I generally don't tag or leave any sign of visitation of blogs. I do have my own blog, but it's not suitable for public domain, so in general this doubles up as my own blog too, albeit I'm compelled to write as little as possible about personal stuff.

In light of all the "Scary" stuff a few posts back, I would just like to generalise scary as basically something unfamiliar, unexpected, and undesirable. Generally this is caused by an adverse undesirable and unexpected reaction to something, either because of value differences or merely lack of knowledge of habits, or an irregularity in reaction, as a result of other circumstances unknown to the scaree. As such, flares of temper can be regarded as scary sometimes because the real causes for it are unknown or the cause simply is misinterpreted or seems absurd to the scaree, a result of difference in values.

On another topic familiar to everyone, school. I go to school for two reasons. Friends, and to graduate, which I think requires a certain amount of attendance to not attract disciplinary action. Every day I'm absent, or someone else is absent, and asks me what has gone on in school, I reflect back and reply "nothing". School is a testament to how teaching someone for 2 hours won't get anything into his head, but getting someone to help him learn for 20 minutes does so much more. 80% of the time spent is mostly buffer or wasted time.

What do you go to school for? Probably friends and attendance. Sleepiness, the drilling, the environment, the monotonity, the bad pacing, if you really wanted to learn you'd spend half the time reading up and learning twice as much. I do have a few really good teachers though, and it shows when they can make you learn twice as much in half the time, and end class early, not once leaving you sleepy and having you actually leaving the class feeling like you could reply that absent classmate with "hey, we actually learnt something today".

The above is personal opinion, not popular opinion, so disagree with it if you want as long as you can justify yourself.

Also, @dawn, QoP tends to get easier as you become better in generally playing the game. I think. My QoP improved from utterly-blowing to not-that-blowish without me playing her at all.

On with some hero logs... this time of everyone's two favourite many-unit heroes, Chen and Bear! I'll start off with Bear because I don't like writing about Chen.


Hero Log 8/80: Lone Druid

Another hero I'm rather proud of, I started using this to solo early last year in clan matches, and thought of it independently, around the same time DsD started to use it too. I had periodic feelings of being "out of control" with this hero, when I was mostly just microing both the Spirit Bear and the Lone Druid without any concious knowledge of what was going on, which resulted in sub-par playing. I mostly don't get that so often now.

Lone Druid is an early-mid game hero that can usually transit into late game. Quite frankly Lone Druid's early game before level 7 is pretty sucky. Competent players won't take much damage from the Spirit Bear without being rooted (and unfortunately, I don't root early game), and the hero has little defensive barrier and not many hit points, without room to get a few points in attribute bonus. Early game is usually reduced to fighting for last hits and keeping the opponent away, which works well for certain matchups, not so much for others. It's at level 7 where the Spirit Bear starts to form a brick wall of defense around the Lone Druid, making it impossible to take him without something to let you get close to the hero around that fat Spirit Bear.

In big engagements, it's mostly just sending your Spirit Bear in to maul on some hero you want to disable or kill quickly. Then comes the decision on whether to send your hero in to deal additional damage. Early-mid game, the Lone Druid can't really withstand much damage from any AoE or nukes that come his way. True form allows him to survive, but essentially he can't reach many targets in melee form.

That is basically the main vibe I have with the Lone Druid. His early game isn't the best but I can live with it, and even like it sometimes because the long strike range means he can farm even against 3 enemies. It's that choice between fragility and unmanuervability in engagements. The Lone Druid is too fragile to actually directly participate in team engagements early on in the game, but it's most effective to pump the damage items on him for later.

That being said, there's more I like about the Lone Druid than what I don't. So much more. The Lone Druid fulfills 3 of my top few criteria in liking a hero. First, it can farm, because it has an excuse to farm being not usually compelled to backstab. Second, it allow you to micro more than one unit, which is always exciting. Third, it can neutral creep, and very quickly with little expense, at at low level, without sparing even the ancient creep camps.

One of my top criteria is being impossible to take down, and unfortunately Lone Druid doesn't always fulfill this. True Form does make him one hell of a monster to take down, but honestly reduces his utility by quite a bit and takes time to cast, so it is easy to get caught without being able to cast True Form in time. Rabid does add a lot of movement and attack speed though, so it does boost chasing power and survival skills, and of course increases damage output.

The best thing about the Lone Druid is the utility of having a Spirit Bear though. I'm still exploring new ways to use it though. Right now the Sprit Bear can steal items (something I'm proud to have invented and carried out with moderate success for a period of time), lure and stop creep spawns, creep in some cases, scout for backstabs and enemy locations. Its ability to provide an extra 6 free slots and serve as a risk-free mobile unit also makes it suitable to do things like ward, remote-irritation (like just following the enemy backstabber around to piss him off), and carry cheap aura items like RoB or anything else without having to waste one precious slot for a small item. I remember I once chased down a creeping ES with my Spirit Bear alone in IHCS, keeping my hero creeping on the opposite side of the map, and killed him by burning him with radiance all the way back to his base.

Really cool hero, but I still do have problems with its fragility, and the large stab it takes in your morale when you just can't seem to land any entangling roots when they are needed most.


Well, since I might not be playing in a long time, I'll save the Chen for another time. Isn't that good to write everything in one sitting. Gets boring for both reader and writer.