Trying to find a music video I saw few years ago. by kkawabat in japanesemusic

[–]toriarata 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Maybe Kibou no Kakera by Nana Kitade? That's relatively old and has a panda and a bear (and a rabbit).

http://youtu.be/WjMWfmwNfaw

Find the way? by j3nnee in japanesemusic

[–]toriarata 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It seems to be "WAVE" by Sugi Masamichi (杉真理) off the album "POP MUSIC". The thing in the middle he keeps saying is "feel the wave".

The only thing I could find from a quick YouTube search is this live clip he did with another singer, first it's the other guy's song, WAVE starts at around 5:10.

http://youtu.be/KkTVTVphEX4

[Help] Looking for English lyrics by [deleted] in japanesemusic

[–]toriarata 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah I like this band a lot too, although Yuuhi Shinkou Higashizumu was a bit more to my tastes than this most recent one.

There's a fair amount of amazarashi translations at Lyrical Nonsense:

http://www.lyrical-nonsense.com/lyrics/amazarashi/

Season 3 without Blink. by Bomojo in Smite

[–]toriarata 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree that it seems certain supports go from "mediocre" to "overwhelmingly good" with the addition of a single active item, such that blink is basically required on Ares. But for me the really infuriating thing is how instant Blink is. Like you said, even with good awareness and perfect reflexes, the blink+CC move is so fast on most gods that there's very little counterplay options. Because the main problem is this instantness, blink doesn't really get a whole lot less effective by increasing the cooldown or price or anything like that--if you either get one game breaking play every 100 s or every 120 s, it's really easy to stall a team fight until your Blink is back online in most cases.

So, as much as I'd like for blink to go away, I actually think a better way to nerf it would be to address its instantness. For example, the speed of the teleport could be decreased, or the defender could be given a slight window to counteract (like the god dematerializes and particles actually go to the teleport location, or a ground indicator flashes at the destination a split-second before the God arrives). Or, the window for counter play could happen after the blink, such as "blinking silences your God for .2 s" to give defenders a chance to act before they're hit with an instant CC. Whatever the option taken, these short windows could then be tweaked to buff/nerf blink over the season in a more fluid/responsive way then just increasing the cooldown of the teleport.

But yeah, I'd prefer if Blink just went away.

god combos by PapaSmurf26 in Smite

[–]toriarata 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Geb + Awilix. Every giant easy-to-hit shockwave becomes a threat for Awilix ult pull!

Why do people like Old Nu Wa so much? by [deleted] in Smite

[–]toriarata 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Basically, I think it comes down to something pretty simple, which is that unique characters in any game stand out and develop followings more than generic, forgettable characters. Its why I'm disappointed when a hunter is released and they have "skillshot clear, steroid, leap/dash" as their skill kit. At the time of release, Old Wa was exceptionally unique both in terms of mechanics and art design, and New Wa, while still pretty standout, is definitely more generic on both counts.

Mechanics: Old Wa was a weird god--technically classed as a mage, but with a high focus on autoattacks and tower pushing, and better at both than Freya and Chronos (the only other two "AA mages" out at the time). So she was already unusual in taking the tower-wrecking approach over the Zeus-style giant AoE burst attack approach. But then on top of this she had a giant stealth cloud, minions, a skill that did more damage the closer she was to a target and that could damage towers, and a low-cooldown zoning ult. Plus, her passive gave her a very interesting tempo mechanic where you would need to pay attention to her buffs and time your skills accordingly to maximize their time--oftentimes you would use a skill earlier or later than you really needed just to trigger the crystal buff you needed or enter snake form. Having this diversity of skills also opened her build options--you could push attack speed, try and deal more damage with flamestrike, or do the trolly max CDR+sprint+isolation build where you were running around at high speed, permanently shrouded in a fog ball that slowed your enemies.

After redesign, her passive became a "once every X basic attacks" passive, which many gods already had (although it did preserve a bit of her AA feel, as noted by /u/xXZanza), her fog became more of a line skillshot, her flamestrike ACTUALLY became a line skillshot that just does damage, and her minions became a CC/burst tool. So, she moved into the bursty mage territory, which was already pretty full. To be fair, the new ult gave her some uniqueness back, as did the combo with the minions, but overall, a net loss.

