...That I am very, very badly, severely, depressed.

In hindsight, should be obvious enough from yesterday's blog and a bunch of other things.

I don't feel like doing anything. The few times I do, it's for some games but not most games. I mostly just feel like watching. Watching. Just...watching, passively.

I don't even know what to write for this blog, honestly.

Moving back to August 27th since in spite of developing some more story in my mind, didn't so much as note it down yet alone write.

But I was more saying how worthless I can be at times.

I'm not in the mood to write.
I'm not in the mood to play a game.
I'm kinda in the mood to watch something, in spite of having things that I should be watching.
But I also kinda just...want to go to bed.

It is almost 5 am.

But I don't want to do the self-care I should be doing. Vitamins, brushing teeth, etc.

I just.

Kinda.

Want to skip out.
On.
Everything, really.

Which makes me a garbage individual.

I did write down a brief brief brief summary of a character I already knew was going to appear, to ensure I didn't forget the details about her. And I also brainstormed another character as well! Getting him more or less created start to finish as well.

But I don't count that because the only brainstorming I feel is acceptable is on Phyrra and Cyrus, a project which brainstorming is an acceptable thing to spend a day on.

For writing a book, the only thing that'll count is actually writing the book, and I didn't do that today, so today doesn't count, meaning will move back a day.

Let's see. Is there anything else I can talk about?

Nothing comes to mind, honestly.

So I suppose that'll be a wrap on today.

Hmm, well, I shouldn't say that, but it is a solid 90%, which would be I believe August 29th, 2022?

Anyway, an update on my Ashe build: I am beginning to lowkey suspect that the build is absolutely absurdly broken. In a game where I was being ultra-hard-camped with the enemy jungler not going to the top side of the map so much as once until well past the 20-minute mark to engage in full teamfights, and by a midlaner who never went top until well past the 20-minute mark to engage in full teamfights, with both permanently visiting botlane basically on repeat, nonstop.

I ended up with 11 deaths that game, tied for highest on my team. And I did lose first turret. No duh, I had what amounted to a permanent 1v2, 2v3, even 2v4 down there! Naturally, I was going to die a lot and lose my turret because of being dead so often and needing to base.

...And yet? We still won that game, in large part thanks to me. We got every drake in the game. (Although I admit, the one and only death of mine not to the enemy jungler or the enemy midlaner was during the third drake, where the enemy adc showed up while I was at very low health, but we still got it, so it was still worth.) Including the elder.

We got two barons.

I solo-took the cloud dragon that got us soul; I duo'd with my midlaner the elder. I even elder-zapped two members of the enemy team (and if the jungler hadn't oneshot me, I'd have probably solo-ended the game right then and there). I also even earned a solo-kill on the incredibly-fed-enemy midlaner! (Never killed their jungler tho.)

And you know what? In spite of the enemy team literally hardest of hard-camping my lane. I still out-cs'd my lane opponent, I still outdamaged my lane opponent, I had better stats across the board except in deaths, to my lane opponent. I, the adc with 11 deaths who lost first turret. Had some of the best stats in the game. And still won the game, in part due to repeatedly taking objectives.

I could not have had a harder game than that. The enemy team threw literally everything at me to shut me down, and targeted me specifically. They went out of their way to target me. As in, while four members of my team were sieging their base, they'd still send 2-3 members to try and kill me. And in spite of them having rather good success at doing precisely that. I was still relevant.

I was still more useful than my lane opponent who had a fraction of my deaths and who had the turret gold.

The enemy team tried hard to set their adc up for success and tried hard to shut me down. I still was one of the most dangerous members of my team, with literally the only enemy team member able to kill me being the enemy jungler oneshotting me. (I mean, one of the strongest junglers on the patch with a transformed muramana and full lethality in the form of a duskblade ghostblade edge of night and more who ran dark harvest and had to have had over 20 stacks on that rune, against an Ashe who has one of the squishiest builds possible. I aint living through that.)

