Guardians of Middle-earth

Wiki: Guardians of Middle-earth Guides

Anonymous — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 05:34:00 GMT

Guides for Guardians of Middle-earth

Wiki Page: Loadout Information for all Classes!!!

WeissGyr — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 23:34:00 GMT

WARRIOR: Your job as a warrior is to protect all guardians in your lane by absorbing hits, taking aggro, and doing damage to the other guardians. You will want to kill minions as much as you can to level up yourself and any allied guardians in your lane. PROTECT AND DESTROY!!
DIFFICULTY: 4/5

[Gems]
For warriors, you are going to want mostly red gems; although, you can go what I call a pseudo-defender, mixing in some more green gems to beef up your guardian to take more hits. A pseudo defender is something I am currently doing with most of my warriors because it allows them to sit in the fight just that little bit longer to get in more hits. Aim for "basic attack (+)" and "max health percentage" gems.

[Relics]
In terms of relics, you want to pick ones that will again, either beef you up to make you harder to kill or give you more damage. In some cases, you can throw in more yellow based relics, allowing you to hit faster or push your lane and take down towers. (This can covert you in to a tower pusher, which some players may not appreciate... at least until your lane is free of enemy towers)

[Commands]
Any command should be okay for this class, as you will either be supporting your team or doing damage.

[Potions]
Look for health regeneration, XP bonuses, and burst damage (damage buffs).

STRIKER: As a striker, you will want to jungle (killing the creatures marked as red dots on the map for buffs), to gank (diving from the brush to kill guardians), harass, and stay alive. DO SOME DPS!!
DIFFICULTY: 5/5

[Gems]
Some guardian strikers will vary but red and yellow gems will be the key to this class. Focus on getting higher attack speed and higher basic damage. (Blues may be used as a striker will be using his abilities often to root or stun opponents).

[Relics]
This class requires you to be doing as much damage as possible to kill guardians early and late game to allow your allies more experience gain. This means red and yellow relics. Others will want to add a green relic for late game survivability, but as long as you're doing damage to guardians, you should be fine.

[Commands]
The heal command for tier one is the best choice to start, as you are definitely a squishy guardian. Anything that provides burst damage in the later tiers is the way to go.

[Potions]
See Warrior (potions)

ENCHANTER: Pure damage dealing, lane pushing, and supporting your allies as your abilities will allow it. A little bit of harassment and as strikers are attacking is when you should pounce. ALL THE MAGIC!!
DIFFICULTY: 3/5

[Gems]
Mostly blues and purples, try some ability cool-down and life steal gems. This will allow you to stay in the lane longer and do some damage

[Relics]
Probably the easiest in relics. GO FOR BLUE

[Commands]
This class is flexible, as you can do whatever you want to support allies or do more damage.

[Potions]
Experience bonuses and boosts to ability power

TACTICIAN: Lane-pushing is the name of your game, you will support your minions and attack the enemy towers. In some situations you will be supporting strikers and enchanters. This class can jungle a bit, however you want to stay in the lane as much as possible to push. TALLY HO COMRADES!!
DIFFICULTY: 1/5

[Gems]
You will want to grab purple and yellow gems as you will be using your abilities often to push the lane. Some of the yellows can help with tower diving.

[Relics]
Some blue and purple relics will boost your ability usage and damage output. A yellow couldn't hurt as (if I remember correctly) some will buff your soldiers.

[Commands]
Anything that will allow you to keep you troops alive and making the enemy guardians run away.

[Potions]
Pure experience boosters, and cool-down aids.

DEFENDER: Keep your friends alive and absorb all of the damage, you are a sponge so soak it up as its okay if you die and not your allies. This is the purist team player class as you wont get the glory, but you will be the sole reason your team wins. LIVE UP TO THE TITLE OF GUARDIAN!!
DIFFICULTY: 2/5

[Gems]
You will mostly want green gems, on occasion some defenders can be pseudo-enchanters so blue gems would be a choice (however minor)

[Relics]
Very similar to the gems on this section, you will want mostly green but the end game relics can be really anything.. stay away from red and yellow.

[Commands]
Anything to heal your allies and support them. Late game heals can be a literal life saver! and that can really give your team the extra push to win.

[Potions]
You will want all health regeneration, because as long as you can stay in the lane you are keeping your allies from dying.

Thank you for reading this guide (it's my first one) and if you have some spare time, check out this YouTube channel!!
http://www.youtube.com/user/krazylegs92

Blog Post: The console MOBA

WeissGyr — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 16:41:00 GMT

This game is surprisingly fun! All of the available guardians/heroes have unique play styles that allows for a variety of game play. The game itself is similar to League of Legends but retains a newer way to play MOBAs.
MOBAs on PC tend to have items you can buy mid-game; this slows down the game itself as you need to return to your shopkeeper to purchase items. In Guardians of Middle-Earth (now referred to as GoME) you have your basic attack, ranged/melee, 3 abilities and an ultimate, commands that you can use based on your level, and potions that can grant you a quick buff-- in certain situations of course, it is easy to waste. Luckily the potions are cheap.

