Things I Hate About Things I Love

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Tyler F.M. Edwards

I think nuance is important in life. It’s always good to remind yourself nothing is entirely good or bad, to see the flaws even in things you enjoy. Blind devotion is never a positive trait.

To that end, I have compiled a list of things I truly hate about things I truly love. None of these things are enough to turn me off my passions, but that doesn’t mean they don’t really get under my skin.

This is by no means a comprehensive list; it’s just the things that stood out to me as I was writing.

And just so you know, to continue the theme of balance and nuance, I will also be doing a post on things I love about things I hate.

World of Warcraft: Mandatory subscription

There’s no shortage of things I could have picked where WoW is concerned. It’s a game with much that I love, but also much that I would gladly purge with cleansing fire.

I settled on the subscription. I’ve said it all before; I don’t like subscriptions and the psychological pressure they create.

In WoW’s case, I find the subscription is having an increasingly toxic impact on the game’s design. More and more the overriding thought behind Blizzard’s decisions seems to not be “How can we make this more fun?” but “How can we make this take longer?”

Star Trek: Enterprise: Gratuitous T&A

Enterprise’s infamous decon scenes and other acts of shameless fan service have received much criticism, and while I think it’s a bit unfair to act as if this was something new to the Star Trek franchise (mini-skirts — just sayin’), it does deserve to be criticized.

Yeah, it’s sexist. It’s also silly, ridiculous, and unnecessary, and it cheapened what was otherwise a fantastic piece of intellectual science fiction.

I mean, I was going through puberty when Enterprise was on the air, and even so, I still didn’t enjoy the decon scenes.

Much.

Seriously, though, even then I was like, “This is dumb. Why are they doing this? I mean, I like seeing Linda Park in her underpants and all, but really, this is dumb. Get back to the plot.”

At least they made some small effort toward being equal opportunity. Trip did spend an awful lot of time in his underwear and/or sweaty and covered in dirt.

Fun fact: TrekUnited’s “let’s drool over Connor Trinneer” thread was roughly ten to twenty times longer than the equivalent threads for Jolene Blalock and Linda Park combined.

This is not an exaggeration.

Battlestar Galactica: Season four

I have a lot of love for Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica reboot. My autographed photos of Katee Sackhoff and Aaron Douglas sit proudly next to my computer desk. My pilot’s wings pin occupies a place of honour on the headboard above my bed. One of my first major writing projects was a massive BSG fan fic up that ended being nearly novel length. BSG produced three of the best seasons of television ever made.

And then season four happened.

Sigh.

I mean, there was still some really great stuff in season four. I loved the mutiny arc. The acting and character arcs were fantastic until the end. “Revelations” was possibly the best episode of the series.

But most of season four was defined by random drama and shock value for the sake of drama and shock value. It killed off beloved characters for no apparent reason.

Worse still, it became clear that, despite what the opening credits said, they did not have a plan. The writers were clearly making it up as they went along, and in the end, the show “collapsed under its own weight,” as an old friend of mine aptly put it. The ending was a nonsensical mess that boiled down to two hours of “a wizard did it.”

The first three seasons of BSG were so brilliant that season four cannot diminish what they accomplished. But that’s not for lack of effort.

These days I mostly try to pretend season four ever happened. Though not as hard as I try to pretend Blood and Chrome never happened.

Stargate: Universe: Montages

I loved SG:U. After its shaky first few episodes, it evolved into one of the great sci-fi shows of all time. But there’s one nasty habit it never quite shook off.

Those damn musical montages.

Nearly every episode had to conclude with five minutes of the cast staring off into space and looking depressed while some crappy song plays in the background. It never stopped being irritating.

Take that time and come up with some proper opening credits instead. Would be as useful.

Mass Effect: Asari

With a few notable exceptions, I’m not fond of the alien races in the Mass Effect franchise. It feels like very little effort was put into them — they’re almost entirely bland archetypes the likes of which you could find in any generic sci-fi story.

The Asari stand out as the worst, though. They’re basically an entire species of adolescent sexual fantasies — gorgeous, bisexual alien girls. Considering how progressive Bioware tends to be, shameless fan service such as the Asari sticks out like a sore thumb.

I find it ironic that the games try to make it this offensive stereotype that Asari are defined by sex, but the games spend more time stereotyping them than any of the characters. There’s next to nothing unique or noteworthy about the Asari culture or temperament other than their sexuality, nearly all Asari plots revolve sex or relationships in some way, and Asari strippers are utterly ubiquitous.

Admittedly, my view has perhaps been skewed by the fact Liara is the most prominent Asari in the franchise. Her entire personality boils down to, “Gee, Shepard, you’re so awesome; wanna feel my boobs?”

In fairness, Samara is pretty cool.

Heroes of the Storm: Dragon Shire

I was going to mention the amount of filler in Bioware games, but then I remembered how much I hate Dragon Shire, and there wasn’t room for both.

