Random Ramblings #11: STOMPY ROBOTS!

Whoa it seems to be that time of the month again! It's time for the RANDOM RAMBLINGS! This time, we delve deep into the Titanfall release, I'm hyped for something again, and some updates about what I'm playing. Let's not wait anymore!

Titanfall Release

Titanfall was released earlier this month, and I've played a number of games of it since then. I still love the gameplay of Titanfall, and everything I said about gameplay in the beta still stands. The maps are nicely varied, with some more suited to combat in the Titans, and others suiting pilots far more. Everything in the game runs very solid, even on my slightly older PC.

I mentioned the servers being an issue in the beta. They are still an issue now, even though Microsofts Azure system is very stable, with latency fluctuating between 80 to 170 that I have seen. There was one match where I had a latency of 290 the whole game. The other part of the game I strongly dislike (if not outright hate) is the campaign mode. Finding groups was a pain when I played through it, and more often than not, people leave if they get steamrolled repeatedly.

That being said, playing attrition (the game's version of team death match) is heaps of fun, and I love being able to just drop into a few games. I'd still recommend Titanfall if you want a FPS experience that is different to most others out there.

Heroes of the Storm

I love MOBAs. I love the teamwork required to win. I love the elements of strategy and reflexes required to succeed. And most of all, I love the uniqueness of each of the characters. You can go from playing a tank who just cannot be killed, to a glass cannon who demolishes a health bar in three hits. And now Blizzards MOBA, Heroes of the Storm (or Heroes as they call it to stop confusion with Heart of the Swarm), is in tech alpha. I cannot watch enough streams, read enough blue posts, browse enough sites to contain my hype for Heroes.

Blizzard are famous for taking an established concept and refining and polishing it until it is so damn shiny you cannot resist. Heroes seems to be no exception to this. Removing items in favour of a talent system, having team XP and removing the need for gold all indicate that Blizzard want to streamline the game and make it overall a more casual experience. And there's nothing wrong with that. Perhaps a casual experience will help to sate some of the rage that MOBAs are famous for.

All in all, I cannot wait for Heroes, and that leads into my next topic.

Games that Tetris is Playing

Because I'm so hyped for Heroes, I've been playing League of Legends again. I played League basically when it was released, but stopped a while back after it got super popular due to the community. I'm not a fan of going into a game to get raged at, or even see others get raged at for 45 minutes. There is nothing fun about that. Fortunately LoL appears to have calmed down a touch, although I have had two different occasions where people rage quit due to someone feeding.

Along with LoL, I've been playing the South Park game. It's... uh... different. The gameplay is so simple that it just works, and the humour is just as South Park as ever. I did encounter one particularly amusing bug that stretched all the textures on one characters face, but other than that the game is stable and solid. If you like South Park, you will love the game.

Last but not least, Diablo 3 had patch 2.0 drop, and it changed everything. The auction house is gone, and with it the old loot system. Because Blizzard no longer needs to balance everything around having the auction house, they can target loot more toward the character you are playing. This doesn't mean you are going to get nothing but loot to suit the character you are playing, but the chances of you getting the loot you need are far higher. I also never tried the old crafting system in D3, but the current crafting system is simple to use and easy to get into.

With patch 2.0, Blizzard also launched the Australian servers, meaning that the game is actually playable. Previously I would rubber band all over the place, disconnect frequently and just generally have a bad time. Now I get rock solid pings, hardly ever disconnect and the game is far better for it. Thank you Blizzard for actually listening to fans.

As always gentlefolks,

GAME ON!

Hearthstone Decks: A Newbies Guide

So, you've joined Blizzards latest release and installed Hearthstone. You may have even played the tutorial and defeated Illidan in epic card based combat. Now you are dumped into a menu and you have no idea where to go from there. Hopefully this guide will help you to get the basics of building decks, and then introduce you to some more advanced concepts of making decks in Hearthstone. So let's start with what you are looking at on the most common type of card you will be using: the minion card.

