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      Riot releases Wukong gameplay video

      July 20, 2011 /

      In preparation for the Monkey King’s release, Riot put together a preview video of his abilities and mechanics. Wukong is a melee DPS that looks as though he’ll be most effective building tanky. He also has enough mobility that I could see him working well as a straight damage dealer. Before I get into too much discussion about his skills let’s take a look at his kit.

      Stone Skin: Wukong gains armor and magic resistance the more enemies are nearby .

      Crushing Blow: On next hit, Wukong deals extra damage and decreases the armor of his target.

      Decoy: Wukong goes invisible and leaves a decoy in his place. After a short delay, the decoy spins, dealing damage to nearby targets.

      Nimbus Strike: Wukong dashes to an enemy champion and deals damage. If there are multiple targets in the area, Wukong will make up to two decoys that will also dash to nearby targets.

      Cyclone: Wukong spins to win, dealing damage in an AoE and knocking up enemy units caught in the cyclone.

      I’m not sure what it is, but I’m having a serious case of champion fatigue with Wukong. He doesn’t seem to bring anything that the League really needs and I think he has the potential to be brutally overpowered. Leona was exciting because she looked like a return to sanity with regard to tanks. Wukong looks like just about every other melee DPS out there. Dash? Check. Armor Debuff? Check. Knockup or stun? Check, and some invisibility for good measure. Continue reading »

      Champions, Development, league of legends, News

      Riot struggles to maintain server stability

      July 19, 2011 /

      For the second time in as many days, Riot had a hard time keeping League of Legends stable. The servers were set to busy sometime this afternoon after recovering from a critical error. Players were none to pleased, as you might imagine. The forums exploded just before servers ground to a halt with posts like “Stability Issues 7/19 – reserving this for Riot” and “Want to know how many times VALVE Servers have crashed?”

      I can understand the frustration. Last night’s FG LoL Monday was cut short due to service issues. Two days of problems are somewhat rare for Riot, but certainly still annoying when they happen. When coupled with the extended Leona release window and the downtime around her launch, Riot has a woeful lack of positive buzz around League of Legends. I’m sure the game will bounce back, but it would be very cool for the company to do some things to drive a little positive interest in the League.

      This isn’t some “Riot doesn’t do anything” post – just today they’re bringing down the EU servers to split them into two regions to improve stability. It’s a good move, but it’s almost invisible to the player (except for the downside of not being able to play with friends across the EU servers). Riot could do some little things to help keep League of Legends players happy during the lull between Season One and Season Two.

      The easiest suggestion would be an IP-boost weekend. Those seemed to happen fairly often in the game’s first year, but I haven’t seen one in a long time. Why not give double IP for a weekend here and there leading up to the Season Two launch? It could easily drive sales for other IP boosts – 4x IP rocks – and encourage people to spend some extra time online over the weekend.

      What about a skin giveaway? Hell, they could even tie it in with a livestreamed tournament or event. Just make a reusable code for the store that’s shown on-screen at the end of a tourney stream and make it available for 24 hours after the tourney. People love exclusivity with skins and it would be a great way to drive traffic for a specific tournament. Riot could even use the stream they’ve been promoting during server downtime as a stage for this.

      In short, Riot needs to meet the concerns of the player base head on. Show the people crowing about HoN or DotA 2 something that says, ‘hey, we hear your concerns, we know you could be playing other games, thanks for sticking with us.’ I love LoL, but Riot has to do more than say that they’re the most player-focused company in the industry. It’s time show it.

      Current Affairs, league of legends, News

      Champ of the Week: Lee Sin

      July 18, 2011 /

      As promised, this week’s Champ of the Week is someone I’m truly bad with, someone I haven’t been able to master since his release several months back, and someone who consistently dominates me in lane. This week’s Champ of the Week is none other than Lee Sin, the Blind Monk.

      Honestly, I’m not sure what my problem is when it comes to Lee Sin. I’m probably running the wrong runes or the wrong skills or some combination of all things above, but I just can’t get him down. I had a somewhat decent game with him the other day but that was owed mostly to a solid performance from the rest of my team and the fact that I was able to kill steal enough to get a decent farm. The rest of the time I’ve felt like a fish that’s been thrown from a 30-story building, flapping my flippers all the way down. It’s not pleasant.

      I have seen several Lee Sin players rock, though, and he’s an absolute demon if he can get ahead. I’ll be focusing on build strategies and aggressive early game tactics to maximize his late game potential. It seems to me that consistent early ganks from Lee are hard to stop, thanks to high mobility and an energy system that offers virtually unlimited gank potential.

      If you have tips or requests, drop them in the comments. Otherwise, check back later in the week for more impressions or catch a game with me at “The Wiggin Boy.”

      Champ of the Week, league of legends

      FG LoL Mondays are on – 9:30PM EST

      July 18, 2011 /

      FG LoL Mondays

      We are on for games tonight. If you’re interested in joining your fellow readers for a few games, jump into the “Fearless Gamer” chat room in the League of Legends client around 9:15 or so. We’ll get started at 9:30 in whatever we have available based on the number of players that can make it.

      If you can’t get into the chat room for some reason, you can add me at “The Wiggin Boy.” Hope to see you tonight!

      FG LoL Mondays, league of legends

      Champ of the Week: Soraka Wrapup

      July 17, 2011 /

      soraka_splash_0

      The forums provided a serendipitous thread necro for me to wrap up the Soraka Champ of the Week series. In the thread linked here, Xypherous lays out some of the design problems around heals, which I think is a decent place to kick off the Soraka discussion. Soraka is strong as most every other healer is strong – they all remove attrition from a game.

      Healing is a really tough mechanic to balance for a game like League of Legends. In order for the healer to have any fun whatsoever, the heal needs to do something during the laning phase, which usually means giving it a somewhat short cooldown. Later in the game it needs to scale in some way to be remotely useful, which means AP builds can be both viable and infuriating. In short, heals don’t really work. Even if a heal could truly provide a judgement call for a player, heals just happen too often to really be balanced.

      That’s essentially what I saw with Soraka. If my team was willing to sit back, not rush fights if the enemy ignites were up, or start a poking war, we won. We won easily, too. Even in games where I’ve built a Deathfire or a Guinsoo with Soraka, the wins have been decisive. There’s not much more to say about her.

      If I could change one thing about Soraka, it would be Starfall. Though the spell is occasionally lulzy and provides a decent debuff, it doesn’t have a practical range for teamfighting. It’s decent for farming, but again, it suffers from a short range. I’d love to see Soraka get something like Lux’s Lucent Singularity, a skill that could slow in an area on the ground. She would probably need a slight heal tweak due to the increased lane power, but I think she would be more fun.

      That does it for Soraka week. Check back tomorrow for next week’s Champ of the Week. It’s back to someone I’m not particularly good with. What can I say, I’m a glutton for punishment.

      Champ of the Week, league of legends

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