Do a barrel roll!
Ever have one of those days when you don't feel like giving 100% at your job, you ask? Every day ending in Y, har-de-har-har.
Hard not to notice that while the threads on these boards for World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, and Starcraft II are abuzz with Blizzcon chat, this thread is conspicuously quiet thanks to Diablo III getting completely shafted. Just one hour of panels; even leaving aside the fact that Diablo alone among Blizzard's IPs does not have an eSports league thanks to its negligible PvP play (perhaps ironically, that's part of the appeal of Diablo for me, especially in multiplayer), that's less than half what Blizzard's other IPs are getting. I know there was a bit of speculation earlier in the year that the hiring frenzy for Diablo-related programmers at Blizzard in the preceding months might herald an announcement along the lines of a Diablo II remaster, another Diablo III character pack (specifically, Druid - my response to that is that there are already two summoner classes, is a third really necessary?), or something about a possible Diablo IV. Unfortunately, it seems the wait for such an announcement will last until at least 2018, possibly longer.
Not that there's no news at all on the Diablo III front, what with this Double Goblin event they have scheduled for the 72 hours leading up to the beginning of Season 12 this coming Thursday. Sadly, that doesn't include double Goblin packs in rifts or double Goblin packs spawned by Bandit Shrines. (My personal record for a Goblin pack in a rift is something like 54; I suppose it was really three or four packs that happened to spawn right next to each other. Only five of them got away, as well; it was like several Christmases all in one day.)
Definitely liking Patch 2.6.1; I have builds using all 28 sets in the game that can handily get through a Level 70 Greater Rift (some more quickly than others), and that's with less than 1100 Paragon levels. It's certainly making me optimistic for my chances of getting an extra stash tab next season.
(Primal Ancient update: not sure what to make of these three, but I got two Primal Ancient Depth Diggers, one with Intelligence and a Wizard skill, restricting me to using it on an Intelligence class, and one with Intelligence and Vitality and AllRes; currently debating whether or not to swap out Intelligence for Strength or Dexterity. And then a Primal Ancient Strongarm Bracers with Intelligence and Cold Damage - not sure which of those to roll off, if either. They're all sitting in my stash for now until I decide what to do with them.)
Diablo is dead really, not even the Necromancer could save it. D3 is really on life support likely with just a minimal team controlling the seasonal transition and thats it.
edited 4th Nov '17 5:01:15 PM by Memers
Do a barrel roll!
Lost in Space
Unlike Starcraft II, Hearthstone, and WoW, D3 has no ongoing revenue model for Blizzard. Be grateful they still support it at all.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
.....
Dead as in the franchise, or dead as in just D3?
Somehow it gave me a twisted hope. Maybe because of this, the next Diablo could become the definitive end of the Diablo franchise, wrapping everything up nicely instead of going on and on and on to the point Idiot Ball gets tossed around on daily basis that it makes us facepalm and get shrouded in apathy... like in World Of Warcraft. Something tells me that's what happens when a franchise gets too popular to the point of being a Cash-Cow Franchise, and yet they just use one main continuity.
edited 5th Nov '17 3:44:12 AM by ChrisX
Do a barrel roll!
I started playing as the Necromancer last night. It was pretty fun. :) Oh yeah, get this. Not only did I reach Level 7, I got my first Legendary item before I got to Level 10. 
That's got to be a new Academy record or something.
Always nice when that happens, but certainly not record-setting; there are over a dozen Legendary items that can start spawning as early as Level 9, and I think Leoric's Crown might be possible even sooner than that. Of course, Legendary items that low level get outclassed very quickly, and if you're playing a seasonal character, you won't be getting any Death's Breath to use in extracting their legendary affixes until Level 60 (if you're playing a non-seasonal character, you'll probably already have plenty available) - unless you're cashing in the Challenge Rift caches on your seasonal character (which is highly recommended, especially near the start of the season - the 4,600,000 gold is more than enough to raise all three artisans to Level 12).
Seasonal progress for me has been slow so far as one of my usual multiplayer groupmates is having RSI-related issues, and I don't usually like to take off on my own through the season until we've finished Chapter IV. Still cautiously optimistic about getting the extra stash tab, though. The season is only a week and a half old, after all.
(I've had enough Primal Ancients drop at this point that I've stopped keeping track of individual ones - on my non-seasonal characters, I now have more Forgotten Soul than I know what to do with, so I don't even bother carrying Legendary or Set items back to town unless they're ones I think I might be able to use. It's probable I've had Primal Ancient versions of a lot of garbage Legendaries in the last few weeks without realising it. Some useful ones as well - Unity, the ring from the Natalya's Vengeance set, Vengeful Wind, Hack, and that's just what I remember off the top of my head.)
Do a barrel roll!
