Okay disclaimer time:

If you want deep comparisons, you'll not find them here.

If you want anything but my own personal opinions, you'll not find it here.

If you want to be a dick..that's up to you, but it would be pointless.

I have a terrible sense of humour, you have been warned.

Steam ID is Jazz and my LoL ID is JazzGB or Ahriman Efreet

Lolking link to my profile - link

Dota2 only keeps public match records - yet to play anything but bot - will update.

Week 1 can be found here

Here I go again..on my own..going down the only road I've ever known...

So the news In brief:

• During Sunday I tired Heroes of Newerth, DOTA and Infinite Crisis. Well I downloaded the installer of infinite crisis looked at a video and went 'nope'. HoN was just...boring and ran like jank on my janky laptop (more on that later) and DOTA..well..those creeps sure do move, amirite?
• My Lee Chaolan is ready. So very ready.
• Fantastic Four is really about seeing Jessica Alba's knickers as many times as possible. Like Twilight is about the story of the missing Armadillo in the lab scene..where did it go? Why did it leave? Why was it there in the first place then not? What's it's background? Question going to the heart of Twilight.
• Oh and HoN has a monkey courier. Just..if that makes any difference to you. It does to some.

So over the weekend I had a look as to what the roles are in a moba. Having played WoW for enough time to question my life choices I get the 'holy' trinity of Tank/DPS/Healer..but it gets more complicated in mobas. A major part of the game is farming and last hitting - it makes you feel like you're actually doing something (gaining money to get better weapons) overcoming the need to take someone's farm when you're a support - or just learn what a support role is in a moba in my case - kinda goes against our nature as gamers. Click to kill, click to loot - instant gratification.

Which leads me to today's happy happy happy joy joy joy times.

Life kinda went a bit screwy for me today. I had plans to go teach in Korea - but that seems to have fallen through so now I'm trying to secure a PGCE course before the end of the summer..had to apply through UCAS this morning (If you're not from the UK just think..forms, pain, forms..anger, forms) so not much time to play anything but LoL this afternoon.

• To warm up I thought I'd play a game with Morgana as a mid. Farm started well, was having fun and then - connection error. So I tried to reconnect..no dice. It was complaining about my firewall. No problem before - checked firewall, fine. Decided to quit out. It threatened me with a timeout ban..seriously? It's not my fault your servers have gone wackadoo. We were all kicked out. It eventually sorted itself out, but that was half an hour of wasted time.
• Next game..whew..okay take a look here. I called mid and was greeted by 'Germany???' and then 'French???' An auspicious start.
• I went my merry way to mid...followed by Taric (luckyyluc). I asked him to politely get out of my lane to which I get no response. The others started pinging like crazy to try and get him to move to no avail. Concluded he was a newbie with no language skills and decided to leave him.
• Naturally my farm was rather depleted as he would rush in and take some of it - luckily Taric isn't that effective at farming at that level compared to me.
• After a while other lanes started having problems, I was underlevelled and having a hard time - so when I went to support those lanes we'd get stomped.
• Had a great moment of being chased by 4 gankers, only to lose them in the grass..oh AI you so dumb.
• We lost Zac first - he just gave up. Tryn followed close behind. It just left me, Taric and Gator boy.
• Around the 30 min mark Taric suddenly said 'GO BOT!' to which I nearly covered my computer with lemonade. Turns out he does know something. Though my favourite was 'Last Level :)' as if it was Super Meat Boy or something.
• We eventually rallied and won - but it took a long time and it was painful.
• Game 2 with Twisted Fate crashed out once we won, but I think i'm getting the hang of his cards. It's a hell of a lot of fun to bait the AI, yellow card, run then blue card them for the kill. TF is probably my second favourite after Morgana. I had attack speed through the roof and was just burning through everything - well I went top and Master Yi decided that he was the carry so I just tried to support who I could and gank the AI when I could.
• I need to get rid of my habit of running straight. Abilities tend to hit in straight lines (Miss Fortune's ridiculous ult)

So final thoughts

• Positioning still needs to be worked on, need to drop the running straight habit. Zigzagging is probably best. Ganking works at 45 degree angles apparently.
• Need to work on my understanding of the roles and how best to adapt to the situation. Teams don't play around you - you need to integrate and work with the team.
• Against the AI i'm beginning to work out who will be mid (as I tend to play there) against me as they just keep shoving out Ryze or Annie. So spell blocking is a must.
• Punishing people for leaving once is dumb - should be 3 times and your out in pub games.
• I found out today that the other side can see what card TF has lined up. That's...I can understand that you need to see there's a card coming but the colour? That's broken right there - but I suppose you can use it to play mind games. Everyone runs from gold when it's blue they should be scared of.
• mwhahahahahahaha - cough - blue cards.
• It's inevitable but I'm going to have to find a team to play with eventually of about the same skill level as me in order to continue with this blog. Playing alone probably won't cut it beyond another week or so - so if there's anyone wanting to start playing or are just as crap as I am please get in contact.

Hope this is as popular as the last post - let's keep it rolling people.

TBC

Like a drifter I was born to play aloooneeee

So our usual news round up:

• ...nope, no news today (oh boy) about an unlucky guy who didn't make the grade..the news was rather sad, but you had to laugh...I saw the photograph..

I spent a fair amount of time (in my news feed) checking out the Red Posts on LoL. As someone who is interested in how the mechanics of these games work I find them fascinating, not least in how the..cough..'fans' react to an almost impossible situation. I just picked up on the following but there's tons more in the posts:

For instance - balancing Lee Sin. Ghostcrawler (is this WoW Ghostcrawler? As in 'where's my pony?') gave this reply in answer to why haven't they nerfed Lee Sin?

Champions are coolest, in our opinion, when they have distinct strengths and weaknesses. (This is why we describe champs that are just balls of stats as a bad thing and try to update them.) Moreover, when balancing champs, we achieve the best results when we buff things a champ is good at and nerf things a champ is weak at. This opens up opportunities for cool moments when a champ leverages their strengths, but still leaves clear opportunities for counterplay.

