I forgot to make one of these posts for my latest Diablo II character to clear Hell. Another sorceress. This one is pretty much a cookie-cutter copy of a build by Clervis (the same person that pioneered the auradin I took to level 99): the Drop Bear.
Hestia has probably been my most dominant character so far. I can't think of much to say about her that I didn't already say in the thread I linked to. It's a good guide. If you've played Diablo II, you should check it out. The only problem is that I like Enchant so much and I'm not sure what else to do with the skill, as other enchantresses aren't likely to measure up to this insane setup. I'll definitely finish my crossbow enchantress though, and there are a couple of other options I might try after that.
Oh, I didn't even attempt a screenshot this time. I've given up on fixing whatever problem is preventing them from working.
More content on this blog? Not for a while, probably. I have other stuff to write this month. NaNoWriMo and all that. But I'll try to come up with something eventually.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Matriarch Artemis
Again, no screenshot. It's a strange problem. Diablo II plays perfectly on this computer, although I probably made some adjustment for the graphics back when I first set the machine up. And yet, no matter what I try, attempts at taking screenshots of the game result in a solid, black rectangle. I don't know what to make of it.
Well, after probably five years and changing computers twice, from my original desktop (circa 1999) to my HP laptop and then to my new desktop, I've finally completed my first amazon in Diablo II. I'd say, "Maybe some day I'll complete all the other characters I've started." But really, until there is some drastic change in my life, it's pretty much inevitable. I've started a lot of Diablo II characters, but I just keep coming back to this game. I started playing Diablo II back when it was new, but I only dabbled in it. Then, a few years later, I returned to the game and actually beat it for the first time. I was getting into it, but we lost most of the game discs and I ended up eventually uninstalling the game, but keeping my characters. Later still, I think it was in 2008, I bought the Diablo II Battle Chest and began a whole new set of characters, starting with Oberon, my first druid. Artemis was the next character that I started. I don't remember exactly how long it's been. I do remember that I beat Normal Diablo while playing with my brother, Matt. I also remember playing with friends in Seattle in 2011 and around that time, Artemis cleared Nightmare difficulty.
I know I just said it, but I keep coming back to this game. I've always been the sort of person that, when playing video games, will play the same game a lot, exploring different aspects of it, rather than doing brief playthroughs of many games. Even though I've been playing it for several years, in any given month, it's almost never been the game I played the most. And yet I think I've logged more total hours in Diablo II than in any other game, all because I keep coming back to it. That's why I'm pretty confident that I'll finish many more characters. Not right away. Torchlight II is, in many ways, a better game, and I do want to get back to it (I've had problems losing all of my accumulated items). I started Morrowind, but have not gotten into it yet. There are other games I still haven't tried out even though I have them, like Just Cause. For this post, I'm not getting into non-gaming activities, although those also exist. Anyway, Diablo II keeps getting older and all but the die-hard fans have moved on. But somehow, something keeps bringing me back to it.
Artemis beat Baal today, reaching Level 90 and using a lot of arrows. Unlike my newer characters, she wasn't on /players8 the entire time (back when I started her, I wasn't aware that the option existed)., but she did spend most of her career on that setting (hence the large number of arrows needed to kill Baal). The skills I focused on were Guided Arrow, Strafe, and Valkyrie. Physical immunities were the main problem for this build. Bowazons are a bit underpowered. I will definitely be doing other amazons and I want to do at least one more bowazon, one that actually uses the elemental arrow skills.
I don't know what's next. I still have yet to fully complete a barbarian or assassin, which means no bringing necromancers or paladins into Hell difficulty (a little rule I made up for myself), but there is a certain sorceress I have in Act V Nightmare that I'm eager to test against Hell's legions...
Well, after probably five years and changing computers twice, from my original desktop (circa 1999) to my HP laptop and then to my new desktop, I've finally completed my first amazon in Diablo II. I'd say, "Maybe some day I'll complete all the other characters I've started." But really, until there is some drastic change in my life, it's pretty much inevitable. I've started a lot of Diablo II characters, but I just keep coming back to this game. I started playing Diablo II back when it was new, but I only dabbled in it. Then, a few years later, I returned to the game and actually beat it for the first time. I was getting into it, but we lost most of the game discs and I ended up eventually uninstalling the game, but keeping my characters. Later still, I think it was in 2008, I bought the Diablo II Battle Chest and began a whole new set of characters, starting with Oberon, my first druid. Artemis was the next character that I started. I don't remember exactly how long it's been. I do remember that I beat Normal Diablo while playing with my brother, Matt. I also remember playing with friends in Seattle in 2011 and around that time, Artemis cleared Nightmare difficulty.
I know I just said it, but I keep coming back to this game. I've always been the sort of person that, when playing video games, will play the same game a lot, exploring different aspects of it, rather than doing brief playthroughs of many games. Even though I've been playing it for several years, in any given month, it's almost never been the game I played the most. And yet I think I've logged more total hours in Diablo II than in any other game, all because I keep coming back to it. That's why I'm pretty confident that I'll finish many more characters. Not right away. Torchlight II is, in many ways, a better game, and I do want to get back to it (I've had problems losing all of my accumulated items). I started Morrowind, but have not gotten into it yet. There are other games I still haven't tried out even though I have them, like Just Cause. For this post, I'm not getting into non-gaming activities, although those also exist. Anyway, Diablo II keeps getting older and all but the die-hard fans have moved on. But somehow, something keeps bringing me back to it.
Artemis beat Baal today, reaching Level 90 and using a lot of arrows. Unlike my newer characters, she wasn't on /players8 the entire time (back when I started her, I wasn't aware that the option existed)., but she did spend most of her career on that setting (hence the large number of arrows needed to kill Baal). The skills I focused on were Guided Arrow, Strafe, and Valkyrie. Physical immunities were the main problem for this build. Bowazons are a bit underpowered. I will definitely be doing other amazons and I want to do at least one more bowazon, one that actually uses the elemental arrow skills.
