Another computer upgrade?

In the house, most of our "gaming consoles" are in the same place. Both PC's are next to each other, behind us is the TV with the PS3 and Wii connected. It is a very simple layout, with no fancy contraptions besides the HD PVR leading from the PS3 to my tower. This setup actually lasted for quite a while; until recently that is. You see, Chelsea (my SO) recently discovered the magic and challenge of creating perfect towns in Animal Crossing: City Folk. I, have recently started Disgaea 4. Between Item Worlds, MOAR Story, fruit picking, and tree chopping, it is easy to see that sharing the television has become more and more difficult.

Getting a 2nd television was out of the question. So what else can you do in 2012? Play console games on your computer monitor!

The first step is deciding which monitor to get. Since I watch a lot of MLG and "pro gaming", those programs often advertise the monitors of which they are sponsored. After asking a few of my real and internet "pro gaming" buddies, I settled on the ASUS VH236 LCD Monitor. Ebay had a few good deals on used ASUS monitors (probably won by gamers or cast aside because of bigger purchases) and I decided to go that route. Yugioh (and the other random items I have sold) essentially paid for this monitor.

Of course, I didn't really think about the size of the screen whatsoever.... My original eMachines (BestBuy Quality) monitor was 17 inches. Chelsea's Touchsmart is 20 inches. I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by this:

Which then became this:

You can barely make out the dinky eMachines monitor on the far right. I'm not sure how I forgot to check the size of the monitor before I bought it. The 23" screen is a pretty noticeable improvement over my 17". In comparison to the 20" Touchsmart, you can really see the 1080p/16:9 difference. that isn't to say the the Touchsmart has a bad screen, because it definitely does not. The Asus monitor just has a more accurately native resolution (if such a thing is possible).

In any case, for a used monitor, this thing  runs very well. I doubt I will notice a difference in latency with games like Disgaea 4, but I can say that the refresh rate(?) has really improved the "blur" that occurs during fast movement.  The PS3 is plugged in via HDMI, the desktop is in DVI, and switching between the two is only a matter of pressing a button on the monitor. For recording video, I will still need to play on the television because of the Hauppauge HD PVR's component av requirements. Obviously, the PS3 can switch on the XMB, so long as I am not already playing a game (PS3 limitations).

I'm pretty sure that, in the last time I posted about upgrading my PC, I said I would upgrade the cooling fan, processor and RAM. While it is true that my system is running in the "red zone" according to Speccy and GameBooster, I have managed to play this way for a while. Priority for the next systems upgrade should go towards the HP Touchsmart. While an excellent desktop pc, which plays most online games very well, it struggles on the majority of boxed, highly intensive retail games (such as FFXIV and Tera). The system isn't really old, it just isn't meeting our expectations as games become bigger and better. With luck, I can get a premade gaming rig, which often tends to cost less than building your own (unless you get some Black Friday deals). HOPEFULLY the next time I talk about computer upgrades, it won't be for myself.

FML part II the F'iest

Believe it or not, I am still playing League of Legends. Why? Is it really that fun? Well, take a look at these and maybe you can decide if League seems like fun:

I have 2 account in League of Legends right now. My level 30 account "Ealdnarche" is in the 550 win range. I don't play ranked games, so these are all classic normal matches. Eald has lots of fun champs, skins, runes, rune pages, and even reserve IP for impulse purchases. Though I have no immediate plans for ranked play, I enjoy being able to play against 800-1500win players in normal matches. Most people take those matches seriously, so your only losses are due to misplays and connection issues. Then we have "Basaimah." Basaimah is currently level 23, which is subpar for the amount of time I have been grinding matches. For those who do not know, League of legends has "runes" that you buy outside of matches. You equip up to 30 runes on 1 page before a match; during the match you will have the increased stats that you have equipped. However, LoL has 3 tiers of runes. They are based on level, and the highest tier is only available at level 20, and provides too much advantage to make lower tier runes viable. This means that most knowledgeable players will NOT buy runes until level 20. The extremely knowledgeable players may even save ALL of their IP to go toward level 20 runes. It cost me 15,000+ IP to pay for 2 pages worth of runes. I accumulated around 19,000 IP from the grind to level 2...And what a grind it was. Even with ~4000 bonus IP, I only bought 3 champions: Annie (for stale AP mid weeks), Janna (for stale support weeks), and Evelyn (as a personal challenge for myself). That entire grind to 20(and beyond!) was with free week champs; after using the same champs for nearly 1000 games, FUN Champs, I am restricted to the lamest abd ugliest champions Riot wants to offer during free week. Then you have mirror matches, which is just as bad. In fact, I won't even play free week champions (like Irelia) knowing that the chance to play in a mirror is too high. So you are basically playing champs you may not necessarily like, with no form of runes to support certain champions. You may think this limits the game to a test of skill. However, when you are among the skill-less, you may not have the ability to carry the worst players in the game. This is where those above pictures become relevant. You can definitely play super-carries in every game: AP Tristana, Olaf, etc, but you also have to take into account your opponents. You could very well be the team that has no competency compared to a team with average players. Your super carry then has to fight every fed champion on the other team. Super carries win because their items far succeed anything else the other team can afford. If you don't roam 24/7 or push your lane to the inhibitor, then your allies will feed the other team items to match you.

