Up next in 10
Liz hosted the Blizzard Watch podcast this week, with Joe and occasional guest host Phil Ulrich, and there is so much to talk about going on all at the same time. Slap together several concurrent holidays in WoW, holidays in Diablo 4, and a battle pass for Hearthstone Battlegrounds, and everyone is just a little overwhelmed. Luckily for you, we’re here to help you navigate it all. Even the upcoming content patch, with three different Goblin cartels to back. And Delve changes. And Diablo 4 changes. And then, the questions from our listeners!
Yep, you can trust us. Everything under control over here. Also, which of our recurring podcast guest hosts are you rooting for in the Beyblade Arena?
We also take this opportunity to reminisce a bit, since Blizzard Watch turned 10 years old this week. No, seriously. It’s been a full decade since a few nutty kids decided to band together and keep bringing the news and views. We couldn’t have done it, much less for as long as we have, without the support of our Patrons, our community, and a dash of plucky optimism. We thank you now for showing us we can do this, as we have every day since February 2015.
Thank you.
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0:00
[Music]
0:10
Hello friends and welcome to the Blizzard watch podcast I am your host
0:15
today Liz Harper and I am joined by two lovely coasts Matt is unfortunately out
0:21
today which is why you get to hear me yay uh Joe Perez is here with me and
0:27
Phil olrick are occasion guest host we are there's kind of a
0:33
struggle about which guest host is going to get like the official top billing on the show I said they had to fight it out
0:39
but no one I there have not been any fights yet so that's that's a little disappointing from the drama angle but
0:46
but here you both are listen all we need to do is make sure that they take it to the beblade arena and we'll figure out
0:51
the winner is from there safe for everybody I think I think that's what we'd have to resort to CU otherwise we're just going to be entirely too too
0:57
nice at each other oh no you can be on the podcast tonight it's fine uh yeah we did we did have that tonight because it
1:04
was like okay Corey could be here but then Cory backed out at the last minute and then I I said Liz and Phil you fight
1:11
it out and Liz is like oh no Phil can do it and she's like I've been on the last three and I'm like I'll do it if Liz
1:18
wants a night off so sometimes it's sometimes it's hard to
1:24
get volunteers because everyone's like oh no you can do this anyway we do we do have a whole pile of Warcraft news and
1:31
Diablo news and a little bit of other news so I guess we should get to it
1:37
that's that's kind of why we're we're all here I think podcast okay yes yep so World of
1:46
Warcraft right now is in the middle of this sort of massive event schedule
1:51
that's going on right now we have the lunar Festival continuing until February 11th we have love in the air which just
1:58
started continuing through Fe uary 17th and we still have turbulent time ways
2:03
and plunder storm going on and it's it's feeling like a busy time in World of Warcraft are either of you two doing any
2:10
of these events are you keeping up with these events uh not the uh lunar
2:16
Festival uh I don't know I fell off of it one year and just never picked it up
2:21
and I'm too lazy to go do it now however the Love Is in the Air thing I will probably do on at least my alts or at
2:27
least my Paladin because I've been having a ton of fun with that um yeah and also because the new Mount
2:33
is just a recolor of the New Broom which I really really like uh yeah which you
2:38
can go look at this month's rewards in the the Traders uh for Traders tendies if you want to take a look at uh what
2:44
the broom looks like and just imagine it a little more pink uh yes so there as you have said
2:52
there's a new Mount this year the love witches sweeper which you get in the exact same way that you get the x40 5
3:00
Heartbreaker which is to break Hearts this year it's it theoretically exists
3:06
but it's theoretical it's schinger this actually this Mount actually feels like an apology for the x45 because the drop
3:13
rate on it seems to be extremely signicant higher most people most people are reporting getting it the first time
3:19
they do the event um I think we had one single Guild mate who didn't get lucky and get it the first time and he
3:26
probably got it today on his second try I got it on my first try which means I'm now done with Love Is in the Air unless
3:31
I want to try to earn some of the other new stuff like the new pet or the new shoulder transmog
3:37
Ensemble um I'm I'm done with the crown Chemical Company though so because I do
3:42
have I do have Stringer Mount I won it a year or two ago don't don't worry I will
3:47
I will carry that torch of not getting the thing I want uh as is the way staring at you dark Shaman trans that
3:53
took 432 days to get uh so I am one of those people I have done the crown
4:00
event once and did not get a mount so but yes it's the love which is sweeper
4:06
which is a broom SL motorcycle pretty cool very pink it's very very weird
4:12
looking but I love it that is the new reward this year and as Joe said there is a similar recolor on the trading post
4:21
so this is continuing as it did last year you have an increased chance a
4:26
significantly increased chance to get these mounts on your your first kill of the day and either a significantly lower
4:33
chance or no chance to get them on subsequent kills on alts I know it used to be a thing where it's like you would
4:39
run through every single alt you had until you were exhausted and you would do that every day and not get them out
4:45
yeah you can run it once a day and that's going to be your best chance it's not worth running on 27 alts so that's
4:51
that's something so good luck to both of you H you know the thing is I I'm not
4:58
gonna be bothered I gave up I've never been really set on getting the
5:04
heartbreaker it's like yeah it's there whatever and so I've never been disappointed to not have it I can ignore
5:10
this event and not feel bad I just just tell myself I I don't need this I don't need this in my life it's okay it's
5:17
totally fine yeah see uh okay keep keep telling yourself that um as I alluded to though
5:23
there is a new transmog Ensemble and I need this because it's this funny little Ensemble you may remember last year they had the love witch outfit the nice white
5:30
and pink and gold one with the floppy hat and the skirt and the cool like sailor moones attire to it uh this year
5:38
there is a new transmog Ensemble you can buy for those love tokens that provides two alternate shoulder pieces to the
5:44
gigantic shoulders that that one had um a sort of like a more
5:50
inlaid uh shoulder pauldron with a heart emblem on it and also a shoulder Cape uh
5:56
with a heart brooch uh and that that is available as an ensemble buy one get both so I'm looking forward to that I
6:04
mean that does mean you could have like a classic shoulder on one side and then your shoulder cape on the other and they kind of match you've got the right
6:10
colors you've got the right heart scheme so it's a cool idea I'm going to have to see if I can get it to work with any
