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Nov 18th, 2012 at 19:55:08 - League of Legends (PC) |
This week on League of Legends I decided to revisit a champion who I tried playing when he was released, but delayed purchasing until just recently. Darius, the Hand of Noxus, is a melee/fighter champion who I now wish I’d bought long ago.
Darius’ abilities are based upon attack damage. Something that I believe makes Darius extremely valuable, among other things, is his passive ability—Hemorrhage. Hemorrhage is a damage over time ability applied via all offensive attacks which can be stacked up to 5 times. As if that weren’t good enough, it can also be modified/buffed by purchasing attack damage items to increase the amount of damage it does per tick! His second ability (Q key) is Decimate, which is an area of effect attack that hits all opponents within several units of himself. This does a good amount of damage and applies Hemorrhage. His second ability (W key) is Crippling Strike—this attack damages whoever Darius uses it on and slows them down by a percentage based on how many stacks of Hemorrhage the target has stacked on them. His third ability Apprehend (E key) passively grants him 5% armor penetration per stack, and when activated pulls an enemy several units away back to Darius. Finally, his ultimate attack is a devastating attack called Noxian Guillotine (R key)—this attack is generally used to finish a fight as it does an extreme amount of damage and can be used back to back as long as it kills the champion target. If it doesn’t kill the champion, you must wait for the cool down on the ability to refresh.
While Darius is simply a wonderful killing machine, he also has several utility skills that make him extremely valuable in different situations across the battlefield. The only fault I can find with Darius is that none of his abilities passively slow the target in addition to whatever they primarily do, which isn’t really a fault as he has the ability to snatch running targets back to him anyways. I usually remedy this minor issue by purchasing a Phage which gives me the chance to slow targets when I attack.
Another thing that adds to Darius’ usefulness is his general “tankiness.” Usually when a champion is able to dish out such a large amount of damage in a bursty fashion as he does, they are more frail. This is not the case with Darius as I build him with armor and health/health regeneration at the start of the game which allows me to power through early game fights, earn myself money, and ultimately get ahead of others in terms of level/money/item builds. I’m somewhat selective when it comes to melee champions as they take more concentration and precision to play because you’re consistently in the fray and up close to other champions. Using Darius, I am less worried about jumping into the middle of a fight because he’s tough enough to take damage while he’s dishing it out.
At first, I thought it was beginner’s luck. Ten games later I discovered that playing as Darius just came naturally and that he’s one of my new favorite champions! I’m glad that I purchased him and I’ll definitely use him every chance that I get when I feel like decapitating other champions on the field (which is all the time)!
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Nov 14th, 2012 at 15:34:57 - League of Legends (PC) |
On a weekly basis, League of Legends rotates which champions are free to play. While I usually try out two or three that I haven’t played before, I’d like to use this GameLog to review my thoughts on a champion that I purchased a while ago as I’ve logged more playtime using him than newly released free to play champions.
The champion I am referring to is named Twitch. He is a “Plague Rat” who runs around with a crossbow and thrives on the mechanic of shooting poisoned bolts from it. In fact, that is his passive ability—shooting poisoned projectiles that apply a damage over time effect to the enemy—it’s called Deadly Venom. His second ability is called Ambush, which makes Twitch temporarily invisible to enemies and increases his movement speed while it’s active. Upon exiting stealth, he gains increased attack speed. I find this ability very useful while both opening a fight, or while chasing someone down. His third ability, Venom Cask, allows Twitch to hurl a cask at the enemy that decreases their movement speed, and applies two stacks of poison (six stacks of poison max) to them. This is also great for enemies that decide to run away in the middle of a fight. His fourth ability, Expunge, is great for finishing a fight because it takes all the stacks of Deadly Venom and causes them to explode, essentially nuking the target for a good portion of their health. His last and ultimate ability is called Spray and Pray. This ability does a couple different things. Firstly, it lets each bolt you shoot go through targets, dealing damage to each it passes through. Secondly, and more importantly (in my opinion), it increases your attack range by three hundred I believe. This becomes insanely useful in the sense that you can both attack the enemy from a range that leaves you untouchable, but it also allows you to take down enemies who run away without actually pursuing them—instead you can just sit tight and shoot from a distance you otherwise couldn’t hit them from.
