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[–]moonbagel[moonbagel] (NA) 60 points61 points ago

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This is a great idea, I've been looking for a comprehensive list of counters. I feel this would help a lot of people out for picks and bans in draft mode. Posthaste!

[–]Optimouse[S] 9 points10 points ago

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Okay so I've looking over the great responses so far, and I thank you all for commenting. It looks like this could actually happen.

From here it gets a bit technical. Most of the flaws pointed out with the method deal with how large the dataset needs to be. And it needs to be pretty damn big. I did some simple calculations which I think are accurate, stating that with 84 different champs, there are as many as 3.7 billion or so different possible team comps in LoL. Most of these will of course be bad, about a quarter should be all AD champs, so there goes a billion, another quarter all AP champs so theres another billion etc. I'm unsure about the exact numbers there but whatever, the point is this: Even if you only look at the most "viable" picks for each of the roles in the standard meta, I still calculated there to be over 22000 different team comps.

What this means is that it's impossible to make a statistical model which compares entire teamcomps. There simply isn't enough data, at least if you factor in patches and how the game changes every three weeks, plus the fact that me and my possible collaborators probably aren't gonna get much help from Riot (but I haven't asked, man who knows).

What should be doable however is a very simple system which only factors in what champions are on the two teams, and which team won. What you then do is you have a long line in something like an excel document for each champion, and you log data points in four categories: Win against champion X, Win with champion X, Loss against champion X, loss with champion X. For each champ, you log one of these four options for every other champion in the given game.

With 84 champs, meaning 83 champs OTHER than the one you are currently coding results for, and four options for each of those champs, that excel line should come to something like totalling something like 332 different boxes. And for every game that gets logged, 9 out of those 332 boxes are checked for every champ. I know this is probably hard to follow, sorry about that, but there is a point to this so bear with me. Every game that gets logged into the spreadsheet should then total 90 separate data entries, 9 for each participating champion. What is really required is some way of automating the procedure; if a database of games is amassed, can someone on these boards write an algorithm that translates that data into points in this hypothetical excel document? Also, is there a better way to do this?

The end result would of course be, that from this spreadsheet you would (automatically or manually) be able to infer win percentages for any champ vs any other champ, or with any other champ. And with a sufficient number of games added to the database, there should be statistically significant patterns popping out of this eventually. I am no statistician, or at least I have very little formal training, so I wouldn't exactly know how to know when a pattern becomes statistically significant. But maybe someone on these boards do, and thats the entire point of this. It would be a community effort, and it might produce very interesting results. What if it as an example turns out Udyr wins a whopping 60% of games when he has a Veigar on his team? That's when the theorycrafting comes in, and people can try and explain the statistics.

Now, the question of how to aquire a database. RiotStats looks really promising, they have a large number of games logged. What I worry about there is whether there is someway of making sure that A: the games we log are only high lvl games. and B: they are never the same game twice, because that could mess with the numbers. I will try and contact them, and possibly Riot as well. The third option as I see it would require a lot of manual coding and collecting by a lot of community members before the dataset grows large enough.

[–]OrderChaos 0 points1 point ago

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First a disclaimer I am most certainly NOT a statistician.

This sounds to me like it would work and be fairly accurate. I am also pretty sure Riot keeps track of similar information. They have stated before (too lazy to find a post so if someone wants to do that for me they can have my upvote) that they track the win percentages of champs. Iirc it is part of their balancing process. They use it to make sure no certain champ is op and winning every game. Not sure if they track entire team comps, and I think it unlikely that they wouldn't assist people in tracking this information as I don't think Riot likes the players to have this type of information.

You never know though, Riot could surprise me and asking couldn't hurt.

I wish you luck and will assist however I can when you get this running.

[–]chew_ch3w 0 points1 point ago

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Another question is, hybrid champs like ap/ad sion, ap/ad master yi, ap/ad shaco, ap/ad warwick, tank/ap nunu, tank/support alistar, etc. You'd also have to split that list up even more, would you be able to even amount a large enough datatbase to allow for another category or are you just leaving it to champs ALONE and not going to deter away from that.

[–]dansen926[Tai Feng] (NA) 5 points6 points ago

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you could get a ton of data from LoLReplay

[–]nvin[nvn] (NA) 0 points1 point ago

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Unfortunately there is API for it yet. Hopefully it is in works.

[–]enki1337 0 points1 point ago*

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I agree. I've been thinking of doing something similar, just set up a simple x by x grid of all the champions and people could go and vote on who counters who. If you're playing a champion you are reasonably good at in a solo lane, and you lose to a certain champion, you'd go and vote that it's a poor MU.

One of the major issues I can see, is lanes are rarely an even match in any game that has a jungler or roamer. If you have trouble in your lane, it might not necessarily be that it's a poor matchup, but it could be just that you were ganked numerous times.

In any case, if someone sets up a tool for this, I'd be willing to help.

[–]Rylor[Rylorisbored] (NA) 15 points16 points ago

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Lux Leona unstoppable

[–]Obadahai 16 points17 points ago

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Bitches of light unite!

[–]AngryByte 4 points5 points ago

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Double Rainbow followed by a solar flare BOOYAH.

[–]ar0s[0rla] (NA) 8 points9 points ago

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So much cc. THE LIGHT, IT BURNS!

[–]politeasshole 0 points1 point ago

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THE LIGHT, IT BURNS! Now help me out; I can exactly imagine the way and accent this is said in, but where the hell is it from?

