Author: Jeff Morgan (Page 60 of 260)

FG LoL Mondays are on – 9:30PM EST

June 13, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

league_of_legends_02

Fearless Gamer League of Legends Mondays are a go for tonight. For those of you that haven’t played with us before, we arrange teams to play either custom or regularly queued games depending on our numbers. Anyone and everyone is welcome to join, regardless of Summoner level or how skilled you think you are.

Join the chat room “Fearless Gamer” (case sensitive) around 9:20 EST and we’ll get some games together. You can also add me at “The Wiggin Boy.” Hope to see you tonight!

Note: I’ll be taking a break from Minecraft Mondays while I try to sort out a potential server we could have as our own. No promises.

FG LoL Mondays, league of legends

Champ of the Week: Nasus wrapup

June 12, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

I was only able to play one more game with Nasus, mostly because I don’t think it’s fair to the champ of the week to play him/her when it will hurt the team comp in a serious way. When my teammates pick three physical champions, two of which are already melee, Nasus probably isn’t the right choice. When I did pick Nasus, though, I was able to have another very solid game with him.

My impressions remain mostly unchanged – Nasus is really missing that key gap-closing skill. Wither is close, but not enough in a lot of cases. He also gets good move speed once he has a Trinity, but as has been mentioned, that requires a nice farm if you’re planning to have any defensive stats.

If I could change on thing about Nasus, it would be to lower the cooldown on Wither. Though it retains a flat mana rate and 15 second cooldown, I really think it needs a little buff. Wither gets hard-countered by Mercury Treads. Without it, Nasus is just a big dog, waiting to be kited. I don’t think this would tip him over the edge into OP status, just make him a bit more competitive with characters like Renekton (9 second CD stun at rank 5), Jarvan (12 second Standard CD), and Rumble (10 second CD stacking slow).

Stay tuned for next week’s champ of the week.

Champ of the Week, Editorial, league of legends

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How do you deal with trolls?

June 12, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

I jumped into a game today with my brother, hoping to enjoy a relaxing normal 5v5. The game started off pretty poorly – our mid was feeding, we lost two towers within 10 minutes, and the enemy Vayne had a very nice minion farm. I made a poor choice early and went for a tower dive on Mordekaiser as Nasus. I was halfway through the animation for Siphon Strike, an attack that surely would have ended the 6 HP Mordekaiser, when tower killed me. He quickly responded, “u bad?”

We proceeded to stomp the enemy team for the rest of the game. Somehow, despite the bad start, our team just started to move around the map together. Our Kayle got farmed. My brother started lighting up their carries with Veigar combos, and I was Siphon Striking for 700 damage before it was all said and done. Of course, I couldn’t let Mordekaiser’s trolling go unchalleneged, so when he died, I would respond, “u bad?”

Usually trolls will just argue, but he actually asked me to stop being a dick. I complied, though I reminded him that he started the “u bad,” and that he shouldn’t troll if he doesn’t want to be trolled back. Then he typed the most surprising thing I’ve seen in a while – “you have a point, I take it back.” It was a roundabout way to apologize, but much better than anything I’ve seen in the past. It’s amazing how showing a troll just how foolish and obnoxious they are can turn things around. I’m not advocating counter-trolling in every case, but in its more mild appearances, it sometimes helps to shed light on what is probably my least favorite convention of gaming/internet culture.

Editorial, league of legends

counter trolling how to deal with trolls trolling trolls trololol ubad umad

Riot’s take on the E3 info

June 11, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

Riot has graciously stepped onto the E3 news scene with its own explanations of the champions and features in development for League of Legends. Thank god. That Gamespot video just wasn’t cutting it.

The video rehashes a lot of the information I’ve put together on Yorick, Leona, and Skarner, though Paul Bellezza did expand on Skarner’s design direction a bit. In case there was any doubt, it looks like Tanky DPS is here to stay. Bellezza called Yorick a “tanky fighter” who can “pretty much tank down anyone.” Skarner is a “vicious and aggressive fighter tank” (the extent to which that’s different from a tanky fighter is unclear) who allows you to “focus on enemies and the more you attack them, the more you debuff them and are able to take them down.” Wedged in between these two is an archetypal tank with some crowd control abilities. If ever there was a bad time to be a squishy, July and August will surely top it.

I’m hoping that those releases will also come with some itemization/character updates that help deal with Tanky DPS. The idea behind tankier champions is a fine one – longer fights means you get to play the game more – but when it comes at the expense of so many characters and when so much of the playstyle revolves around skills like Jarvan’s passive, the gameplay isn’t very fun. This is the big reason I don’t play Tanky DPS toons – they aren’t enjoyable. It’s fun to get a ranged carry farmed up and burn through enemies. It’s fun to drop Tibbers on a group of opponents and see huge chunks of health fly off. If Riot can find a way to make these longer fights similarly enjoyable, I’ll gladly take the addition of more Tanky DPS champions to the League.

Champions, Current Affairs, Development, league of legends, News

andrew beagle league of legends e3 leona paul bellezza riot riot e3 video riot games at e3 riot games e3 skarner tanky dps yorick

Champ of the Week: Nothing without a team

June 10, 2011 / Jeff Morgan

I’ve caught a few Nasus games so far this week, and in each I’ve been reminded of one of Nasus’ great downfalls – he requires a competent team to truly excel. That’s true for a lot of characters, but for Nasus it seems even more so. With no gap-closing skill, he relies heavily on Wither and the crowd control of his teammates (or foolishness of his opponents) to dish out damage.

Don’t get me wrong, Wither is a great skill. If a carry makes the mistake of buying Berserker’s Greaves that slow feels almost like a stun. Unfortunately, though, it is countered by Mercury Treads, especially if the target also has a dash of some kind. When I consider Nasus up against many of the other tanky DPS characters – Jarvan, Rumble, Renekton, Xin Zhao – I can’t help but think he’s missing a little something. Each of those characters have great damage, a stun or slow, a dash or speed modifier, and some sort of heal or shield. Nasus is notably missing the dash/speed modifier, which makes him heavily reliant on Ghost against mobile teams.

To be fair, Nasus is utterly devastating against non-mobile teams. I flat out carried a game earlier in the week by crushing a Heimerdinger in the solo lane. My score wasn’t fantastic at the end of the game, but that’s mostly because I was so dangerous that the other team had no choice but to burn me down. Otherwise, I was 3-4 shotting the squishies.

Nasus also has excellent pushing power. I’m sure we’ve all seen a Nasus walk up to a tower and seemingly hit it for half its health with a single Siphon Strike. The creep clearing power of Spirit Fire, especially when coupled with a Sunfire Cape, gives Nasus the ability to move up a lane quickly and start smashing down towers.

I’m pretty sure I already know what my one Nasus change would be, but I’m going to keep playing him through Sunday to see if it holds true.

Champ of the Week, league of legends