Vainglory 1.19 - Lyra

Have you tried the new hero Lyra yet? I've managed to play her twice in battle royale... And so far I'm really loving the character. 

Since I'm holding out till she can be bought with glory, I can't try her in casual or ranked yet (and these days I don't even play those modes...).... I think she's a fantastic hero to get in battle royale though! Her magnificent healing powers keeps your team alive. And did I mention that she's a good killer too?

That's her basic info. With her basic attacks as well as arcane missiles dealing CP, there's no reason why you would build WP for this hero IMO. With great power comes... Fragility. Lyra is an extremely fragile hero with little armor or shield. At least she moves fast!

Her A skill is called Imperial Sigil. It's an AOE skill that creates a circular zone of healing (for allies) or damage (for enemies). The skill can be detonated right away, or left to run it's cause. The cooldown only starts when the sigil is gone though, so if you're say chasing a bunch of enemies down the lane, detonate it immediately if you've run away from the sigil so you can use it again sooner. I think it'll take a while for players to know what this skill does. I've play with lyra teammates who don't seem to know that this skill can heal - they only cast it on enemies far away, and not caring about their teammates who could desperately use some healing (battle royale mode). And I've tried to cast it on teammates who needed healing, only to have them immediately walk away. Like dude...? I did that for you! 

B skill - Bright Bulwark. It's kind of like Ardan's fighting ring, only better. Ok, this one doesn't stun when you cross the barrier, but it slows all enemies inside the ring, and movement abilities can't be used. Not an actively damaging skill like the A skill, but still useful to create sort of an area of protection.

Her ultimate skill, Arcane Passage. This skill belongs to the 'ultimate but not so ultimate' category to me. In the sense that I won't be maxing this skill. It's great for chasing enemies, or fleeing. Or getting your team into the middle of a battle... But that'll work only if you have a good, coordinated, team. Kinda hard to get if you solo queue. And in battle royale? The usefulness is somewhat diminished. It's certainly more useful for chasing rather than fleeing though, because enemies can also step through the portal to chase you after an all too brief delay.

My main point though is that there's not enough benefit to entice me to max this skill. A shorter cooldown and slightly increased range just isn't enough benefit. Better to max her A and B skills. I'll add her skills like I would for Krul/Ardan. Something like that:

A - B - A - A - B - U - A - A - B - B - B - U


Equipment wise... Definitely CP. But I really don't like specifying builds because it really depends on your play style, your teammates, your opponents, and what your opponents are building. Of course, the mode you're playing in makes a huge difference. I'd go almost all out with crystal damaging items on battle royale... Unless the opposing team is really strong and I'm dying too much. Then build armor or shield as per whatever the enemy build is. As a roam, you'll definitely want to pump her up with more defensive items.

I'll leave you with two videos, the Lyra Hero Spotlight, as well as my own Lyra gameplay video. I think I played pretty decently there... Ok, there were some totally stupid deaths... But it's good gameplay by my noob standards. That's all for now folks!

If you want to see more vainglory gaming videos, do check out my youtube channel! :P

Vainglory - Here comes Summer!

Update 1.19 is now LIVE!

☀️1.19 DOWNTIME☀️

…IS OVER!

Find out all the new shiny things in 1.19 here ➡️ https://t.co/dKuAIaKguJ

— Vainglory Status (@vainglorystatus) June 22, 2016

Got in the game, checked out the new summer sunlight update... And managed to play two games!

Definitely need some time to figure out the new equipment changes and what to buy (or not buy)... But the sunlight event looks promising. Also check out the soon to be released skins! Looking forward to them!

The new 'sunlight' system for this summer.

Started off with 1 krul skin card. Now to get another 49 more!

That's the summer party krul skin. Pretty cool eh? 

New skin for Kestrel coming soon!

Hmm... Reim the Gandalf? 

Now that is one sexy Rona!

Alright, that's all for now. Shall play a little more before heading to bed. Once again, check my youtube channel for random iOS gaming videos! (Right now vainglory takes up the lion's portion of videos though.)

Vainglory - Summer is almost here!

Downloaded the new update... And server maintenance is finished and they are slowly letting people in...

Almost there!

☀️1.19 DOWNTIME☀️

Slowly letting players in. The VAST MAJORITY will still see servers as offline

While you wait ➡️ https://t.co/Cy23eEpJSg

— Vainglory Status (@vainglorystatus) June 22, 2016

I'll probably head to bed first before I get to play a game but... Can't wait to try out the new events and changes later in the day!

On a different note... I've been uploading random videos of myself playing iOS games like Warhammer 40,000: Freeblade, Bloons, Plants VS Zombies 2... etc. Subscribe to my channel if you like watching people play random iOS games!

