talisman Archives - Tales of the Aggronaut

Morning Folks! Yesterday we got the name reveal, teaser trailer, full reveal date, and league start information for the next Path of Exile league. It is going to be called Affliction and seems to have some sort of a curse-based theme. This morning I am going to kick my navel-gazing into high gear and spout some speculative nonsense as I overanalyze way too few frames of animation. The concrete details that we have so far are that on the 30th of November, we will be getting the full reveal stream that will go over all of the features of this league. Then on December 8th, the league will start for PC players and for console folks on the 13th. If you want to watch the full teaser trailer before I obsess over possibly made-up details… you can check out the link here.

First of all… I have screwed with the images a bit to lighten them but unfortunately, the sheer amount of darkness somewhat crushes the detail. I’ve seen folks stating that they think this is the delve, but I can’t really follow that thread. Sure everything is bluish-black like you see while delving, but it also very clearly seems to be in a forest at night, and the delve forest biomes look totally different than this. You also don’t really see the swirling shadows that you normally do at the far corners of Delve.

Next, we are going to skip to a scene a bit later in the video when the supplicant seems to be devolving into a swarm of insects. These are Wetas, and I only know this because the Weta is already in the game as a pet… and is a New Zealand thing. It is essentially a giant nocturnal insect… and if you want some nightmare fuel take a gander at this image. I looked so you don’t have to. To me at least that very clearly looks like a Ritual totem from the Ritual League mechanic. This makes me think that the Affliction League is somehow tied to Ritual either as the existing mechanic or something that reworks, expands, and ultimately replaces Ritual. Since we just participated in the Blast from the Past League which featured Sentinel and Lake of Kalandra… I’ve wondered if the insect swarm could work similarly to how Sentinels buff minions around you and also increase the loot chances.

This isn’t a character that I recognize, but they do sorta remind me of the way Einhar is dressed. Einhar is an Ezomyte and his people worship beast gods known as the first ones. It makes me wonder if this could be some sort of Ezomyte shaman that we are seeing in front of this Ritual totem. Another possibility that I have wondered about is if this league will feature updates and changes to the way that Talismans work, as right now they are mostly a quirk of the past and not something that players really purposefully seek out. In Crucible we saw GGG reworking Breach and Abyss and I feel like that is something that they are going to keep doing. So I could see that this league is tied to a revamp of Ritual and maybe a revamp of Talismans and maybe some skill changes focused on the way that curses work and are applied in the game. Of course, this is all me grasping at straws and could be nothing.

I would love to see the Sentinel League mechanic return in some form… and I feel like the Blast from the Past event had to be purposeful in some way. I don’t even really care that much about the recombinators, but I have loved being able to pop sentinels to get juicy bursts of loot. Lake of Kalandra being revisited has made me realize that that mechanic while cool… really needs to be reworked completely before it would feel good. The wildly variable difficulty level of the maps just feels bad… and I think I would rather see something along the lines of how the nodes in Expedition work so that each tile you place gives you boon/debuff to everything in the finally crafted map. I think it would be also cool to see some sort of return of the Crucible mechanic. I thought skill trees on items made for some really interesting build possibilities. I think everyone would love to see Tattoos from this league go Standard as well, but I feel similar to Kalandra… the actual Trial of the Ancestors mechanic needs some work. There is just too rapid of a transition from cakewalk to impossible without cheating by abusing crowd control mechanics.

Anyways! Happy Friday! Happy almost Thanksgiving week! What would you like to see in the upcoming Affliction League in Path of Exile? Drop me a line below.

Ice Ice Baby

We are still functionally iced in, at least in the way that everything outside is coated in a thick layer of ice… including both vehicles. This has been the weirdest storm however as it has clung to everything but the concrete. Additionally the temperatures have remained at just the right place to keep the ice from melting. This means for the most part the roads are completely fine. It is just lack of caring that has kept us in the house. By the manifest restlessness upstairs from my wife, I have a feeling this is coming to an end today. We honestly need to get out and about to pick up the last few gifts in order to be done for the holidays.