An assassin jungler oneshotting me, being the one and only way to stop me, with me being able to kill literally everyone else on the enemy team, with me applying heavy pressure. And this, after being hard-hard camped.

Now imagine that if I hadn't been camped.

If I had free reign on botlane without being camped, I never lose my bottom turret and take one, maybe two towers. I probably also get kills in the 2v2, because there were at least 3-5 times where the only reason we didn't get those kills was due to the jungler or midlaner coming down to bail their botlane out. Over and over, we almost killed them, stopped by that presence alone.

Without that presence, we get those kills and hard-snowball through the botlane. 

This is the build I mentioned before, by the way. Lethal Tempo, Presence of Mind, Legend:Bloodline, Cut Down I think? (the middle one, using enemy's higher-than-you health), Transcendence, and Manaflow Band. With the extra runes of CDR and, normally, adaptive force + armor (this time I took double-armor due to a 4-AD comp, not that it did anything to help me since the jungler still oneshot me in spite of being ad and the midlaner was ap so in hindsight if I had known about them camping bot should've just gone for the normal adaptive force).

And building manamune, ionian boots, runaan's, phantom dancer, statikk shiv, and rapidfire cannon (to transition into essence reaver replacing rfc and infinity edge replacing statikk shiv and blade of ruined king replacing ionian boots).

Without being camped, I legitimately think there was a good chance I'd get to the upgraded full build. (As-was, I got to the zeal of the rfc so was on my final item!)

So I think that my build is actually broken on her. Cheap items, cheap powerspike, lane bully, scales well...I literally had a scoreline that looked like inting but was still crucial in winning, suggesting that I can easily play from behind with the build. If I can play from behind with the build, and can play ahead with the build even better...it's perfect.

Today was largely a self-care day and do-errands day, so I didn't really put the time in for writing. Right now, watching the OCS finals best of five, and that'll take the majority of my night even if it's a 3-0 sweep (which I doubt it will be).

There is some rather unpleasant news; my old dog, an 16-year-old fart of a toy fox terrier, got bitten badly by another dog; hopefully, he'll be alright (we did get him to the emergency vet fairly quickly).

But I'd prefer to focus on other things. I'm one game away from getting Yone to S on the spirit realm quest, and within reach of my third S+ as well. I knocked out all of my tft quests for the week, and I've been playing a fair amount of Nexus Blitz during the day, and even dabbled in Summoner's Rift while there's Draft during nights. (I stay far away from blind and ranked, because both are a whole different level of toxic.)

I've been trying out a build, but it's not quite the build that I said I wanted to. It's the same runes I said, and same core items; manamune into muramana, with ionian boots and runaan's and phantom dancer. From there, it should be the trio of infinity edge, essence reaver, and blade of the ruined king, with one of them replacing the boots.

I've been trying out the idea that, if the game went super-duper late, replacing items with those three, but running the cheapest build humanly possible, the cheapest six items for an adc to buy. Which happens to be manamune (2400), ionian boots of lucidity (900), and then...quadruple zeal items, with each and every single one of them being 2600.

No other build is cheaper. There's cheap builds, some using some of those items! Iceborn Gauntlet is 2700, only 100 gold more expensive. Lethality is also fairly cheap, with Umbral Glaive being 2400 and the rest of the items not being much higher, but while Umbral Glaive is 200 gold cheaper, Duskblade is 300 gold more expensive (bumping the gold to +100 a 4-zeal build), Edge of Night is also 300 gold more expensive (bumping it up to +400), ghostblade is also 300 more expensive (so, +700), and sanguine blade is 400 gold more expensive (bumping the full build to be 1100 gold more expensive).

But the cheapest full build for the most bang for the buck is Runaan's-Phantom Dancer-Statikk Shiv-Rapidfire Cannon.

I actually quite like it. Building four zeal items gets you the 100% crit on Ashe, whose passive makes heavy use out of crits. It gets good attack speed, which you can pair with lethal tempo. It gets good movement speed, basically doubling her movespeed (may be a slight exaggeration there). Plus, Runaan's Hurricane plus Statikk Shiv is disgusting waveclear from autoattacks and Ranger's Focus.

