Merry Christmas everybody! We had a very chill few days that were mostly spent eating and relaxing. I got personalised espresso mugs and a very beautiful art piece from my wife. Blizzard was kind enough to dish out some gifts as well - got my first mythics ever in diablo today! 

A little over two weeks into Diablo IV I'm speechless at the sheer immensity of this game. I have really put in quite a few hours but the number of things I can do keeps on increasing, I haven't even unveiled the whole map yet. That said it's lots of fun and the graphics are so beautiful! Can't wait to dive a little deeper still :-)

(Current standings: Finished the main campaign, but not the DLC yet. Level 60 Blood Surge Necromancer, unlocked Torment difficulty just yesterday.)

Hearthstone hasn't been much fun lately although I've used my 11x star bonus to climb to legend with Hooktusk Pirate Rogue which was really cool. Entered at top 300 and left it at that mostly. Grinding out the event games is a chore for someone who usually rarely plays Standard and no BGs at all. Surely we'll get a Seedlock nerf before the holidays, right? 😬

Thanks for your thoughts and observations, Flux! I'll do a deeper dive on reviews and stuff while I'm saving up for the thing.

December gaming will feature a big focus on Diablo 4 for me. It's my first Diablo ever and so far I love the atmosphere, the music and the world. I went with a Necromancer for my first run and it feels pretty powerful. Only level 11 yet but I think I can already say I like the game :-)

Other than that, I managed to secure 11x in Wild Hearthstone, so I can afford to climb with a fun deck this month. Looking at my class wins I should focus on Druid and Warrior but it's hard to find lists that are fun and halfway competitive for those. Maybe I'll invest some dust and give Ysiel Druid a try or finally craft the last missing cards for QL Fatigue Demon Hunter. In Standard I'm going to spam Asteroid Shaman until it gets nerfed. I forgot what format Twist will restart with, but I'd like to play Hunter there... only 6 wins away from the 2.000 wins mark which grants access to Sidisi's leaderboard. It would also be nice to claim I got legend with Hunter in every format and since Classic is no longer around and I only ever got legend there once with Hunter, I don't have any other options lol.

Ooooh that sounds like you're just the guy to harass with a question that came up lately! 

So I am loosely considering getting a gaming PC. I currently mostly play Hearthstone on my iPad and my smartphone. Other than that I use my PS5 for games like Witcher 3, hades, diablo, god of war, Jedi. What makes me consider getting a pc on top of that is

• the idea of streaming hearthstone / doing a podcast
• the ability to get back to some of my favorite games from the past like the portal series
• maybe finding an emulator that allows me to also play old Nintendo favorites like ocarina of time

Now gaming PCs are expensive but I don't really need it to be top notch because I can always rely on the PlayStation to manage the high end stuff.

So. Would you say the imac mini m4 in its cheapest version would be a good answer to these expectations? Do you have any experience in how easy and stable steam can be used on these? I've read a bit about that and while some people say it's super easy, others had lots of trouble. Any other thoughts or stuff I should be aware of? 

Quote From Lemushki

Congrats! That is quite some work put into the game. I still have to play it, sitting there on my backlog. Will try to try it next month :)

Thanks! That's the beauty of it... Most of the achievements come naturally if you just enjoy the game and play a lot. There were only two or three that took some effort or made me do stuff I usually wouldn't have without the incentive.

Thank you, too, @linkblade91! Unfortunately I still don't have a gaming PC, so I fear I'll have to wait a little longer until the sequel hits the PlayStation market.

Speaking of which... has any of you taken advantage of Black Friday deals? I know PlayStation has some nice sales going on like AC Valhalla, Horizon: Forbidden West and Diablo IV. I'll probably dip my toes in Diablo for the first time this weekend... The one downside is that all those sales are only for the digital versions and I have a disc console with limited space for downloads but eh.

Mission accomplished. What a masterpiece! 

I'd also like to share a game in development: Quest Snakes

Quest Snakes | Strategic Medieval Party Card Game by Real Fake Games — Kickstarter

I pledged for the Deluxe set and probably will receive it in around half a year from now. The artwork is gorgeous & hilarious and the gameplay sounds super fun. It's also playable with up to 6 players! Last but not least you can get expansions like The Snekromancers or Bard snakes and various quality upgrades for some extra money. Looks omega awesome!

Quote From anchorm4n

The third Skelly statue is something I'd really like to unlock as well but I heavily doubt I'll ever manage to do 32 heat. Maybe I'll check out some youtube videos to get a better feeling of what it takes to do this.

Well, I'm a stubborn person when it comes to gaming. Made it to the last boss'es final stage during my first session which was encouraging (despite the direct jump from 16 to 32 heat lol). Then came the weekend and a 4 hours + monster session during which I stood no chance at all until the very last run somewhere around midnight. Suddenly everything clicked: all the right boons, all the high rarity, boom, 32 heat done. Big oof.

Since that's something I'm pretty proud of and I did it with a build of my own instead of popular stuff from the internet (tried Merciful End a few times but couldn't get far with it), I'll add some details here:

Mirror:

• Increased chance of epic boons instead of Duos and Legendaries made a huge difference. You'll see why when I tell you about my build.

Pact:

• Increased enemy movement and attack speed took some experimentation. I've trained a few runs at 40% and then toggled it down to 20% again for the successful final run.
• Time limit and number of additional enemies are tightly interwoven for me. I'm generally capable of doing the 5 minute time limit, but not with additional enemies. So I settled for +20% and 7 minutes. Ironically, on that final perfect run I had lots of time left in the end (more than 7 minutes actually if I remember correctly).
• I've tried deactivating the first few mirror boons but that didn't go well. Instead I've decided to praise Yogg and go with one less option for every choice, my reasoning being that with enough reps I was bound to get lucky at some point. Worked out, took quite some time though.