The problem with Lee Sin is that while he has some really cool things he does well, he doesn't have obvious weaknesses that we can enhance in order to open up windows to try and shut him down. This means we have to invent a weakness, which is a dicey prospect, because it means having to redefine a champion's role. "Oh, you only thought Lee was great at mobility and that's why you played him, but we just decided that should be something he's bad at instead. So sorry." (Just an example obviously.) That doesn't absolve us of the responsibility to balance him, but it means it takes more exploration than just nerfing his Q or whatever.

Xenalth went on to say:

Look, I get it. You're upset, you're frustrated. You feel like the diversity of champions that should exist is being crushed by Lee Sin. You are sick of seeing the same thing over and over again. It sucks.

I hate when I want to jungle it up and see yet-another-lee-sin-invade steal my buffs and being unable to punish the **** out of him for it. (Cuz he just ward hops away, woo hoo!)
At the same time - look at what happened last year when we got close to worlds and made some tweaks to Tri-Force. The result was that it distorted the entire competitive scene for worlds, potentially invalidating months of build-up and expertise.

Now, I am not saying there aren't tweaks to Lee Sin that would push him out of Worlds. The perfect solution might even be in this thread. What I am saying is that to find, evaluate and iterate on that solution takes time and causes ripple effects on the rest of the game.

Lee Sin has become a jungle-defining staple because he has no weaknesses. This is why the long-term solution Ghostcrawler described is the right one - and will probably cause some pain along the way. Once Lee's out of the way, who are the next three champs to surge to the front? They could make the game just as bad, if not worse.

When we hit a champ like Lee, we want to do our jobs and do our jobs right. Thank you for holding us to that standard. We'd also be doing you a disservice if we didn't tell you that the right solution isn't easy"

This is obviously a big issue with some champions in League and rebalancing them means rebalancing the whole game. I have yet to find anything like these posts in relation to DOTA2 which is a shame - as they do show the mindset of these guys. Balancing a fighter with 12 characters is hard enough - imagine 100+.

Anyway on we go:

• I had a really tough time with DOTA2 today - I think I put in about 2 1/2 hours or something but didn't really enjoy myself at all. Again it was the 'try a bunch of characters' out and see what fit. I actually went random a couple of times for that lovely random gold.
• Venomancer - with Viper taking the top on venom..things I'm not sure why this guy exists, is he a support? Not really my scene.
• Ursa - nope.
• Weaver - interesting mechanics and the invisibility is cool. Not a pick but not disliked.
• Axe: oh hell no.
• Spirit Breaker - nope
• Clinkz - ye...no.
• Magnus - interesting buff but no
• Queen of Pain - Really? Really Valve?...but fun to play.
• Phantom Assassin - cool, evasion is neat and the passive ult is pretty damn strong.
• Nature's Prophet - I'm over here, nope over here, nope over here..nope.
• Lich - his ult is insane in an enclosed space with a bunch of heroes but nah.
• Back to Phantom Lancer - I watched Dendi (never trust a guy who could have named himself after a DBZ character) and he went gloves of haste first buuut he kinda got stomped. Anyway interesting to note that dopplewalk (or whatever itself called) last 20 seconds as opposed to spear's 8 seconds. More procs are never a bad thing. I played a game that was tough going.
• I know it's probably noobish to complain but the tower in mid makes no fucking sense (not that I play Lancer in mid..i don't but I've just thought about it) It can hit you from MILES away even if there are creep ahead of you and you haven't attacked the turret. Ergh. I hate mid in DOTA.

• One game of League after my lackluster DOTA game. I mainly wanted the IP boost for first win, and I'll be honest - I wanted to play TF again.
• I bought some runes (attack speed, AP and Damage - 3 bronze) and redid my masteries - attack speed and mana with one in movement.
• League quits on me as soon as the match finishes, just started doing it and I have no idea why.
• Anyway went top by myself - had a Warwick jungler, Black orb woman, sivar? and Master Yi.
• Super super aggressive shen and large ice troll dude tried to shut me down quiet a bit..I was surprised how aggressive they were as they tended to go after me rather than farm.
• I was doing okay farming and pressuring the AI till everyone else decided my lane was fair game to farm - most were 3 levels behind me at that point - thus I started to lose my farm.
• Much feeding was done by pretty much everyone but myself and Warwick.
• Ashe just destroys everyone, even I, with levels on her, had a hard time due to her range.
• I went ring - sheen - boots - lich (we we're taking a pounding and I couldn't farm or gank at the time) - cap - whatever.
• Started pushing back and we eventually won - again late game TF is just...stupid powerful if kitted properly. Those cards demolish creeps and keep going - though I would question the hit detection at the very end of their range. Pretty sure I hit a guy twice and would have killed him.

Final Thoughts of the Day:

• Today's Dota2 and LoL made me realise that I'm going to eventually have to pick one of these to learn otherwise my head will explode. I'm tentatively going to say that I will consider my options around the month mark. That doesn't mean I'll stop playing both - it just means I'll put more of my energy into one than the other.
• Pubs are hard work - especially when you're not the greatest thing ever yourself.
• I would pay to put TF into DOTA2.
• I would also pay to put Phantom Lancer into LoL.
• I think I'm finally coming to a decision as to my prefered playstyle in each game
• What the hell is equilibrium (and no not that Bale movie)

I think it's time to work out what exactly I need to learn. I think I've probably got a handle on most of the basics.

• Warding is something I need to learn -
• last hitting I'm okay with - but could be better
• Efficient money spending/item selection probably needs work
• Positioning, right angles still need work.
• Ganking - timing..a lot of this is down to working with a team.
• Pinging - i never do it. Probably should.