6:17
transmogs because I'm currently playing a dragon and just I go I go to the login screen and I look at all my characters
6:24
they have such cool transmogs and then there's a dragon with a belt that doesn't match their arm and I just I
6:30
have to click that dragon and log in I feel kind of bad about it yeah that's
6:36
come on blizzard just let my evoker stay in Vis form I would be totally cool with
6:42
that but no I have to be a dragon that's true I've got the mismatched armor I've got the dra and other class privilege
6:49
where I only have to switch into my dragon form for combat or um using sore
6:54
um we apparently did not mention uh previously that there is a new mount for the lunar festival and this one is very
7:00
that is true it's very cool it kind of it's a it's the classic red wad uh style
7:05
logo Style Rocket um except it's also cosplaying as a uh a a dragon so it's
7:11
got like a dragon head around a rocket and is available for 75 coins of ancestry uh check your Banks because
7:18
those things don't go away after the holiday you might just have some sitting around on an ALT from flying around
7:24
leveling up by talking to ancestors um I need to rumage through my bank and see if I have enough to get that on anybody
7:29
cuz it's that's a cool rocket I I will say one snag is that the coins of anry
7:35
are soulbound so you can't just collect some and you know pull them from all of
7:41
your alts there are also and we did talk about this a little last week there are new ancestors throughout Cazal Gar so
7:48
it'll help you get these a little faster but 75 coins of ancestry isn't bad you
7:53
know spend a few hours just going from flight path to flight path while you're doing something else this is not a big
8:00
challenge there's no drop rates to to worry about and you got about a week to
8:05
do it so I'd say the only problem here is that there's too much going on just
8:10
like right now it's it's a lot nobody can ever say that there is
8:16
not enough to do inside of this game no uh that's true there's so much and I
8:22
mean that's also nice because that's also how you get Traders tenders and there are twice the Traders uh there's
8:29
15 00 uh up for grabs this month instead of the usual 1,000 Traders tenders and a
8:34
so much stuff they had to have a whole extra vendor um on top of the regular monthly offerings there is also a new
8:40
vendor just down the road from them M dornal with extra returning stuff including a bunch of the mounts if you
8:46
missed any of those I have to tell you it's not one vendor it is four vendors oh no there's
8:53
ones I haven't even found yet well if you keep walking down that row it's like there's a vendor for transmog there's a
9:00
vendor for weapons there's a vendor for mounts there's a vendor for toys there's like one vendor per category of item so
9:08
there's a lot a lot of old items this is the trading post's second anniversary so they brought a bunch of old items back
9:14
those old items are now discounted so you may have a little easier time collecting all of this but also it is a
9:22
lot to collect I think there's a lot of cool stuff here which is that's that's
9:27
how it is some Trading Post it's like I see them and I'm like you know I can I can sit out this month it's
9:34
whatever but this one has a lot of cool stuff and it's so much there's so much
9:40
here Joe were you digging into the trading post this month have you looked at what's available I have there wasn't
9:48
a whole lot that actually tickled my fancy aside from just getting the mount because I'm I'm a sucker for Ms um but
9:56
otherwise nothing really this month seem to stand out to me um some months are
10:02
like that yeah which is which is okay yeah yeah like I wasn't real thrilled the month that we had the yellow recolor
10:08
of the plunder storm stuff but that just meant I had like tenders for the next month yeah I did not buy that I'm like
10:15
when am I gonna there's nothing else in the game that's gonna match this with this yellow color and it's like a weird
10:22
R yeah I guess I'm just not a yellow person so yeah I I skipped that one too
10:28
there's also a a kind of weird box creature that stands on its hind legs I
10:34
think those they're cute but there's something a little creepy about them I don't know listen I have seen the
10:42
original Creep Show I do not trust creatures in boxes you shouldn't the uh uh here's a
10:48
fun trick by the way that still works remember the creepy crate uh take it to uh take it to oros and pull it out near
10:54
the flight master um thank me later it noted it will eat the uh eat the worms
11:00
remember how it shows you the the worms nearby that you ride from area to area and shadowlands flag does Critters so
11:06
the creepy crate will eat them oh no it's very funny to watch people freak
11:11
out about probably not as much now that there's not as much traffic in oros but so if you are if you are having trouble
11:18
getting enough Traders tender for this month because there is so much to buy uh well blizzard is here to help maybe in
11:27
that there is a new shop bundle you can buy that features two broom remount
11:32
recolors so if you if you love that broom and you needed in a couple of other variations two of them and 600
11:39
Traders tender which I feel like when they first launched the trading post and
11:45
announced Traders tender We There was kind of a fear that they were just going to sell this for cash and it would
11:51
become another you know monetization thing and uh yeah it has yeah I've
11:56
noticed it mostly seems to be like onetime reward now or they'll put it in with they'll put it in a bundle they're
12:02
like hey here's these other two things and also 500 tenders just to sweeten the deal in case you weren't already thinking to buy in our cat toop
12:09
stuff so yes it is two brooms and 600 Traders tender for $30 which as far as
12:17
on a scale of mounts purchases that is a good price if you were into that sort of
12:22
thing but also it's like man there's just there's just so much stuff out there to buy there's the Diablo for cash
12:29
upop at least uh you know compared to the Diablo for cash this is so
12:36
reasonable so it it depends on what kind of scale you're going on as to whether this is a reasonable amount of money but
12:43
if you love that room and you need to have it in every color that is an option for you super exciting so I have here
12:51
this note about uh the delves in season 2 I actually have not read about what's
12:56
changing in delves in season 2 other than the fact that we are with brano and Phil what's going on here uh
13:04
bran is uh going to be leveling up as high as you are for one thing his level cap will be going up to 80 now o and you
13:10
and you won't have to relevel him bran whatever level bran is at right now he's going to keep it going into season two
13:16
more the more important part is that this is a lot of changes around rewards in season 2 blizzard is committed to
13:22
kind of uh both propping up deles as the solo player world content player uh uh
13:29
you know endgame activity of choice and also making it more rewarding for players who dip into it from other
