First things first, I gotta say congratz to Kamuz! My longest running trooper and one of the most deserving Eternals ever! I had a blast being in a race with you and Shaolinlondo on a Saturday in the Arena. I knew it was gonna be fun but I can't remember enjoying a loss quite so much. Carlos came into the chase with less than an hour to go and damn this dude is fast! He took third by ten points, basically by less than one win! Not to worry, my CG will be on the podium one day! Kamuz took the lead at 9:30am PST, after after his defense held me in spectacular fashion (more on that in a minute).

I realize now what it takes to go Eternal. It's an urgent rhythm. It's a pattern that you have to nail down and repeat with robot-like precision for hours on end. You have to get into a flow and not see the team in front of you, just know what you need to do to win and do it.. Its impossible to understand the urgency needed to play with until you need to play with that urgency. Today was invaluable. I understand why Gmac, and Jofer before him, are truly beasts now. They can commit the energy needed to win with what may seem like no effort, but it's only because it has become second nature to them.

Speaking of Gmac, I have to give a tip of my hat to him. He showed me nothing but support and encouragement throughout the week. People should take a page from his play-book, this guy is what a real champ should be like.


****My Legacy of the Bugs****

So its one thing to lose to great players, its something you expect, prepare yourself for and can accept. When things began, I found myself doing well with my team, the meta was in my favor and I thought I might try this before they nerfed Talismans and Chars that I invested all that time into upgrading. You would think that the change in meta had an effect on my team synergy, but it would be wrong to do so. I actually found my team (ripe with Energy and Explosives) to be better after the update, easier to win with, oddly enough.

The thing that got worse, was the bugs. Its common knowledge that LotB is ripe with them. Rarely are they in your favor. But never before has that been so vital to have to deal with. In over 1300 bug-infested matches, I must have lost at least two hundred. Of those two hundred, at least half were due to bugs. The most common are the hiccups and game lag that I realized a bit too late, must be caused by poor Wi-Fi communication within the game. It works so much better through my mobile carrier network. I would have never kept up with the podium if not for trying this. The other and most annoying bug is the game hang, where buttons go to die. I lost count at 30... it may have been double, possibly triple this number. I have read that people with iPhones and Apple devices rarely see bugs... well that makes sense if LotB is maintained and more properly tested with similar products. Too bad for us Android users eh...

Name: gamehang.png Views: 355 Size: 376.3 KB
This happens way too often

So anyway, this morning, when I lost the point lead to Kamuz and spent the rest of the day chasing, I did it with a game hang while playing his team. Now as much as it is true that this loss was gonna happen regardless, it is also true that this hang consistently happened whether on Wi-Fi or mobile network. As a matter of fact, those of you who saw two or more holds against me at a given time, majority was game hang. I would say that on average, 2/3 holds were this bug and your team playing that one go-first-all-perfects-procs-match.

Name: gamefreeze.png Views: 256 Size: 408.1 KB
Nomads last ditch effort to freeze out a win

All that said I won over a thousand matches (no numbers posting in my stats window... another bug they "fixed"), which is astonishing in itself and knew that a better, more experienced PvP player would win. Will I try it again? Hell yes! Would I recommend it to anyone? Hell NO! I stumbled onto this game and don't know anyone else personally who plays it. I would mention it if they ask what I'm looking at on my phone but would have to steer them clear of this bug laden mess.


****My Team Needs Work****

Now even though I will say half my losses were due to bugs more than any other factor, the other half was to teams that are so well built and thought out, that there is just no way you're gonna win if they go first and even one minor thing goes right for them.

Nicko, Kamuz, Silentknight, Slauki, to name just a few, have DEF teams that are well built killing machines and really do give them the best opportunity to hold opponents or at least make it tough on people who attack them.

I can only imagine what their offense must be like with the proper, more arena specific talisman builds some of these players have. I just got my first set of Strike Talismans from Big New Waste-of-time and I will try to get the rest of the achievement rewards at some point. I have a long way to go in that respect.

So I'll end by giving props to all the players in the Arena who know what the grind is like and how much fun it can be ripping each others teams to shreds and deal with and overcome the Legacy of the Bugs.

See you all in the arena!


Top 10

1. KAMUZ
2. Shaolinlondo
3. Carlos
4. mjmxiii
5. caliza12
6. gmac
7. Blacksteel
8. donslauki
9. dje
10. Chaosego88