One of the things I like to do a lot is watch videos on Youtube. It is something that makes me see what everyone else is up to and figuring out ways to eventually move my blogs to a vlog and videos on everything I would like to talk about. One of the videos I was watching was by Gaijin Goombah and it is someone I try to keep up with since he covers many things I love such as cultural and controversial topics in video games. One of his latest videos talks about how Nostalgia and how it effects video games. He talked about how it is something that keeps us going back to certain games and dislike newer games. This is the problem I have a lot and why I tend to play MOBAs over other games but don't get me wrong I brought Pokemon Y at a midnight launch at Gamestop and I couldn't wait for it to come out. His video made me thing of all the games I brought recently and if it was sheerly because of Nostalgia or because I actually really wanted to play the game besides being nostalgic. Every once in a while I look at "Brawl in the Family"'s video on Megaman being in the next Smash Bros and everytime I look up it, I have to admit I tear up a little since Megaman is one of those character that I have very fond memories playing some of them as a child. 
     Games are something that really touch the deepest part of myself and it is something that will always be close to my heart due to having so may great memories with them. Nostalgia is something so powerful that gamers beg for certain games to be remade into today's graphics just to have something that reminds them of better days. One of those games is Final Fantasy 7, a game that is amazing RPG that is still used as a standard for today's RPGs. For me this isn't a game that holds a deep memory but a game like Pokemon has always been part of me. I remember I believe it was Christmas when I received a fairly big box or at least I thought it was big that contained some of my most treasured items today. One being a Gameboy Color, Pokemon Red and Blue, and Tarzan. I have no idea what else I got that day but it was something I could not wait to play. Another memory I have is going first thing in the morning when Pokemon Gold and Silver came out with my parents to BestBuy and remembering my mom finding the pile of games before my dad and I. One more memory I have is just like the Nintendo 64 Kid when I received my Nintendo 64 with Mario Kart 64. It was something that I opened and sadly found that I couldn't play it as soon as I opened it but I remember my Uncle going to buy the right TV cable so I could play it that day. I don't even remember playing Mario Kart 64 but I remember being so excited and then instantly sad due to not being able to play right away. My last and oldest memory is playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in the living room on the big TV that I rarely could use and sitting there playing it so close that I could see each pixel. 
     I just wanted to take time to post something related since I wanted it to be something fresh in my mind but one final note to leave for everyone is that I remember being incredibly excited for Star Fox 64 3D when it came out but I never got it until maybe a month or so ago. I played through the entire game on the Nintendo 64 version and I just kept playing until I beat it. All I could think of was my dad and how we used to play it all the time it along with Bomberman is his favorite games. I don't have any memories playing with them but just sitting in my dorm room playing through it reminded me of him and I even posted it on Facebook since it effected me that much since it was something that reminded me of my childhood and it was nostalgic. Sonic Generation was a game that I had to play the first day due to this fact and everyone that has been ingrained from birth will have this feeling of playing something and having the best memories come out and make them smile even during the darkest time.  
 