13:34
activities so uh just to run down it um instead of just randomly being able to do highle delves and get a tier for
13:41
curio little things that increase Brand's power um now whenever you get a carer upgrade they'll always be upgraded
13:46
by one uh but in exchange they will now um they can also be obtained at the end
13:52
of delves and if you're using one of those Coffer Keys you will always get a krio drop so it'll take a little longer
13:57
to upgrade Brands a new set of Kos but um they'll you know you you're guaranteed to get drops at a more steady
14:03
rate um also the maps that used to be the maps you used to have to kind of luck into that would get you an extra
14:10
extra extra good chest at the end of a uh a heroic level tier at the end of a Del those now have kind of a bad luck
14:16
protection system um the more delves you do you're pretty much guaranteed to get one but only one per week you're now
14:23
have a Max on it um they've changed the system up from uh where the big bad boss used to have under Lings in the dungeon
14:30
and certain High Lev delves I believe it I believe in season one you had to go nine and above to see them except for a
14:36
part where they put them in eights and they slaughtered everyone um and zier's underlings would appear um it appears
14:41
the F the big boss for season two is the underpin and the underpins underlings now appear in like level four end up but
14:49
beating them um gives you a new strong box at the end that gets better for each group of the underpins underlings you
14:56
beat in that is hard to say uh on your way through the Del starting from four so it gives you a reason to actually
15:02
engage with those hard groups that you know most of the time you might just try to skirt around and for the people who
15:08
are dipping in from other content if you're doing a tier 11 Bountiful delve now um three times a week you get gilded
15:15
Crest at the end which normally come from uh well it'll be Mythic 6 and up
15:20
it's Mythic 8 and up now and uh Mythic rating so this is another source of 21
15:26
guilded crests a week for everybody um so that's cool um and then there's some
15:31
adjustments to uh um smooth out item level progression that change like what item levels you get in the vault and
15:37
things like that so um the details are will be up on our site uh in a day or
15:42
two probably by the time people are listening to this so almost assuredly yeah since since we since we aren't
15:49
streaming live tonight it's a good chance it's a good chance so yes check
15:54
out we have a website in case you didn't know that blizzard.com you can check that out for more information on all of
16:00
the things we were talking about hopefully that's that's always the goal uh another thing we learned more about
16:06
this week is uh the undermine cartels and I actually have a question for you here Joe I know you did a lore watch on
16:13
kind of goblins a couple of weeks ago we did and I'm wondering yeah how much of this did we know about about the cartels
16:22
we're going to meet in undermine all of it only okay uh yeah that's that's an
16:28
easy answer yeah this isn't anything uh too spectacular for those of you that are are listening at home uh it was more
16:36
of a here's who's in charge here's where they're physically located and here's what their cartels do the only real big
16:44
thing here uh is that uh the Blackwater cartel uh is now been the prince uh
16:52
revelas or Revel Gaz is now a trade Prince versus Baron Revel Gaz which is
16:59
is interesting but they didn't really say much more about it um I'm very
17:04
intrigued why it's a trade Prince but if I had to guess it's because it is
17:11
technically the only trade Prince of the cartels the rest of them uh Monty Gazo
17:17
is not a trade Prince uh Marin nogin fogger is not a trade Prince uh and then
17:24
uh the I think it's gmla fizzle crank if I remember correctly for Venture Co got
17:29
it in one go that is correct man sometimes I remember stuff look at me go um like she's also not a trade Prince so
17:38
I think making Revel Gaz a trade Prince is really intriguing because now that
17:43
makes Revel Gas part of the Old Guard where all the other ones are sort of
17:49
like the new generation of goblins so this is me reading into it they
17:55
literally said none of this in the the the release um but basically just told us where where we're going to go where
18:01
we're going to find them and then they wind up going into like the rewards that you get from the Renown from the cartels
18:08
uh at least a little bit so nothing much uh but nothing new and uh maybe
18:14
potentially some intriguing story elements hinted at based off of that change from Baron to trade Prince but
18:19
only time will tell I wonder if maybe bar Rebel Gaz wanted a new title since it seems like the Blackwater are going
18:26
legit now well that's one thing I did I was going to say he was going to say what
18:31
what makes it legit for a goblin though because all the other ones are legit
18:37
cartels with legitimate leaders they are the four strongest cartels available of
18:42
all of the Goblins they're recognized they are legit as far as goblins are concerned but the Curious Thing is did
18:48
he just earn enough money to become a trade Prince or was Baron a working title that they changed now because they
18:55
realized they needed a trade Prince because technically G Wix was the only trade prins we knew of still operational
19:02
otherwise so maybe he's supposed to be a good trade prints which I'm air quoting
19:08
that one uhhuh well I also admit in terms of legitimate business they're not primarily piracy now they are now in the
19:14
shipping and luxury vacation industry which in and of itself is in fact
19:20
piracy one thing I did find interesting in these very tiny descriptions is for
19:25
Venture company which it says gima phys crank manages their operations in the
19:31
absence of a top Goblin implying that they do not have a a real official
19:36
leader and I wonder if this is uh you know kind of revising The Venture
19:43
company because we have spent many years in World of Warcraft fighting the Venture company like so much I I think
19:50
it's intentional and I think the I think that's just in line with the Venture company because the Venture company has
19:56
always been the most real World business analog in wow that it could possibly be
20:03
like the their supervisors and managers uh and like overseers and and that type
20:10
of structure that we fought over the years but it could not necessarily be
20:15
that they have one single top they could have a board of directors or there could be one that is at the top cuz again gmla
20:22
is a manager or air quote manager who apparently is in charge of running whatever the operation is for day-to-day
20:28
stuff she might actually just be the leader she just might it might be a
20:33
level of ausc on a corporate level who knows goblins are fun like that yeah it's just interesting we clearly see
20:40
they're kind of they're kind of making taking a more friendly angle on the Blackwater with totally legitimate
20:48
business venture that they are in now yeah maybe they're doing the same with the Venture company yeah mostly I mean I
