eternal Zero

Heimer is really strong on Dominion. With two turrets and garrison you can't take him out at a tower unless you dive him with more than half your team. Also a turret at a tower is instant defense because it will cause tower aggro so no ninja caps.

The name says it all. stompieststomp.jpg

Just tossing my two cents in but I personally feel like it's beneficial to be able to play as any hero/champ so you can beat any hero/champ. It's what I think is the best way to get better at this kind of game. There's so much to know and rarely time to think so your instinct and reactions to a situation are much more important. To be fair I'm currently on a huge Riven kick especially after she got buffs I honestly didn't think she needed so even I get into moods or grooves sometimes but off the top of my head there isn't a single hero that I'd outright refuse to play.

Riven can be pretty hit or miss. I've played 6 games with her pretty much in a row. 2 have been severe stomps where I got fed early and then proceeded to dive towers with no problems due to Valor and Hexdrinker shields also a Judgement-esque AoE ult with a 27 second cooldown is pretty awesome. 1 was a normal win. I mean I guess I still went 6-2-4 and dove a lot...so it was probably an early surrender. Then the other 3 games I just did decent but lost cause enemy ranged AD carries got fed and she has a real problem with that late game. She's meant to be a 1v1 solo laner or a solid mid. She's a real bully early game as long as you're disciplined with attacking in between Broken Wings and abusing the fact that she's a cooldown character so you just go in every time. 4 dashes is an amazing thing and really lets you set up some stupid things. Biggest peeve is that her attack animation doesn't speed up enough to match higher attack speeds so it's not as satisfying to melt towers or enemy tanks. Also I guess I'd consider myself as one of the better Rivens out there from what I've seen so she's not really the overpowered monster I had predicted but still very solid and definitely a lot of fun to play even when you're not doing so great.

During her development one of LeBlanc's passives was to make her health and mana bar always read as full. I kinda wish that did happen cause it's really cool but considering what happened with first week LeBlanc without the overpowered passive I don't think it was necessary.

I think the biggest issue is that it is already structured really well for competitive play (DotA/HoN) but that makes it inherently less forgiving. That's also what makes it aggravating when you get super fed and lose while still going 12-1-15. That's going to happen in LoL because it's a more forgiving game and people "less worthy" are going to be able to match you and win a game. I honestly feel that if LoL wants to break into the same echelon that DotA (maybe HoN but definitely DotA 2) holds in competitive play then Dominion will be its ticket there. DotA is an old flawed game based on archaic mechanic that is well beloved. Too many changes and you won't have the same game (LoL is close but it's definitely not the real deal). The best way to develop the genre is to change the map, change the objective, and then make new mechanics to offset the old mechanics that are probably permanent fixtures. Dominion is about point capture. Carrying and CC have a place but they aren't the main draw. The main draws are balance between offense and defense, less required CC (smaller engagements less targets overall), and an even greater emphasis on teamwork and getting people to locations where you truly need them. It's a step in the right direction I think.

I have a hard time deciding what side to take on a discussion like this. On the one hand I'm one of those players that will absolutely shut down my opponent in a game like DotA/HoN and never give you a snowball's chance in hell to beat me. That being said I've also played with the pros like Jolly who will do the same to me and it's not fun to be on the receiving end. The only thing that kept me going with games like that was the knowledge that I could do that to other people...not so great for fostering good will but it was a thriving competitive environment which I really enjoy. I agree with CC being a flawed concept in general. It's just that considering how old this game is (DotA-type as a whole) I simply cannot see it being any other way. There's no solid substitute. Removing CC would make every normal carry into a hyper carry like Twitch or Kog'Maw (way back before when things like Innervating Locket (RIP <3) still existed) or like Razor or Viper back in....5.XX I think. A big part of getting into DotA back in the old days was using the old school gaming mentality: You're given a setting, tools, and constraints. Make it work. This mentality still holds to an extent today and this is definitely what Bleck is seeing. He's just less ready to accept it as it's his nature when he sees something he doesn't like. (Not calling you out just pointing it out.) Personally I tend to overlook flaws as long as I personally can overcome them or know that at some point I can. Also I've really come to like HoN's art direction less and less. This is partly why I'm super excited for DotA 2. You can clearly see Valve's influence in some of the character design and detail and I really enjoy that. There is no arguing that HoN's graphical engine is much better than LoL's though. It's much prettier to look at. Edit: Sidenote: In terms of seniority with these games I think I take the cake by far. Just sayin'

