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sharri21's League of Legends (PC)
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| [December 7, 2012 01:26:27 PM]
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This week the new free-to-play champion rotation included a champion I’ve had my eye on for a while but decided against purchasing as he’s fairly expensive.
Brand, The Burning Vengeance, is a ranged mage type character who is able to burn the map up, and then some! His passive ability Blaze sets the target on fire, dealing damage over time for 4 seconds. His “Q” ability Sear shoots a fireball at the target, dealing magic damage. What makes Brand so cool is that each of his abilities has a different secondary effect in addition to the primary effect if the target is affected by his passive ability, Blaze. The secondary effect of Sear is a stun that lasts 2 seconds. His “W” ability is Pillar of Flame. This ability does area of effect damage to several targets at a time. If the target is set ablaze, Pillar of Flame will deal 25% additional damage. I like dropping this ability in front of running enemies if possible—it’s a sure kill if they are low on health and aren’t smart enough to flash away from it! His “E” ability Conflagration instantly deals magic damage to the target and sets them ablaze. If the target has been previously set ablaze, Conflagration will have an AoE effect and spread the Blaze passive effect as well. His ultimate ability, “Q,” is called Pyroclasm. This is basically a huge fireball that does a lot of damage to the target, and bounces from target to target up to four times. This ability is absolutely amazing in a situation where you are fighting several champions at once because it will nuke all of them via bouncing! This is where you begin to notice his amazing AoE damage. When you combine Pillar of Flame, Conflagration, and a Pyroclasm together it’s extremely hard for someone to survive.
Today was my first time playing as Brand, but I must say, I loved it. I am seriously considering purchasing him now, even though my first game could have been against unskilled opponents or I had beginners luck. Either way, I can now see the potential that Brand has and the insane damage he can dish out quickly. In the game I played, I wasn’t even able to make it to level 18 before the opposing team surrendered, so I wasn’t fully built by any means. Seeing the damage I was putting out mid-game, I can’t even imagine what a monster Brand is late game, but I intend to find out!
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| [November 18, 2012 07:55:08 PM]
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This week on League of Legends I decided to revisit a champion who I tried playing when he was released, but delayed purchasing until just recently. Darius, the Hand of Noxus, is a melee/fighter champion who I now wish I’d bought long ago.
Darius’ abilities are based upon attack damage. Something that I believe makes Darius extremely valuable, among other things, is his passive ability—Hemorrhage. Hemorrhage is a damage over time ability applied via all offensive attacks which can be stacked up to 5 times. As if that weren’t good enough, it can also be modified/buffed by purchasing attack damage items to increase the amount of damage it does per tick! His second ability (Q key) is Decimate, which is an area of effect attack that hits all opponents within several units of himself. This does a good amount of damage and applies Hemorrhage. His second ability (W key) is Crippling Strike—this attack damages whoever Darius uses it on and slows them down by a percentage based on how many stacks of Hemorrhage the target has stacked on them. His third ability Apprehend (E key) passively grants him 5% armor penetration per stack, and when activated pulls an enemy several units away back to Darius. Finally, his ultimate attack is a devastating attack called Noxian Guillotine (R key)—this attack is generally used to finish a fight as it does an extreme amount of damage and can be used back to back as long as it kills the champion target. If it doesn’t kill the champion, you must wait for the cool down on the ability to refresh.
While Darius is simply a wonderful killing machine, he also has several utility skills that make him extremely valuable in different situations across the battlefield. The only fault I can find with Darius is that none of his abilities passively slow the target in addition to whatever they primarily do, which isn’t really a fault as he has the ability to snatch running targets back to him anyways. I usually remedy this minor issue by purchasing a Phage which gives me the chance to slow targets when I attack.
Another thing that adds to Darius’ usefulness is his general “tankiness.” Usually when a champion is able to dish out such a large amount of damage in a bursty fashion as he does, they are more frail. This is not the case with Darius as I build him with armor and health/health regeneration at the start of the game which allows me to power through early game fights, earn myself money, and ultimately get ahead of others in terms of level/money/item builds. I’m somewhat selective when it comes to melee champions as they take more concentration and precision to play because you’re consistently in the fray and up close to other champions. Using Darius, I am less worried about jumping into the middle of a fight because he’s tough enough to take damage while he’s dishing it out.
