I decided to log on to Hearthstone last night for kicks to see what's new. I've been completely out of the loop for forever. Upon my return I was greeted with a new card in my collection.
Whoa! Making a 3/4 copy of an existing card will definitely be dangerous!
It's also pretty mind-blowing how really deep the PvE content has become in this game. There seems to be a ton of things to do now outside of PvP, including this newer set of challenges called the Boomsday Project.
Look at all that content I've never played through on the right hand side . . . wow!
Basically the Boomsday Project is a gauntlet of "puzzles" where you are given a hand of cards and an objective. The ones I tried last night were labeled the lethal challenges . . . and they were at the top of the list. I see what you did there, Blizzard!
Sounds pretty straight forward . . .
What I liked about this was how it tapped into that feeling in Hearthstone where you know you have a really good combo of cards in your hand, but you just can't see it. These challenges are all about that -- in what order do I play these cards to finish the job in one round?
Things start out easy enough . . .
There was a moment when I was facing the 8/9 challenge for the Poisoner where I thought, pffft, I should just search this up on the Internet, but really, what fun is that? That just ruins the purpose of the challenge, which I believe is to make noobs like me a better Hearthstone player.
Thanks for doing all the set up work for me. LOL.
. . . and then there's just silly things like puzzle 9/9 where you just play a card and watch the ultimate destruction happen on the board. After getting past 8/9, I kinda feel like this is your reward.
By the end of the night I was starting to get sleepy while playing through the challenges. That's one thing I'll say about these, they're not very "exciting" challenges. It's more strategic and accesses a part of my brain that, by the end of the night, just wants to shut down on me.
That said, I summoned the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, so there's that at least . . .
I look forward to playing through more of these Hearthstone challenges; I just need to do them at a different time of day so I'm not so sleepy. :)
Hey all! Let's talk games! (Just a quick catch up post for this morning!)
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Minecraft
It happened again!
I destroyed that big bad Ender Dragon in Minecraft again, and . . . it'll probably happen at least one more time.
My youngest son was asleep when I defeated this dragon, and I didn't think much of it at the time. Unfortunately when I told him about it after he woke up, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. "WHY DO I ALWAYS MISS THE COOL STUFF WHEN IT HAPPENS!" Yeah, apparently this is the second time he's missed my defeat of the Ender Dragon.
*claps hands together* AGAIN!
It's ok . . . I know what to do, and THIS time when I fight him, I'm going in STRONG!
(Hehe, you just know I'm going to end up losing all my gear and using ladders and death after death to punch those stupid tower gems.)
NO! This time, it's going to be epic.
Question. Would anyone be interested in watching a Twitch stream of me playing a game of Minecraft from beginning to "The end"? I haven't Twitch streamed in quite a while, but it could be fun?
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Wizard101
Brecken (aka Morgrim aka The Art of Warlord) returned from her long bout of Internet outage and is back for the attack. Here are episodes 6 and 7 of our Let's Play for your viewing entertainment.
(Episode 8 is to release shortly and Episode 9 is in the wings. :))
Team Spode continues to fight the bad guys of DC Universe Online -- it's what we do. There was a brand new duo added with some great gear in Episode 21 that is all the rage now with the team. It'd be a good one for me to do a YouTube on. Stay tuned.
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DOTA 2
I've once again been playing DOTA 2 on and off with my significant other and a neighbor. I seem to have moved away from The Beastmaster and Lycan . . . these days I'm favoring Phoenix and (strangely enough) Medusa, who apparently is a very hard "carry" to play. Honestly, I play her more like a strong support. /shrug . . . you know me . . . I'm kind of a MOBA newb.
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Hearthstone
I got the Valentine's Day Back! woot!
Kinda bummed I took a break from the game and missed out on a few the past couple of months, but I've only been playing a few short matches a day lately to keep up . . . anyway, there's still plenty of fun to be had in Hearthstone.
~~
And that's all I've got this morning, but I wanted to take some time and resurface here on the blog to say hello and give you a brief overview of what I've been up to. Feel free to say hello in the comments and let me know what you've been up to as well.