You assume that Cho manages to land his full combo all at once and Corki doesn't get to fully kite Cho. You all should really stop having any arguments of this sort cause in the end it comes down to what happens in an individual fight. Being fully built is important, yes, but it makes small difference when your team is real behind. It's much more important to get 2-3 pretty farmed heroes rather than a single super carry because those just don't exist in LoL.

It's actually a lot harder to fully carry a team in LoL than in HoN and DotA because killing someone doesn't remove gold so you will always get built eventually if the game doesn't end. So no matter how many times you smack down their Trynd or Morde they'll eventually catch up to you once you've fully built out and are relying on elixirs as your advantage. The trick to carrying in LoL specifically is to be as far back from the action as possible, use your team strictly as meat shields and then have enough HP left over to kill any combination of dragon/baron/tower after a won (or lost) team fight with summoners at the ready to run if necessary. That way every fight no matter what will garner you some kind of advantage. It's a very selfish style and I don't prefer it. Also killing speed is a lot slower in LoL than it is in DotA. Also towers do a lot more damage forcing your initial burst in carrying speed to be limited by how brave your opposing lane wants to be.

Eve also heals whenever she gets a heal or assist and she gets to reapply her ult for free. As long as she isn't truly focused down quickly she is a hard hitting and annoying character to deal with. Like any other stealth character the opposing team requires stealth. While she is bad and I don't feel like she's as bad as people say I think this is my personal ability talking and not what is truly the balance of the game. She is best used to disrupt both solo lanes while giving bot a potential solo and maybe picking up a kill or two off of jungle. I only dare play her in a full 5 man because she requires team coordination. Pretty much. Just some people are better at toying with death and getting in and out before dying.

I feel this is the same way with Eve (because I feel she is still a solid hero but just takes a lot more effort to do what she used to) as well but as long as you are better than your opponent as long as you have stealth you're going to win. Twitch is honestly a pretty bad hero but he's takes less effort than say Sivir or Ezreal so that does give him an edge.

It was recently popularized in the latest major LoL tourney. It's quite effective. In more serious and important matters: I raise your funny vid for this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hPU9Ru1ftw

While I'm sad to see MYM lose I absolutely LOVE global gank teams. Great to see Balanar and AA. Also my absolute favorite carry, Spectre, was in perfect form. I didn't catch any Mirana games yet though. I'm still waiting and hoping on that.

See my last game as Karthus. 5 Archangels Staff + 1 Rabaddon's Deathcap. 1400 or so AP I forget the exact number. Ezreal on the other team took roughly 60% life from a single ult of mine.

It's definitely stats that keep people from trying to win losing games in HoN. I was definitely someone that did this back when I was competitive in HoN. I couldn't tell you how many games I played where I went 6/1/X but still lost cause I was being very selfish and making sure I got kills but wouldn't commit to a fight we could have won as a team even if I died as a result. You couldn't get into the inhouses hosted by the pros unless you had a solid PSR as well as good KDR for the kind of heroes you played. If you played carries and didn't have around 2.5 KDR you'd be autokicked. Granted that number isn't exact but still you get the point. I honestly believe it's a detriment to have such stat tracking be so easily visible. Also other things like average creep score, denies, and wards placed were big factors were ways to evaluate a player and then be elitist and decide whether or not he was worthy of being in your game.

Except he's paper and generally a bad hero. Also it stuns your own team as well.

