Mariners 2022: Magic Season Ends

The Mariners magical run in 2022 has come to a bittersweet end. The upside is the team overachieved this year and made it to the ALDS, while hosting their first playoff game in 21 years. Most people, outside the circle of overly positive fans, believed the Mariners were a year away from having a scary playoff team but some unexpected acquisitions and breakouts happened in 2022 to help make a push for the playoffs. 

Let's not gloss over the fact that the AL was weaker this year and that the MLB didn't expand the playoffs because the Mariners actually finished with the exact record that they had in 2021. Last year  they barely missed the playoffs due to the Red Sox and White Sox being good last year but both of those teams have since faltered.

While I have been critical of the team this year, it's mostly due to bad coaching/management of the team, and less on the players. I believe in the passion and desire these players have to win, but I often feel they are winning despite the coaching and game management. 

There's a large part of me who believes Kris Negron would be a better game manager since he actually won a championship as the head coach of the Rainiers. I believe he understands how to build a lineup, how to position the defense on every play, when to pull pitchers, and who to put in for key situations. I believe Servais is a great players coach and a fan/media favorite at the podium, but he cost the Mariners a lot of games in his tenure with bad decisions, including all 3 games against the Astros in the ALDS, 2 of which were easy wins that he faltered away. Servais should be moved to a new position as someone in the front office for player relations or something similar. 

Credit: MLB.com

Last year I focused on pitching, defense, coaching, and free agency as target areas for the Mariners to improve. I saw improvements in all but 1 of those areas (coaching) which is promising. Let's dig in to how the Mariners can continue their rise to success and make a championship caliber team in 2023. The last time the Mariners hosted the All-Star game they also tied the record for most wins in a season, so the expectations are high next year.

1) Getting On Base and Moving Base Runners

In 2022 the Mariners were 3rd from the bottom in batting average at an abysmal .230 team average. They were also well below league average for runners left on base, ops, strikeouts, and team sacrifices.

Since the MLB season is very long, teams can live and die by the long ball to survive. However, when you play tougher opponents, especially in the playoffs, the ability to force pitch counts, get on base, and manufacture runs is paramount. 

It was extremely embarrassing in the ALDS when the M's players were swinging at garbage pitches trying to be heroes, when simple walks and base hits would've won all 3 games that they lost. The players and coaches need to stop relying on the home run to win them games and start focusing on being patient at the plate, hitting away from the shift, bunting to advance runners, hitting sac flies with someone on third, and choking up to put the ball in play when behind in the count.

2) Consistency

In 2022 the Mariners started with a sub .500 record then had a staggering 14 game winning streak followed up by a hit or miss second half of the season. Being consistent is key in baseball, especially at the end of the season and into the playoffs. It helps to be hot at the right time but you have to also put together a solid season to even make the playoffs. 

The best way the Mariners can be consistent is to beat who they are supposed to beat by not underestimating their opponents, and play their tougher opponents harder to avoid blowouts. It's very clear the road through the AL is still through their division rivals in Houston so they need to find a way to unseat the perennial powerhouse. That starts with more consistency and better coaching, which we'll get into next.

3) Coaching

Coaching comes down to developing the talent, improving the team, and making the right decisions during key moments. While I credit Servais for back to back 90 win seasons, I feel like most of the kudos goes to the players who are winning despite bad management. 

Like I said last year, and every year, Servais has a history of making bad decisions when it comes to starting lineups, defensive substitutions, sacrificing runners over, defensive alignments, and management of pitchers. The one thing Scott is good at is capturing the admiration of fans, media, and the players for being an overly positive guy. 

The team's struggles against better teams, lack of consistency, and inability to manufacture runs when they need to really comes down to the manager. Servais needs to focus more on small ball. The home runs can be fun, but good teams know how to get on base and move runners, which is 100% on the coaching staff to emphasize over swinging for the fences every at bat. 

Servais seems to play the lottery with his lineups as the players hitting 1-9 have changed almost every single game of the season, which is wild. The Astros on the other hand have their lineup solidified and are the best team in the AL year after year. 

On top of that Servais seems to pull pitchers too early or too late, he overuses arms from the bullpen, he makes calls using baseless analytics instead of the flow of the game, and he is too reliant on power hitting over small ball.

The coaching changes going into 2023 look fairly minimal but I'd like to see Negron promoted to be more involved with managing the team. Negron won a championship in AAA and has proven he knows what it takes to manage playoff caliber games. 

Most analysts still place Servais in the bottom half of MLB manager rankings which is saying something after the team had back to back 90 win seasons.

4) Roster Improvements

The Mariners need to replace a couple key positions and bolster their pitching for next season. They have key decisions to make in corner OF as well as 2B. They also have a SP spot and a couple RP spots to consider, along with needing a reliable closer. 

Overall the Mariners are average at just about every position in terms of Wins Above Replacement (WAR) so they should be open to considerations at most positions. 

I'm skeptical that the Mariners will make any big moves after hearing Dipoto (who's no longer the GM) still state they aren't willing to sign a better SS and/or move Crawford to 2B. Dipoto said the same thing last year and it scared any potential major middle infielder from signing with Seattle.

Players Who are Free Agents: Who to re-sign and who to let go

• Carlos Santana - starting DH, Santana had some very clutch doubles and HR's during the season but he's aging and expensive ($10.5M) for hitting for such a low avg (.202) - (should let go)
• Adam Frazier - starting 2B, Frazier was inconsistent all season, a rather expensive utility man ($8M) and was a shell of his Allstar self (.305 to .238 avg) - (should let go)
• Mitch Haniger - starting RF, can't stay healthy his entire career and is inconsistent (only 2 good seasons out of 6), he's expected to ask for a raise next season ($7M to $14M) - (should let go)
• Matt Boyd - SP/RP, hometown kid, Boyd contributed very little to the M's this season (only 10 appearances) but put up stellar stats. He's earned a re-sign. (should re-sign ~$5.5M)
• Curt Casali - backup C, acquired mid-season instead of a real bat. Ate up a playoff roster spot that could've been used for a pitcher. - (should let go)
• Chris Flexen - 6th SP/long relief, he just had the second best year of his career. Selflessly accepted long relief roll in bullpen when asked. M's could use his arm again next year in case of injuries or other players leaving. He can fill in for spot starts and long relief. - (should use club option $4M)
• Marcus Wilson - minor league OF, filled in temporarily for 3 games and seems to have been a 2nd round draft bust from 8 years ago. - (should let go or resign to minors only)
• Roenis Elias - SP/RP, reliable middle reliever who was brought back temporarily due to injuries. Given his age he's most likely done. -  (should let go)
• Matt Koch - RP, while under team control for another year and 3 years of arbitration left he's been unproductive for the Mariners. - (should let go)
• Ashur Tolliver - minor league RP, didn't make an appearance this year and hasn't pitched MLB in 5 years. Had no success against MLB hitters in his career. - (should let go)
• Alen Hanson - minor league 2B, hasn't had an MLB appearance in 3 years and his career numbers aren't good. - (should let go) 
• Pat Light - minor league RP, posted extremely bad numbers against MLB hitters in his limited experience. - (should let go)

What should the Mariners do to replace the few pieces that are leaving, as well as bolstering their lineup to be more successful and make a championship run? Here's a few areas they can look at: 

Weak or Missing Positions: 

• 2B/SS: Frazier should be gone, and with the bevy of middle infielders who are either available or interested in playing for a contender, the Mariners should be open to finding a quality middle infielder and then figuring out how they best mesh with JP Crawford.

• Big name options: Carlos Correa. Jean Segura. Trea Turner. Xander Bogaerts. Dansby Swanson. Tim Anderson. Jose Iglesias.

