Stranger Things and Boardwalk Empire

Two five season shows that are really good!

Stranger Things

Despite having reviewed Stranger Things adjacent stuff, I'm only now reviewing the TV series which has just finished at five seasons. Set in Hawkins USA in the 1980s it is the time of crazy hair, Dungeons and Dragons, and scary extra planar creatures who like abducting people. The story focuses on a group of kids who set out to find their missing friend and end up embroiled with the illegal and supernatural. 

Though the story does wax and wane through some seasons good acting and excellent set designs and monsters make for an exciting tale, and the nostalgia factor for those of us who lived that era and played/are still playing D&D will most likely get into it. For that really specific target group (and for horror fans), its a must watch if you haven't already. For other generations, its still a good show but your enjoyment of it might be more subdued.

Boardwalk Empire

This series is set in Atlantic City during the 1920's where Enoch Thompson (marvelously played by Steve Buscemi) set about making a fortune bootlegging during America's prohibition period all while rubbing shoulders with some notorious and violent gangsters from all over. Given the subject matter, there is a bit of nudity and a decent death count in this show. 

Excellent production, story, acting, cinematography and I was most impressed by the live musical numbers that dot the series throughout. If you like gangsters, you'll like this. If you don't like gangsters, you'll still like this. It's really that good. Highly recommended.

Dragonheir: Sailing Away

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

Getting to season two for this game is a unique process where people who have "finished" all the content of season one at the allotted time are whisked away into a new server and are rewarded currencies based on how well the did in their previous season (and there are apparently four seasons of this now). 

While you keep all your RNGesus picked companions, all of them and your main character are back to level one with no gear so that you can grind up once more not only by doing the new stuff which involves saving an island of elves from some frisky sahaugin merlings but also by returning to the mainland to grind previously cleared combat zones which now feature different (and much harder) challenges. The elemental pairs also rotate to keep you on your toes which means my main party changed to be Fire Main / Horrus / Journ / Ripekas / and Estella for some heals.

The actual season one end boss is an illithid dragon?

The restarting thing is a bit annoying but could have been ok if the leveling back up was done better or differently (which I believe is something they mentioned in their road map). Not that it matters though as the game just issued a "Termination of Service for the US Region" for sometime in September, furthering angering the players who have paid real money on the game (already angry since the pay to win stuff they bought doesn't carry over to this season). This supposedly ties into USA's ban of Tiktok, as the company that owns Tiktok just bought Dragonheir and have a dispute with some US laws. I guess its best to bury this one now

Dragonheir: Better than Before

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

With the holy river restored its time to destroy the source of the corruption down here in the Underdark which leads through many team based fights that need much swapping of line ups and many attempts before I manage to get through to the corrupted boss, an big ugly drider mama (level 165) who enjoys summoning adds. Fortunately the trick with her is rather easy, just turn off auto combat and make sure to use the ultimates on the adds before they get too overwhelming! The winning team was Fire Main / Garius / Voresh / Heksandra / Sigrid. Yes, I finally got the blonde archer on my roster and she is a freaking powerhouse if paired with a debuffer like Voresh who debuffs everything as her ultimate hits ALL debuffed enemies, and prevents them from healing!

It turns out destroying this creature is the last step in restoring my memories - I am also a child of Tiamat! Aka The child of chaos who tried to kill her so long ago but failed so she ripped my soul into two pieces (and the reason why this belongs in my "Cursed" journal). Obviously the next step is to reclaim my other half from the death lands but he isn't very happy to see me. To my great surprise this level 170 boss is the FINAL one (you mean there's an end!? yep!) and his phase two is not easy at all since he has a move that captures one of your team mates and if you don't destroy the hand before time runs out its insta-kill time for that person!