     This is going to be a short blog post just because I have started college again and my focus is on other things now.
    This is another big issue I see in matches.... Do you really know all the items in the game? If not and you plan on being "good" you should learn them because you might be the reason why you completely lost the match for the team. Tell me how many times you've heard this "adc" before the match has started then you notice that your adc has amazing farm but they aren't actually doing much damage? This is due to them not knowing which items are best for the situation. Let's say the enemy team (talking about LoL) has no armor, what item should your adc be getting? I'm not even going to answer that because you should be thinking of items that melt people who have little to no armor. Now take that item and combine it with another item that ignores armor so with those two items calcucate how much extra damage your adc will do if he just looked at the enemies' items. Everything is about what items you have to change the tide of battle if you notice your supports are dying a lot it is likely because they have no items but if they have items yet got stuff they didn't need then they need to learn which items fit the battle. Say in LoL the opponent's adc is a very high speed attacker. The support should be grabbing items that slow down the attack speed or gives aura effects to help the team. 
     Knowing items is something that every player should learn about since you never know when you might have maxed out items and have to think on the fly to sell an item for a better one. This happened to me today in bot matches I had to buy a new item for almost everytime I was killed in battle. I was able to beat the bots but it gave me a ton of trouble because of the constant change of knowing what items would help me right then and there rather than saying I got max items and don't need anything else. Saying that I don't need any other items would have caused me to not gain more damage for less speed while my team prepared for mass aoe attack speed slow and movement speed slow. Knowing this I was able to easily pick more damage over being able to attack fast but no damage and worry about dying from not enough damage fast enough that would have caused me to die from spells.
     Knowing the items to me is just as important as knowing the champions or heroes. Knowing that Axe needs a blink dagger to be very effective over getting a vanguard first will mean Axe is more of a threat than not being able to blink and call. Many players I watch randomly will get vanguard first and the team will be behind in initiation for another 5-10 minutes unlike the Enigma that has been able to gank with his blink dagger for the last 5-10 minutes gaining easy kills for the carry. Getting kills should be the biggest objective and helping the team earlier is better than thinking about yourself and what items will help you live longer. You should always put the team before yourself... Even though you may be the carry if you know your initiator is missing his blink dagger at 20 minutes you should let him farm the gold to finish it so it gives you a better team fight. If you are thinking about yourself you will put yourself in a position where you are not a team player anymore and blame people for things you actually were in control of. 
 
     You see the wave right at your tower you decide now it is my time to strike.... IT IS THE PERFECT TIME TO GO NO OTHER TIME BUT NOW!!! WTF MY TEAM ISN'T DOING ANYTHING THEY ARE ALL NOOBS!..... If this sounds like you raise your hand. Now that we have a count of how many of you are noobs we can now get started on some actual learning today. When you decide to jungle you take on a very different role. Your job is to gank when needed (not to be confused with all the time) now think about when you actual gank do you A) Gank when the creep are at the tower or do you B) Gank from the bushes when your team is pushed or C) Whenever you feel like ganking or D) When they tell you to gank. Jungling doesn't work like most people think you cannot just gank at the sound of a button and you cannot expect to successfully gank every single time. Your time has to inform you of things that might have happened such as did Cait use Flash within the last 3 minutes? Have you noticed if Sand King leveled up Sandstorm?
