I've noticed that in TFT, there's a weird pattern where after I complain about something in chat, I get the desired outcome. "Can I stop facing x", and I stop facing x. "Can I get x", and I get x.

...Apparently, it's not limited to TFT.

As I made a blog about how I was trash in League.

...But today, wasn't.

I mean, my Vlad game started in a way where I was pretty sure it'd be a terrible game. I was playing poorly because I couldn't get in range to auto and when I was deep in enemy territory, I couldn't kill anyone; they weren't taking any damage whatsoever, not from autos, not from abilities.

But by the time I got rageblade and gunblade, that turned around. I went from dealing negligible damage, to suddenly dealing boatloads, and went from really squishy, to really hard to kill. A teammate did flame me for my items saying, "Vlad, that build doesn't work!" (so glad they didn't see the bork build), but like...I felt like had the enemy team not surrendered, I would've been a monster that game.

I had enough gold for the stinger, building into a Nashor's. I was actually able to split-push with impunity. Nobody in a 1v1 was able to kill me. Yeah, sending three to kill me would get me dead, but like. I was just. I took multiple towers. I only backed off when I was low on minions, the enemy had champs nearby, and I had gold to spend. I was doing work.

But that was a Vlad game. Not an Ashe game.

So I played again.

And then.

Start to finish.

I had an amazing Ashe game.

I did die a fair amount--to a Tryndamere who I couldn't escape, or to being bumrushed by 3-4 enemy champions. Nobody, not even the Tryndamere (who was the closest to it), could have killed me in a 1v1. Now, admittedly. That game was four physical champions plus a Yuumi support, so I built tabis, my iceborn gauntlet, and then frozen heart. (From there, with my transformed muramana, I was planning on building mortal reminder because while I was dealing high damage to most targets, the enemy Shen was hard to kill especially in tandem with Yuumi. Armor pen + reduced healing = I would wreck them.)

And I made very clutch plays that game.

In a 1v4, I outplayed a Tryndamere Yuumi Jhin (and either Shen or Zed, forget which) tower dive, managing to kill at least one of them, save the tower, in a situation where I had every right to be massacred. (Admittedly, I think I died there and my team came in to clean up on it, but like...I held out much much much better than I had any right to.)

In multiple drake fights, I was clutch. Including getting the killing blow on Elder, against a Zed-Yuumi combo in the pit, with both junglers fighting elsewhere. I did have a Soraka to help me, and I did get my jungler ahead fairly early (I sacrificed farm to help him take an early drake, so I was behind compared to my counterparts), but that sacrifice actually makes my contributions MORE notable.

I was a full level and a half down on my opponents due to helping my jungler out. I very very quickly came back. Yes, to some extent, that's due to having a Soraka on my team, butstill. Yes, they had a full-AD comp, so my stacking armor build was far more effective than normal, butstill.

I know there might've been very good reasons for me to have performed well.

Reasons absent from your average game.

I will not perform that well in any game for a very, very, very long time.

Butstill.

I very.
Very.
Much needed this.

It might've had extenuating circumstances behind why I did well. Enemy comp being perfect for my build. Soraka on my team. Helping my jungler get ahead, with them being on-top of taking drakes (and me being in a position to help them secure them every time). The enemy team not contesting the first two or three drakes (where they probably could've killed us if they did try).

Doesn't matter.

I had a good game on Ashe.
And two good games overall.

After having been in a big, gigantic funk where I felt utterly trash and garbage at everything.

I feel good.
Not gonna lie, I didn't know that I would.
But oh man, this is so good.

...Mind you.

I am still a trash player.
I still had someone say "Ashe you need to change your build" in that game. (They were wrong, my ult was half-healthing the non-Shen members and my volleys did a quarter of the non-Shen health bars.)
And my good performances in these games, do nothing to make me suddenly think I am in any way competent.

I am still Iron II in skill level.

These games don't make me not be that.

But they make me feel like I'm not whatever would be somehow-below-Iron-IV.
I was feeling like the bottom of the barrel, worst of the worst, absolute garbage trash that couldn't be worse at the game due to how badly I was doing.

And then I got back to back games where I managed to pop off.