Even against bots, I would lose matches all the way up to level 10! Bots are only tough because they can push towers and do skills when most players wouldn't (such as Soraka Bot and starfall). But it is sooooooo easy to not die to bots. It's even easy to not die to low level human players. One can almost say that an afk player is better than one that feeds, but that is wholly dependent on the enemy team. Basaimah is fun to play now, but my goodness was it hair-pulling for 80% of my playtime. I am also a player that tends to lock in last. I usually fill whatever gap in roles I see: support, ad carry, mid, top, jungle, etc. Yes I know that roles are not always important in low level gameplay; but I like to believe that every role can "carry" in its own way. Champs like Sona and Lulu can turn the worst AD carry into a sub-par one. Maoki and Sejuani can force your team to fight when you know it will be advantageous. Of course, this only works if your team actually follows your directions. Be it language barriers or IQ barriers, some people just don't want to win....There is no other way to explain it.

There is one thing to not know how to play a MoBA; it's another thing to be unfamiliar with PVP PC games; it's ANOTHER thing to just play to lose. I'd rather hear that the player is botting the game with a computer program. It got bad enough that you really hope that no human is behind the monitor..as the decisions they make cannot possibly have been "good" in anyone's mind.

As I am typing this, Basaimah is almost level 24, and will probably level up tonight. Much of the victory issues have subsided, and super carrying is still (perhaps even more) possible. Of course, I'm not smart or talented enough to first pick champs in solo queue; I still try to fill missing roles. The whole point of leveling up Basaimah was to learn new champions without fear of losing. "Learning" a few like Karthus and Xerath went terribly. I've had my fair share of games where I fed or just could not contribute. Heck, I even played Urgot once and didn't know how to use his Lock-on. That's pretty bad. But hey, getting carried is pretty fun too. It's not like I fail so badly that the game is unplayable.

Basaimah is up to 8000+IP, and can buy any champ in the game. Diana and Zyra both look promising. I will try my best to not buy anything...

LoL just got...hard?

So remember when I said that League of Legends was easy? That people who end a match with x/x+10/x records and even those with x/x/x-5(that's equal kills and deaths) are playing the game wrong? That laning is simple and you only really die if you allow yourself to die? Well, I have finally found something that makes the game a fair bit more difficult.

DISCLAIMER: I (still) do not play Ranked Matches and have less than 700 games under my belt.

Sejuani is my first jungle champ. I already have a laning tank that I like and we usually get enough free tanky DPS champs to play with from Riot. Additionally, I have a solo top bruiser in Nidalee. This leaves Sejuani as my dedicated jungler; filling the tank, jungle, CC, and even AP roles if necessary. She is not the most powerful jungler in LoL, but she has some excellent tools that works in many situations.

Q) Her Assault can jump over walls, which makes it a great escape and surprise skill. You can "draw a line" across the enemy's escape path, or just use it to close the gap after they Flash.
W) Northern Winds piles on the damage over time while the enemy tries to escape. Also great for killing monsters, probably the only reason why she can jungle.
E) Permafrost alone can turn a failed gank into a successful gank. The best use is right after the enemy flashes or escapes from the laner's CC. Not only do they waste whatever resources to escape your gank, you get to save your flash because Permafrost allows you to catch up. It is also takes a nice chunk of hp from the enemy, every little bit helps. You can also Permafrost after Glacial Prison, for 1-2seconds of stun and 2-3 seconds of slow.
R) Glacial Prison is USUALLY a successful gank. Combined with Permafrost, you have almost 5 seconds of free hits, barring a Flash. As a new player, I have trouble giving the blue buff away early in the game, as each recast of Glacial Prison is often a fresh kill.

Permafrost AFTER they flash = dead character

Even with awesome skills, jungling is not as easy as you'd think. Not every champ is easily gankable, many have built-in escapes, some can lay traps, and just about everyone uses Flash. Sejuani also doesn't have a lot of "burst damage", and most of her damage is done over time. Teammates who aren't in a good position to secure the kill often make ganks unsuccessful. Perhaps the scariest I have had to deal with, as a new jungler, is counter jungling. Between level 1-3, Sejuani can actually kill a LOT of champions, minus Udyr, Lee Sin, and Xin Zhao in a 1v1. Anyone without self sustaining skills or powerful melee hits are killable if you aren't caught with low hp. If you are, there are enough walls in the jungle to jump over and ask for reinforcements.

Only possible with Kennen's help

The concept of counter jungling sounds simple, but it can be difficult and risky. A (common) good example is if the enemy jungler is ganking bottom lane without his blue buff up. Around 6:30-7:30, both blue golems will be respawning. Sejuani can kill a blue golem relatively quickly, so if you know where the jungler is, then you are free to take any monsters you can. Of course, they will be doing the same, so I have found it to be very important to tell your teammates to check on a buff while you steal an opponent's. Some of the best counter junglers actually buy wards and place them in the enemy jungle. That way, you can keep track of his movements and possibly even attack them. Professional players keep track of the gold count that the enemy jungler has amassed from killing monsters and ganking players. It is a good way to visualize the progress you are making on your jungle champ, hopefully it exceeds the enemy jungler's performance.

