GW2: Living World Season 3, Episode 5: Flashpoint

ArenaNet have officially announced the release of the next episode of Living World Season 3 on May 2nd! I have been waiting for this for weeks as it will have been 12 weeks between the release of episode 4 “Head of the Snake” and episode 5 “Flashpoint”.

If you haven’t seen the trailer for Flashpoint, you can see it here:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/watch-the-trailer-for-flashpoint/

Living World Season 3 started July 26th 2016 with the first episode “Out of Shadows”. All these episodes have been free for everyone who logs into Guild Wars 2 anytime during the period where that episode has been the most recent release. Unfortunately if you’ve missed an episode I’m not sure if you’ll be able to get it before they put it up in the gem store for purchase like they did with Living World Season 2.

These episodes have each been released with a new area for you to explore. Some of these areas provide great event chains, bosses and farming runs such as the favoured leather farm in Lake Doric (which was released with episode 4). I’m not sure if you can play episodes if you don’t own the one before, but you have to own Heart of Thorns to be able to play them even though you can receive the episodes for free without the HoT expansion.

As you can see by my terribly edited map (it was too big to screenshot in one take), I have numbered the areas that were released with each episode, showing where they are.

1. Bloodstone Fen – Released with Episode 1 “Out of Shadows” (July 26th 2016 – Sept 18th 2016).
2. Ember Bay – Released with Episode 2 “Rising Flames” (Sept 19th 2016 – Nov 20th 2016).
3. Bitterfrost Frontier – Released with Episode 3 “A Crack in the Ice” (Nov 21st 2016 – Feb 7th 2017).
4. Lake Doric – Released with Episode 4 “Head of the Snake” (Feb 8th 2017 – May 1st 2017).

These areas all count towards the HoT mastery system, so all experience in these areas will add towards those Heart of Maguuma mastery levels. Mastery insights and achievements awarding mastery points are also in these areas as well as new perks being released with every episode that can be found in the Ancient Magics mastery path.

I’m really looking forward to playing this episode as I’ve been waiting for what seems like ages! Originally ArenaNet said they were going to release and episode every 6 – 8 weeks, but like I said, this will have been 12… That’s way too long considering I completed the episode 4 story the day after it was released.

I won’t give any spoilers in case some of you haven’t played them yet, but I’m liking the story so far and I’m interested in seeing where the new area will be and what it will be like.

At the end of the trailer it states there will be 2 more episodes to come, so enjoy them while they last as it will soon all be over… Although obviously you can play them again. And don’t forget about the current events that are still being updated, the most recent being the Feb 22nd update where you can complete a story mission to unlock an ascended Caladbolg weapon (Greatsword, Sword Dagger, Scepter and Shield). You can unlock all 5 by purchasing them with unbound magic too after you’ve completed the side story (this story can only be played after completing the HoT story).

That’s all for now, hope you all enjoy the episode and the content when it’s released on May 2nd. Have fun!

Smite: My Top 3 Gods since Season 4

Since the beginning of Season 4 I feel like a lot of Gods who weren’t as popular before are now being picked quite frequently and I’m liking the variety of the picks. In this post I will talk about who I like playing the most right now (April 2017) and which gods I believe are quite strong currently as well as how I like to build them and what I think works well.

3. Hel

Hel wasn’t a strong hero in Season 3 and wasn’t really picked all that often, however since her abilities were changed slightly at the start of Season 4 she has definitely improved. For me, the change on her Decay/Restoration (ability 1) is the main game changer for me as now it passes through enemies and does damage rather than it stopping on the first enemy hit. This change has made her wave clear safer and she now doesn’t have to get so close to actually do some decent damage.

I’ve found that sunder is such a great relic for her due to her slightly shorter range and huge burst damage output. I also like to buy Shield of Regrowth and this helps with her escape even more so than just the movement speed buff from her heal anyway. It also makes her a little but tankier so she can afford to play a bit more aggressive. Rod of Asclepius also helps with the escape as it gives increased healing and even more movement speed which I think is key to playing Hel.