Now I actually feel like I'm Iron II.
That is to say.
I am not a good player.
I am still pretty bad.
But I feel like I am not the bottom of the barrel. That bad as I may be, I am not the worst possible. That while I am occasionally trash, I'm not bad enough to be utter garbage. That I am still in need of work, of improving, but that I can actually do these things.

I feel just...so...liberated.

Might as well talk about the planned next set of teamfight tactics and the plans for the changes involved.
Mind you, launching with those: a third set, forcing us to relearn everything again.

So maybe some of my thoughts will need to be recalibrated once I actually read up on those new set bonuses, units, etc.

But for now...

The changes to economy will strangle players. Their stated goal of making things strategic? Not gonna work. Quite the opposite. You need gold to be strategic. Limiting your gold boxes you in and prevents you from being strategic. If Riot doesn't realize this, they will be in for a nasty surprise when their change meant to increase strategy, instead just makes the game an RNG generator.

That said...personally. I am fine with this. Because while I think Riot won't achieve their stated goal of making things strategic, because while I believe the change they are trying to make is counter to that goal and is detrimental to it and limits strategy rather than opening strategy up...

...I am fine with this, because it more or less means that when you get a unit on the carousel, you're pretty much locked into the comp. This might not seem like something most people like--but I prefer it. To use set two champions as an example...if I take a first-turn Volibear from the initial carousel, I am taking that Volibear to run a Volibear comp and am incredibly miffed if (pardon the language) some fuck decides to randomly freakin' steal it from me.

This change to limit gold will help prevent them from doing so, meaning I'll be more free to run my initially-planned comp of choice uncontested--and if they do try to contest it, they'll be punished harshly for it and I, the person who had the initial unit for it, will have the edge in running the comp...as it SHOULD be.

That? That's probably not what Riot wants. But it's something I want, so I am fine with the change.

Like I said--Riot's absolutely bonkers if they think limiting gold increases strategy; it does the opposite. But it does limit the ability to steal a comp from someone, to rob someone of a comp they were planning on running. A change I fully endorse.

Riot's also insane if they think units were causing most of the damage from rounds. It was always the player damage dealing the majority of the damage. The change they are making won't keep damage at about the same, it will make rounds go much much much faster than Riot intended. This will...very very very rapidly become apparent to them though so I am confident they'll adjust the stats when they realize people are dieing en masse at stage 3 or sooner.

Morello on an AOE champion has always been OP. I actually think that what Riot needs to do is to specifically code in single target vs. aoe for grievous wounds; single target, apply at a greater number, aoe, apply at the smaller number. With this change, Morello will be worthless on non-AOE champions and red buff, already situational at best, will be even more worthless. But unless Riot does code in something like this, they'll always face that dilemma. Higher numbers, morello is OP on aoe; lower numbers, morello is worthless except on aoe.

I have always hated champions not having AP scaling so fully approve of that change and feel it is particularly important to have noted.

The removal of Hush is welcome; I never used it and hated it as an item always, whereas the new Chalice item is actually an item I'd love to use! I'd have a boatload of uses for it on the current champions, and I imagine on the new set there will be uses for it.

The reworked iceborn gauntlet is pretty useless except on a seraphs Ezreal or similar, so the change is a good one--I don't think Riot will be keeping the new item as-is though and expect it to be gutted because I expect it'll be seen as too oppressive.

Titanic Hydra was a worthless item so I think its removal is good, but Zrot portal is equally worthless and I feel like Riot missed the mark on its recipe. By what logic does "attack speed" (recurved bow) + health (giants belt) = "on death, generate tanks"? Health I can maybe kinda sorta see, but like...attack speed doesn't enter the picture at all. It makes no logical sense, so they're replacing a useless item which its components have better uses for, with a useless item which its components have better uses for.

Like, if I get a recurved bow, I want it to be on a unit that will be attacking a lot. Zrot portal is an item requiring the unit it is on to die. A unit who dies doesn't attack a lot. It's just counterintuitive so I won't be using much of it since Riot needs to realize it needs to make sense and right now it doesn't.

Deathblade and Giantslayer needed buffs but will remain mostly worthless, pending what the third set synergies/champions provide. (First set units had great use for both; second set units...not so much. Deathblade had one, and only one, unit it was good on, Olaf. Giantslayer went from must-build on Vayne in first set to never-build on anyone.)

