Triple Blood Thirster Thresh

Oh yes! As the title suggests, I have discovered a build that makes Thresh pretty much unstoppable. BotRK, Berserker Greaves, Trinity Force and three Blood Thirsters. If you can collect around 200 souls, you are able to hit around 800 damage EVERY hit. Thats around 400 Attack Damage and 400 Magic Damage on EVERY hit. If you charge your E up you can hit for over 1000 and if you proc the Spell-Blade passive on your Tri-Force you can hit even higher. I have gotten solo Quadra's with a bit of fancy moving, and I reckon you could achieve a Penta with it.

-Xalaram

Rare Loot, Mordekaiser and Poison Spells

Recently while playing Cube World I've come across some dungeons with deceptively powerful mobs in them. For instance; I found a blue named pyramid and decided to take a peek inside, should be normal right? Nope. All the monsters had a "+4" next to their names and I got destroyed pretty fast. I kept looking around and found a blue named +2 dungeon, I was able to clear it with about Thirty potions and got some epic loot from it. Alot of Purple (Rare) and a few Yellow (Rarest) items dropped, some of them were even named! So if you are after rare loot, go find those dungeons with +Numbers on the mobs in them. But be prepared for a fight because they don't like parting with their treasures!

A few days ago I played Mordekaiser again. I had so much fun and had many kills, one death at the very end and a few assists by the time they surrendered. If you can get some early gold, you can farm ridiculously fast and if your team isn't running a jungler you can take wraiths and wolves as well. Before I bought Morde I saw somebody get One Hundred farm per Ten Minutes and single handedly roflstomp the enemy team, repeatedly. With a full build of the right items you can get Morde's Q doing over 1000 damage to single targets, you can tank for days and kill the enemy team with their own carry! Now, I am still working on a concrete build for him but two must buy items are Lich Bane and Hextech Gunblade along with the usual Sorcerers Shoes etc. Another ridiculous item combo that mainly augments his ultimate is; Liandry's Torment, Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Deathfire Grasp. The Deathfire makes them take bonus damage, so you use it first. Then you ult them, or if they are tanky E and or Q as well. They will be constantly slowed while your ult is affecting them and because of this will take double burn damage from Liandry's all the while taking bonus damage from Deathfire. That means they will most likely die a reasonably quick death.

Also something I noticed with Cassiopeia (and a few other poison users in LoL) is that their poison can be augmented with the Jungler item; Spirit of the Elder Lizard. This adds True Damage to every tick of the poison along with any augmentations already in use, such as Black Fire Torch or Liandry's Torment. A very potent combination, the extra AD can be useful to farm and push towers or even to harass.

-Xalaram

Cube World Portals and Ahri!

Today I found Three portals while playing cube world, all in the same desert and more or less consecutively. I was previously under the impression that it was one portal per biome, guess I was wrong.

And on to the main event, Ahri! She is my absolute favourite LoL champion ever. Apart from her obviously alluring figure, she has some awesome abilities. Her Q is a returning skillshot that deals Magic damage on the way out and returns with True damage. Her W summons Three homing missile-ish wisps of fire that prefer to hit enemy champions over minions. Her E is a Taunt skillshot in the form of a blown kiss with a love heart projectile. Her ultimate is a dash that does the same thing as her W except she can do it Three times, she can also pass through terrain. This allows her to gank and escape extremely well and if you add a Rylais to her build, she can kite exceptionally. She was the second champion I picked up, although she requires a fair amount of skill to play properly I highly recommend her.

-Xalaram

Evelynn, and the OP Illusion

Something has been bugging me for awhile and this something has a name. Evelynn. People's opinions of her generally are split into two groups; "She sucks and is a horrible champ!" OR "She is completely OP, pls nerf!". I can't help but disagree with the first statement, but I don't really believe the second either. Sure I've had games with her and I carried my team with ease but thats not because she is "OP", it's because they have no tank and/or little AoE. Sure she is permanently cloaked just like Riki from DOTA but with a totally different skillset, but there are ways around this. Oracles, Pink Wards and Teemo Shrooms mainly. She used to be alot more OP with her being able to stay properly cloaked for periods of up to Forty seconds at a time instead of the current "Cloaked till you're near somebody". She had a slow on leaving the old cloak with an ability or a basic attack, now it's only on her ult. A good counter to Evelynn is Cho'Gath or anybody with big AoE, good examples are; Orianna, Malphite, Kayle, Darius, Wukong, Syndra, Lissandra, Kog'Maw, Lee Sin and some others. Now by countering I don't mean being able to kill easily, I mean being more likely to hit her with abilities and grant vision.