All she needs now is a remodel…

2. Aphrodite

Aphrodite has always been quite a versatile and decent hero and can be great with the right team setup. Since healing was nerfed in general at the start of Season 4 I was worried that this would affect her performance as I generally build her as a support than as a damage mage, but Hi-Rez actually increased her healing. Although this sounds really overpowered I think she needed it when in combat, since unlike other healers she can only heal herself and one other ally at a time, but I still feel like it’s probably a bit strong when out of combat.

I still like to play her mostly as a support, but the other day I played her using a standard mage build instead and did really well. This is definitely a build I would like try again as I could never really get it to work in mid Season 3.

My support build generally consists of the new Celestial Legion Helm, Rod of Asclepius then either Breastplate of Valor or Chronos Pendant (for the cooldown) depending on the game. Lotus Crown, Pythagorem’s Piece and Divine Ruin are other items I sometimes choose to build, but I will always start with Sands of Time, Mana Chalice and Meditation Cloak (relic).

1. Jing Wei

I honestly love this hunter at the moment. I must have got her from rank V to rank X over the past few weeks without playing any other hunter. I loved playing her when she was first released but she wasn’t as good as some of the other hunters at the time, but I think because I like her kit and no one else really picks her I wanted to play her well. I can say that actually she is one of the gods I am most comfortable playing now and definitely my go to hunter.

One of the best things about her kit is definitely her dash. Although it has a long cooldown it can really help her to be more aggressive as if she gets knocked up she can dash out of it in the air and travel twice as far than if she was on the ground. Jing can also use her 1 to launch herself before she dashes (just be careful not to use the dash before she is fully knocked up as I’ve noticed recently it just puts the dash on cooldown and she doesn’t actually dash anywhere…). This is a great counter to Sobek, Bacchus, Erlang, Awilix, and basically anyone with a knockup.

She was slightly buffed a few patches ago and I can actually really feel the changes even though they were quite small. There is a bug with her at the moment where sometimes during basic attacks the Explosive Bolts animation will play which at full attack speed looks quite funny… annoying though as the sound effects play too although activating and using Explosive Bolts again will fix this for a while.

My general build is Odysseus Bow, Warrior Tabi, Executioner and Wind Demon. Sometimes I will pick Hastened Fatalis if I need the chase, Deathbringer for more crits or Bloodforge if I’m doing really well and for the lifesteal.

I also LOVE the new Mini-Metal skin for her! I’m guessing it’s a reference to the band Baby Metal as she does look a lot like them, but the skin reminds me of Ruby Rose from RWBY.

Other:

From my experience, some popular gods that I’ve seen a lot of are Poseidon, Anhur, Zhong Kui (since his buff in recent patches), Hel and Bastet. I have seen so many Poseidons do really well no matter what game mode and I’ve heard that Anhur is one of the most favoured gods in Duel at the moment.

I haven’t actually seen anyone pick Cernunnos for the past few weeks or seen anyone play with the new Hades changes yet. Kali, Freya and Isis are also goddesses I haven’t seen in a while which seems a bit odd considering they all used to be really strong picks.

Around 6 months ago I was playing mostly Arachne, Sol and Izanami so I’ll review this post a few months from now and post about who my favourite gods are then.

Smite: 4.7 Patch Notes

It’s that time again… I’ve just watched the patch notes show for Smite 4.7 Pillars of Success on Twitch, so now it’s time to summarise. As always, if you haven’t seen the official patch notes yet, click here:

https://www.smitegame.com/new-in-smite-pillars-of-success-4-7-patch-notes/

4.7 is actually quite a big patch featuring the lastest God to the Battleground, Ganesha, as well as the end of the Spring Split and the introduction to the Summer Split as well as new skins and item/god “balances” (I use that word lightly).

Firstly then, Ganesha. Well… what a support (his recolour is pretty good too)!

“Good Fortune: Upon killing an enemy God, Ganesha will instead give the nearest friendly God the Kill credit and receive the rewards for an Assist. In addition, his Assist range is increased by 20 units and the duration for his Assists is increased by 5s.”

That’s definitely good fortune for your teammates if you ask me! This is his passive, and honestly it’s such a good idea for a support. The passive works for gods, minions and jungle camps so if he is standing close to someone at all times, they are going to get fed… especially as a support in Conquest. He is actually capable of carrying the carry.