20:56
don't know the the Venture company description does include the quot quote you want nice find a book club you want
21:01
to build something the Venture company's got what you want I like them I'm interested in cozying up to to find out
21:07
what their deal is so yeah who who has the best hat that's
21:14
the that's the question that's the beginning and end of this conversation that is the
21:20
litmus uh so all of these have a renowned track you'll Rel unlock different things for your car your drive
21:27
car in undermine and uh yes it it does kind of sound like a lot of grinding to
21:34
me so I'll I'll see how it goes I have I'm a very limited patience for
21:39
repetitive tasks so well I'm curious if they're going to do the Renown shortcut like they did with um the rest of them
21:45
which is you get that Weekly Quest go do a task get 2,500 rep or whatever the
21:50
case is like I'm wonder if they're going to do something similar here or add them to that as an option MH like that' be
21:57
other thing also notic I I didn't notice a bit about the fifth cartel that's neat yeah which is interesting because
22:05
the four cartels we know of are not the only cartels there's a ton of them yeah most of the other cartels just kind of
22:11
Bubble Up underneath the rest of them but there is my guess is that the fifth
22:16
cartel is probably somehow linked with gwick h that makees sense so because
22:21
he's still operational he's still running like he still got in charge and he's still in power we just don't know
22:27
how mhm yeah he does have uh goblins with him in the raid from the dark fuse
22:34
cartel which I'm guessing are the remnants of the old black fuse company from Siege of oramar um that'll be
22:39
interesting to see if maybe they come out leaderless and uh you know need need an adventurer to uh help them shake
22:47
up that that sounds like a job for us and I believe that they're not actually
22:53
the dark fuse cartel I believe they are called Dark fuse Solutions you know
22:59
private contractors on for security I'm sure goblins yeah I the biggest thing that
23:06
gives me pause about all of this is that it talks about each cartel's Renown track which could be that that sounds
23:14
like a long path with at least four cartels well no you you you choose one
23:20
to Champion I think right it's they're treating it like the that you're treating it like you did the factions in
23:25
um shadowlands right you choose one you're you're you of that track and you earn your rewards for it like you choose
23:31
who to align with they've they've talked about that so unless that changes you you pick with one yeah it's it's
23:38
actually every week it's more like ashka hat which of these yeah it says your experience will change within the undermine demanding depending on which
23:44
one you choose every week so this is even more just like the oshka head yeah there you go even better so yeah you're
23:49
switching between them but there's a unique Renown track for all of them and there's one more than AZ cahat so yeah
23:56
it's fine there we go it'll be fine F I mean it's got to be fine it's it's coming out we don't have a date for
24:02
patch 11.1 but I think it it's got to be soon it's got to be in February so we're
24:08
probably going to see this go live in the next few weeks it will be exciting all so I think I think does anyone have
24:15
any other Warcraft stuff to talk about that we don't have on our list uh it is that don't forget to do your your time
24:21
walking stuff too if you're hun hunting the the B Mount uh I believe you were
24:27
past the point of no return where if you have skipped out or just starting it uh but if you've done others and maybe
24:33
missed a week you can still finish out and get your B and if you've done everyone since the beginning this week
24:39
is when you get your be this is the fifth week B Buzz I can't
24:45
wait but it it's also an excellent way to get experience and level alts so jump
24:52
in jump in so yes I guess we're going on to Diablo uh Joe I don't think you've been playing Diablo but
24:58
Phil and I have I've been playing a lot I don't know how much you've been playing Phil I leveled a so before this
25:06
I had not actually finished the vessel of hatred uh campaign so I played a druid through the vessel of hatred
25:12
campaign got most of the way to cap and I was like I play a druid literally every season I'm going to play something
25:17
else so I have a necromancer somewhere in the mid 30s on hard mode weird I know
25:25
right it's like NE are good or something I don't know who would play a necromancer that's just who would play a
25:31
necromancer this podcast it's crazy so this week patch 2.1.1 went live
25:39
in Diablo 4 which you know that sounds like patch is maybe a big deal but
25:45
Diablo 4 this is like the fifth patch we've had since the season 7 started
25:51
which it's been out for about two weeks I believe and yes we're already on bug fix fix patch five because they keep
25:59
they they keep breaking things or they find things that are broken that were unanticipated like uh the hex of
26:05
Whispers I think I have the name wrong one of the hex abilities which was
26:10
self-replicating could could self-replicating and could crash the servers well so they shut that off for a
26:18
while and they fixed it uh last week they shut off two more witchcraft Powers due to bugs the Decay augmentation and
26:25
the Twilight warding which Twilight wording was a a significant problem because it was causing some weird
26:33
interactions that could result in players especially hardcore dying
26:38
unintentionally yeah you hate to see it but with the latest patch let's see
26:44
Twilight warding is back or is it the other way around uh Twilight Waring came back between the time we wrote the show
26:50
notes and the time we recorded the show um oh yeah then at the same time they disabled the Armory because it was
26:57
crashing the game yeah and Decay augmentation is still not working though that's going to be the
27:02
next hot fix the next patch we are already waiting for patch
27:07
2.1.2 which I hope it'll come out this week because I know that's where a big
27:13
fix for Minion necromancers coming in with the Ring of mindlin which is that's
27:19
that's a big deal for you know the none of us here who play necromancers uh I already have that on
27:26
my list so I I have one equipped right now and it's if you are upgrading from not having it
27:33
to having it and you play a minion build it's strong but it does not scale the way it's supposed to it does not scale
27:39
with minion power and minions are scaling much better right now so except with this ring so when that gets fixed
27:46
maybe I will maybe I will finally start making more progress in the season Journey which is that's what we're all
27:52
here for cuz there's a raven pet at the end of the season journey and got to grind up there to get it I'm I'm
27:58
thrilled about this so have you been enjoying the season Phil yeah I uh it
28:04
reminds me so I I haven't really been super into the Diablo season since the Vampire Season I thought that one was
28:10
really really well done and this one the head hunt uh zones feel like the vampire
28:18
