Oh nooo will the dream of +30 FPS still come true? Will we see a return of glorious comrade DotA?

Find out sooon?

Also welcome to the ghost bride club, always remember blademistress is crap.

And don't succumb to the false power of the vacuum cleaners :)

@tbk: Well I switched the ssd for a 1tb hd for a price cut and to make sure it came on thursday. If all goes to plan on Wednesday it should arrive on Thursday. IT'S COMING ON THURSDAY DAMMIT.

Did I mention everyone is going on holiday on Friday? cough...

A fed Katerina is a nightmare if your opponents have no way to cc her. Ults into resets into jumping around a team fight like some sorta terrifying future blender. One silence or knockup though and she asplodes. Some ambitious picks there, Yasuo is a lot of fun but he's tough to use. When he gets ahead though everything dies. Oh I also just picked up ghost bride Morg too, that skin is great.

@jazz said:

• Humble Bundle book thingy is Transformers. The recent More than Meets the Eye series is some of the best comic book writing around...it's hilarious. I know people will roll their eyes but it's far better than anything the big two are putting out. Also this:

• And you thought Thor being a woman was a big thing...

Word, That was traumatic man. IDW Transformers went off the rails several years ago.

I wonder if @jeff knows about what happened to Megatron

So I actually started playing LoL again because of these blogs you've been writing, and I got to say that I actually think I prefer it more than Dota2. I only play matches against the AI, and I'm insanely annoyed that you can't play offline with just bots, but so far I'm having a lot more fun. It's a LOT easier than dota2, which isn't a bad thing. Towers and creeps are actually a real threat, I don't have to worry about denying, and I can cast spells more often due to lower cool down timers and mana costs. I still find professional LoL to be a complete bore to watch though due to the inactivity in the beginning of the game compared to dota2, but when it comes to actually playing it I find it a lot more fun.

@random45: Yeah I play League and the only reason I follow the pro scene is because I play the game and seeing them play a lot better than I can (and maybe picking up strats/builds) is fun. Otherwise I don't think any MOBA is really fun to watch as an esport. Contrasted with SC2, which I got into only after I saw pro play, or fighting games, which I still can't play at all but love watching.

@random45: I'm glad you're enjoying the blog. You can actually play with just AI bots using a password custom game. You just don't get any exp or IP for it. Also the bots are weird. Top tends to be hyper aggressive, mid just farms and bot is useless. Weirdest of all is that if you just leave the minions to push it's not a stalemate..bottom tends to win 70% of the time. As for League being more fun..probably yeah. There's a lot in Dota that I like (denying, hotkey setup, replays) but way more I think is stupid (extra shops, missing due to being below a rise, lack of skillshots, teleport scrolls and tbh the characters/heroes) but I think it's just down to preference. League is easier (no doubt) and has less depth but it's also more immediate.

@slag: Didn't Arcee tell you that your name was an insult already? Yeah that ending to Dark Cybertron was traumatic as hell, especially after the rebuild to the 'goldbug' look from post movie.. Worst one was Rewind though..oh the feels on that one. James Roberts just..writes so damn well. I can't think of a bad issue of MTMTE and that's 31 issues. Also waiting for the inevitable Beverly Hills Cop ripoff issue where Prowl is the Captain and the Constructicons are Foley and Co..make it happen IDW.

@thesoutherndandy: And if she doesn't get fed she whines a hell of a lot and blames everybody for being noobs..or something like that.

Isn't this true of every comic ever made, though?

@gunslingerpanda: Nope. 80s DC - especially what was later turned into Vertigo are mint. Warren Ellis' Nextwave is fantastic and I love *nearly* all of the 2099 stuff. So no..not entirely true. However I would argue that MTMTE is legitimately special.

Current Iron Fist series and current Ghost Rider series are absolutely brilliant. Especially Iron Fist. I dropped DC post New 52 and what they've done to Constantine...though I do like Earth 2 and the beyond stuff. I also like Kirkman's Invincible and Outcast.

@jazz: Lack of skill shots in Dota 2? What?

I let it slide as well to allow the uninterrupted LoL love on. :)

@galiant: Its a little weird to put it as a lack, but there are more champions in LoL with skillshots than there are skillshots in Dota 2. A lot of champions in LoL has more than 1 skillshot as well.

