Month: October 2017

Smite, Uncategorized

How to build carries 4.18 – Smite Conquest

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How to build carries 4.18 – Conquest

Hunters have a wide range of viable items. Two main build paths power/penetration and critical strike. Penetration builds focus on dealing damage to tanky targets and objectives. Critical strike builds are designed to kill anything without protections quickly. A vast range of items which can become situational. Items can be less efficient if still effective in most cases.  Builds have a general rule of thumb. The class wants power, attack speed, penetration and utility. Combine power with attack speed for higher damage output. Add some penetration to cut into protections. The utility can be found in defence or life steal.  Life steal provides sustain during team fights.  A defence can help keep you alive to deal damage.

Make things simple plan on explaining why certain items not viable. At the same time explaining why certain items are situational and the usage.

Non-viable items

Atalanta’s bow – 30 physical power with 25% attack speed. Passive 7% movement speed, 4 stacks total per basic attack hit on enemies. The item provides pretty mediocre statistics, with pretty mediocre passive.  Failing to provide enough statistics to make it viable.  Costs 2300 gold other items are just more cost effective. Designed to replace an item which got removed from the game. 

Ichavial / Silver branch bow – 25% attack speed with 10 penetration, passive removes 28 physical power total. Costs 1700 gold designed to be a bridge item. Silver branch bow is similar just for magical power reduction.

Jotunns Wrath – Can be built on ability focused hunters but much better items to build.  Mainly building it for the 10 penetration for 2450 gold. Cooldown is not helpful on hunters. Crusher gets more use and provides better numbers.

Situational items

Qin sais – Build against teams which invested heavily into defence items.  Against triple tank teams shreds targets that build high amounts of health.  Should not pair this item with critical strike damage as a result.

Titan’s bane – Penetration is useful against objectives and tanky teams.

Brawlers beat stick / Toxic blade – Both of these items are counters towards healers. 3 or more with a self-heal or team-wide heal. Brawlers best on ability-based hunters who can apply the passive. Applying the passive without much effort want 2 or more abilities which can apply it. The toxic blade is the opposite wants best on hunters who basic attack being the main source of damage.

Starts
A wide range of viable starts, each one having its own playstyle. Different game modes have different starts on certain hunters. Bumba’s mask is less useful on all game modes apart from conquest.

Bumba’s mask – Start in the jungle, extra sustain with gold.  Allows carries to get ahead by clearing jungle camps. Most useful on good jungle clear camp hunters.

Item name Item name Hunter
Bluestone Bumba’s mask Ah Muzen Cab

Anhur

Cernunnos

Chiron

Cupid

Hou Yi

Medusa

Neith

Skadi

Ullr
Death’s Toll Bumba’s mask Anhur

Apollo

Artemis

Cernunnos

Iznami

Jing wei

Rama

Xbalanque

Not using Bumba’s, build blue stone or death’s toll with tier one boots. Don’t forget to buy couple potions.

Example builds

Ninja Tabi Devourer gauntlet The Executioner Poisoned star Wind demon Deathbringer
Ninja Tabi Transcedence Asi TItan’s bane Qin Sais Odysseus bow

What about defence items? 

Can build defence items, don’t have to focus purely on damage. Can’t-do damage if you die. Bunch of options on the table and most are situational. Pick up items which provide the highest benefit to the biggest threat against you. Just means replacing one item within the build.

Hide of the Nemean lion or spectral armour can force assassins or warriors off you. May require protections against both sets of damage. Hide of the urchin would be a better choice. Options are wide open and massive amount of items to build.

PS4, Smite

Smite ranked on console still toxic

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Decided to play some ranked conquest. Admittedly it on a console, which has a bad reputation. Many PC players joke about console yet average PC player not so great. Making the same basic mistakes. Taking on bad fights and failing to farm. Failing to understand the basics instead blaming others.

Every player makes mistakes including myself. Most mistakes are made regarding early jungle pressure. The vast majority won’t learn how to play from behind. Seeking out easy snowball based wins to climb. Don’t understand how certain fights are just terrible. Taking on aggressive high risk fights the majority of the time.

Hirez claims that ranked provides the most competitive environment. It does not provide that. Ranked is nothing more than a ladder. Games come down to early pressure how you play the jungle. Rewarding risky high snowball focused players. Players can be sloppy just got lucky, keeping bad habits at higher ranks. Some higher rank players do deserve the ratings given to them. Games are not more competitive on average.

