Diablo 3 Season 23 Review

 Well Diablo 3 Season 23 just ended and I ended up having my best season ever.  This season was very fun to play because of the new follower system and the new class set system (which ended up not really mattering to me).  My overall goal was to get the highest greater rift as possible and to finish the Guardian seasonal journey so that I could get the new pet and portrait.  I was really happy with my greater rift finish this season.  I ended up pushing to a greater rift 117, which put me in rank 16 in the NA Hardcore Witch Doctor group.  This was my highest rank ever and I was really surprised that I was able to reach this rank.  I guess there were very few people playing Witch Doctor this season because of all the nerfs that the Witch Doctor got to the Mundunugu's set.  I ended up playing about 118 hours, which is pretty much the normal amount I play in a season.  I was able to reach paragon 1304 (which is the 3rd highest I've reached) and my normal overall paragon now is at 2652.  Also, I managed to finish all the seasonal journey stuff so I got my pet and portrait.  

Season 23 was really easy to begin with because for the Witch Doctor, the starter set is the Helltooth set which very easy to play with.  I did have an early death in the beginning but I didn't lose that much progression because of it.  Even though the Mundunugu set got nerfed a lot, I still think it is the best Witch Doctor set.  I really like playing with Mundunugu set because it is pretty easy to farm with once you get really good gear.  I was able to get most of my gear to an ancient level except for the Ring of Emptiness and the Traveler's Pledge.  All of my ancient gear was augmented to at least rank 100, which gave me plus 500 intelligence each.  I found a real good ancient Gazing Demise which really helped me a lot.  I was really playing consistently throughout the season, I missed playing a couple of days later on because I was so tired from work.  I noticed early that if I could reach greater rift 115, that would really give a good rank for the season.  I pushed really hard at the end of the season and I managed to reach greater rift 115 on the last week of the season.  I wondered if I could push a bit more and I was really surprised that I did.  On the last the season I was able to do a greater rift 117.  

Season 24 is going to start in a few days and I really excited for this new season.  Season 24's theme is on the Diablo 2 ethereal items.  There are going to be new legendary weapons that are custom made and really powerful and only are able to be used for Season 24.  Ethereal items look very cool and I can't wait to find them all.  If you manage to get all ethereal items for all the classes, you get to keep the transmog.  Season 24 is going to be very interesting because soon after Season 24 starts, Diablo 2 Resurrected is going to come out.  I can't wait for this game to come out because I spent a lot of time in the past playing Diablo 2.  Well I hope everyone had a Season 23 and I look forward to playing Season 24.  Hopefully when Diablo 2 Resurrected comes out, I will write a review about it.  

Diablo 3 Season 22 Review

 It has been a while but Season 22 for Diablo 3 just ended.  I didn't think that Season 22 would last this long so it has been a while since I updated this blog.  I had a fairly interesting season of playing Diablo.  I had some specific goals playing this season and I met some of them.  I started out playing with the Witch Doctor again and I managed to do pretty well.  I ended up doing a greater rift of 122 which put me at rank 47 for the hardcore Witch Doctor NA leaderboard.  I really wanted to be in the top 100 again so this goal was achieved.  Unfortunately, my Witch Doctor died due to my computer freezing so I couldn't really push as far as I wanted.  After my Witch Doctor died, I really lost motivation to gear up again so I decided to play World of Warcraft with my free 1 month subscription (more on this later).  In Season 22, I also played with the Necromancer for a bit and I managed to hit greater rift 105, which put me at rank 918.  I think this is the first time that I hit two different leaderboards in a single season.  I managed to reach paragon 1379 for the season (which is most ever in a single season) and my overall paragon now sits at 2546.  I also managed to hit the guardian seasonal journey again.  

Gearing for my Witch Doctor was pretty easy this season.  The starter set was Mundunugu's set so it was pretty easy to start doing high greater rifts right out of the gate.  The seasonal theme of the extra cube slot and the clone were somewhat helpful, boosting the power level up a bit more.  I had some good gear overall, most of my gear was augmented.  I really hurt to lose my Witch Doctor because I worked so hard to augment my gear.  When I played with the Necromancer, I felt it was a bit more powerful due to the seasonal theme.  The Masquerade of the Burning Carnival set (which uses the Bone Spear skill) did a lot of damage.  With the extra cube slot and the clone, it felt very over powered.  I didn't get to play with the Necromancer a lot but I know that it would have done a higher greater rift if I had focused on playing with the Necromancer more.  

