Videogames

[Relic]

So , re: LoL, wow...

there's a lot of shit to know in that game. My mic is broken i'll prob get a new one next week if anyone wants to wreck me then.

Ini, do you suggest picking on character and learning the ins and outs with them first, or....? When should i start buying runes? Not really sure what to do with my first 1k IP.

[Sheep the Evicted]

Okay i wanted to wait until the new thread to post this. Global Agenda is going free to play ON STEAM in less then a week.

Its a sci-fi mmo, which makes a very nice change from all the fantasy ones and its actually quite awesome. Gets a lot lot better when you hit lvl 30 and can play max and ultra max security missions. And apparently the game only really starts until lvl 50 when you can properly AvA.

Either way you can download the demo from steam now. Its a really interesting demo. Basically it downloads the full game for you but then caps you to lvl 12 and removes some privellges. Strongly recommended.

edit; Oh and i forgot to mention that if you do want to buy the game then i have 50% off vouchers just pm me. You get 50% off and i get in game treats for referring you. Not sure if it will still work once it becomes free to play though.

[Jon AS]

Thanks to whoever pointed out the Blood Bowl Steam sale in the last thread. It's been over a decade since I played the board game, but it seems a pretty faithful adaptation. Nuffle hasn't been with me so far, I seem to failing an awful lot of 2+ and 3+ rolls. Maybe it's time to forget about all the sissy stuff like tactics and passing, pick an Orc or Chaos team and play the game the way it was meant to be played: beating the crap out of the opposing team.

Gets a lot lot better when you hit lvl 30 and can play max and ultra max security missions. And apparently the game only really starts until lvl 50 when you can properly AvA.

It's sentences like this that make me never, ever want to give an MMO a try.

[Inigima]

So , re: LoL, wow...

there's a lot of shit to know in that game. My mic is broken i'll prob get a new one next week if anyone wants to wreck me then.

Ini, do you suggest picking on character and learning the ins and outs with them first, or....? When should i start buying runes? Not really sure what to do with my first 1k IP.

Play every character that's free. If you aren't buying champions with cash, don't buy any champions you haven't played first. IP is too scarce when you're starting out to waste it on champions you don't know you like. Make sure you play every free champ every week so you can get a feel for whether you like them, and what they can do to you. Once you know what you're doing, team composition is very important -- you need magic damage, physical damage, initiation and crowd control -- but for now just play whoever because you'll have no idea who does which of those things. Teammates will bitch, too bad for them.

Runes: There are two schools of thought on runes. One is to buy Tier 1 runes, because they are cheap and give you an edge. The other is to not bother buying runes until you reach Summoner level 20 and can buy Tier 3 runes. I did the second and I think it was the smart choice. Both schools agree: don't buy Tier 2 runes.

If you are going to buy runes, buy the most general sets you can until you know what you need. The most universally accepted sets are Armor Pen and Magic Pen reds, scaling mana/5sec yellows and flat CDR blues, with your choice of movespeed, health or health/5sec quintessences.

Some notes on these choices:

APen or MPen depends on physical damage vs magic damage champions. Character portraits are not always good guides to what they do -- Mordekaiser does magic damage, for example. (Also don't pick Mordekaiser.)

MP5/level yellows are much better than flat MP5 ones, they break even very quickly. These runes are awesome on 95% of champions, but there are a few champions who don't use mana and they will do you no good there. Examples: Garen, Mordekaiser, Vladimir, Tryndamere, Katarina, etc.

Flat CDR blues are expensive, but they are awesome and much better than scaling ones.

Health and hp/5 are the quints most "forgiving" of laning mistakes. I generally prefer movespeed quints, though. Quints are expensive. Armor pen quints are also decent choices on physical carries.

General rule of thumb: do not autoattack creeps except for the last hit. Pushing your lane, unless you can see every champion and know that you are safe, is Very Bad and will generally get you ganked by other lanes or junglers.

Last-hitting creeps is very important. It is how you get gold. Gold gets items, items win games.

Not dying is among the most important things you can do. When you die, your enemies get money, and you are out of lane and not farming. If it was a 2v2 lane, your partner is less able to farm, less able to zone, and more vulnerable to being killed. Dying is fine if you know what you're doing and it was worth your death to, say, kill four of them, but you won't have good judgment on that right away. When you're first starting out, be conservative in lane unless you know that being aggressive is a good idea.

Don't facecheck brush.