Also . . . if you have any game or topic you'd like me to hit on, let me know as well!
(p.s. I don't have any Galvanic Hammer Codes to give out. Sorry!)
Last night my wife turned to me and just said . . . "Yay, Blaugust is over." ;) (Did I drive her crazy with my obsessive compulsive need to post and think about blogging?) Strangely, I still feel the need to post something. Oh habits!
Just wanted to do a quick catch up on Hearthstone.
I finished Naxxramas!
And that means I now have a few more beautiful cards in my inventory. Check 'em out:
I gotz me a lich and a couple o' zombies! Oh, it was a hard fought battle, but . . . with patience . . . I finally got that K to the T.
I still have the class challenges to finish (and of course the heroic mode *shudder*), but I've already begun using my "Friendly Necromancer" build in hearthstone. Um, it needs work. The problem with thematic decks is that they usually lack a few basic cards that really rock. It's more "fun" than it is "functional." eh? Although it did net me a number of wins in the tail end of the season so I could hit rank 20 for my card back in ranked play.
I'll post more about my build in the next few days as I firm up my deck.
Hey all! Just wanted to give you a quick update on Hearthstone today. I'm continuing my quest for more cards to build my Friendly Necromancer deck in Hearthstone. As you know, I laid down some money the other day to buy the Curse of Naxxramas adventure. I've had a lot of fun playing it an hour here and an hour there, and I've managed to complete three of the wings so far. Looks like good ol' Patchwerk is up to bat next.
It feels like using a facehunter-esque build (I don't have the cards to build a true facehunter) or a ramp druid build have actually been working very well for me. I switched to Mage a few times here and there as well when the druid just wasn't cutting it.
I haven't been reading guides to be honest. That's kind of how I like to play anyway . . . if I can avoid looking at a guide I will, but when it gets too punishing, I crumble. ;)
Speaking of crumbling. Mexina crumbled to me and coughed up this bad boy card!
Now that's what I'm talking about! There's a card with some bite! ahHA! ahHAHAHAHA! Ok, my jokes aren't nearly as funny as Naxx's jokes. I try to screenshot them every time I win. Like this:
'NOTH' HIS DAY! THE PUNS!!
. . . and why when I die, don't I come back as Super Saiyan Stingite!
It's gotta be tough being Naxx. ;)
Also of important note . . . that whole Grand Tournament thing happened this week. Sigh. Can I just say I'm not happy about the Joust mechanic? Not that it's horribly broken or anything (although I've got a friend who just refuses to use it), it's just . . . seriously, I lose like every joust, which makes this card a little less attractive to me for my Friendly Necromancer deck:
Although, just the *chance* at better card drawn when you're card starved is worth it.
Wish me luck on those last two wings of normal difficulty of Naxxramas!
Whispers silently into the printer (this is where they keep the secret microphone) "Dear Blizzard, if you give me a Legendary card in Hearthstone, I'll convert to a paying customer!"
WELL WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT! It's Leeroy Jenkins! LOL! From what I understand, this particular legendary was overused back in the original game . . . like Dr. Boom overused, but what do I know? I'm a just a noobie here to feed the wins in Ranked and Arena.
Sigh.
OK, since I promised. Blizzard, here, take my money. GAH!
As I will say to my friend Leala when I see her online, "I hate this stupid freaking game...," right before I begin a long session of play. It's definitely a love/hate relationship, because . . . CONFOUND YOU, NUB WRECKER!
First they give me Leeroy Jenkins and then they pit me against Anub'Rekhan the noob wrecker?! It's like the game is encouraging me to make a Facehunter build!
Ok, Hearthstone . . . we're gonna dance! Those deathrattle cards will be mine, and I will construct my friendly necromancer! MUHAHAHAHAHA!
(I think I just shifted alignments . . . neutral evil?)
So, I like Necromancers, um, obviously. If there is a necromancer choice in a game, it's a good chance I've tried it or it's my main class I play. I'm the Friendly Necromancer after all. (So many "Duhs" were just whispered.)