• RP: The Mariners had a top 5 bullpen for the second straight season and will be keeping a majority of their relievers if they want. However, the M's are lacking a consistent holder and closer. They do have arms to continue to fill those roles, but it would be nice to have someone who can come in and consistently be dominant 99% of the time to end a game.

• Some good FA's available: Edwin Diaz. David Robertson. Jose Leclerc. Kenley Jansen. Rafael Montero. Seth Lugo. Brad Hand. 

• Corner OF: The Mariners stand a chance to lose Mitch Haniger. Meanwhile Jared Kelenic hasn't been the highly touted player he was supposed to be and Kyle Lewis has no knees at this point. Winker is injured, not playing well, and butting heads with management. The Mariners have nobody left in the organization who can fill those roles so they need to sign, or trade for, a quality OF. They could also roll the dice with what they have and make a mid-season move with a basement team offloading talent.
• Some good FA's available: Aaron Judge. Andrew Benintendi. Michael Brantley. Corey Dickerson, Brandon Nimmo. 

Diablo 2 Resurrected: Ladder 2 - War Cry Barbarian Build Guide

D2R Ladder 2 launched over a week ago and I've enjoyed playing through the changes. The Terror Zones and Sundering Charms have helped shake up the metas for builds and where to farm. A lot of players have enjoyed this because they were bored using the same cold sorc or hammerdin builds and farming the same areas for 20 years. 

Credit: Activision/Blizzard

As a result of these changes I felt compelled to play a build I've never played before in 20 years and that's when I came across the War Cry "singer" Barbarian. The Diablol youtube video inspired me to try this build for myself. I came across a build guide on maxroll.gg from macrobioboi. I'm not one for following others' builds blindly, but I mostly followed his guide with a few tweaks to meet my playstyle and here's what I came up with. 

For leveling you can follow his guide mostly to a T. It's the same leveling guide you'd see from any creator for any class. I will say I struggled mightily leveling a Barb. I had to join public games to get carried at multiple points because Barb is extremely weak at lower levels but others can at least benefit from your shouts. 

Always ensure you put enough points in strength and dexterity to equip your gear as you go, and don't lose track of the attributes your items are giving you because you could end up trying to swap gear and suddenly can't equip it because you're replacing something with strength on it. All other points go into vitality so you don't die often. 

Leveling/Budget Gear: 

• Helms: Nadir (Nef+Tir) then Lore (Ort+Sol) is typical progression for helm. If you get lucky and find a Barb specific helm with 2 sockets then Lore can carry you through the end game. I couldn't find a good socket base so I ran peasant's crown through Hell until I found an IK helm. 
• Chest: Use whatever you can find until you get a 2 open socket base to build Stealth (Tal+Eth). I always run Stealth while leveling any class, while continually upgrading it as I find new bases.
• Weapons: Use whatever melee you find for double swing while leveling. Once you swap to War Cry you need FCR gear. Dual Spirit (Tal+Thul+Ort+Amn) is your first goal once you switch to the main build. Since Barb can dual wield 2 handed weapons, you have way more options for early Spirit bases. I used 2 bastard swords, though the re-sell value is 0. 
• Gloves: Any gloves with defense, life, resists will do. Once you swap to War Cry you'll want Trang-Oul's Claws or similar FCR gloves. If survivability is a problem it's ok to use something with life and resists instead.
• Belt: Always try to to upgrade belts early and often from 4 to 6 to 9 to 12 potion slots. I got very lucky this ladder and got a Gloom's Trap in Nightmare, which carried me through Hell.
• Boots: run/walk speed, life, resists are always what you want on boots. Aldur's and Nat's both provide this if you're lucky. There's also plenty of yellows that can roll with good stats. I struggled this ladder and couldn't find good boots until I was almost through hell when some yellow demonhides dropped. 
• Jewelry: Rings and amulets wear whatever you can find. Prioritize life, resists, mana, attributes, and FCR. MF doesn't hurt either. You'll always want an amulet with +1-2 barb skills or +2-3 war cry.

End Game Gear: 

• Helm: If you don't find a GG Lore base with 3x +2-3 in it, then Shako is your next best option. Until you get Shako you can run Immortal King's Will Helm or Arreat's Face. I ran IK helm all ladder because I never found a good Lore base or a Shako. I put 2 Ptopazes in it for extra MF.
• Chest: There's several end game options before you get rich enough to afford an Enigma. I ran Stealth in a high defense base until I found a 3os diamond mail and built Myth (Hel+Amn+Nef). This gives +2 barb skills and I ran it through the end game just fine. Other options are Viper Magi for resists or Skullder's Ire for MF.
• Weapons: You'll want to transition from dual spirits to dual Heart of the Oaks (HotO) (Ko+Vex+Pul+Thul) once you can afford it. If survivability is a problem then run Ancients' Pledge (Ral+Ort+Tal) or Stormshield in your offhand but I found damage to be my limiting factor as I could survive just fine. Note the runes for Ancients' drop from freeing the soldiers in the frigid highlands in A5. For HotO base you want a 4os flail ideally and you're aiming for an all resists roll of 40. 
• Backbar: run dual ali-babas with MF jewels or ists in them. This will get you 400+ MF. Try to remember to swap to back bar before using your find item skill.
• Gloves: At ~120 FCR I found myself shouting my max mana within seconds so I transitioned away from Trang's gloves to Chance Guards. You can upgrade chancies twice to vambraces (Tal+Shael+Pdiamond then Lem+Ko+Pdiamond) for the extra defense. 
• Belt: While Arachnid Mesh is the best end game belt ever, I found myself preferring to be an MF barb so I used Goldwrap upgraded to a battle belt. 
• Boots: War Travelers are best in slot here. Until then you'll want rare boots with defense, run/walk, resists, energy/mana, life, and/or MF. I ran my yellow demonhides until war trav's dropped for me. Sandstorm Treks are also very good in end game if you don't want MF. 
• Jewelry: SoJ, Mara's, and Bul-Katho's are best in slot for just about every class but they are super rare and expensive. This ladder is the first time I ever had SoJ and Mara's drop for me in 20 years. Next best thing are rare or crafted jewelry with FCR, resists, life, mana, and attributes. I utilize jewelry to help max out my resists, FCR, MF, and anything else is a bonus. For amulet always ensure you have +1-2 barb/all skills or +2-3 war cry on it. 
• Charms: Same as any end game you want annihilus, torch, and gheed's. War Cry skillers are nice but not necessary. While leveling I usually try to utilize charms with FHR, life, all resist, single resist, or MF. 

Attributes: As always enough points into strength and dex to equip gear. Then put points 60/40 in vitality and energy. 

Typically you'd want all points in vitality but when I tried that I was completely mana starved with this build because War Cry takes so much mana and many casts to kill elites/bosses. By level 90 you should have base life ~1400 and base mana ~415 prior to BO.

Skills: 

Combat Masteries- put 1 point into stamina, speed, iron skin, and natural resistance. 

Combat skills- put 1 point into Leap. 

Warcries- Point 1 point into find potion, 1 point into find item, and 1 point into grim ward. Put 1 point into Shout and Battle Command. Max out War Cry, Battle Cry, Taunt, and Howl. Put all remaining points into Battle Orders.

Merc: 

I struggled using A2 merc because they are also a melee range, physical damage character. Instead I swapped to A1 bow merc (you can use fire but my friend was a fire sorc so I went with cold). 

For weapon you want to use an insight (Ral+Tir+Tal+Sol) in a 4os bow, matriarchal or grand matron being the best base options. 

For helm start with Nadir until you find something like Andariel's Visage, Crown of Thieves, or a 3os ethereal elite base (armet or demonhead or bone visage) to make Wisdom (Pul+Ith+Eld) in. I found an eth 3os bone visage and made Wisdom which is doing well.