Alot of people complain about certain champions being "OP". Now, no single champion is OP unless they are broken. People complain that champions are broken and OP because they don't know how to counter them. Let's go through some people complain about. Diana, she is a little broken but some hard CC shuts her down easy. Akali, carry a pink ward around and drop it when she drops her smoke and then stick together, hard CC also effective. Aatrox, hard CC and Executioners Calling will stop him dead. Blitzcrank, stay behind minions while warding bushes and try not to get caught out of position. Darius, slows and ranged attacks. LeBlanc, Banshee's Veil and some CC. I probably missed a few but if you don't have a good mix of CC in your team comp, chances are that you're gonna lose to one of these "OP" champions. Map awareness is also a good thing to have although it takes practice.

-Xalaram

Minecraft Plenty O' Biomes Mod

Yesterday I was given the IP of a modded Minecraft Server run by an old EVE friend. I downloaded the Mods and installed them using a handy program that allows multiple Minecraft installations, so you don't wreck up your vanilla .jar file. Anyway, I logged in and got on to the server and the first thing I see is a Mushroom Forest! The main mod on the server is called Plenty O' Biomes and it adds a new sense of adventure and awsome into the game for those that may have grown bored of seeing the same scenery repeatedly. The biomes that I've found so far are; An Ice Forest, a Sakura Forest (Cherry Blossoms), Jade Cliffs, Tropics, Marsh, Canyons, Savannah, Grassland, Meadow, Dead Lands and a few more. I am currently setting up a log cabin in a Dead Lands forest. The water is a very dark blue/purple, the sky is dark blue/grey the grass and leaves are a dark blue/purple colour thats almost black. Very ominous, but awsome!

-Xalaram

Hel and the Cube World Max Level

I decided to try out Hel during one of my recent bouts of Smite. She is the Norse god of the Underworld, and is a Support/Mage. She has two kits, one for damage and one for support. Her R switches between them and causes her to change from dark and sinister to light and semi friendly looking and back again. I forgot most of what her abilities do, but she is fun and awsome looking!

The other day I did some research on the Cube World Leveling system and what I found out is pretty interesting. The higher your level, the easier it is to get to the next level. Cube World is set up so you can potentially level up infinitely so you never feel like you've finished the game and in order to achieve this, they put in a Power Level system.With armour, weapons, jewellery and consumables you require an appropriate Power Level to use them. The max Power Level is 100 and the closest you can get is Power Level 99 at around Level 300. This is interesting because it might cause some monsters to be infinitely more powerful than you, but as I am only around level 30 on my highest character it's still speculation!

-Xalaram

Green Ribbons and Ranked Stupid

Today I decided to play a ranked game of League of Legends in the infamous Bronze V solo queue on the Oceanic Server. After that game I promptly vowed to never play solo ranked again until I regained my Green Ribbon, which is for Teamwork. The amount of stupid in the lower tiers of LoL and probably any MOBA is too damn high!! When I play ranked I normally play Support Janna because people don't seem to be able to ward properly and end up feeding the enemy Jungler or Mid, but the problem is; You can't support stupid. In today's match the enemy team got so far ahead that when I tried to help out the other lanes, if anybody got caught my shield was meaningless because of sheer burst.

Anyway, when you manage to get a Ribbon you normally get matched with others with that ribbon. So if you get the Teamwork Ribbon, you are alot less likely to be matched with retards for team-mates. And that helps you proceed in ranked ALOT easier.

-Xalaram

Smite and Neith

Today I played Smite for the first time, and I really enjoyed it! I immediately took a liking to the Egyptian Goddess Neith. She is a Carry/Support and at first I was like; "WTF you cant have carry and support on the same character!". Turns out you can. She has a long range poke as her Q and it snares on hit, her W is an AoE damage that slows attack speed and heals you, her E is a backflip that damages and places a "Broken Weave" where you were and damages people, her R is a super long range sniper shot with homing and her passive causes enemy deaths to leave behind "Broken Weaves" that interact with your abilities in some way. The game play is pretty similar to any MOBA with similar heroes except that you play in Third Person, Attacking is your Left Mouse Button, Moving is WASD keys and spells are 1-4 on the keyboard. It took me a bit to get used to for instance, the enemy Fenrir (similar to Warwick from LoL, and Ursa from DOTA with an ult like Skarner also from LoL but with a silly leap) would run out of lane into the jungle and then the next thing you know is he has leaped from behind you and is tearing you a new one. Tunnel vision kills! It's a pretty fun game overall.

