Well, y'all . . . I had a lot of fun writing about my Spellbreak adventures this past week, and I hope you enjoyed reading along. There were a lot of great matches!
For the week I had an overall average of 12th place and my placements were trending in the right direction, which makes sense. I hadn't played a lot of Spellbreak, and so I naturally learned and got better as the week went on.
I did my ok-est
Unfortunately for Day 7 here I don't have any updates because Steam stopped me cold in my tracks and said NO! You will NOT be playing any Spellbreak tonight!
I retry and I retry and I retry
Apparently Spellbreak was working fine from the Epic store front, but Steam wasn't doing so hot. It happens.
I think I learned a lot more about the game and I'm happy with where I ended up. I definitely will be back to play more Spellbreak and to level up my Blightbringer outfit. From what I can tell the new "chapter" of the game is overdue and players of Spellbreak are anxious to see Chapter 4 happen.
So the question is . . . what's next? Well, there are two other Battle Royales I'd love to dedicate a week to: specifically Realm Royale and Fall Guys. I'm anti-Fortnite since it's so Top 40, and I'm edgy like that. They've got billions of dollars of revenue from millions of players and that ship sailed years ago, so . . . no need for the Friendly Necromancer to add his 2 cents to the billions of dollars pile.
If you have a suggestion for a game you think I'd enjoy, leave it in the comments.
Team . . . they got me . . . I looked in the shop, and there were some solid picks today.
Hello Blightbringer skin . . .
I couldn't resist buying the Blightbringer skin. I was 100 percent done for when I saw it in the shop. Also, look at that Clockwork Machinist skin on the far right in the picture above! If Morgrim (aka my buddy Mercedes) is reading, that's YOUR SKIN! That's YOUR OC! Look at that!
As for the Blightbringer skin, it comes bundled with a quest to do toxicology damage to level up its look. My fingers are ready.
I can't believe I paused to take a screenshot instead of smashing the buy now
I wish I would have been recording video at the time of purchase because you get a really quick cutscene for the unlock of your new skin.
Friendly Necro attacking with the poison gas!
So now the quest to level this skin is a part of my regular line up. Speaking of quests, the quests for today were a weird smorgasbord: ice skate for 20 seconds (m'kay?). Finish in the Top 15 twice as a toxicologist, and deal 500 Conduit damage.
Match 1 = 8th Place. This was a fun match, and I scored a couple of exiles . . . I did experience a lot of rubber banding, however, and that wasn't fun. In the end, I got bested by a Tempest mage.
Blightbringer report: 282/7500 toxic damage . . . that's a solid 1/27th of the way there! We got this!
Whoops. They're about to get a point blank face full of toxin
Match 2 = 3rd Place. zero exiles . . . but I got some really good hits. I'm also proud of myself for taking the time to find a sneaky spot or two to do some really good healing. By the end I had dealt a surprising (for me) 967 damage. I might have done better but it was mayhem at the end, and I panic 'ported a bit too far into the storm by accident. After this match I had unlocked toxicologist rank 5, earned mage rank 12, unlocked wellspring, and finished my quest to finish in the top 15 twice.
Blightbringer report: 588/7500 toxic damage. OK! 1/12 of the way there! That was a great round!
Tsk. Just a bit too far on that teleport.
Match 3 = 6th Place. Gonna be honest team. I wasn't really even trying this round, but I did manage to still get an exile. I was more concentrated on skating, and in fact I completed my smooth skating quest for 10 gold from all the fleeing I did this round. :)
Why fight when you can just skate away?
And that was it for the night. At that point. it was time for bed, and I felt pretty good that 2 of my 3 quests were done for the day. I had purchased a super cool outfit that fit the Friendly Necromancer vibe. Yup, it was a short but sweet night in Spellbreak.
Yesterday's quests had a TON of synergy to them: I really liked how these three lined up! Check it out:
Deal 500 fire power, Activate 5 mana vaults, and finish in the top 15 twice as a pyromancer.
Now THAT is synergy!
I've never seen quests line up so perfectly. When you see something like this, it feels like you hit the jackpot because I could probably knock these three out in just a few matches if the stars align. Right? The game was like, just play as a Pyromancer and do the stuff you usually do, kid. You got this!
