Blaugus– owait, nevermind

So I’ve got a bit of downtime at the end of my shift. And since I’ve gotten into the habit of posting here daily for the past month, I kinda missed it a little bit. Blaugust is over, but I’m not done rambling at you guys yet. Sure, it’s not going far, and won’t be for any specific thing, but I plan to continue blogging a couple times a week, or when the mood strikes me. Removing the “challenge” only leaves the habit and the desire to keep rambling.

So, slightly more on topic of my last post… good gods, did I get some progress in with my Monk yesterday. Took her from paragon level 10 on Expert mode, all the way to Torment 2 and just shy of paragon 60. I got one of the one-handers I need for my eventual end-game set, but can’t get the other one to save my life. Still using a level 66 chest, and rare… er… bracers, neck, and… maybe hands? I don’t quite recall while away from my computer. But I hit my groove and went to town.

One of the main things I’m really missing (aside from actually DEALING DAMAGE) is a good legendary gem. So far, I got the Cold gem, the one from Greed that gives you gold explosions, and the timed damage boost after killing an elite. None of those are the ones I need for my build, although I’m contemplating using the elite one for the time being. Doesn’t really help that much…

Well, just about time to cut out of work and play some D&D instead of Diablo, because shooting down my friends for personal video gaming time is apparently frowned upon. Catch ya guys on the flipside!

-Bane Falcon

“Only a fool tries to poison a dwarf. Our womans cooking could kill an Ogre, your poison is dressing to us.”

Blaugust Day 31: Ding

Huzzah, got to 70 this morning on my hardcore seasonal monk! I’m only on Expert difficulty at the moment, but some of the gear things I’ve had drop were pretty decent. The first legendary I got was from Kadala, and they’re those pants that fart out an AoE to kill things around you. It works perfectly with the overall build I have as a holdover for actual stuff. Now that I’m max level, however, the battle has barely begun. Gotta get moar gear, finish up the chapter by killing the key wardens and other bosses on Torment, and random other shenanigans. I’m looking forward to it.

And since I finally have the time, I’m gonna ramble on a bit about my experience with Diablo in the past. I started out with the first game, and still don’t remember when or how I got it. Much the same as other Blizzard games I had, I think they more or less just appeared in my possession, or were lent to me by a friend (back when you could still loan out a video game). The Hellfire expansion was cool, but all I really remember was blowing countless scrolls and trying to set an entire map on fire with a cleric, to make the skeletons run through layers and layers of flame just to get to me.

Diablo 2 is where I sunk a lot of hours. My friends and I dusted it off from time to time, and almost always used the increase player level command to give more difficulty and chance at loot. I never really bothered with the Amazon or Paladin, might’ve done Assassin and Sorcerer once or twice… but good gods, did I love rolling a barbarian and beatstick, or a bone army Necromancer, or a shifter druid. I loved tweaking different barbarian builds to just smash things forever and get more potions and gold and practically perma-running. Or doing some absurd druid combo form thing, or roll out with every damned possible pet as a Necro.

One of the things I miss the most from Diablo 2 to 3 is the skill tree synergy, where X ranks of that skill would increase the effectiveness of Y. It helped change things up, by getting you to pick different abilities that you might have otherwise overlooked, because you wanted those next couple percentages or some more bodies. Sure, the new modular system works rather well, especially for changing on the go, but it isn’t quite the same feel of sinking points into something and seeing the results. Eh, I guess paragon levels are kinda close to it.

When Diablo 3 came out, I was really on the fence about getting it (and also pretty broke at the time). I didn’t play the beta, and didn’t really think the game would be that good, especially after seeing the changes between 2 and 3. One of my friends had both the pre-order for the game, as well as the WoW Annual Pass, which gave D3 for free, so he tossed me a copy for opening day. I was one of the many laughing at Error 37 and 1006 or whatever the other numbers were. But once we were in, we had a blast. I might’ve stayed up and blitzed to max level… I don’t quite remember.