It takes me a few goes before eventually finding the winning team (but that's ok because he has some pretty nice boss music) of Fire MC / Horrus / Heksandra / Sigrid / Journ, all fire based heroes to get the "inspirational" damage bonus which is required for this boss. In addition, Journ - the legendary gnome inflicted with crystal disease, also debuffs with his AoE flamethrower and ultimate mine field abilities. Upon completing myself (and the game really), I run into Tiamat who this time - lets me go to continue adventures since "I've changed". The end! I know there's a season two coming / available but I just felt this was such a decent and unexpected end to this story so I'm stopping here. Thumbs up Dragonheir! You turned out to be a much better game than I originally thought you'd be.

One last arena flex because I doubt I'll reach this rank again. Big step from 15+k!

Dragonheir: You need an Army

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

When I'm not training up heroes, I'm pushing further into the Underdark past the territories of the deep gnomes and their mining issues as well as the thieving rat folk whose leader needs help bringing his son into line, which happens to be a level 130 fight! We finally reach the drow city of Unyielding Silk, where nobles and paupers squabble over the broken "holy river" that no longer cures people of the rot disease.  After arresting many criminals we find that the river is actually plagued from some ruins it passes through inhabited by monsters that look like Zhar'loth - it turns out this is the result of full blown rot transformation on a deep elf.

Fights here now require 3 full teams so I'm adding a bunch of under trained people to the line up that I'm not too familiar with. However there is a stand out: Iola the lightning mage. Now Iola's not a legendary ranked hero, but her AoE stuns are freaking useful! After defeating a death knight boss who we helped be un-transformed from a turtle (damn my goody two shoes nature) the river is restored, the sick can be healed again, and the bridge leading to Terminus is reopened.

Alas this comes too late for the drow queen (150) who succumbs to the rot just in time to give us a boss fight. Note, all the heroes can only go up to level 100. Your choice of gear and strategy has to make up the difference against the ever increasing level of the enemies. It's a challenge sometimes, especially when fights demand multiple teams. 

I've also unlocked deeper levels of the Fey Meander and two similar "endless fight" modes, but all these feature the same thing: less and less choice of characters to field. Sometimes, you can't put legendaries. Sometimes you can't field the full five. Sometimes it asks for specific element types. Ugh. You know what that means? I need at least SIX full teams (one per element - necrosis, radiance, lightning, poison, fire and ice) of max level, fully geared heroes - each with a decent team structure (healer/tank/dps etc). LOL!

There's also this boss plant lady shows up every few levels
to check your gear score...

Dragonheir: Elemental 100

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

I failed to mention last time that there's a new camp mechanic where you can send up to three heroes for training, and they just gain XP per second which certainly helps in the grinding. You still need to grind for the materials to unlock higher levels though, and since the underground enemies are starting to get really tough I decided its time to farm for those big crystals in the three elemental zones - the level 100 version of them to at least gain 1 of the big elemental crystals per run (but supplementing with little ones at a 10:1 ratio).

Frost Lady Glacia (100) is easily handled by Fire main (100 back) / Heksandra (90 back) / Garius (90 mid) / Horrus (90 front) / and Eli (83 back). The double heals from Heksandra and Garius plus Horrus taunt and damage reduction are pretty good, and ranger Eli is an ok damage dealer but probably needs to be switched out for a better substitute at some point. The Lightning Dragon (100) I can handle with Fire main (100 back) / Voresh (90 back) / Ripekas (90 back) / Horrus (90 front) / Lucien (90 front). Lucien (the legendary elf) is not a strong a tank as Horrus or Garius, but his abilities to start everyone with a shield and freezing flank are pretty handy.

She seems like something that came from Elden Ring.

That just leaves the Lady of Flame (100) and honestly, I didn't have a team that could beat her reliably until I maxed out Garius (100). With him backed by Voresh (90) / Zhar'loth (90) / Ripekas (90) / Lucien (90) I could finally make some headway here. If you are wondering why you'd want to level up more than just your main party, this section of the quest answers that by introducing TEAM battles. Much like the team arena, I now need to send more than one squad into each battle and heroes can't be deployed more than once - and if one team fails their fight, your entire squad fails!

