Overpowered Builds (at the Moment)

Those builds.  Those overpowered builds.  I would like to point attention to a couple of builds which I (and certainly others) have labeled as OPed.

Firstly- Support Blood Mage.

@_RaynieDays_ (just someone I know on Twitter) tweeted "Too many people use support BM now...fuck I HAD a unique build :'( ".

Personally, I don't know about this.  I haven't encountered these people too often to make it a big problem.  However, I imagine Intimidate (which is a very powerful skill right now, as we are talking about Support here) could be used in the classic fashion.  Energy Shield and Reflex Boost would get a big buff, but this is all in theory.  Remember, I haven't fought too many of them to remember.
Still- theoretically dangerous.

How to Counter: I don't know.  Energy drain seems to be a start, though.

Next, Support Tactical Mercenary.

I don't need anyone's tweet this time around.  I know this from experience. 
These TLMs are like your normal Support Mercenary, except that they have Reroute, which is nasty given that less def/res of theirs equals more damage of yours which equals more energy to them.  I imagine that they could have a high Field Medic to capitalize on that. You never saw that.
In the worst cases, they have Max Poison Grenade for a follow-up attack.  Ugh.  (Oh, don't get any ideas from this section.  Please.)

How to Counter: Use your Yeti to chomp their auxiliary (be sure to strategically use it).  Paired with the core Azrael's Will (which by the way is overpowered too and will likely be nerfed), one's rage can be effectively wasted.

Next, Strength Tactical Mercenary.

Well, this build wasn't triggered by anything.  I was actually waiting for it to spring up. 
I realized the potency of this build during the Infernal War.  Back then, I had my Level 34 TLM and I was thinking of smart builds to counter the Delta Vault (and the Mechachillids).  I stumbled on the fact that Double Strike had a one turn cooldown. 
Bam, instant abuse.  Pair this with Reroute and Field Medic.  Terrific.  There are other ways to make this build even more OPed, but I won't say.  Heck, I'm trying to help out balance here.

How to Counter: Let's hope they put a lot of points into Strength, so their defense and resistance are open.  Good luck!

Next, Support Mercenary.

The classic build from the days of Beta has come back.
This person uses a lot of support (no duh), Artillery Strike (no duh), and an auxiliary (no duh).  It's really simple, but it is effective (teams of them are the worst).  In the worst cases, they have Assimilation, too, to help along with that rage bar.
It's a little ironic, how the changes to Hybrid Armor (now requires support) have actually helped these guys.

How to Counter: Yeti, Energy Drain.  Azrael's Will if you have it.  A lot of luck.

Next, Strength Mercenary.

I consider this type of person to be easier than their strength class counterpart.  A well-placed Energy drain can do wonders.  Just remember to be on the offensive so they can be taken out quicker.
The changes to Hybrid Armor have hurt these guys.  Do you really expect them to have points in Support?

How to Counter: Energy Drain.  And always be on the offensive.


Basically, guys, mercenaries are as dangerous as f*ck right now. 
~ReconnaisX
PS: I should do a post on the Azrael weapons (promo), as they are worthy of one. 

Infinity Blade: Thoughts

There are two iOS games that I know of that have the feature of combat- Aurum Blade and Infinity Blade.  I believe Aurum Blade's big selling point, its "big thing", its "thing worth getting it for" is its storyline.  With Infinity Blade, that's combat, and in my opinion, graphics.
Where to begin on this one?  Hmmm.  I suppose I shall start with the combat.  After all, combat seems to be Infinity Blade's "big thing".

As I said already, I have played only two games with direct combat.  I'll tell you this- Aurum Blade was really more "tap fiercely" than anything else when it came to fights.  Infinity Blade is definitely more realistic.
The controls are simple.  Swipe to slash.  Swipe correctly to parry.  Hold the shield icon to block.  Use the arrows at both sides of the screen to dodge.  With a few exceptions, the word here (at least for me) is 'realistic'.  It reminds me of an FPS in a way- how, I'm not sure.
Of course, this combat system means that it is possible to repeatedly swipe in one direction over and over again in a battle.  Will the rageswipes pay off in damage?

Now for the graphics.  First, let me clear something up (even though this should be obvious already): Infinity Blade is in 3D.  None of that pancake-flat 2D crap.
Apparently, the game owes its graphics to its Unreal Engine 3.  Don't ask me what that is.  I don't know.
In my opinion, this is comparable to Final Fantasy in this aspect (the good FFs).  The graphics are sharp and make everything easier to imagine for me.  Or maybe it's just the castle-like setting that captivates me.  That is a pretty epic place to set a game in.