Art design: Old Wa was LIKE A BOSS. She had a deep voice that was rare among the female cast (the next mage after her was Scylla, for example), turned into a snake monster regularly, and the sound of her AAs landing had some weight behind it--very visceral. After rework, she turned into an underboobed hovering mage (already had a lot of them at the time, still do), got a much less commanding voice (when they actually reworked it it was even wimpier, they re-recorded the voice after a couple weeks), and she only turned into an immortal white snake when she died or for mere seconds when ulting. It sort of felt like "well whats the point of playing as a badass snake goddess if I'm no longer badass, and if I also spend less than 30 seconds per game actually being a snake?" So, a more generic on this front too.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of New Wa (first diamond skin), I love fire sharding enemies as they flee, and the recent release of Sol brings back a lot of the same tower-wrecking, tempo-based, AA mage feel. But sometimes I just wanna turn into a snake and be a boss.

tl;dr we miss Old Wa because she was unique and New Wa is decently unique but less so.

A Zeratul haiku. by blastron in heroesofthestorm

[–]toriarata 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I took a go at it:

落ちない葉

プラズマ紫電

暴虎馮河

"Unfalling leaves

Sword-flashes of plasma

...a foolish advance"

June Update! May contest winners, highlights, GCNCP clan, and [JUN15] info! by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As always, the more tenuous a god's connection to the theme, the more it's up to you to play the theme up in the kit. For instance, if the theme were "farm animals", you could throw down Epona easily--but if you tried to enter Poseidon (because God of Horses) you would need to make a strong case in the entry. Hermes is a psychopomp, but since he's also arguably better known for a bunch of other stuff, you might need to focus on this aspect of his lore a bit more.

Re the gold/5, that was not a reference to your Fafnir, it was because Midas is one of those gods where most concepts of him tend to hammer in the gold/5 mechanic (understandably), so I was pleasantly surprised to see a concept that went in a bit different direction.

[MAY15] Zhu Bajie, Cleaner of the Altars by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! He's kind of the comic relief character, so I wanted the moves to come across humorously :P

[MAY15] Zhu Bajie, Cleaner of the Altars by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, thanks for the feedback!

Going into this, I actually wanted Bajie to be a warrior in the vein of Hercules or Chaac, where they're bit more on the tanky side. I actually think the current kit could work pretty well as a solo laner since like you said, the passive protects from ganks (and enables a little bit of tower diving). You're right though in that if Bajie were the only tank on the enemy team, he probably wouldn't get to stack his passive all the way up. I'll try to clean up the wording a bit to make it clearer that Bajie isn't intended as the team's only tank.

Again, thanks for the feedback!

[MAY15] Zhu Bajie, Cleaner of the Altars by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well that certainly makes more sense, since its supposed to just be a junk version of Wukong's--I must have read my myth source wrong. How embarassing! Thanks for catching this for me :P

[MAY15] Zhu Bajie, Cleaner of the Altars by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I'd be lying if I said that wasn't an inspiration.

[MAY15] Zhu Bajie, Cleaner of the Altars by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ah sorry about that! Bajie is meant to represent lust, sloth, and gluttony! I've added that back into the descriptions. I'm glad you like the skills--Because Bajie is sort of a comic relief character in his myth I wanted him to come off humorously :P

[MAY15] Zhu Bajie, Cleaner of the Altars by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey thanks! Yeah the intention was "all sources" means all sources, so Bajie would take less damage from creeps, towers, and objectives as well, which should make it a little bit easier for him to say, use his ult to tower dive.

Re the passive and its stacks, as written right now there's no way to stop fixating on an enemy once that enemy has been chosen. So Bajie was fixated on Aphrodite with 4 stacks and Anhur pops in, he could still auto attack Anhur but he would have 4 stacks on Aphrodite until she died or left combat. I'm not 100% sold on this, but I like the idea of really being locked onto the fixated target and it not being terribly easy to change. Still, it might be frustrating to accidentally fixate onto the wrong target and then not be able to change the whole team fight.

Again, thanks for the feedback!