[–]Sakkosekken 2 points3 points ago

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Cho'gath

[–]politeasshole 0 points1 point ago

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Obviously. Thank you.

[–]BinaryHappiness 0 points1 point ago

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I thought he was saying "The daylight.."..

[–]Ghostraider[Ghostraider] (NA) 0 points1 point ago

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Indeed he does say "The daylight! It burns!".

[–]SlasherX 0 points1 point ago

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Amumu with Pure AP runes +Lux = instakill by level 3.

[–]ONOGMuffins 21 points22 points ago

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This is like asking if we want chocolate cake.

[–]gjallerhorn[gjaller] (NA) 10 points11 points ago

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I've been burned by promises of cake before...

[–]Djorak[djorak] (EU-W) 1 point2 points ago

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When your cake is a really big fire, you should shoot your portal to run far away !

[–]despoticwalnut 7 points8 points ago

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I actually hate chocolate. Downvote away, chocolate lovers.

[–]ONOGMuffins 4 points5 points ago

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Angel Food Cake then?

[–]despoticwalnut 4 points5 points ago

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That shit's delicious. Give it to me slathered in gooey strawberries.

[–]nerdlights[Nerdlights] (NA) 3 points4 points ago

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I actually hate strawberries. Downvote away, strawberry lovers

[–]ONOGMuffins 6 points7 points ago

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Have some raspberries.

[–]Aleriya 7 points8 points ago

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That shit's delicious. Give it to me slathered in gooey chocolate.

[–]mint_julip 11 points12 points ago*

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I actually hate shit. Downvote away, shit lovers.

[–]zBodude 0 points1 point ago

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I'm german.

[–]despoticwalnut 1 point2 points ago

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I may actually have to for such a sleight!

[–]haircut74[Novas Necros] (NA) 2 points3 points ago

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I see no reason to downvote you because of a preference based on the way certain chemicals react with your tongue parts, but I can't imagine a world in which chocolate would not be delicious to me. That said, when it comes to cake, I prefer white. However, the frosting is the only part of any importance. I could eat frosting by itself all day.

[–]despoticwalnut 2 points3 points ago

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I couldn't do that. I can hardly finish a piece of (non chocolate) cake without feeling like my spit is turning into caramel from all the sugar.

[–]slazer88 0 points1 point ago

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Stand strong, my chocolate hating brother!

[–]Roflkopt3r[Teekesselchen] (EU-W) 0 points1 point ago

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... if we provide the chocolate.

But since I'm no baker and these guys obviously are, it is a good trade.

[–]conconcon 0 points1 point ago

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FOR BREAKFAST??

[–]Ned84 37 points38 points ago

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Your life gets countered by league of legends.

[–]Zirkysaurus 8 points9 points ago

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Nerf LoL.

[–]HeroofDarkness[HeroofDarkness] (NA) 16 points17 points ago

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Or Irelia...

[–]snakefce -1 points0 points ago

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IRL is short for IReLia.... CANNOT UNSEE!

[–]james_aguilar 10 points11 points ago

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Another guy already did this using data scraped from lolbase. You would probably need a lot more data than you'll ever get from watching high elo streams. You can find the scraping program he used in my post here. You you could edit the program to scrape elos and filter the db by high elo games if you're interested in only finding "good" counters and synergies.

[–]nvin[nvn] (NA) 0 points1 point ago

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Thank you. Your project is what inspired my curiosity and all the statistics.

[–]EBOBO[EBOBO] (NA) 8 points9 points ago

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nvn did a form of this with two champions a while back http://yosypvp.blogspot.com/

[–]DeathSteak 6 points7 points ago

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This is a great idea, but... MAKE SURE PEOPLE DON'T REPORT DATA FROM THE SAME TOURNAMENT GAME MORE THAN ONCE

[–]kenlubin[Kobiak] (NA) 5 points6 points ago

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Nice!

I think that someone was doing this for a while a few months ago. I'd love to see it again, with more recent data.

http://yosypvp.blogspot.com/2011/06/champion-combination-success-data-june.html

[–]Optimouse[S] 0 points1 point ago

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Wow, this is pretty much exactly what I had in mind, at least in terms of statistical method (I'm assuming). It would be really cool to expand on his ideas though, and make a site with a nice interface so you can easily check out the X champion win percentages against or with any other champ.

He also seems to have the best method of aquiring data, a data-mining scheme based off of Lolbase and Riotstats. It is promising that it's possible to aquire all the relevant data using that kind of a framework, meaning Teamcomps, victor, date and time of the game and rough ELO range.

[–]nvin[nvn] (NA) 0 points1 point ago

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Thank you for undeserved attention. I simply in love with your idea! I am willing to provide any resource I have.

[–]Optimouse[S] 0 points1 point ago

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you had the same idea dude. The best way to do this is if you just PM Markamgine and get a division of labor going, because I'm just like a PR guy in this venture, I'm not so good with the technical stuff. Glad to have you on board!

[–]tbydal 2 points3 points ago

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I love this idea, however getting the data could be difficult.

You will need the data of probably thousands of high elo games. Probably 1800's and up. I don't think people volunteering to manually submit data would be efficient or precise enough.

Maybe a little program that will submit logs of players matches, run by people who solo q a lot on higher elo's?

