aaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back

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

Gunslingerpanda's Twitch Stream - link

Lolking link to my profile - link

Dota2 profile on DOTABuff - link

Week 1 can be found here

Week 2 can be found here

Apologies for the delay - thunderstorms and Destiny (or is that density?) got in the way a little.

Quick notes:

• Destiny is a game. If you like Halo, mmos, kill stealing and some relatively fun boss encounters..look into it. Otherwise it's very meh
• Finally (!) was able to install Strife. It runs poorly on my laptop (League barely runs - often have dips to 20fps) and by god does it look fugly. Things of interest to note are: Last hits count for everyone in the area..so they all get the gold. Out of combat regen is insane and can trigger during a fight if you aren't hit for 3 seconds or something. Free personal couriers. Pets come with you and have upgradable abilities. Boss neutral mobs can be claimed for your side. Oh and it has integrated voice chat.
• Panda and I played a game of Strife.....we uninstalled afterwards and promised to never speak of it again.

AKA - 'Dota hates us all' - Gunslingerpanda

So after picking myself up and getting back in the saddle (and once the electricity was back on) I played a hell of a lot of DOTA over the weekend - including my first couple of solo pubs. I've played 3 and actually managed to be on the winning team for one of them - playing Crystal Maiden support as NO ONE PLAYS SUPPORT in these games. Everyone always wants to play mid or ADC..so generally it looks like Im going to work on my support game in DOTA..difficult to do with AI as they're so dumb (pushing mid..runs off to top..BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNEEEE)

• So I spent some time working on my mid pushing, warding and generally learning how to play better in early game when you're so squishy.
• Have I mentioned I love Huskar? The lead image was almost going to be him say HURT ME MORE...I wonder if this says something about me?
• One of the pubs I played in had Riki as mid..he spent the whole time bitching about how shit we were (even though we won) until I pointed out that he should try playing a character that wasn't invisible and against people who know to buy dust...that shut him up.
• I then botted with Tusk and Ogre Magi.
• Tusk is tough..I don't have a handle on how to use him, especially his punch as that seems to take forever to wind up.
• Ogre Magi is just...wow. Super weak early with only his stun and meager mana pool but..that ult..whew. Lots of fun playing support on him.
• Panda joined in on some bot games in the afternoon - we had an almost hour long botgame where I got stuck playing QoP. Never again..it was so damn painful. We actually got steamrolled by bots in that one..embarrassing.
• Which leads me to Bane. Bane was trolling Panda as much as Luna usually trolls me...and he was on our side. Bane couldn't decide if he was top or bot...he hid in the side shop..he farmed mid even though Panda was there..Bane was BAAAAANNNNEE (doesn't help that I can't stop the batman bane vo when he's there)
• Kunkka is now called Kenickie..or Konker depending on the Lauren Laverne levels of love.
• We took a break and came back for another couple of botgames.
• If you feed Huskar, Huskar will kill all of you.
• I'm worried Huskar is OP. I was tanking 3 bots at once and killed them all before Bane had decided to stop running away...again. Goddamnit Bane.

• We then switched to League, essentially in order to feel better about how shit we are at DOTA2..turns out that it works.
• First game was ye olde TF/Karma combo of mayhem and destruction. Didn't take long and I'm getting better at last hits and general farming. Need to work on his ult/ganking techniques and general early play. I've got card picking down though.
• Our second game was..wow. Things didn't start well with Heimerdinger not telling us where he was going, Panda deciding he was going to play support..then not, and mistaking my reply for Donger's (I was going to play support Morgana for whoever was bot)..so we ended up with a support Zac and me ADC which was less than ideal.
• Communication people..communication.
• Donger then proceeded to 'mid or i feed' which lead to much hilarity.
• We managed to tag team the bottom lane - Panda was determined to go Kaiju on every bot he could with hp stacking items.
• We played on intermediate for the first time - the League bots are nothing compared to the DOTA ones...DOTA bots of doooooooom...baaaaane.

Final thoughts:

• I really need to work on my efficiency in the early game. Last hitting to get more gold to get the right items while staying in lane and harassing the other team..so not much to work on really.
• Warding and map awareness.
• Still haven't even bought a blink dagger.

So the start of another week of painful truths and wasted hours. It's scary to think I've probably put more time into these two games so far than I have the whole Mass Effect trilogy..which I have completed with all the DLC. Haven't spent any money either. Anyway thanks for staying with my descent (3) into madness...I expect to hit a shoggoth any day now.

TBC

aka: 'After everything else even my WiiU crashed today' - me..this morning..in a very bad mood.

So..lets start off with the good news..good-ish news.

