We're in BOTH Heroes of the Storm AND Warlords of Draenor Alphas! Stay tuned here for coverage of both!
Grind Cast is our round table discussion podcast of everything Blizzard! If something happens, know we will cover it here!
Scythe and Shield is a Diablo 3 podcast, centered around getting to know the people you know in the community a little bit more past the battletag and also cover the hot topics of the time too!.
Hey all this is JCMonkey. I been away for a bit doing summer stuff. I will be back with more Monkeying around stuff. So stay tuned for that. :D
"Welcome to Scythe and Shield, a GrindExp Diablo 3 podcast. Hello, I am Dr J Dredscythe and will lead you on this adventure. Scythe and Shield aims to have great discussions with great people about some of the larger topics of the day while also getting beneath the BattleTag and get to know our community personalities a little more intimately."
In this show, I talk to Neingball about lore as it stands now, possible future of a few characters, what the next chapter of the Diablo story we may yet see and how the next playable class may be picked or influence the lore too.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NeinballGamer
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"Welcome to Scythe and Shield, a GrindExp Diablo 3 podcast. Hello, I am Dr J Dredscythe and will lead you on this adventure. Scythe and Shield aims to have great discussions with great people about some of the larger topics of the day while also getting beneath the BattleTag and get to know our community personalities a little more intimately."
In this show, I talk to Drothvader about Tiered Rifts, Seasons and what could come from after - PvP? Arena/Wave matches? New Content at all? Expansion Announcement?
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drothvader
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Diablo III is chugging along with the next short story, “Middlewick” with how many more to go, only Jay Wilson knows (I doubt J knows, just wanted to sneak him in here for no reason. There is a forum post, on the EU community side of the world with an absolute metric tonne of information from elemental damage and you, to CDR calculators and more. Lastly, Blizzard will be returning to San Diego Comic Con.
Community Guides and Resources
BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT RETURNS TO SAN DIEGO COMIC CON
New bundles were added to the shop and a whole bunch of UI improvements with the latest alpha patch. Murky week has left us and Muradin week has come. Having fun as more people get into the Alpha!
NEW ADDITIONS TO THE HEROES SHOP -- JUNE 3, 2014
A small bug fix patch was deployed to the servers with patch 2.1.2. You can now make your own fantasy Starcraft II league team (for the ESL) right now. For information and where to sign up, click the link bellow.
StarCraft II 2.1.2 Patch Notes
So much has happened for WOW over the last week or two. The Alpha was launched with PT. 1 preview of the garrisons. The Valorous buff came and went. Azeroth Choppers came to a close with some controversy as we would only suspect when it comes to Horde vs. Alliance. On top of this, bug fixes to the live servers, character models updated in the viewer and the Guardian Cub going into retirement.
World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Alpha in Now Live!
Garrison Preview Part 1—Your Base on Draenor
Coffee with the Devs – Stat Updates for Warlords of Draenor
Character Viewer Updated: Female Gnome & Male Tauren!
Warlords of Draenor™ Alpha Patch Notes 05-23-2014
The Guardian Cub Heading into the Blizzard Archive
Azeroth Choppers Episode 8—And the Winner Is . . .
Another round of players now know if they will qualify for the much bigger invitational tournament this year with the 2nd season coming to a close. The 3rd season card back was revealed for getting rank 20 or higher. Finally a refresher on the eligibility for community tournament.
Final Top Ranked Players – Americas
Hearthstone™ Ranked Play Season 3 – Colors of the Rainbow!
Hearthstone™ World Championship – Eligible Community Tournaments
Hearthstone™ Poster Contest Winners!
BlizzCon Art and Movie Contests Rules Are UP!
Welcome to this Heroes of the Storm Hero Spotlight: Li Li!
-We take a look at his basic and heroic abilities.
-See those abilities in action.
-Give you some tips of the trade.
This coming May 15th will bring us the second anniversary of Diablo 3 to us! With the Devs have seen it fit to give us many buffs to Rift Key Fragment drops as well as doubling Legendary Drop Rates! Also, we’ll be able to get some questions and answers in to some of the Devs during a four hour Q&A Live Stream on that Thursday.
Celebrate With Our Devs On Twitch
And Then We Doubled It! – Happy Birthday, Diablo III
We go a few more glimpses/tweets about upcoming changes in the next patch. LiLi Hero week bout wrapped up with info and some interesting things about her tip and tricks wise. Lastly, we got a short Q&A with the voice of Nova - Grey Griffin. Get to see a little of the process to do the voiceover work for just one of many Heroes.
Building The Nexus: The Voice Of Nova
Map and unit balancing an ever present goal the team is doing. Other than that not much is happening except for the announcement of the return of the COPA America 2014. All the info, seasons, prizes and more are linked in the blog post.
StarCraft II Copa America 2014
We got our look at the remodeled Female Night Elf model, now with even more fangs! Patch notes for 5.4.8 are out! Weekly special on those oddly cool helms has started and some more advice from Major Payne for Pet Battles.
Artcraft—Huntress of Teldrassil
This Week Only – 33% Off Cosmetic Armor Pieces
Major Payne’s Advanced Pet Battles Training: Zonya the Sadist
The Hearthstone team is advertising more Fireside Gatherings that are popping up more and more – go get that cad back! Patch notes for the latest one are available. This season is wrapping up but still have a chance at getting the Black Temple card back in ranked play. Finally, always wanted a soft hearthstone to hold at night to bring back into game? Well you may not be able to be in the game, but getting a hold of a plush hearthstone is possible along with other items in the Blizzard store.