Jungling is still pretty dependent on your teammates' skills. If an enemy lane is becoming too strong, your chances of killing them in a gank decreases. If your team keeps the enemy under their turret, you won't be able to attack them without diving the tower. If your teammate's hp is too low, forcing a gank may get them killed. From what I understand, any time you can not get kills, you should be fighting jungle monsters. Otherwise, every second you waste waiting for the chance to jump out of the bush could have been free, uncontested gold and exp in your jungle.

Annie close to her turret? Check.
Stun on her next spell? Check.
Me at 50% hp? Check.
Brand too far to do skills? Check.
Gank successful? No.

My jungle Sej game is still in the works and my win rate is probably around 50%(just like my overall win rate). I know I'm not terrible at the game, but I do wish I could carry any team. Powerful junglers often win the game alone just like any Ezreal, Miss Fortune, Irelia or Annie. Here's hoping that I can learn to play Sej well enough to carry any baddie.

Defossilizing My PC

So, my PC sucked for gaming. I bought it back in 2007 from Best Buy, paying the extra $40 for a memory upgrade(2gb woot), and a bigger LCD monitor(17 inches woot). Back then, all I played was Final Fantasy XI and Ragnarok Online; any crappy PC could run these low-tech games. It wasn't until I tried to install FFXIV upon release that I realized:
"Hey, I don't think my computer can handle these new games."
I have grown accustomed to playing PC games on the lowest settings. I really do not mind the jaggies and blurred textures on my screen. Dragon Nest and Vindictus really told me that I had some work to do. Even on the lowest settings; even with in-game modifications removing lag-inducing visuals, I still couldn't run the games any higher than 13FPS. For the longest time, I thought that FPS only affected visuals. Thanks to League of Legends and dozens of missed kills with Leblanc, I discorved that my severely low FPS also gave me input lag in games. In Dragon Nest, I couldn't time my dodges to avoid huge attacks and fire effects would absolutely kill my computer. In FFXI, scrolling through menus took milliseconds longer than other players, so my White Mage felt slow.

What was I working with? According to Speccy:
Vista 32 bit
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200+
2.0GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @301MHz
Gateway MCP61SM2MA (socket AM2)
128MB GeForce 6100 nForce 205

That is
- 2 1GB sticks of RAM, well below today's standards.
- An AMD dual-core processor that is from 2006.
- Integrated graphics with only 128MB of virtual memory? I don't even think games go that low anymore.
- A stock power supply with 300 maximum Watts.
- A stock cooling fan that has my CPU at 67ºC with League of Legends running on max settings.

As you can see, there was a lot of work to do. With the holidays behind us, I was about to make a few upgrades to improve my gameplay. Money was a little tight, and I didn't need anything extravagant. I am used to playing on minimal settings, and I often still do, even with my upgrades:

What a mess. The stock case had random metal tabs everywhere that required pliers to move. I'd imagine they are there to keep the factory pieces in line and keep out larger, better hardware. A little bit of hammering was done to break some pins from the case. I also had to move my HDD to the secondary slot in order to fit in that ultra-long graphics card. I was afraid that I would need to drill holes for my PSU, but ATX models all have the same screw layout. With these 2 items alone, I have double the Watt capacity and a three generation jump in graphics processing. As I said before, I don't care to run things at their highest settings; I just want an FPS increase.

 

Before

After

However, it does look dang nice on those high settings. Who knew there were flowers on the Spring map!?

Dragon Nest is just as good, though I will only play that game on low settings with lag-reducing mods. Since I am a tanking Paladin, being able to block on command has improved my survivability tenfold. The new nests, Manticore and Apocalypse, can't kill me now that I can actually respond to their attacks! It was a $230( I could have spent less than this) investment, but it is already proving to be well worth it. The real proof will come from FFXIV v2.0 and Tera. If I can run those reliably, I will be one happy man.

For the rest of the upgrades to my PC, I will probably go in this order:
1) Cooling Unit
2) Tower Case
3) x2 2GB RAM (of 4GB depending on the deals I find)
4) CPU+Motherboard
5) HDD (My PS3 has a larger hard drive than my PC)

The Solo Queue Mentality

Hi everyone and welcome to the first post of the New Year. I hope you all had an enjoyable set of holidays; filled with all the things you enjoy doing while on vacation. For me (and for this blog), that is gaming. Sadly, I have to say that the majority of my game-time is given to League of Legends. This is sad because I have so many other things on the shelf to play, and the "beast" of LoL is becoming more and more apparent. This may be because I only play 5v5 Normal Pick - Solo Queue matches. You would imagine that Ranked matches would have more serious players, but in the lower ranks, it isn't too different from Solo Queue. The way I play Solo Queue is pretty simple with my roster of champs:
1) Don't die.
2) Be confident in your own abilities, not in other's.
3) Force interactions between the team that you feel are advantageous.

Looking from the outside in, anyone would say that ALL players should be thinking this way. The hair-pulling part about it is that they don't, and this is why Solo Queue Mentality exists.

