Diablo III: Season 5

The new season rolled around in Diablo III about two weeks ago and I've been blissfully grinding toward season five goals.  I have been surprised with how engrossed this new season has kept me--I've been doing nothing but leveling, bounty-ing, and rifting and haven't really thought twice about playing something else.  There are some new features that have kept me entertained (and frustrated) but last night I think the season five honeymoon finally ended.

There aren't a lot of completely unique new features in season five but it started off on a positive note.  Rather than creating a new seasonal hero and using up a character slot players were given the option of "re-birthing" a previously made character and turning them into a seasonal hero.  I had a wizard that I had never gotten all the way to 70 that I decided I would "re-birth."  The addition of timers showing how much time was left on massacre and destruction bonuses made it much clearer how long you had to kill another critter or slay a harmless vase.  Leveling to 70 was relatively painless and then the real fun began.

I have genuinely enjoyed the addition of the "season journey" goals.  These tiered goals give players attainable targets to go after.  This season also granted players a complete set of armor for completing specific goals in the last chapter of the journey.  Before this I didn't have the drive to complete an entire set and had grabbed a few individual set pieces.  It was cool to finally have a completed set and to be able to take advantage of the six piece set buffs.  The wizard set leans heavily toward fire talents and grants a powerful buff against elites and bosses that makes killing them a joke.

The Firebird set for season 5 wizards.

Since Blizzard was already giving players an entire set of armor they decided to give players content to accompany their snazzy new outfits.  Set dungeons are designed to showcase the powerful abilities granted by the new armor sets.  They are also designed to annoy the living heck out of anyone who attempts them.  Each set dungeon has a set of primary objectives (of which you only have to complete one) and a "master" objective that grants a special achievement.  The wizard set dungeon involves setting 20 enemies on fire within 3 seconds of each other...six times or, if you feel like dying a lot, you can use the set granted "on death" ability in which a flaming meteor resurrects you while simultaneously killing 50 enemies.  It took me many, many tries to finally figure out exactly what I needed to do and many others reported difficulties with objectives (setting enough enemies on fire before killing them was a challenge).  These new dungeons are decidedly un-fun which is a bit of a disappointment.  It probably doesn't help that the Firebird set bonus for wizards appears to be very buggy or to have strange triggers.  At times when I feel like many enemies are on fire I get no buff but at other times I have the buff for an extended time and mow through enemies until it randomly goes away.

I was really excited when I finally completed the set dungeon and completed my first tier of the season journey objectives.  My sparkly new portrait frame and weird pet were fitting rewards.  But wait...there are still other "slayer" objectives to be completed!  I didn't realize that the seasonal goals were set up to build upon each other and eagerly started my quest to check off more boxes.....I just don't have it in me to keep grinding.  Thanks Diablo III, it was fun while it lasted.

Rise of the Tomb Raider released it's PC port this week and I've been debating another adventure with the lovely Lara Croft.  I'm not a traditional Tomb Raider fan from the PlayStation days or yore but I had a great time with the 2013 re-boot Tomb Raider.  I just can't make up my mind about buying it (it's one that I think I would prefer to get on sale--I had a hard time re-playing Tomb Raider and don't see a ton of replayability factor to warrant paying $59.99 for it).  Oh and XCOM2 releases next week!  These games are trying to break my bank account.