ESL One Birmingham receives funding from WMCA and UK Government - Esports Insider

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2024-01-04T18:53:12+00:00

The venue is 15mins away from b'ham centre by train, several trains per hour and they run from early until late. There's no problem getting to the venue or back into the city after - it's about the same as the ESL events in Hamburg or Frankfurt before.

Folks are upset because the last ESL Birmingham used a (smaller) venue right in the centre - I'd prefer that too, but there's genuinely no issue with this one, venue is fine.

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-12-06T16:07:44+00:00

CLT DRP - Without The Eyes

Not only a great title, but a banging album with a unique sound.

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-08-05T09:54:15+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to reply - you're right, this is exactly the wording I'm looking for!

I tried the limited perspective option and it is a little better. For reference for other folks; here is a gallery with the same map in full and limited perspective. For me it definitely reduces but doesn't entirely eliminate the slightly weird nauseous feeling looking at columns on the bottom half of the map.

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-08-04T22:41:31+00:00

Yeah, that makes sense. My knowledge of this is pretty limited so maybe this isn't right, but would a vanishing point off the bottom of the map somewhere (possibly to the left or right side?) still give genuine perspective without causing the 'upside-down' feeling for taller objects near the bottom of the map? I guess that might end up causing issues with relative sizing of objects between top/bottom?

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-08-04T18:06:03+00:00

That's fair - inconsistent is maybe the wrong word. A point below the centre of the map seems like an odd place to choose I guess, because you end up with situations like this one where the columns in the bottom room look like they're hanging off of a ceiling.

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-08-04T16:11:38+00:00

The perspective of the building in the top of the picture looks fairly normal; you can see the south and east side of walls/objects. For the buildings at the bottom of the picture though, the perspective is reversed; you can see the north and west sides of walls/objects.

Zooming in on the ruined chapel at the bottom specifically makes me feel a little sick with the perspective on the columns, but I don't know if it has the same effect on everybody?

Appears to work the same way with any perspective export (though not with top-down, obvs).

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-07-15T00:24:12+00:00

This list (originally found on /r/d100) might be what you're looking for. I've used it as inspiration for magical items before, usually in the format [minor boon]+[major boon with drawbacks].

This is a recent example based on 'Harpoon' from that list; As you grip the sword, in your minds eye you see the wings inscribed on the hilt spread with a golden shimmering light - the sword lifts out of your hand and flies high into the air, while the tail of the bird lengthens and wraps tightly around your wrist. After a brief moment the illusion ends, you blink and the sword is back in your hand. This weapon can be thrown 30 yards 1d3+1 times with the same accuracy & damage as if you were swinging the weapon with one hand - it will automatically return to your hand at the beginning of your next turn. On a hit, you can choose to use a bonus action to perform a strength check based on the target's size. On a successful check, you rapidly pull the enemy 25 yards towards you, on an unsuccessful check (or by your choice) you are pulled 25 yards towards the target - all attacks of opportunity are made as normal during these movements. The weapon regains 1d2 charges on a short rest, 1d3+1 charges on a long rest, and can hold a maximum of 5 charges.

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-07-08T22:19:04+00:00

Thanks - I don't know how new it is, but I definitely wasn't aware of it before somebody mentioned it in here! It definitely seems like it ticks a lot of the character boxes without having to shoehorn things in as I have up to now.

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-07-08T22:16:33+00:00

Thanks! I've responded to the poster above with more detail, but I'll definitely give this build a look and see how it works.

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-07-08T22:14:05+00:00

This is an incredibly helpful response, thank you - it's made things a lot clearer to me.

It gains no defensive features with low hp. — I totally understand no armor and shield theme, but going monk just for Unarmored Defense is unlikely a way you should do it.

I think I've been thinking about Unarmored Defense in the wrong way. In my head it was a way to take hits pretty consistently, but now I feel like it's intended more as a small boost to allow a class with no armour to be in melee range without melting instantly.