Thats all for today - thanks for the comments and I'll be back tomorrow..probably.

tbc

but I made up my mind..I ain't wastin' no more time

The news in brief:

• There's been a massive clamp down on posts recently - some of it necessary, some of it not. I've been here since beta and some of the recent behaviour by both mods and users has really let this site down. I sympathise with the mods, but you can overdo it. Hopefully this is just another transitional phase but...internet drama is just so pathetic.
• Thanks to CorruptedEvil (Flame Please hihihihiii) I got into the Strife beta as suggested by Tunaburn. Unfortunately the installer is kinda broken. It tried to install directx silently and gets nowhere. Even going through with admin privilages and installing the DX package that comes with it doesn't work. I'll have to download and reinstall - it does seem to be doing some interesting things with the formula.
• Of course Lady Thor has to have a midriff..Odin's beard if she has full armour or something.
• http://www.twitch.tv/exilic is a new stream on Twitch that features our own Gunslingerpanda. Check it out when you have a chance.
• On my day off I found I had an almost perfect model for the Drow so:

So I should probably state that I haven't really played anything today. I tried making a video of the stuff from last night (which some of you probably saw) but that went wrong too. So lets start off with what happened last night and move on from there:

• Gunslingerpanda was kind enough to join me for a botmatch - which you can watch here http://www.twitch.tv/exilic/b/547841476

• Unfortunately I was suffering from severe super lag due to someone watching netflix downstairs (without me knowing) so...that would partially explain that. I enjoy playing Phantom Lancer but I feel that I have no idea how to make him threatening until late game.
• We then were joined by TobbRobb (the artist formerly known as TR) who was trolling me through most of the botmatch pretending he was Luna.
• My first PvP match and the MMR was out of whack, there were Russians everywhere and an angry American. It was perfect. As much as I like Viper I did not feel that I really knew how to maximise his? potential and once Tobb went off up top to help NP and I got cornered by two characters I had never even seen before..well..the Russians won. NP was not best pleased.
• I'm not entirely sure what NP was up to has he didn't seem to be much interested in pushing or jungling.
• Enigma black hole...jesus.

• Now it's a real shame that most of you didn't get to see our League match cause..well..oh my it was hilarious. I flew my TF flag again in mid..probably having a better idea of what I was doing than in DOTA2. I was up against a level 30 player Diana. Tobb was all like 'oh you can zone her out'...3 mins in I was having real issues. Masteries and Runes make all the difference and the MMR was jacked as I was with 2 level 30s. Once she hit level 6 though...ooooooh boy.
• It was a massacre. I think throughout the game (which I think we acquitted ourselves well in, especially Panda and his gelatinous zak of doom) she alone got 25 kills while the rest of the team had 1-3 each. It was madness.
• It seemed we all spent our game in mid ganking each other...every 5 seconds it was 'DIANA'S BACK..RUN!' to 'EVERYONE ON DIANA'...even a random Vayne stepped up and took hits for us so we could kill Diana.
• I only made one Lady Di joke...and that was bad enough.
• We actually managed to push them back to their base a couple of times but once they got Baron...it was MDK.

So a great great thanks to Tobb and Panda (having watched the stream Panda's grimacing at some of my jokes is priceless) for putting up with my idiocy once again. I had great fun running around like a maniac but it's probably time to start taking it a wee bit more seriously....ah who am I kidding?

Final Thoughts:

• As it stands League is miles ahead in the fun stakes at the moment - probably due to me finding characters that suit my playstyle and the more 'actiony' method of playing.
• Playing against higher level players is tough..especially when they actually co-ordinate. We didn't co-ordinate at all and it was hilarious.
• My first two proper pvp games ended in defeat..not that I'm surprised but things can only get better, ne?
• I was really rather nervous of playing pvp in league cause I didn't want to let the team down.
• The video that Southern Dandy posted in the comments was a great help and I will be looking at the rest of them.

So thanks again for all the comments - I'll try and integrate your suggestions a bit more thoroughly as I feel I've been a little lax recently, more interested in 'goofing off than winning' as Americans might say.

tbc

Playing in a smokey room, the smell of wine and cheap perfume..it goes on and on and on and on.

aka - 'Jungling Karma is legit' - Gunslingerpanda

Quick news:

• Serious Sam 3 looks like shit on the ps3 but plays great - at only 800+megs and the wide open spaces you can understand..but god the textures are awful. It's just when you hear that sound...that's when you know you're playing a Serious Sam game.
• Still can't get Strife to work..odd.
• Kingdom Under Fire: Crusaders still stands up today and remains one of my favourite games of all time.

Alrighty then. Once again I was joined by Gunslingerpanda for some hijinks..and shenanigans.

• We started off in DOTA in a bot match. I think Panda played Bloodseeker and really got into it. I was playing, I'm going to say PL again but I honestly don't remember. My connection kept cutting out all the time - pro tip BT Internet sucks, and if I had any choice in that matter I would use someone else but living in the countryside you don't get that much of an option.
• We then transitioned to a random pick pvp game with..you guessed it..a bunch of mumbly russians.
• Best. Game. Ever.
• We lost by the way but that's not the point.
• I went Windrunner, Panda went Dazzle for the lols.
• Our opposing team had no invisibility using people..none.
• I was asked to buy some wards..which I did (yellow) and got told I needed to buy blue.
• Neither Panda nor myself understood wtf..but we went along with it.
• This guy (who was playing Templar Assassin btw..really really badly, even I could tell that) proceeded to cover the top left area of the map in blue wards. It..was...hilarious.
• All of the wards..all of them. Never thinking to just use his ult to save time and money
• Oh and Legion Commander proceeded to feed the other team like a...kamikaze pilot? Does that simile even work? And Zeus was all like 'fuck this I'ma go see Leda' and he..swanned off.
• Cough
• Operation 'Courier' then commenced..unfortunately they were not able to win us the match, but they tried really hard..especially that bird one.
• On the more serious side I enjoyed windrunner as she reminded me of Lux in many ways..I'm going to try more with her.

• We then went into League where I played Morgana and Panda played (and was determined to do so) a jungler Karma. I have no idea if this is a thing or not but he was cackling to himself for a while there...
• We only played a botmatch so it was easy enough to stomp them. I think I'm getting a better handle on Morgana and her shield ability. Saved me (and others) a couple of times from nasty spells.

I then spent most of today checking out some more heroes in DOTA2 - just so that I can have a idea of what I could be playing and what I could be up against: Again I realise that playing them in botmatches is not exactly how they would be played in actual PvP matches and a lot of stuff I get away with would not fly..

