A few days ago, I was playing some Hero League on Heroes of the Storm when my Internet became unstable and I lost connection to the Battle.net servers. This happened while my team was in hero select.
Leaving during character selection is generally called “dodging” because you dodge the game that’s about to come up. It’s a strategy in League of Legends to avoid games you are sure you’re going to lose (such as having an illegitimate team composition or a player who claims they are going to intentionally feed in-game).
In League of Legends, dodging gives you a small penalty of losing a few league points (which is nothing compared to how much you would actually lose if you were to go on to play that game and be defeated). Regardless, I’m not really much of a dodger, as I like experiencing the game in different ways, and love to take on challenges.
I have a similar mindset in Heroes of the Storm, and never dodge during character selection. I was sure there was some sort of penalty for dodging, but I didn’t really care too much about it and didn’t look into it much because I never really planned on ever dodging.
Unfortunately, getting disconnected from Heroes of the Storm means you have a guaranteed forced dodge.
I signed back in after my Internet connection was restored … and saw that I was down to Rank 2.
Apparently, the penalty for dodging a game during hero select is around 300-400 points. Of course, I hadn’t played enough games in Rank 1 to collect up a lot of points, so that penalty was enough to send me right back to Rank 2.
The worst part is that, in Rank 1, your point gains get severely stunted. Up until Rank 2, you gain a base of 100 points per game, plus an additional skill bonus if your matchmaking rating is high, so the dodge penalty is about one or two games’ worth of losses.
But it’s a completely different story in Rank 1.
In Rank 1, each game means you gain or earn around 12 points, based on my experiences. So, by losing a couple hundred points, it was basically the same as getting defeated for about 30 games straight.
Now of course, I’m sure that your true hidden matchmaking rating is unaffected by the dodge penalty (and I know it wasn’t, because after I started playing games again at Rank 2, they weren’t any easier than my regular games).
But this brings me to my main point of not really liking these rating systems (Ranks in Heroes of the Storm and leagues/divisions in League of Legends).
League of Legends used to go off a pure elo system, where you had a four-digit number (or three digits if you were really bad) that represented your position on the ladder, with higher elo values indicating higher levels of skill.
I don’t fully agree with the fact that this was changed into a system where the ranking system listed on your profile rarely accurately reflects your true skill.
It’s almost like receiving “Excellent,” “Good,” “Satisfactory,” and “Poor” in school, rather than your exact percentage as a grade.
Imagine if a kid got a 98% on his exam and was told he received an “Excellent, Tier II.”
On the other hand, another student received an 82% on his exam, but because his past exam scores were 20%, 59%, and 70%, he was told he received an “Excellent, Tier III” because the fast improvement put little confidence in the rating system and it needed to adjust.
I don’t see that as being much different than people getting +300 point skill bonuses in Heroes of the Storm (which I got), or people skipping tons of divisions in League of Legends (which I did).
Now, with that conversation done and put aside, something like that obviously didn’t discourage me from playing more Heroes of the Storm. I quickly and easily made it right back to Rank 1, and I’ve been continuing to play since then.
And finally, a preview of my next gaming project – Blizzard has offered me seven more free days of game time in World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor to try out the changes introduced with Patch 6.2. I didn’t manage to finish leveling the last time they gave me this gift, so I’ll definitely make sure to finish it this time. Those stream VODs will be coming up in the next few days.
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I also managed to get my first victory as a serial killer. In all/any mode, which is the game mode I used to play with Ed in January, it’s possible for there to be multiple serial killers. However, in this game mode, where it’s “normal” and roles are controlled, there can only be one and you’re always on your own.
It came down to two townspeople and me. I managed to fool the doctor into thinking that I was the jailor and the other person was the serial killer. The doctor sided with me and lynched the jailor, leaving me free to kill the doctor the following night and secure the victory for myself.
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I don’t know if I particularly like this game because I’m so interested in human psychology and crime, but I think it’s a pretty fun game.
Remember, it’s a completely free game – you can play it in your browser, and you don’t need to purchase it on Steam.
http://blankmediagames.com/TownOfSalem/
If you do choose to register and play, please don’t forget to put Parkzer as your referrer. If you make an in-game purchase with real-world money (or if you buy the game on Steam), I get referral points, and earn some cosmetics in-game. 
His abilities are:
My initial impression of this hero is that he’s another support similar to Tyrande and Tassadar, where they’re more damage-oriented rather than support-oriented, but they’re classified as support simply due to the utility they bring to the team. However, there is one distinct difference.
Tyrande and Tassadar are generally used as damage-dealer substitutes, and most teams that carry Tyrande or Tassadar have a separate dedicated healer. The only options Tyrande and Tassadar have to heal are either very weak heal/shield abilities, or cheesy talents like Healing Ward.
On the other hand, Kharazim is much more dynamic, and can be used as a flex pick. If the player wants to use him as a utility support like Tyrande and Tassadar, that’s fine; if the player wants to turn him into a dedicated healer, the Transcendence trait actually works pretty well.
In comparison, Brightwing’s trait is Soothing Mist, which heals nearby allied Heroes for 30 every 4 seconds. Kharazim can actually heal more than Brightwing as long as he is continuously engaged in combat.
And of course, the two heroic abilities contrast very much – a damage Kharazim would take Seven-Sided Strike, which is great at ripping apart tanks (49% of your opponent’s health gone in 2 seconds during a 1v1 can be shocking and devastating), while a healing Kharazim can take Divine Palm and almost have an Ancestral Healing for an ally under certain circumstances.
Now, if Kharazim is selected as a dedicated healer, all this trait and heroic healing would be on top of the healing that Tyrande and Tassadar do. That is, Kharazim’s Breath of Heaven is like Tyrande’s Light of Elune (heal herself for 60 and an ally for 120 health) and Tassadar’s Plasma Shield (shield an ally for 200 health).
Unfortunately, because I am not a support player (I play specialists and assassins exclusively), I can’t really say with much confidence how strong Kharazim will be. However, just from theorizing with the information given, he will definitely bring a lot of different options to a team, and force the opponents to regularly check his talent selections if they want a chance at forming some counterplay. 
What you see in this photograph is the pack of eight batteries with six of them removed (which are currently being used to power the equipment). Next to the pack, you see the six old dead batteries.
Then you see a receipt.
I conveniently placed a foot-long ruler there for scale.
Thank you, Ace Hardware, for giving me a 16″ receipt for my purchase of one item. 
And this is Coco right after coming back from martial arts, exhausted and sleeping:
