#and even its not immune to rng

[t0kyo-l1ghts]

Buckshot Roulette is kind of funny in the sense that in the singleplayer mode youre obviously up against AI, but sometimes even the AI goofs up and ends up killing itself after fully preparing to kill you with everything it has

[prettyboykatsuki]

not that anyone cares how i did it but for those of u who might be trying to clear swarm 4 i basically clutched completely on the remembrance path and changed some of my builds around to be break effect + effect hit rate

my team for the first two domains was: gepard, pela, tingyun, and yanqing. for the last domain i brought it in luocha and he was CRUCIAL in keeping my team alive. if you're smarter than me - u might not need him but i ended up on planar disruption two so the swarm was fucking me up in one hit and tingyun is too squishy

i also dont think you need yanqing, but i personally would not bring jingliu if i had her bc i think her hp stealing will make it really risky. i think herta probably does the same job if not better than yanqing does.

i do not have the propagation path unlocked btw so i cant tell u how it effects the game play

by the time i reached the third domain so the final boss, i switched tingyun for luocha just to be careful. and i used my remaining skill technique points to get gepards temp shield up

for my paths, i basically had no curios with the exception of stuff that gave me blessings. i had 14 blessings overall needed to get all three path bonuses - but the MOST crucial blessings are the ones that have to do with disassociation dmg.

YOU NEEEEED. you need to get as many as you can towards disassociation damage, particular in application and increasing dmg. i can go find the names of them - but you'll want the ones that apply disassociation damage after attack frozen enemies, the ones that regen energy, and the ones that decrease res / guarantee freeze. this makes the run kind of rng based but when is it not !!

ALSO IF YOU ARE GOING TO PLAY REMEMBRANCE - DO NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!! FIGHT COCOLIA AS YOUR SECOND BOSS!!!!!! SHE DOESN'T HAVE ICE RES SHE IS COMPLETELY IMMUNE AND SHE WILL FUCK YOUR ENTIRE RUN. <- learned from painful experience

i did not get preservation interplay on this run - i went full remembrance and just brought my own sustains which did the job just fine. i think if you prefer to be safe, getting the interplay will be nice.

also i think u could probably sub luocha for fu xuan or even lynx if ur smarter than me.

i can post my builds but tbh aside from pela they're not even that good. GOOD LUCK TO ANYONE WHO HAS BEEN ATTEMPTING. tho im sure peple who have been playing More consistently than Me are doing fine.... but its taken me so long to clear LMAOO

[rimeiii]

Using What in "Hell" is Bad as an excuse to talk about video game mechanics (pt. 1)

And honestly, not just as an excuse - but also as a way to voice out my concerns for the gameplay.

Because I've been thinking about the game mechanics in What in "Hell" is Bad, specifically the damage instance miss as shown in the gameplay trailer of WHB and how it's something that I personally am not a fan of (as the bitch who cares more about the gameplay than anything else), and I think it all boils down to game design. There's several points to it that I hope I can get through eloquently, but it all does boil down to one key issue:

Consistency.

Now, what do I mean by that?

(more under the cut!)

Also, a disclaimer: ALL of the situations below are based on my thought processes, as someone who likes a challenge in gaming. I play Nuzlockes, I like mainline SMT, I do high Surging in IS3 (currently attempting 11), I play hard Pokémon romhacks, and more. Not everyone will think like I do, and that's fine.

And even though the opening statement is for WHB, at the end of the day I end up talking extensively about my thought processes in building a team for hard Pokémon romhacks, specifically Radical Red, so. Just a heads-up!

Consistency, in this case, is basically a measure of how often a skill/strategy is able to have an effect. The less RNG is required for a skill/strategy to work, the more consistent it is. It's the usual Fire Blast vs Flamethrower debate - would you risk the 85% accuracy for a 120 (gen 1-5)/110 (gen 6 onward) base power attack in Fire Blast, or take the guaranteed hit with a lower base power of 95 (gen 1-5)/90 (gen 6 onward) in Flamethrower? Some would take the Fire Blast, others would prefer the Flamethrower.

Consistency issues usually don't tend to be a thing in most tower defense games, in my experience. Most if not all damage instances are sure hits (unless the enemy has some sort of immunity), and RNG factors are minimal when it comes to inflicting damage. That isn't to say RNG is completely gone from tower defense games - the easiest examples being the butter from Kernelpults in Plants vs Zombies and certain Operator Talents like Mountain's 15% physical dodge or Lin's 50% chance of SP recovery on hit in Arknights. These RNG factors are balanced in a sense that they either have a decent chance for a completely broken effect (butter stopping a zombie completely for several seconds), are ultimately nice bonuses for an already strong base kit (how I feel the dodge on Mountain's Talent is), or works well in accordance to their archetype (how I feel Lin's Talent is, which is boosted heavily and turns her into a stellar unit with her Module, increasing the SP regen chance from 50% to a more consistent 75%).

As a result, having an attack from a ranged unit miss in WHB's trailer, while understandable due to attacking from a distance, is another source of RNG - and while it may be a breath of fresh air in tower defense, as a mechanic I can see it inciting rage. In what way, however?

For me, it's easiest to explain in a Pokémon setting. As a side note, all the screenshots used are from the Radical Red romhack, a romhack of FireRed that has all Pokémon and moves introduced in Generation 9 while including all of the updated game mechanics (minus Terastalization) and being a generally hard game - even with both minimal grinding and Easy mode on.

(OP is trying to catch and evolve all possible Pokémon while leaving all the mind-bending team building in Run & Bun, so she chose those settings)

This is Regieleki's moveset upon capture within the Power Plant Raid Den in Radical Red. Zap Cannon is a supremely strong move that guarantees Paralysis on the opposing Pokémon if it hits, but it only hits 50% of the time. Yet in most situations, you never see this thing run Zap Cannon - despite its side effect and damage. You want to know why?

Its ability, Transistor.

Transistor plus the same type attack bonus (STAB) makes Regieleki deal absolutely ludicrous amounts of damage with its Electric type attacks. A weaker but more accurate Thunderbolt (95/90 base power depending on the generation with a chance to paralyze, but has 100 accuracy) is more than enough for damage because of its damage multipliers, without the chance of it missing. Of course, you could always use a move like Lock On or other ways to boost your Zap Cannon's accuracy, but you're putting yourself in danger because you'll be wasting a turn you can use to potentially pick up a KO while leaving it susceptible to getting KO'd itself.

So, it all comes down to risk vs reward: do you take the risk of a miss/KO to deal insane amounts of damage AND a status effect, or do you take the weaker guaranteed hit that might not inflict the status effect?

Back to WHB - it would seem like ranged units are the ones with a chance to miss, while the melee units all have guaranteed hits. And judging from the footage, it would seem that Paimon is the unit that did most if not all of the missed attacks, which leads me to hypothesize:

The miss might be due to Paimon's passive skill.

Miss chance might be based on unit rarity - because I don't recall seeing Gabriel and Satan miss anything, and they both are of higher rarity than Paimon.

The miss chance is necessary to balance the subclass Paimon is part of.

On paper, this sounds fine - a fresh way to implement a risk vs reward mechanic in team-building, encouraging varied team compositions to maximize damage. However, there's a reason why I placed emphasis on the fact it's on paper, because the implementations as seen in the preview itself is...less than ideal.

See, when someone thinks of risk vs reward, the risk you're taking must be directly proportional to the perceived reward for it to be a viable choice for the player. Otherwise, what is intended to be a high-risk-high-reward move that has some viability will be perceived as high-risk-mediocre-reward without any viability. In other words, if the reward obtained is not worth the risk taken, then the player most likely won't take the risk, and you're not doing this entire "risk vs reward" thing right.

As an example, let's take a look at Unburden Sneasler in Radical Red, in the context of building a team to go against Lorelei of the Elite Four.

Unburden Sneasler by principle is a relatively frail physical sweeper. With Unburden it becomes one of the fastest Pokemon in the entire game provided it loses its held item as its already high base speed is doubled with Unburden. There are several ways it can lose a held item - consuming a one-time use item (so stuff like Berries, Focus Sash, Herbs, and Gems) or using Fling.

So, the question becomes this:

Would you take the chance of Sneasler taking huge damage and/or dying on turn one to be able to strike first and deal immense damage on the enemy in the following turns?

Because Sneasler, despite its weaker defensive stats, has a typing that gives it 6 resistances with only 3 weaknesses (with only one of them being a quad weakness - Psychic). And you're definitely looking for ways to lose your item ASAP to activate Unburden. If you can, for example, knock out Lorelei's Alolan Ninetales on her Hail team before it can set up Aurora Veil (increases the party's defensive stats for 8 turns, as it's holding the Light Clay, increasing the length of these buffs), then you're in a much better position for the rest of the fight, right?

For context, let's theorycraft and look at these Pokémon in a vacuum for a bit. Lorelei's Hail team leads with Alolan Ninetales and Glaceon. Ninetales starts up Hail with its ability Snow Warning, allowing it to use Aurora Veil (which only works in Hail). Her Glaceon has Slush Rush, doubling its Speed in Hail - and outspeeding Sneasler. Sneasler will still outspeed Ninetales, but the Glaceon will likely aim to Earth Power the Sneasler, seeing as it'll deal more damage - especially with the Choice Specs (increases special attack by 50% but locks the Pokemon into the first move it used).

If Sneasler is holding the Shuca Berry (reduces the first Ground damage instance by 50%), there's a chance it's going to survive, while Unburden is activated. You take out the Ninetales turn one with both of your Pokemon (this means you'll also need a Pokemon faster than Ninetales as your other lead), and you can then Close Combat the next turn to deal immense damage and hopefully pick up another KO with your speedy Sneasler. Hell, if the Calyrex-Ice comes in, you might want to double into that slot to get rid of it before it can start stacking boosts!

However, there is still a source of inconsistency in the form of a critical hit. Critical hits deal 50% more damage and happens at a 1/24 chance (starting generation 7). Assuming Shuca Berry with a critical? Even the Sneasler might not be strong enough to tank the Earth Power, with both the Choice Specs boost and Glaceon's high base Special Attack.

But back again to WHB. So, what about this risk vs reward concept in terms of Paimon? Well, based on what we're seeing in the trailer, I don't think the risk of his attacks missing is worth the reward of his utility.

Several things to note. First of all, his regular attacks don't seem to inflict any sort of ailment. His slow seems to be only on skill proc, and unless my eyes deceived me then the damage instance on the skill also missed. Thankfully, the slow is still inflicted on the opponent, but...man. Too many of Paimon's attacks missed (misses were a majority!) - and those that hit aren't even as strong as other units like Eligos (192 damage/hit) and Satan (166 damage/hit). The Pokémon equivalent of this is having Hustle (increases Attack by 50% for a 20% drop in accuracy for Physical attacks), but even then Paimon's accuracy is arguably much worse.

Why would you use Paimon if you have much more consistent DPS options, and if you don't find his slow particularly useful or impactful? As far as DPS goes, he's outpaced by everyone else, at 115 damage/hit. A slot that you could've used for another, more impactful unit, is used on a unit that doesn't seem to be bringing that much value into the team.

Perhaps there may be fringe cases where his kit is useful. Or there's a chance his current level as shown on the trailer presents him not at his full potential. Maybe down the line Paimon's archetype might be more usable as the game evolves, too! But as we see him right now, he isn't quite worth the opportunity cost of having another, more impactful unit on the squad, assuming you have alternatives.

Actually, let's talk about opportunity cost. It's a concept that talks about what opportunities are lost when not taking a specific option. Any character, any build, any strategy - basically anything I don't use represents an opportunity cost.

As an example, let's take a look at my current Regieleki build.

With Regieleki's stat spread and moveset, there are several main "modes" this Pokémon can run. It can utilize its speed for a full support build, with the ability to set up Reflect (increases party Defense for 5 turns) and Light Screen (increases party Special Defense for 5 turns) before its opponents while still having a speed control option with Electroweb (hits both enemies in a double battle, weak damage while dropping enemy speed). It can also utilize its Transistor ability to function as a speedy special sweeper, running stronger Electric moves like Thunderbolt (base power 95 with 100 accuracy) or Thunder (base power 110 with 85 accuracy, 100 accuracy in rain). The held items and specific stat builds will differ depending on the mode - support Regieleki would run an HP boosting nature to help with its bulk somewhat, while the special sweeper build would run a Special Attack boosting nature, for example.

Both builds are good, but we're playing a hard romhack here. Realistically I can only bring one Regieleki, because having more than one means I'll be gimping my team in terms of type coverage and resistances. And even then there are other support units that might be worth looking into - an example being the standard Grimmsnarl support build with the Prankster ability (status moves gain +1 priority, helping them proc first, but doesn't affect Dark type Pokémon) and the aforementioned Light Clay, running Reflect and Light Screen (both moves increasing the duration to 8 turns as well due to the Light Clay and are also affected by Prankster) but also bringing additional utility in Spirit Break (damage on a single enemy while reducing their Special Attack) and Parting Shot (reduces a foe's attacking stats and makes Grimmsnarl switch out, also affected by Prankster). Me bringing a support Regieleki as my choice of support means I'll be losing out on both the utility of the special sweeper Regieleki build and the Prankster Grimmsnarl, among other things. They become the opportunity cost of bringing the support Regieleki.

My train of thought, therefore, boils down to this: which option would lead to more consistency and a much easier time in the Elite Four, considering the fact that all the Elite Four members in Radical Red have two potential teams? This will require more theorycrafting, as well as building a team suited for both situations to not get blindsided by any team. I personally am thinking of bringing the support Regieleki build, and I will have to build the rest of my team to capitalize off that - including potentially changing that Volt Switch to Protect.