I can just right click, and bam, wave is basically cleared with one auto. Get a full four in, and the only way it's not gone is with a super or if it's baron'd up.

Then, there's the fact that zeal items actually have a fairly good resell value. They resell for 1820 gold, which is only a 580 gold loss. Not exactly the most efficient item to resell, but, still fairly price-effective. If I ever get to the full build and get 1480 gold (1580 for infinity edge), I can sell one of the zeal items and get a bf-sword-crit-item, essence reaver or infinity edge.

Get that a second time, I get both.

And then I can go for the BorK to replace the boots.

Of course, the build is flexible. Against a fully-full AP team, I ran MR, merc treads, and after building the manamune was building Wit's End (attack speed mr-item), Maw of Malmorteous (attack damage/cdr mr-item), and Mercurial Scimitar (lifesteal mr-item), with the intention of after getting that trio to finish the build off with something like death's dance or spirit visage.

I didn't win that game, didn't even finish the build, mind you, but in my defense: I was the only player, me the sole adc of our team, building MR, so we had no frontline because everyone on our team was squishy, even the "tanky" champions because they built armor/ap instead of mr. But I digress.

Another game, I saw that the enemy team had some incredibly tanky champions, or at least champions who could build tanky. (Amumu, Nunu, and Sett.) That game I still went manamune and ionian boots first, and then runaan's because I expected to be teamfighting early and often to spread bolts to the entire enemy team, but I was building BoRK after that. (We won before I finished it, butstill.) From there I'd probably have gone either ER or IE, then the other, not bothering with the quad-zeal strat.

So, I'm really liking the build. 

If I wasn't such a trash iron player who can't cs to save my life, I'd probably be able to get the initial full build in like 20 minutes and transition to the better full build by 30. But since I am, sadly, the initial full build is more like 30-35, and a transition would take to 40-50 minutes to obtain. One way or another, the game's probably over before I get there.

Ah well. I still think it's a really good build for me, so I'll be moving forward with it as my default bottom-lane rune choice.

The absolute latest possible coming-out date for me is now August 30th, 2022 because I once more did nothing today.

I am being very productive in many areas of my life. I'm getting better about brushing my teeth, doing it twice a day, flossing once a day, and using the special toothpaste once a day. I also am staying more on top of my hair (although body hair I've left unshaved). I took my vitamins tonight. I'm doing plenty of stuff, just not productive.

I almost forgot to blog today, but when in the bathroom, remembered it's something I needed to do. I once almost forgot to feed the kitteh (the general rule of thumb: if Twilight, our old big kitteh wants food, he gets it, period, and it was him who asked), and then almost forgot to put the can away (technically, I could still forget, I left it out for him to have a second helping of it, which he is having now). But I got that, too.

Tomorrow the plan is also to shower and change my clothes, staying on top of body hygiene as well. I'm also staying on top of my email (not that that does me much good right now), so in many aspects, I am managing and I am improving.

​Just...need to keep going, more or less.

My latest-possible coming-out day is now August 31st, 2022. Just about two years from now.

I'm having an "urrrrgh" night for tmi-natural-bodily-functions reasons, which combined with being tired and also a bit cold, is killing my energy tonight and producing an exact copy of last night.

There's about a dozen things I could ramble on; there's about a dozen things I want to do.

​I'll presumably do none of them due to this.

Once more, did nothing today, albeit mostly due to today being divided between other commitments earlier in the day and by the time I didn't have them, being too tired to do anything.

I wanted to play an actual game of league of legends, but with how tired I was, I knew I wouldn't win. Nexus Blitz is possible, but even now I think I'm too tired for even that. (Plus, I kinda like that I have a perfect record. Turns out that both Ashe my onetrick and my backup champion of the onhit lifesteal Vladimir are incredibly strong on that gamemode and I can get the needed items to scale ridiculously quickly and once I scale, if my team has any reasonable frontline to soak up damage/cc and keep the enemy from oneshotting me or stunlocking me, I deal lethal damage.)

