Set 4.5, a Hardstuck's Guide Part 1
If you can't seem to climb, or even learn, you're not alone in Set 4.5. This set is obtuse and has variance jacked up to 11. While I'm no expert at this set, I've managed to stay in NA GM, and I have a few things that seem to work consistently.
Starting Items:
Bow is the best opener, it's not even close, but you shouldn't start it every game. Bow is so contested that you can expect all 7 other players in the lobby to all go for a single bow, this is a frequent occurrence especially once you get higher up the ladder. First Carousel is mostly RNG once you're competing for an item. Even if you are clicking faster, or even substantially faster than your opponents, clicking to move at the exact right moment is an ever-shifting 1 frame input influenced by unit collision and your ping. I like to solve this problem with basic math, am I willing to go for 50% or 33% of a bow, or is 100% odds of Rod/Chain/Sword better? If you lose Carousel, you are likely going to get stuck with Tear/Belt/Cloak, which has the potential to really hurt your equity in the game, meaning your average placement in the game will likely be lower. If there's minimal contest, or only one other player going for bow, go for bow. 2 is sketchy but up to how you're feeling, and 3 other players means avoid. There's numerous things that go into playing opening Carousel, but that's a subject for another article. My item priority would be.
Bow >>> Sword > Rod/Chain > Glove > Cloak > Belt > Tear
The basic methodology for what to start and why is a combination of how good the item is in multiples, or how important an item that you get to build from that component is. Bow is highest priority because of RFC, which often can go together with Runaan's Hurricane, meaning you'll want a whopping 3 Bows for a unit like Olaf.
Reroll Comps:
The first real decision you'll have in a given game is whether to play a reroll comp or not. Reroll comps are popular, meaning that each player playing for reroll in a given game will help each other hit desired units. 9-18 one cost units missing from the pool is a huge help in hitting the 1 cost you're looking for. Multiply this by 3 or 4 depending on the lobby's population of reroll players, and you get anywhere between 27 - 72 units missing from the pool, the equivalent of 3 entire 1 cost champions getting deleted from the game.
Where am I getting 18 units from? It should be your goal when playing a reroll comp to both 3 star your chosen unit, Nidalee, Yasuo, Nasus, and also 3 star some filler unit, like Garen, Fiora, or Wukong. While spending gold to reroll, it often only takes a bit more mental effort to pay attention to another unit, and nothing more.
Reroll Position:
In order to play a reroll comp you need to be in reroll position. This means that at the start of the game, you're only looking to keep units that directly support the comp, and otherwise you make maximum interest gold each round. If I am playing Nidalee, I will only keep Nidalee, other Warlords and Sharpshooters, but if I can make 20 Gold vs. 19 by selling a Garen, I will.
DO NOT LEVEL. Once in a while, you will have already leveled early, and you hit a Chosen Nidalee while you already have a Nidalee 2 in play. In this instance, it's a good idea to transition toward Nidalee reroll, meaning selling other units to make interest thresholds, and keeping all Nidalees/supporting units.
At 3-1, you have your only major decision point in a reroll comp, whether to "hyper roll", meaning you roll until you hit your 3 star Chosen, or "slow roll" meaning you only roll until you hit 50 gold to maintain maximum interest income. The typical bar is 6 of the unit, meaning that if you have 6 or more Nidalees, you hyper roll, 5, you slow roll, 3/4 at 3-1 you shouldn't play it and you abandon rerolling to go fast 8/9 instead. Nidalee in patch 11.3 is a special case, and I would still try to reroll for Nidalee at 3/4 Nidalees if I was uncontested with no more than 1 Nidalee user in the lobby. Nidalee 3 is better than most 3 star 4 costs, the unit is legitimately broken.
My tier list for 1 cost chosens:
SS: Nidalee (Either)
Nidalee Best in Slot: Spear of Shojin, JG, Flex item such as QSS, Gunblade, IE, Second SoJ/JG
S: Nasus (Syphoner)
S- Nasus (Divine)
Nasus Best in Slot: Titan's, JG, Flex item such as Second Titans'/JG, IE, Bramble, DClaw, GA
Nidalee is more broken than Nasus, but Nasus is also insanely broken. It's not uncommon for Chosen Syphoner Nasus to winstreak through stage 2 without leveling or sometimes even making any items at all.
A: Yasuo, Wukong
Yasuo Best in Slot: IE, Titan's, Flex item like Hurricane, Last Whisper, Deathblade, Second Titan's. QSS is essential in some lobbies, worthless in others. Adept is the main reason to want QSS because it drastically slows how fast Duelist can ramp up.
Wukong Best in Slot: Hurricane, Deathblade, RFC. BT is also good, multiple Hurricanes is good, HoJ is good. QSS is not good, neither is GA.
Strong, but reliant on hitting specific items/specific other units and you also don't have the luxury to spend too much gold looking for them, because you need to hit level 8 for Yone/Lee Sin/Ornn
B: Fiora
Fiora Best in Slot: ??? The strength of Fiora as a reroll is that she works surprisingly well with random items. I've seen Shojin's, Gunblade, Sunfirecape, JG, and numerous other items used.
Still better off not playing this as a reroll comp. Fiora is bugged and frequently casts at improper timings (such as without enough mana to cast, it's bizarre, or gaining mana while not taking damage with Riposte). This unit is incredibly strong in either iteration, but you'll need a trait bot for Duelist/Enlightened respectively, she sucks without both.
F: Brand/Tristana
Neither of these units are playable as a reroll comp, but I see my opponents try often. You need to hit the respective units without rolling at all, and you also need perfect items. If you find yourself in such a situation, by all means play them, but know that you only will be in a situation to play them by playing the game incorrectly.
Trista Best in slot: Rageblade/QSS/Hurricane
Brand Best in slot: Luden's/Blue/QSS
Not Rerolling:
If you don't plan to play a reroll comp, you should plan to level after 2nd Carousel, and again either at 3-1 (if on 3/4/5 Winstreak) or 3-2 (if not). If you're trying to lose with Fortune and don't have a solid loss streak established or a high gold opener, do not level in stage 3 because you'll be too broke. 95% of games should involve leveling at 3-1/3-2. If you don't think you can figure out when to level, just level at 3-2, it's a safe default that can't go that wrong.
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