Hey Friends! This is probably going to be a pretty short post given that I honestly don’t have an awful lot to talk about. I am deep into the Diablo 3 seasonal grind and finding it very hard to focus on anything else right now. I am still trying to make sure I log in at least once a day to do ESO daily stuff because that anniversary event is still going on… but timing has conspired to place this seasonal grind in direct conflict with that. I am nearing the end and am very much in the slow grind portion where there is very little effort required but just a lot ore repetition and grinding bounties.
Shocking to no one who has been on this emotional rollercoaster with me before, but I am once again stalled out on the Set Dungeon Mastery portion of this ride. Something you have to understand about me, I have a massive hang up about when being put on a timer. Like I could go into the emotional scars and explain it all to you… and probably have in the past… but suffice to say this is something rooted deep within my psyche and just something I can’t shake no matter how hard I try. If you put me on a timer I am going to fail at whatever the task is. If you time me without me knowing it I am probably going to execute flawlessly and with plenty of time to spare.
So mostly of my life I have developed coping strategies for this by trying really fucking hard to ignore the fact that there is a clock ticking down and I use this to get over my natural aversion to Greater Rifts. However Set Dungeons are a whole new level of hell for me because not only do they require me to be on a timer, but they also require me to do a little dance that feels unnatural while watching the clock. So as a result I put them off until the absolute last moment. For example when I finally do master a set dungeon… I am going to zoom forward and complete everything but the very last set of the seasonal journey because I have literally completed two full steps that I won’t get credit for until I have finished off Slayer.
Set Dungeon mental fuckery aside… I am super close to wrapping the season up its entirety. All of my gems are above level 65 so a few more Greater Rifts and I will be able to get them all to 70. I can easily do 80s but my survival is still not where I would want them to be so it means that I die quite a bit in doing them… but am killing so fast that there is plenty of time on the clock to spare. Basically today I need to get over my mental block and build a set for the appropriate dungeon and just do the thing.
Last night Grace and I managed to get a Speed Demon clear of a Torment X Rift and I was easily able to get a solo Greater Rift 75 clear for that conquest. That leaves the most likely candidate on the books to be Avarice which is easy enough to complete but just time consuming. Essentially there are two ways to do this… hoping and praying that the stars align with your leveled up Boon of the Hoarder and you can complete this naturally. Then there is the method that I usually do which is farm up a bunch of bounty chests and open them all at the same time so that I can get enough gold to drop to finish this up in one go. I’ve gathered the calculations before in the past but going to copy and paste them here largely for my own benefit later.
A T13 bounty cache contains 1,190,000 gold. 43 T13 caches contain enough gold to achieve the conquest.
A T14 bounty cache contains 1,440,000 gold. 35 T14 caches contain enough gold to achieve the conquest.
A T15 bounty cache contains 1,540,000 gold. 33 T15 caches contain enough gold to achieve the conquest.
A T16 bounty cache contains 1,640,000 gold. 31 T16 caches contain enough gold to achieve the conquest.
Right now I have several T13 caches that Grace and I farmed up last night. I will probably switch over to T16 Caches when I start farming on my own later today. As a result I am probably going to end up in a similar situation that I have been before of farming up a page and a half of these in my inventory before attempting to do a mass opening and getting the achievement. I seem to usually land somewhere around 35 caches before doing the open. I have no clue how long it is going to take me to do the necessary farming but that and the mindfuck that is the set dungeon mastery are really the only things standing in my way. I also need to extract 19 legendaries but the bounty farm will give me more than enough materials to finish that off.
Good Morning Friends! Those of you who have been around awhile will know that it was only a matter of time before I would be back on my Diablo nonsense once again. This past Friday signaled the opening of Season 23 and with it a whole new grind to the top for loot and fame. Actually for me personally it is always entirely about the pet that is generally the final reward for making it all the way in a season. I don’t make it every season, but this one contains a pet that is so purrfect that I have to do it no matter what.
You can check out all of the rewards on the official blog post but really… it is all about this weird half cat half goblin thing that I love and need to be my friend. I mean the portrait frame is pretty badass as well but really… its about the pet. Apart from the rewards I just generally have a good time hanging out with my friend Grace and stomping demons. This time around they gave us a greatest hits collection of amazing builds to play with on Haedrig’s Gift which is gained through completing some meta achievements. The sets that are up for grabs this time are as follows:
Monk – Rainment of a Thousand Storms
Demon Hunter – Unhallowed Essence
Crusader – Roland’s Legacy
Wizard – Tal Rasha’s Elements
Barbarian – Wrath of the Wastes
Witch Doctor – Helltooth Harness
Necromancer – Bones of Rathma
I think we got all of these tried and true sets in part because this season ushers in quite possibly the largest change to take place with Diablo 3 in a since maybe loot 2.0. Our loyal followers now get full gear builds which greatly increases their general effectiveness in combat but also brings with it some interesting party tricks. A new affix is showing up on gear called “Emanates” which means if the item is equipped on your follower, the effect will spill over to your character as well. So for example if I throw Nemesis Bracers on my Templar it will allow Elites to spawn any time I pop a Shrine freeing up a slot for my build that would have consumed either space in the cube or my bracers slot. Similarly I have mine equipped in 3 pieces of Sage armor so that every time I get Deaths Breath I get twice as much…. leading to an interesting situation of not being quite so limited in that department. You can check this wiki page for a full list of gear that has this new Emanates property.
