Diablo Franchise

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.

Minion State of Mind

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Good morning folks. I am still playing quite a bit of Path of Exile II while also alternating between it and Last Epoch. I am playing Minions builds in both games currently, and seem to be going through a phase where that just seems to be what I want to do. There are few things more satisfying in an ARPG than running around with a giant mob of NPCs that do your bidding. The Necromancer was one of my favorite characters in Diablo II for this reason, and when that character was launched in Diablo III I had a few seasons where I played it there as well. Biggest happening of the extended weekend is that I spent nine divines on a new sceptre. Essentially I wanted something with at least level 19 Skeletal Warriors on it, because to the best of my knowledge there are none available with level 20 on them. I am not sure if this is even a thing that can roll, but upgrading from 18 to 19 should still be a significant boost.

When I started running a Storm Mage I had to drop one of my Arsonists to make it work, and while this worked great for Rares and tankier packs… I noticed it negatively impacted my overall map clear. As such another benefit of the sceptre swap was that it gave me enough spirit to pick back up another Arsonist. Additionally I had enough left over spirit to add a second cleric, which seems to greatly improve the sustain of my minions. My poor little cleric worked overtime healing up my minions and having a second one just spreads out the total healing. Basically everything seems to just have an easier time staying alive which is good, especially given that my infernal hound is eating a portion of damage dealt to me.

Today however is the launch of Season 7 in Diablo IV and I plan on popping in tonight and giving it a shot. Raxx released his tier list for characters and right now has Necromancer as number one. Generally speaking his tier lists are fairly accurate or at least present relatively sane early data. The thing is I was already leaning heavily towards playing a Blood Wave Necromancer during this league since I appear to be in minion mode right now. The fact that they look like they are going to be in a good place is only really gravy on top.

I’ve MOSTLY played Barbarians in Diablo IV, because generally speaking I prefer to play tanky characters or big bonk characters when given my druthers. However Barbarians have been in a bit of a mess this entire time and they feel kind of awful to level. I’ve always been partial to Necromancers, but to the best of my knowledge have never actually played one through the endgame. A bunch of mine got pushed up to level 50 when the expansion dropped, but I am not certain I have ever actually organically taken one of my characters to paragon levels as a Necro. I figure this is a good opportunity to give it a shot. I’ve also never really played a Rogue either and at some point want to play some sort of a bow build.

I’ve had more than a few complaints about Diablo IV since its launch. That said I have never understood the false dichotomy of needing to hate Diablo IV to love and appreciate Path of Exile. D4 has been in a bit of a mess but by the time the expansion launched it was in a pretty decent state. Is it a brilliant game? No. Is it a fun game? Yes, within specific parameters and for a shortish period of time. I’m kind of ready to be playing something other than Path of Exile II, because there are also a lot of things about that game that I do not like. Unfortunately 3.26 is nowhere in sight, so that means I am more than happy to hop on the next train that leaves the station… which means Diablo IV Season 7. If I can get a few weeks out of it before this particular brand of gum loses its flavor, then I will honestly be extremely happy.

Minions For Days

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Last Epoch – Many Dead Friends

Hey Folks. This is an extended weekend for me due to MLK Jr day here in the United States and as such I am getting a much later start at sitting down to write words. Additionally it also happens to be inauguration day, but we are not going to talk about that part. I’m still very much spending my time playing ARPGs and have reached that point with Last Epoch where I am not quite powerful enough to push my way into empowered monoliths with zero friction. I essentially am slowly working my way through objectives and can’t roll over the top of maps in quite the same way as I was up until this point. Everything is great… until I start losing minions… at which point it becomes a battle of attrition as I attempt to keep summoning minions and hope I can distract the baddies long enough for them to be killed before they notice me standing in the background.

Last Epoch – Empowered Monolith

To be fair, this feels like something every build goes through in that level 80-90 range where you have completed Normal Monoliths but are still below the optimal level for level 100 Empowered Monoliths. I am sure I could fine tune my build to make this go a bit more smoothly, but for the moment I am using five minions and zero support spells. I am also struggling with mana issues which I need to figure out a way to solve because I cannot really spam my exploding zombies. I am generating quite a bit of ward and I wish I had access to something like Eldritch Battery in this game. Overall I feel much sturdier than my average version of this build thanks to the additional ward. I am not super great at bossing however because the minions just can’t grind them down as fast as I would like. I am also missing a bunch of uniques from the bog standard minions build… namely I have burned through around 60 Runes of Ascendance in an attempt to get an Aaron’s Will with zero luck.

