Goodbye, Dungeon Fighter

A few weeks ago I talked about one of Nexon's games, Dungeon Fighter Online, and how it has received no updates ever since December. This made a lot of players assume that the game was going to be shut down. Well earlier this week, it has been made official that after 3 years, Nexon America's service of DFO will end.

The ramp down of the game's closing begins on April 11, with the closing of the in game cash shop. Full service will discontinue on June 13. Nexon's reason for closing down Dungeon Fighter is because it wasn't generating enough money to keep it alive. It was expected to do exceptionally well because DFO is very popular in Asia. According to Nexon America's CEO, Min Kim, DFO hasn't been doing exceptionally well during its 3 years of service, but it was doing just fine to keep itself alive.

For those who still play DFO, Nexon is currently preparing a compensation package for you ^^. All purchases made within the past 6 months will be compensated according to the item, and there events going on in Nexon's other games that benefit DFO players :D

Maplestory is hosting an event in which former DFO players get special items for leveling up! The rewards are as follows:

Dragon Nest is also hosting some cool events.

From April 17 - 19, DFO players get unique items just for logging in! The items will be announced at a later time. Still not satisfied? Then how about  400% extra experience from April 11 to May 13! This will allow you to reach Dragon Nest's amazing endgame a lot quicker! But what will you do at level 50 when you don't have any equipment to help you fight? well don't worry, the level up rewards box is stocked with some items to help you out.


Rewards:
Lv. 2: The level 2 Box will contain 1 Poochum Pet (30 day duration), 1 Rabbit Ear costume hat (30 day duration, Magic quality), Rabbit Tail (30 day duration, Magic quality) in addition to its normal contents.
Lv. 15: The level 15 Box will contain Lv.16 Rare Weapons, enhanced to +10, in addition to its normal contents.
Lv. 24: The level 24 Box will contain Lv. 24 Minotaur Weapons, enhanced to +7, in addition to its normal contents.
Lv. 32: The level 32 Box will contain Lv. 32 Cerberus Weapons, enhanced to +7, in addition to its normal contents.
Lv. 40: The level 40 Box will contain Lv. 40 Manticore Weapons, enhanced to +10, Gold Cupid Wings (7 day duration) in addition to its normal contents.
Lv. 50: The level 50 Box will contain Lv. 50 Epic +10 Weapons and Armor, Equine Badge (Brownie Joker), Trinket (Red) in addition to its normal contents.

All of Nexon's games have events for DFO players, but since I only play Maplestory, Dragon Nest, and (formerly) DFO, I'll let you guys look them up yourself :P

I stopped playing DFO a few months ago but it was very fun when I did. I felt like a 2D Dragon Nest, which is good because I love Dragon Nest ^-^ It's a real shame that the game is closing because I feel like there's a lot more to add to the game. I have no idea if any other company will host DFO, but since Nexon didn't say anything about it, I'll assume that no one else will host DFO. So now the only way to play DFO is to make an account for one of the Asian versions :(

Before the game closes, I'll be sure to play it again :)

My main class, the Thief/Rogue ^^

Karma's New Skills + Build

So I finally got to play the Karma and I must say, she is soo much fun to play :D

All of her skills work well with each other and she does TONS OF DAMAGE!!! So for this post I'm go over her new kit, what I think of each skill, and what kind of item build I used. Please note that since KArma is still being tested, some of these values could change.

Karma's new passive is Gathering Fire. Whenever Karma hits an enemy CHAMPION with an ability, the cooldown on Mantra is reduced by 1.5 seconds (Half that amount for basic attacks). This passive allows Karma's mantras to be available more often and rewards her for harassing champions. Since this passive reduces the cooldown on her ultimate, the base cooldown on her mantras were increased. Overall, I think this is a really good passive as long as you're able to harass often.

Karma's new Q is Inner Flame. 
Karma fires a blast of energy that explodes upon hitting an enemy, dealing 60/110/160/210/260 (+0.6*AP) magic damage to enemies in the area and slowing them by 25% for 1.5 seconds. 


