Thursday, February 28, 2013

Brawler's Pub

I have had a Brawler's Pub membership in WoW since it came out pretty much. I beat the first fight and lost the second fight several times then stopped doing it.

When my wife was bored, she would go down to the Brawler's Pub and watch everyone fight. She would also be nice enough to rez the people who fell in battle. Last night she decided to buy an invitation.

We spent a couple of hours taking on bosses. We are both rank two currently and on the Aarakoa boss. My wife died quickly in both of her attempts to tornadoes. I almost got him on my first try, but still ended up dying.

The funny thing is that we had a ton of fun. My wife is doing it to eventually get the pet. I am doing it for mostly the same reason.

We grouped up with a couple of other people from other realms, cheered each other on, rezzed each other when we died, and buffed each other up. It is that kind of team work that I have missed in the pugs of the last couple of years. I even got an achivement for /cheering at someone who won a match.

If you have decent gear and want to try something a little different, the Brawler's Pub may just be that thing.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Free Black Ops 2 weeked on PC+ Double XP

As the title says, you can download and play Black Ops 2 for free this weekend on Steam. If you want to play some BO2 with me, hit me up.

If you decide you want to buy it, you will have a nice head start because of the double xp weekend. You can go through several prestiges in a weekend with double xp if you play a decent amount.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Well hello there!

I have not been doing a lot of posting lately. Not because I have not been playing video games. I just have not really felt much like writing anything. I have however been fairly busy in video games.

In WoW, we have gotten a decent amount of stuff done. We have done Sha of Anger several times (my wife is the new raid master apparently), a few Heroics, and some leveling. We have a couple of our characters up to 89 and we have out Monks just about ready for Cata content.

We have also been running the holliday boss daily without even sniffing a mount. My wife however has gotten several of the toxic wastelings.

Last night we did something fun and unexpected. We went to Ulduar. It was a lot of fun and we piled up a ton of achievments. I got a pair of shoulders, a shield, and the mace that looks like a planet for transmog purposes. We didnt get started until a bit later, so we stopped after Mimiron and will take on Yogg and the other boss probably tonight.

Not being incredibly familiar with Ulduar, we ended up killing Algalon 4th out of all of the bosses or something like that.

I really enjoy running these raids for extra achievements. I got to over 9000 achievement points last night, but did not get that "Over 9000 achievement". I wonder if they took it out or turned it to a feat of strength for people who got it a while back.

I have also been playing a lot of BO2 and leveling up some of assault rifles to try and get gold on them. I am very close to getting gold on the Scorpion SMG and the Kap pistol as well.

What have you been up to in your gaming worlds?

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

New Diablo 3 Patch

Last night I had planned on playing a bit of D3, but changed my mind and played BO2 instead. The patch has a decent number of changes, added dueling (brawling), and made crafting better for getting yourself upgrades. That said, it is not a GREAT patch.....unless you are a Monk who got buffed out the wazoo. Here are the notes.

PTR Patch 1.0.7 - v.1.0.7.14456




Patch Features



New Feature: Brawling

For those who wish to test their mettle against fellow Nephalem, your time has come. Players will now be able to duel one another in a new zone designed specifically for this style of combat. This zone can be accessed by speaking with Nek the Brawler located at the inn in New Tristram, and supports 2 to 4 players in a Free-For-All format.



To learn more about brawling, click here!





General



•Nephalem Valor stacks will now persist through Acts



•Base pick-up radius for all characters has been increased from 1.5 yards to 3 yards



•The resurrection timer will no longer increase if a player is killed multiple times in a row



•Players should no longer play a flinching animation (causing them to briefly lose control of their character) if they are hit by multiple monsters at the same time



•The experience bonus rewarded for killing monsters on Monster Power levels 1-10 in Inferno has been increased:



•MP 1: 25% (up from 10%)



•MP 2: 50% (up from 20%)



•MP 3: 80% (up from 30%)



•MP 4: 120%(up from 45%)



•MP 5: 165% (up from 60%)



