After completing a hero's song set in Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock their ability gets super powered. I've replayed a couple of their songs with the super ability just to play around with scoring obscene points on a level but fortunately the abilities don't carry over when you start in on a new hero's songs. (Being overpowered is fun for a while but it would detract from the game as a whole if it was always the case.) I did start wondering about how combining them could work as a big event. Clearly the game was building towards something since I was playing 'quest mode' and there was an intro with a legendary 'guitar in the stone' hidden in a cave somewhere.
Well, after picking up my 4th hero (conveniently the number of people in a video game band) I unlocked the guitar stage. I really should have picked up on the hints as to what this was going to be. (Especially since the upcoming song was featured in Ready Player One... I should really reread that book again and make note of all the things I don't understand so I can play/watch/listen to them!) Guitar hidden in a cave with world changing impact? Must be 2112 by Rush! Featuring extra commentary by the band explaining what is going on for newbs like myself!
The song itself is 20 minutes long which is a lot of extra guitar heroing. All four of the super powered abilities from my heroes were in effect for the duration and I'm pretty sure that was a very good thing. 2112 has some really crazy guitar segments in there and I doubt I could have passed it without the power-ups. Passing that stage unlocked 4 more heroes to power up and I imagine another super rock song of some kind after that. My fingers are crossed for Rime of the Ancient Mariner to show up at some point. I'd always feared it was too long for a rhythm game but if they're willing to put 2112 into a game then I have hope again!
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
WBC: A Few Acres of Snow
The World Boardgaming Championships have posted their event previews for this year. The very first thing I looked for was the write up for A Few Acres of Snow. I haven't rigorously proven to myself yet that the game is unbalanced but my gut feeling at the moment is the British should win every game between two top tier players. I really like the game and have been considering making it my WBC team game this year but it would really all come down to how sides are determined. Bidding with victory points (like for seat in Puerto Rico) doesn't feel like it would work. I've commented half-jokingly that I'd gladly give the French infinite points because the British will just win with military. Bidding with starting gold could work. Certainly with infinite bucks the French should win easily. (They can buy governor to remove all money making aspects from their deck and win with a raiding/military strategy pretty easily I would think.) Money could work as a bidding mechanism but I would need a lot of testing (outside of Yucata since I doubt it would implement such bidding) to find the right amount to bid.
It turns out neither of those methods will be used. Bidding for sides will be done in terms of a completely new concept. They're adding a new free action to the game where you can draw a card and then discard a card as a free action. Bidding is the number of times you can use this free action in the game. You cannot force a reshuffle in this manner.
First of all, what does this actually do? Well, in small numbers this helps smooth out the French draws a little. One of the worst feelings is when your trader card is the last card in your deck after a reshuffle. You end up holding on to a lot of fur cards with nothing useful to do with them. You could discard them but that means you're making less money this time through your deck. Getting to cycle down to the trader a couple of times in a game could be really powerful. I don't know that it's good enough to let the French win but it would stop some of the blowouts that can happen.
With a medium number of actions this keeps the French from getting blitzed out. One of the ways the French can lose Quebec is to have the British win the fight in Louisbourg and then attack Quebec before the French have had a chance to draw their military cards again. This new action keeps that from happening by allowing the French to cycle into all their military cards when they need them. (They may need to pay attention and preemptively cycle a turn earlier to force a reshuffle to get them back into their deck, but it should still work.) It's actually impossible for the British to take a fortified Quebec if the French have Siege/Regular/Leader in hand. The British can still win by attacking, forcing the French to play those cards, withdrawing, and attacking again before the French draw them all again. With enough of these bonus actions that won't work either and Quebec becomes impenetrable.