[–]chew_ch3w 1 point2 points ago

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I would love to help out, but i'm sure i'm too "newb" to do anything to help, I'm only level 23. But, I have been playing with level 30's since I've started (co-workers and friends). I would love to do some theorycrafting (i was pretty heavily into theorycrafting for WoW and would love to get involved in it with LoL). So maybe do a little bit of both theorycraft and actual data to see if this lines up. This would also make for a great and versatile discussion if you post up both the initial thoughts/theorycraft with the actual data conjured up.

[–]Optimouse[S] 1 point2 points ago

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Theorycraft really isn't an essential part of this. Sure it might be interesting to formulate some hypotheses beforehand, like the example I had above where I said that Caitlyn and Taric probably have positive synergy. Then after we have our data, we can see how our hypotheses fared and so on, and thats fun.

But really, what we actually need to be able to do the analysis is just what teamcomp played against what teamcomp, and which teamcomp won. Repeat as many times as possible. Then you have a database of data like that, and you check out Caitlyn games. Okay, Cait was in, say, 1000 of the games we have data on, and her team won 550 out of those. But we can now see what champs were on her team the most when she won (Taric might be a frontrunner here) and what champs were on the opposing team the most when she lost (say Talon maybe, or whoever). And you will be able to put a number on that synergy or "counter-factor", and make a judgement about how significant for instance your choice of jungler might be in conjunction with your caitlyn pick.

[–]chew_ch3w 0 points1 point ago

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But so many factors come into play. A bad Taric will do nothing for a Cait. And in my opinion, there are a lot of players that would fare well with Cait. And maybe, just maybe, you 2 could work with the Champ Discussion guy and work a theorycraft into that champ, and that champ alone and bring some more discussion into that champ. And of course you'd have to work a weak ahead, so ready up next monday-wednesday's champs today, and so on, so you have a steady database even if one of you guys are busy one day.

If you were actually able to get 1000 ranked (up-to-date) games of JUST 1 champ, that would be impressive. But in reality, anything lower than a 200 game comparison of up-to-date ranked games wouldn't really be counted as accurate because of the fact that the team make-up would alter so much, and whether or not if the Taric even worked with the Cait enough to even count them as a statistic and you just wouldn't be able to say for sure, who works best with who.

[–]featherfooted 1 point2 points ago

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Unfortunately, you've set yourself such that your argument actually suggest theorycrafting is not accurate enough to model LoL. Take Naxx (from your WoW example). There is a shocking difference when theorycrafting the damage possible when comparing a boss like Patchwerk to a boss like Four Horsemen. There are too many variables being taken into account to compare the two directly. In point of fact, theorycrafting only became popular in WoW after the initial release of vanilla Patchwerk because of the simplicity of the encounter. In a game like LoL, games are more like 4H than Patchwerk, so theorycrafting which champions have synergy just isn't reasonable any more. The only valid solution is what is prescribed: a massive data set on which we can extract useful information. Don't forget that statisticians have developed many tools to thoroughly understand data sets and understanding what inferences we can make on those data sets. If we find that, after some arbitrarily large number of games in our sample set, we find that Alistar & Blitzcrank have impressive synergy together with an arbitrarily high confidence, then we can conclude that there is a statistically significant correlation between Alistar & Blitzcrank and winning.

[–]mafaraxas 1 point2 points ago

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This is exactly the situation we're in that necessitates a statistical approach to a "theorycraft" approach. Well described, sir.

[–]featherfooted 0 points1 point ago

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ITT: We argue whether mathematicians, engineers, or statisticians understand the most important parts of mathematics. We have mathematicians (proponents of theorycrafting methods), engineers (proponents of distributed database methods), and statisticians (the real brains behind this operation).

Here's to us statisticians!

[–]chew_ch3w 1 point2 points ago

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Unless you have an arguable theory, statistics are nothing but numbers and percentages that people could care less about. If you put an arguement beside it, lets say, the success rate of a Shaco jungle vs. the success rate of a Lee Sin jungle, how would that pan out? You don't JUST look at the win rate. Who's gonna sit through hundreds of hours of footage to see who wins in a counter jungle? How many times can either one of them counter jungle before it's noted as un-efficient? If it's just nothing but a website of statistics then it's gonna be just like lolstatistics.com . introduce website where people can openly argue their points, make it so people can dump ideas in where statisticians, like yourself, can openly challenge the idea given.

[–]mafaraxas 0 points1 point ago

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The 'statistics' in lolstatistics.com is a misnomer. It's really just a database. The only things you could call "statistics" there is giving playrate/winrate numbers for single champions. They don't make any inferences of positive/negative correlation for winning between pairs/triples/teams of champions. This is the goal of this project, as the OP said.

I'm a mathematician myself, and theory is lovely, but any mathematician who can recognize the sheer scope of League would not try to develop an all-encompassing model. This isn't a differential equation to solve, or a function to minimize or maximize, or a linear system of equations. (well, depending on the statistical tools they use, they might end up solving a linear system, so I take that last one back)

As a side note, I don't really like associating the term 'theorycraft' with mathematics, honestly. All I've ever seen of 'theorycrafting' is basically equations along the lines of "damage=dps*time".

