Coming Into My Own

I finally am starting to feel like I’m good at League of Legends. I was getting pretty good at the game before Dominion released, and had pretty much mastered the concepts of laning and jungling and 5v5 or 3v3 matches were going pretty good. Dominion threw me for a loop. I understood the concept, it plays much like Domination in Black Ops where you have to control more points than the enemy team to win the match. However, the first few matches that I played were less than spectacular. Even when I got a win it was a team effort, with most of my team mates doing the brunt of the work. I started asking myself why I wasn’t performing all that well, and it came down to a number of things.

I started reading more about the game, either through the Wiki, or another excellent site, LeagueCraft. Both have guides on how to effectively build champions through items, along with rune and mastery builds. I have found most of the information to be spot on, and after having utilized some of the advice, I have had much better luck playing both game modes. The next biggest advantage was getting a Champion that suits my style, and so far he has become my favorite. The champion I speak of is Jax, and is the only purchase I have made since my last LoL post. From what I have read (and heard in-game when I am destroying the opposing team) is that Jax is overpowered. A recent nerf to one of the main items in his build has seemed to lessen the complaints, but I still don’t feel that he is overpowered anyway. I think that people complain about certain champions being overpowered, but what it comes down to is knowing how to maximize your build and tailor it for the champion you are playing. This is why they provide different runes, pages, and the same goes for masteries. Understanding champion abilities has a large effect on item builds, and knowing your enemy goes just as far.

The last bit that was holding me back was my control configuration. The game defaults to using the mouse to look around the screen, by taking the cursor to the screen’s edge to move it in that direction. This was pretty standard for RTS games back in the day. When I played those sorts of games back then, I would always use the arrow keys to pan the screen, I have always preferred the tightness of the camera control with that scheme. I have since adjusted to using WASD from playing MMOs and such, and I prefer to use those keys to move the camera in LoL as well. The defaults for champion abilities are QWER, and because I am using WASD for camera controls, that takes away the option of using W as a skill key. So I have modified my keyboard controls to suit my needs, and I have finally found a configuration that works. I use QERF for champion abilities, and 1 and 2 for my summoner spells. I have found that with practice it has become second nature to use these controls, and because of it my gameplay has improved.

I have reached level 19, and some of my builds have changed, again. I have used multiple different rune, mastery and spell combinations, and though it’s safe to say it will change again by the time I have hit the level cap, for now I am satisfied. I switched out my attack speed runes for attack damage runes (+4.4 ) and I have increased my crit chance to +3.4%,  and ability power to +4.6. Because of my success with Jax, I am thinking of making him his own rune page, swapping out the critical chance for dodge % runes. Many of the guides I have read suggested this setup. They also call for 21 points in the Offense tree, and either 9 points in Defense or Utility, although most use the Defense tree for the extra boost to dodge. As of now I have 19 points in Offense, putting me 2 levels away from maxing it out.

For spell choices, I have switched from heal/teleport to exhaust/flash. I have been playing more Dominion, and as such the battles happen quicker, money flows in faster, and items make a difference earlier on. Teleport is also not available in Dominion, although I have been using that spell combo on Summoner’s Rift as well. Speaking of item usage, I have found the usefulness of health potions, something I hadn’t used since I first started the game. They come in handy even in Dominion. Also, I’m almost embarrassed to say so, but I never realized that the Hextech Gunblade had a usable function, a direct damage slow. Because I have been reading up on the game more, and paying closer attention to my choices, I have found more options for strategy and have really been doing well in the game.

I am currently saving up for some new more expensive champions. I have all of the ones that I wanted that cost 450 IP. I still like a couple from the next tier that cost 1350, but I decided to move on once I found Jax to the next tier, which is 3150. In this tier there are a couple of champions that I’m interested in, mainly Twitch (whose price was just lowered to this amount) and Olaf, although I haven’t played either of them. I didn’t get a chance to play Jax before I bought him either, and I am not disappointed with that purchase at all. I’m almost tempted to just hang on to my coin and wait until I get to the 6300 tier, of which I want quite a few. Graves was just released and he looks awesome, but man getting to 6300 IP will be a slow process. I either need to play more often, or get more patience.

Something in the Water

There has been something in the water this last week or so. I swear that everyone has been on edge and there has been one to many bits of drama for my liking. Drama, and flakiness. Recently I have been trying to be in a better mood, staying more positive and optimistic, and apparently everyone knows it, because they are bringing me down! I’m not going to name names, but I feel like venting so here’s some interesting anecdotes from my life:

I met the girl I spoke about last month from a dating website. Everything was kosher the first time I met her. She made me dinner and then we watched some movies. We had a good night, and I left in the morning. I went to see her a second time. This time she was off the next day, so I spent the night and we spent a good chunk of the day together. The night went smooth enough, but the whole next day was awkward and I couldn’t really place my finger on why. Over the next passing days we spoke on the phone and when I brought up the awkwardness she basically went off on me for not being emotionally available enough for her. I don’t know what she was expecting, most people don’t fall in love after two dates. After a couple of conversations, she told me that she didn’t think we were compatible, and we didn’t talk for at least two weeks. Just before midnight yesterday, she texts me out of the blue, and having already deleted her number, I had to ask who it was and she seemed insulted by that. I told her I didn’t think we were going to talk again. She then laid a huge depressing story on my lap about some ex-boyfriend drama and trying to commit suicide. How do I find these women? From there she mentioned having been thinking about me, and how she “pushes people away when she gets feelings for them”. When I didn’t respond to her liking, she reverts back to going off on me for being closed off and having a wall up. I haven’t heard from her again, but if I do I’m not responding. Wow.