Hearthstone Patch Notes - 1.0.0.5314
Hearthstone™ Ranked Play Season 2 – Brave the Black Temple!
Helm
The thing to look for in the helm is a socket. While leveling you should put the highest level ruby in the helm. Rubies are great for extra exp. If you don’t mind the extra exp you should put an amethyst in the helm for life boost. Other stats to get on the helm are your primary stat, vitality, armor, life percent, and life per second.
Shoulders
Shoulders are all about toughness. Stats to look for are your primary stat, vitality, all res, life percent, armor, and life per second.
Amulets
Amulets are usually the damage item, but you can heavily boost toughness with this item as well. While leveling you should look for primary stat, vitality, all res, life percent, armor, and life per second.
Chest
The chest can have up to 3 sockets, but early on two sockets is enough for leveling. You can put VIT gems in, or diamonds to give early resists. While leveling you should look for primary stat, vitality, all res, life percent, armor, and life per second.
Gloves
Gloves are usually a damage boost item. Though in hardcore you can boost toughness with this item too. While leveling you should look for primary stat, vitality, all res, armor, and life per second.
Bracers
Braces are a mix of damage and toughness boost. Though in hardcore I would go for the toughness first. While leveling you should look for primary stat, vitality, all res, armor, and life per second.
Rings
Rings are a damage boosting item. But again in hardcore this could be used for toughness. You could severely boost your stats with sockets and higher level gems. While leveling you should look for primary stat, vitality, all res, life percent, armor, and life per second.
Belt
Belts are a toughness item. While leveling you should look for primary stat, vitality, all res, life percent, armor, and life per second.
Pants
Pants are a toughness item. While leveling you should look for primary stat, vitality, all res, life percent, armor, and life per second.
Boots
With boots you mainly want movement speed, your primary stat, vitality, and more armor.
Main Hand
Main hand is usually for damage, but you can get vitality on them. I would recommend this if you lack the vitality elsewhere.
Off Hand
Depending on your character I would use a shield in your offhand. Doing this will increase your chance of survival tenfold. But again, it’s your game, and your time. You can get a socket on the shield. So with a higher level gem you can greatly boost your toughness. While leveling with a shield you should look for primary stat, vitality, all res, life percent, armor, and life per second.
Conclusion
Now this was a quick and dirty way to look at gear while playing hardcore. Later on we will look at characters and what stats would work best with them. Also note that some of these stats types are
"Welcome to Scythe and Shield, a GrindExp Diablo 3 podcast. Hello, I am Dr J Dredscythe and will lead you on this adventure. Scythe and Shield aims to have great discussions with great people about some of the larger topics of the day while also getting beneath the BattleTag and get to know our community personalities a little more intimately."
In this show, I talk to a dear friends and fellow Diablo 3 fansite runner Enkeria on Patch 2.0.5, Buffs and points of interests. It's a great show that I've been looking forward to doing for a while here.
Diablo3PvP: http://diablo3pvp.se/
Enkeria's site: http://enkeria.se/
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Welcome to this Heroes of the Storm Hero Spotlight: Nova!
Introduction
If you have been playing hardcore for some time you might have noticed that gearing is crucial. Picking the right gear and stats are vital to getting you to the end game state. To gear for hardcore is to gear for survivability. Now there is a few mindsets when gearing. The first is defensively. The second is offensively. The defensive way is to tank as many hits as needed and stay alive. The defensive way lacks in damage output because most of the item stats are defensive based. The offensive way is more balanced and has good damage output. Though you might not want to stand in the fire for too long.
Stats
In Diablo 3 vanilla defensiveness was coined by a term called EHP. What EHP stands for is Effective Hit Points. Basically it’s a formula that computes to see how hard it is to kill you. Stats that encompass this formula include vitality, armor, all resistance, melee reduction, ranged reduction, dodge, block, and life percent boosts. In Diablo three Reaper of Souls they changed the way the EHP works. EHP is now Toughness, and the life stats are now under the Healing category.
Toughness
Toughness is now life (hp), armor, dodge, all resists, missile reduction, melee reduction, and elite damage reduction. Life you primarily get from vitality stats. Dodge you receive form dex gear. So monks and demon hunters would primarily be concerned with this stat. All resists is the elemental and physical damage resistances. Normally you would not see these stats on rares until level 50 or so. But you may see them on some legendary items early on. Missile is ranged damage reduction. This stat comes in the secondary slots on items. Melee damage reduction also comes in the secondary slots on items. Elite damage reduction reduces the amount of damage from elites. As you can see toughness can be quite convoluted, but once you get used to it everything will be fine. A thing to note here is that vitality will really boost the toughness rating, but realistically might not let you survive like you would think. We will get to more of this in a later article.
Healing
The healing category focuses on all healing and life aspects. The healing stats are as follows: life per hit, life per second, life steal, life per fury/spirit spent, life per kill, and health globe bonus. Life per hit is just as it says. Life per second heals you an amount over time. Life steal is a thing of the past and has been nerfed beyond level 60. life per fury/spirit spent is like life on hit. That stat works when you spend your resources. Life per kill heals you when you kill a mob. Health globe bonus works when you pick up the red orbs on the ground. With a good mix of toughness and healing one can be a very hard person to kill.
Conclusion
This part went over the stats. Part two next week will go over each gear slot and what to look for.