For chest you can use anything with good defensive stats until you find a good elite ethereal base (wire fleece or diamond mail or great hauberk) to make either Treachery (Shael+Thul+Lem) or Smoke (Nef+Lum) in. I found an eth 2os wire fleece to make Smoke in. Duriel's shell is another good chest option.

Note: you'll want socket bases that require less than 150 strength.

For playthrough, magic finding, and trading guides please look at my past blog posts. They are largely unchanged but I want to fine tune a few things that go with this build and this ladder theme.

Barb rotation:

1) Every few minutes, pop your battle command-shout-battle orders in that order.

2) Utilize Leap to avoid groups of mobs as you can jump over them and knock them back. You can also jump gaps and walls in most areas. I use Leap like I would teleport. It can get you into combat and out of trouble if used properly.

3) When engaging in combat ensure your warcry buffs are up then start with battle cry to debuff all enemies around you. Spam war cry until you start to kill things. If you're in a tough area use a corpse to build a grim ward. This will slowly fear everything around you and also make them take more damage (very handy in cows or other packed areas).

4) Once everything is dead swap to your backbar and spam find item on corpses.

Note: ranged mobs are dangerous, especially those that deal physical damage like archers, so ensure you leap to those first and war cry them to stun them. Leap around from archer to archer spamming war cry if you have to.

Terror Zones: 

Target farm the TZ's. These areas are mostly level 90 in Hell and drop elite items. This is the most bang for your buck and you'll get lots of uniques, set items, and elite socket bases.

Sunder Charm: 

I actually tried to run the bone break physical charm and found myself getting destroyed by ranged enemies. Instead I took it off and just avoided physical immune mobs. 

Overall I give this build a B grade. I was able to easily farm keys, some lvl 80+ zones, and most TZ's but this is a very niche off-meta build, requiring very good gear to survive & deal damage. Sorc and Paladin completely destroy this build but it was a fun non-meta build to play. I was able to self find all my gear, as well as make trades to get a full Tal's set for my friend's sorc.

Mariners 2022 Trade Deadline Opinions: Buy, Sell, or Hold?

It has been 2 months since I last wrote about the Mariners. While I am cautiously optimistic about this clubs' chances, it's hard to ignore a 11 game win streak, so let's break that down and then look at what's next to see if we truly believe the team is on the rise. 

In the last 11 games the Mariners have beaten the Nationals 3x, Blue Jays 4x, Padres 2x, and the A's 2x. During this time the M's have dealt with injuries and suspensions which does make it impressive, but here's why I'm not entirely sold on the "WE'RE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES" rhetoric I've been seeing online. Let's remember the Mariners had the exact same record last season at this time and ended up missing the playoffs.

The teams the M's beat are all in a huge slump. Two teams in particular who are good on paper would be the Jays and Padres. The Blue Jays are so bad recently that they fired their manager mid-season. The Padres have lost twice as many games as they've won in the last month. The Nationals and A's are bottom of the barrel teams who are tanking this season. Therefore, the wins don't seem as impressive as wins would be against teams like the Astros and Yankees, who are coming up next week and will be a true test for the team.

On top of all this you have to look at run differential. 6 of the 11 games were 1 run wins which were a crack of the bat away from losing. I could look back on all 11 games and think of some jams pitchers got lucky to get out of, which could've gone horribly wrong. I do give kudos to the pitchers and defense for not allowing that to happen. 

Now let's look at the trade deadline to see if the team truly wants to make the playoffs. The Mariners need to be buyers if they care at all about having a championship roster as they keep claiming to want. 

The Mariners have holes everywhere in their lineup. They have the 7th worst hitting average, 10th worst runs batted in, 9th most strikeouts, and 7th worst runs scored in the league. Most notably is their production in the outfield (which should be addressed when KLew and/or Hanniger come back) and 2B (which they have no current answer for).

What's saving Seattle is their pitching which is 5th best in ERA and 7th best in WHIP. What's even more impressive is the bullpen. From the 8th inning onward the M's are #1 in the league in WHIP and #2 in ERA and average against. The old saying goes, pitching and defense wins championships and the M's seem setup to support this so far. The only thing that worries me here is that the M's have worse pitching stats when ahead than when trailing or tied. Additionally, they are lacking quality back of the rotation pitching and 7th/8th inning arms that other teams fear. Kirby's innings will be limited the rest of the season, injuries are possible, and Flexen + Milone are not exactly putting fear into opposing lineups.

All this said I'm recommending the Mariners put together deals for a quality #3 starter, a setup man in the bullpen, and a 2B. I know the team can't mess with chemistry like they did previously. Let's look at our options here, as well as potential MLB caliber players they can trade away. 

Starting with who can be traded I think the Mariners could trade any of the following players (not all) along with some prospects that other teams may be interested in: Frazier, Moore, Trammell, Kelenic, Santana, Flexen, Upton, Lewis, White, Haggerty, Castillo, Giles, Milone, and/or Sadler.

For a quality #3 starter the Mariners will have to look at teams who are sub .500 and wanting to rebuild. Usually this means offloading a veteran or a guy with 1-2 years left on their current contract. 

2B: Harold Castro (Tigers), Michael Stefanic (Angels), Cesar Hernandez (Nats), Ketel Marte (Dbacks)

SP: Michael Pineda (Tigers), Brady Singer (Royals), Cole Irvin (A's), Noah Syndergaard (Angels), Luis Castillo (Reds)

RP: Jose Cisnero (Tigers), Andrew Chafin (Tigers), Taylor Clarke (Royals), Joel Payamps (Royals), Domingo Acevedo (A's), Mychal Givens (Cubs), Keynan Middleton (Dbacks)

All that being said, if the Mariners get at least 1 difference maker on their roster before the deadline then you know they are serious about making the playoffs. If they trade away a key player and anger the locker room again (*cough* Graveman) then I'll know they aren't serious about ever winning a championship. I just hope to attend a playoff baseball game in Seattle sometime in my life.

Mariners 2022 Update - Good, Bad, Ugly #dontbelieveyet

I haven't written about the Mariners in almost 6 months but lots has been on my mind since my previous post. For starters I felt like they still didn't try to find a good closer, another good starter, and an all-star 3B. I have no ill-will with the current bullpen, starting rotation, or Suarez, but you can clearly tell, after a month into the season, that they could've made some better moves in the off-season.

This is just more proof that the Mariners front office is ok with having a cheap roster and putting a mediocre product on the field while hoping they over achieve enough to fill seats. Luckily for them there's still tons of hope and positive hype around the team, or perhaps people are just tired of sitting at home after the pandemic. Also kudos to the M's on their exclusive tv contracts that makes them a ton of money that they refuse to spend on players.

I give huge credit to the Mariners sales, marketing, and social media teams for keeping a positive spin on a franchise that has been sub-par for 20 years. The A's could take a clue from how the M's organization runs things because Seattle is in far worse shape than Oakland in terms of producing a good result (i.e. A's still can make playoffs), yet the A's fans are revolting. 

Let's talk about the Mariners hot start, which they almost always have, and then their sudden turn to mediocrity to follow. 

#1: Other teams were ill-prepared and the Mariners benefitted with a roster full of newly signed free agents and potentially young stars who were jumping out the gate and overperforming. We've seen this before in 2019 when they started 13-2 and then lost 21 out of 26 games over the next 2 months.

#2: Servais missed several series due to Covid and the roster benefitted from someone who actually knew how to manage a game correctly (i.e. setting a solid lineup, making the right defensive alignments and substitutions, and managing pitchers correctly). As soon as Servais returned the Mariners returned to losing in embarrassing fashion.