Encourages a toxic set of behaviour. Players report each other for no good reason. Rather sad how mode meant to make you better makes you worse. These sorts of players should quit ranked. Understand the frustration but at a certain point maybe the blame is on you.  Sometimes, however, it can be hard to see what went wrong.  Professional players advice is focused on you, not your teammates.
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Missed nothing from avoiding rank almost all season. Expected the matchmaking to improve but quickly dismissed that idea. Hope the matchmaking gets better but I doubt it. All I want is that god skin and loading screen. Right now just getting abuse from players. And blow out games based on early jungle pressure. Yet players ask why not many jump into the ranked ladder. The system not designed to help players grow or improve.

Ranked is nothing more than a public stomping playground with a ladder. Once you discover this, why play ranked to get better if just get abuse.  Hard to get better if the game rewards the worse behaviour possible. All about early snowballs diving people. Similar mistakes are made at lower levels to higher levels. Profesional players even talk about ranked being causals until a higher level.

A common theme is map awareness most players lack it so badly. Forced to babysit people and call missing every single time. Understand heat of the moment lack of map awareness. Map design sort of becomes obvious which direction people path in. Majority of my mistakes are simple basic things. Make assumptions that teamamtes understand what is happening.

Last two ranked games disconnecting players, neith instant lock after I call carry. Before that was a jungle who was unable to play from behind. Looking forward to grinding out 130 wins for a loading frame and skin. Seriously something needs to be done to improve the match performance. Grinding out 150 wins looks next to impossible. I do make mistakes but get more patience. Sometimes underestimate early game minion damage. Making simple mistakes like taking on too much damage early game.

Hope season 5 changes how minions work. Sometimes the AI is bit iffy. Minions die faster giving one side a clear unfair advantage. Larger groups can spawn leading to clear advantage. Often minimal interactions can cause them to target you. Towers suffer from similar problems. Sort of makes sense but can be frustrating.

The distance between lanes makes it too easy gain extra farm. Can sustain off camps provided you pick up bumbas. Farm so safely not risky unless you don’t have a clear advantage. Once you gain jungle pressure turns into the other team punishing your mistakes. Jungle fades into a second lane that rather safe. Game declines to team fighting rather quickly. Middle land often is 3 vs 3 lanes that feel melted into the jungle. What happened in middle lane helps decide the flow of the game. Forcing the other lanes to change playstyle to avoid falling behind.

Smite requires a massive knowledge pool. Vast amounts of items to learn to make that worse. Patches every 2 weeks with changes make it even worse. Majority of players can’t cope unable or unwilling to learn. Don’t blame them game gives you little to no tools. Recommended items are out of date due to the vast changes which can happen. Auto-leveling can be outdated again due to the changes.  Hope honestly that patch changes to slow down and reduction in items. With small set for certain gods. Small universal tree plus branches of specialist items. Would also reduce the number of passives. Decreasing items could lead to better balancing. Certain items have been abused on certain occasions. Which twist the item out of it designed role. A Recent example was a defence item which helped survivable.

Jungle design plus how certain abilities are easy to land is partly to blame. Abilities do too much damage are too easy. Players can’t dodge certain abilities if they are wide massive circles.  Certain aspects just frustrating with little to no downside. Snowballing is serious problem caused by the jungle design. Certain gods are overturned having too much. Decent clear opens up so many options in the jungle. Easy access to jungle farm causes so many problems. Wards are another issue. Players undervalued wards too often. Unwilling to buy wards for whatever reason. Vision is super useful in helping general map awareness.

Honestly, would like to see hunters changed. Early clearing hunters should have lower late game damage. A Late game focused hunter should have worse clear and bad boxing potential. Locking off critical damage from certain hunters. Steroid based hunters just too powerful in certain respects. Build paths should be more costly given the free farm. Season 5 could see big changes but honestly feel certain hunters are overturned.

Various things which need be addressed. Sometimes it was your fault, other times it bit less clear. I do enjoy smite but at times just frustrating to play ranked. Feels like rank is meanless a exercise in patience with other players. Just viewing ranked as a ladder over competitive matchmaking.

Game fails to teach you how to play. Way too much knowledge required. Every player makes mistakes high risky snowball plays are rewarded. Ranked is toxic environment with a ladder. Grinding out 150 wins for a reward is not worth it. A vast sum of knowledge is required due items. The jungle is a second lane with easy access to a farm. Snowballing is a serious problem as a result once gain jungle pressure too easy to keep it. Certain classes are overturned with hunters being an obvious example.  Hi Rez has added a vast sum of knowledge in items. Jungle is the second lane with easy access to the farm. Snowballing is a serious problem. Ranked is one big giant with little pay off given how toxic people can be.

I do like smite but the title has issues like every other game.