I'm really in need of a memory upgrade for my computer, because there's something very wrong with Diablo III. Lately, whenever I open it, it crashes, and then it makes the Battle.net desktop app invisible and unusable. I had to uninstall and reinstall that thing more times than I would like to count. x_x To make things more confusing, World of Warcraft is working just fine. :S
Flora is the most beautiful member of the Winx Club. :)
Just went through the Darkening of Tristram event. It's basically like replaying the original Diablo. The even went and reduced the graphics level to play like it was from that era, which I found an amusing and cool touch.
You go through a roughly 16 level Labyrinth and face four bosses (The Butcher, the Skeleton King, Arch-Bishop Lazarus, and the Dark Lord) and at the end of it all you get what looks like the end cutscene to Diablo and a shard of the Red Soulstone to put into your sockets.
I solo'd it on Expert with my Witch Doctor and jumped 9 levels (57 to 66). Though my roommate is doing it with a possibility of getting an achievement that you get if you complete it solo with a character starting at level 1 (he had to make a Seasonal as he didn't have the access to it on his regular toons)
edited 4th Jan '18 8:02:32 PM by sgamer82
Forofgold power!
I remember it from last year (I 100%ed it then because I'd assumed it would be a one-time thing).
If I remember well, my greatest enemy was lag. By personal reasons, I was only able to play it during a couple of days, during which the servers worked worse than usual and each loading screen had a chance to give me a disconnect. I was a pain because usually I'm not required to go through 16 loading screens on a row.
My second greatest enemy, strangely, was zombies. Those seemingly inofensive enemies from the early levels were much more dangerous than anything else in the event, including the later levels. The event zombies inflicted you a debuff that prevented healing from any source. It's so easy to stack life steal and regeneration in this game that minor damage tends to get quickly healed by them. With those zombies around, even minor damage mattered because it didn't get healed as usually is, so dealing with those zombies required a more thoughtful playstyle (especially because I used a new seasonal character for the achievement and I didn't hace my best skills yet). It's amazing how they made zombies Demonic Spiders that gave me a challenge like I hadn't had in that game for a long time.
edited 4th Jan '18 11:08:46 PM by morenohijazo
Seriously, my avatar comes from the embodiment of the So Bad, It's Good trope.
Ah yes, the Darkening of Tristram is back. I think they said it would be an annual thing for the month of January, presumably until the servers are taken offline (and even if all this hullabaloo over a possible announcement about Diablo IV to be released in 2019 or 2020 doesn't turn out to be a vast reserve of balloon fuel, they probably won't take the servers offline for several years even after the new game is released - and Blizzard being Blizzard, the game's release date will keep getting pushed back and back and back anyway).
I went for 100% Completion last time it was released simply because I knew I'd have some sort of neurosis about having to wait eleven months before getting any achievements I didn't get first time round. Haven't gone through it this year yet, but that's just laziness on my part.
(As for the Season journey, I finished Guardian a few weeks ago. Haven't had any Primal Ancients drop for my seasonal character since beating a Level 70 Greater Rift solo, though. And so it goes!)
edited 5th Jan '18 7:40:30 AM by mlsmithca
Professional Forum Ninja
Could a Diablo nightlight be a tease for a Nintendo Switch port?
Possible. Wouldn't be the first time they've teased that sort of announcement with a Visual Pun. Still, I'll believe it when I see it, same as all these rumours swirling over a possible Druid expansion pack hinted at by that Muddied Parchment item on the PTR and that developer tweet about constellations, or the rumours about a possible Diablo IV in the next few years...
EDITED TO ADD: Seems Blizzard have insisted the night light image was not intended to herald a Switch port. (Switch port? Used to have to do that all the time with joysticks on older consoles and computers.) Although the rumour of an expansion pack of some sort remains alive and well thanks to a cryptic Reddit post implying that one will be announced at Blizzcon this year - the fact that the user who made the post created the account very shortly before making said post does rather undermine its credibility, though. (And anyway, Reddit isn't exactly a bastion of reliable information.)
edited 5th Mar '18 10:46:24 PM by mlsmithca
Do a barrel roll!
I didn't know that the Diablo III characters could dance until my friend told me about it. ^_^;; Well except for the Necromancer.
Thank you, Monty Oum.
They don't dance out of fear of copyright infringement.
Yes, I know they would be out of their minds for trying to legally tangle Blizzard and Blizzard shout outs everything already anyway...but puns.
how are we supposed to go about getting that Terran Battlecruiser pet in Diablo 3? Please tell me it's not supposed to be a random drop...
I assume its like all the other ones which are login rewards when the patch hits.
Professional Forum Ninja
Eurogamer sources: This game is getting a Nintendo Switch port.
Well, I dunno, there's been enough conflicting information that I'm still in the "I'll believe it when I see it" camp for now.