The AH felt like a gimmick, and I used the ever-loving crap outta the damned thing. Once I found out how to truly search and dig for whatever things I wanted, I started to tweak out my character’s gear and get it nice and fine-tuned, while selling back the occasional item to cover the costs of whatever I spent. It ended up being to the point that I stopped playing the game to get gear for myself, and instead just tried to farm more gold so I could buy the upgrades. When they took it out, I was ecstatic. Good riddance, and that’s coming from someone who used the damned thing constantly.

Reaper of Souls came out, and more importantly, seasons. I decided that, if it’s some new ladder system with reset progress, then I might as well do something different. So my first character was a Hardcore Crusader. I don’t even know how many I lost due to herpderping into all the things (before Crusaders had the 30% melee survivability buff thing, if I recall correctly), but I loved it. Had a softcore one too, but bleh, doesn’t matter anymore. The second season, I was too busy with WoW, and ended up trying to blitz a hardcore Demon Hunter up during the final weekend. Lost her at… 65, after 15 hours of play. A couple levels away from max, and during the last leg of the whole thing. Pissed at myself, I ended up getting another one blitzed up using leftover gear and a bit of help.

Third season was where I really got into it… My Witch Doctor, ZergSwarm. Started it out knowing I wanted a massive pet build. And good gods, did I make one. Not liking the whole Carnevil thing going around, I instead started off with zombie dogs, the gargantuans (three, due to the ring), and the fetishes. At one point, including my character and follower, I was rolling out with 37 different friendlies on my screen. Regularly. Then I started getting more gear, and felt my damage slacking off, and REALLY started to farm. Ended up with a 6p Zunimassa’s build using fetishes and mana spender to basically just apply a damage taken debuff. Tore through everything. t6 was a *joke*. Eventually I got bored of hunting for a solid Starmetal Kukri, and went back into WoW again.

Now here we are, with me being a bit tired of casual play in WoW, and a new season in Diablo. Lost two monks before level 10, and now TooFuriosa is max level and ready to go. Playing hardcore, and trying to push for higher tiers of content, is all the thrill of Mythic raiding, without any of the hassle of trying to figure out schedules or worry about other people standing in shit and wiping us. No, it’s just me, my reflexes, and my own luck. Everyone plays games in their own ways, and my way for Diablo is solo, while testing my own limits. Can’t wait to see how far I get this time.

And speaking of going far… Today marks the 31st post in a row I’ve made. Blaugust challenge complete, coming from someone who never blogged before. Now that I’m done, I probably won’t do the daily thing anymore, but if I’ve got something worth posting or rambling about, I’ll keep ya guys in the loop.

-Bane Falcon

“Good work praises itself.”

The Revenge of Blaugust

Blaugust Day 30: Evil Never Sleeps

…and apparently, neither do I. Now that the new Diablo season is out, I’m more than willing (and hopefully able) to continue staying up ’til 3 AM, slaying the minions of hell. After getting home at a little before 10pm, I got myself nice and comfortable and completely lost myself in the game, yet again. And no, I’m totally not eating at the moment, because I forgot about food over the past few hours. Of course not…

Last night, I left off with my character right after she hit 42. Woke up, did another handful of bounties, got to 45 and finished up some other random stuff. Tonight was just waves and waves of bounties, plus the occasional rift once I cleared all 5 zones. At the moment, however, I have two MVPs to thank for my character’s progress, and for keeping my gameplay from steamrolling me and making me lose a level 62 monk.

First and foremost is Nagelring. Oh good gods, that Nagelring. Got my first one at 15 or so. To be honest? The stats don’t matter whatsoever. It’s the passive ability on it, that causes a little suicide bomber to spawn every 10-12 seconds and explode for 4000%-5000% WEAPON DAMAGE. These little bastards hit HARD. And I don’t care if it weakens the overall “feel” or “experience” or “challenge”… I love waiting for the max of 4 of them to spawn, then go into a boss fight and make it implode before the mechanics even start. When I was starting to get really concerned about the super low stats on the one I was using when I was close to 60… lo and behold, another one dropped. So that first one is likely gonna go into my cube, since my follower doesn’t get anything from it aside from spawning the little runts faster.