There is a lot to learn, including what the champions are capable of. You will frequently get killed because you didn't know champions could do what they can do. It is best to play with voice comms with people who know what they're doing. People in game may give you good advice but they are frequently blithering idiots themselves -- I played with a Mundo last night who did not understand that Twisted Fate has a global teleport.

Call your lane "mia" if people who are normally in your lane suddenly go missing -- they may be going to kill people in other lanes. Other people should do the same for you. However, map awareness is everyone's job, including yours. If you didn't call mia, and your enemy laner kills someone in another lane, it is their fault. It is similarly your fault if you are killed by someone who wasn't reported MIA. You should have been watching your map. Map awareness wins games.

Speaking of which: Wards. Wards wards wards. As I've mentioned, map awareness wins games. Wards win games. Buy wards. Teams that don't buy wards are godawful (this includes most low-level pub teams). Try to ward things like jungle intersections, approaches on the river (try to ward a bit down the river, preferably at a jungle entrance, so you can see people coming to in time to escape (or to kill them!). Other good ward spots include jungle buff monsters, dragon and, once lategame arrives, baron. Wards are cheap although they don't last long. A good rule of thumb is to buy a ward every time you go back. Support and people who don't need items should buy the most wards, but everyone should be warding.

Resistances are also usually better than health, in most cases. Items you don't usually want to buy: Warmog's Armor, Tiamat, Frozen Mallet.

There are some champions who are considered bad although they will roll bad players who don't know how to counter them. These include Mordekaiser, Evelynn and Tryndamere.

More advice to give but it is getting late and I need to shower and eat before work. :)

[Slick Mongoose]

Thanks to whoever pointed out the Blood Bowl Steam sale in the last thread. It's been over a decade since I played the board game, but it seems a pretty faithful adaptation. Nuffle hasn't been with me so far, I seem to failing an awful lot of 2+ and 3+ rolls. Maybe it's time to forget about all the sissy stuff like tactics and passing, pick an Orc or Chaos team and play the game the way it was meant to be played: beating the crap out of the opposing team.

That's always true, Nuffle's favour or no.

[Inigima]

If there is a sizable Blood Bowl player base here, I could start a BwB open league for pickup games if there's interest.

[Fez]

Just reached the non-linear part of FF XIII, and, unlike I guess everybody else in the world who played, I actually liked it more before I got to this point. Now it just seems all grind-y and boring, at least before there were eye-candy cutscenes. I'm worried too that I'd need to grind for a long time to be strong enough for the next sections, so I am thinking of putting the game aside and trying once again to get into Batman: Arkham Asylum (which really, really just isn't doing it for me). Otherwise, it has been a decent break from FPS, might be time to go finish Crysis 2.

[Inigima]

More LoL talk: some of my advice above, like "be conservative," is only good advice when you're new. Once you are more experienced, being aggressive is often the right choice if you can zone your opponents out of XP and gold range, or even kill them. You'll also get a better idea over time of what matchups favor whom and when -- for example, Vladimir (who should pretty much always have a solo lane, usually mid but can be solo top) has an extremely weak early game because his main laning tool, Transfusion (hurts target, heals him) has a very long cooldown. As a result, most common mids -- Corki, Ashe, etc. -- should play very aggressively against Vlad early, because he won't be able to punish them for it and they will win trades. However, at approximately level 9, Vlad's Transfusion is maxed and is on a very short CD -- a couple of seconds. At that point he is a laning monster and can utterly destroy people, as he will win damage trades and heal the damage you did to him anyway.

A word or two on lane distribution. There are, of course, three lanes: top, mid, bot. There are two possible normal lane configurations, depending on whether your team has a jungler. (More on this later.) If your team has no jungler, the standard configuration is two top, one mid, two bot. If your team has a jungler, standard setup is one top, one mid, two bottom and the roaming jungler.

A solo lane character needs a few things. Most importantly, they need to be able to hold their lane. In normal mode games, you don't get to see your opponent's lineup til everyone's picked, so you won't even know if the enemy team has a jungler, so your top solo might have to contend with a 1v2 situation if you do. At higher level play, every team will have a jungler.

The other main trait of a solo laner is that they will have a gold and XP advantage over the other lane, because they aren't sharing XP or last-hits with a lanemate. So you want it to be someone who will benefit your team by having extra farm. Mordekaiser is a strong pusher, and can 1v2 quite capably, so he may be the best choice on your team -- especially since if you stick him in bottom lane he'll steal farm from other, better champion's who could make better use of it -- but your team will not benefit from solo Morde as much as it might from, say, a solo Malzahar.

