Ancient Apparition – Kaldr

Strength
18 + 1.4

Agility
20 + 2.2

Intelligence
25 + 2.6

• Affiliation: Scourge
• Attack Animation: 0.45 / 0.3
• Damage: 44 – 54
• Casting Animation: 0.01 / 0.75
• Armor: 1.8
• Base Attack Time: 1.7
• Move speed: 295
• Missile Speed: 1250
• Attack Range: 600
• Sight Range: 1800 / 1400

Background story

Defeated in a battle long forgotten, this once great mage was banished to a tomb of ice for all eternity. For countless ages he lay in unbearable anguish until he was discovered by minions of the Lich King. In a vain attempt to gain favour with this ancient soul for his own purposes, the Lich King released him. But this soul no longer knew gratitude, it no longer knew friend from foe, it knew only pain. With its body long since decayed, the soul took up the only form it knew. Consumed with hatred, even a touch from this monstrosity causes agony. Able to conjure devastating ice storms with a mere thought and hurl soul-shattering bolts of frost seemingly impossible distances, this creature punishes all who dare to stand their ground against it.

(center picture is Kaldr aka Ancient apparition, not really the sexiest looking hero but pretty much cool)

Skills

• Cold Feet

The Apparition curses his foes with The Frozen Mark which will freeze enemies to the ground. Unless target enemy moves at least 740 away from the mark within 4 seconds he is frozen still.

• Ice Vortex

Gathers ancient frost energy into one area to create a small, immobile ice vortex at a location. Whenever enemies are near it, their movement speed and magical resistance are reduced.

• Chilling Touch

Releases a gust of cold wind at a target area, enchanting allied heroes with bonus magical damage on their attacks. Lasts for a limited number of attacks up to a maximum of 40 seconds. While the enchanted heroes have this chilling touch, their attack speed is reduced by 15%.

• Ultimate: Ice Blast

Ancient Apparition projects his presence out to make way for a powerful ripple of hailstone and dark magic. Once cast, it can release the spell to strike targets within the area of where his presence was upon release. It will deal damage to enemy units and apply a frostbite curse on them where their health regeneration will be frozen and will shatter if they fall close enough to death. This spell has global range depending on how long you wait for the projections to move. Frostbitten units will take minor damage over time.

Personal opinion:

Ancient apparition is one of my favorite heroes in the game of DotA, it needs skill, speed and a lot of practice to master this hero… Mainly considered as a support hero which is logical considering all 4 of his levels target a group of heroes (allies/enemy) and thus may contribute enormously in team fights and ganks.

My items build would be as following:

start with a magic wand, boots of speed then Urn of shadows… afterwards aim for power threads, assault cuirasse or shiva’s guard, otherwise depending on role in game, you might aim for mekansm/pipe/

A good AA is a GOOD GAME… end of the story…

a combination of his levels especially level 1 and level 2 is deadly and without mercy… speaking of which… even a hero running back towards the base fountain 2 towers behind closest enemy can still be reached and attacked by AA’s ultimate. (again, deadly and without mercy)

To note that in the CAPTAIN MODE of DotA (played in tournaments and events) AA has became first choice of many of the top teams and has turned into a banable hero after long being forgotten in the world of competitive DotA.

So that’s it for today’s DotA Hero of the day… stay tuned for more heroes soon.

Ali

Make me Smile (2)

• Let us all take a moment of silence to remember the many socks lost in the past and the fucking dryers that stole them.
• The only thing worse than a cold toilet seat is a warm one
• Ha! Major typo on page 28 of the new iTunes agreement. Anyone else catch that?
• People who clap at the end of movies also join in singing “Happy Birthday” at a restaurant for a stranger
• You’ll never understand unconditional love until the birth of a child. Or hear the beep of a microwave with your food.
• I just went into a Yahoo chat room to ask someone how to start a fire with sticks.
• “Oh holy shit, what the hell is this!” -people who request songs on the radio discovering the internet for the first time
• I was just told I’m someones BFF. Being the idiot I am, I had to google it. Backup-file Format is a euphemism for something hot right?
• Are you all just gonna keep ignoring how fucked up knees look when a person is standing?
• Sometimes therapy is as simple as nodding to the dude next to you stuck in traffic. I feel you brother.