• I played some Smite yesterday. Another game which doesn't install properly on my machine. I had to go into the .ini files of the game and redo the resolution for it to actually launch. Totally a 3rd person League of Legends game..ignoring the background/lore it's a totally fine product but with the lore it's right up my ally. I grew up on classical mythology (and rock n roll oddly enough) so running around as Mercury or Bast is great fun for me on a personal level. A gaming session was veto'd by Panda as he doesn't like it so YMMV. Ra's beam of death is sweet sweet Lux.
• I also played some Dawngate - which thankfully has a small download size compared to some 9gig behemoths I could mention. The roles in that game are interesting - it looks like the 'Shapers' (heroes to you and me) can play multiple...roles I guess, and can select between Gladiator (farming carry?) Tactician (CC?) Hunter (Jungler) and Predator (Assassin) each of which have buffs and passives which aid that role (ie Gladiator gets extra farm for last hits). It didn't have a training mode so I had to set up a custom mode with just me in it. Only two lanes and a MASSIVE jungle..also there are bots that mine extra gold and you can cut down the other teams supply if you want..also its an EA game. It was meh I guess.
• Riot are using the ban hammer on people who are racist or just super jerks in League according to a reddit thread and then if they complain about it they're have to deal with it all being made public..so..there goes at least 40% of League players I guess.

In other news my laptop hates me. First skype had a bad memory error (so i reinstalled) and then Steam refused to open after logging in - it would just silently close without giving a reason. It wouldn't even appear in the task manager. I did the whole 'delete everything but the exe and apps folder' but that didn't help either. Oddly enough after rebooting for the 5th time or so it randomly started working so..yay? Oh and my graphics card decided to Blue Screen on me during it's update. It was 10pm by this point so my patience with Mr Newell's platform of digital delights was not great. So fuck Steam and by extension fuck DOTA for today. I didn't even watch the blink and you miss it final so..yeah.

• Managed one game of League before apathy set in on all side last night - it was too hot and I was in a poor mood. Went for TF mid and played appallingly - though I got uprated by some very kinda person..so yeah. I just could not get my cards to work properly, my screen was scrolling too slowly for me and i was just getting annoyed (and dead). My main issue was that I had no idea what some of the bots would do to me. Veigar? Dropped this massive wall of stun on me and I had no idea that was going to happen as I've played with him on my team once and never even saw that happen. It was frustrating at the time not knowing what to expect and how to counter that. I think it's worse in League as DOTA has designs that you can kind of 'read' to know what to expect to a degree and people can play any of them so you see a much wider range in the game itself rather than Lee Sin....Lee Sin..and Annie followed by whatevers on rotation. I have never seen anyone else play Morgana or Twisted Fate in a pub.
• It pays to remember that these games aren't going to relax you after a bad day..sometimes it's better just to walk away till tomorrow.
• Which brings me to today. Beyond my WiiU crashing earlier (Zhou Tai OP confirmed) everything seems (touch chrome) stable enough. I played a game of League today as Nassus with Xerath on bottom lane. It's frustrating when everyone goes for last hits even though you're blatantly the ADC but it was fun to play a melee character as opposed to not-lux. Speaking of which the Lux-bot was on a total rampage..it was great. Anyway Nassus' Q ability is really cool - raising in power the more you last hit with it..if you can last hit with it <narrows eyes at Xerath>. And he has the whole Anubis thing going on which ties well into Smite. Oh and end game R..got my first Quad kill..yay.

Man these have been downbeat recently..I'm going to try and make them a bit more optimistic despite the heat and other issues. Thanks for reading as always.

TBC

I can't stop this feeding, killing two or three - game you just don't realise..what you do to me.

Shtay a while a listen:

• If you haven't bought Transistor yet, I strongly recommend it. I listened to Greg Kasavin giving a quasi-interview on DOTA Today (from last year..not today) talking about how DOTA played a major part in the design of the combat in that game..and it shows. Here's an old article from Dtoid about the background and design of Transistor. I've only played a small part of it and not only is it fun but the OST is phenomenal and it's just gorgeous. The main character is apparently animated with Blink video .gifs? I don't know..its..just buy it. Oh and if in Europe/UK set up an dummy address on Amazon.com and buy it there..it's like £4 cheaper. Every little helps.
• Played some more Smite - after the gimmick wears off it's still a fun game, just not that great with bots.
• We're still in 'fuck steam' mode.

Which brings me to last nights hijinx:

