Hey Folks! It has been a bit since I have done one of my dumb little videos and I figured I finally had something worth showing off. I did not expect to be rolling a new character this late in the league, but I enjoy brand characters and Penance Brand of Dissipation is a little cracked right now. If I remember correctly, I started this character last Monday, leveled it through the campaign in two days, then threw on some pretty basic rare gear, and have been using that ever since. In any other league this would be a character walking around under a divine orb’s worth of gear… but given that dissipation is a flavor of the week build and wants specific things, it is causing a bit of inflation to happen. I think in total though I am wearing roughly 10 Divine Orbs worth of gear and a lot of it could be rolled either by yourself or through something like Rog crafting.
Right now I am using zero uniques in my build, but that is not to say there are not some that would probably work well with it. Since I am doing cold damage and lightning damage, I could see this potentially working well with an Inpulsa’s Broken Heart but I have not made that swap because I would end up losing some physical damage taken as elements conversion. I’ve wound up honestly fairly tanky for the sort of damage that I am dealing. The only three specific gear slots that I sought out was +1 level of physical gems on weapon, amulet, and caster shield which give my Penance Brand of Dissipation additional levels and more damage as a result. At some point I should probably spend some currency and try and get a +2 weapon or amulet but again… during an inflation league that would end up costing probably more than I am willing to spend. Another option would be a Replica Dragonfang’s Flight but those start around 10 Divine Orbs and higher for one with decent mana reservation efficiency.
To demonstrate the build I ran a quick Shaper Guardian map at t16. You can see that the mapping is honestly reasonable for a build that is not really focused on doing full-screen clears. The brands bounce between packs quickly shredding all of the monsters within them and my gameplay largely revolves around moving constantly while dropping fresh brands and attempting to keep my Divine Blessing Haste up all of the time. When I get to the boss it isn’t so much that I nuke it instantly, but it gets shredded pretty quickly. At this point, I have done Elder, Sirius, and Maven and in all of those cases, I was pretty much ending each phase before the mob had much chance to do anything. It took me a bunch of portals on Maven but only because I suck at the memory game and dropping puddles. Sirius and Elder I oneshot and it wasn’t even close. I’ve not done Shaper only because I have not gotten one of the four guardian maps to drop but I am grinding maps the atlas support hoping to see it.
I am having a heck of a lot of fun with this build and quite honestly… I am pretty happy with the state of all of my builds right now. I’ve spent some time tweaking Boneshatter to the point where it has much better survivability thanks to Defiance of Destiny. I am also very happy with the current state of my Righteous Fire Chieftain and the only thing I would really change on it would be to potentially add Oriath’s End for more explosions, then again I could also use one on Penance Brand just to help with the clearing. Then I have my Lightning Arrow Champion that I bought a Headhunter for because they are so damned cheap this league and that has been a lot of fun. I really don’t have a single build right now that feels like it is underperforming. There is room on each of them to improve but I am relatively happy with where they all are.
The Dark Tower is above all else a book about obsession, and this month I have been on my own obsessive journey. After wrapping a very short read for reasons beyond the scope of my understanding I landed upon the first book of the Dark Tower series for my second read of the New Year. I started with The Gunslinger on January 2nd and wrapped the seventh book in the series on January 27th. The time between I existed in a world parallel to Roland and his Ka-Tet. This is one of those unwieldy foundationary mythos that I had been interested in for decades, but never really sought out to complete on my own. I had read some of the comics associated with this series, and read a few novels that are adjacent to this tale but never really dove headlong into the abyss that is The Dark Tower. I should warn you that from this point forward, there will be spoilers regarding each of the seven books in the series.
The Gunslinger
I have to be honest… I did not really think much of that very first book. It felt like a novel compiled together out of bits and pieces of disconnected story. That makes sense I guess given that it was originally published starting in October 1978 and continuing intermittently through November of 1981 in five separate chunks in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Like all science fiction and fantasy of the 80s and 90s… it has some problematic elements. It is weird to me how much the cultural landscape has changed, but if I had to peg the story it felt like a Sergio Leone movie… which also makes sense given that was a large chunk of the inspiration. It is a tale of very one-dimensional characters set against the backdrop of an epic quest… that felt a bit hollow. I remember questioning friends’ sanity over the years when they talked about The Dark Tower like it was this holy grail of fiction. Was this paper-thin story that I was reading really worthy of so much praise and adoration?