When I say Solo Queue Mentality, I don't mean being a lone ranger. 80% of the people who play in Solo Queue, play the same way. As if, upon selecting a Solo Queue match, they decided to throw away their brains and play the Solo Queue way! Before becoming level 30 in LoL, I had a decent win::loss ratio. I seem to be lacking pictures, so let's just say it was something like 160::130, 1 loss for every 2 wins. It isn't the best ratio in the world, but I felt like I was finally getting good at the game. In a lot of ways, its true, I know more about builds and I make better decisions than I would in the past. Today, my record is:

That is a 1::1 win::loss ratio. Every time I win, I lose, and that is not fun at all. Yes some of it is my fault for various reasons:
1) Not being able to super-carry the team when I'm playing a top-tier character.
2) Crashing upon loading and missing the first 5-8 minutes of the game.
3) All of my losses before level 20.
4) Having a bad computer.
5) Etc.
But I will say that a huge percentage of my losses are from bad players. Not every bad player suffers from Solo Queue Mentality, but many of them do, and it causes you to lose that much faster. There are maaaaaany things that people do in Solo Queue that they really, really, REALLY shouldn't, but we can list the worst things that make up Solo Queue Mentality:

The Chase
Chasing players with no instant kill and/or escape is terrible. Chasing characters into the jungle is almost always bad. Even if it is not a trap, you are spending time running around for nothing when you could have spent that 20 seconds killing minions for gold. Whoever you are chasing probably needed a recall to their base, regardless of you chasing them. This means THEY are wasting YOUR time. Even worse is if they are kiting you. Kiting anything in any game is when you purposely allow something to chase you, usually in an attempt to kill them. Getting kited in LoL can be even worse because of Ultimates and CC. If you don't get kited into an ambush, you may be kited while someone's R-button attack cools down. Any example would be chasing a Leblanc with a melee character with no escape or natural movement advantage like Garen. Depending on Leb's hp, she can kite Garen for as long as she wants. Her low cooldown on the ultimate can mean instant death to any bad player. Since Garen has relatively high HP (which makes it seem safe to chase with), you can still eat an Ethereal Chain->Mimic that sticks you in one spot, awaiting enemy ambush. Some characters can chase, even ones like Wukong and Vayne. If they get caught, they will probably die, but they have tools to escape an ambush. Players with solo queue mentality don't care about being kited. If they think they can get the kill, they will chase the enemy. Even if they can't kill them, they will chase just to show dominance. Scare the other champ off their turret, push a ganker back into the jungle, etc. People who chase usually end up with x-5/x/x-5 records, with half the amount of kills and assists than deaths because they are never in the team fight.

The One-for-one
Solo Queue Mentality cause people to want as many kills as possible, no matter the cost. Every kill you get is a "+1" in your(and your team's) advantage. Every death you get is a "-1", giving your opponents gold for killing you. In League of Legends, gold dictates how powerful your character will be in the middle and end of the game. Because of this, SQer's will want as many kills as possible; to make their character better, sooner. The best exchange would obviously be a free kill with no deaths. In many situations, if you are going to die, you may as well take down another character with you. At least, this way, the gold exchange is even. The problem is when you go in for a kill, with no plan to escape. Unlike chasing, you're pretty confident you can kill at least 1 guy on their team, and that is all you need. It may be 300gold you needed for a specific item, or that character may have a winning streak that you wanted to end, SQer's have to get that kill. What they don't know is that because you died, you and your opponent were both awarded money. If the bottom lane is 3/3 between all 4 characters and the top lane is less than that, then those top lane characters will be at a small disadvantage to the 3/3. It doesn't usually happen, but if one of those 3/3's helps the top push, they will probably succeed. With a possible 1200gold advantage, their main competition is whoever else is +1200g. This happens to me all the time: one of my teammates will be so aggressive that they one-for-one all game. The worst is when they complain to you about not helping. Most of the time, a battle between 2 evenly matched champions is down to the initiate. Example: if a TF face-checks a bush with a Garen in it, the Garen has an advantage in damage because of how he initiates the fight. However, if the Garen simply ran(or spun) toward TF, TF is now at an advantage. If the fight is 2v2, Garen could PROBABLY kill a character, and may die in the process because the fight was on equal footing. Seven times out of ten, Garen will blame you for his death. Which leads us to the next point:

Knowing when to attack
If I didn't help Garen in a 2v2 fight, it is usually for one reason:
The initiate provided us with no advatage.
Against ranged characters, Garen's initiate has probably cause him to take hits. If the enemies used no skills on Garen, then I will walk into those skills. Since Garen has no stun or root, ranged characters can kite him. Once you run in to help, they can run backwards, tagging you if you are close enough and staying away from Garen. The end result, without the use of summoner spells, is probably a skirmish with no deaths. If you decide not to assist your teammate, they should notice and pull out of the fight. Of course, SQer's don't know when to pull out of a fight as well as start one. The risk of fighting an even(though increasingly uphill) match is often too great, and your only hope is that your teammate never does that again. In the "new jungle" small monsters give less gold than ever before. This means that unsuccessful ganks drags the jungle champ behind. In SQ, the more ganks the jungler misses, the more reckless he may become. You may see Lee Sin at level 6 trying to jump on a level 8+ Malzahar, or a level 7 Warwick use his ultimate when the enemy has a Volibear in lane. They are attacking at terrible moments because they don't know what else to do. Team fights are no better, as SQer's love to fight with less characters. If you are the odd man out of the fight, you will be the one to blame for the lost battle. In some ways, you should be, as any team fight needs all the players. What sucks is that if the team is missing a key player, such as a tank or the carry, then they have no business starting team fights. If the fight is 4v5 with no escape, the best they can do is hope to one-for-one their team, leaving you and the only survivor left on the map.

