This week patch 3.14 hit live servers that brought in the new Season 4 changes. The main target of the new season was to improve gold and experience income to the support and jungler roles. With the increased income, many feared that the changes to traditional supports would bring in a new reign of kill lanes and utility mid-lane mages down to the bot lane. While everyone was debating this, one detail wasn’t discussed as much: The Rise of Duo Top Lanes.
TSM’s TheOddOne duo made brought this to the forefront yesterday streaming with Xspecial with a top lane combination of Lissandra and Olaf. Both players picked a Relic Shield start. The beauty of both laners having the Relic Shield (which should be upgraded to Targon’s Brace) is the shared gold and the sustain given by the item. If you watch the video below, you can see how impressive the gold shared between players is. The duo top lane was able to not only pressure the enemy jungler, they were also able to keep pressure on the lane.
The way the shield works is after 30 seconds it gains a charge that allows you to instantly kill a minion at 200 health with an autoattack. When you kill a minion this way, it gives the other player kill gold plus an additional amount that varies with what upgrade you have and heals them for a percentage of health. You set up the lane where one player does the CS and the other player harasses and zones. The harasser should be using it’s execute on siege minions if possible giving the lane partner even more gold.
The shield’s charges show up on the other player as spinning orbs so you can see how many charges your partner has and plan accordingly. This allows the duo team to invade and farm their own jungle (this only works on creeps and not jungle monsters) and build up to three charges so they can come back to lane and immediately clear a single wave with six saved up charges.
The big question is what Riot will do? Will they nerf the item into uselessness thus enforcing the 1-1-2-Jungle meta? The new jungle items are incredibly underwhelming as they don’t produce additional gold until you upgrade them. If you are in the jungle facing a 2-1-2 setup, you will quickly fall behind unless you can effectively farm the opponents jungle to keep up on CS and income. This significantly reduces the roster of junglers that will be viable.
Watch live video from TSM_TheOddOne on TwitchTV
There is already a nerf to the Relic Shield line on the PBE that reduces the number of charges the shield can hold from 3 to 2.
What is incredibly exciting about this is that it opens the current meta from needing a jungler to different lane comps. You no long need to have an ADC/Support along with a bruiser/tank and a mid lane caster. Now you can have broader team comps that don’t necessarily need to have a jungler or even an ADC.
How Riot will react is a mystery but we’re hoping that they don’t overly nerf the new support items so we can see new strategies emerge in Season 4.
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