The same concept applies when selecting your team for a tower defense stage. WHB places a limit of 6 units on the field, and your team composition must be good enough to deal with the enemies with your limited deployment slots. If you let a unit go down, you'll be down one member for the entirety of the stage. In the same vein, if a member doesn't seem to be doing much in your composition, then you'd more than likely consider changing them for another member who can support your current composition better.

All so you can have a consistent composition to clear a stage.

So, I guess why the miss indication in particular is so much of a dealbreaker for me is the utter inconsistency it brings to the table. As much as possible, I don't want to rely on a coin flip to determine if my party lives or dies. Some challenge due to inconsistency is fine - the entire concept of critical hits in Pokemon makes things just that more challenging and thrilling, especially because you can play around the critical hits due to it not having such a large chance overall (and those that do are usually guaranteed critical hits anyways, so you're already looking for contingency plans for those).

This is why I feel having a miss chance as large as Paimon for a character like him is such a bad idea. It doesn't capitalize on risk vs reward well, and in the long run he might just end up being not that good of a character.

And, well...

A challenge based solely on inconsistencies and such huge RNG factors simply isn't a fun or fair challenge at all.

[claire-starsword]

The Guardiana Magic School Run - Part 15

Worry not, Balbaroy, I'll (hubris incoming) be shocked if this one turns out to be hard. With that said I'm not enough to a fool to head on without preparing, so we retreat immediately as there's no stop between the last battle and this one, but we certainly have things to equip!

The Mermanbuster, which has been teasing us in the deals section for a while, is finally ours for free, and this is the exact chapter it is meant for. As you can see it is slightly weaker than the Steel Sword, but its bonus on aquatic creatures is brutal. Hopefully you'll get to see it. I'll still make space on his inventory for the Steel Sword so that he can switch between them as needed.

The Healing Ring turns out to grant immunity to poison, which is great, as there are poisoning enemies in this battle. I'm a bit unsure who should get it, but I decide to give it to Gong, who tends to be in the front line despite not being as defensive as I wish he was. Gong is very much the limiar between squishy and non-squishy in this team. He still currently has more defense than Max though, which is wild to me, this is so not how my casual runs go.

Either way, we've saved the game, we're good to go!

We have a chance to get some money as well, hopefully it won't be hard but I am trying to get my ego under control before bad things happen.

Our first and perhaps worst enemies are these pegasus knights, they can reach us right away, so we gotta protect the mages and healers. Luckily, Domingo is the greatest and currently the fastest in the team. Narsha is also fast enough, so Tao and Anri get protected right away. Also, Max is in reach of all the knights and it would not surprised if they decided to go for him instead.

It's a moot point anyway cause in the end everyone moves before the knights, and I decide to bait the bats enemies further ahead. We're not in their range and they should be simple to deal with, and we're close enough to back Narsha and Domingo up if things get complicated.

The knights decide to just, not move, which is annoying as I need to wipe them out eventually. had I known I'd have boosted Domingo's magic with Narsha beforehand, as he is the only one who can bait those out. Time to put his tankiness to the test again.

He deals half of the knights' HP with Freeze 1 so I guess boosting wouldn't have made a difference.

I can however boost Anri to maybe help her train, that would be nice.

I give up on baiting the south with Gong, Khris and Arthur though, as there are more enemies gathering there and none of them should be tanking that much.

Anri finally gets good at the spell she's supposed to be good at.

Domingo tanks a hit, but the other two garbage knights refuse to advance. This is very annoying.

I advance Tao a bit too much by mistake and cry. She has been oneshotting bats left and right though. It's not even worth mentioning anymore, assume Tao can oneshot most things by this point.

Behold. The Mermanbuster.

With thus, Lowe gets to heal Tao and everything is fine again.

I sent Gong to help Domingo, as he would die if like, both knights got double hits. Very unlikely, but you never know when the RNG is gonna decide to be hilarious.

(And yeah sure, if it did that Gong would die too, I'm not sure what I was thinking, maybe I just wanted Domingo to have a friend around.)

At least now the knights are finally advancing, the north one also skipped attacking in order to, beeline for Khris? You silly bean, I'm not letting you do that.

Meanwhile these conches are very weak, despite the first impression they made against Tao, so I don't expect problems. Since everything is going fine, I decide to cast Attack on Narsha to speed up things. She levels up and gets Aura 2. Never disappointed with this woman.

In the back, I decided to play it safe and have Gong heal himself, so the knights were not defeated in that round and this one is very determined to ignore Domingo.

Meanwhile the blob is getting protagonist-worthy level ups.

I'm just gonna keep advancing Narsha, she doesn't care.

This is vacation for her. Tour where the queen of Runefaust hunts down some seafood.

The ice avoidant knight gets a fitting end.

We're at turn 6 and there's two enemies. This battle is kinda ridiculous. I'm gonna let Max and Narsha tank some hits and try to give other exp, either by attacking or tossing heals to the void.

nvm

He also gets poisoned. Told you it was gonna be a thing.

Narsha should still be able to tank though.

And that's it, I laze around for two turns while Arthur and Anri finish a Shellfish each, Arthur is overleveled but his stats aren't great so I don't mind him growing more, this does finally gets his HP past 20 which is nice. Gong is the first to get Heal 3, which is also nice. As previously discussed, he should get promoted right away to not delay his promotion-only spells.

He's now back to having less defense than Max, but it's not too big a deal, and his attack is still respectable as well. With Narsha around, a character falling behind in attack is not the death sentence it used to be. Besides, our upgrades are not yet over, this rich-ass town has like, five chests lying around.

I. Hate. That they retranslated this thing as Agility Ring when it doesn't effect agility. So anyway. The Running Ring gives us a +2 in movement which is awesome. For now I'll give it to Domingo so that he can tank in front of people more easily, and also he's my only flyer in this playthrough so the mobility is nice.

This town is also where we should be getting the Heavy Mace, but because our Runefaust Queen has soloed a Kraken that doesn't matter.

Finally, let's check out the deals on this very normal shop.

There's another Mermanbuster, and another Elf Slayer. This is very annoying as I don't have any other characters for these weapons, and I guess they'll be here clogging the deals until I buy them.

On the bright side, we can buy the Repel Ring now. I'm leaving it with Gong for now. as counters would ruin him big time, but Max is also a candidate.

The regular weapon shop doesn't have anything useful for us, so that's where we end it for today.

Losses: 0 Deaths: 2

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-pokemon-fan]

Easy. Fucking easy sauce battles. I played them perfectly. Read on for the biggest brain plays of this run so far.

Ghetsis sends out White Kyurem. I lead with Geometry Dash the Haxorus. I know this monstrosity has Dragon Breath and Ice Burn. Ice Burn takes two turns to actually deal damage, but Dragon Breath is still a major threat. So I gave G.D. a Haban Berry to weaken a supereffective Dragon type move against it. I also know that time was of the essence. I need a strong move to KO Kyurem with no deaths, because I need everyone to take down Ghetsis's team. So I delayed G.D.'s evolution. Haxorus learns Outrage at Lv 66, but Axew learns it at Lv 56. With that critical bit of planning done, I go into the battle. Before Kyurem has the chance to do anything, I use Outrage for 360 base power and KO it in one shot. Battle #1 out of the way.

Now Ghetsis challenges me with his team. I lead with Geometry Dash again versus his Cofagrigus. I use Shadow Claw to bring it to low HP. It poisons G.D. with Toxic, so I switch out to Zoroark disguised as Duke the Mienshao (you can't nickname Zoroark in this game without hacking and I was too lazy to do so). Cofagrigus foolishly uses Protect, ensuring a safe switch-in for me. I use Night Daze. The problematically-named coffin is down for the count.

Ghetsis sends out Hydreigon. I have four contingencies to deal with this motherfucker, putting supereffective moves on almost everyone on my team. So, I used the safest one and switched to Lucina the Lucario. She tanks the Dragon Rush and I use Aura Sphere to bring it to critical HP. It uses Dragon Rush again to no great consequence then kills itself with its own Life Orb. The big bad dragon ace is out.

Now he sends out Seismitoad. It 100% reads Earthquake as its strongest move, so I switch to Bad Dragon the Flygon, who has Levitate. No damage. Now it will probably use Muddy Water, so I pivot into Tree Meister the Sawsbuck. It does use Muddy Water, but it misses anyway. I hit with a 450 BP Horn Leech to OHKO the poor bastard.

Ghetsis brings in Eelektross. Yeah, yeah, it has Flamethrower. But see, I brought Tree Meister for two reasons. First was to take out Seismitoad. Second was to use Aromatherapy to cure Cofagrigus's Toxic victim. Thus, Geometry Dash was saved from Poison and ready to rejoin the fray. Eelektross kills Tree Meister, but that's just what I want. Pain me though it does, I don't need him anymore in this run. What I do need is a free switch-in to G.D..

Normally, Eelektross is immune to Ground moves because of its Levitate. But I got RNG blessed when I caught my Axew, because it has Mold Breaker, which deals damage ignoring abilities. G.D. uses Bulldoze, tanks a Thunderbolt, and Bulldozes again to take out the gross eel thing.

Now Ghetsis sends out Drapion. He's getting desperate. It doesn't have any supereffective moves on G.D., but I still don't want to risk his safety any more than I have to. This Drapion has Sniper, which ups crit damage from 2x to 3x. I switch to Bad Dragon. Drapion's Poison Fang hits for 1/2x damage, barely scratching my beautiful Flygon. One Earth Power obliterates the bug that isn't even a Bug type.

It's time. Ghetsis's final Pokémon, a Toxicroak. I still have five mons in my team. I haven't even needed to use Duke. Unfortunately for the winner of the Worst Dad of the Century award, it's also weak to Ground. Bad Dragon uses Earth Power one more time and finishes it off. Just like that, I won. A perfect plan for a perfect battle. Hell yeah.

As for my whole team being at Lv 57 while his ace was Lv 52, I didn't break the level cap rule. Elite Four is at 58. Besides, I needed Zoroark and Geometry Dash to be at Lv 57 to have access to Night Daze and Outrage. My point is that I planned this battle masterfully with the Pokémon at my disposal. Everyone played their part with grace and much poise. I salute Tree Meister for his sacrifice. Thanks to him, the rest of my team is alive to see future victories.

Now I move on to Victory Road. I have one more battle against Hugh and a few particularly nasty mandatory trainer battles, but I've made it this far. Nothing but, uh, probably Marshal using Rock type moves like an asshole, can stop me.

Well I reached Ghetsis in attempt 3 of my hardcore Pokémon White 2 Challenge Mode Nuzlocke. Taking a break to actually be productive and whatnot, but now it’s just time to team build. I can’t lose to this fucker here and my box is bursting with great Pokémon. Gotta take it slow. Gotta check myself before I wreck myself. Because I will wreck myself if I rush in. I know that very well at this point.

[smells-like-mettaton]

Rating: T Summary: It isn't that Gaster is stopping him. Asgore can't bring December back. She doesn't exist in this world's code. (The world revolves, until one of them no longer persists.) Word Count: 1055 Prompt: Gaster and/or Kingdings, "The moment when reality starts to make sense again"

For @a-snow-decahedron, tumblr at the ask but luckily I had the prompt request written down C:

XXX

It's a numbers game, a dice roll, an RNG, that throws Gaster into the not-garden between, with its crooked blood-red maple and royal purple grass. No flowers, golden or otherwise. Perhaps that’s on purpose—the Knight does love the gravitas of ancient human tales, and one doesn’t get exiled to Eden, but from it.

(Does that make the ever-spawning eggs his forbidden fruit? He’d hoped that something so mystical would taste better.)

A red leaf falls on his head. Time is moving again, then. He's been Connected. Will today's dose of interaction be the missed-taken vessel, the non-antlered girl, or—

"Gaster."

Asgore Dreemurr, the Roaring Knight, steps into Gaster's prison. His cape—a swatch of violent violet—stretches out behind him like a liquid shadow. Darker yet darker yet darker.

Despite everything, Gaster's shattered soul quickens.

"Dreemurr." Gaster nods. The leaf tumbles past his eyesockets, and he blushes at the thought of being seen with such an impromptu, immature hat, never mind that he’d forgotten it was there entirely.

His (universe's, not his his) Asgore would have chuckled at the sight. Gaster has yet to hear this iteration laugh, and would not bet on that changing anytime soon.

This Asgore does change, however. Has changed. Cycling through phases like the moon, like grief. Anger, sadness, bargaining. Never acceptance. What Gaster admired in his Asgore fractalled out, reflected and refracted until frustration overlaps infatuation.

Asgore sits down among the maple's thick roots and lets out an even thicker sigh. Not anger today, then. He hefts the shears that had been strapped to his back, running a paw along the golden blades.

"How long must this continue?" he asks quietly, his black eyes unfocused.

"UNTIL SOMEONE FAILS TO PERSIST," Gaster answers.

More leaves fall. Red, red, red. The lightwaves that travel the farthest. The Angel's unwavering shade.

“I cannot be the one to break,” Asgore murmurs. “I have to find her. For Rudy, and for Toriel. For Noelle and Kris and Asriel.”

Kris. The vessel that was never meant to be. They’ve suffered enough for Gaster’s mistakes, without their father spinning them around and around, open-close open-close. Strung on strings until someone bigger than they all chooses to snap them free.