At first, I thought it was beginner’s luck. Ten games later I discovered that playing as Darius just came naturally and that he’s one of my new favorite champions! I’m glad that I purchased him and I’ll definitely use him every chance that I get when I feel like decapitating other champions on the field (which is all the time)!
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| [November 14, 2012 03:34:57 PM]
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On a weekly basis, League of Legends rotates which champions are free to play. While I usually try out two or three that I haven’t played before, I’d like to use this GameLog to review my thoughts on a champion that I purchased a while ago as I’ve logged more playtime using him than newly released free to play champions.
The champion I am referring to is named Twitch. He is a “Plague Rat” who runs around with a crossbow and thrives on the mechanic of shooting poisoned bolts from it. In fact, that is his passive ability—shooting poisoned projectiles that apply a damage over time effect to the enemy—it’s called Deadly Venom. His second ability is called Ambush, which makes Twitch temporarily invisible to enemies and increases his movement speed while it’s active. Upon exiting stealth, he gains increased attack speed. I find this ability very useful while both opening a fight, or while chasing someone down. His third ability, Venom Cask, allows Twitch to hurl a cask at the enemy that decreases their movement speed, and applies two stacks of poison (six stacks of poison max) to them. This is also great for enemies that decide to run away in the middle of a fight. His fourth ability, Expunge, is great for finishing a fight because it takes all the stacks of Deadly Venom and causes them to explode, essentially nuking the target for a good portion of their health. His last and ultimate ability is called Spray and Pray. This ability does a couple different things. Firstly, it lets each bolt you shoot go through targets, dealing damage to each it passes through. Secondly, and more importantly (in my opinion), it increases your attack range by three hundred I believe. This becomes insanely useful in the sense that you can both attack the enemy from a range that leaves you untouchable, but it also allows you to take down enemies who run away without actually pursuing them—instead you can just sit tight and shoot from a distance you otherwise couldn’t hit them from.
Now, I find Twitch’s poison to be an extremely useful asset as it scales slightly with level and it can potentially kill an enemy who has gotten out of your reach. Unfortunately, his poison is not affected by any ability power items so you cannot increase the damage over time that is does per tick. Because of this, I simply build him with attack speed and attack power so I can stack his poison quickly while at the same time doing tons of damage per hit. Also, the faster I attack with him, the faster I can Expunge if I need to.
Twitch seems to be an underrated champion based on the amount I see him played by others. In comparison to a similar champion, Teemo, this may be true; however, I still find him to be both incredibly fun and amazingly powerful if played/built correctly.
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| [October 21, 2012 12:05:33 PM]
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With the subject of balance in mind, League of Legends does an outstanding job putting together new champions almost every week that don’t overpower previous champions. As of now, there are over 100 champions to choose from, so balancing all of them is a tremendously sensitive and difficult task.
Just recently I purchased the champion Olaf, the berserker. He is a bearded barbarian who carries around 2 axes wearing a 2-horned hat. The first thing I did when I purchased Olaf, as I do with all new champions, is look at the 4 abilities assigned specifically to him. Typically, his first ability is a damaging/slowing ability, his second adds lifesteal/damage to his auto-attacks, his third is a heavy-hitting damage attack, and his ultimate gives him extra armor/magic resistance along with making him immune to stuns/immobilizes.
As I began to play a few rounds with Olaf, I rather enjoyed his first three abilities but couldn’t quite understand how a damage mitigation ability fit in with the rest of his offensive abilities. I found myself not using it as much because I saw it as an “oh crap!” button for use when I’m about to die.
Knowing that there must be a reason for this, I played a few more rounds to further understand Olaf’s mechanics. What I learned was that his ultimate ability, in my opinion, is most certainly not for use only in near-death situations, although it can definitely help there as well. As I became more comfortable with Olaf and his other abilities, I began using his ultimate offensively as well to counter enemy champions slowing attacks. This allowed me to power through their slow while using my own slowing attack to not only catch them, but kill them and get away safely.
Overall, I enjoyed playing as Olaf and learning his mechanics. I also feel that he is balanced just as all the other champions are through his assigned offensive and defensive abilities.
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sharri21's League of Legends (PC)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Saturday 1 August, 2009
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