MVP runner-up? Kadala. That’s right, the disciple of RNGesus herself, and Gheed’s frustrated daughter or whatever the hell she is. This chick has never legitimately helped me with anything before. Sure, she sometimes gave me something that I could potentially maybe kinda-sorta use, but nothing jaw-dropping. Well, as I was grinding out more bounties (and right after hitting 61), I killed a blood goblin and went over my blood shard cap. Dreading the worst, I went back into town and decided to waste some on her. Who knows, maybe I’d get some weapon that wasn’t garbage, and of a higher tier (Since 60 was the max level without the expansion, there’s a significant power jump at 61). So I give it a shot… and get a Monk Daibo with 178% damage increase over what I was using. Oh, and it already had a socket on it. Dumbfounded, I try to use another gamble, this time on shoulders in hopes of replacing the lower level ones I still had… poof, another legendary, with the buff of town portal becoming an absorb shield. Two tries, two legendaries. Pretty damned strong.

Well, since hitting 60 gained access to Chapter 3, I had to see what all things I didn’t complete yet. Level the Blacksmith and Jeweler to 12, need more gold. Level to 70, okay. And then… beat any end-chapter boss on Master or above. Huh. This whole time I was playing on Hard (difficulty 2 out of the 4 non-Torment ones) and Master was two tiers higher. Well, what the hell. I just got some new shinies. So I replaced my gems, buffed my survivability, slapped some weapon damage into that new daibo, and went to town on the Butcher.

Rolling in with 4 of the little suicide bombers and a new weapon, plus whatever other stat boosts? He melted. Even for me doubling my difficulty level. Felt damned good, man.

Now to get some sleep, get through an early day of work, get home, and hit 70. Catch ya guys once I see what Chapter 4 has in store for me, and I’ll update you all tomorrow. Might even get around to rambling about my old Diablo stories.

-Bane Falcon

“Gold may shine, but steel smashes, rips and chops.” (Reminding dwarves what is important.)

The Revenge of Blaugust

Blaugust Day 29: Seasons

Yesterday (or today, as I like to put it, since I haven’t slept yet) I had a rather long and boring day at work. Nothing much to say on that front, it was the normal crap with a bit of back pain and a headache thrown in for good measure. I finished up the shift, got home, checked WoW missions briefly, then finally managed to dive into what I’ve been waiting on for quite a while… Season 4 in Diablo 3.

Seasons are Diablo 3’s ladder system. Each one has a limited time, usually a little over 3-4 months, sometimes more, sometimes less. There’s random dungeons called Rifts that just throw a bunch of mobs onto a randomly created map, and Greater Rifts which do the same thing, but get progressively harder and don’t drop any loot until the end. The ranking part of the season is based around how high of a greater rift you can complete in the time window before the rift closes.

The best part about seasons, in my opinion, is that you get a fresh start. At the end of each season, your seasonal characters become the non-seasonal versions of what they were, and all the loot and stash items go along with them. So, my paragon 239 Hardcore Seasonal Witch Doctor joined my other normal Hardcore characters, and is sharing their bank and gold. Regardless of that, when a new Seasonal character is started for the first time, it gets its own sub-server thing. For example, when I rolled a Hardcore Season Monk earlier tonight and got it killed at level 6, the next hardcore season character I rolled had access to the bank and the gold from the first monk… all 1100 or so gold. But not the 100 million+ gold from my main hardcore account.

Huzzah for whatever attempts to explain all of that stuff. I’ve been craving a new Seasonal experience for a good month or two, now. Hardcore with no safety net and no stockpile of crafting materials to get my characters tweaked out before they leave base for the first time? Oh good gods, do I love it. Sure, I got my monk killed twice before level 10, and had to start over. But now TooFuriosa (was just Furiosa twice, but then I remembered my personal rule about changing the name when they die) is riding nice and cozy at 42, with several legendaries and more than able to farm whatever comes her way.