zones on steroids like you know sometimes sometimes you get the vampire events and you kind of have to stand
28:23
around and wait until somebody farmed enough blood to fill up those three little altars in the center and then that that would summon like 10 bosses in
28:29
a row and that was cool um with this one it feels like the events are constantly spawning enemies and constantly doing
28:35
events and then you've got like eight roots that you can pull up and each of those has a chance of growing up more
28:41
bosses then everything drops Loot and loot is what Diablo's all about I I really enjoy this and I again I think
28:48
the Witchcraft Powers feel like a good throwback to that too like the pick your cool powers and then upgrade them in the
28:53
order you want and buy them from those altars um yes I I'm really enjoying this season um so I'm I'm really I'm really
29:01
looking forward to them fixing some of it I guess it is definitely a fun one it
29:07
is some of the fastest leveling Diablo 4 has ever had so it's a good time to dip your toes into the game if you haven't
29:13
tried it before or if you taken a few seasons off cuz it's it's a lot of fun befriending witches learning witchcraft
29:20
it's great I still do not have my panado power because that's that's a rare one
29:26
that you've got to go out and find but when I get it oh boy I'm going to
29:32
have that thing equipped all the time and be surrounded by a cloud of vicious piranha it's G to be
29:39
great I think it's interesting that this one also through the quests for the season specifically funnels you through
29:46
the tree of Whispers which was already a great way to level up really quickly if you skip the campaign and you're just
29:51
doing seasonal content like this specifically once you yeah yeah and those bags have so much stuff in them
29:57
now since the last last time I did them um four four five seasons ago now uh but
30:03
like you know it it it once you to do this content that already is extremely rewarding and that I feel is a very good
30:10
way for them to build a season like they've expanded on something that's already good to do anyway which is um
30:16
you know as far as theme and content go a plus Diablo team if you can get the bugs worked out um great probably the
30:22
best season since 2 as far as I'm concerned yeah another thing that went live today is the Diablo 4 lunar
30:28
Awakening event which uh I know I I've I did uh one of the shrines today it's
30:35
basically you go and find shrines throughout the world you activate the shrines and when you activate them
30:41
you'll be gaining experience on an ancestral Renown track from a vendor in
30:47
CAD bardu and you get you get stuff stuff is great I love getting stuff so
30:53
that is it's pretty basic but when you hit all of the shrines they are
30:59
superpowered versions of themselves you were talking about the greed Shrine earlier weren't you Phil yes the greed
31:06
Shrine which gives you a chance to spawn a treasure Goblin as soon as you hit it and every time you kill something it
31:12
spawns a treasure Goblin it is wild does so does this event work for the shrines
31:17
you find in dungeons it should yes that's gonna be crazy those are the ones where that'll like spawn waves of
31:24
enemies at you too so so every Shrine you find while the event is active and
31:30
it is active through oh did I not write this down through February 18th I
31:35
believe you have a couple of weeks to do it yes through February 18th okay so all
31:43
shrines are now these awakened shrines we did have lunar Awakening last year
31:48
but between last year and this year all of the shrines are more powerful and I believe you used to be it was only some
31:54
shrines were awakened shrines now all of them should be awaken Shrine so get out
32:00
there find those shrines yeah the shrines also give you a 100% XP bonus while activated now so uh even even
32:07
faster leveling during the season of fast leveling indeed indeed so I think it's a fun little event but uh it does
32:14
kind of depend on how many shrines there are and I I think they're all supposed to be awakened shrines now but if they
32:19
aren't all awakened shrines that was kind of disappointing last time you would find these other shrines and they're just it's a shrine is it even
32:26
worth clicking on this year they have stated that all shrines are replaced with lunar shrines
32:32
including the ones in nantu so I guess that does apply to the ones in Dungeons and you'll know if you find it because they all have a cool snake appearance
32:38
now for the year of the snake indeed so that's that is a cool new event if
32:43
you're playing Diablo and if you have not been playing Diablo you can give it a try it's you can zoom to max level it
32:51
is it is absolute zooming that's all you you can be like me and get overwhelmed by all these new systems I'm like what
32:57
tempering what ah yeah if you have not played in a while they have really
33:04
overworked they've completely redone a lot of the base game systems they've
33:10
changed leveling they've changed Paragon they have changed how you upgrade gear
33:16
it's there's a pile of changes and I think all of them are for the better better have helped streamline the game
33:22
make it more accessible and give better sort of long-term up upgrade
33:28
when the game first launched there were like a couple of things to do at end game and mostly it was repeating the
33:33
same thing over and over and over again on higher difficulties like doing nightmare
33:39
dungeons forever and that was kind of your in-game activity now there's a much bigger variety of things to do that
33:45
they've rolled out throughout the seasons and left in the base game so it's a good time to play Diablo 4 it's
33:52
also a slightly tiny bit of a buggy time to play Diablo 4 but here we are it's
33:58
still pretty great so let's move on to Hearthstone which I guess I probably
34:05
have to talk about this Hearthstone Battlegrounds we're in the middle of a kind of weird Battleground season
34:12
because it's it's it's a weird season and that it's not weird usually a
34:18
Battleground season has some kind of new mechanic in it they had trinkets they had quests they had buddies that you
34:24
could recruit I the Buddies were just super great you know just summon a friend to help you out that's super
34:30
powerful but this season doesn't have any of that it's just it's just plain
34:36
Old Hearthstone Battlegrounds which is fine but you kind of started expecting more from a season the state of the meta
34:43
is a little disappointing a balance patch rolled out today which is trying to power up some of the underpowered uh
34:50
War bands to make it more balanced so you can go in and not get disappointed when it's like oh yeah I really wanted
34:56
really wanted to do this but I'm just not getting the cards so should be better but it's still it's a little bit
35:03
of a bland season it's it's just kind of there and the other thing that is super
35:10
disappointing about this Hearthstone Battleground season is the rewards track every Battleground season has its own
35:17
battle pass yay I'm on record for being a real lover of battle passes with a
35:23
