Seasons End

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Last Friday was the beginning of the tenth season of Diablo 3.  In the lead up I had just about convinced myself simply to skip this one, because I really was not feeling it this go around.  Generally speaking I chase the pet that is being offered as part of the seasons journey… and this time around there was no pet.  Instead they offered the weird lamp post back piece thing you can see me wearing in the above image.  However as time got closer to the launch I opted in given that I at least knew that Grace would be playing.  While I do not at all regret doing this…  I lacked the proper amount of steam that I normally have going into this sort of thing.  Firstly I got home a little later than intended and by the time I had nommed some dinner I was about fifteen to twenty minutes behind Grace and Noreek.  I think as a whole everyone pretty much either forgot that the season start was a thing… or they themselves had petered out as well.  Normally on season launch night my friends list is completely chock full of little green leaves…  aka the icon that represents a seasonal character.  Instead of the usual twenty plus… there were five and two of them were in my party.  I went Demon Hunter largely because they seem to be extremely easy to push through the seasonal journey content.  Generally speaking I greatly prefer the Crusader, but they are not exactly known for their clear speeds.

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Now it is not to say that I did not enjoy myself like I often do.  Noreek was attempting to follow some best practices and for whatever reason, our luck did not hold out.  In theory one of the first patterns you are supposed to get is the Cain set, which allows you to have a significant experience boost.  However after doing a couple of rounds of bounties and none of us getting the book…  we finally gave up and returned to Nephilim Rift grinding.  However you could audibly tell that we were losing steam when about 8:30 or 9 pm voice chat started to get completely silent.  I myself was just sort of barely hanging in there and I think I wound up tagging out around 10 pm and heading to bed to play a little switch before nodding off completely.  It sounds like the rest of the group did not make it terribly further, with me leaving somewhere in my 50s and Grace only making it to I believe 59 before calling it a night.  Each season it seems like we make it a shorter distance in the initial push before finally calling it.  That first season for me I think I made it to 65 before calling it a night and by the time I logged in the next morning Grace was already paragon 150 or so.

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I am super thankful to Noreek for giving me the much needed boost on Sunday to get to 70 and start unlocking the first few pieces of gear from Haedrig’s Gift.  I turned that into a season finish Sunday night during the Walking Dead season finale.  So now I am technically finished with the cosmetic portion of the season and trying to sort out how much further I am going to go.  The set this season for Demon Hunters is Maurader’s which seems pretty easy to push content in.  I just need to get to get the drive to do so… because last night I had ample opportunity to play because I knew Grace was going to be playing.  However for whatever reason I just lacked the desire to log in… so instead I did something that was completely fruitless and ground random Hive mobs on the Dreadnaught for hours trying to get my Husk of the Pit for Necrochasm.  I knocked out a few things on the Slayer list, and in doing so knocked out a few things it seems on the lists after that.  I could in theory probably get an extra bank tab rather easily this season… if I can just muster the desire to do so.  Right now it feels like I have this wealth of other things to be playing, so buckling down and playing Diablo 3…  a game that is more than well trodden at this point just seems difficult.  In all of this I am sort of saddened by the fact that it seems the magic of the seasonal journey is diminished.  I’ve written several posts in the past talking about how much fun it is to push with your friends in an atmosphere like the launch of a new MMO…  and that seems to be lacking this time around.