The Drawing of the Three
To be perfectly honest… after finishing that first book it was a bit of a coin toss if I continued forward. It was mostly out of sheer laziness and not wanting to try and figure out a new book series to read that I continued forward and in truth I am glad that I did. The Drawing of The Three is the book that begins to allow some color to creep into the otherwise sepia-toned visage of the Gunslinger’s world. This transformation is brought on by the introduction of three characters: Eddie Dean, Odetta Holmes, and Detta Walker. These characters begin to influence and expand the persona that is Roland of Gilead slowly sanding down the sharp edges and turning him into a begrudgingly likable character. The tale of this story is a bit of a meandering mess but it somehow worked. This tale is filled with broken people who strive to improve themselves.
The Waste Lands
Blaine is a pain. The third book in this sequence was the one that almost broke me. There are some aspects of the book that I greatly like and other aspects that were a bit much for me. The tale largely revolves around redemption and Roland making up for the mistake of the first book… aka when he betrayed Jake and let him fall into the abyss. In the second book, Roland goes out of his way to keep Jake from dying in the “real world” which causes a schism to form… where Roland and Jake are torn apart by the knowledge of him dying and also living being in constant conflict. The summoning of Jake as the third member of the ka-tet makes perfect sense and quite honestly… had this book entirely focused upon that quest it would be whole. Instead, the quartet continues forward into a future “Not-New-York” in the form of Lud and then ventures across an imaginary Kansas in an AI-controlled Monorail that wants to kill them where the story just sort of abruptly stops.
I cannot imagine how livid fans of this series were at the time. Six years pass until the story picks up again with Wizard and Glass. The Waste Lands feels like a bad case of editing. It seems like there was more than a book’s worth of content here and should have been kept to a tighter scope. Maybe that would have meant that there were eight books in the sequence rather than seven, but it would had a better flow to it. That is not to say that I did not enjoy the book greatly. There were moments in the book that were the best yet, and I really liked the world-building that this novel added to the story… but it was still a bit of a mess. It very much still felt like King wrote himself into a corner and then did not know how to proceed and simply just stopped the story as a result.
Wizard and Glass
This is the least favorite book in the entire sequence. I think part of the problem is that you have the conclusion of The Waste Lands just sort of crudely tacked onto this completely different flashback story. There is this night’s palaver around a campfire as Roland attempts to explain who Susan Delgado was… and that just sort of consumes the majority of the novel. The things I liked about this novel are something that I have loved about the series as a whole. I like the language of this book and the Mejis region’s particular curious dialect. I think my biggest issue is that I did not think that Young Roland, Cuthbert, or Alain were particularly likable characters. I liked Susan Delgado quite a bit and as far as I am concerned she is the primary protagonist of this tale. I also particularly liked Sheemie aka Stanley Ruiz and thought him one of the most sympathetic characters to date, but got somewhat frustrated that he kept getting entangled in the mess.
I feel like this is supposed to feel like some grand love story… but instead, it ends up feeling like a tragedy brought on by the naivety of youth and the hubris of Roland’s obsession. There are many a character to outright hate in this novel so there is at least a bit of joy in watching them all get their just deserts. I think the other issue that I had with this novel is that I could see the shape of the tale before it was truly started. Partially this is the fault of it being a flashback and partially due to bits of details from the other books… but on some level, it felt like King was just going through the paces and writing out of obligation more than love of this particular tale.
Wolves of the Calla
This is without a doubt my favorite of the novels of the entire sequence. I think this is because it is the first time that the group actually acts like the “Arthurian Knights” that they purport to be. Once again I love the language of the series and the dialect of Calla Bryn Sturgis. I think a lot of this comes down to the fact that I myself come from a backwater town in the middle of nowhere where most of the locals speak a specific way… and it just seems fitting to have these towns develop their own detailed mannerisms. I like the folk of the Calla and the simple mission of trying to stop these invaders from stealing the children and doing god knows what manner of experiments on them before returning them “roont”. This is also the last time that the Ka-Tet is whole, and as a result, it sort of serves as the payoff before the fall. The Dark Tower is a series where there are no truly happy endings, and as a result, we all knew that there would be no lasting peace.