Asgore could end this. Probably. Maybe. Gaster should know if Asgore is as much of a dependent variable as himself, but he doesn’t. Can the puppet be trusted when he says that he’s real? Should the staff lift up itself as if it were no wood?

“You understand, don’t you?” Asgore continues.

The shears snip, open-close. It’s a tick, nervous or otherwise, but not a threat. Even the weapon that tears fountains from the earth can’t touch someone who doesn’t exist.

“You can’t know everything. The world can’t keep revolving forever. Something… something has to break.” Snip. “Even if you say she can’t be saved—”

“SHE CANNOT.” Gaster sighs, like a pressure valve being released.

Revolving, revolving. Sometimes he wonders if Asgore forgets their conversations, if Gaster still carries the curse that severed him from his own reality. Untethered from the minds and souls of all who might have loved him, a drifter in the hands of code and fate. Looking too high, too far, just like all who followed and yet follow him.

Fists clench over golden blades. Gaster may be immune to Asgore’s touch, but not to the rage that boils off of him. Today is multiphasic, crescent and gibbous and half, sadness and bargaining and anger.

“If you would just help me, instead of sending your pawns to foil every attempt I make—!”

“DECEMBER HOLIDAY IS OUT OF BOUNDS. UNBOUND. SHE CANNOT RETURN ANYMORE THAN I.”

Gaster rests his skull against the maple’s rough bark. A pleasant texture. Rough is an easier sensation to hold than soft.

Asgore’s breath catches, hanging the room in silence.

“Then if you can return, so can she.”

Gaster looked to him, eyesockets wide with shock. It’s a logical jump—but the underlying notions are invalid, rendering the equation unsolvable.

Still, it warms him that this Asgore would think to try.

“I HAVE NOWHERE,” Gaster begins carefully, “TO RETURN.”

“No one has nowhere,” Asgore insists. “The Darkners, they think they have nowhere. And aren’t they happier when they get moved somewhere? When your pawns carry them off to their Castle Town—”

“YOU INTENDED THAT?” Gaster’s browbone furrows. He’d thought that was Ralsei’s idea. Has the prince been corrupted as well?

Asgore shrugs. “It would be best if they could reach our world and be free. But since, well, someone keeps closing my fountains…”

Someone also keeps opening his fountains. Kris pushes back against the Angel, their knife mirroring Asgore’s shears in an attempt to cut themself free. At least, that’s the only explanation for their chaos that Gaster can fathom. Variables, variables.

“THIS WORLD CANNOT BECOME COVERED IN DARKNESS.”

Not again. Not again.

Asgore shakes his head. “If you must blame me, so be it. But I cannot base my choices on your so-called ‘legend.’”

They’re talking circles around each other. Words with no meanings. No connection. Garbage noise.

“WE WANT THE SAME FUTURE,” Gaster mumbles, more to himself than to Asgore. There’s no altering his course. Stalwart as always, even when he knows he will lose. “WE WANT HAPPINESS… FOR THEM.”

The children. The ones who are left. Light and dark alike. The only difference between Gaster and Asgore is that Gaster knows the truth of this world, the layers of code that can’t be unwritten, while Asgore clings to ideals of what this world should be.

Gaster can’t bring himself to tell him, even after all this time. The knowledge broke the jester, and the salesman, and every other Darkner that Gaster thought could understand. He won’t break Asgore too.

“For them.” Asgore nods. “I will make it right. Fight me if you must. Hate me if you must. But I will save you, too.”

He says it with a smile, and for that moment, he looks so much like the Asgore that Gaster remembers. Calm, assured, carrying the weight of his actions no matter how hard they try to break him.

Maybe he could withstand the truth. Maybe he should have to.

But before Gaster can open his mouth, Asgore stands, sheathes his shears, and walks off into the dark.

A leaf freezes in midair.

[aalt-ctrl-del]

I'm thankfully for your posts on covid and it's variants. Though I do wonder does covid create a biological backdoor on the previously infected? With the way you've been talking about delta.

I'm glad the vaccines work. But the idea the raw covid might be setting up its hosts for reinfection is kinda scary.

Let me remind followers, and I say it also in my long ass post. I'm not a doctor, or nurse, I'm a marketing agent. I study trends and patterns and psychographics present in our society and culture.

However, I do casually browse medical journals and documents certified by credible sources such as the National Library of Medicine and the Mayo Clinic is a good resource. Much of my reporting is based on current information on viral pathogens and how they spread, coupled with historical emphasis, how the general population reacts to these cataclysms - See Spanish Flu 1918. I speculate and converse extensively with my family member, who is a retired nurse. I never want people to think I know everything or anything at all, if I feel secure in posting or 'reporting' some information, I will. But don't believe anything I post about faithlessly, because like the doctors and trained medical professionals, we are still learning from this virus. The learning will never stop, and it is our only tool to protecting those we care about.

As always, please communicate with your doctor or medial provider, have a good relationship if you can. If you don't have a doctor, then gently search through sources available online. We are fortunate to have access to so much.

And please, for the love of the RNG gods, do not gargle iodine. Do not take horse grade deworming paste. Wear a mask. Social distance. Wash your hands. Get vaccinated if it is medically possible for you. Shooting a light up your butt is not the answer.

The vaccine and its recipients who have been battling covid for months – the long-haulers – has shown to improve their overall health, though as I remind people, the vaccine and its impact depends on the receiver and their health history. The vaccine is always the last line of defense, when all else have failed, because you really don’t want to be a Patient Zero case.

I like this term biological backdoor, like in the same way malware can breech security in an otherwise fortified database. We still do not know enough to really discern why delta is hitting previously ‘immune’ individuals, wherein these people did not take the same level of precautions in state counties dense with covid infection. The ideal that some viral pathogens can set up a host carrier for another infection from a virus or bacteria is not new, and this is why early vaccinations for so many illness remain essential for kids before attending schools. Even if a child, as in the case with Polio, may not become horrendously ill from a virus, the encounter can leave an imprint which disarms them against other pathogens later in life.

Covid is so very new in its behavior, and it really hinges on being primmed to encounter it before irreversible damage is done, or worse. I discuss that people I have observed may have contracted covid at some point, but the majority did not appear ‘afflicted’ by the infection, as is the case in covid original. Some people tested positive for it, but the illness didn’t do anything but present as a flu. In some people it destroyed without remorse, and in others it was considered a ‘mild infection’. But I always refer to the asymptomatic carrier as a myth, because covid may not immediately overrun the alveoli tissue in the lungs, and might instead establish itself in the blood tissue foremost, and move on to other softer tissues via the capillaries. In this, the person is infected, and during this time they are not healthy – usually lethargy or other mild side effects unrelated to what may be perceived as rhino virus or flu. Some of these people could be unknown carriers of covid for months, before their immune system begins to falter under the strain of fighting off a foreign invasion and covid crash occurs. That is, the cytokine storm wherein the body launches a massive auto-immune attack on itself because it cannot establish what cells are viable and which cells have been compromised.

In these individuals, if the immune system responds aptly and destroys infected cells, that have not nested in organ tissue such as kidney or liver, then the body removes the carrier cells without detrimental affects to the host. However, because covid has placed itself in blood tissue, removing all traces of the virus might be impossible without intervention. This is why the vaccine was so critical. In some individuals, the appropriate immune response couldn’t nullify the covid threat fully – the virus may not kill them immediately, but they cannot recover either. Such as the long-haulers who waited in limbo with persisting side-effects from the initial infection.

In others, trace cells may remain from the infection. Compromised cells which have not been removed, due to the lack of Monocytes responsible for the entire supply of red blood cells that might be compromised. There is a top 8% of monocytes out of the entire white cell count. As well, it takes about a month for a red blood cell to complete its life cycle, in that aspect, I estimate it can take months or years for these individuals to purge completely of viral traces. These damaged cells remain though, and might offer host to the delta variant. Or in the least, provide a blueprint or trace chemical/RNA information for the virus to replicate on. All in all, those who have a prior infection to covid but did not present symptoms, does not stop cells from being compromised and as such, leaves the host vulnerable to the delta wave regardless of prior health history.

All of these hypotheticals are based on information gathered on HIV, rabies, meningitis, ebola, and many others – regarding what makes a virus deadly, what constitutes a healthy carrier, and where antibodies might produce. It depends on genetics and a trained immunity response – ie, vaccination and good health.

This is why the vaccine is essential to the general public. It is a step towards teaching the body what to look for if a covid encounter occurs. Once covid begins replicating without contest, it can be difficult for the body to deal with ongoing. And other medical reports have stated that those who had covid prior, then get vaccinated, have good protection from the virus. A hybrid protection.

But because we don’t have a method for testing the density of a viral load in the body, not just the swab test, but checking the blood itself for traces of covid presence, we never really know who has been infected, and who might be primed for a worse infection. Covid raw/original on its own is hard on the immune system, it has to work to clean up these compromised cells. So it is a plausible theory to say, covid original does make potential hosts more susceptible to a future infection. Only because the body has not been given the chance to recover from a prior infection.

And let me state once more. I’m not a doctor nor an immunologist – all of my information comes from the National Library of Medicine, along with other board-certified sources which document findings of the covid and its variants. I’ve casually studied medicine and biology my entire life, because I live in American and you have to stay healthy or you risk dying. Or worse. Legitimate resources are out there, Mayo Clinic is a good starting point.

So much of the covid and its variants I speculate ENDLESSLY ON. Because I am very impatient, and also my past assessments have had frightening accuracy and I don’t like that. I listen carefully to Dr. Fauci, hematologists, Dr. Campbell, pulmonary specialists – and use historical reference, along with medical findings of tame and preexisting viruses to base my analysis. And of course, a lot of what I rehash or backtrack over, these specialists are fully aware of. They stare this infection right in the face, and are treating the people that refuse the vaccine, and look at their blood and their lung tissue. But it takes time for science to peer review what it is seeing and verify which trends are consistent or reappearing.

And likely their have been other variants of the covid out there, but they were either too fatal to spread into the population or not warranted concern because they were near identical to the covid original, and were no more detrimental to those that contracted it.

Tl;dr – get vaccinated if you can do so, if you have no medical complexities to prevent you. We want you to be safe, we want you to be healthy.

[beru-m]

,,,,,how do you clear abyss 81,,,, ive been looking at guides everywhere and uhm since youre at abyss 92 i wld like to ask you how..... its the one wif double schuris who keep reviving QAQ

The Schuri one was a hell of a RNG fest. I died so many times at around 10% health left. I cleared it was like FINALLY THIS SHIT IS OVER.. and then there was 83, rivaling 81′s bullshitiness. Ok prepare for Beru’s shit advice. It’s long so I’ll put it under “Keep Reading”

TLDR, Kill Schuri 1.0 and Schuri 2.0, and then don’t give W.Schuri a chance to retaliate.

ACCORDING TO THIS TWEET,  mmmm it’s been a bit over year since I’ve cleared this stage https://twitter.com/BeruE7/status/1114030876340264960 

Angelica, healer. As I mentioned in a different post, Kayron/MLK, default abyss DPS. Lidica CR controller/dispel. I tried it again with the same team, and askdasd it’s so much easier to clear now T-T. 

Having cleanse/immunity is nice. It’s not absolutely necessary though. Keep in mind W.Schuri’s S2 AOE dispels 1 buff, gives you unbuffable debuff, and buffs himself increased speed. Units that can increase/decrease CR are great and super helpful.. Bro, you can fight Schuri with Schuri 👀… WAIT HOLD UP MAYBE LILIAS. LILIAS WOULD BE GREAT. SHE CAN CLEANSE WHILE PUSHING THE SCHURI’S BACK. LILIAS + LIDICA COMBO. WE GOT CLEANSE AND DISPEL ALONG WITH SHIT TON OF CR PUSHING. IT’S FOOL PROOF HOLD UP LET ME TRY IT. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGgf5Ka86fg

YEAH? LILIAS GOOD? Actually, no, this isn’t my priority, LOOK AT KAYRON. KAYRON KILLING  SCHURIS. KAYRON HUSBANDO!! His S1 AOE when buffed is nice, dust devil procs are damn sexy. I remember when there was a glitch in his S1 doing AOE when he helped an ally dual attack— THAT WAS SUPER HOT. I WISHED THEY WOULD HAVE KEPT IT ASDASDKAS. I think I’m off track now. 

Ahhh, I think this speedy route where you try not to give W.Schuri any turns is safest. If you can’t do it the speedy safe route… IN THEORY, C.Zera might work nicely. W.Schuri inflicts a target debuff and it comes with a big headache; however, it shouldn’t matter if C.Zera gets hit with it or even the poisons, anything in general BECAUSE HE’LL THROW THE SHIT BACK AT THEM. I saw a lot of people who were able to clear it with the help of Dizzy wayyy back, I’ll assume you don’t have her. SSB would probably be nice too. I’ll be naming all the limited units at this point LOL. Anyway, yeah. That’s what I can think of for now, good luck.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

DEMETER

So let’s talk about that Demeter fight, a comprehensive guide on what she does and some tips for beating her. 