After my Witch Doctor died, I decided I wanted to play World of Warcraft for a bit.  I bought the Epic BlizzCon package so it came with a free 30 day subscription to WoW.  I hadn't played WoW since the Warlords of Draenor expansion so I left my paladin at level 40.  Levelling to 50 was pretty easy, I started out playing from the Battle of Azeroth expansion and hit level 50 pretty quickly.  I was really surprised at how easy it was to get to level 50 because usually it takes a very long time to level.  After hitting level 50, I decided to play a bit more so I bought the Shadowlands expansion and I levelled to 60.  The levelling process was a bit more difficult and longer but I really enjoyed the story line quests in Shadowland.  After hitting level 60 (which took me about a week), I played around doing world quests and some Torghast.  The world quests felt fine, they weren't too tedious and pretty simple to do.  There were some quests in the Maw but I really didn't like doing dailies in that zone.  I didn't do any dungeons but I managed to enter Torghast and did some content there.  Torghast was pretty fun, it was pretty neat to see how you could boost your character by choosing which powers to take.  I wish there was a system like this in Diablo so that you aren't always dependent on your gear to tackle more difficult content.  I think I ended up hitting an item level of about 170.  I wish I had a bit more time playing but after 30 days, it felt like it was enough.  

For season 23 (which starts this Friday), I will probably play with the Witch Doctor again.  The Witch Doctor is my favourite class but the Mundunugu's set has been nerfed again.  It really sucks to have the nerf for this set because other powerful sets for other classes have remained the same.  This puts the Witch Doctor at a disadvantage compared to the other classes.  There is a new patch that enhances the followers.  The new follower system should help the solo players a bit more since group players have a lot more advantages when doing content.  I hope everyone had a great season 22 and best of luck to those playing in season 23.  

Diablo 3 Season 21 Review

 Diablo 3 Season 21 just ended on Monday and I have been waiting to write again on this blog.  Season 21 ended up being one of the longest Diablo seasons to date.  Although it was a long season, I ended up doing my best ever result yet.  This season I played just 129 hours but I managed to reach my highest paragon level, which was paragon level 1367.  I was able to reach this paragon level because I was doing a lot 100+ greater rifts.  My highest greater rift that I was able to do was greater rift 120.  This put me at rank 28 on the hardcore NA Witch Doctor leaderboard.  This was my highest rank ever in a season and I am really proud that I managed to do this all by myself.  I also managed to reach the guardian seasonal journey.  Overall, my paragon level sits at 2398.  

For most of the season, I was playing with the Mundunugu's set again.  This set is very powerful even though it was nerfed from the season prior.  In the past, the Spirit Barrage skill counted as a pet so you got extra damage from items like the Mask of Jeram and the Enforcer gem.  Even without the pet buffs, I was able to do a higher greater rift than the season prior.  I think this was the first season that I managed to augment all of my gear (all of them with +500 intelligence).  I did find a couple of primal ancient legendaries that I was able to use in my set (my chest and my pants).  I also managed to not die at all this season.  I really like the Mundunugu's set because it is simple to play with and very powerful.  It manages to do good speed runs so levelling paragon levels is pretty quick.  

Season 22 starts on November 20th so there is a little bit of time before I start playing Diablo 3 again.  I haven't decided to play with the Witch Doctor or not again but I might.  I tried out the new Zombie Bear legendaries but I don't think it is very good at all.  I managed to do a greater rift 100 but it doesn't feel as strong as the Mundunugu's set.  I might check out some other classes that I haven't played in a long time (such as the monk or the necromancer).  Season 22 should be interesting because it have an extra cube slot in Kanai's Cube and also you get help from the shadow clones.  Anyways, I hope everyone had a great season 21 and I look forward to playing Season 22 soon.  

Diablo 3 Season 20 Review

Well Diablo 3 Season 20 just ended and I wanted to review what I accomplished this season.  I had a very good time this season because the Witch Doctor had a new set come out.  The new set is called the Mundunugu set and it is based around the Spirit Barrage skill.  I managed to do a greater rift 119, which is my highest greater rift ever.  This put me in at rank 94 for the N. American Hardcore Witch Doctors.  I was really stressing out at the end of the season because I really wanted to be in the top 100 rank again.  I knew that with the new Witch Doctor set coming out in season 20 that there were going to be a lot players playing with the Witch Doctor this season.  I was so happy that I finally managed to do a greater rift 119 at the very last day of the season.  My final paragon level for the season was at 1250 (which is also my highest paragon level for a season).  I managed to play about 129 hours for the season and my overall paragon level sits at 2229 now.  I also managed to finish the Guardian seasonal journey as well.

