I'll give an example of how easy is to jump on conclusions based solely on patch notes.

When I read Natasha got 20% armor when spun up I instantly assumed waves of Natasha heavies would march upon the battlefield, obliterating everything in a wave of boolet.

However, here is what happen.. the armor effect only happen IF your gun is firing (or totally spun up) so on that first crucial second you are taking all those rockets and grenades without extra protection, when the armor finally kicks in you don't have much health left to play with anyway.

And since Natasha takes more time to spin you can't jump into a corner and start firing.. if there are few enemies they'll just run away before you kill anyone.. if there are too many they'll kill you before you kill them.

Nat does 25% less damage, and you do less damage on the first second of firing AND the gun takes a while to spin up so basically, forget killing anyone when you jump unless you really got them by surprise at point blank.

I can see the weapon working on some situations, just don't expect to get many rampage with it.

On the other side, the weapon I though was completely useless, the Brass Beast, can pose a serious threat now with a «slow and steady» advance. Depends of how well you know the map and how good you are with the shotgun until you find a good spot to deploy the big guns.

I should do a lenght review about Witcher 2 which I just finished but it's late so I'll just say my biggest gripe.

Witcher 1 had several seemingly small actions generate consequences later in the game, and you action mattered.

Witcher 2 looked more like a long road with a big branching fork (Yoverth or Roche). All your actions were far more contained in terms of consequences.

You also been pushed, used and manipulated way too much in the game. From Foltest pawn to Roche pawn to Philippa pawn, and if feels in the end you had very little impact in how things happened.

The enemy Witcher was more of a protagonist than you basically.

I decided to update my backlog of animations so recently I watched Frozen and Big Hero 6, thus the idea of this crossover.

I'm surprised there isn't a quest like that in Witcher 3.. I guess there are no freeze map there so they couldn't do it right, but it has all elements of a Witcher contract.

p.s. The «bad guy» in Frozen was so inept near the end if he had tripped and fall into a sword killing himself it would be better than what he did in the end.

However, outside this, he did a pretty good job of ruling the kingdom given all the circustances. The guy was a good actor and a good politician and the way he threw it all in the end was super forced.

My last example of why Witcher 1 was superior to Witcher 2.

On Witcher 2, there is a quest where you unkowning help some drug dealer. You can hunt him down or just let him go but it ultimately changes nothing.

If this happen on Witcher 1, I could expect the next city to be full of addicts, or maybe even a friend of mine. In Witcher 2, I'd probably get a pair of boots by some random NPC as a reward for dealing with the drug lord and that's it.

Before people «mine» poor Elsa to oblivion, I'll draw her properly (or improperly I guess) on the next Patreon Cheesecake.

I been playing XCom on Classic and finally beat the Portent mission (for people who played, it's the EXALT rescue mission full of Thin Man) and boy, I think I gonna restart on Normal. Portent is afaik one of the hardest parts and after that is, more or less, smooth sail.

I know how to play on Classic. I know how to maximize my troops mileage, to advance on overwatch, to use cover and smoke and explosives.

Still, you agro a bunch of floaters who will relocate to flank your high rank officer and one-shot crit him after dodging the bullet from your overwatch Snipers, both of them.

I appluad people who play on Iroman, but for me, it's more an exercise of patience than of skill, though you need both.

Do you load when you lose a soldier? A mission? A country funding? In the end it's all about how much time you want to save.Restarting the game takes days of get back on track while loading after a bullshit crit will put you back on track.

My rule is to save at the start of a mission and unless it's a wipe, I'll just roll with it.

However, the «right» way to play Xcom, specially on higher difficult levels is WW I trench warfare struggle with you winning the battlefield inch by inch, which gets boring after 20+ missions, and infuriating when you still die despite all the effort.

You would think after those years people burning to death while Pyros run around like headless chickens would be a thing of the past but… nope!

I know there are good Pyros out there who can reflect, flare jump, puff and sting and yes, put ouf flames too but the number of oblivious Pyros who doesn't seen to know what the class can and can't do is staggering. The class is probably a newbie magnet and I guess new players either upgrade to another class eventually or stop playing. I know very few Pyros «mains», and even fewer who will constantly be MVP on a match.

p.s. In before «pyro is a girl»

The best part of XCom for me is the narrative.

From the hollywoodian angles when your soldiers shoot and run to the banter between your offices and researchers, the game just have a nice presentation.

Here I am hoping the sequel keeps that level of quality.

I wanted to talk about how much I liked the MEC soldiers in that game but it's late and I'm sleepy so perhaps I'll do it in a later time.

I don't know if using performance enchancing drugs is covered on tournament rules but right now there is no check up before games so a player who plays «doped» will not be caught unless he openly admits it.

Since there is a perceived boost in performance and no punishment in doing it I won't be surprised if lots of players use it.

By lots I mean basically everybody with perhaps the exception of people who aren't positively affected by it. Specially on big events with big prizes.

Did I mentioned The International reached a 16 million prize poll?

It's hard to lose the habit of picking weapons for metal after doing it for so many years.

The abiilty of swapping your weapon for one dropped in the ground doesn't seen too useful, so perhaps with the Spy vs Engineer update there will be a change on the way ammo is handled?

All I want is new sentries, and little sentry hats.

Valve, plis.