Season 7

Season Seven Steam Subsiding

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Good Morning Folks! Since I did not do my normal weekend recap post yesterday, I figured this morning I would start out with a bit of a progress post on Diablo IV Season Seven. I have to admit… I am starting to run out of steam. I had a pretty great first week, but now I am reaching the point where I am not really as driven to keep moving forward. Minions Necromancer seems to have stalled out at Torment III, and I am struggling to push it up to something that feels halfway decent at Torment IV. I could of course swap to Blood Wave of one of the more powerful builds with zero minions… but I have been stubborn. Like I said last week… a Necromancer without Minions is basically just a shitty Mage.

Really the core problem that I am dealing with is not being able to get the drops that I need to progress the build. I am kitted out in full Ancestral gear, and honestly well rolled items at that… but the challenge that I am having is that I cannot get the Ancestral Uniques that I need for the build. I’ve got copies of the normal mode versions, and in theory I should probably try rearranging my gear in a way so that I could equip them and give that a shot to see how it feels. Largely across the board Ancestral drops feel like they are way less common than they were last league, and this feels bad. More than that it does not feel like I am having much success target farming the items. In theory Ace and I were talking about doing another round of boss summons this evening, and if I get lucky that would solve my problems.

I’ve completed the Battle Pass and unlocked all of this seasons cosmetics. I generally pay for the cheap version of the battle pass without any acceleration, because generally speaking the seasonal cosmetics are pretty freaking great. I am not entirely certain what I think about this armor set, but the weird raptor-horse thingy is pretty sweet. One thing that annoys me about the Battle Pass, is that since the cats are only available through the expansion… the seasonal tracks never seem to include any cosmetics for them. This is the problem with splitting features between expansion and core versions of the game, and seems like a bad design overall.

Where I am stalled out however is on the Season Journey. I’ve reached the final step called Destroyer, and every single objective requires Torment IV to complete. Since I cannot reliably run much of anything on Torment IV, that means I am pretty much hard locked. Then the final steps will require me to do copious farming while sitting on T4, and luck into a few edge cases like having two legendary shrines appear in a single Roothold. Maybe I am feeling a little more charitable to the streamers that I felt abandoned this season too soon, because honestly… I was just a bit slower reaching the point they must have on day one or two. I am not sure what is wrong with the season, but something feels off now that I am out of the super fun leveling phase.

I did however take down Lilith so that was a positive step forward. Last season I got hard carried by Ace on this fight, and this season I was able to one-shot it. This means I have my resplendent spark, so that if I can ever complete the seasons journey… I will be able to craft a mythic unique. Part of me is wondering if I should have gone with Spiritborn. Truth be told the core problem that I have with Diablo IV is how spammy it feels. Maybe I am just too used to one or two button builds in Path of Exile, but it is highly annoying that I need to spam six abilities every time they are off cool-down. I could always use the numlock trick, but that feels cheesy. Especially after getting used to the more combo based system of Path of Exile II… Diablo IV spammy combat feels odd.

I admit… I am not 100% certain how much longer I am going to keep poking at this. I should at least try a respec to something else before giving up the ghost. I am not sure what happened, but in the last two days the fun levels have diminished significantly. It was great so long as I felt like I was regularly knocking out objectives, but once I stalled out… it made me start to evaluate the type of combat that I was actually doing.

The Season Seven Paradox

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Good Morning Folks! This morning I am going to spend some time talking about something weird happening with Diablo IV right now. Season Seven aka the Season of Witchcraft is without a doubt peak Diablo IV. This is the best seasonal mechanic we have ever had and the game has more content than it has ever had in the past. Additionally the mechanical state of the game is better than we have seen previously and there are way more classes that have viable play patterns as a result. However… folks seem to be abandoning Diablo IV in droves, and this is has not been illustrated more clearly by the lack of streamers diving into the game. Previously a new Diablo IV season would see most of the Path of Exile streamers come back if for no reason other than to meme on the game for a day or two before returning to their core demographic.