Let me explain jungling because it is a really big deal and changes the dynamic of games just by existing. A jungler is someone who doesn't spend the laning phase laning. Instead, he starts off by farming jungle creeps for XP. In order to do this, he starts with a less typical build, most commonly cloth armor and five health pots. A jungler brings several advantages to your team:

1. He turns duo top lane into a solo lane by not being there. This gives you a second solo lane (in addition to mid), so you'll have another lane that levels and farms faster.

2. He is a constant gank threat. Most junglers start ganking the lanes in the level 4 to level 6 range; a few, like Nunu, can gank effectively as early as level 2 if the lane is pushed and his own laners cooperate. This can get him or his laners early kills, which is a big advantage early. Even if all you do is burn their summoner spells, or push them out of lane, that's still a big deal as it gives his lane the edge. Even if your jungler never succeeds in a gank, he forces the enemy to play more passively, not overextending lest they die, and spending money on waters because if they don't see you coming they are probably doomed.

3. He controls jungle creeps. This includes blue buff, red buff, and the extremely valuable Dragon. (Dragon is also a big reason why bottom is the standard duo lane, more people nearby means better Dragon control.)

4. If a lane dies, or is going to die, the jungler can cover the lane so he can go heal. The jungler can also relieve pressure by ganking, even with unsuccessful ganks. I jungled Olaf the other day; our top lane Nasus was level 4 to enemy Malzahar's level 8, but we turned it around big time by ganging Malz like it was our job, and we put him down and kept him there. He never recovered and we rolled them.

Although virtually anyone "can" jungle, there is a subset of characters for whom jungling is considered their main role, and there are champs who are good and bad at it. Junglers are typically evaluated on several traits: their jungle clear time -- faster is better, ganks happen faster and they level faster; their safety while jungling, if a jungler is always at low health he is very killable if caught; and their ganking ability. Typically junglers will have some CC so that when they gank the enemy can be kept there long enough to kill them. Some champions are okay in lane but awesome junglers, and so are typically used for that. Nunu comes to mind.

A brief list of common junglers, not all-inclusive: Warwick, Nunu, Shaco, Olaf, Rammus, Amumu, Udyr.

Warwick is "baby's first jungler," it is pretty hard to fuck him up due to his life steal. Nunu is similarly easy. Both are also strong counterjunglers because they have such high health while jungling, and Nunu can start with whatever he feels like instead of needing specific items. Shaco, Amumu and Rammus are harder but still pretty easy to clear with. Olaf owns bones but jungling with him is dangerous because he is constantly near death for a while. Which actually makes him stronger due to his passive, but he is very vulnerable to counterjungling. Nocturne is similarly vulnerable at low levels.

You can jungle with Nunu or Warwick whenever; the others pretty much want specialized rune pages for it, and I don't advise jungling at all until you have a high enough Summoner level to have the +XP mastery, which is mandatory for most players but especially necessary for junglers.

[Inigima]

Oh, and junglers take Smite. Good junglers ALWAYS take smite. You will see bad players arguing that Warwick and a few others don't need smite, and it is true that Smite is not needed for WW to kill jungle creeps. But it makes your clear time significantly faster, which is critical, and by saving it for the killing blow you prevent the enemy jungler from stealing your buffs at the last second with his own Smite.

Do not take Smite if you are not jungling, everyone will laugh at you and they will be right to do so.

[Relic]

wow, lots of stuff there. sorry to make you write all that.

i watched Totalbiscuit's (Halibut?)Jungling video, pretty informative. So far ive only been playing Co-op vs AI and using the 10 free champs of the week. I think Anie is my fav of the bunch, but then again she's a pretty straight forward ranged DPS. I found Shen very hard to use and had issues with Olaf. Who are your favs?

In regards to runes, are they per champion or per summoner? i havent looked at my rune page yet, i should probably do that. I figure buying a few T1 runes won't hurt.

[Inigima]

That's okay, I'm a big nerd and like writing stuff like that. Bear in mind that jungling can be hard to do before you have lots of runes and masteries.

Annie is a great choice for a first character, so good job there. She is fragile, forcing you to be careful about your positioning, does have a defensive skill, teaches you to last hit (and makes it easy!) with her fireball, doesn't have mana problems with good last-hitting skills, has an awesome stun (that can be AOE, no less!), forces you to monitor your passive stun counter, and is a good champion who won't become terrible when you start playing against competent players.

