This past weekend, Cloud9’s star jungler Robert “Blaber” Huang used Nocturne two out of the three playoff games against Evil Geniuses. Although the Eternal Nightmare hasn’t seen much play over this past League of Legends season, LCS caster Joshua “Jatt” Leesman explained why he might be seeing more play time over these past couple of days.
As many League players know, when Nocturne activates his ultimate ability, Paranoia, he applies nearsight to all enemy champions for about six seconds. In this time, most players can’t see much and can only rely on either call-outs or pings to figure out where the opposition is.
But Jatt said that whenever Nocturne activates his ultimate ability on stage, the opposing team can simply look at their teammates’ screen to figure out certain information without having to ping or do any guesswork. It’s one of the reasons why Nocturne hasn’t been a big pick in the pro scene, since his biggest strength is usually taken away.
Since players are forced to stay at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, they can no longer peek at their teammates’ screens to get info, making Nocturne a better choice for the jungle once more.
Teams can take advantage of the fact that players must use pings and good communication to point out where Nocturne is and what is happening during Paranoia’s duration. But it gets more difficult to make sense of things when the rest of Nocturne’s team pushes in and engages at the same time.
Using Paranoia can cause a team to back off from an objective, or disengage all due to the fear of a Nocturne jumping into the backline to kill a squishy target or even the rest of the team jumping them from the darkness. Watch for Nocturne to make more appearances as the playoffs continue this month.