Demeter Caster Sky Bar 1 HP:  230,360 HP Bar 2 HP:  270,540 HP Bar 3 HP:  321,433 HP Attack: 3 hit AoE Crit: 1 hit AoE At the start of the battle, Demeter is inflicted with Defense Down for 3 turns and Healing Received Down for 5 turns.  Skills: Earth’s Authority (A): Increases own Defense for 3 turns, grants a Damage Cut for 1 turn Mourning Mother EX (B): Increases own NP gauge by 3 and greatly increases own Atk (1 time) Mother’s Authority (C): Purge debuffs from self, grant Debuff Immunity (1 time, 1 turn), and heal for 50,000 HP.  NP: Deal AoE Damage and inflict Max HP Down (Permanent, Removable)

Break Bar 1 Skill: Remove all buffs from party and inflict them with Buff Block (3 times, 3 turns) Break Bar 2 Skill: Grants self Guts (1 time, 150,000 HP), HP regen per turn (10,000) and chance to inflict Skill Seal to self every turn

So. Demeter. This is a fight with relatively minimal RNG to worry about. Demeter critting is always pretty bad because not only does it do more damage, but it also reduces the number of this to the party, meaning that you’ll get less NP refund off of her attacks. The Buff Block has a 100% debuff chance, meaning that Debuff Resistance or Immunity is needed to prevent it, but Debuff Resistance does add that layer of RNG. Finally, the Skill Seal has a low chance to proc every turn. The RNG is minimal but Demeter makes up for it by being overwhelmingly difficult. 

The main reason for this difficulty is that she will enter a loop that will kill you extremely quickly. Her pattern for using her skills is A -> B -> C every turn. She is guaranteed to use her skills except if her NP gauge is full. The exception to this is if her NP gauge is full and she is inflicted with NP Seal, she will then use skill C to purge it and NP you. The loop begins after her first NP, and proceeds as follows.  Skill C (NP Charge 1) -> Skill A (NP Charge 2) -> Skill B (Full NP charge)

The reason this is bad is because that one time Attack up is massive. I don’t know specifically how big it is but I’m pretty sure its somewhere in the 100-200% margin. It’s massive and will greatly overpower Def buffs meaning you’ll need Guts or Invul to properly prepare for it. The Max HP down on her NP is not particularly scary given that the NP damage is much more of a threat. It is important that whenever possible you break this loop. Even one turn of Skill Seal or NP Seal will do it. Breaking the loop means her NP will do a lot less damage and only one of her normal attacks (hope it doesn’t crit!) will be boosted. It’s wise to keep your NPs for the turn after she boosts her gauge, as it’ll be when her debuff immunity isn’t active and neither is her hefty damage cut. 

Now, for some notable Servants:

Nightingale (Santa): Stockingale not only is a good damage support Servant but she also can protect against Demeter’s first Break Bar skill. Her second skill (at Level 10) keeps your buffs from being removed from one party member and her first skill can heal the buff block as long as Demeter doesn’t NP the turn her bar is broken. Medea (Lily) also can do this even if Demeter NPs, but does not provide any offensive support. 

Caligula: Demeter hitting for 9 hits a turn is just enough to give Caligula the right amount of NP in order to loop his NP. His NP will inflict 3 turns of Skill Seal and 3 turns of NP seal onto Demeter, neutering her for much of the fight. Keep in mind though that you do need to support Caligula as he will not take much of a beating. Asterios is a good budget support as he can also loop his HP to keep her from doing much damage. Add a Support like Merlin, Hans, or Asclepius into the mix and with some luck you should be able to defeat Demeter. Keep in mind that if Demeter crits you, you’re at serious risk of losing that loop. 

Ushiwakamaru: Probably the best budget Rider DPS for Demeter. She has a very strong NP that’s boosted by her Human attribute, meaning she does more damage to Demeter, and has an Evasion skill to avoid an NP and stick around. Her NP gain up is helpful as well for more refund on Demeter’s attacks. Mandricardo and Red Hare are also notable as budget options, with Mandricardo having a lot of damage potential but with limited survivability, while Red Hare lacks big NP damage but has good Crit damage, a low cooldown Evasion and the potential to inflict Skill Seal on NP.

Quetzalcoatl: Quetzalcoatl is a story-locked 5-star, so you probably will need a support, but she has pretty much everything you might want for this fight. She has a hefty amount of debuff resistance to avoid the buff block, can seriously boost her damage, an NP charge skill, Guts, and NP seal on her NP. Ozymandius can also be used here, but his lack of Guts and Debuff Resistance can be a sore point. 

Ivan the Terrible: Possibly the only AoE I’ll suggest here and probably the most support dependent of the lot, but in a battle with strong buffs and debuffs being thrown around, its important to have the ability to remove both at will, which Ivan can do. His 50% NP gain buff and strong, long lasting damage buffs means he can do a lot of damage quickly. 

[ateamforumsfanworks]

Advanced Guide - Arena Efficiency

06-07-2017, 01:32 AM

Originally Uploaded by Forum User: Shiki

This is a followup from my other guide - https://forum.a-tm.co.jp/forum/valky...ather-diamonds

I`m considering making efficiency guides that cover all aspects of the game - from quests, to onslaught, to scenario, to connects in the future as well. For now tho, I`ll write this one since arena has always been my favorite aspect of the game. On the two accounts that I play(ed) I made over 6000 arena and grand arena matches, so I doubt there is something I havent figured out that would surprise me. So let`s get started. This guide will cover the following: -Things you might or might not know about arena -Underrated heroes/stats/status effects that are hidden op -Advices on how to build your team depending on your Power score -Personal hero tier list and recommended team setups

Things you might or might not know about arena Everyone knows arena is a place where a player can engage in a combat with another player(or CPU controlling the player`s team). You earn diamonds and mana for beating your best rank in arena, and daily diamond reward depending on the rank you have at your reset. The reset is at 5 am local(player time) so it differs for each player. One thing you need to know is, once you create your account, Ateam will store your original account creation location in their database and if you change the place you reside(e.g. move from Europe to America for example), the local time will remain the one of the country where you created your account. Here are few thing you might or might not know about arena. 1. Gear skills and basic attacks can be dodged, but action skills and limit bursts can`t be dodged - rather common fact about arena. 2. When you activate a gear skill, your action skill gauge briefly stops from filling - credits to @GICN for finding it out 3. As of recent update, element limit bursts (earthen breath,ice gorge,flame bulb, black hole, divine wrath) count as pure damage (neither ATK nor MATK), thus they can bypass barriers and reflects that are designed to block ATK and/or MATK damage(luflit skill,glacial cloak etc.). Those can only be blocked by skills and gear skills that absorb or reflect the said element damage(Glimmering armor, Arte, Aegir connect dark reflect etc.). Because they can bypass reflects, stacking mages with black hole vs luflit for example isnt that bad of an idea. 4. Reflected elemental damage amplifies if the attacker is weak to the said element. I cant confirm 100% if defenders resistances affect the damage, but I can confirm for sure that attacker`s resistances affect the damage reflected. So if youre resistant to the reflected damage(i.e. Odin to light) you will take significantly less damage, while if youre weak to the reflected element damage(i.e. Freya casting grimoire of accusation skill) you will take bonus damage. 5. Very few people know about this one - defender`s team has a hidden advantage because defensive gears have higher chance to activate on the defender side. This is one of the main reasons why turtle teams are so good. Defensive gears such as Winged Helm, Glacial Cloak, Urd Staff have increased activation chance when used by the defender. The same does not apply for the attacker, so that puts the attacker in a slight disadvantage. While Ateam probably won`t confirm this, nor does any website affiliated with VC, thus giving room for speculation that it`s purely RNG, I and the few others that know about this can confirm that it exist, due to countless observation of our arena matches. 6. Round 1 hero turn order - as you know, the pace of hero transition between different turns is based on your speed stat. However, something not many people know is that, to compensate the low speed of certain heroes(primarily tanks), at round 1 ALL TEAMS USE THE SAME HERO ORDER PATTERN. The philosophy behind this is to give slower heroes a chance to cast their skills before they can get statused by others(primarily for tanks). The order is the following: First Cast - nearest hero Second Cast - middle hero Third Cast - Farthest hero Fourth Cast - Fourth hero Fifth Cast - second hero How can you use this in your advantage - I can give two simple examples on how you can use this to turn the battle in your favor: 1)Your middle hero is a mage with mani little helper at gear slot 1, while enemy second hero is high attacker(like Thor) with winged helm at slot 1. Your hero will cast their mani helper first, hitting the enemy attacker while they are in mid-animation of casting their skill, blocking them from finishing casting the skill. This way they wont have regenerate skill up for 4 turns which will help you take them down faster. 2)Your highest MATK mage and enemy highest MATK mage both have Valhalla staff at gear slot 1, but your mage is your middle hero and enemy mage is their fourth hero - your mage will petrify the enemy mage first. If your heroes have same gear, same target, and same hero order, speed stat will determine whos skill will fire off first. Additional Note: Gear skills have their own animation speed with Elysian Dress being the fastest, while Mjolnir being the slowest. Some skills activate so fast it technically bypasses enemy turn - example if your Hel is in the middle and cast Elysian dress, because of the animation speed, it will cast BEFORE THE ENEMY EVEN CASTS THEIR SKILL (e.g. tanks casting regenerate or something else). If said scenario occurs, once the enemy is out of the status effect (shade), they will attempt to cast THEIR ROUND 1 SKILL, NOT THEIR ROUND 2 SKILL. So basically you can only interrupt skills if both your and enemy gear skill actually fire off(the yellow window with the skill name pops up) 7. Multi target skills(Ranco, Canon, Wolfgang) can hit the same target more than once depending on your RNG. A fun fact- they can also target dead heroes if they were alive during the skill wind up(cast animation). 8. Gear order determines which gear skill you will cast each turn. E.g. slot 1 will have its skill being cast at round 1,5,9 and so on, slot 2 will have its skill on round 2,6,10 and so on. Underrated heroes/stats/status effects that are hidden op Starting with heroes, there are 3 heroes that come to my mind, which many people consider rather underperforming, that are actually hidden op if used correctly. 1)Loki Considered by many as an utter garbage because his skill and lb are MATK, while he`s a physical damage dealer and there aren`t any hybrid gears, Loki has 3 things that actually make him a viable hero in PvP: -High dark and light resistance - most people heavily focus on these two types of element damage so his survivability is pretty decent, especially combined with his high EVASION -His gear confuses the target with lowest MDEF. Confuse in general is very strong stat and if applied to the person with Highest ATK(which usually happens since those tend to have the lowest MDEF), its even better. -His action skill is direct counter to Luca as it does light damage and confuses humans. The only downside is that its RNG based and might not hit the right target. 2)Michelle Considered an utter garbage, she has 2 things that actually make her hidden op: -Highest evasion in the game -Her gear gives her and the ally with lowest evasion(95% chance its the tank) curse immunity - extremely powerful vs anti turtle teams that rely on curse. 3)Mani While not as underrated as the above, she`s still considered lackluster because she doesnt have charm/petrify/ w/e reliable status to hit the front. However shes extremely strong at dealing with the backline due to the fact that almost all backliners are weak to dark. Strong against turtle teams. Underrated stats that are actually OP The only stat I`ll note is Evasion - greatly helps with survivability because if high enough, you can dodge almost all gear skills and basic attacks, making your enemies waste their turns for nothing. Status effects that are actually OP -Blind - while it doesnt disable heroes from using gear skills and activation skills, it makes them miss almost every gear skill/basic attack during the duration of the effect. Sometimes this can be better even than disabling effects, especially if an enemy uses a 1 or 2 turn buff skill before they use their next gear skill, as it will both waste their buff and their offensive gear skill, thus making them have to wait another 2-3 turns till they can activate them again -Slow - one of the most underrated but arguably one of the best status effects in the game. It severely reduces the pace of transition between hero turns to a point where other heroes will be able to do atleast 2 turns before the slowed hero can even move to their next turn. This alone is a reason you shouldn`t underestimate heroes like Nautica for PvP. -Silence - while not as underrated as the above, theres one thing about silence that not many people know - not only it disables the hero from using action skills, it disables them from using GEAR SKILLS as well