Ionic Spark is still worthless post-rework, but this change will help it some.
QSS is going back to being worthless. 10 second immunity to CC at the start of combat, then never providing immunity again? Nobody's going to build that unless they have a unit who REALLY needs to be CC-immune but can itself provide aoe mass-cc to the enemy team.
Redemption's change is probably a buff overall given that the zones were worthless so making it board-wide is useful but is probably still junk-except-in-certain-situations.
Runaan's needed the buff, but is dependent on what champions will be around for whether it's useful or useless.
Zeke's is still worthless.

That's about it for initial thoughts.
I'll have more when I read what the third set provides, obviously.

But for now, going to continue to say.
I've been doing lots of work in Minecraft.
I've got a few projects to work on.
Netherportal, take three.
Glass bridges between islands to explore.
A stairway to heaven.

But mostly, I am working on trying to build up my nearby village. The village apparently doesn't have any cats in it. (So, I can't breed cats.) Since it has no cats in it, the village isn't safe against spawns by default. What it needs: enough torches to be visible from the moon, lighting it up, to leave no room for creeps.

I am achieving this by creating a makeshift wall around the village (this is a pretty gigantic wall), plan to torch up the wall inside and out and then systematically light up the rest of the village, then explore the caves beneath the village. (I am somewhat certain that they are probably mostly safe right now, with waterfalls blocking off the creeps from advancing, but it'd give me peace of mind to have them completely mapped out.)

As you might imagine.

This is taking a ton of resources. Like, I probably need...like. 2400 or so torches to complete this to satisfaction.

Not to mention, completing the wall and making sure any holes in it are appropriately handled and such, which will take a huge number of blocks. (I've got a ton, mostly dirt, to spare.)

I could of course go work on my cathedral plan some more.

But this is what I am working on right now.

The end goal should be easy enough to guess at. I'm trying to get my nearby village to have enough villagers in it to have every profession. (I placed items for almost everything--the village naturally has two barrels and two composters, but I placed one item for every profession except for a blasting furnace, brewing stand, and lectern.) I know that the real pro strat here is more or less.

"Have the villagers inside your base, and lock them up, so that you can trade with them at will", basically. Control, precisely, exactly what each of their professions is and what they offer you. And have it available in your main base.

...I'm not going to do that. At least, not yet. I could eventually pull that off, I guess, but it's not really something that appeals to me, at least right now. That would be pragmatic and convenient, but the setup, the work, just feels like...not something I would have made.

There are things that I'll happily accept "I didn't make this, but I will accept it'. When I make spider/etc. farms, they will be from videos and such. But this is something that I kinda want to just, work out a system to get it done on my own. I want to breed up the village to be a city. Beds everywhere, villagers everywhere, and every profession filled. With every profession filled, I'll be able to get access via trade to a ton of supplies.

For instance, one of the things I have for trading right now is unbreakable I fishing rods. Mind you, I fished up a fishing rod with Unbreakable III/Mending on it, so that fishing rod will basically never break ever, but I have an infinite supply of incredibly-durable, almost-never-breaking, fishing rods just in case.

I still want to get to documenting everything. Putting signs up on my fishing shack, putting signs up on my logging area, putting a boatload of signs up at the village, and to continue documenting the various areas of my mine in its infinite expanse. 

But this is plenty to work on for now.

In terms of League, bringing it back: I've been playing a fair amount, but...most matches...haven't been going so well. I've been playing like absolute trash. Worse than normal, except in rare instances where I popped off at times it didn't matter that I was popping off. When it mattered, I just was doing everything wrong and receiving fairly justified flame from teammates.

My average cs/minute in games is like 2/minute. I am low on damage, high on deaths, low on objective damage, low on everything good, high on everything bad. I've just been sucking a lot. Some of that can be attributed to playing ranked games--I am officially, with ten completed ranked games, Iron II! As in. Won one, lost two. Won a second, and then...lost all six games after that.

If that were just ranked, would be understandable.

It's not.
Even in Normals, I've just...been losing. And losing. And losing. And I can tell, I am performing significantly worse. And worse. And worse. I'm just, not playing well. I am not doing well in the game. Adding insult to injury, one of my only wins was...in a Vladimir game. Vladimir, when I wanted to play Ashe.

Granted, said Vlad game gave me a build idea to run on him and it seems to be good. Previously on Vlad I was running rageblade bork runaan's gunblade spirit visage beserkers maybe replacing one with death's dance or the like, or something like that. I've got it written down.