• I would love to say that I was accousted in the street by forumite TBK and dragged into some back alley to play some shady game of League as the decoy..but he just kindly asked if I'd like to make the 5th in their PvP game.
• I was up against a gold level Lux as TF and after commenting upon how much I love Lux (have I mentioned that?) and swooning a wee bit the game was afoot.
• TBK attempted to get me help him pick up some early jungle buffs but I wasn't quick enough to jump on that.
• I died alot.
• I went to go pick on a level 3 Ryse at the top..which was probably the other team's plan as I got ganked a hell of a lot up there. Knowing where the safest places to stand in that game (or more importantly run around like a headless chicken to avoid stuff) is super important.
• I was totally carried on the coat tails of the rest of the team and they managed to pull a victory out of it...the ending battle was massive swathes of techinicolour madness exploding (very slowly) across my screen like someone throwing up skittles.
• Afterwards tbk lay down the rules on jungling - when to help your jungler (at the very beginning to get first buffs) When red and blue spawn (1:55) and just generally how to help the team as a whole. Very helpful.
• Which brings me to the next section of the evening. tbk was kind enough to suggest a customn 1v1 game where he could help me with my mid game as TF.
• First up - Summoners Rift is fucked. We spent the whole time in mid and tbk's minions pushed the bottom lane all the way to the top without any interference. That cannot be right. Top lane was balanced but..oy vay bottom lane was madness.
• Second - as you may have surmised given my recent issues, my laptop is fucked. Its roughly 4 years old, has a Radeon HD 1gb card and 2gb of ram (fair play though..it's a dell inspiron, but you get what you can afford) and I can't get 60fps when there's more than just me on the screen. More interestingly it makes little different lowering the settings or resolution. 4fps difference between high and low settings with lowering the resolution doing not even that. I think DOTA was more stable(when it fucking works) but..well I'm not one to bitch about 60fps in console games but...ergh. I generally get between 30-40fps with dips to 20 during the technicolour extravanganza.
• oh and regarding TF's pick a card - welcome to the twilight zone of League players. Gods that keyboard idea is golden.
• Anyway back to the custom match - tbk helped me realise where the serious weaknesses were in my game - essentially a) I don't move around enough, thus become predictable for skill shots, b) don't control my creep waves enough - leading to poor clearance and the occasional hit, c) don't know the proper damage rotation for most heroes and d) itemisation and countering is obviously lacking.
• That's after nearly 30 hours in the game..I still have essentially no idea what I'm doing and don't even get me started on wards.
• Between DOTA and League I've spent nearly 60 hours of my recent life on learning MOBAs and I've only scratched the surface.
• Oh and I played some bot games with Ziggs and Skarner this afternoon. I like Ziggs and I got the idea down on jungling with Skarner I think..though if you aren't effecient you really do get left behind.
• Still saving my IP for Lux but Lissandra looks tempting too...oh these temptresses of League.

Final thoughts:

• There's a lot for me to work on there but at least I have a better idea of what to focus on now.
• It's damn difficult to focus on it when you're trying to survive..muscle memory is a wonderful thing.
• I have now been on the winning team in both DOTA and League PvP...once. Yay.
• I have not seen Bane or Luna for two days now and it has been glorious.
• It would be nice to have enough money to get a new laptop..or more reasonable a desktop but that..isn't going to happen for a while unfortunately. Sigh.

Anyway..more upbeat today I think..things to think about, things to do, ignoring DOTA is good for now at least..yes, positivity. Proably need to construct additional pylons too.

tbc

When you gank me in the jungle at night, before getting into a team fight..Iiiii'm hooked on my feeding..but high on believing that I'm of some useeeee.

So:

• Steam works again..yay! I found my DOTABuff profile..double yay! Don't look at it because I suck! y..oh.
• Sniper Elite is $30 cheaper on US PSN than in the UK on the PS4..I'd hate to think what the Aus $ discrepency would be but that's fucking ridiculous.
• I looked through my ps+ stuff and found I had two 'console' mobas on there. Guardians of Middleblerth and Awesomenauts..so for my continuing record on here I thought I'd give them a go.
• Guardians of Mi..look the Lord of the Rings moba is dead on the PS3 due to the Gamespy shutdown and they won't give me a steam key but I played a bot match with GANDALF THE whatever..sorry I'm not a fan of LOTR. Anyway first off I was surprised to find that the controls were fine, kinda like console diablo apart from R2 being a cone shaped AA to hit multiple creeps. Other things of note are that you can upgrade towers and creep upon hitting level 6. There shoot faster, run harder..kinda like a tower defence mechanic. Apart from that and the lackluster bots I was surprised to find that it worked well and I would have thought that League (especially given it's skill shots etc) would be a reasonable fit for console - there would need to be concessions but I'm surprised it hasn't happened. Think of how many xbones that would sell..
• Awesome, Awesome, Awesomenauts is Bucky O'Hare the Moba..essentially a saturday morning cartoon made into a moba on a 2d plane. I'm still not convinced it works..it felt far more confined and..well linear obviously, than other mobas and it came across as more of a deathmatch game than anything else..also the abilities kinda sucked. Great presentation though. I think both games are available on steam.

What I tell myself every time I play these games...also an excuse to have one of my favourite cartoon themes from my childhood. Oh and..totally not Mass Effect..

• Played a small amout of League last night. Tried out Xerath and found him to be okay..I guess. Didn't really feel him with the bots on my side getting hammered because..erm..League?
• Went on to a co-op match where I ended up playing support Annie in top lane. First time I'd played her and I enjoyed it..well when the ani..ninja girl stopped running away all the time whenever she borked her initation and I had just got a stun in..and then complained about kill stealing..sigh. Anyway it was good once she started to get her cs down and levelled a bit. Annie has a lot of potential I think and tibbers is great. Warding was also done by me so yay?