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

. Advices on how to build your team depending on your Power score I`m gonna break the Power score into 3 sub types: -Early game - from 0 to 100 000 Arena team Power score -Mid game - from 100 000 to 160 000 Arena team Power score -End game - from 160 000 onwards Early game Early game most heroes are still 3* and unorbed, also lack decent gears. This mean they lack defensive stats as HP, def, mdef and are fairly easy to kill. This is why at this range, heroes with AoE type of attacks (Thor, Amaterasu, Odin etc.), AoE gears(stillwater greatsword, thiazi cape etc) and the limited bursts Fimbulvetr and Thousand tomb are the your best option. Usually you will get carried by your 5* ticket hero at early stages so my best advice is to focus on them(orbing, leveling gear etc.) and give them a good bunch of AoE gear so they can one shot or almost one shot any non tank unit. Two things you need to know here; -Most people pick Thor as their 5* hero because of his overall usefulness at connects,quests and arena so it is good idea to have either Freya or Gullveig(preferably Freya) in your team to be able to status the enemy thor. -Tanks have high DEF and low MDEF due to the lack of orbs and suitable mdef gear. This is why mages are more viable early than melee. Additionally, since tanks are more fragile early due to lack of orbs/gear, they rarely survive more than 3 or 4 turns before they get killed. This is why Staff of Anguish(onslaught 2* gear that applies fear for 2 turns to nearest enemy) is INSANELY good as it can entirely block the tank from filling their gauge and they will most likely die before it wears off, if you have solid DPS. Mid game In midgame your heroes are already orbed or almost orbed. This is where gear plays the most important role. Here, heroes have abit better defensive stats so you can`t one shot easily anymore thats why in this range, status effect inflicting gear plays major role in winning your matches. Focus on gear with status effects - valhalla gear,mani little helper, vigrid, Elysian dress etc etc. while still keeping some DPS and AoE gear to take the enemy down easier. Late game At this point all the heroes are orbed, you have solid gear, skills and LB barely take half or 1/3 HP of squishy targets so everything is about who has the higher power score, luck and the most suitable heroes to counter the enemy. Personal hero tier list and recommended team setups Some heroes are better at early stages but wear off at end game(Thor). Others are weaker at early stages but scale better at end game(Thrud). And third type of heroes are very good all arounders (Odin). Additionally, some heroes have a lackluster skill but extremely powerful gear(Hel). Others are very strong as heroes but their gear is lackluster (Luca). And ofcourse some are both powerful and have strong gear (Odin). This list is solely based on their PvP capabilities and not their connect,quest or other content capabilities. Heres my list of top PvP heroes: SS tier: Luca - while I hate her to the bone and promised that I`ll never use her, shes undoubtfully the best tank in the game and nothing really stands above her. She`s also a human and female so she can wear both purity ring and hardstone, making her resistant to charm and petrify. Urd - the best healer and arguably the best all around hero in the game by far. Odin - his combination of buffing and debuffing along with his strong dark and light resistances and AoE damage make him very formidable mage, especially effective on setups that run 3 mages due to his mdef debuff. Freya - the most reliable status effect inflicting mage. Is tanky, has the best magic limit burst, high MATK. Nothing much to say Ranco - the best all around archer in the game. Her skill does neutral damage so you dont have to worry about resistances. Also applies strong status effects and her gear applies a strong debuff that is useful for connects and boss stages(cough 6-6 Forgotten memories hell mode jormungand). S tier: Thrud - tanky, targets the enemy mages. Nowadays many mages lack water resistance(Odin, Amaterasu, Rin) so shes the most reliable damage dealer from the melee heroes. Thor - while he wears off at late stages, his AoE skill with the paralyze effect can still be solid. Especially if you run abit off meta and use him as a tank - he will be able to cast his skill faster thus blocking enemy humans(beasts and elves) earlier at the battle. Young Ymir and Genesis Ymir - both of them have the same strengths and weaknesses - while they deal high damage and bypass barriers, they dont bring anything else on the table like Odin does(buffs/debuffs) to be considered as good as him. Amaterasu - Highest MATK mage in the game, AoE skill, applies defense debuff and burn. I put her as S tier because her gear is rather lackluster compared to Odin and there are plenty of heroes resistant to fire. Matisse - the MATK ranco. The reason she isnt SS tier is because she hits less amount of targets and doesnt have her own gear. Additionally, shes more of a defensive support type of ranger while Ranco can be both defensive and offensive type. Momiji - shes the hero you can rely the most on taking care of the enemy backliners, her gear is exceptionally good. Hel - main reason she is ranked high is (surprise) her gear. It can however be a double edged sword since it can both help you win or help enemy win by time out. Sif and Zato - situational heroes but they have their use especially Sif since she does light damage and heroes like Skadi and Luca are weak to light. Skadi and Niji - they are very flexible as they can be used both for offense and defense. The main problem about them is due to their flexibility, their skill design is made to be viable for both tank and DPS setup but because of that it is lacking compared to real tank and real dps skills - niji barrier lasts only one turn, skadi can status effect only aesir etc etc. Marmalade - extremely useful turtle team hero thanks to her MATK reduction. Luflit - powerful anti mage hero, sadly she is only viable vs heavy MATK setups thus making her useless against melee Hrungir - the opposite of Luflit, extremely powerful vs melee as his skill paralyzes almost all melee heroes(including non airborne dwarfs like niji). However he is easy to status effect (charm) and only hits the front row so 1-3-1 teams for example counter him hard Best end game setups for every role I can divide the roles into 3: Conventional - all around tanky heroes with good offense Full offense - very strong at offense but also easy to kill Turtle - very tanky, low damage, their goal is to stall the game until you time out Here are my personal best setups for end game: Conventional - Luca, Thrud/Saber, Odin, Freya, Hel Focused primarily towards MATK. With gungnir and good bunch of AoE and status gears it can be deadly. Turtle - Luca, Skadi/Hrungir, Witch Idun, Urd, Matisse For me atleast this is by far the best turtle setup in the game. It has everything - buffs, barriers, status effects etc. If youre gonna build a turtle team I strongly suggest you avoid offensive gears and focus on defensive ones(glacial cloaks,druid cloaks, urd staff etc.). Only exceptions you can make are spine crusher, valhalla staff and gun, and curious mask. Offense team This is all depending on what kind of enemy you face. Not recommended against conventional teams Best if you use one melee, 3 or 2 mages and 1 or 2 rangers. Best melee to use include Mia, Ayame (still unreleased) and Thor Mages - Freya, Odin, Amaterasu, Ymir, Hel Rangers - Ranco, Matisse, Momiji, Canon That concludes this guide, I hope people find it useful. Happy PvPing

[tacticsroom]

Brunnya: Devoted General (Unit Review)

Available at 4-5★ (Tempest Trials+ Reward)

Lvl 40 Stats (Flaw/Neutral/Asset)

Note: As a Tempest Trials+ reward, Brunnya does not have access to boons/assets and banes/flaws.

HP: 39/42/45

Atk: 32/35/38

Spd: 28/31/34

Def: 18/21/24

Res: 30/33/36

Neutral BST: 162

Max Dragonflowers: 5

Skills

Weapon: Fimbulvetr (400 SP)

Mt: 14. Rng: 2. Grants Res+3. If unit is afflicted with a status effect (Panic, Chill, Ploy, etc) or if unit’s HP > 100%, neutralizes penalties on unit and grants Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 during combat.

Blue tome. Cannot be inherited. Cannot be refined.

Assist: None

Special: Glacies (200 SP)

Boosts damage dealt by 80% of unit’s Res.

Can be inherited. Cannot use: Staff.

A: Death Blow 3 (200 SP)

If unit initiates attack, grants Atk+6 during combat.

Can be inherited. Cannot use: Staff.

B: None

C: Res Smoke 3 (240 SP)

After combat, inflicts foes within 2 spaces of target for Res-7 for the duration of their next actions.

Can be inherited. Cannot use: Staff.

Analysis

Brunnya makes her debut as the latest Tempest Trials+ unit and our latest blue tome. She faces stiff competition from just her weapon type alone with the vast majority of blue tome units currently in-game possessing a PRF of their own. She doesn’t come unprepared either; her tome, Fimbulvetr, carries with it an effect that helps stand out among the crowded blue tome pool.

Brunnya’s statline is rather min-maxed for a mage. While her Atk sits at an impressive 35 at neutral, her Spd is rather middling starting at 31. She possesses a stellar Res stat starting at 33 and bolstered up to 36 thanks to her tome’s +3 Res effect. Her defense however comes close to being nonexistent starting at 21. Her base kit also carries with it a duality. While Res Smoke is arguable a mixed phase skill, Death Blow is considered a player phase skill. Without the proper skills or buffs from allies Brunnya will find herself doubled often. Her tome does remedy this problem in a sense, effectively granting her Atk/Spd/Def/Res+4 in combat if she is inflicted with a penalty or status effect. Say she gets hit with a Panic and Debuffs from Aversa’s Night, a common threat in Aether Raids. Her tome will effectively negate both the Panic status effect and the Debuffs applied to her stats and grant her a spectrum buff in-combat. Note that this buff is only applied if she either is at full HP OR has a penalty/status effect applied to her. 

Brunnya’s personal tome is enough to cement herself as her own unit. While she faces incredible competition from other blue tome users, she alone carries with her the ability to negate debuffs on herself without the need of an ally’s special skill. With status debuffs becoming common in both PvE and PvP modes she can prove to be a worthwhile investment if not just a good unit to have laying around.

On her first merge, Brunnya will get HP/Atk+2 and Res+1.

Reasons to Invest in Brunnya

You like Brunnya and intend to use her in a core team, whether it be for Arena, Aether Raids, or an Infantry team

You’re interested in building Brunnya due to her “immunity” to penalties currently in-game (panic, threaten, chill, etc) thanks to her tome.

You have obtained all or most previous copies made available and do not mind the grail cost

Reasons NOT to Invest in Brunnya

You don’t intend on using her as a core on any team or in any PVE game modes such as Rival Domains or Grand Conquest

You don’t play Aether Raids and have no interest in obtaining grails

You consider Brunnya’s playstyle and base kit uninteresting and would rather fodder her skills off to other heroes you use

You already have an invested blue tome infantry that you already use on your core Arena & or Aether Raids team

Similar Units

Note: As a Tempest Trials+ reward Brunnya does not have access to boons/assets or banes/flaws and therefore is not directly comparable to any summonable units.

Mae: Bundle of Energy (35/36/31/16/30)

Brunnya: Devoted General (+7/-1/+0/+5/+3)

Note: Brunnya and Mae have access to uninheritable skills and are thus not directly comparable.

Lute: Prodigy (33/36/32/16/34)

Brunnya: Devoted General (+9/-1/-1/+5/-1)

Note: Brunnya and Lute have access to uninheritable skills and are thus not directly comparable.

Micaiah: Priestess of Dawn (35/35/28/18/35)

Brunnya: Devoted General (+7/+0/+3/+3/-2)

Note: Brunnya and Micaiah have access to uninheritable skills and are thus not directly comparable.

Builds

Note: Currently Brunnya’s tome, Fimbulvetr, is not in the FEH builder. To make up for this shortcoming, a Res refined Thoron+ will be used to mimic her stats with her tome. This will be corrected as soon as Brunnya’s tome is added into the FEH builder.

Budget/Low Investment:

Brunnya can suffice with simple budget setups. Depending on which phase players choose to ultimately build her for she may need to swap out her default A skill.

The first set focuses on her enemy phase as she runs stance skills. Mirror Stance will grant Atk/Res +4 if the wielder is attacked while Darting Stance will grant +6 Spd when attacked. This complements her great Res and Atk/Spd, bulking her out as a formidable enemy phase unit. Res Smoke will allow her to take on multiple opponents and deal a heavy amount of damage to her other foes. Blue Tomebreaker will allow her to have some player phase functionality; she will essentially double and take out any enemy blue tome units and take a minimal amount of damage.

The set on her right focuses on her player phase. Keeping her native Death Blow, she runs Darting Blow in combination to effectively create a budget “Swift Sparrow”. Res Smoke will ploy her opponents with 2 spaces of her target for Res -7 allowing her to deal more damage. While she may reach 59/41 Atk/Spd will her skills in effect without having a status effect inflicted on her she will not gain her in-combat spectrum buff from her tome. Because of this we run Swordbreaker as her B skill. This allows her to serve as a guaranteed counter against sword opponents. With a multitude of swords in-game becoming faster and faster it further proves to be a necessity to have sure counters against these opponents.

Brunnya’s seal options include but aren’t limited to: Atk+3, Spd+3, Res+3, Atk/Res 2, Spd/Res 2, Bond skills, Smoke skills, Stance skills, Blow skills and Ploy skills.

Offensive:

Brunnya can prove to be a powerful player phase unit with the right investment.

The set on the left runs the common Fury/Desperation set with the addition of a Spd seal and Spd Ploy. With Fury, we gain a +3 raw stat boost. This is enough to push Brunnya’s Res up to a solid 39 increasing the range of units she can ploy with Spd Ploy. Spd Ploy will ploy foes for -5 Spd so long as they are within one of her cardinal directions. She can as a result effectively create a Spd gap of 9, allowing her to get doubles she would otherwise miss.

The set on the right runs a rather unorthodox but powerful set. Here we combine the power of both Bond skills and Link skills to make Brunnya both a powerful Res tank and fast enough to deal hefty amounts of damage. Atk/Res Bond and Spd/Res Bond will grant her +5 Atk, +5 Spd and +10 Res when used together. Spd/Res Link will, if a position skill is used by Brunnya or by an ally on Brunnya, grant her and the ally a buff of Spd/Res +6. Throw that in combination with Even Atk Wave and Brunnya can practically buff herself up. With all of her skills and her weapon effect in play, Brunnya will reach 64/46/21/51 Atk/Spd/Def/Res while in combat.

High Investment:

Brunnya, with heavy investment, will prove to be a powerful ally. Being a blue tome, she has access to a multitude of powerful weapons each with a unique effect. The following sets are best intended for players who plan on fully investing in her.

The set on the left runs on the concept of a Special Spiral setup. Vessel of Cheer+ has Swift Sparrow 2 built into it. This means that when combined with Swift Sparrow 3, Brunnya will gain +10/+11 Atk/Spd when initiating combat pushing her offenses to 62/48 Atk/Spd. Heavy Blade will be used to help charge her special faster and to help set up Special Spiral. Once she activates her special in combat Heavy Blade will reduce Growing Wind’s 4 turn cooldown to 2. After combat, Brunnya will be ready to activate Growing Wind again as Special Spiral further decreases her special cooldown by 2. Her native Res Smoke pairs well with a heavy offensive setup so we keep it to increase how much damage we do to foes.

