Author: Zubon

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Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

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Battlefield Control

The other great early game hero you get in Marvel Puzzle Quest is Storm. Storm has two abilities that do a bit of damage but are really great for letting you make better matches. Her green ability randomly destroys tiles across the map. Her red ability destroys all the environmental tiles across the map. You look at the map and see if you can do better than “match 3”; if not, click green or red. Popping either of those abilities will often get you some instant matches, plus green counts as clearing those tiles, so you (1) do damage, (2) recharge abilities, and (3) get another chance at matching 4 or 5 at a time. If you match 5, you get another turn; rinse, repeat.

This can make Storm a really annoying opponent when the computer gets her. You know how the computer can somehow match up things that are not even on the screen? As in, when the computer makes a match, more matches will just fall from off-screen. I do not really think that the computer gets more of these magical chains of matches, but it certainly feels like it. It feels more like it when it gets to mix in Storm’s detonating half the field, which recharges the ability to detonate half the field, which sets off another chain of matches, which…

But when you get to do that, it is fun to down one or two opponents before they even get a turn. It’s just a shame that Wolverine also uses red and green abilities, so Storm does not synergize well with him. And her third ability does not work well with Moonstone, who I was getting to like during their “ladies only” weekend PvP event over the holidays.

: Zubon

Black Widow OP

I have been playing Marvel Puzzle Quest: Dark Reign. Black Widow is an unexpectedly amazing support hero to have on your team throughout the early and mid-game. Marvel Puzzle Quest effectively uses health as an energy mechanic. Therefore, healing and damage reduction are really great things to have: they let you win the round and then they let you play more rounds.

Marvel Puzzle Quest rates its heroes by stars, with more stars meaning a rarer, more expensive, and usually better hero (and they have higher level caps). Black Widow is available in one-star (modern costume), two-star (original costume), and three-star (gray suit) versions. You cannot have more than one of the same character on your team.

Modern Black Widow comes with a great stun. Once you fully upgrade it, it stuns one target for 5 turns and the rest of their team for 1 turn. It costs 9 blue, which is three blue matches, so you can potentially keep someone stunned indefinitely if blues keep falling. This is especially great because of the game’s tendency to have asynchronous PvP rounds with one super-buffed NPC on your side. Have the NPC tank and deal damage, pick off the opposing non-buffed characters, then paralyze the enemy for the rest of the fight.

When you advance to two-star play, the new Black Widow has a heal instead of a stun (that also increases timers, mostly a PvE benefit). The heal affects your whole team, and it is rather strong. Marvel Puzzle Quest recently did an event with super-buffed Black Widows, so one heal effectively refilled your entire team. This is especially great because you can pick which of the enemy you are targeting, while which hero is tanking for you is dependent on what colors you match. You can spread the damage around your team and pop the big AE heal just before finishing off the last enemy.

Once you get to three stars, Spider-Man takes both support roles with both a stun and a heal (and a defense buff), while gray suit Widow is a damage dealer. Building a good Spider-Man looks like one of the milestones on your path to the endgame. Damage gives big, sexy numbers, but support wins games and wins the war.

: Zubon

[GW2] Getting Ahead in Guild Wars 2 (Without Really Trying)

My longtime group of gaming buddies includes a bunch of casual GW2 players. Pretty much everyone bought the game, and the lack of subscription fee allows people to hop in and out at a whim. One of them noticed that I had more than 8000 achievement points, which seemed bafflingly high to him, and you can only imagine his reaction to my explanation that people are 5000 points and more ahead of me, like my guildmate who was competing for the achievement point leaderboards and used to consistently do every daily every day.

When I am into a game, I am a bit more hardcore than average, but I am not always in hardcore GW2 mode. Let me lay out how I keep advancement rolling in Guild Wars 2 on less than an hour a day with no serious investment of time, effort, or attention. (If you want to invest one of those three, you can do a lot more.)
Continue reading [GW2] Getting Ahead in Guild Wars 2 (Without Really Trying)

“A Good Fight” Part 2

A good fight brings evenly matched opponents together in an environment where superior skill will prevail. If one side is obviously going to win, no matter what the other side does, it is not a good fight. If randomness prevails, it is not a good fight.