Activism: I got it all wrong

No introductions needed here, I’m going to get directly to the point…

I used to think activism meant something else than what it turned out to mean.

Let me start from the end, here’s the dictionary definitions:

• activism: the doctrine or practice of vigorous action or involvement as a means of achieving political or other goals, sometimes by demonstrations, protests, etc.

• activist: an especially active,  vigorous advocate of a cause, especially a political cause.

To be honest I first encountered this word, or concept on television.. i.e “European activists rally in occupied Palestine” etc.. So normally, my first impression of this word or again “concept” was good… These are good people who help the weak and stand by their cause. Right?

This “false” impression stayed with me until very recently i must admit… And i feel ashamed, for an individual like me to fall for what i”m going to call “illusions of benevolence“.

Again I call the help of my good friend the dictionary:

• benevolence: desire to do good to others; goodwill; charitableness.
• charitableness: to be filled with benevolence toward one’s fellow creatures.
• benevolent: characterized by expressing goodwill; desiring to help others.

So the main idea here is that I had mixed up the “benevolent” and the “activist”

while One is committed to the good of others without profit, the other is just an attention needing individual who is after his own goals.

while One’s decisions and actions are only controlled by him, the other has his arms tied and cannot but obey the organization he runs under.

In other words,

A benevolent can start or stop helping whenever he wants…

An activist can start or stop helping whenever he is told to…

A benevolent can support the revolt of the people against regime A or not…

An activist can support the decision of the organization or the decision of the Godfather to support the people against regime A; regardless of their own opinions.

A benevolent is a good individual by nature and you can never think of a bad one…

An activist can be both good or bad, depending on his agenda…

A benevolent helps and does good expecting nothing in return…

I wouldn’t be surprised if Activists were payed (or maybe just the advanced ones)

A benevolent demands no attention to function…

An activist is always sharing his heroism on social media websites.. (hence “attention needing individuals“)

Benevolent of the world are ONE, however Activists are nothing close…

For any given cause A, you can have activists supporting each of the sides… #fail

I don’t know if you have noticed but the plural of benevolent is benevolent… No “s” needed because you can only be benevolent in one way, and that is to help unconditionally and with no return, on the other hand… as i have mentioned, there a thousand ways to be active.

I envied the courage of people who call themselves activists… Not anymore.

I envied their ability to face dangers and fears… Not anymore.

Each of them is working on an agenda, and unfortunately, not their agenda but that of the political group they support… courage brave (Every activist knows he’s got his back covered by a political leader) #fail

The real heroes are “the benevolent“… The people who only believe in the beauty of their hearts and their dreams…

One more thing, the images I chose in this post were not Random…

Go to google images,

search for “activist”, the first result you get is the picture above (first pic)

search for “benevolent”, the first result you is the picture above (second pic)

Need I add more my dear friends?? I’ll let you do the judging…

Touring

Shortly after Iftar… with my family and an unwanted guest.. My friend and I made a few phone calls and decided to go play DotA in Beirut.

Yes I, (we) still play video games and there is nothing better than a DotA game after a long tiring day…

So where else is a better place for DotA than Hamra, the city with the best DotA teams and players in Lebanon. We went there, it has been a while since I’ve been there, i can’t say that i was amazed, but the numbers, the traffic, the people, everything… Beautiful.

We meet up with another friend and go to face a team in an Epic 85 minutes game… At one point, the game was ours and i took the liberty to spam “gg” “gg” “gg” “gg” (good game) on the game chat to piss off the other team, we had destroyed a big part of their base and it was only a matter of time till we win the game. However lol perfectly played ganking allowed them to kill all of our team’s heroes, giving them 60+ seconds to roam the map freely, more than enough time to destroy our base and take the upper hand which they kept all game long and eventually won it.

A good game lol… I could hear them coming down the steps laughing, asking about the guy who played “crystal Maiden” or in other words, about the guy who was saying gg gg gg gg lol (me) –> total humiliation.