Mantra Bonus - Soulflare: Deals 25/75/125/175 (+0.3*AP) additional magic damage and leaves a circle of flame at the impact area or upon reaching maximum range, slowing enemies for 50%. After 1.5 seconds the circle erupts, dealing 50/150/250/350(+0.6*AP) magic damage to enemies in the area.
Cost
50/60/70/80/90 Mana
Range
950
Cooldown
7/6/5 Seconds

This is my new favourite skill for Karma. The speed of the skillshot and the size makes it pretty easy to hit. Not only that, but the damage it does is good, especially with it's low cooldown. It's blast radius also makes it good to use for farming. The mantra bonus makes it even better. It essentially turns the skill into a powerful AOE slow. Using this skill often can easily burn through your mana, so be careful :)

Karma's new W is Focused Resolve.

Links Karma to target enemy champion, revealing them and dealing 60/110/160/210/260 (+0.6*AP) magic damage over 2 seconds, rooting them in place for 1/1.3/1.5/1.8/2 seconds if the link is not broken.

Mantra Bonus - Renewal: Spirit Link deals 75/150/225/300 (+0.6*AP) bonus magic damage and heals karma over the duration for 75/150/225/300(+0.6*AP).

Cost

70/80/90/100/110 Mana

Range

0

Cooldown

16/15.5/15/14.5/14 Seconds

Karma's new W is easily better than her old one. Not only does it do damage, but it applies a snare! It's damage is also pretty decent, that is until you mantra it. This skill with a mantra applied to it does crazy amounts of damage as long as you keep it on for the full duration. It also gives Karma some form of sustain. The only problem I see with this skill is that you can't target minions, but if she could then she would never have to leave lane XD.

Karma's E, Inspire, is similar to her old one.

Target ally gains a shield, granting 20/30/40/50/60% movement speed for 1.25 seconds and absorbing 80/120/160/200/240 (+0.5*AP) damage for 4 seconds.

Mantra Bonus - Defiance: The shield overflows with energy, dealing 60/140/220/300(+0.6*AP) magic damage to enemy units around her target. Allied champions around her target gain half that amount as a shield, and are also hasted by 20/30/40/50/60%
Cost
60/70/80/90/100 Mana
Range
800
Cooldown
12/12/12/12/12 Seconds

This skill is pretty much a super-powered version of her old shield. Although the AP ratio was lowered, the shield now gives a speed boost. And it's better than her old speed boost :D The mantra version is also similar but with an extra effect. Not only does it do damage, but allies near the shield gain half of the shield's value as their own, AND they get the speed boost! This makes for some pretty crazy initiates and could also keep your entire team healthy throughout a team fight. Definitely an improvement over her old shield, even though it doesn't do as much damage XD

Now for her ultimate, Mantra.

Karma empowers her next ability within 8 seconds for an additional effect. 

Soulflare: Deals bonus magic damage and leaves behind a circle of flame, heavily slowing enemies and dealing damage after a brief delay. 

Renewal: The link deals bonus magic damage to her target, healing Karma by the same amount while the two are linked. 

Defiance: Allied champions around Karma's target become shielded and gain movement speed; Enemy units around her target are dealt magic damage.

NOTE: Leveling this up, increases the ranks you see under each "mantra" part of each abilitiy. For exmaple the "Mantra Bonus - Soulflare: Deals 25/75/125 (+0.3*AP)" you see on her Q, is increased via leveling this, not her Q

Cost

0/0/0

Range

0

Cooldown

45/45/45 Seconds

This is pretty much the same ultimate but with a few changes. Firstly, because of her new passive, the cooldown of Mantra got raised to 45 seconds! To alleviate this problem, you could buy some CDR or harass. A lot. Another interesting change is that all of the Mantra skill bonuses scale off of Mantra, not the skills themselves. This prevents the bonus effects from getting too strong too quickly. This ultimate is pretty tricky to use, but once you get some CDR, this will become your best friend.

Now that you know more about the skills, here's an idea of what to build.

I start with 2 Faerie Charms and potions, but you can go Boot + pots if you want. I quickly rush the Chalice so I can stay in lane longer and then get the Athene's for the 20% CDR. From there I get my Sorcerer's boots and begin building a Deathcap to get a good chunk of AP. For the third item, I usually get a Morellonomicon because it has all of the stats Karma wants: AP, Mana regen, and CDR. The last three items are up to you. You could get a Zhonya's if you're getting focused (or if you were facing an AD mid), a Void staff for some magic penetration, a Guardian Angel because it's awesome, or even a Warmog's because of how good health is.