-Xalaram

AP Skarner and Cube World Lava Lands

Recently I tried Skarner, looked at his abilities and noticed they all scale off AP. He has ridiculous sustain close to being broken, a huge shield, fun ultimate and alot of damage. All you need to do is start with his E for early healing then max it by level Nine, followed by his W (the shield) and then Q (a great slow/aoe damage) with his ult being attained at the appropriate levels all the while building AP. I recommend building; Rylais, Rod of Ages, Sorcerers Shoes with Alacrity, Will of the Ancients, Rabadons and either Lich Bane or Nashor's Tooth for some auto attack damage.

Today in Cube World I was exploring and I came across the most hostile of biomes, the Lava Lands. Sort of like the Nether in Minecraft except no Ghasts, Blazes, Lava Slimes or Zombie Pigmen. Instead of these, the fauna are more demonic; Imps, Demons, Ember Golems and Mosquitoes. The flora is very sparse consisting of small clumps of red grass, bright red thorny bushes and large thorny wood vines curling up from the ground. The landscape is coloured to look like there are lava cracks everywhere but this could do with some work. Overall I am impressed, but I also have high hopes for this biome and the game in general.

-Xalaram

DayZ Strongholds and Cube World Mounts

I forgot to write up a post yesterday, oops. I'm not going to write a double length one to make up for it though.

Yesterday I was on DayZ a bit and the group I play with now has a stronghold! It is a giant wooden square monstrosity with a lookout tower in each corner, it has tank traps around the base and at the front gate is a few hung corpses. I believe it's the first in the server to be built so its quite prestigious. It provides a great defensible location along with huge storage and room for a vehicle or two.

I've been playing Cube World alot and it hasn't failed to disappoint. I've been quite lucky in my exploring and have come across two portals, which I can use like waypoints from Diablo. I've been collecting alot of pets, and the amount of mounts in the game is quite high! Some of the mounts I have are; Bunny, Cat, Crocodile, Turtle, Porcupine, Peacock, Camel a Horse and some other ones. I am still yet to tame a Slime as they require the same colour jelly that they are to tame. (cannibal slimes, anyone?) But the slimes look the best when ridden because they only bob up and down and slide along the ground. So damn cute!

-Xalaram

EVE's First dead Revenant and, MUNDO!

Earlier today, the first Revenant class Super Carrier exploded in a fiery ball of death in EVE Online. This particular class of spaceship is extremely expensive (and pretty rare) in game and in real world money is worth a few thousand US dollars. It was the victim of a successful AWOX attempt. AWOX'ing is when an enemy spy either causes the target to be in a vulnerable position or finds it in one and then proceeds to call in a fleet to destroy the target. AWOX'ing targets are usually faction battleships, freighters and jump freighters and capital ships. The Revenant belongs to the later class, capitals. Every capital in the game is worth over 1,000,000,000,000 (One Billion) ISK, which is the in game currency of EVE. And $20USD roughly converts to 1.2Bil ISK. Thats enough for the hull of a cheap dreadnought or carrier, let alone modules to put on it. I hope Pandemic Legion (the faction that lost the Revenant) learns from this and recruits more carefully in the future. It would be a shame to lose another super expensive asset.

I have recently been playing a bit of Dr. Mundo on the Oceanic server, but have been running into an annoying dilemma. The enemy team either wins or surrenders before I can complete my fourth item whenever I play Mundo. I rush Warmogs followed by Mercury Treads with the Furor enchantment and then a Blood Thirster! At this point the game is normally around 25:00. I plan to build Rylai's Crystal Scepter, Randuins Omen and Spirit Visage after the Blood Thirster but I never get around to it. Hopefully I'll have better luck soon.

-Xalaram

The BotRK or Blood Thirster Debate

But first, the title of my previous post was a little misleading and should have been "...and how to Support with High Utility Champions". I'm not sorry, but I will try to refrain from making the same mistake again.

OK. There has been some (alot) of debate about whether BotRK is superior to the Blood Thirster and I will shed some light on the perks and downfalls of both. Early game, a BotRK is far superior to a Blood Thirster for a number of reasons:

1. Its cheaper!
2. Percentage of their health is done on each hit.
3. Doesn't need to be stacked like a Blood Thirster.
4. Attack speed!
5. A nice active; percentage slow, small nuke and a health injection from them to you.

This is all well and good but the counter to a BotRK is armour! So if you go against a Graves, BotRK isn't the best choice but is still good if you want to rush some early lifesteal. Mid to Late game is where the Blood Thirster comes in, if your team is giving you the farm (which they damn well should be) you can get your stacks up pretty fast giving you nice damage and life steal. Or you could buy a BotRK and then get Last Whisper and Black Cleaver to shred any armour that they may build to try and counter you. Or get both a BotRK and a Blood Thirster. Whichever you choose, you now know the ups and downs of both.