@galiant: comparatively..Dota 2 has skillshots but not as many. 'It lacks in comparison' is what I should have said..

*edit - English language fail. Let's just agree that it doesn't have as many? Can we do that? Had enough arguing about unimportant things for one day.

edit 2:

List of Dota 2 skillshots

List of League skillshots

I don't know if those are up to date and I didn't really remember how many skillshots there were in Dota2 so I sit corrected..

I guess? I mean Invoker has 6 skill shots by himself. Hell my favorite hero Windrunnerranger has two skill shots. Popular flashy heroes like Earthshaker and Pudge are all about their skill shot. And Rubick that can steal them almost all of them.

I think the future of MOBA are going to be based more upon exotic skill shots where players will be doing things like "draw the path for effect" but the controversy is that these make games more twitchy which has its own drawbacks. In fact I still have reservations about Blink Dagger having no mana cost giving all heroes access to another skill shot.

@extomar: Yeah the real question is 'how twitchy do they get?' I like my Mobas being pretty twitchy, it adds to the immediacy and the excitement..but I can see it turning into Hotline Miami if it goes too far.

@jazz: Holy crap! Thank you for showing me how to do AI only matches! I even tried to look up a way online and everywhere was all like: "Yeah you can't do it!" Thank god, now I can play with zero anxiety.

@jazz nami: standard support build.. don't think you can make her work top very well, but eh fuck around with it. Sad to hear that team builder poops on you :( Again turn on the Pandasignal on top of the police headquarters my ADC'ing is the worst and my jangling is odd :p

Also GIMP.

and if you want twitchy moba get Riven. Its twitchy and I hate her learning curve.

You should totally buy the shit out of Blackthorn Morganna when it's on sale. It's the best Morganna skin IMHO, so many pretty effects and a great colour scheme/theme. It may be one of my fav skins in the entire game.

Namis kit is deceiving, some people think shes a passive support but all I can suggest whilst playing nami is to be as aggressive as possible and build at least some damage because the amount of AOE you have in your kit is insane. Nami belongs in the bot lane and possibly mid... I wouldn't play her top because her damage would be lacking against tanks, she's quite squishy and excels when she has team mates around so a solo lane isn't ideal.

@jazz:

I stopped playing competitive FPS games especially after UT 2K3 cranked up to "high twitch" which changed games from being accurate to just being fast. Being quick is a skill but it always feels to me being accurate in time and space is more impressive than just being fast or "first to draw". I can also see allowing too many "twitch skill shots" on heroes creating situations like "defensive camping" which would slow matches a lot. The only phase this seems to happen Dota 2 is "extreme late game" and that has been recognized as an issue by some. In general though, this limitation forcing heroes to "roam to gank" (exciting!) instead of "linger to gank" (not so exciting due to more waiting....).

@extomar: Y'see..I hate multiplayer fps games. I'm pratically in my coffin so I don't have the twitch for it and I find shooting actual people rather distasteful. Seriously. Stabbing or setting on fire..fine. Shooting. No. I do however have a soft spot for Unreal Tournament 2 but that's a really odd xbox game. Back on topic I see what you're saying and I have yet to see any 'defensive camping' at my level so it's not something i've ever thought about. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

@yesiamaduck: Thanks for the tips Senor Duck..I will see what I can do with them.Top Nami was me watching Solwolf's Breaking the Meta series..same with top Soraka. Looked fun so I thought I'd try.

@tbk: but..the mmr..smurfs..TEH MMR!

@random45: I'm glad I could help...be warned though, after a while the bots will begin to seriously annoy you.

@jazz: you're level 13 so whatever gurl

@tbk: and now my fishyface is currently lagged out, 500 ping and 0/4/0 mostly due to laaaag and a well played Morgana on the other side.

@jazz

TEH FUTURE OF +30FPS

I refrain to link to some poor chaps stolen video of 1997 Mortal Kombat "IT HAS BEGUN" imagine it being here.

Sticksfiddle: jangle (weird) mid (uncommon pick) support (even more of an uncommen pick)

hourglass is core item since activating it doesn't turn of your ult.

Oh, Fiddle. One of my early loves in League. I quietly stopped playing him when they ninja nerfed his fear to make people run away. Then they kept the 'unintentional bug.' I'm sure he's still good, but I'm still salty over the underhanded nature of that nerf.