Anyway, his 1 is an orb going forwards in a line doing damage to enemies and giving allies a bonus damage buff. His 2 is a mini stun and knockup, 3 is a dash that can travel through player created walls (e.g. Ymir wall) and his ult was inspired by the old Nu Wa’s ultimate (years ago before she was remodelled). He places 4 pillars in a square with the lines connecting the pillars together dealing damage every 0.5 seconds and the centre of the square applies a slow.

Now onto the Season Ticket Summer Split. This bundle will again cost 400 gems like the Spring Split one did and will contain the Vampiric Scylla skin shown above along with the ability to vote, FP quests, double FP throughout the split as well as team worshiper boosters and team FP boosters. I love this skin so I’m sure I’ll pick this up as soon as it’s out to work towards some of the other Season Ticket rewards such as a Sol Announcer Pack, Music Theme and more!

Hi-Rez also announced the addition of a Jump Stamp where the Smite Logo will appear every time you character jumps… I don’t like this idea at all as I’m someone who likes to jump spam every now and then, so imagine if everyone is having a jump party at the beginning of Assault and everyone has these. ANNOYING.

There will also be a soft reset to all the ranked positions so everyone will need to requalify and the leaderboards will be reset. It will now be harder to be placed in a higher division from qualifying than it was in the Spring Split and Tribute Points will now be lost if you don’t play ranked over a certain amount of time varying from 2TP a day for 2 weeks of not playing ranked to 10TP a day for 6 weeks.

I’m not going into the “balance” section much as I’m sure the official patch notes explain it better than I can, so I’ll just mention a few of my favourites.

FRENZY IS BACK! Rituals were removed a few patches ago and I was sad to see Frenzy taken from the Relic section in the first place so I’m happy this is back as I used to buy it all the time in Season 3. However, Sunder has been my go to Relic in Season 4 but now the upgrade for Sunder has been nerfed slightly I might favour Frenzy again instead.

For some reason they decided to buff Nox. I love Nox so I love this change, but she didn’t really need it. Her ultimate used to have a set cooldown of 90 seconds at all ranks and now it scales from 90s – 70s cooldown at full rank.

Cabrakan has been nerfed which was definitely needed. Even if someone built him full tank he still did way too much damage, never mind with this Cabroken build everyone uses more often than not. His base protections have been reduced by 3 and his Tremors damage has been decreased slightly.

Rage has had it’s passive changed (again) where you gain a stack for every kill/assist, then at 5 stacks you gain 10% crit chance so I guess we’ll see how that goes, and a new item has been added called Lono’s Mask (designed for supports). This is like Rangda’s Mask, 500 gold to buy and you gain +2 health per stack (assist range minion kills) up to 75 stacks. On reaching full stacks you gain 400 gold, and selling the item gives you 330 gold back… so it gives you more gold essentially. This could be an interesting item maybe for tankier assassins to build early game and sell mid-late game for the extra gold when they’ve finished stacking.

Lastly, the voting has finished for the Angelic Awilix community skin. Hi-Rez have said they aren’t announcing the top 3 just yet but they will be revealed on 9th May after the designers have created the in game content for us to see before we vote. Voting will commence on May 9th – 11th, and the winner will be announced on May 12th!

GW2: Chuka and Champawat Guide Vol 1: The Hunt

About a year ago now I started crafting the Legendary Weapon, Chuka and Champawat. Originally I started crafting The Dreamer but when Chuka was released and I found out about you could carry Tiger Cubs on your back I just had to have this instead. Although I haven’t quite completed crafting the final Legendary tier, I thought I would post a guide telling you about the process as it’s very long and has a lot of additional collections to complete.

As this weapon was released after the Heart of Thorns expansion, it requires the Maguuma Mastery Legendary path to craft this which also makes this weapon account bound and unable to sell (which means you can’t buy it either). So unfortunately… if you want this weapon, you’re going to have to go down the painful route of crafting…

But before you start, you need to have the Central Tyria Legendary Crafting – Revered Antiquarian mastery unlocked and a Huntsman at least level 400.

This is the Achievement log for the collection located in the Achievement tab under Collections, Legendary Weapons. Firstly you need to speak to Grandmaster Craftsman Hobbs (in the crafting area in Lion’s Arch) to buy the Chuka and Champawat Vol 1 recipe for 5 gold and 10,003 karma (I don’t know why it’s 10,003 and not 10,000… it just is).

This will now unlock the collection and you can start your crafting journey! So going from left to right of the collection:

1. Hunter’s Journal. This is an item that needs to be crafted. Firstly you need to pick up the recipe from Bagred the Hunter in Snowden Drifts. He will give you a recipe for “Crude Leather Book” which you will need a level 400 Huntsman to craft. You will need 12 Cured Thick Leather Squares, 6 Thick Strings (3 Cured Thick Leather Squares per string) and 40 Elder Wood Planks to craft this. When you have crafted this talk to Bagred again to unlock the next collection. Bagred can be found where I placed the 🐱

2. Completed Hunter’s Journal. Creating the Hunter’s Journal and speaking to Bagred will unlock an additional collection which needs to be completed to be awarded the Completed Hunter’s Journal (see picture below). There are 19 steps to this collection which require you to go to certain places throughout the world to complete. It’s fairly easy to follow but here’s my Hunter’s Journal Guide if you require it. The trail you will follow will also lead you to some tiger dens for the achievement “Spirit of the Tiger” (which will reward you with 11AP and a Mini Tiger Spirit) so it’s a good opportunity to do this achievement at the same time.

3. Hunter’s Kit. Again, talk to Bagred and he will give you the recipe for the Hunter’s Kit. A level 400 Huntsman is needed again to craft this. You will need 15 Cured Thick Leather Squares, 15 Thick Leather Strings, 15 Elder Wood Dowels and 15 Elder Harpoons (2 Elder Wood Planks and 2 Mithril Ingots per Harpoon). Once crafted, this will complete this section of the collection.

4. Tiger Musk. This is an item dropped rarely from killing tigers. You will need to go to the HoT areas to find Tigers to kill. I went to Teku Nuhoch in Tangled Depths for this and only had to kill about 4 tigers before the item dropped, but that may have just been luck so keep going if you don’t get the drop straight away. Verdant Brink is probably the place with the most tigers, so there is your best chance.

5. Warm-Up Hunt. For this achievement you need to Kill the Boar in the “Hunt and slay the Giant Boar” event located in Queen’s Forest in Queensdale. If the event is not active then speak with Lodgemaster Carthage in the hunting lodge to start the event. The event happens roughly where the 🐱 is displayed.

6. Seraph Medal of Stealth. This item is purchased from Seraph Watchman Morina in Brisban Wildlands. You need to complete the Heart “Help Hinder Scotta’s Bandits” in order to access the items available to purchase. The medal costs 420 Karma.

7. Hunter’s Bane. This part of the collection requires you to complete the event “Defeat the largos before it kills Silent Snowfall” in Snowden Drifts. This is the 3rd event in the cycle of this train of events, so if this part isn’t active when you get there just keep completing the events until it progresses to this event or wait until the even cycle resets if there are no events happening at the time.

Completing the Vol 1: The Hunt collection will award you the Chest of the Hunt. This contains Essence of the Hunt and the Recipe: The Hunt (requires level 450 Huntsman to craft). You will now be able to craft The Hunt and here is what you will need:

• 1 Hunter’s Short Bow String (3 Elonian Leather Squares, 100 Memories of Battle, 100 Shards of Glory)
• 1 Hunter’s Short Bow Stave (4 Spiritwood Planks, 100 Memories of Battle, 100 Shards of Glory)
• 1 Legendary Inscription (10 Globs of Ectoplasm, 5 Piles of Crystalline Dust, 1 Orichalcum Plated Dowel, 10 Elonian Leather Squares)
• Essence of the Hunt (from The Chest of the Hunt)

This is what you will get… A very wonky, deformed stick somewhat resembling something that could be a short-bow. Kind of disappointing for the effort, I know, but if you want Chuka and Champawat, it’s what you’ve got to do…

Smite: Top 10 Angelic Awilix Community Skin Vote

And finally the time has arrived for the community to vote on the next skin for Awilix as designed by members of the community themselves. For those of you that don’t know the Angelic theme was chosen and members of the community have submitted some of their ideas for everyone to vote on a skin to be released in game. These are the top 10 designs that Hi-Rez picked from all the entries.