I don't know what's next. I still have yet to fully complete a barbarian or assassin, which means no bringing necromancers or paladins into Hell difficulty (a little rule I made up for myself), but there is a certain sorceress I have in Act V Nightmare that I'm eager to test against Hell's legions...
Friday, August 23, 2013
Oops, I forgot a title. Good thing I can go back and put one in...
This is a silly exercise I'm going to try. I am combining something I've thought about a lot, but never really written about, with something that's well, not all that important really. Yes, this is another League of Legends post. But don't worry: this time it's only partially about League of Legends and mostly about this other thing. Also, I'll post future League of Legends content on the blog Nick made, so I won't be polluting this blog with it any more.
Almost any accomplishment in this world requires considerable effort. There are exceptions—sometimes people really do just stumble onto accomplishments. Usually, it doesn't work out that way. And the really important accomplishments often entail monumental efforts, sometimes by groups of people working together. To those of us living in this universe, that part isn't news. But it goes deeper: because people naturally value accomplishment, they also value all the things that go along with it. There's a whole lot of adversity, hardship, pain, and frustration out there, and only a fraction of it goes into actually doing something good. Those things are usually considered bad, but when they are steps on the road to an accomplishment, the situation is reversed and they are considered valuable. This part probably isn't news either, but people don't seem to give it very much thought.
The pain endured by someone with terminal cancer is generally considered to be an evil, something to be, if possible, expunged. The pain endured by someone training for an elite athletic contest is generally considered to be a source of pride, possibly a mark of greatness, or at least not a bad thing. Obviously it's actually not as bad as the former. It doesn't follow that it's good. And yet people generally seem to view it that way.
To loosely borrow a sort of coinage that I won't even bother mentioning here because I'm already boring everyone to death, I'll call this concept a "pro-adversity trance." Adversity accompanies many great things and is sometimes causally necessary for great things. There's an unjustified, but nearly universal assumption that while adversity in general is bad, any adversity that leads to a positive accomplishment is good. I don't know if this is an innate part of human psychology or if it's largely cultural, or some combination of the two. I see no logical reason for this belief, but I can see why it would make a lot of emotional sense: there are so many good things that can only be achieved through adversity. That's the way the world works. It is not within our power, nor will it be in the foreseeable future, to make it so that adversity isn't necessary. It's a grim fact of our collective circumstances. And because it's a grim fact, it's emotionally appealing to view it in a different way, to associate the adversity necessary to accomplish something with the accomplishment itself, to assign value to something that would ordinarily be undesirable.
If we had the option to somehow change this unfortunate fact, a pro-adversity trance would be detrimental. People would think that losing the hardship that goes into accomplishing something would make accomplishments less precious. People would reason that it would make us weaker. It's actually true in a whole lot of cases that obtaining something freely, without having to go through the adversity usually associated with earning that thing, leaves one weaker in some way than undergoing adversity to earn it. And that sucks. It's a sad consequence of the universe, maybe something that could be different, or maybe something that is wholly unchangeable, but it's not noble.
Since adversity is so often necessary for accomplishment and this isn't going away any time soon, a pro-adversity trance could actually be advantageous. This might be a problem for me, as I apparently don't have one. If I did, I probably wouldn't be calling it a trance. Like I said, I don't know if this is innate or indoctrinated. For whatever reason, maybe just because my brain is so fucked up, the effect is either very weak or nonexistent for me. I don't value adversity. I hate it. Even when I do fight through adversity and actually do see the rewards of my efforts, I don't appreciate the efforts; I hate them. I don't know if that makes any sense or not. If it doesn't, consider it a sign that I am, indeed, fucked up.
All of that is something I've thought about a lot and wanted to write about for a long time, but until now, I hadn't. In the past, it has worried me a lot. I find myself resenting people that are better than me at something if I know it's because they worked at it. I do sometimes make a lot of effort and I seem to be a pretty stubborn person, so it doesn't affect that. But it might make me lack motivation or self-discipline sometimes. I don't know. I think I'd be better as a writer if not for this crap. I think it's holding me back. I also think it might be a really important part of my personality or something. And so I'm torn.
None of that is specific to League of Legends or even particularly relevant to it, just inane pontification about vagaries. I could write this post without invoking League of Legends at all. Oops, too late.
I recently started playing ranked games, something I'd been putting off for when I thought I was ready. I think it was a mistake for a variety of reasons, some of which I'm not too sure about and some of which I think are sound. Having played normal games with and against a lot of people that have played ranked, I've come to associate league ranking with player skill, although the correlation there is a bit messy. Based on my own assessment of my own skill, I decided that I should be ranked Gold, or maybe high Silver, but probably Gold. Of course, I'm biased, but that was my take on it. I realized that the placement match system is imperfect. I could end up too low, possibly even too high, but more likely too low. And if I ended up too low, I knew I'd have to work my way up. I'd have to climb the ranks. It was something I'd end up trying to do anyway even if the placement matches put me exactly where I thought I should be. It wasn't going to come as a shock to me. I half expected it.
My first three ranked games, I won easily. In the fourth, I thought I did well enough, but my teammates did not. I lost. The fifth game was even worse and I performed poorly with my best champion, but still better than the rest of my team. I was frustrated with how bad my teammates seemed to be. In the sixth game, my opponents couldn't gain ground anywhere and surrendered quickly and uneventfully with seemingly little actual combat other than a few skirmishes we won decisively. For the seventh game, I played support, but accounted well enough for myself, I think. We won our lane, but the other lanes lost and our team was dominated. I made some mistakes in the eighth game, but came back and started to play better, only to see the rest of my team do so badly that we were completely trounced. In the ninth game, I was the only one on my team not to feed and had no chance whatsoever (my K/D was 1/2, while the others were 2/6, 2/8, 0/8, and 0/8, with details only getting worse from there). I had some hope for the tenth game and did get fed, but it wasn't enough and all four of my teammates fed again. Once that game was over, an animation played congratulating me on achieving a ranking: Bronze II. I was disgusted.