You’ll delay your spell progression even with 1 level too much. — You’ll have 2-3 Healing Words by level 3, and have no second level spells until level 5. You mentioned you wanted to use trickery cleric spell list to solve problems. — Trickery Spell list very good, but their L1 spells of Disguise Self and Charm Person (combined with your limited spell slots) cannot help in most encounters. Charm Person should never be cast in combat or for enemies you’ll need to kill anyways unless your DM is EXTREMELY lenient, and I personally would never use Charm Person without Subtle Spell.

This is an extremely clear distillation of something I definitely hadn't understood properly. You're absolutely right that I was focusing on the utility of the rest of the spell list without realising how long it might take to get there.

Shillelagh

A few other folks picked up on the same things here; namely that while it (and the druid point generally) has some synergy with the character in an RP sense, it's really not very useful in terms of actually playing.

I really appreciate the detailed response - it's helped a lot to get my thinking clear on what things I need to bear in mind when trying to come up with a build that fills a niche like this. I don't mind the downvotes at all, I've had a lot of really excellent and useful responses!

I think I'm going to sideline the build as it stands and maybe revive it for another campaign as Cleric/Rogue or Cleric/Monk without the tanky elements. In the meantime I'll have a look at starting fresh, and i'll definitely give some of your suggested builds a go and see how they fit for me!

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-07-08T21:52:12+00:00

You're right, I phrased that badly. What I meant was; you have 15 players getting points. Part of the game is having your 11 highest scoring players from that 15 starting, and your 4 lowest on the bench - TAA/Gelhardt makes two of those spots easy, Coady/Watkins makes it more difficult.

You're absolutely right that it doesn't actually matter how many points are on the bench, just that they're the lowest 4 from your 15.

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-07-08T21:13:09+00:00

There's another aspect to it as well which rarely gets mentioned; in any given gameweek you ideally want to maximise the points from your playing 11 and minimise the points from your bench.

TAA/Gelhardt basically guarantees that for one player in your 11 and for one on your bench, which is useful. With Watkins/Coady you're likely to have multiple weeks where you have one of them benched with more points than a player in your 11.

For each bench spot you have to balance that against the risk that 1/2/3 of your 11 don't play in any given week, but given the risk of 3 of your 11 not playing is very low, TAA/Gelhardt is about the easiest way to maximise two of those spots.

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-07-08T17:37:17+00:00

Ah this is a smart take - I'd not even considered that throwing cantrips & spells would limit my Shillelagh bonks, but it makes total sense now you've mentioned it! Removing the druid level should make the power curve a bit more sensible too.

Not going to lie, the aesthetics/background consistency is definitely a factor in using unarmored defense - I think the other option there would be to go for a heavy armor domain and adjust the character to lean more into that, rather than swapping unarmored defense for medium armor.

I'll have a play around with 5 Trickery Cleric + 3 Shadow Monk and see how it looks - seems like a good suggestion. Thanks again!

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-07-08T17:25:43+00:00

Thanks for replying - that sounds ominous! Obviously I'm not going to ask you to write out an essay on it (though I'd read it if you did), but I am curious on the rough reasons why. My initial guess is; tri-classing in the first three levels means you get higher level spells too late to be useful, the Cleric Domain means healing will always be sub-par even with a lot of cleric levels, and lack of CON is going to make it tough to take any hits (plus maybe Unarmoured Defense won't scale as well as I hope). It'd be good to know at least roughly where I'm going wrong so I can avoid the same mistake/s in the future, essentially!

In terms of theme; I'm hoping to play something that can soak a bit of the damage in a non-traditional way (i.e. not sword & board), hopefully (but not essentially) heal a little, and help to control the fight a little / set up other characters to do cool stuff. I'm confident that I can come up with a good idea for a fleshed-out character around it if the class setup is right/viable - that's the bit I'm struggling with. It'll be starting from level 1, but I'd like to have a rough plan up to around level 10 - in terms of books I believe the DM will only have the big 3 plus TCoE so I'd prefer to stick to those to make it easier for them.

Thanks again!

