is throwable so you can toss the lantern into the middle of the fight and pick it up to make sure it is affecting as many people as possible.

Deny the Black (R) - Upon targeting an ally champion, this ability will give them a shield, reveal a large circle of the map around them and teleport you to their location after two seconds. There is a radius on the ability, however, it is a pretty large one and can cover about 1/3rd of the total map. It is useful for getting yourself into a team fight while in a separate lane or protect someone in your jungle from an invasion.

Comboing your E and W is one of the most important things to do on Arcane Green Lantern. Your Lantern will always be the source of your Chains and they will not break until the affect that ended on all champions within your lanterns radius. You can throw your lantern in front of you, activate your Shackles while you're walking up to the lantern to snag enemies, pick up the lantern and then walk with the enemies while they're running away to keep the lantern moving with them helps ensure that they will be rooted.

Leveling Process

First 4 Levels - Get Q first, then E, then W and then begin maxing as instructed below.

Max Emerald Lantern (E) first! Not only will this help with lane burst (since your E is in a short CD and is your main damage dealer) but it also helps with lane sustain as the more you level the more passive Attack Armor you give to yourself and your team mates.

Max Emerald Light (Passive) second! You generally want to level this ability second as each rank gives you increased health over time on your passive debuff. However, if you find yourself against a double ranged lane or are getting harassed out of lane easily and aren't able to use your passive often level your W second.

Max Shackles (W) third! Each level grants you additional slow speed up to 45% at max level. Once you have gotten your maximum amount of passive Armor from your lantern your shackles will be your next upgradable CC since the stun on your Q stays at 1 second for every level.

Max Construct Champion (Q) last! Once your get your first level of Q it isn't really beneficial to level it anymore until it is the last thing you can gain because the damage is overall lower than your E and the knock down duration remains the same through all levels. Gaining more passive attack armor, damage and CC through your W is more useful than getting more levels of your Q.

Item Build

I build pure tank on my Arcane Green Lanterns as I spend most of my time drawing enemy teams away from my allies and being in the middle of teamfights.

First Buy - I pick up The Crime Bible (1) and The Logos (1) on the first buy of the game before I go into lane. This gives me a jump on health and also passive Will Regeneration. Arcane Green Lantern is a pure Will hog and will go through all of his Will in lane after only using four abilities or less. You absolutely need a Will item super early if you want to have any presence in lane (other wise you will be constantly backing or not able to harass).

Second Buy - I return to base the moment that I hit 750 gold. This allows you to finish your The Crime Bible (2) and also leaves you with enough money to buy the new Tektite Vial. This vial gives you both health and will and has 3 total charges which replenish each time you back. This will help you stay in lane longer. Finishing The Crime Bible as early as possible gives you a jump on it's passive which collects up to 450 extra health over time that is permanent as long as you have the item.

Finish Your Logoz and Work on a Ruby of Life - You're already collecting coins for your Logoz stacks so picking up and finishing a Ruby of Life compliments your Logoz. They both are 30 stack items that give your a stack of Health/Health Regeneration and Power Damage respectively. If your team is doing well and you are personally playing Green Lantern well you will have few deaths. Obviously, if you're dying often or your team is not doing well you might want to go with a health item that gives you flat Health so you don't have to worry about constantly losing stacks.

Finish Ra's al Ghul's Robe - This is a new item with Patch 4 and compliments your stacking items. This item gives you Attack and Power Armor, making you more tanky, as well as when it finishes it gives you a passive ability that when you reach 0 health you become invulnerable for 4 seconds and return to life with 25% Health and 50% Will. This does not count as an actual death and will not lose your stacks. This death will generally give you enough time to have all of your cooldowns (except maybe your ultimate) to reset so you can make an escape and not lose any of your Ruby of Life or Logoz stacks. At the end of this item you'll have around 2700 health and 130 Attack/Power Armor with fully maxed out Ruby of Life.