Since then, I've played two games and lost both. Like the Elo system it replaced, the League system is supposed to place people based on "winningness." It's not about how many kills I had or how few deaths I had. I've played twelve games and won four. I lose two thirds of the time. So far, anyway. Small sample size, I know, but still, given that information alone, Bronze II seems, if anything, generous. I know there's no reason to expect better. I also know there was no reason to expect that I'd get lucky with matchmaking. I still think I'm better than Bronze II and I'm perfectly willing to put that proposition to the test. I remain willing to try to climb the ladder and go for Gold, even though it is a long way. And I hope I make it. But I won't appreciate it. I already know that if I do make Gold, I won't look back in retrospect and think that my having climbed out of Bronze is a mark of pride or anything I'll ever value. I hate it now and will continue to hate it. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that realization, but it's how things are.
Anyway, I don't know how much I'll write about League of Legends in the future, nor how much I'll write about other things in the future, but I've decided that it really is best to separate the League of Legends stuff from my other material. Nick has helpfully already provided a space for that. Future content related to League of Legends, instead of being posted here, will be posted on that blog: http://eschatonlol.blogspot.com/
Almost any accomplishment in this world requires considerable effort. There are exceptions—sometimes people really do just stumble onto accomplishments. Usually, it doesn't work out that way. And the really important accomplishments often entail monumental efforts, sometimes by groups of people working together. To those of us living in this universe, that part isn't news. But it goes deeper: because people naturally value accomplishment, they also value all the things that go along with it. There's a whole lot of adversity, hardship, pain, and frustration out there, and only a fraction of it goes into actually doing something good. Those things are usually considered bad, but when they are steps on the road to an accomplishment, the situation is reversed and they are considered valuable. This part probably isn't news either, but people don't seem to give it very much thought.
The pain endured by someone with terminal cancer is generally considered to be an evil, something to be, if possible, expunged. The pain endured by someone training for an elite athletic contest is generally considered to be a source of pride, possibly a mark of greatness, or at least not a bad thing. Obviously it's actually not as bad as the former. It doesn't follow that it's good. And yet people generally seem to view it that way.
To loosely borrow a sort of coinage that I won't even bother mentioning here because I'm already boring everyone to death, I'll call this concept a "pro-adversity trance." Adversity accompanies many great things and is sometimes causally necessary for great things. There's an unjustified, but nearly universal assumption that while adversity in general is bad, any adversity that leads to a positive accomplishment is good. I don't know if this is an innate part of human psychology or if it's largely cultural, or some combination of the two. I see no logical reason for this belief, but I can see why it would make a lot of emotional sense: there are so many good things that can only be achieved through adversity. That's the way the world works. It is not within our power, nor will it be in the foreseeable future, to make it so that adversity isn't necessary. It's a grim fact of our collective circumstances. And because it's a grim fact, it's emotionally appealing to view it in a different way, to associate the adversity necessary to accomplish something with the accomplishment itself, to assign value to something that would ordinarily be undesirable.
If we had the option to somehow change this unfortunate fact, a pro-adversity trance would be detrimental. People would think that losing the hardship that goes into accomplishing something would make accomplishments less precious. People would reason that it would make us weaker. It's actually true in a whole lot of cases that obtaining something freely, without having to go through the adversity usually associated with earning that thing, leaves one weaker in some way than undergoing adversity to earn it. And that sucks. It's a sad consequence of the universe, maybe something that could be different, or maybe something that is wholly unchangeable, but it's not noble.
Since adversity is so often necessary for accomplishment and this isn't going away any time soon, a pro-adversity trance could actually be advantageous. This might be a problem for me, as I apparently don't have one. If I did, I probably wouldn't be calling it a trance. Like I said, I don't know if this is innate or indoctrinated. For whatever reason, maybe just because my brain is so fucked up, the effect is either very weak or nonexistent for me. I don't value adversity. I hate it. Even when I do fight through adversity and actually do see the rewards of my efforts, I don't appreciate the efforts; I hate them. I don't know if that makes any sense or not. If it doesn't, consider it a sign that I am, indeed, fucked up.
All of that is something I've thought about a lot and wanted to write about for a long time, but until now, I hadn't. In the past, it has worried me a lot. I find myself resenting people that are better than me at something if I know it's because they worked at it. I do sometimes make a lot of effort and I seem to be a pretty stubborn person, so it doesn't affect that. But it might make me lack motivation or self-discipline sometimes. I don't know. I think I'd be better as a writer if not for this crap. I think it's holding me back. I also think it might be a really important part of my personality or something. And so I'm torn.
None of that is specific to League of Legends or even particularly relevant to it, just inane pontification about vagaries. I could write this post without invoking League of Legends at all. Oops, too late.
I recently started playing ranked games, something I'd been putting off for when I thought I was ready. I think it was a mistake for a variety of reasons, some of which I'm not too sure about and some of which I think are sound. Having played normal games with and against a lot of people that have played ranked, I've come to associate league ranking with player skill, although the correlation there is a bit messy. Based on my own assessment of my own skill, I decided that I should be ranked Gold, or maybe high Silver, but probably Gold. Of course, I'm biased, but that was my take on it. I realized that the placement match system is imperfect. I could end up too low, possibly even too high, but more likely too low. And if I ended up too low, I knew I'd have to work my way up. I'd have to climb the ranks. It was something I'd end up trying to do anyway even if the placement matches put me exactly where I thought I should be. It wasn't going to come as a shock to me. I half expected it.