GoME has a relic and gem system; this also plays in to max level (14) in game. At level 2 you activate your first gem, which could be any kind of buff to your character- it would suit you to give ability gems to an enchanter (APs, AP carry) and such. Then you have relics; these relics can provide procs, buffs to you or your aliies, or debuffs to your opponents.
The commands can give you the edge in a fight in both early and late game.
Altogether it can provide an interesting experience and it will be a time sink for any MOBA player.

8/10
http://www.youtube.com/user/krazylegs92

Blog Post: A Mixed Bag For Console MOBA

Adam Biessener — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 19:21:00 GMT

Every aspect of this Lord of the Rings-flavored MOBA is clearly modeled on Riot’s juggernaut League of Legends, but sometimes I’m in the mood for Guardians’ simpler and more streamlined experience. Frequent network problems are a tragedy for this exclusively multiplayer game, though, and often obviate the many smart and successful things that Monolith Productions has accomplished in the design.[Excerpt]

Guardians of Middle-earth follows the established MOBA paradigm: Waves of creatures spawn at two opposing bases and smash into each other along three lanes, while five players on each side use a single hero unit apiece to turn the tide of battle. The single-lane variant is a faster, more intense experience that lacks the strategic depth of the traditional three-lane map, and quickly grows stale in comparison. Players grow exponentially in power as they level up, making the lost time waiting to respawn after a death a massive penalty. Eventually, one side overpowers the other enough to march into the enemy base and destroy the citadel, winning the game.

[View:1740120500001]

A handful of differences keep this from being a total League of Legends clone, like the removal of gold (and the associated item shopping), and the out-of-lane shrines that grant buffs to the teams that control them. They all add up to a streamlined experience that works on a basic level and removes some of the more esoteric aspects of traditional MOBA play at the cost of making comebacks massively more difficult to achieve.

I appreciate how easy it is to pick up the strategy, since you don’t have to worry about gimping your team by not knowing the hundreds of items and how their various stats and specials interact with your chosen champion’s power set like you would in LoL or Dota 2. The learning curve still exists, but we’re talking about a dozen hours of playtime instead of a dozen days to get your feet under you. The early- and mid-game jousting for control over lanes and neutral monster camps is my favorite phase of any MOBA, and that’s the aspect that Guardians executes best of all.

The downside is that reversing the trend of a match going in the other team’s favor is extremely difficult. Carries (hero builds that combine stats and powers in such a way that they explode in power to “carry” a team in the late game at the cost of relative early ineffectiveness) are a huge part of MOBAs, yet the concept is almost entirely absent in Guardians. You can’t hope for a dramatic turnaround when your archer teammate goes from mediocre to awesome by completing a crucial item, for example. The position of the shrines and buff-granting neutral monsters in the middle of the map means that once a team has enough of a lead to start pushing beyond the halfway point they basically have permanent control of those helpful buffs. In my experience, the team ahead at the five-minute mark goes on to win the match the vast majority of the time – it just takes another 10 to 20 minutes to slowly grind down the opposition.

I like the rest of the game enough that the difficulty of reversing a match’s flow isn’t a huge problem, though. Pulling off awesome tricks like blinking behind enemies and using a knockback skill to launch them under your tower to die horribly is just as gratifying in Guardians as in LoL or Dota. Personal skill, teamwork, and communication are all equally important, and the side that combines those aspects best is always the team that wins. Map awareness is crucial, as it should be; I’ve lost count of the kills I’ve scored thanks to sneaking through the jungle to pop up behind enemies that have pushed another lane too far. The moment-to-moment gameplay is truly excellent – until you start lagging or get dropped out of the match.

Evaluating network performance is always difficult thanks to the dozens of variables in play, but Guardians of Middle-earth is consistently poor enough in this regard that it must be noted. Ability timing gets seriously weird as matches progress, to the point that landing a melee-range root ability ends up with an enemy taking three steps away before their movement is arrested. Input lag results in too many deaths that occur seconds after hitting the button for a healing ability only to have it never trigger. Worst of all, I’ve disconnected from one out of every 15 matches or so – and with no way to rejoin after a network burp drops me out, you can lose 20 minutes of progress or more. Getting booted in the middle of an epic killstreak is one of the most frustrating things I’ve experienced in years.

Guardians of Middle-earth is an excellent game hobbled by bad network performance. I am continually drawn back to the exceptional gameplay, only to be repulsed by a disconnection or unbearably long matchmaking queue. I can see myself playing this for months on end if and when Monolith solves the lag and connectivity problems.

Blog Post: A Mixed Bag For Console MOBA

Adam Biessener — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 19:21:00 GMT

[View:1740120500001]

File: Guardians of Middle-earth review screenshots

Adam Biessener — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 18:13:00 GMT