MOBAFire News

Summoners!

If you’ve been wondering what can happen when someone really, truly lets their dark side get the best of them, then look no further than Varus, the Arrow of Retribution. This dangerous combination between caster and ranged carry is equipped with a number of abilities designed to both whittle enemies down from range, and allow him to close in for the kill.

The lynchpin in Varus’ kit is Piercing Arrow – a long ranged skill shot attack that damages enemies in a line. Pressing Q will cause Varus to draw back his bow, reducing his movement speed, but steadily ramping up damage and range (up to a cap) until you left click to select a target. Through creative positioning Varus can either use this skill to pepper enemies with long range attacks or close out a kill on a fleeing enemy with a hard-hitting shot.

In lane, Varus’ unique combination of abilities gives him the ability to apply constant pressure to his opponent. Piercing Arrow allows him to both farm safely and damage enemy champions without fear of reprisal. Meanwhile, the area of effect healing debuff from Hail of Arrows complicates a support champion’s efforts to out-heal the attrition damage. When the time comes to move in for the kill, Living Vengeance keeps Varus’ Attack Speed high while he’s last hitting, enabling him to quickly stack up Contamination charges from Blighted Quiver in preparation for a finishing blow.

In team fights, Varus’ long range allows him to maintain safe positioning until he’s able to score a kill on an enemy champion. Once he’s picked off an enemy, the massive Attack Speed boost from Living Vengeance combined with area of effect crowd control from Chains of Corruption make him a truly terrifying sight on the battlefield.


Abilities:



Lore:

For his incomparable skill with the bow and his unquestioned sense of honor, Varus was chosen to be the warden of a sacred Ionian temple. The temple was built to contain an ancient pit of corruption so vile that Ionian Elders feared it could envelop the island in darkness. Varus prided himself on his position, as only the most exceptional Ionian warriors were selected for the role. He lived with his family in a nearby village and led a quiet life of disciplined routine until the day the forces of Noxus invaded Ionia. Their shock troops left nothing but death and desolation in their wake, and the temple lay in their path. Varus was forced to make a decision. He was bound by honor to stay and defend the temple, but without him the village's few inhabitants could offer little resistance against the oncoming war machine. Gravely, he chose to fulfill his duty as a warden. The corruption could not be allowed to escape.

His arrows sundered the troops who tried to wrest the temple from him that day. However, when he returned to the village, he found that it had been reduced to a smoldering graveyard. Remorse at the sight of his slain family gave way to overwhelming regret and then to seething hatred. He swore to slaughter every Noxian invader, but first he needed to become stronger. He turned to that which he had sacrificed everything to protect. The pit of corruption would consume him wholly, as a flame devours a wick, but its abominable power would burn within him until he was lost. This was a path from which there could be no return. With grim resolve, he condemned himself to the black flames, feeling malevolent energy bond to his skin...and with it, the promise of ruin. He left, seeking the blood of all Noxians involved with the invasion, a grisly task that eventually led him to the invasion's most infamous perpetrators in the League of Legends.

''The life of an arrow is fleeting, built of nothing but direction and intent.'' - Varus

Remember when you got your first look at this intimidating archer in early April? Well, when you’re ruminating on a piece of artwork, you never know where your inspiration might come from. Sometimes it’s all sunshine and butterflies, and other times your motivation hearkens from someplace gloomier than the Arctic Circle at the stroke of midnight in mid-January. And as long as we’re talking about inspiration striking from someplace dark, let’s have a closer look at the next champion of the League.

Whatever inspires you, when your muse comes knocking you’ve got to be ready to take aim and let that arrow fly. Take Varus, the Arrow of Retribution, for example. No matter how consuming his thirst for vengeance becomes, this is one indomitable archer who is always on point.

This high-speed rendition will show you just how deep the corruption runs in Varus, the Arrow of Retribution!

Summoners!

If you’re one of those extreme weather types, these new bundles can help you keep storms brewing all year round. For those who want to stay cool with summer approaching, you’ll be pleased to know you can keep things in deep freeze with Freljord Rammus, Glacial Olaf and Frozen Terror Nocturne. Of course, once when you’re ready to come in out of the cold, there’s no better crowd to help you warm up than Firefang Warwick, Obsidian Malphite and Molten Rammus.

