TF2: Hats and Updates, For You

On May 3^rd, Valve decided to give us another update, and with it a few more interesting things:

• ·         The Texas Half-Pants can now be found

• ·         Added the Fruit Shoot, which is a reference to the old stories of William Tell

• ·         The Frying Pan may now be equipped by the Scout, Heavy, Sniper, Medic and Pyro (leaving the poor Engineer and Spy without the beauty of demo-panning, even if they aren’t Demoman)

• ·         Added a mysterious “Valve Store Shipment Box”, an item that has no pixels, description, or even an official release from Valve (that’s right, I read through patch notes pretty carefully), all we know is that it’s in the action slot for all classes, and will probably be revealed in the next few patches, but the last few items that had an introduction like this were the HOUWAR (Hat of undeniable wealth and respect) and the Golden Wrench, so this may be a pretty interesting item

Other than this, some interesting things have been going on in the trading world for me. Last time I was on, I told you about a prior trade with selling a pair of earbuds for a vintage Lugermorph and a Genuine Merc’s Pride Scarf, well since then I’ve sold the Lugermorph to a good friend who’s been wanting one forever, and I did something a bit more adventurous with my scarf.

A guy came up to me asking if I would buy a Planets Familiar Fez from him for 2 earbuds, which I didn’t have. He claimed it was quickselling, but I just had a feeling that I should buy it, so after a large amount of debate, I got him to accept an earbud and my Merc’s Pride. I thought that I’d probably sell  it for 2 earbuds, and make a good 5 keys profit, but about a day or so later, a guy came up to me, and asked me to 1:1 him for his Fez with Blizzardy Storm, claiming that he like planets more. Not being born yesterday, I checked the item’s history to see if it had been duped. It hadn’t. Next thing I know, I have a cool new Fez in my inventory.

Thinking I can go another step up from my already unbelievably cool Fez, I start snooping around Outpost, and lo and behold, someone has a Blizzardy Attendant, and they’re interested in an Unusual Fez. With a bit of negotiation, we end up with something we wanted—cool hats. As I’ve always loved Pyro like the class that I play when I’m not on Engineer, it’s all worked out pretty well.

Finally, I want to give a simple message to a prior admin on one of my favorite trade servers. I don’t know if he reads my blog, but if he does, it’s for you, man. 

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