We leave, my friend and I and come to my place, its 3am but the guys call us, let’s go eat 3end barbar in Hamra lol so here we are again in hamra… 4.10 am we had the last bit of food, drank some water and returned home… the rest of the guys went back to ghazieh (south) we promised we’d follow them the next day.

it’s Saturday, we wake up at 2pm, sit and watch tv for a while and at ~5pm we head south to ghazieh (to my friends place) we have iftar, We go sit with our friends in a small grove owned by one of them, it’s a place where we gather to sit and talk and laugh lol…

it’s almost 00:00am now, we go to downtown Saida, and guess what? yes… to play DotA! Some of saida’s best players were there, my friend and joined with 3 other guys we’ve just met and again, had a epic game that could have went both ways… Our hero picks were weak, we didn’t have a late gamer, meaning the more the game lasted the more their chance of winning was bigger… which unfortunately is was happened, althought with a final score of 61 kills to 55… they won by completly destroying our base… but it was good game. (yes better than the one in Hamra)

Again we’re on the road, we go to meet up with the rest of the guys on the ghazieh beach… It’s a beautiful place.. the sound of the sea waves crashing against the shore rocks reminded me of one of her posts.. lol yes… reminded me of Her actually… not that i needed anything to remind me of her… I hadn’t spoken to her all day.. In cyprus she was, and I could fantasize about a wave bringing her to me… lol Then i took a photo of the place… had s7our… was almost 5am by then so we returned to my friend’s place to sleep… although i ended up staying awake till 8am lol

The next day, it is 1pm I take the bus to beirut, where family is waiting so we all go to Jbeil for iftar, my mother is from Jbeil, we rarely do go there, but this is because most of her family live in the states, except one of her relatives invited us to iftar there… Our way there was terrible, the roads condition is awful… I wonder how people in this area can stand it… but yeah 2 hours later we are there, Ain el ghwaybe… a 700 people small village with just about what you need to stay alive…

The scenery however was exceptional, and no.. you can’t help but take pictures although what you see would always remain stuck in your mind forever… Yes, forever… So anyway, dinner time.. we eat and then we sit with everyone with the argile, coffee, fruits and the ramadan sweets.

But really, what i wrote before is not what i wanted to talk about…. while sitting with everyone, we couldn’t help but notice the changing weather, suddenly it got more cloudy… windy and Cold! lol that is awesome… In beirut it’s so Hot! Then my mother makes this comment that amazed me..

“No! ma bokra 3id l saydeh” she said… I was like what? then everyone agreed.. lol am i missing something here? what does that has to do with the weather…  So i ask mom who explains that “it always rains on 3id l saydeh” suddenly this returns me and refreshes some of the info i had acquired in school… I have heard this before.. yeah, the (i am not sure whether it is or not) myth of the rain on 3id l saydeh is something i already knew… but I really liked the faith of my non-christian family in this… To be honest it made me smile…

A bit later, we hear church bells and fireworks… the festivities had begun in the village church.. First in line is MOM!! yes.. “let’s go” she tells me… i was like go where??! “to church!” huh! (me) a woman who is wearing hijab wants me to go with her to church.. I hesitate.. she’s like “come on! it’s been 30 years since i went there.. i miss everything” so not that i didnt want to go… but i had to go… beautiful was the ambiance, the people, the smiles, the decoration, but more beautiful was knowing that almost half of the participants were muslims… I… I despised myself… I was the only sectarian individual in that church i am sure… of all people! me?! ugh… to be honest that gave me hope… i was happy inside out.. maybe because of the smile that gorgeous girl gave me… but no lol… mostly because of the people, how they love each others and participate and pray together and live together… I wish i could find another word than BEAUTIFUL…

Soon enough though, as soon as I got in the car and turned on the radio, all of this went away… lol I wonder how these people feel when they hear all this bullshit about politics in our country… Over here, i was sure they lived in a different country.. or do they? after all, the media famous “LASSA” is just adjacent “to Ain el Ghwaybe”

hehe yes…

Then i woke up from my dream (as they say in movies):P and came back to Beirut to continue my life normally… lol

May God help protect our stupid country… guide its people and give it peace and prosperity.

Ali