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AggroChat #175 – Fun with Raptors

May 21, 2019October 1, 2017 by AggroChat

Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast, Grace and Kodra

We are down a Tam and a Thalen, and in the case of Tam it was due to his birthday celebrations.. So if you see Tam online send him some belated wishes. This week we lead things off with some talk about Pokken Tournament and its recent release on the Switch as Kodra and Ashgar spent some time playing it this week. We talk about the Nintendo Switch in general and the fact that we all seem to prefer buying new games on it rather than older Nintendo consoles. We talk a bit about the release of Ixalan and some general discussion about the decision to go away from ultra rare chase cards. Belghast talks a bit about the larger Magic the Gathering market place and how this move seems to making prices a bit more stable so far. We talk a bit about our hopes for Magic the Gathering Arena, and how it might bring us what we actually have wanted for awhile… actual Magic in a Hearthstone package. Belghast talks about the Destiny 2 Faction Rally event and how he has collected all 12 weapons currently available from it. Ashgar talks a bit about his experiences in Guild Wars 2 Path of Fire and collecting mounts. Finally Bel talks a bit about the Final Fantasy Record Keeper 30th anniversary event that is going on currently.

Topics Discussed

Pokken Tournament
Nintendo Switch
Ixalan Release
Magic the Gathering Market
MTG Arena Hopes
Destiny 2 Faction Rally
Guild Wars 2 Path of Fire
Final Fantasy Record Keeper
30th Anniversary Event

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Reading Challenge #86: The Codex Alera Series by Jim Butcher

September 28, 2017 by Grace

I’m back with yet another installment in my reading challenge series. This time we’re discussing #86, The Codex Alera Series by Jim Butcher. According to the all-knowing internet, there are 6 books in this series. For this challenge I read the first one, “Furies of Calderon”, published in 2004.

The story has multiple threads, but the main ones follow Amara, a Cursor (a sort of combination courier-spy), and Tavi, an apprentice shepherd. This book is quite action-packed even from the start, when Amara uncovers the scope of a plot to overthrow the First Lord and the treachery of her teacher, Cursor Fidelias. Amara escapes the enemy camp and after reporting to the First Lord is sent to the Calderon region, where she meets Tavi. The boy had seen enemy scouts, which Amara recognizes are likely part of the larger plot against her Lord. The rest of the story follows them as they both try to warn enough people to mount a defense, and find and report evidence of who is behind the coup attempt.

Their stories take place in a world where almost every person controls furies, elementals that help them serve various roles depending on which element they can control. So people with wind furies can fly and speed up their attacks, earth furies can raise stone walls from the ground and sense where people are walking, and water furies can help people sense emotions and heal wounds. I think the cool part of this idea isn’t exactly what the furies can do, it’s that everyone in the kingdom has access to this power to some degree. Everyone except Tavi. He can’t do something as simple as turning on a lamp, because he has no control of the tiny fire fury inside.

I think it is quite interesting that supposedly this series is the result of a bet that Jim Butcher couldn’t write a good book based on a lame idea. The world-building seemed really fun. I enjoyed the idea of the furies, and the thoughts about what a world where all people had their own elemental familiars would look like. The plot on the other hand, was merely adequate. The foreshadowing of some plot points felt very heavy-handed, and made the later “surprise” reveals not surprising at all. Actually the biggest surprise to me was that they did not reveal Tavi as the lost grandson of the First Lord. A quick glance at the internet tells me this happens in a later book. It feels a bit bad to have something telegraphed so loudly and yet not pay off until a different novel. Still, the characters and the world were engaging, and the story zipped along in a way that kept me engrossed. I read this one start to finish in just two sittings so it must have done something right!

TL;DR: Come for the cool world-building, stay for the action and epic battles.

The Codex Alera Series by Jim Butcher

Rating: 4/5 stars

Verdict: A fast-paced fantasy tale and well worth a read.

Next up: Anathem by Neal Stephenson

Set Mastery Wrap-Up

September 26, 2017 by Grace

I finally finished my goal of getting some sweet wings by mastering all of the (pre-necromancer) set dungeons in Diablo 3. When set dungeons were first announced and they previewed those wings, I knew I had to have them. Unfortunately when set dungeons actually launched I did not enjoy them at all. There’s been a set dungeon requirement in every season since they debuted in early 2016, and it has always been one of the season journey tasks I’ve dreaded. I think that completing the full season journey in season 10 gave me the confidence and drive I needed to dust off this goal and get moving on it.

Working on set dungeon mastery made me realize that I needed to adjust my outlook and playstyle drastically in order to succeed. In a strange way the set dungeons remind me of PvP in MMOs, because you are playing the game in a different way than you are used to, and because you have to make your peace with the fact that you’re going to die a lot but dying is only a temporary setback. Making it all the way through a dungeon only to realize that you never found enough big groups to finish one of your objectives feels bad, but eventually you learn to weigh your success after the first minute of the dungeon or so, and just start over if you got an unlucky spawn. Also like PvP, knowing the map ahead of time and using it to your advantage will make life far easier. I generally tried to run each dungeon blind on my first attempt, but after that I looked up a map and planned out my route.

Having the right gear and builds is a huge part of this process, but I also found that, with a few exceptions, you shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of good. You need your set pieces to unlock the dungeon, and there are often 1 or 2 key legendaries that really make the objectives possible. Anything after that will make your clears easier, but is probably not required. There were several times when I had looked up the gear list* for a particular build and spent hours trying to farm specific items, then finally gave up and just ran with whatever I had laying around and it worked fine.