Minion Cards:

Minions are exactly what they sound like: creatures that you control who fight for you. Each minion card has 4 main things on it, besides the artwork on it. They are:

1. Mana Cost: Every card in the game has a mana cost. Found in the top left, this indicates how many mana crystals will be used up when the card is played. Hearthstone has a mana system that gives you one crystal each turn. If you played the tutorial, then you know all about that. If you haven't, then for now all you need to know is that doing anything requires mana crystals. Deathwing shown in the picture, costs 10 mana.

Deathwing, also known as "Oh, what happened
to my hand? CRAP I NEEDED THAT!"

2. Attack power and Health: A minion's attack power and health are shown at the bottom of the card; attack power on the yellow circle, and the health on the red drop. The attack power does exactly what it sounds like. When you command a minion to attack it will deal the amount of damage listed there. If a minions health drops to zero, it will die and be removed from play. Deathwing has a massive 12 attack and 12 health.

3: Ability Text: Not every minion card has text written on it, however those that do will have it below the name. There are a number of different effects that are in the game, and I will touch on them here:

• Battlecry: This card will do something when it is summoned to the board.
• Charge: You can attack straight away with a charge card.
• Choose One: An ability on Druid cards, you select one of the effects on the card.
• Combo: Rogue cards can have extra effects if you have already played a card this turn.
• Deathrattle: This card will do something when it dies.
• Divine Shield: The first damage this card takes is negated. Basically gives a card two lives.
• Enrage: Damaging these minions makes them angry, giving them the effect stated.
• Freeze: Something frozen cannot attack for one turn.
• Immune: Cannot be damaged.
• Overload: A card with Overload (2) will use two mana on the next turn, in addition the the mana listed on the top left. Found only on Shaman cards.
• Silence: Removes any text, buffs, and abilities from a minion. Very useful.
• Stealth: Cannot be targeted until they deal damage. They can still be hit by AoE.
• Spell Damage: Increases the damage of spell cards by the amount listed.
• Summon: This card will bring another minion into play.
• Taunt: Must be targeted before anything else.
• Transform: Changes a minion, removing all text and enchantments.
• Windfury: Can attack twice on a turn.

4: Card Type: Shown in the picture between the attack power and health, the card type will vary from card to card. For example, on Deathwing, it's type is shown as Dragon. There are other types including Murloc, Beast and Pirate cards to list a few. For now, Beast and Murloc types work well with each other in certain decks, and you can be sure that Blizzard will expand on this as they release more card sets in the future.

The heroes that you choose will often affect the minion cards that you put into a deck. For example, a Hunter would definitely want to have a good selection of Beast cards, as many of the spell cards that a Hunter has need Beasts to work most effectively. Alternatively a Mage would have no need to have lots of Beasts, but may take a couple if it works with the deck. This leads right into the differences between the classes, as they can also have an impact on how they play.

Class Differences:

Hearthstone differs from a lot of the other CCGs out there by adding classes to the mix. Each class has a unique ability that costs two mana crystals to use. The abilities are as follows:

• Mage: Fireblast. This does 1 damage that can be targeted anywhere by the player.
• Warrior: Armour Up! You gain two armour that acts as a buffer to your health.
• Rogue: Dagger Mastery. Equips a weapon that can do 1 damage twice.
• Priest: Lesser Heal. Restore two health where ever the player targets.
• Warlock: Life Tap. Deals two damage to the player, and allows them to draw a card.
• Paladin: Reinforce. Summons a 1/1 minion token (the Silver Hand Recruit).
• Druid: Shapeshift. Gives the hero 1 attack and 1 armour.
• Hunter: Steady Shot. Deals two damage directly to the enemy hero.
• Shaman: Totemic Call. Summons a random totem card to the board.

These abilities should always be used if you have no other options on your turn, or if you have the spare mana available. Along with the abilites, all classes have cards that are unique to them. These cards usually work well with the class, and should always be considered when making a deck.