I’ve already got my build guide lined out, and practicing with the playstyle as I level into the other abilities. It’s the first time I’ve actually played a monk, and not just had it powerleveled and checked out some gimp guide to go along with the random pieces of gear I had in storage. Nope, now I get to deal with all the close calls, and get the muscle memory of twitching a certain way to just barely avoid something that’ll flatten me.

Another interesting part of the new season is the “Chapters” system. It gives you a bit of a guide to follow along, making sure that you deal with different things at the appropriate time. For example, doing a Rift and hitting level 35 are parts of the first Chapter, whereas making sure your follower is fully equipped, leveling the different crafters to 10, and hitting 60 are part of the second Chapter. The fourth Chapter reward is where you get the rest of the seasonal cosmetic items, so it’s got incentive to have players follow through and not just get farmed or carried.

All of that said… any time I can sit down at my computer at 9:30pm, blink, and realize it’s past 2am because of how fully immersed I am in the game? Yeah, that’s a good thing. A bit dangerous, but always enjoyable. And now for sleep before I continue to blitz through and try to start farming for the pieces I need.

-Bane Falcon
“Rest your shields, lean on stones, listen and always remember, long are the arms and legs of men, yet still longer, the Dwarven members!” (a battlefield limerick meant to relieve stressed-out dwarves, usually exclaimed by leaders and commanders whenever the outlook is otherwise grim)

The Revenge of Blaugust

Blaugust Day 28: Charity

Writing today’s post before sleep not because I’m currently having trouble sleeping, but because I fully intend to sleep as late as possible tomorrow to allow myself to wake up, bolt out the door for work, come home, and lose myself in the new season in Diablo. Today, I’ll be rambling about something that’s kinda been getting under my skin lately. A bit of a sore spot that there really isn’t too much to do about, other than rant then resolve.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m casual in WoW these days, and came from a long-ish background in Heroic and Mythic progression. I thrill for the difficult fight, with a crack team of well-trained raiders working together like clockwork. The fun kinda runs where everyone knows how each other person is going to react through pure muscle memory, and you can raid in either complete silence or while talking about completely different things. I loved being a part of a team like that, and my proudest and fondest memories in WoW came from those raids, or the people I raided with trying to blow off steam outside of it.

Well, now that I’m casual and my guild’s raids are on days I work late (aka every day except for my days off, since I always close, and they’re east-coast raid times whereas I live on the west coast), I pugged Normal Hellfire Citadel a few times. Tried to get a couple other casual guildies in along with me, then they went on vacation and I stopped caring enough to try. Eventually, another one of my friends asked me to help out with their raid group. They started with Blackrock Foundry and were claiming a full clear, so I figured why the hell not, I want to try for The Black Hand.

Almost 3 hours of wipes later, I realized the group wasn’t all it was cracked out to be. Sure, they had a tank who was new to the fight and new to tanking in general. And my friend was basically being carried to farm up some gear. But… some of their choices were… interesting. Then again, there were also some derpy pugs in there who had zero idea of what was going on, so I didn’t hold it against the raid group altogether.

My friend ended up getting some gear and since their guild liked me, they brought me along to HFC. That was an… interesting experience. The first boss is a joke and barely counts as an AoE loot pinata. Even then, they managed to derp on some of the fights. The second one… we actually managed to wipe a few times because people marinaded themselves in fire or stood in front of (or under) the boss when it was simple to get out of the way. And the third boss… I’d… prefer not to think of that one at all.

Another raid night, another time of me being dragged along. Fourth boss, and… oh good gods. It’s a really good thing that I have a decent amount of gold saved up for repairs, and that I stopped caring about raiding. The Council fight was miserable. Half of the people refused to move away from mechanics that would kill them, and the other half of the time, the healers couldn’t keep up with people standing in shit, the tanks being special ballerina snowflakes with their positioning (instead of kiting the boss to drop their stacks, or use personal CDs, they made the entire raid run all the way across the room) and the standard damage… so people would die.