Speaking of gear, I got very good at farming during this project. Unless you’re aiming for a set mastery conquest, I would highly suggest using non-seasonal characters. On some classes, like my witch doctor, I already had almost everything I needed in my stash, and it was just a matter of running a few rifts with her to get the last few pieces. For monk and barbarian, which I had barely leveled to 70 before and had no clue how to play, farming everything was a more daunting proposition. My method was to primarily use my demon hunter to fill up to capacity on blood shards, then swap to the other class and take my chances with Kadala. If you had a buddy willing to carry you around, farming T13 on the correct class would be optimal. I used a combination of solo greater rifts, so I could get shards quickly and level up gems, and T13 farming with random strangers so I could also pick up plenty of death’s breaths. Just like farming on a fresh seasonal character, I used Kadala for armor and upgraded rare items in the cube for weapons and jewelry. Doing it non-seasonal meant that I had plenty of mats for hellfire amulets, and staples like focus/restraint laying around which saved me a lot of time.

This was a huge project and honestly at this point I’m very glad that it is over. It was occasionally fun, and sometimes frustrating. On average it was more entertaining than I expected it to be but I’m in no hurry to go through this again. On the plus side it did force me to try out almost all of the different classes and playstyles in the game. Only the necromancer is left, and I’m curious whether I will ever bother to master those dungeons since there’s no pretty wings to get. For now I’m going to savor this accomplishment and take a much-needed break from set dungeons.

*I used a bunch of sources to help me choose gear and skills along the way, but I want to give a special shout-out to Team BRG which was the most useful, clear, and organized. Most importantly, they included maps with optimal clear paths. I could have finished my mastery without their guides, but it would have been a much more painful process.

Collected posts for each class:

Demon Hunter: Easiest – Natalya’s; Hardest – Marauder’s

Wizard: Easiest – Delsere’s; Hardest – Vyr’s

Crusader: Easiest – Invoker’s; Hardest – Akkhan’s

Witch Doctor: Easiest – Zunimassa’s; Hardest – Helltooth

Monk: Easiest – Sunwuko’s; Hardest – Inna’s

Barbarian: Easiest – Immortal King’s Call; Hardest – Wrath of the Wastes

Barbarian Mastered

September 25, 2017 by Grace

Barbarian. The last of the RoS-era Diablo 3 classes that I still needed to master for my wings. There was some misery to be had here, partly because I really have no clue how to play a barbarian and partly because of the dungeons being awful.

I had most of the Might of the Earth set laying around, so I focused on that dungeon first. This one was very hard for me. The objectives were to use leap, ground stomp, and earthquake in under 6 seconds on every elite, and to freeze and kill at least 1 enemy every 10 seconds for one minute. These felt pretty daunting, especially since I don’t know much about playing a barbarian. On my first attempt I got the freeze objective but didn’t even hit a single elite with the required 3 attacks. As I kept attempting it, I lost count of my failures. Either the elites would die too quickly, or more often the cooldown on earthquake would not quite be finished when I engaged the next elite. The map is quite large but I got used to it over the course of many attempts, and when I finally mastered it I had almost a minute leftover. Success came when I slowed down and made sure all my abilities were ready before I engaged each elite.

Second on the list was the Immortal King’s Call. This one goes up there with the Invoker’s set dungeon on the list of the easiest ones to master. Your objectives are to kill all of the elites while the 400% damage bonus from the set is active, and to kill 150 enemies while Wrath of the Berserker is active. I one-shot this one, without looking at the map and without even really taking the time to familiarize myself with the requirements or my abilities. I had an entire minute left on the timer too. If you’re looking for an easy one to complete your season’s journey, this is a good bet.

Raekor’s was up next. The objectives are to hit 15 different enemies with a single furious charge (x6), and to hit 15 enemies with a 3750% damage bonus spender. Both objectives were pretty easy independently, but it took 2 tries to get both done and still have enough kills for the mastery. The map is one big loop so it is deceptively simple, but there are a lot of corners and side passages for mobs to hide in. Luckily all those corners also make it pretty easy to group up enough to hit with your furious charge. Overall this one wasn’t bad.

The very last dungeon I needed to complete Barbarian mastery and to complete the achievement for all the pre-necromancer masteries was the Wrath of the Wastes dungeon. Little did I know that it is hands down the worst set dungeon in the game. The first objective isn’t too bad, Rend 10 enemies at once (x5). There’s plenty of enemies and once you get the hang of the layout you’ll know exactly where you’re likely to find big enough groups. And you will be learning the layout. Intimately. Because the second objective is awful and you will fail a lot, or at least I did. “Do not take any physical damage for the duration of the dungeon. A tiny goblin hits you? Fail. A swinging scythe hits you? Fail. Something sneezes in your general direction? Fail. After about 3 attempts I got my fancy Wings of the Dedicated (for completing every set dungeon). They’re very pretty but sadly I’ll probably never wear them since the mastery ones are way cooler. It took me three hours and I don’t know how many attempts to actually master this dungeon. All I can say is pray to RNGsus and be super careful.

They’re not the mastery wings, but they are still very pretty…

And with that I have completed all of the set masteries except the Necromancer. Some of the Barbarian ones were rough for me, even more so than the monk. They certainly did nothing to make me want to play this class in the future. At this point I wish I had saved something I like better for last, but for now I’m glad it’s over. I’ll be sharing some of my overall thoughts in a follow-up post soon.