#3: The roster and lineup need some serious work. It doesn't take a baseball genius to understand you can't have half your lineup batting below the Mendoza line, and especially batting them in the top half of the order. Kelenic .127, Toro .160, Winker .186, Suarez .202, (credit to Frazier and Jrod getting barely above the line this week). I also am glad they finally sent down the failed Raleigh experiment after his average dropped to .083.

It also makes no sense to continually bring in pitchers from the bullpen with 4.00+ ERA's and 1.5+ WHIPs who consistently put people on base and give up runs (*cough* Festa, Ramirez, Steckenrider, Castillo) Nobody can have a perfect bullpen but you either make roster moves to remain competitive or you only bring in terrible pitchers in unwinnable games. Perhaps maybe the starters and relievers will find their way eventually.

How to turn things around? 

Besides the obvious of everyone performing better, I think the Mariners have some tough decisions ahead. Maybe it's too early to overreact but it certainly feels like another year being added to the 20 year drought. Luckily for the Mariners MLB has expanded playoffs and the AL West is a little weak this year.

Tough decision 1: Remove Servais from game management. He's proven time and time again he cannot manage a game properly. He puts guys in weird spots in the lineup, he makes terrible in game decisions, and his pitcher management is non-existent. It's almost like he's rolling the dice out there.

Tough decision 2: Send down the rookies (maybe not Jrod if he stays hot and umpires give him a chance at walking more). Sending down Raleigh was the right call and when KLew or Haniger are back they definitely need to send Kelenic down. 

I want everyone to understand something about baseball rookie development. This isn't like basketball or football where a rookie can come in and do amazing right away. Big league hitters and big league pitchers have a wealth of skill and knowledge that they can use to take advantage of younger players. They also tend to have umpires on their side as seen in the case of 19 Jrod strikeouts while looking on borderline pitches. Rookies need at least a full season at every minor league level to progressively get better. I also want to explain what it's like to be the best at something then to be thrown into a pool of people as good as or better than you. It is a confidence shattering situation that you want to avoid as a GM/coach/player. 

I didn't understand the rush to bring up Brash, Jrod, Kelenic, and Raleigh prematurely, especially after they were denied almost an entire season in 2020 to develop themselves. All of them needed another year in AAA to prove themselves. All the M's did was build these guys up to the fans and media and then immediately shatter their confidence. Imagine being the best at something, being worshipped for it from the organization/fans/media, and then being outclassed immediately? That is a huge mental thing to overcome and you can see it in these guys. I credit Jrod for bouncing back as he seems to be mentally tougher than the rest of them.

Tough decision 3: Mariners need to make pitching moves. I'd like to see Brash swapped out for a better starter they can acquire via trade (not Kirby because he needs time in AAA first). Brash is too wild and his 2.05 WHIP gets him into trouble. He benefitted early in the season with lucky double plays but when you put 2 people on base per inning then you're bound to eventually get rocked. 

I'd also like to see more Swanson and Munoz out of the bullpen. Everyone is also happy Sewald is back from covid but they need to find a closer. Maybe it's another trade situation or maybe they need to try someone new in the 9th like Swanson who has a 0.00 ERA so far. 

Easy decision: Change the offensive lineup to put your best hitters at the top. I'd like to see J.P Crawford lead off and I have been baffled all year as Servais continually put him in the bottom half of the lineup in most games. France should clearly be batting cleanup as he's the best slugger on the team and can drive in runs. I am ok with Frazier and Haniger rounding out the top 3 if both are healthy. Winker and Suarez need to prove they're the players the Mariners expected before they're allowed back into the top 4 of the lineup again. 

Given history, the Mariners always start hot, then cool off, then go back and forth until the all-star break. After the break they again fall into a back and forth again and then end on a drought to miss the playoffs when they're playing meaningful games in September. I've seen it the last 20 years and don't expect it to change this season. I hope I'm wrong because I'd love to see playoff baseball in Seattle again someday.

Diablo 3 Season 26: Echoing Nightmares

Tomorrow at 5pm PST starts season 26 for Diablo 3. Unlike past seasons I won't have the time to blow through the season journey overnight but I do plan to play it this weekend some and hopefully get through it within a couple days. 

My witch doctor is next up in my season rotation to play and I plan to run the Haedrig's gift set (Zunimassa's) through till the end. Zuni's is an S-tier glass cannon build utilizing fetishes and poison darts. 

While leveling I'll do what I always do and use a makeshift build utilizing the skills of whatever random legendary items drop. Once I get 4+ pieces of Zuni's though I'll start to transition to poison darts. There are a couple very key pieces to this build that will make it tough to fully transition to unless I get lucky with RNG. 

My build will utilize builds found on Maxroll.gg and Icyveins.com. There's no need to deviate from these builds as they utilize all the key skills and gear you need to reach max DPS with this build. I will utilize fill in items as needed until I get all the key items though.

The season journey for me usually relies on the following steps: 

1) With your rebirthed or fresh hero created, run the challenge rift first for extra materials.

2) Run regular rifts at the highest possible difficulty you can complete. Typically you jump between hard-expert-master difficulties. Note that enemies hit harder and take less damage about every 10 character levels. Generally you out level your gear doing this so it gets much slower to clear rifts of higher difficulties until your gear catches up to your character level, thus the jumping back and forth.

Do this until you hit a point where you can craft a level 70 weapon with ilvl reduction on it. Make sure it's a 2 handed rare item and don't re-roll for ilvl reduction until you get one with % chance to do something in one of the secondary skill slots. Always re-roll the stat that's opposite of that one because it gives you the best chance to roll ilvl reduction.

Once you can equip this 2 handed lvl 70 weapon at a lower character level, then switch to T3 rifts immediately. As things get harder to kill, slowly lower yourself back to T2 then T1 until you hit character level 70. 

3) Ensure you spend blood shards on Kadala while leveling to get specific items that drop at these levels. 

4) At level 70 target your season journey to get your Haedrig's gifts. You can look ahead at next steps to maximize efficiency so you can set the difficulty you're capable of completing and doing all season related journey items that are at that difficulty and below it. Ensure you start 

5) Equip full Haedrig's gift set and start your end game build. Keep doing seasonal journey items. Occassionally you'll have to run extra rifts and bounties to stock up on materials required to make progress.

6) The hardest part of the season journey is largely the seat dungeon mastery. I usually make 1 attempt at this once I have my Haedrig's gifts all done. If I fail then I simply save this checkbox for last because it's so much easier once you have your end game build going.

Note: Season 26 adds a new end game activity called Echoing Nightmares. I plan to play this only a couple times to get the item required to augment an ancient. This saves me from wasting a level 50+ gem to augment an ancient which is required as part of the season journey. 

Guide to Echoing Nightmare: use your best rift busting build and strategy. However, there are 4 one time use pylons in this place. Ensure you only grab them at key times. My plan is to grab each one around 20%, 40%, 60%, and 80% overwhelmed statuses so I can spread them out to help when necessary.

Follow up after finishing the season: 

This may have been my fastest season yet. Easy conquests and really good builds available for all classes in haedrigs gifts. It took me 2 days of game time and I was done. 

Overall the seasonal mechanic was boring and avoidable. The drop rate to get the keys to enter is near impossible. My friend got 0 in the entire seasonal journey and I got 2. However, you're able to get credit for leveling 3 gems to 70 if you don't use them until you have 3 of them. 

I learned that Zuni's poison dart build isn't that good anymore. It's very glassy and you have to stop to setup your DPS which makes you vulnerable. I was able to solo up through 80 on it but it's not as fun to play as Arachyr's which is top tier. 

Also DH and Monk need nerfs because they are super easy to play and can push Grifts easily. Other builds and classes need buffs.