The Mundunugu set is very powerful.  I couldn't believe how much damage it does.  The basic set is pretty easy to set up.  The only hard part is crafting a good Captain Crimson set, which is needed to increase your cooldown and mana resource cost.  I was mostly playing with the Wormwood at the beginning because it automatically casts Locust Swarm for you.  This makes it really easy to do normal rifts and easier greater rifts.  At first, I was trying out various skill passives, like Spiritual Attunement.  I wanted to increase my mana regeneration to the maximum but I don't think it matters that much.  I found a better way with using Blood Ritual to increase my defense more, which allowed to me to be more aggressive during fights.  I am hoping to fine tune this set for next season so that I can do even better.  Unfortunately, there is a nerf to this set which is upcoming.  The spirit barrage will no longer benefit from pet damage so the Enforcer gem and the Mask of Jeram no longer works with this set.

Overall, I am very pleased at what I accomplished for Season 20.  I think I could have done better but I am sure that I can pick up this Witch Doctor set again for Season 21 and do even better.  I was thinking about playing a different class because the Witch Doctor gets the Jade set for Haedrig's gift for Season 21 and I really don't like the Jade set at all.  I hope everyone had a good Season 20 and I can't wait until Season 21, which starts on July 3rd.

Here is my Overall Season Recap for Diablo 3 so far:

    Season             Greater Rift             Class                               Rank      

1.                 -                       Witch Doctor                         -
2.                35                     Wizard                                624
3.                45                     Demon Hunter                    410
4.                54                      Monk                                   -
5.                70                     Witch Doctor                      373
6.                79                     Witch Doctor                      104
7.                74                     Witch Doctor                      448
8.                79                     Witch Doctor                      73
9.                71                     Crusader                             295
10.                81                     Witch Doctor                      64
11.                81                     Witch Doctor                      32
12.                91                     Necromancer                      113
13.                98                     Witch Doctor                      38
14.                98                     Witch Doctor                      36
15.                91                     Wizard                                261
16.                101                   Witch Doctor                      133
17.                113                   Witch Doctor                      57
18.                102                   Witch Doctor                      75
19.                104                   Witch Doctor                      69
20.                119                   Witch Doctor                      94

9 top 100 finishes
12 top 150 finishes
17 top 500 finishes

Diablo 3 Season 19 Review

Well it has been a long time since I last made a blog post.  I haven't had many ideas for a blog post so I will probably just make Diablo 3 seasonal reviews for now.  Which means that I will probably only update this blog every 3 months or so.  Season 19 for Diablo 3 just ended and I ended up doing pretty good.  It was a very long season so I had a lot of opportunity to play.  I managed to reach paragon 1019 and my overall paragon level is now at 2087.  I managed to play about 85 hours this season and I also took about 2 week break from the game.  My highest greater rift that I did for the season was 104, which put me at rank 69 for the Hardcore Witch Doctors.  I am really satisfied that I was able to be in the top 100 again (I think this is my 8th time that I have been in the top 100).

For most of the season, I was playing with the Legacy of Dreams/Dagger of Darts set for the Witch Doctor.  I really like this setup because you really have to work hard for your gear.  I did have an unfortunate death this season.  I died when I spawned the Uber Diablo with a 1000 kill streak.  I thought I could manage it but the Uber Diablo was one-shotting all my pets.  That death put me out of focus for a while but I managed to pick it up again by the end of the season.  I tried making a Zunimassa build for the Witch Doctor but somehow this set doesn't do as well as the Legacy of Dreams set.

For season 20, the Witch Doctor will be getting a new set to play with.  I am really excited to play with this set because it looks like it will do a lot damage.  This set is based around the Haunt skill and is kind of like the Legacy of Nightmare version of this build.  I hope I can reach the top 100 again for this season and I hope to continue playing Diablo 3 for a long time since Diablo 4 seems to be in the distant future.  I am still playing games like Hearthstone and Overwatch but I am playing those games very casually.  I don't think I am playing other games as hardcore as Diablo 3 right now.  The most exciting thing that I am looking forward to is the Overwatch League coming to Vancouver in May.  I will probably updated this blog after I attend that esport event.