All posts by TheDave

Dota 2: Phantom Lancer – Strategy

Gaming, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Phantom Lancer is currently my favourite Dota 2 hero. Phantom Lancer excels in the late game and fairly average prior to level 6.

Phantom Lancer has good ganking and escaping mechanics which in my opinion, make him one of the best hero’s in-game. The only time Phantom Lancer is not a good choice is when the team has an Earthshaker – due to ES ability that increases in damage with each additional target (or in Phantom Lancer’s case, illusions) in the AOE. Phantom Lancer is also not so great when the enemy have lots of AOE lock-down/stun chars. Though, with Diffusal Blade, Phantom Lancer can still be a formidable force if he’s able to mana drain the enemy before they’re able to cast.

My basic strategy:

  1. Lane until level 6
  2. With Juxtapose start jungling and farming for Diffusal Blade (level 1) – Diffusal offers decent agility, this will help with PL’s juxtapose and also has mana drain – which helps everywhere. For jungling it means you can target the bigger creeps and drain their mana before they can activate their abilities, making for a more pleasant jungling experience.
  3. Once Diffusal Blade (level1) is attained the PL should consider starting to gank/pick off unsuspecting heroes. Otherwise, continue farming for a lvl 2 diffusal and then a vlad’s (Note: do not have Morbid Mask and Diffusal together, as they can’t both be used due to both being unique modifiers). One of PL’s weaknesses is that he has low max HP – vlad’s helps to counter that.
  4. Having both Diffusal and vlad’s PL can stay in fights for a significant amount of time and can also down heroes fairly easily.
  5. After Vlad’s I usually go for a Yasha (for the bonus movement to get around more easily and chasing down heroes, and of course more agility). Depending on circumstances I may upgrade it to a Manta or go for a basher first. Once I’ve gotten those, can then pick from any of the standard late game items if you’ve not already won the game.

Fight strategy:

  • Initiate with Spirit Lance to slow enemy down + get 1 illusion.
  • (Requires: Diffusal Blade) In Teamfights, recommend targeting highly mana dependant heroes first in order to drain their mana pools early in the fight – preventing them from using abilities and rendering them useless.
  • (Requires: Abyssal Blade) Following Spirit Lance use Overwhelm to stun the target for 2 seconds.
  • Use Doppleganger to start getting those illusions out and cause confusion.
  • If the enemy still manages to get away – throw more Spirit Lances at them or (Requires: Diffusal Blade) purge them to really slow them down.
  • Requires: (Manta Style) Use Mirror Image to create more longer lasting images
  • If real Phantom Lancer is being targeted – use Doppleganger to confuse the enemy and avoid being targeted.
  • Try moving illusions around to trick the enemy into targeting the illusions and wasting abilities on them.

~TheDave

Pokemon White 2 – Line-up + Impressions

Gaming, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So, a few weeks back I obtained myself a copy of Pokemon White 2. I know I’m quite behind in the pokemon scene, but I got pretty bored of Pokemon after the original Pokemon White/Black games so I’ve neglected any Pokemon purchases since then until now! (I also don’t have a 3DS, so can’t play X/Y or the upcoming remake of Ruby/Sapphire. Well, I don’t have one for the time being)

Anyways, I’ve enjoyed playing through the game. I’ll admit I’m more for one to rush through the content as fast as possible, and so I’ve pretty much used traded Pokemon (from my Pokemon Black game) from the very start to speed up the early game levelling process to fast track the 8 gym badges so that I could then trade over my level 100’s and beat everything else that was left on the game (makes for a very “ezmode” game). I very much like the addition of actual usable in-game rewards for completing the Pokedex (yay, shinies :D) – it’s now so much more worthwhile than being an esteemed no-lifer who bothered to obtain all the Pokemon! I fully intend to slowly transfer all my Pokemon across to White 2, wish trading wasn’t such a slow and boring process despite it’s improvements since Black/White (transferring process is so much nicer).

That all said, I will now share with you my current Pokemon line up (with their stats, etc at the time of this post).

#1: Mewtwo
Type: Psychc
Level: 100
Item: Amulet Coin
Ability: Pressure
Moves: (Psychc) Psychic, (Fire) Flamethrower, (Electr) Thunderbolt, (Ghost) Shadow Ball.
Reasoning: Best non-event Sp. Atk and combined base stat Pokemon (#2 overall). Good move set + type coverage. Pressure very useful for making opponent run out of pp (if they haven’t already been killed). My lvl 100 Mewtwo can basically solo all of the game content.

#2: Lucario
Type: Fight, Steel
Level: 100
Item: Bright Powder
Ability: Steadfast
Moves: (Ghost) Shadow Ball, (Dragon) Dragon Pulse, (Fight) Aura Sphere, (Psychc) Psychic
Reasoning: Great typing – I love steel typed pokemon (all the resists). Good Attack, Sp. Atk and decent Speed. Also, non-legendary so can use in battle subway, etc.