*Edit: This voting stage has now closed, to vote on the Top 3 go to this post https://gamergalexe.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/smite-top-3-angelic-awilix-community-skin-vote/

Firstly, here is the link you need to follow to vote:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MJG5LC9

I’ll insert all the pictures here and let you know my thoughts on each one:

A: This skin to me looks a lot like the Nike model and doesn’t really suit Awilix’s character. From the back it also looks a bit like the Celestial Isis skin so I can imagine this being confusing to some players. I like the concept for the mount, and they did a pretty decent job of creating an Angelic themed skin but it just doesn’t look like Awilix.

B: Honestly I don’t particularly like this design with the colours as I see Angelic to be white and gold, however I love that this skin has stuck with the Mayan Pantheon theme which could be popular with voters. The stone cat design is also really interesting which I do like a lot. In my opinion this would be better without the wings (or with smaller wings).

C: The mount is definitely my favourite part of this concept. I do like the skin, but again it doesn’t really suit Awilix and looks more like the Greek Pantheon. It’s quite feminine and simplistic which is a nice idea, but the spear does not tie in with the rest of the skin due to the colour design and the amount of detail.

D: This is one of my favourites. I saw someone post this on Twitter a while back and I kind of fell in love with it then. The spikey feathers on both Awilix and the mount tie them together nicely, the colour scheme is different but still relates to the Angelic theme and the moon is still there to represent her being the Goddess of the Moon. I can see her in game looking like this with a similar hairstyle to that of the Feline Fashion skin.

E: I really love the mount for this skin. My only issue with this skin is the colour scheme, again not really symbolising the Goddess of the Moon as it looks more like a skin for a Sun Goddess. It also reminds me more of Guild Wars armour than a skin for Smite.

F: This is another of my favourites. I like the detail showing ideas for the ability effects which looks pretty cool. I love how she still has tattoos on her legs, keeping some of her original design and the colour scheme with the white, gold and silver sounds effective. The detail looks quite complex though so I’m not sure how this would look in game.

G: This is another favourite of mine. It’s simple but effective and I love that about it. The clothing really suits the model and the spear and the mount tie in great with it too. The colour scheme is really nice and fits with the Angelic theme. The best part is that it actually does look like Awilix already and it really does fit the character, my only suggestion would be that the feathers on the headdress could be changed to moon crescents just to keep with the Goddess of the Moon representation. I would buy this if it was a skin.

H: I really like the weapon idea for this skin. I like that it shows the moon crescents to stick to Awilix’s lore and the white and gold colour scheme is nice, but I don’t think lilac was the right colour to add as well. The mount also looks a lot like Suku does now, so he would just be turned into a snow leopard and I think we need a totally fresh idea for a mount. I think this could be a popular vote since it shows quite a revealing outfit, but to me it looks similar to Aphrodite’s attire.

I: This skin reminds me a lot of Mirana from Dota 2 which is fitting since she is the Princess of the Moon. I don’t think this skin is particularly Angelic and actually appears to be more SciFi which is a shame. I do appreciate the amount of moon crescents shown in this concept though, but I think it’s a bit too futuristic for my liking. The mount really does look like Mirana’s mount….. (not a bad thing)!

J: The colours used for this skin are quite contrasting and bright which could make it a bit distracting in game (they don’t go together too well). I don’t know if the mount will be transparent in this design but I can’t imagine how that would look in game. Again I like that she still has tattoos and moon crescents but I don’t think this concept it really suits Awilix or the Angelic theme.

So there are some of my opinions on the skins. Congrats to everyone that made it this far and good luck during the voting process.

You only have until Monday 17th April to vote, so choose wisely as every vote counts. I’m not sure when the top 3 will be announced, but voting will be open May 9th – 11th to vote for the overall winner.

Smite 4.6 Patch Notes

It’s time for another Smite patch notes post! This time it’s the Racer Rumble 4.6 patch which will be released next week on PC (and probably the week after for console) which I watched live on Twitch a few nights ago.

