#for getting health And are good damage dealers

[arolesbianism]

I've been playing the new cotl update and I generally like it but god do I fucking hate like all of the balance changes just let things be strong man

[slugdragoon]

RPG Role Analysis Series #15 - Mother 2/Earthbound

Mother 1 analysis here

Ness - Ness' stats are a little bit different than Ninten, opting instead of perfectly balanced stat growth to give him the stats of a secondary damage-dealer role as the character with the best Offense next to Poo, but also the best ability to get critical (SMAAASH!!) hits. That's actually the same as Ninten, but Ninten got it by default by having a base stat total so much higher than Ana and Lloyd that "balanced" was really strong. Ness also has a higher base stat total, but the gap is closer here and Ness's stats actually have an emphasis on critical physical hits, and if anything, is a bit slow compared to Ana and Poo, so it feels like more of a choice here.

However, when looking at Ness's PSI ability list, he's also a flavour of support PSI user, much like Ninten. Ness has HP-healing moves, both more of them and faster than Poo, but gets status-healing abilities later and can't guarantee revival of party members to full health (but has a 75% change to do it to half-health). Ness can also do single target shields. His signature offensive ability is a multi-target, no-element wave of PSI that might decrease enemies' resistance to PSI attacks. Ness is the only character to be able to put enemies to sleep or paralyze them, or use PK Flash which does a random detrimental effect (status and instant death among them). This is a major change from Ninten who gets no offensive PSI at all (but who could still hit really hard). I think Ness, even more than Ninten is an all-rounder. He really can do everything just a bit worse than the best. Maybe a little more luck-based, too, given his gamble on revival, gamble on PK Flash, gamble on criticals instead of consistent high damage like Poo. Effects like PK Flash, Hocus Pocus (Dragon Quest), and Metronome (Pokemon) always make me think of a wild mage, but Ness is deep into healing too. A wild cleric maybe?

Paula - So I realized my memory was faulty, because although Ness, Paula and Jeff are very clearly modeled after Ninten, Ana, and Lloyd, Paula isn't much like Ana mechanically at all. Paula has the same emphasis on being the party's PSI whiz kid with the highest IQ, like Ana, but notably uses it entirely for combat. She's fast too, but isn't using her Speed to go first as a healer and stabilize the party. Paula uses Fire, Freeze, and Thunder to attack her enemies, and she's kind of a glass canon with miserable defensive stats. She can also drain PSI from enemies, buff your Offense and Decrease enemies' Defense, all of which are pretty aggressive abilities. The support skill she does get is a PSI nullifying or reflecting shield, depending on the rank, like any good dueling wizard. No status effects though, which always makes me think more battlemage than black mage. The exception to her lack of healing and her inability to deal status effects are the random results of her Pray ability, which really can't be described in any other way than a wild magic effect that covers many scenarios, a small fraction of the time, randomly.

Jeff - Jeff get the exclusive ability to Spy, which give you information on the enemies' Offense and Defense, a PSI weakness, and any items they might drop, which allows you to take them after battle. I wouldn't say the looting ability suggests thief at all for Jeff, as you can't take the item and run, and I think that distinction makes the difference, but the other side of Spy is much like Goombario or Goombella from the Paper Mario series. In terms of using items to attack, Jeff is a lot like Lloyd from the first game, but with a larger set of items. Unlike Lloid, some of them have no chance to break after use, so become his defacto attacks, and he's less about inventory management, despite still using Bottle rockets. Jeff's tools also can drain HP and debuff and remove shield from everyone, including the party. That last one, plus the inherent HP-splitting effect of draining moved makes Jeff a character than levels the playing field, in theory. Reset buffs when they get out of hand, and in terms of HP, take from the rich to give to the poor. OK, so maybe he is a thief of a different kind, but I would overall call Jeff a tactical scholar/scout type who can read enemy weaknesses and choose the best moment to strike with, often limited use items, but in the meantime keeps the party from getting in a bad tactical position.