For skills I go R > Q > W > E. The Q does a lot of damage when maxed and her W gives a lot of sustain. I get her E last because that's when team fights begin to start.

Well there you have it: The Reworked Karma. I'm gonna continue playing her to see if there's any changes that occur before she's released into the live client. If anything happens then I'll post it. 

Until then, bye ^^

That's right. Her classic skin got reworked.

Karma Rework Now on the PBE!

So 2 weeks ago, I made a post about the Karma rework that was recently announced. Now for those that are looking forward to it I have some great news: The Karma rework is now available on the PBE :D

For those who don't know, the PBE (Public Beta Environment) is a League of Legends server that allows players to test content before it's released on the live client. The purpose of this is so Riot gets feedback on the content and is able to fix any bugs that players may find. Unfortunately, most players use the PBE as a means of playing new content before it's released, so Riot has limited PBE sign-ups to the first few days of each month. So if you didn't sign up yet, you have to wait another week :(

But for those who did sign up, you can now patch your PBE client to test the new Karma ^^

Karma's reworked kit is as follows (Copy-Paste from Scarizard's post)


Passive: Gathering Fire – Hitting enemy champions with Karma’s spells and basic attacks lower Mantra’s cooldown.

R: Mantra – Empowers Karma’s abilities, adding an extra effect to the next ability cast.

Q: Inner Flame – Skillshot that deals magic damage and slows enemies in an area.
Empowered by Mantra: Soulflare – Increases damage and leaves behind a zone that slows and, after a brief delay, explodes for AoE damage.

W: Focused Resolve – Enemy-targeted tether that deals damage over time. If the tether is unbroken after a short duration, the tethered target is rooted in place.
Empowered by Mantra: Renewal – Deals bonus damage and heals Karma for the duration of the tether.

E: Inspire – Shields an ally and grants them a short speed boost.
Empowered by Mantra: Defiance – Enemies near the shielded ally are damaged while nearby allies are shielded and granted a short speed boost.

I'm going to play the rework today and I'll post my thoughts on it later. Right now I'll talk about what I think of her new kit.

I really like how instead of removing the mantra system, they improved it. The mantras are what made Karma unique, and at the same time prevented her from being powerful. The new passive allows Karma to be rewarded more for harassing, instead of her old passive which encouraged her to make risky plays. Her new Q is more aggressive than her old one, which is what Riot was trying to get at. However, this also means Karma no longer has an ability to heal her team.

Her new W is a lot better than her old one. Although she can no longer speed up her teammates, she can now do damage AND apply hard CC (snare/root). Her W also gives her some nice sustain, although I don't know how good the sustain is since I don't know the actual numbers.

Her Q, which was my favourite skill, is still the same, but with one change: it now applies a speed boost when mantra'd. So not only does the shield have a lot of health, deal tons of damage, but it can speed up your entire team, provided that they're positioned properly.

Overall, I really like how Karma is designed as an aggressive support who can do well as an AP mid (Similar to Lux).

That's all for now, but I'll be back later with more info on the Karma Rework.

Touhou - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil

So over the break I have been playing A LOT of games. I also got back into the Touhou series :D Although I have been a fan of Touhou for about 2 years, I haven't played the games in a long time. Now, most of you probably haven't even heard of Touhou so let me explain what it is.

Touhou, or Project Shrine Maiden, is a Japanese doujin series of bullet-hell shooters (Bullet-hell shooter = 2D Shoot 'em up. Sorta like Gradius). The entire series is developed by the one-man developer Team Shangai Alice, whose sole member, ZUN, is responsible for all of the games' music, graphics, and programming. There are currently 13 main games, with the first 5 being developed for the Japanese PC-98 series of computers. The gameplay of the Touhou series focuses on shooting down numerous enemies while dodging seemingly impossible bullet patterns (I'm gonna show you a video of what the game is like at the end of the post). Each game after the 6th usually includes some kind of new scoring system. All of the games also encourage "grazing", which is when a bullet barely misses your characters hitbox. Whenever you graze a bullet, you gain extra points.