Vainglory Battle Royale

Absolutely loving the battle royale mode in vainglory. Yeah yeah, I know I'm really late to the party. I've been playing it so much... That I can't quite play casual/ranked properly anymore. In that aspect... I've very much looking forward to the summer update coming in about four days, where there will be a new game progression system that allows for progression for all players types, whether you like to play casual, ranked, or battle royale.

The battle royale system is great for action junkies. Tends to be a more... Forgiving game too. Because each game lasts just 10 minutes on average, things are moving at the rapid pace, and I see a lot fewer occurrence of ping spamming. Sure, the afkers are still there... But at least you can surrender the moment the game tags them as having left the game, so that's less time wasted for you. Of course, the shorter games also means you have to put up with a lot less if you're stuck with a lousy teammate. Or are having a poor run yourself. Which can happen quite a bit in battle royale because a character is chosen at RANDOM each time you play.

Sure, the best players would have mastered every character, every skill... But for everyone else, there's bound to be characters you've not tried extensively, characters you're not good at, or haven't even the slightest idea what equipment to buy for.

Over time though, as you play more rounds of battle royale, you will learn the skills of each character, as well as what equipment to build for it. Weapon, crystal, or hybrid? Which skill do you max first? Which skill do you not max out? All these will come over time. (Or, you can be hard working and do some research, read some guides.)

Bear in mind that battle royale is a vastly different beast from casual or ranked mode though.

Some key differences in battle royale:
1) There is no jungle, it's all blocked off... You fight only in the lane.

 For now, I find getting an iron guard contract at the start extremely useful. It'll no longer be needed once the summer update rolls around and the 'ambient gold' system is put into place though (starting 22 June 2016). But for the next few days, I'll still be buying iron guard contracts. That way, you get some gold regardless of who made the last hit. And in vainglory, gold is everything.

So you'd definitely want to optimise your build according. Remember, everything is fast paced. Speed is the key.

2) You start off at level 4, with 2000 gold.

This means that you'll have a nice set of skills to start off with, as well a plenty of gold to buy equipment. Once you get into 'standby mode' in the game, buy all the equipment you need. Don't bother adding the skills till you are done with selecting your equipment and start running out into the field. With just 10 seconds and 2000 gold, there's hardly enough time to spend all your gold before the game starts, especially if you're not extremely familiar with that hero. You'll want to spend those 10 seconds of prep time wisely and get out of the base ASAP.

That said, often times you'll see teammates and enemy heroes alike take a while to 'appear' before they get to the lane. Don't be so quick to label them as afkers yet... They might just be taking some times to figure out their hero and what they need to buy. Great news if the enemy team is no where to be found and all your teammates are already out in the lane and whacking mobs. See if you can hit the first turret a little before the opposing team shows up!

3) You can't get back into the base and shop unless you die

Yup, that's right. The only way to head back to the base is if you die. No teleporting back, no point running back because there's a barrier stopping you from heading back. And you can't use the darn shop outside the barrier.

So what does that mean?

One. You can't heal up if you don't have any healing equipment/skill/items. Good news is that you heal way faster than in casual/ranked games though. But still... It's a good idea to buy some potions if you have the spare cash after your initial equipment purchase. Or maybe you'll want to just stock up some potions before buying the other equipment. Unless you're one of those who have planned out exactly how you want to spend that 2k gold.... Me? I have a target set of equipment to get and I keep buying till my gold runs out...

Two. The only way to move is forward. You either kill them, or die trying. Or, you can hang back a little to heal up.

4) You gain gold and heal up much faster.

You get 15 gold per tick, and heal 4% of your missing HP when you're not in combat. Exp gain, energy regen... Pretty much everything is faster. Oh, minions give 2x gold too. All that for a fast game for battle fiends and impatient players.



I've uploaded a bunch of my gameplay videos. Not that I'm any good... But because hey... Why not?

Check out my youtube channel if you like. I'll keep doing this and perhaps someday I'll get good... :P

Love the Vainglory dev team

For all the misgivings players may have against vainglory, the matching system, and the gameplay tweaks and balances...

I do love the dev team for being so active and so quick on their server status updates.

It's not the first time I've experienced game play connectivity problems... But each time I'll fire up twitter and see tweets from @vainglorystatus about how they are already aware of the issue. This is then followed by a server maintenance... and the problem is mostly fixed pretty darn fast.

See today's tweet:

We are aware of connectivity issues on SEA server right now. Will be going into maintenance mode to fix.

