By Sonny

Sonny Williams

League of Learning #11 - Synergies

Thu 11th Oct 2012 - 6:34pm Category: League of Legends

Synergies

Syngergy is a term used to indicate an inherent ability to work well together. Components, departments, companies and people all have synergy with the world around them due to the skills they offer or the abilities they can draw upon. In league synergy is a far more direct term and co-operation can be found in more places than you might expect. I'm going to explore abilities that work well to produce effective team fight or laning advantages that can completely swing a game, champions work together so well its silly not to utilise them. I will start with the more apparent and try to eek out some ive noticed in my time playing towards the end. 

Soraka - Graves

Graves is already a very strong AD carry, Very strong. His passive also allows him to take a hell of a beating and couple that with +25 armour bonus at level one you're looking at an ad carry with very high burst damage who will be exceptionally hard to trade with and have infinite mana. The downside to this pairing is that despite making graves very safe there isn't really any offensive applications. You can sit in lane forever but if you use the mana, you will push it, and soraka doesn't excel as much when a CC heavy jungler notices you're pushing. Nevertheless this combo has suddenly slipped out of focus slightly with the recent consensus that Ezreal and Corki are generally stronger picks. 

 

 

Blitzcrank - Alistar

If you can get these two in a game being played by people who even have the slightest idea of how they work your team immediately has a massive advantage just because of the CC. The magical thing about these two is that if BC grabs at full range then ali manages to headbutt them from safety, that person is more than likely dead. regardless of who they are. Towers are no longer safe when these two are around and if you were thinking of fighting back, well enjoy flying through the air for 10 seconds. It's silly really just how much utility these two bring to a team and it takes ONE grab to allow the team to bring a whole world of pain down upon you or your enemies. 

Nocturne - Shen

The dives, oh the dives. Nocturne ults on you, Shen ults on him, suddenly you have a 4v2 bot lane, you are probably going to die in a very painful way. It's also effective when teamfighting, when controlling baron/drake spawns, map presence is everything. Combining this with other global ulti's is possible but not really nessecary, the extra two people that are able to suddenly appear in any lane exchange after level 6 make it near impossible for enemy lanes to push advantages without dying. 

Kog'Maw -  Nunu

Kog'Maw has one of the highest base attack damage stats in the game, coupled with a range steroid and a slow he is very strong at poking people in lane. His weakness is that he is the ultimate glass cannon, he cant take much damage. Combining Kog'Maw with someone who slows enemy attack/movement speed and buffs his is perfect for Kog. Suddenly he can harass and poke, make clean escapse, survive ganks and get kill credit just from one little buff. Bear in mind also that a good nunu who gets his ult off in a bush will usually manage to either waste a flash on the enemy team or get a kill for kog. 

Galio - Amumu

I'm not sure its possible to lose a teamfight if both of these two hit their ultis on a majority of the enemy team, the first one will force them to blow cleanse or QSS, then when the second happens what can they do? The problem with this synergy is that it requires decent positioning and timing, if you miss your ult you have wasted a huge amount of your teamfight presence and they have long cooldowns. Providing you use them appropriately you shouldn't lose fights with these two. 

Malphite - Soraka

Armour please! If you can time it right, Malph should be able to draw a good amount of focus off of your carries to the point he can start needing a quick heal, that heal is also going to give him armour, that armour is going to make him even stronger. If you can manage to get Malphite in a draft pick game these days then you might want to consider a soraka backup. 

Hecarim - Janna/Orianna

When you have a champion that scales from movement speed, has a movement speed steroid and is generally a massive beast its a very good idea to play on his strength. Hecarim feeding of Janna's passive or Orianna's ball strikes the kind of fear a half horse half man should inspire in your foes, use it wisely.

These are the some basic synergies and there are many ways to force an unfair advantage during fights, during lane or just throughout the entire game. Use them, use every advantage you can get. Hopefully I have just given you some more. 

GLHF

@Neonhowl

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