1st match = 17th place. You know, I should have fled after another wizard came in and stole my kill, but my wife was standing behind me waiting impatiently for me to finish up, so . . . suicide attack it was!
Open 5 Mana Vaults?! Easy Stuff.
Intermission: The wife and I went out for a bit and I had a big break. We even ended up at the Austin Record Convention in downtown Austin, and I picked up the Early Demos record from Depeche Mode. (Side note: I love it. Minimal mixes of Depeche Mode before all the glam and lipstick of production were put on.)
crates and crates and crates of old records at the Austin Record Convention
2nd match = 3rd place and 198 damage dealt. I had 0 exiles, but I completed opening 5 mana vaults and my first 1 of 2 top 15 finishes. Again, 3rd place . . . I really need to stop doing this thing where I don't heal up before the final fight. Maybe I'd actually have a shot at 1st place some day.
Exiled as I exile! But remember kids, when rebirth saves you, that's the time to run away . . .
3rd match = 6th place with 614 damage dealt and 2 exiles. It was a great match, and there you go . . . I completed both my remaining quests and I was DONE with quests after 3 matches . . . what magic is this?
I was legitimately tempted by an outfit yesterday. The Farseer is so cool looking.
The Grim Farseer -- Oo! I like this one.
This soothsayer has a super cool looking feathered hat and features these "eye" decorations on head, chest, and belt and the bundle comes with a fortune teller's ball. It's not "necromancer," but it is awesome.
I found out something yesterday . . . actually two somethings.
1- I google searched outfits and found out there *is* a necromancer skin in Spellbreak called the "baleful necromancer skin."
2- Your breaker's gender bends with the skin. Meaning, there's no male version of the baleful necromancer skin. So if you chose a male look at the beginning of the game and you want to switch, just purchase any skin that has a female base.
Good to know, good to know.
I also found four other outfits I'd consider Necromancer worthy:
I'd totally wear any of those, but Death Incarnate and Prince of Pestilence are MWHHAA *chef's kiss*. The cool thing about the Prince of Pestilence and Venomous Corruption outfits is that they evolve as you play with them equipped. As you deal more and more damage, these outfits get cooler looking. The catch is, it has to be toxic damage that you deal.
Since I only finished one of my quests yesterday, the game simply added a new quest and kept my other two quests. "Triple Exile" was the new quest, which meant all I needed to do was Exile 3 people. Fair enough.
So, with it being Saturday, I logged on in hopes that the queue times would be lower than normal and that I could make some good progress. Here's how it rolled out.
Match 1 = 3rd place. 3rd place or 30th place seems to be where I'm ending up pretty consistently these days. It's a mood, but honestly I felt great about this match. I had 3 exiles and my frost arrow aim was on point. I just wish it would have been toxic damage, but that's fine since finishing that triple exile quest on the first match felt pretty good. . . I'll take it! This also allowed me to rank up to toxicologist rank 4. The damage I had dealt as a toxicologist wrapped over and all I needed was just 81 more points of toxicology damage, and that quest would be finished as well.
Match 2 = 7th place. I managed to get an exile, but at the end of the match I was surrounded by wizards with nowhere to hide. Thankfully I was able to FINALLY finish the toxic ruin quest and claim my 5 gold. After this it was time to switch to Conduit to start working on that last quest.
Match 3 = 16th place, but man was this a frustrating ending. I actually got stuck and couldn't get out of map view and the options UI. so I had to just sit there for a minute and die as a guy took me from full health to nothing . . . and I was just frozen in place. I was having such a great match to. Pressing escape brought me out of the map view into the options UI. Pressing escape from the options UI brought me to the Map view. I was stuck in a loop and there was no way to break free.
sigh . . .
Match 4 = 31st place. Um, I jumped into a pit by accident and died . . . I'm an idiot.
"You exiled yourself"
Match 5 = 5th place . . . ok, this was a good match. I had lots of fun, did 508 damage, and reached conduit rank 4, which unlocked the Conduit card. My damage was evenly split between two elements, so just like that I was half way done with the 500 lightning damage quest. Obviously the dudes at the top of the leaderboard were there to play ball and were great at getting away from me, circling back, and then ultimately destroying me.