Spell Cards:

Spell cards are the other type of card that you will be using. There are a wide range of spell cards in Hearthstone, that all do very different things. Some cards buff minions, while others destroy enemy minions. There are secrets that get played and only activate after a certain action is taken by your opponent (think trap cards). To give you a better idea, here are a few spell cards available in the game.

So many choices!

As with minion cards, each spell card has a mana cost shown in the top left of each card, and the cards text tells you what it does.

Weapons:

These cards are neither minions or spells, but are similar to each of them. They provide your hero with the ability to attack for a limited number of times.

As with minions, you have a cost in the top left and the attack power in the bottom left. The biggest difference however, is the durability of the weapon listed in the bottom right. When you use the weapon, a point of durability is taken off it. When that number reaches zero, the weapon breaks, and is removed from play. When attacking with a weapon, the hero acts exactly as a minion and will take damage if it attacks another minion (with one Hunter weapon being the sole exception at this time). Using the additional damage that a weapon can give could be the difference between winning and losing. Warriors and Rogues especially benefit from the use of weapons.

So you've chose what class you want to try, and know what the different types of cards are. Now we move on to building a deck.

Deck Building Basics:

Building a deck is a game all of it's own. It takes a good knowledge of how cards work together and how to get the right mix of cheaper cost cards with more expensive ones. While this guide is aimed at new players, it still pays to know the different types of decks that can be made in a CCG. There are 3 main types of deck that can be played: Aggro, Control and Combo.

Aggro decks are exactly what they say on the box. These decks are super aggressive and try to drop a players health to zero as fast a possible. Most players will use a combination of low cost minions, spells and weapons while focusing the majority of damage to the opponents hero and drawing additional cards when they can. Playing an aggro deck is risky. If the opponent can delay to the late game, most aggro decks will run out of legs and find themselves without the ability to deal with what is being thrown at them. If you get the right cards however, you will find that your opponent cannot deal with the amount of damage that you are putting out.

Control decks are the opposite to aggro decks. Generally speaking, where aggro decks are ignore what the other player is doing (to a point), control decks are reactive to what your opponent does (requiring you to "control" the board). This could be by removing minions, utilizing abilities or spells to reduce or heal damage, and finally getting to a point where you can deal lethal damage. I personally love playing control decks. The feeling of satisfaction from making the correct choices to finally win cannot be compared.

Combo decks are generally one trick ponies that use a very special combination of cards to win. Some times called one turn kill decks (or OTK), these decks often use cards that allow you to draw additional cards each turn to try and get the magic combination to win. The skill in these decks comes from being able to delay until you can use the combo. However expect to lose a lot of games with Combo decks, as a run of bad luck can mean you don't get the cards you need to win.

There are also decks that use a mixture of the three main deck types. Called hybrid decks, they are generally not as focused as a deck that is only using one style of play. However that doesn't mean that they aren't as effective. If built efficiently, they can be just as lethal as any other type of deck.

An example of a typical Mana curve.
This one has less 5 mana cards than I would normally like.

One of the biggest things to remember when building a deck is to have a balanced mana curve. A mana curve is a simple way to show how many cards of various costs you have in a deck. You don't want to have a full deck of cards costed at 1- 3 mana (as you would struggle if the game goes longer), or costed at 7 - 10 mana (as you wouldn't be able to play anything until at least turn 7). Having a nice even curve means that no matter what point you are in the game you should have something you can play. The cards you want the most of would normally be between 3 - 6 mana, with a nice curve up and down on either side.

Another important part of making a deck is knowing what cards work well (or synergise) with each other. If you simply throw a bunch of cards into a deck, then there is little chance that anything will work together. This is why I mentioned the 3 main types of deck. As an example, when making my control mage deck, I had a goal in mind. I wanted to use the powerful spell cards that the mage has to both control the board and finish the opponent off. To do this, I knew I needed cards that would buff the power of these spells, minions that had taunt to stop any other minions from damaging me, removal to get rid of any big creatures that my opponent might play and finally big damage spells or minions to finish them off. Once you have a rough idea what you need, you can start to look through your collection for cards that do this, but also synergise with each other so that no matter what order they are drawn in, you have a chance to win by making good choices.