Now, I find Twitch’s poison to be an extremely useful asset as it scales slightly with level and it can potentially kill an enemy who has gotten out of your reach. Unfortunately, his poison is not affected by any ability power items so you cannot increase the damage over time that is does per tick. Because of this, I simply build him with attack speed and attack power so I can stack his poison quickly while at the same time doing tons of damage per hit. Also, the faster I attack with him, the faster I can Expunge if I need to.
Twitch seems to be an underrated champion based on the amount I see him played by others. In comparison to a similar champion, Teemo, this may be true; however, I still find him to be both incredibly fun and amazingly powerful if played/built correctly.
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Nov 5th, 2012 at 08:27:05 - Skylanders: Giants (Wii) |
One of my favorite new Skylanders from the Skylanders: Giants series is named Pop Fizz. In fact, I thought he was so cool that I bought a color variant of him who is referred to as “Punch” Pop Fizz! Normally I wouldn’t buy any variants for collecting purposes, but because I found none of the other Skylanders as interesting as Pop Fizz, I decided to do it for this one figure.
Firstly, Pop Fizz is a Skylanders character who is referred to as a “thrower.” This is a basic mechanic that allows Pop Fizz and other “throwers” to simply lob character specific items at enemies in order to deal damage. In Pop Fizz’s case, he throws potions. At level one you are given the ability to throw a single yellow potion, which acts as his main source of damage (the way I play him). As you level up, you learn how to create two additional types of potions—a green potion that breaks upon landing and creates a damaging AoE pool effect, and a purple potion which does not break but instead sprouts legs as it lands and fires liquid shots at enemies. The purple potions are AI controlled but actually do a decent job whittling down enemies’ health points.
Now, the reason I like Pop Fizz so much (aside from his crazy looks) is because he can play the role of a “thrower” as I mentioned earlier, but also has the ability to become a kind of “berserker” or melee DPS type of character if you build him as such. In Skylanders, you begin with a few basic abilities which can be mildly upgraded. As you progress you can choose a single path that lets you specialize in one of the basic abilities, making them much stronger. As I now have two Pop Fizz figures, I can build each Pop Fizz differently and play them two totally different ways.
The mild character progression system in Skylanders is very easy to follow—it should be as it’s almost a kid version of Diablo, but I think that is definitely one of its strengths.
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Oct 27th, 2012 at 09:50:00 - Skylanders: Giants (Wii) |
Skylanders Giants is the sequel to Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure which came out last year around this time. It is published by Activision and developed by a company called Toys for Bob for every platform available, plus PC. It became so popular that there was even a web version and an iOS version developed.
For those who don’t know, each game is based on the concept of collecting small figures which are then placed on something called the portal of power. Placing them on this portal literally brings them to life on your T.V. screen and allows you to control them as you play through the game.
Why throw all your money at Skylanders?
Well, you theoretically could just buy the game, the portal, and one or two Skylanders, but you’d be limiting yourself in a big way. First of all, if you die in-game your Skylander will need to rest until you finish the level or purchase an item with currency you collect in-game to instantly revive him so you can continue to play that particular character. If you only have one or two and both die, you’re out of luck and must restart the level. Secondly, having only a couple characters means you’ll never get 100% completion status as some areas require a different element Skylander to unlock them. For example, if I’m running through a level with a Magic element Skylander and I come across a Fire portion in that level where there may be some treasure or loot, I would have to switch to a Fire element character to unlock that area and go inside. So, let’s be serious, who doesn’t like loot?!
Skylanders Giants isn’t terribly different from its predecessor, but the changes that it did make certainly have the game running smoother and builds upon the first game. The HUD has been tweaked in a way that makes it easier for the player to know when they are about to level up, and the max level has been increased to fifteen from ten. This was a great improvement, because one of my only problems with Skylanders was that it lacks content—not in a qualitative kind of way, there’s simply just not enough levels in my opinion for dropping over one hundred dollars on all these shiny figures! Also, all the figures that were collected for the first game can now be brought into the second game and leveled to fifteen as well, so your money hasn’t gone to waste.
As for the giant figures they’ve introduced, their mechanics have added several new features to the game which I enjoy. There are spots throughout levels where a heavy object may be blocking the way or you’ll need to break through a bit of ground to find treasure or something. Only giants have the ability to move heavy objects and break ground! This was a cool addition to the game in my opinion, and the drop-in drop-out system makes it extremely easy to simply switch characters on the fly if needed. In terms of specific characters and their separate mechanics, I will probably write an entirely different review on those!
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sharri21 has been with GameLog for 11 years, 7 months, and 24 days |
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