[–]chew_ch3w 0 points1 point ago

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lolstatistics.com does have pairs. Not teams though. You do realise that with WoW, these equations were created by regular players from data they've gathered themselves from countless hours of target dummies. And your equation makes no sense, dps means damage per second, so you've already factored in the time, so it should look more like "Damage done/time taken = DPS", respectively. You also have to realize that there are things like stats of what you are attacking, the gear you have, and flasks/food used during this time. Statisticians in WoW would be websites like worldoflogs.com, where it's all real time data submitted by top teir raid guilds from across the world. elitistjerks.com is where theorycraft comes to play and where people analyze data from their own character or from others and see what maxamizes dps and why. Whether from target dummies or countless fights through progression through raids, theorycrafters develop a system that tells you why crit is the most valuable stat for a fury warrior or why mastery is the best stat for a mutilate rogue. What to expect after diminishing return by keeping a 1.25-1.5% difference between dodge and parry for prot warriors or why stacking dodge is best for prot pally's. All have mathematics played into it. Statistics has mathematics into it, doesn't mean it's the same kind, you should know that. A mathematician that studies mainly calculas won't needed for something that is heavily involved with geometry. A mechanical engineer isn't going to use the same algorithms as a physicist. And theorycrafters won't be using the same techniques as a statistician would to reach, what could ultimately be, the same answer. Theorycrafting provides a debate, statistician provides a factual answer without much room to debate with. TOTALLY different things.

@OP Just to clarify, I'm not putting anyone down. All I'm saying is, this community could use some debate as to who could work with who/what, and a place to do so. Statisticians earn my respect in every way, it's long hours of gather information and then developing a system to analyze it. If you were to need help on your new project, just PM me.

[–]mafaraxas 0 points1 point ago

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your equation makes no sense, what? Yes it does. If you know your dps from theory/the numbers/whatever, then (damage/time) * time = damage. I don't see how that doesn't make sense.

I was really referring to League theorycrafting. I don't play WoW so I can't comment on that.

[–]chew_ch3w -1 points0 points ago

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naxx was years ago. And think about where WoW would be w/out theorycrafting. How would you know about diminishing returns, or when in WotLK stacking health was better than dodge or parry. Now there's a set amount of difference that you need between dodge and parry for mitigation purposes (talking about prot warriors). That was from theorycrafting, then stat's backed it up. Even if you were to round up stats, everything goes back to theorycrafting. Talking about Cait and Taric being a good team-up would be considered theorycrafting at its basics. It would then need to be backed with facts. There's a reason why it's called theorycrafting, a theory is nothing but a guess of a solution to the question. Pose the question, experts form a theory, statisticians rounds up facts to back up or deny the theory.

Right now if we were to go in-depth into why alistar and blitzcrank synergize so well, would be theorycrafting. Taking replays and putting data together would back up who is right or wrong. Others would argue otherwise and say they would be countered to easily, because of the fact it would take great skill and patience to take out just the 1 person that blitz decides to grab. We would then discuss the differences in thoughts between all the league-redditors as to what they would build to help a team to victory, how would they benefit from each other specifically, different engaging tactics, and is this viable at all in a ranked/high elo game?

The point of theorycrafting isn't to take out statistics completely or to say that it is right from just a few conversations. It's to give the statisticians a reason or a topic to gather statistics on. Maybe because we're taking theorycrafting of LoL to a larger scale new ideas can be brought to Riot themselves due to the realization that people aren't looking at LoL as "i'm gonna stick with my few main champs and never deter from him" type of a game, many people could decide to main a different champ, and bring teamwork and better co-op gameplay to the board. More gg's will be traded in the end because a more skill-oriented, teamplay-requiring combos were used. And all of this can be brought to the table to people that just started to the pro's that make the guides.

[–]featherfooted 0 points1 point ago

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But there is no theory here to speak of. Taric doesn't gain any well-coded buff whenever Caitlyn happens to be near him. Stats like armor, damage, and health are all mathematically verifiable. What could you possibly try to arrange as your variables when comparing champion combinations which, with all else being equal, are essentially identical blank slates?

[–]chew_ch3w 1 point2 points ago*

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Well of course Cait will get stats from Taric's aura, if that's your arguement then any team would work with a taric in it. And we all know that's just not the case. So we take a step back, and look at what Taric does specifically. What compliments Taric, or is Taric the champ that compliments others? Does Taric bring anything to the table for Cait that an Alistar can't?

Let's change the subject then, What about an arguement about the advantages or disadvantages of having an AD Sion on your team Vs. an AP Sion? The time spent into sorting the videos of Sion from the rest then categorizing them between AD/AP then win/losses is time-consuming. Unless you made a program of some sort that can do this, it will be inefficient. Here's where the theorycrafters come in or mathematician as you stated. Mathematically (or common sense) we can chop off more than half the items/champs that would work with an AD Sion, propose an item build if you were to have a, lets say, Amumu on your team, and verify that in a game, fraps it, upload it onto the forum where this is being discussed, and move the discussion in a forward position. The same for an AP Sion. You see, if this takes a long time to figure out, it's a process that can involve the large LoL community.

We have a large community, whatever cannot be figured out using statistics, use the players then. Ask them to try out Tiamat on an AD Sion with an Amumu on their team. Or what about instead of using the cookie cutter build (Infinity Edge, Phantom Dancer, etc.) we could suggest using a Warmog's, Hammer, and Impaler. What justifies what you build according to what? We'll show you. Beginning with a theory, then tests and statistics. Let the players test other's theories out. Have them meet new people. On the forum people will say, "Hmmm, who wants to try out Cait, Taric, and Alistar out right now? I'm on right now".

[–]featherfooted 0 points1 point ago

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But that, what you described right there, is not theorycrafting. That's experimental design and analysis of variance. And that, as I said before, is statistics.