In other news, lest anyone didn't realise this, claiming the Terran Battlecruiser pet released to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Starcraft requires actually starting a game rather than just going to the menu. But it's done automatically; no need to go hunting Menagerist Goblins. (Thank goodness.) Still on the fence about whether to use that instead of the Mimic I've been using for the last year and a half (yes, I use the same pet for every character on my account).
Happy china anniversary, Starcraft! (China as in crockery, not the country - not directly, anyway.)
Forofgold power!
In case anyone reads this: this week is the only time during this year where you can get Kanai's Skorn. Just open the special chest in the Immortal Throne, in the Ruins of Sescheron.
Seriously, my avatar comes from the embodiment of the So Bad, It's Good trope.
Do a barrel roll!
Is it my imagination or does this Halloween mask look a lot like Deckard Cain?
It does!
Do a barrel roll!
Season 11 wraps up this coming Friday (20 October); it's been the longest season for something like a year, probably because they've been going back and forth on so many of the number adjustments in Patch 2.6.1.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the only class-specific armour set not getting a buff in this patch is Tal Rasha's Elements - well, and Norvald's Fervor, Danetta's Hatred, Manujama's Way, and Jesseth Arms, but those last four are weapon/offhand or two weapon sets, and the first three, at least, are more speedrun sets than "endgame" sets.
Incredibly, I managed to get all the way to the end of Guardian this season, a personal first (my previous personal best was Champion). So now I have a shiny new stash tab. That said, I only managed to get three Primal Ancients after beating a Level 70 rift - and one of them was a damned Blackthorne's Surcoat. I suppose it had to happen to me sooner or later. (The others were Spirit Guards - which I didn't realise until I'd melted them down at the blacksmith, but since they're getting buffed in the next patch, their usefulness was limited anyway - and Thundergod's Vigor... no idea if that's useful in any Dexterity class builds.) And despite getting 750 Paragon levels, I didn't get a single Star of Azkaranth, so no mastering the Uliana's Strategem set dungeon. (I did master the other three, and all four Wizard set dungeons, and the Zunimassa's Haunt set dungeon in order to get the Masters of the Universe conquest; the other conquests I got were Avarice and Boss Mode, then my groupmates and I got Speed Demon after I'd finished Guardian.)
Season 12 starts on 9 November, after a three-week break; best guess, Patch 2.6.1 will go live on either 24 October or Hallowe'en. Because one of the things Blizzard has wanted to test on the PTR is how the newly buffed sets handle the season journey, we already know what the Season 12 journey entails. The only achievements that shift around each season are which bosses must be defeated on which difficulty levels and which conquests are available, so this is how they line up for Season 12...
The Haedrig's Gift sets are Immortal King's Call (Barbarian), Seeker of the Light (Crusader), Natalya's Vengeance (Demon Hunter), Uliana's Strategem (Monk), Trag'Oul's Avatar (Necromancer), Spirit of Arachyr (Witch Doctor), and Vyr's Amazing Arcana (Wizard).
For now, though, I'm more eager to see what Patch 2.6.1 brings; if it's as good as I'm hoping, it should make getting those extra stash tabs for the next few seasons rather easier, not just for me but for my usual groupmates as well (as a group, we finished Destroyer but couldn't get through a Torment XIII rift in under 5 minutes for Conqueror).
(EDITED TO ADD: And since the end of the season, the game has gone right back to hating me again. In the last eight hours, it's insulted me with a Primal Ancient Blackguard followed by fifteen failed attempts in a row to re-forge the chest armour for the Akkhan set (for which I still only have two Ancient pieces) as Ancient, and then when I tried upgrading ten rare chest armours, I got two Ancient Goldskins and one Primal Ancient Goldskin - my second. Days when the grind grinds you down...)
(EDITED FURTHER TO ADD: Patch 2.6.1 is live as of 24 October in North America; it's due to go live 25 October in Europe, and presumably Asia as well. I already notice a difference - my previous personal best for Barbarian Greater Rifts was Level 62 in just under 7 minutes with a Whirlwind build; now it takes less than half that time, and the extra 80 or so Paragon levels I've gained since then can't be solely responsible for that much of a difference. Of course, now I have a lot of outdated Legendaries for which to farm replacements... at least the Sets are updated automatically, one reason the Whirlwind build was one of the first I tried.
Not that the parade of worthless Primal Ancients has slowed down - Leoric's Signet, Justice Lantern, and Arcstone, all in one evening... (EDITED FURTHER YET AGAIN TO ADD: And a Cindercoat (which I melted down without realising it was Primal Ancient - oh well), and the helmet from the Seeker of the Light set - with a rather mediocre set of primary and secondary powers, only one of which I could get rid of, but still, better than nothing I suppose.))
edited 27th Oct '17 10:48:20 AM by mlsmithca