Build Kryptonian War Armor and Amulet of Isis - I'm impartial to the Kryptonian War armor as it gives you a little bit of everything. Not only do you get more Power Armor and Health Regeneration but it also gives you more Movement Speed which will help you get to objectives and team fights more quickly but it also gives you 20% increased healing. This will increase the healing of your Stolen Power (which you should always take Arcane Green Lanterns Healing Wave) and the regeneration your recieve from your passive. The last item you pick up is honestly up to you. It won't hurt for you to pick up a damaging item if you feel you are tanky enough and would like to deal more damage. I, however, like to go full support and pick up Amulet of Isis last. This gives you more Health, some Cooldown Reduction and an Active Ability which increases movement speed by 30% (newly added with Patch 4).

You generally won't ever get to your 6th item in a normal Coast City, most of the time I'm lucky if I completely finish my Kryptonian War Armor. So if the game has lasted long enough for you to get your sixth item then it is up to your to buy whatever item you would like. To me, more tankiness on Arcane Green Lantern is more welcome no matter how much health I have.

If you have any questions or would like to see Arcane Green Lantern in action you can stop by my stream anytime after midnight EST on most nights where myself and other Infinite Crisis streamers play games through most of the night!

Stream Link

The Weekly Innervate - League of Legends - Lulu the Suppordle Yordle

There will be a video here sometime tomorrow morning when I wake up. I didn't record any gameplay last night like I should have. Sorry!

(Authors Note: This Guide Was Made at Lulu's Release, this guide is almost two years old and very much out of date.)

I was not expecting this character to come out this week so we have two weeks of League of Legends posts in a row. The last time we had a support released into the game (not including Orianna which most people don't play as a support) was Karma, who was released February 1st, 2011. That means that it's been almost fourteen months since we healers have seen a new support character added to the League of Legends. Is this the support that fans of the champion type have been waiting for?

Overview of Lulu's Abilities and How To Use Them

Lulu is a mix between Janna and Soraka with the ways that their abilities work. Lulu's passive makes her companion fairy Pix (much like Orianna's ball) shoot 3 bolts of magic damage towards whatever opponent Lulu auto attacks (it can be block by enemy units such a creeps between you and the enemy attacked) and it increases with every level (instead of every third level like most increasing passives do). This makes it easy to kill steal early game if you're not careful (your early game auto attacks can do as much damage as an early game AD carry without items with the added damage) so always be careful with this champion. Lulu's Q is a ranged skill shot that shoots two shots (one from Lulu and one from Pix) in a direction of your choosing that slows anyone it hits (but enemy units can only be hit by one bolt). This ability is extremely useful for an escape or setting up a kill for your carry. The ability is pretty difficult to miss with since it can be shit from two different directions depending on where your pixie is. 

Your W is one of the more fun abilities, Whimsy can either give an ally Movement Speed and Ability Power or will change an enemy into an animal/food product based on your skin choice. This ability has so many uses and is extremely unique, anyone who has played a Mage in World of Warcraft will feel some love for this ability. You can polymorph the enemy AD carry into a cupcake during a team count, making them unable to do any damage for 3 seconds making them completely useless for the beginning of the fight. It's also extremely useful for chasing if they're just out of reach but your AD carry isn't. Lulu's E is where Soraka comes into play. If used on an ally it gives them a shield and your passive (Pix added damage) will be given to your ally, I'm honestly not sure if Pix gets the final hit if Lulu receives the kill or not. If used on an enemy it does magic damage and grants vision of them for 6 seconds. This will guarantee a kill for a champion like Caitlyn if used on a retreating enemy that has low health.

Lulu's Ultimate, her R ability, is where she is much like Janna. You place your ultimate on an ally and they grow in size knocking enemies away from from them. However, in my experience in game play the knock back can sometimes be a knock up instead. The ally then gains health and an aura that slows all enemy by up to 60% for the time they remain in the aura. The health remains on the champion as well so if your shield is on CD and your champion may die while running away it is beneficial to pop it on them because the health the champion receives stays on the champion even after the ults duration has finished which makes it (kind of) a heal and a major one.