Poor team composition
Most teams are the same: Ability Power champs, AD champs, a Tank or Support, and possibly a jungler. You mix it up because if your team is focused on 1 damage type, then your opponents can build defensive items to counter your entire team. Many SQer's don't care what the team composition is, if they have a champ they want to play, then you can't stop them. This is especially true when a new champ is released. You can usually expect every team to have that champ and take up an AP or AD slot. The day Ahri was released was terrible, as you can expect an AP on every team. Some games will have you with no big damage dealers on your team, some games will consist of an all-squishy champ team, all of which are difficult to win against typical builds. This can extend to bad character builds too. As much fun as playing with unconventional builds may be, it may cause your team to lose. The most recent game I had was with a jungle Janna. In my head, I imagined it to be similar to Maoki. You can build great support items on your support character, then jump into lanes, turning it from a 3v2 into a 3.5v2. Instead, this Janna only wanted to play as a ganker, building attack damage and banking on Janna's slow spell to ensure kills. Obviously, their team lost.

As much fun as LoL can be, there are equal moments of not-fun. Why I continue to play is because I love the way that -I- play the game. One day, I may be able to carry my team, regardless of how bad they may be. Until then, I will continue to blame others for my losses!

Rage inducing review? SWTOR Edition

Recently, Gamepro has released their review on the much anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG. Many of us haven't played the beta for this game and videos of actual combat have been few and far between. Luckily, professional journalists have done us a service by talking about this game and telling us how they feel about it. Before I give my reaction to their review, you should probably see the video for yourself.



So let's make a few bullets to highlight important pieces of information from this video:

• Many of the reviewers only played a few hours of the game itself before putting it down.
• Character Customization was felt to be lacking exotic alien races.
• Subscription fees are about 15 dollars per month.
• Cutscenes are not skippable(for now)

A good portion of Internet was not impressed by this review. Bioware, Star Wars, and KOTOR fans alike shared an equal amount of hatred toward this video. Many posters on the messages boards go so far as calling the reviewers "casuals" for not burning the knowledge of the Star Wars: The Old Republic universe into their brains. Despite being new players to an mmo, disconnecting from the story and character background is a sign of being a casual player. Highlights of the internet include:

• They didn't like it because it wasn't World of Warcraft.
• They weren't paid enough by Bioware to give SWTOR a good review.
• Calling the Republic "the Blue side" makes you an idiot and your opinions are furthermore null and void.
• Reviewing 5 hours of an MMO is like watching 10 minutes of the movie [i]Titantic[/i], leaving the theater, and writing a review based solely on that.
• This review was a PR stunt to get more traffic to the Gamepro website.

Now, I have no interest in deciding what is true and what isn't true. I am not a Lucas Arts enthusiast(a lot of their product is pretty entertaining), nor am I an advent Bioware/EA fan. My opinion on the game is based solely on the videos I see on the internet and the impressions a few of my friends give. I suppose that, given the choice between playing monthly for new content in SWTOR, I would rather have the same environments and classes in 8+ player online in a new Star Wars Battlefront game. Watching combat videos in SWTOR are generally the same. Laser blasters shooting at enemies, lightsabers, shields and your occasional bomb or flamethrower. Every MMO has repetitive combat based on the character you chose, but most gameplay videos for SWTOR open combat the exact same way every time.
Lead into combat with your laser gun. If your damage is based on shooting, stay back and continue firing.
Once you have aggroed the room, equip your lightsaber or applicable short range gun, and kill everything. Activate shields whenever necessary.
Not every MMO needs flashy animations and loads of skills to spam in every fight, but something just doesn't look fun about activating a shield, then holding the flamethrower button as a robot tries to melee you down. Dungeon progression seems like fun, with turrets that attack you and robots that jump around. Mobile characters like jedi and sith make these moments seem a bit more interesting. Standing characters like Troopers, Powertech and others are probably what shy people away from the game. Videos for gun-based classes are often very boring and it is understandable that some players will not like it. Besides, what's the point of an MMO of 80% of the playerbase is the same class?

SWTOR doesn't look like an MMO for everyone, and it shouldn't be. It should also be said that those who don't like SWTOR shouldn't be ridiculed by the elites who think everyone who doesn't like their game is a WoW/CoD conformist. I know I won't be playing this game, that shouldn't change your opinion about me as a gamer.

LoL just got a bit more interesting

Believe it or not, I haven't played League of Legends in months. Shortly after Domination was released in September, I went on a bit of a hiatus from the game. In the time that I was away, more champs were released (Xerath, Graves, Shyvana, and Volibear today) a few champs have received some much needed changes, and even masteries and summoner spells have been reworked. In the beginning, I wasn't too impressed, as my main champions suffered a bit of power creep after the patches. Just before losing interest again, I discovered that I do not have to play my champs the same old way that I used to. My favorite new build is definitely Tanky DPS Nidalee.