With a large number of uses this lets the French accelerate to game end very quickly. The fastest end for the French is probably to put all their disks into play. That means you have to either buy a settler card (risky if the British is attacking) or play your single Quebec card 8 times while surviving. Cycling through your deck 8 times is very hard in the real game. With all these bonus cycling actions? You can draw Quebec every single turn. Consider the following game plan:
turn 1 - cycle into Quebec + Port Royal, disk Port Royal, cycle enough to reshuffle. (3 or 4 cycles)
turn 2 - cycle into Quebec + Louisbourg, disk Louisbourg, buy home support, cycle to reshuffle (3 or 4 cycles)
turn 3 - cycle into Quebec + Gaspe + trader + 2 or 3 furs (depending on where home support comes up), disk Gaspe, trader for 4 or 6 bucks, cycle to reshuffle (at most 4 cycles, only 2 if home support comes up early)
Repeat until turn 8 when the game is over. You have an extra action every turn which could be to buy or play a military card. (You start with the one regular, remember.) Eventually you do need to settle 2 more locations (you only have 6 disk targets to start and 8 disks to play) but that adds at most 3 cycles total. All told the upper bound for number of cycles needed with this plan is 4+4+4+2+4+2+5+4=29 cycles. I'm not even sure the home support helps. It lets you make 6 or 8 bucks instead of 4 each turn that you make money but costs you 5 bucks and an action. You may be better off just using those extra actions on military cards to stop the British. Or actually, getting your coureurs de bois and ambushing every single turn could be wise. Yes! Actually, you need to raid out Halifax every turn to make sure he can never launch an attack on Louisbourg!
What is the best the British could do in 8 turns? They get 15 actions total and start with 12 bucks. They absolutely must take Louisbourg. The French can easily throw Port Royal, Regular Infantry, and Montreal on that fight for a total strength of 6. So the British need 8 to throw on the pile themselves. They absolutely must buy a raid blocker, settle Halifax, and launch an attack from Halifax. They need to buy two regular infantry. They need to make the money to afford those infantry. That's 8 actions. Throwing 4 more boats on the pile is another 4 actions for a total of 12. If the French so much as buy one more regular infantry it'll take 3 more actions to overcome that extra strength. That's 15 actions right there at which point the French have ended the game and the British can't launch an attack on Quebec. And has glossed over the fact the British have two dead cards (Pemaquid and St Mary's) and probably can't put those 15 actions together smoothly.
I'm pretty convinced a bid of 0 is a guaranteed British win and a bid of 29 is a guaranteed French win. There has to either be a bid which makes for a fair game or a breakpoint where the British win on one side and the French win on the other. The trick then will be to find the right number to bid for the tournament!
It turns out neither of those methods will be used. Bidding for sides will be done in terms of a completely new concept. They're adding a new free action to the game where you can draw a card and then discard a card as a free action. Bidding is the number of times you can use this free action in the game. You cannot force a reshuffle in this manner.
First of all, what does this actually do? Well, in small numbers this helps smooth out the French draws a little. One of the worst feelings is when your trader card is the last card in your deck after a reshuffle. You end up holding on to a lot of fur cards with nothing useful to do with them. You could discard them but that means you're making less money this time through your deck. Getting to cycle down to the trader a couple of times in a game could be really powerful. I don't know that it's good enough to let the French win but it would stop some of the blowouts that can happen.
With a medium number of actions this keeps the French from getting blitzed out. One of the ways the French can lose Quebec is to have the British win the fight in Louisbourg and then attack Quebec before the French have had a chance to draw their military cards again. This new action keeps that from happening by allowing the French to cycle into all their military cards when they need them. (They may need to pay attention and preemptively cycle a turn earlier to force a reshuffle to get them back into their deck, but it should still work.) It's actually impossible for the British to take a fortified Quebec if the French have Siege/Regular/Leader in hand. The British can still win by attacking, forcing the French to play those cards, withdrawing, and attacking again before the French draw them all again. With enough of these bonus actions that won't work either and Quebec becomes impenetrable.
With a large number of uses this lets the French accelerate to game end very quickly. The fastest end for the French is probably to put all their disks into play. That means you have to either buy a settler card (risky if the British is attacking) or play your single Quebec card 8 times while surviving. Cycling through your deck 8 times is very hard in the real game. With all these bonus cycling actions? You can draw Quebec every single turn. Consider the following game plan:
turn 1 - cycle into Quebec + Port Royal, disk Port Royal, cycle enough to reshuffle. (3 or 4 cycles)
turn 2 - cycle into Quebec + Louisbourg, disk Louisbourg, buy home support, cycle to reshuffle (3 or 4 cycles)
turn 3 - cycle into Quebec + Gaspe + trader + 2 or 3 furs (depending on where home support comes up), disk Gaspe, trader for 4 or 6 bucks, cycle to reshuffle (at most 4 cycles, only 2 if home support comes up early)
Repeat until turn 8 when the game is over. You have an extra action every turn which could be to buy or play a military card. (You start with the one regular, remember.) Eventually you do need to settle 2 more locations (you only have 6 disk targets to start and 8 disks to play) but that adds at most 3 cycles total. All told the upper bound for number of cycles needed with this plan is 4+4+4+2+4+2+5+4=29 cycles. I'm not even sure the home support helps. It lets you make 6 or 8 bucks instead of 4 each turn that you make money but costs you 5 bucks and an action. You may be better off just using those extra actions on military cards to stop the British. Or actually, getting your coureurs de bois and ambushing every single turn could be wise. Yes! Actually, you need to raid out Halifax every turn to make sure he can never launch an attack on Louisbourg!