Brexit, Journal, Politics, Thoughts

Minority driving policy – Brexit talks

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Minority driving policy – Brexit talks

The United Kingdom owes the European Union money. Parliament signed into law the commitment of these funds.  Including future commitments, example pension payments. Some MPs have claimed that the UK should not honour any contributions it signed.  Citing lack of membership as the reason. Commitments disappear overnight that view is wild oversimplifaction that inaccuarate. Wiping any commitments is a act of bad faith. Why should the Europeans trust us not to rescind any future agreemeants. Not a good way to start negotiations.

Political toxic given the self improsed fiscal constraints.  Narrative was born this was paying for future deal not past commitments.  Reality it paying for past and future commitments after we leave. Rather toxic to be giving away billions. Politicians have created this problem from past decisions. European Union wanted past/future commitments sorted first and trade next. UK goverment wanted to talk about trade first.  Clear deadlock has been caused by UK politicians.  Incomplete internal negotiations within conservative party are now public.  Appears to be three negotiations ongoing.  Conservative party internal ones,  ones towards media by the politicians. Don’t forget the formal most important ones with the Europeans.

Conservative goverment has to make a choice, time is running out. Europeans want this sorted have already moved on.  Threats to rescind make extension agreements even harder to pull off. Leaving has consequences, dishonest to say it won’t. Politicians have been unwilling to admit it has consequences at all. Choice has to be made and presented towards the house of commons.

Leaving without a deal UK is forced into negotiations over WTO membership.  Hundreads of nations with vested interests don’t all share the same goals.  Politicians have ignored this truth which would cause damage and push up prices.  UK would become a 3rd world country subject to delays for any trade. Many politicians instead talk up the idea that it would be a good thing.  Media has been silent on the reality that dropping out on WTO terms would cause.  Little to no discussion about how UK membership is subjuct to negotiations.  Some have been dishonest claiming it would give the UK freedom to do whatever it wants.  UK would become a rule taker over rule maker once leaving.

Three recent examples of rule taking, chlorine-rinsed chicken, Northern Ireland border checks after brexit and Bombardier tariffs.  Only the start of things to come.  Media has failed to explain what taking these rules mean.  Plain english it means can’t trade with other nations who don’t share the same rules. Impossible for Britain to be great free trade leader without ditching every rule and letting cheap imports flood Britain.  Once voters find out makes them poorer the Brexit dream turns to a nightmare.

Whole situation can’t be ignored, wishful thinking won’t make things better.

 

 

Politics, Thoughts

Theresa May reformer or authoritarian?

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Theresa May party conference speech showed conservative party from reformer to iron grip authoritarian. Seeking to answer Corbyn by repeating what it believes in not why it good for you. Overall failing to answer general election result from 2017. Unable to answer clearly or provide solutions to problems. Both parties have been unable to answer real grievances.  Decided to retreat back into the comfort zone. The population has the same desires yet values are massively different. Once you lost control of the narrative rather hard to gain it back. Conservatives were ruthless painting certain leaders as weak and incompetent.  Many view Theresa May as weak, the party have avoided the incompetent label so far. Conservatives have been unable to remove Theresa May or unable to find a replacement. Many view Theresa May as weak, the party have avoided the incompetent label so far. Attacking Corbyn plan to reversal most of the reforms made by the party. Spending the next 5 minutes doing a small reversal. Theresa May best moments have been reforming. At the home

Attacking Corbyn plan to reversal most of the reforms made by the party. Spending the next 5 minutes doing a small reversal. Theresa May best moments have been reforming. At the home office, she took on police racism focus on stop and searches. These bright moments of reform helped the party win power. The liberal side of the party learnt to accept liberal cultural attitudes. Authoritarian language in recent years took it away. Liberals within the party appear to have lost control. Brexit makes the problem even worse. Winners of the debate unable to answer what Brexit means.

Theresa May reformer or authoritarian?

Some ways she a reformer who understands Britain has problems. Understands that markets are required yet rules with the state keeping an eye on things is required. Another hand she rather authoritarian in getting some things done. She was in control of the home office when the immigration vans existed. Impossible to tell what the real Theresa May believes in. Old fashioned conservative with the desire to reform. Forced to be authoritarian to gain favour to win the leadership.
Do wonder what she could have done if her party had not limited her. If she not made so many missteps. Premiership at the moment shows the tragedy of Britain liberal values. Outsiders are attacking social and economic liberalism with no reply from the mainstream. Voters have not changed just want the same as before. The current system is unable to provide that. Centre ground is made up of two groups both have radically different values.

Hope one day we find out what Theresa May believes in.  History going to judge her as a mediocre reformer.