I went with the tried and true “Spin to Win” Barbarian build because honestly of all of the sets available it is by far my favorite. It was a close tossup with Demon Hunter, which is also a build that I greatly love but seeing as Grace went that I think we are covered for stupid amounts of wave clear. There was actually this weird place in the leveling curve where I was the primary carry which is a relatively new feeling for me given that she is usually dragging my worthless butt around. Right now I pretty much have to stay out ahead of her to remain useful when grouped up because she just destroys everything in sight. My biggest challenge the entire season has been survival and trying not to die to things that are likely going to kill me.
The other major issue that I suffered from for a very long time was resource generation. My personal preference for a whirlwind build is to run the Bull-Kathos set of weapons which greatly increases your fury generation and makes it so that you can basically whirlwind forever… and speeds you up in the process. I pulled a grand total of eight Bull-Kathos Solemn Vow before ever seeing a single Warriors Blood but thankfully when I did finally get one… it was a Primal Ancient Legendary. For now I am running full diamonds for survival and it seems to mostly work. I finally got my Templar the immunity item which also helped me in the “cheat death” department as well. Now comes the slow grind of leveling gems and actually doing set dungeons and such to knock out seasonal objectives.
The other big thing that I did this season is spend a good chunk of my Friday off cleaning out my vault and deleting characters. Previously I was locked with no ability to create new characters and now at least before the season I was down to just having a single character of each class. Ultimately my goal is to create new characters each season and then delete back down at the end of the season so that I maintain the “one of each” flow. I did ultimately create two Barbarians this season… one to actually play and a level 1 Barbarian that I named “DeleteMe” that I used to gamble on getting a Band of Might since at level one there are only two possible legendary rings I could have gotten. All in all a great start to the season and hopefully in the coming week I can knock out the rest of the bits. Avarice and the bounty grind is going to be the longest part which I should be getting started on shortly.
Good Morning Folks! I was realizing this morning just how completely out of date my blog side bar is when it comes to the games that I have been playing regularly. In theory I claim that this is my semi-monthly process of trueing up the sidebar so it represents the sorts of games that I am playing. What actually happens is that I go for large blocks of time without updating this and when that happens massive swings occur. For example the last one of these that I did was in October of 2020 and some stuff has changed. So here goes an attempt at maybe doing these regularly again for a bit. For those not already indoctrinated into the process I divide things up into a few categories:
To Those Remaining – The games that I am still actively playing or at least expect to be playing within the month.
To The New and Returning – The games that I am either dusting off and revisiting or are brand new experiences that I am enjoying.
To Those Departing – The games that I am finally removing from the list for one reason or another.
Ships Passing in the Night – Games that I don’t expect to regularly play but I spent some time with over the month and enjoyed enough to talk about.
To Those Remaining
Diablo 3 – PC and Switch
My sweet sweet Diablo 3, you are rarely ever gone from this list. There is even a new season starting this Friday and I am looking forward to going through the routine of the seasonal grind. This season has a bunch of changes to the game and as a result they sorta gave us a greatest hits collection of sets available through Haedrigs Gift. As a result I am looking at probably starting a Whirlrend Barbarian for this season because those are so stinking fun to play.
Ghosts of Tsushima – PS5
I am going to be honest, I am leaving this one on the list more as an aspirational placement than a game I am truly actively playing. I boot it up from time to time and play through a few encounters and then put it to bed for a longer period of time. I hope to get back in and play it more intently because also while we have been spilling truth… I feel a little guilty that I am not really doing much with my PlayStation 5.
Hades – PC and Switch
This one retains its spot because it is still probably my go to “playing switch from bed” game. The pattern of play just fits spending a few minutes before falling asleep. I am not terribly good at it but I enjoy it mechanically and thematically. This is the only game I have played where I enjoy losing, because it means I am going to get some more story beats.
