I know the Taka skin is the one many players are waiting for so I’m going to dedicate a post to it.
The skin hasn’t really been revealed, we only got a glimpse of the concept art (not final splash art) at the end of the 1.6 update stream.
On the stream (click to open the VoD), Zekent only revealed the concept art in segments, not showing the full Taka at once, so I had to take several screenshots and puzzle them together and voilá the full size concept art for the new Taka skin:
Taka skin concept art
Now a bit about what Chainsaw, the art director at SEMC, said about Taka and the new skin. Taka was, according to Chainsaw, a community hero. He has been created because the community has been asking for a ninja so badly and so the idea of a half fox ninja came to mind and Taka was born.
The idea behind this new white Taka skin is to make him a good ninja, with his white outfit and the switch blade katanas.
The fox cub backpack adds a bit of cuteness to the new Taka compared to the original cocky Taka in my opinion.
I’m not the Taka player myself, but I have played him a bit lately on my smurf account (yaaayy! now I can try him in Casual mode) and at first I was just a big noob with him, but after a while I started to get better and enjoy him. I’m not sure if I’ll be any good in Hotness tier, but with a good Fortress alongside, I might do well. I’m definitely curios about how he will look like in game.
Enjoy and see you on facebook and forums and after the vacation on the stream.
This post has been updated in real time as the Vainglory official stream was revealing the news in 1.5
Note! Some things may be wrong or misinterpreted as I was writing while watching the stream.
Wolf hero – Fortress
Fortress gameplay
Perk – Runs faster when near allies.
Truth of the Tooth – Mark the target. Attacks became short-range lunge. Team mates can run towards the target.
Fortress’ Truth of the Tooth (click to enlarge)
Law of the Claw – Damages with crystal power and makes the enemy bleed. Bleeding heroes will take extra crystal damage over time and will give life steal to the attacker. It is also possible to apply stacks of bleeding with basic attacks from any allied hero, minions, wolfs from the pack or Fortress. After 5 number of stacks the target will get extra damage, will be slowed and will be inflicted with a mortal wound meaning that the target will get less healing and less hp barrier.
Fortress’ Law of the Claw (click to enlarge)
Attack of the Pack – Fortress gets extra health and attack speed and also summons pack wolfs that will chase and attack the enemy heroes. Each wolf will chase a different hero, even though they are not visible and apply bleeding upon attacking. The wolfs will die after 3 hits, regardless the damage.
The pack wolf will track Taka but will not be able to attack Taka until he becomes visible.
Fortress’ Attack of the Pack (click to enlarge)
Bots
Bots are added in 1.5. The bots are very basic and don’t have a high AI and are meant mainly for really new players, the ones that have never played a moba before.
Also the new players will have to level up before playing in solo q.
Minion mines changes
The minion mines can now genuinely be used to push the turrets. Minions buffed by minion mines now deal way increased damage to Turrets and Turrets alone, no change to damage to other minions or heroes. The buffed minions will still be worth more gold.
The minions are upgraded instantly when the minion mines are taken and not over time like before.
Hero balances
Skaarf
Removed piercing and reduced damage of Skaarf’s perk Fan the flames. It now has crystal ratio instead.
Spitfire got nerfed and is more of a skill shot and riskier.
Goup got buffed with increased crystal ratio.
Ulti got nerfed a bit with reduce damage
As Captain Neato said: “The goal wasn’t to make tank Skaarf not viable, the goal was to make sure tank Skaarf wasn’t the carry.”
Vox
Crystal ratio for the bounce reduced.
The bounce distance decreased.
Resonance doesn’t bounce off Kraken.
Attack speed increased.
Joule
Reduced piercing of Thunder strike
Cool down will be reduced with levels
SAW
Crystal rate increased for Roadie Run
Ulti will be considered a basic attack so it will be able to crit.
The crystal rates have increased for the Mad Cannon
Celeste
Does less damage to minions.
Koska
Base armor reduce. Too tanky in early game.
Item changes
Brokenmyth – No more shield piercing but amplifies the crystal power.
Scout traps – Timer changed from 1.2 to 1.3 seconds
Boots –Tier 1 less movement speed
Tier 2 increased movement speed and health
2 new items
Minion’s foot – will start the crits build instead of the Swift Shooter
Contraption – Combination of flares and scout traps. Gives you cool down acceleration and charges over time with flares / scout traps.