A while ago I had a conversation on Facebook with a friend that moved away, but is getting married next month. One day she was messaging me and saying that she thinks she might be coming back to California because her man is a “problem drinker” and she might break up with him. I told her to talk to him and so on. Later she tells me that things worked itself out, and we were talking about the wedding. At some point in the conversation I said something to the effect of “he better treat you right, and if he doesn’t I’m going to steal you!” I laughed, she laughed, and we went back to talking about her wedding. No harm done right? No, that would be too easy. A few days ago I receive a message from her with a threatening tone about “stealing her”. Obviously it wasn’t from her, so the next logical conclusion was that her man somehow got onto her Facebook account. We went back and forth a bit but he was saying that he knows people where I live and that he was going to get them on me and blah blah blah. I took the high road and let it go, was apologetic and all that jazz. Still, I don’t see where there was any threat, and it was pretty unjustified to come after me for an obvious joke. Although his spelling and grammar were horrible, so I’m guessing it was drunk talk. Like I’m really going to try to steal a woman away against her will from hundreds of miles away. Give me a break.

Not wanting to take my first experience as an example of how internet dating will always be, I continued to give the dating website a chance. I started talking to a second girl, and I was amazed to find how much we had in common. I have always had something in common with the women I have dated, although sometimes it was merely physical attraction and short-lived. This girl was too good to be true from the get-go, but I kept rolling with it. She did too, for about a week. When I really started trying to plan something out, she wasn’t giving me too much help. She would continuously communicate with me, compliment me, and say that she wanted to see me, but when it came down to it, nothing ever happened. One night I told her I was going to crash out, and then I never heard from her again. My attempts to contact her went in vain, and that was the end of that. A shame, as she seemed to have so much potential. I haven’t had any luck with that website since, and I’m kind of just letting it ride.

I’m not sure how much I mentioned about my band efforts as of late, but after having been out of FOS for a year, I started practicing with these guys that called themselves “Sinfected”. We made some progress and whatnot, but they weren’t really my kind of crowd and weren’t going where I wanted to go musically so I parted ways. I ran into a drummer from a band that I had played with at a couple of shows when I was in FOS, and we have been trying to get something going. I ended up finding a guitar and bass player, but they didn’t vibe with the drummer, and drummers are the hardest to come by, so I didn’t use them. Another couple of guys have come and go, to no avail. The other day we met a guy that plays bass and I got his contact info, but both times I tried to get a hold of him I didn’t have any luck. People have become so ridiculously flaky lately it’s driving me nuts.

I know it isn’t being flaky, but I had an interview the other day and I was told that I would be called the next week. I ended up calling first and haven’t heard anything back. I realize that people who run businesses and do the hiring are busy with other responsibilities, but I hate the fact that all of the interviews I have had lately have ended up like this… sitting on my hands, playing the waiting game, and not getting any answers no matter how persistent I am.

I was hanging out at a friend’s house earlier today, and one of them was playing Tekken. His roommate decided to start talking shit about how the first guy was playing the game. Saying that he was a “button-masher” (which I agree is common with the Tekken series), and that he couldn’t pull of good enough combos. The guy playing the game was of the opinion that he wasn’t a button-masher but rather very strategic in his movements. The playful argument lasted for twenty minutes or so, and then one guy started raising his voice. Then the other guy, and pretty soon they are shouting about a fucking video game. Next one of them says something about the other being stupid and the response is “let’s take it outside”. This guy was ready to fight over some words over a video game. I couldn’t believe it was happening right before my eyes. They squashed it soon thereafter, but it was a heated nerd rage battle.

I guess I can’t say that I’m not guilty of being flaky sometimes. The difference about what I do when I intend to flake on something, is that I will actually tell the person I have plans with that I’m going to do something else. In some cases I might stretch the truth a little and say that I have something that’s “important” to do to save some face. Either way, I am courteous enough to make sure that they know I won’t be showing up. Last weekend I had plans to hang out with a friend that I haven’t seen for a while. I ended up not going to hang out with him because I was set up on a blind date of sorts with a friend of a friend. I explained this to him, and told him that girls trump homies when you are single. He gave me a rash of shit, but he forgets what it’s like to be single having been married for a long time. The blind date ended up being a wash up, the girl was nowhere near my taste. I was cordial and all, but I escaped as soon as I could. Today, I had plans with the same friend, and then I got an invite to a party of sorts where there was going to be a good “chick vs. dick ratio”. I made sure that it was a go, and then told my friend that I would have to catch him another time. I explained what I was doing and was expecting a sort of understanding response, but apparently it was time for him to change his tampon. He went off on me and I was questioning our friendship by the time the conversation was over. I think I smoothed things over, but then to top things off, the party didn’t happen and I wasted the whole night waiting to find that out.