Since this zone is asking for two squads my line ups are Fire main (100)/ Zhar'loth (97) / Voresh (96) / Garius (100)/ Lucien (90) and Horrus (90) / Ripekas (99) / Sutha (95) / Heksandra (90) / Usha (90). Sutha the legendary orc berserker hits decently hard and fast, but she's nowhere as tanky as she looks. However, since I got a duplicate Sutha I wanted to try her out. You see, when you pull duplicate heroes of the lower tiers you just get some item refinement currency instead but for a duplicate legendary hero, they get a boost which seems to improve them by 8% each time (up to five times if you get that many duplicates). Alternatively, you can use dupes to buy legendary rank artifacts from the shop!

Dragonheir: Season of Darkness

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

A new "season" update has showered gifts on players with something like 100+ hero dice which net me a few more legendary ranked heroes who I immediately take my new superstars to the arena and... still get thrashed because obviously I'm not great at team composition LOL. Now also available to me is the "champion arena" which is more PvP that the other arenas where you just face preset teams of other players but don't really interact with them in any way. In the champion arena mode which opens only every few hours, you are head to head in picking your line up for battle. Again, I got thrashed there too. :P

For the new arena, you start at rank 15K+ but most of the opponents are just
NPC squads until around the 200 mark.

At least I make progress against the orc invasion, basically stopping it in its tracks and then defeating the obviously evil high mage who orchestrated everything and turns into a purple dragon (that's new to me)! He's a son of Tiamat so he's kinda strong and my lev 100 fire main actually has to tank while back row Garius (90) / Ripekas (90) / Zhar'loth (90) / and Voresh (90) clinch the win. With his defeat this boss has also turned into another available weekly challenge pinata.

The adventure then leads to what I suppose is the Underdark, where we find the isolated city of Terminus inhabited by rot stricken deep elves and one of their number offers to accompany us back to the main city (breaking quarantine) via the long route - the first section of which is most exciting as it involves an undying spider that continuously pursues you once you reach its territory. You can beat it up, but it gets up after 10 seconds and the chase is on again! Ironically we ultimately escape by sending the spider falling down a deep chasm, because spiders aren't good at falling or climbing? Erm...

Dragonheir: Legendary Luck

[Part of the Cursed story line.] 

As grinding sucks I've also tried sneak in some exploration into the new lands which has revealed some rather adult themes. Let's just say I know how to make drugs now and I'm peddling them to the populace? WHAT? Yeah, that's a thing. Anyway, thanks to an unplanned maintenance I was gifted 100 hero dice by the system and managed to roll up Usha the knight (permanent this time) and Zhar'loth a fear inducing monster caster who replaces the under performing Gitouna.

I've also only now realized some heroes have a captain skill that you can pick from at the start of battle! By default it's always been Garius' +% defense but Zhar'loth brings a +%damage which is now my go to. Alas there's no avoiding the grinding and getting to level 100 is really a pain, but my main gets there while the other regulars are on 90. This helps me find and assist a missing princess (and her army) smash back the orc invaders and also unlocks the TEAM arena.

Team arena is almost exactly like regular arena except you put forward three teams to fight each other consecutively and characters can't be re-deployed between them. Again, finding people lower level to fight seems to be the way to go but its much harder to field three teams of heroes fully equipped with fully upgraded gear! And, once again this lets people with multiple legendary heroes absolutely trounce their opposition. Just to give you an idea, some of these guys have abilities to resurrect fallen team mates and/or self revive.

Good news though, using the camp horn feature (a free hero summon 4x daily or something) which has so far done nothing for me has today given me the Legendary Ghost Troll Ripekas who will be taking Usha's position in the rotation as he is a beast of a DPS. I just have to level him up first. Of course all new heroes start at level 1.

There's a server wide message every time someone pulls this off.