Lost Ark Playthrough & Leveling/Honing Guide

I don't want to make too much of a long article here but would like to explain my path to T3 on my main and alts and provide some lessons learned along the way so let's jump into the path from a newborn player all the way to the end game (Luterra to Punika). 

Step 1: Choose a character. 

Keep in mind this doesn't necessarily make this character your main but preferably choose a class you think you'll enjoy. You can tryout each class in Trixion at the start to ensure you're good. I chose Gunslinger and have enjoyed the different style of gameplay compared to metered classes. If you enjoy playing support then I recommend Paladin, Bard, or Gunlancer. If you're into DPS then Sorceress and Deathblade usually top the charts.

Step 2: Beat the main campaign until you hit the T2 barrier post Shushire. 

Getting through the campaign took me a little over 15 hours but now that I understand the game my advice is only do main quests. By focusing on purple/blue/orange (not yellow/green/pink) quests you can make it through the entire campaign through Shushire in about 10 hours. You can always go back to clean up side quests on your primary character or on alts. 

Once you beat Shushire you will get your first set of Tier 1 gear which you'll need to hone to 460 before you can advance to Rohendel. Honing is a time gated process unless you pay to win (p2w), but even then it's limited. Now that materials in T1 and T2 are worth 1 gold each you can choose to spend a little gold if you want to speed up the process but it's not necessary because there's a ton of materials available through side quests, island adventures, dailies/weeklies, and welcome challenges.

Step 3: Use your 2 power passes on 2 new alternate characters (alts).

While having alts is "optional" the game is designed for free to play (f2p) players to utilize alts, which helps speed up vertical and horizontal progression because it helps bypass the daily/weekly time gates that are character bound. FYI your first Power Pass will be the adventurer's path. This will give you a ton of loot and xp and is a very shortened version of the main campaign. Ensure to do the tutorial challenges too for extra materials. All in all it took me 40 minutes to finish this and get my first alt in T1 gear. Your 2nd alt will simply advance to Vern with the Power Pass. 

Ensure you setup both characters song of return to Vern castle and then setup their bifrosts on Una's daily points of your choice, although I recommend targeting dailies that give honing materials, most importantly shards and stones because you will run out of these after your main advances to the next tier.

Step 4: Start leveling your Stronghold Lab

This is extremely important because you can unlock cheaper honing for alts once your main hits specific ilvl checkpoints. This makes getting your alt characters honed up much faster. I focused my Stronghold daily on Lab upgrades and Dispatch missions (2 each per day on average). Keep in mind Dispatches don't have to be 100% to do them. Rewards are scaled based on your % so if it's 50% then you'll get half the rewards and a lower chance at bonus rewards. 

Note that you'll need materials for leveling your Stronghold and you're also limited by action energy. The game will give you action energy consumables so be sure to use those when you run out. For materials I usually farm any ore and trees I come across as I'm naturally progressing through the game but a few good spots are Lakebar for ore and Lullaby Island for uncontested ore and trees. You can always change channels in the upper right corner to a less populated area so others don't steal your nodes. Fyi you do not need relics, meat, fish, flowers, or mushrooms to upgrade your Stronghold but upgrading these will come in handy in the end game.

Step 5: Start Honing your "main" to Rohendel

Please refer to my daily checklist post here for help on understanding the different dailies and weekly lockouts available. Note that Chaos Dungeons and Guardian Raids are the best daily sources for materials. All unused gear can be broken down for additional materials. Ensure you do not open "tradeable" or "roster bound" items until you're ready to use them. Once you open a bag/box/package it will become bound to that character. This is how I lost out of thousands of T1 mats for my alts because I didn't know this. Shards are also character bound once opened even though they appear in the account bound currency tab which is very misleading. 

Note, you can skip a day or 2 of dailies if you need to. The game will save up missed days and grant you double loot per run. Therefore, if you miss 2 days of guardian raids on a character then did 2 of them you would get 4x the drops. However, since the daily lockout is 2 runs per character I recommend running these every 1-3 days or you'll lose out on loot. 

Chaos dungeons are super easy and fast but guardian raids can be a pain so my recommendations for Guardians are Urnil or Chromanium for T1, Dark Legoros or Lava Chromanium for T2, and Armored Nacrasena or Igrexion for T3. These guardians are my fastest and most consistent clears with matchmaking. 

Ensure you're trading roster bound items to your main until your main is out of T1. Ensure you don't open items that are tradeable or roster bound until you need to use them for honing. This ensures your leftover mats will go to your next alt and so on. 

Other honing material sources are island adventures, which I highly recommend doing, unique events like Naruni races & Graid event, the auction house for gold, pirate coins merchant, bloodstone merchant for guild progress, pvp vendor if you pvp a lot, daily repeatable quests on some continents, and Mari's shop for blue crystals.

Honing is tricky but I want to explain a few key things. 

1. If you find a better piece of gear you can use the Transfer page to transfer your already honed gear onto that new piece. This will take the ilvl/honed lvl of the old item and place it on the stats of the new item. Careful in T3 because you will lose your tripods in this situation if you don't do tripod transfers first. 
1. Also incredibly important and worth noting is you can hone your old level 15 T1 gear into your new T2 gear to gain your first level for free.
2. Do not use your chance increase stones until you hit level 12-13, depending how many you have. Ideally you want to keep your hone chances above 50% in T1 and above 40% in T2. Ensure you don't have any leftover bound stones once you hit lvl 15 on all pieces so ensure you plan out exactly how many you have and divide it up per hone.
3. Check the Artisan energy gauge if you've failed a piece multiple times. If adding a stone to your hone gets that gauge to 100% then you're guaranteed to succeed. I can't under estimate how important this gets at the end of T2. Level 13-15 in T2 is a painful grind and artisan energy is your friend.

Step 6: Continue the Main Quests through Rohendel, Yorn, Feiton, and Punika

Rohendel: You will have to play through Rohendel which is a 2-3 hour quest line. Once completed you have to hit ilvl 600 to head to Yorn. This means all pieces of gear are level 15 on avg (note: this means all pieces are level 15 or maybe you get your weapon to 14 and run out of red stones but have extra blue stones so you get an extra armor piece to 16).

Yorn: This is the start of T2. You won't be able to do T2 activities until you beat Yorn so ensure you don't waste your dailies until Yorn is done. Yorn is about 1-2 hours to beat so I recommend blowing through it and then doing your dailies after so you can finally equip your T2 gear. Then focus on honing to ilvl 960 to proceed to Feiton. 

Feiton: This is probably my 2nd least favorite zone behind Shushire. Once you hit 960 you can do this story. The story will take 2-3 hours. Note: traveling from Rohendel to Feiton ensure you navigate the open channel. If you veer into the hazardous waters your ship will probably die. This is the last T2 zone so ensure you hit 1100 before proceeding to Punika and any T3 content. At this point the grind from 960-1100 is painful so you'll want to maximize dailies, island adventures, and your alts to get to Punika. It might take a week or 2 to close this gap depending how much you grind and how much you're willing to spend on the auction and Mari's.

Punika: At 1100 you can do Punika. Ensure you beat this story before doing any T3 content. Punika takes maybe 1-2 hours and is a fun zone. Once you beat Punika you can run dailies and other T3 content to get your T3 gear and start honing. My only advice is to be patient in T3. The goal is to get your main to 1385 to unlock T3 honing upgrade in your Stronghold so your alts will have the catch up mechanic. Note it isn't important to hone past this right now until new content gets added. I also suspect AGS will up honing rates to help players catch up.

There you have it. All in all the main quests are about 20 hours worth of content buried behind 2-3 weeks worth of time gated game play to get to the highest ilvl necessary to play all current content in the game. The most important thing you can do is take your time and enjoy the things in the game that you like while avoiding things you hate. If you focus mainly on honing/vertical progression then you'll burn yourself out fast. 