Like I said, there is something in the water, and everyone has gotten a taste of it. I am seriously over all of the bullshit expectations that people place on others, and yes I am guilty of doing it too. Trying to find my way in this crazy world of ours.

My Take on Dominion

It’s old news now, but I thought I would throw out my two cents on League of Legends’ new game mode, Dominion. I don’t have much experience with it, but I know the mechanics well enough and have won a couple of battles. When the mode first released, the rotation of free champions along with what I owned at the time weren’t really conducive with Dominion, and as a result I had a poor first impression of it. Since the rotation change, my opinion has changed as well.

During release week I played in the beta, and tried out the game mode one time before the beta went offline. I chose to roll with Teemo as I usually do pretty well with him. This time around I did win the match, although I wasn’t overly impressed, as with a twitchy game you must have a pretty good idea of what you’re doing before you do it. Because of my lack of experience, I know it was my team that pulled out the “W” for me, as I died quite a few times and didn’t really do much to help with capturing or holding points. My second time around I played with a couple of guys that I have met through the game. One of them is a level 30, and because of that the game sets you up in a match with players roughly the same level as the highest level player on your team. I. Got. Stomped. I gave up on Dominion for the rest of the week, and decided to wait for the new rotation.

After the new champion rotation, I felt a little more comfortable trying it out again. Typically when there is a new champion rotation I will try out the champs that I haven’t seen/used yet versus bots so that I can see if I like them or not. If I own some bot face, then I usually figure I will do OK with that character against other players. Having done this, I decided to try out Dominion with Ms. Fortune. I lost a couple and won a couple, although I think I played a lot better and got all of the concepts down. Having the extra game mode  adds some variety to the game, and that keeps things fresh. If I do poorly and need a pick me up, I’ll play against some bots. If I’m feeling froggy, I play some 5 vs. 5, and if I don’t feel like being as hectic I’ll do 3 vs. 3. I actually sort of prefer The Twisted Treeline to Summoner’s Rift, although I bet with a full team of  5 with my buddies would be a blast. I don’t have quite enough friends in the game just yet.

Dominion is pretty fun, although I think that there is an issue with certain champions being a bit over-powered, and that leads to getting ganked pretty often, especially in two or more on one situations. If your team isn’t communicating very well, you won’t be able to capture and hold more points and will eventually lose. If you don’t stick together it is almost always certain death. One addition I like in this mode is something that I wouldn’t mind seeing in the classic version of the game, and that is the med-packs and speed boost platforms. Having power ups on the map adds in some strategy that wasn’t present in the game and I think would fit in nicely elsewhere. Basically, if you enjoy LoL you are more than likely going to enjoy Dominion. If you aren’t so big on RTS or twitch game play, then you should probably be looking elsewhere for your gaming fix.

I have reached level 16, so I am over half way to the Summoner level cap. I’m really looking forward to being at that cap so I can truly play around with Rune and Mastery builds and get a few different ones going for different classes. I also look forward to having even more champions to play because I know once I’m there that I’ll have unlocked more. It’s been a bit slow going as of late because of real life issues, but I still play almost daily, even if it is only one or two matches. Some days I’ll see that I’m close to leveling and play as much as I can to get that level. I have opened up a few new champions since my last post, including Alistar, Fiddlesticks, Nunu, Ryze, and Teemo. Of these I really enjoy Fiddlesticks, Ryze, and Teemo, or at least have had more success with them. I really enjoy the ranged classes, I seem to do better with them, but I do hate how squishy they tend to be. Melee classes usually take more hits (unless they’re a carry) but tend to hit too lightly until later in matches. I am starting to understand the Rune and Mastery builds a bit better, along with how to pick and choose better items than what is recommended during a game.

Currently I have been stacking Runes that give Attack Speed (totaling +5.3%), Ability Power (+3.9) and Critical Chance (3.8%). I have found that most of what I have read centers around either stacking Ability Power (AP) or Attack Damage (AD). I have chosen a more all-around build that gives crits for AD and raw AP. The attack speed also adds to AD. I stack items with both as well, as damage output seems to win me games over defense. My Masteries are set up around these guide lines too, giving me ability power, crit chance, penetration, attack damage and reduced cooldowns. I think that I will go more specific and have more Rune/Mastery builds once I reach the cap and have the resources available to me. For now, all 16 points are in the Offense tree.

That’s really all I have to report for now.