keepers of the flame

Heys for Days

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Good Morning Folks. The one thing that worries me a bit about Destiny Rising is that it is getting a bit harder to fight “New Lights” to harass. Essentially the hardest part of the dailies… are the mentor dailies. This is of course something that I do not actually need to do at all… but I want to upgrade from Mentor to Adept Mentor and this involves jumping through a bunch of hoops. The hardest by far is trying to find 3 New Lights that will respond back to me… so this usually involves roaming around Xiangshi the first area of the game or Haven and looking for new lights… and hoping they know how to respond back with their own “Hey!”. I got my three done super early this morning, so that pretty much sets up the rest of the day well for me. It would probably go smoother if I did this during primetime, but I figure the most serious players are going to be clogging the social areas at that time.

I talked about this a bit yesterday but essentially I am down to three parts of the Adept certification. I am a little over ten days away from completing the Resonator step, which means at that point I can stop trying to find new lights. I only recently started doing the Interpreter and Orator steps which involve posting in the Mentor chat and answering Drift Bottle questions, which are this games version of a forum post. The problem with that last step is… this is mostly mentors answering other mentors… and making dumb posts for the purpose of getting artificial interaction. It feels dumb, but we are all running on this same treadmill, and in theory I should have been focused on this nonsense way earlier than now so I could have been done with it and moving on to the next dumb grind. I believe the step after this is to try and get 200 likes on a post you make in the drift bottle area. Like I said NONE of this is required… it is just something I feel obligated to do, so I can have fancier titles beside my name.

Last night was pretty great because Ace and I hung out on the SDF discord, and before long our friend Mor had joined us. It had been really long since I last talked to him about anything of substance, so it was good to catch up. Though I am sure it sounded like we were speaking some made up language since he is very much NOT into either Destiny Rising or Gacha games in general. We got together and did a Grandmaster Strike… which was exceptionally frustrating because we lacked someone who could take out Spread Shinkas and we had to brute force it. We then treated ourselves to some rounds of Morgans Hunt and they went much better. We are both basically within two more rounds of finishing up the event, and both got our exotic weapons last night. Mine was sadly a copy of the Chaperone… which is a shotgun that I will never actually use because it is quite bad.

Estela is exceptionally good at Morgran’s Hunt and we managed to queue into a group where all three color variants of this skin were represented. It is the weird little moments like this that you cling to and that bring you joy. The round AFTER this one though went exceptionally badly because we had a Tan-2, who has crappy wave clear and I think we only managed to pull a single key from that run. I am left with 5 more keys to get, and I think Ace is left with 4, because at some point they must have done a run without me. I am not sure what night we will finish this up, but maybe on Thursday because that is when the Festival of the Lost event drops. I’ve already begged off of Guild Wars 2 for this week since we have very limited time to do whatever this activity is. I want a dumb papier-mâché mask of a pumpkin, or whatever else is available during the event. Festival of the Lost was always my favorite Destiny 2 event, so I am oddly looking forward to this. I hope it is not a massive disappointment.

Yesterday about mid day was the official end of the Mercenaries of Trarthus league in Path of Exile. This means it was time for me to attempt to straighten and organize my Standard stash a bit, because when you go into the new league its stash will be based on the state of standard. You end up with a stupid amount of remove-only tabs, and I pretty much create a new folder at the end of each league, named after the league that just finished, and shove them all into it. That way if I ever want something to test in standard, I can pull the items out of that folder… and it has the least amount of impact on my limited league stash overall. I am a league player and effectively my standard stash is meaningless. I should probably find a few sacrificial characters and delete them now, so I will have plenty of slots for league characters if the mood hits me.

Something that is worth a watch is a new video that ZiggyD just dropped. One of the side effects of him traveling to Grinding Gear Games each league to record the Q&A session is that he also gets some hands on time with the new mechanics. This morning he released a video talking about the new version of breach a bit, and more importantly what his experiences were using the Genesis Tree to craft gear. It honestly sounds like this might be a reasonable way of getting five links for your build. I am absolutely going to be building out my tree with the idea of hopefully being able to produce a chestpiece and maybe a sceptre or rune dagger for Righteous Fire. I am not necessarily in any rush to get to end game quickly, but as soon as Faustus opens up in Act 6 I am probably going to start selling random stuff on my store vendor trying to build up the currency to buy those needed uniques.