Intermission: It's was a Saturday, so I took a big break, ate, and went shopping with my wife. She also put me on a quest to clear her old iCloud account of pictures and save them to storage. Good times.
Match 6 = 5th place with 2 exiles, but eventually some wizzy in a really cool suit of armor got me. I reached mage rank 11 and got 50 gold and ended up with 405/500 conduit damage toward quest completion.
Chucking lightning is pretty fun
Match 7 = 36th place . . . yeah, I picked an early fight and didn't win. I literally got nothing out of this match. It happens.
Match 8 = 12th place with 279 damage dealt. I got in a couple good scraps, but didn't get any exiles. The main thing was that I completed my conduit damage quest and received 10 gold for my efforts on the battlefield. At this point there was another 15 minutes until the outfits in the shop cycled over, so I decided to switch to a class I hadn't played before: Tempest Wizard.
Match 9 = 15th place with 330 damage. Not bad for my first foray as a Tempest Wizard. I didn't get an exile because right as I was about to exile a guy, another wizard swooped in and stole my kill . . . and then killed me. That's battle royale for you!
All in all, it was a good day of Spellbreak. The outfits in the shop rolled over while I was playing, and there was yet again a necromancer-esque outfit in the shop called "the Doom Prophet."
Doom Prophet is pretty close, but not really what I'm looking for.
. . . but just as the name implied, this was more "evil priest" than "necromancer," and since that leather strips over the hood look really isn't my jam, I took a hard pass.
Close, but it's not really hitting the right notes for me.
I only had time for four matches yesterday when playing Spellborn. I would have had more, but after dinner I watched Titans with my wife and my body was like, NOPE, you're going to sleep. So, there you go, I didn't complete my quests yesterday, but that's fine. It didn't look like I was going to complete my quests quickly anyway.
Yesterday the objectives were to open 10 chests as a Frostborn, deal 500 toxic damage, and deal 500 conduit damage. Here's how it played out:
1st match = 3rd place. This was a fun game and had a great fight at the end where three of us were dancing around in tight circle trying to survive and destroy each other. I should have found a way to heal up more often. The best part of this match was when I had two exiles back to back. I swooped in while two wizards were fighting it out and poison bolted one for the kill and poison bolted the other for the second kill quick in a row. Yup, I was THAT guy finally instead of the one being THOSE guys. Ultimately I opened my 10 chests in one match, reached Frostborn Rank 5 and unlocked the "athletic" talent.
2nd match = 14th place. This was my first game as a toxicologist, and it wasn't too bad! I ended up dealing a total of 232 damage, 145 of that was toxic damage. I ended up making rank 2 in toxicology and won two legitimate duels back to back. I should have been smart and used my invisibility to get away from the heat. Small thing I learned was that invisibility and toxicologist pair well together. on the back half of a match you can do extra poison damage when you attack from invisible.
Invisibility is nice. I like it.
3rd match = 11th place. As I was playing I was really feeling the Adrenaline kicking in. I actually ended up dying in the storm while trying to flee a fight so I could heal up. I only did like 80 points of poison damage during the match. It seemed quite a bit harder to move the needle on completing this 500 damage dealt quest.
The math's not in my favor here -- maybe I should have used the minor health first
4th match = 8th place. I did pretty good damage this fight (for me), but sadly most of that damage was fire based instead of poison based, so . . . again, not much movement on the quest needle. I did end up reaching Toxicologist rank 3 and unlocked the Dexterity talent.
A Toxic Exile!
. . . and that's it. Unfortunately I only finished one of my quests for the day, but there's always tomorrow since it appears that if I didn't finish my quests, they just roll over to the next day. (I don't know if I like that -- well, at least I won't lose progress on my toxic quest.)
Today's outfit choices in the shop are pretty good, and one that seems pretty close to a necromancer!
Oo . . . that Gaunt Slayer Bundle is the closest it's come to necromancer so far.