You gotta dodge stuff like this :D

That looks impossible right? Well don't worry, your hitbox is very small, so patterns like this aren't as difficult as they seem (although they are still VERY difficult).

Today, I'm going to talk about the 6th game in the series: Touhou - Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. This is the first Touhou game that was developed for Windows PCs. It's also my favourite in the entire series, mainly because of the cast ^^

What I like about this game is how it greatly improved over the previous ones, and how there are no complicated gameplay mechanics. This allows me to focus on dodging bullets instead of trying to remember every little gameplay mechanic.

The game features 2 playable characters, each with 2 different "shot" types. Reimu Hakurei focuses on wide area attacks while Marisa Kirisame focuses on more powerful focused attacks. They also feature different "bomb" types, known as Spellcards (Bombs are what you use to clear an entire screen. Think of a panic button).

I decided to choose Reimu because I always used Marisa when I first started. I also choose her second shot type, Persuasion Needle, because it does tons of damage. I went through the first stage without any problems, although I almost made a few careless mistakes >.< Second stage was okay although I panicked at the boss and wasted a bomb (Curse you Cirno) >.>

The third stage is where I started messing up. I was doing fine until the boss. The problem with this boss is that she has 2 different attacks where she simply fires bullets into random directions. This requires me to do some ninja-dodges because I can't rely on patterns.

The fourth stage wasn't any better. It wasn't random bullets that killed me, but ones that change direction >.<
You have no idea how hard it is to dodge a stream of bullets that CURVE INTO YOUR CURRENT POSITION.

Fifth stage was worse. Now instead of the bullets curving, the boss teleports, freezes time, and changes the direction of the bullets WHILE TIME IS FROZEN. So if I position myself to dodge a stream of bullets, I'll get frozen and the bullets are now coming straight at me.  But I was able to figure out the patters eventually and managed to beat the stage while dieing only once.

The last stage is pretty fun and frustrating at the same time. But instead of ranting about it, here's a video of me doing it.

I forgot to mention that there are 4 difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. This was done on normal. This run was pretty bad to be honest >.<

Well that's all for today. I'll talk more about Touhou some other time. Later ^^

KARMA REWORK

For those who play League of Legends, this post is for you.

Some of you may know, or heard, of a champion named Karma. A majority of the community jokes around and says "What's a Karma?". This is because Karma is seen as the worst champion in the game. Is this true? Absolutely. Does this mean she isn't fun?  Hell no! I've played Karma plenty of times and I must say, she is pretty damn fun to play as. Although she isn't much compared to other champions, she can still contribute a lot to a team if played right.

So why am I talking about Karma? Well, about a year ago, Riot announced that they are well aware of Karma's problems and are going to rework her. But ever since that announcement, we haven't heard a thing from them. However, today we received great news. A recent forum post by Riot confirms that the Karma rework is coming soon! And by soon, I mean a few weeks :D

Before I go into detail on the actual post, I'm gonna talk about what I think of Karma and what keeps her from being good. Just by looking at her kit, you can easily say she's a support. She has an AOE heal, a speed buff/debuff that does damage, and a ridiculously strong shield that does damage. So she seems like an ok support right? Well she would be if it weren't for her ultimate. Karma's ultimate is called Mantra. It's max level is 1 and you automatically have a point in it whenever you start the game. What it does is whenever you activate it, the next spell you use as an added effect.

So what's so bad about it?

Well, not only does it have a pretty long cooldown (30 seconds to get one charge and you can only hold 2 charges), but mantra is what makes her other skills useful.

Her Q, Heavenly Wave, deals damage to enemies in front of her. If you use a mantra with it, then it also heals allies in front of you as well. So her AOE heal that looked so good is held back by a 30 second cooldown.

Her W, Spirit Bond, creates a beam between her and an ally or enemy. If you target an ally, that ally gets a speed boost; if you target an enemy, then they get a slow. In order for it to do damage, enemies have to walk through the beam. Also, the enemy that the beam is attached to takes no damage from it. But it's still a decent speed boost/slow right? Nope. Without a mantra, the slow/boost is 18% at max level. This is equivalent to Gangplank's passive at 2 stacks. With a mantra the effect is double to 36%. This is when the effect is noticeable. Although without the mantra the effect is decent, it still doesn't feel quite strong enough.