• On the suggestion of one of you guys (forgive me I don't have the comments here right now) I tried Slardar. I'm really not that kind of player, odd as it may sound after going on about PL so much (Cancer Lancer? Seriously..what did he ever do to you? Shit in your water?) It's difficult to articulate but he just didn't work for me. Thanks for the suggestion.
• Doom: Or Vic as I call him.. I really enjoyed playing this guy. Going jungling, taking abilities, throwing down a regen/burn and then dooming everyone. He's just fun.
• Anti-Mage: I feel that you need a decent support/player around you to be take advantages of the openings..you ain't gonna get that with bots.
• Enchantress - It's great taking a levl 6 mob with you at level 1 but..ehh too skippy.
• Riki: OMF..no I'm kidding. He's fun but I can see that he would be shut down asap by any proper team.
• Spectre: This was an interesting one - I liked a lot of her abilities and the passives are cool. Get a hero by themselves and thats a quick kill if they don't stun you.
• Sniper - Dat Ult...ooh boy.
• Templar Assassin. I need more experience to understand her role. She seems to be a semi-carry assassin and of all the characters I've played so far I like her the most - I just wish I was better with her.

Final Thoughts:

• I'm getting there. I'm beyond the point where I take damage from creeps, spam mana, stand in dumb places, get in front of the creep wave, refuse to buy wards/tp scrolls.
• I'm coming up on 30 hours for DOTA and I've only played (and lost) two games against people.
• Need to learn more about Wind and Templar..might also look into Doom and Spectre more.
• Must remember to play more Crystal Maiden.
• Last hits without being attacked by creeps probably needs work.
• Map awareness.
• More Wards..all the wards. ALL OF THEM.
• Jungle Karma is legit yo.

Thanks for the comments and bearing with me through the long learning process.

tbc.

Don't stop feeding..hold on to that feeling..team fights, heroes oohohooohooohooo

aka 'I can't type /dance into a console MMO' - Gunslingerpanda

Quick thoughts:

• Having a 3mb line sucks - it takes nearly a day and a half to download the Destiny Beta.
• I'm not even buying Destiny.
• Thunderstorms last night cut the power - luckily I wasn't downloading.
• Why the fuck haven't sony patched in the ability to pause downloads on the ps4? It's not difficult to understand why it's necessary. You can do it on the ps3.
• DO NOT FEED LU BU.

So I've been hitting DOTA2 pretty hard, and it's hit me pretty hard back. One of my scores in a botmatch yesterday was 0/11/4. A bot match. That's not to say I was entirely alone in my inability to accurately play the game yesterday but..yeah, no one sucked THAT hard but me. I'll spare you guys the details beyond the fact that I took a long hard look at myself in the mirror afterwards (figuratively speaking). I play games to have fun, not really to win, but despite the great company..that wasn't really much fun at the end there.

As a result my gaming was rather subdued today (that and the heat is oppressive). I had planned just to play Drakengard 3 till Destiny was done but..haha nope. Right back into DOTA2.

• I played some more bot matches with some guys I haven't tried..as much as I love Templar Assassin that just hurt too much yesterday.
• Disrupter/or? I didn't really enjoy playing as this guy...can't give you an exact reason beyond 'gallic shrug' meh.
• Silencer - cool. I liked his abilites, the fact he's ranged (I'm not a melee guy with PL being the exception) and his ability to silence everyone at once.
• Skywrath - noo, no no no no no no.
• Morphling: Too complicated
• Illi..I mean Shadowblade: Again, fun. I do seem to like illusions don't I? His megasuperbuff pew pew mode is fun too.
• Huskar - I loved this guy. I like Trolls as par of the course, but attack speed up when damaged? Flame Spears that damage you? Jumps and healing? Great fun.
• Bounty Hunter - I tried again but goddamn bots won't follow my lead..they drove me mad today, running off halfway through a fight when the other side were low health and then they ganked me..happen 3 times.
• Tusk - I like his Ice wall thing, didn't have a chance to use his snowball due to shitty AI again.

Final Thoughts:

• Apologies for the brevity but it's been tough going this past day.
• Wards, blinking and probably just playing with people now and ruining their games instead of getting pissed with the bots is the way to go.
• League will return soon, I just want to get better at DOTA first..or at least win one game goddamnit.
• I got nothing else - hit the bottom of the DOTA barrel. But the only way now is up.
• I'm taking tomorrow off so I'll be back on Sunday night.

Stick with me..I'll get through this whiney part and get back to the headsmacking nonsense.

tbc

@jazz son we gotta talk about your item choices :p

regarding TF, it used to be that you and the enemies didn't easily see what card he has picked but they changed that for some reason.

In terms of dodging skill shots: 90° sharp turns can do wonder and for Miss Fortune specific: It is a channeling ult and can be interrupted via stuns (yellow card) or knock ups. Of course not fighting in close spaces when facing a MF is also a good idea.

This post reminds me that I was about to play LoL again, since it had been years since I last did with my friends, but there's no offline mode! Dota2 spoiled me in that regard I guess, I just want to play games with the AI, I don't want to have to worry about other dipshits who might play with me. The best you can do is go against a team of AI alone, which is a bit stacked against you. Why in the world isn't there an offline mode to that game? I don't even want to earn points or anything, I Just wanna play the game alone.

@random45: You can actually play with just bots. Go to custom game and make it private. It gives you the option to fill with just bots.

@tbk: but...but...mana regen! Yeah, I know. It's been me just racing for pew pew damage. Lay it on me daddy-o.

I'd offer to rally a group for you to play with on League on the EUW servers but it's mostly gold - diamond level players in my usual group with a sizable amount of normal games so the mmr would just drag you into games where you'd not learn much other than that some people are way better at this game than should be allowed.

@freshbandito: My measles/mumps/rubella vaccination was a good 14 years ago so I don't think I'm probably up to you're standards of play yet. Thanks for the offer though...I'm trying (emphasis on trying) to get some of my 'friends' playing too. Unfortunately one is too far into the DOTA hole, another 2 refuse to play as that will mean the first will have 'won' and the last is too busy playing Dark Souls 2 or complaining about having too much work and a hot girlfriend with the most ridiculous last name ever.

First world problems are a bitch maaaaan.

@jazz: It is more about that attack speed stuff on TF, you don't need ton of Attackspeed (Nashors && Phantom Dancer) :o

Look at how and when TF does damage :) Let's try it that way.

I'm unfortunately way more experienced(plat V, been playing on and off for a couple years), and on US servers, but if I can ever lend help by way of advice or anything I'd be happy to do what I can. I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable. My name in League is YIOrange, or feel free to PM on here or whatever.

