Patrick Mackey
- Columnist -
Although he enjoys unwinding in PvE and roleplaying, Patrick's first gaming love is competition and the nuance of gaming mechanics that comes with playing games at the most intense levels. A regional tournament champion, Patrick takes his gaming seriously, whether it is MMO PvP or an intense match of Street Fighter 4.
He is an ardent pursuer of the intrinsic satisfaction of deep game knowledge; he balks when other gamers insist that "games are for fun."
Patrick Mackey's Latest Posts
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The Summoner's Guidebook: Dealing with emotional stress in League of Legends
League of Legends is a frustrating game. As much as I portray myself as an unfeeling robot in the Summoner's Guidebook, I am not a paragon of precise execution and flawless decision-making. I've mentioned that I experience rage at my fellow players just as much as the next person. In fact, I ...
The Summoner's Guidebook: The best ways to ruin a gank in League of Legends
In League of Legends' Classic mode, jungling is my second-most preferred role. I prefer ADC first, since it is very taxing on attention and raw skill matters more than strategy. However, as a jungler, I can impact the game more meaningfully. While being ADC allows me to usually win the game in ...
The Art of Wushu: The right stats for each style
There are a few questions I answer on a very regular basis in Age of Wushu. "How do you make money?" is a pretty common question, but I think we've answered that. "Can you annotate my book?" happens rather frequently, too. However, the most common question I answer is "what stats should I get?" ...
The Summoner's Guidebook: League of Legends' hardest choices
Sometimes League of Legends gives us hard choices. As a jungler, I'm frequently tasked with the difficult decision of whether to gank or counter-jungle and where I should do so. After a lost teamfight, you also have to make a lot of decisions about how to turn the game around. Should you buy ...
The Summoner's Guidebook: Staging the perfect comeback in League of Legends
The chips are down and you're behind. The enemy has only two turrets down, and your inhibitor turrets are barely standing. Your own jungle is warded, and the only thing that lets you know your enemies aren't going for Baron is that you can see them charging up your mid lane. We've all had ...
The Art of Wushu: Winning in market PvP
Last time on the Art of Wushu, I promised I would write on how to sell production crafts. Crafting is a big deal in Age of Wushu, so it seemed like a reasonable topic to cover. However, I realized doing so would probably be a mistake. Why? If you followed my advice from two weeks ago, ...
The Summoner's Guidebook: The little stories League of Legends creates
Recently, one of you guys asked to see more personal stories showcasing my experiences in League of Legends. Normally I'm not as fond of doing that sort of thing unless there's a moral in the story somewhere. I like teaching, so that is what the Guidebook does a lot of. The column's name is the ...
The Summoner's Guidebook: LoL melts special snowflakes
Never let it be said that I don't listen to feedback. Recently, one of you readers suggested that I write about following the metagame, and I thought, "Hey, why not?" This was largely spawned by the Penny Arcade comic suggesting that somehow, a player should pick the champion he wants without ...
The Art of Wushu: Making silver through harvesting
I got a lot of backlash over the last installment of The Art of Wushu. While the issues over pay-to-win are understandable, an overwhelming number of you seemed to disbelieve the amount of silver I was able to produce daily. Some of you protested my 1D/daily figure (which is on the high side), ...
The Summoner's Guidebook: Punishing common LoL laning mistakes
This week in the Summoner's Guidebook, we're getting back to the basics of League of Legends. Laning tactics are an incredibly broad topic, and they're also a springboard to developing good teamfighting skills. When you can take your narrow laning focus into a teamfight and think broadly about a ...
