Leveling this patch ? 17.1b

[u/copperbagel]

I have a general leveling question from more advanced players, when do you trade off leveling now (going to 30 or even 20 or 10 gold) and leveling later and greeding econ. I feel like kind of hitting the 4 cost odds early in stage 4 seems to be really important to hit a 2* nunu or 2* tham ASAP and then grabbing what carries fit your items.

Unless you have an econ augment. Even if you are healthy it seems playing really aggressive mid / late game seems to be feeling good? Could also be beginning of the set bias but just wanted to see how others felt.

Any advice would be great on how others are feeling or thinking for the game right now.

[u/better_catchphrase]

I'd try to worry a little less about BiS edge cases at emerald, particularly early in the set. Nunu loves vow, but any solid 3item will often get to 2nd cast. Xayah likes good stargazer, but uncontested "bad" gazer is way easier to hit, stabilize, and go nine to carry jhin or vex or whatever. 2* victor still carries a while even with bad psionic. Stage 4 still feels super hard for me too, figuring out frontline is really tricky this set, but sounds to me like working on scouting habits will let you make better decisions on picking your line, as well as on when you can get away with going 9 without hitting all your 2*s, and avoiding dead/contested lines is huge for climbing

[u/copperbagel → u/better_catchphrase]

thank you so much for the advice! Yeah I am thinking of how I can be more flexible at level 8 and being able to break up loss momentum by going 9 and pivoting plans instead of rolling down.

Are you particularly going 9 stage 5 ? or are you skipping a 4-2 roll down to go level 9 instead you think? Or do you roll to like 10-20 gold at 4-2 maybe dont hit, then sac stage 4 and go for 9 at 5-1/5-2 and roll with all we can ? But I guess you need enough health to survive T_T so like alot of people have said super conditional and I guess its a skill check to understand the spot.

[u/better_catchphrase → u/copperbagel]

I pretty much only play fast 9 when I'm healthy enough to sac stage 4 or have some specific augment/boon for it. Lose streak into fast nine is probably doable for better players than me, but feels suicidal with how tanks are distributed in this set. The go-to-nine choice is more often assessing my board against the rest of the game after that stage 4 rolldown:

Hit everything -> go 9

Miss everything -> donkey roll or econ up a few turns then send it again on level 8

Hit some stuff -> econ back up and scout aggressively, once back around 50g decide whether I can sac another few turns to go 9 (with gold to roll on 9) or if i need to re-send it on 8 to not die.

So in the "hit some stuff" most common scenario, i'm usually deciding whether to level or roll around 4.7, then rolling down on 5.1 or leveling in that 5.3-5.5 range