Also, I've been playing a Smurf to help a friend learn/level, and I promise the experience will get better the deeper you get into the game. The community is still full of assholes, but the amount of people who leave games falls off. Draft pick is also home to a slightly better people than blind pick.

@yi_orange: I don't have enough Champions unlocked to feel safe on draft pick..I'd end up playing someone like Fiora again and that would be bad for the rest of the team. Thanks for the comment and the offer.

@tbk: ah so you're saying blue card..damage rather than speed? I did enjoy the attack speed boost - do these things not stack? I should also hold my hands up to just buying what I can afford when I'm at the base..I don't really plan ahead at the moment. Another thing to change.

@jazz Attack speed is interesting if you play a champion that does a lot of damage through auto attacks / basic attacks.

I don't think TF falls into this category. Most of your damage comes from pick a card (should be the W) and that 3 card toss thing (his Q I think). I don't know how good E is since E would benefit from Attackspeed, but most TF's I see go for a burst build building around the idea of Ult into Yellow Card into Wild Cards with E being secondary consideration.

AD TF used be a thing though I don't know how effective this is right now, since the META favours long range carries right now.

I've enjoyed reading these blogs. It's been fun seeing it from a newcomers perspective.

I've played LoL for a few years, but never really got into ranked or anything serious like that, primarily because of teammates being absolutely horrible if you make a mistake. And sadly, not enough friends play for me to make a full team.

@elyhaym: Exactly what I'm worried about - these blogs will kinda go (more) downhill if there aren't new stories/players. As the 'personality' player thing shows, it's as much about the games as it is the people. Thanks for the comment.

@tbk: I'll look into it. Looks like boots, sheen, lich is popular.

@jazz: Pretty much. Though you might want to get deathcap before finishing lichbane in case of mana issues you can go with athenes or morellonomicron's.

@tbk: @jazz: Proper use of pick a card(last hitting with blue card) should provide you with enough mana to be fine in laning phase, just can't spam wild cards until you get the blue buff(you should get the second if your jungler is doing it right). Sheen also provides some mana. Lich Bane is good first on TF since it's a pretty big powerspike for him. Stun with gold card into free wild cards, and if you're lucky/plan ahead you can get the E at the same time as your stun, so that's a ton of burst. You don't want to keep auto attacking since once they get unstunned they're gonna throw their shit at you and TF is pretty squishy even as far as mids are concerned. At that point you'll be above level 6 though which means your ganks are going to be very very scary. The stun you provide and the damage up front means you're going to win any 2v1 or 3v2 with ease(assuming no one is fed).

Athene's isn't a bad pick, it's definitely safer and will make wave clear and harass a little easier/safer since you can use more wild cards(Q). I'll admit I don't really play TF, he's a fantastic team player so he's not as effective with 4 random people most of the time, but he's still solid. The current build path at pro levels is Lich Bane>Hourglass>Void Staff>Deathcap I believe. Hat an staff might be switched, and with boots in there of course.

Also, never worry about who you're playing. This is the best time for you to be playing random bullshit as much as possible. The deeper in you get the harder it's going to be to pick someone like Fiora. Having mains is fine, but I would advise you to try as many different champions as possible(free weeks anyway, don't waste your IP buying all the cheap ones if you don't want to). Being familiar with them makes a world of difference, and the more you play new champions the easier it will become to pick other new ones up on the fly, and it might actually help cross-game too. For the brief period I tried DotA 2 I found it pretty easy to jump into almost anyone(granted I played DotA on WC3). Plus, there's a lot of fun champions who sadly just aren't very good.

And a final couple notes after looking back at your first post:

Top lane is usually bruiser types. Mostly AD(attack damage) with tankyness, some APs(Lulu, Ryze, Gragas) have become popular up there.

Mid is mostly AP(Ability Power) champions which serve as a second carry or an assassin.

Bottom is an ADC(Attack Damage Carry) and a support. The ADC is always ranged like caitlyn, vayne, ezreal. Support is someone who's kit has a lot of control but not necessarily a lot of damage(there are exceptions). They just try to secure kills for the ADC and keep it safe. They don't take farm.

Jungle is similar to top lane.

Morganna is mostly played support these days and is quite powerful. She's potentially my favorite support at the moment. She doesn't play mid often because of her long cooldowns and puddle damage being unreliable, but she still does a fair amount of damage, and her kit makes it hard for any AP to kill her.

A lot of this may not apply to bots, AI is weird as hell. I would get into real players as soon as you can, bots will teach you bad habits and strange behaviors.

This game seems like a lot to take in, and it is up front, but it's really all about the fundamentals. Once you understand the basics everything else will fall into place.

@yi_orange: whew..that's fantastic. Thank you for breaking it down like that. I did find that by the end my Q was dealing massive damage and my blue card took a 1/4 - 1/2 health off characters. As for the other bits I'll keep them in mind. Explaining the lanes really does help massively.

I'll start playing other champions more, I just play Morgana and TF when I feel like I need to have certified fun. I know I'll enjoy playing them even if it all goes wrong. Time constraints as well mean that I should be maximising my time better I guess.

Playing against the AI...I agree entirely. I'm sure I have a ton of bad habits due to it. Perhaps later this week...no promises. It's scary.

@yi_orange: Have you actually stumbled across any good sources that explain basic lane mechanics? Things like lane control (when to push, when to freeze, HOW to freeze) and when to go back and shop? I tried looking for that stuff lately since I'm super bad with it and couldn't find anything satisfactory.

@jazz I don't mind doing more bot games with your or normal blind picks and draft picks, my issue is just that I only have time during the evening hours during the week.

Also yes that is THE Ghostcrawler.

Didn't realize you were from the UK. I'm also messing around with Dota if you want to team up with someone who won't say "OMG WHY U FEED" when they don't follow through on your initiations :( Yes, I just had a terrible experience with a mean Drow. PM me if you wanna group up.

@gunslingerpanda: Yeah man that sounds great.

@tbk: holy shit....Where's my pony? No probs about playing later - I just need a break - not big on playing vidya games for more than 3 hours at a time..my head falls off or something.