Karma's E, Soul Shield, creates a protective shield around her or her allies. If you use a mantra with it, then energy radiates from the shield when you summon it, dealing tons of damage to enemies around the shield. This is probably my favourite Karma skill. Why? Because the AP ratio on this skill makes the shield incredibly hard to break and the damage it does is RIDICULOUS. This skill saves lives and secures kills as long as you put it on the right person.

So after looking at more info on the skills, it may seem like Karma is a pretty weak support since her mantra system holds her back and if you play her as a support, then you won't be getting any gold to abuse her ridiculous AP ratios. So where do you put her?

Mid.

By putting her mid, you'll be able to get enough gold to get tons of AP and wreck teams with her OP shield and painful fans. Her shield and heal also gives her a lot of sustain, allowing her to outlast some AP mids.
Still need more proof that she's a better mid than support? The let's look at her passive.

Her passive is Inner Flame. What it does is you gain AP corresponding to your missing % health. So the less health you have, the more AP you have. Karma about to die? Too bad, she just got a 500 health shield and did the same amount to you. This is NOT a support passive. This is a passive that encourages you to go all in and blow up the enemy team with your shield.

In my honest opinion, Karma's main problem is that it's unclear whether she's a support or an AP mid. Her skill descriptions say support, but her ratios say AP mid. Not only that, but she doesn't excel at either role.

But that all changes now. Riot said that they're going to rework her kit to be more fitting to her lore and her role as an Ionian leader. We still don't have any specifics on the rework yet, but I'll post them when I find them.

Also, along with the skill rework, Karma is getting a visual rework, along with a new skin! So I'll end off this post with a picture of her new skin, Traditional Karma.

Link to post: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3197509

MapleStory - Mark Of Honour and some stuff about DFO

So the Mark of Honour patch was released in Global MapleStory 2 days ago and it's the patch where we get one of the 2 Japanese exclusive classes: Kanna. I still gotta play it but it looks really cool just by looking at it :D Not only does this patch include Kanna, but it also includes new level 150 Root Abyss equips. Since we got Kanna, there's a good chance that the nezt patch will include the 2nd Japanese exclusive class: Hayato.

Ever since I saw these 2 classes released in Japan MapleStory, I always wanted to play them, but I never thought I would be able to because they're supposed to be Japanese Exclusive. Now I have a chance to play them ^^

I'm gonna play Kanna tomorrow after posting about my DN Swordmaster and I'll give my thoughts on it. Until then I'll just skim over the update notes.

Original Link: http://maplestory.nexon.net/news/updates/update-notes/00FmM#rootabysssets

Some quick info on Kanna: She's a mage and used INT, and she also uses a new weapon called Fans. The Fans are classified as 2Handed weapons so have fun scrolling them XD You can also make either a male or female Kanna which is nice and she doesn't run on MP. The patch notes also has her backstory which is cool since it's based on Japanese history.

Here it is:
June 21, 1582
Honnou-ji in Kyoto

Japan
After years of turmoil, Oda Nobunaga finally seized control of Japan, but his desire for power only grew. He sought immortality, and the temple of Honnou-ji would bring it to him. He prepared an ancient ritual of reincarnation that would see him reborn as The Sixth Sky Demon King, but word of the ritual got out, and the feudal lords stormed Honnou-ji to stop Nobunaga while it was still possible. In the end, a young onmyouji named Kanna disrupted the ritual, and the would-be dark lord’s plans crumbled around him.

But victory came at a cost. Just as the ritual was disrupted, a great pillar of light lurched forth from the temple and transported everyone to a strange world. Now, Kanna must conquer this strange place and regain lost strength and allies in order to stop the dark ambitions of Nobunaga's followers.