• Which leads me to today. I spent a fair bit of time trying out characters with bots but got fed up with them either a) not supporting, b) tri-laning because they thought i was mid when I was trying to jungle, c) being ridiculously dumb..bounty hunter would not go for the stuns..at all..he just ran away. Oh AI...
• Fed up with that I solo queued. Now..oooh boy. Let me tell you a story of pain and suffering.
• Here's the ID http://dotabuff.com/matches/795029041
• I suggest that if you want to either a) laugh your head off or b)cry with desperation you should watch that match.
• I was Crystal Maiden in top lane..pretty much by myself as Pudge in mid DEMANDED that Clinkz stay with him.
• Drow was the only capable player there and was harrassed by the Russians on the other side.
• It became highly amusing when Riki kept trying to gank me and couldn't understand why I could see him with all the wards I had (WARDING FTW..I was the only support, only warder, only person who bought a courier..it was an experience)
• I got steamrolled a couple of times as I can only freeze one at a time and run.
• at about 30min everyone but Brewmaster on the opposing team d/cs..easy win huh?
• NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
• Complete lack of co-operation by everyone but myself and Drow taking top lane and Brewmasters RIDICULOUS ult lead to him stopping all 5 of us by himself as nobody but the two squishiest of us would co-ordinate. Juggernaut was jungling or something and Pudge..well he tried, I'll give him that.
• wait..was juggernaut building two BKBs?
• Madness.
• Really if you have 40mins to spare and need a laugh look it up if you can (i assume you can at least).

Final Thoughts:

• oh pubs..oh pubs..oh dear.
• Never rely on anyone but youself..never go support when it's a mess.Or always go support when it's a mess. Or Balrog, rather.
• Ward everything
• Riki lol.
• More seriously though, nobody pinged but me..nobody called MIA but me. It was a mess and sad to see. It might be worth laying some sort of basic rules out before a match but I doubt anyone would listen.
• Luckily frustration falls to hilarity eventually..and we still won.
• That Brewmaster player must have been pissing himself laughing, and I dont blame him.

After that hilarity I think I'm happy to play pubs..I don't think I'm going to be the worst player there any more.

aka: 'Blitzcrank is the best..around and nothing's ever gonna keep him down' - me

This blog post is bought to you, in part, by Sigue Sigue Sputnik

Quick notes:

• Everything is better with 80s movie soundtracks...everything
• I finally succumbed to the temptation to spend money on free to play games..I bought some riot points so I could afford Ahri (only actually needed 84 more points but..you know how it goes) thus that pact has been broken and the seals of Flava Flav will be next - Wu Tang shall return and it's all my fault.
• You should check out my gravel pit some time...that is totally not a euphemism.

So only League the past day with tbk and Gunslingerpanda:

Here's the archived Stream if you're interested in 3 hours of madness and it's 3am and you need something to help you sleep - http://www.twitch.tv/bm_panda/b/550812838

• First game was a Morgana (so want to write Morrigan there..where's my new Darkstalkers Capcom?) that started being a support in top..yes I know..and ended up being a mess. Forumite tbk gave me a good dressing down for my shoddy item choice, quite rightly by the way and gave me some tips as to what to start with and build towards.
• Blitzcrank was the troll of the evening, in two different games. With Morgana he dragged out someone from my Ult...it was something let me tell's ya.
• Second game with tbk and Panda I went with Nasus (tempted to call him Susan now as well) in top trying to get my last hits down. I was trading with a Darius up there until he d/c - tbk was playing and telling me what to do at the same time, which is a hell of a feat in and of itself. Again tab wins games people...tab wins games.
• The following..hour? tbk gave a symposium on League and the meta. It's all archieved on the stream and it's a hell of a thing that he knows all those juicy, meaty meta. I'm going to have to watch the stream again because it mostly went over my head but we all agreed that Jinx is manky as hell...ewww.
• tbk went off to Dominion with some friends so Panda and I got into a dual queue. He played Zac I went with Annie. We also had another Blitzcrank and a Fizz as well as..erm..Ashe that's right.
• Alright there guv', have you seen my mate Mr Tibbers? He's a laugh 'e is.
• Annie is soo much fun..cackling like a pyromaniac and a demonic bear nuke (from orbit).
• Watching the Fizz player was hilarious..dodge, shark, dodge, poke, shark bubai.
• Blitzcrank had no idea what was going on and typically they just did their own thing.
• learnt through playing that you can stack the stun by just randomly using W not sure if E still triggers it though.
• Mr Tibbers needs a BA Baracus skin.
• We won the last two games, lost the first.
• Casual league is the best league - anything goes..and boy does it ever.
• This afternoon I spent in botmatches trying out Ahri and Tristiana so I had a handle on their abilities. I..can't play with bots anymore. It's more than time as many have stated but it's just so frustrating with them feeding. In the Tristiana game I had 27/4/10 and we still got steamrolled..
• Ahri is great..just awesome. Charm, Q, W, R...great..love it.
• Tristiana is also great, once I worked out that W was her mobility and to hammer Q whenever it came up I had a jolly old time. She kills things fast in the jungle too..Ahri not so much it seems.
• I love the fact that a new champion nearly turns LoL into a completely new game. The difference between Nassus and Ahri is..great.
• Everything is broken so everything works...apparently?

And so we reach the end of Week 3. We're coming up on the month and I reckon i'll do a retrospective at the end of that week - it's been a hell of a ride and we've only just scratched the surface. Thanks again to tbk and especially Panda for putting up with me whining about framerates and internet connectivity.

I leave you with the following:

Glad you enjoyed the beta key for Strife I sent you.