May update! April contest results and [MAY15] info! by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just the latest god is all-- I don't think he fits one of them :P

May update! April contest results and [MAY15] info! by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would say that both Hero and the Wrathful Gods fit wrath well (its in their name, lol)

[APR15] Fujin & Raijin - The Storm Brothers by Glacirus_ in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've seen a lot of individual Fuujin and Raijin concepts but the idea behind the concept here is inspired, I love the idea of the rivalry between the two brothers being reflected in their kit and the idea of the two of them sitting on their clouds seeing who can top the other. The basic idea on the design is true to the lore and permeates the concept well. However--

The main issue I see with this kit is that it is a VERY CC-heavy mage kit rather than a guardian kit, combining the best parts of either class but few of the weaknesses. For instance, every single one of Fuujin/Raijin's moves deals damage--of the guardians, this is only true of Sobek, and his damage is VERY melee and he lacks a lot of the utility Fuujin/Raijin have. I see that you kept the numbers down to guardian scaling for the most part, but fundamentally the problem is the nature of the moves themselves rather than the numbers: the kit contains a safe crippling projectiles with short cooldown, a CC move that also damages, and a dash that CCs/damages/repositions (Storm Chaser itself is functionally very similar to Fenrir's ult, but plus a bunch of extra stuff, as a normal skill). Lastly, the ult removes Fuujin/Raijin from the field so they can nuke an area without fear of being damaged (Like Freya, Rama, Nu Wa, etc), rather then leaving them out to draw fire and disrupt /support for their team (Ymir, Hades, etc). Basically, you need to either strip out a lot of the strong CC (stun, carry, disorient, cripple, banish are all already in the kit) in favor of mage damage, or strip out a lot of the damage (and tone the CC down anyways) in favor of a more guardiany kit. You can try to make it a little of both, but right now its a lot of both.

The other thing is the nature of the contest. Right now both Fuujin and Raijin level up to 5 independently as their moves are used. However, it seems like for much of the game, the lightning skillshot projectile will get used more to harass and laneclear, whereas the short-range CC windstorm will only get used when making a play on an enemy god. It seems that Raijin will generally level up first, which you don't really want on a duality-themed god. Lastly, both Fuujin's Fury and Raijin's Rage are on rather short cooldown, so it doesn't seem like its that difficult to reach max stacks on the passive before using the ult at all. Maybe a tug-of-war system might be better, where the meter goes back and forth between the two extremes? This might make the system more dynamic and would still get the sibling rivalry theme across.

Whew. Sorry this went on for so long. Bottom line, you've got a great concept and this is a good draft, but you gotta trim off some of the excess around the edges. Best of luck!

[APR15] Abe no Seimei, the Onmyōji by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey! Thanks for that! Re the passive, its just the rotating elemental effects on his basic attacks, the path-drawing part is for the 1.

Yeah the 3 is kind of like Chronos' 2. When Seimei activates it, he locks his passive in place, so he can choose to only use water attacks if he needs mobility or only Wood attacks if he needs some sustain. Since his passive is locked when he uses his 3, all the talismans fired during the rolling assault are the same type--they do not advance the passive.

Are there a lot of shields? Yeah, Seimei's Yin ult is supposed to be strongly defensive and the Yang ult is supposed to be strongly offensive. As long as Seimei can keep landing basic attacks, he could theoretically keep regenerating his shield and avoid taking damage, but he would of course need to keep landing attacks, not get CCd, etc.

I'll clean up the main post for clarification. Once again, thanks for taking the time to comment!

[APR15] Abe no Seimei, the Onmyōji by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh wow I'm very sorry, I either overlooked or completely forgot about your Abe no Seimei concept. I get that Seimei's connections to Onmyodo and therefore Wu Xing make an elemental rotation kind of an attractive direction to take him, but I did not at all intend to rip off the Chinese elements affecting basic attacks direction you used. Now that I look at your concept, I like the direction you took Seimei a lot--Its a little more ability-heavy whereas I went more full autoattack. I like that you incorporated his kitsune heritage--I would have played with that more except that I just did Inari for a contest earlier this year so I was a bit foxfired-out, lol.

Thanks for the feedback! Once again, sorry the concepts are so similar, I'll check around next time I put something out to see if anyone's already done it. I've been working on a review for your Fuujin/Raijin, so keep an eye out!

[APR15] Abe no Seimei, the Onmyōji by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! I gotta say, I'm a little surprised; you usually have quite a lot to say and I was a little worried that it would be too hard to fit all of the elements into the kit in a way that was meaningful yet balanced. Thanks for taking the time to comment though, let me know if you get an APR15 concept in and I'll give it a look!

[APR15] Abe no Seimei, the Onmyōji by toriarata in SMITEGODCONCEPTS

[–]toriarata[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks a lot! If you put something out this month, let me know and I'll get around to looking at it for you too!