Poo - You would think Poo, a martial artist, would be a lot like the remaining character from Mother 1, Teddy who was a huge physical damage dealer, and Poo can hit the hardest of anyone in Earthbound, but he can also use PSI this time. Poo is the best at fixing status effects and reviving party members, though a bit slower at learning HP-healing abilities than Ness, and he gets multi-target PSI Shield while Ness can only apply it one party member at a time. The difference between the usefulness of this is even greater in a game with 4 party members instead of 3. Poo can also confuse enemies, guarantee fleeing from battle, and drain PP, and attack with PSI, but his damage output won't be as good as Paula's until he gets PK Starstorm. Poo has the Mirror ability to copy a move from an enemy for one turn. Honestly I don't think that one is very notable, but it's like a magical counter ability, fitting for a martial artist. I feel like it's common to see monks get status-healing in JRPGs, like Chakra in Final Fantasy, and everything else about Poo's design says monk, plus they sometimes get confusion as a physical ability like dazzling them with your fast strikes, and Poo is the fastest. However, mass-party shielding and full revival is so strong that he has strong protection cleric energy as well.

[magicalmanhattanproject]

Who's Training Whom? or A Screed Of Reasonable Length About Why Étoiles Is Still 15-0 In My Heart

So, through this whole Codes vs Étoiles arc, we've been repeating the question over and over again: who is training whom? Are the codes training Étoiles? Or is he training them? Is he just making them stronger and stronger? Well, it turns out the answer is neither because Étoiles is learning and innovating and developing new tricks and techniques and the codes have learned a grand total of One (1) trick and are mostly relying on Number Go Up in a way that's antithetical to everything I personally enjoy about Minecraft PVP.

The rest of this will be under a cut on account of how reasonable the length is.

Okay, so what makes Minecraft PVP more engaging to me than PVP in other roleplay or video game genres? Well, the thing that makes it unique is that everyone is starting from a completely even playing field. Look at it this way: if a DND Barbarian and Rogue of roughly equal level just stand there and take turns hitting each other, the Barbarian wins. The Barbarian has more health and does more damage and that's going to tell pretty quickly. Of course, there are ways to compensate for it and the Rogue can think on their feet and engineer a situation where they win and of course there are also advantages to playing a squishier class, but the point is that there are squishier classes and squishier players.

Minecraft doesn't have that. Everyone has the same number of hearts and can theoretically use the same weapons and armor. If you and a friend jump into a Minecraft world and just stand there and take turns hitting each other, whoever goes first wins.

That means consistently winning at Minecraft PVP requires you to get good at thinking on your feet and engineering situations to your advantage. You aren't a tank by virtue of picking the tank class at the start of the game, but you can become a tank by making a turtle farm for turtle master potions. You aren't a damage dealer because you selected the high DPS character five minutes ago but because you spent hours grinding the resources to upgrade your weapons to the best they can possibly be. You aren't winning fights because the stats on your gear are higher than anyone else's. You're winning fights because you know how to control the fight so that you can hit the other guy more than they can hit you. If you're winning fights with other PVPers, it's because you're better than them at their own game.

Unless you're the QSMP Code Monster.

And like, to be clear, I don't blame the admin(s) for getting frustrated enough to brute force it. We know current 06 is competent PVPer and so are a couple others we haven't identified for sure yet, but I doubt they were hired specifically to be cracked at PVP. But like, they also do have to fulfill the role in the story of being cracked enough at PVP to kill either the super well defended eggs or the French Beast. Like, they do deserve to take some shortcuts.

But also, it does really really undermine the narrative of the codes and Étoiles training each other when the codes aren't really learning from Étoiles because there's a lot they could teach him.

For example, they haven't really made much progress on learning to outmaneuver them. Watch back any fight where he's fighting them 2v1 after the sweeping edge bug gets fixed. If you're fighting someone 2v1, you want to be attacking them from two different sides since they can only defend and counterattack from one side at a time. Watch how often they're both attacking him from the same direction. That's not an accident. That's Étoiles constantly moving to keep both his enemies where he can see them and it's not something they've made much progress on dealing with. The fact that they'll have three codes present but only two of them attacking at once pretty clearly demonstrates that they haven't recognized the importance of using the numbers advantage and negating the shield.

(Also, this isn't super relevant, but Étoiles is a master of healing potion usage. Watch how often he throws them ahead of where he's running so he maximizes how much he splashes on himself and minimizes how much he splashes on the codes. It's good stuff.)