What Abilities To Choose and Builds

Lulu is a little different where her ability sequence doesn't have to be cut and dry. It's pretty obvious that when you're supporting you're always going to max out your shield (E) as quickly as possible. However, your Q and W are not so obvious with this champion. Your choices will be based on what your lane is turning out like. If the enemy AD carry is pushing a lot and poking and getting the two of you in a lot of tight corners then you're going to want to take your polymorph first. This will allow you to stop a poke or make a clean getaway for your AD carry. If you're winning the lane and putting pressure on the enemy team then it's pretty safe to pick up your Q early. This will allow you to put pressure on them and do some pretty hard poking if they're tower hugging. The range on your Q is 925 as well as an AoE so standing behind creeps is useless.

Lulu also needs to be built extremely differently from all other supports, at least at the present time. All of Lulu's abilities scale extremely generously from AP, even the amount of health her ultimate gives scales off of AP. You need to build her as you would an AP carry to get the most out of her which is something you don't need to do with most of the supports (since they're made to survive without items made for themselves.

I give her Ability per Level Marks and Glyphs and Gold per Second Seals and Quintessences. You want to give her AP early so that her poke and shield become extremely powerful. This means you need to sacrifice the usual Gold per 10 items to accomplish this, but since you're still a support you won't be getting as much gold because of no CS or Champion kills. So getting gold from your runes is important to your bank account.

These are the items I pick up first for Lulu. Starting out with 40 additional gold from your support masteries allows you to pick up one Sight Ward to ward your river bush at the 3 minute mark and stop any potential early level ganks from the enemy jungler. By the time the 6 minute marks comes around you should have enough money to grab your next set of items.

 

If you're lucky to get some early kills then you should be able to back with about 700 gold which will get your Gold Per 10 item and your Tier 1 boots as well as more wards. This is the only GPS item in this guide because of the gold you receive from your masteries and runes. If you choose not to get gold masteries you might want to pick up a second support item such as Philosophers Stone or Heart of Gold. You should stay in lane as long as possible at this point. Stay until your wards run out (which should be 6 to 9 minutes based on how many wards you bought on your last back) or until you are just shy of 1500 gold.

Pick up some more fire power as you start to build a Rod of Ages with a Blasting Wand and a Sapphire Crystal. This will further help your poke as well as allowing you to stay in lane much longer with 200 more mana. I suggest getting Rod of Ages first because it helps you not be such an easy target for ganks and team fights. As a support you don't start out with a lot of health. This item makes you a little beefier early game and gives you a lot more longevity in early game.

This will be the final build in the order that you buy them in. In late game Lulu will be more beneficial, more or less, to your AP carry because of the AP buff that her W gives so building around helping herself and her AP carry is very beneficial. Grabbing a Will of the Ancients and an Abyssal Scepter helps your AP carry while giving a boost to Lulu's abilities giving her a carry build with Support intentions. At the end of all of this you will have around 750 AP which is huge for your abilities.

Summoner Spells

Heal is a pretty obvious choice to me. I pick up Heal on supports that don't have a regular healing ability, which allows for a quick jump in health while running from a losing battle or changing a team fight for the better or just keeping yourself alive if you've become the punching bag. Also, with all of the slows and CC that Lulu has I don't see any reason to pick up Flash. But I have always been a strong opposition of Flash since it's nerf several months ago. So if you're more comfortable with Flash than I am than feel free to pick it up. I however, feel teleport is much more useful for a support. It allows you to quickly back and grab wards and items and return to lane before your carry even knows you're gone. It also allows you to show up in a different lane if someone if being dove or having trouble with a particularly large push.

Pros

Ability Power Conversion On Abilities: I am almost guaranteeing that the AP ratio will be nerfed because it is just too good on her shield and Ultimate. Her Shield (E) receives 0.6 Magic Damage/Shield Value for every 1 Ability power you have. If you're in your full build you can shield your carry for 700 damage every 6 seconds. Her ultimate also scales 0.5 Health for every 1 AP you have. Which means at Tier 3 your Ultimate can give you carry over 1000 extra health during a team fight. I feel that either CDs will be increased (even though they are fairly long early game) or AP Ratios will be reduced because those numbers are just too good for a support character (since youre supposed to be able to live without much or any AP to begin with).