     These are all things you need to know before having a easy gank. If Cait hasn't used flash you need to position yourself in a way that will stop her from going the way that will save her. Did you bring a sentry or dust for Sand King when he uses Sandstorm. If you cannot land the gank successfully you wasted time that you could of used to farm levels or items that may help you better with ganks or you missed a time that you could of stole blue or red from the other jungler. In the end it does help your lane but if you completely whiff it or spend 30-60 seconds just sitting and waiting you are wasting time that could be used for better things.
     Just like supporting it is something that require positioning and talking to your teammates. If you say you are going to gank then they decide to go back to base they didn't really want you to gank and even if you did you are likely to not be successful in the gank. I've seen so many players go for a gank when the creep wave is at the tower and now the lane has to bit the bullet and take hits from the creep as well as give away that a gank is coming because you couldn't wait until the next wave came up. Your lane also has to be willing to work with you because this happens a lot too you are about to gank when Vanye decides to leap forward and scare the enemy back and now they are further along and you decide I'll still go but now they are out of position and closer to their tower. This is the worst time to actually gank because now they will be more mindful of the gank and be prepared for it because Vanye is being too aggressive in the lane than normal.
     Now this also happens a lot you have an Udyr waiting in the bushes while your lane creep are right by their tower and it slowly starts to push toward you again when he just runs out and decides we aren't close enough to the tower to get any aggro. Then Udyr hits once or twice and claims that you didn't do anything to help with the gank so he decides to tower dive at level 3 or 4 soaking up two or three hits from the tower and dies. So he complains that he isn't going to help you with a gank again so now he fed a kill to their team as well as died so he lost 30-60 seconds worth of jungle time that could of waited for when their creep were closer to his tower. Now I've been talking a lot about League of Legends so let's move to Dota 2 for the rest of this post. Before I leave this topic though NEVER gank from the lane always come around if there is a ward pay the 200 gold for the elixir to be able to see wards. 
     Unlike League of Legends it is way easier to gank in my opinion. The only way to fail at ganking is if you are a horrible ganker or decide to go for the target that could easily escape. Dota 2 is more about position and know what the opponent can and cannot do like Earthshaker cannot blink away before 10 minutes unless he has great amount of farm. This means all you need to do for a good gank is come up from behind the lane when it is pushed and just corner them into a position where they will just die. Most junglers in Dota 2 have a stun or slow so make use of it when you think they are more likely to get away. Don't use Enigma ultimate unless they will escape because if you don't need to waste it don't waste it but if you think at any moment they will run away drop that Blackhole. Only takes around 3 minutes to come up and it takes them about a minute to come back to the lane so well worth the wait just to do it again in 2 more minutes. 
     Dota 2 you need your lane to work with you either with moe slows coming from the support such as Crystal Maiden or maybe a stun from an Earthshaker. Even Warlock's slow works wonders when you want to gank it could even bait out the enemies stun to stop them from doing anything and this creates the perfect time for you to come from behind and earn at least one kill for the team. If they have wards or you notice any odd movement just turn around and wait a minute and come back because if you see something odd it is likely odd because they see you. I know plenty of people that play Dota 2 and right away they can feel a gank coming and that feeling can create tons of problems for a ganker when there actually isn't a ward they just know normal timings and positioning to say "hmmmm something isn't right". It only takes a slight change to feel uneasy or the need to ward so when you get that feeling trust it don't let it pass by you because you think you are wrong. If you think you are getting ganked and you checked the map you are likely getting ganked sooner or later so pull back and wait for the wave to come to you.
 
