L4D2, LoL Rambles

So I’ve been playing gangplank in LoL again, and its been interesting. Gangplank is basically a low tier melee dps, so, in terms of viability at the pro level, he is either just bad, or a very specifically played hero with a very specific role. Gang has 4 spells, of course, but really only his first two are worth anything. His ulti, a big aoe damage/slow isn’t amazing. I mean, it can do some damage, clear creeps, and some different things, but really, its not the best AoE ulti. His first spell, a nuke that deals damage off of his base damage and has a crit chance, is his most important spell, and his second spell, a heal/cleanse, is arguably one of the best spells in the game, it just has a long cooldown. People say that you need a specific rune set for Gangplank, that is, I believe pure critical strike runes, which makes him a harder hero because he doesn’t have the general melee DPS runes. However, I like him. So whatever. Given enough time, I’ll probably go back to Warwick for 3v3.

One thing I have noticed, however is that DPS heroes are really, really strong in TT. Heroes like Mundo and Warwick, which are not near as good in 5v5, its interesting how that is. This is probably because Mundo has a lack of AoE, just lane control with his 1st spell, really.

Oh, and also I’ve been playing a decent bit of Left 4 Dead 2, which is really fun. I find that the campaign mode isn’t as fun as versus, but it’s still pretty good. The best thing is to get a semi-decent group together and play versus, but I enjoy playing randoms some. Mostly though, I just wait to see if friends get on and then run in and try to join a game.

Back to LoL… Season 1 should start anytime soon. Either this Wednesday or next Monday, hopefully the later as I’m gonna travel starting Thursday, and the more time I have sitting still in a house and not traveling in a car the more time I have to play LoL and see how I stack up to other players. I’m really excited about this, even if I’ll probably end up soloqueing most of Season 1 cuz I don’t have a team. I might get some team-queing with my GitP friends, but I find that unlikely.

The thing is… I don’t really know what my ELO, relative to the other LoL players is. I mean, obviously, I’m not an idiot. I know the basics of LoL, I play a few heroes like Warwick really well, I can also do decent as a Ashe (who I admit, is one of the easiest heroes in the game), Heimdeiger (or however you spell it), and Sivir. I haven’t tried some of the more tanky heroes like Alistair and Chogath, which is funny sicne I used to playa OT of tankers in DotA, but I seem to prefer damagers in LoL. I think the thing is, in DotA, I ended up playing to support the team, since we already had really strong mid solos, or damagers, so I played Support. Also, DotA’s support is more prominent, there are not support heroes in the same vein as heroes like Shadow Shaman or Crystal Maiden. First of all, there are not near as many stunners, sure you have lots of disables, but mostly slows, a few stuns, and some blinds, but mostly yes… its slows. Also, the light health heroes, the mages, tend to be damage heavy heroes: Ryze, Annie (who, come to think of it, is a kinda support hero in the vein of warlock in DotA), Karthus, Heim, these are damage heavy mages: Blasters. DotA… you don’t see those kind of heroes because nukers tend to level out in DotA. People play Lion not because of his damage (its nice, but not the main thing) but because he has 2 disables.

Anyways… so I went though the LoL list of “support” heroes, and yes, they are support heroes… but they are a very different kind of support hero. Several of them are tanks, and many others are some sort of strange hybrid damager/support or mage/support (like Zilean, who really should just be classified as LoL’s most annoying harasser/nuker/support/IHATEYOU hero).

So… I should probably stop rambling here. For a short life update I’m reading Shadowline by Glen Cook, and its pretty good, it’s one of his older books, but I really like it. Cook is a great author.