League of Legends continues to dominate my gaming time, and my account is now midway through level 25 while Aria is at 15. Her current two favorite champions are Garren and Blitzcrank, while I tend to favor Amumu, Katarina, Poppy, and Master Yi (for 3v3 matches only).
There is just nothing quite as satisfying as having Aria pull someone into tower range with Blitz, pop them up, and as they come down I stun-tackle them against a wall with Poppy, delivering a Devastating Blow to finish them off. Short of using Flash to escape, its death for any champion early on, and that combo has lead to many a first-bloods or ‘surprise’ kills. The other nice thing about the combo is that Blitz continues to be a great initiator throughout the game, and with a few items Poppy becomes a single-target wrecking machine with good survivability.
I just recently picked up Master Yi, and while his performance is just average at best in a 5v5 game, he can be a real monster in 3v3. He is a total snowball character and just gets silly with the right item build and a solid start. Critting for 1000+ every other swing, swinging multiple times per second, and lifestealing 50% of the damage you deal is just great, and watching enemy champions melt in seconds never gets old. On the other hand if things don’t go well, he brings next to nothing to a team, and the fact that he is so fragile can make for some frustrating moments, especially since I generally play ‘tougher’ champions like Amumu and Poppy.
Most nights we are playing arranged team games with 4-5 people from Inquisition, and once everyone caps out at level 30, the ranked game madness will begin. I’m really looking forward to the draft selection mode used in ranked play, as it’s just another twist on an already fairly complex game to spice things up. Until then, there are still plenty of champions to learn and team strategies to master.
Civilization 5 is just weeks away, but given how steady and entertaining League of Legends has been for everyone since we started playing, I’m guessing even Civ 5 will only put a dent into how often we log on and play. With Riot (the devs) updating the game weekly with balance patches and new champions/skins, the game is rapidly expanding and improving, and so it’s no surprise that the total amount of people playing continues to increase weekly.
Chuck-o-the-day: Chuck Norris invented ice skates after he realized not everyone is born with blades attached to their feet.
Hardcore Casual 
I get the same feeling on Tristana that you have with Master Yi. Fragile as all get out, but if you work the build up, she becomes death incarnate (as long as you keep her skirting the other guy’s range).
I really do need to pick up another champion one of these days.
Someone was trying to tell me in vent they think Civ 5 would kill LoL. I seriously doubt that claim. While I am sure Civ 5 will be fantastic game, I don’t think I will always be in the mood to hunker down to continue 20 hour games of Civ on a nightly basis, especially when there will be a game going with every possible combo of vent people most likely.
We have people who prefer Starcraft 2, others who prefer LoL, and I’m sure others who will prefer Civ 5. Ideally the plan is to make sure all 3 games have enough interest and people in vent to be sustained.
Losing a bunch of ranked matches in LoL will send you to bed angry though so be prepared. Lost one with Ara last night and we decided to go “double or nothing” before bed and ended up with just “nothing”. Going to have to get some wins to negate last night’s debacle in the solo queue :(
Yea solo ranked queue is totally the way to go to get over being angry…
And yea, I highly doubt Civ 5 is going to push LoL out for Inq, but I am definitely looking forward to some quality, rage-inducing multiplayer games.
It might surprise some people, but the overwhelming majority of our Civ 4 games were actually co-ops against a full game of computer teams. The old game provided an ample challenge with the AI that made it fun to play over and over on various map types.
On a few rarer occasions we would do FFA games in vent. One really funny time we did it we made everyone pick random and checked the “anon” option to try to hide who everyone was. The amount of disinformation in vent was hilarious as people tried to make everyone else in vent think they were someone they really were not. I deliberately types like an idiot with typo’s and dumb abbreviations to make everyone think I was Vince. Usually when we did this type of game though we ended up stopping far before the end once a few people were down and out.
Should be good times though either way.
I’m not sure how many champs there are, but if its anything like DotA then random draft is the only way to play! Although I doubt LoL has 80 heroes :P
By the sounds of it, LoL is the same DotA goodness in most ways. Anyone who played both? I am definitely considering jumping into this, being a diehard DotA player.
League of Legends has around or just under 60 heroes I think at present time. They seem to release a new one every 2-3 weeks as well.
Yea I’ve played both, and IMO LoL is just a much more enjoyable version. The uber elite will argue it’s not as ‘hardcore’ as DoTA or HoN, but I just don’t see/care enough to make that call. For me LoL is as deep as you make it, and at top ELO it’s super competitive.
Hero count is close to 40 I think… they add a new one every two weeks or so, along with almost weekly balance patches. The rate of updates from Riot is great, and you really can play the game totally free if you so choose. It’s a fast download, so if you enjoy DotA, definitely give LoL a shot.
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