— Vainglory Status (@vainglorystatus) February 11, 2016

09:53 SGT - We are gradually letting players back into the SEA server. We continue to monitor and improve stability. Thanks for the patience

— Vainglory Status (@vainglorystatus) February 11, 2016

10PM SGT -We have allowed 60% of players back into the SEA servers. Rest is still in maint,. Monitoring and will let people in gradually.

— Vainglory Status (@vainglorystatus) February 11, 2016

That's just 11 minutes between the first tweet and the second. And another 7 minutes later 60% of the players are back in the game. Even the massive server lag after a new character release + major update took only about 30 minutes to an hour to fix. After being used to MapleSEA's infinitely long server maintenances that gets extended, and extended, and re-extended,  the service provided by Vainglory seems almost too good to be true. And keep in mind that it's the same company maintaining different servers for different regions.

Sure, Vainglory is still kinda new... But I'm excited to watch and follow this game as it continues to develop. With regular updates and new characters, it's definitely something that'll keep me entertained for a long time to come. If anything, the quick response from the developers to fix server issues and bugs certainly keeps players like myself happy.

Edit:

10:18PM SGT - We are allowing 70% of players to play again in SEA. Remainder of % is in maintenance. Thanks for the patience everyone!

— Vainglory Status (@vainglorystatus) February 11, 2016

Still waiting for my turn to get back in. Should be soon now. Regular twitter updates make a HUGE difference. Really. (Well it doesn't have to be twitter, but twitter is really a pretty darn good platform for such things.)

Vainglory again

Don't we all love games that end up like this? Of course... This isn't a perfect score by any means. Not like those epic 30-0 kills kind of thing... But 15 kills in a game is a pretty nice score for me. Thanks to the saw that just keeps letting himself get killed. And killed. And killed....

Tried out the new monkey hero aka Ozo. Can't try it out properly in solo practice since both the B skills and ultimate skills only work against other players. Not gonna buy it with ICE though. I'll just wait and get it with glory. I've saved up 30k glory after all. 

Glorious Vainglory

Recently a new season just began on Vainglory! Featuring the new hero Reim. I'm loving Reim so far. As a Celeste user... I find Reim very similar to Celeste. Think of it as a melee version of Celeste. It can both jungle and lane effectively, though laning at the start of the game against aggressive players would be slightly challenging - as with all characters with melee basic attacks trying to lane. Once you get some crystal power, and perhaps, an hourglass, laning becomes much easier.


Here's a bunch of screenshots from playing as Celeste and Reim.

I tried taking a few screenshots during gameplay but... accidentally ended up exiting the app completely a few times -.-... Probably have to do it with the phone hooked up to the lappy next time... 

Yes. Playing it safe and only taking screenshots when I'm dead + we won. Hahaha.

Just love the 3rd win and 7 day bonuses!

Level 20 is the max you can get. I reached level 20 long ago... Though the same can't be said of my rank. Ha! Still a long way from being a pro.

Hmm. That's all for now!

Mackenna - Call of Champions

Yes, it's yet another Mackenna COC video. It's been quite a while since I played and I couldn't remember the skills and stuff... So yeah. I didn't play well. Thankfully we scraped a win in this game/ We were actually down on hero kills (thanks to me dying so much I guess), but thankfully we downed more towers and so won the game.

Call of Champions

I've been playing some MOBAs, or Mobile Online Battle Arenas recently... Vainglory would be my favourite. But today, I'd like to share some videos from another MOBA I like - Call of Champions.

With a super fast paced, quick gameplay of 3-5 minutes, this is the perfect game for when you just have that little bit of time to spare. Unlike other MOBAs that takes 20-30 minutes a game, Call of Champions let's you get in a quick fight during your break. Each game lasts no longer than 5 minutes - the game is forcefully ended even if no clear winners emerge by then. The winning team will then be calculated based on the number of towers destroyed, or if that's the same, the number of hero kills per team.

When playing MOBAs... I realised that somehow ranged/mage characters are easier to pick up for me than high HP tanks. Somehow I prefer standing at a distance and sniping. That was the case for me with Vainglory too.

Anyway, here's two videos I took today with the in-game record feature. Enjoy! (PS: Sorry, the first video has no sound... I usually play games with all the sound off hahaha!)

Implosion: Never Lose Hope - Crimson

I did it! Gathered the 42 badges to unlock the Crimson Warmech.

Here's a quick look at the Warmech... together with gameplay videos of my first time using that thing. (And dying, how embarrassing!)

I definitely miss my Avalon skills hahaha! Need some time to get used to this guy. (Ok ok, I know I suck.)

Implosion: Never Lose Hope First Boss

I'm pretty amazed with myself. Well... like I said in my previous post, this game has a pretty good learning curve... Which makes it great for not too skilled gamers like me. It gives replay value to the game... because achievements are not that way out of reach.