However all of that said, between today and Friday at 2pm CDT, I am going to be playing Guild Wars 2 Visions of Eternity. In theory I should have enough points banked up to buy the new Ranger Elite specialization immediately and play with it a bit. I also have over 1000 wizard vault points, so if there is anything interesting there in the legendary kit variety I should be able to pick that up as well. The biggest swap that I have planned on doing is changing out my Homestead over to the new island themed one. What I am looking forward to though is roaming around the new zones. They are absolutely gorgeous, and I need to get back into the swing of doing regularly content in Guild Wars 2. Basically for the near future I am going to be juggling Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2, and Destiny Rising… and trying to spend a bit of time in each daily. The big thing that I want to make sure I keep doing are dailies in GW2 and Destiny Rising, because I know I will be heavily focused on grinding maps and such as my main activity.

An even larger, overarching goal however is to finish up most of the garage before 2pm on Friday. I have taken the day off Friday so at worst I will probably be spending the morning dealing with this. I need to get one more of these shelving units for the left side of the current configuration. I also had forgotten that I had a mini fridge out there, and I am trying to get over to it to make sure it still works. If so I really want to move it upstairs so I can keep water bottles in it or something. I had planned on getting a drink fridge for upstairs, and probably want to eventually, but this will work fine for the time being. Mostly I just want access to cool drinks, and I have been addicted to A&W Zero Root beer lately. Though if I am going to keep drinking cans of that I really need to start collecting them and recycling them like I do shipping boxes. This would probably mean setting up a can crusher somewhere, and I would greatly prefer having that near the fridge somewhere.

Anyways…. plans within plans. I have a lot to keep me busy in the coming weeks however. I still need to finish with the pile in the backyard and contact the folks to haul the junk away. I also want to see what they would charge to take the upstairs loveseat out of the house as well. The problem with everything I am doing in the garage… is it is mostly just the first step of a longer process. A lot of these boxes need to be gone through and decided what to do with the items inside them. Effectively it is all of the stuff from my wife’s classroom, and for now I am just putting it up on shelves to get it off the floor so that I can eventually take all of the outdoor furniture from the backyard inside before it starts to freeze and get really cold. Plans within plans… and since it is just me now… I have to keep myself motivated and moving in the right direction.

AggroChat #544 – Gambling Go Boom

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Featuring: Ammosart, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen

Good Morning, Folks! This week we had the entire crew and a stacked list of topics, forcing us to bump several to next week.  Tam starts out talking about Time Flies, leading into Grace talking about Ball X Pit.  Bel shares his thoughts about the Path of Exile 3.27 reveal stream, and Ash discusses the Session Zero for the Critical Role Daggerheart system. Tam has been playing Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines 2…  and how it is very much not a sequel to the first game. Bel talks a bit about the CSGO Gambling Crash, where the illicit market lost some 3 Billion dollars of value in a single day. Ash discusses playing Entropy Effect, which is set in the BlazBlue universe, and Bel shares some further bad news about the self-destruction of Xbox, with some new updates and Halo officially being announced for the PlayStation 5. We wrap things up with first impressions of Dispatch and Outer Worlds 2, which we are likely going to be talking about next week.