Here’s what you’ll find in these hot and cool deals.





Naturally, these deals will thaw out on Tuesday, the 8th of May, so don’t miss this opportunity to save a little cold, hard cash.

Over the course of the next several weeks we’ll be offering a series of experimental bundles in an effort to bring you more value for your RP. These deals will be in addition to your regularly scheduled sales, and will offer deals on groups of champions and skins of different themes and sizes. We want to hear your constructive feedback on these bundles and learn how we can make them better as we go, so be sure to let us know in the comment thread how we can improve.

If you’re feeling truly cold-blooded on this particular Monday, you’ll be pleased to know that we’ve got a brand new skin for Irelia that should fit your mood. Allow me to present Frostblade Irelia. Featuring a full complement of chilling new spell effects, this is one icy new take on the Will of the Blades that’s sure to leave your enemies frozen in fear. And on top of that we’ve added a frosty ambient effect, just as icing on the cake.




Of course, if you’re so cold-blooded that you’re practically a crocodilian, then you’ll be pleased to know that we’ve also got a new skin for Renekton, the Butcher of the Sands. Featuring a vicious new model and some brutal new spell effects, this is one reptile your enemies won’t want to find staring them down across the battlefield.




You’ll find Frostblade Irelia and Rune Wars Renekton chilling out in the League of Legends Store.

We have been working on a fully redesigned guide page. This is a lot more than just a face lift. The Veterans, and later on the Editors and Scouts, have been helping us to test and iron out the new guides, and now we want to open it up to get as much feedback as we can before we launch it.

One of the key things we need feedback on is the new multi-page guide feature. Read on for more information on that, and then answer the poll above to let us know your thoughts!

We are considering this an "open beta", instructions for how to check out this new guide layout are at the bottom of this post.

Essentially, guides have now been broken up into 3 sections with tabs for quick navigation. There are three tabs now; "Builds", "Guide" and "Discussion". Various components have also been redesigned and updated with a new look.

Builds

The "Builds" tab is now your guide's home page and will show your cheat sheets and navigation into the rest of your guide.

The builds section has been redesigned with a new look that we hope you will all like! More features will be coming here soon :)

Guide

The "Guide" tab will contain all of your guide text.

You can now split your guide up into multiple pages. You will see a new check box in the guide editor labelled "Start a new page with this chapter". Check this box to insert a page break just before that chapter.

This feature has a lot of benefits both to authors and to readers. Easier navigation, faster page loads, less server load, better guide flow, better visibility for search, etc... We also hope it will make it easier for authors to manage their massive guides, as many of you have written volumes of information for your readers!

Discussion

The "Discussion" tab now houses all your guide comments.

It is much easier to jump to the discussion this way, and it avoids long load times and piles of scrolling to view the first page of comments and navigate past it.

We have also given the comment section a bit of a face lift to match the rest of the updates, we hope you enjoy it!

Existing Guides

In order to minimize any potential negative impact of this change, being that it is such a massive change to such a core component of MOBAFire, we have decided to keep the guide text for all existing guides as part of the "Builds" tab rather than moving it to the second "Guide" tab. Your guide will remain this way until you add page breaks as described above, at which point your guide will move to the "Guide" tab. You can undo this by simply removing all the page breaks.

We may in the future bump all guides to the second tab, but I can't say for sure at this time.

Comments are on a separate tab now for all guides, however. The new designs will also applied to all guides automatically.

Great, now how can I see this new layout???

It's simple. Just log in on your account (only members can see the new layout, it is locked from guests temporarily), load up any guide, and modify the "/build/" component of the URL to say "/build-new/". Here are a couple examples;

http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build-new/making-a-guide-101506
http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build-new/akali-the-epitome-of-an-assassin-80578

Easy! Feel free to add page breaks to your existing guides to test with the new layout - they will not break your guide in the old layout, and then when this new version replaces the old one (possibly later this week!) you will already be taking advantage of this new feature!

So give it a go, and let us know what you think! We welcome all feedback, positive or negative! This is a huge change so we want to be 100% sure you guys are going to like it before we put it out :)