Shen is a very strong character, but as you've learned, he is very hard to use. So much to keep track of. He is one of very few energy-based heroes who has issues with running out of energy, you have to keep a timer in your head for Ki Strike, you have to constantly know what's going on everywhere on the map to use your ult to save people (and know when to let them die because they are dumb and you will just both die).

You will definitely have issues with Olaf, both for summoner level reasons and because he is hard to play well and his build is counterintuitive. Olaf is near garbage in a lane and should only be played as a jungler, but a. his jungling is dangerous even with good runes and masteries and b. might actually be literally impossible to do effectively without them. The standard Olaf build is cloth armor and five health pots into a Razor into Wriggle's Lantern and then pure tank stuff, because Olaf doesn't damage primarily with autoattacks, Olaf damages with RECKLESS SWING. He needs health to fuel RECKLESS SWING, he needs resistances to not die, he sure wants Randuin's to keep people in range so he can RECKLESS SWING. The main use for Undertow isn't to do damage, it's to keep people in range to RECKLESS SWING. Once Olaf is next to somebody, RECKLESS SWING Randuin's Vicious Strikes Undertow RECKLESS SWING RECKLESS SWING Undertow Ragnarok if you're CC'd or going to be RECKLESS SWING RECKLESS SWING Undertow RECKLESS SWING. You need really good judgment about what fights you can win. His passive makes him attack faster the lower he is on health, which translates to more damage and lifesteal so you can stay alive so you can RECKLESS SWING some more.

The only time Olaf really has trouble killing people who can be kept in range is if they are stacking health, as Reckless Swing is true damage (ignores armor and magic resist) and does not scale with anything. Here is a fun Olaf video showing Olaf bein' Olaf: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x47GoTCtuBE

Runes are attached to your account and built into pages, which can be used on any champion. Runes aren't "lost" on placement in a rune page, so don't buy more than 9 of any rune.

I play literally everyone, but some favorites are Ashe, Nunu, Taric (only with pink armor skin), Malzahar and Malphite. If you were only ever going to get good with one champion, I'd say you should make it Ashe. Ashe rules and is only 450 IP. Also Taric is the best because the pink armor skin rules, sometimes gets the other team to make comments like "lookin good taric" in allchat, makes laning against your lanemate incredibly frustrating because you'll heal all the damage he takes, and is great for trolling the enemy by saying "im taric" and "EMERALDS FOR INSIGHT" every time you kill someone. Last time I played Taric we pulled off a hilarious 3v3 skirmish in the jungle and won the fight 3-0, I said "im taric," and I got a nice hearty "im fuck you" from the late Twisted Fate on the enemy team. Taric 4 life. (EDIT: Do not play Taric in low-Elo solo queue. Taric... can be built for damage but he is mostly a support and playing support for morons will just make you frustrated. He is great for a premade team though.)

My recommendations for people who are beginner friendly in this week's rotation:

Annie

maybe Zilean

... that's pretty much it. Cho'gath isn't too beginner unfriendly but he is better at enabling kills and preventing deaths than killing people himself which is great except that you can't rely on your teammates in solo queue to do much of anything effective with the help you provide. Corki is one of the best AD carries in the game right now but I wouldn't call him easy for newcomers. Warwick is the easiest jungler probably but jungling in general isn't beginner-friendly. Shen, Olaf and Nidalee are all great but very hard to play well. Cassiopeia and Tristana suck pretty bad.

I think these champs are about to rotate though.

[Sheep the Evicted]

I'll also point out Magicka is on sale right now. Haven't played it but everyone tells me its awesome. I bought it mainly because of

video. WARNING: this is a yogacast video, you will lose hours of your life. Curses be to tobin.

It's sentences like this that make me never, ever want to give an MMO a try.

Oh its not bad up until that point. Just not nearly as life ruinningly addictive. Personally i think it was a canny bussines decison by the developers. If you buy the xp booster then you breeze right through it and get to the good stuff almost immediately. Otherwise you pretty much have to farm for a bit.

Its a cooperative game though so, as always, its best to play it with friends.

Oh and i forgot to mention that if you do want to buy the game then i have 50% off vouchers just pm me. You get 50% off and i get in game treats for referring you. Not sure if it will still work once it becomes free to play though.