@corruptedevil: ahh I'm sorry man. It was a bit shitty of me to probably put it like that. I really appreciated the key though.

@jazz: No it's completely fine, I expected it to be kind of awful and I wasn't planning on using it.

@corruptedevil: oh god, it really was...really really was.

People who don't communicate and just go to whatever lane they want are the worst. Also was considering giving Smite a shot but it sounds like I should skip it. These are a fun read. Just a heads up, if you bought the double Void Staffs to stack magic pen you only get the passive from one of them. Anytime you see "unique passive" it means you can't stack that effect. If you want more magic pen a good item is Haunting Guise then building into Liandry's Torment.

@thesoutherndandy: It's annoying they have such similar names, but it's Strife not Smite..Smite is something I'll look into and bully Panda into playing probably. Smite looks kinda cool and I like Hi-Rez studios.

Thanks for the info on the stacking, tbh at that point is was just messing around but it's good to know in the future. Donger really dinged us on that one.

@jazz: Speaking of Bots of Doom have you tried the current featured mode for League of Legends 'DoomBots of Doom'? It's co-op vs ai based and makes for some interesting games until you figure ways to cheese the AI

@freshbandito: I think we'll probably take a look at that sooner rather than later...given how even with feeding the lolbots were less than adequate.

@jazz: Yes for the most part the League of Legends bots are there just as punching bags for those new to the game to practice on as they transition into real games against people as the summoner leveling system was supposed to ease the learning curve as you'd be match based on your summoner lvl and MMR.

Unfortunately low level matchmaking is rife with smurfs these days which can do a lot to ruin a new player's experience.

These are really fun to read, duder. Hope you keep playing and writing.

I love playing support in Dota. I still mostly get in matches with 2-1-2 setups, for some reason, and I've realized (I've been told actually) that some heroes are much much more viable as dual lane supports than other. I don't know if that's something you should worry about yet, but there are better dual lane supports than Crystal Maiden. Don't get me wrong, I love CM, but I prefer a more self sufficient hero like for example Dazzle in that role (who can also deal a ton of damage early on)

Haha my bad. I need to pay more attention when I'm reading. Yeah that's a pain in the ass he wasn't even a half way decent donger. Tforce on donger...that's...well that's somethin.

Alternate Title: Bane Is A Dick

Bane is such a dick, guys.

@gunslingerpanda: BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNEEEEEEE GET OUT OF MY LAAAANNEEEEEEE

@thesoutherndandy: That was the least of it...oy vay.

@christoffer:I'm glad you're enjoying my write-ups and thanks for the comment. I'll check out Dazzle on my next botmatch.

@freshbandito: I really don't see the point in smurfing (what an odd word to use..little blue guys as twinking) unless you're playing with friends and don't want to break the MMR. Beating people who are crappier than you all the time doesn't make you a better player..anyway that's what the bots are there for.

What is Bane anyway? No one will miss you anyway Bane!

CS Efficiency in Dota 2 can be tricky especially for ranged. For melee it is about weighting the risk of going in close and exposing your self to ranged attacks and getting the extra exp/gold. For ranged the point and back attack speeds are so varied that you really need to practice on a wide range of heroes to learn how to adjust quickly. Unless its a hero I know well, I usually fumble the first waves hitting too early or late until I get the rhythm down.

Ogre Magi is one of the three heroes I call "completely and utterly random". Its hard to take him seriously or ignore him. Also one of the few Int heroes that is melee so yeah that is weird enough.

@jazz: I have a smurf with my friend I'm teaching to play, and I do feel bad sometimes since I always stomp my lane at the very least(some champs don't have big enough backpacks though), but outside of that I can think of one other reason. As you get higher ranked you tend to start specializing a bit more. I can see making a smurf if you want to practice roles you aren't good enough with to play at your current level or to try out different champions and see if you can make them viable without ruining the rank of your main account. Outside of that I assume it's just people who hit a ceiling in how good they're going to get and want to feel good about themselves.

The term Smurf didn't originate as just a term for an alt, it started as an account you go on to do dumb bullshit that has no business in a real game.(Mass Gyrocopters OP)

As for smite, I tried it a bit on one of my hiatuses from LoL. It's cool and sometimes feels a bit more actiony, but it went away quick. The first handful of games I played were people running around like idiots fighting a lot(which was fun), but it quickly became your standard MOBA with a different camera angle.

@jazz: There are people that smurf for that reason but there are also high elo players who's matchmaking queue takes so long that they create a new account to get games quicker until they hit top end of the mmr again. Also there are pros who have multiple accounts, some secret to practice certain champ picks off the other teams' radar.

Huskar's a hero that feels OP at low levels because you need a bit of coordination to kill him. He takes less magic damage as he gets closer and closer to death, so people will do stuff like see him at 5%, cast a nuke on him that they assume will kill him then turn to fight someone else. What you want to do is hit him with some nukes while he's over 50%, then switch to just punching him when he's low. He doesn't have anything extra besides his heal to stop right clicks, so if you get your whole team to whack at him he'll drop dead quite quickly. He just seems a lot tougher than he is, and the fact that he can just jump on someone's head and murder squishies means it's easy for him to get out of control. Get a Ghost Scepter to shut him down completely for a couple seconds (with the caveat that you're not attacking him back,) and a Heaven's Halberd is a good pickup as well. Linkens will block his dunk, but it's probably not worth it as a direct counter unless you're a hero that wants one anyway (Weaver, Morphling.) Huskar is also weak against people that can do pure damage -- Enchantress or Tinker can drop him like a stone.