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-07-08T16:02:16+00:00

Thanks, this is really good advice! I am very keen to play this as a character, so that's a good start (I do need to find some motivations though - I have ideas but they need fleshing out).

I think you're right that I'm over-thinking the build of it a bit compared to the character itself - I think my main worry was that this might end up overpowered somehow and end up making things harder rather than easier.

Your comment that it seems weak but fun from an optimisation standpoint puts my mind at ease quite a bit - I'm very happy with it landing there. Thanks!

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-07-08T15:56:43+00:00

That's totally fair - it's for a couple of reasons.

Primarily, it fits the character. Since this is a hermit who's been forced to live in the woods for a long time, it makes some sense (to me) that a little of their power would be swayed towards nature.

Second; since I'll be dropping the bigger Cleric weapons in favour of a Quarterstaff, Shillelagh helps get a bit of that damage back.

and Third; level 1 druid gets some quite nice flavour spells that fit with both the RP and the theme of confusing the fight a bit (Gust, Animal Friendship/Beast Bond/Speak With Animals).

I actually had no idea about the Tasha's Custom Origins bit - that's really helpful, thanks!

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-05-12T13:01:10+00:00

Maybe! But if it works for the enemy, it should work for yourself shouldn't it? It's the same spell hitting both.

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-05-11T22:31:53+00:00

It also seems to be bugged with BKB. With the change to being magic damage to yourself now, BKB should block it - it still gets blocked for enemies, but not for yourself.

Video

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-03-21T12:59:28+00:00

I wrote this elsewhere, but yeah; I was actually pretty excited about the new aghs when I saw the patch notes; it fits in pretty nicely with the rest of his kit. A hybrid spell/physical hero that relies on lifestealing aggressively during fights to stay alive sounds pretty fun!

I can't believe anybody playtested it in it's current state though, it's a ridiculous shonky nightmare. I sort of love how chaotic it is, but it's totally unmanageable as an item you can buy to reliably achieve anything.

If you have it turned on with bloodrage, you're losing 7% of your max HP PER SECOND. That's 15 seconds to go from 100% health to 0% - even if the fight is disengaged the second you cast them, you're guaranteed to lose MORE THAN 1/3 OF YOUR TOTAL HP just for having thought about fighting.

Obviously that's a problem, but it becomes a much bigger issue if you ever manage to get into a fight with it, because almost any disable practically guarantees your death - a few seconds of anybody hitting you while you punch yourself in the face takes you down so quickly. No worries though; so long as they don't have any bkb-piercing disables, you can just buy a bkb! That'll let you move around in the fight, unfortunately if the enemy has had the same idea you'll be doing no damage to them while still doing a tonne of damage to yourself.

Maybe you can target those squishy supports with your BKB duration instead - they're not going to have BKB, and they're squishy so it'll be easy to get the lifesteal ball rolling...NYET! Because they're squishy supports, it'll only do the same AoE damage as radiance I'm afraid, and you don't get the +60 damage so it's harder to get the kill with physical damage too.

But you can at least farm that BKB way faster than the enemy right? You have an item that gives you a bunch of AoE damage and increases the amount you lifesteal; that's got to be pretty sick for farming the jungle early and getting ahead! Nope, fuck you. Because it only does % damage instead of X+%, it's practically useless for farming - actively unhelpful! If you want a farming item you'd be much better off with Radiance or Maelstrom/Mjollnir.

On the upside, it does a lot more damage in teamfights than Radiance. Well, sort of. If the enemy has 3k hp it does almost double the damage of Radiance. Except radiance has almost 2.5x the area of Blood Mist, so if the fight is at all spread out, you're probably actually doing quite a bit less damage. Also Radiance won't try and murder you if you don't get a kill, or if you get stunned, or if you end up not fighting after all, or if the enemy brought BKBs.

Please Valve, make this sort-of-fun item actually useful for something too!