     Team picks the entire lane layout already and you are either stuck with support or picking another hero/champ all together. The ADC decides to post "a support plz" so instinct should tell you ok I will support you. Now that the match begins you notice something strange the person you are "supporting" is missing easy last hits and decides to play way too aggressive. This is when panic sets in because A) Your lane partner is completely awful or B) They have terrible internet yet still decide to play the "carry" role. So to clear things up this match is going down high fast when you see that you are slowly losing the lane even when your jungler decides to gank when the wave is completely pushing but that is a post for another time. Back to that oh so important "carry" lane partner. There are rules you should follow when you pick a carry and decide that "I want to be the main attraction of this match"  yet cannot actually do the basics of what a carry should be doing to actually be effective during the mid to late stages of the game. 
     Let's start with the basics if you want to carry LEARN TO LAST HIT before you even start a match LEARN TO LAST HIT if you cannot LAST HIT you are doing it wrong. When you pick your items and you know you can't LAST HIT well then you should decide on items that will help you LAST HIT. Just in cause you didn't get my point you should LEARN TO LAST HIT because if you can LAST HIT you will get X amount of gold over the lane not seem like a complete noob when you decide "I can fight this battle I was able to free farm all match" yet you only have less than 20 cs by 10 minutes. You should be able to last hit at least half the creep wave  in Dota 2 and 3/4 in League of Legends... for obvious reasons if you don't know those obvious reasons you need to take a look at the difference between denying and last hitting in Dota 2... or in other words Dota 2 is around twice as hard to last hit in because of having the ability to deny creep which gives half exp and no gold.
     Now that we got the whole reason to learning how to last hit now we can get even simpler before you do anything open up a bot match of the MOBA of your choice and play 10 minutes of the match..... go on..... now that you have finished the match look at both your Last Hits (and Denies for Dota 2). Write that number down on a sheet of paper next to you and open up a real match and focus just on last hitting (and denying) don't worry about anything else and if you have a lane partner record their last hits (and denies) after the match. If your lane partner ended up with more last hits than you.... you failed your job as a carry it doesn't matter how many kills or assists or deaths you got. If your support (the person who is just protecting you for the first few waves and getting close to 0 CS) gets more last hits than you.... you failed your team even if you won the match. You were a liability to your team because chances are you got less Last Hits than the enemy in the lane against you. This opens that lane to be a potential threat or the cause of your lost because you weren't able to last hit more than that lane causing them to be more farm and having the items needed to win fights. 
     You are likely now saying "BUT BUT BUT I won the match it doesn't matter" but then you are wrong at any point in time this just means that either a jungler or another lane easily won their lane to help you out when you didn't win that lane. Yes these games are team games that require help from other lanes but if you actually work harder to become better you wouldn't have to worry as much because you are certain you are winning your lane for your team and don't need a gank or help from other lanes. When you win your lane you aren't just helping your team out you are making sure you are putting your support to full use. Even if they decide to just sit there and soak up experience. Now remember that number I told you to write down from your bot match. For Dota 2 it is around 120 lane creep within 10 minutes if you are playing in a solo match with no bots you should get around 80-100 easily if you are not well not you have a number to work toward. On League of Legends it is around 100 so you should easily get 80-90 because you don't have to worry about denying. I make denying a big deal because if you have to worry about twice as much creep you are working harder. Dota 2 200 per 10 minutes LoL around 100 per 10 minutes that you can Last Hit and Deny so Dota 2 takes the cake for having more awareness.
     Now think of it from this standpoint if your lane partner can get more CS than you after the match is over that means they clearly can farm better than you. You can either expect that statement or not but chances are they are and you are more likely ruining their match when you decide to carry and can't last hit. Even if they are the nicest person to you chances are deep down they are saying "what a waste of time" for ever easy last hit you miss. If you are that type of person who cannot last hit don't try and carry chances are you are ruining it for someone that has to support you and you decide to be horrible at your only job during the first 5-10 minutes of the match. What you should do is the next match you queue up play as a support for once and learn how it feels to be completely reliant on your lane partner to last hit and watch them closely because you are doing the same thing when you decide to carry and cannot last hit.
     So now you see the basic rules for asking for a support and what you could be causing your team when you decide to not be able to do your job. Now we can make you better if you decided to actually read everything here because you actually want to carry and be good or at least better than what you have been doing. Start a solo match with no bots and keep practicing last hitting and as your number go up go into a bot match and practice with them now that you last hit for 80-90 by the 10 minute mark go into a real match. Yes you will only get around 40-50 I know that because now there are real problems you have to deal with but now you aren't getting less than 30 last hits by the 10 minute mark. Keep your head on just last hitting your lane partner is the only person that needs to worry about a lot more. From warding to checking on ganks to protecting you from getting those last hits. Your job as a carry is to farm and farm well if you aren't farming well you are not helping your team to win no matter how good they are doing you are causing your lane to be lost. Once you are hitting 60-70 last hits my job is complete and now you should easily be able to carry your team and win your lane due to the free farm that you obtained. Now go carry and play as a support once in a while 
 
