Diablo III

That would appear to be the case. Legendary potions excepted, of course.

edited 25th Feb '15 4:39:57 PM by Fighteer

Alright then. It's not a big deal for me, considering that I literally heal faster than I can be damaged by most of the enemies. I even killed Ghlom pretty easily when I went through a few bits of Bastion's Keep before I quit because my college dorm's internet kept lagging the game (why isn't there an offline component for the game anyway?)

"why isn't there an offline component for the game anyway?"

Because Blizzard says so.

Allright, so finally got around to getting this game as it was on discount last week for PS 3. Have to say, it’s fun so far. I’m usually not a huge fan of random loot-centric RP Gs but I guess this is the exception.

It’s also one of the funest co-op experiences I’ve had in a while.

Playing as a Witch Doctor. Right now I’m level 28 and just reached Act 2 of the story mode. I usually try to have as many “ongoing” powers active at any given time so that I can just focus on mashing that signature spell/basic attack button.

Usual strategy is:

-Have as many pets summoned as I can. Right now I have 3 Zombie Dogs and a Gargantuan.

-Cast Soul Harvest to get an INT boost.

-When encountering a group of enemies, immediately drop Grasp of the Dead to slow and damage them and then spam Plague of Toads.

-If I encounter one Elite or Boss enemy, drop Grasp of the Dead and then attack it with Spirit Barage.

I’ve been steamrolling through the game on Expert (higuest difficulty I could put in on for now). Should the game be this easy? I haven’t really encountered anything challenging so far.

edited 2nd Mar '15 8:04:11 AM by GutstheBerserker

Your experience is typical. If you know what you're doing, you can easily steamroll the game at Expert or Master difficulty up until the mid-sixties. Then the monster toughness starts ramping up pretty quickly, and I usually have to shift it down to Hard to beat Malthael with a new character.

You've also hit upon one of the dichotomies of the game: leveling up is fun — challenges are relatively easy, there are concrete rewards for progression, and you can count on finding new gear at regular intervals. But once you earn max level and start working on Torment difficulty (where the best legendary items drop), you'll find your progress slowing dramatically and it becomes more of a grind. The replayability is pretty good, though: you can always level up more characters.

Good to know, looking forward to the challenge in later levels. Yeah, so far the levelling system is fun and the loot system is balanced enough that it doesn’t feel like a chore. So often in games like this it feels like you spend 50% of your time clearing inventory space and selling junk items.

There still is that element in this game but so far, a significant proportion of the loot I’m getting is better than what I currently have. And the crafting system is also fun as it gives you one more chance to get something interesting if you find a weak item.

As far as story goes, well…I guess that’s not really the point of playing this game, is it? Voice acting is good, I find. Really like the female Witch Doctor’s voice actress. World-building is solid, if a bit unsurprising. Act 2’s Arabian Nights-like setting is cool. I always like to play environments like these in role-playing games.

If you have managed to avoid plot spoilers, then the story ramps up quite a bit in Act III and is well worth experiencing. I find it to be above average for a work in this genre.

edited 2nd Mar '15 8:42:13 AM by Fighteer

Nice. That's a pleasant surprise. And yes, completely spoiler free. I knew nothing of the game before playing it beyond the reviews I read a few years ago.

So thanks to Kadala, today my seasonal barb now has 3 Raekor's items. One more, whoo!

2014 Blizzard Stream Awards, Powered by Twitch

This is an awards show dedicated to streamers — specifically, streamers of Blizzard games. Amusingly, you can also win awards for watching streams.

What.

Blizzcon is on November 6th and 7th.

Blizzard is adding a new social optimization tool called B'Motes.

For Diablo III, we get Boss Banter, where you can wither the greatest foes of Sanctuary with your scathing repartee.

It's unclear if this is a Blizzard joke or a Curse joke, but in the new PTR 2.3 patch, the game is adding a SELFIE mode.

Patch 2.2.0 is now live. Patch notes.

Blizzard is blocking players in the Crimean region from accessing their game's servers.

Blizzard has been taking action against players who exploited a bug with Blood Thief goblins that allowed players in multiplayer games to farm more Blood Shards than intended.

Blizzard is considering further action against players who got around the actions above by using their one-time account rollback.

There's a video linked in this post of a player leveling from 1-70 in under 60 seconds.

More of a story question, but if each of the archangels of the Angiri Council are suppose to represent different virtues of Anu how can Itherael represent Fate? How is fate a virtue? It is not something you can cultivate, moral behavior or anything you can aspire to became more of. So why does an archangel embody it? Is it supposed to represent the apex of order compared to the chaos of Hell?

Well Justice and Hope are hardly qualities too, right? They're more like noble emotions and concepts, I would think.

That question had occurred to me but I more or less shrug and go with it. In my head, I lean toward the explanation above — that Fate is an aspect of order, which is inherently aligned with the light. More to the point, there is no such thing in Creation as a neutral party: everything is derived ultimately from Anu and Tathamet. If there is to be an Aspect of Fate, it has to choose sides.

I envision Itherael as a being whose fundamental purpose is to see Creation move along the path towards its destiny.

edited 28th Apr '15 5:06:01 PM by Fighteer

Or Itherael seeks to constantly roll your loot with shitty attributes like +10% area damage.

This is the only explanation that makes sense.

So, If memory serves, Mankind happened when an angel and demon got together, I am morbidly curious, was it any particular named pair of beings that was responsible for this? Or was it just a side effect of near millenia of warring that somebody got incredibly bored?

There were indeed two. The demon side was Lilith, the Angel side was...I forget his name >_<

Inarius