@nmarebfly: Awesome, thanks for telling me what to watch out for and how to kill other Huskars.(.is there a plural form of Huskar?) Sorely needed information in all match ups.

@freshbandito: @yi_orange: I guess that's a reason..but not really fair on the people you play with regards to MMR. TBH It doesn't really matter.

Smite pulled a Strife on me and refused to work until I went in and redid some .ini files. What is wrong with these games?

@extomar: Exactly, it's a rhythm..I should be good at that sort of thing given my background but...eh.

@jazz: for Dotabuff you just need your dota profile ID number or a match ID (assuming you've set your DOTA profile to public in game). Once you find that then you can find your page pretty easily.

@slag: Thanks for the info..as soon as Steam decides to work on my laptop again I will get on to it.

going ham with Amumu jungle is always fun.

This pleases me. You can't be the worst player there anyway, as there's always Russians.

@gunslingerpanda:

New meme 'There's always the Russians'

@jazz Very good... you probably learn more from PvP games than bot games.

Bot games or solo custom games are good if you want to try out a champ for the very first time or you want to practice last hitting or wave clear patterns with magi un-hassled.

Also god dammit Galaxy Rangers.... 80/90ies Cartoons are... interesting.

Gonna be streaming League with the Jazz man here: http://www.twitch.tv/bm_panda

If anyone else wants in, add me at BM Panda.

It sounds like time to stop bots, in both games. It's only going to build bad habits at this point, and in normals you're going to get matched with players of the same skill level. It'll help you more in the long run to play against other players, especially other players that are also having problems with last hitting and communication. Trust me, it's time to take the leap. You can't stay in the kiddie pool forever. And you're likely a lot better than who you'll start out playing with, anyway.

As for League, my own personal area of experience... let's see... who's on free rotation right now...

Ah, Susan. I mean, Nasus. Excellent. That's a great champ to learn last hitting with. Go top, grab exhaust, ward the river bush at 3:30 with your trinket, and concentrate on building up your Q. Don't be afraid to harass, but try to do a quick check every time you 'trade.' If your opponent has more creeps than you, and/or you're closer to his turret, opt out of the trade unless you're dominating. Susan starts weak, so you want to start out defensive, which is another good skill to learn.

Start with Doran's Shield and potions. Your first item goals are boots and a chainmail vest, grabbing wards and pots with any spare cash (about 1-2 each). You're big two item goals are an Iceborn Gauntlet first, then Randuin's Omen. Don't really plan on getting more than 2 (non-boot) items in any game. It's not realistic, and you'll be constantly frustrated that you 'didn't get your full build.'

If you make it past those two items, go with what you need. Sorry, what you and your team need. In lower level games, that usually means building damage if you're winning or carrying (have the most kills on the team), and defensive items if you're not. In higher level play with more coordination, Nasus is an initiator, so you need defense. Plus his Q scales off just using the damn thing.

I was initially going to recommend picking up an ADC to learn last hitting and about constantly moving, but right now it looks like Kog is the only choice, and he's not beginner friendly. I think you can still get Tristana for free? Make a fake Facebook account and like the Riot Games page. Or League of Legends. I forget. It's a little hassle for a great champ to learn the ADC role with.

Tristana has an great escape ability, great waveclear, and her passive gives her the longest base range in the game at level 18. She's even one of the current favorite ADC champs in high level play right now, but don't expect that to last forever. Lucian seems to be the teacher's pet champ right now, with his most recent 'nerf' improving his win percentage by 5 points and having Riot declare him currently unusable in tournament play.

Keep up the good work, and most importantly, play to have fun. If what I described doesn't sound like fun, don't do it. It's too easy to go down dark paths in these games. Good luck.

DONT PANIC, BLITZCRANK WILL SAVE US AL...oh shit.

@jazz: Blitzcrank is a dick.

@gunslingerpanda: Blitzcrank dundundundun Blitazcrank dundudnudnud is gonna save us all! *screetchy guitar solo' OH YEAHHHHH Blitzcrank bububububu...dun dun.

@viking_funeral: Thanks for the comment and the tips - I'm certainly going to use Nasus to get my last hits down and I made a fake account to get Tristana (though Alistair doesn't seem to work..well whatever) so I'll give that a go too.

I think we'll be mostly PvP from now on with the occassional co-op match warm up. It's time to get on that.

"you see a much wider range in the game itself rather than Lee Sin....Lee Sin..and Annie followed by whatevers on rotation. I have never seen anyone else play Morgana or Twisted Fate in a pub."

I think that's the best quality of Dota over League, basically any combination of heroes is viable as long as you play them well so you don't see the same heroes over & over even in competitions, we even saw a support ursa in the international. Though saying that I always play single draft so I'm seeing different combinations of teams every game.