Really Good Early Game Harass:  Another reason why her AP ratios, I believe, will be nerfed. If you hit your Q and your E on an enemy champion you can deal around 300+ magic damage around level 5 and the poke is just crazy with the large range of her Q. She is definitely one of the best aggressive supports due to the amount of damage that she can do. 

Great CC: All of your abilities can do something to hinder your opponent. Your slow reduces movement speed by 80% and decays but that is still a really big number to hit a fleeing opponent with. You can even make an enemy unable to do anything to help their team for 2.5 seconds which makes turret diving nearly impossible to do.

Cons

No Heal: This is a pretty big draw back for me. Not having a heal hurts a support 9/10 with Janna being an exception, and even she has a heal with her Ultimate. Unless you can shield all incoming attacks your carry will have to back to get health at some point because you can't increase their health pool. I feel supports without any sort of heal are at a great disadvantage.

Easy to Kill Steal With: Lulu's abilities right now do a lot of damage and even her auto attacked can hit upwards of 160+ per shot. This is great until your pixy steals your carries kills early game and they're bitching at you late game.

Not For Beginners: Lulu is definitely not a champion that you pick up on quick. She isn't a straight forward support like most of them are. With all of your abilities doing different things you have to make split second decisions that are easy to kill wrong. Do you give your AP carry 60 extra AP or do you polymorph that Rammus that has taunted your fleeing AD carry? Do you shield someone taking damage in a team fight or do you deal 700 damage to someone in a team fight?

Knock Back Ultimate: Knocking back is generally never a good thing as I have learned time and time again with pissed off AD carries while playing Janna. And Lulus Ultimate has been extremely unpredictable with hers. Sometimes it will merely knock someone up and keep them inside the aura and everything is great and sometimes it just blows people clear across the map and everyone's left going "WTF Did you do that for you nub!?!?!?!!1". I don't like things that knock people back because I find myself sitting in a team fight going "well, if I ult while we're all grouped up I risk knocking someone backwards whose on the brink of death and having people screaming at me" and while I'm thinking that the AD carry dies because I was too worried about losing them a kill instead of saving their lives. Happens with Janna all the time and it's extremely frustrating.

All in all I really like the champion for fun. She has a lot of harass and a new set of abilities that we have never seen before. However, I also don't really feel very satisfied with her either. We haven't seen a support in over a year and we get this one, one without a heal, kind of conflicting in her roles as a support when she seems to want to play like an AP carry with sustain and CC, and an ultimate that makes me scared to use it. We probably won't see a support for another long time because it is a class that isn't played very often aside form those who really love the role and competitive 5v5s. And she definitely won't be used in Competitive gameplay because there are so many supports that are much better for the role. Something gives me the feeling that she is going to start out as a support (because the League of Legends staff tells you that's what she's supposed to be) but will slowly transition in a few weeks to an AP carry or hybrid. Janna, Sona, Taric and Soraka are just too good supports and this one isn't living up to that standard. 

However, I will never grow tired of turning someone into a Derp Cupcake!

Youtube: ElainaTV

Twitter: @CQElaina

Monday Morning Musings - League of Legends - Is Support Viable In Low Ranked ELO?

Ranked League of Legends is one of the fastest growing E-sports in the world. Twitch just released an article saying that League of Legends now surpasses Starcraft 2 as "Most Streamed Game". Most of these streams are players participating in Ranked 5v5 matches as well as professional LoL players doing the same. Now I have almost 1,500 total games played with about 130 of them being ranked matches. I went on a ranked binge just before Season 2 was announced. I would play any new champion that I bought in a ranked match because I assumed that our Ranked ELO would reset with the new season. And then Season 2 came and went and I still had 603 ELO... Since then I have gotten much more serious about Ranked Matches but haven't played many due to my ELO being so low.