So yes. I managed to beat the first boss, Terminatrix, in Hard Mode, with Zero Shield activation. And not once, but twice. First for the badge, then second time for the video recording.

The first boss isn't take hard to do for the bloodless or zero shield achievement. So long as you keep your distance, the long range attacks are pretty slow and you have plenty of forewarning on when to dodge. Nonetheless, I've had to try quite a few times, because of silly mistakes nearing the end of the battle... including once when I've downed the boss, but stood too up front and when the dead body appeared, it slammed right into my avalon. There goes my badge sigh. Once I hit the 'strike' button instead of the dodge too... Other times the movement pad wasn't responding because my finger has trailed too close to the edge... The problems of playing games on the phone. My Christmas wish list...: A Mfi controller for the iPhone 6s.

Alright. Here's the video:

There's basically just three attacks from the boss if you stay as far as possible. 

The meteors --> Big red marks on the floor. Run away or dodge them!

Fire breathing --> Watch the head of the boss, if there's smoke coming out, he'll breath fire so don't stand in the center. If you don't stand in the center, and he won't breath fire. Some games I didn't see any fire breathing at all.

The laser --> Red mark on the ground where you are standing. If you keep moving, it'll miss. Or you can dodge left/right.

If you move up closer, he'll smack you with his left or right hand. If you wish, you can move up front to taunt the boss, then dodge back when the hand comes smacking so you can use your melee attacks on the arm. I just played it safe for my badges. 

Ark equips with ballistic damage would definitely help in getting those badges.

Implosion: Never Lose Hope

Much of my gaming now has switched to mobile. Simply because I own a mac, and am getting too lazy to switch over to XP. Well actually, my own mac has been semi-retired. It's 5 years old and really, very slow. I'm using my dad's mac now, and there's no XP installed here...

So. After struggling with a deficit 4s after my stupid 5s broke down in Jan this year, I finally got my 6s about two months back. Been enjoying my time playing Vainglory and tons of other games... But today I'd like to talk about Implosion. It's picked by Apple as one of the best apps of 2015, and I'd say it really lives up to it's name. (The game is on Google Playstore as well.) Check out their official website here.

I've finished a play through on easy mode, and I must say I've really enjoyed the game. That it is engaging enough for me to finish the entire game says a lot. I'm not particularly good at fighting games since I tend to smash buttons more than strategise... but alas this game had a pretty good difficulty curve. Bosses and enemies (XADA) have their distinct attacks and therefore ways to doge their attacks. Nonetheless sometimes my reaction is just... erm... not very fast. Still, I never had to grind for long. I did grind a little when I got stuck on Goldie, but after reading up about her attacks (yes, I cheated), and re-fitting my Arcs, I beat her with no trouble. (On easy mode that is XD) For the better players, there's a hard mode, and an expert mode unlocks after finishing the game.

The graphics are great, and I like the fluid battle movements. It's not groundbreaking, mind blowing graphics (then again, with all the technological advances already in place, I'm not sure what would blow my mind anymore)... but keep in mind that it's a mobile game. And by mobile game standard, this is pretty darn, solid good. It's certainly miles above your average candy crush, cow farming variety.

What really stood out for me though, is the great storyline. There are RPG games aplenty in the mobile scene, but this is the best storyline I've seen to date. It tells of Earth being invaded by alien lifeforms, and you're the last hope of humanity. Only that they tell it way better, and in a much less cliche way than I do.

You play as Jake, controlling the warmech Avalon. A second warmech can be unlocked once you've enmassed 42 badges - aka achievements from missions. I'm still working on that though. Currently at just 24 badges.

The 'Arc' system. Basically, your equips.

There's alpha, beta, gamma and lambda equips. The lambda equips comes with 1, 2 or 3 skills. Each warmech has their set of unique 6 skills, and each equipment can come with any of the skills. My personal favourites for Avalon are Jagular Rush and Precognition Protocol. Nano Bless is good to have too, and RX-Disintegration is great for levels where enemies have loads of shielding. I've get to get an equip loaded out with my preferred combination of 3 skills though!

Some game play screen shots.

A video of my gameplay. Yes yes... I know I'm not very good at such games. Plus, after having my recording get disrupted three times due to various notifications (some notifications still come on despite the Do Not Disturb mode being turned on... I'm looking at you, Gmail) I was getting pretty darn pissed.

Oh, I've not mentioned this yet... but the guys who made Implosion are the very same folks who made the music hits Cytus and Deemo. Turns out that they make action games really well too! I'd never have guessed! (Oh, and they are Taiwanese too, way to go!)

Right. So that's all for this game! Do give it a try!