Shadowlands Launch Night

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Good morning everyone and welcome to the land of the dead. Yesterday at 5 pm my time the gates swung wide letting players into the next World of Warcraft expansion. I have to admit it was a little odd and uneventful the way the expansion launched. At 5 pm on the dot I got a message from Thassarian granting the starting quest for the expansion. This lead to the introduction event happening at Icecrown Citadel that I had experienced in alpha and shortly thereafter I was up and running in the Maw and tackling the introductory quests.

All in all it was one of the smoother launches I have experienced. I of course did get hung up for it bit with some challenges, but they were resolved reasonably quickly. There is a quest that asks you to open the portal to your capitol city and then teleport right back to the new Shattrath style city. I got disconnected on the port back and that lead me to spend quite a bit of time with a “character with that name already exists” error. I tried several things but ultimately what seemed to unjam things was logging into a character on another server and then back out again. Immediately following that I was able to load back into Belgrace and continue questing.

I dig the art design of the Shadowlands. It feels sufficiently different from the sort of things that we normally see on Azeroth, but also familiar enough to make you question how the land of the dead has ultimately influenced the things we are more familiar with. You don’t spend a lot of time in the new hub, but you do find out that something happened to the Arbiter that judges and divides the souls into the various afterlives. When this entity was taken offline for lack of a better term, all souls started flowing straight down into the Maw, and I now have my theories as to what event caused this. The problem is we have no gauge on how time flows in the Shadowlands versus how time flows in the Mortal realm. That could have been millennia ago… or something that has taken place within the lifespan of our characters.

Bastion is really pretty but also sort of dead feeling… which makes sense given that it is one of the various afterlives that we are going to be visiting. I think part of this experience is enhanced by the fact that there is apparently some sort of new phasing technology that limits the other players you see out in the world. Rather intentional or not, it gives the entire experience a very isolating feel… which I am mostly okay with. I didn’t feel like a lot of human interaction last night as I wandered around the deadlands questing for the strange blue people. The positive is that it meant I never really had much in the way of contention for other mobs… the negative is that it maybe became a bit harder to take down group encounters.

The only negative of the night is that I am not sure if I am still sickly and sort of out of it… but for a lot of the evening I mostly just felt like I was going through the motions. The expansion did not grab me in the same way that Legion did for example, or to be honest even Battle for Azeroth. There is one thing that I wish would die in a fire… this expansion is full of NPCs that like to dole out text a single message at a time in your text box. I would far rather have this as a single block of readable text because I read WAY faster than the timing of these messages. This ends up making a lot of the story content feel like it is dragging because I am constantly waiting on the NPC to spit out the next line. I feel like this is probably a way of forcing players to read the quest text…. but it ends up almost having the opposite of effect of wanting to alt tab while I wait for the NPC to finish yammering so I can read it all at once.

All in all I consider it to be a very successful launch night. I ended up throwing in the towel around 10 pm and heading on to bed giving me a pretty solid four or so hours of leveling. I managed to get to 53 and some change and I am guessing I am maybe a little past the midpoint of Bastion. I am enjoying myself but I am not as into this as I expected to be. Maybe it will grow on me over time… but I have to admit there were moments last night where I contemplated logging out and just playing some more Diablo 3. Not sure if that is the content I am playing or just my mental state right now and being deluged with too many options. Whatever the case I will keep an eye on it as I keep moving through the content.

Did you play through the Shadowlands launch last night? What are your thoughts of the expansion so far? Drop me a line below and let me know your feelings.

Diablo 3 Season 22

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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.

AggroChat #323 – Bioshock but Muppets

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Featuring:  Ammo, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo and Thalen

Tonight we are down an Ashgar but work our way through a series of topics from the list.  First up Bel can in fact confirm that the PlayStation 5 exists and talks about his early experiences.  From we talk a bit about Bugsnax and how it is this weird Muppet Pokemon game that also has deeply disturbing Bioshock style undertones going on.  Tam talks a bit about puzzle shooter Superliminal and Kodra talks about What Remains of Edith Finch.  We talk a bit about parkour ninja game Ghostrunner and Bel shares some of the recent changes to Destiny 2.  Finally we wrap up with some extemporaneous viewing suggestions…  Duck Tales, Animaniacs, Mandalorian and the Ashens series of movies.