•MP 6: 215% (up from 75%)



•MP 7: 275% (up from 95%)



•MP 8: 340% (up from 115%)



•MP 9: 420% (up from 135%



•MP 10: 510% (up from 160%)



•When resuming a game, players will now be placed in town instead of at the last known checkpoint (a portal will be available to take you to your last known checkpoint, if desired)





Achievements



Bug Fixes

•Subjugators now count towards the achievements "We are Champions" and "Champion's Collection" Rare Colossal Golgors will now count towards the "Rare Kill" achievements



Auction House



User Interface

•Cancelled PayPal auctions will now display a UI error

Bug Fixes

•Stash Tab Art will now properly update when viewed in the Auction House



Battle.net



General

•Monster Power is now available for Public Games



•Players can now select their desired Monster Power level from a drop-down when joining Public Games provided that the “Enable Monster Power” box has been checked in the Options menu



•“Report Botting” has been added to the right-click > report player menus



•The Battle.net UI now displays how many players are online





Bosses



General

•Izual is now included in the list of bosses that grant an extra reward when you have 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor, and the overall reward for killing him has been increased



Classes





Barbarian





•Bug Fixes



•Threatening Shout – Grim Harvest should no longer cause monsters to drop loot multiple times



Demon Hunter





•Bug Fixes



•The Reflects Damage affix will now properly reflect damage caused by Bola Shot



Monk





•Active Skills



•Cyclone Strike



•Weapon damage increased from 100% to 313%

•Dashing Strike



•Weapon damage increased from 160% to 303%

•Exploding Palm



•Explosion damage increased from 30% to 50% of the target’s maximum health

•Inner Sanctuary



•Radius increased from 8 yards to 11 yards

•Skill Rune – Forbidden Palace



•Damage bonus increased from 10% to 15%

•Skill Rune – Sanctified Ground



•Now reduces enemy movement speed by 80% (up from 60%)

•Lashing Tail Kick



•Weapon damage increased from 235% to 470%

•Mystic Ally



•The amount of damage a Mystic Ally can take from a single hit is now capped

•The cap scales with the player's level, and is further reduced by the player's Armor and Resistance

•Skill Rune – Eternal Ally



•Weapon Damage increased from 40% to 60%

•The Eternal Ally now has a 100% chance to be reborn after 3 seconds (up from 50% and down from 5 seconds)

•Skill Rune – Fire Ally



•The cooldown of the Fire Ally’s special attack has been reduced from 8 seconds to 4 seconds

•Skill Rune – Water Ally



•The Water Ally’s special attack now reduces enemy movement speed by 60% (up from 30%)

•The cooldown of the Water Ally’s special attack has been reduced from 8 seconds to 4 seconds

•Sweeping Wind



•Base weapon damage increased from 15% to 20% per stack

•Skill Rune – Blade Storm



•Weapon damage increased from 20% to 26% per stack

•Skill Rune – Cyclone



•Weapon damage increased from 20% to 26% per stack

•Tempest Rush



•Weapon Damage increased from 85% to 155%

•Wave of Light



•Weapon damage increased from 390% to 829%

•Follow-up weapon damage increased from 390% to 829%

•Skill Rune - Explosive Light



•Weapon damage increased from 430% to 914%

•Skill Rune - Pillar of the Ancients



•Now deals 595% weapon damage followed by an additional 595% weapon damage after 2 seconds (up from 280% weapon damage)

•Passive Skills



•Near Death Experience



•Dying will now reset the cooldown

•Bug Fixes



•Fixed an issue where Sweeping Wind was not actively updating its damage and attributes from the player

•Cyclones generated by Sweeping Wind should now travel roughly in the same direction that the player is facing