The set on the right meanwhile focuses on cementing her both as a debuffer and player phase threat. Spooky Censer+ has Fury 3 built into it as its effect. Through a Res refine we can push her already stellar Res up to 44 making it nearly impossible to avoid being ployed by her. Atk and Spd Ploy are run for this reason. They allow Brunnya to double and take less damage and to support her allies at the same time. If more damage is desired, either ploy may be swapped for Res Ploy. Atk/Spd Bond 4 will meanwhile grant her Atk/Spd+7 if she finds herself adjacent to an ally. This pushes her offenses to 62/45 Atk/Spd and also allows her to effectively create a max Spd gap of 12 on her opponents. Spooky Censer is not without its penalties. While it does carry Fury’s raw stat boost it also carries its damage recoil. We can negate this damage by using Mystic Boost which will heal for 6 HP after each round of combat that Brunnya fights. This also allows her to attack dragons and to bait Wrathful staff users with no fear as Mystic Boost will negate skills “targeting the lower of a unit’s Def/Res” and “calculate damage from staff like other weapons”.

[snowbatsims]

Post 20: Strangerville, part 1

So, before I really start, Kvikindi grew up.  

I’m not sure what happened here. Her RNG outfit had short pink hair, so I messed with that aspect a little. The whites in her eyes went fully alien black, while she kept the pink slit pupils (that the game kept removing for some reason. let’s just pretend they stayed pink the whole time). A few alien skin spots may have appeared as well. As it turns out, alien and vampire puberty are happening simultaneously.

And the cake, as beautiful as it is, remains untouched. Nobody is around to eat it anymore.

It’s still winter, so they figured they might as well all take their free trip to Strangerville on the other side of the planet. Sure, why not. They expected to stay at some hotel, Father Winter said so, but…

It’s just a dinky old motel. (built by @legasimmer; it’s on the gallery) RUNE: HE LIED TO US!!! BAT: Duh, it’s Father Winter. What, did you expect an entire hotel complete with swimming pools and that kinda nonsense? Come on. BAT: Working for Santa Claus obviously means you cannot get put on the naughty list, so he gets away with this shit! MORTEN: Well hey, we can still stay here. We’ve come this far. Maybe take a look around.. see how this small town lives up to its name? Like, I do see a couple of glowy plants here and… oh, what’s that over there?

MORTEN: Holy heck, I can’t believe this is still open at these hours! ERWIN: Yup! Staying open until like 3 AM means I have a great excuse to watch all the potential weird activity going on here at night! ERWIN: Hey… Wait a minute… ERWIN: Are you guys vampires? ERWIN: Is that an alien with you??? ERWIN: YOU’RE ALL REAL?????

ERWIN: THAT IS PERFECT. I decided a while ago that any supernatural folks would get a huge discount here, but I never saw any of you until now! ERWIN: Please, have a look around, I’m sure there’s something ya’ll might enjoy. EINARR: Why, thank you.

Mort grabbed some posters, a lava lamp, and a toy, Einarr got a few books, neither Bat nor Kvikindi were particularly interested at the moment, while Rune…

RUNE: Dude, I think this might be a foreign plasma fruit. Look how it’s pulsating. It’s red like blood… MORTEN: Ooh, let me try!

MORTEN: Oof.

RUNE: Yikes… I don’t like this side effect.

MORTEN: Ⱨł. RUNE: H-hi?? MORTEN: ₮ⱧɆ ₥Ø₮ⱧɆⱤ ₴ɆɆ₴ ₳ⱠⱠ. RUNE: Oh no…

EINARR: What just happened here, Rune?? RUNE: O-oh, uh,, they just ate a strange fruit. It looked like blood! EINARR: Blood??? You thought that was a foreign plasma fruit??? RUNE: Y- yeah. I- EINARR: Child, no, foreign plasma fruits are much closer to a crimson shade of red. Not.. veiny and circular like this bizarre alien fruit!! RUNE: I’M SORRY, I DIDN’T KNOW!! EINARR: Okay, FINE! But if they’re stuck this way from now on, that’s entirely on you. RUNE: B-but!! They just grabbed it! I– EINARR: You’re the one who offered it, you infant. RUNE: Okay, true… I didn’t know it would–

MORTEN: ฿Ɇ₵Ø₥Ɇ Ø₦Ɇ ₩ł₮Ⱨ ₮ⱧɆ ₥Ø₮ⱧɆⱤ. RUNE: yAUGH,

EINARR: …Hey, Erwin, do you happen to know if there’s any way to cure this condition? ERWIN: I dunno dude, you might wanna have to ask around. I’ve seen a lot of weirdos in military uniforms and labcoats in the daytime.. which might be a little inconvenient to you nocturnal people. Look in the library, maybe? ERWIN: Also, how did you know my name? Do vampires read minds? EINARR: Well, yes, some of us can, but you just so happened to wear a rather convenient name tag. ERWIN: Oh. Right. ERWIN: Well. Uh, wow, would you look at the time. I should really close up shop. Good night, folks.

MORTEN: ɎɆ₴. ₳₦Ø₮ⱧɆⱤ ฿₳฿Ɏ ₣ØⱤ ₥Ø₮ⱧɆⱤ. MORTEN: ₲ⱤØ₩ ₴₮ⱤØ₦₲, Ⱡł₮₮ⱠɆ Ø₦Ɇ.

EINARR: Such strange plants.. is that where these noises are coming from? EINARR: Hm. I see Erwin is heading this direction. We need to talk.

EINARR: One more thing, mortal. ERWIN: Wha-

EINARR: Tell me, why were you selling those weird fruits in the first place when you didn’t even know the effects? ERWIN: I.. I dunno?? EINARR: That is so incredibly irresponsible of you, child!!! ERWIN: I– I just found a couple of them scattered around! I just thought, since they were so peculiar, they would fit the theme of my Curio Shop very nicely- EINARR: And you needed money? Is that it? Is money on your mind??? Those weirdo fruits made my grand-offspring act all possessed!! And your excuse is money? ERWIN: I’m, I’m just trying to make a living! Is that wrong??

EINARR: A living, huh??? Better be careful, or else I might just have to make you unlive instead! ERWIN: Wh– Okay, I’m going! Please don’t eat me, mr. vampire man. I really didn’t mean to get on your bad side… EINARR: Alright, human. You do seem like a good person, so I’ll let you go, but please use better judgement and get rid of those fruits until next time. ERWIN: Y-yeah, alright. I’m really sorry for this inconvenience.

Looks like someone is back to normal.

MORTEN: …What just happened? MORTEN: Where am I? Where is everyone? MORTEN: Last thing I remember was.. Rune gave me a blood fruit? MORTEN: …that wasn’t really blood at all, was it. MORTEN: Hm.. come think of it, I… actually don’t feel blood hungry right now at all. Weird. Is it a blood fruit or not???

MORTEN: Huh. Another one of those glowy thingamabobs.

MORTEN: Might as well snap a picture of it for the memories. I’ve never seen any of these at home… MORTEN: I’d better head back to that motel.

———–

…

EINARR: Are you aware of what happened to you last night? MORT: …not really. All I know is I woke up in a desert. And I stopped being thirsty. EINARR: Well, I am fairly sure you got possessed by that fruit you ate. MORT: O-oh. Possessed?? EINARR: Yup. MORT: But it’s all okay now, right? The possession is over…right? EINARR: It has been less than a full day since it happened. For all we know, this might just happen every night. MORT: D: EINARR: And actually… I think I do hear some odd whispers here and there when I look into your mind now… Those really do not seem like your own thoughts. MORT: Wh– what… ₵Ø₥Ɇ ₮Ø ₥Ɇ, ₵ⱧłⱠĐ MORT: Oh my god. I hear them too now…. EINARR: Honestly, you should go ask Rune, he got you into this mess in the first place. It wouldn’t seem right to leave before we’ve found a cure for this condition of yours. ₮ⱧɆⱤɆ ł₴ ₦Ø ₦ɆɆĐ ₣ØⱤ ₳ ₵ɄⱤɆ MORT: SHUT UP, YES THERE IS. GET OUT OF ME. ₦Ø EINARR: So, it has started talking to you now. I’m really sorry I brought that to your attention. MORT: Ugh.

Meanwhile, it’s actually overcast outdoors. How handy. RUNE: Hello? Anyone in there..?

Something is obviously very off about this place. LESLIE: ₩₳₮ɆⱤ ł₴ ⱠØVɆ. RUNE: NOPE.

RUNE: Hrm.. this is useless. I should really ask around.

SCIENTIST 1: Yeah, we just recently had to evacuate the secret lab in the crater! SCIENTIST 2: You know that’s supposed to be a secret, right. SCIENTIST 1: Who cares! It’s not really safe to go there anyway anymore. Best to stay away, am I right? RUNE: Any idea what this has to do with the weird plant pod things around town? SCIENTIST 2: That is classified information. Sorry. RUNE: Dangit.

MORT: Well, hello Rune, I think might need a cure for whatever the hell just happened to me last night. RUNE: I’m… working on it. MORT: I heard something about a secret lab? SCIENTIST 1: Yeah!! We left in such a hurry! I think there’s something really nasty going on there now. MORT: Wow, okay. ₵Ø₥Ɇ ₮Ø ₥Ɇ, ₵ⱧłⱠĐ. ł ⱤɆ₴łĐɆ ł₦ ₮ⱧɆ ₵Ɽ₳₮ɆⱤ. MORT: …

RUNE: Man, I don’t know… is it really that urgent? MORT: I dunno, I just think it would be great to get rid of the strange plant whispers in my head. They’re starting to bother me. A lot. RUNE: ….

RUNE: Do we even know where that crater is? ⱧɆ₳Đ ₦ØⱤ₮Ⱨ. MORT: Augh, it’s that freaky voice again… RUNE: Wait, voice?? MORT: Einarr pointed it out to me this morning and now it won’t shut up. RUNE: Is it from that whole possession thing? Did it tell you anything?

MORT: It wants us to head north??? RUNE: Is that where the crater is?

ɎɆ₴ MORT: Y-yes.

RUNE: Well. Alright. RUNE: I got you into this mess, I’m gonna get you out of it. Go find the others. I think we should try going there. Maybe there’s a cure. MORT: But the warnings??? RUNE: Screw those warnings, we can probably handle it anyway! What’s the worst that can happen? Death? We can’t die. We’re vampires, remember? MORT: I literally got possessed by a fruit last night. We’re not that immune to otherworldly nonsense. RUNE: Well, you still want to get rid of those whispers, right? We’ve got to find you a cure. ₦Ø!!! MORT: Yeah…. RUNE: Let’s find the others, alright? MORT: Alright.

They let the others know, and headed for the lab…

BAT: Wait, why am I here again? She was right, this place is super boring.

BAT: Bye, losers.

MORT: Huh. Something about a meteor impact? No wonder we’re in a crater. ⱧɆⱠⱠØ, ₵ⱧłⱠĐ. ł ₴ɆɆ ɎØɄ'VɆ ₵Ø₥Ɇ ₮Ø ₥Ɇ. MORT: Argh, shut up!

Back at home, Kvikindi decided to help out a little too. There are so many of these plants…

Einarr went to the motel as well, and managed to break into a certain locked room at the motel. Vampiric entrance and all that, you know.

RUNE: …we gotta figure out what’s behind this door.

[fgodestinyawakenings]

EOR SERAPH: Epilogue (END)

And finally the epilogue with the final boss of this Singularity! I... I don’t know what to say except again, DW PLEASE DON’T REPEAT THIS BULLSHIT KIND OF EVENT AGAIN! 

Epilogue

There’s two route of either going with no KP or all KP bought... For sanity, I’m going with all KP bought.

In this final battle, you’re facing the Beast III-R Sesshion Kiara as the final round against her. As her Beast Class affinity, all class deals x1.0 damage (except Alter-Ego and Moon Cancer, who deals extra damage to her), all class takes x1.0 damage from her

Skills: 

Debuff all target with Arts Down/Buster Down/Quick Down (1 turn)

Heals Self (5,000 HP) + Increases HP Recovery (10 turns)

Charges NP Gauge by 1 tick. Inflict Charm status on a random target (1 turn). 

Critical Damage Up (3 turns)

Permanent Buff​ (All which can be removed in KP Shop)

Increase attack by 20%

Increase defense by 20%

Increase NP damage by 20%

Increase critical damage by 50%

Increase debuff resistance by 50%

Increase stun and charm resistance by 50%

Increase Quick resistance by 50%

Increase Arts resistance by 50%

Increase Buster resistance by 50%

Inflicts 1,000 damage to all enemies each turn

Reduce the enemy's critical stars by 10 each turn

Reduce the NP gauge of all enemies by 5% each turn

Recover 5,000 HP each turn.

NP: Deals damage to all targets. Inflict NP Seal status to one random target. (1 turn) Recovers 10,000 HP.

After this fight with her, you got one last visual story mode in both arrows to end the main story of this EOR Singularity!