I would not demand that it be a fair fight. Luring your enemy into a situation where they are going to lose is an element of superior skill. Setting up a good ambush takes skill, as does understanding the meta-game to counter-build. It can also be a component of a good environment that one tactic is favored in A while another is favored in B. It is a bad game environment if ambushes always lead to victory or one class has no chance in A but will always win in B.

I think “evenly matched” is the key component to discuss here, and the two major components are quantity and quality. Continue reading “A Good Fight” Part 2

[GW2] Tiers

Is it that you believe it is impossible to have a League that doesn’t consist mostly of a few strong teams overmatching a large number of weaker teams? Is it not feasible for ANet to come up with a draft or seeding system that mitigates against that? I believe they can learn from the mistakes of this last season and give us a much improved version next time. Maybe you think that’s beyond them – if so you may well be right, given the litany of failures in similar circumstances since launch but I prefer to remain optimistic.
— Bhagpuss

Yes. No. Even balanced tiers may be beyond possibility given the current server structure due to the spread in weight classes.
Continue reading [GW2] Tiers

[GW2] “A Good Fight” Part 1

I admit that I don’t have much of a competitive bone, so I need someone else to help me understand the meaning of this elusive term, “good fights.” Exactly what would be defined as one?
—Jeromai

I characterize “a good fight” as one with roughly balanced forces, where “balance” mixes quality and quantity. This applies to the two levels at which WvW takes place.

WvW competition happens at two levels: individual fights and overall score (“PPT,” points per turn). Individual players are rewarded according to individual fights, where you get points for kills and captures. (There are rewards for defending, but the system is weighted towards rewarding offense over defense. More on the virtues of defending below.) Servers are rewarded according to how many objectives they control over time (plus points for stomps). This post addresses the server level (“a good matchup”), and tomorrow we discuss the individual fights (“a good fight”).
Continue reading [GW2] “A Good Fight” Part 1

[GW2] Weekend WvW: Bully on the Block

This week, the dice came down differently, and Isle of Janthir is the top seed in NA Bronze. This still leads to poor WvW, this time with us as the big guy. It is not as horrid a mismatch as Season One intentionally created, but IoJ took an early 20,000 point lead and has the second-highest score in NA. It is not “hold almost every keep on every map” unbalanced, but it is “flee before the larger zerg or die” unbalanced.

I had not seen a WvW queue on IoJ for over a month, so this week we get the bandwagon. This is a major factor in degrading the WvW experience. The winning team grows while the losing team shrinks as fairweather warriors follow the wind. The players in that swollen zerg have less experience, which nullifies the lone benefit we saw in the Season: developing a skilled core who could strategically fight against larger numbers. The average player is shaky on how to deal with opposing siege, and my limited time in WvW this weekend has not brought me into contact with our better commanders. Perhaps the ones who are on now are better militia coordinators and therefore better for the population we have on now, as opposed to precise folks who will not put up with ill-disciplined rabble.

Because the weight classes are closer, I did find good fights. In the Saturday night queue, guild members reported a stirring zerg vs. zerg vs. zerg fight on the order of 40-60 people from each server. Thumbs up! In off-hours fights, I had trouble finding relatively even numbers. We found some enemy zergs, but it was easier to tell we had more people once the bodies started falling. It wasn’t the instant faceroll 80 vs. 20 fights we have been the “20” of recently, but 50 vs. 30 is still a roll unless the 30 are much better. You cannot be just a bit better when zergbusting, because one person killed on your side can rally a half-dozen downed on their side, so it is hard to chip away at that 50.

I expected Crystal Desert to be carrying its matchup away, but they’re only about 10,000 points up as I type this. It is looking like our WvW weight class would be best suited by IoJ, North Shiverpeaks, and Henge of Denravi, but that is an unlikely trio given that tiers are trios. The dividing points round some servers up and others down in a way that is unfortunate given a spread that does not quite work out to trios.

: Zubon

Props to Fort Aspenwood for rocking tier 2.