TFT was possible, but I currently have no TFT quests and if I played one game I'd need to end on a note I was happy with which might be ten games later--not viable when getting ready for bed.

Can't write when I'm this tired, it'd be utter gibberish.

I kinda want to get back into playing other games, but I've had other things that have taken priority.
I could play minecraft, but am disincentivized from doing so at the moment.
I could play Majesty, but while there is new content to play there I just don't feel like it.
I could play Civ 3 but I don't have the mindset to play anything that'd go in the record-books, none of my created ones are in a state that I'd want to play them, and I don't feel like modding them right now.

I do want to play through the Henry Stickmin games again (which I bought on steam the moment I heard of it being out), but that requires a block of time I've yet to get, plus, I keep forgetting. (Whooops!)

On the note of flash games, oh well my internet went down as I was typing this blog by this sentence so while I was already planning on going to bed (was gonna get to that in a bit) that makes the decision easy, but were I able to access the internet, I would mention that there's multiple games there.

I can probably finish the 2019 quest on Kongregate, and have much of an incentive to do so.
Kongregate is getting better about updating their challenges and not leaving it be the same one for like three years, so I need to check on that.

I still get messages from game developers who would gladly release their newest games on kongregate were they able to do so thanks to kongregate deciding to die (still very very bitter about that, by the way--other flash game websites can and have made the decision to keep going after flash stops being supported, with some even planning to port every flash game into html 5! Kongregate? Nope, they decided to close doors and stop accepting any new games, in spite of new games not needing to be flash), and those messages give me the link to play the games on the websites those creators are now forced to use. I need to play those games, even if not on kongregate.

And I want to play more Epic Battle Fantasy 5, especially considering that is the closest game I have to Persona games, which I love love love to watch. (The only Persona game that I can get is P4 Golden, and I probably will get it when it's on sale, and I will probably play it start to finish once I do get it, but I don't have it right now, am content with watching my dear friend play it for now.)

But no, with how tired I am, and with the internet having gone down while I was writing my blog, easiest decision of my life; I'm going to bed. Will post this once I regain internet access. 

Watching my good dear friend stream personal 4 golden tonight (and even were I not, would instead be watching the OPL so was gonna not be free regardless, plus I had family night over, so no matter what, was gonna not get progress today), so nothing today.

I'm probably not going to work on anything tonight, OPL playoffs will eat up my evening presumably, so no work done, ah well.

On that note, I wanted to talk more about League for quite a long time.

I am still an Ashe onetrick.
But I can't always play her. When I'm autofilled to jungle, I've taken to playing Kindred. When Ashe is banned, I play a lifesteal on-hit Vladimir (think Kayle items: Gunblade Nashors Rageblade Beserkers Spirit Visage Death's Dance). Coincidentally, both use nearly-identical runes. I wanted to ramble on them for a long, long time, but I'll save it for another blog.

I wanted to talk about my progression on Ashe tonight specifically.

I've tried various setups. I tried an armor-shred Ashe, an on-hit build. PTA, BoRK, Runaan's, the idea being to build rageblade and black cleaver after that, and something more after that, don't remember--never got it off the ground because it never worked for me. Something similar to it might work for another player, but that style of play isn't me.

I've abandoned the idea that I'd run lifesteal Ashe for similar reasons in spite of how fun that is (tho every build I run tends to have a healing rune in it, beit bloodline or the domination one; only one getup doesn't have it, and even that one might if font of life allows you to heal as well, honestly not sure on how that works).

So I've been favoring poke-oriented builds.

I've got two or three (third was not always so) "tanky" Ashe builds; I've got two lethality Ashe builds; I've got two support-Ashe builds, and all of them work. (There is overlap there, btw. One support build is a tank build, one lethality build is also a support build.)

