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.
It has been announced by the devs that the 1.6 will be available will all the features already today. The official forum post can be found here: forums.vainglorygame.com
New in this update will be:
New Hero Rona
The new melee warrior hero Rona. More here Rona. I’m excited about the new hero. I havent had time to grow tired of Fortress (since I haven’t had time to play / stream a lot lately), and here comes a new cool hero.
The hero will be as with the last 2 heros available with ICE the first week and with Glory or ICE after the first week.
Casual and Ranked game modes
I’m warmly welcoming this new feature. I wanted many times to have the ability to just play some matches without worrying about the Skill tier. On the other hand I wanted to be sure that when I am ready to play in order to improve my skill tier, the rest of my team also has the same goal.
With 1.6 the skill tier system will became more transparent telling you exactly how far you are from next tier or if you are near to fall to the previous tier.
Get cards
The “Get cards” section in the market will now be made available and it is supposed that cards will be purchasable with glory. I believe no one has been able to unlock a tier 2 skin so far mostly because the cards’ drop rate is too low compared to how many are necessary to unlock a skin.
Apart from these changes there will surely be a lot of balance changes on heroes and items too that will be announced on the official downtime 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!
First of all I have to say that it has been some time since I’ve posted. This is mostly because I have been busy with streaming, improving the stream but also the personal life has been getting in the way lately. To make things worse I even got a nasty cold this last weekend.
Killa-Joule 9000
But back to Vainglory. Some new skins have already been announced for the next update. The first one is Killa-Joule 9000 which personally I really love. I have now read the lore for Joule and also for new skin. I love how much time and effort has been invested in making all this so cool.
Here are some “stolen” splash art images with the new Joule skins (kudos to the artists @ vainglorygame.com)
Killa-Joule 9000 Tier 1
I think that the tier 2 skin looks even cooler with the red armored suit and the rockets. The only downside with the second one is the missing cleavage 😉
Killa-Joule 9000 Tier 2
Stormlord Ardan
Now Ardan is like Ringo, one of my mains. As with Shogun Ringo (which I also bought), for some reason I’m not really impressed with the skin. I don’t know, maybe because I like the heroes so much, I am expecting too much. Don’t get me wrong the skins are awesome looking and really cool, but I need a really interesting story behind it that I can relate to when playing using these skins. It kinda feels like both Ardan and Ringo get a bit ruined by their new “personalities”. Yes, I understand that these are parallel universe, “what if…” lores and that they could not ruin the main lore since they are not connected, but the nice, family caring Ardan, is now a Stormlord… I admit I am curios about the lore for this one, but I still need to get used to the idea. On the other hand, this might be a good reason to fight an enemy Ardan.
This can be summed up like: Hated by many, loved by me. Here is why I love this skin:
I’m a fan of metal. Not the biggest fan like I don’t listen to anything else, but I enjoy the music
I like puns and smart word games. Krul is .. dead hence death metal.
The guitar instead of the sword is awesome! Especially when he swings it.
The Tier 2 is even more awesome epic coolness!
Death Metal Krul Tier 2
I can’t wait for this Krul skin.
I haven’t written about ESL and the new wolf hero yet, but I will.
Short about the ESL –> It started way to quickly after the announcement and got me by surprise and since I kinda missed the start, I decided to let it run for some editions and give my opinions about it after that.
I have decided to make a category dedicated entirely to tutorials. I’ll be adding tutorials on streaming, creating youtube content and more.
Elgato game capture HD(60)
I have recently purchased an Elgato capure card that I am using to stream and record Vainglory games from my iPad and iPhone. Before purchasing the card though, knowing that the card will produce some delay in the Video / Audio feed to the computer, I was a bit concerned about the game Audio delay. I would get real time video since I would be watching it on the iPad screen, but the audio would be sent through the lightning to HDMI adapter to the Elgato and later to the PC with a delay of about 0.5 seconds. This would mean that the game experience would decline dramatically and I would rather be streaming using and AirPlay server on my PC. (A video tutorial on this coming later).
This problem is not as major when playing games where the audio delay is not a problem. But in Vainglory it was really annoying to always hear things after they happen. (Pings, Ultis, Turret attack warning, etc.)
I then realized that when using the Lightning to HDMI adapter, the iOS devices can send the audio out on the analog headphones jack which is not possible while using AirPlay.
Short about Streaming with Elgato
In order to stream or record gameplay (or anything) from an iOS device (iPhone or iPad) using a capture card like the Elgato game capture HD60 you will need an Apple Lightning to HDMI adapter.
Lightning to HDMI adapter
Through this adapter the sound and image from your iPad will be mirrored out on the HDMI port. The small connector by the HDMI is another Lightning connector in case you would want to charge the device while using the main Lightning connector for video out.
The basic setup would be an HDMI cable between an iPad or iPhone (with the above mentioned adapter) and the Elgato and then having the Elgato connected to a PC or Mac using the provided USB cable. But this setup will have some short-comings.
Elgato game capture HD(60) sound delay
I have recently purchased an Elgato capure card that I am using to stream and record Vainglory games from my iPad and iPhone. Before purchasing the card though, knowing that the card will produce some delay in the Video / Audio feed to the computer, I was a bit concerned about the game Audio delay. I would get real time video since I would be watching it on the iPad screen, but the audio would be sent through the lightning to HDMI adapter to the Elgato and later to the PC with a delay of about 0.5 seconds. This would mean that the game experience would decline dramatically and I would rather be streaming using and AirPlay server on my PC. (A video tutorial on this coming later).
This problem is not as major when playing games where the audio delay is not a problem. But in Vainglory it was really annoying to always hear things after they happen. (Pings, Ultis, Turret attack warning, etc.)
I then realized that when using the Lightning to HDMI adapter, the iOS devices can send the audio out on the analog headphones jack which is not possible while using AirPlay.
The solution for real-time sound
The sound delay problem is solved by using the analog audio in on the Elagto for the game sound. Here is a schematic of how to connect your iPad or iPhone with the Elgato and your headphones:
Elgato game capture HD60 real time sound solution – connection schema (click to enlarge)
By using an audio splitter cable you will be able to send the sound to the Elgato and thus to your stream or recording, but also to your headphones.