Oh, and this is not a review.  It's just what I think of it (in case if that was not obvious enough).  Basically, in a nutshell, this game is great and you better get it if you have an iOS device.  There, I even put it in bold.

I believe Infinity Blade's regular selling price is $6.99.  For now, though, it's completely free, and it's definitely worth getting.  Just get it.  Your iWhatever will thank you (at least I think it should).

Get it!  Seriously!  Get it!

~ReconnaisX
PS: I might do some posts on the storyline, weapons, etc...

EpicDuel Omega- Cores

The concept of cores could probably be considered a new feature in Omega.  Instead, really, it's just the concept of weapon specials wrapped inside new packaging.
Remember EpicDuel Pre-Omega?  So some weapons had special effects- let's take the Azrael's Bane.  It had the Mark of Azrael, which meant that each hit with that sword had a 5% higher chance to achieve a critical hit.  The concept of cores is that you can take that weapon special and slap it on your other (in this case, primary) weapons.  Oh, and armors can have cores, too.  Cores basically are that little trick up your sleeve (that you paid 7k Credits/495 Varium for).
So, how to put a core on your weapon?  Well, select the weapon first.

Underneath the stat points and damage, you can see two apparently empty dotted boxes.  One has a lightning bolt icon and the other, a skull icon.  The lightning box represents passive cores and the skull box represents active cores.  Passive cores are always effective during battle; they're like passive skills (hello Blood Lust).  Active cores, on the other hand, can be used once and only once per battle.  You can do that clicky trick with them.
Anyhow, click an empty box:

A list of cores that you can put in that slot will appear.  Take your pick, pay, and you're done.  Wasn't that easy?
~ReconnaisX
PS: I don't know how to remove cores.

EpicDuel Omega- The Character Profile

I thought that the profile would be a good place to start.  After all, a lot of people see theirs and others' often.
Here's a picture of my current profile:

Well, the name itself is more aligned to the left now.  It's separated by a bar that continues on and on, for the rest of the profile space.

In all of the damage fields, it does not list Energy Damage or Physical Damage now, just Energy and Physical.  I don't see this having too much mass effect, really, just a simplification.

Robot damage has been split more cleanly: Technology Bonus (and damage range) + the base damage of the robot you are equipping (now one single base number) + your focus.

Agility has been removed.  This might be worth talking about in another post.  But notice how my health is <95 (as mostly everyone's is), and I have no +1/+1 bonus.

The 'Character Page' button has been removed and replaced with a simple 'Webpage' button.  (Note: Nothing has happened to the character page itself.)

The 'Cancel' button, for when you are done viewing a profile, used to be where the Webpage/Achievements buttons are.  It has been replaced by an 'X' at the top right corner.  This is very hard to get used to for me  (It's hard to switch when you have been playing two years with the same thing).

The silver Battle Token symbol is gone from the main screen and now rests here in the form of a button called 'Achievements'.  I keep on accidentally viewing someone's achievements when I'm done with their profile (see above).

Not much changed, here, in my opinion.  The more drastic changes lie elsewhere.

~ReconnaisX

Pre-Omega Madness and about the Enhancer Cheevos

Well, a lot is going to change.  That's for sure.

I won't elaborate now, just talk a bit about Oz W7 today and the Enhancer cheevos.  First, W7:

Yeah, so it was a bit laggy.  Actually, really laggy.  There were two types of people here:
1) "Take off your bikes!" (Unequipping bikes helps stop lag)
2) "OMG!!!111eleven"

A few mods were here, too.  Charfade was "hiding", and Eventus and Goony (and his copycats) were here, too.  I remember one guy who yelled "Nightwraith's at the Minetower World 5!".  That probably was to help shoo away people.  (A little later on: "Biodome World 7!")

Now, about the Enhancer cheevos.

It turns out that Delta was not the big enhancement-fest I thought it was.  For example, on my BM (ReconnaisX) I had only enhanced a couple of weapons to the max.  I ended up with Legendary Enhancer (top 12.5% of all enhancers) on that character.  It's a shame that ReconnaisX is disabled.
I read on the forums about this guy who spent ~200k on Enhancements.  So I wasn't too surprised that he got Ultimate Enhancer (top 1%).
Merc1225 got Prestigious Enhancer (top 50%), and Bountyhunter1225 just got Epic Enhancer (basically top 100%, if you understand what I mean).