Here I decided to run something less likely to be flamed by my teammates: still rageblade and beserkers, but building gunblade, still spirit visage, but building before it Nashor's tooth, for rageblade beserkers gunblade nashors spirit visage bloodthirster.

This is still not a typical Vlad build.
It is, however, still a build with a fair amount of AP in it, which gives (via runes) 40% cdr, and is a largely Kaylesque (also AP Gnar and similar, such as some AP Kennen builds and the like) on-hit AP style where you're dealing mixed damage. Attack speed for hitting rapidly, but healing rapidly from these hits, with abilities still dealing reasonable damage.

It actually feels pretty good.

But it is not Ashe.

And even on the one game I ran it.

I may have won, but I did nothing to earn that win.
It was exclusively a win entirely off of my teammates carrying me.

And my only other Ashe wins were also the same. The first Ashe game, I did pretty good, but it was still my teammates carrying me to a win. The second time I was hard-inting the entire game, where we were even entirely because I was dieing so often and had I been playing as well as I was the game before we would've hard-stomped and my team was literally better off without me.

I've just been.

Utter. trash.

I have no clue why my skills are at an all-time low.

Like, I was doing fine a couple weeks ago or so. Doing really well! I won a bunch, and while I did lose about half of the time, I could look at those losses and go, "yes, I am pretty sure I am not to blame for those losses", where I had some of the objectively best stats on my team and the losses were mostly mid/jungle on my team inting and hard-feeding their enemy counterparts.

These losses?

No.

None of them are on my teammates.

They're all on me.

Like.

I feel like I do have a fairly good level of self-awareness.
When I am doing well, I know that I am doing well.
When I am doing poorly, I know that I am doing poorly.
When I win, I have a fair sense of, "this win was in large part due to my contributions" or "this win was in spite of me", and can gauge it fairly well.
When I loses, I have a fair sense of, "this loss wasn't on me" or "this loss I am fully accountable for".

For the last few weeks/months. It was largely the former. I could tell. Just tell.
I was doing good.
I was doing well.
I was performing just fine.

For the last week or two.
It's just been nothing but the latter.
I can just tell.
I've been doing utterly trash all the time.
I've been at an all-time low in csing.
I've been at an all-time low on coordination.
I've been at an all-time low on ults connecting at clutch timing.
It's just.

Nothing's been going well for me in the last couple of weeks.

Like.

Normally.
When something goes wrong.
Normally, when I am junk at one thing.
It has a tradeoff, where I do much better than normal at another.

Bad at csing, then maybe I'm good at vision.
Or some tradeoff of that sort.
Where, sure, I have a very obvious visible shortcoming, usually multiple shortcomings. Where I am very very very obviously, not performing well in those areas.

...But I also will have other areas where I am doing well to compensate for these shortcomings. Where I am performing above the average, to help make sure I am not utter worthless deadweight who's good for nothing.

...Except.

Right now.

Those good things aren't there.

The shortcomings are there.
But there's no good things to compensate for them.
None.
Nothing.
Not a one.
Not a single thing.

Everything, universally, just sucks.

I am sucking at things that I know I used to not suck on.

And there is no explanation for why.
There's literally no reason for why I should be performing this poorly all of a sudden.

Yes, I know.
I am not a good player. I never perform well. I always have performance shortcomings, performance errors, which mean my rating of Iron is justified because, like. I am not good.

But this is just.
A whole new level of suckage.
I am sucking more than I should.

Yes, I always suck.
But I shouldn't be sucking this much.

If 100% were a perfect performance, my normal levels of performance would be in the realms of 10-25%...
...And my current performances would be at most 1%.

Like.
I am at 1% of a 1% performance.
All time low.
Sucking.
Just.
Terrible.

And I don't know why.

Not different time of day.
Not different mental faculties; if anything, I'm playing while more awake, not more tired.
It's just.
My mind is just. For whatever reason. Entirely off.

Every player has an off-day.
But in every single day for the last few weeks, I've been having what feels like an off-day.

I wish I could just. Find my groove again.

I am perfectly fine, perfectly happy, perfectly acceptable, just sucking in general. But when I suck, I expect to suck in some ways and not in every way.