What is the best the British could do in 8 turns? They get 15 actions total and start with 12 bucks. They absolutely must take Louisbourg. The French can easily throw Port Royal, Regular Infantry, and Montreal on that fight for a total strength of 6. So the British need 8 to throw on the pile themselves. They absolutely must buy a raid blocker, settle Halifax, and launch an attack from Halifax. They need to buy two regular infantry. They need to make the money to afford those infantry. That's 8 actions. Throwing 4 more boats on the pile is another 4 actions for a total of 12. If the French so much as buy one more regular infantry it'll take 3 more actions to overcome that extra strength. That's 15 actions right there at which point the French have ended the game and the British can't launch an attack on Quebec. And has glossed over the fact the British have two dead cards (Pemaquid and St Mary's) and probably can't put those 15 actions together smoothly.
I'm pretty convinced a bid of 0 is a guaranteed British win and a bid of 29 is a guaranteed French win. There has to either be a bid which makes for a fair game or a breakpoint where the British win on one side and the French win on the other. The trick then will be to find the right number to bid for the tournament!
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Final Fantasy Legend III: Chaos
I've made it through a few dungeons now in Final Fantasy Legend III and came up against a boss named Chaos. His first action was to use an area damage spell which hit my party for anywhere from 40-75% of their max health. Then he did it again, which killed my cyborg outright. I tried the fight a few more times and while he didn't always start with double quake he would use it from time to time which was a real problem. When he didn't use quake he'd attack for more damage than my heal could take care of. I have two people with heal spells so I could theoretically win if he only used his normal attack and didn't chain them into my cyborg. But I'd have to go about 20 rounds with nothing going wrong in order to win and that just feels really unlikely.
My cyborg has an infinite use healing spell which is pretty great for fighting in a dungeon. (I can spam it out of combat to heal everyone to full.) But he can't do any damage, his heal is for half a normal heal, and he has half the health of my other characters. I think in order to beat this boss I'm going to need to level up, change him to something useful, and maybe even go searching for a town and buy some better gear.
My cyborg has an infinite use healing spell which is pretty great for fighting in a dungeon. (I can spam it out of combat to heal everyone to full.) But he can't do any damage, his heal is for half a normal heal, and he has half the health of my other characters. I think in order to beat this boss I'm going to need to level up, change him to something useful, and maybe even go searching for a town and buy some better gear.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock
Rogers (the telecommunications company) recently decided they were getting out of the movie and game rental business. They've put their entire stock at all of their stores up for sale on the cheap. Andrew and I only found out about this about a week after they'd started so there were slim pickings at the stores we went to. I almost bought a copy of Final Fantasy XIII-2 but it was still $40 used and there was a warning saying some of the online content might not work (likely it comes with a code that would have already been used by somebody). I figure by the time I want to play it I'll be able to get a new copy around that price if not cheaper so I passed.
One thing I did get was Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. I get a lot of these music games mostly because I like to have a wide variety of songs to play. They frequently added new features to these games (I guess to explain why they're putting out so many of them) but I really don't care about most of them. I just want more songs. I don't have a drum kit. Or a microphone. (Or any ability to use a microphone... I have no musical talent at all but I can fudge things with a guitar since it's really just hitting a button when it says to. Actually making the right sounds come out of my mouth? Not going to happen.) All the new games have 'band' features but all I play is the guitar tracks. Even when there are bass options I'll generally only play the guitar unless I _really_ like a song.
Warriors of Rock added a new twist that I'm actually enjoying. Instead of levels being vague locations that exist only to combine a bunch of songs together they're centered around a hero. Each hero has a special ability which modifies how the game is played! The three I've seen so far have been to gain 5% star power for every 10 consecutive notes hit, to gain double star power from completing a star power section, and to start at a full rock meter and earn bonus points if you overload it. None of these things fundamentally change what I'm doing (holding the buttons down that it tells me to) but they change up how points are scored in small but interesting ways. I'm liking it so far.