As always, here are the official patch notes if you haven’t seen them yet:

https://www.smitegame.com/new-in-smite-racer-rumble-4-6-patch-notes/

There’s a new adventure coming this patch (to replace the Capture The Flag mode) called Apollo’s Racer Rumble. In case you couldn’t already guess this is going to be a new racing mode for 8 players. It actually looks pretty good with the animations and everything but it is basically Mario Kart in Smite. Not sure how easy it will be to control since it’s keyboard and mouse only (PC). There are 10 gods you can play as: Ymir, Cabrakan, Sun Wukong, Izanami, Ratatoskr, Mercury, Fenrir, Zeus, Aphrodite and Ra, and also 2 maps – Volcanic and Beach themed.

Just like the Capture the Flag mode, you can buy a bundle (costing 900 gems this time) which will allow you to participate in bonus content. This content requires you to gain points from playing the racing game mode where after earning a certain number of points will unlock rewards such as favour, enigma chests and the last reward being an “Awesome Chest” roll which only contains exclusive skins (I’m not sure if it’s all the exclusives or just some of them, but I think Hi-Rez said there were over 60). You also earn 100 gems through doing the bonus content which I suppose works out at a 100 gem refund on the purchase so costing you 800 gems in total for access. Of course you can still play the game mode for free, you just won’t earn any of the rewards.

This 900 gem bundle will also include the new Winner’s Circle Apollo skin as well as a music theme, pedestal, ward and another golden key which you can use to unlock the new Intergalactic Changé skin from the vault.

The rest of the patch was basically bug fixes… other than the Skadi (Kaldr) change and the Hades buff. Kaldr can now take damage when Skadi is in her ultimate, so since Kaldr will no longer be invulnerable during the ultimate, will Skadi hit another weak spot?

For those of you that didn’t know, Hades actually used to be a Guardian but was changed into a Mage early in Season 3 (about this time last year from what I can remember). During this change he still kept some of his previous Guardian tankiness but was given a damage increase. Now he has a further reduced health pool and protection scaling, however this is now being added into his ultimate to give him more protections during the late game to help make up for the loss of this in his base stats. His damage burst has also been increased – rather a lot – with Death From Below now dealing 270 damage at max level rather than the 170 it did previously. Blighted targets now also take damage with Devour Souls where before it was only the enemies around the target so this is sure to make a big impact in his burst damage. I’m quite excited to see this how this change goes throughout the season.

This week is the last chance to submit your designs for the Angelic Awilix skin, so if you have an idea be sure to send it soon. The link to the submission page is in my post about the Awilix skin so be sure to check it out for all the future dates involved with the community skin voting.

And finally, the Spring Split is also coming to a close soon with patch 4.8 (in about 4 weeks time) so be sure to keep climbing up the ranked ladder to be in with the chance of winning gem prizes. There will be a soft reset to ranks when the Summer Split starts.

Good luck everyone and have fun playing!

RWBY Grimm Eclipse Review

RWBY was originally an animated web series created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth. Last year RWBY was released as a game where players follow the events of team RWBY. The game has also recently received a few expansion packs which include the team JNPR character pack and some costume packs.

GW2: I made an Elementalist

I used the gems I got from my 10,000 achievement point reward to put towards buying myself a character slot. Originally I was going to make a Charr Revenant, however I decided to create an Elementalist instead. I used to have an Ele but I never really got into playing her, so I thought I’d give this class another go.

The Elementalist class can be quite complicated but very versatile. They can only have one weapon equipped at a time (so no swapping weapons in combat) as they have their element attunements to swap between instead (fire, water, air and earth) which all change the abilities depending on what element you’re using.

The main classes I play are Thief and Necromancer. I just love my Thief for doing dailies and for farming as the class is very good at keeping up with the amount of blinks and swiftness they can have. Also with a short bow the auto attacks bounce at a fast rate which is great for hitting multiple targets quickly. I use my Necromancer mainly for Fractals and Dungeons as this class has a lot of sustain with their lifeforce and can also support other players as well as doing a fair amount of damage. I am trying to get into Raids at the moment, but having never done them before I don’t know what I’m doing and I’ve noticed many groups do not want new Raid players joining them….

The Super Adeventure Box also returned to Guild Wars 2 this week. I’ve never actually taken part in this event over the years so I thought I’d give it a go this time. Honestly I didn’t really know what to expect and I have to say that I’m not really a fan of it so far, but that could be because I played it by myself…

I’ll play some more during the week and probably make a post about it then when I have a better idea of what’s going on… but this guy gave me a pointy stick so I’m sorted!