Topics Discussed:

  • Time Flies
  • Ball X Pit
  • Path of Exile 3.27 Reveal
  • Daggerheart Session Zero
  • VtM: Bloodlines 2
  • CSGO Gambling Crash
  • BlazBlue Entropy Effect
  • Halo on PS5
  • Dispatch First Impressions
  • Outer Worlds 2 First Impressions

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Keepers League Revealed

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Good Morning Folks. Yesterday was the full reveal stream for Path of Exile 3.27, aka the Keepers of the Flame league and it looks pretty freaking awesome. This is the first time they have revisited a previous league theme, and this time Breach is getting a significant rework. The interesting thing about this, and some of the things from the patch notes… is it seems like they really want to make league mechanics distinct and their own thing. During this league they have effectively clawed back all of the other leagues that could drop breach mechanics, and are making players focus on breach specifically if they want to farm any of these resources. Similarly they clawed by the nodes for Delve that allowed players to passively generate azurite, which makes me wonder if we are seeing more of a design ethic at play. As a Delve aficionado this means that my resonators just go way more valuable and I am on board with this, since players are no longer going to be able to skip delve and passively get them.

Breach itself looks really interesting. There are effectively three versions of Breach that are going to be available. There are scenarios where the hive has already set up shop in a zone and you have to burn down their fortifications and then fight a breach lord. There is a version where it is similar to the current form, but once you have filled a bar through killing breach enemies it locks open and spawns tougher mobs in the center. I love the whole concept of it locking in place, because the fleeting nature of breach was the one thing I didn’t really like about it. I notoriously hate being on a timer. The last version is more of a breach citadel which feels like it is going to be something akin to the way Abyssal Depths feel. Rarely there will be this bonus content that spawns in that you can tackle, and I am pretty on board with this conceptually. I mostly look forward to doing Breach in every map, because Breach rings themselves have been entirely reworked to be similar to how they are in Path of Exile II. This means that we are most likely going to be getting most of our really good resist rings from Breach this league.

The borrowed power system for this league are Grafts, which will allow you to equip two new item slots that do various things. More specifically they showed off these as triggering specific cast attacks, or granting you new spells, or even just passively casting some ability over and over while you are clearing content. These seem like they are going to be really great a low levels, but might peter out as we get into the endgame. Mostly it is going to be interesting to see what all is available here, because if you can have grafts taking on some of the conditional defensive buffs like Molten Shell, it might give you more freed from socket pressure. You start off with one graft socket, but at some point you can end up with two of them. Mostly interested in seeing how these abilities augment and change the way existing builds play.

Similarly there are new ascendancies going in with this patch called Bloodline Classes. You will unlock these by beating various bosses and they will offer you an alternate progression system. Essentially you will use your normal ascendancy points but can spec into alternate abilities. There are a lot of ascendancies that have two to three really phenomenal notables, but at least one choice that you just sort of have to wing and choose the next best thing. We have only seen three of the ten revealed, and I am interested to see how these change existing specs. This feels like the sort of thing that might stick around in some permanent form going forward, because this alternate ascendancy concept is something that they have played with a few times, and tying this to clearing bosses feels like the final evolution of the concept. I also think this might be super beneficial when combined with Forbidden Flesh and Flame jewels that allow you to get back anything you might skip from your base ascendancy to get new powers.

Another really interesting system going in is the Genesis Tree which is a crafting system that allows you to “birth” uniques, itemized rares, and currency by spending points to skew the results. At first glance this looked a lot like the Weavers Tree from Last Epoch, but instead of socketing items in the tree to get improved chance of drops, you are spending points to skew the results towards generating new items. I think it is going to be interesting to see how easy it is to craft for example a really good elemental bow with this system, since we got a bunch of interesting bow attacks to play with this league. Mostly I think I am going to use this system in an attempt to fuel alternate classes later in the league, as opposed to a progression system for my main build. It seems like it is going to take a lot of investment before this actually becomes really useful. I am however wondering if there are going to be some cracked out alternate versions of Cloak of Flames available through this system, since there is a method of generating uniques with one of the attributes replaced on them with something new and different.

Probably the thing that I am looking forward to the most however is the new trade system. I was already generating most of my league wealth through the currency exchange, and I don’t really see that changing. However I am probably going to dive deeper down the rabbit hole of trying to trade things like Einhar Beasts and other incidental things like that, which always felt too cumbersome to actually trade. For buying items… it is so much nicer just to port to a hideout and buy the item off the vendor than trying to wrangle someone to actually respond. Additionally it is a really good feeling to log in after being gone for awhile and have a stack of currency waiting on you. This tends to benefit the really hardcore you can exploit markets first, and the super casual… who get very cheap items once those markets have crashed. I don’t expect to get rich though this system, but it will be less painful to pawn my shit and in turn buy the stuff that I actually need.