Would You Like to Know More?

So that's the basics, and if you dive in headfirst everything here will start to make sense. If you want more information, there are a number of places that you can go. For starters, Hearthhead is a great resource to know what cards are in the game. All of the pictures in this guide came from Hearthhead. Massive thanks to the guys behind it for that amazing resource. It made writing this guide so much easier!

If you like podcasts, I would highly recommend The Angry Chicken. Garret, Dills and Jocelyn have a great show there, and it is squarely aimed at the casual player that wants to get better. At the time of writing, there are 23 episodes, and each one has a very useful strategy segment that goes into one particular part of the game. Not only that, but they have great synergy (haha).

And last but definitely not least, Hearthpwn has a great decklist sharing tool. I tend to not follow the netdecking trend that has surrounded Hearthstone since day one, as I enjoy building my own decks. However, with that being said, looking at other peoples decks can give you ideas for how to change your own decks to better deal with a particular problem you might be facing. And if you find a particular deck that you think you will really enjoy, you can give it a go.

Building a really strong deck is a rewarding experience. Hopefully you can use the information here to make a start on it, and can get into the amazing world of building a deck. As always folks,

GAME ON!

The Mindset of Eve vs WoW

It's no major secret that I came to WoW from Eve. I started playing Eve in late 2006, left and came back all in the space of 6 months in 2009, and while I am still subbed, I don't play as much now. It was, and still is, a fun game to play, so long as you had others to play with. As my Eve gaming group got smaller, my enjoyment of the game lessened to the point where I was only really interested in things like the CSM and the space politics of nullsec. When I started playing WoW, it was with the intention to play mostly solo. Of course, me being me, I couldn't resist the urge to jump a little deeper into the more involved parts of the game.

Why the nostalgia trip? Well I still love to read up about Eve, and came across this ALOD article on TheMittani.com that I just had to talk about it. Here's a link to the actual kill. The total ISK value of this ship clocks in at around 44 billion. For those who know nothing about Eve, the largest ships in the game (Titans) cost around 100 billion isk for the hull. So this kill is almost half the amount of a Titan hull. To buy the ship and fittings with PLEX would cost a tiny bit less than $1,150 US. And the worst part, if you read the rest of that article, he did buy PLEX to pay for it, which means real money was lost in this kill. Sigh...

I've always found that the biggest mistake WoW players make in Eve comes down to a difference in mindset. WoW is such a curated, policed world, where any scams are reportable, theft is against the rules and any lost items are returned. You choose to engage in PVP, either by joining a PVP realm or turning on your PVP flag. There is no real loss if you die, just a small repair bill and a run back to your corpse or instance where you died.

Gear too is important. Having the best gear in the game directly affects how much damage you do, how much damage you can take and how much healing you can do. To be the best, you need the best. Even one green item can set you back in how well you do, and replacing any out of date items becomes a game of its own.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with all of this. Logging into WoW for an evening is such a good way to relax and unwind after a day that millions of players do it. I personally find WoW to be a better way to spend and hour of time than Eve ever was. Longer time periods feel more rewarding in Eve definitely, as some things can take months to return value. But to get home from work and then run two or three old raids in WoW feels better than to spend the same amount of time updating buy and sell orders in Eve.

That being said however, you simply cannot expect to play Eve the same way. It's generally accepted that missions in Eve (the closest they have to questing) are terrible. The gathering (that's mining essentially), is literally hours of sitting in one spot watching mining lasers cycle. Even solo PVP is hard, and while there are those who do it, it takes time to learn how to be effective at soloing. The world too is completely different. Even the so called "safe" areas of Eve, high security space, can be dangerous. Suicide ganking, the act of destroying another players ship before your ship is destroyed by the space police, has been ruled by CCP as a valid gameplay element in high sec.

Your ships modules (the Eve equivalent of gear), play a lesser role in how well you do than how you design your fit, and then how you fly it. Using officer modules (like the person in ALOD post) makes a very small difference to how well you do. Just because something is purple or green doesn't mean that it will make you do heaps more damage or live longer in a fight.