Right now on twitter, I have the name “Belgrinch Stole Xmas” and to some extent it is not just clever use of my existing naming convention. I tend to be a big of a humbug when it comes to the holidays. Over the years bad things seem to fall near the holidays, and when you combine that with the fact that Christmas as an adult is a massive let down if you don’t have children. My wife and I have not put up a tree in over a decade. For children, Christmas still is a magical time but for me I just see the hassle of having to run between four households and shop for a bunch of people you literally only see once a year. I wish so much we could make Christmas be Thanksgiving 2.0.

Thanksgiving is pretty much my ideal holiday. People get together to share a meal together, and there is no expectations past that. You just have some good food, good conversation and then everyone goes on their merry ways. Instead we have an awkward exchange of time as everyone tries to avoid the inevitable gift exchanges. This year because of my aunt’s dialysis the timing is all messed up. Normally we do all of this on Christmas eve, but instead this year everything is pretty tentative. We considered going up tomorrow so we could just spend time with the family members we want to without the rest of the three ring circus. For me it is about spending time with my parents and my grandmother… past that it just gets progressively more and more awkward. Namely I am trying to avoid being around my bigoted uncles as they seriously destroy what little inner peace I have… and make me feel absolutely dirty for being around them.

Beatstick Acquired

I have chronicled the hunt for one-handed weapons over the last few weeks. My guildies and I have been running daily Heroic Scenarios for a shot at the 516 weapons that can drop there. Additionally I have been working my way through both Throne of Thunder and Siege of Orgrimmar. Yesterday I spent most of the day queued for the various ToT dungeons that have a chance of dropping a weapon. Turns out the in game loot advisor thingy doesn’t list everything. It seems there is a series of weapons that can drop off every single boss in the instance, and after killing Jinrohk yesterday I managed to get one of them. The mace pictured above is Zeeg’s Ancient Kegsmasher and comes from that list of alternative drops. While not ideal, I wish it was a 2.6 speed weapon and not the awkward 2.4 speed… but it is better than what I had and I am extremely happy to get it.

Additionally I managed to get through the Underhold section of Siege of Orgrimmar which unlocks The Downfall and a shot at another one-hander off of the Klaxxi council event. I am honestly not sure what it is about Underhold, but every single group I would get into would spontaneously disintegrate shortly after finishing Malkorok. There always seems to be either a mass exodus immediately after finishing the boss, or after failing that first time to Spoils of Pandaria. Last night… fairly late… I actually managed to find a group that oneshot every single encounter there… including captain lunchmeats himself… Thok. I won’t lie, I am not sure if I will actually ever queue for Underhold again unless a guild member needs it for something. The queue is around an hour generally, and with the lacklustre success rate it seems like a bundle of frustration I can simply live without.

Christmas Gifts Abound

So I am bad at this… let me start out by saying that up front. My intent in this section is not to be “look what soandso go me, neener neener” so you are going to see some thank yous, without me actually listing who they are directed to. I figure the people read my blog and they will know it is heart felt and directed at them. First up someone very awesome got me Talisman Prologue from my steam list. This is a game that I have thought about picking up so many times in the past but never pulled the trigger. I love the Talisman board game, and even the crappy american version that Milton Bradley released called Hero’s Quest. Despite how much frustration I have built up over the years… I am still a massive fanboy for Games Workshop and Talisman seems to be one of their purest gaming experiences. Really looking forward to seeing how well the digital version translates.

I am a massive sucker for the sandboxy shooter experience. Everything I have heard from friends and read has said that Farcry 3 really takes this whole concept up a notch. As a result this is one of those titles I have almost bought half a dozen times. But thanks to another amazing friend the decision was made for me. Again I plan on devoting some of my two weeks of downtime to exploring this game. Quite honestly… I have stuff on my steam wishlist as more of a reminder to myself, and because steam emails you when one of those titles goes on sale. I never in a million years expected anyone to buy me something off of it. Thank you guys very much, it made me feel loved.

Last but definitely not least… the League of Legends Mystery Gift madness is back in full swing again. For those of you who are not indoctrinated, you can send a friend a random skin for one of the champions they have. The price is 450 RP but you are guaranteed to get a skin that is of higher value, but it will be assigned completely at random. The coolest part about it is there is a chance of getting skins that have long been retired or for whatever reason removed from the game. One of the skins I have always wanted but never picked up is Chosen Master Yi. Who doesn’t want to play as a Jedi Knight? Huge thanks to another good friend for sending me a mystery box and giving me this awesome skin.