One really clear moment that shows how the admins have a tendency to brute force their way through Étoiles related problems is in the fight in the basement of the lore dungeon where Étoiles was convinced he was going to die and the admins had to give him a goodie bag afterwards. At one point, he digs himself down into a 1x1 hole and a code follows him down into the hole to attack him and prevent him from warping away. He grapples out and seals off the hole. From his expressions and reaction time, it's pretty clear this was a plan to trap the code the whole time. The code breaks the block and rejoins the fight. We have never seen a code break blocks before or since including in otherwise relentless attacks on eggs behind unprotected walls.

Like, dude, you got outplayed. Take the L. And no, I don't buy that it's just the code getting more powerful from training with Étoiles because, again, we haven't seen it break blocks since that one fight. This doesn't seem to have been an ability added to its bag of tricks.

Speaking of abilities which have been, I do think that giving it God apples in that fight was a fine play. Okay, it's getting stronger and it can buff itself now. Great! Genuinely! But again, it's only really getting stronger in the sense of Number Go Up.

How does Étoiles counter this new threat? Well, one day he's laughing hysterically at the idea of Tubbo using something as pathetically useless as a soul saber and the next day, he's got a soul saber of his own on his hotbar. Why? Because the soul saber's special ability is that it nullifies special effects. That's useless against 99% of mobs, but the hearts and regeneration given by the god apple are special effects that the sword can nullify.

Étoiles doesn't counter a new threat by buffing his stats or getting a stronger weapon. In fact, he gets a weaker weapon. He gets a weapon that he thinks is terrible and shitty and garbage, but that happens to give him what he needs for his specific use case. And that's enough to turn the code eating god apples from a seemingly insurmountable advantage into probably a mistake to even bother with.

Étoiles fights the codes with three weapons out. First, his broken sword, which does such absurd base damage that it's stupid to use anything else. Second, the soul saber which turns the Code's most obvious power move into a trap. Third, the nightmare scythe, which blinds enemies, leaving them disoriented and giving himself time to recover. He also has his grappling squowk for mobility, Enough healing potions (he prefers to have at least 1000), a lava bucket for chip damage, blocks for gaining distance and controlling enemy movement, a water bucket for controlling enemy movement and clearing cobwebs, and his xp backpack to keep all his gear repaired. This represents a massive amount of prepwork and theory crafting to put together and have ready and decide on what to have and how to use it. He also has to know his notoriously messy backpacks by heart to be able to navigate to his other potions fast enough to be able to use them in a fight, which is he is consistently able to do.

The Code has a healthbar that doesn't move, a single weapon that does too much damage for the repair upgrades to keep up with, and sometimes it can spawn a single cobweb now, which Étoiles already had a counterplay ready for.

Like, I get that Étoiles is the goat. I get that. I am not going into this discussion unaware of the fact that Étoiles is the goat. I am not expecting the admins to be able to play at his level and to be able to pull out all the tricks he pulls. In fact, it's fine and even good that the Code doesn't have the same tools and moves as a player.

But it still feels a little cheap to say that Étoiles isn't ready for the sword yet when he's outplaying them every single time it's even possible to make a play.

Oh before I forget to add it in, the cobweb is the One (1) trick the code has actually learned from Étoiles. It's a good trick, to be fair.

Anyway, the other big problem with Number Go Up escalation that we've reached a point where it's Literally Impossible to fight the Code without the Shield. Without the Shield, either the Code is gonna have to be randomly weaker for no reason, or it's gonna just gonna get to run around pretty much unchecked for a while. To be fair, the Code running around unchecked could fuck, except for the fact that there are counterplays available if it didn't three shot people in full armor.

The big problem with fighting the Code right now, aside from the whole three shotting people in full armor thing, is that it has that sword that makes you drop whatever you're holding.

Luckily, Étoiles and BBH both have their own separate, individual solutions. Étoiles never got the chance to test his out in a combat situation because he got the Shield before it came up, but BBH used his against Code Tilín during the new member code battle and it proved effective. Unfortunately for all of us, Étoiles still landed the final blow on that Code so I think a lot of people failed to realize just how powerful BBH's strategy is.

