Diablo 3

Extra Spicy #Blaugust 2016

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I'm intending to start my examination of my D&D collection up again for Mondays, but that requires some research and such that I haven't been able to do yet for the upcoming item. So instead, a little more talk about Diablo 3.

I've wrapped up the 4th chapter of the season now, so I've got all 6 pieces of the free set. The 6 piece bonus gives a very large bonus to Multi-shot (which I've already been using) and Vengeance based on how much Discipline you currently have. I also came across a crossbow that reduces the cooldown on Vengeance by a whole lot, so I threw that in the Kanai Cube and replaced the Rapid Fire buff I had been using. Rapid Fire didn't seem to be scaling very well in any case, and I was already mostly using Evading Shot and Multi-shot as my main damaging abilities in any case.

Such lovely crits

With just that boost from my set and those couple of new legendaries my damage output went up by more than a factor of 10. I went from running at Torment IV straight to Torment VIII without stopping in between, and I might have been able to go to IX and still be okay. Now it's time to get down to the business of running more Greater Rifts to level my legendary gems and continuing on through the next stage of the journey.

Seasoned #Blaugust2016

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First off, it seems like something went wonky with my feed so my post yesterday didn't get picked up by my Twitter account. The twitterfeed integration is kind of slow at the best of times, but this time it just didn't work at all. No idea why, hopefully it'll work today. In any case, if you're coming here via Twitter, yes there was post yesterday, it's over here.

What time I got to spend gaming this weekend was mostly spent in Diablo 3, since the latest season started the other day. Season 6 was the first one I'd participated in (apart from a sad Barbarian back in Season 4 that made it all the way to level 4). I tried out Crusader that time, so this time around I decided to give Demon Hunter a try. Pretty early on I found a legendary quiver that removes the chaneling cost from the Rapid Fire ability, so that became my main damage dealer supported with turrets and Multi-shot.

Fighting giant spiders, like you do

By the time I logged off Saturday night I had made it through the the first chapter of the season journey and was just shy of level 70. Today I've finished that level off and completed the second and third chapters, getting me 4 of the 6 pieces of the Unhallowed Essence set armor. That means I've got a set bonus that gives me a damage boost as long as I don't let things get too close, which works just fine with my typical method of play for ranged classes. I've gone heavy on the cold damage runes for my chosen skills, which means most of them slow or freeze enemies, plus I found a legendary ring that applies a fear debuff reasonably often. I'm up to Torment III difficulty at this point, and it's working fairly well.

I did get reminded this evening of one of the things that really annoys me about Diablo 3, latency. For most of the weekend everything's been fine, but tonight while running a rift I started getting some terrible latency. In a game that's predominantly about avoiding various ground effects and pink murder balls that's not good at all.

In any case, I've made a decent bit of progress and will hopefully be able to finish up the initial season journey pretty soon. It'd be nice if I could make it far enough to unlock the stash tab this time around; we'll see if I can stick with that long.

Seasoned #Blaugust2016

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First off, it seems like something went wonky with my feed so my post yesterday didn't get picked up by my Twitter account. The twitterfeed integration is kind of slow at the best of times, but this time it just didn't work at all. No idea why, hopefully it'll work today. In any case, if you're coming here via Twitter, yes there was post yesterday, it's over here. What time I got to spend gaming this weekend was mostly spent in Diablo 3, since the latest season started the other day. Season 6 was the first one I'd participated in (apart from a sad Barbarian back in Season 4 that made it all the way to level 4). I tried out Crusader that time, so this time around I decided to give Demon Hunter a try. Pretty early on I found a legendary quiver that removes the chaneling cost from the Rapid Fire ability, so that became my main damage dealer supported with turrets and Multi-shot.
Diablo3DemonHunter.jpg
Fighting giant spiders, like you do
By the time I logged off Saturday night I had made it through the the first chapter of the season journey and was just shy of level 70. Today I've finished that level off and completed the second and third chapters, getting me 4 of the 6 pieces of the Unhallowed Essence set armor. That means I've got a set bonus that gives me a damage boost as long as I don't let things get too close, which works just fine with my typical method of play for ranged classes. I've gone heavy on the cold damage runes for my chosen skills, which means most of them slow or freeze enemies, plus I found a legendary ring that applies a fear debuff reasonably often. I'm up to Torment III difficulty at this point, and it's working fairly well. I did get reminded this evening of one of the things that really annoys me about Diablo 3, latency. For most of the weekend everything's been fine, but tonight while running a rift I started getting some terrible latency. In a game that's predominantly about avoiding various ground effects and pink murder balls that's not good at all. In any case, I've made a decent bit of progress and will hopefully be able to finish up the initial season journey pretty soon. It'd be nice if I could make it far enough to unlock the stash tab this time around; we'll see if I can stick with that long.