Carry Your Way Out Myth - Any League of Legends player who has been around the block a few times will tell you that the only way to get yourself out of "ELO Hell" is to "Carry Your Way Out". This means that you need to pick a character that is an AD/AP carry that is doing well in the patch you're on or OP and carry your way to multiple victories until you are out of ELO Hell. I don't think this is the only way to do so even if it seems to be the smartest. Carries (for the most part) are extremely squishy if they do a lot of damage. And if anyone on your team feeds anyone on the other team (especially their carry) then it doesn't matter who you picked because you're going to die unless you happened to get more fed than them. And even if no one else on the other team is fed if you don't get fed because your lane partner isn't any good/the other team plays hyper defensive then you're still pretty much useless.

Playing Support in Low Ranked ELO is generally looked down upon but I find that I help push my team to victory much easier than if I'm playing a damage dealer. This might be because I'm uncomfortable playing DPS in most games when I have the ability to be a Healer/Bard. But if you're good at what you do, like I like to think I am, then playing your strength is much better than playing what's OP at the moment. As a Support you can be the guardian of you team and keep them from feeding. Pick a Support that has a stun, slow or knock back so if your carry decides to constantly face check bushes then you can heal them and stop the enemy team from chasing. Janna is a really good support right now, long ranged knock up and healing knock back can save your AD carry from certain death. Taric is another really good support in ranked. His heal heals both himself and his target as well as a long ranged stun. Janna's ult is also great for saving your team from a team fight you're losing.

Playing a Support can push team fights in your favor. Keeping your AD/AP carries alive longer makes them do more damage, obviously. But with a support with a stun you can also keep the enemy teams highest damage dealer from doing as much damage as possible while you focus them down. If you're losing a team fight and they're chasing you while you're retreating, Janna's ult can blow them away from your team and ensure that you all get away safely.

Picking your support based on the AD carry of the team is extremely important. If your AD carry has a stun it will be beneficial to pick up a support that has a stun as well. Double stuns allow for great amounts of damage and quick escapes. If your AD carry goes Life Steal quickly then a shielding support will be much better than a simple healing support. Summoner spells are also extremely important. If you're a support like Janna or Zilean that doesn't have a healing spell than picking up Heal is extremely beneficial to your AD carry. Picking up Clairvoyance is still beneficial even after it's nerf. If you're not sure where the other team is CVing into a bush instead of face checking is a great way to save yourself from an early death.

Get Oracles Early. This is a strategy I have been using that I am always shocked when people acted so surprised. Oracles can be used to clear enemy wards to keep them from warding against your jungler or keeping an eye on Dragon. It also helps against Teemo mushrooms and stealth champions like Twitch and Shaco. I generally pick up Oracles after my Philosophers Stone and Boots (unless I'm Janna where I don't need boots that early) to keep as much vision from the enemy team as early as possible. Killing wards gives you money and denies the enemy team money. If you're not killed extremely early, if they're MIA and you go through river alone that's your own fault, don't do that, this is extremely beneficial. If they stop buying wards because they're frustrated with you killing them all and they start trying to kill you intentionally then you are doing your job right and Oracles has paid for itself!

Buy Wards! I know I shouldn't have to say it but right now I have been in a rough spot where I'm stuck between buying too many wards and not buying any Aura items for my team and not buying wards at all to rush Aura items for our carries. You should be buying wards and placing them based on the situation. If they are ganking a lot you should ward enough to cover River. If they are constantly in your jungle you should ward your buffs, killing them and getting your buff back is very important.

Long story short, I feel that playing Support in Low Ranked ELO is still viable no matter what people say. You need to play what you are comfortable with and if you're like me and not very good at dps then you are only going to drag your team down in the long run and you're not going to be having fun playing the game. Support has always been what I do best and I know I would help my team achieve total victory by supporting those actually good at killing things. Video games are fun and if you shouldn't be forced to do something you don't enjoy. Good luck supporting your allies and I hope you achieve swift victories on the Field of Justice.

League of Legends: CQElaina
Twitter: @CQElaina
Youtube: ElainaTV