It even comes bundled with the "inky surge" trails, which are pretty awesome looking. Although, ultimately this outfit looks more like an emo pilgrim than a necromancer.
There's no disguising where you're dropping or floating with that inky trail
Again, I don't know if I'm ready to drop 25 bucks for the outfit and a couple trails. If the outfit had a bit more bone on it and read more necromancer than emo assassin, I'd probably grab it . . . that inky trail though . . . that's pretty awesome.
Hello people! It's Day 2 of Spellbreak Week for me, and I once again stared down 3 quests . . . and decided to re-roll them since I didn't want to do 500 earth damage. However, my re-roll of 3 quests gave me an additional "500 damage" quest, so I kinda screwed myself there. No worries, I got this!
Whew . . . narrow escape
I mean, I did make my life a little more interesting because now I was playing an unfamiliar "main," since two of my quests involved playing as a storm wizard (aka a Conduit). Eventually I'm going to need to level all of these classes because it leads to unlocking your Mind, Body, and Spirit traits for your account.
What are those you ask? Well I'm glad you asked. Your character gets to spec themselves down the Mind, Body, and Spirit trees with a total of 7 points. You can change these at any time, but you only unlock the depths of these trees by leveling in each available class. Clear as mud? It shouldn't be if you've spent any time in any RPG investing in a skill tree. What makes this different is that you can make changes to your skill tree on the fly outside of the game and it's not really a "tree" per se, it's just "ability possibilities" that you unlock and spend points in.
Anyway, as you're playing the game, you'll be finding scrolls of Mind, Body, and Spirit, and you basically level up your skills in the game as you collect these. It gives you a bit of an advantage, which is nice. I'll take any kind of advantage I can get. I need 'em.
Reading a Scroll of the Body during gameplay -- more health please!
Here's how it all unfolded yesterday:
1st match = 3rd place finish. This 3rd place finish was pure dumb luck. I was afk for most of the match. Don't ask me how I survived because I came out of AFK right as the storm was closing in and had sat in one place for like 10 minutes.
2nd match = 7th place. Lots of people survived right up until the very end. It was a crowded, explosive mayhem match at the end, and I fell between two dueling wizards. Ouch.
3rd match = 3rd place finish. This was a very normal match that was actually very quiet at the beginning. I was all alone out there with no one to fight. After completing this match, I had completed my "deal 500 fire damage" quest. I also hit Mage rank 9 on my account and earned another 50 gold. Woot! Gimme that gold!
4th match = ?? place finish. Um, I clicked too fast at the end, and I have no idea what place I ended up, but I know it wasn't high at all. Probably in the 30's somewhere. This was my first time playing as a Conduit wizard and . . . yeah, not good.
An electrifying experience in dueling
5th match = 30th place finish. Even though I didn't do good, this was a fun match. I ended up racing another person to the lightning portal trying to get a good buff for the match. It was an epic fight that . . . ended in my loss. Afterwards though, I leveled up to rank 2 as a Conduit wizard. Awww, my first level as a Conduit. *cute face*
6th match = 30th place finish. Really hard to get used to playing a conduit wizard. I got my butt handed to me.
7th match = 7th place finish. I got an exile as a Conduit wizard woot! I also, again, got caught between two duelers and paid the ultimate price. Finishing this match helped me complete a quest for opening 10 chests as a conduit wizard (I was really not doing well those past 3 matches -- typically it's pretty easy to open 10 chests in one match). I also ranked up to 3 as a conduit wizard. GO LITTLE WIZZY! GO!
Almost dying in an explosion of winning!
8th match = 4th place finish. Man I was hungry this game. I got a kill and did some really good damage, which helped me complete my 500 damage as a Conduit wizard quest.
So there you go. Slowly by slowly I'm learning more about Spellbreak and having fun playing the game. Today's shop offering didn't have a necromancer outfit, but it did have a pretty cool, pirate-y looking Illusionist outfit. Slightly tempted, but the outfit is like 25 bucks . . . no thanks.
I decided that this is my week to (once again) really give Spellbreak a go. I played it for Blaugust and quickly wrote about it, but now that I've kind of divorced myself from Champions Online, I'm really feeling the pull for some quick, competitive Battle Royale play.