[Muttering Bill]

Bugger having to kill off Wynne, She's pretty handy dealing with Flemeth. Now I'm mageless for that fight...not good planning killing off Wynne when your own character isn't a mage. Shoulda thought that one through.

You can get Wynne killed? :stunned: In my game I had Alistair and Morrigan leave. Zevran tried, but I convinced him to stay.

Anyway, Wynne. Yeah, she's good. When she's alive. Maybe I did something wrong when choosing her tactics. I set her to cast Heroic Offense and Defense on the Warden, Heal everybody at 50%, use Mana Clash or Earthquake when applicable, use a mana or health item if either drops below 25%, and if there's nothing else then just attack the nearest enemy. But she's always running straight at enemies and getting herself killed. I had to fight Flemeth alone because she got killed early, and then the other 2 followed in short order with no healer.

I also got all the romance trophies but Morrigan. But I cheated a little by using the feastday gifts.

I'm on the final mission now. Just got to Fort Drakon, so I should be able to finish it tonight. And then on to the DLC packs.

It's actually the managing of my character's soul tendancy that I found phreakin' impossible. Once I'd knocked off a "good" NPC I just couldn't get my soul back to white, so I have no idea how to get the friend's ring off the Monumental. But I ain't black enough for whatisname to come along and get me to do some assassinations and earn the foe's ring. Gonna have a bitch of a time getting the collect all rings trophy, and those are the only 2 rings I still need to get.

I did something similar. I figured that while I was already headed toward black, I might as well just go all to way and get the Mephisto quests.

Anyway, you've got 2 options for raising your character tendency. First, and the way I did it, is to kill named NPC Black Phantoms. Esmeralda in 1-1, Scirvir in 2-2, the guy locked up in 3-1 (I forgot his name), Satsuki in 4-1, and Selen Vinland in 5-2. Just make sure they are BP's before you kill them, or you'll get CT penalties. You need Pure Black World Tendency for them to show up. And while you're in there, might as well hunt the Primeval Demons for the Colorless Demon Souls - just don't leave go back to the Nexus until you'll gotten both, because they'll lighten your WT.

I think it took 2 playthroughs to go from pure black to pure white. I'm not entirely sure.

Or you could just go online and fight invading Black Phantoms. I know, you're no good online. But you only need 3 wins to go from pure black to pure white. You can probably get there in only 2 from where you are. Surely fighting online until you get 2 or 3 lucky wins is a lot quicker than playing the game a few times.

[Fez]

You can get Wynne killed? :stunned: In my game I had Alistair and Morrigan leave. Zevran tried, but I convinced him to stay.

Its pretty easy actually. The first time I played through I didn't know who she was and I ended up killing her before she even joined my party. I said I agreed with the Templar's decision to kill the mages and after arguing for a bit, that was that.

Incidently the same thing happened with Zevran that game. I didn't know who he was and after the ambush when asked if I wanted to wait for him to come too or slit his throat I just slit his throat; screw you, assassin I thought to myself. (and it was probably the right decision since the second time I played and knew who he was, he ended up betraying him later on and I had to kill him then).

Actually also that first game I left Sten for the darkspawn, I never even continued the conversation long enough to learn that he could join me.

It was really a small party that game. I'm lucky I was a human noble, else I probably would've missed the Dog too.

[Tobin]

I'll also point out Magicka is on sale right now. Haven't played it but everyone tells me its awesome. I bought it mainly because of

video. WARNING: this is a yogacast video, you will lose hours of your life. Curses be to tobin.

:devil: "Mista Biscuit!"

DAO -

And yes, you can pretty much kill everyone except for Oghren:

Lelianna & Sten - you can leave for the darkspawn to eat in Lothering

Wynne - you can fight at the Circle if you side with Morrigan and/or agree with the Templars

Zevran - can kill him at the ambush site

Shale - can tell her to leave right away

Alistair - can execute him at the Landsmeet

Morrigan - (I think you can tell her to leave, but don't remember)

Oghren is the only character you can't get rid of - which also helps explain why he shows up in DAA.

[Piltdown]

Just reached the non-linear part of FF XIII, and, unlike I guess everybody else in the world who played, I actually liked it more before I got to this point. Now it just seems all grind-y and boring, at least before there were eye-candy cutscenes. I'm worried too that I'd need to grind for a long time to be strong enough for the next sections, so I am thinking of putting the game aside and...