If you have questions you can reply to this thread, or hit me up on discord utmastuh#3349. I'm also happy to carry anyone through content if you're struggling. Please also checkout my Youtube and let me know what sort of content you'd appreciate there as I'm just now getting back into updating it. 

My Lost Ark Checklist

Someday I might find time to put together some leveling and playthrough guides for Lost Ark as reference, but now that I'm into the current end game, I thought I'd share my spreadsheet I use on a daily basis as a reminder of things that I can do in the game outside of general exploration.

Weekly Resets: 

Daily Resets: 

This is simply to serve as a reminder of everything you can do in a day/week. However, it's by no means a must. You can easily create your own in word, excel, or anything with tables. I can also provide mine online if asked. 

Note I also track which Una's dailies I'm doing on specific characters because their bifrosts are set accordingly. 

Edit: Allegedly a feature similar to this checklist will become available in game starting in May. We'll have to wait and see what it looks like.

Seahawks 2022 (Update 3/9)

  

Update: I wanted to account for the Russell trade and Bobby release, along with other rumors we're hearing such as DK and Lockett being shopped. Note that this rebuild was suggested in an earlier post here.

Another NFL season has come to an end, and after one of the worst seasons in Seahawks history, it's time to look forward to 2022. 

The Seahawks have a lot of work to do between finding their identity with coaching changes and dealing with a lot of free agents potentially leaving the team. It will be hard for the Hawks to find room to fill all their gaps so they will have to get creative with trades, free agency, and what little draft capital they have if they plan to compete in 2022.

Let's dive into who the Seahawks might keep, who they might let go, and which spots they need to fill to come back stronger next season. In order of who they might re-sign and most notable players first. Note that the Seahawks had a terrible year so moving on from a majority of players may be the best so they can re-tool and make a playoff run.

Free Agents: Who to keep and who to let go

• Duane Brown (re-sign for 2 years ~$18M, he's aging and slipping in his ability to stay healthy and competitive but the Seahawks don't have a better option at tackle with Jones or Forsythe but they shouldn't break the bank either as this is likely Brown's last contract ever, 71.6 rated T)
• Sidney Jones (re-sign for 2 years ~$5M, Sidney is a decent and young CB who seems to struggle with injuries but when he's healthy he's serviceable. However, I wouldn't sign him beyond 2 years because Tre Brown is the future at corner in Seattle once he heals from surgery in a year, 70.2 rated CB)
• Ethan Pocic  (re-sign for 2 years ~$4M, Pocic was a mediocre center who lost his job to a backup then only regained it because the backup was worse. Hawks can upgrade here through FA but have nothing better available on the current roster so they should keep Pocic at least as a backup, 67.3 rated C)
• Alex Collins (re-sign for 1 year veteran minimum, Collins has always been good since his Arkansas days and the hawks should've never let him go the first time. Collins is a great backup and affordable. He can provide a burst off the bench when needed but shouldn't be signed above league minimum because he's not starter caliber. 66 rated RB)
• Ryan Neal (re-sign for 1 year veteran minimum, Neal proved for another season that he's a great backup safety. He seemed to outplay Adams when he came in during the first niners game and shutdown Kittle. However, he's not elite as he's prone to mistakes and isn't the long term solution at safety with Adams' big contract. 59.6 rated S)
• Rasheem Green (re-sign for 2 years ~$2M, Rasheem hasn't panned out as a high draft pick but he wasn't terrible either. The hawks need depth at DE and he provides that. He should be worth a cheap deal to be a backup DE when the seahawks have no good DE outside of Dunlap who's nearing retirement. 50.2 rated DE)
• John Reid (ERFA so re-sign for 1 year veteran minimum, The seahawks need depth at CB and Reid is a young vet who provides that. Similar to Sidney Jones he could be the other backup CB next season. 66.8 rated CB)
• Will Dissly (re-sign for 2 years ~$5M, Dissly finally survived an entire season, even if it wasn't as productive as his first couple when he blew out his knees. Dissly is a quality starter who can block and catch. However, he won't wow you with his play or his stats. 63.8 rated TE)
• DJ Reed (re-sign for 2 years ~$8M, Seahawks need to keep a starting caliber CB and that's Reed. What he lacks in size and athleticism he makes up for in sheer determination. He's never intimidated or scared to matchup with anyone. He's also a cheap solution as a starter opposite of Jones/Brown. 78.6 rated CB)
• Quandre Diggs (gone, this is hard because I like Diggs over Adams, note Adams is top paid safety in the league yet ranked worse than Diggs. The hawks definitely chose wrong in their future at S, but Diggs just broke his leg and is due a large payday ~$13M/yr which the hawks can't afford so they need to stick with Adams. 71.2 rated S)
• Gerald Everett (gone, Everett is a good TE but he also cost the hawks an entire game with his turnovers. The hawks also have a few backup TE's who can fill the role, 63.5 rated TE)
• Brandon Shell (gone, Shell was never amazing but he wasn't horrible either. He had a problem with injuries and will most likely get a better deal elsewhere. Curhan will compete for this spot if the Hawks don't hit in FA, 67 rated T)
• Rashaad Penny (gone, this is tough because Penny had an amazing end to the season and was a big reason for the wins at the end but he spent 3 years being hurt and doing nothing. The Hawks already lost a 1st round pick on him and shouldn't lose more on a big deal when he inevitably gets hurt again. FA is ripe with good veteran RBs the hawks should consider instead as their starting RB if Carson doesn't come back, 80.5 rated RB)
• Al Woods (gone, big Al is getting old and while he had a good season, he's showing signs of slowing and the hawks need to retool at DT to get back to the playoffs, 75.4 rated DT)
• Geno Smith (gone, I never got the hype around Geno. He was a wasted pick by the Jets and proved it when he started in place of Russ. With his off field issues it's easily time to move on to a new backup. 73.9 rated QB)
• Kyle Fuller (gone, Fuller lost his starting job and possibly cost the Seahawks some games this year with his poor play. I'd be shocked if he was on any depth chart at the start of the season. He's practice squad at best. 46.5 rated C)
• Bless Austin (gone, Bless has the tools to be a great CB yet doesn't show it on gameday which is why he hasn't landed a starting CB role. He's a serviceable backup and if he goes unclaimed the seahawks should get him back on the practice squad someday. 51.2 rated CB)
• Bryan Mone (gone, Mone was never that great of a DT and this is a position the seahawks need to invest in after a terrible year here. 48.9 rated DT) 
• Penny Hart (gone, Hart hasn't done anything in his career and is easily replaced in FA and draft. 62.7 rated WR)
• Jamarco Jones (gone, Jamarco is inconsistent and usually blows big plays with his blocking or lack thereof. The hawks can improve their backup utility Oline spot easily. 56.9 rated G)
• Dakoda Shepley (gone)
• Jon Rhattigan (gone)
• Marcus Webb (gone)
• Nigel Warrior (gone)
• Marcellius Sutton (gone)

My projected re-signs would cost ~$45M next season and the players gone would free up ~$34M thus resulting in a cap hit of ~$11M. However, restructuring some current deals could help here, along with hitting in the draft and FA to replace players leaving with cheaper alternatives.

Seahawks top priorities in FA and draft:
OL, DB, TE, RB, WR, DT

Potential FA signings to fill top priorities:

• OL: Depends on who the Seahawks keep around. Potential to lose Pocic, Brown, Jones, Shell, and Fuller. I can't imagine they'd lose them all but they'll need a starting caliber T at the very least as keeping Brown and Sheel seems unrealistic.
• Plenty of starting C & G available in FA in the $1-$5M range with ratings similar to or better than Hawks. Expect the Hawks to grab at least one of them.