Dragonheir: Fey Dragon

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

What's there to do when you run out of "stamina" to grind you might ask? Well, you can try your hand at Fey Meander which is basically fight 6 groups of this level bad guys, go to next level and do it again with a tough poison boss maiden every 5 levels - or you can challenge NPCs in town to fight which is pretty neat (and recommended). Lastly you can try do the main quest which this time saw me beating a green dragon! Woo! And you can repeat this fight every week. Typical. 

Gitouna, Garius and Usha doing some dragon hunting!

Of course you can also try the arena, which gives you a choice of three other player parties to fight and up to 5 rerolls if none of them are to your liking. My best strategy here is the usual D&D one: only pick on people lower level than you for the best chance of success, but even then the parties with legendary heroes (whom I have none of currently) or parties with better composition will kick your ass. In particular Horrus the dwarf tank (who I did get but never used) is a menace if paired with Heksandra and/or Sigrid the blonde short bow archer girl (she prevents your from healing). Basically if I see her and Horrus I skip unless I've many levels higher! :P

Also note your ranking will drop naturally as other people beat your party too and you won't find out about it until you return to the arena. Anyway, with the dragon dead it seems I've finished another chapter and now can go to the adjoining land which is under an orc invasion... or not because the orcs are super high level which means its back to grinding for me!

Dragonheir: Mt. Trollabar

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

I too am surprised that I'm still here, as the story has had some interesting turns wherein I've been betrayed by hot Countess Catherine (who is a OK healer if she's in the party) but also gotten lucky with some hero dice to get Gitouna the dwarf crafter knifer who hits fast and Voresh the ice lich who has a wicked AoE, though it takes time to load up. I've also been loaned the female dual wielding knight Usha to get through a particular place and those three along with Garius and my fire main are my current party.

While smashing through some trolls I've come across the "second" daily type mission which involves fighting a Poseidon type ocean giant and is pretty cool. The "first" daily is harder to find, fighting some sort of death knight through a portal. You also get two garbage tasks daily which are easy and help get you more hero dice and there's also a ranked arena to fight other players parties which is just kicking my rear at the moment so I'm leaving that alone.

Voresh taking on Poseidon Malinus.

Oh, remember how we need specific elemental crystals to level up heroes? It gets worse when you hit the next tiers as the place that drops them makes it much worse for heroes of that element to be there. For example, if I send my fire themed heroes into the fire realm, they do 30% less damage and take 60% more damage meaning you shouldn't send your fire heroes in there. But but but... yep. That means you have to level up AT LEAST THREE TEAMS to be able to farm through each of the three elemental zones! Drow archer Adrie who slows down the bosses from using their ultimates is pretty handy here, but in the case that you can't or don't want to fight the high level variants you can just grind the easier ones and fuse the 2-3 low level crystals you get per run into a higher tier at the ratio of 10 lessers:1 greater. Waaaaaah!

Dragonheir: Elf-landia

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

I made it out of the death lands and into a forest of elves (and am still playing the game surprisingly)! While I've rolled up a fair number of heroes the standouts are Vasska who summons skelies, Isitarian who summons a baby dracolich, and tank/healer Garius who I'm pretty sure is also a skele underneath that armor. As you can only deploy 5 heroes max that means everyone else (other than Heksandra who is an awesome cleric) is benched while dealing with the "ghost elf" threat. That is, elves aren't ascending/being reborn and instead are just hanging around as angry ghosts. Awesome!

Yes, I'm surprised that there's actually a story in here too. Also, there's multiple game modes. Some fights are tower defense things where ranged area folk do better than say Garius. Others like the goblin camp just require super high DPS for your team to clear the waves of goblins in under a specific time to unlock better rewards and a harder mode so that you can do it all again! I found the grind! Lol. Seriously though, EXP which is used to level up your heroes is found in potions which is by design I suppose so that you can better direct which heroes you want to level. The rewards of the goblin camp are almost exclusively EXP potions so you'll need to go in there. Each run consumes "stamina" which is recovered every day or by eating special food items.

Vasska and Garius grinding up some fire crystals.
The fire boss lady is too lazy to stand up!