free and a paid uh paid rewards and of course the paid rewards involve a lot of
35:29
extra Cosmetics this track however has a lot of Cosmetics that are just like gray
35:35
boxes with a description under them they're like reward to be announced
35:42
later and a lot of them are Starcraft themed or the name suggests they're Starcraft themed so you are expected to
35:49
pay for this battle pass and also you don't know what half of the rewards are
35:55
and I kind of expected we knew they were going to do a Starcraft themed mini set this expansion and since everything
36:03
sounded Starcraft theme I figured you know when the mini set comes out that's when they're going to announce all of these things and reveal them so the mini
36:10
set came out like two weeks ago and the Battlegrounds reward track is still a
36:15
bunch of gray empty boxes and it's h it's just it's feeling kind of
36:20
disappointing this year so I don't I don't think either of you are hearthstone players am I correct I have
36:26
not played s Ben bro was still on the team which is fair I do really enjoy
36:33
Battlegrounds but I just find I'm not reaching Fort right now it's not it's not its best season and the rewards are
36:39
just what would you do there are definitely some rewards there but half of them are not there
36:47
what would you do in a Diablo 4 season where the battle pass was like this is great out we're going to announce it
36:53
later yeah it's like you can earn this thing and come back and get it later yeah we're going to tell you what it is
36:59
at some point in the future and you're definitely going to love it it's it's it just doesn't feel like a good way to go
37:06
okay moving on I better yeah I see and this is so sad I
37:13
really enjoy Battlegrounds I enjoy it but I find I'm not playing it cuz it's just it's a weird meta it's a little
37:19
Bland feeling and where are my rewards I just I don't see any rewards are very
37:24
exciting where are the hats where are my hats and sometimes they have it's mostly hero
37:31
skins and emotes and sometimes they have such amazing themes there are special
37:38
animations for when you win a match and I have a a match winning animation that
37:45
is a bunch of corgis spawn on the on the on the Playfield and they like bark and
37:53
run across to where the other hero is and that's how they're defeated it just it makes me feel so good every time uh
38:01
but yeah just it feels kind of like a let down this year I don't know could it could it be that we'll get one of those
38:07
but with zerglings that would also be pretty cool not as cool as corgis but
38:12
pretty cool what about corgis and Zergling costumes okay that that is actually that
38:18
would be the superior way to do that I would I would Heartstone for that and I I would buy the battle pass I
38:25
have not bought the paid battle pass because it's like yeah listen blizzard this is me this is me saying I can make
38:31
you a ton of money just pay me to give you ideas like this let's [Laughter]
38:37
go but I actually think we have made it through the majority of our news this week I am going to go on with some sight
38:44
news which is to say thank you for a couple of new supporters that have come up this week Matthew not our Matthew
38:51
Rossy but a different Matthew has subscribed at $3 that gives you early access to these podcast the very podcast
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you were listening to you could be listening to early and adsfree as well as our exclusive pre-show this week we
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talked about a lot of video games and tabletop games that we are excited about that we have been playing or that we
39:12
hope to play so you can get that and Larry upgraded to $5 that gets you an
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adree site experience on blizzardwatch tocom a website that we run in case you were not aware of that one uh we also
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have I think I mentioned this may have been in the pre-show our Tavern watch podcast where we talk about tabletop
39:33
gaming that used to be published on these podcast streams but now it's its own thing so you want to go to your
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podcast player of choice and subscribe to those guys if you want to get us talking about tabletop games we have a
39:46
lot of great games that we have been publishing cintai insensibility which is
39:52
just as crazy as it sounds and uh we did a star ER 2E game running on the play
39:59
test that was great fun and we're just rolling out a DND murder mystery which I
40:05
ran and very early in the game Matt just kind of upended the mystery and
40:14
it's it's funny because at the time he upended the mystery I did not realize it but later I'm like oh oh this actually
40:21
this changes everything yeah it it turned out it was it was a funny moment with a warning for explicit language
40:27
that then turned out to be a huge deal but it it turned out to be a huge story deal yes no no plot survives first
40:35
contact with the players no no it doesn't and that's exactly what makes tabletop
40:40
gaming that's what makes tabletop gaming so interesting because you know as a GM
40:47
you go in there with a plan and you think you know what's going to happen you usually don't players are going to
40:55
come up with something to upend what you're doing it doesn't it doesn't matter it's gonna happen so if you want
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41:33
as well I also want to say it's our birthday it did you two realize this it
41:38
is our birthday this month because it it was it was the best birthday gift that I had received was when we stood up the
41:45
site and I was one of the the the first people in the docket to to one know that it was happening because it was the
41:51
worst kept secret by Adam uh he he he couldn't wait to tell me and
41:57
I I immediately got the uh the the ask hey do you want to do this and I think it was like 30 seconds later of please
42:03
please I want to be back let's go so um blizzard watch is 10 years old
42:09
this year it was 10 years ago that uh we had all been working at wow Insider some
42:15
of us for a very long time and uh AOL decided to shut down all of its gaming
42:20
websites which included us and at the time we didn't know if blizzard watch
42:26
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42:32
because we were going out there in the dark you know the the guys were recording a blizzard watch podcast like
42:38
right after we got shut down we had the sight spun up and we you know getting posts up on it we had no idea if anyone
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thank you so much that's that's how we exist and uh if you can't support
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support if you can't support I get it I get it but thank you everyone for listening and now questions Joe would
43:50
you like to read questions because I have been talking for a whole lot yeah I will be more than happy to read
43:56
questions friends again if you have questions for this or any of our podcasts be sure to send those into
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44:29
