Reign of Gaming

The item sets tab is out and for the non-genius-level-player (or even for someone who is, perhaps), this can highly change your conception, understanding, and playing of the game. It can also be a huge timesink.

So, yay or nay? I’ve spent a bit of time playing around with it and have some suggestions on pitfalls and how to maximize its usefulness.

Limitations

The first unfavorable thing I noticed is that the actual tool isn’t friendly to people who don’t know the items well as it’s a single column only to show them all. Unlike in the actual game, there’s no way to look at the items in a big grid format, which makes it a pain to find the items while in this tool. For that reason I highly recommend you play and think about builds elsewhere. There are better spots online for playing and thinking about item builds where you can access the items more quickly or see a bigger selection of them. Even a legal pad can be a better canvas for creating builds.

While the items are out of date, http://s3.microtony.com/ lets you look at the in-game items  and more importantly, lets you see the current recommended items to let you see how much you wish to keep and how much you wish to discard. Keep in mind that the recommended items list is still going to be accessible for any character. If recommended items has the majority of the stuff you’d use anyway, building a tab is not worth the effort.

The second unfavorable thing is that the sets are machine-side and not server-side. This means that if you make an item set, it is only on the computer you made it on, not your account. This doesn’t affect everyone, but if it affects you you’ve obviously noticed and been hesitant to make too many tabs.

A program that lets you rip builds from another person and put into client is coming down the road. And a place that lets you see other people’s build and how they’re arranged should be out within a week or two if it isn’t by the time this article is posted. You can save yourself a lot of time waiting for other builds to come out and sticking those in.

All-Star weekend is just days away, and fans of League of Legends from around the world eagerly await the opportunity to cheer their favorite players on as they compete for their respective regions. North America, Europe, Southeast Asia, South Korea, and China will all try to prove their region is the best in the first true test of all the regions in Season 3.

Each region has different expectations from their fans, and different things to prove going into the weekend. Some regions struggle for legitimacy on the world stage while others look to continue their dominance of it. There's more at stake than another spot in the world finals this weekend. For a full look at the rosters and bracket head over to the Leaguepedia page here. Let's take a look at what each region has at stake going into the weekend.

North America

The region with the most to prove arrives with the lowest expectations. North America is widely considered, whether it's a fair assessment or not, as the weakest of the major regions. Poor showing in international events and the Season 2 World Championships certainly didn't help matters, and they arrive in Shanghai looking to get anything but last place.

The buzz from the camp has the team outwardly confident, but their first round draw of China would prove difficult for any region to deal with. The criticisms of the NA scene can be put to rest with a first round victory over China, and even if they lose that they will likely earn themselves a grudge match against Europe.

Pride, Our Greatest Strength and Our Greatest Weakness

 Few things in this world can help us to achieve our dreams or hinder ourselves as much as pride.  Pride lets us hold our heads up high and gives us the confidence to succeed.  But it can just as easily be the barrier to improvement that we need to overcome.  The question “How do I improve my ELO?” is the most asked question in League of Legends.  The question is so open-ended and multi-faceted, that no real answer can be given without fully understanding the player.  Finding a mentor to teach you is probably the best way to improve and my time with ELO Heaven has been wonderful for that.  But the best teaching is only as good as our ability to hear it. 

Pride can have a real price, not just in your ELO

So I've been playing a lot of Udyr. A lot of Udyr. I mean like ... hours of Udyr. Look I'm talking I played so much Udyr I woke up this morning and was like "which stance am I in?" I had a dream that manbearpig was real, Gore tried to kill me. Anyway Udyr's change has changed a lot so I figured I'd just do a short little review on his changes. Udyr was the first champion I ever bought (and promptly thought I was terrible at this game when it was Udyr that's sucked.) I've put enough time in to Udyr to get a PHD in Udyology. Get it? I'm a Dr. of Udgenics. 

I'll probably put up a video of responses to comments later, for now enjoy Udyr!