At particular levels though, EXP potions aren't enough. You need to go into one of three elemental realms to farm up the correct crystal for your heroes element. This also costs stamina, and sure the elemental realms drop crystals but they don't drop EXP potions. Oh! And there are grave sites which you can raid (again costs stamina) for gear. Each grave site drops one particular set of gear which you wear for a matching bonus. These ONLY drop gear and no EXP potions or crystals. I see a trend forming here...

Dragonheir: What the heck is this?

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

This D&D 'somewhat' idle gacha game (less idle than Idle champs though) starts off with a fight against Tiamat, and then you wake up in some death lands where your character is 5 times the size of the map POI's like villages and fortresses. I'm guessing this is because they designed the people at "combat size" and then just went - meh - and kept them that size for world exploration while everything else is shrunk down. It takes a bit of getting used to but you get used to it after awhile.

Combat is clearly the focus of this and while you start with Olaf the skeleton to support your Ice/Fire/Lightning Mage (you must be a mage) he'll soon be joined the dark elf Noteera, troll Gulal, dwarf Forbit and healer Heksandra. Again, its obvious that devs went "meh" at one point as Noteera and Gulal have mini-cutscenes when activating their ultimate abilities while everyone else does not. Outside of setting up your initial battle position there only thing you actively control in battle are those ultimate abilities, and these greatly vary between characters - which is where the "gacha" comes in. Earn dice to roll for heroes! And spoilers: a lot of them suck!

I guess someone makes weapons and armor of that size...?

Fortunately for this early bit that doesn't seem to matter as you'll be smashing through baddies with no problem. In fact it might get to the point where you just press that "auto" button during combat so that the AI handles your ultimate for you. You know it's going to get bad when they provide an "auto" button for combat...

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Season 1) and Strong Girl Nam-soon (Season 1)

Featuring female protagonists that make you laugh and cry. In a good way.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (Season 1)

 
This anime is a strange masterpiece. It takes place in a Dungeons and Dragons like fantasy world focusing on Frieren the long lived elf mage, and the story begins with her and the party of heroes having saved the world from a demon king - usually the end of a campaign but that's ok, because this is a mostly a melancholic drama about characters growing as people. As a bonus there just happens to be a good portion of awesome action sequences on top of the excellent art, music and story. I'm sorry Blue Lock, this is now my favorite anime as it regularly hits me in the feels. Highly recommended!

Strong Girl Nam-soon (Season 1)

This continuation in the world of Strong Girl Bong-soon gives us a new cute protagonist but unlike Bong-soon, Nam-soon (and her family) has no problems making use of her superhuman strength in public. While yes, there are bad guys who just happen to be idiots despite their good looks, this is mainly a love story with a heavy focus on humor. This works for the most part but in the few episodes where Nam-soon is taking a back seat in the plot it can get quite taxing... Ultimately if you enjoyed Bong-soon you'll probably like this too, but just don't expect it to be as good.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves and Secret Invasion

Mindflayers among us? Just kidding BG3 fans.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves

After escaping from incarceration for theft, a bard (Chris Pine) and barbarian (Michelle Rodriguez) are out to reclaim what was stolen from them but face numerous and often hilarious complications along the way. While the story at its core is simple, this excellent cast of characters, effects and fight scenes makes it very enjoyable and a big step up from the previous films while adding all the little technical details and cameos D&D fans would enjoy. Highly recommended, even if you aren't into D&D! 

That's better than a club!

Secret Invasion (TV Series)

When shapeshifting aliens threaten the safety of the world, who else is there to turn to but the Avenge... I mean, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)? Literally anyone else actually. This six episode series unintentionally depicts just how irrelevant he is, which is kinda bad given he's meant to be the main character. Guess what, if you remove him from the story entirely it can still play out just the same as there are characters already doing his role in almost every scene. The best thing this has going for it is the nice opening song. Not recommended.

Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms

Now this is a true idle game!