New World – PC
I am leaving this on the list for reasons of which I am contractually not at liberty to talk about. It comes out in August officially and I am looking forward to that release. I’ve never seen a game that has gone through quite so many changes during its late development cycle as this one. It is going to be interesting to see the state of this game at launch. I have quite a bit of faith in it.
Retro Games – Retro Freak Console, RG350, Retroid, Raspberry Pi 4
Still very much spending a chunk of my time playing games that I grew up with… that are now referred to as Retro games. Still feels really weird to be calling them Retro to be honest. Actually yesterday I literally just got an 8 gb Raspberry Pi 4 model in that I am going to be playing with. That is probably going to become my main emulation device for the short term for anything other than higher end stuff like Cemu that absolutely requires the power of my gaming PC.
To The New and Returning
Destiny 2 – PC
Putting this one back on the list because I am technically playing it again. I am nowhere near as engaged with it as I would like to be and I am not exactly certain why that is the case. From all accounts this is a really good season but I find myself just unable to get stuck into it very deeply. Since we are trueing things up it is in somewhat regular rotation so it is going to get a spot on the list.
The Elder Scrolls Online – PC
I am experiencing a massive renaissance of Elder Scrolls Online and it has rapidly become my primary game over the past month. While I am mostly leveling alts right now, I am going to return to the normal course of trying to quest my way through all of the content in the game and maybe just maybe be ready for the launch of the next expansion in June. I somehow doubt that is going to be a thing because I have to make it through large blocks of content and I know I will become distracted by other games that spring up along the way.
Minecraft – PC Java Client
Another thing that happened since my previous update is that I have returned to Minecraft in a huge way. I spent a lot of time playing solo and even recorded a semi-daily YouTube series on my adventures. Now however I spend my time either popping between my own private Realms world or a closed server run by my friend Zeli. Not playing near as much as I was but I am still popping in and wandering around. There is a stronghold in the nether that I am clearing and trying to set up a dual blaze farm right now so I still have projects that I am plugging away at. Right now I am likely going to wait to re-engage heavily until the new caves update comes out and create a brand new world.
Outriders – PC
Outriders is the new looter shooter hotness that is shipping tomorrow officially. I played the hell out of the demo and now am looking forward to consuming this game peacefully. I am not really planning on playing it as my primary game because I am super engaged with Elder Scrolls right now, but I am absolutely going to slow grind it. The launch time is just really bad because it overlaps with a bunch of other things going on like the launch of a new Diablo 3 season.
Valheim – PC
Valheim is freaking great. If you do not already own this game you should pick it up because it is dirt cheap and one hell of a lot of fun. I’ve reached a point of equilibrium with this game at least until new content ships. I had been playing regularly on a server but I have mostly been playing lately on my solo world. When the hearth and home update ships, I might start a new world depending on how deep the changes go. I will likely always keep Beltopia around given that it is set up nicely for crafting and such.
To Those Departing
Genshin Impact – Android/PC
I have no real idea why I bounced the way that I have from this game. I think partially it might just be that I don’t love “maintenance gaming” where all I am really doing is dailies. However in this game that isn’t even true because they have released a ton of story content since I last played and I never can quite bring myself to come back and play it. There are a lot of things about this game that work so well and then a lot of things that just frustrate me. For example the fact that I feel like I don’t have a reasonable manner in which to level new characters and catch them up to my core party… means that I largely feel like I am stuck always using my core party. Maybe at some point I will return when it ships on the Switch but for now it is a distant memory.
World of Warcraft – PC
Shadowlands is a bad expansion filled with systems that I am not interested in engaging with. In fact I would probably say that Shadowlands is going to be up there with the worst expansions of all time. I talked about how frustrated I was with Battle for Azeroth, but at least that is an expansion that I actively enjoyed the leveling process. Shadowlands I barely made it to the level cap with one of my characters and couldn’t even manage to stomach a single zone on my alts. I am not exactly sure how things went off the rails in the manner that they did but for now at least I am done with the game. Like I have not talked about it a lot because in truth I am not even sure it is worth talking about it. I miss hanging out with my friends who play the game but I miss nothing about Shadowlands.
Ships Passing in the Night
Cyberpunk 2077 – PC
Unlike most of the internet I have nothing but love for this game. I apparently had a sufficient system to play it and lucked out on not encountering many bugs during my play through. As such I am actively craving more content for it, but throwing it on the “ships” list because I have more or less put the game aside for the moment. When DLC releases I will either play through the DLC on my current play through or start a brand new campaign. I hope the issues surrounding this game do not kill this franchise because I loved it deeply on so many different levels.
Dragon Age Inquisition – PC
Dragon Age Inquisition was one of those games that I had bounced off of so many times in the past and then suddenly was able to play happily. I have found with the hustle and bustle of the end of the year… I crave deep single player experiences. This is one of those games that I played during that period and had a blast. Looking forward to this story continuing.
