LeBlanc

While playing League of Legends which of course is a team game with different character options that fit different “classes”, I have always been trying to find a few characters that I could focus on mastering which had different classes, but so far I haven't really found any at all even in my normal specialty of melee characters in most games. With that, as someone who likes melee in games, I especially found it even more difficult that I also want to choose a ranged character that I could be more proficient in as well as one that melees. I have played quite a few ranged champions from ranged carries like Tristana, Ashe, Miss Fortune, Corki, and Ezreal and Support champions such as Soraka or Karma, but only a few Mages. All of the mentioned characters I have tried in more than a few practice games and sometimes onto PvP matches but I have never really tried a Mage character more than once in a practice match until LeBlanc.

What drew me to LeBlanc is that I played against a player who was very good at her and it surprised me a great deal as I hardly ever see LeBlanc played at all, furthermore she was able to do quite literally insane burst damage, which is really the core of what intrigued me about her. As I found out, and experienced, LeBlanc is basically a glass cannon, she has extremely high burst that lets her take out most champions in only 2-3 spells and if they survive that, they're very very low on health, I really like burst damage in games, and while I personally played a Mage in World of Warcraft, and ended up not liking it, I still have an idea to give the characters who are masters of burst damage a chance in various games.

As usual I started off with a Coop practice game with Alice where we tried something kind of weird out and tried to lane together with her playing Cassopeia whom she has experience with, and me as LeBlanc who was completely new to me. We probably made it harder on our selves than it should be but it was a learning experience nevertheless, I quickly found out that LeBlanc's main attack, Sigil of Silence does quite a bit of damage, and it only gets better as she gains levels. I had trouble getting used to her blink at first as I've been playing characters where I would pretty much just hit all of the spells as soon as they came up and that “spamy” attitude was not that great when her blink also teleported me back to my original position if I hit it again within 3 seconds, which I did mistakenly more than once during the practice match. As with all skill shots, I found it difficult to aim her Ethereal Chains around minions, but when it did get off, it was pretty easy to stay within range of my afflicted target to trigger the immobilization effect and thus in most situations, resulting in a kill. Finally her damage output simply sky rockets when she gains her ultimate which mimics the last spell she casts and inflicts more damage based on the rank, using it after casting Sigil of Silence is her main burst and it's very effective, it simply decimates the enemy's health in most situations. I ended up not getting many kills but plenty of assists because I wasn't able to chain my spells together effectively enough which I learned later on, but again nevertheless, it was an enjoyable and relaxing experience.

So while practice was fun despite a few drawbacks, it made me like LeBlanc and try her out in Dominion. Like most champions I've been trying out recently, Dominion is a completely different game almost and it kind of shines in LeBlanc's favor and against her at the same time. The first thing I noticed and probably one of the bigger problems that I'm still trying to deal with is that Mejai's Soulstealer is not available in Dominion, that is very bad for LeBlanc as it is the highest base AP item before percentage modifiers around, and also in regards to money, it's also the cheapest and so far from what I've seen, there is no Dominion only equivalent. So, that led me to experiment with items which I've been trying to do for many characters anyway, I ended up with a buying order like this :

1. Sorcerer's Boots
2. Fiendish Codex
3. Morello's Evil Tome
4. Will of the Ancients
5. Rabadon's Deathcap
6. Zhonya's Hourglass
7. Archangel's Staff
8. Void Staff

I don't entirely know what the caps for magic resistance and magic penetration are yet, but for the most part I was just trying to get as much ability power as possible without spending that much money. I actually ended up changing the buying pattern to this :

1. Sorcerer's Boots
2. Fiendish Codex
3. Morello's Evil Tome
4. Rabadon's Deathcap (at which point the game usually ends, and I don't really have a solid build afterward however I usually end up doing something like this)
5. Void Staff
6. Sheen
7. Lichbane

I don't really know if Lichbane is worth it for LeBlanc yet and it's very difficult to tell what exactly is working or not while playing the game for me, however I read in a guide that it might “possibly” work, so I figured why not. Really the only thing I feel like I could change is having Archangel's staff sooner, maybe replacing Morello's Evil Tome or Void Staff with it. However, I need to have the most AP as soon as possible to be effective essentially so I feel like the third end item that I'll always get no matter what is Rabadon's Deathcap as it adds so much AP.

Onto the next thing about LeBlanc in Dominion however, as it is very close combat focused, you need to literally have very fast reflexes to use LeBlanc effectively as most champions can kill her just as fast as she can kill them, this point is lessened when you have group support as when you come in from behind other people, it lets you quickly burst a enemy down and make the fight that much easier for the rest of the team. On the note of using her effectively, as Dominion really forces you to adapt quickly it's great for learning how to use a champion in individual or small group combat situations. At first I was doing a lot of dumb mistakes that irritated me like using mimic on a spell I didn't want to because I was casting my spells frantically instead of precisely and it ended up doing things like copying my blink and having me blink into the enemy which got me killed very quickly. However, as I played more games I feel like now I can be a contributing force in a team and beat most champions in duels or small group fights. One more note on abilities, it is very easy to kite meleers in Dominion with the use of Ethereal Chains, and basically if you or they stay in range while the chains are on them, they'll die once the immobilization effect triggers as you'll be able to just turn around and burst them down quickly.

As for standard Dominion play I found that being a roamer at all times is the best strategy, while you “could” defend and you're actually very good at interrupting captures and escaping through the use of LeBlanc's blink, I personally didn't even have the survivability of a Ryze or a Kassadin who are both very squishy champions; so to defend nodes you have to be confident in beating 1v1s and also accept that you will die most of the time to a 1v2. That is what makes LeBlanc a ineffective defender, unless you're able to somehow kill a single champion quickly enough which will require all of your abilities, and not have their team mate assist on attacking you, you won't be able to defend yourself against a second person's onslaught even if the first person is blown apart. With that said, there is something that comes to mind that I haven't tried yet, which is using Flash instead of Ghost which will let you escape and have time for your cooldowns to recharge. So that's something for me to try out later. Regardless of that however, LeBlanc is amazing at offense pushes or roaming defense as you will hardly ever be the target when you arrive to a fight and even the split second of an element of surprise lets you get into the fray, quickly burst a target down, and escape which will turn most fights into your team's favor, and even if your team loses, you'll still be able to finish the enemy off most of the time.

Like Wukong I've only started playing LeBlanc today pretty much, and it's very interesting but also frustrating at times, I in general wonder about LeBlanc's viability in Dominion because while I pretty much got the most kills/assists on my team at all times, I was still unable to turn the tide into winning a lot of matches. I think I'll be doing a lot more experimenting with LeBlanc and possibly become better at her, I still don't know the exact cause of why my games weren't as successful as mine were when I played melee champions, my personal score wasn't ever horrendous, and I felt like I did good in all of my games personally, but the fact is that I had hardly any wins as LeBlanc compared to even Wukong and definitely compared to Jax and Trynadamere.