Path of Exile II – Fourth Ascendancy

I’ve also been playing quite a bit of Path of Exile II, even though I largely thought I was finished with it. Yesterday I managed to complete my Fourth Ascendancy, so I am pretty happy with that. I ran a Trial of Chaos and after the nerfing of the Tornado boss it seems pretty reasonable. I did buy the 3 tokens required to fight the Trialmaster off the currency exchange, because I did not really feel like grinding level 80 Trials in order to collect all three parts. Everything went smoothly… until my cat walked in front of my keyboard and then I realized that I could not pause the game during a boss fight. So I rapidly shooed Gracie out of the way in time to dodge a boss attack. Overall though it seemed very doable.

Path of Exile II – Arbiter of Ash

What was NOT doable… was the Arbiter of Ash fight. I assumed this would be just as free as Xesht was on zero difficulty. That was not the case and all of the attacks were very much oneshot mechanics. I feel like I either lack the dps to phase the boss fast enough, or lack the movement speed to be able to complete the encounter. There is this phase where you have to run between safe bubbles that are very much like the meteor attack from FFXIV, and I simply was not fast enough to hit them all. Similarly there is a diagonal attack that you have to find the safe spot in, and I was just not fast enough to be able to move between these if I got one on the far edge of the screen and then the next one on the opposite far edge. Basically I wasted three tokens trying this fight and will now just sell them on the market like I was previously… especially since the price of all three tokens has gone up significantly.

Path of Exile II – Lucky Raw Divine Orb drop

I’ve respecced my character a bit gaining way more life and energy shield… dropping a few points of block and then mixing in a Skeletal Storm Mage to debuff everything with shock. I had to sacrifice one Arsonist but the mix seems to work really well as everything appears to be dying much faster now. The biggest difference is on Rares where my boots are poisoning them, the storm mages are shocking them, and then I am keeping them ignited with flame wall… which keeps the shock from dropping. I am curious how this feels for bossing as I have not really done many since the swap over this morning. I also need to start shopping for a Sceptre upgrade because I would really like to at least get my skeletal warriors up to 19 instead of the 18 version that I am currently using. Additionally it would be really nice to get some more spirit in that slot.

Diablo IV – Season of Witchcraft

For the moment I am having a pretty good time alternating back and forth between Last Epoch and Path of Exile II, and I know tomorrow I will be spending time leveling something in Diablo IV as the new seasons starts. Overall the Season of Witchcraft seems to be a partial reboot of the Vampire season which was quite possibly the best season so far. Leveling through the “bloodtide” was a heck of a lot of fun, and as such I fully expect to level almost entirely through the new witchcraft map mechanics. I am not sure if I will be playing a Spiritborn again or returning to my old standby of Barbarian. Since I am seemingly in a minions state of mind, I might try running up a Necromancer and giving that a proper shot. Whatever the case I fully expect this to distract me for awhile, or at least until we get another Path of Exile II patch.

Contrary to popular belief, Diablo IV is in a pretty good state these days. It took over a year and a major expansion to get there, but it is pretty fun for a week or so. It essentially is a more modern version of Diablo III at this point, and I am on board with that.

Fears for Next Season

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Good Morning Folks! It has taken a while for Diablo IV to reach the point of feeling amazing, but it truly is there. I should take a step back… it feels amazing if you are playing the new class Spiritborn. My Barbarian that I power leveled through Whispers Caches feels like complete ass comparatively. It is slower and clunkier, and mobs just don’t die anywhere near as fast as they should. Diablo IV feels amazing because Blizzard has done the thing that they do time and time again… release a wildly overpowered class. They did this in World of Warcraft with both the Deathknight and Demon Hunter, where playing literally anything else during that patch cycle felt awful compared to the new hotness. I was a Warrior tank in Wrath of the Lich King and eventually switched over to Deathknight just because it felt so much better and honestly had more tools to play with. I did this again during Legion where I started out on tried and true Warrior but eventually swapped to Demon Hunter tanking because it just felt so much better.