     Now after two years I come back with news from all the different MOBAs I have been playing and I have decided that each one may be different but each one has the same problems with new players. I've had my fair share of League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Smite, and the newly Infinite Crisis to know what the basic problems for each new player I've seen and I want to find a way to address this problems as a gamer that understands them all pretty evenly. I know plenty of people will critique me because my origins are mainly from Dota 2 but those players have to remember that Dota was the reason why we have great MOBAs today and without it we wouldn't be where we are today. Now that I got that out of the way let's get started on some other issues.

     To start with if you are new continue reading if you are here just to critique what I have to say you may also keep reading but bare in mind I'm really addressing new players and if you cannot understand that you need to remember when you first started playing one of these games. I will start with one of the most basic things you should learn in one of these games: 

     1) Bots... many people may say it is a waste of time but remember that when you enter a match with real people they will think you know certain things yet you will not know a single thing. I was one of those people that just went right into a match not even thinking about how my performance might affect the people in the match. You should take the time out to play a few rounds with bots it helps greatly. Now this is where I need to mention that Dota 2 has an outstanding tutorial for beginner players even if you don't plan on playing Dota 2 you should at least run through the tutorial on there to understand MOBAs then you can go play Bots on your game of choice. The tutorial covers the basics of what to do and what not to do but does have its flaws but it is somewhere to start if you care more about doing something and not ruining someone's day. 

     2) Learn the Heroes/Champs... everyone should do this no matter what level you are. I would take one or two days and just run through all the names of them. This will help greatly when you are working with people either with microphones or if you plan on typing everything out for the team. If you know the names of the heroes/champs in the match you will be able to easily explain to your teammates what is going on. Certain games this will be hard to do such as League of Legends where you could easily go into a match with people and 9 out of the 10 champs you know but one of them you have never seen before. When you face a problem like this take note of the name of the champion by using the "Tab" key to glance at the name of the champion. After the match you can easily look it up for more information.

     3) Take time to learn the spells of each Hero/Champ... After you have learned the names of each one you can easily start playing as them to learn this but I want to take it a step further. You should play each hero/champ at least twice to really have a small understand of what they can do and you should take that time to check all the spells. I know when I started Dota 2 there wasn't as many heroes as there are now but you can take the limited pool heroes and start with that first. With League of Legends you can just start with the free heroes of the week. 

     These are the first three things I would tell a brand new person to do when starting any MOBA because the learning curve in these games are huge. Some people may say "Oh it is just a casual game" but if you want to be anywhere near even good you need to invest a lot of time into certain things. This is my basic three things to get someone new ready for real matches with real people since most people if not all are going to be tough on you no matter what level you are at. I remember my first match with Zeus and I had Double Damage, my lane partner was pissed at me because I was taking his last hits. I don't remember what hero it was but he was mad I wasn't using it to harass. 

     I wouldn't worry about anything else as a new person you shouldn't worry about last hitting or denying or ganking or even warding when you are first starting out. If you have a solid team someone else will worry about that and if you just say you are new they will let you slide with a couple things. You should just enjoy the match and hopefully you start winning some matches then and only then I would stat
 
     I started playing Dota 2 two years ago when I got into the beta. There were plenty of new things for me to learn considering I haven't played a Dota match in a very long time due to not having Warcraft 3 anymore. I was an avid player of Starcraft 2 I loved it and I would play matches everyday. I got reintroduced to Steam that Winter Steam sale and I decided that I wanted to get into the Beta for Dota 2 no matter what I had to do so I started playing Team Fortress 2 and traded my way up to a few keys and eventually brought a few games using those keys. I ended up with the Dota 2 beta a few days before Christmas I was ready to take on the world in this new mysterious version of an old friend. I was greeted by familiar faces with upgraded graphics and a very limited hero pool to start because of the beta recently branching out. Now that I got that out of the way let's get started on who I am.

     I am currently a college student working on my Music Education degree and majoring in Piano. I know that may sound a bit out of the ballpark for what I like doing besides playing music and teaching but I love using my free time to learn about video games and play them. I find video games to be my happy middle ground of feeling relaxed and having a way to reflect back on my life experiences. Video games for me open a door that I cannot open alone that allows myself to be whoever I want to be without actually going out into the real world and doing them. I can be a fast moving hedgehog running at top speed down a railing or I can be a builder and instantly an astronaut going to the moon and having no idea how I will make it back home. It helps me to understand the world by playing certain games you can figure out a lot of things about a person just by the games they play. Are they a person who loves to play detective? Could they have been a great war general in a previous life? Could they have been an expert at almost every sport and still make time to save the princess almost every year? These are answers you can only find in people that play video games and that is the type of person I am. I am that high class Attorney that started out as nothing and worked my way up to eventually meet the greatest explorer that the world has ever seen. 