@jazz: @tbk: AD TF was more of a thing back when he could teleport across the entire map, mostly picked as a splitpusher/backdoor. Also back when sword of the divine synergised with his E really well. AP is overwhelmingly stronger now though, I wouldn't call AD bad or useless, but in comparison it just might be.

I'm still up to play more whenever. Just ask.

- Venomancer is great in a push team. Like other wards, plague wards must be targeted individually to clear and are great as temporary warding and Poison Nova is surprisingly effective in a team brawl. I think Veno is an okay beginner hero because Plague Wards are "fire and forget" but you have to play him "shy".

- Phantom Assassin is one of my favorite heroes to play when "I just don't care". Although she relies on a little luck, her dagger is surprisingly long range and will crit with Coup De Grace. The fun part in my view is that she is actually open to multiple item build. Yasha? Sure. Butterfly? Sure. Desolator? Sure. Eye of Skadii? Sure. :) It should be noted when I play against PA I definitely get MKB or disable to help keep her under control.

- Clinkz is like Drow Ranger has hit hard times being a single target harder Carry. Facing a Clinkz makes the other team to have a "invis tax" where they have to carry reveal items and fully sentry warded or get snipped. If you like playing assassination style "stalking heroes" then Clinkz works but just like those other heroes you need to be patient and be "shy".

As for mid, it does take certain heroes to handle mid properly. Queen of Pain would work fine mid but Phantom Lancer should go a side lane with support help. Often times being in mid isn't about "winning" but holding off the enemy long enough that the other lanes get high enough to help break the tower. Running mid lane helped me work on my "map sense" and defensive stance. Although it is great when the team calls out someone is missing it is up to you to constantly double check and take defensive action when you can't see them.

ps. Dendi is a character in Dragonball?

@extomar: Dende - or little green guy as he's generally know in DBZ Abridged. Thanks for the breakdown..I wouldn't play mid with PL due to range issues and general squishyness. I would actually never really play mid in Dota...I really hate it that much.

@tobbrobb: I'm terrible at asking people to do stuff...I always think they prefer not to be bothered..but I'll keep it in mind. We should do some more League trolling at some point, that was super fun.

Do not pick one to play seriously until you have played against humans a few times.

The community in league gets really really bad once youre playing against people.

Much worse than Dota 2. I like both games but i ended up sticking with dota 2 simply because of that.

I have about 1000 League games and 2000 Dota 2 games.

Also i have never spent a penny on dota 2 and i have 100's of cusomization options. At least 2 items per character. My dragon knight has a whole set.

I do not like the paywall for league. once you get to ranked you will see the new champs picked every game. and unless you have saved up a shit ton of gold or want to spend cash every 2 weeks you will be behind.

Also Strife is like league but a lot easier to master. And the community is 10 times better than any other moba right now.

@tunaburn: That's why I'm gonna wait till at least a month in. I think it's very dependant on finding the right team in the right game. I'll take a look at Smite sometime..That's Hi-Rez Studios and third person right? Kept getting Beta invites a while back.

Alright, more of this!

It sounds like you're leaning towards LoL. Picking one soon seems inevitable.

As for Dota 2, Spectre is my personal favorite. You get a global presence like no other, being able to jump into every team fight no matter where you are on the map, extra damage against solo heroes, great chase/escape...just good fun. I don't know if I can recommend Spectre though, because you have to farm a lot before you become useful at all. If you have the patience to farm through a weak start, definitely give Spectre a try.

Streaming here -

http://www.twitch.tv/exilic

@jazz: Yeah definitely play with people first. Finding synergy and fun things to do as a team is such a huge part of the games, and that plays out pretty differently depending on which one you play.

Smite seems kind of cool, but I couldn't get much further than a couple of games in. There was no shortcut to match with a higher skill tier, and I didn't get anything out of stomping against new players. I'm still a bit curious about it. It's very fast, and having every ability be aimed is a fun change.

yes but i said strife not smite. i hate smite haha

@tbk: Nope, it's just experience and watching pro games for me. I'm in platinum and a lot of people aren't great at manipulating lanes, myself included. I don't play adc much though which is the most important role for that. Basically, if they have bad wave clear and you're not worried about getting jumped, push them in and poke if you can. If you're looking to kill or gank them, let them push you(without missing cs of course). Otherwise I just try to keep the lane toward the center. Try and keep up or ahead in creep score and harass depending on the way the lanes going or the match up.

Edit - as for shopping you want to miss as few minions as possible and not let your tower take damage. Usually you go back after clearing a wave if your opposing lane isn't in a position to shove on your tower.

The snippet about balancing a League champ is emblematic of the problem they have with the entire free to play structure. It's hard to nerf something that people paid for, and champs can't be too weak in given areas because people might only have access to a few at a time. This is never a problem in Dota. Dota heroes can be balanced by all sorts of bizarre conditions that depend on the enemy team purchasing specific items or having a good draft. In TI4 so far, the highest possible level of competitive Dota, there have only been 9 heroes available NOT picked -- and it's likely that a few of those could still see play and just depend on a very specific setup. The takeaway from this is that noone in Dota is overpowered or better, they just all have a particular niche that doesn't show up in every game. There's usually not a problem like 'how do we balance this hero with no weaknesses' because there's no such thing as the 'best' for any particular position anyway. If a hero really is too good at things, then Icefrog (the balance brains of dota) is not afraid to make MAJOR changes to their skill base without warning. It's been a while since complete overhauls, but (for instance) Earth Spirit saw major changes over the course of a few patches pretty recently and Broodmother is still in the middle of a major re-working of her basic skill combos.

You mention watching Dendi play then trying out his item build -- please don't do this. Gloves of Haste are a bad item to start the game with since all they do is increase your attack speed, not your health or damage or anything else that really helps with last hitting early on. When pros make item decisions they're doing it based on a huge wealth of data that takes years to accumulate -- I assume in this case he was rushing a Gloves of Midas which is enormously greedy and should only be done if you're completely confident you can get the other thousandish gold within about 8 minutes. You almost always want to start out with three branches, tango and a salve. That's the best all rounder build. In point of fact, someone saying 'but I saw Dendi do it...' is sort of a running joke pub Dota. Pros have a whole team behind them ready to deal with the consequences of the decisions they make, but you don't -- so you need to play it safer.