Nidalee has gone through a lot of changes over the past few months:
1) They reduced the mana cost of Javelin toss and the cooldown to try to encourage using it at lower levels.
2) Healing effects were nerfed across the board, so Nidalee not only had her AP/amount healed ratio reduced, but her mana cost was across increased.
3) Nidalee's 10% dodge in Cougar form was changed to an armor and magic resist buff, maxing at +20/+20.
4) Nidalee's pounce in Cougar form is now has a higher cooldown(4 seconds). This cooldown can be reduced with items and buffs.
5) Nidalee's Swipe in cougar form has a higher AP damage ratio.

Nidalee on her own has very average stats. Nothing amazing, and probably just short of "lackluster" when you compare her to other champs that can do the same thing. In the same vein, Nidalee has an advantage in that her average stats can be pushed into just about any direction you want them to go. In the past for me, this would be an AP/Apsd/AD hybrid, using Guinsoo's Rageblade and Trinity for strong spear throws, heals, and a decent auto-attack. The build isn't bad, but the new tanky DPS build is a bit more consistent in the few days I have been using it.
Disclaimer: This is for solo queue only. I do not participate in Ranked matches.

1) Now matter how good you are at skill shots, Javelin Toss is not a DPS skill. If your opponent allows you to kill them solely on spears, then your AP build didn't give you the win, the bad player did. Javelin Toss excels in taking out foes that think they are safe. If you miss your Toss, then your intentions will be revealed and you will probably miss your next ones. Depending on your gear, it is 5-6 seconds in between each Javelin Toss, so even in an AP build, this can't be the primary source of damage.
2) Full AP builds are very squishy and a 300 Heal on a 2500 HP Nidalee is only 1/8 of her maximum health. Sustaining characters is great with the heal, but won't fill that full support role. Without AP items, Primal Surge gives you plenty of sustain in lane to keep farming. The heal may max out at 190, but Nidalee is already great at avoiding death.

You don't always have to dominate the lane. You need only out farm and outsustain your opponent until it is time to kill them.

In solo lane, this is becoming more and more apparent to me as most players don't care about the long haul. Taking on the new build allows me to ignore most of the harass from other players in my lane, while harassing them back AND killing minions for gold. At level 6, nothing short of point-and-click stuns really kills me; Nidalee has great escape options to prolong her life. The new build supplements that with HP, Defense, and Attack items. Unlike the AP build, even if you can't escape from an attack, you have enough HP and defense to shrug off the damage and continue what you were doing. This turns Nidalee into a great solo champ. I typically start with boots and health potions, but if the opponent is a very strong harasser, then cloth armor and potions may be smarter. After that, I rush for a Wriggle's Lantern, which gives Nidalee armor, Attack, and a Sight ward that will show enemies that are trying to sneak up on you. Solo Queue is often a mess of killing and dying, where your teammate may have a 10/13 kill/death before you even reach your 4th kill. Even though people are dying left and right, the gold exchange is probably even, and it only tips when people get kills and DON'T die. Tanky DPS Nidalee is great at not dying, so even with a lower kill count, her gold count may still be in the top ranks.

Of course, without AP items, how is it possible to kill anyone? From what I have seen in Solo Queue, bursting down the enemy is everyone's goal. In solo lane, Tanky DPS Nidalee can't really burst anyone down. Instead, she can whittle down HP at no cost until she is ready to perform Takedown. Takedown is just about her only skill with a great AD ratio, so all of that attack finally gets some use. In the solo lane, you can keep the opponent's health low enough until you can dive in and Takedown for the kill. Most people won't expect you to dive them because Nidalee is known for being an easy kill when she is in range. Thanks to the HP and Def items, most champs that you would want to dive, can't kill you instantly. For the times that you overestimate your opponent's HP, you can usually jump out, change back to human form, heal, then autoattack at a range. I do have trouble bursting down a good number of naturally tanky champions, so I tend to ignore them and continue farming gold, rather than showing them my damage output. The squishier characters are easier to scare off. In most cases a Pounce, Swipe and Takedown will drop them to half health. The lower they were initially, the more damage Takedown will do. Sometimes it is better to poke at them until you feel confident enough to go for the kill.

All of this works wonders in 1-6 man fights, but the giant teamfight is a different beast altogether. Solo Queue teamfights are usually an ugly block of red and green colors. Two characters will usually jump on what another. As each players health drops, more melee characters leap into the ring. As Nidalee, pounce would do the same thing, tossing you right into the center of AoE destruction and pain. If i'm lucky enough to see Ranged characters or support characters outside of the jumble of champion body parts, I immediately rush for them. The champs that the rest of my team are focusing on can be their target, while I get the attention of those attacking my group. Even solo queue players will direct their attention off the teamfight target and onto me when I begin pressuring them. If I get a bit too much attention, I'll pounce away and/or flash, soaking up hits with my HP and Defense items. As soon as I see low HP characters trying to escape the fight, they too become a target for Takedown or Javelin Toss.

I usually build the same things every match, getting boots first or cloth armor first depending on my match-up.


If I'm late to the fight or the action is a little too much for me to be a part of, I will just farm until I am ready to scavenge for scraps. Long team fights between high HP characters don't need anything more than Javelin Tosses. The real damage from Takedown doesn't start until people get closer to half health, at that time, you can go in and kill just about anyone that is still alive. It may sound a little selfish, but I like to believe that it is part of her solo nature.