There's a second change I _really_ like to the interface. There's a meter showing how far into the song I am. So I can tell at a glance if it's almost over and I should blow my star power or not!
One thing I was afraid I wouldn't like was the song choices. In the first level I did I found myself hating every song that came up. I even thought to myself 'Is this what rock music actually is? Do I hate rock music?' The only song from the first set I liked at all was Alive by Flyleaf and I wouldn't have really classified it as rock. Then I went to the second song set and my fears went away. Red Rider, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom Petty, The Rolling Stones, Blue Oyster Cult, Edgar Winter, Aerosmith, Dire Straits, Neil Young, and Black Sabbath. Rock out! The third song set kicked off with Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. So I guess it was just that first set with newer songs that bothered me. Most of the good stuff is older than I am, after all!
One thing I did get was Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. I get a lot of these music games mostly because I like to have a wide variety of songs to play. They frequently added new features to these games (I guess to explain why they're putting out so many of them) but I really don't care about most of them. I just want more songs. I don't have a drum kit. Or a microphone. (Or any ability to use a microphone... I have no musical talent at all but I can fudge things with a guitar since it's really just hitting a button when it says to. Actually making the right sounds come out of my mouth? Not going to happen.) All the new games have 'band' features but all I play is the guitar tracks. Even when there are bass options I'll generally only play the guitar unless I _really_ like a song.
Warriors of Rock added a new twist that I'm actually enjoying. Instead of levels being vague locations that exist only to combine a bunch of songs together they're centered around a hero. Each hero has a special ability which modifies how the game is played! The three I've seen so far have been to gain 5% star power for every 10 consecutive notes hit, to gain double star power from completing a star power section, and to start at a full rock meter and earn bonus points if you overload it. None of these things fundamentally change what I'm doing (holding the buttons down that it tells me to) but they change up how points are scored in small but interesting ways. I'm liking it so far.
There's a second change I _really_ like to the interface. There's a meter showing how far into the song I am. So I can tell at a glance if it's almost over and I should blow my star power or not!
One thing I was afraid I wouldn't like was the song choices. In the first level I did I found myself hating every song that came up. I even thought to myself 'Is this what rock music actually is? Do I hate rock music?' The only song from the first set I liked at all was Alive by Flyleaf and I wouldn't have really classified it as rock. Then I went to the second song set and my fears went away. Red Rider, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom Petty, The Rolling Stones, Blue Oyster Cult, Edgar Winter, Aerosmith, Dire Straits, Neil Young, and Black Sabbath. Rock out! The third song set kicked off with Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. So I guess it was just that first set with newer songs that bothered me. Most of the good stuff is older than I am, after all!
Friday, April 27, 2012
League of Legends Referrals!
Riot just rolled out a new refer-a-friend system yesterday. I'm not really sure what the differences are between it and the old system to be honest. For the most part it looks like you just get small amounts of in game currency if a friend signs up through your link or enter your name (Ziggyny) and plays enough to hit level 10. There are some pretty substantial rewards further down for getting a lot of referrals but that seems like a bit of a pipe dream I would think.
Sthenno commented on yesterday's post that the ability to play with bots could prompt him to give the game a spin in order to understand the game better for watching. (MLG announced LoL will be played at the next big event, knocking Halo out of their rotation!) There are two ways to play with bots. The first is to click the play button and go to the Co-op vs AI selector. This will pair you up with 4 other humans to play against 5 bots. You can select if you want to go up against beginner level bots or intermediate level bots. (They're constantly patching in AI for new champions so you can be up against a pretty wide selection of enemy champions.) These games give xp and ip the same as a normal game against humans, at low levels. There are penalties that get applied as you gain xp (max level is 30 and penalties start kicking in at level 10) but it's still something.
The second way is to create a custom game. One of the options when you're forming the teams in a custom game is to add a bot to either team. This is how I ran my test yesterday. I added 4 bots to my team and 5 bots to the other team. These games have the same xp/ip as the Co-op vs AI penalties assuming the teams are balanced. The plus side here is you don't have to play with strangers if you don't want to. There's no pressure to win and you get some xp/ip at the end of the game.