Witch Doctor





•Active Skills



•Spirit Barrage



•Skill Rune – Well of Souls



•The secondary missiles fired by this rune can now hit the primary target



Wizard





•Active Skills



•Arcane Orb



•Weapon damage increased from 175% to 200%

•Skill Rune – Obliteration



•Weapon damage increased from 228% to 260%

•Blizzard



•Weapon damage increased from 210% to 510% over 6 seconds

•Proc coefficient increased from 0.01 to 0.0125

•Skill Rune – Grasping Chill



•Proc coefficient increased from 0.01 to 0.0125

•Skill Rune – Frozen Solid



•Proc coefficient increased from 0.01 to 0.0125

•Skill Rune – Stark Winter



•Proc coefficient increased to from 0.005 to 0.0125

•Skill Rune – Snowbound



•Proc coefficient increased to from 0.01 to 0.0125

•Skill Rune – Unrelenting Storm



•Weapon damage increased from 280% to 680%

•Shock Pulse



•Weapon damage increased from 105% to 150%

•Proc coefficient increased from 0.667 to 0.8

•Skill Rune – Fire Bolts



•Weapon damage increased from 152% to 195%

•Proc coefficient increased from 0.667 to 0.8

•Skill Rune – Explosive Bolts



•Weapon damage increased from 70% to 105%

•Proc coefficient increased from 0.5 to 0.8

•Skill Rune – Lightning Affinity



•Proc coefficient increased from 0.667 to 0.8

•Skill Rune – Living Lightning



•Weapon damage increased from 37% to 52%

•Passive Skills



•Critical Mass



•Critical Mass now affects the cooldowns of Archon: Teleport and Archon: Slow Time while in Archon Form

•Temporal Flux



•Now reduces enemy movement speed by 60% for 3 seconds (up from 30% and 2 seconds)

•Unstable Anomaly



•Now activates upon receiving fatal damage (changed from when a player is reduced below 30% Life)

•Dying will now reset the cooldown

•Bug Fixes



•Blizzard Critical Hits now correctly have a chance to proc Arcane Power on Crit

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Crafting



General

•A new crafting reagent, Demonic Essence, has been added to the game



•This reagent is account-bound and can be acquired from Elite monsters and bosses in Inferno difficulty



•Major in-game events that grant a stack of Nephalem Valor when completed now also have a chance to drop Demonic Essence



•Nephalem Valor will not be required in order for Demonic Essences to drop



•However, each level of Monster Power will increase the drop chance of Demonic Essence from Elites and bosses according to the following values:



•MP 0: 15.0000%

•MP 1: 16.5000%

•MP 2:18.1500%

•MP 3: 19.9650%

•MP 4: 21.9615%

•MP 5: 24.1577%

•MP 6: 26.5734%

•MP 7: 29.2308%

•MP 8: 32.1538%

•MP 9: 35.3692%

•MP 10: 38.9061%

•The drop rate for Blacksmithing Plans and Jeweler Designs has been increased by 400%



Blacksmith

•Four Rare recipes have been added to the Blacksmith: Archon Spaulders (Shoulders), Archon Gauntlets (Gloves), Archon Armor (Chest Armor), Razorspikes (Bracers)



•Each crafted item will have the following characteristics:



•iLevel 63

•6 Affixes

•Account-bound

•Similar to the Hellfire Ring, it will have four variants, each guaranteeing a fixed core stat which will have the highest range available in the game

•The values for several of the fixed core stats have been increased:



•Archon Spaulders:



•Dexterity, Intellect, and Vitality can now roll 201-230 in their respective stat (up from 100-115)

Strength could already roll in this range, and so remains unchanged



•Archon Gauntlets:



•Strength and Vitality can now roll 201-230 in their respective stat (up from 100-115) Dexterity and Intellect could already roll in this range, and so remained unchanged

•Archon Armor:



•Strength, Dexerity, and Intellect can now roll 201-230 in their respective stat (up from 101-115)

•Razorspikes:



•Strength, Dexeterity, Intellect, and Vitality can now roll 201-230 in their respective stat (up from 101-115)

•Crafting the item will require 1 Demonic Essence (other reagent costs will vary per recipe)



•The Rare and Magic reagent costs for Archon Gloves and Razorspikes have been updated:



•Archon Gloves



•Now require 20 Iridescent Tears (instead of 50 Exquisite Essences)

•Razorspikes



•Now require 30 Exquisite Essence (instead of 25 Iridescent Tears)

Jeweler

•A new Rare recipe has been added to the Jeweler for an Amulet



•This amulet will have the following characteristics:



•iLevel 63

•6 Affixes

•Account-bound

•Similar to the Hellfire Ring, it will have four variants, each guaranteeing a fixed core stat which will have the highest range available in the game

•Crafting the item will require the 1 Demonic Essence as well as:



•100,000g

•1 Perfect Square Gem (varied depending on which core stat you select)

•1 Fiery Brimstone

•A new tier of account-bound gems of has been added to the game: Marquise



•Marquise Gems stats are as follows:



•Marquise Emerald



•Weapon: Increased Critical Hit Damage by 110%

•Helm: +33% Extra Gold from Monsters

•Armor: +62 Dexterity

•Marquise Topaz



•Weapon: Melee attackers take 2500 per hit

•Helm: 33% Better chance of finding magical items

•Armor: +62 Intelligence

•Marquise Amethyst



•Weapon: Each Hit adds +700 Life

•Helm: +19% Life

•Armor: +62 Vitality

•Marquise Ruby



•Weapon: +150 Minimum and +150 Maximum Damage

•Helm: Increases Bonus Experience by 33%

•Armor: +62 Strength

•These gems can only be created at the Jeweler and will require the following reagents:



•3 Radiant Star Gems

•20 million gold

•10 Demonic Essence

•Un-socketing Marquise gems will cost 5 million gold



•The designs for the Marquise gems will drop randomly from all level 63 monsters



•Note: The designs are not account-bound



•Radiant Square Rubies, Star Rubies, Flawless Star Rubies, Perfect Star Rubies, and Radiant Star Rubies have had their weapon bonuses increased (these changes will apply to both existing rubies, as well as new rubies):



•(EDIT): The notes in the launcher show values for all lower rubies as well. Can't copy and paste them though.

•Radiant Square Ruby: +40 minimum damage/+40 maximum damage (up from +16/+16)

•Star Ruby: +60 minimum damage/+60 maximum damage (up from +17/+17)

•Flawless Star Ruby: +80 minimum damage/+80 maximum damage (up from +18/+18)

•Perfect Star Ruby: +100 minimum damage/+100 maximum damage (up from +19/+19)

•Radiant Star Ruby: +120 minimum damage/+120 maximum damage (up from +20/+20)

•These rubies have also had their bonus damage calculations changed, and will now add damage flatly to both the minimum and maximum values on weapons

•For example, if you have a weapon that does 150-200 damage and you socket a Perfect Square Ruby (which adds +30 minimum damage/+30 maximum damage), your weapon will do 180-230 damage



•For more information, please click here





Brawling



General

•Demon Hunters, Witch Doctors, and Wizards now receive a 30% damage reduction while in the Scorched Chapel



•Barbarians and Monks receive an additional 5% damage reduction (in addition to the 30% they inherently receive, for a total of 35%) while in the Scorched Chapel



•Note: Barbarians and Monks are receiving an additional 5% reduction due to the fact that they generally need to be closer to their targets (as compared to Demon Hunters, Witch Doctors, and Wizards)

•Nek the Brawler has been evicted from the Slaughtered Calf Inn and now resides alongside your followers in Act I



•He's now also available in the Act II and Act III/Act IV hubs



•A PvP chat channel has been added

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Items



General

•Crafting Plans and Jeweler Designs have been added for all of the new Rare recipes listed above



•These plans (excluding the chest piece) will drop randomly in the world and also have a chance to drop off the following bosses when you have 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor:



•Skeleton King

•Spider Queen

•Maghda

•Zoltun Kulle

•Ghom

•Cydaea

•Rakanoth

•Izual

•The drop rate from the above bosses will now scale according to your Monster Power level:



•MP 0: 20%

•MP 1: 23.2%

•MP 2: 26.912%

•MP 3: 31.218%

•MP 4: 36.213%

•MP 5: 42.007%

•MP 6: 48.728%

•MP 7: 56.524%

•MP 8: 65.568%

•MP 9: 76.059%

•MP 10: 88.228%

•The Archon Armor recipe can be purchased from Squirt the Peddler for 1.5 million gold each



•Please note that neither the Crafting plans nor the Jeweler Design are account-bound



•Holding shift while buying health potions will attempt to purchase 5 potions at once



•Follower items below iLevel 60 will now no longer drop in Inferno



•Goldskin now has a limit on the number of times it can proc on a single target



•Vanishing Dye and All-Soap's Miraculous Dye Remover can now be used on Legendary items



•Hellfire Rings now salvage into Legendary crafting materials



Vendors

•Squirt the Peddler no longer sells Dyes, but (as noted above) will now sell the plans for the Archon Armor recipe for 1.5 million gold each

Bug Fixes

•Goldskin will no longer proc when attacking monsters that drop no loot

•Plans: Staff of Herding can now be dropped on the ground, or sold to a vendor for 0 gold

•All Staves of Herding can now be sold to a vendor for 0 gold

Monsters

•General



•The Reflects Damage affix has been redesigned:



•It will now apply a short duration buff to the monster and will only reflect a percentage of damage dealt back to the player while that buff is active

•A visual effect will display whenever the durational buff is active

•Damage dealt by pets to monster with Reflects Damage affix will no longer be reflected back to the player

•Damage dealt by the Molten affix has been reduced by 40%



•Damage dealt by the Plagued affix has been increased by 120%



•Fallen Lunatics should now detonate in a more consistent manner



•The Triune Berserker before Alcarnus should no longer swing faster after a few attacks



•Keywardens:



•The Act II Keywarden (Sokahr) should now only use its mortar ability in Inferno difficulty

•The Act III Keywarden (Xah’Rith) should now only use its rain of corpses ability in Inferno difficulty

•The Act IV Keywarden (Nekarat) should now only use its earthquake and charge abilities in Inferno difficulty

Bug Fixes

•Rare Sand Dwellers will now spawn in The Forgotten Ruins

•Champion Plague Swarms will now spawn in Cryder’s Outpost

•Champion Fallen Cur will now spawn in The Storm Halls



User Interface



General

•Legendary items now have a new mini-map icon

•This icon should now persist properly and be shown on the mini-map so long as the player is in the same zone as the dropped item

•Note: The icon will only display when Legendary items are dropped by a monster, not a player

Bug Fixes

•Fixed an issue causing the Enable Monster Power option to reset

•Fixed an issue affecting the scroll speed of text

•Vendors will now properly display an Armor tab when you are in an Inferno game with Monster Power set above 0



Bug Fixes



•Fixed an issue where new Hardcore characters were not labeled as Hardcore on the homepage

•Fixed an error that could occur when closing the World of Warcraft client while the Diablo III client was still running

•Players will now be properly removed from both the party and the game session whenever a Vote Kick has passed

•Players will no longer be disconnected from the game whenever vote kicked during a boss encounter

Crafting

•Marquise designs and Archon crafting recipes are now searchable on the Auction House

•Repairing an item with a Marquise gem socketed no longer costs as much gold

Dueling

•Players are now correctly considered "Elites" in PvP and PvE combat

•Players should now be automatically healed and have all active debuffs removed upon leaving the Scorched Chapel

•Followers should no longer become hostile towards players after exiting the Scorched Chapel

•Storm Armor shocks can now be dodged

•Nek the Brawler will no longer die if another player joins or leaves a game while someone is standing near him

•It's no longer possible to have inactive followers providing buffs in duels

Items

•Goldskin's proc will no longer work when in the Scorched Chapel

•The Puzzle Ring's proc will no longer work when in the Scorched Chapel

•The Incense Torch of the Grand Temple and Neanderthal can now drop

Monsters

•Damage reflected back from the Reflects Damage affix should now be capped at 10% of the monster’s current health pool (overkill damage is not considered in the reflect)

•The Reflects Damage visual effect has been improved

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Raid Finder....Not So Bad!