My first three ranked games, I won easily. In the fourth, I thought I did well enough, but my teammates did not. I lost. The fifth game was even worse and I performed poorly with my best champion, but still better than the rest of my team. I was frustrated with how bad my teammates seemed to be. In the sixth game, my opponents couldn't gain ground anywhere and surrendered quickly and uneventfully with seemingly little actual combat other than a few skirmishes we won decisively. For the seventh game, I played support, but accounted well enough for myself, I think. We won our lane, but the other lanes lost and our team was dominated. I made some mistakes in the eighth game, but came back and started to play better, only to see the rest of my team do so badly that we were completely trounced. In the ninth game, I was the only one on my team not to feed and had no chance whatsoever (my K/D was 1/2, while the others were 2/6, 2/8, 0/8, and 0/8, with details only getting worse from there). I had some hope for the tenth game and did get fed, but it wasn't enough and all four of my teammates fed again. Once that game was over, an animation played congratulating me on achieving a ranking: Bronze II. I was disgusted.
Since then, I've played two games and lost both. Like the Elo system it replaced, the League system is supposed to place people based on "winningness." It's not about how many kills I had or how few deaths I had. I've played twelve games and won four. I lose two thirds of the time. So far, anyway. Small sample size, I know, but still, given that information alone, Bronze II seems, if anything, generous. I know there's no reason to expect better. I also know there was no reason to expect that I'd get lucky with matchmaking. I still think I'm better than Bronze II and I'm perfectly willing to put that proposition to the test. I remain willing to try to climb the ladder and go for Gold, even though it is a long way. And I hope I make it. But I won't appreciate it. I already know that if I do make Gold, I won't look back in retrospect and think that my having climbed out of Bronze is a mark of pride or anything I'll ever value. I hate it now and will continue to hate it. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that realization, but it's how things are.
Anyway, I don't know how much I'll write about League of Legends in the future, nor how much I'll write about other things in the future, but I've decided that it really is best to separate the League of Legends stuff from my other material. Nick has helpfully already provided a space for that. Future content related to League of Legends, instead of being posted here, will be posted on that blog: http://eschatonlol.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Another League of Legends post: champion list idea
I've been doing some other things, but not a lot really. Right now, I'm waiting for my shin to heal (from when I fell on some rocks like an idiot) and waiting on a replacement CPU fan for my desktop. So I've been on my laptop, but like I said, I haven't done much. I should be doing more writing, at least. Not like anything is stopping me. Well, I've played some more League of Legends. Here's another post about that.
I may or may not attempt my ranked placement matches soon. Because I might actually use this idea, I'm sort of running with the assumption that I will be playing ranked in earnest. Maybe that won't happen. We'll see. Ranked play was part of the impetus for this. The other part was ARAM and how I've been approaching it. Right now I have a negative win/loss ratio in ARAM, even though I think I usually do pretty well. I've been losing in ARAM a lot. Yesterday I was mostly decided that ARAM is a waste of time, and also that I was burned out on it and needed to take a break from ARAM. However, it occurs to me now that ARAM presents an opportunity, one which I was taking advantage of, albeit only slightly. Some portion of the time in ARAM, I can roll and test out a champion in PVP that I've only tried against bots. While it's not a real substitute for Summoner's Rift, I'd be more comfortable playing on Summoner's Rift against bots and then on the Howling Abyss against people before diving headlong into normal games with a new champion.
List A: These are the champs I'm most comfortable with. They are off-limits for anything but draft mode. If I begin playing ranked in earnest, these are my default champs that I'll almost always pick, and they'll be off limits for normal games. I won't allow myself to use them in anything but ranked games (or until I'm actually playing ranked in earnest, in anything but draft mode). There can be occasional exceptions for testing a new build or if I need to fine-tune something (yesterday with Karthus I noticed that my last-hitting wasn't quite at its peak performance, although I did fine in fights). In the event that this list is my "ranked only" list, I might still use these champs as counterpicks in normal draft, but only if I like my teammates during champ selection. If they show signs of being too stupid, I won't be allowed to use these champs in normal drafts. If I roll these champs in ARAM and my teammates seem amiable and level-headed, I'll try to carry the team, but if my teammates are idiots, I'll just troll and/or use the time to experiment, although I'll still put in some modicum of effort at actually winning.
Karthus
Sivir
Vayne
Kassadin
Malphite
Maokai
Mordekaiser (tentative: I always seem to do well with him, but I've only drafted him once)
Tristana (tentative: I've been focusing on Kog'Maw more, but I'm still good with Tristana)
List B: These are borderline champs. I've been playing them recently and I'm pretty familiar with them. They don't quite make List A because I sometimes find myself at a loss, either getting soundly trounced in lane or running into some other obstacle. I think with more experience, the champs in this list should move into List A. If I edit and maintain these lists, my hope is to empty List B completely. These are champs I should be ready to take into ranked games, but I'm not, at least not yet. Because I want as much experience with these champs as I can get, no games are off-limits for them, but I won't be playing them in ranked until I move them to List A. If I roll these champs in ARAM, I'll probably build them the same way I build them for Summoner's Rift, treating it practice.
Swain
Kog'Maw
Alistar
Sona
List C: These are champs that I sometimes do really well with. I either used to play them a lot in the past, or I haven't been playing them long enough to be totally comfortable with them. These champs are off limits for co-op games (on my main account), but will be used extensively in normal blind pick games. If I begin playing ranked in earnest, these become my primary champions for normal games. If I roll these champs in ARAM, I try to win at all costs. These champs are all potential candidates for List A. Some of them might be promoted to List B, but I'd prefer to empty List B instead.
Singed (my second most played champ, but I've been struggling with him lately)
Udyr (my build is unorthodox, but I'm convinced that it works)
Soraka
Ryze
Morgana
Blitzcrank
Amumu
Diana
Anivia (formerly my #2 mid, but I never play her anymore)
Nasus
Teemo
List D: I'm not necessarily bad with these champs, but I tend to catch myself messing up a lot. I've carried normal games as all of these, but I've also done poorly as them. I may need to change my builds or just get a lot more practice in. I am extremely unlikely to draft these champs, but I will try to play them more in blind pick. My goal for these champs is to get them promoted to List C. If I roll these champs in ARAM, I'll just do whatever I feel like doing.