Thoughts & Observation:

I’ll admit that because this is a rerun version 2 years later, things are slightly more easier compared to the first round that is yet to come

Start preparing for lots of mixed class fight with either AOE Berserker, or a good team setup. Both normal and boss fight in this is even harder than Camelot now that HP bar is implemented

MLB those CE that increase rate of mobs appearance given in event. CEs rolled in gacha... Extremely impossible to MLB them but try to get at least 1 of each to make your grinding hell easier

Passionlip:

Her constant spam of her first skill “Breast Valley”, not only it stacked her defense buff, her debuff immunity is always there making you unable to stun her with her first permanent buff

Even after her first HP break, her three NP charge bar will require you to either spam wide invincibility/evasion often from her AOE NP

But thankfully in this boss fight, she’s been only spamming her first skill so you’re safe from her third skill that ignore invincibility

However upon her second HP break, her new buff doesn’t work often. But it does for me on Leonidas once... Other than, prepare them with Guts for sudden insta-kill

Servants wise:

ST NP Berserkers: Extremely risky to do so but if you manage to pair them up with either one of the caster supports and another, they are the most viable for DPS against her

Lu Bu: His ignore defense NP works very well against her constant buffing of defense. Though, do note his stun will not work thanks to her debuff immunity

Caligula: Helps in stalling with his NP both skills and her own NP... But will definitely not recommended if her debuff immunity is constantly there

Asterious: Same reason with Caligula, despite having good debuff onto her from his NP, the problem still remains on her debuff immunity

ST Three Knight Class: Though they deal 1.0x damage to Alter Ego, they receive lesser damage from them. A good alternative from Berserkers to go for DPS

Support Caster/Servants: Preferably ones who can spam NP defensive support easily due to her NP charge bar

By traits:

Female: Jack, Carmilla (those two will deal 1.0x damage to her, but may be killed faster thanks to Alter Ego’s advantage)

Divine: Scathach, Enkidu, Martha (Ruler)

Humanoid: Nightingale, Okada Izou (same reason with Jack & Carmilla)

Enuma Elish

CEs:

NP generating CE: particularly for support NP Servants to be able to spam NP often

Versus & Fondant au Chocolat: Onto your main DPS to deal more damage for her Divine trait

Art of Death: A slightly cheaper alternative for DPS onto her humanoid trait

Suzuka Gozen

For her first two survival fight against her, get Servants who deal more damage by trait to finish ASAP

Her first permanent debuff on your team can be problematic and annoying as she’ll deplete your crit stars at the end of each turn

First HP break that replaces the first debuff above, can be outwit if you are able to have support Merlin to spam his healing NP often

But her second HP break, though temporarily giving her ally 3-turn attack up, Hijitaka is problematic thanks to his class advantage

Shadow Hijitaka uses his EXTRA attack for his NP, but definitely still able to use his skill

Skills wise, aside from her charm that stuns Male Servants and sudden NP charge by 1 tick... Wide-party Evasion isn’t viable for defense as her latter skill also buff her with ignore evasion

Her AOE NP will buff her with increase critical damage for 3 turns... Whcih also hurts like a bitch

Servants wise:

AOE NP Archers: Or 1 ST NP + 1 AOE Archer because of her 2nd HP break that summons Shadow Hijitaka

Arash: Our pal-suicide-NP is extremely useful when needed to deal one huge damage on the 2nd HP break

Euryale: *points at Hijitaka* If you’d like one ST NP Archer solely to kill Hijitaka

Robin, Billy, David: Viable for ST NP options, but do be careful the moment she buffs with ignore evasion

Kid-Gil: Adorable oldest king’s Charm skill helps you in stalling

Touta; Third skill helpful in defense on HP for 3 turns

By traits:

Divine: Napoleon, Arjuna, Oda Nobunaga

Female (Suzuka Gozen): Jack & Carmilla

Humanoid: Nightingale, Okada Izou

Male (Hijitaka): Orion, Euryale, Medb, Stheno

Enuma Elish

CEs:

Versus & Fondant au Chocolat: For Suzuka’s Divine trait

Kiyohime CE: To deal against Hijitaka

Increase Healing power: if needed on her first HP break

Meltlilith

The most difficult thing about her is actually her very first debuff before getting replaced: debuffing one of your front-line Servants with Taunt.

This debuff will still land on another Servant, even if you have any taunters in front with taunt activated

My fight with her have it usually landing it on Jeanne Alter Berserker, so keeping her alive was a problem

Her first HP break second debuff skill seal, is also a problem especially when relying on Merlin/David Wide defense from her ST NP

The third one isn’t as bad but you may want to spam your Servant’s heal often

While skillset doesn’t have an issue, her ST NP effect removed all buffs on targeted Servant, which can be challenging if she hits on your DPS with the buff stack

Servants wise:

ST Berserker: Unlike her sister Passionlip, I don’t really recommend to bring them unless you got good defense to keep them alive before first HP break

ST NP Three knights class Servants: The most recommended ones to bring particularly David, Robin and Billy for their ignore evasion NP and skill

By Traits:

Female: Jack, Carmilla (those two will deal 1.0x damage to her, but may be killed faster thanks to Alter Ego’s advantage)

Divine: Scathach, Enkidu, Martha (Ruler)

Humanoid: Nightingale, Okada Izou (same reason with Jack & Carmilla)

Enuma Elish

CEs:

NP generating CE: particularly for support NP Servants to be able to spam NP often

Versus & Fondant au Chocolat: Onto your main DPS to deal more damage for her Divine trait

Art of Death: A slightly cheaper alternative for DPS onto her humanoid trait

Demon God Pillar

Since its gimmick are rely on BB’s Jackpot, the only issue is its class advantage

Both attack and NP deals AOE damage to everyone, so taunters aren’t reliable here

But do note that it only buff itself with critical damage up, and be careful when they start stacking more than 2

Buff remover like Medea is more than welcome with her ST NP damage against it

David also for NP skill seal to prevent from buffing itself further

Take your own pick for support Caster, but generally either support in generating NP for DPS to spam, or AOE protection from its NP should do

I don’t have much recommended Servant in mind, just bring your strongest ST NP DPS + 2 support to finish it

BB

The main difficulty is getting past the 6 Servants of mixed class to get to her.

Though they are Shadow Servants, their crit and NP EXTRA attack still hurts like a real fucking bitch

Her additional 2 skills gives her 20k healing and random debuff that can be removed via Mystic code or Servant’s skill

But her NP will immediately give her 1 tick NP charge after use, so do kill her quickly

Servants wise:

Amakusa & Martha Ruler: As this is general in both rerun and first run, these two are your best option before mothman and Sherlock comes in. Martha more preferred if you can borrow for support or have your own to be the main DPS

Jeanne: Depending on RNG, if assuming she doesn’t use her 2nd skill to remove invincibility and stun the targeted Servant

QSH & Sherlock: The alternatives with their own buffs and debuff from their NP, they can crit hard on BB with the good amount of stars

ST NP Berserker: Again not really recommended if you aleady got a ruler, her third skill of crit damage can hit really hard

Support Servants: Merlin, if you’re planning to set up a team revolving either Amakusa/Martha. Tamamo for Jeanne and helpful to spam her NP often

Taunters: With her ST NP, you may want Taunters to avoid damage landing on your DPS or support

Arash: To clear either first or second wave to spare damage from your team

By trait:

Female: Carmilla & Jack (But do beware of Shadow Caster Cu in the first wave)

Humanoid: Nightingale & Okada Izou

Enuma Elish

CEs:

Taunt CEs: When needed against BB’s NP

Stun resist CE: I don’t think it’s really needed but if you’d like you can equipped them

Emiya Alter

Similar to Corrupted Ushiwakamaru fight, he receives and deals 1.0x damage from all class. Alter Ego, however, deals 1.5x damage to him

His difficulty kicks in the moment his HP bar break. Invincibility skill/NP becomes extremely useless thanks to his permanent ignore invincibility + NP damage UP

Also with this fight gimmick, he gains an additional skill: increase NP charge by 1 tick with HP drain as demerit

While his skillset isn’t as lethal as his non-Alter counterpart, his NP is one dangerous effect that even penetrates defense buff together with his ignore invincibility upon HP break

Servants wise:

Meltlilith & Eli-chan: The former is more recommended for the first run. But second run, do bring out Mecha Eli-chan along with Melt for DPS

Stun & NP Drain Servants: With his unique to charge his NP now as and when, both stun and staller are recommended to bring for this fight to delay his NP

Skill seal Servants: Alternative to NP drain, skill seal prevent Emiya Alter from charging his NP

Dress of Heaven: While Merlin is still viable with his healing, Irisviel and help more with not only healing, but her NP in particular to grant everyone Guts for 3 turns, timed perfectly when Emiya Alter is about to use his NP

Taunters: To avoid his NP on your DPS and support

By traits: Excluding Alter Ego class, this fight is more recommended with Servant that deals more damage by trait

Male: Euryale (most recommended for budget DPS), Medb, Orion, Summer Tamamo, Stheno

Humanoid: Okada Izou, Nightingale

Evil: Sanson (recommended alternative for DPS), Vlad EXTRA, Beni-enma

Enuma Elish

CEs:

Kiyohime CE

5000 year old curse: For NP seal to stall time

Art of Death

Holy Shroud of Magdalene

Guts CE: On DPS or anyone you preferred, to survive longer to deal NP at him if needed

Beast III-R aka Sesshoin Kiara

I’m only going to cover her Heaven Hole’s version because I haven’t and WILL NOT go to her Demonic Bodhisattva version

Main advice because it needs to be bold and capitalized: COMPLETE EVERY MISSION TO BUY ALL BUFF AND DEBUFFS IN THE KP SHOP

Buying all not only makes the fight easier, but it helps on the final buff in allowing you to use Command Seal/Saint Quartz when needed to revive your team

In this version, all HP bar have no gimmick upon break. But her skillset of healing herself and deals debuff on your team can be tough in dealing damage

AOE NP apparently not only NP seal but also skill seal to your whole front-line team while she recovers 10k HP

A fight that following this advice in reddit, helps in not using CS to finish this fight

Servants wise:

Merlin + Mash: If you don’t have Merlin, it can be borrowed, but otherwise... This two + 1 main DPS will do the trick in killing her for this fight

Alter Egos DPS: Either Melt or Passionlip if you have either, bring them as they deal more damage to her for this whole event

Gilgamesh: .... For some reason, this version of Kiara isn’t Weak to Enuma Elish. Yet, he’s still a viable DPS to bring since his own attack already deal high damage

By trait:

Demonic: Rama & Caster Shuten

Evil: Beni-Enma, Vlad EXTRA, Sanson

Female: Carmilla & Jack

Humanoid: Nightingale & Okada Izou

CEs:

Prisma Cosmo or any regeneration CE: Because one of the key in winning this is spamming both Mash & Merlin’s NP as often as you can

NP starting CE: For your DPS so that you can use their ST NP earlier to deal damage

Now this is over... Time to get back to that Detour quest while preparing for ENCORE quest!

[alien-father]

just some of my thoughts on blue mage i guess lol

so i think ever since the blufever leaks i was pretty excited for the prospect of blu and how it would function in ffxiv, i was never a fan of it in any ff game and never used it, but i liked the aesthetic and design of it in xi and was hoping they would take some creative liberties like they did with rdm in xiv.

however what we got was essentially eureka mage with logos actions for its kit, rng and all. on top of that, will likely be useless in group content with no actual reason as to why it was designed this way.

while i do think that despite being an mmo ffxiv can and should have solo content and casual combat which doesn’t require optimisation. but what i don’t understand is why blu couldn’t have been designed for mid/hardcore content and also the blu exclusive carnivale, while still being usable in pve. rdm is already a precedent in that it’s very self sufficient in solo content while being a fully formed and balanced job for all other content. rdms can, from 50 onwards, complete the msq while anyone that would want to main blu will have to beg to be carried through msq required dungeons.

taking rdm as a precedent again, there is literally no real reason why the learning aspect of blu couldn’t have been incorporated into the job while still being usable for non blu specific content. creative liberties were taken into the design of rdm in that it strays slightly from its usual appearances, but still fulfills the rdm fantasy while functioning completely as job in a group situation. there’s no reason blu couldn’t have been given it’s own rotation with learned monster spells being part of something like a burst phase or utility that’s tied to their unique job resource and gauge. the excuse of blus then being required to have specific spells learned before joining a party is completely unfounded seeing as we already have ice mages and medica 2 bots that don’t play their job as intended. i’ve had tanks that use no cooldowns doing big pulls and they can join any duty. furthermore blus having death as a spell can’t even be an excuse since bosses have almost always been immune to death spells, and you can’t even cc bosses in ffxiv so blu can’t even be overpowered in in this case.

there’s just no reason blu couldn’t have been a job that retained its identity, had blu exclusive content, while still being usable for group content.

OH and on top of this mess we have forced data center moves so there’s half my static gone unless i want to transfer back to aether after the move.

[bedlamgames]

Q&A #111

After a far too long a wait leading to far too long a Q&A. Enjoy!

Anonymous asked:

Have you considered adding another way to get the effect of the Denial mantra besides Hypnosis, maybe a Corruption or something? I like the effect, which makes it a little unfortunate I can't get it on trained slaves due to the degree of exclusivity between training a slave vs hypnotizing one.

- - There is a mechanic where some slavers with either Hypnosis or a bunch of other potentially mind affecting traits have a chance to implant certain mantras on certain trainings. Denial isn't one of them yet, but I can definitely see that being included on a future training.

Anonymous asked:

One thing I noticed about dwarf player characters is that they are the only dwarves that start out without having the Resilient trait. Could you please make that something that dwarf players start with to match up with their in game counterparts?

- - That's a really good shout. Added the trait to all of the regular dwarf starts.

Anonymous asked:

Hey! I was wondering if you are ever going to be releasing a guide on some of the older assignments? I am a bit of a completionist and there are just a small number of them i have yet been able to beat. Most of these being the ones iwht unique characters. Ive gotten critical succes so many times without recieving the unique. So will there be any guides in the future or is there any forum of chat where ppl with knowlegde on all of this recide?

- - There is a wiki and there's a link to it on the tumblr on the No Haven page. There's threads on Hypnopics Collective and TFGames, and possibly other places too. There's also the discord for patrons where people are always happy to answer those questions.