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the powers that be will make sure that they get to the proper show again just make sure you tell us what show it's for
44:42
because if you don't we're going to fight over it and I'm way too lazy to do that
44:47
constantly but our first one is going to be coming from our friend T semi and I think this is appropriate since Phil is
44:54
here what is your favorite transmog look for video games and what style does your
45:00
favorite ttrpg character wear and I'm going to start with Phil favorite transmog look for video
45:07
games that one I'll come back to although I will say I tend to put a lot of my characters even ones that it
45:14
doesn't make a lot of sense like Rogues I tend to wear a lot of long robes because I don't like wearing about pants
45:19
and pants and belts and tabards um so I tend to wear a lot of robes um but the
45:25
other one I will say a lot of my RPG characters are snappier dressers than I am uh the two examples I will give I'm
45:33
currently uh in a traveler game in real life where I'm playing a uh ex Noble uh
45:39
SLC Curren acting lawyer named Fontaine Infiniti and Fontaine has a 3D printed
45:45
mini of him in a very Snappy suit and a silenced uh flette pistol uh and I
45:51
believe that was pretty close to uh my my my previous favorite character was the Warlock that I played
45:58
when Liz ran uh keys to the Golden Vault from us where I made the perfect Heist
46:03
warlock in D and d5e uh Simon Fairplay um Simon again fairly snappy dresser uh
46:10
not in the full tailored suit of course because it was a d and d game but uh um did his best to look like a uh a maid
46:16
man and then um stole things out of a vault by hiding inside his own ring yeah so uh I'd say generally characters who
46:23
are Dapper and dress better than I do in real life because they can afford better tailor Liz um you know I tend to prefer
46:33
in video games I go for more tailored looks which can be difficult because you know there's a lot of like I'm just
46:40
going to throw on whatever kind of armor I can find and uh I don't like the look
46:45
that's just throwing bones and more bones onto your armor which is a little weird cuz in Diablo I do usually play a
46:53
neck romancer and bones are bones are kind of their whole aesthetic so if you
46:58
want to be a necromancer and not just wear a pile of bones you kind of have to you kind of have to go searching through
47:03
your transmog options but in Warcraft you actually have a lot of different options depending on your armor type and
47:10
of course cosmetic armor has been great for this giving you more options that do
47:16
not make it look like you're wearing a giant heavy suit of mail or that you have just disassembled a bunch of body
47:23
parts and put them on yourself both of those things I like so I yeah I mean
47:30
probably all of my characters are snappier dressers than I am because in a
47:36
video game you can be a snappy dresser in a in a tabletop game it's even easier
47:42
to be a snappy dresser because you don't even have to go chase down the transmog armor you just say yeah I'm wearing a
47:49
perfectly pressed three piece suit you don't have to go to the dry cleaners you don't have to worry about keeping it
47:55
clean it's just it's always perfect so yeah this is this is like the fantasy of
48:01
never having to do laundry it's great that sounds like a dream uh for me it's a little all over
48:08
the place and I'll start with uh like transmog with World of Warcraft or video games in general um I it depends on the
48:17
season a lot like what we're doing as far as like the game goes like in wow my
48:22
transmog tends to be uh at least I try to keep a cohesive and I try to keep it in theme with where we're currently at
48:28
in the like story of the game like what realm we're in or what we're fighting
48:34
like how would my character dress to combat like the Supreme Heat of like the the the undermire uh who like you know I
48:42
think about those types of things or I'm going to be in a deep dark hole in the ground maybe I should wear light colors
48:48
so that my friends can find me and I might not get hit by a bat uh like little things like that and I tend to to
48:53
do that with my characters almost universally uh with very few exceptions in every
49:00
video game it's like that doesn't matter what it is vardo was doing the same thing oh I'm going to the Land of the
49:05
Dead I need to adjust my co my costume here uh I need to fit in I need to make them feel comfortable because that's
49:11
what I would do in real life uh things like that um so in tabletop games I also
49:18
do this thing where like I definitely skew towards the fancy dress um because
49:25
if I was in shape uh that's what I would do I have a whole closet full of clothes that I'm trying
49:30
to get back into that were you know I was very much a button down and like
49:36
that type of person um but like fun button Downs um nerdy button- Downs like
49:41
things like that but I always had a little bit of a Dapper Edge to me um and then unfortunately dust job and
49:47
everything else and life and blah blah blah and I can't really easily do that
49:52
without spending a whole ton of money uh on a whole new wardrobe so my characters tend to skew a little bit that way but I
50:00
also tend to look at what they are so like I played a uh dwarf Druid named
50:07
yand drud or yand dude uh who was very
50:13
needy I guess would be the best way to put him um he his best friend was Kevin the badger uh and so like he lived
50:21
outside and he like he had his friends and that was cool but like showers what are showers he doesn't care his clothes
50:27
are made out of like whatever elements he could find like half of his clothing were like leaves or like blankets of
50:33
moss that he had found because he didn't have time for anything else that's just what he wanted to do and then I have other characters that are like yeah I'm
50:39
wearing a three-piece suit that's been like hand painted onto the set of plate mail armor like it's all over the place
50:45
so I try to custom builder or tailor make my characters for whatever the situation or whatever their personality is
50:52
so and I unlike Matt I don't always play barbarians uh um I'm all over the place
50:58
with like what characters I want to play cuz I'm also one of those people that I get a wild hair in my my brain like you
51:03
should play this and then I immediately make like 10 characters for different systems that are this character archetype um and then I have to specific
51:10
thing or a specific setup for them or like I think the and I'm sorry I'm talking a lot but I I feel very
51:16
passionately about this um my favorite tabletop character that I played in recent years was a character that never
51:23
was supposed to exist in the first place um I had guessed it for a one shot uh
51:29
well not a one shot but I I was supposed to be a one shot to help a bunch of friends as a I was a special guest to
51:35
help them fight an elder brain and my character was always meant to die except they loved having me around so much that
51:42
they moved Heaven and Earth to save my character well the character wasn't balanced at all and he was fun and all