Yesterday I asked the people around me which they thought would be more of a Necromancer-based class in Hearthstone, a Priest or a Warlock and the quick vote was with Warlock.
I can see that -- especially with all the demon summoning and sacrificing life for cards going on with Warlocks. There's even a "Drain Life" card that deals 2 damage and restores 2 health, but a Warlock is more about the demons than the undead. It's a slight difference. Some might argue the nature of the spells are different as well.
Priests on the other hand have their "Shadow" side, which is what I was thinking. spells like "Shadow Word: Pain," "Shadow Word: Death," "Thoughtsteal," "Cabal Shadow Priest," and "Mindcontrol."
So it's an interesting question. The Internet gave me a third option: Shaman. This build focuses on spells like "Reincarnate," and "Ancenstral Spirit" and "Feral Spirit" with a whole lot of Deathrattle.
Any way you slice it though, it looks like the best way to get Necromancer-esque cards is to play through the Curse of Naxxramas PvE Adventure, where (as it states on the description in the shop) The Lich Kel-Thuzad awaits within. OH NO, YOU DIDN'T JUST SAY LICH TO ME!
I need Zombie Chow like yesterday. How many times have I been destroyed by the Stalagg/Feugen combo (at least a couple)? Lich! All these great cards are available in the Naxxramas adventure if you can make you're way through it.
(Sidenote, speaking of Naxxramas cards, I found another "Polymorph" type of card from Hearthstone . . . Majordomo Executus -- when it deathrattles, your hero becomes Ragnaros.)
To be honest, ever since seeing this particular adventure, I've wanted to play through it. The question is, do I want to earn it with Gold (which, yikes, 700 gold per wing) or just buy it. It's only $24.99, and I'm sure I'll get the value out of it. As my character sometimes says in Hearthstone, "Hmmm, what to do, what to do."
. . . I'm pretty sure you all know I'm going to cave and buy it, especially when I don't have a lot of time to play Hearthstone all day long. (I've been struggling to find game time with Blaugust going on as well, hehe.)
So, leave your thoughts if you could.
1- What do you think is the most "Necromancer'y" of the three choices: Priest, Warlock, or Shaman
2- Do you have any other ideas about building a Necromancer deck?
3- I should just cave and buy this outright, right? I've heard such good things about these adventures, and I haven't given Blizzard money since Diablo 3 (which reminds me . . . I wanted to try out the Diablo 3 expansion)
So yesterday over in the Marketing section of KingsIsle there was a gauntlet thrown down and a challenge made to see who the champion of Hearthstone would be in the group. Quite simply put, the Cavernshark is easily the best player among us with the most advanced cards, so I fully expect him to rise to the top -- but you never know who on this fateful day might have . . . THE HEART OF THE CARDS, BABY!
Today at lunch (or over the next couple of days) we're going to try a double elimination tournament style battle to see who rises to the top in the "Smack ya Dead Marketing" tournament.
I was quite happy to find the challonge.com website to quickly set this one up! After landing here from a lucky search of the Internet, I remembered seeing at least one of these tournaments pop up over on Pirate101 Central. I think Fiesty Orange had set one up.
Anyway, I like the simplicity of the Challonge style, but it made me think about what other bracket making apps or sites are out there that I could have created our little tournament with. If I do one of these in the future and the participants of the tournament don't bonk me on the head for revealing it to the world, we may want to do another one of these in the future . . . maybe with dare I say . . . MORE participants?! Dun dun dun!
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Further searching showed these sites:
Brackets Ninja -- I like that this one looks like you can have a colorful background and use Facebook integration to invite your friends.
Print Your Brackets -- This looks like simply something you'll use to print and hang on a wall. A simple 5 person double elimination print out would have done nicely as well, plus put us in more control over who would go first out of the five. This site also seems like a nice one with some stock "pool" brackets for standard sporting tournaments. Not my scene, but probably good for people who like to "make it interesting."