You're a little confused on the mid tower so maybe going over some of those mechanics will help? Mainly, a tower will ONLY start attacking you if you're A) the closest target when its current one dies or goes out or range or B) you RIGHT-CLICK attack an enemy hero. You don't even have to actually 'attack' them -- if you right click then cancel the attack animation before it finishes, the tower will STILL notice and it'll shoot you. Also note that this does NOT include casting a spell / using an ability on the enemy! With a hero like Clinkz or Viper who have spammable Q spell-attacks (you might see them called Orb attacks), you can use that right under the tower on an enemy hero and the tower won't realize you're there (unless you're also the closest thing to it.) You can't outrange a tower shot once it's in the air, which might be why you're confused as to its attack distance -- if it shoots you and you run away, it might not shoot AGAIN but it'll hit with the first shot (unless you disjoint it with a skill or something like Blink dagger but that's another ball of wax.)

Could you mention more about what you did and didn't like about specific heroes? Axe is pretty great, Ursa's easy, and PA's pretty boring -- imo. What do you look for in one? Damage, speed, toolkit? Maybe try Windranger or Wraith King? Have you read through this? http://www.purgegamers.com/welcome-to-dota-you-suck

Thanks to Tobb (formerly TR) and GungunslingerPanda for a very amusing couple of hours playing both games..me vs 5 level 30s...wonder who won that.

@jazz: Sounds like you need to learn about Tower aggro mechanics in DOTA 2

http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Aggro

once you know how it works, it makes life a lot easier. :)

@jazz: Just a heads up you might as well save your IP for champs, buying runes before you hit 30 is sorta a waste and when you do eventually get them, if you plan on sticking with LoL you're gonna wanna get all Tier 3 stuff. I did the same when I was learning and ended up with a bunch of leftover runes I just plugged into the rune creator thing (which is equally useless). Morg and TF are a lot of fun though, especially when you start to get down TF's ult and when to use it with Gold card. Also yeah, warding is super important. Not to shamelessly plug myself but I've recently started a show with another dude focused on beginners for the Trinity Force guys and we just did an episode on warding along with where good spots are to place them. We talk about some meta stuff in the beginning but if you wanna skip right to the warding section its around 16:00

@nmarebfly: Eh it's not really because of the pay model. I've literally never heard somebody complain about champ nerfs because they spent money. It's the time investment. You invest your time to get proficient with a champ only to have them nerfed to the point of not being viable and that time you spent on the champ you enjoy is gone. Lee Sin in particular is a tricky champ to nerf because of how much utility he brings to the game, he's all about mobility and positioning and if you nerf anything serious or introduce a random weakness just to bring him down a level you're gonna run into issues, but Riot's not scared to nerf a champ into the ground, they've done it before (ie Olaf). Lee Sin is just a hard champion to balance. Plus Dota has years on League so its had more time to balance champs.

I am not going to claim it affects their balancing. (although it might or it might just feel like that, but it is a common business in things that work kinda like it. Warhammer and such)

That being said their business model is a huge bummer to me and just drove me away from them. In these games you need to be flexible and able to counterpick i feel. If i can't keep up with the hero pool to counter people or keep up with the meta/balance changes I feel like i am at a huge disadvantage. Not only that but I like to switch it up to keep things interesting, playing close to the whole pool for variety and to ... simply know the whole pool.

That simply isn't possible with LoL i feel. I could keep up if i poored a ton of money, because rp doesn't cut it as i could hardly earn enough rp to buy the champions they would release regularly. (Although they seemed to have slowed down considerably) Pile ontop of that that i needed to have a few runebooks complete for some champions.

I am also not convinced Dota being older is a good argument about balance. They are probably balanced in completely different ways. With Dota probably mostly taking high level and competitive play in mind Lol balances over the whole spectrum more. I might be wrong in that though.
And seeing how crazy stuff can get in comparison to league, seeing as an ult in lol might be an ability in dota. (huge overstatement here, but anyone who has played both knows that dota gets way crazier with ranges and potential effects. Which might or might not make it harder to balance out, but Dota always felt like 'If everything is bullshit, everything will balance out'

@cheappoison: It became pretty clear last night that a level 30 with full runes and mastery at level 1 was going to eat me alive at level 1...let's not even talk about level 6+

@thesoutherndandy: @slag: Both of those are a great help - thanks

@tunaburn: ah. I'll take a look.

@jazz: I have a key for Strife from the newest Humble Weekly Bundle if you want it. It's basically an offshoot of HoN with LoL's graphics.

@corruptedevil: sure, I'd appreciate it.

@corruptedevil: IT is made by the hon guys but it feels way more like Lol to me.

So does this mean people who have put in more money (whether that be real currency or fake in game currency) are instantly better than you? I dunno what these runes are in LoL, but I assume they aren't like in Dota. Sounds kinda like more reasons to dislike LoL.

I will say though, I think you need to pick one of the two and stick to them. In all your blog posts every time you go between the two you seem to be trying to take things from one game and wonder why they don't work in the other.

@alexw00d: Fair point about switching between the two. As for the runes...no. They unlock rune pages as you level up (so at level 7 I have 3 bronze, level 30 has everything) so it's more to do with how much time you put in. You by the runes with IP - you get roughly 300 ip for your first win per day and low level runes are 50 or so. Is it an advantage? Well..people who put in the hours are always going to have an advantage, and our Match making was messed up because I had two level 30s with me so I was going to get it in the neck anyway.

@alexw00d: Pretty much runes will give you an advantage as they plain let you customize if you want to add mana regen, extra attack damage, more ap, attack speed, health, health regen,....
Onto your base character.
So every hero is not the same one everytime you face him, the mastery page and the runes could shift that slightly in some other directions. So someone who put in more time will have more runepages and will be better able to pick and customize. So I feel it is buying power, and although you can't buy runes with money, if you decide to buy champions with rp instead of money you just won't be able to get runes or just not be flexible in them.

And I admit, runes might be small but as someone who spend a ton of hours in mobas you'll see how starting out with +5 health regen per second or just straight up 15 more attack damage might drastically change some characters and their laning. (Balance wise it is fine i guess seeing as everyone will be able to use them, but flexiblity wise it favors people who spend way more time in it and spend money.