Nikkone is a challenger that mostly (like 80%) plays Fiddlesticks. Watching some of his Twitch videos would be good, but that is at the highest tier of the highest tier of play. I don't know how helpful that is when you're at a level where the concept of teamwork is more of a vague suggestion.

Fiddle's too squishy for mid in the League of Mobility.

His jungle isn't bad, and the sustain is great, but you can get counter jungled. His whole trick in the jungle is surprise. Hide in a bush, wait for the enemy lane to push up, then pop his ult. Otherwise you are leveling his terrify and drain at about the same rate, probably focusing more on terrify, and dropping one point into his mute / crow early on. Fiddle can't wave clear for crap, so even in lane you rarely drop more than a few points into crows early.

Support Fiddle is okay, but not as strong as it used to be. That is all about his terrify skill, and using a 1-2 point crow mute on enemies when they go in for trades. The drain is only used for sustain, and as before, comes second to your terrify. Though you probably won't level it as evenly.

Zhonya's and Spirit Visage are his items. The first lets him use his ult and live, the second makes his drain so much more powerful.

If you're serious about trying jungle, think about Amumu. That guy is a key part of Bronzodia, the fear of of all bronze players. (Google it --- though Shen & Cho'gath are no longer really part of the fearsome five.)

Amumu is pretty forgiving, and cheap? It's been a while. He's tanky as heck, and his win rate at lower levels is funky.

Fiddlesticks Jungle is pretty strong, but I don't know that I would recommend starting with him for your first venture in the jungle. Most junglers are tanky/fighter types, whereas he's a super squishy mind-game style jungler. The meta in the jungle these days is all about scrapping and Fiddlesticks will just get blown up by someone like Vi or Lee Sin. The updates to the tanky jungle item Spirit Of The Ancient Golem has really brought tank junglers back to being viable, so that's probably your best bet to start with. The problem is that they're in the process of nerfing a lot of strong junglers in the last few patches. Amumu is definitely where most people start, though I think someone like Vi or Jarvan IV will get you further.

Personally, I think Vi is one of the strongest junglers out there right now. Her build path is so good too. Spirit Of The Elder Lizard and Brutalizer is enough to give you damage while you build some durability, then turn the brutalizer into a Ghostblade, see the SotEL for a trinity force late game and you're golden. Nocturne is also a lot of fun. He clears camps insanely quickly thanks to his passive and his ganks with his ultimate are crazy strong and you can engage from a damn mile away. Try a Spirit of the Elder Lizard, Blade Of The Ruined King build and you'll be able to take down just about anybody, tanks included.

This is making me wanna go jungle now.

@helicopterspy: @viking_funeral: I have had only Vi junglers all this week. In fact Pessh of these very forums just joined me in dying repeatedly to a far superior team as a Vi Jungler. The way she just comes out of nowhere with her charge is great and that Ult..great stuff for a support to tag on to due to the chance to double stun/root.

I tried Fiddle top in the botgame. Built with AP he cleared the lanes relatively quickly early on with his E..I'm sure it's not really that viable but I DID work..in a bot game. Also killing Darius and Alistair with only my W was hilarious. I'll take a look at Amumu.

Also thanks for the build advice. Zonyas is my defacto build due to playing Morgana so long. It should be renamed Morganas really..with my new power of 30fps I'll be able to..click things better. YAY.

@jazz: Yeah we got stomped, although 5 premade with a gold and silver vs 0 level 30s so I dont feel too bad. Hopefully you'll have some more luck on the new setup. Hows Nami? Tempted to pick her up while shes on sale even though I don't really play support. Could do with expanding my pool a bit, level 25 and only 8 champs. Spent all my IP on runes.

@jazz: Yeah, the thing about Vi is that she has super strong burst with a fully charged Q, autoattack (pretty much instant after the Q hits), E (to proc the W Armor shred), Ult, auto attack, e again, autoattack again for another W proc. I'd be happy to join you guys for a game or two, I'm Helicopterspy on the NA server.

@helicopterspy: Welp... we're EUW plebs though :(

@pessh: Nami is ok, her kit involves poke, a bit of sustain and some engage/disengage. I hope you only bought tier 3 runes though...