What we are seeing instead is folks who used to be part of the core stalwart group of Diablo IV streamers… abandoning the game. Darth Microtransaction effectively made his brand on the back of first Diablo Immortal and then later Diablo IV. I went through his broadcast records and could not find any sign that he actually streamed even a moment of Diablo IV Season Seven. Raxxanterax was the definitive “Diablo III” guy for me and has been a regular source of information about Diablo IV since the launch of the game, and he streamed two days… looked annoyed while doing it, and then as of yesterday was back in Path of Exile II. This is translating to the game as well, because I am not sure I have fought a single world boss yet with a full party. Additionally during peak prime time gaming hours, I am one of the few people on my Battle.net friends list actually playing the game.

I think at least on some level… the expansion release broke a lot of people. It was not a great story, but worse than that… it felt like an incomplete story. Diablo games have traditionally been about killing a big bad at the end. The core Diablo IV story is about chasing Lilith and then ultimately killing her. Vessel of Hatred seemed like it was going to be an expansion about chasing Mephisto and then ultimately killing him… but instead we just took down his literal lapdog. The story arc of the expansion felt like something we might expect as a free incremental story patch in an MMORPG, not something that is boxed paid DLC. I think there were a lot of folks holding out hope that the DLC was going to change the trajectory of Diablo IV, and it didn’t really do that… causing them to check out. It is impossible to get numbers for this game, since the Steam version launched so late that it represents a fairly insignificant slice of the total player pie.

I am still having fun, but I also know that once I tick off the checkboxes of the seasons journey and finish out the battle pass that I will probably fade away as well. What I will fade back into… I have no clue honestly. Raxx showed recently that you can power level a character in just a bit more than two hours, so given the level of playtime streamers have… it is probably not shocking that they have all cycled through the game. Sure there are folks who have almost exclusively built their brand on the game like Rob that are still grinding away…. but within the week I figure most folks will have cycled back to something else. The Witchtide is fun as heck, but it seems like it is not quite enough to actually keep at least the public side of the player base engaged for very long.

I moved into chapter five aka slayer on my Seasons Journey last night, and I have been stockpiling my boss summon materials so that Ace and I can get together this weekend and run a bunch of bosses in a row. This mostly just makes it so that the loot goes further, since each of us gets our own copy of the loot. I’ve swapped out all but two of my slots for Ancestral gear, and it seems like maybe Ancestral Legendaries are dropping much less often in Torment 1 than they did during the expansion launch. I don’t have all of the items that I ultimately need, but I am still ripping through content pretty easily. I finally got all of the glyphs and now just need to work on leveling them. I’ve also got a few Infernal Hordes keys that I hope to run with Ace as well to see what sort of loot and levels we can get from that event.

Raxx released his usual State of the Game, and even he admits that the season mechanic is probably the best one yet. However he still sounds really unsatisfied with the state of the game. His big complaint is that at least compared to other ARPGs right now, Diablo IV does not have much replayability. I would probably agree with that and once you have ground your way through to Torment 4, completed the season journey, hit level 100, and finished the battle pass… there isn’t much reason to keep playing. There is nothing in the game that is so chase as to serve as that thing that keeps you spinning the randomizer for weeks on end hoping that maybe just maybe you will see it. All of that said… I am okay with that. I have Path of Exile, Path of Exile II, and Last Epoch that serve to scratch that itch for me. Diablo IV will probably always be a fun and chill romp of a game because the “Exile” games at least are deeply punitive when it comes to grouping with your friends.

