My Prayers Have Been (Partially) Answered!

I really like these, too bad they'll be expensive forever

Yes, yes, yes. After about a month or so of worrying, Valve has answered my prayers. Yes, we have received an update for Team Fortress 2. Here's a list of the major updates:

• The Scrap Pack is now tradable, giftable, and craftable.

• Added the Texas Half-Pants (leather pants for Engineer) and the Bolt Action Blitzer (all class achievement item hat, looks like the Heavy's Football helmet with bolts on it)

• The Teufort Tooth Kicker can now be equipped by the Engineer
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• The crate number of crates is now displayed in the corner of your backpack (no more hovering, kids)
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• The ability to reset the kill counters on strange weapons by using the “restore” button in the backpack, along with the ability to remove Strange Parts with the same button.

With this update comes what I’ve been waiting for: the chance to sell the Scrap Pack I got for ooey-gooey amounts of money, however, I must say that I was quickly disappointed. I went to Team Fortress 2 Trade Post (TF2TP) to see what offers I could get. Now, I know that hoping to get a straight out Bills Hat for it was close to nil, seeing that a good 2.4% of the community owned one, and at least 25% of those would be on the market on day one, but this is when the demand would be at its highest, during its first week or so, so I decided to go with the highest bidder: 5 refined and a keys, equaling out to a nice 3 or so keys.

I know this may seem like little to some of you, but I see it like this: in around a month, the Genuine Scrap Pack will most likely have dropped, as most items do as the demand dies down after the initial rush (as I’m seeing people asking for 5 keys, but nobody getting that, and 4 being the absolute most, which would be the approximate value of Shoot Many Robots anyway) so when the price drops to 2 or 1 key, I’ll jump in and get another one, it’s a nice miscellaneous item to have, and I have to admit, I became somewhat accustomed to it being perched on my Pyro’s back.

I also heard that the Sharpened Volcano Fragment has been screwed up by Valve so it now doesn’t ignite people on hit. I hope this isn’t true, even though I usually use an Axestinguisher, I can’t deny the love I have for the V. Fragment sitting in my backpack.

--Santa

LoL + TF2: Update Central, And A Builders Plea

Not My 10 Gallon, but same effect

A lot has happened in the past week that I last made my post. I want to thank all of you who voted in the content pole. All 5 of you. All of whom selected everything. God, I love the internet. I'll just take that as a full steam ahead, and I'll just blog about whatever. Thats fine by me too, you guys had your chance to influence me.

On LoL, we've seen the release of Fiora, the addition of mana to the jungle, and another thousand changes to champions, which we've all come accustomed too. I still think that Heimerdinger deserves a change, and although I've heard rumors of him getting a re-make, like Gangplank and Jax got. I think that Heimerdinger's just too hard to play at higher ELOs (and I say this from experience, since Heimerdinger is my main) so, this is what I thought of…

Its no secret that pretty much anyone can counter Heimerdinger, so what he comes down to is team fights where he can enter a bit later when you're playing really heavy games. Heimerdinger's main abilities really lie in his turrets, and because of that, I feel that he should be given back his 3rd turret, getting a new on ever two levels (1, 3, 5) you still get the additional health at level 4 and Ur'Anium rounds at 2, but instead of AoE at level 5, you get the 3rd turret back, and instead of having the frosting slow on Heimerdinger’s ultimate, he would have AoE, along with his upgrade to his rockets and grenade. Now, this does make Heimerdinger much more viable at levels 5 and 9, whenever he gets another turret, so I suggest that his AoE scales with the upgrades to well, UPGRADE!! From like 25% to 20% to 35% AoE, this makes turret placement much more important, and if Heimerdinger could manage it, ganking would become an easier, and deadlier option. I call this the Vlad effect, after the League's own hemoplagic vampire. Anyone can really play Vlad, he isn't too hard to learn, but if you want to be good as him, it takes a large amount of timing, and skill.

I do enjoy Heimerdinger because of my countless hours as another turret builder, the Engineer, and I will now switch focus for that reason. I'm getting out of trading. I recently gave my two unusuals (A Steaming Sola Topi and a black Crocleather Clouch w/ Peace) for a Texas Ten Gallon w/ Orbiting flame. I know it’s not quite the Hotrod with Sunbeams, but I think I'm good for now. I'm going to put my money into miscellaneous items for my characters, and start opening crates. Who knows? Maybe I'll unbox a Team Captain with Sunbeams? I'd laugh myself all the way to the bank.

In any case, its nice to be back. I like taking breaks every now and then, but some interesting things have happened this week, and I can't wait to touch base with them.

--Santa