Tournamentscheduler.net -- Simple interface, but limited to round robin tournaments. This kind of looks like it'd be perfect for scheduling up kids basketball tournaments. *shwoosh*
Binary Beast -- On the surface this looks like an eSports heaven. One look at the bottom tells you that Starcraft, League, and all kinds of gamers use this site. It's probably solid, and it looks donation driven, like most of the other tournament creation sites. Um, the FAQ is super honest: "I have next to zero programming knowledge, so please be patient with our FAQ page"
KonKuri -- This looks to be a paid service . . . but only when you're ready to actually activate the tournament.
. . . there's a ton more, in fact App Crawler pinned down 57 unique apps for iOS devices (and 34 more for Android) that will make tournaments in one way or another.
It's actually kind of mind blowing to see how many tournament creation pages are out there, and I'm very interested in hearing your successes with using these or other Tournament pages! Please leave me a comment below and tell me what you use and what you like about it.
So, I'm going to be real here and step outside of my Angus shoes. I was overjoyed to discover polymorph treasure cards were the answer to Angus's woes in Celestia, but if I take a step back and think about this as Joe Schmo wizard, Polymorphs seem to be a hotly contested problem.
Flash33 is probably the greatest expert on Polymorph magic there is in Wizard101. His guide is Angus's bible for Moon Magic. He pretty much sums up what most players think about these "useless" spells:
"you lose your stats you had before"
"they're useless in pvp"
"oh, I can't attack head-on in some of them"
His post specifically goes over the hidden back-end mechanics (definitely not found on the cards themselves, which adds to the confusion) that make these cards special and how to use them.
For the new Polymorphs, I'm going to look to Duelist101's guide here.
Over time, unfortunately I think the case gets even worse for Polymorphs and Moon magic. We now have access to Mastery Amulets, which we didn't have in Celestia. Personally, it feels like that was probably the death nail for many of these cards. Why turn into a Treant if I can heal much more effectively with a simple gear swap or in my everyday gear? With the ability to crest 80% resistance with gear now and without adding weakness to another class simultaneously, why use them? They are fun. (who doesn't like throwing a taco at a mob while polymorphed as a Gobbler) They are unique. (you definitely don't see a lot of these being cast out there.) . . . but I think I'd add one more bullet to Flash's list of anti-poly hate:
They haven't aged well due to advances in player gear
On the plus side, they're fantastic for lower level players as treasure cards and for those who are tragically under-geared at every level! :)
ANGUS, ANGUS, ANGUS!
~~
Let's shift gears over to Hearthstone and take a look at this game's single and unique "polymorph" as it were:
Lord Jaraxxus
This video does a great job of showing the power that comes to play here. It *can* be a great finisher, it's a risky move, but opens up tons of potential power to end a game.
As noted on this wiki page, it does have its counters:
Repentance: Reduces Jaraxxus' health to 1 instantly
Snipe: Deals 4 damage to Jaraxxus instantly
Sacrificial Pact: Destroys Jaraxxus
Mirror Entity: Summons a 3/15 Lord Jaraxxus minion
Blingtron 3000 / Harrison Jones / Acidic Swamp Ooze: Destroys Blood fury
Extremely rarely, Sylvanas Windrunner can steal the Lord Jaraxxus minion before its Battlecry is triggered, causing the other player to become Jaraxxus. This can happen for example if the player has Knife juggler and Illidan Stormrage on the board, and then plays Jaraxxus. Playing Jaraxxus will cause a Flame of Azzinoth to be summoned, triggering Knife Juggler; if the knife hits and kills Sylvanas, her Deathrattle will have a chance to steal Lord Jaraxxus. Jaraxxus can similarly be destroyed by Deathrattle effects such as those of multiple Abominations.
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Of course, there are some very key differences between game play in Hearthstone and Wizard101. They are completely different beasts in many aspects, but what I like about Lord Jaraxxus is that
1- It sets your life to a new (low) maximum and acts as a heal, you can never shift back.
2- It breaks you free from stuns, so casting it is more than just an expensive shift with no utility.
3- You still play your deck, but you have a new power available to you with extreme high efficiency.