Death, but not for you, gunslinger. Never for you.
Son of Susannah
Being perfectly blunt… this is a book that I did not like terribly much. It is a tale of things slowly falling apart. I am not sure if Mia the entity that is now possessing Susannah is supposed to be sympathetic or not. I did not find her particularly so and mostly just hated her single-minded focus. The book serves to flesh out some more of the cosmology of the world and how each particular “when” fits into the puzzle, but it was largely just a letdown after how damned good Wolves of the Calla was. I think another problem is around this point… I was just ready for it all to be over. I was six books into a series that I had been shotgunning book after book and was growing tired of living in this world’s particular headspace. This felt like something I had to endure to get to the end, which is sort of sad considering how much I loved the character of Susannah Dean across the rest of the books. The title of this book feels like a lie though, because this is less the tale of Susannah and more the tale of Mia.
The Dark Tower
Regardless of anything else… starting this book felt like an accomplishment because I would finally be finished with this series. I am not entirely certain what I think about this conclusion to the tale and from what I understand at the time it was rather controversial amongst King fans. I think the piece of this tale that I like the least is how Roland of Gilead begins to unravel. What I mean by that is that during this tale he had begun to grow as a character and take on some measure of emotional connection to his Ka-Tet and in the end… that all sort of drains away and all he is left with is the obsession that started the entire story in the first place. It’s a bit tragic I guess, that at the end of the day… the only thing that matters to Roland is his Pyrrhic quest for the tower. The Ka-Tet is truly broken and this novel sees the death of Eddie Dean and Jake Chambers and the escape of Susannah Dean leaving him only with the quest and a particular Deus Ex Machina required to allow him to accomplish his goal.
I think the frustration with this novel is that there are a lot of things that are set up as epic story arcs that just sort of fizzle out. For starters the child Mordred seemed like we were heading towards an epic battle between the aging Gunslinger and his cursed heir. Instead Mordred seems to exist just to remove one more member of the Ka-Tet as Oy takes the death that was intended for Roland. Then there is the battle with the Crimson King… which gets resolved by the “magical art boy” costing neither of them anything in the process. The piece that does not bother me in the least though is the causality loop that Roland and his quest for the tower end up being. There will always be a Gunslinger, Tower, and Man in Black that fled across the desert and I am okay with that. Given the tragic nature of this tale, it seems fitting for his quest to never be completed and for him to leave nothing but death in his wake.
Final Thoughts
Was this worth a month of my life? I am honestly not sure. I am not as connected to this tale as many of the diehard fans who joined in along the way and anxiously awaited the next chapter. I don’t think this is the work of genius that many folks seem to think it is. I think it is a flawed tale that somewhat developed a life of its own as it went. It is a colossally untidy mess. What it feels like is a pen-and-paper game where the Gamemaster did not have enough time to prep for it… so they just sort of winged it and made things up as they went. I’ve done this a few things and while there are moments of genius inspiration that come through that process… there is a lot of muddling about which seems rampant in this tale. I think the whole is definitely better than the sum of the parts, but The Dark Tower is still a bit of a mess.
Do I regret shotgunning my way through this series book after book over the course of January? Absolutely not. I am happy to finally understand the scope of this tale after having seen its evidence for decades. The piece that will stay with me though is the language of this tale. I will likely incorporate “Thankee-Sai” and “Say True, Say Thanks” into my ongoing melange of linguistical scavengry from assorted pop culture icons. In spite of my criticisms… I liked the tale quite a bit and it had moments that I will cherish from this point forward. That said, I am not exactly certain I would recommend the experience of slogging through these seven books to anyone else. Like most everything else I have consumed in my life, I will hold a timeless love for the best bits… and jettison the lesser debris.
Did I miss the point? Do you feel like my assessment of the whole was unfair? Drop me a line below. Truth is it won’t likely change my opinion of the tale but it might make you feel better at expressing yourself. After all, I am just some random dude on the internet with a blog that is entirely based on my personal opinions and doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.
Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks! It is that time again, time for our yearly Games of the Year show. Last year we learned that it was far better to record two weeks in a row instead of creating a marathon three-plus hour long show and cutting it in half. This week we dive into the second half of the show covering the final eleven games. These are games that were important to us this year and may or may not have actually been released this calendar year. A lot of them were, but I just wanted to set the expectations.
This year we did not have a lot of overlap, which is to be expected given that the seven of us have some wildly different tastes. It was a big year and I am sure there are a lot of games that you think might need to be on this list that we did not choose. Hopefully, you enjoy our thoughts all the same.
At this point in the Diablo IV Season, I am level 36, and have completed the main story quest and defeated the story version of the new boss. Quest length is about equivalent to one of the Final Fantasy XIV Holiday quests, which is perfectly fine and more than enough for a seasonal introduction. I’ve also largely finished acquiring the abilities that make up my current Upheaval build on the Barbarian, which also feels perfectly fine. The problem that I find myself in however is that I am not sure what else I want to do. In Season 2 there was this extremely fun seasonal mechanic that colloquially was referred to as the “Bloodtide” and it really created this central focus. When in doubt… do the bloodtide and it felt overwhelmingly rewarding.
I talked about this the other day, but instead of a rotating mechanic that really draws your focus… there are instead five areas on the map that ALWAYS have spawns related to the seasonal mechanic. One of those areas will have around three limited-time Tree of Whispers quests, and if I understand correctly these shift locations every hour. Mechanically this is exactly the same as the Blood Harvest aka the Bloodtide but the lack of a regional colored highlight… makes it less obvious where you should be spending your time. The density of mobs also feels less than that of the vampires which might simply be that the vampire packs had so many ghoul mobs that it just FELT like you were killing more. I feel like they need to bring back the green color coding to indicate where the player focus should be drawn on the map. This is one of those things where the vibe feels off and in spite of it mechanically functioning exactly the same it does not feel as “good” to experience.
The other challenge with this league mechanic is that the pet does not appear to scale with your level, which means that while they might start out fairly strong they quickly become useless. Even at 36, I can’t really see any noticeable difference between when my pet is attacking something versus when I am taking something out solo. I am specifically using the flame ability that chains a beam of fire between all of the mobs that the pet is engaged with so that I can for certain see that it is doing something, but still, it isn’t like it can really solo anything on its own unless you went afk. All of the defensive abilities seem to fire infrequently enough that I gave up on them and just went with Flash of Adrenaline which gives me a short-term buff. Some additional damage some of the time is better than nothing I guess?
I’ve now done several more vaults at this point and even did the whole Zoltun’s Warding mechanic successfully and I have to say… it does not really feel worth the effort. If there was a chase unique associated with the vault then it might be worth spending time in there, but as it stands it is just a more annoying version of the already bad dungeon system. The funny part about the Vaults is that you can absolutely cheese them. You can clear everything in the entire vault, then go back to the start and get the Zoltun’s Warding buff… then go back to the treasure chamber and get the loot 100% of the time. I did not do this and managed to get hit twice during the encounter leaving me with one warding, and my rewards were the same if someone went through the encounter flawlessly. I guess what I don’t get about the vaults is that players have given copious amounts of feedback that they want dungeons without ANY OBJECTIVES… that you just clear your way to a boss and get loot. Vaults seem the exact opposite of this, because in addition to the same “take the MacGuffin to the location” that all dungeons seem to have… you have to avoid traps while doing it.
I’ve seen this said a number of times, and can’t really find any origin to back up the validity one way or another. However, the “urban legend” is that the Diablo IV team has two sub-teams that work on seasonal content with one doing Seasons 1 and 3 and the other working on Seasons 2 and 4. I really hope this is not the case because I feel for that first team immensely given that Seasons 1 and 3 were both stinkers and Season 2 was pretty freaking great and brought a lot of players back to the game. At a minimum if this is the case, that first team really needs to assess their objectives and take some lessons from the second team. The plague tunnels and the gems that they rewarded were boring, and did not really add something new and fun to do to the game. This time around the pet is boring and the vaults really feel like a worse version of the dungeon system that is already in the game. I would like to say I would grind out the battlepass but I am just not sure I will be sticking around that long.
Here is hoping we get some mid-season patches that improve upon the mechanics enough to make them feel worth doing.