-Xalaram

Starcraft 2, and why I love Janna Support

Earlier today a friend on facebook was wondering if any of his friends had Starcraft 2, so I messaged him and we ended up playing a quick 1v1 in which he surrendered. Now, I am pretty bad at SC2 (and I hardly play it) but I know the basics of the old Terran meta so I used the normal Marine-Marauder-Medivac strategy and in the later stages of the game I had some Battlecruisers in the works. Two tips for anybody wanting to improve their game are as follows;

1. Never queue units or upgrades unless you have a HUGE back log of resources, this allows you to have a greater total pool of resources at any one time but requires a bit more macro.
2. Set your shortcut settings to Grid layout. This sets the top left shortcut on the panel to Q and the bottom right shortcut to B. Anything in the middle will be on its respective key, this allows faster actions with practice.

And I just played a game as my favourite supporty type of support. Janna! She is my main support and has carried me all the way from Bronze V to Bronze IV, not far I know. But she turned what was usually a ridiculously arduous process into a relatively straightforward one. I still get the odd loss but I remember getting a 9 straight win streak just because I countered most of the usual picks. The main thing is building correctly and what skill to max first. I learnt alot from playing DOTA2 with some pro friends of mine and its surprising what carries over to LoL. Wards. You can afford to buy TWO wards every 2:05 aside from any assist/kill gold you get WITHOUT any bonus Gold per Second Items, Masteries or Runes. Thats enough to ward river bush and a lane bush early and Dragon and Baron mid-game all for FREE! If you add Kage's Lucky Pick, Philosopher's Stone and the Greed Mastery that's a total of 2.3 gold per second. That allows you to get FIVE wards every 3:00 with some gold left over, aside from assist/kill gold. This goes for all supports. Enough on wards, lets look at builds. If you have a high CC/Defense kit like Janna you don't need to buy support items at all (except for wards). I always run Janna with Warmogs, Unholy Grail, Rabadons and Mobility boots with Distortion enchantment. That gives you great Health regen, awsome Mana regen, good cooldown reduction, great movement speed, decent Max Health, decent AP, a reduced cooldown on my summoner spells and it leaves room for both types of ward. As for summoner spells, the usual that is taken by supports is Flash and Exhaust. I go with Ghost and Teleport because it gives high mobility and you can get back to the fight quickly if you die (which you shouldn't) or if you go back to base. Teleport also allows you to quickly teleport to another lane for some on call support, using Teleport like this is only recommended for advanced players because it requires high map awareness for full effect. She doesnt need Exhaust because she has a Slow and a Knock-Up which can change teamfights and stop pesky channelers like Karthus, WW and Kat.

-Xalaram

A little on Neverwinter, and the next LoL Champion

Yesterday I played a bit of Neverwinter, it's not bad. Now I mean the MMO Neverwinter not Neverwinter Nights. I'm a little unhappy with the lack of classes that they could have and all the variations, such as multi-classing. But apart from that it has nice graphics, nice soundtracks and decent sound effects.

Now, something on the upcoming League of Legends champion; Lucian. He was leaked before Lissandra if my memory serves correctly (which it might not since I am writing this at 2:50AM) anyway, the thoughts on him were mixed. Just recently, the official teaser was released. He has two guns and wants to take vengeance on some inhabitant of the Shadow Isles for killing his wife. A few pictures were also released showing the two guns and a gravestone. A friend of mine did some digging around and came up with a different version of the gravestone picture in which it has a name on it, although partly obscured it reads; "In loving memory" and "S E N". It is possible to see a small part of the last letter on the gravestone, I personally think its an A. Not much has been released about his kit except that he will be an AD Carry without any CC. All I can think of at the moment is a male version of Vayne cross Miss Fortune, except black. Which is another interesting thing! He will be the first black champion on the fields of justice. I am definitely looking forwards to seeing how he will turn out.

-Xalaram

Cube World, at last!

Thanks to a friend of mine, I now have Cube World despite being out of money! :D

The game does not disappoint in any way, and I am completely enjoying it. So far I have tamed a Bunny, a Mole and a Cat. I have decided to go with a Female Elf Warrior Berserker with a Greatsword! I found a Wind Spirit cube (which increases movement and attack speed) and have added it to my Greatsword, this stacks with my Berserker passive of increasing attack speed with every successive hit and when I get a good combo up the cube starts glowing brightly and sparks start flying off the victims. I have heard of some sort of teleport stones like a waypoint from Diablo or some such but haven't found any yet. Will post more about this game tomorrow!

