Greedy Goblins
- Goblins are often portrayed as greedy and perhaps even money savvy.
- In World of Warcraft they are the bankers of the Auction House.
- In Harry Potter they are also the bankers.
Of course in Harry Potter (and perhaps even WOW) they are also coded as greedy Jewish bankers and JK Rowling has essentially been canceled by the left for her stance on the trans community, but hey this wasn't supposed to be political so I'll just leave this here.
Back to WOW
In world of warcraft you were also considered a Goblin player if you were on the AH flipping items and using various other strategies to make gold in-game. I was very much a Goblin player and spent a ton of time on the auction house because digital economics are very interesting to me. I had multiple mods (including TSM trade-skill-master to help me be a better goblin).
In the end I quit WOW in 2016 right before getting into crypto. I knew that hyperinflation (new expansions coming out) would destroy the value of the gold I farmed, so I decided to preserve that value as "USD" instead. Of course by USD I mean converted into my battle.net balance, which can't be transferred off the platform. So I basically played WOW for free that entire time with my winnings then cashed out $1000 in 2016. I spent a bunch on Hearthstone some years back (maybe 2018) when me and a friend were playing, and most recently I bought the $100 ULTIMATE version of Diablo 4 with my 'fake' stack of money as well. Still have $180 left which is kind of funny as it can easily buy me two or three more games (or a year+ subscription to WOW if I decide I want to reenter that time-suck hell-hole).
A term used to describe the market's persistent downtrend, synonymous with "bear market". This is a reference to The Hobbit (1977)'s hit song, "Down Down to Goblin Town"
Goblin Town
Goblins are also unsurprisingly a thing in crypto. In 2022 during the heat of the bear market a goblin NFT project mooned while everything else ate shit. People still say Goblin Town to mean that the market is tanking or that you're going to lose everything... and in some instances it has the exact opposite meaning (an asset that moons when everything else tanks).
In any case a buddy of mine in my hardcore D4 clan died last night.
155 hours vaporized by a one-shot lightning attack! YIKES.
He also asked right before going into that dungeon if I wanted to join him...
but I said no because my night was winding down.
I feel like if I was there he wouldn't of died so there's a slight measure of guilt there.
Here's another random dude dying in hardcore on Twitch.
Misery loves company.
People love watching and laughing at people dying in stupid ways.
In this case a level 85 sorc gets one-shot by a lightning AOE that they ran into on purpose. It's extra funny because the mob he's killing in the video is a Treasure Goblin, which often makes players do stupid things (like chasing them through a dozen elites as they run away from you). The Treasure Goblin only runs away (and tries to portal) and has no attacks, so dying to one like this (a death-rattle affix in a nightmare dungeon) is just extra special. Guy is streaming and says nothing the entire time. lol literally speechless. This game I tell ya.
The interesting thing about a sorcerer class dying in hardcore is that dying should be nearly impossible (except to lag and disconnects), but most people are playing the game wrong. I learned this the hard way after dying multiple times in stupid ways. My build was obviously incorrect.
Taking a look at the sorc that died above we can see they simply copied the pro cookie cutter build for an ice mage. You only get one main damage ability (ice shards) and everything else is defensive. That's how broken this game is... you just spam the same stupid ability over and over again to kill everything. BORING; but I digress.
We can see on the far-right this player has flame-shield on his bar just like all the rest of the posers copying this build, and let me tell you it's a terrible build for hardcore.
These types of builds are found on websites like icy-veins.com
https://www.icy-veins.com/d4/guides/ice-shards-sorcerer-build/
I absolutely hate this build.
Mostly just because it takes a frost build and adds a fire basic attack (that you don't even use on the main bar). Instead, firebolt is put into one of the two enchantment slots to add a damage over time burning attack to the enemy. As a purist I find this very annoying; the best frost build is one where the core frost attack adds a burning DOT to the target? Stupid. So stupid. But unfortunately this is almost certainly the best build for pure DPS on a frost mage. The gamer nerds have mathed the math on this one.
Except in Hardcore you don't go for pure DPS.
Going pure DPS glass-cannon is an 'eternal' strategy only. You can't afford to do that in hardcore because if you die a single time you're dead forever. Again, I learned this the hard way, finally bit the bullet, and put flame shield directly into my enchantment slot.
This is hands down the best skill in the entire game for any hardcore player, but most people don't use it because it's not part of any of the cookie cutter "pro" builds. Why not? Because websites like icy-veins.com are just like any other aggregate site (like Coingecko). They take the average and spit out the most popular (or highest volume) answer. Because statistically a lot fewer people are playing hardcore mode you're never going to find a hardcore build that runs flame shield in the enchantment slot even though it's a stupidly obvious pick...
you can literally take lethal damage every 2 minutes and not die.
My sorc has taken lethal damage a dozen times now and never died. I can play the game like a glass cannon and do whatever I want because this skill automatically saves me from death every single time I need it. The loss of an enchantment slot hurt my build a little at first, but it was easy to pivot around that "loss" as the gain of not being able to get killed in a hardcore game is massive.
Potion of death evasion.
It seems unfair that mages would get access to a skill that prevents death in hardcore, but technically everyone has access to exactly that. Any class can pop a death-evasion elixir and gain immunity from lethal damage for 30 minutes. The difference is that farming the mats for these elixirs is time consuming, and time is the primary resource in a hack&slash game like this one.
Again, I felt a bit stupid at first running flame shield on my enchantment bar knowing full well I could just pop one of these elixirs to get the same effect, but the time it saves and the ability to be unkillable basically all the time has proven insanely useful.
The only way I can die at this point is if I lag out or get so greedy that I stay in a fight where I just took lethal damage (which would obviously just be a huge stupid & pointless blunder). And even in that case I've been known to pop a death-evasion elixir so I can take lethal damage again and don't have to leave the fight. I've yet to 'die' twice in less than 2 minutes (which is the cooldown on flame-shield in the enchantment bar). But I have had flame-shield and a death-evasion active at the same time, and the game will prioritize flame shield first if you have both up, which was a nice surprise.
https://clips.twitch.tv/StylishSpoopyDiamondWow-69u2KZXVfXS9lX-y
Another example
Level 100 sorc dies to a single charge from a tusker (more common that you'd expect... maybe a bug). Again: all would have been avoided if he just put flame-shield in the enchantment bar, lol. but again people are greedy goblins and they just copy the pro build blindly without putting any other thought into it. Greedy Greedy Greedy.
Conclusion
Greed makes the world go round.
But greed also has extremely diminishing returns.
So what can we learn from all this?
- Don't be a greedy goblin.
- Don't take unnecessary risks.
- Especially relevant advice in crypto.
- Of course theory and execution are two completely different things.
- Keep stacking, goblins.