This a thousand times over. While I don't think they'll get me to fully leave LoL as I've come to enjoy the casual nature of it I really do miss having lane control via denying and I also miss the old heroes like Lucy, Lina, and ESPECIALLY PotM. Valkyrie is close but no cigar. I don't care that she's a direct port I wanna ride on my damn tiger and abuse the hell out of my five second skill shot stuns.

Cause it's cold where he lives.

You mean 29/2/21. In a co-op vs AI game. Those don't count. I went pretty consistently positive with Skarner averaging around 10/2/13 for 4 games last night until I played too long and was tired so I kind of did average with 1:1 KDR for two games. He's a lot deadlier than people expect. I won a lot of 3v1s that I did not expect to win against heroes that usually do a lot of burst. With a Wriggles, Trinity Force, and Hextech Gunblade he is quite tanky and outputs a great amount of damage. The fact that I could disable the enemy carry as I finished off the squishy or disable their Alistar so I could freely devour their carry is phenomenal. Also as reference to how good he really is up until maybe the 35 min mark in two of the games I could take on the enemy Trynd who was decently farmed and had a few kills 1v1 with no fear. Exoskeleton is absolutely amazing. I don't notice moving slower with the ult on but no you cannot flash. The duration is long enough honestly. Any longer and it would be too good. Also I don't know about Rampage since I haven't played him in forever but Skarner can actually attack whoever he has impaled. His weakness lie in heavy cc and high mobility teams. He's a melee assassin. Much like Nocturne his ganks tend to predicate the rest of his game but where Nocturne can force himself onto his opponents easily, Skarner is in general a stronger hero but has to work harder to get in their faces.

Skarner isn't anywhere near Day1 LeBlanc or Nocturne but he's pretty damn fun. Solid jungle ganker. Doesn't deal with heavy burst teams but given enough time to breathe in fights he'll keep coming back with a lot of movespeed, attack speed, and health because of his exoskeleton spell. And it's a smart idea to do updates this way now. You don't tax your servers with logins and downloads all at the same time. By waiting for most of the community to be logged back in before releasing the hero they had no downtime or problems with the shop which is previously unheard of for Riot.

While carry supports/tanks/whatever is viable (I've done AD Sona and AD Janna successfully) it boils down to player skill. It worked for my because I was better than my opponents, not because of the hero. They have no steroid, no viable escape mechanism, no skills that truly scale. They can be threatening, yes, but if the enemy team's AD carry is at all decent you'll have to work a lot harder and smarter to do what they can pull off easily. It's fun every now and again but I definitely don't like seeing it with a vast majority of people I play with.

The man's blind. They had to give him -something- to compensate. But seriously I thought he'd be a lot less threatening after the change/nerf to Wriggle's Lantern. This was not the case.

I think I like every character as long as I'm playing them. My favorites tend to be the real bursty AP carries like Veigar and LeBlanc who can kill you in two or three spells then simply walk away. I'm really liking Leona but she is somewhat underwhelming due to specific aspects of her being tailored specifically to teamwork and the large majority of teammates being unable to actually do it right. The main thing holding her back is that she doesn't fit a role like a typical tank. Not only does the player have to play with Leona properly but her team must play with her properly. Given these things I think she's quite strong.

I agree with Zircon. Biggest thing about MOBAs is zoning and footsies. It's not easy to know when to go full in or to run away and it's definitely something that's gained through experience. Also reaction times are the second most important thing. It's not always easy to increase your own innate reactions but when you have more knowledge about the game you turn reactions more into anticipation so you get faster and faster with time.

Prophet, when I speak like that I'm not trying to be rude or anything. I can't convey every single thing I'm thinking as the game goes on so at the very least I comment on things you may have done wrong that I'm just trying to point out. You can ask Zircon and Tensei. That's not me being rude or angry or anything. I'm doing my best to help. If you don't take constructive criticism well under pressure just let me know and I'll stop entirely. It's real easy to get heated in a game like this. I don't want you to take it the wrong way.