The second way is to create a custom game. One of the options when you're forming the teams in a custom game is to add a bot to either team. This is how I ran my test yesterday. I added 4 bots to my team and 5 bots to the other team. These games have the same xp/ip as the Co-op vs AI penalties assuming the teams are balanced. The plus side here is you don't have to play with strangers if you don't want to. There's no pressure to win and you get some xp/ip at the end of the game.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
League of Legends: Yorick Testing
Last night I stumbled across a build guide from Elementz (one of the top support players in the pro community) for support Yorick. In it he says that he uses armor penetration marks in his build solely because it impacts the damage done by ghouls. In fact, he says you do more damage with armor penetration marks instead of attack damage marks despite the initial damage from the summons doing magic damage (and therefore certainly being unaffected by armor penetration while one of them does scale with AD). I was under the impression neither of those things were true which, of course, means I need to do some testing and crunch some numbers.
Monoboob commented yesterday about how the trinity force proc stacks favourably with the passive damage boost from ghouls. That also completely slipped my mind. I can certainly imagine them stacking multiplicatively but figure I should see about testing it as well since I'll be in a game testing stuff anyway.
How should I run the test? My idea is to play a bot game and make a lot of money while trying to keep the game from ending one way or another. Then I'll empty my inventory and find a neutral monster with some armor (probably dragon but maybe Baron) and summon some ghouls at it. I'll watch to make note of the damage done by the ghouls and how frequently they attacked. (I can also replay the game later with LoLreplay if I have to.) Without killing dragon I'll go back to base and fill my inventory with attack speed items. I'll go back and look at the new damage numbers. Then I'll fill up with crit chance and repeat. Then I'll buy a pickaxe (25 damage) and repeat. Finally I'll buy a brutalizer (25 damage and 15 armor penetration) and repeat. I need the last two steps as there are no items with just armor penetration alone on them. After the main testing is done I'll get a sheen or a trinity force and see what numbers come up. I'm also thinking I should try a black cleaver to see if lowering the monster's armor from other sources will impact the ghouls.
I ended up keeping my fully stacked manamune, warmog's, and a set of speed 5 boots. None of the stats provided by those items would impact the tests in any way. (Manamune does add AD but it adds the same amount of AD the whole time.) I was also level 18 for all tests.
Nothing (well, doran's shield because I was too lazy to go back and sell it first).
damage per ghoul swing - 57 (90)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
3 recurve bows
damage per ghoul swing - 57 (90)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
3 cloak of agility
damage per ghoul swing - 57 (90)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
1 pickaxe
damage per ghoul swing - 64 (97)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
1 brutalizer
damage per ghoul swing - 73 (111)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
black cleaver (0 stacks) (on blue as dragon is immune)
damage per ghoul swing - 73 (106)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
black cleaver (3 stacks) (on blue as dragon is immune)
damage per ghoul swing - 105 (153)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
Interesting stuff here. Attack speed and crit are clearly worth nothing for the ghouls. (The Q ghoul does some bonus damage, his number is the bigger one in brackets.) Armor penetration, on the other hand, does transfer over. Brutalizer resulted in more damage done than just the pickaxe did. Which actually means brutalizer has three stats that Yorick really wants... I wonder if I should consider building it!
I built an atma's (by this point the other team was powerful enough to kill me 3 on 1 so I bought more items) and a trinity force and went to test if the proc gets better with ghouls out. Here's the data:
melee - 238
melee + 2 - 261
trinity - 380
trinity +2 - 404
The trinity proc added 142 damage when I had no ghouls out. It added 143 damage when I had 2 ghouls out. That's not 10% more at all. It feels more like that's a rounding error. Yorick really does spam spells though so the trinity proc will be on a lot of his autoattacks so it's still going to be good. Just not 20% better than for everyone else good.
Monoboob commented yesterday about how the trinity force proc stacks favourably with the passive damage boost from ghouls. That also completely slipped my mind. I can certainly imagine them stacking multiplicatively but figure I should see about testing it as well since I'll be in a game testing stuff anyway.
How should I run the test? My idea is to play a bot game and make a lot of money while trying to keep the game from ending one way or another. Then I'll empty my inventory and find a neutral monster with some armor (probably dragon but maybe Baron) and summon some ghouls at it. I'll watch to make note of the damage done by the ghouls and how frequently they attacked. (I can also replay the game later with LoLreplay if I have to.) Without killing dragon I'll go back to base and fill my inventory with attack speed items. I'll go back and look at the new damage numbers. Then I'll fill up with crit chance and repeat. Then I'll buy a pickaxe (25 damage) and repeat. Finally I'll buy a brutalizer (25 damage and 15 armor penetration) and repeat. I need the last two steps as there are no items with just armor penetration alone on them. After the main testing is done I'll get a sheen or a trinity force and see what numbers come up. I'm also thinking I should try a black cleaver to see if lowering the monster's armor from other sources will impact the ghouls.