Maxroll just updated their Endgame Tier list and had to create a new ranking called “S+” to isolate how much different the good Spiritborn builds are as compared to the other available builds in the game. There are Spiritborn builds right now capable of doing legitimate quadrillions of damage. Even when you drop down to “S” rank, there are two Necromancer builds and one Warrior build… and at least in the case of the Warrior build I know it is mostly exploiting a bugged mechanic to be able to place that high. Essentially if you are playing Diablo IV and not playing the shiny new hotness… you are playing a different game than I am playing. The game I am playing feels amazing… the clunky mess when I drop down to playing my Dual Swing Twisters Barbarian… does not feel amazing. I lack the unique required to swap over to the broken Mighty Throw build so I cannot judge how that feels.

It is reaching the point where some of the player base is demanding nerfs… and I get it honestly. Were I playing the wrong class during this patch I would probably feel the same. However, the gameplay that Spiritborn has should be the benchmark for how the rest of the game should feel. This is an ARPG… a game about blasting your way through thousands of demons while chasing loot. The game I am playing is what Diablo IV should have been from the very start. These games are entirely centered around the joy of building up a character to the point where they can crush everything in seconds. That is the end goal of every good build regardless of which ARPG you happen to be playing. Season Six feels amazing… and I fear that as a result, Season Seven is going to feel awful. It is going to be the hangover we are left with after the bender this season has been.

Blizzard is stuck in this position where they cannot really nerf the Spiritborn because it is this class that they have defended time and time again to the players. It is the new hotness and the entire reason for buying the expansion for many. What I fear for next season is that they are going to hammer down the nail that is sticking up, when instead they really should be buffing all of the other classes to where they feel as good as Spiritborn does currently. Even the gaming pundits that have called for more challenging content, seem to be having a blast on the Spiritborn and zipping through things at record speed. The truth is… ARPGs are a power fantasy and if you cannot get powerful… it is not fun. If I cannot clear the highest level content quickly… then I am playing a bad build.

There have been a lot of really fun and broken builds that have arisen during the course of Diablo IV’s short history and all of them have been beat back down into submission. I question when Blizzard is going to realize that this is the game that the player base actually wants. There would not be this constant chase for the most bugged and aggressively rewarding build if it were not so damned fun to play in that way. The Spiritborn family of builds is just the latest in a long line of “god builds” that have come along and captured the attention of the player base. What feels worse though is the fact that in order to have fun playing this game you have to play one of like three or four builds any given season. I would love to see them buffing the underperforming builds so that they are within the range of the highest-performing builds. As it stands currently, half of the classes in the game do not have a high-performing build.

Blizzard has created a scenario that is much like it is in other more hardcore ARPGs like Path of Exile, where if you are not following a guide strictly… you are playing the game incorrectly. Sure you can limp through the campaign on pretty much anything, in either game… but you will never be able to reach the heights of farming efficiency if you are not playing whatever broken mechanic is in vogue that season. I suffered through this for a bit when I switched over to my Quill Volley build that I am playing now, where a SINGLE talent point… made the difference between struggling to run T3 content to being able to dominate T4 content. What I really want is for the same feel of playing a current well-built Spiritborn build to trickle out into all of the content in the game and all of the classes and builds. I prefer playing Upheaval Barbarian because I like the mechanics of firing a bit of sweeping attack in front of me and nuking the entire screen… but that build has not been terribly viable ever. So instead playing what I wanted to play is needlessly tedious to get through when I could just play the “IWIN” build of the season.

I am still winding down from this season. I finished out the reputation in Nahantu, am about halfway through the last level of the seasonal reputation grind, and then have to do all of the remaining Tenets of Akarat. I feel pressure to get all of this done so that I don’t have to deal with it in a future season when I am playing a less fun character. I’ve been thinking a lot about how bad Season Seven is going to feel when Blizzard inevitably does what they always seem to do and nerf the fun out of the game. Diablo IV has had a few shining moments when it was really fun to play… this season, season two… but inevitably they keep trying to bring the game into line with some vision that they have for what the experience is supposed to be. I hope I am wrong. I hope we see a line of massive buffs to bring the other classes in line with the power levels of Spiritborn… but I don’t think that will happen.

Anyways if you have ever played Diablo IV in the past, you might want to pop in and give Spiritborn a spin before it is nerfed into oblivion. It is one of those magic moments when everything is just right, and I am afraid will be a fond memory we talk about around the campfire in the future as the “good ole days”.