Page 195 of 318

      Patch Day 08/10 – We can stop banning Soraka now

      August 10, 2010 /

      Enchanted Galio.

      Today’s patch brings a new champion in the form of Galio, the great blue gargoyle. Aside from the new champion, the game hasn’t changed a ton. A few characters received some significant attention, but things remained largely the same.

      The most notable change in my mind is Soraka, who received a string of small nerfs that should amount to a significant difference in her staying power. Her mana heal now has a longer cooldown and heals slightly less mana, and her global heal got a 20 second cooldown increase at all levels. That could be enough to bring her off some ban lists in favor of other champions (please start banning Amumu, people).

      Heimer’s turrets caught a little nerf – they no longer increase damage based on number of hits and the AP coefficient was reduced. They do have slightly higher base damage, but definitely nothing on the order of the old hit method.

      Malzahar got some nice tweaks, bumping his movement speed, increasing the range of his ult and Malefic Visions, and reducing the cooldown on Malefic Visions (which already felt very short to me).

      Ryze got a little bit of a rework as well, adding a passive cooldown reduction to his Overload skill. To compensate, Desperate Power now has a longer CD. Rune Prison now lasts longer at early ranks and deals damage in DoT form. It’s basically Morgana’s old Dark Binding, which is odd.

      Vladimir’s Sanguine Pool got a small CD nerf but his Tides of Blood now costs less HP, Blitzcrank got some CD reductions, Nunu got a Consume buff, and Garen got his attack timer reset on Decisive Strike back. Other than those small changes, there’s not a whole lot to report in the way of champions.

      For items, the newer items all got buffs. Wriggle’s Lantern now costs less, which is just what it needed. The Gunblade and Cutlass got damage buffs without a cost increase.

      Lots of little paragraphs in here, which should give you an idea of how many small changes came in this patch. I’ll have a Galio impression list up later today. Spoiler Alert: he’s underwhelming.

      Reviews

      Extra rune pages now for sale

      August 10, 2010 /

      Rune books for sale.One of the biggest parts of this patch is the ability to purchase additional rune pages from the in-game store. In my mind, Riot really should have made at least one more page free of charge. After all, this is nothing more than a convenience charge for people who want to customize for several types of characters.

      A single rune page can be purchased for either 6300 IP or 590 RP (hello, IP dump), while a book of pages can only be purchased using RP, at a price of of 2600 RP. I should also point out that once you buy one page, you can no longer get the 7-page bundle, which would still be a reduced price over buying them separately. A little message appears that says, “Purchasing this Bundle will put you over the Rune Page Limit.”

      Despite the high cost, this is still a good thing. I’ve been sitting on 25k+ IP for months now, buying the new champs whenever they drop, including the recent 6300 combo of Vladimir and Galio, so it’s nice to have another place to spend my IP. Honestly, though, I don’t see myself buying more than two pages. I’ve picked up one for now and I can’t really think of another option I’d like to have around.

      league of legends, Patches

      Riot bumps skin quality for the Galio patch

      August 9, 2010 /

      Grungy Nunu.

      Vladimir launched with some of the best skins Riot has given a new champion. Both skins included model changes and were great revisions on his classic skin. The Galio skins have sadly returned to the standard recolor format, but Riot is releasing some incredible skins for other champions on the side.

      This patch will bring Guerrilla Tristana, Bandito Fiddlesticks, and Grungy Nunu (an Oscar the Grouch/Cookie Monster) knockoff. These skins are worlds better than the skins we typically see released, and none of them have been called out as legendary in value. I’m really hoping these fall at the 520 RP range, but I’d guess all three will be 975. Honestly, they’re the first skins that warrant that price. Ten bucks is still way too much for a skin, but in the Riot hierarchy of batshit crazy prices, these are among the best of the bunch.

      league of legends, Skins

      Galio drops this week

      August 9, 2010 /

      Galio, Idol of Durand.

      At least I’m pretty sure he does. The “Champion Approaches” post is now live with an official skill list for the gargoyle of Durand. Here’s the official ability breakdown:

      Resolute Smite: Galio fires a concussive blast from his eyes, slowing and dealing damage to enemies caught near the impact point.

      Bulwark: Galio shields an ally Champion, increasing their Armor and Magic Resistance, and restoring Galio’s health each time that Champion suffers damage.

      Righteous Gust: Galio claps his wings, unleashing a gust of concussive wind that damages enemies and leaves a directional draft in its wake that increases ally movement speed.

      Idol of Durand (Ultimate): Galio assumes the form of a statue, taunting nearby enemies and storing concussive energy as they attack him. Galio then bursts from his statue shell, releasing the stored energy to damage surrounding foes.

      Runic Skin (Passive): Galio converts 50% of his total Magic Resistance into Ability Power.

      As I mentioned in the sneak peek thread, Idol of Durand is actually his ult, which makes him much less threatening. The Righteous Gust skill seems pretty cool, though – a bit like Janna’s tornado with some speed boost for you. I could see him playing very well on 3v3, where the fights happen just about as often as player ultimates are available and tend to be full on team fights.

      Reviews

      All Roads Return to WoW: Kicking off a PvP set

      August 9, 2010 /

      Moonkin druid.I’ve transferred back to my original server and finally convinced a friend to do the same. We’re going to be starting up an arena team over the next couple weeks, so I’ve been working on kickstarting my PvP set. If you’ve just hit 80, there are a couple things to consider.

      First, you can get really nice PvP stuff with heroic badges. Playing a tank means I have free badges whenever I want them, pretty much as fast as I can get them. That’s a good thing, especially because the gear is more expensive than the T9 set pieces. You can also considering using some badges to get trinkets for your DPS spec or healing spec if you’ve been doing something other than that in the heroic runs. Heroics also get you lots and lots of Stone Keeper’s Shards for picking up the cheap PvP gear from the Wintergrasp vendor.

      Next, make sure you’re running Wintergrasp. I still think the design behind Wintergrasp is fairly crappy, and when I was just getting started I had no idea what I was doing. Frankly, I still don’t really know, but I try to contribute as best as I can. My time in LoL has actually given me better sensibility about when to fight and when to get out of dodge. Racking up your HKs in Wintergrasp gives you good honor and more importantly bonus WG marks, which you can redeem for some nice trinkets. I was shocked to find so many quests offering up honor when I first joined. I came out of my first WG with 35k honor and a few marks. I bought my set pants on the spot. Not a bad start.

      The last thing I’ll have to start doing is dueling. Dueling is at the heart of PvP in WoW, and can actually be a lot of fun. It always helped me learn to manage my pet, my traps and my cooldowns when I was playing my hunter, and I’m hoping it can provide the same insight on the druid.

      If you’re in the Stormstrike battlegroup, keep an eye out for “The Wugglers.” We’ll be wuggling fools from coast to coast.

      All Roads Return to WoW

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 Fearless Gamer

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