• DB: Diggs will demand a big contract so Hawks will have a tough time keeping him for the future. Hawks will need to find a starting caliber FS in FA. At CB the Seahawks could use an upgrade, especially if Tre Brown isn't ready to go. 

• TE: The Seahawks could lose Everett and Dissly but it's hard to imagine they'd lose both. They have plenty of backups but it wouldn't hurt to find a starter at TE if Everett leaves.

• RB: I would expect the Seahawks to figure out the Carson/Penny situation before the draft. If they feel they can't afford to keep Penny or Carson deems himself unfit to play again then they'll have no choice but to find a free agent. They still have Dallas and Homer as backups.

• WR: The Hawks aren't losing their top 4 WR's to FA so this isn't really a need BUT there's a good opportunity here to trade DK Metcalf for draft capital and to fill his void with a cheap veteran who can still produce and not act like a cancer to the locker room.

• DT: The Hawks could lose 2 of their top 3 DT's to FA. They need to find 1-2 quality veterans or hit on a DT in the draft.

Draft: 
The Hawks are decimated in picks for a couple seasons due to recent trades, most notably for Adams and Dunbar. Currently they have 6 total picks in rounds 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 7. There's a chance for more picks if they choose to trade a current player and they could also gain compensatory picks if players leave for big contracts elsewhere. 

Expecting them to draft OL, DB, DL, QB.

Coaching staff changes: 
The Seahawks have already filled their coaching staff needs. However, it's worth keeping an eye on offensive positions as the offense sputtered the 2nd half of the season 2 years in a row under the current regime. 

It's quite possible the Seahawks could look for a new OC now that Russ is gone. Waldron was his pick not Pete's.

Projected starters: Due to the Russell trade and Bobby drop there's going to be some huge changes to the team. Also I don't think the Hawks are done with the moves and fully expect a WR to be traded and possibly swapping some draft picks for a starting QB if they don't sign a free agent. I don't think Lock is going to be the starter but right now he's the best/only option they have.

Offense:
QB: Russell Wilson - (there's a slim chance the Hawks could make a blockbuster deal for a starter QB and 3+ first round picks) Drew Lock (some potential fill ins until the Hawks draft their future: Gardner Minshew, Mitch Trubisky, Jordan Love, JimmyG)
RB: Chris Carson - (there's a chance he is medically unable to perform and a FA RB could take over if Penny isn't coming back)
WR1: Tyler Lockett - (there's a chance he's traded for a 1st round pick)
WR2: DK Metcalf - (there's a chance he's traded for a 1st round pick)
WR3: Freddy Swain
LT: Duane Brown or FA (chance he leaves now that Russ and Bobby are gone)
LG: Damien Lewis
C: Ethan Pocic or FA
RG: Gabe Jackson
RT: Jake Curhan or Stone Forsythe
TE: Will Dissly or FA  Noah Fant

Defense:
RE: Rasheem Green 
DTs: Poona Ford 
LE: Carlos Dunlap
CBs: Tre Brown & DJ Reed
LBs: Bobby Wagner, Jordyn Brooks, Cody Barton, BBK
SS: Jamal Adams
FS: FA or Amadi or Blaire

Halo Infinite: Multiplayer Review (B- Grade)

This is my review and personal thoughts on Halo Infinite's Free to Play Multiplayer.

Halo Infinite is 343's latest entry into the Halo franchise since they took it over from Bungie. Let's be real and admit 343 has had a very hard time carrying on the Halo legacy from MCC issues, to the disappointment of Halo 4 and Halo 5. Then Infinite was met with huge criticism during its reveal trailer which resulted in a year long delay. Here's what's good and bad...

Look and Sound: A

The game looks and sounds really good. It truly looks and sounds like nostalgic Halo, but has that next gen crisp feel to it. I cannot fault them for how great of a job they did with the delay to really tune up the graphics.

Character Customization: B

I'm mixed on the customization of your Spartan and AI in this game. On one hand it's cool they are adding more and more transmogs but overall it's a very limited look and color palette compared to other FPS games as well as past Halos. At least there's more than just 6 different colored Chiefs running around so they at least added some customization to the game. Also the ability to choose your AI companion's voice and color is a neat touch, although we all miss Cortana. Still though, it's far from some of the PC ports like Installation01, Halo Online, Eldewrito, and Project Contingency. 343 said you would be able to customize each individual armor piece's look & color, as well as weapon skins, and the ability to re-position and re-size your weapons, but none of this has really come to fruition.

Progression: B

Progression was mostly battle pass and seasonal content unlocks via playing the game and completing bounties and achievements. Unfortunately at launch this was extremely terrible and rated an F. Since huge fan backlash 343 has since fixed this a bit. However, it's still far from most modern games like Warzone, Destiny 2, etc which have better figured out how to reward players for playing the game. Earning XP from playing matches, getting wins, and completing bounties that don't require you to sabotage your team are where I'd expect 343 to focus more to get to A status.

Gameplay: A

Not many bugs and the gameplay is very smooth. I'll credit 343 for having what felt like a very smooth launch for a much anticipated free to play experience. Most new AAA titles these days are filled with bugs and server issues, but Infinite was mostly a smooth launch experience. If there's one thing they got right it was a smooth gameplay experience. The only thing I'd add is that the amount of content is extremely limited compared to other games and past Halo games. I expected more maps and game modes from the start and it isn't there yet.

User Interface: C

The UI is awful. You can tell 343 used some form of Windows forms that's used for Surface and other mobile type devices. Navigating menus is extremely painful. You can't even navigate menus while you're searching for players as it backs you out of queue. Compare that to Destiny 2 which allows you to access your menus at all times, even during load screens! The UI is also horribly organized and difficult to find what you're looking for. This looks like a UI & menu system developed by a freshman in college who has never programmed before.

Endgame: C

There's no good end game for Halo Infinite. In past Halo games you had achievements, ranks, and transmog unlocks to grind out across many social and ranked playlists. Sadly Infinite has limited playlists and little to chase in the end game, other than a rotating special event that is time gated and on an unknown rotation.

Monetization: D

Monetization of Halo Infinite is horrible. 343 even admitted the cash shop was terrible. Looking at other free to play games it's hard to find a good target to aim for but I'd pick Warzone. During Warzone's first year there was plenty in the cash shop and plenty more that was added. There was also the ability to buy the battlepass which allowed you to earn cash shop credits. You could choose to use those credits to buy the next season's battle pass or buy transmogs in the cash shop. I have yet to see another game do this very well.

Overall Grade: B-

I find myself thinking that the gameplay was very smooth and usually fun, but the lack of content, bad monetization policies, and general slow reaction to all the feedback has pulled my desire from going back into Halo Infinite. Maybe someday when they add more content (maps, weapons, game modes) I'll give it another shot. For now this ranks as my 4th favorite Halo behind Reach, Halo 3, and Halo CE.

Diablo 2 Resurrected: Magic Find (MF) Guide

If you wanted to listen instead of read, I have text to speech on my Youtube channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox69QoHSjqg

Now that you have a guide on playing and leveling I wanted to introduce the next aspect of the Diablo 2 game, which is magic finding. This is essentially farming the game to find the best gear for yourself and to trade with others. 

There are a few key items to focus on for MF which require different strategies. Unique & Set items. Socket bases (runeword bases). Jewels. Charms. Gems. Runes. 

I'll run through a quick summary of each and then detail my farming strategy and results for you to understand how I've acquired some of the best gear in the game using my cold MF sorc.

Unique & Set Items: 

These can drop from any enemy or chest but each item has a specific item level (ilvl) assigned to it which can only drop from specific monster levels (mlvl) and certain difficulties and areas yield the best chances at items. 

