rocketboot

That is a really good point.

From the Rebel Shield we know that Velstadt had a counterpart, Raime. The two are described the right and left hands of the king. The shield says something along the lines of "they didn't see eye to eye" and that Raime was executed or outcast or something.

His soul is black like Artorias' and Nashandra's, and my previous thought was that he had been in the dark of the crypt for so long his soul had absorbed it. But there may be something to him being a product of the abyss. He may be there not to protect Vendrick but to imprison him, or make sure he stays out of the way. Or maybe Nashandra's sent him to hunt Vendrick down and we have arrived before he could do anything. These ideas open more holes, however, because we are lead to believe Nashandra's needs Vendricks power to access the Throne of Want.

This one has been easier for me so far, but that might be because I hadn't played in about a month when I picked up the first one. Those skeleton enemies go down pretty easily for me so having 2-3 thrown at me at once isn't a big deal. So far I really like what they've done with the boss of the area, and I'm excited to see where it goes. I really wish I didn't have to work all day!

Hey guys, back for some wild speculation after finally playing through the Crown of the Sunken King. I've been busy as hell since it came out and didn't get a chance to touch it until a few days ago, and like a lot of you I'm pretty happy with it. As far as lore goes it doesn't leave too many questions, but a lot of expectations for the coming content.

There are a couple points I'd like to discuss though. First of all: does Sinh have any connection with the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring or the Slumbering Dragon Shield? There are a couple Quartz rings to be found in Shulva that we know originate in Melfia (as does the Slumbering Dragoncrest Ring) and there is a religious aspect that could have been the origin of the Archdrakes of Lindelt... I would suggest that the Drakeblood Knights weren't the first to come to this place in search of Sinh.

My second point is a question that might be a little harder to answer: why does Elana summon a golden phantom of Velstadt? I would assume she would have had to come into contact with him to be able to make a copy, but we are told Velstadt never left the king's side. So by that logic either a) Vendrick at one time came to Shulva b) Elana at one time came to Drangleic or c) Elana and Nashandra share consciousness or something along those lines. Or none of the above, that falls on the much wilder side of my speculation here today.

And finally I'd like to weigh in on some of the conversation that I've missed going back to the discussion about the ships' sails in the giant's memory. I've spent a lot of time trying to see where those fireballs are coming from. They don't seems to be coming from anything, they just appear in the skies at regular intervals. One thing I did notice however is that a few seconds before they appear there are big vertical splashes coming out of the ocean, and one could suppose that the fireballs are being launched from the water itself. Like maybe the giants have a submarine and are launching projectiles from underwater? Or more likely, as someone suggested before, the giants do not need to breath and crossed the ocean by walking beneath it.

@tunaburn: Ok for the third time in this thread: I have no confusion about how drafting in the arena works. At the time that I posted this I was doing worse in ranked play than in the arena. Three kills in the arena is a 1/1 win/lose ratio. In ranked I was winning maybe 1/5 matches. I judged that to mean that maybe if I had more powerful cards, such as those I was drafting in arena, I would be more successful in ranked. Turns out I just needed to tweak my deck a little and add some cheaper minions to the mix and now I'm more or less winning 4/5 matches, and most of my losses are quite a bit closer.

@lemonhead: Yeah I understand how arena works, I was suggesting that my access to a larger card pool in arena might account for me winning more (about 50 percent win/lose) in arena than in ranked (20-25 percent win). But since the weekend that seems to have taken a turn.

As for the new content I've been getting torn up in there against the second boss. I obviously need to change tactics lol.

Well after posting last night I went on a 5-win streak with the paladin only to lose to a warlock who had his entire hand on the board by the sixth turn. I imagine that's the kind of deck being suggested here. So I guess I'm making a bit of an improvement.

I think it's worth mentioning that I haven't seen any of the huge "game-ender" cards I referred to in my original post since the weekend. Like, there was one (I can't remember what it was called the names in this game are rediculous) that had taunt, windfury, charge and divine shield. I think his stats were like 6/6 or something like that. It was a bit of a buzzkill, and far beyond anything I could play.

@c0v3rt: I've got a number of spells and some minions that effect spell damage. Many of the spells are demon specific and I only have a handful of demon cards so I'm going to have to craft a few to make the deck at all useful.

Quick question: when you guys are building decks, do you always add cards in pairs when possible or do you only put singles of each to increase variety? I've been doing the former but I'm not sure if I should increase my options.

Maybe I'll watch one or two of his videos when I have time. In the meanwhile I just won 3 games in a row with my Paladin in ranked, maybe I was just having bad draws over the weekend? How much do you guys attribute success to getting good hands?

Thanks for the tips guys. Basically what I'm hearing is practice and trial & error is key. Either that or look up successful deck builds and watch tutorials, but I'd rather figure it out myself. I need to figure out how to get around some of those big game-enders that seem to be plaguing me.

I have reached at least lvl 10 with each of the heroes and I've got an elementary understanding of eachs of their strengths and weaknesses. For example I wasn't interested in playing the paladin until I earned all his base cards and saw the potential to use his buffs on cheap minions (particularly ones that summon a weaker friend as their battlecry), also incorporating buffs from the all classes card pool. When it works, it is VERY effective. But i often get overwhelmed by powerful cards, and typically when that happens the cards are higher rarity.

I want to be clear that I haven no intention on spending money on card packs, but rather grind for gold to play the arena to win card packs. I also feel like I'm doing better in the arena drafting random cards than using the cards I've earned in ranked play. Like I said, my average arena runs are 3 wins, meaning I'm winning pretty much half my games. But in ranked with my decks that I tweak every 4 or 5 losses I'm only seeing success about 20-25% of the time. I'm not just wining about losing because I don't have many cards, it's this disparity between ranked and arena matches that I'm basing this discussion on.

I'm looking for a little beginner's advice. I started dabbling in Hearthstone and although I feel like I'm grasping it pretty easily (I've dabbled in MTG and I have a bi-monthly game of Dominion with some pals so the concepts present aren't completely foreign to me) I am vein continually pummelled in both casual and ranked. The highest number of wins I've achieved in the arena is 3. I've built 3 decks so far, caster Mage and Warlock decks and a Palidin buff deck. So far the Mage is the only one I can rely on and I only win about a quarter of the time. Most of my losing battles are neck on neck until turn 8 or so where I start to get overwhelmed by powerful cards I can't match.

So my question is: do I simply need better cards to do better? I've opened between 10-20 packs so far and crafted a few cards. Is this enough for me to build and effectively use a solid deck? Or do I just suck and need to hone my skills?