[–]chew_ch3w 1 point2 points ago

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Statisticians don't experiment, they take hard data and compress it. Anyone can provide an analysis to a theory. In the end, it is a theory, and it isn't 100% true. Unless it's proven by statistics or trial by error from regular LoL players (who can of course provide stat's in their own games that they've played) it's still a theory. And a theory can be anything from "a successful jungle Shaco can win most games" to "Taric and Cait synergize better than Alistar and Cait"

[–]featherfooted 0 points1 point ago

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Not to be rude, but you're wrong. Statistics encompasses all aspects of collection, organization, calculation, and interpretation of sample data sets.

That includes designing experiments.

[–]pengu1nz[penguin] (NA) 1 point2 points ago

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kennen galio #1

[–]abomb999 1 point2 points ago

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I've been thinking about this for a while, we just need data samples. I wish riot would release MM history for us to analyze, ala Poker sites releasing hand histories so players can analyze it and make sure there's nothing funny going on.

Riot could obfuscate/censor/redact player names and all would be well.

[–]-trump 1 point2 points ago

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Can synergy really be broken down simply to a number though?

[–]thewolfman88 1 point2 points ago

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Hate to rain on your parade here but there are bigger factors then champ comp that will skew the data drastically. These wont disappear with a larger sample size either. You could manage it if you looked at the entire team otherwise it will give misrepresented data.

Say for instance you are measuring a Sion Lux compatibility. The data you are listing here wont account for the ash arrow that starts a gank or team fight.

If you wish to continue as listed you will need some fancy statistics id recommend a Pearson r correlation. You will need some stat programs for this but if you at a college campus should be easily available.

I would very much like to see this, but as described I do not think any data gathered in this method would be useful to a player.

TL;DR Probably wont work. Credentials: I do work in a Psyc research group at a University and work with stats a fair amount.

[–]Deimorz[Deimorz / Phoborz] (NA) 0 points1 point ago

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Agreed, way too many variables that affect the game's outcome to try to just use compositions and win/loss records to determine anything meaningful.

[–]tevoul[tevoul] (NA) 0 points1 point ago

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In theory if you had a large enough sample size these factors would average out. However, I doubt they would ever be able to collect that much data so your point does still stand from a practical standpoint.

[–][deleted] ago

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[deleted]

[–]Optimouse[S] 0 points1 point ago

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I realize that winning in League of Legends is a complex affaire. That's why the method I'm proposing (though I am open to suggestions) only looks at who actually wins. Like the way ELO doesn't give a shit if you won because you owned early game or crushed late game team fights, it only cares about if you won or lost. Up near the top of the thread is a long post explaining the method I'm proposing.

[–]executex 1 point2 points ago

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This is a great effort, but the problem you are going to run into is the fact that the game changes every 3 weeks.

You will gather the data and finally come up with a conclusion like "galio kennen awesome" then they get nerfed a week later and the data you gathered is useless.

Statistical analysis as a result may be too difficult, especially because you will gather data manually.

You're better off doing 1v1 tests in custom games, and figuring out what champ has more burst/sustain etc. and writing down exact numbers.

[–]Optimouse[S] 0 points1 point ago

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I've thought about this. In some ways you are probably correct, in that patch changes will invalidate conclusions drawn from this type of analysis. But I'm thinking that most nerfs/buffs are just number changes, which shouldn't significantly impact champion synergies, which at least in my mind have more to do with kit design. And kit design should also be the main point of interest in what champs "counter" what champs.

[–]executex 0 points1 point ago

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Mayhaps.

[–]nvin[nvn] (NA) 1 point2 points ago*

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In advance, I'm sorry if I say something stupid, I feel really slow today.

So, I was dusted off folders with with LoL database data and records in hopes to find something to start from. Apparently, I tried doing it before (I found SQL queries for the data). Unfortunately, I have a little idea of what I actually did or why I didn't post it. Don't judge me, I have a bad memory.

It may take me some time to run the query since it is complex and requires few hours to run (hopefully not longer). If there are any of you that are knowledgeable in SQL here is full SQL query:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS counter2a AS
    SELECT a.champ||b.champ AS id, a.champ as ChampL, b.champ as ChampW, sum(a.win) as w, sum(a.loss) as l, 1000*sum(a.win)/sum(a.loss) as r
    FROM game a, game b
    WHERE a.id=b.id
                --AND datetime(a.date) > datetime('now','-30 days')
                AND a.champ<>b.champ AND a.win<>b.win
    GROUP BY a.champ, b.champ
    ORDER BY ChampL ASC, r DESC
;

SELECT b.name AS "Enemy", c.name as "Counter", 100*w/(w+l) as "Counter Win %" 
FROM counter2a a, champ b, champ c
WHERE b.id=a.ChampL AND c.id=a.ChampW
    AND a.w>((SELECT avg(aw.l) FROM counter2a aw WHERE aw.ChampL=a.ChampL)/4)
    AND a.id IN (
        SELECT b.id
        FROM counter2a b
        WHERE a.ChampL = b.ChampL
        ORDER BY r DESC
        LIMIT 2
    )
ORDER BY ChampL
;

[–]nvin[nvn] (NA) 1 point2 points ago

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If anyone interested here is RAW data for champ combos (tab separated values) about 2.7 mill records.

http://www.2shared.com/file/Obx5Efyx/comboTest.html

[–]RentedRed 4 points5 points ago

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Id love to help as well, I know some good counters for most champs based on countering mechanics.