There are plenty of forums and sites out there detailing where to find the best probability for each specific item in the game so it's my recommendation to google for that. Diablowiki, d2jsp, rankedboost, and others are my go-to. 

If you're looking for a top tier item but it has a lower equipment base or ilvl to it, then your odds are usually higher to farm lower level areas. For instance, I've had 3 occulus (occy) drops. 1 from nightmare Diablo, and 2 from nightmare Baal. My only shako dropped in Hell Act 1 from a random fallen shaman.

Socket Bases: 

These are items that drop as "white" or normal rarity items. Sometimes plain white, sometimes ethereal (eth), sometimes already socketed, and sometimes eth and socketed. These are used to create runewords. Everyone will tell you to farm cows and the less magic find (MF) you have the better. This is because 1) cows are dense and drop a ton of items and 2) less MF increases your chances of normal rarity items. 

The other things that I've gotten the most socket bases from are equipment racks (armor and weapon racks). 

Jewels/Charms/Gems: 

I bucket these 3 together because anything in the game can drop them and it's random. Ensure you stay well stocked on chipped and flawless gems. Flawless you convert 3 into a perfect gem (pgem) which are used for crafting, or you can trade 40 pgems (an entire inventory full) for a near high rune. 

The better stats on jewels and charms come from hell and the best spots to get these are in mob dense areas like cows and chaos sanctuary. Most of my skillers (grand charms with +skills) have dropped from hell chaos sanctuary. 

Additionally, if you're looking for Gheed's then I have had 8 of these drop; 4 of them were from hell Andariel. 

Note there are very specific stats to look for on these so it's best to look at my trades guide to understand. Most notably check game lobbies, discord, and forums to see what people are looking to buy. If you land the right stats you can get very nice trade value out of jewels and charms.

Runes: 

Everyone wants to know "where can I find a Ber or Jah" and the answer is not what they want to hear. The honest truth is runes have a chance to drop from literally everything in the game but your highest chances are Super chests (especially lower kurast in a players 8 game), mob dense areas (like cows, chaos sanctuary, etc), and ghosts (because of their limited drop table). The countess also guarantees at least 1 rune drop and Hell countess can drop up to Ist.

For starting point I'll tell you I've seen Zod, Cham, and Ber all drop in cows. Another Ber dropped in the forgotten tower on my way to Countess. I've also gotten a couple Ohm & Vex from arcane sanctuary. For this reason I usually try to clear areas as much as possible instead of teleporting past enemies to get straight to bosses.

MF Gear: 

My MF build is a frozen orb sorceress with firewall as my off spec skill for cold immunes. 

I run the A2 Might aura merc with an eth thresher insight (any insight will do but eth thresher is best in slot) so I can teleport forever. Note, you'll want high defense/resists on chest (I run upped duriel's) and life steal on helm (I run crown of thieves). You can also throw an increased attack speed/resists jewel in your helm and armor if you want.

I'm wearing 3 piece Tal Rasha's set with occy and shako instead of full Tal Rasha's. (Note: if you don't have a Tal's belt you can run a goldwrap). You can choose to socket your helm and chest and put an ist or Ptopaz in them to boost your MF more easily.

Wartravs for boots are best in slot (note: you can run yellow demonhide boots with similar stats until you find travs). 

Upgraded chance guard gloves are best in slot for MF gear.

Offhand I use a Rhyme heater shield (Most will tell you to run spirit monarch in the offhand but a rhyme heater shield costs you less strength and gives you better blocking & MF, but sacrifices defense, cast rate, and skills). 

For rings I ran dual Nagelrings for a while, but have since swapped out one for a ring that gives me better resistances and cast rate to max those stats out. 

Note that MF % has a falling off point around 350-400% as the return on investment gets a lot lower the higher you get. I've felt like ~400% feels like the sweet spot for clear speed versus best chance at drops.

MF Route: 

MF route depends on what you're farming for, what your build is, and what you feel comfortable farming, but I'll list my full route that I run multiple times per day on my cold sorc. Specific note to not teleport your way past all monsters to a specific boss or chest. The more monsters you kill the higher your chances of loot so if you see a large pack of non-immune mobs or a champion/unique then stop to kill.

Act 1

• Mausoleum: Take WP to Cold Plains, teleport along path into the burial grounds, kill blood raven, enter Mausoleum (always upper right graveyard). Kill the 4-5 champion/elite monsters and loot the 1-2 super chests. 
• My best drops: mid-level runes, items worth a few pgems, gems, jewels, socket bases

• Secret Cow Level: Take WP to Stony Field, find cairn stones, kill rakanishu, enter tristram, loot wirt's leg in far left corner, use tome of town portal and wirt's leg in cube to spawn cows.
• My best drops: zod, cham, ber, socket bases, jewels, charms, gems

• Countess: Take WP to Black Marsh, find the forgotten tower, teleport your way to level 5 killing all champion/uniques you find along the way. Countess drops runes up to Ist and a chance at a Key for Ubers.
• My best drops: Ist, Mal, Tkeys

• Andariel: Take WP to catacombs level 2, teleport to levels 3 then 4 (kill anything you want along the way but avoid ghoul lords). 
• My best drops: Gheed's, uniques worth pgems

Note: The pit is another mlvl 85 area but I skip on sorc due to too many cold immunes. You can choose to tele to the super chest and if you want to it's closest to black marsh or outer cloister waypoints then go to Tamoe Highlands.

Act 2

• Ancient Tunnels: Take WP to Lost City. Find purple dot on map that says trap door. Click to enter tunnels. Clear the 4-5 champion/unique monsters and open the super chest just like in mausoleum.
• My best drops: eth reaper's toll, gheed's

• Summoner: Take WP to Arcane Sanctuary. Go down each of the 4 paths. Note the 3 "wrong" paths each have super chests at the end with a chance to drop runes so do a full clear. Summoner also drops a Key for Ubers.
• My best drop: reaper's toll & Hkey

Note, Maggot Lair in Far Oasis also is mlvl 85 but I skip this as it's a pain to clear and has cold immunes.

Act 3

• Lower Kurast: Take WP to LK, teleport to a camp fire with stakes in a circle around it. Open the chests in the 2 buildings adjacent. Kill any champions/uniques and click on chests/racks along the way.
• My best drops: Mid runes, gems, jewels, charms, mid uniques/sets, socket bases

• Council Members in Travincal: You can choose to do this or not. They are tough enemies so sometimes I skip if I'm doing a faster run and don't feel like losing my merc. 
• My best drops: Mid runes and mid uniques/sets

• Mephisto: Take WP to Durance of Hate Level 2. Teleport around outer border until you find level 3. Note council members in level 3 can also drop high runes but can be tough to fight solo so your choice to avoid or fight. 
• My best drops: Mid uniques/sets

Note, there's 3 other mlvl 85 areas here (ruined fane in bazaar, disused reliquary & forgotten temple in upper kurast) but I skip these as they aren't fast to get to and contain cold immunes. 

Act 4

• Chaos Sanctum: Take WP to River of Flame and teleport into sanctum (upper right of WP) and clear it. Press all seals and spawn Diablo. 
• My best drops: skullder's, skillers, occy

I sometimes skip this Act if I'm doing fast runs as the cold immunes in here are tough to deal with and the merc AI doesn't target them well.

Act 5

I usually only do Pindle (from portal next to Anya) then save and exit at him to start my runs over.

                  My best drop: Tal rasha's guardianship chest

However, some folks also farm eldritch & shenk off the Frigid Highlands WP but both are cold immune. Additionally, Worldstone Keep and Baal are mlvl 85 if you're up for the challenge.

Good luck heroes!