@jazz: I feel like you should pick LoL first if you are going to pick one first

that's assuming you don't have a reliable group of friends playing one or the other. Friends are the best part of either game so I'd go where they are.

• You seem to be enjoying LoL more. Almost end of story here.
• LoL does a much job preparing you for DOTA 2 than vice versa, ancedotally it seems like it's really hard for most folks to go back to LoL once you are acclimated to DOTA 2's mechanics.
• You can always switch to DOTA 2 anytime with ease given that none of the heroes are locked, LoL is going to take some work or $$ to be playable in a state where you'll enjoy it long term. If you start with DOTA 2 and then decide to switch to LoL you may not have the patience to go through all that, whereas while you are learning the game it's generally more tolerable.
• Giant Bomb's League community has virtually zero representation here unlike DOTA 2, so that would help make your blog/content more unique.

Don't get me wrong I'd love for you to play DOTA 2 because I personally love the game more, but it seems like LoL might be what is right for you.

Hey im glad you are listening to peoples posts. Thats awesome. I think you will really like strife if you can get it to work. Its definitely the most relaxing of the MOBAS.

I play it when i just want to have some fun and not be all serious.

Also enigmas black hole is the single craziest spell in a moba in my opinion.

I enjoy playing Phantom Lancer but I feel that I have no idea how to make him threatening until late game.

Well, that's the thing. Carries (especially hard carries) aren't threatening until late game. That is literally the entire point of the role. They can't do anything early but if you let them get farm and the game goes late they'll wipe your whole team. If you want to be threatening early, you should pick someone like an initiator or a ganking mid (I know you said you hate mid, but, well, if that's the hero role you want to play...).

I know you said you liked Tide... maybe try somebody like Slardar? He doesn't have the screenwide aoe ult, but he does have a small aoe stun, and he can be threatening as a rightclick hero if you get early farm and decide to build him that way. That's what I meant on your other post when I said "you'll start knowing how to make decisions on hero/item combos based on how the game is going." If you notice you're losing teamfights due to positioning and your team needs an initiator, you can rush a blink dagger and start to control team fights. Or, if you're dominating and you're up in gold and kills, you can transition into something like an Armlet and crush everybody with ult + rightclicks. His ult is also invaluable against invis heroes, which you will see a lot of in low MMR games if you start playing against people.

And yeah, just to speak to your League experience a little bit, runes+masteries are one of the (many) reasons I can't stand League. I hate that it gives new players an even sharper disadvantage (as if the lack of experience relative to veterans wasn't disadvantage enough), and I really hate that it forces players to make decisions about their hero role, lane choice, and item build before the game even starts. It removes a large amount of in-game adaptability, which is one of the most exciting parts of Dota for me.

That's generally not the case because level 7s are usually matched with level 7s. Jazz happened to be queueing with two level 30s so was matched against some level 30s, one of which was unfortunately in the opposing end of his lane.

But, yeah, runes and masteries suck. Just not for that reason.

@cheappoison: I'm not gonna disagree that Dota has a better model. More things are free. Purely from a money standpoint that's automatically better. Thing is though, when LoL was released FTP was considered a dirty word, there weren't many doing it right. Riot was one of the first companies doing it right and if Dota's model weren't around they'd still be the best imo. You can still play League for free and never have to put a dime into it. Yes you have to grind to buy new champs but if you like the game, you're gonna be playing it lots and you're gonna focus on a few champs to get good at them. Playing everybody isn't feasible if you wanna be any good at the game.

@ajamafalous It's more of an early game bandage, runes fall off the longer the game goes. Item build is more determined by whats going on in game or what you want your role to be. I can't comment on how adaptable Dota champs are cause I don't play it much but there's bigger factors determining your build and roll then runes. An like Panda said if you're being matched against people at your level the runes should be similar. I will say I think the fact you have to buy rune pages is some straight up bs. That's the only part of Riots business model that I think sucks.

@ajamafalous: I see what you're saying, but I probably didn't use the right words there...I meant effective. PL's main purpose is to push lanes as I understand it and I have a hard time effectively doing it in the early stages of the game..but that was a couple of days ago, things are slowly changing. I'll look at Slardar as I have yet to play him. Thanks for the advice.

@tunaburn: I try to take everything on board - thanks for the comment.

@slag: You might be right, League is much more 'pick up and have crazy fun' than DOTA for me..but DOTA has recently had some crazy times too..operation Spam Courier was pretty awesome. I agree about the uniqueness point though - so many people play DOTA2 here it can be rather stifling.

@jazz: I'd say if you poke around long enough you could probably do a 5on5 League game with members of gianbombDOTcom.

Nope, PL's main role early game is to farm like a mofo and not die. In fact, PL doesn't want to push lanes early game because it's dangerous and limits GPM. His lategame role is to split push like a mofo. He's like a shittier Naga Siren.

@ajamafalous: Runes and masteries don't force anything ingame. It's just a slight boost to get you through the early parts. Doing an AP build with AD runes to harass early isn't unheard of, a lot of damage characters play really well with defensive/utility runes and masteries. Whether you have armor runes or not, a randuins or a sunfire will always be a good idea against heavy attack damage teams. I'm never NOT gonna get a Banshee's Veil just because "my runes are offensive, maximize dpsssss". Items and how you play it make a character, just like in dota. The meta stuff only helps on the side. As an early 30 I only had a default rune and mastery page, stacked with defensive crap which helped me live through a lot of things. It was actually surprisingly good since it threw people's damage calculations off and I could bait fights an offensively specced character would have lost.

I will agree though, the leveling curve and the window where newly leveled 30s haven't played enough to afford a full page is complete bullshit. You literally have to plan ahead several levels and save a LOT of IP to not play at a disadvantage, and even then someone who has played a vast amount of games will have a wider variety of pages and runes to pick from, which is an advantage in on itself. At least the hero hard-counters don't play as major of a role as in dota, so I don't mind having a limited hero pool toooo much. But that is definitely also and advantage. Oh well. :/

@thesoutherndandy: I am not saying they are pure evil. Because you are right, before Valve stepped in that was really one of the more fair free to play games out there. The way I enjoy those games and play them i can't deal with their model though, thta and the fact that Lol doesn't offer me what Dota can.

Also being good doesn't go hand in hand with playing everything? That is pretty laughable.