Heroes of the Storm’s map variety is one of its great strengths… unless you get Dragon Shire.

I hate this map so very, very much. It’s just endless back and forth — you can easily go ten to fifteen minutes into a match without either team winning the map objective. It’s so slow, and so tedious. It’s also really easy to get screwed over by your team composition in quick matches because you need a very specific set of heroes and roles to hold all three shrines effectively.

It also seems very snowbally compared to other maps. Winning the dragon is such a massive advantage, and there’s no “consolation prize” for the team who doesn’t capture it. It’s agonizing to spend half a match fighting over the damn thing, only to have the enemy team cap it and wreck half your forts because your team made one mistake.

Oh, and it has the most boring visuals and the dullest announcer of all the maps.

I have my highest win rate on Dragon Shire, but even that does nothing to quell my hate for this awful, terrible, no good map. I have at times (briefly) considered quitting Heroes because of Dragon Shire — I’m not kidding.

Fantasy in general: Lack of diversity

This isn’t necessarily something I hate, but it confuses and disappointments me.

Science fiction has a pretty rich tradition of showing a future where humanity is more united and giving us diverse casts composed of a good balance of sexes, races, and even sexual orientations.

Fantasy, for whatever reason, isn’t like that. The vast majority of fantasy novels are about straight white guys. If an author is feeling really daring and progressive, it might be about a straight white woman.

There are a few exceptions. Ian Irvine and Glen Cook have made at least some effort toward racial diversity in their casts, Mercedes Lackey gives good representation to LGBT characters, and… that’s all I got.

I guess Dragon Age could merit a mention, too. Good balance of sexes and sexual orientations, at least.

StarCraft II: Too much macro

StarCraft II is one of the great RTS games of all time, and the countless hours I’ve sunk into prove my love for it. But it always bothers me how much of the game boils down to macro, to economy.

If you run your economy well, you can all but ignore what happens on the battlefield, at least until you reach the highest levels of play. I remember hearing a guy saying he made it from silver to platinum league by giving up on commanding his army and just devoting all his attention to macro.

That’s pretty messed up.

And it’s just boring. Way too much of every game is spent churning out workers, and pylons, and overlords, and so forth. “YOU MUST CONSTRUCT ADDITIONAL PYLONS” is a meme for a reason, but it’s not necessarily a good reason.

Everything: The fans

“It’s not the band I hate. It’s their fans.”

The sad truth is I have yet to find anything that can’t have the fun sucked out of it by its fans. The worst part of playing WoW is the other WoW players. The worst part of being a Trek fan is the Trekkies. And so on and so forth.

That’s not to say you won’t encounter nice people in fandom. Some of the best friends I have were made through fan communities. But on the whole, I’ve found my every attempt to engage in the fan community for any game, TV series, movie franchise, etcetera has ultimately proven frustrating and lessened my enjoyment of the original product.

Heroes of the Storm: My Builds – Abathur

Posted on April 8, 2016 by Tyler F.M. Edwards

Today, Heroes of the Storm is launching both a 50% bonus XP event and making every single hero in the game temporarily free to play. What better time to post another of my personal builds?

This time, I’ll be looking at everyone’s favourite Zerg, Abathur. Just remember: Sluggin’ ain’t easy.

Abathur is one of the most unusual and challenging characters in Heroes of the Storm. I won’t claim to be an expert, but with much practice, I have at least reached the point where I can play him competently.

Abathur cannot fight directly. His damage and health are all but nonexistent. Instead, he contributes by placing a symbiote into allies to cast abilities through them, by placing toxic nests (landmines) around the map, and by spawning locusts to push lanes. He requires very strong map awareness and decision-making abilities.

A lot of people favour push builds with Abathur, and that’s a strong choice, but it does put you dangerously close to the action, and I find it a bit dull. Instead, I favour a build that boosts his team-fighting capacity, and especially his damage. A build I call…

Assathur:

General thoughts: This build focuses on using symbiote to enhance your fellow heroes.

Abathur has no mana and short cooldowns, so you can use your abilities quite liberally. Stab is your core ability, allowing you to dish out some pretty heavy single-target damage. Spike burst is your AoE, but the cooldown is short enough to use it on single targets if you think it will help. Use carapace to shield allies when they’re under attack.

Your ideal symbiote target is melee with a strong auto-attack and/or enough toughness to survive in the middle of battle. The range on Abathur’s abilities is somewhat short, so melee heroes allow you to make the best use of them, especially in the early game.

That said, it depends on the situation. If a ranged hero needs your help, help them. You need strong awareness of the whole map, and you’ll have to jump around to wherever needed. Map awareness and snap decision-making — this is the core of Abathur.

You won’t often use symbiote on minions with this build, but if there’s nothing else demanding your attention, go ahead. You can still do some decent pushing with this build.