But since then, the Code's damage output has just simply gotten so ridiculous to be able to cope with how ridiculous the Shield is that all those interesting, exciting strategies get sidelined in favor of Number Go Up.

So, uh, yeah. I think that's about everything I had to say. In conclusion hashtag hire jojosolos to play the code monster please quackity please she's a cracked pvper and she knows modded please

[mbumblebuzz]

can u explain what tf2 is ? as in depth as possible, if it's not an inconvenience ^^

ANON YOU'VE MADE MY DAY PLEASE MARRY ME /j ohhhhhh boy strap in i'm about to give you one hell of an infodump(seriously this is pretty long there's a lot to cover) team fortress 2(tf2) is a class-based multiplayer shooter game released in 2007 by game developer valve. it was originally developed off a quake mod and released alongside two other valve games-portal and half-life(eps 1 and 2, and hl 2)-as part of the orange box. it is free to play off steam and is the most fun you can have online.

GAMEPLAY

tf2 is generally played in a team vs team format - red vs blue. mainly gonna talk about casual since competitive has its own rules and servers also do sometimes.

there are nine classes/ 'playable characters' - scout - soldier - pyro - demoman - heavy - engineer - medic - sniper - spy

each class has its own function/role on the team. these roles are grouped into 3 different 'types' based on how the class is meant to be played- offense(scout, soldier, pyro), defense(demo, heavy, engineer), and support(sniper, medic, spy), although this system is slightly outdated.

offensive classes are the frontline classes, they're the 'attackers' so to speak. their main function is damage dealing and breaking through the enemy team's frontlines to advance the efforts of their own team.

defensive classes are exactly what they sound like: defense. if the enemy team has manages to break through the frontlines, defense classes are there to deal with them. their main function is to stop the enemy team from advancing.

support classes are also what the name says. they support the efforts of the rest of the team.

CLASSES (please keep in mind i am by no means an expert and these are just the main purposes of the classes. also, i will only be covering the stock weapons, as there are a multitude of alternate weapons and playstyles for each class and if i went into detail about all of them we'd be here all day lol)

SCOUT: the scout's main function is to get in and out and deal damage fast. he has the fastest base movement speed of all classes at 133%. he has a base health of 125, with 185 health with full overheal. he is the only class that can double jump. his stock weapons are the scattergun as the primary, pistol as the secondary, and baseball bat as melee.

SOLDIER: the soldier is mainly meant to be a damage dealer and is very good for clearing out groups of enemy players quickly at mid to long range. his base movement speed is 80%, one of the lowest in the game. base health is 200, 300 with full overheal. the soldier can rocket jump, the act of shooting a rocket at the ground and jumping to launch yourself into the air and across the map, an ability shared with the demoman. soldiers are also effective at destroying engineer nests. soldier's stock weapons are the rocket launcher, shotgun, and shovel.

PYRO: the pyro is most effective clearing out groups of enemy players at close range by setting them on fire. base movement speed is 100%. base health is 175, 260 full overheal. enemies set on fire are subjected to afterburn and take extra damage over time even if they are not being actively attacked. the pyro also has the ability to deflect projectiles(rockets, grenades, arrows, ect.) with their airblast. it can also be used to push away enemy players and extinguish teammates that are on fire. pyro's stock weapons are the flamethrower, shotgun, and fire axe.

DEMOMAN: the demoman specialises in dealing damage through explosions. base movement speed is 93%. base health is 175, 260 full overheal. demo has two main explosive types: stckybombs and grenades. grenades are like rockets in that they expload on contact with enemy players. stickybombs are useful in laying traps, as they do not detonate immediately and can stick to buildings and other surfaces and can be remotely detonated by the player. both can be used in a similar way as rocket jumping. demos are also effective at destroying engineer nests. stock weapons are the grenade launcher, stickybomb launcher, and bottle.

HEAVY: the heavy weapons guy(heavy) is good for mowing down enemies quickly. base movement speed is 77%, slowest in the game. base health 300, 450 overheal, most health in the game. heavy's minigun has a very high firing rate and thus a high damage output but is slowed significantly while firing. stock weapons are the minigun, shotgun, and fists.

