Category: Editorial (Page 14 of 34)

      Champ of the Week: Mordekaiser Wrapup

      June 19, 2011 /

      Mordekaiser Wrapup.

      As I write this post, I’m in the process of wrapping up my final Mordekaiser game for the week. It’s a doozy. I was 2-0 at level two, and godlike shortly thereafter. The Twisted Fate that went mid for my team had a Deathcap and a nearly completed Lichbane at 20 minutes. Somehow, though, it is a joyless experience.

      It may be that I’ve reached critical League of Legends exposure for the weekend. I watched most of the Dreamhack streams, often while playing a game of LoL myself. I spent more time on Twitter this weekend than I probably have since opening my account. But I think it was more than that. I think the real issue was that there wasn’t ever a competitive moment in the game, and that’s when Mordekaiser really seems to shine. I know he can be strong in certain comps, but for individual play, I think he’s the first champion I would seriously advise against.

      Riot’s development staff often talks about the “feast or famine” nature of certain characters, a trait that I think perfectly describes Mordekaiser. If left to his own devices, he can get a huge farm going, to the point that he’s virtually unkillable. With the right target under his Children of the Grave control, he can effectively solo three or four enemies, generating massive shield and dealing huge damage with his minion. On the reverse side, if he doesn’t get a minion and doesn’t get a solo lane, he has a hard time staying relevant over the course of a game.

      If I could change one thing about Mordekaiser, it would be his ultimate. That spell is just too polar and the poles are too far apart. Mordekaiser’s minion solves all of the problems that face a team after a tough team fight, and I just think it’s too strong. The minion functions as a full life champion, especially if you can get a ranged AD character. It also gains huge health from Mordekaiser’s own pool and it holds turret aggro, meaning a narrowly won teamfight quickly turns into a push. No other character, with the possible exception of Annie, can provide that for a team. Giving him some sort of CC skill in place of the ultimate could be interesting.

      If I could change two things about Mordekaiser, I would make the second his shield mechanic. It just isn’t interesting. It allows him to be too aggressive and punishing against newer players and it’s underwhelming against veterans.

      On the whole, I’m glad to be done with Mordekaiser week. I tried a wide array of rune pages and mastery builds to deal with his shortcomings, but nothing really seemed to work. Onward to next week. I think I’m going to have to treat myself to someone I really enjoy.

      Champ of the Week, Editorial, league of legends

      The things we take for granted

      June 17, 2011 /

      League of Legends champions.

      Riot senior producer Travis George put up a post on the forums yesterday evening asking what Riot had been doing well lately and for suggestions for improvements. It was a really nice way to ask for feedback, one that I think can easily be as valuable to a company as criticism can be. It can be tough to know, especially with a community as large as League of Legends. I’ve been trying to round out my MOBA knowledge lately, spending time with the few games that are out there and a couple different beta products. It’s been a great reminder of the many things that League of Legends does so well.

      For one thing, it is definitely the most responsive game. That sounds like a strange thing to get excited about, but play a game in which the controls and UI feel sluggish and you’ll know what I mean. Even basic things, like altering the cursor sprite so that I know a spell is queued up, don’t show in several other games. The only game that holds a candle to LoL in terms of responsiveness (from the MOBA world) is HoN, but even that feels a little slow at times.

      League of Legends is also hands down the easiest to understand by just watching the screen. I truly believe the downfall of many modern games is that they try to hard to look cool or edgy and just end up looking ridiculous. Demigod might be the only game that really made modern graphics look good (seriously, how cool was Rook), but even that game was a bit hard to grasp by watching the battlefield. I think any RTS player could easily sort out what is happening in a LoL match without much effort. I’m not sure the same can be said for several other MOBA franchises.

      This last one is a matter of personal taste, but I like that the League of Legends UI attempts to teach the player the game. That little line from turret to target is a perfect example of a teaching mechanic in game. The player gets immediate feedback when he steps in range of the turret. It’s clear who/what the turret is targeting. It’s also clear when it changes targets, allowing players to analyze what action caused the change. I totally take it for granted, but playing games that don’t have those features makes me want to pull out what’s left of my hair.

      I could go on for a while, but I would probably be violating an NDA or two with some comparisons, and that’s just not my style. The point here is that there is a lot of excellent design behind League of Legends that I probably don’t mention enough.

      Current Affairs, Editorial, league of legends

      Champ of the Week: Nasus wrapup

      June 12, 2011 /

      nasus_splash_0

      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

      How do you deal with trolls?

      June 12, 2011 /

      Junkyard Trundle

      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

      Champ of the Week: Nasus

      June 6, 2011 /

      nasus_splash_1

      At the request of SpectralTime, this week’s champ of the week will be Nasus. The big egyptian dog was one of the first champions I had a truly stellar game with. I can still remember getting 30+ kills in one of my early games with him. In fact, if I remember correctly, he might have been the first champion I spent IP on.

      I was visiting my parents for the holidays shortly after I picked up the game and thought Nasus looked cool. I was terrible with him in most cases, though I think his recommended item build at the time (which, as a total noob I followed to a T) was all damage. Still, I managed a good game with him, and I’ve always loved his design and his voice overs.

      I’ve spent a decent amount of time in the jungle with Nasus so I think I’ll be focusing on the lane – setting up kills and maintaining a strong zone. Nasus can be utterly ridiculous if left to farm a lane. He can be a capable offtank, an amazing source of DPS, and is pretty much any attack speed champion’s worst enemy. The Wither/Merc Treads issue will likely still be frustrating, but perhaps Tenacity has given people the confidence to buy different boots early. Check back later in the week for more on the Nasus Champ of the Week.

      Champ of the Week, Champions, Editorial, league of legends

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