51:48
he was a naked halfling Barbarian tank um but it wasn't something for a long
51:53
term so I retired him and instead I created Chell uh who was a silven uh
52:00
silven elf raised by dwarves uh and he looked very much like elf Sam Elliott uh
52:07
and if you I I went so far as to hire a uh character artist to produce the
52:14
concept art for me and if you go to my my blue sky you can actually see it I posted it uh cuz I found it after
52:20
digging through my old computer um and that is probably my favorite thing ever because it is this Perfect Blend of
52:25
fantasy and Wild West and I'm like every time I look at character stuff I'm like that that was
52:30
just like the perfect meld so yeah so I custom build everything so there you
52:35
go oh goodness uh I don't know if we have time for another one because I talked way too much I know I was I
52:44
monopolized a lot of this podcast which seems to happen when when we have Hearthstone news about yeah but you know
52:50
what I think that's okay because at the end of the day we don't get to talk about Hearthstone as much so I'm really
52:55
glad that you get to do that when you get the opportunity to so that makes me happy when you get the chance to do that
53:01
but I why don't we do the very last question the very very last one oh boy I
53:07
knew I knew Liz would want this one great question oh man mythak asks
53:14
wow the Hinterlands versus DA Inquisition Hinterlands Liz I'm gonna
53:20
have to give this one to wow which may surprise listeners out there who know
53:26
how I feel about Dragon Age and Dragon Age Inquisition but really the Hance is
53:33
the worst part about Dragon Age Inquisition it's this massive kind of generic fantasy Zone that is just it's
53:41
it's kind of a introduction Zone it's the first Zone you get to except it is just way too big it is so it's bigger
53:49
than an introductory Zone needs to be it's the least interesting content in the game and I think a lot of Gamers get
53:55
to the hinterland and they feel like oh I've got I have so much to do here I need to complete this and this and this
54:00
and that prevents you from going on to more interesting stuff and I think a lot of people who play Dragon Age
54:07
Inquisition get stuck here and never finish the game I know multiple people
54:12
who have done this because you're like oh I have another Quest I need to finish that Quest oh I have another Quest I
54:17
need to finish that Quest oh I have it and you keep doing that you never get to the good stuff so I think wow is the big
54:24
winner here Hinterlands in wow is a vast Zone but there's a lot going on and
54:30
there are lots of sort of different environments and different creatures you encounter throughout the zone and you
54:36
got you got cool dwarves you got Griffins it's great so wow is the big
54:42
winner here all right Phil yeah I uh so I don't know much about the uh Inquisition Hinterlands outside of Liz's
54:49
definition of it uh but I'm definitely also going to give it to wow because it was one of the greatest zones in classic
54:54
when you were leveling because you would walk into the Hinterlands and if you were uh hord you would sneak your way
55:01
past the Griffins roaming in the woods to get the uh troll camp on the beach uh
55:06
and you would then fill your quest log with more quests than you could hold and you would go fill them all out at once
55:12
and turn them all in and that is just one of the most satisfying feelings and wow is going back just going back to a
55:20
going back to a quest uh Hub and just seeing all those question marks and you're like yes I'm going to gain a
55:25
level like that Hinterlands was great for that it also had really cool
55:31
architecture because on on the North side yeah it's got all it's got the the the dwarves have lost them the
55:36
wildhammer dwarves over on that side then on the South Side you've got like weird shadra worshipper troll uh
55:43
architecture and so there's a lot of cool stuff going down there too as long as you're not arachnophobic in which case it's got a
55:49
lot of yeah in which case it's got a lot of um crab worshipping troll stuff so yeah I'm going to have to give
55:56
this to W's uh W's version of the Hinterlands as well it's kind of the good version of the dii uh version where it's like oh I've got more quests to
56:03
complete oh that's a good thing though I also give it to the wow version uh I
56:08
remember the first time I got to go see it which was in the closed beta of vanilla way back when uh before they
56:15
turned off the ability to tame Griffins uh and so like if you got there during
56:20
the during that Clos beta you could tame Griffins and the reason that they disabled them at least at the time is
56:26
they didn't know how to keep the damage scaling from going haywire when a player tamed it so you would see Hunters take
56:33
these go into PVP mode and one-hot somebody by sending their pet in and never touch another
56:39
button uh but to Phil's Point there's a lot of really cool varied architecture
56:44
you start to see like how trolls uh and elves share some similarities because
56:50
you have the uh qual denel Lodge up towards the north uh the very far North
56:56
you have uh Sarah danan uh then at the South you have uh Whatchamacallit the
57:02
alter of Zuul I think it was and then to the West you have Arie Peak and you get to see how everything like it felt more
57:11
like a living world than a lot of the other places and wow at the time um I
57:17
was looking for the name of it it's like that gigantic uh like multi-level zigurat at the South it is the altar of
57:22
Zol yeah listen occasionally my brain functions it is very rare because that's
57:29
where you made the Mad of zurak yeah all right right and it's where it's where it
57:34
started planting the seeds of the Prophet Zuul so yep of course and they've also got that whole Forest troll
57:40
City down there jenta allore we didn't see much about the forest trolls at the time so that was cool and then you had
57:46
the uh the village off to the east which was like the Revan Raven Tusk something
57:52
rev Tusk Y where you start to see like the beach coming trolls and stuff like that like it was a really cool vibrant
57:58
area so it gets it gets the the win for me um and also I kind of hated the one
58:03
in Dragon Age Inquisition so you know we're that's where we at everyone everyone did three for well
58:10
hinderland then think that pretty well settles that even me the lover of Dragon Age
58:18
Inquisition I I got to give it to wow I just I have to well even you have your limits Liz but yeah I do think that's
58:26
going to do that uh do it for us today friends uh blizzard watch is made possible due to the generous
58:32
contributions at patreon.com blizzard watch your continued support means that this podcast sighting Community is able
58:38
to thrive and grow blizzard watch supporters enjoy exclusive benefits like early access to our podcast a better
58:44
chance at having your question answered on our podcast or the queue and it adds free site experience Liz take us home
58:51
okay thank you everyone for listening and we will see you back here next week
58:56
[Music]
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