Iggy & Scorch Singe Their Way Into Paragon
Where does that oil come from?
Iggy & Scorch have now joined the battlefields of Epic's third-person MOBA, Paragon [official site]. They're classed as a single character but consist of a kind of dinosaur/pyromaniac double act. A dinomaniac, perhaps.
I've had a chance to have a kickabout with the pair of them and find out what their actual deal is so here's the skinny. The 411. The lowdown. The field report. The... what do young people say when imparting information nowadays?
Okay, so the dinomaniac's deal is all about using the power of fire to control a lane and to trap enemies. The character is kind of what a mage is in other games so you benefit from cards (they're the equivalent of items) which increase your mana pool and your energy damage.
The abilities are as follows:
Left mouse is for basic attacks as with other heroes (you'd probably have assumed that anyway)
Right mouse has you secreting a trail of oil behind you and increasing your move speed. Best not to ask where the oil is coming from because I'm thinking the answer might be butt-centric. You can ignite the trail with your basic attacks or any other fire ability which I totally forgot about but I think it would be handy to deter pursuers. I did use it to chase kills, though.
Q is for flame turrets. The tutorial video advises using these to help protect yourself from getting ganked but they were also generally useful for grinding down people's health during team fights and keeping your foes low on health and reluctant to put themselves in harm's way.
E is for a ground targeted oil slick which you can then set on fire. I was mostly using this to deal with the waves of minions in lane and keep pushing up against the enemy tower.
R This is the ultimate. It's where you turn your dinosaur into a flame cannon for a few seconds and burn everything in a cone ahead of you. At the end of the fire breathing the dinosaur burps which knocks back enemies still in front of you.
I dunno, you guys. I'm kind of not feeling this at the moment. It's a dinosaur that breathes fire and I'm just not excited. Something's gone wrong. It just doesn't seem fun, you know? I was excited about the game at the preview event and that excitement has faded a lot. I don't really feel any pull to play. I think for me that's linked to the art style which makes the MOBA seem more serious than it should. I don't dislike the art, it's just that it's not reflective of that daftness or spark or variation which I like about MOBAs, and the more I see it the more I feel like there's a tonal mismatch.