[–]Optimouse[S] 23 points24 points ago

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To clarify, RentedRed, this is not about theorycrafting out champ counters and synergies. This is more like empirical research. Say that we look at a thousand games in which teams have both an amumu and an akali. Do they win most? Lose most? We will count it out, and this number should say something about how these two champs synergize.

To give another example of this, think of the common combo of Taric Caitlyn. People say this is a good botlane combo. Well if that is true, then teams that pick both caitlyn and taric should win more games than teams that only pick cait or taric, and that should show up in our data.

This can also be used to see what champs your champ counters, what champs you in turn counter, and who you don't want on your team when you play that champ.

[–]JayceMJ 6 points7 points ago

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You might be able to get faster, more accurate, and more samples from the people at http://lolstatistics.com/ and http://www.lolbase.net/. I'm not sure exactly what data they're able to record and how it's stored, but it's worth a shot. You might even be able to get some statistics from Riot themselves if you ask.

I really like the idea and if none of these options are fruitful I'll certainly help out.

[–]Feenbullets 3 points4 points ago

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Also http://riotstats.com could be useful.

[–]equalx 0 points1 point ago

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LoLStatistics.com seems promising at first, but I have yet to be able to find any way to divine team comp data from lolstats. I did a project that involved parsing numbers from lolstats just this weekend, and I basically had to restrict my analysis to the perspective of a single champion in an otherwise ambiguous soup :(

On a related note, I couldn't figure out how to parse replays (no luck hacking the dll) but there are ~5gb of replays on one site, and it took me only a few minutes on a good connection to download all 1200 or so of them. This might be worth investigating, especially if you can find a way to parse them (let me know if you do) and if there are other, more popular replay sites to increase the number of potential sources.

[–]nvin[nvn] (NA) 0 points1 point ago

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I would love for the Riot to be able to share the data but despite that it is understandable that Riot will not want to share their databases due to the fact that they removed game data that is logged by LoL (primary source form statistics) on few occasions. The most resent removal of data caused for the riotstats.com to shutdown/suspend their operations. I would be curious to find out from riot what king of information/statistics they would prove of. I had riot champion development team contact me in request to run some statistics. I'll see if I can find out what is their take on this.

[–]RentedRed 5 points6 points ago

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Oh I see, so mostly data crunching based on % of win rates for specific roles and duos. Very nice, make sure you put in the enemy team as well.

[–]nvin[nvn] (NA) 0 points1 point ago

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Good news, it that the amount of data need is there! Excel probably will not the the right tool to use for the data. At minimum SQLite would be required. In fact, I have database somewhere that contains old data. Also, we can contact http://riotstats.com/ they mentioned that they are willing to share database due to the fact they they are not updating it anymore and where planning to close the website. In terms of new data http://lolstatistics.com/ looks most promising.

[–]Tuna-kid[Hakami] (NA) -1 points0 points ago

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Taric and Caitlyn being a good combo doesn't mean that Caitlyn/Taric and other characters partnered with them commonly because of their synergy don't also work well. It makes more sense to just see if Caitlyn and Taric together on a team win more than they lose.

[–]Nonethewiserer[Nonethewiser] (NA) 2 points3 points ago

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ya i agree. the first thought that comes to mind is "so what if taric and cait dominate, but the rest of the team feeds?" Then, I think, over a very large sample of games, the effectiveness/ineffectiveness WILL shine through. I think that's the key. A HUGE sample.

[–]Nonethewiserer[Nonethewiser] (NA) -2 points-1 points ago

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ya i agree. the first thought that comes to mind is "so what if taric and cait dominate, but the rest of the team feeds?" Then, I think, over a very large sample of games, the effectiveness/ineffectiveness WILL shine through. I think that's the key. A HUGE sample.

[–]Nonethewiserer[Nonethewiser] (NA) -5 points-4 points ago

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ya i agree. the first thought that comes to mind is "so what if taric and cait dominate, but the rest of the team feeds?" Then, I think, over a very large sample of games, the effectiveness/ineffectiveness WILL shine through. I think that's the key. A HUGE sample.

[–]ShadedNature[BlueSkySpy] (NA) 3 points4 points ago

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teemo is the omni-counter.

[–]Nada_EML 0 points1 point ago

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Kat's food.

[–]_Stinkypeach[stinkypeach] (NA) 1 point2 points ago

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I would help. It sounds like it would almost be a wiki, where ppl can freely update and change the info.

[–]MrYaah[MrYaah] (NA) 0 points1 point ago

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create a website to dump the data and i shall participate!

[–]MastrWalkrOfSky 0 points1 point ago

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This a good idea, but it has one main problem: Data gathering. It would be almost impossible to gather enough data to keep it up to date with the patches, unless you made it automated in some way.

This would take a lot from the community, and it would all be based on hearsay (that is, it's like Wikipedia, where anyone can contribute). If the community pulls through and does it, HELL YES LETS DO THIS. If not, then don't half ass it.

I like the idea. Good luck. I'll help any way I can. Just message me on here and I'll be willing to try to help with anything (college student w/ job lol).

[–]IAmALampShade 0 points1 point ago

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I would love this so much, I want to get into this game competitively and knowing this would help tons.

[–]Zoupah 0 points1 point ago

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Just as a thought, It would also be interesting (more for curiosity than real utility) to see after all the empirical data was collected which 5 man team won the most, and which lost the most. Basically the best vs worse possible teams, although I could see how tournament-winning teams (i.e. consistent 5-man premades) might skew the former.