Diablo III was a game that I played every three months with my friend Ace for a weekend, and then was more than happy to bounce until the next season start. It was this super fun if short event that we participated in that brought me a lot of joy. I’ve never been able to find that same level of super chill but focused gameplay in Path of Exile or the sequel Path of Exile II. We’ve been able to get to that point with Last Epoch, but even it feels a bit too punitive at times. Diablo IV however, has reached the point where we both have a focused but fun interaction during the season, and then group up to do a bunch of fun content together helping the other one get through the seasonal accomplishments before fading away and playing something else. As such I am perfectly okay if this is a short term game for me, and honestly appreciate the fact that it is because I know I can slot it in easily each time a new season comes out.

Quite honestly I appreciate the brevity. By next weekend I will be finished with Season Seven and be perfectly fine bouncing to do something else. I know that I have the next Path of Exile season 3.26 somewhere around the corner, and Last Epoch Cycle 2 in April. I also want to pop back into Guild Wars 2 and catch up on the expansion content since I have yet to engage with the second content drop from Janthir Wilds. I think I might mentally be ready to spend some time in an MMORPG again after copious grinding between Settlers League, Necro Settlers, and the launch of Path of Exile II early access. That is not to say that I am entirely done with Path of Exile II either. I do really enjoy that character and have a heck of a lot of fun mapping on it now. It just seems like ARPGs are going through the same false dichotomy that MMORPGs did years ago… with the concept of the “one true game” and that everyone feels the need to pick only one and focus on it entirely.

While I deep dive through the rabbit hole on pretty much every game that I devote time to… I also play a bunch of different games. This works for me, and quite honestly means that there is always something interesting right around the corner. It feels bad that Season Seven is getting panned so heavily, and I am concerned that the Diablo IV team is going to take the wrong lesson from that. If you have been on the fence about jumping into the Season of Witchcraft I suggest that you give it a shot. Like I said at the top of this post, it legitimately is peak Diablo IV and is pretty much the best that the game has ever been. I think the challenge is… that “best” is not what many players and streamers are looking for.

Best D4 Season Ever?

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Good Morning Folks! I hit level 60 last night and officially entered the endgame. I am exceptionally happy because I essentially did not change any of my gear since around level 40, and did only a minimal item swap in a few slots when I hit 60… and was pretty much able to roll straight into a Pit 20 to unlock Torment 1. The Season of Witchcraft is going to do nothing for the folks who are deeply biased against Diablo IV, but for those of us who are capable of finding joy in more than one thing at a time… it is a pretty great time to be alive. Diablo IV will always be the Duplo version of an ARPG, but that does not mean that there is not a heck of a lot of fun to be had. Quite honestly I feel like we have this great progression to take someone from only being mildly engaged all of the way to gibbering madly in the darkness.

Essentially for me… you have Diablo III which is the absolute simplest version of an ARPG. Now Diablo IV sits just on the other side of Diablo III with a little bit more nuance and build variety. Then you have Last Epoch which serves as this happy medium between all of the games where it is very easy to understand, has a lot of hand-holding for gear progression, but also has real depth for creating interesting builds. On the other side of that I feel like Path of Exile II really serves as a much more accessible gateway drug to Grinding Gear Games. It is a bit more complicated than Last Epoch, but nowhere near as complex as Path of Exile 1. Finally at the furthest end of the spectrum you have the original Path of Exile with its decades worth of systems built upon systems and effectively represents the ARPG version of what the Kowloon Walled City was. No one should feel shame for finding their happy place and then deciding that they do not need to descend any further into madness.

Anyways…. back to this post… at this point I have done up through a Pit 25 and need to spend a lot of time grinding the Pit until I have all of the glyphs needed for my build. I wish there was a more interesting way of acquiring these because in its current state… The Pit feels way less rewarding than some of the other endgame systems. There are a bunch of vectors that I need to follow to level up various things but not having any of the right glyphs is a problem that should be remedied quickly. I still do not love the paragon system in general and feel like it is way too tedious for what it is. I would FAR rather have a passive tree like Path of Exile 1/2 than this obtuse combination of boards. The big problem is when you decide that you want to swap builds… it is just a pain to set up all of the paragon boards again.