Elise
Vi
Annie
Ashe
Tryndamere
Skarner
Warwick
Miss Fortune
List E: These are the problematic champs. I really like these champs, but the way in which I play them is either risky or too particular. It's not that I'm worse at these champs than I am at the ones in List D. Quite the opposite. But the champs in List D are ideally going to be promoted to List C and then perhaps, eventually, List A. List E is its own monster. Until something changes, I need to be particular about when I play these champs. They're largely off-limits to solo-queue until I figure out what to do with them. If I roll them in ARAM, well, it's a case-by-case basis.
Sion
Kayle
Janna
Fiddlesticks
Shaco
Urgot
List F: These are the ARAM champs, that is, these are the champs I'm hoping to roll in ARAM. I've played these champs in bot games, but I am not really comfortable with them. Once I get more experience with them, they might be promoted to any of the other lists. Some of them are only on this list because they're recent purchases and I have very few games with them, others I've owned for a long time and just don't bother to play. This list is the broadest in terms of interest. Some of these are champs I'm excited about, which I would like to get on a fast track to List A. Others are champs I don't really care about at all, but I'm always willing to give them another chance.
Veigar
Cassiopeia
Sejuani
Katarina
Zilean
Master Yi
Lee Sin
Garen
Nidalee
Jax
Dr. Mundo
Nunu
Karma
Orianna
Cho'Gath
Gangplank
Poppy
Rumble
Evelynn
Postscript on role distribution in the lists
List A is still too small, and there are really two three skill tiers within it: Karthus is in his own tier above everyone else, then Sivir, Vayne, and Kassadin are in the next tier, followed by the others. I do have someone from each role in there, but Malphite and Maokai are my only support and jungler in List A, and they're ranked lower than the others. I really have too few Mordekaiser games to merit placing him in List A, but I can't recall ever having underperformed with him. Basically, I am weak on solo top and jungle as roles, but pretty strong as a mid and AD carry. Once the List B champs are promoted to List A, I will still need to shore up those two weak roles.
Postscript on List E
I build Sion to be strong in the very late game as a tank and damage-dealer. I rely heavily on Sion's E to get bonus health. My early game is too fragile for this to be reliable. I also kind of need a jungler to babysit me, and that's not generally guaranteed, so I tend to just not play Sion anymore. He's still one of my favorites. Kayle is weird because the few times I've played her, I've become freakishly strong late game, and I think it could be deceptive. I build her on-hit, which no one else seems to. The sample size is too small. I need to test Kayle more. Janna is on this list because I build her for movement speed. I've done it enough to have a feel for it, and it's very fun and can actually do well sometimes, but I'm not convinced its a reliable way for me to support. At the very least I need the right lane partner for my Janna to work. Fiddlesticks is only on this list because I play him as a jungler and I'm not sure that I should. He seems to fall behind too easily. I have other, more reliable junglers. Shaco could potentially have been on List F, but I think in the past I've tested him too much for me to group him with the champions that I'm inexperienced with. Shaco's reliance on early ganking runs counter to my jungling style. Also, I build him on-hit. I might still play him with the right team backing me. We'll see. Urgot is a champ I like as a twist on the AD carry role, but I've lost so many games with him that I'm hesitant to try him in serious games, especially when I'm so much better with other, more traditional carries. I might play him with the right lane partner, though.
I may or may not attempt my ranked placement matches soon. Because I might actually use this idea, I'm sort of running with the assumption that I will be playing ranked in earnest. Maybe that won't happen. We'll see. Ranked play was part of the impetus for this. The other part was ARAM and how I've been approaching it. Right now I have a negative win/loss ratio in ARAM, even though I think I usually do pretty well. I've been losing in ARAM a lot. Yesterday I was mostly decided that ARAM is a waste of time, and also that I was burned out on it and needed to take a break from ARAM. However, it occurs to me now that ARAM presents an opportunity, one which I was taking advantage of, albeit only slightly. Some portion of the time in ARAM, I can roll and test out a champion in PVP that I've only tried against bots. While it's not a real substitute for Summoner's Rift, I'd be more comfortable playing on Summoner's Rift against bots and then on the Howling Abyss against people before diving headlong into normal games with a new champion.
List A: These are the champs I'm most comfortable with. They are off-limits for anything but draft mode. If I begin playing ranked in earnest, these are my default champs that I'll almost always pick, and they'll be off limits for normal games. I won't allow myself to use them in anything but ranked games (or until I'm actually playing ranked in earnest, in anything but draft mode). There can be occasional exceptions for testing a new build or if I need to fine-tune something (yesterday with Karthus I noticed that my last-hitting wasn't quite at its peak performance, although I did fine in fights). In the event that this list is my "ranked only" list, I might still use these champs as counterpicks in normal draft, but only if I like my teammates during champ selection. If they show signs of being too stupid, I won't be allowed to use these champs in normal drafts. If I roll these champs in ARAM and my teammates seem amiable and level-headed, I'll try to carry the team, but if my teammates are idiots, I'll just troll and/or use the time to experiment, although I'll still put in some modicum of effort at actually winning.
Karthus
Sivir
Vayne
Kassadin
Malphite
Maokai
Mordekaiser (tentative: I always seem to do well with him, but I've only drafted him once)
Tristana (tentative: I've been focusing on Kog'Maw more, but I'm still good with Tristana)
List B: These are borderline champs. I've been playing them recently and I'm pretty familiar with them. They don't quite make List A because I sometimes find myself at a loss, either getting soundly trounced in lane or running into some other obstacle. I think with more experience, the champs in this list should move into List A. If I edit and maintain these lists, my hope is to empty List B completely. These are champs I should be ready to take into ranked games, but I'm not, at least not yet. Because I want as much experience with these champs as I can get, no games are off-limits for them, but I won't be playing them in ranked until I move them to List A. If I roll these champs in ARAM, I'll probably build them the same way I build them for Summoner's Rift, treating it practice.