[–]skoh 0 points1 point ago

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I'm not big on statistics or high-ELO playing, but I can fill a webdev spot if need be.

[–]Sir_Spaceman 0 points1 point ago

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Yes.

[–]markcf 0 points1 point ago

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If you need some web design or programming for this give me a yell, the idea interests me. (I don't check my reddit much, add me in game, boss markcf)

[–]Optimouse[S] 0 points1 point ago

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You aren't on EU East, so I can't add you. But your offer is much appriciated, and if this thing gets off the ground we definetly need your kind of services.

[–]markcf 0 points1 point ago

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Ok, got the message, I should probably notice on reddit, it just won't be super fast, my email is markfennema@gmail.com if you want to use that, I just didn't want to post it on reddit for.... obvious reasons.

[–]markcf 0 points1 point ago

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If you need some web design or programming for this give me a yell, the idea interests me. (I don't check my reddit much, add me in game, boss markcf)

[–]majorjunk0 0 points1 point ago

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Mods, please add a link to the side bar for the site/page for adding our observations. I would love to help but I can only watch 1-3 games a week so having a permanent link would be great.

[–]KarterYur 0 points1 point ago

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Alistar Blitzcrank is absolutely my favorite lane, can move people from the middle of a lane to the tower, and use knockups to keep them there.

[–]Saeito 0 points1 point ago

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Your TL;DR was TL;DR.

[–]Forbiddian 0 points1 point ago

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Talk to the people from lolstatistics about this.

[–]Ewokmywewok 0 points1 point ago

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You remind me of Charlie Epps from Numbers.

[–]biggyph00l 0 points1 point ago

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Yes yes yes!

[–]SirJando 0 points1 point ago*

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Theorycrafting should be used for known counters (eg. corki > kennen) and then replaced by the data gathered, imo. A list like this is going to be very complex due to the large number of champions in league. Synergy, the way I see it is when 2 champions have skills that work well together, for example; Vayne and Alistar, and Amumu with an AoE comp. Things like that that just work. 1v1 matchups are relatively easy to theories, for example Caitlyn > Brand > Malz and Lee sin > Akali > Renekton but hard to test due to individual skill and small elements of luck (brand ulting malz' pet and the pet despawning) and the effectiveness of other lanes (akali gets double kill at bot and comes back top and destroys lee sin).

2v2 is considerable harder, as variables such as lane dominance, ganks and synergy all promote the chances of victory in that lane. AP shaco and blitzcrank can easily destroy a caitlyn and taric lane due to chance and luck while Cait and Taric could dominate because Taric has CV and chains it with his stun. A lane can only have dominance if its safe from ganks and isnt exposed to any 3v2 or 4v2 ganks. You can then argue which lane comp at bot has better dragon control? taric and cait look really strong but so does vayne, kog and ashe with a sona, alistar or soraka. Kog can very easily beat Cait due to superior range and harass (especially at level 6), then again this can be compared back to 1v1 and skill plays a massive part in who counters who. The battle of superiorness doesnt stop in lane. Taric and Cait could have demolished a Kogmaw and Sona but that doesn't stop the kog from farming which made him carry his team to victory. A strong lane needs to have a strong transition into mid and late game. Which is why Kog and Vayne excell so well while Cait falls off. This also affects supports, sona and soraka's laning isnt as powerful as Taric's but offer more sustain come late game while cow transistions into a offtank/damage soak due to his powerful CC and synergy with flash. Ap casters also have this problem, you may be able to counter a champion, but you cannot counter a team.

Even tournament games, they are decided not by laning or killing, its about objectives. Objectives aren't just npc's but also items and enemy targets. If your team ad carry just bought an IE and the enemy carry is still on a bf sword, then its prime time to push mid for the win because not only will you counter the enemy team from being stronger, but delay the enemy carry's IE. But then again, champion synergy is only team fight and duo lane based while champion counter affects only laning. Janna may counter AoE, but to what extent? Teamfights have to be the most random element in league as anything can happen and its what makes League so exciting.

[–]Lil_green 0 points1 point ago

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Blitzstar 110% SYNERGY

[–]Cooldude32174 0 points1 point ago

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I think this would be a pretty good project, but yes, you will require a large data set. Looking through the links RiotStats seemed like the best because it actually had the team comps and wins. I would either devise something to farm that data or see if the owner will help you out.

What language do you think you guys will program it in? If you need some help programming or processing the large data let me know. I assume it will use some standard language paired with SQL or perhaps some other sufficient data structure.

[–]wildetangeant 0 points1 point ago

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Sure. Would it be possible for you to release yarr statistics after the studies are conducted?

[–]CleftVonFran[Cleft von Fran] (NA) 0 points1 point ago

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I've found that Rumble+Blitz seems to be a pretty strong combo as long as the blitz is skilled enough to successfully land his grab, because usually when this happens, the opponent usually dies before they even come back down from the knock up of blitz's punch, usually is pretty brutal

[–]Brock_Obama 0 points1 point ago

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It doesn't even have to be counters. A list of those that can win the lane against another champ would be sufficient.

[–]ImTheRage 0 points1 point ago*

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...so you want to make a survey about lets say 60 champs seperately which contains information about how to handle the 59 others. correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldnt that be around 60² *2 (because of laning with and against) = 7.200 combinations? plus every few weeks another champ, who has the time to read that :S

[–]NeverfailMode[SteeziN] (NA) 0 points1 point ago

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I watch Voyboy, SK, etc. on a daily basis. I'll start taking note of each team's composition and post every 5-10 games. Will try to notice what works and what doesn't in terms of counter/synergy, but no promises.