Use your toxic nests while waiting on symbiote’s cooldown. Use them for map vision by placing them in bushes and other important spots or in lanes to soften up enemy minion waves.

The only time you leave your base with this build is when you want to humiliate the enemy team by slapping their core into submission.

Locusts are another thing that aren’t too important to this build, but stay in one of your outer bases to get the most use out of them. Retreat to another fort or the main base if your location is getting pushed too hard or Nova or Zeratul have found you and are out for blood.

Above all, don’t risk yourself unnecessarily. Locusts help push a little, but it’s not worth putting yourself in danger to maximize their use — not with this build. The nice thing about this build is that, with good play and a little luck, you can avoid dying entirely.

1: Pressurized Glands: Increases the range and decreases the cooldown of spike burst.

I used to favour regenerative microbes on this tier for a really long time, and it’s still not a bad choice if your team has no support, but the healing from it is rather weak, and I’ve come to the conclusion the extra range on spike burst is usually more useful.

It helps you clear minion waves more easily, it allows you to get some use out of spike burst even when you’re infesting a ranged hero, and it’s useful in dense team fights. The reduced cooldown is just gravy.

Also note that spike burst is not stopped by walls like stab or any other skillshot would be. On very rare occasions, you can secure otherwise out of reach kills this way.

4: Adrenal overload: Symbiote host gains 25% attack speed.

Ideally you want to use this on a hero with a strong auto-attack. Adrenal overload on an Illidan, Butcher, or Thrall can get really terrifying.

It also works on minions and mercenaries. That doesn’t come up much with this build, but if you have the chance, infesting siege giants can get interesting.

7: Needlespine: Significantly increases the damage and range of stab.

Stab is your bread and butter damage ability and the heart of this build. Its damage is high to begin with, and with needlespine, it gets quite scary.

10: Ultimate Evolution: Clone an allied hero and control it for a short time. The clone has increased damage and movement speed and access to all basic abilities, but not heroic abilities or talents.

One of Abathur’s greatest disadvantages is his lack of presence in team fights. This talent allows you to address that, while opening interesting options for unique synergies from having two of the same hero on your team. It also has a fairly short cooldown, meaning it’s almost always available when you need it.

However, this ability is one of the main reasons Abathur is such a challenging and unusual hero to play. To effectively use this heroic, you need a basic competency with at least a majority of the game’s heroes in order to both know who to clone and how to play them to best potential once you’re cloned.

Raynor is always a good choice. His strong damage and survivability are always welcome, and it allows you to get double use out of his group buff. Double Jaina is also a strong choice because they can both benefit from each other’s chill effects. If you’re pushing a base, double Hammer is downright terrifying.

It can also depend on your own personal skillset. It’s better to clone a slightly less powerful hero that you’re good at than a superior hero you don’t know well.

There is no single right answer about who you should clone. It all depends on who is available, who you’re good at, and what the situation is.

Because dying as a clone doesn’t count as a hero kill or negatively affect Abathur himself, you can afford to take risks and play very aggressively, but don’t waste your clone’s life too recklessly. Best to get as much use out of it as you can. The lower the clone’s timer gets, the more reckless you can be.

You could also take the other heroic, Evolve Monstrosity. You can do some impressive siege damage with it, but it’s still fairly difficult to maximize its effectiveness, requiring lots of baby-sitting and very strong map awareness, and it’s pretty easy for the enemy team to counter if they’re on the ball.

13: Spatial efficiency: Stab gains an additional charge.

Again, stab is the heart of this build. An extra charge of it is most welcome.

16: Adrenaline boost: Carapace significantly increases the movement speed of its target for a short time.

This another of those talents I like because it has both defensive and offensive applications. The extra movement speed can help a low health ally escape, or serve to close gaps with the enemy team.

20: Hivemind: Symbiote affects a second nearby hero, mirroring the abilities used by the first.

This is another complicated talent. Double spike burst and carapace are easy, but double stab takes some careful aiming. Not too hard once you get the hang of it, but it’s a bit unusual and takes some getting used to. The good news is double stab at level twenty hits very hard, and adrenaline boost applies to both carapace targets.

The other tricky thing about this talent is that it steps on your ultimate a bit. Both are aides in team fights. It can be quite difficult to determine whether you want to clone an ally or just stick to symbiote, unless you need the specific specialties or utility of a hero (like Hammer for pushing).

However, despite its complications and difficulties, I still think hivemind is the best option on the tier for this build. The power it offers is too good to pass up.

* * *

As an aside, I finally got enough people to use my recruit a friend link to unlock my vulture mount. My thanks to everyone who helped me out with this.

Of course, now Tracer is coming out with another awesome hoverbike mount.

Sigh… you got me hook, line, and sinker, Blizz.

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Tag Archives: fantasy

Things I Hate About Things I Love

Heroes of the Storm: My Builds – Abathur