Right now I am trying to make the decision if I stick with the pure minions build, or if I migrate to one of the other more powerful Necromancer builds like Blood Wave. I think ultimately I want to end up Blood Wave but am uncertain if it is worth trying to transition until I have at least some of the uniques that the build relies upon. Unfortunately… Blood Wave is a zero minions build in its optimal form… and I do not love that. That is one of the things that kind of annoys me about the current state of the Necromancer is it feels like the best versions are all based no not having minions at all. Ultimately if I wanted to have zero minions… I figure I would just play a Sorc. If I can get to Torment IV on pure minions then I will be pretty happy, because quite honestly… once I finish the seasons journey and the battle pass I will probably stop caring about Diablo IV.

Speaking of Seasons Journey… I am currently in Chapter IV and starting to whittle away at the requirements. This is ultimately going to be my guide moving forward and will dictate a lot of the activities that I participate in. At some point I am going to have to take down Lilith, and if I can actually do that as Minions I will be exceptionally happy. I also want to do some boss farming with Ace like I did last league, so hopefully the build will allow us to do that. Spiritborn was wildly overpowered… but honestly Necromancer at least so far does not feel terribly weaker. At very least I had a much easier time transitioning into the first Torment level than I did as my Centipede Spiritborn. Spiritborn did not become exceptionally overpowered feeling until I switched over to Quill Rain.

As far as the Battle Pass goes, I am only 20 levels into that. From what I remember last season it did not really start speeding up until I could chain farm the internal council. I know that knocking out the sub objectives of the seasons journey also seems to give a lot of credit as well. Like I said above my goals for Season 7 are to complete the Seasons Journey and complete the Battle Pass. Any thing past that truly is a bonus, because if I can squeeze enough enjoyment out of the game to make it to Path of Exile season 3.26 I am going to be stoked. It is a little sad though that this Diablo IV season feels like it is the best so far and it is getting very little in the way of attention. Most of the ARPG streamers are continuing to stream Path of Exile II for the time being, and at least among my Battle.net friends there are very few people playing outside of my closest circle of friends.

I’m happy and having fun and honestly… that really is the only thing that matters. I also really dig the look of my character… which is admittedly the same basic appearance I use on all of my Necromancers but I am pretty happy with the armor. That has been the thing that I really enjoy about completing the battle pass each season, is gaining even more interesting cosmetics to use going forward. Diablo IV will probably always be an acquired taste, and will never be technical enough to gain legitimacy amongst the most hardcore players in this genre. It however still will be a pretty fun game to revisit every few months… pending they don’t do anything terribly stupid with it.

Farming the Witchtide

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Good Morning Folks! Yesterday was the launch of Diablo IV Season 7, and last night I rolled the Necromancer that I was planning and started leveling. If anyone is wanting to play along at home, I am mostly following this guide on Maxroll because I do not want to think about anything right now. I am not really going to worry about my gear until I hit level 60 because at this point I have effortlessly gotten to 44 without really trying. I am absolutely half-assing my way through the content and it is delightful, in large part because Season of Witchcraft is effectively the spiritual successor to Season 2. The Season of Blood as Season 2 was properly referred to was essentially peak Diablo IV for me, and the rapid recurrence of the Blood Tide events made it feel great to level.

Instead of Bloodtides… we have Headhunts which I am affectionately referring to as the Witchtide. These will spawn in four places on the map and are up for 40 minutes at a time. However these appear to be staggered so that when one ends there is always going to be another one up that you can be farming. This also means that once you complete all of the Grim Favor objectives in one area, you can bounce to a new area and start the entire process over again. This is by far the smoothest leveling experience ever and even more important… taking a death does not cause you to lose your hard earned event currency like you do in a Helltide. That said… I have not taken a death yet but you are collecting resources that you then spend to unlock Witchcraft abilities.