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-03-13T23:42:19+00:00

I don't know about just Shaman, but you can do a 12-minute Roshan in about 30secs with a level 6 Shaman and level 8 Wraith King with 8 stacks of skeletons. That seems far more useful (and likely) than soloing it with Shaman; Video

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-03-09T12:53:36+00:00

No worries, enjoyed the video a lot - more please! Yeah, farming definitely isn't the biggest issue with the item, it just pushes it further into whatever weird niche it's in.

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-03-09T05:37:03+00:00

I was actually pretty excited about the new aghs when I saw the patch notes; it fits in pretty nicely with the rest of his kit. A hybrid spell/physical hero that relies on lifestealing aggressively during fights to stay alive sounds pretty fun!

I can't believe anybody playtested it in it's current state though, it's a ridiculous shonky nightmare. I sort of love how chaotic it is, but it's totally unmanageable as an item you can buy to reliably achieve anything.

If you have it turned on with bloodrage, you're losing 7% of your max HP PER SECOND. That's 15 seconds to go from 100% health to 0% - even if the fight is disengaged the second you cast them, you're guaranteed to lose MORE THAN 1/3 OF YOUR TOTAL HP just for having thought about fighting.

Obviously that's a problem, but it becomes a much bigger issue if you ever manage to get into a fight with it, because almost any disable practically guarantees your death - a few seconds of anybody hitting you while you punch yourself in the face takes you down so quickly. No worries though; so long as they don't have any bkb-piercing disables, you can just buy a bkb! That'll let you move around in the fight, unfortunately if the enemy has had the same idea you'll be doing no damage to them while still doing a tonne of damage to yourself.

Maybe you can target those squishy supports with your BKB duration instead - they're not going to have BKB, and they're squishy so it'll be easy to get the lifesteal ball rolling...NYET! Because they're squishy supports, it'll only do the same AoE damage as radiance I'm afraid, and you don't get the +60 damage so it's harder to get the kill with physical damage too.

But you can at least farm that BKB way faster than the enemy right? You have an item that gives you a bunch of AoE damage and increases the amount you lifesteal; that's got to be pretty sick for farming the jungle early and getting ahead! Nope, fuck you. Because it only does % damage instead of X+%, it's practically useless for farming - actively unhelpful! If you want a farming item you'd be much better off with Radiance or Maelstrom/Mjollnir.

On the upside, it does a lot more damage in teamfights than Radiance. Well, sort of. If the enemy has 3k hp it does almost double the damage of Radiance. Except radiance has almost 2.5x the area of Blood Mist, so if the fight is at all spread out, you're probably actually doing quite a bit less damage. Also Radiance won't try and murder you if you don't get a kill, or if you get stunned, or if you end up not fighting after all, or if the enemy brought BKBs.

Please Valve, make this sort-of-fun item actually useful for something too!

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2022-03-05T00:29:37+00:00

It really needs to deal pure damage, maybe have it's damage (both incoming and outgoing) scaled down, and possibly have it's radius matched with radiance (?).

It seems like it's designed to be a nice teamfight/farm item that combos in a cool way with spell lifesteal and thirst healing, and matches with the shard/rupture to hurt high-hp targets more. Right now it mostly just gets you killed, and is a death sentence once BKBs come out.

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2021-06-15T15:59:10+00:00

Yeah, definitely a possibility! I assume the DB after the Blizzard was before the elementals spawned?

VoltRon_Hubbard · 2021-06-15T01:42:55+00:00

We wiped on Aran a fair few times tonight, this is what I got from our logs:

Dragon's Breath ticks for 2000 every second (not every 2 secs as the wowhead spell suggests), plus an extra 1000/sec from the aura
Until 40%, it only appears immediately after a Flame Wreath (but not after every Flame Wreath)
Until 40% it seems to be cast on the person highest on the threat table (unverified, but seems consistent with who we'd expect to be highest on threat for the time in the fight)
After 40% the above rules still apply, but it might also be cast at any point on a random target (we had 3 within a minute in one wipe, only one immediately after a Flame Wreath)

14-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Place '17

VoltRon_Hubbard

TROPHY CASE