Swain
Kog'Maw
Alistar
Sona
List C: These are champs that I sometimes do really well with. I either used to play them a lot in the past, or I haven't been playing them long enough to be totally comfortable with them. These champs are off limits for co-op games (on my main account), but will be used extensively in normal blind pick games. If I begin playing ranked in earnest, these become my primary champions for normal games. If I roll these champs in ARAM, I try to win at all costs. These champs are all potential candidates for List A. Some of them might be promoted to List B, but I'd prefer to empty List B instead.
Singed (my second most played champ, but I've been struggling with him lately)
Udyr (my build is unorthodox, but I'm convinced that it works)
Soraka
Ryze
Morgana
Blitzcrank
Amumu
Diana
Anivia (formerly my #2 mid, but I never play her anymore)
Nasus
Teemo
List D: I'm not necessarily bad with these champs, but I tend to catch myself messing up a lot. I've carried normal games as all of these, but I've also done poorly as them. I may need to change my builds or just get a lot more practice in. I am extremely unlikely to draft these champs, but I will try to play them more in blind pick. My goal for these champs is to get them promoted to List C. If I roll these champs in ARAM, I'll just do whatever I feel like doing.
Elise
Vi
Annie
Ashe
Tryndamere
Skarner
Warwick
Miss Fortune
List E: These are the problematic champs. I really like these champs, but the way in which I play them is either risky or too particular. It's not that I'm worse at these champs than I am at the ones in List D. Quite the opposite. But the champs in List D are ideally going to be promoted to List C and then perhaps, eventually, List A. List E is its own monster. Until something changes, I need to be particular about when I play these champs. They're largely off-limits to solo-queue until I figure out what to do with them. If I roll them in ARAM, well, it's a case-by-case basis.
Sion
Kayle
Janna
Fiddlesticks
Shaco
Urgot
List F: These are the ARAM champs, that is, these are the champs I'm hoping to roll in ARAM. I've played these champs in bot games, but I am not really comfortable with them. Once I get more experience with them, they might be promoted to any of the other lists. Some of them are only on this list because they're recent purchases and I have very few games with them, others I've owned for a long time and just don't bother to play. This list is the broadest in terms of interest. Some of these are champs I'm excited about, which I would like to get on a fast track to List A. Others are champs I don't really care about at all, but I'm always willing to give them another chance.
Veigar
Cassiopeia
Sejuani
Katarina
Zilean
Master Yi
Lee Sin
Garen
Nidalee
Jax
Dr. Mundo
Nunu
Karma
Orianna
Cho'Gath
Gangplank
Poppy
Rumble
Evelynn
Postscript on role distribution in the lists
List A is still too small, and there are really two three skill tiers within it: Karthus is in his own tier above everyone else, then Sivir, Vayne, and Kassadin are in the next tier, followed by the others. I do have someone from each role in there, but Malphite and Maokai are my only support and jungler in List A, and they're ranked lower than the others. I really have too few Mordekaiser games to merit placing him in List A, but I can't recall ever having underperformed with him. Basically, I am weak on solo top and jungle as roles, but pretty strong as a mid and AD carry. Once the List B champs are promoted to List A, I will still need to shore up those two weak roles.
Postscript on List E
I build Sion to be strong in the very late game as a tank and damage-dealer. I rely heavily on Sion's E to get bonus health. My early game is too fragile for this to be reliable. I also kind of need a jungler to babysit me, and that's not generally guaranteed, so I tend to just not play Sion anymore. He's still one of my favorites. Kayle is weird because the few times I've played her, I've become freakishly strong late game, and I think it could be deceptive. I build her on-hit, which no one else seems to. The sample size is too small. I need to test Kayle more. Janna is on this list because I build her for movement speed. I've done it enough to have a feel for it, and it's very fun and can actually do well sometimes, but I'm not convinced its a reliable way for me to support. At the very least I need the right lane partner for my Janna to work. Fiddlesticks is only on this list because I play him as a jungler and I'm not sure that I should. He seems to fall behind too easily. I have other, more reliable junglers. Shaco could potentially have been on List F, but I think in the past I've tested him too much for me to group him with the champions that I'm inexperienced with. Shaco's reliance on early ganking runs counter to my jungling style. Also, I build him on-hit. I might still play him with the right team backing me. We'll see. Urgot is a champ I like as a twist on the AD carry role, but I've lost so many games with him that I'm hesitant to try him in serious games, especially when I'm so much better with other, more traditional carries. I might play him with the right lane partner, though.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
One of my library books is due back today...
...and I forgot to turn it in. I kind of feel like I should be drawn and quartered.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge (and apparently I'm revisiting The Children of the Sky a bit)
I don't really have much to say about Rainbows End except in comparison to Vernor Vinge's other books that I've read. Before I read this one, the three Vinge books I'd read were all part of the same continuity, all basically the same series: A Deepness in the Sky, A Fire Upon the Deep, and The Children of the Sky. I complained a bit about The Children of the Sky on this blog a while back, and I find myself doing so again, but I want to be more precise this time.
The Children of the Sky happens to be the latest in a collection of related novels, the others of which happen to be paragons of science fiction. It could be the worst of the three and still be very, very good. It does fail to deliver the same general level of excellence as the other two, but not in a particularly egregious manner. The problem is that the story starts out taking the setup from A Fire Upon the Deep, but then fails to really follow up on that. I loosely reinterpret it like this. In A Fire Upon the Deep, the villain is repeatedly underestimated, and turns out to be, more or less, the devil. The main characters manage to burn up the world in order to slow the devil down. They can't stop the devil outright, but they can halt the imminent rampage and buy time for other things to happen, whatever those might be. The forces moving behind the scenes, including whoever originally crafted the weapon that has (with massive collateral damage) halted the devil's rampage, are still only vaguely hinted at by the end of A Fire Upon the Deep. In The Children of the Sky, the rampage of the devil himself is still delayed, but the characters are aware that the devil is coming, inexorably, and the approximate timing of this horrible arrival can even be estimated. This isn't just background: the reader is reminded of these facts repeatedly and anxiety and preparations regarding the eventual arrival of the devil are vital components of the plot and character development. Meanwhile, the antagonists in The Children of the Sky are ineffectual. Oh, some of them are quite malevolent and even occasionally threatening to individual characters, but their machinations always come across as, at worst, short-term problems. One of the primary miscreants of the story literally gets all of his power to work evil when one of the other characters hands it to him because she feels like she'd seem to be too much of a control-freak if she doesn't try to appease him. He causes problems only because the person that gave him this power spends most of the story too far away to simply walk up and take it away from him. The conflicts in The Children of the Sky are not uninteresting, but too much of the time these conflicts take a form that leaves the reader thinking, "Yeah, yeah, hurry up and finish beating up King Dedede so that you can deal with the whole issue of the devil from the first book, whose inexorable arrival has not become any more exorable than it was before."
