Good Morning Folks! I realize that I have been talking a lot about Diablo IV and Path of Exile, but I have also been playing quite a bit of Guild Wars 2. I dinged 95 last night in D4 and then treated myself to some super chill Tequatl game time in Guild Wars 2… that ended up being an entire evening of “faffing about” doing random things. I feel like first it is very important for you to encompass the majesty of this cat chair that I got from the wizard chore currency. I did not expect that each of the cats would be animated individually. The void kitty in the chair in the upper left quadrant for example arches its back and yawns periodically. The Siamese below them spends most of the time peering directly into your soul. It truly is a wonder of gaming kind and I feel like I might never use any of my other equally amazing chairs while waiting for events to spawn.
Yesterday I crafted my second legendary weapon, but admittedly it feels a bit like cheating. For those who do not know the Wizard Vault has been selling these seasonal boxes for 1000 astral currency that gets you most of the way to crafting a legendary weapon. I missed out on the first box but I picked up the second and crafted the legendary sword named Bolt. This time around I picked Frostfang the Axe from the third starter kit set because I could see myself using an axe on several characters more than the other options. This box gave me the precursor weapon, a Gift of Frostfang, and a Gift of Might. That meant that in order to finish things up I would need to craft a Gift of Magic which cost around 300 gold worth of components and then assemble it with the Gift of Might, 77 Mystic Clovers, and 250 Globs of Ectoplasm into a Gift of Fortune.
The last step would be assembling a Gift of Mastery which requires 1 Bloodstone Shard which costs 200 Spirit Shards… something I have plenty of, 250 Obsidian Shards, a Gift of Exploration, and a Gift of Battle. The Gift of Exploration comes from getting 100% exploration on all of the old world zones and thankfully when you complete this you get two copies… so I had one sitting in my bank. However, I probably should go ahead and finish up World Exploration on my Ranger so I can get a pair to replace the one I used. That left the Gift of Battle which can only be obtained through the Gift of Battle Item Reward Track in WvW. I was about halfway through the reward track as generally speaking it is my default choice when doing WvW content, so over the last handful of days I have knocked out the rest of that reward track.
The thing that always floors me about WvW is how much I really truly do enjoy it. I spent most of Sunday afternoon hanging ut with a group of folks and taking down objectives in the Eternal Battlegrounds. It is one of those activities that I always enjoy, but because of my mental block against all forms of PVP in other games… I just rarely think to do it. I am way more likely to ride the World Boss train on any given evening than to pop into the battlegrounds and see if there is a group rolling around. Realistically it is an activity where you absolutely need a group, but they are common enough that you can pretty much port between realms until you find a commander tag and then seamlessly blend into the nonsense. Some groups will claim that you need to be on Discord or be kicked out of the squad but I have never personally had this happen and for the most part… you don’t REALLY need to know what is going on. Stay on the tag… and play your role which for me is Longbow Ranger and harassing the enemy from long range with AOE volleys targeting the entire team.
One of the things that I don’t love about Guild Wars 2… is that it has probably my favorite kit from any game, but it is rarely considered the optimal way to play that character. I love Longbow/Greatsword Ranger and specifically of the Soulbeast variety. While this is a great build for the open world and for world vs world… it is generally frowned upon for any serious group content as it does not provide useful buffs to the party. Longbow just feels so damned good because it does great ranged damage, has good AOE, and some fun buffs with good mobility. Unfortunately, it provides neither Quickness nor Alacrity which makes it “selfish” in the eyes of squad builders. I have this problem where in order for me to enjoy something the weapons have to “feel” good… and honestly Longbow and Greatsword feel the best and as a result, I will keep playing them no matter how bad they might be. I sort of feel like this is a problem that Guild Wars 2 needs to solve… so that every weapon combination can provide something that party play would actually want.
I got my “Catmander” tag in theory as a way around this… I thought maybe if I organized my own groups it would not be that big of a deal that I was the “selfish” player given that I was the one taking the time to organize things. Unfortunately, I have just not been able to push myself forward into taking that level of responsibility. I feel like there are just too many things that I don’t fully understand about the game and would end up just making a mess. Guild Wars 2 is a game where people give blind faith to whoever is wearing the tag… and I don’t want to feel like I am leading folks astray. Maybe at some point I will become the Catmander of my dreams… but for now I am still taking a backseat and watching.
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Good Morning Folks! When last we spoke I was sitting at level 62 and had yet to transition into World Tier IV. Shortly after making that post I got to around 65 and finished the capstone dungeon and have been rolling around on the maximum world tier ever since. At time of writing this blog post, I am sitting at level 92 with a good chunk of the way toward 93. In theory, if I push it really hard tonight and grind out Nightmare Dungeons I could hit level 100. I have no however been in the mood to “push it really hard” and have been mostly taking the leveling process in a super chill manner. I am already higher than my previous highest character which made it to 90, after weeks of frenetic play during Season 2. I am not sure what my real end goal with this season is save for seeing the Pit which I believe unlocks at level 100.
The biggest problem that I have been dealing with is performance issues. The worst place this occurs is during Helltides where players are zooming in and out of your effective range constantly… often causing the game to hitch at the worst possible times. Almost every death that I have taken has been due to a player coming into my immediate area and causing a hitch as things load in around that player. Unfortunately, group activities are pretty much required to chase the best gear you can get. I do want to shout out this player from yesterday while waiting on a boss to spawn. Dingalingus is maybe the best “awful” name I have ever seen. This season has seen me crashing out to desktop a lot namely when trying to transition between areas which is unfortunately what 90% of this game is all about. Some of the instability was with RTX features and I have turned all of those off which seems to have improved things marginally but I still occasionally get the disconnect/crash to the desktop when teleporting into town.