Anonymous asked:

Some questions how the like and dislike system works. What are a characters likes and dislikes based on? completely random or are there things that can affect them. Are they set in stone? so if i have a general chat, find out a character hates smithing will he always hate it? Also from aesendril and Kiruna seem to have a relationship status in their examines. Can you get these for random or your own characters too? Can two of my slavers have that kind of relationship or is it only the 2 uniques?

- - They're rolled at the beginning of the game, and do get affected at least partially by their traits. So someone who started with Leader will like being a Second-in-Command or Spiritual Leader more, and visa versa for someone with Follower. There are morning events where they can shift upwards and downwards. There are relationships that can form between slavers. So far there's a couple of assignments that can form relationships for good and bad. There will likely be other ways for them to happen in future.

Anonymous asked:

Are missi9ons like the reign of thw witch queen a one time thing even if you do not go on it? Sometimes it appears a bit to early in a playthrough and i jusut dont have the slavers to do it. Does that mean i lose the chance of ever doing it? The mission private passage has a bunch of really cool uniques. One of the best assignments you have in the game imo. But after getting one of the uniques i can´t seem to get the mission to appear again. Is it bad rng or is it locked after getting a unique?

- - There's only a couple of assignments like Witch-Queen that are one offs and I've had that feedback from others so now it won't appear as early as it used to. Glad you liked it! Funny you say that too as this week we've been doing some polling games on the discord where various stuff gets matched against the other in random eliminations and Private Passage was voted best assignment ever (Spectacle of the Sacred was second, and third place was A Deluge of Oozes). Bad rng I'm guessing, as it's made to be repeatable.

Anonymous asked:

What was the inspiration for your game? It says on your page here that you were inspired by the doff system from STO, could you elaborate a bit on that? What with games like Fort of Chains seemingly being inspired by your game, I tried to look at whether this "text-based procedurally generated weekly quest party management" genre existed in the non-adult sphere, but I couldnt really find anything, which is surprising, considering that this would probably be attractive to the DnD community.

- - Pretty much exactly that. Didn't have much interest in that MMO, and yet the concept they had of collecting various lower deck type officers who all had their own traits, and then sending them off to do various stuff from raiding enemy ships down to putting on a play (no lie, that likely will be a NH assignment sooner or later) for various rewards I found to be surprisingly compelling. So like with WR where I took a chan dice roller game and thought can I do this in RAGS, I had the same thought with the doff system. Of course I've complicated and expanded on the idea a whole bunch since.

Also was unaware of Fort of Chains, but on looking they do give me a shout out which is most appreciated, thanks!

Anonymous asked:

any ability to move some of the traits like strong right arm or revears to the encampment ? just so it cleans up the PC

- - Strong Right Arm and Recruiter should be removed after the game starts, but yes that's a good idea. What I'll likely do is redo that miscellaneous full custom options and all of those Encampment specific which makes sense as they're not so specific to the player themself.

Anonymous asked:

Is it possible to play on mobile?

- - That's one of many reasons I'm working to convert the game to Twine so then it should be playable by anything with a browser.

Anonymous asked:

Not sure if I am extremely unlucky or its an actual bug, but I seem to roll only male slavers when I choose females as preferred gender in general orders.

- - It was a bug, and will be in the next public release coming soon.

Anonymous asked:

Have you considered adding a solo game mode where you start with no slavers whatsoever? Also, any plans to add the options to start with other advanced traits such as Flier, Riding, Bimbo, etc to full custom characters? Looking forward to the next update!

- - I have yes. The idea was to do a 'super-villain' style start under the scenarios where you'd have some big advantage to counteract the lack of staff, like being better at planning, being better at seducing minions, or just having lots of gold and a better source of mercenaries. Fleet is already in there, Flying possibly, but I like having that as part of slaver upgrades as a big perk from that, and Bimbo is available in the patreon TF edition version.

whitewolf1414 asked:

Hello just curious. Will it be possible in the future for the player to get images for the encampment, as well as images for specific buildings inside the encampment, like your personal tent or lodge? Will we also be able to use those buildings in the later future, maybe for the next major game you work on? And second question. Will the other slavers be able to follow quest threads (like extra actions) on assignments or is this only available for the protagonist? Thanks :)

- - I would definitely like to get more images of the encampment like that one I got with the wright, succubus, neko, tentacle beast, and sleeping lamia. There's going to be at least one assignment I have planned that's so long you'll need to designate a leader for it if you don't go yourself and then that way they'll be the one to get to make the various choices that come up. I'm also thinking it'll be fun that you'll have a choice for them to try to take over when they get back in case you liked playing them so much.

Anonymous asked:

I keep getting the JIT prompt and brain too smol to figure out

- - In the readme file that comes with the game there's a link to a page on the patreon available to everyone with a full step by step guide of how to get the game to work.

Anonymous asked:

Is there anyway in No Haven to remove the Puppet Leader status? It seems really complicated to recover and I would rather just promote a new leader at this point, but I can't get my current character enslaved no matter how intentionally bad I do. I would definitely like to see some kind of functionality that allows your current character to give up, either being enslaved or leaving the encampment. I really enjoy the game otherwise.

- - There's not. If you get puppet leadered you become immune to being enslaved, as the encampment basically treats you like a slave by that point anyway. I can definitely see a case though there should be a way for things to go bad enough that both you and whoever is puppetting you ends up being enslaved. Could be a fun event that.

Anonymous asked:

When re you going to finish/improve the biomancy.

- - Biomancy is getting an improvement in the next release via a reward from one of the new assignments. That also was one of the needed steps on the storyline I have in mind for it. As to finishing? Well that could be awhile. There's a commission I need for the ending that will need to be done, likely when I can afford it as a bonus as it's one I want to keep as a surprise so will be only in the game. There's also at least one or two more assignments that will also have general usage outside of the storyline. I know how it ends, and that's all been worked out. I do though need to work out some more of the mid-steps and I'm not sure at this point how many there should be. Definitely will be at least one though and that will also need a commission.

Anonymous asked:

why doesn't the rough landing download link work?

- - Ah, I see tumblr has played silly buggers again where it breaks links cause why not. ...And I can't edit the page as tumblr is threatening to reset my theme. This is one of the many, many reasons why I mainly use twitter and patreon these days. Okay the link is basically right, just delete the 'https://href.li/?' at the beginning and it works fine.

Anonymous asked:

More like suggestion: can we make "Truly Divine" not show at the very start?

- - I think that's fine? It's not like Witch-Queen where it only appears once, and not all assignments you start with are going to be viable options.

whitewolf1414 asked:

First question. will there be extensive player character exploration? Second will there be extensive character interaction between everyone at the encampment? Third and final. Will there be a character image mechanic in your future builds of this game. Say like crushstation made with their game female agent. Thank You. :)

- - Not sure what you mean by that one? Yes I do want to do more interaction between your slavers so they're not all focused so much on you. That will likely be more in dilemmas. Third, likely not. I prefer to keep that as a patron thing so I can give it more care and attention.

Anonymous asked:

Level 1 kinky draenei guard named Qualmore Findel i went to draenei territory south east tried to go east and found a chest. tentacle beast i try going east another chest another beast east once more chest white potion. Not sure if its a bug but i decided to report it anyway I'm using the twine version of whorelocks revenge. Looking forward to future updates.

- - Well people did say they wanted to see more chests :D More seriously, WR is pretty much on hold due to the hostile reception the Twine conversion got. If you do like it, want to see more of it then please let me know, and I'll then be more likely to come back to it. Not a lot of point developing something that's a cat when people keep moaning that it's not a dog, and doesn't even bark, but if you do like the cat, and happy with it being a cat, I'm totally down for coming back so it's not such an unfinished cat. It's also entirely possible that metaphor got away from me so far.

Anonymous asked:

Completing the "Truly Divine" quest causes the potential slaver value to get stuck at -1, thus preventing the recruitment of any more slavers via level up bonus.

- - That should be fixed for the public release.

Anonymous asked:

Hey, I recently found the whorelock's revenge game, and I really like it. The only thing is that I really want to play this game as an Android game with the latest version. What would be the best way to make this happen? I'm currently playing through my smartphone's Chrome browser.

- - Hey someone else who likes WR! (see a previous question in this Q&A for context) I'd need to learn how to code for android, or there'd need to be someone interested in converting the twine version. So not out the question, and would be potentially be a good project to look at when the No Haven twine conversion is done if the other project I have in mind doesn't pan out.

Anonymous asked:

Are you a girl

- - Sure if it makes you happy.

Anonymous asked:

Is the latest update really more than 6-7 months old? There doesn't seem to be any information about it here or on twitter, and every patreon post is locked so we can't tell anything from that either...

- - This year has not been great to put it lightly. Then this one still does puzzle me. I do a public post on the patreon that's also linked on the twitter every two weeks, and I've given updates on how things are going. I've checked on another browser where I wasn't signed in and it worked fine? I've also been posting the patch notes on the current patreon release on the twitter as twitlongers so there also should be no issue with accessing those.

Anyway, the new public release will be out very soon indeed so you won't have to wait much longer.

[racke7]

Me vs Code Vein

So, I finally finished Code Vein. As in, I beat all the bosses, and achieved an ending. I’m not even going to try to complete every achievement, because... well, it’s been a pretty painful grind.

Have I had some fun playing this? Yes.

But was it an experience I could recommend? Not really. Character customization:

You're given several options for outfits early on, and notably you can't "mix and match" pieces of them. Those are also your only outfits. (There do exist "blood veils" that can be found in-game, and they're basically cool cloaks, but... that's really all that they are.)

The anime-faces are a "pick a shape"-type of customization, rather than in any way allowing you to rearrange eyes-mouth-nose-chin.

You don't really get control over the color-selection either. Rather, a bunch of "color options" are available. There's a LOT of these, but they can definitely be kind of limiting in comparison to a simple color-wheel.

There's a bunch of accessories, which is fun, but a lot of them are either variants of the same thing, or have weird clipping-issues.

Also, fun anecdote. If you save any kind of appearance in the customization, you can use it in-game once you have access to the mirror. This means that you can cheerfully switch between male and female presets mid-playthrough.

Story:

You're a vampire-thing wandering around chewing on blood-fruits in a post-apocalyptic city. Then you're recruited to help discover the source of the blood-fruits. In the process, you make friends (?) and learn more about the world and its inhabitants.

It's not a particularly complicated story, and it follows the Soulsborne path of having the ending be both obscure (three different endings, and they can get locked-in REALLY early in the game) and not exactly "cheerful".

Personally, the story had a lot more in-your-face cutscenes than I'd expect from... basically any game this side of the Final Fantasy series, but that's probably a matter of taste.

Also included are a bunch of "quests" that you can do for people you find out in the world, but those people are even more awkward to find than most Dark Souls NPCs (they only seem to spawn AFTER you've completed the level, and possibly another level after that). They also don't really seem to matter whatsoever for the rest of the game's story.

Level-design:

As others have pointed out, the level-design is kind of shit. Not in the sense of "it's ugly", because there are very few areas that aren't in some way absolutely stunning.

My problem is basically that Code Vein heard about Dark Souls' obsession with swamps, and said "let's add even more things like that".

We've got a swamp to wade through.

We've got sand that slows you down, drains your ichor, and which enemies hide inside of in a way that makes them immune to attacks until they're attacking you.

We've got fire-ground that you have to walk over, and which damages you when you do. On top of fire-walls in narrow corridors that will stagger and hurt you if you touch them, with enemies of course lurking on the other side of them.

We've got walls that will suddenly attack you if you come close to them, but which can potentially be dodged if you're lucky.

At least half of the levels are basically running along cliff-edges with enemies attacking you, and of course they can knock you around to the point where you can easily go flying off the edge if you get hit even vaguely in the vicinity of a drop.

And we've got at least two different levels with air-borne corridors that go on for miles, crisscrossing each other into a purely frustrating maze (one of them also randomly has holes in them to fall through, just to be annoying). To the point where, if it weren't for the minimap (which is itself kind of awkward to use), a lot of these levels would be outright unplayable.

Bosses:

This is one of my main issues with this game.

Think Dark Souls bosses, but sped up. Except... because of how they're "sped up" they're not the exhilarating fights of Bloodborne, but rather "this attack doesn't have an amp-up animation and will insta-kill you".

Attacks with AoEs that span half the boss-arena are common.

There are very rarely any hints that a boss will use "that attack" before it's already hit you. (This includes several AoE-attacks, yes.)

You're given a companion who can revive you a few times (if you're lucky), but that's more of a "we designed the difficulty around this mechanic", so it really doesn't get better.

Several bosses will leap around the area like they're pretending to be a Bloodborne-boss, but since you have a companion (meaning that you can easily dodge into an attack aimed at them) and your dodging is pretty much only on par with Dark Souls, the end result feels very RNG-based.

In particular, there's a Dual Boss with opposing elemental weaknesses, where both have AoEs attacks that they're very enthusiastic about using, and if you leave your companion alone for any period of time they're going to die long before you grind away the health of any of them. (For me, this resulted in resorting to fire-protection, switching my weapon to a crush-hammer, leveling about 30-40 times, and then getting extremely lucky.)

The fact that they also decided to recreate their own version of the Amygdala-fight didn't exactly endear their designing-skills to me. (What's so bad about making bosses that are FUN to fight, instead of just ones that are impossible to hit and do infinite damage?)

This is why I can say that, despite the fun I've had with this game. I can't really recommend it to anyone.

(Like, give me enough mod-support that someone can delete AoE-attack-patterns from bosses or something, and I'd be willing to go along with it. But it's so bullshit that it's less "challenging" and more "rock falls everyone dies"-frustration.)