@hone_mcbone: Totally agree..viability of the characters at the top levels is something we talked about on the stream and is sorely lacking in League..but if you compare it to a fighting game where they have to balance at the most 50 fighters (and fail generally at that stage) you can see the problem.

DOTA2 has been built upon the foundations of it's predecessor..League is different enough that they're having to build from the ground up in many regards.

@jazz actually that Darius, at some point was a Renekton.

Also I have no idea about anything :)

Enjoy zee Ahri she is great.

@jazz Sure, though League is coming up to being out for five years now so I'd say even with the constant addition of heroes I'd expect the game to be a bit better balanced by now. I have to admit I haven't touched League in years.

The balancing in fighting games is a bit different, ideally you want all characters able to beat all the other characters so I'd assume it's even more of a challenge. With a moba you can have obvious strengths & weaknesses that would be totally game breaking if it were a one on one game.

@hone_mcbone: I wonder if anyone considers SFIV finally balanced? That's been around for the same amount of time hasn't it? I take your point though. I just think it's a false equivalence with DOTA given thats been around since..well Aeon of Strife or whatever it was called in Starcraft in one form or other. Not saying that the balance of League is viable really..and they do a great job of at least trying to explain their reasons on the forums, though most of it looks like damage control.

@tbk: urgh, so true..it was crocadillo.

It's not, Normal Ryu is literally useless.

I think the fact that Dota has had a lot more time to balance things out is a valid point, but in the end it's really just an excuse. Maybe in another 5 years League will have caught up and every champion will have some sort of usefulness, but that's conjecture. Right now, it is how it is. I'm not sure how it can be false equivalence when they're both games that you can play -- gotta measure balance by how things are, not how they could be.

Dota also goes through pretty major changes routinely -- has it even been a year since the timing of the day / night cycle was moved around, jungle spawn camps were swapped to nerf lane pulling, and gold income was increased across the board? So the idea that Dota balance is anywhere close to finished isn't quite right.

I'm not nearly as familiar with League's balance, but doesn't their season system sort of lock in major balance changes to a yearly cycle? Since there are more systems to tweak in Dota it means seemingly minor changes can have huge ripple effects in the meta as a whole, and incredibly tiny differences can have giant impacts. Like, in TI3 crystal maiden was one of the most picked supports, and since then she had her starting int (which mana pool and base damage are derived from) reduced by three. This (along with some meta shifts to faster moving supports better capable of ganking) caused her to be completely unpicked this year. One of 8 heroes not picked.

@nmarebfly: DotA will never be balanced because development is on going, people come up with new (too powerful) strategies, meta shift, etc. Further, it was just "announced," the new heroes will be created after parity with dota 1 is reached.

What you can say is that the game has solid bones. The balance isn't perfect, but it's generally pretty good.

@corruptedevil: Yeah..I would have been surprised if anyone actually thought that at the moment.

@nmarebfly: .As far as I can tell (which may be completely wrong) DOTA2 is just DOTA with a lick of paint..it's not trying anything new. League is attempting to be it's own thing. That's where I'd say the false equivalence is. Halo and COD are similar and both come from the same basis but are their own monsters. Time will see DOTA and League grow further apart I think.

Of course I may be talking complete bollocks..

@jazz: You're totally right in that Dota 2 is Dota with frills -- in fact, you can still play Dota 1 in Warcraft 3 and it'll be at parity (the balance is the same and Dota 1 has a few extra characters but the interface is muuuch worse.) I'm just saying I'm not sure why that matters. New doesn't necessarily mean better, and Dota is pretty constantly changing in a lot of important ways. A ton of Dota's weirder systems are in place only because of restrictions and oddness on the warcraft 3 engine, but I don't think that means they're any less valid choices and sometimes they lead to much more interesting interactions.

Take tower aggro mechanics, for instance. Here's League's: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Turret and Dota's: http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Towers

Again, I'm not a league player so I might get some of this stuff wrong. The mechanics look pretty similar, but there are important key differences and Dota seems to allow the player a bit more control. In League, the tower will start shooting you as soon as you do ANY damage to an opposing champ, then it only stops if you die or go out of range. In Dota, it ONLY targets you if you right-click attack (or there's nothing else around.) You can cast spells at will and the tower won't notice. This allows for interesting play differences if you have a hero with a spammable nuke spell (or orb effect but that's heading down totally different territory.) If you're Viper or Skywrath Mage you can easily smack enemy heroes around even while they're under the tower, and they have to take that into account. In addition, there's a weirder mechanic that a League player would consider hidden (or even toxic): you can force a tower to re-run its targeting decision by attack clicking one of your own creeps! So if you have a fight under a tower and your creeps are nearby, you have a method within the game to drop aggro as long as certain conditions are met. There's a burden of knowledge there, but once you actually know it, it's not hard to implement and gives you a proactive action to take in order to prevent damage (besides running away.)

I think that's more compelling, from a gameplay perspective. Giving the player options is almost always better than not, even if those options aren't explicitly spelled out or obvious. It's a product of War3 and makes no real sense (why does attacking my own creep confuse the tower?) but in the end the fact that the option is there in the first place empowers a player once they understand it.