We hit enrage on that fight more times than I care to remember, all because half the DPS was floor-tanking after the first phase. We don’t end up downing it on the second raid night of the week, and so we go back in again the next lockout. First boss, fine. Second boss, fine enough even though a bunch of people are dead (again). Third boss, several other wipes to the point that they ask the melee to run all the way out and cover the job that two of the ranged constantly prove themselves unable to perform. Even then, we wipe several times. Get back to the fourth boss, and yet again, it’s a clusterfuck of people having no damned idea of what they’re doing.

We EVENTUALLY down the boss, after the special-snowflake-tank suggests an idea that I brought up the previous week on the third wipe, and after changing the entire set-up around to allow him to stand still and not pop his CDs and still manage to stay alive. Woo. Astounding victory, go us. Moving along to the next boss, and it’s just as much of a miserable clusterfuck.

The main breakdown of what I can’t stand about the group, despite really wanting to help my friend:

• They ask for anyone they pug to have their gear in order and enchanted, along with using flasks and runes. However, they’ll take their guildies who are undergeared to the point of not being able to queue for LFR.
• They have too many “leaders” all with different ideas, which are usually clashing with one another, and trying to call different things at different times.
• There is little understanding of the fights by some of those leaders, and zero research done by the bulk of the raid on the mechanics and their personal roles.
• No situational awareness, to the point that someone was bragging about it.
• Regardless of how badly things go, they will never drop their undergeared DPS guildies who die within the first minute of the fight, and would rather wipe all night with them in the group than have them sit, fix their shit, and come back when they’re able to contribute.

My personal philosophy is that, if I’m specifically carrying someone, I’d better get paid for it. Since I can’t get any gear from the bosses we keep wiping on, and there’s no hope whatsoever on moving beyond them, I’m very rapidly approaching the point where I’m no longer going to be available for their group. Sure, they offered me an honorary raid spot on their team. But when they can’t even fill their own damned raids until an hour after start time, and once in the instance it becomes a carnival of horrible mistakes? Yeah, I’ll pass on that. I might be a bit pretentious, but that style of raiding to me is not fun, by any means.

Luckily, the new season in Diablo starts today.

-Bane Falcon

“Evil breeds in the guts of the lazy.”

The Revenge of Blaugust

Blaugust Day 27: Brawlin’

Finally got done with a successful session of D&D, and got back home at about 4 in the morning. Sure, my alarms are gonna go off for work in about 5 hours. Yeah, I’m gonna be clocked in within 8 hours. Oh wells, what a shame. I’m not the least bit tired (okay, maybe a liiittle tired)… so how else to pass the time than to get some decent blog action in while knocking out some dailies via the tavern brawl?

As I mentioned in the last post, the current brawl is the Encounter at the Crossroads, where each deck is made with 15 class cards and 15 neutral ones. It’s… okay, as far as the brawls go. It’s just about as RNG as you can make any of the brawls. Every deck, every time, is completely different, so good luck trying to mulligan or fish for something decent. Or complete any spell-related quests, since the majority of the deck is gonna be class creatures and neutral ones.

It makes for some interesting scenarios, however. Think you’ve got a pretty set board? Well, they might be chock full of stalls then a board wipe. Or you might just be able to keep swapping until top-decking something completely absurd. Or, in my case… every single thing you draw is immediately answered by them and then some, the next turn. Every match is completely different, and the odds can go either way.

All in all, I pretty much can’t stand this one. I prefer the boss vs boss ones, or the weird constructed rules where you spit out minions with spells or deathrattle into random other ones. Too much RNG, however equalizing it might be, tends to just rub me the wrong way.

Here’s hoping the next one is something more my speed.

-Bane Falcon

“Never answer a question when you’re dreaming.” (implying superstitious fear of witchcraft)

The Revenge of Blaugust

Blaugust Day 26: And Even More Timing!