Topics Discussed:

  • The PlayStation 5
    • Thoughts on the Controller
  • Bugsnax
  • Superliminal
  • What Remains of Edith Finch
  • Ghostrunner
  • Destiny 2 Updates
  • What Makes Compelling Worldbuilding
  • Viewing Suggestions
    • Duck Tales
    • Animaniacs
    • Mandalorian
    • Ashens Movies
      • Ashens and the Quest for the GameChild
      • Ashens and the Polybius Heist

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Raid Race Time

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Right now my low key chill game has been Destiny 2 as I slowly and methodically work my way through the various opportunities for light levels each week. I’m enjoying the new seasonal hunts quite a bit even though the formula itself is rather repetitive. You essentially “do some things” in order to gain a charge for your lure and then fill out the 3 slots on the lure to determine who you are going after. Finally you plunk that puppy down in the Tangled Shore, fight a mini boss, and chase glowing green goo until you reach the lair of the boss you are going to fight. Lastly you damage specific majors in the encounter in order to drop the invulnerability shield on the boss allowing you to burn it down and get your loot.

What do you get for a reward? Well largely a series of weapons of which for me at least there seems to be one available at any given time. The loot acquisition is so much slower than some of the other seasonal events, and I think that in part is what has made it feel like we just aren’t getting as much useable drops. Corsair’s Wrath is a perfectly cromulent linear fusion rifle, but as far as heavy weapons go… it is not my favorite archetype to use. I greatly prefer a Rocket Launcher, Machinegun, Grenade Launcher or a Sword. I mean I will hold onto this for the times when I get bounties that require one.

This however is what I was wanting to get my hands on. Wave Frame grenade launchers are special in that they fire out a wave of elemental energy after the detonation. As a result you often times don’t even care about the detonation but are instead using them for wave clear. The Season of Dawn had some of my absolute favorite weapons to be introduced into Destiny 2 and one of them was a wave frame grenade launcher called Martyr’s Retribution. In practice it was essentially an on demand Titan Thermite Grenade, and it was amazing… and also sadly sunsetting after this season. Deafening Whisper steps in to take its place and instead of a wave of Solar damage it deals a wave of Void Damage. Hoping to get a good roll on this that I can hold onto for awhile.

Another interesting weapon that I managed to pick up is the Coriolis Force, and it too is a special type of weapon we have not really seen before. Usually fusion rifles have a vertical spread as you fire them as a sort of energy shotgun. Coriolis Force instead has a horizontal spread pattern allowing you to spray an oncoming wave of mobs with charged energy particles. The “One For All” perk works with this nature and if you hit three different targets with one spread, it gives you a damage boost. I am sure one could build around this in some interesting ways.

I’ve also reached a point of peace with the Behemoth Stasis class for Titans, as I finally got a grenade that I actually like using. Coldsnap Grenade freezes whatever it hits and then spreads ice out freezing whatever it touches. This seems to be more predictable than the other two options which are effectively a freezing fog bubble or an ice wall. Last night I spent a lot of time playing Striker for the vanguard weeklies and it felt odd NOT being Stasis, and it seems like some of the new content was designed expecting guardians to be using that spec. The new Disgraced strike, which is essentially a rebrand of the Omnigul strike… was sheer madness without the crowd control that Stasis provided especially with waves of thralls and the fact that we had the affix that increased melee damage.

The real news however is that this weekend the Deep Stone Crypt raid race starts on Saturday at 10 am PST or 12 my time. This is one of the few “esports” activities that I actually care about and I had a great time watching last year as folks raced through the Garden of Salvation raid. I am not sure who is going to be commentating the race this time around, but last year a team effectively came from out of nowhere to get the win so it isn’t like one of the big name teams is absolutely going to take the prize. What is going to be interesting is that for the first time I am going to have a clan that is actually participating. What is even cooler is that my friend Warenwolf that I have known since Vanilla WoW is on the roster. Right now the team is comprised of:

I am not sure if there are going to be multiple streams going or not, but I do know that CajunGeek plans on streaming Tequila Mockingbirds attempts. At a minimum I think they want to make sure they get the day one clear. Initially Deep Stone Crypt is going to be open in what they call Contest Mode where artifact power is disabled and your light level is capped at 1230. While there are absolutely players in the game sitting at the 1260 cap… this attempts to even the playing field so that builds and group composition matter more than who ground the hardest. Seeing that I am sitting at 1225 and have been pretty casually playing this seems like a completely doable number for everyone to hit that was super serious about making this raid race.

Right now I plan on trying to keep the TQMB stream up while also watching any official coverage from Bungie. I am sure I will be tweeting out links and such tomorrow as it is going down.