Back to Rainbows End. It does not share continuity with those books. So it's a chance for me to examine Vernor Vinge's storytelling outside the universe with which he'd familiarized me. Although I found many aspects of Rainbows End unimpressive, I'll note that it comes with a very enticing hook: it's a story about a man that nearly died from Alzheimer's just as medicine advanced enough to rejuvenate him, introducing him to an unfamiliar future, all while he realizes that his family is at the center of some bizarre conspiracy. Sounds pretty fascinating.
Rainbows End was published in 2006 and takes place in 2025. Writing a "futuristic science fiction" story that takes place less than 20 years in the future strikes me as rather ambitious, so I'll at least say I'm impressed by that detail. Vernor Vinge's depiction of the world of 2025, though? Well, not really. I mean, I don't assume that he was trying to be prophetic, but the setting in general doesn't seem persuasive to me. Maybe I'll have to check back in 2025 if I can and revisit that.
There's a point relating to character development, which has nothing to do with technology or science fiction per se, but which I found glaring as I read the book. The main character, the one that was brought back from a bout with Alzheimer's, was a renowned poet. Much of his character development deals with a possible personality change following his recovery: before his illness, he was an asshole to everyone, all the time. The concept is potentially interesting, but Vinge takes it too far. This character is supposed to have been an acclaimed author around the time Rainbows End was written. It's currently 2013, so in the universe in which this book takes place, the guy is a famous poet now, and presumably on his way to retirement as a university professor. If Rainbows End had portrayed him as having an abrasive personality, that might have worked, but Vinge took it too far: he makes it abundantly clear that everyone that knew this guy personally hates him because he was constantly insulting them. His ex-wife arranges to appear to him to be dead when he recovers his mental faculties, then also arranges to spy on him for the sole purpose of being able to talk shit about him behind his back to the other characters. And she's supposed to be a psychiatrist. At some point, I stopped being able to buy it. If poetry was ever so venerated that someone with no redeeming qualities whatsoever could garner widespread recognition for it, that certainly hasn't been the case for a while, at least I don't think so. I contend that in our world, today, if an individual was so universally vituperative and wretched as to have no friends, no amount of genius as a poet would be enough to cause society to overlook that, not even in an ivory tower setting. It might work if the extent of the individual's curmudgeonliness was exaggerated or if he lived a reclusive lifestyle, but Vinge works hard to eliminate all suspension of disbelief on this front.
There are other, similar problems with the story, generally mildly baffling. There's an enigmatic character that the reader is made to suspect might be an artificial intelligence. At one point, characters dealing with this mystery entity raise that possibility. And then, rather than trying to confirm it or dismiss it as unlikely, they just pass over it. "Hey the other guy involved in our scheme may or may not be an artificial intelligence. And we're living in a world where that'd be a pretty big deal because there are no confirmed artificial intelligences. But it's sure starting to look like he's an artificial intelligence. Even before this suspicion was raised, we were all desperately worried that he'd betray us somehow and this revelation is made all the more disoncerting, but anyway, moving on..." I'm really only exaggerating a little bit there.
Rainbows End isn't great. The Children of the Sky is better. Still, it is a fun book in its own way and I'm intrigued enough to want to check out more Vernor Vinge books.
The Children of the Sky happens to be the latest in a collection of related novels, the others of which happen to be paragons of science fiction. It could be the worst of the three and still be very, very good. It does fail to deliver the same general level of excellence as the other two, but not in a particularly egregious manner. The problem is that the story starts out taking the setup from A Fire Upon the Deep, but then fails to really follow up on that. I loosely reinterpret it like this. In A Fire Upon the Deep, the villain is repeatedly underestimated, and turns out to be, more or less, the devil. The main characters manage to burn up the world in order to slow the devil down. They can't stop the devil outright, but they can halt the imminent rampage and buy time for other things to happen, whatever those might be. The forces moving behind the scenes, including whoever originally crafted the weapon that has (with massive collateral damage) halted the devil's rampage, are still only vaguely hinted at by the end of A Fire Upon the Deep. In The Children of the Sky, the rampage of the devil himself is still delayed, but the characters are aware that the devil is coming, inexorably, and the approximate timing of this horrible arrival can even be estimated. This isn't just background: the reader is reminded of these facts repeatedly and anxiety and preparations regarding the eventual arrival of the devil are vital components of the plot and character development. Meanwhile, the antagonists in The Children of the Sky are ineffectual. Oh, some of them are quite malevolent and even occasionally threatening to individual characters, but their machinations always come across as, at worst, short-term problems. One of the primary miscreants of the story literally gets all of his power to work evil when one of the other characters hands it to him because she feels like she'd seem to be too much of a control-freak if she doesn't try to appease him. He causes problems only because the person that gave him this power spends most of the story too far away to simply walk up and take it away from him. The conflicts in The Children of the Sky are not uninteresting, but too much of the time these conflicts take a form that leaves the reader thinking, "Yeah, yeah, hurry up and finish beating up King Dedede so that you can deal with the whole issue of the devil from the first book, whose inexorable arrival has not become any more exorable than it was before."