-Xalaram

Minecraft 1.6, and why Nami makes a good bruiser

With the latest Minecraft update I reset the world of my Multiplayer Server, which me and a few friends often frequent. Lucky for us, we spawned straight onto a Jungle Temple. I found some iron bars, a set of gold horse armour a diamond and some other things. We decided to just renovate the temple and live in it. Downstairs is the chest room and bedroom, mid floor is the crafting and smelting area, top floor was the bedroom but we dug a new one down stairs and turned it into a Cocoa Bean farm and last of all we built a small watchtower on the roof with a glass floor to let the sun into the crafting area. Since we are in a jungle we have been clearing the nearby trees and undergrowth to prevent ambushes from unwelcome things, such as creepers. More on this in a later post!

Now, about Nami! With the latest LoL patch, they removed the item Malady and added its main passive onto Nashors Tooth. I didn't really like this idea but it simplifies things a little more when building AP onto basic attacks. I decided to try Nami with an AP build with alot of on-hit stuff and happened across a winning combo; Nashor's Tooth, Lich Bane, Rabaddons, Berserker Greaves and some other things makes for a deadly combo while still being able to provide plenty of support to your team. I do not recommend supporting from the start with this build because you won't have enough money for wards (which are essential!) and your ADC might want you to get some support items. I can confirm that this build works, just make sure to max your E first followed by W or Q depending on whether you need more survivability or crowd control. A Kassadin mid swore at me and switched lanes earlier today because I started wrecking him. This build would work top and mid.

-Xalaram

EMERGENCY POST: CUBE WORLD WAS RELEASED!!

As the title suggests, the voxel based RPG game was released sometime in the near past. I highly recommend buying it! I am extremely excited and will most certainly purchase this awsome game in the very near future!! :D

-Xalaram

Dark Seer, and why AP Yi is still broken

So, just then I was playing some DOTA2 and decided to play Dark Seer. Now I understand he isn't everybodies cup of tea but for me he is extremely fun. Early game go for a Vanguard and Mana Boots and just spam Ion Shell on your melee creeps. It gives you some easy farm, it harasses the enemy heroes away from their farm and its a great aggressive defensive move in a pinch. After I picked up Vanguard I went for a Hood of Defiance I think it's called, for some spell resistance. After that I went for a Heart of Tarasque! Seventy-two health regen per second when out of combat. Seventy-two! By that time the game had ended however. His skills are interesting. His Q pulls all non-friendlies into a point, his W is Ion Shell and it does constant damage to anybody unwise enough to be too close to whoever it is cast on, his E makes you run extremely fast for a short amount of time and his R is the most interesting of all! It creates a purple wall and when an enemy hero passes it a clone of themselves is created which you can control. You would be surprised by how many people are scared off if you just put this down over a lane and behind a turret when you are pushing. Sometimes I use it just for this effect but I like putting it down in the middle of a team fight mostly.

Earlier today however, I was playing LoL on the North American server with some friends and I came across a solo-bot AP Yi. The enemy team had no AD Carry and they didn't need one. We were utterly destroyed by this one AP Yi. All the AP ratios on his abilities are still too high. I called for our AD champs to build Executioners Calling for its niche passive that is supposed to counter Yi's Meditate. He was still able to out heal our DPS even though his healing was halved. WTF!? And after that he would just Q again and get another huge chunk of health taken off anybody close enough and in the case of our ADC, he died in two Q's. I am really looking forwards to the Master Yi rework that is supposed to happen sometime soon. No more unkillable, overly bursty Yi's.

-Xalaram

Minecraft gets Horses, and a bit on LeBlanc and Tiredness

A reasonably short time ago, the latest Minecraft update was released. Woo! It adds a bunch of awsome new things, some of which are; horses, donkeys and mules. No longer will we have to worry for our lives when hacking through hordes of zombies, neither will we need to make multiple trips when collecting resources on the surface in remote locations. Also, carpet and stained hard clay blocks. Ever wanted to build a giant pink and green checkered castle out of non-flammable material? No? Well neither have I, but at least its possible now.

Also, I was playing a match of LoL earlier and decided to go LeBlanc mid. For quite a few months after I bought her I was pretty bad at her. One day, a friend from Europe asked to 1v1 me. I said OK because I hardly ever turn down a challenge and then he proceeded to faceroll me with LeBlanc. Ever since then I have been doing alot better with her, guess I picked up some tricks. I also found out quite recently that I absolutely cant play LeBlanc when I am tired. In fact, my level of play decreases dramatically when I haven't had enough sleep.