Today has been a rather productive day. Woke up on time, got my grocery shopping done early, got home… and decided to scrub and clean every inch of my house. Not too shabby, it was something that needed to get done. Well, upon finally organizing everything, I decided to hang all of my movie and gaming posters.

wooo posters

Throw in a couple rounds of Hearthstone with the random deck brawl again and three somewhat easy dailies (Spectate for a pack, 100 hero damage, and 40 spells) and that brings me towards the evening. I’m a full-fledged nerd, and my D&D group is meeting up today. Hokay, one of the guys isn’t out of work ’til 11pm, so I can finally sit down, enjoy my food, and relax while trying to unlock Kanai’s Cube in Diablo.

Or I would, if it weren’t for my friend messaging me and informing me that he’s picking me up in about 20 minutes to head over there early so he can figure out his leveling.

So now I’m scarfing down my food, still have to wash up after scrubbing everything, and can’t knock out my quests. But hey, for all of that, I still got a hell of a lot done today. For tonight? Well, I’m choosing between a new feat or stat points, and then we’re gonna go on a side quest… the best kind!

TOMORROW I might finally get around to playing some Diablo and rambling about my history with it. And if not, well… I’ll find something to ramble about.

SARGAS SMASH!!!

-Bane Falcon
“There are no Dwarven ruins.” (you may find cities abandoned, but dwarven architecture and masonry is too superb for ruins.)

The Revenge of Blaugust

Blaugust Day 25: Time Management

Today I woke up, started getting ready for work, and sat down at my computer while grumbling about having to go in early. Got comfortable and checked up on if the new Diablo patch went live, and it did, then complained mentally even more… until finally checking my schedule and noticing the later start time today! So, huzzah, I’m writing this while dead on the ground in LFR. Someone pulled extra trash mobs and brought them into the room while the tank blitzed right for the boss.

Regardless, there was apparently something thrown into the game that I might’ve noticed briefly, but never bothered paying attention to… and that’s the option to queue for multiple LFR wings at the same time. Sitting at my computer at 11am, and not having to be at work ’til 1:45, you bet I queued up for three wings at the same time in hopes of getting at least one to proc. Had a false start on one of ’em, and this one isn’t beginning on the best of notes, but… hey, it’s something. And even if I get one wing done before work, it’s one less I have to do later.

Now, I would have loved to sit down and start in on the new Diablo content, working towards Kanai’s Cube on my no-longer-seasonal characters to clear out some banks, but that’s something I want to savor. I want to kick back, enjoy the story, catch the mechanics, and then farm up every damned piece I need in order to get it going in one sitting. So instead, I’ll settle on some mindless LFR nonsense.

My warrior, since I’ve gone casual, has been getting all of his legendary stuff via LFR. I’m currently sitting on 29/33 tomes. At bare minimum, if I get one tome per wing, I’ll have this thing done today. I’m hoping to have it done WITHOUT sinking that much time into this… fun, exciting experience… but even if that’s not the case, I’m just hoping to get it done this week before going into Archimonde.

Well, looks like the fight’s wrapping up, or that the people are gonna die soon. One way or another, time to pretend like I care about the raid group and see about finishing this quickly and hoping to squeeze in another run before work. Tomorrow, Diablo and more LFR adventures!

-Bane Falcon

“The belly is the best clock there is.“

aggronaut.com/2015/07/21/the-revenge-of-blaugust/

Blaugust Day 24: Gambling and Jousting

Like every other somewhat casual Blizzard fan, I play Hearthstone. However, I’ve been rocking it since the beta, and was hoping it would be closer to the WoW TCG made by Cryptozoic. Instead, it’s its own special animal. Buuut I’m a sucker for collecting things that won’t be available later, therefore they suckered me into buying the $50 pre-expansion packs for…

It’s liiiive!!

So with the 50 packs I have stored up, plus 1200g, I’m gonna crack ’em open and report my earnings on here.

First pack is standard, second is double rare. Meh, I’ll take it where I can. Getting a bit of the lag on the third and fourth, also standard packs. And woohoo, got the murloc knight to make my pally murloc deck! Couple packs later, Competitive Spirit and another Murloc Knight. Still no gold or epics, and just the one double ra- owait, nevermind.

Aight, first shiny pack. I’ll take it.