Build:

• Zagreus Fists - defense is not my strength so I'm glad for the additional evasion chance. Fast button smashing on the offense is fun.
• Zeus on Attack, additional chain lightning.
• Don't even remember the Special, I usually take whatever here... Aphrodite is always nice, might have been Zeus as well.
• Same for the Cast. I like Demeter's laser beams but in general I just shoot whatever I have for the bonus from the mirror and focus on Attack.
• Artemis Call - my favorite by far because of the high damage output. I think I also managed to secure the boon that fills your call-meter faster.
• Athena Dash - I usually take this one or Poseidon's (which is great in the Sartyr tunnels). The final run seems to prove that Athena is actually superior.
• Hammer: more reach and damage on Attack helped keep some distance.
• Hermes speed up and immunity after dash is something I always take.
• Artemis increased chance of crit damage on every attack
• As you can see, I don't need any Duos or legendaries for this and starting out with all the key boons on epic was enough to do the job.

Now what? I still have to grind out the last few trinkets for the platinum trophy. I'll do that without any heat though, I want to enjoy the different weapons now and discover some boon combos I haven't used yet. The one competitive thing left would be to beat the final boss with the extra sequence. So far I've tried once and failed miserably. That was with Merciful End though, so maybe I just need to rebuild my favorite stuff to do it. When all that is done I'll still enjoy the game for its own sake and grind some ressources for all the cool cosmetics and stuff I can buy in the hall. One of my favorite games of all time for sure!

Quote From dapperdog

The most problematic issue will likely be the pricetag because I cant see a world where it stays at 2k gold or 20 bucks.

Especially considering they've just exchanged a few gold drops with packs on the reward track... 

In other words: They didn't have anything else to show. I was really hoping for some quality of life updates.

I wish! Unfortunately I'll have to wait a little longer because I'm a PS5 gamer, I don't have a PC I could play on. Probably better for my wallet :D

I've heard the currently released Hades 2 version is already bigger than Hades 1?! Did you enjoy it so far?

Got kissed by Yogg and pulled some insanely lucky boons in Hades 1 this weekend, beating the game on 16 heat for the first time. Now I only have to level all the trinkets to max to earn my first ever Platinum trophy 😍 The third Skelly statue is something I'd really like to unlock as well but I heavily doubt I'll ever manage to do 32 heat. Maybe I'll check out some youtube videos to get a better feeling of what it takes to do this.

Other than that only Hearthstone. Wild legend is in the bag as of Saturday, I still don't like the current meta game. Standard is more fun at the moment, starships are pretty cool :-)

I got pretty lucky when it comes to legendaries, only had to craft 1 of them so far (8 hands). Epics were another story and the preorder signature probably won't see use or even get dusted. All in all very happy with the haul as well as with the expansion so far. They've hit the right spot regarding the power level this time imho.

Quick update:

• Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galuye starts like a crime solving mystery but quickly goes philosophical, questioning the nature of reality itself. Unfortunately the protagonist takes quite a bit to catch up with that twist. It was very interesting to see how the author imagined the future to look like though. 3/5 stars
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin is a slow paced, moving story that takes a close look at what sex and gender mean to us as individuals and as a society. I found lots of warmth on that frozen planet called Winter. 4/5 stars

I've got to say I'm concerned about Wild. If Treasure Distributor is killed, the meta will slow down even more - a process that has started with the nerf to Secret Passage. The result will not be an utopia of "reasonable" aggro decks, some midrange stuff and control being viable. Instead, we'll find ourselves in a hellscape made of Reno tech piles and turbo combo. We're already seeing the light version of this with decks like Charge Druid (thankfully, this will probably die tonight), Spell Damage Druid, QL Demon Hunter (sometimes with Il'gynoth), Warsong Warrior (super underrated deck) and Reno Priest/Shaman. Those will all get better when aggro gets toned down. And it doesn't help that Seedlock will receive a new toy upon expansion release either. So yeah, I hope you guys are right and they only shave off 1 HP from Distributor.

As a hyper-engaged player I really dislike these, especially the Tavern Brawl reward pack. I usually hord Standard packs from day 2 of an expansion until the release of the next one, sometimes getting up to 50 of those. That's a huge head start into the new set for free. Getting a pack from the current expansion might be of the same value on the surface, but now the timing is fucked. Late in an expansion cycle these packs are almost worthless for me as I typically already have all the cards I really want by then.

I do like the idea of trying new stuff and being able to get something out of it at the same time... but then I happen to have preordered this time and I'm bad at Arena so those tickets are probably better used in this special Brawl anyway. If the rewards are good and I can build something competitive with my pack openings, I will consider spending gold as well. Rewarding 1 pack per win would be an interesting idea for example.

All that said, it does feel bad for F2P players. Risking their hard earned gold with this is a tall order and they will probably be severely handicapped without a base collection of new cards.

Got another one :)

Decided to skip The Blacktongue Thief for the moment and read The Moon is a harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein instead. The language initially turned me off a bit, as the whole book is written the way the protagonist is speaking. Other than that it was a great read, focusing mostly on politics similar to the Ender’s Shadow series by Orson Scott Card. Exciting till the very end, if partly a little predictable. Enjoyable, easy lecture.
Last month I got a little bonus at work and I used part of it to treat me with a few sci-fi books. I’ll report back on each of them!

DK is almost dead in Wild. I have recently had some success with Even Rainbow DK (got 11x in August and day 1 legend in September), but if you look at meta reports, there usually isn't a single DK deck to be found on them. The card base just isn't big enough yet to create the hyper synergies you need to survive in Wild sadly. Your only shot is to create something that is good at targetting meta decks (like Even DK is very good at beating board based Aggro [Shadow Priest and Pirate DH]).