At the core… we got a bunch of interesting stuff and so far it does not feel like the builds that I cared about were nerfed. Righteous Fire did not get any buffs, other than potentially making Nebulis sceptres as a mid league option if they are cheap enough. I will still be able to play good ole predictable RF in order to fund other build ideas. The biggest things that ate nerfs were the entire concept of BAMA aka Blink Arrow Mirror Arrow. It is still possible to play it, so it did not get the nuke from orbit that Hexblast Mines did last league where they effectively said “no, we don’t want you playing those as mines anymore”. Trickster ate some nerfs, but honestly the class feels still perfectly viable. There is enough interesting stuff going on like them leaning into the Physical damage archetype for wanders, that might produce some really interesting builds.

They added a new Bow ability called Conflagration which is essentially Rain of Explosive Arrows. You can get this from playing a Ranger in Act 3 by killing Gravicius, and it looks really interesting. I think this is probably going to be my second build of the league once I have stabilized and built up a base of currency through playing Righteous Fire. I think you will self cast instead of totems, and lean hard into dealing fire damage. I do wonder what it would feel like to have a double six link setup with you self casting Conflagration with maybe Mirage Archer support, and then have a totem setup with Explosive Arrow similarly to how one plays other bow builds. I don’t think you try and do the elemental equilibrium nonsense, because I am not sure what damage you deal other than fire first. You should probably want something converting fire damage to another element though so you could run Trinity support. Anyways it is worth theorycrafting something out. I would probably play this as an Elementalist maybe to get buffs from the golems… which did eat a nerf but they are still phenomenal. Alternately you could do the Champion thing, which I think might still work.

One interesting change that SirGog pointed out in his patch notes review video, is that Hardcore is getting a bit of an upgrade. Namely when you die in Hardcore Leagues, your characters will transfer over to Softcore Leagues instead of transferring to Standard. This is pretty huge for someone who might want to start out with the challenge of Hardcore, but then convert to a Softcore character when they eventually die. Additionally if a player just gets tired of the sweaty gameplay, they can chill out in softcore with the current state of their character. As he pointed out there used to be a lot of weird stuff going on in Hardcore where the Standard players would manipulate the market to get items that were valuable in Standard then take a death and transfer items between the leagues. I think this is a net positive for players in general, but I am still not really at all interested in Hardcore anything. I did my brief Hardcore Minecraft run, and it was fun… until it wasn’t. I also participated in Gauntlet and made it to Act III, but was pretty damned happy when I finally died because I was not enjoying being that nervous all the time.

I am fully amped for this new league and am contemplating taking off next Friday so that I can play with purpose as soon as it goes live. I will likely be grinding it pretty hard throughout the weekend, and seeing if I can hit maps relatively early for my pacing. This is the benefit of having no real life, is that I can go hardcore into something like this. Earlier in the week is the drop of the new Guild Wars 2 expansion, so I am hoping I can wrap the story there before league start so I can give this my undivided attention. I will probably be juggling Guild Wars 2, Destiny Rising, and Path of Exile for awhile, and may end up talking about progression in all three. The other thing that I do find tempting is minions, especially since Spectres got a massive quality of life improvement. However in truth I am probably way more interested in Bows as my second character, but depending on how long I stay engaged I might end up rolling something minion focused as well.

Are you going to be playing Keepers of the Flame? If so what are you leaning towards as your league starter? Drop me a line in the comments.