In this simple but addictive clicker game, you are tasked with assembling a team of heroes to take on some well known D&D campaigns, crossing paths with the likes of Strahd, Halaster, Acererak, Valindra and Zariel. To win the missions through each campaign you'll need to mix, match and position your heroes to the best benefit of the party.

While "the tank is up front" might be obvious, there are many less so with some people preferring to be away from others, healers only healing the forward row or DPS buffing the back rows etc. While collecting gear is a thing, collecting and expanding your hero roster is also interesting as there are LOTS to collect. While some are locked behind some tough missions, most are readily available via monthly events, giveaways and time gates (which let you replay the monthly events you may have missed).

Once your party sets off, you can assist with clicking near the start but later on there is little to no input required from you making it a perfect game to run in the background. Indeed, the adventure continues even when you shut down the game albeit a little slower. This is fine as heroes can't die and you can't "lose" a mission unless you specifically back out of it. And you might just do that a few times to increase your "gold find" ratio.

Familiar faces all around.

Gold find is the main advancement metric through out each campaign. The more gold you have when you "end" a run (win or lose), the more gold find percentage you gain which will help you on future runs. How? Simple, your characters can level up sooner and higher. There is a pay to win component here but it is very slight as players are regularly bombarded by free chests and rewards anyway, a feature that really got me sucked into this idler. I give it three mind witnesses out of five and recommend it to people that enjoy this sort of thing.

Insight: If you reach a level that your team can't pass, simply rearrange them for starters as they might not be in the best positions anymore, especially after leveling up. To help on your journey, also regularly check this combinations page for free loot!

Good Design: Nine Lives Stealer

Something to translate into MMORPGS.

The Waterdeep: The Dungeon of the Mad Mage board game is full of bad design ideas, perhaps that's what made this one item stand out for me. The Nine Lives Stealer is a powerful magic sword that you earn by beating the death knight who wields it (and boy does he wield it well). As a player item, it does above average and consistent damage on a hit, and on a roll of 20 on a 20 sided die it instantly kills whatever you hit, including bosses! Should that ever happen, the sword is then lost.

That would make a fantastic weapon in MMORPGs, which should translate to doing damage equal or a little better than the top tier weapon at every release. It is something people would want to grind for and want to have a supply of. Something pay to win people would buy from the auction house and/or the cash shop. Something that would always be in demand. Obviously you won't want to use it as your "main" weapon because I know a lot of people don't want to suddenly be fighting barehanded (obviously monks / martial arts don't exist or aren't effective in that world), and you definitely don't want to risk losing it against a minor add.

But as something that could potentially cut down the time in a dungeon and/or instakill bosses? Or even that annoying guy in PvP matches? Hell yes. Take that Tiamat! In your face Zariel! This is one reward I'd definitely like to see implemented.

Waterdeep: The Dungeon of the Mad Mage

Where stupid design decisions begin creeping in.

The next game after Tomb of Annihilation, this sees your cooperative party of up to five intrepid adventurers tackle the infamous Undermountain, which is home to the mad mage Halaster Blackcloak and his monstrous apprentices. This time the game adds more spell wielding foes as well as elder rune cards that can either have a bane or boon, depending on the situation. Some of these are rather minor, offering one free reroll or simply stunning you. Others are noticeably stronger - like being unable to heal yourself for the rest of the adventure!

Also, it's as if the designers looked at the previous game and thought "this one needs to be harder" - a trap many stupid designers seem to always fall into. Monsters are more dangerous in many ways. Some don't just hurt you, they "weaken" you meaning you can't get that HP back. Others, like the intellect devourers only stun you if they can hit, but if they hit a stunned person they do 5 points of damage. For comparison your tanks will have 12 HP at most. Oh, and there are thugs later who upon death spawn into those intellect devourers. There's a small chance three of them spawn simultaneously as well.

Bring Cormac!

Unable to think of clever boss mechanics, they also just decided to make them hit point sponges - the most stupid and boring way to upgrade a boss. In exchange, you can actually reach level 4 in this game, two levels higher than any before! Of course, my party finished all 13 adventures on level 2 as per usual.