Huh, two packs later, and I get a triple rare pack. Not too shabby, so far. Another normal pack, then my first gold! Rare gold, hm… shammy totem aggro?

shiiiiny. And double rare!

First duplicate rare, then another double rare pack… with a duplicate rare. And another Murloc Knight. Then a duplicate in the next pack. THe one after, I got a golden bear trap! I’ll enjoy that one. Aaand then this one happened…

Double epix!

Yeah, that one’s kinda cool. Let’s keep going! Epic no rare, epic double rare! Yeah, mkay, still going good.

Admire his cleavage!

…hokay, going stronger.

I’d be more impressed with that one if half the rares I pulled weren’t the Watchman. Normal pack, normal pack, normal pack, double ra– oh well played.

Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber!

Double rare, rare + golden rare, still going strong. Little over halfway through the preorder packs. Standard pack again, and then…

CHARRRRGE!!!

Well now I can make the pirate deck to match my pirate card backs! Double Epic? Huzzah. Standard rare with yet another Mogor’s Champion (I think that makes four now? Maybe five?). Normal pack, rare+epic pack, standard with a golden common, standard, rare+epic, and… sure, this works too.

Golden Epic Frosty? Yus.

He’ll actually get some play. Handful of more standards, then another rare+epic with the magnataur, more normal packs, then my second legendary.

Oh yeah, and a gold rare.

Base count for pre-order, 175 commons, 61 rares, 12 epics, 2 legendaries, with 9 gold cards. Now for the extra 12 I saved for. First two packs are double rares, then a rare+epic. A few more standard packs (one of whicn I’m sure was entirely duplicates over the limit), and another double rare. And the pack before the last one?

He might see some play, too.

Final pack was 2 rares and an epic, putting the gold-bought packs at 41 commons, 26 rares, 2 epics, and 1 legendary.

GRAND TOTAL OF OPENING: 216 commons, 87 rares, 14 epics, and 3 legendaries.

Now let’s see how many after dust. 16 rares and 116 commons for 900, plus the 970 I had before going into this? Sweet, that’s another legendary.

I was writing up the bulk of all the other things I didn’t have yet, but it’s too specific of a list. On average, I’m simply missing 1 legendary and possibly both epics, or needing 1 more of each epic or an occasional rare, for each of the classes. The expansion just came out, and I already feel like I’m mostly done collecting it. Maybe next time, they can do a $20 or $30 instead of $50?

Now to actually play with this stuff.

-Bane Falcon
“Can’t buy honor in the market.” (Obvious meaning; but also a sigh of some itinerant clanless dwarves that wish for a more proper life.)

The Revenge of Blaugust

Blaugust Day 23: Hellfire

So just making a quick little ramble today, because why the hell not. Well, mostly because I wish I was still in bed, and not having to get ready for work. Today, we’ll be going back and briefly covering the oddity of Diablo: Hellfire. It’s definitely an interesting little expansion.

For those who don’t know, Hellfire was the expansion for Diablo 1. It was made by Sierra, and added some interesting new features to the game. New weapon oils, some trap-rune things, new quests, and the monk. It was rather light fare, but it didn’t have to be anything huge or spectacular. A few new dungeons, some power tweaks here and there, and making Diablo stronger at the end of the expansion stuff.

A couple quality of life changes were put in, as well. Spells to let you see items without hovering over them (back before glowy pillars and names of stuff everywhere), a teleportation to the stairs, and the ability to run! Nothing was worse than trying to slowly drudge through a bunch of the old places, especially if you were trying to backtrack and explore that one last corner of the map.

Blizzard ended up incorporating some of these things on their own, which is something I love about them. Being healed by healer NPCs by clicking on them, instead of exchanging prompts and dialogue, for example. Always good to know that when the company sees something to improve their games, they put it into their games when they can.

That’s all the time I’ve got today. Tomorrow… hm, maybe a Grand Tournament post?

-Bane Falcon

“The Earth never forgets…..and neither do we.”

The Revenge of Blaugust