Eve is such a unique game that it really needs to be tackled in a unique way. You cannot come to Eve with the same mindset as WoW, and if you do, then you will more than likely come away hating the game. Come into the game with the right attitude however, and you will find some good times, good people and a community that is like no other. Just don't be like Mr Jimblidge, who I'm sure is firing up his secret lawyer contacts to find out who I am in real life because I wrote this.

As always,

GAME ON!

Gearing up in MoP: A Newbies Guide

This post was written and ready to be posted last week, well before before the preorders for Warlords went live. I have made several adjustments to the post to reflect the changes that we know about since the level 90 boost went live.

So, you've just got your character to 90. Congratulations, and welcome to the club. However if you are anything like me, you now have no idea what to do. You want to raid, you want to make gold, you want to solo old content, you want to smash challenge mode dungeons, or you want to just dance naked in Orgrimmar. Either way, you should probably replace those terrible greens that you got from that random grummel in Kun-Lai. You need to gear up.

When I first heard the term "gear up" I had no idea what it meant. Little did I know that it was something that dictates so much in WoW. Gearing up is simply the process of obtaining better gear to do whatever your endgame in WoW is. For most people, that means getting into LFR, or maybe the occasional Flex raid. For others, it might be doing PvP (although the process for gearing up in PvP is a little different). Or you might be looking to raid with the tip top heroic raid teams. My experience is very much centered around the casual player, running some LFR, old content, and jumping in a Flex every now and then. This guide will focus purely on the PvE side of gearing up.

The general process of gearing up is increasing the average level of items that your character is using. Every piece of gear has an Item Level, also known simply as "ilevel", listed in the information of the item. In your character information screen, you will also see an average of this number listed in your stats. So when people say "550 Hunter looking for group", they are saying they have an average ilevel of 550.

In Mists of Pandaria, Blizzard has added a number of options to gear up a character. Let's go through them now:

Timeless Isle:

Or as I like to call it, land of the lost loot. Timeless isle was added in 5.4 as a shortcut to get gear and the finish of the legendary cloak questline. Everyone who hits 90 should immediately head to TI and open the chests there. There are a bunch of chests that can be opened once per character, as well as two chests that can be done each week. If you want a nice easy way to get all the chests, I would recommend this guide at MMO-Champion. Simca and Tziva have done a fantastic job of making it easy to get all the chests with TomTom waypoints for each chest.

As well as the chests, pretty much every mob on the island has a chance to drop a token for armour, rings, cloaks, trinkets and necks. These tokens will provide you with a piece of 496 gear to suit the spec chosen when you convert it. To set your spec, you can either be in that spec or right click on your character portrait, then selecting the spec you want loot for under "Loot Specialization". So if you are playing a Hunter, you can select Default (the spec you are in at the time), Survival, Beast Mastery or Marksmanship. This is important, as depending on what role you want to play, you may need to change the spec to get the correct stats on the gear.

Timeless Isle also gives you at least one piece of 535 gear by upgrading a token with a Burden of Eternity. This must be done while the piece is still a token, and once a piece of armour is created, it cannot be returned to a token. There is one guaranteed Burden in the Blazing Chest (marked 7 in the guide linked above), and each rare on the island has a chance to drop one. You can also purchase them for Timeless Coins, a currency dropped by everything on the island, as well as being given as a quest reward. The Burdens cost 50,000 coins, and are purchased near the Celestial Court from Mistweaver Ai.

Additionally, Mistweaver Ai sells a 535 Trinket (50,000 coins), 489 weapons (20,000 for Two Hand, 10,000 for One Hand and Shields), and Cloth, Leather, Mail and Plate Armour Caches (7,500 coins for a random piece of armour). Most people disregard the weapons, and I tend to agree, unless you have the spare coins and are particularly unlucky with loot drops.