Don't worry about grinding. I just completed a couple of the plot related Missions and moved on right away. You never need to put any time into leveling or collecting gear if you simply want to play through the game. It was only about 18-20 hours of playtime for me to beat it without any of the fluff.

[Tobin]

Wolfenstien NOOOO!!

[Relic]

I think these champs are about to rotate though.

Thanks for all the info. So the champions are cycled every monday? How long is the server down for normally? I'm sure ill have all sorts of questions if i get a chance to play some more tonight. Does anyone else from here play? Have you met any people playing that game who werent dickwads?

[Ira]

Thanks for all the info. So the champions are cycled every monday? How long is the server down for normally? I'm sure ill have all sorts of questions if i get a chance to play some more tonight. Does anyone else from here play? Have you met any people playing that game who werent dickwads?

While I avoid LoL like the plague because I'm a diehard HoN player, there's some universal advice that applies to all the DotA-type games:

1) Develop a really thick skin.

2) Not sure how the LoL community is, but don't be afraid to tell people that you're new and asking for advice. In HoN, at least, people tend to be less frustrated if you're a newbie, rather than a baddie trying to justify himself 24/7. You'll also meet the assholes though who immediately try to convince you to leave. Ignore them.

3) Don't ignore helpful advice. (The only problem is, as Inigma said, that a lot of people have no idea what they're talking about, and you're not going to be able to tell if that's the case.)

4) If you see someone playing a hero that you also like to play, and has a lot of kills/assists* and relatively few deaths, check what build he's running with, etc. and try copying it next time and see how it works out for you.

5) I'm not sure how you are about sound, but it's almost essential in DotA/HoN, and, I'm assuming, in LoL as well. Right now, the sounds are just going to be this mess you can't untangle, but as you play more and more, you'll be able to recognize item and ability activation, which are going to be key to becoming a player.

Once you're in the "average" category and want to improve more, I'd suggest watching high-level play. Obviously, you'll never even get close to being able to replicate what a professional team can and will do, but you'll also be able to see different item builds, etc. and what they're doing in certain situations. FnaticMSI has a LoL team, as does SK Gaming. I heard that Chu from EG was playing LoL instead of HoN now, but not entirely sure about whether that's just a rumor.

Oh yeah, about HoN: What the hell is Nomad supposed to be, a carry?

[Inigima]

Thanks for all the info. So the champions are cycled every monday? How long is the server down for normally? I'm sure ill have all sorts of questions if i get a chance to play some more tonight. Does anyone else from here play? Have you met any people playing that game who werent dickwads?

I think it's every Tuesday. I don't pay much attention though. I will probably be around tonight if you want to play a game or two. I play with the few regulars from here fairly recently as well as a group from another forum, and a few players from various WoW guilds I've been in. Servers aren't usually down this long, Riot is comically incompetent though so it happens. Should be up soon probs.

I've met a few people who were nice, and I used to friend them, but I never wind up wanting to play with them again, in case I have a shit game and embarrass myself in front of strangers on the Internet.

Ira has given some good advice. LoL has a far nicer community that HoN or, reputedly, DotA -- which I didn't play -- but there's still plenty of dumb pricks out there.

If you're going to watch streams, TreeEskimo is my favorite streamer. He plays superbly and gives good commentary on what he's doing. I'd hold off for a bit though, a lot of it will go over your head if you're new.

Definitely great advice about looking at other people's builds. You can ask what to build in team chat, but people might make fun of you or not help you, or you may get stupid advice. A lot of people don't understand the game they play.

I won't play with people without voice comms, so if you wouldn't mind, grab Ventrilo and Mumble. Trying to teach people by typing while playing is for the birds.

EDIT: hit me up on AIM if you want to play, I don't normally idle in the client.

Oh yeah, about HoN: What the hell is Nomad supposed to be, a carry?

Fucked if I know, I haven't played HoN since Nomad came out. I hear Nomad + Empath is funtimes though. I bought the game a while ago and played a bit, and even had a few games where I did a really good job -- good runs as Pyro, a hilarious game where I carried as Voodoo Jester, a good game as Tort with a surprisingly effective Lego -- but I still don't feel like I know what I'm doing and I hate going in knowing I might be complete shit and have no idea what I'm doing, because the community is so unwelcoming. It often doesn't feel "worth it" to try to play because it might be a miserable experience.

I try to do the right things, play support until I get better, buy a courier at the beginning, ward, all that, but I'm really uneven. If you're interested in teaching a scrub the facts of life, let me know.