Warhorn changed – It builds from Oak and Dragon heart instead of the Hourglass and Chronograph. The utility has also changed but it is not revealed yet.
Ironguard Contract – grants 50% gold bonus for the jungle minions instead of the 30% now. It still grants 30% bonus for the lane minions.
Skins and Cards
Tier 2 skins and Epic cards are out.
Shogun Ringo Skin Tier 2
The Tier 2 Shogun Ringo and Kandi Twirl Koshka have been revealed in game.
A new Skaarf skin has been announced (leaked) but it will not make it into the 1.5 update.
Infinity Skaarf skin reveal
Bug fixes
Crit on SAW
Fan the flames. Extra tick of damage removed.
Spitfire was applying 2 stacks cosmetically. Removed.
Gold times fixed.
New app for iPhone
Last but not least. The iPhone users will be downloading a new app instead of updating the old one. This is because before there were different apps for the iPhone and the iPad. There is only one app to rule them all now. So the old iPhone app should be deleted and a new app will be installed.
A new setting for iOS. You can turn it on to hide the non activable items anymore and instead make the other item icons bigger.
I’m going to go and give the new update a test run!
While watching the update Vainglory stream I’ve picked up some of the things that were updated and that were missed on the official patch notes posted below.
Vainglory is now available on iPhone 5 and iPhone 5c
On iOS the game will adapt the resolution to the device’s performance in order to reduce lags and frame drops. This can be turned off in settings (at the moment it seems that there are no setting in the settings menu. Not even the old ones for language, screen zoom, volume and so on)
For me this is a huge improvement and I believe this will make the game so much better especially for those who are playing on a bit older devices. I play and stream with my iPad 4 and this will hopefully be a huge improvement on the quality of the game.
Balance changes and bug fixes
Vox will not proc twice for Tension Bow and Aftershock any more while using Sonic Zoom
Vox’s ulti, Wait for it, is now slower so dodgeable. And does less crystal damage
Aftershock has been nerfed a bit.. I didn’t really got in which way.
Reflex block is now not spammable any more. It will take more skill to use effectively.
Eve of harvest has been nerfed a bit. A bit more Crystal power added but the life steal has been reduced 25%-20%.
Flares are working differently. They are not global any more. Now the flares will have to be placed on the map and will reveal a small bit of the area.
Joule has been buffed and is now hopefully going to be more present in the game. The hero portrait in hero selection screen has been changed and I personally like it more.
Skaarf has also been buffed a bit. He’s Spitfire will now not hit lane minions, but will go through them damaging them.
Krul has been indirectly nerfed by changing how the weapon ratio works now.
Frostburn has been buffed a bit by increasing the Crystal Power.
It is now possible to see the skill tiers of your friends before inviting them to a party and also in private chat. The information will show the skill tier number, the name and the color (Brown for Bronze, White/Light grey for Silver and Yellow/Golden for Gold). This will be very helpful when doing private matches and trying to make the teams even especially on the stream when playing with viewers. Also it will allow you to party with people with similar skill tier when going for pubs with people you might not know that well.
Tier 2 skins revealed for Petal, Ringo and SAW, Adagio and Glaive.
Feel free to check out the official patch notes and discover for yourself in the game all the other changes from the huge update!
Enjoy the game!
The official 1.4.0 patch notes
From the App store:
Hero Skins System Unveiled!
– Every hero skin theme contains three tiers. Each tier has different art and a different in-game model!
– Unlock Tier 1 hero skins using ICE in the Market or by “weaving” cards into skins.
– Cards of varying rarity will sometimes be awarded in post-match Spoils of War.
– Collect cards and trade them in for skins when you meet the requirements!
– Tier 2 & 3 skins and their required cards will be included in a future update.
– Tier 2 & 3 skins must be earned (cannot be unlocked directly with ICE).
The next Vainglory update is due today (5th of May 2015). Let’s see what the devs have announce for this coming release.
Skin system
According to the announcements there will not be any hero released with this update but instead the long waited skin system will be made available.
There have been a lot of hero skins reveals lately and I believe all of the look awesome. There are some earlier posts about most of the skins.
There hasn’t been any reveals about how the skin system will work and/or how the skins will be purchased so I’m really looking forward to seeing how I can get those lovely looking skins.
I’m going to do a long Friday night Vainglory stream. I’ll play some pubs and later I’m planning on spectating and commenting some follower matches. Join me at twitch.tv/ahotiKLive.