If you DO pick her up you can use E on yourself to have an easier time landing your bubble. Just hope the ADC follows up with some poke ;].

IT HAS BEGUN

IT HAS STOPPED

Who the hell sends people electrical appliances without the power lead? I did ask them if I needed anything besides a keyboard and mouse and they said no..sigh. Now where are my kettle lead plugs...

@tbk: Yep, I've got tier 3 ad and ap pages filled in as much as possible ('m level 26) so now I can focus on champs. Just need a rune or two each time I level up to finish off the pages.

8 champs is a pretty small pool for my level right?

8 purchased heroes at your level is fine. The rune pages are more important to max out first. You should have at least an ad and an ap rune page full of all lvl 3 runes.

By the time i hit lvl 30 i only had 10 or so champs purchased. now i got about 20. I save up for the expensive guys usually.

@jazz: wait they send you a pc with a PSU but forgot to pack the power cable?

sheesh

@pessh got nothing to add what @tunaburn said.

@jazz GLORIOUS +30 FPS REVOLUTION!

We should do some shizz together again at some time :o maybe with @pessh?

@tbk: make it so Numero Uno

Something I've always wondered about with LoL, is it still true it runs inside of some Adobe flash/air/thingamabob player?

Something else I wonder about, how does Dota 2 look on a "late model" MacBook Pro with the absurdly high resolution Retina Display.

@extomar: uh yeah the launcher/client still runs on adobe air, dunno about the actual game itself probably something homebrewish since they use lua or python for most of their scripting from what I've heard.

@extomar: League uses Adobe Air for their launcher/client and is actual garbage. The game runs as a separate executable though. Riot has said on a few occasions that they know their game code isn't the best, most of it was programmed when they were a tiny start up rather than the 800+ person company they are today, but they're working on it.

@tbk: Sure. Whats your name on LoL?

Take Flash. It's basically a free life every 5 minutes. That means one less time you've fed the opposing team, and one less opportunity for them to get ahead. There are millions of players who play the game, and probably tens of thousands that seriously theorycraft it, and 99+% agree on Flash being a must pick.

Honestly, though, it's your game and you can do as you like. You'd likely learn to pick Flash over time; I'm just trying to help you save some learning time (and have one less thing players will fight with you about --- not that they'll ever stop entirely.)

Some champs, and I mean a handful of top laners and junglers, actually prefer Ghost over Flash. Some also take both.

Even in the support role, which is entirely a product of the dominate meta, you aren't going to be with the ADC all the time, especially when the laning phase ends. You want to roam, place wards, gank and save other lanes, and basically snowball your team. If you get picked off while roaming because you didn't take Flash, you are not only feeding the other team but painting a target on your back (an even bigger one than already being the support).

Interestingly, they almost removed Flash back in the early days, and apparently they had a huge internal debate about it, but eventually relented because it would upset people. I would have liked that, as it would allow for more options, but older champs would have fallen off even harder in the new League of Mobility.

Finally, if you want to hear a pro go off about how bad of a pick Blizcrank is, go check out Tabzz latest thing.

Interesting reasons on not taking Flash and I totally see where you're coming from.

That said...you should always take flash :P I like the idea of having Tele to jump around the map to help, but ideally as a support you should be stuck to your Marksman like glue at least till you're getting into mid game. Once you're there, roaming to help other lanes is a good idea but even then you're gonna most likely be spending most of your time with your Mid or Marksman, and while Tele saves you the time actually walking to those lanes, you wanna be walking so you can get that Dragon warded, or get some wards in your jungle which is pretty key for Support. I mean, the whole team should be warding but Support normally takes the bulk of that.

I know you said you're still trying to figure out the Flash/Ult/Zhonyas with Morg but that's is such a great tool to have with her and there's a lot of champs that use that combo so it's worth it to try to hammer down that skill (ie. Sona Flash/Ult, Annie Flash/TIBBERSNOWYOU'REALLSTUNNEDTIMETODIE, Fid Flash/Ult etc)

Also just having that "oh shit" button is pretty vital. You wanna learn early how to use Flash. For example, what walls can be flashed over, what abilities you can flash out of, when to save Flash because you're for sure gonna die etc. If you ever decide to branch out from support it's even more important to have.

Again though, I see where you're coming from and if you have more fun playing with other Summoners more power too ya.