The worst sin however, is misprints, one especially significant one on the sorcerer's card. While we still finished and enjoyed this outing, we all agreed it is the weakest of the existing set, as such I rate it 3 death knights out of 5. Only recommended if you've played and enjoyed all the others. If not, Tomb of Annihilation currently holds my highest score. For those who prefer competitive board games, check out Lords of Waterdeep instead.

Insight: It is almost mandatory to have a cleric with the "Path to the Grave" daily power ready, and get someone that anti-stun ring or you will have a bad time.

Neverwinter Online: The Rage of Bel

Some like it hot, but this is just confusing.

Since the hell spawn are experiencing continued failure at Vallenhas (and most likely in the Hell Pit), Zariel the lord of Avernus has sent her best general - the titular Bel - and his legions to turn the tide... which results in a ridiculous failure, not just for the demon army but for the programmed design. Every two hours you can enter a dark rift to fight his troops.

That section currently lasts around 10-20 minutes (thanks to today's patch as it was much shorter previously), afterwards it closes and you can fight Bel himself for an hour (there's a handy timer on the top right part of the Avernus map to help you plan your day). The hardest part of his fight is basically not stepping on any spot you or your team have previously stepped on. Melee centered characters need not worry too much, as the idiot will teleport to you if you move far enough away but ranged DPS will certainly have an easier time in his last phase.

Don't like a team? Bel is quite accessible for solo players too. His only "tricky" part is the catapult section, where he patiently stands still while waiting to get shot. If you have a blue flame on your head, you are the one that needs to find a magic rock and bring it to the catapult which is easy enough. If you are in a team and don't have the blue flame, your job is to keep clear of any loading zones and catapults which often means slow lazy circles while evading the sky fire.

Casually strolling with blue boulders while Bel waits patiently.

Oh well, as usual its a bit short on the story and quite heavy on the grind for the new upgradable buff item. There's also a bit of waiting thanks to somewhat moronic design but I wouldn't expect anything better from Cryptic. Thumbs up though for once again jumping straight into the boss fight. I quite like that!

Insight: Load up on some demonic overloads from your stronghold gem shop if you have it to make your life easier. Probably a good idea to have them for the hell pit too!

Neverwinter Online: Hell Pit - Lazy Rogue Guide

Are you not entertained!?

The Hell Pit event is back as a prologue to the next module episode: the Rage of Bel. Since it seems this is going to happen quite frequently, I thought I'd put a quick guide of how I go through it as a "lazy" rogue. By that I mean my free to play build and gear is nowhere near BiS and while I'm currently at 22k iLevel, the event drops you down to 20k anyway so it shouldn't really matter. I'll just be going through the basics here which is enough for me to get by so, let's get started!

The objective in the Hell Pit is to survive a number of rounds which last 2 minutes each. To be precise 2 minutes of devil or demon mobs endlessly spawning until you can wipe them out when time is over. During the first seven days it is 5 rounds. The next set adds bonus rounds with harder enemies that literally turn most of the ground red and eventually you get boss rounds too. Every round a random power up is dropped into the arena. When invoked they each last 30 seconds (other than the Nuke which is one shot):

-Speed looks like a boot. If you don't have anything better then use it as soon as you get it. Mostly worthless, but it fills up your action points fast for daily power spam.
-HP Regen looks like a heart. Another use ASAP if you have nothing else - don't expect the regen to keep you alive.
-Nuke looks like a skull. More useful than the two above as a crowd cleaner, but takes time to channel and aim. Be in stealth when you use this.
-Invuln* is a shield. It is the best power up and one you should save for the later rounds. Feel free to use it if another shield power up shows up.

*I call it invuln as it certainly makes you feel that way. On the bonus and boss rounds though, it'll help keep you alive but you still need to be on your game.