As I said in my previous post, I had planned to possibly do Raid Finder over the weekend since I had not yet done so in this expansion.

I must say that I was quite happy with the result. I rounded up my wife, Fett (who has been having some computer issues when it comes to raids), and my sister and we all queued up for the first half of the first raid.

I must say that it was quite easy. We did not have any issues with any of the bosses and got through it with little to no problem. I got a pair of shoulders that were a downgrade and ended up getting vendored.

We had so much fun on the first half that we decided to do the second half as well. We got through that one quite easily as well with a bit of a snag on the last boss. On our first attempt on the Twins, both myself and the other tank we trying to tank the same mob which led to a wipe.

The second time was slow as shit, but we took it down (the fight still took over 10 minutes).

My wife had a great time and wants to run more of those in the future.

We also finally got a chance at Sha of Anger last night which proved to be nice because I got my tier gloves!

I still need to upgrade a few blue pieces (I will be replacing my belt shortly).

My sister made a video of the first half of our raid and when she posts it online, I will link it on my blog.

Friday, February 8, 2013

To Raid Finder...or not to Raid Finder

This is something I am considering doing with the wifey over the weekend. I have not yet done a raid finder and would like to try it out. Maybe I can get my sister along as well since I am sure she knows all of the fights.

I hate going into Raids as a tank without knowing the fights, but you have to start somewhere, and just reading the strats is rarely the same as doing the fight.

Something a bit funny has happened as of late....my wife has become more a WoW player than me. She wants to play when I generally do not. She does her dailies every day. She wants to run instances. She wants to level our Pandas. It is awesome.....it is just too bad it did not start about 5 years ago :p

So we may be going into uncharted ground for us. Maybe we will even get the entire group together to do the Raid Finder.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Monk Leveling...and a possible glitch?

Last night, my wife and I did our dailies and then got some help from Kev on running through a bunch of instances on our Panda Monks. I went from 62-67 and my wife went from 65-69 during the run.

We ended up running Underbog, Mana Tombs, Auchenai Crypts, Setthek Halls (Heroic), and Shadow Labs (Heroic). We mostly stayed back, but did end up dying a few times in Shadow Labs thanks to stuns on Kev.

As far as the Glitch.....my wife and I noticed that the Enlightenment buff has been stacking past 2 hours. Mine was at 4 hours last night when we started questing. If you have a Monk that you plan to level in the future, I would suggest doing the Enlightenment daily every day for the extra XP boost. Since it keeps on stacking, it will be awesome once you do start leveling.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Rep Grind, Leveling, and the end of The Wheel of Time

Well, let me get to the last part first. I finished the final book of the Wheel of Time series yesterday. It was amazing. If you have read the other books over the years, this book is a must read and I cannot recommend it enough. I have been reading these books off and on for the last 15 or so years. I loved the series and while I am a bit sad that it is all over, I am glad for having read them.

Now, onto the WoW stuff. We have our full group leveling characters. Yes, there are 5 of us running around the World of Warcraft questing together at the same time. 3 of us have just hit 88 and the two ladies are nearly there. It is nice to level as a group, and the kill quests go amazingly fast. It is also awesome for when we come across a rare spawn.

The only concern for me is grinding rep. Seriously. I am almost exalted with the Klaxxi and abou halfway there with the Shado-Pan. I still need to do the August Celestials. I dont want to do the all again, additional rep or not. They either need to fix the rep to make it account bound or they need to not make gear attached to a faction.

It is a major pain in the ass and one of the reasons I do not have a bunch of nineties. I have 10 characters at 85 or higher......that would be a metric shit ton of dailies to get them all geared up. I love my Warrior, but sometimes you just want to play something different. Hell, I would be happy if they brought back tabards as well.