One tank Ashe build I play exclusively in toplane, because as a botlaner you're expected to deal damage and I wasn't convinced the build dealt enough damage. The idea of the build was to turn a squishy immobile adc into a tanky fairly mobile ranged tanky toplaner.

That build is Grasp-primary, with shield bash, minion deaths giving health, and I believe bone plating (tho most of those runes are flexible), with overheal and bloodline secondary. You take tabis or mercs, and build in whatever order the enemy champions dictate: Iceborn Gauntlet, Spirit Visage, Death's Dance, Deadman's Plate, and Abyssal Voyage, with some flexibility built in.

It actually works remarkably well and functions exactly as advertised by and large, unless I face an unfamiliar champion to me and/or get ganked and set behind. I become tanky, ridiculously hard to kill, and provide a reasonable frontline, while offering the utility Ashe offers, with her ult, with her slows, etc. I really like it as a toplane build but I know it's only viable in that lane.

The other tank Ashe build is also a support build, but one which came back to my original theory behind building manamune on Ashe. It still runs Grasp-primary, but runs sorcery-secondary, transcendence and manaflow band. This one runs with font of life, due to no items/abilities giving a shield for shield bash. The build here is similar: rush manamune, build mercs/tabis whichever of the two is better, and then build exclusively items that give mana that're also tanky items.

The universal item I'm building first in that build is Zeke's Convergence--I know it is a support item, but it gives 300? mana, high armor, and also magic resistance. From there, depending on need, there's: Righteous Glory (300? mana, health regen), Iceborn Gauntlet (highest mana item at 500, gives waveclear, good armor), Frozen Heart (slows attacks, highest armor, 400? mana), and Abyssal Mask (400? mana, extra mr).

The idea of this build is obvious enough. It is basically to be the ultimate utility, with a good balance of everything. Still an immobile champion, sadly, but otherwise monstrously good. Absurdly tanky, good cc, arrows quick to be off cooldown from the cdr, and once the manamune transforms into the muramana, dealing the maximum possible damage, while also boosting an ally's damage potential.

I've run it both top and bot, concluded it's better top and works just as well as the other tank build. If not better. Every game I played it in, I was either even or ahead of my opponents! And then my botlane got crushed, losing that lane, and/or my jungler inted/fed, and/or my midlaner fed or even in one instance ragequitting the game. I never lost using it in laning phase and it worked to do exactly what I wanted it to do, every single time. But alas, it is not a 1v9 build so even if I won an isolated 1v1 or even surviving 1v2s, if my teams lose 4v4s or even 4v3s where they had number advantages, not much I can do!

Basically, the build I feel works and works really really well, so I quite like it. A tankier Ashe does remarkably good in toplane, the one and only flaw to be had is that botlane players sometimes want Ashe, which is problematic, and it's less effective of a build in the botlane 2v2 (still works, just not as well).

The next notable build of mine is a manamune into full-lethality Ashe mid: Dark Harvest paired with Cheap Shot (which is GODLY good on Ashe). From there, well, eyeball's the only real rune to use in that column, and when it comes to Hunters, the choice is between Ultimate Hunter and Ravenous Hunter. Ultimate Hunter would eventually allow for spamming arrows on a ridiculously low cooldown, but I'd have no lifesteal in the build unless I built sanguine blade (which I don't).

The secondary rune is sorcery. I used to run transcendence, before I realized that I never exceeded the cdr cap so all it'd do is get me to max-cd faster. Now I use manaflow band for some extra mana and mana regen, while running gathering storm. The build is manamune and ionian boots, into duskblade, into ideally ghostblade (for movespeed and highest lethality), and from there there's options: umbral glaive for ward sweeping/killing and cdr and extra lethality, or rapidfire cannon for extra range and built-in crit and extra movespeed. Technically those aren't mutually exclusive, that's six items, but games tend to not last long enough for me to get even remotely close to that full on the build.

I could, if forgoing the rfc, build either sanguine blade for high high high isolated damage and lifesteal, or edge of night for a spellshield to give me protection. 