Part of what made the Season of Blood so great was that in addition to the blood tide events… you had a borrowed power system in the form of vampire abilities. These were gained randomly in a pick one of three scenario and it often took you quite a bit of grinding to get the set that you really wanted to use. Witchcraft abilities work so much better in that you simply get currency for doing events and then can outright purchase the ability that you actually want. Within the first hour and a half of game-play I had all five of the abilities that I wanted, and then could simply focus on leveling them up instead of acquiring new abilities. I highly suggest Aura of Siphoning for your first ability because it is essentially “What if Righteous Fire Healed You”, as you deal damage to everything around you but also gain some of that as life.

I also love that it lets me run around with a giant poison dart frog. The crossover abilities from the D3 Witchdoctor are greatly appreciated. I am sure at some point I will build something around the Firebats ability if I end up running a second character. I am pretty curious how nerfed the state of the Spiritborn ends up being from what it was during the expansion launch. Diablo IV has reached the point of light popcorn fare and I am here for it. I was having a lot of fun from the moment I dropped into game and so far that seems to have no sign of stopping. I really need to run a few Nightmare Dungeons to see how they have been buffed because Ace reported that they got a stupid amount of legendaries from them.

Kind of the crux of the Witchtide events is to spawn these headless husks, which you kill to reclaim heads at least in a narrative sense for the tree of whispers. There is also a background story happening surrounding a coven of witchdoctors that do the bidding of the tree. I have to be honest… I do not care at all about the story side of this, because really it is a loose framework that allows me to keep going out and killing more monsters that are spawning unique to this season. The core mechanical loop feels extremely rewarding, and I am curious to see how this transitions as we move into the endgame. I am sure there will still be the need to farm a lot of summoned bosses for unique drops. Ace and I learned last league that the best option was for us to hold onto everything and then meet up to amplify the number of summons we were able to do in a single sitting.

Another thing that I greatly appreciate is that they have added additional functionality to the Tree of Whispers location. This is where all of the event resources are set up, but also they changed the layout a bit and added an Obols vendor and Alchemist to essentially allow us to never leave this location. I was already setting my default teleport to the Tree of Whispers for dumping Grim Favors, but now there really is no reason to use any other location other than if you are happening to farm the Pit. I still would really like to have something akin to the player hideout from Path of Exile 1 and 2 because honestly… unless I have invited them to my group I don’t really care about other players.

Speaking of not caring about other players… I am guessing the community got the memo that running World Bosses is not really worth the effort. I killed Ashava this morning and it was just me and a Barbarian… and thankfully we managed to take down the boss without much issue. I don’t feel like I am probably too far ahead of the curve… and more that it is just a case that no one seems to care about world bosses. I said this last league, that the older content like World Bosses, Nightmare Dungeons, and Legion Events really do not feel like they are worth doing right now. Sure you can get some drops, but the amount of drops pale in comparison to just farming literally anything else. I mostly wanted to kill the world boss because I am certain that somewhere in the seasons journey there is a requirement for doing so.

By farming effectively nothing but the Witchtide, I am actually progressing pretty quickly through the Coven’s Favor track… aka the event faction for this league. Mostly this serves as a way of unlocking the various quests associated with the league which I am sure will gate some things behind them… so might as well grind it out as quickly as possible. Once I get into the endgame I am probably going to be farming content that is not the Witchtide, so it would probably be beneficial to get the faction now while I am not having to go out of my way to farm it.

All in all I feel like this is a pretty solid outing for Diablo IV. The game will still have its critics, and that is fine… I just wish they were coming from a place of legitimate gripes and not largely piling on the campaign of streamers. The raw game is in a pretty decent state at this point, and I am having quite a bit of fun. It will never be a technical experience like Path of Exile, but for big dumb fun it is pretty spectacular. I am sure I will bore of it quickly once I have finished the season journey… but not everything has to be a forever game. While I can appreciate Citizen Kane… I also really like movies where they have cool CGI and big explosions. Diablo IV is a big explosions type game, and if you can appreciate it for what it is… there is fun to be had here.