Solo Queue usually doesn't help your cause when you want to play AD Nidalee. Gold plays a big role in how well she does, and when your teammates give away gold to the opponent, you suffer. Without a strong early game, Nid already suffers against characters with equal HP and Def. The more you can outfarm your opponents (which Nidalee, Nasus, and a few other champs do very well), the more of an unkillable force you can become. Unfortunately, people who are 5/8/x (kill/death/assist) will scream at you for losing their game if you are 3/0/x. It is unavoidable and only they are to blame. After all, who wants to play the carry role in EVERY Match of League of Legends? (Answer: Everyone that is a good player. But hey, some people just can't be carried LoL)

Dragon Nest. Where Flyff meets Vindictus

Nexon is the gaming portal that has brought us games like Vindictus, Maplestory, and Dungeon Fighter Online. It is a Korean company, but the grinds on the games aren't so bad when you look at the kind of game you're playing. The last game I played on Nexon, the only game actually, was Vindictus. Though fun for a while, it didn't hold my interest for as long as I had hoped. Nexon's new Dragon Nest, however, is actually sort of fun.

My lowest resolution Cleric

Dragon Nest, like the blog post title describes, is really a cross between Flyff and Vindictus. You have cutesy characters, and fun environments, but instead of "farming monsters" in fields outside of monsters you would grind out dungeon quests for experience. This is more like Vindictus. Your starting town is where you collect quests and conduct business. Those quests take place in dungeons, which you reach by entering a portal Hub at the edge of town. Also like Vindictus, the dungeons you enter have increasing difficulty and achievements, which definitely lessens the "grind" if you choose to do them. Over the course of the game, you may enter the same dungeon with the same boss monster 3 times for 3 different quests. Luckily you can change the difficulty to make it more interesting, and you may even have achievements for bonus experience such as:
-Clear the dungeon while taking no damage.
-Obtain a 30+ hit combo.
-Clear the dungeon in a 4-man team
And many more that I only caught a glimpse of.

 Chelsea's higher resolution Archer

The next area that sets this game apart from our favorites like Ragnarok Online and Flyff is the battle system. Instead of autoattacking monsters and using skills when available, Dragon Nest uses a more modern system. Your character's movement is done via WASD and your mouse is locked into the camera. Instead of seeing a mouse pointer, you have a Crosshair that is indicative of your mouse location. That means the camera has no boundaries for mouse movement, and you can roll your mouse all over your desk and the camera will keep turning(Ah, the days of slamming my mouse for quick spins in Gunz Online.) Each individual attack your character does is performed with a Left Click. You can link left clicks together to make combo attacks that will hit anything in range. If you're using a weapon with a sweeping attack, you will hit multiple monsters. There are even some bows that fire multiple arrows, so not only can you aim and left click to hit whoever, however you like, it may also it multiple enemies in a multi-hit combo. Right click is called a special attack, and usually costs no Mana/MP/Energy. I like to think of them as combo finishers. While you're moving around punching and slashing enemies, they will be attacking you back, so Dragon Nest has quicksteps in the form of Double Tapping a direction. I hold Shift and press a direction, as my computer is too slow to register a double tap. As all of the newest Action MMORPGs are showing, positioning matters for both you and your opponent; damage mitigation is not just Math in your head, but also hand-eye coordination.

Of course, it wouldn't be a MMO without Classes and unique skills for each. Skills are set to the number keys and can be learned/upgraded via NPC or item drops. Each time you level up, you get skill points that you can spend to build a skillset that you prefer. Just like the Normal Attack system, skills also require aiming, positioning, and timing. Some skills, such as a rain of lightning bolts, light up individual spots on the ground to show where they will it. If you or the enemy aren't standing on one of those spots, then noone will take damage from it. As your level progress and you reach level 15, you can evolve your class up a tier!
-Clerics can choose to become the ever present healing and tanking Paladin, or the equally as popular support Priest. Priests in Dragon Nest also have a small number of damage dealing Skills, helping them fill an additional DD role.
-Warriors can choose to become Swordsmen, which excel in long combo chains. You can specialize your Swordsman for single opponents or taking on multiple enemies at once. The other choice for Warriors is the Mercenary. Mercenaries are also high armor classes to fill the tanking role. I'm not sure if they have options for healing like a Paladin does, but they have many shouting auras.
-The Sorceress, as usual, gets to decide on a full damage dealing character, or the option of crowd control. Elementalist get additional high damage, multiple monster hitting skills whereas the Mystic gets more options for controlling monsters. Not only do they get cool skills like Black Hole that draw groups of enemies to its center, but they also get their own abilities like Teleport and the fast-moving Mirco Hole.
-Archer are always popular and their upgrade choices are no different. You can choose between your long range attacks with no close-range options in the form of the Sharp Shooter. Your other option is to sacrifice some of that damage for close-range abilities and escape options a-la Acrobat. Essentially, you can either continue your high damage, long-range barrages, or you can do great damage at any range and attempt to broaden your versatility.

From the original Korean server.

