Catching Up

Well, I'm back from my trip to Maryland Death Fest. But you don't really care about any of that, do you? You just want to be caught up on the latest news pertaining to our lovely game, League of Legends. So, here is a nice list of what we missed:


1) Champion Sneak Peak - Draven, the Glorious Executioner

Our next champion preview is out and my, oh my, he is the brother of our last champion, Darius, and is also an executioner.

Lucky for us, someone has claimed to find a wealth of information about Draven and his skill set in Riot's SQLite data file. Draven appears to be a ranged ( 525 range ) champion with the following abilities:

• Wicked Blades Draven's Critical Strikes deal bonus physical damage over time. Spinning Axe also causes this effect even if it does not Critically Strike.
• Spinning Axe Draven's next attack will deal bonus damage. This axe will ricochet off the target high up into the air. If Draven catches it, he automatically readies another Spinning Axe. Draven can have two Spinning Axes at once.
• Blood Rush Draven gains increased Movement Speed and Attack Speed. The Movement Speed bonus decreases rapidly over its duration. Catching a Spinning Axe will refresh the cooldown of Blood Rush.
• Stand Aside Draven throws his axes, dealing physical damage to targets hit and knocking them aside. Targets hit are slowed.
• Whirling Death Draven hurls two massive axes to deal physical damage to each unit struck. Whirling Death slowly reverses direction and returns to Draven after striking an enemy champion. Draven may also activate this ability while the axe is in the flight to cause it to return early. Deals less damage for each unit it hits and resets when the axes reverse direction.

His lore also reads as :
"'The best' is wherever I decide to set the bar each day. Unlike his brother Darius, victory in battle was never enough for Draven. He craved recognition, acclaim, and glory. He first sought greatness in the Noxian military, but his flair for the dramatic went severely underappreciated. Thirsting for a method to share ''Draven'' with the world, he turned his attention to the prison system. There he carved out the celebrity he desired by turning the tedious affair of executions into a premiere spectacle. At Draven's first execution, he shocked onlookers when he ordered the doomed prisoner to run for dear life. Just before the man managed to flee from sight, Draven brought him down with a flawless throw of his axe. Soon, all Draven’s executions became a gauntlet through which Noxian prisoners raced for a final chance at life. He used this trial as his own personal stage, and turned executions into a leading form of entertainment. He rallied onlookers into a frenzy, while desperate prisoners scrambled to evade him. They never succeeded. Rejecting the solemn, black uniforms of Noxian executioners Draven donned bright outfits and developed flashy signature moves to distinguish himself. Crowds flocked to see Draven in action, and tales of his performances spread quickly. As his popularity grew, so did his already-inflated ego. He belonged at the center of attention. Before long, the scope of his ambitions outgrew the population of Noxus. He decided that the glorious exploits of Draven should be put on display for the entire world."

I'll post more if I can find anything, but this certainly looks entertaining. More manly AD carries ftw!

2) Sad Robot Amumu and Darkflame Shyvana now available!

These two new skins are now available in game. Featuring fancy new spell effects and other goodies, these two skins will run you 975 Riot Points each. If you are having a hard time deciding, check out the two videos below to see them in action.

 

3) The Tribunal Got Some Updates

The Tribunal is a year old now and is blooming into a wonderful system for players to weed out trolls. In light of its birthday, Riot has given it a tune up; here are the updates ( combined from the original post and the additional post some time later ):

• We’ve updated the color palate to ensure that chat and report explanations are red-green colorblind friendly.
• The game mode and queue type (Ranked or Normal) are now displayed
• The defendant’s summoner spells and total gold are now visible
• Information on the defendant’s teammates, including their champions, levels, items, summoner spells, gold, minion kills and kill-death-assist ratio is now included
• Chat filtering options have been added to the chat log
• Timers before you can make a verdict has been changed to 20s

•   The level limit to use the Tribunal is now Level 20

You can also venture on over to the official announcement to check out additional information, including interesting statistics, such as 51% of cases having a guilty verdict and only 5.7% earning a permanent ban.

4) Potential Buffs for Tenacity items?

This one isn't very concrete or anything, but Morello commented, in a post about the uselessness of items like Tenacity items like Moonflair Spellblade, saying that "Agreed! We should take a look at these more.". Perhaps this means we will see some new items, allowing for them to be less of a wasted slot, or general buffs in the near future.

5) Glaive Knight Pantheon Coming Soon

If you are like me and can't wait to throw your money at Glaive Knight Pantheon, you might be interested to know what Aklaen, Community Coordinator, had to say about the skin : "The Glaive Knight Pantheon is the skin released for the Romanian launch and should be available really soon.  I will keep you updated."

6) Role-playing Forums now open.

While it isn't my cup of tea, Riot has created a new forum to serve as "the place for fan-generated, community-interactive content."  . Check out the announcement here and the actual new Role-playing forum here.

7) Another Darius Skin?

As per the game files, Darius seems to have another skin floating around. Titled Norse King Darius, this skin did not launch with Darius, despite looking totally badass and something I would totally throw money at. The real question is why? Riot announced a while back they there were hoping to scale back the additional, release skins from two to one better quality skin, as was the case with the Darius and Varus launches. I believe ( reminder this is all me and I have no official word here ) that we are looking at the next "event" skin to come out - possibly it in light for the upcoming big money Dreamhack Tourney, similar to the Viking Tryndamere that popped up last year. Thematically it is similar ( Viking vs Norse King ) as well. Time will only tell, but I sure hope it does soon as the above skin is pretty boss.

And that does it for the catch up news. I think I got just about all of the interesting posts, but if I missed something I'll be sure to update the thread if someone points me in the right direction.

P.S: Don't forget to check out the latest, humorous sale post! Hyena Warwick on sale and is a beauty of a skin. #datrunanimation.