You should still take Flash on Morganna. How else are you going to do sweet flash -> ult plays when one of those things is missing?

@lyisa: @thesoutherndandy: @viking_funeral: I get where you guys are coming from and I thank you for going into the reasons behind it...but I'm still currently saying no. I can think of many times that Flash would have helped me secure a kill but about 2 where it would have saved me. At this moment in time I just don't think it's utility is higher than teleport. If I'm putting myself in a situation where I'm going to die..that's because I'm playing badly and I doubt Flash will help. If I get ganked by everyone (which is generally what happens to me in supp) then no amount of Flash or pixie dust is going to save me from highlander Yi 20999999 with Lux stunning me.

Keep in mind, I'm level 12. I've got 60ish hours into this and in another 60 hours I'm probably going to be writing here how goddamn dumb I am not taking Flash. I also don't like that the current way everyone plays mean I HAVE to take Flash..makes it even more likely that I won't. I'm just like that...rebel without a cause...or point. Hopefully it will make me a better player in the end because I won't put myself into the situation when I'll need that OH SHIT button that only works every..what, 5mins?

I will however try to use it more often. I need to get used to using DFG and Ruined King so might as well add that to the list and get used to it now.

Anywho we'll (and I mean we) will be back with the last in the current series of blogs in the next day or so..thanks for sticking it out.

In the meantime you can roll your eyes at the following:

@jazz: but flash is like the fastest way to The Danger Zone!

@tbk: I'm more of a footloose kinda guy

Glad to hear it.

@jazz: Let your freak flag fly brother. I watched your game and made some notes. I only made the notes because I would forget everything if I didn't. And they are friendly notes. The notes are as follows:

-You wanna Teleport to your tower as opposed to minions because it reduces the cooldown by a full 60 seconds which is pretty big.

-That Ashe death early game where you couldn't save her was totally not your fault. Staying that close to a Mantheon when you're that low is begging to die.

-Love that you're playing with cam unlocked. Took me way longer to work up to that.

-You're great at pinging and calling MIA's

-Also nice work on those skillshots, you landed a lot of great binds, there were a couple clutch binds in particular you landed on Vi and Panth that made me go "Niiiiice" out loud.

-Early game you were doing great with wards. It fell off mid game but that's an easy thing to forget to do when it gets hot an heavy, I still do the same thing sometimes.

-That Jinx death in the bush at 18:00 was hilarious

-You stayed with tier 1 boots the whole game. I know getting tier 2 boots doesn't feel nearly as good as getting that big damage item but it's important not to neglect them. You get a lot of really good stats and the movement increase is a big deal. ie. When I'm going Ziggs I'll often get them after I complete Athenes. Sometime's I'll wait till after Deathcap, especially if I'm ahead or have a lot of gold but getting that Magic Pen and speed that Sorc Shoes gives you helps a ton.

-Teleport went a little unused late game to get back to those team fights.

-So much ham from that Yi an Jinx.

-Near the end when Yi stopped attacking the Nexus towers and you were like "wtf?" the inhib had just respawned and had to be killed.

-Is your name a 40k reference? If it is that's awesome.

This concludes my notes. Honestly you looked way better then most of the people you were playing with/against, much better sense of what was going on in the game and how to react. Nice work duder.

OH also I forgot. Recently on the Journey to 30 show I'm on, we did an episode all about Supports. We brought on a couple high level players to help cause I'm pretty bad at Support. It's aimed at new players so you might find it helpful. It's not the most exciting thing to watch cause it's audio only but there's a lot of really good info.

@jazz: Just a little bit on flash(since you don't like it). Don't think of it as an oh shit button, it's so much more. Flash is a play maker button, a kill securing button and absolutely vital for some set ups(Morgana being one). I agree to an extent that it's lame that you have to take flash, but it's just the way the game turned out. More variety would be cool, but you're always going to need flash, it's too important for 99% of champions. In the end though, you're not going to dodge every skill shot that will get you killed, you're not always going to be able to escape or chase with your kit and move speed, some champs can go over walls on their own, they'd have a giant advantage over ones that can't. Give it a fair shake before you knock it. The 11 levels I had to play on my smurf without flash were painful, it is a literal game changer.

Gonna be streaming podcast recording here: http://www.twitch.tv/bm_panda