Swooping in for the kill
Every day Spellbreak gives you three daily objectives, and I'm going to let that be my guide during play this coming week. For yesterday, that meant dealing 500 points of Frost damage, opening 10 chests as a frostborn, and opening 10 chests as a stoneshaper.
Dropping in to grab the BIG chest -- bold move, sir
The hardest of these daily quests was dealing 500 points of Frost Damage because . . . gonna be honest here team, I'm not that great. THAT SAID! I did get a couple max damage shots here and there with the ice arrow, and that felt pretty great.
I never got a first place victory in my games yesterday, but I did get pretty close a handful of times. For a Battle Royale, most of the time you're NOT going to win . . . that's just how it goes. My placements yesterday were as follows:
2nd
8th
10th
36th <-- ooph
22nd <-- ugh
36th <--dang
4th
2nd
To be honest, those losses in the middle were more from me trying to complete the daily quest than anything else. Concentrating on dealing frost damage put me at more of a disadvantage than trying to tactically have a better placement on the leaderboard.
In exchange for completing my quests, I got a whopping 15 gold, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things. To buy anything really noteworthy in the shop, you're going to need at least 1000 gold and that would buy you something basic.
I do like the look of that Wayward Sorcerer
As you rank up, you get a lot more gold (I think 50 gold per rank), and that's probably where the majority of your earned income comes from in game. If I found a suitable "Friendly Necromancer" skin for my character, I'd probably dive into the cash shop so I could stop looking like a noob and get a skin I really want to wear.
That Arcane Trickster outfit though!
Spellbreak truly is the first Battle Royale that I've really wanted to get into, so I'm happy to finally be playing.
Typically I've avoided playing Battle Royale games. I've never played Forknife. I mean, I've eaten with a fork and a knife, but I haven't played the game. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the dad joke) You can't live in this day and age and not know what Fortnite is, but my natural tendency is to have a revulsion to the super popular. I'm sure if I played it, I'd have fun with it, but up to this point, it's been more of a sport that you watch instead of a game that you play.
A few of my peeps have even tried to get me to play it with them, but I've managed to sidestep my way out of playing at every turn. My fascination with Fortnite is merely at the successful monetization end of the equation. What game makes billions of dollars? It's insane.
Before Fortnite, I would watch a streamer play H1Z1, and it was a lot of fun to watch. But actually playing PUBG? H1Z1? Fortnite? I don't know they're not really my cup of tea. I did play a couple of mobile battle royales, like Brawl Stars and Bullet Echo, and I really enjoyed both of those.
. . . and that leads me to the topic at hand. On my previous computer I had loaded Spellbreak because this was the one Battle Royale that actually looked really good to me. It's like you take the Wizard class based system of Wizard101, mix it with an Apex Legends style Battle Royale, throw in a synergistic spell combination complexity, but you also make it so every character plays a bit like Pharah from Overwatch. Amazing. That's exactly the battle royale I want to play.
Stingite, as a Stoneshaper
So my old self played through the tutorial of Spellbreak on my old computer and I noped out because of the lag. On my new computer, it was game on, and so yesterday I loaded up that crazy, chaotic spell casting Battle Royale and gave it a dozen plays or so.
The verdict? It was every bit of fun as I expected it to be. I even won my second game out of the gate . . . there's absolutely no way that wasn't versus bots. LOL. After this win, I started into exactly the pattern I thought I would when playing this game: generally NOT winning. Because with Battle Royales you have to understand that for the most part you're not going to win, that's just expected.
This duel didn't end well for me
I also experienced exactly what I thought I would from the game queues, which was waits of 3-5 minutes per match. From what I understand it only gets worse as you get higher rank as well. If you look at the Steam Charts for Spellbreak it paints a grim picture the past three months of downward decline . . . and that's DURING the summer months.
A had a couple great kills or "exiles" yesterday and a few intense battles that felt amazing. This two person kill where I flew in between a couple people battling and got a 2x kill was a really satisfying moment. Haha!
I'm happy my new computer can handle the game, and that I can finally try out the one Battle Royale I always wanted to give a spin.