I'm not asking to get better in every way. I'm not asking to go from having the skills of an Iron player to having the skills of a challenger player. I am not asking to improve a tremendous amount to stellar levels I've never before reached. I'm not asking to be better than ever before.

But like.

Can I at least ask. That I can be as good as I was before?
Is that too much to ask?
Is that too much to expect, to think I should have?

I don't think so.

I am perfectly fine with having an average skill level that is an utter plateau, never rising, never falling. I am also perfectly fine with said skill level being an effective plateau, where sure it rises and falls but overall evens out, and the overall level is clear. Low, regardless. Where some things are better every game than the last, but other things are worse every game from the last.

That's fine with me! Even if my skills are Iron II, if those skills were more or less consistently Iron II, I would be happy with that!

But like.
Sucking at everything.
Constantly.
Neverendingly.
Having NOTHING good?

Where there's been a drop from a low plateau to absolute rock bottom where there's nothing possible it could ever go lower because I am already at the absolute lowest possible, where a beginner bot would perform better than I do?

...And speaking of that, sucking so bad that you can be killed by beginner bots?

I am in such a poor micro and macromanagement spot right now.
That beginner bots are proving to be challenging to me.

I cannot begin to explain just how bad that is.

Like.

How am I supposed to play well against a player, when a bot can consistently first blood me.
A bot.
Not a player.
A bloody BOT.
Can first blood me.
Because I cannot, for the life of me.
Actually play.

With any modicrum of competency.
In any way shape or form.
Even remotely at the level I was.

I just.

I'm just utter trash and I don't know why.

I know why my normal self is pretty dang trash. I always have poor macro, I always have poor micro, I always have poor CS, poor accuracy, poor combos, poor awareness, poor everything, but like. There's a difference between poor at the 20% level. The level I know I am at, can identify why I am there, what I can fix maybe, and such.

...And being at the 0% level. The level I know I'm not at but for whatever reason am currently at, and cannot for the life of me figure out why.

Like.

I had almost no skills before.
But it's like whatever skills I had, were robbed from me, taken from me.
And I don't know why.

I'm having to work harder and harder, for less and less of a payoff.

Maybe.
Maybe.
Mayyyyybe fixed it.

This is still basically a Monday February 2nd blog entry, just one I'm making after the fact, so hopefully I remember to make an entry tomorrow and hopefully it is archived correctly.

Butyeah.

Weebly was being a dick.

Yes, I have two emails.
But when I sign in with the email that I specifically set for this site, and then due to some software insistence that I did not set weebly tries to log me in using my other email account, which as a result gives me a completely different weebly site, I am going to be rather miffed.

As in, prior to midnight. I still consider it the day of for two reasons; it's not past 5-6 am, and I haven't gone to bed for the night, so it's not tomorrow (Wednesday) quite yet for me even if due to being past midnight it is technically Wednesday.

But, anyway.
I meant to blog earlier to hopefully ensure proper ordering on the archive, due to making an entry about 24 hours ago that was marked as being on the third. This entry will hopefully be properly listed as after it, but if it's listed before, well, here's your note that this should be the second and last entry for 3/3/2020 and if it's not, then it's out of order.

Apparently.
weebly.
Without asking to.
Without me telling it to.
Tried to connect to my information and go, "oh, we'll just automatically sign you in to the weebly account associated with this information we retrieve!".
In spite of me manually logging in the same way I always have.

And that login takes me to a nonexistent site.

I have been running this blog since October of 2014.
October of this year will be six. years.
Five and a half years.
I've had this blog.
And it risked wiping that all out, or at the very least, locking me out altogether from editing this site.

You know what I had to do in order to actually get to this damn site? As I should be?
...I had to bloody use an incognito window.

​Very very miffed right now.

To  be fair.
I am depressed--that makes tiredness worse.
I never get a full night's sleep on Saturday nights due to working Sunday. (Admittedly, I set my alarm to have over six hours, but I don't think I slept through all six of them. Especially since I woke up COLD, and COLD means poor sleep.)
I worked a seven and a half hour shift. (Minirant: I would rather work five days a week and shorter shifts, than three days a week with each shift being longer than five hours, but oh well, I'll live.)
I haven't napped.

So there's multiple reasons why I should be tired, that explain why I am so tired.

Butstill.

Tired.

​Need sleeppppp.