At least all that enhancing of the Dark Ages is over.  Rejoice!
~ReconnaisX

PS: I will be blogging some more after the actual release of Omega (which should be in a few hours).

Minecraft Pocket Edition 0.6.0!

This update is pretty full of stuff, so I'll just start now.  Forget any introductions.  If you're reading this, you probably know what Minecraft is.

I'll quote the change log right now so I can give my two cents on everything:

New features:

• Signs
• Armor
• Baby animals
• Fancy clouds
• Improved D-pad
• Stonecutter for crafting stone blocks
• Sheep can be colored with dyes
• New block types: Netherrack, Nether Brick, Block of Quartz with 2 variants (pillar and chiseled), mossy/cracked Smooth Stone Brick variants (creative only), chiseled/smooth Sandstone variants
• New stairs: Nether Brick, Sandstone, Smooth Stone Brick, Quartz
• New slabs: Sandstone
• New item: Nether Brick (smelted from netherrack and crafted into nether brick tile)
• Upside-down stairs, corner stairs
• Slabs can be placed in up position (needs testing on small screens)
• Sand and Gravel are affected by gravity

Tweaks:

• Recipes for crafting slabs give 6 slabs instead of 3 (as in PC version)
• Nether Reactor spawns Netherrack blocks instead of Obsidian
• The fog and sky color have changed
• The Nether Reactor now spawns more items
• Cows drop Leather

Bug fixes:
Melons had several bugs where they would spawn too fast and where they shouldn’t
Okay.  The first thing I'll talk about is Signs.  I actually have a complaint about Signs right now.  They seem to be screwed up.  When you try to type what the sign will say, Minecraft will crash.  That's weird.  (I'm running the latest version of Android.)  So basically, don't use signs just yet.

Armor is much needed by me.  If you have ever seen me fight a Skeleton before, you know that I am not a good fighter.  Armor is crucial, and now it is here.  I can now fight Skeletons in full iron in MCPE.  Yesss.

I've been trying to make two sheep mate, and so far, there is nothing.  Hmm.  I'm doubtful about the whole 'baby animal' thing right now.

Fancy clouds?  I really don't care.  I don't play with clouds, anyway, even on the PC.

The D-pad does seem to be better.  Now, when you move forward, two additional smaller buttons pop up.  With those, it is possible to walk diagonally.  It's great.

So there's a new Stonecutter block.  It joins the list of blocks not in the computer version of Minecraft (Nether Reactor, Cyan Flower/Rose).  It has replaced the Crafting Table as the go-to for making Stone-related blocks.  Mimicking the Crafting Table too, it requires four cobblestone (I bet in a 2x2 as well) to make.  It seems a bit useless, though.  Why couldn't we just stick with the Crafting Table?

New blocks?  That's nice, I guess.  In MCPE, I've never really cared about how my house looked.  But I do notice that Quartz is among the new blocks.  Beating the official 1.5 Minecraft release to it?  Wow.

I don't really care for upside-down stairs, but with corner stairs, I can make some things look better (forget what I said five seconds ago).

Sheep can be colored with dyes?  Yes!  Finally!  I shall have a red sheep before the day is over!  A reason to smelt red mushrooms has come!

Apparently, gravity is now a force in MCPE.  I actually beg to differ (at least for some part).  Let's say you dug a big underground room in 0.5.0.  The top was lined with gravel that you dug into.  If you accessed that world on 0.6.0, the gravel would stay there.  However, I did find a way to "trigger" gravity in "0.5.0" areas.  Simply break a gravel block, and all the blocks on that layer will suddenly remember to fall down.  The same thing happens if you put a gravel block next to the gravity-defying ones.

Apart from all that, I don't really care about the Tweaks.  Honestly, I think the most important thing in this release was the armor.

~ReconnnaisX
PS: Dear Mojang, please fix the signs.   

For all of my Youtube viewers out there.

Here are some of my more recent videos:

EpicDuel- Switch to Cyber Hunter

Minecraft- Daylight Sensors

EpicDuel- 2vs2 Battles

Minecraft- Island of Doom- Part Seven

For those of you who subscribe to me just for my RuneScape videos, I'm currently not making RS videos right now.  It really all depends on what game I'm playing.  (Although I do have an old hour long clip of some Clan Wars battles.)  What game I play really just depends on whether or not the other games are getting boring.

I have an idea about recording Quell and Quell Reflect videos.

~ReconnaisX

PS: Today, one year ago, this blog was created.  138 posts later, I still suck at fighting skeletons.