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Festival of the Lost and Impending POE Reveals

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Good Morning Folks. I don’t have any fresh screenshots because I forgot to fire up ShareX yesterday after a system reboot, and as a result none of the times when I attempted to hit Print Screen did it actually do anything. We are currently having a maintenance downtime for Destiny Rising and the patch is buffing Estela, which seems wild to me given how powerful she already is. It is also ending the current wheel of fortune event, and bringing back the Morgran’s Hunt event, which should in theory give us another free exotic. Ace and I hung out a little bit but I was feeling out of it so we didn’t do anything particularly challenging. We ran with their spouse a few times, but unfortunately realized that you can only get credit for running with a new light… once per person. Still though it is always good to run stuff with people and it always counts towards the pack challenges for running together. We still sadly have yet to find a stronghold, so I am starting to give up on those.

Apparently Destiny Rising is getting a version of Festival of the Lost, but sadly it is a really stripped down version from what I can see. There is no trick or treating in haven, like there is trick or treat in the Destiny 2 Tower. There is going to be a seven day limited sign in event, and something that starts on the 30th where you collect a resource called amber to turn in for goodies on a storefront. It seems like the paper masks from Destiny 2 are making a comeback in some form, and at a minimum there will be a hive pumpkin mask. I am all on board more events happening, and I remember remarking the other night that I wished Festival of the Lost was a thing in Destiny Rising. It was always my favorite event in Destiny 2.

What I am really pumped for however is the Path of Exile 3.27 reveal stream which is happening at 12 pm PDT today on Twitch. If you watch for 45 minutes you will get this hiveborn themed spider pet. Throughout the week they have been dropping some significant quality of life buffs. Not only does it appear as though the asynchronous trade from Path of Exile 2 is arriving in Path of Exile 1, but we are also getting free identification. Previously they had patched this in later in 3.27 but it still took Scrolls from your bank. This new version is going to cost nothing, which is great. There are a bunch of little things to like the fact that Rog in our hideouts will allow us access to the disenchanting interface which was 90% of the reason why I ever went to Kingsmarch last league. Another huge one from yesterday is that you can now itemize Beasts without having to buy the Bestiary Orbs. This is pretty huge because I usually have a tree running Einhar just to try and farm up Black Morrigans to six link gear.

The thing that came out over night is that the Assassin’s tree was reworked, and features the ruthless style node for poisoning which was actually way more effective than the normal mode. SirGog released a video going into the changes more in depth, and I highly suggest checking that out if you are interested. I do wonder if we will get any weird builds like poison tornado shot from this ascendancy rework. It is on my least favorite side of the tree, so it is unlikely that I am rolling anything with Assassin. However I am hoping we see some cool builds with it because in the current trade league, only 0.5% of players on the ladder rolled something on the Assassin ascendancy, and it has been that way for several leagues. So something needed to change, and I am hoping this breathes new life into the class for buildcrafters.

The thing that does concern me however is that we have gotten a bunch of really great quality of life improvements, and part of me thinks that this is just to brace us for the massive nerfs that are incoming. So long as Righteous Fire and Chieftain are viable, I am probably going to roll that again because I love the play style. I had a lot of fun with my Storm Brand of Indecision Golemancer, but that build was entirely being propped up by the fact that I could have a Doryani mercenary following me around and debuffing targets by -200% lighting resistance. I would love to see some other brand build thrive with whatever changes are coming. Additionally I am really interested to see what the spectre rework is going to look like, and how it impacts Summon Raging Spirits. There has been some talk of making thorns actually a viable build in Path of Exile 1, so it will be interesting to see if that happens. Whatever the changes are coming… I am here for it.

I had a really great Mercenaries league to be honest. I got a bunch of good drops, ran a ton of maps, and knocked out enough achievements to get a fancy totem pole and a set of cosmetic gear. That is really all I can hope for. I created to characters that were extremely powerful and fun to play. When this league starts next Friday, I am looking forward to doing it all over again. Expect this blog to swap from mainly being about Destiny Rising to mainly being about Path of Exile again for awhile. I still plan on doing dailies in Destiny Rising, and meeting up with Ace at least once a week to knock out some of the harder content that is fun to group together doing. I am trying to coax them back into Path of Exile, but I am not sure that will actually take.

Are you going to be playing Path of Exile 3.27? What are you looking forward to from the things that we have seen so far? Drop me a line below.