Jedi Fallen Order – PC
When this game first released I tried playing it with a controller because it seemed like that was the proper way to play it. I bounced because the game is not terribly good at explaining when you should leave a planet. However over the holiday break I returned to the game and had a blast, this time playing with my more native control scheme of keyboard and mouse. Truly great game and great experience. If you have not played this game you really owe it to yourself to do so, especially if you like Star Wars even in the least bit.
Knights of the Old Republic 2 – PC
Another game that I have bounced off numerous times is Knights of the Old Republic 2 and for some reason over this break I managed to make my way through it. Like the game is a mess… there is no getting around that but it is a mess that I am happy to have experienced. There is a lot of interesting things going on in this game and knowing now that this released before Fallout New Vegas I can see some of the things that they expanded upon later and made work better in that game. Would I recommend it to someone else? Probably not, but I am still very happy to have experienced it myself.
Summary
The funny thing about this is that I just realized upon writing out this post… that my sidebar was never actually updated from the October edition meaning it was even more out of date than I realized. Now I will hopefully remember to do the thing and actually make the updates once I finish with this post. Here is to also maybe doing this at least once a quarter going forward… if not monthly.
When looking upon Season 22 of Diablo 3, there was a good chunk of me that wanted to skip it. Right now there just seems to be way too much going on and not nearly enough time to do any of it. However as I got closer to the seasonal start, the more I decided I would ultimately miss the tradition if I had kicked it to the curb even for one season. When I found out that my friend Grace was planning on doing the season regardless it changed my tune a bit and once again we were spending Friday night starting brand new characters and beginning yet another seasons journey. Thankfully we had quite possibly the easiest challenge rift ever to get some initial goodies to begin the process.
Admittedly one of the things that made me a little hesitant was the fact that Haedrig’s Gift this time around was a selection of the newest sets. I had not tried Gears of Destruction for example on Hunters and was not sure how I would like this up close and personal strife/fan of knives build. The end result however is complete nonsense as this is essentially the “Spin to Win” Demon Hunter that plays much like a “Whirlrend” Barbarian. Like so many builds it takes a few seconds to prime the pump but once you are up and running it is pretty easy to maintain a rapid whirlwind of death as you clear the map. For the most part my current build is patterned off of this guide on Icy Veins, though it took a lot of changes along the way as I spent the majority of my time leveling with a grenades heavy build.
Friday night we managed to grind up past 50 before sleep claimed us, and then Saturday morning we wrapped things up pretty quickly and before I knew it all I was missing for my seasonal journey was the solo 20. After getting those first four steps however I of course enlisted in the later goals. Currently slayer is hanging by a thread with only a set dungeon in my way. Set dungeons are the bane of my existence because I hate being asked to perform on a timer. Sadly the Gears of Destruction set does not have a dungeon, which means I am having to farm the components for other builds. Most of the hunter set dungeons are somewhat fiddly and since I am going to need multiple classes to finish the conquests I might push up something a little easier.
The conquests are ultimately going to be the problem this season. The easy one of course is grind up 3 gems to level 65, and since I can relatively easily run higher tier greater rifts I should be able to knock that one out without much issue. Here is a list of what is available for Season 22:
Boss Mode – Kill all of the bosses in Diablo 3 on Torment X within 20 minutes
Sprinter – Complete the entire campaign from Act I to Act V at Level 70 in under 1 hour
On a Good Day – Level 3 Gems to 65
Years of War – Clear Greater Rift 55 solo with the full bonuses of Six Class Sets
Masters of the Universe – Master 8 Set Dungeons
Boss Mode and Sprinter are things I need to do some research into. The speed of this build is insane given that you move super fast while you are fully buffed up. This might be reasonable but given that I don’t have the best pathing memorized due to NEVER playing the campaign mode of the game… I am not sure how viable that option is. Years of War seems pretty reasonable since you can build out MOST gear sets in a way to be able to clear 55 solo. I hate set dungeons… so I absolutely do not want to do that one if I can at all have any other options.
I’ve reached a point where I can fairly reliably clear Torment XVI, and have MOST of this gear set in the bag. I am contemplating running up a Barbarian for my second seasonal character since there are a lot of really powerful builds there that could make clearing those six grifts a bit easier. Boss Mode is the one that intrigues me the most, and I am wondering if a party of 4 could divide and conquer and take them all out at the same time. That is the part that I need to research to see if that counts. If so then it might be doable pending I find two more speed builds to go along with Grace and I. The other question is… how much I actually care given that tonight Shadowlands opens and I trying to decide how much that pet matters to me.
