MEDA102 - Tutorial 2

1. The first artwork we sent was "Rainstorm Beneath the Summit" by Hokusai. The second artwork was "The Dog" by Pablo Picasso.
2. Using paint or a pigment applied to a surface, Hokusai has portrayed Mt Fuji in a recognizable fashion. The shape and colour of the mountain and its environment has been retained, while a large portion of the detail has been omitted. Whereas the simple dog portrait that Picasso authored is just a simple continuous line drawing. It lacks colour, and detail yet it is still recognizable as a dog.
3. Our encoding process used a piece of paper divided into quarters and these in turn divided into quarters twice more to get a total of 64 different squares. When given the right information in the form of coordinates, we drew lines between the different points to get an image.
4. We figured that all images can be divided into enough sections that can then be transmitted one at a time. The only elements we encoded were lines and although this omits information, the general idea of an image can still be transmitted.
5. We used tapping and sticky-tape sounds to send a series of coordinates between the teams.
6. Our method of transmitting coordinates and drawing lines between them worked really well.
7. Unsure, we didn't have any trouble.
8. To improve upon our transmission method, we could divide the coordinate system up even more to the point where "pixel" locations are transmitted along with colour information in order to get an almost perfect reproduction of the image. However doing this by hand would take longer the more detail we included.

AD Malphite and a New Sejuani Skin!

The reason I stopped posting for awhile is because I ran out of content to post about, but as I have recently found and experienced some more things I will now resume with fervor!

Now a lot of people believe that Malphite should be played as a tank or even a little bit AP. Because I like trying crazy things with champions I have discovered what I believe to be a new play style for Malphite. AD! This concept revolves around his W which has a passive and an active. Firstly, the passive gives splash damage on melee attacks and it stacks with items such as Ravenous Hydra. This means that you hit around 120% to targets near your focus, just like the old Tiamat Stack Meta except nerfed. But it is still crazy OP, I managed to get a 1v5 Quadra because of the splash and the active on his W which I'm getting to now. The active gives a percentage bonus to your AD and Armour, making Malphite a ridiculous brawler when built AD. I've achieved around 650 AD, for short periods of course. Now couple this crazy high AD with a bit of Crit, Splash, Armour Pen and Attack Speed. The build I use is; Ravenous Hydra, Berserker Greaves, Atma's Impaler, Frozen Mallet, Black Cleaver and Infinity Edge. This gives around three thousand health, four hundred AD, some armour, some crit, some splash and lifesteal.

Also, Bear Cavalry Sejuani was released recently to mark the opening of the Russian Servers for League of Legends. I'm sure Zilean won't be happy that another armoured bear has been let into the League.

-Xalaram

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