I’ve not entered the pit and as such I am not complaining about gold gains yet like every other player out there. What is killing me though… a few scenarios surrounding loot. In this Season, Diablo IV stole the concept of exalted gear from Last Epoch where at least one stat drops with an extremely juiced stat roll. Unfortunately, these can drop on items that are effectively vendor trash. Once you reach World Tier IV, nothing that drops that is not item level 925 aka the maximum level… is not worth paying any attention to. I was able to get fully decked out in 925 gear relatively quickly and by at least level 75, I was sitting in a full set. That means every unique that drops and “exalted” item that drops that is not at least at that maximum item level is worthless. So the tweak I would love to see going forward is that if a unique drops or if an exalted item drops it drops at the item level cap. Nothing feels worse than salvaging an item that could have been amazing but rolled with a substandard item level on it.
Minor complaints aside it feels like Diablo IV has finally arrived at a good “base” for the game. From here they need to work on adding more things to do and different ways to obtain the same end results. For example, if you really enjoy Helltide… but don’t enjoy Nightmare Dungeons… there is no way to level your glyphs and as such will always be weaker than characters who leveled up those glyphs slowly. There are a lot of gear drops that are focused on Bossing, and I am personally not a character who enjoys doing boss fights. I feel forced into farming them so that I can have a shot at maybe seeing the specific uniques that I need. The thing that makes Path of Exile so strong is that it has enough content that you can reasonably focus on sone specific niche and the market economy will make sure you still have access to anything you might want. Diablo IV is a good base game now, but suffers from the same problem that Last Epoch does where there just isn’t quite enough stuff to be doing yet.
It will be interesting to see how Diablo IV evolves over time. I am hoping we see more permanent system going into the game rather than temporary mechanics. I want the game to succeed and it is finally in a state where it feels good to play it. So I am hoping in another years time it will feel like a proper contender for the ARPG throne.
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Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks! We start off the show talking about some of the recent updates to Pathfinder adding a number of player background options including build your own animal race. Kodra talks about his experience finishing up Animal Well, and Ash talks about playing a game that mimics raiding in Final Fantasy XIV called Rabbit & Steel. Bel shares his thoughts so far about Diablo IV Season 4, where they gave up on whatever the original vision was and just made the ARPG people expected them to make. This ends up in a side conversation about how breaking an implied promise and removing content from your game is very hard to pull off. We talk about still being bitter about Cataclysm and Destiny 2.
Good Morning Folks! I’ve not been hitting Diablo IV as hard as I could, but I am still making fast progress sitting at 57 as of this morning. I unlocked World Tier 3 at level 44 and given how powerful I already feel… I am contemplating giving an attempt or two at unlocking World Tier 4. I am largely following the Upheaval Endgame build from Maxroll and it feels pretty freaking great. I had never played with Iron Maelstrom before now and it is such a freaking “me” ability as I swing around giant hellraiser chains hitting everything on the screen. For cosmetics I have gone back to my good ole Cold Iron set that I picked up during the first season, and it is probably still my favorite appearance.
I am not sure if this is a new legendary affix or if it is just “new to me” but I was cracking up last night when doing a boss fight and almost every player was running this games version of Convocation of Elements (called Circle of Elements in D4). For those who did not play a lot of Diablo III, this is an ability that cycles through giving you an element buff and is largely just “more damage” and as a result, every build ends up running with it. This one is a bit weaker but cycles between two buffs that each add there “elements”. It weirds me out that poison in this game is considered an element because I am used to there being some differentiation between the whole Fire/Water/Wind/Earth thing and any other ability that applies an affliction.
Last night I took down several world bosses and they all pretty much evaporated. I was holding off on doing these until World Tier 3, because there is the chance of getting Uber Uniques to drop starting then. Uber Uniques supposedly drop at full end-game power no matter when you find them, so I was hoping that maybe just maybe I would luck into something amazing. At this point I have fought Avarice, Wandering Death, and Ashava and all were pretty easy. Ashava is still probably the worst of the three because of all of the Giga poison damage. I’ve found a handful of uniques but I won’t start finding anything really amazing until I manage to pass the World Tier 4 capstone dungeon.
All in all thought I am having quite a bit of fun. It seems like Blizzard is also doing a big push to get players back as right now the game is on sale for $35 on Battle.net and has a free trial available. If you are a Gamepass subscriber it is also available through that service as part of your subscription. If you tried it at launch and were disappointed, now might be the time to reinstall and check out the changes. There are still a number of things that I would love to see… like they still keep fighting the addition of loot filters and map overlays… but the game is in far better shape than it has ever been. I figure this weekend I will probably hit level 100 and start checking out some of the proper endgame.
If you are interested in more specific information than my random thoughts… I would suggest checking out the Season 4 State of Diablo IV Video that Raxxanterax released. It goes into a lot of detail about the good bits and the bad bits alike. For me… I need to sort out how the heck to fight the Beast in the Ice because it apparently has the highest drop rate for Hellhammer. I might now mess with that until I jump to World Tier 4 however because I would prefer to not have to get it twice. Anyways… are you playing? Are you having fun? Drop me a line below with your thoughts.
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