#3: Empoleon
Type: Water, Steel
Level: 85
Item: Wave Incense
Ability: Torrent
Moves: (Water) Hydro Pump, (Water) Waterfall, (Water) Surf, (Water) Dive
Reasoning: Water HM usage + no other pokemon with water typed attack + Hydro Pump is OP. I used to use a lvl 100 Blastoise for this. However, I switched to Empoleon due to it’s superior typing. Also, stat wise Blastoise and Empoleon are very similiar so didn’t lose/gain much there.

#4: Volcarona
Type: Fire, Bug
Level: 79
Item: Quick Claw
Ability: Flame Body
Moves: (Poison) Poison Jab, (Psychc) Psychic, (Fire) Heat Wave, (Bug) Bug Buzz
Reasoning: Basically just to fill the gaps in type coverage. Has decent Sp. Atk and HP. It is however quite slow, though I equip a quick claw to make up for this.

#5: Tropius
Type: Grass Flying
Level: 43
Item: N/A
Ability: Chlorophyll
Moves: (Normal) Flash, (Flying) Fly, (Normal) Strength, (Normal) Cut
Reasoning: Covers all the non-water based HM’s. Type Coverage.

#6: Linoone
Type: Normal
Level: 53
Item: N/A
Ability: Pickup
Moves: (Normal) Hyper Beam, (Normal) Fury Swipes, (Normal) Covet, (Psychc) Rest
Reasoning: For the ability pickup. Getting free extra rare candies, etc is always nice 🙂 AS you may have noticed I haven’t really bothered much with the moves for Linoone, basically because it serves no other purpose than to get me free items.

Additional Notes: I’d to say that my Pokemon line-up is not intended for battling others, only for in-game content. As such, I don’t have any buffs/de-buffs as I feel they’re a waste of a move. I also don’t have extremely high powered moves, as generally they have low accuracy but also because of a low max-PP, which means running out of PP faster when going through the content.

That is all for now.

~TheDave

My brief thoughts on evolution and God

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As some of you may know, I consider myself a Christian. One of the issues that gets brought up in “religious debates” is evolution. Where by, the theory of evolution as presented by science supposedly proves – or leads to the non-existence of God, or at the very least the non-existence of the Christian biblical God.  In this post I wish to briefly describe my own views on it. I would like to add that I am by no means an expert on these matters nor do I intend to pretend that I am, this is merely my attempt to share my thoughts on the matter. I hope that this post will be a means to help others, and also as a way to help better my own understanding of the matter. Lastly, before I begin, I only speak from the standpoint of a Christian perspective, I do not in any way speak for that of other religions.

The biggest issue arises, that when read literally, Genesis (the first book in the Christian bible), tells us that the world as we know it was created in 7 days – with a distinct order. Evolution on the other hand shows us that the world came to be over a significant amount of time and we evolved from various organisms, which in their own right also evolved from other cells/organisms/what have you.

Certainly, at face value these two contradict each other. Now when answering the question at hand, is God or evolution true? You must first realise there are a number of positions one can take

  1. One is true, one is wrong.
  2. Both are true.
  3. Neither are true.

I’m not going to delve into all these positions, only that of my own. I used to believe as a child that evolution was completely wrong, and that the literal account of Genesis was correct. This was mainly because I had only been taught of the literal account of Genesis and also that from what I had observed, many claimed that evolution proved that God didn’t exist. And so, as a God believing Christian, meant that I took the position of evolution being wrong.

Since then, my view has changed. I personally believe that Genesis is not a literal account of the creation of the world – rather that it’s a story, only a figurative description of how the world came to be. This view is generally (from what I understand) becoming more popular amongst Christians. I also however believe science is quite important in the understanding of our world, and more importantly in regards to this topic, shows the way in which God designed the world. Also, that generally speaking, what ever science deems to be “truth” then that is how God intended it. Following my principles, that logically comes to the point that evolution is thus true. Does this then mean I’m contradicting myself? No, it does not. You see, God and science are very much compatible. Certainly, it can appear that they are not compatible – at least, many would have us believe they’re not and many would use Science as evidence that God does not exist.

Using my belief that Genesis isn’t a literal account, evolution can then fit in. Evolution describes the process of what happened – not why it happened. The bible explains the why (in figurative terms). This doesn’t mean I accept evolution as the be all end all, only that I believe it is plausible and that if it is true (which science currently says it is) then it fits in just fine with my Christian perspective.

In the same way that science doesn’t cling unto past “truths” and moves onto new ones when we come to a better understanding, I too do the same. In principle my beliefs of the bible have not changed – I still believe the biblical God is real. However, my understanding of the bible may change over time.

I must also add that just because I think that evolution is plausible it does not mean that I don’t think the literal account of Genesis can’t/didn’t happen. Merely, I just don’t know, and quite frankly, whether I know or not doesn’t really change anything. The only thing that does matter to me is whether or not God is real, something which science (or anyone/anything for that matter) has yet to provide concrete evidence to support the latter. While on that note, may I add that science cannot disprove God, as science is the observation of the physical (correct me if I’m wrong?) – which means it cannot observe God should God exist (based on the biblical view of God). That’s not to say that I don’t respect those whom have different beliefs, only that I personally don’t see enough evidence to support their claims (much like they don’t see enough evidence to support the existence of God).

~TheDave

For more in-depth information related to this issue I recommend: Genesis: Literal or Figurative and/or Science and Christianity