I ended up keeping my fully stacked manamune, warmog's, and a set of speed 5 boots. None of the stats provided by those items would impact the tests in any way. (Manamune does add AD but it adds the same amount of AD the whole time.) I was also level 18 for all tests.
Nothing (well, doran's shield because I was too lazy to go back and sell it first).
damage per ghoul swing - 57 (90)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
3 recurve bows
damage per ghoul swing - 57 (90)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
3 cloak of agility
damage per ghoul swing - 57 (90)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
1 pickaxe
damage per ghoul swing - 64 (97)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
1 brutalizer
damage per ghoul swing - 73 (111)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
black cleaver (0 stacks) (on blue as dragon is immune)
damage per ghoul swing - 73 (106)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
black cleaver (3 stacks) (on blue as dragon is immune)
damage per ghoul swing - 105 (153)
number of swings per ghoul - 3
number of crits? - 0
Interesting stuff here. Attack speed and crit are clearly worth nothing for the ghouls. (The Q ghoul does some bonus damage, his number is the bigger one in brackets.) Armor penetration, on the other hand, does transfer over. Brutalizer resulted in more damage done than just the pickaxe did. Which actually means brutalizer has three stats that Yorick really wants... I wonder if I should consider building it!
I built an atma's (by this point the other team was powerful enough to kill me 3 on 1 so I bought more items) and a trinity force and went to test if the proc gets better with ghouls out. Here's the data:
melee - 238
melee + 2 - 261
trinity - 380
trinity +2 - 404
The trinity proc added 142 damage when I had no ghouls out. It added 143 damage when I had 2 ghouls out. That's not 10% more at all. It feels more like that's a rounding error. Yorick really does spam spells though so the trinity proc will be on a lot of his autoattacks so it's still going to be good. Just not 20% better than for everyone else good.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
League of Legends: More on Yorick
As I mentioned yesterday I played Yorick a few times while he was free. I ended up discovering that he really fits my play style and pretty much has to build my favourite item. So I saved up some IP and bought him. Now the question really is how to maximize his power...
First of all, he really shoves people around in lane. His two ranged summon spells do reasonable damage and are on relatively short cooldowns. (~10 seconds at low level) They do cost a fair amount of mana which can turn into a real problem if you don't build some mana items. On top of doing reasonable damage when you summon them they do 35% of Yorick's attack damage when they attack. They don't seem to scale damagewise on any other stat. Armor penetration, attack speed, crit chance... None of it matters. All you want is straight damage. And since you can have 3 ghouls up each swinging for 35% of your AD... Yorick wants just AD.
Now if only we could find an item that gave a lot of mana and AD in one neat little package... MANAMUNE! Pretty much every guide I've seen has said to rush manamune. I love it! I can fill up my tears early (I get to buy it on my first return to base) and then power out a lot of extra ghouly damage when it upconverts. It always maxes out, too, so it's a totally solid AD item on top of giving me enough mana to function in the early to mid game.
Guides also suggest getting trinity force which seems a little sketchier to me. It does very little to any of my laning plans. It's ok in team fights I guess since it buffs my Q and gives me some more chasing potential. I almost feel like I should just build super tanky instead.
One reason I want to try out new top champions is so I can learn who counters who. Thus far I have yet to find anyone who doesn't get pushed around by Yorick. (I've taken to first picking him in ranked games hoping I'll get countered and no one has been able to do it yet.) I've always fared well with Nasus against him (Nasus has a lot of life steal and actually wants to kill his ghouls) but I want to see if from the other side. I feel like Yorick should be able to push him around if he times things properly and lands ghouls right after he uses his Q.
First of all, he really shoves people around in lane. His two ranged summon spells do reasonable damage and are on relatively short cooldowns. (~10 seconds at low level) They do cost a fair amount of mana which can turn into a real problem if you don't build some mana items. On top of doing reasonable damage when you summon them they do 35% of Yorick's attack damage when they attack. They don't seem to scale damagewise on any other stat. Armor penetration, attack speed, crit chance... None of it matters. All you want is straight damage. And since you can have 3 ghouls up each swinging for 35% of your AD... Yorick wants just AD.