Back to Rainbows End. It does not share continuity with those books. So it's a chance for me to examine Vernor Vinge's storytelling outside the universe with which he'd familiarized me. Although I found many aspects of Rainbows End unimpressive, I'll note that it comes with a very enticing hook: it's a story about a man that nearly died from Alzheimer's just as medicine advanced enough to rejuvenate him, introducing him to an unfamiliar future, all while he realizes that his family is at the center of some bizarre conspiracy. Sounds pretty fascinating.
Rainbows End was published in 2006 and takes place in 2025. Writing a "futuristic science fiction" story that takes place less than 20 years in the future strikes me as rather ambitious, so I'll at least say I'm impressed by that detail. Vernor Vinge's depiction of the world of 2025, though? Well, not really. I mean, I don't assume that he was trying to be prophetic, but the setting in general doesn't seem persuasive to me. Maybe I'll have to check back in 2025 if I can and revisit that.
There's a point relating to character development, which has nothing to do with technology or science fiction per se, but which I found glaring as I read the book. The main character, the one that was brought back from a bout with Alzheimer's, was a renowned poet. Much of his character development deals with a possible personality change following his recovery: before his illness, he was an asshole to everyone, all the time. The concept is potentially interesting, but Vinge takes it too far. This character is supposed to have been an acclaimed author around the time Rainbows End was written. It's currently 2013, so in the universe in which this book takes place, the guy is a famous poet now, and presumably on his way to retirement as a university professor. If Rainbows End had portrayed him as having an abrasive personality, that might have worked, but Vinge took it too far: he makes it abundantly clear that everyone that knew this guy personally hates him because he was constantly insulting them. His ex-wife arranges to appear to him to be dead when he recovers his mental faculties, then also arranges to spy on him for the sole purpose of being able to talk shit about him behind his back to the other characters. And she's supposed to be a psychiatrist. At some point, I stopped being able to buy it. If poetry was ever so venerated that someone with no redeeming qualities whatsoever could garner widespread recognition for it, that certainly hasn't been the case for a while, at least I don't think so. I contend that in our world, today, if an individual was so universally vituperative and wretched as to have no friends, no amount of genius as a poet would be enough to cause society to overlook that, not even in an ivory tower setting. It might work if the extent of the individual's curmudgeonliness was exaggerated or if he lived a reclusive lifestyle, but Vinge works hard to eliminate all suspension of disbelief on this front.
There are other, similar problems with the story, generally mildly baffling. There's an enigmatic character that the reader is made to suspect might be an artificial intelligence. At one point, characters dealing with this mystery entity raise that possibility. And then, rather than trying to confirm it or dismiss it as unlikely, they just pass over it. "Hey the other guy involved in our scheme may or may not be an artificial intelligence. And we're living in a world where that'd be a pretty big deal because there are no confirmed artificial intelligences. But it's sure starting to look like he's an artificial intelligence. Even before this suspicion was raised, we were all desperately worried that he'd betray us somehow and this revelation is made all the more disoncerting, but anyway, moving on..." I'm really only exaggerating a little bit there.
Rainbows End isn't great. The Children of the Sky is better. Still, it is a fun book in its own way and I'm intrigued enough to want to check out more Vernor Vinge books.
Friday, July 5, 2013
So you've got a Fiddlesticks on your team in ARAM...
It may happen that, in queuing for an ARAM game in League of Legends, you get a Fiddlesticks on your team. Perhaps this prospect is confusing or overwhelming for you, but here are a few pointers to help you out...
- If Fiddlesticks does not have a full health bar and is not being attacked by enemy champions, he may use Drain on nearby enemy minions. This is normal. Do not panic. Do not frantically attack each minion as soon as he targets it with Drain. You might get a little gold if you are the one that kills those minions, but your Fiddlesticks will be at lower health than he otherwise would be, which is disadvantageous for your team.
- If you and/or your teammates are retreating from the enemy team and Fiddlesticks is present, he may use his Dark Wind on minions or champions. This ability can silence multiple enemies, preventing them from using gap-closers, thereby facilitating your escape. Do not mistake this situation for one in which Fiddlesticks is initiating a fight. Do not turn around and attack the silenced, yet superior, enemy force. If you do that, you will die. Calmly continue with the planned retreat.
- Fiddlesticks may hide in brush while the enemy team is nearby. If the green light on Fiddlesticks' portrait is illuminated, this is likely to be a possible setup for Crowstorm, Fiddlesticks' ultimate ability. Crowstorm has a brief channel, visible to enemies if they have vision of Fiddlesticks. At the conclusion of the channeling period, Fiddlesticks will instantly transport himself a short distance and kill all enemies in proximity. Do not allow the possibility of a Crowstorm by an allied Fiddlesticks to intimidate you. Do not attempt to flee toward the enemy nexus. Do not lure enemy champions into the brush containing Fiddlesticks. Take a deep breath and, if possible, continue the teamfight as normal. If the enemy champions have you overwhelmed, backing off is an option.
- If Fiddlesticks uses Crowstorm, transporting himself into the midst of the enemy team, he is killing them. Feel free to attack. Help out if you can. The Crowstorm may look dangerous, but if Fiddlesticks is on your team, it will not harm you. You can step into the area of effect and possibly earn extra gold by scoring a kill or assist on an enemy champion.
- Fiddlesticks is a squishy champion and has low mobility. If your team's Fiddlesticks is at low health, an enemy champion may attempt to dive him. In this situation, Fiddlesticks may use Terrify to stall the attacks against him, Dark Wind to damage and silence his attacker, and Drain to further damage his attacker and to keep himself alive. It may seem like a lot is going on at once, but if you do manage to spot this situation, you can probably get away with attacking the enemy champion that has targeted Fiddlesticks. Doing so might save your ally and perhaps even garner you an assist or even a kill!
- Do not mistake an enemy Fiddlesticks for an allied one. If Fiddlesticks, instead of being on your team, is on the enemy team, he will not help you and will almost certainly kill you and your entire team. Don't worry: eventually the game will end, probably in your defeat, and you will no longer be in a game in which Fiddlesticks can kill you.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
America, press R!
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
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