After finishing what is left to do in your home town, the next step of Dragon Nest is teaming up with your buddies and doing Instanced fights in the many high level dungeons. The game is still a little new, so the choices are slightly limited. But, from what I understand, there is some fairly difficult end game content in Dragon Nest with awesome rewards to show for it. For some players, high level content makes the game what it is. For others, it is the joy of taking a cute girl with a bow throw several quests for estranged NPCs. Perhaps the most important thing to make a note of is that Dragon Nest is free to play, like all other Nexon Games. Of course, you can choose to buy NX for various things from Costumes and Wings with a few stats on them, to experience point boosters. Feel free to give it a try, any computer bought in the last 2 years could play the game and you don't really lose a thing by trying it out.

LoL get's me giggling

I haven't played PC games on my computer in a long time. I believe the last one I played was Nexon's Vindictus. While that is a fun game, we farmed the same missions over and over again and that grew stale pretty fast. I didn't think I would get into any other PC game until TERA is released for North America, but I think I have found one!

The initial install.

Friend of the blog Kavy T. and Johanny S. have gotten me into League of Legends, an online game from Riot. If any of you have played the Warcraft 3 mod "DotA"(Defenders of the Ancients? I don't remember what it stands for.) then you would know how LoL works. In League of Legends(LoL), you have 2 opposing teams of champions, each one controlled by a different player. They have 1 camp on the map for each team, in the bottom left and top right of the map. Along the 3 roads to the camp are turrets that must be destroyed in order to advance. To help you along, minions(known as creeps in DotA), are spawned periodically and automatically advance towards the enemy base, fighting whatever is along their path. The objective is to destroy the enemy's base before they destroy your own.

Killing bots is nothing to be proud of.

So LoL is a pvp based game. There are a few maps to choose from, and the objective is the same on every map. The minions and turrets don't really change either. The only real thing that changes in the game is the part that makes it fun in the first place, the champion roster. As I am typing this, I believe the roster is up to 79 playable champions. Each one has their own set of abilities. It can be generalized however as your tank, burst mage, melee DPS, ranged DPS, stealth assassin and support with lots of little variants of each one. There are also tons of items to buy for your character, as you gain gold throughout a fight. Each game you play has you to start from scratch, so you build your character the way you want it each time you play the game. Because of this, many of the characters have different builds you can play them with. Tied to your main account is a "Summoner Level" and IP which is game currency. You can use that IP to buy things like new champions(you don't have access to all the champs at the start of the game), skins for your champions, and best of all runes for your champions. Runes are "account buffs" that give you additional stats to any character you choose, like HP+1%, Armor Piercing +2%, and other neat things. Adding to that is the Summoner Level again, which gives you 1 Mastery point per level. Those points go into even MORE account buffs, making your character's build more and more customizable. Think about it, instead of having a high Attack Speed character that is focused on damage, you can buff his natural HP with your account buffs, increase his natural Armor and Magic Resistance, then toss Life Stealing items on him so that he attacks at a fast rate and steals a large chunk of his already big HP pool with every hit. Or if you like one of his skills, but it is designed to not be spammed with a long recast and high mana cost, you can buff that too to make an "AP"(Ability Power) version of the character.

Perhaps the most fun, tied into how many characters there are, is the amount of skill required to be successful. I started the game with Vayne and Cassiopiea. Vayne is your typical crossbow DPS champ and Cass is a poisoning harasser. Cass is a tough character for me because I couldn't burst down opponents very easily(which Cass can do if you build her correctly). Vayne was awesome though. She gains bonus damage on every 3rd hit, and she can tumble around to close the gap on enemies or run away. Toss on ASPD gear and you have a character that can whittle away life pretty quickly. Once I got enough IP I bought Leblanc. Leblanc is a "Burst caster"(meaning that she does skills in succession to kill her enemies) with a high skill curve. Her abilities are simple - single shot high damage bolt, Teleport to hit enemies then teleport back to your original position, chain enemies which slows them and ultimately roots them to the ground for a couple of seconds, and Mimic your last spell with bonus damage. The part that makes her difficult is figuring out which skill to use most efficiently. If you Teleport to an enemy and Bolt->Mimic, you may not kill them. Worse yet is that now your Teleport is on recast and so is Bolt and Mimic. You could Chain first, then bolt, then mimic instead. If they don't die, You stomp on them with Teleport. If they STILL aren't dead, Bolt should be ready to cast again. If they don't die from that, well, you may not have wanted to initiate fights with super high HP characters.

I have more kills than anyone on either team and 0 deaths. We still lost this match.

My current record for the game is 10 wins and 15 losses. That sucks but the worse part is that it is almost never my fault. The most recent game I played gave me a 9::0 kill::death ratio. That is 9 kills without even anyone stopping me. When I get to that point, Leblanc can kill just about anyone with all the equipment I bought with the bonus gold from mowing down other players. However, when the rest of your team has 1 kill and 5+ deaths each, they will surrender and you lose the game. "Farming" is when a character dies repeatedly to another and "feeds" them gold and experience. Really, any champ that was fed will be a force to reckon with, so playing with bad players can end in disaster. Luckily, Kavy and Johanny aren't bad at the game. In fact, they are too good; walking away with over 15 kills per match shows skill. They even play with multiple champs, whereas I have my two(for now).

There are many champs to choose from, and that makes the game a lot of fun. My next champ will probably be Sona or Orianna. If you like pvp games and the kind of strategy that revolves around knowing all character's strengths and weaknesses, then give League of Legends a try. It's free anyway, so why not?