Now if only we could find an item that gave a lot of mana and AD in one neat little package... MANAMUNE! Pretty much every guide I've seen has said to rush manamune. I love it! I can fill up my tears early (I get to buy it on my first return to base) and then power out a lot of extra ghouly damage when it upconverts. It always maxes out, too, so it's a totally solid AD item on top of giving me enough mana to function in the early to mid game.
Guides also suggest getting trinity force which seems a little sketchier to me. It does very little to any of my laning plans. It's ok in team fights I guess since it buffs my Q and gives me some more chasing potential. I almost feel like I should just build super tanky instead.
One reason I want to try out new top champions is so I can learn who counters who. Thus far I have yet to find anyone who doesn't get pushed around by Yorick. (I've taken to first picking him in ranked games hoping I'll get countered and no one has been able to do it yet.) I've always fared well with Nasus against him (Nasus has a lot of life steal and actually wants to kill his ghouls) but I want to see if from the other side. I feel like Yorick should be able to push him around if he times things properly and lands ghouls right after he uses his Q.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
League of Legends: Yorick!
Alas, poor Yorick... I knew him not at all. So two weeks ago when Yorick was rotated in as a free champion I took the opportunity to play him a few times to try to figure out what he was capable of. All I knew going into the experiment was he summoned ghouls in some way, he had a pretty substantial amount of self healing, and that Nasus can totally farm his Q on the ghouls. (I'm pretty sure my best Nasus games have come against Yoricks that felt like tossing ghouls at me from a distance. Ghouls aren't worth any money but do count for farming up Q.) But he's played top with some regularity so I should really know what he can do so I can properly play against him.
It turns out all 3 of his normal abilities deal damage and summon a ghoul but all 3 work in different ways and have different secondary effects. One is a unit targeted ranged attack which heals Yorick. One is an area targeted ranged attach which slows everything in the area. One is an auto-attack enhancer which hastes Yorick. The ghouls stick around for 5 seconds, preferentially target enemy champions, and do 35% of Yorick's damage when they attack. They also continue to provide a toned down version of the benefit (so the healing ghoul keeps healing Yorick as it attacks and the slowing ghoul keeps slowing things around it.) On top of that Yorick's passive gives him 5% more melee damage and 5% damage reduction for every living ghoul. His ult also summons a super ghoul so he can realistically take 20% less damage and deal 20% more auto-attack damage in a big fight.
It's that damage reduction coupled with the healing ghoul which gives Yorick such great sustain and makes him a bit of a beast in 1v1 situations. The fact that two of his abilities are ranged and do reasonable damage is pretty powerful too. An enemy champion with no way of sustaining themselves can quickly get harassed out of lane. (I don't think I've done Tryndamere against Yorick but it can't be pretty. Either Trynd can burst Yorick out in one go or he can never farm at all. I'm leaning towards never farm at all.)
So how did it work out for me? Tune in tomorrow to find out.
It turns out all 3 of his normal abilities deal damage and summon a ghoul but all 3 work in different ways and have different secondary effects. One is a unit targeted ranged attack which heals Yorick. One is an area targeted ranged attach which slows everything in the area. One is an auto-attack enhancer which hastes Yorick. The ghouls stick around for 5 seconds, preferentially target enemy champions, and do 35% of Yorick's damage when they attack. They also continue to provide a toned down version of the benefit (so the healing ghoul keeps healing Yorick as it attacks and the slowing ghoul keeps slowing things around it.) On top of that Yorick's passive gives him 5% more melee damage and 5% damage reduction for every living ghoul. His ult also summons a super ghoul so he can realistically take 20% less damage and deal 20% more auto-attack damage in a big fight.
It's that damage reduction coupled with the healing ghoul which gives Yorick such great sustain and makes him a bit of a beast in 1v1 situations. The fact that two of his abilities are ranged and do reasonable damage is pretty powerful too. An enemy champion with no way of sustaining themselves can quickly get harassed out of lane. (I don't think I've done Tryndamere against Yorick but it can't be pretty. Either Trynd can burst Yorick out in one go or he can never farm at all. I'm leaning towards never farm at all.)
So how did it work out for me? Tune in tomorrow to find out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)