Fall is finally here, what with the cold weather in like a beast.  I was thinking we might get a little longer of those super hot days, but hey, it was good while it lasted. This weekend was a fishing weekend with some hockey buddies.  Water was a little cold but there’s nothing like a canoe in a lake, surrounded by fall colours.

It was a nice mental break from work, though the overcast sun and about 10 hours of paddling did drain the batteries a fair bit.  Still, a lot of laughs, some amazing food and great company.  That’s the way it should be.  I’ve had my share of the awkward times with folk you really don’t need to be around.  Those days be done.  A cigar, a beer, and a big campfire.  That’s the life.

Wildstar

6 days after the relaunch and I can’t get past the character selection screen.  Either the login queue is hours long, or it fails to load the world afterwards. How very interesting.  I can only imagine how frustrating it is over with Carbine.  Too many people want to give them money (or at least look at their product) and they aren’t able to get them through the door.  Makes for bad conversion rates.  Good news is that it’s a quality product, and maybe with a better price point, it can have some “stickyness” to it.

There’s bound to be a point where I’ll be able to play again.  And hopefully this influx of new players will fill the coffers enough to get some new content in the game in short order.

Diablo 3

I fooled around with the Witch Doctor a bit more, filled out a few more pieces.  I think the power curve in this game is solid, in that the jumps don’t feel absolutely insane.  There’s a clear progression, with T6 being the “sweet spot” for most casual players.  The amount of time between those spots is where patch 2.3 has had the largest impact.  Item acquisition is twice as fast as before, what with the Cube as a viable option.  Mind you, on my WD, Kadala has been the lucky one for me, with the cube really only decent for set swaps.  Guess that’s what happens when there are so many items available for a class.

I’ve tweaked the play a bit as well, learning how to weave specific spells in the rotation.  Wall of Death and Zombie Bears have an interesting dynamic.  The former causes you to run when casting, the latter has clipping issues if you’re not positioned correctly.  Getting both to work in a given spot is some fancy footwork.

I also tried a chicken build, where you run at near 150% movement speed for 15s at a time, with next to no cooldown.  It makes speed clears something impressive, slightly ahead of the Monk when taking down groups.

I was able to get a few legendary gems leveled up, enough to give me enough juice to do T8 reliably well.  It’s really telling how those gems drastically impact the power curve.  I could feel the progress in each greater rift I did along the line, making clears that much easier.

As for the Monk, I tried fishing  a few rifts to clear a GR60 but never got anything decent enough.  Caves and ghosts have my number I guess.