Weekend Rusty

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Demon-Huntering

I promise that I had every intention of getting up this morning and writing a blog post immediately following breakfast.  However the world had other plans… or more truthfully my friends Grace and Sol had other plans.  Last night was the beginning of the Diablo 3 Season 7, but unlike so many other season starts I had other plans.  Firstly yesterday was the birthday of my amazing wife, and I ended up taking off a half day to go out to lunch and then to a movie.  We saw Ghostbusters, and I have things to say about that movie but it is probably going to be a discussion for another day.  After that we came home briefly where my folks came over and brought a cake, and then it was off to a semi-monthly dinner with some of my wife’s siblings.  By the time we got home it was after nine and after sitting down to start working on a character I found that I was fading extremely fast.  So I only managed to make it to around level 25 before crashing, and during all of this… I forgot to take any screenshots for the blog.  As a result I popped in early this morning with the purpose of taking a few screenshots and logging right back out.  However this is the one where Grace and Sol invited me to a group…  and when I joined and explained that I was only online to take a screenshot or two…  they both “noped” and proceeded to drag me up in levels a bit.

Weekend Rusty

As a result I am getting a late start to this whole weekend posting thing, which is not terribly surprising given that I have always had trouble staying on focus during the weekends.  Something about getting up and milling around the house causes the morning to lack a clear sense of purpose.  I think the key to the week days functioning at all is the fact that I get up and take a shower the moment I crawl out of bed, which serves to wake me up completely.  This whole leisurely getting up, having breakfast, and nestling into the couch with my laptop business is a recipe for slacking off.  Regardless I am blogging now because Grace decided to go out for coffee giving me a nice break in the leveling process to knock out this post.  Firstly I am not nearly as pumped about D3 this season as I was in previous seasons.  Right now there is just too much stuff going on that I want to be participating in.  Namely at the moment my seeming fresh re-addiction to World of Warcraft.  Tuesday we can start rolling Demon Hunters, and I figure that will pretty much be the end of my Diablo 3 season experience.  Additionally I still have my Warlock that I am enjoying leveling, and I want to continue pushing it to 100 as soon as possible.  At the moment I am knee deep in Talador around level 94, but once again I am doing the method of leveling where I jump zones as soon as possible so as soon as I hit 96 I will be shifting to Spires of Arak.

This feels very much like a scattered post and I guess in a way it is.  I am so very not used to doing this weekend blogging thing.  This is the first weekend post I have made since breaking my streak of blogging every single day in May.  These couple of months have been more than enough to push me out of the habit.  In truth I think I enjoy not blogging on the weekend because there is nothing really hanging over me.  That isn’t strictly true I guess because I still end up having to edit and get posted the AggroChat episode each Sunday morning, but that at least gives me Saturday to be relatively carefree.  From a standpoint of our lifestyle it has been pretty huge as well because it means that my wife and I can get up and around and go out and do things, without having to wait for the inspiration to hit me… and a blog post to mysteriously appear on the page and get posted.  So while I am doing this for Blaugust I absolutely expect to return to posting week days once the month of August is over.  I am a prime example of trying to find a livable schedule to blog on, and this is a huge part of why I decided to do the more chill version of the initiative.  Sure we can push ourselves to come up with thirty one blog posts, and it is an interesting exercise…  but if the end result is resentment towards your blog or blaugust in general then I think the overall mission of promoting blogging on a schedule has failed.  For the time being however I am returning to my games and calling this post to a close.