@jazz: just want to point out an interesting stat regarding champion viability and top levels in league. At this point I believe 71 unique champions have been played this split. An EU team just won a game with zilean mid. There's certainly favorites but there's room for a lot of Champions.

I started playing Dota 2 a couple of days ago. And by 'playing' I mean I did the tutorials and played a bot match. Was fun. I can see myself playing more of it, maybe putting some real time into it.

Though I'm mostly just here to say I like how much effort you're putting into both learning the game(s) and writing these posts. Very admirable and all that.

I'm not sure sure that "not trying anything new" is entirely true. The improvements have been in features that are "industry standard":

• A portable replay format.
• In game broadcasting tools.
• Meta-play training tools (coaches, recommended builds, etc)

The main reason why a completely new hero design hasn't been created yet is due to the fact they are still re-implimenting the mechanics (and quirks) of War3TFT in Source.

On the topic of "balance", as I mentioned in the predecessor thread that I'm surprised LoL players categorize the way they do where the discussion of meta doesn't seem to work that way in Dota 2. The question is not if a hero can have a skill that makes them invulnerable or vanish from the game or hit for over 1000 but if there is a counter to it. I'm not impressed with the way Riot balances LoL where they just seem to deem "the meta-game is going to work like this" instead of letting players put it together themselves. Doing balance this way creates a "power creep cycle" which is not a great mechanism for balance. It has nothing to do with time or experience or whatever but a design choice.

@extomar: Oh god yes, League needs replays and both could do with training modes a la fighting games. You can create custom games but having a mode where you could do single lane last hit practice and for it to keep a record, stuff like that, would be a massive boon to the game I think. I'd agree with the slap-dash method of fixing balance issues - but at least they explain it - I have yet to see the balance stuff being explained about DOTA2 in the same way, but maybe I'm not looking in the right place.

@euandewar: EUAN!, buddy..come home..we miss you. I'm still as insane as I ever was apparently..probably bit off too much to be honest but glad you're enjoying them.

@yi_orange: Thanks for the info. There's probably a lot of misinformation about both games at this point given the..popularity of both in different circles.

@nmarebfly: No you're totally right about options..it's all zoning. You can't drop aggro from towers and you can't deny. It kinda sucks in that way - but it's also hyper confusing to new players..it doesn't even get mentioned in the tutorials I did (I didn't do all of them)..but it is fascinating as a hold over.

After playing 3 games of PvP in League..all I can say is that the bots look to be pretty good right about now. They do a far better job than most players at my level...seriously. Had a Garren that built for ranged combat and supports that last hit everything or tri-laned me. It was an experience. The Experience if you want to feel better about how you play I guess. All that help and training everyone has given me seems to be paying off - if slowly.

Oh and Blitzcrank...

@euandewar: I remember you from the TI streams. Keep it up, duder!

@jazz: Icefrog doesn't explain balance changes, he wants it to evolve naturally. He only touches the rules, but doesn't want to influence how people use them.

Yeah, it's kind of a running joke that bots are better than new players. You can only really play more until you get out of that matchmaking tier and start getting more similarily experienced players. Remember, the game doesn't respect your bot games especially highly. It still considers you brand new.

That exact mode is in Dota 2, I was using it earlier.

It's cool that you picked up TF in League. He was one of my first favorite champions, too. Picking the right cards when under the pressure of an Ulti-gank is one of the hardest things you can do in League, so don't get discouraged if you port in with a blue card popped. Hell, a former pro, Reginald (founder, former midlaner for TSM, the most popular team in the counrty) became so famous for doing it that it's often called "Pulling a Regi"

Also, Xerath is a super weird champ. In order to play him effectively, you have to not only place your skillshots well, but you also have to know when to throw them out. I mean, I guess that's true of all skill shots, but Xerath suffers from it worse than most. You have to be able to farm and harrass with your Q at the same time, you have to get the bonus damage/slow from the sweet spot of W, you have to know that the longer the E travels, the longer it stuns. His ultimate is also really easy to dodge if you use it wrong. However, when you use all that right, you're unstoppable. I like Xerath kinda a lot.

Lately, I've been jungling a lot, which isn't something you do in bot games and it's probably the most intimidating role to a new player. With the latest patch though, they added jungle buff spawn timers, so there's never been a better time to learn.

I wouldn't worry about Huskar being OP. He's generally considered to be one of the weaker heroes in the game.

@crysack: Heresy!

@helicopterspy: Yeah TF is just fun, I may screw up most of the time but when PaC works..oh boy. I also played against a Xerath in bot yesterday as Tris and..yeah it must have been hard for the other guy..he couldn't line up his skillshots at all.

@gunslingerpanda: Huzzahwa? Valve one step ahead again..shame I didn't know about it.

@tobbrobb: And thats one of the things I prefer about League..sure they generally make a mess of it but at least they're open and not hiding behind this whole 'Icefrog' thing..it's just dumb in my opinion. I like reading the League redposts and not having the same thing for Dota is a shame. Personal preferance of course.