4- There are counters
5- It's a finisher.
~~
While Angus is going to get some great mileage out of Polymorphs in Celestia, I don't envy the next designer who's tasked to make one (if that ever happens, shifts are the new hotness for moon magic). If it were me, I'd make the next Polymorphs much more deadly and efficient (think BIG SPELLS for LOW COST), make the health and resists much lower, add an instant taunt effect from using it, and cause the effect of the Polymorph to be near permanent.
Basically, much more risk for much more reward and turn it into an expert card. You'd be deadly, but you've got to know how and when to use it or you're left with your head spinning.
It's kind of weird how a bad night of gaming can just throw you off. I had one of those the night before last. First, I got discouraged by the gold sink required to craft the Tempered Spinal Blades back piece. I tried to explain this to one of my friends in Guild Chat and why I'm doing it . . .
But what I talk about there doesn't even cover the cost of crafting all the other back pieces that led to this piece:
When I looked back at all the time and effort I was spending creating this thing, I don't know . . . I just kind of got depressed. At that particular moment two days ago, it just didn't feel worth it, and I got discouraged, and this was after I had already completed my Gift of Blades! I think the real kicker for me was the feeling of futility from buying watchwork sprockets and doing this:
Buying those sprockets and dumping them in the mystic forge . . . dunno, it was a weird feeling. I can't quite call it anger. I can't quite call it sadness . . . it's just a game after all . . . I can't quite call it nerd rage.
I shall call it the feeling of, "meh."
THEN, I had a huge string of defeats in the new Tavern Brawl in Hearthstone. LOL.
I haven't built up a ton of cards, and I have very very few legendary cards, so when I'm forced to build my own deck instead of say the awesomeness of the last couple of weeks where the Tavern Brawl put people on equal footing . . . I don't know, there's just more defeats for a chump like me. This also left me with said feeling of "meh."
~~
Last night, however, was an OK night (can't really call it a "great night"). First, I actually hooked up the Atari and played some Adventure. I ain't kidding. I was actually kind of surprised that my cartridge was in such good condition. The whole reason I loaded it up is because my son asked me to. I think he might have seen it at Classic Game Fest and got interested. That worked for me because it also kicked him off Guild Wars 2, so dad could play. I eventually returned after he beat his head against the second level of difficulty and showed him the old pro's ways of running the chalice to the gold castle in all three levels of difficulty. *smacks hands together* If an old game of Adventure can't break the "meh," then I don't know what can!
In Guild Wars 2 I took myself back up to 13 gold from my poverty levels of "99 silver and some chewing gum," and continued on my futile quest for the tempered spinal blades (did I happen to mention there's another two stages of evolution for these Spinal Blades? Such a gold sink. I don't know if I can keep going.)
And any time I can help down the Teq and get some easy loot . . . I'm in!
I also hopped over to Wizard101 and harvested several gardens and got gobs and gobs of loot. As I said a few days ago, it's just pure happiness seeing all that loot.
I was also super happy I got to crash through the first part of Darkmoor with some quality people yesterday (*fives* to my friends--you know who you are) and will probably have my Krulhu spell here very soon . . . like today soon.
Finally, Hearthstone was treating me well again and I managed to win a couple more Tavern Brawls before calling it a night while watching some Twitch to wind down.
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What's the moral of the story? Well, there really isn't one . . . i'm just trying to make a Blaughust post for the day. LOL.
Ok, I'll at least try to shoot for a moral of the story: I think it just comes down to attitude and variety really. For grindy stuff like the blades, if something isn't really working, you need to just step away and try again another day. That's usually how it works in MMOs anyway. Having friends to rant to and gain insight from is also a definite plus.
I don't know, Hearthstone really is about getting some luck with your draws mixed with having great cards. Playing your strengths (or at least a strong build) while earning and crafting those rare and legendary cards is probably your best bet. (Thanks Cavernshark for your infinite gobs of Hearthstone wisdom you dispense to me.)
Hope you all have a great day of gaming and keep your chin up! There's going to be good days and bad. Just keep playing.