You can also see all of Kanna's skills but I'll go over those when I start playing her. The level 150 equips are posted as well and their set bonuses. The set consists of only 4 items so it will be relatively easy to get the full bonus (assuming you can kill the bosses of course). The sets consist of a hat, body armor, bottom, and weapon. This means bowmen and mages can finally get a top and bottom, allowing them to get more potential bonuses :D There's no pictures of the sets but I'll post them when I find them ^^

There's nothing else to special other than log-in and level up events. But there's one thing to note: Kanna is a limited time class. You can only create her until April 2. Evan and Aran are also up for creation until the same day.
If you want more in depth info on the patch you can check out the link I posted :)

Now before I go I want to point out a rather annoying thing that Nexon has been doing. Some of you might of heard of Nexon's other game called Dungeon Fighter Online. Now if you have been checking out the Dungeon Fighter site you may have noticed something odd: There hasn't been any new patches, events, and the last post was on the 13th of DECEMBER. There has been no word of any updates. This has given people the idea that DFO is going to be shut down soon. But if you lurk on the forums (like me) you will find out that a Nexon employee (Sageon) is posting. He has been saying that the reason Nexon hasn't been updating DFO is because they never received any updates or update schedules from the DFO developers, Neople. So the reason DFO is being ignored isn't because of Nexon themselves, it's because of Neople (although I'm pretty sure Neople is a subsidiary of Nexon). So unless Nexon explicitly says "DFO is being shut down", then there's no chance of it being closed. That is of course, unless Neople decides they want to stop developing DFO. If that does happen, then DFO will either be handed to another developer, or Nexon will host it as it is for a month or 2 before shutting it down. I don't think DFO is ending anytime soon since there's still 2 Thief subclasses that have to be released. So until that happens, don't expect DFO to go anywhere.

That's enough of me talking for now. To end of this post, here's a picture of The Black Swordsman of SAO, Kirito <3

Dragon Duel Tournament + other stuff

Hello again ^^

So today I went on the Dragon Nest forums and found out something really cool: Nexon is hosting a PVP tournament for North American Dragon Nest. Although there were tournaments before this, this is the very first tournament that is officially hosted by Nexon.

Original post here: http://dragonnest.nexon.net/news/news/00Fmn/dragon-duel-tournament?nxid=62

I'm just gonna go over the key points of the tournament before giving my thoughts on it. The tournament is going to take place sometime in March and only characters level 32 or higher can participate. 64 players from the Argenta, Gerrant, Velskud, and Elena world merge will participate as well as 32 players from the Leviatha server. The sign-up thread will open in the forums on Friday this week.

The prizes for the tournament are some sexy wings :D

1st Place winners - Gold Gackt Wings

2nd Place winners - Green Gackt Wings

Some things to know about the tournament:

• Nexon DOES NOT enforce the PvP blacklist, so we can assume all skills are fair game. Thus, if you are going to participate, expect to run into a lot of Parry-Stancing SMs, Blocking Pallies, and possibly a bunch of turret spamming Tinks.
• The post does not specify whether or not the matches will be equalized or not. If they're not, then good luck :)
• Still unsure on the layout of the matches. Although there's a very good chance of it being a 1v1 tourney, there's still a chance of it being something different.
• Since the post implies numerous 1st place and 2nd place winners, I'm guessing that the Argenta - Elena - Velskud - Gerrant server merge will be one tournament and the Leviatha server will have its own tournament. So if you think you'll get smashed in the merged - server tourney, you can go for the Leviatha one ^^
• Before you ask, no, I will not be participating. Not because I'll get completely destroyed, but because I don't have my level 50 Gladiator >.<

So enough about Dragon Nest for now. Now let's talk about the rest of my week :D

So tomorrow I got 3 tests to write: Biology, Computer Science, and Math. The only test I'm really worried about is Biology only because of how much I hate memorizing -.- The computer Science test won't be too much of a problem because I already printed out all of my codes. Math is gonna be a little tricky. The thing is, I'm good a math, it's just that I make stupid mistakes. A lot. I'll still do good though :)

After school I'm gonna go to Anime club for 2 hours and then go to the Badminton tryouts. I'm like a Badminton Bruce Lee. Yeah. I'm that good (not really  >//<)

Jokes aside, I'm really looking forward to the tryouts only because I haven't played in awhile and I really enjoy playing badminton.

I'll be sure to blog about my Dragon Nest Swordmaster this week and to end off this post, I shall leave you with a picture of Miss Sakuya Izayoi.