     I originally wanted to start some sort of web series for this but decided against it because I don't really have the time to put into something like that until I am done college. I find that this has been helping me through some of the hard times because I am able to just write how I feel and not have to worry about people bugging me about other things in my life. My online identity is known as LegendAssassin, it was a name that I came up with because it was the spur of the moment when I decided to venture out into the online world and become something else. The name was something I came to grow to love because it was something original and something that really reflected who I wanted to be. It started when I brought Super Smash Brother Brawl, I had decided that Ness would be my main and he has always been there for me since Earthbound so why not give him the chance he deserves to serve under my new name. I had competed plenty of times to get a to where I am today as a gamer and to mold how Ness would be the icon that represented me the most. Before going to college I had played a ton of SSBB to prepare myself for what new friends I will make in college that also would play the game. To my sadness not many people played SSBB so I had to compete on the other campus to make a name for myself.

     The time had finally come where I had to show what my name really meant to me and how I could express myself in a video game on how competitive I actually am. It was a yearly tournament held on the other campus where they would picked a fighting game and have prizes for each of the winners. I went with plenty of friends so we could have a good footing on where each of us stand as well and understanding who our next opponent maybe. I had played Ness the entire tournament he is known as the low tier character, a character when matched equally with someone else of a higher tier should lose. I ended up winning the first couple matches and was able to develop a small crowd to watch me play match after match showing that Ness is a threat to who ever stands in front of me. Before I knew it I had won the winner's bracket but as I looked around most of my friends had been knocked out earlier or had left due to how late it was. 

     They announced the prizes: A Limited Edition Red Wii, GoldenEye 007 Bundle, and an Amazon gift card. I knew I was prepared to lose if it came down to it because my friends all had to leave but one of my friends stayed behind because he knew I didn't have a ride. I will always be grateful he stayed with me until the very end and didn't worry about me winning or losing just wanted to make sure I had my head in the last few matches. Once the loser's brackets were over we had to move the tournament to a different location which got me a bit antsy because moving to a location I wasn't familiar with and not having the same sense of readiness that I grew to know. I sat down and took a seat in the dorm room's gathering space for people who just want to relax and watch TV. The feeling was much different seating in a couch rather than the hard chair that reminded me that I was in control. I started with Ness knowing he was my best bet considering how much time I put into him, I won the first round against Diddy. As the second round started my opponent changed his character and threw me a bit off since it was Pit and he was known to be a counter to Ness, I lost the second round. I walked around a bit in the room and talked to my friend about switching characters before the match but ended up staying with my main. My opponent went back to Diddy and I felt a feeling of empowerment knowing that this could be the match I win to finish it up. I took a deep breath and the match had started before you know it I was one then two stocks ahead of him then I finished the rest of his stocks, I had won the tournament.

     The feeling was numbing seeing the other players watch as I walk away from my controller knowing that I had won and was able to take the Red Wii back to my campus to celebrate my victory. I walked with my friend back to his car and said thanks for waiting for me and he drove me back to campus at almost 1 in the morning. As I got into my dorm room I woke up my roommate to show off my prize and he woke up slightly just to fall back to sleep saying wow I thought you were going to win. The feeling was amazing and something I don't think I will ever experience again. I had always dreamed about winning something and for it to be something so amazing and something that really made me happy doing was just a great feeling. That's when I decided that I knew video games made me extremely happy when I win but still the urgency and blood boiling excited me of playing competitively is something only people who love to compete can truly feel. After that day I decided that I wanted to do something with video games and do something that can help new people eventually get that feeling no matter how little or how big the tournament maybe.