Required "BYO" Gear: Health stones or health pots. Being lazy I don't dodge everything. If you play the game for long enough (and don't go into dungeons - I'm lazy) it gifts you with enough free health stones to have a decent supply. Health pots are cheap enough with gold but obviously aren't as good. Ideally you always want to heal early - around half health you should be spamming that quickslot heal button. And yes, I mean spam. Lag will sometimes miss a keypress that can lead to your demise. Spamming works just fine as there are cooldowns on all those items preventing you from double drinking.

My basic strategy is: kill the ranged guys. You want to drop your attacks on them or in their vicinity. If your powers are on cool down, feel free to stealth/dodge/run away without attacking to simply heal up until you are ready again. Mobility is key here - you are a fighter plane doing strafing runs. You don't want to get stuck attacking in one spot for too long.

Abilities I use (Executioner path):
Sly Flourish - used sparingly as a finisher, avoided for most of the fight as it roots you in place
Cloud of Steel - ranged "pew pew pew" attack. Useful for attacking at a distance, especially when safe inside a smoke cloud
Smoke Bomb - enemies in it cannot attack, making you safe from most melee guys. Ranged foes can shoot into it though so drop this beside the ranged scum!
Blade Flurry - decent damage to the area around you, best used when mobbed within smoke bomb
Path of Blades - AoE attack that keeps going while you move and/or are stealthed. Perfect as mobility is key.
Shocking Execution - when you want something dead, but I rarely use it in favor of...
Hateful Knives - not the best daily power for rogues but what it has greatly is RANGE. Need to get out of a melee swarm or a sea of dangerous red zones? Target the ranged dude half an arena away and watch as you effectively teleport to him and stomp on his face.

I can teleport to the furthest guy behind the mob of cultists with Hateful Knives.

That's really all there is to my method. I'm sure more "pro" players can do it without using any heals of power ups but this way suits me just fine.

Neverwinter is going to Hell

Isn't it already there? Lol.

There's a new event up in Neverwinter Online called the Hell Pit which is likely the precursor to the next module: Infernal Descent (which in turn I assume will be loosely based on Baldur's Gate: Descent to Avernus, but maybe without the Mad Max cars).

You must survive the solo level 80 arena for a few days to be able to buy some nifty rewards, one of which is a legendary mount which is awesome for free players like myself! The bad news is these wins are tracked at the account level, so only one character per account will have enough time to earn it. Also the horses bonuses aren't great compared to other legendary mounts available but hey, beggars can't be choosers right?

Update: Looks like Cryptic made a devilishly sneaky adjustment... now if you want the horse, TOO BAD! Only 1 Token of Achievement will be awarded during Hell Pit. Subsequent events throughout the year will each reward 1 Token of Achievement for minimum participation PER event. 

Yeah, and it's anyone's guess how far apart those events will be time wise... so that's a massive "F-U" to your alts! Nice one Cryptic, showing once again you are the king in stupid design decisions as this has pretty much killed all my excitement for doing this event!

Just to clarify, that's like doing 75 days of work (split up into 5 across the year, without any pre-warning of when they are) in which you will only get paid after all 75 days of work are done. You miss even one and tough luck buddy! No main reward for you!

Oh well, I've survived without a legendary mount this far, and it doesn't look like I'll be getting one from this bullshit either.

Insight: If you are still interested, you'll need 15 wins to earn the "main" token.

The Cursed: Unbound

[Part of the Cursed story line.]

Despite having lost his host body, the demon spirit then began to flee - only to be easily eliminated by Gevlon who was now carrying all the demon-killing trinkets from before (he is greedy after all).

Just as the dust settles, Ragner and Rollo show up with reinforcements but find that the task is already complete. Instead, they escort the survivors Shelumu, Gevlon and Sir Siegfried out of there to a not so nearby town where they celebrate their victory and their freedom.

Before leaving with the rest of his people, Shelumu pays Siegfried enough to start a new mercenary company, Ragner and Rollo enough to purchase a brand new ship and Gevlon a king's bounty for saving the day against Tyranthraxus, an amount that could buy him a whole fleet of ships. The day is saved... for now.

Everyone likes shineys.