This build is ridiculously squishy and rather immobile. But the poke hits like a truck and I don't think there's any higher-damage poke-oriented build for Ashe. Sure, sustained damage over time builds, probably are better builds, but poke damage from volleys and an ult that, post-muramana, can in of itself half-health any non-tank champion? It's a feel-good build.

I could run it botlane, but in botlane it tends to be less effective because it takes longer to get online and it's easier to get dove and harder to get influence and such, so I mostly run it midlane.

So that leaves the botlane, which uses the same exact runes between support/adc-Ashe, just building differently. Arcane comet, manaflow band, transcendence, and gathering storm, with presence of mind and bloodline as secondary. As the support, the build is spectral sickle as the support item into manamune into lethality, starting with ubral glaive, then duskblade, then maybe ghostblade. (Which, with ionian boots, would be full build.)

The idea of that is to poke poke poke and bully the enemy team, force them away with low healthbars. You want your adc to get the kills, minions, etc., so you just focus on utility but still deal significant damage.

As the adc, the build is manamune into...well. Into anything. If iceborn gauntlet is built, or abyssal mask is built, is fairly tanky. Other items would be rfc for crit, attack speed, range, and movepeed, and runaan's for crikt, waveclear, movespeed, and attack speed. You could maybe throw in an ER in there somewhere, too, for replenishing mana, extra crit, extra damage from excess cdr, and raw attack damage. It's really really good at poking, throwing volleys nonstop, and giving decent survivability. 

But I want to try out a new build now.

It was mathed out that, statistically speaking, in damage over time over a period of ten seconds in a sustained engage, the highest-possible damage build for Ashe, that is also the cheapest build possible, that is also applicable regardless of opponent's hp and at all stages of the game?

That's actually still a manamune into muramana build. But, manamune into runaan's into a suggested IE into something like Death's Dance into a final situational utility-based item, was what the person who mathed it out suggested. (That person being one of Cloud 9's ace adcs.) Running lethal tempo and inspiration, in their case approach velocity and magical footwear.

That build would, presumably, rely on autoattacking and kiting to an extent that, while it'd work for other Ashe players, has been shown to not be ideal to my style. The one and only autoattack build I've managed to not be trounced on is the lifesteal build, and even then it wasn't very remarkable. 

So I wanted to make a build that would still be good at poking, while also having the high damage of that sustained damage over time when actually autoattacking. 

The build I came up with is in fact circling back to lethal tempo as a rune, taking presence of mind, bloodline, and on the third I believe the one that does the most damage overall on Ashe is Cut Down. And as secondary, running sorcery, in this case, transcendence and manaflow band. Transcendence here is actually necessary due to a lack of cdr in the build otherwise and still wanting to get to that 40% mark. Well, I still only get 30%, between ionian boots, the cdr rune, and transcendence, buuuut, there is an option for that to get it up further.

I'd still run manamune, but then build Runaan's. The items I'd be looking to fill out the build: Phantom Dancer, Infinity Edge, Blade of the Ruined King, and Essence Reaver.

Not in that order necessarily, mind you. I'm honestly not sure what order to build in, I'm actually thinking cheapest item to most expensive, which would be phantom dancer into bork or er, then the other, with ie replacing boots as a sixth item if I ever got that far.

Phantom Dancer would help make me be less immobile, especially in tandem with Runaan's also giving movespeed. It'd give that shield to give temporary tankiness as well. Building it gives the 50% crit in tandem with Runaan's, and pairs well with the attack speed.

I've yet to test it out, but my theory here is that the manamune with presence of mind and manaflow band and a still-respectable 30% cdr from just ionian boots and runes. So I could still spam volleys, with volleys dealing pretty dang high damage post-transform (doubly so, with any of the items that have attack damage in them).

And then with high attack speed, being able to use autoattacks in tandem with that. Escape potential (especially with bork-pd, a classical combo), cheap build, good slows/damage, I wanna try it out and see if it works in practice.

We'll have to test it out sometime, but ah well. Probably not tonight.