[–]rahuLover(EU-West) 0 points1 point ago

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If you make it fairly easy to participate, sure.

[–]myho 0 points1 point ago

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If you build it, we will come

[–]stfalx 0 points1 point ago

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yes pls

[–]cyberaltair 0 points1 point ago

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Do we really need to watch high level streams? I mean I see a lot of duo queuer's or so in normal games who tend to pick champs that have good synergy that I never picked up on. Wouldn't it be better if we simply had people submitting X + Y, X - Z and if enough people submit that suggestion it gets considered and added?

[–]frickensweet[fricke] (NA) 0 points1 point ago

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This is a great idea! However I think the data would be even more usefull if split by lanes. This way you can see who's dominating mid, what team comp is trashing bottom, and who's doing good top weather it turns out a duo is better or a single. You could even try gathering jungle stats if you were interested and if it applies to the games your watching. I was thinking avg clear time. Percent start points.

[–]Optimouse[S] 0 points1 point ago

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This becomes unfeasable for a couple of reasons. If we aquire the data from existing datasets, from LolBase or RiotStats, then there is probably no way to see who laned against who in those data sets. If we on the other hand do it with manual coding, basically streamwatchers send in teamcomps and results, this added data will make the coding procedures very complex and straining for the individual coders. And thats if we can even get enough coders and they play/see enough games to create a large enough database. Which is highly doubtful.

[–]Salacha 0 points1 point ago

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I NEED THIS NOW.

[–]tenhalt 0 points1 point ago

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This is a fucking cool idea. I'm in!

[–]Entropis 0 points1 point ago

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No one has said this so far, but, this would help new players a SHIT LOAD. Knowing strengths and weaknesses of certain champs vs others makes things infinitely easier on new people.

[–]Optimouse[S] 0 points1 point ago

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Here is a clear picture of what should be the end result. Basically, a website with a behind the scenes database, where you can sort stats either by champion or by win percentage/loss percentage. So if you click on Akali, you will see 4 categories of stats: Strong against, weak against, strong with, and weak with. Probably Akalis total win percentage plus the top champ in each category is visible right on Akalis "first page", but then you can go in depth and see win percentage vs/with each char, number of games logged vs/with each char and so on. Possibly if the site garners enough interest, each champ page can be fleshed out with theorycrafts as to WHY the stats are the way they are. Say Akali turns out to be statistically weak against Gangplank. Then there is a mini forum on each champ page where you can speculate about these things.

How does that sound, as a goal?

[–]MikeAsbestos -1 points0 points ago

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You should also classify champions by how much farm they need to be effective, how much CC they have, what type of CC, how much damage potential, etc. Then, when you have levels resembling a solid composition, people can plug in their information and get realtime results.

For example, let's say you're in draft mode, and your team has Akali, Brand, Vayne, and Nocturne. The program would recognise that you already had high damage and pushing potential, but that there is a lot of farm necessary for all of those champions to be effective, so it would produce an appropriate champion to fit the composition. It might generate Alistar and Taric, but omit Janna and Sona because they might not fit so well.

If this is completely not what you're talking about... Well let's hope someone takes the idea and runs with it! :D

[–]bl1ndside -1 points0 points ago

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I really hate how people ask first if reddit wants to see something instead of just posting the content. It's like let me get some karma before I get karma on what I should get karma on. Yes, I want to see champion-champion synergy and counters.

[–]Optimouse[S] -1 points0 points ago

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The content doesn't actually exist yet. I'm simply trying to find collaborators who can help make these ideas happen, I'm not karma-whoring for the lulz. So I guess what I'm saying is stfu.

[–]bl1ndside -1 points0 points ago

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When I see the content, I'll stfu. In the meantime, I will continue to call you a petty karma whore.

[–]nubblez(NA) -2 points-1 points ago

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There is rarely such a thing as a counter. It typically comes down to the player and strategy. Many a tournament have the pros been "countered" by each other and the underdog champ won the lane. To use myself as an example as well, I almost never lose my lane no matter who I play and I've been around 1900 Elo. The only reason I feel I'm not higher is my inability to coordinate my team to play as one. On an individual level, I feel my play is excellent and I have beaten many of the pros in lane to boot.

[–]Optimouse[S] 2 points3 points ago

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Nubblez: this is what makes it so important that we count A LOT of games. It's sort of like the ELO system: the more games you play, the more accurate your rating will be. Unless there is some underlying confounder, say as an example only superpro people ever play Yorick and only noobs play mordekaiser. Well then the data wont be accurate, no matter how many games we look at. But chances are, skill is not the only determinant of what champs you play.

Thing is, a counter or a case of good synergy might not be obvious, and only really noticable when you add it all up in a statistical survey.

[–]Bwob 2 points3 points ago

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I disagree. There are a lot of matchups where if both players are of equal skill, one has a clear advantage.

Heck, this idea is the foundation of Draft Mode, really. You see their current team makeup, and you pick champions that you think will will have the best chance against it. They may not be hard counters (i. e. if you have champ X then you automatically beat champ Y) but they are definitely counters.

[–]Cooldude32174 0 points1 point ago

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Say you could possible play a "ghost" of yourself in a lane but with 2 different champs. Who will win then? I believe this is the point of this project. To see which such "counters" could exist at an equal skill level.

[–]cdank -3 points-2 points ago

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:D