It's not unusual for many to be able to go to the Timeless Isle, and leave able to queue for LFR. That being said however, there is another avenue to gear up to get into LFR.

Heroic Dungeons and Scenarios:

If you don't like killing lots of mobs on the Timeless Isle, you can kill lots of mobs in heroic Dungeons and Scenarios. The dungeons are the more traditional way of gearing up. Each heroic dungeon boss drops loot of ilevel 463 and each piece can be upgraded with Justice Points to an ilevel of 471. It's certainly not the best loot in the game, but it can help to replace that last green that you couldn't replace on the Timless Isle. In my opinion however, the biggest advantage to running heroic dungeons is the Valor Points you get. These points are used to upgrade gear, but I will get more into that later. Needless to say, getting and using this Valor is one of the cornerstones of gearing up in WoW. Just as small side note, if you boosted your 90, you will already have green gear of ilevel 483, so dungeons will not provide any gear upgrades for you. However if you need a quick boost of Valor, dungeons are by far the fastest way to grind to Valor cap.

Heroic Scenarios are a little harder to organise. Where you can simply queue for heroic dungeons as soon as you hit 90, you need a pre-made group to get into a heroic scenario. Requiring 3 players to work together, the roles in scenarios are a little more lax, although I would recommend that at least one of you is a healer, just to make everything run that little bit smoother. The loot system in scenarios revolves around the Heroic Cache of Treasures. When you open it, you get a chance at a piece of epic gear at ilevel 516 to suit the Loot Specialization you currently have selected. If you don't get gear from it, you will get small amount of gold.

After you hit a certain average ilevel, you will be able to queue for LFR. Boosted characters can jump straight into LFR for the Throne of Thunder and older raids. The ilevel requirements for each wing of LFR can be found in the Raid Finder window, or this page of Wowpedia has a full list of the requirements for each raid.

LFR and Flex Raids:

So you jump into LFR, down your first boss and this appears on your screen:

Thanks to TenTonHammer for the pic

That is the Personal Loot system that all LFR and Flex raids use. Rather than everyone rolling on the same loot, everyone in the raid has a personal loot roll that only affects you. You will either get a piece of gear, or a cache that contains gold. Each time you do this you can also use a Bonus Roll, paid for by a special type of currency. The currencies are Elder Charm of Good Fortune for Mogu'Shan Vaults, Heart of Fear and Terrace of Endless Spring, Mogu Rune of Fate for Throne of Thunder, and Warforged Seal for Siege of Orgrimmar. Each of these currencies can also be used on certain world bosses around Pandaria.

If you've been doing the Timeless Isle, or you boosted your character, you will more than likely be able to get into Throne of Thunder, which means you will be rolling for 502 level gear. Hopefully after a couple of LFR runs you will be able to reach the 496 requirement for Siege of Orgrimmar, where you will be able to roll on 528 level gear, a huge jump from the ToT loot.

When you finally exhausted any LFR loot upgrades, Flex is the next step. Flex raids require you have a pre-made group of at least 10 people, but then allows you to have any number of people from 10 to 25, meaning that if someone needs to leave you can continue raiding. Flex also uses the same loot system as LFR, with Warforged Seals giving you another chance at gear from a boss you have just defeated. Flex gear is at a fantastic 540 ilevel.

The Next Step?

So you have a set of gear that consists of LFR, Flex and maybe some 535 Timeless pieces. What do you do now? The short answer: reforge, gem and enchant. Every class has certain stats that work best for them, and there are plenty of guides on what stats to focus on. My personal favorite place to look is Icy Veins, as they have detailed guides for each spec for each class on there, including stat priority, gems and enchants to use and even some rotations to help you play your class better. You can also use Valor points to upgrade your gear. This will raise the ilevel of the gear, and increase all the stats by a certain amount. Most pieces of gear can be upgraded twice, for a total of 500 Valor.

I hope this guide will help you to figure out a way to get the gear you need to do what you want. As with all of my guides, this not intended to be set in stone, and everything can be changed to suit your play style and how you want your end game to be.

As always folks,

GAME ON!