ENGINEER: the engineer specialises as the main defensive live. base movement speed is 100%. base health is 125, 185 overheal. the engineer's main ability is constructing buildings. the building he can construct are the sentry gun, dispenser, and teleporter. the sentry gun is a stationary gun that targets enemy players at mid to close range. dispensers are stationary buildings that provide ammunition and health to teammates. teleporters are used to transport teammates around the battlefield quickly. a collection of all these buildings together is sometimes referred to as a nest. the engineer technically has four weapon slots as opposed to the usual three- the stock weapons slots are the shotgun, pistol, and wrench, along with the pda which is used to monitor buildings.

SNIPER: the sniper's main purpose is picking off important enemies at long range. base movement speed is 100%. base health 125, 185 overheal. headshot with the sniper rifle is a guaranteed critical hit that will kill most classes instantly(unless the enemy is overhealed) and a fully charged headshot will instantly kill all classes(unless ubercharged). the rifle charge is built while scoped(zoomed in). stock weapons are the sniper rifle, smg, and kukri.

MEDIC: the medic's job is to heal teammates. base movement speed is 107%. base health is 150, 225 overheal. the medic technically has no primary weapon and instead has the medigun, which heals injured teammates. fully healed teammates get overheal going up to 150% of the player's base health. healing teammates builds ubercharge, that, once fully charged, is used to make both the medic and the target to the charge invincible for 8 seconds. the medic's stock weapons are the medigun, syringe gun, and bonesaw.

SPY: the spy is a stealth class mean to infiltrate the enemy team and kill targets undetected. base movement speed is 107%. base health is 125, 185 overheal. the spy has the ability to cloak and become invisible or diguise as enemy(and friendly) players. the spy can also backstab, instantly killing the enemy when attacked from behind. spy can also disable and destroy engineer buildings using the electro-sapper. the spy also technically has four weapon slots- stock weapons are the revolver and knife, as well as the disguse kit and invis watch.

GAMEMODES

the main game modes i'm going to talk about are capture the flag, control point, payload, and mann vs machine, as those are generally the most played. capture the flag, control point, and payload are all team vs team, and mann vs machine is technically player vs everyone

CAPTURE THE FLAG pretty simple, the main objective is to get inside the enemy's base and steal their intelligence and bring it back to your own base without getting killed. if a player carrying the intel is killed, it is dropped in that spot and can be picked up by either team. if it is picked up by team it belongs to, it is sent back to their base. if the intel is not picked up within sixty seconds it is also sent back.

CONTROL POINT both teams work to capture all control points. depending on the map, the method of capturing the points may be different, but overall play remains much the same. to capture a point it must be stood on by a member of a team for a certain amount of time. that player must be uncontested(no players from the other team at that point). more teammates on a point mean the point is captured faster. scouts also capture points at twice the speed of one player. there are typically an odd number of points. depending on where the point is, it can be locked, captured, or neutral. locked points cannot be captured by the opposing team until the point before it is captured. captured points are points that are captured but can be taken by the opposing team. neutral points have not been captured by either team.

PAYLOAD the attacking team(blu) attempts to deliver a bomb through a series of checkpoints into the defending base(red) within five minutes. players push the cart foreward by standing on or next to it. each checkpoint the cart reaches adds time to the clock. the more people pushing the cart, the faster it moves. if any member of the opposing team stands next to the cart, the movement is stopped until that player is chased away or killed. if there are no players pushing the cart after thirty seconds, the cart begins to slowly move backwards.

MANN VS MACHINE a group of three to six players fight a horde of robot versions of each class attempting to deliver a bomb into a mann co stronghold. the robots attack in waves and the players must defeat each wave to defend the stronghold and prevent the robots from delivering the bomb. there is a period of set up time for players to choose weapons, set up buildings, and build ubercharge before fighting. dead robots drop money, which can be used to buy upgrades for weapons and ammo, as well as health and crits. medics can also revive dead players, allowing them to get back to fighting faster.

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and that's the game! i didnt include the lore becasue it isnt really necessary to know to understand the game but if yall want to to i can make a continuation of this that explains the lore as well :) also if i got anything wrong feel free to correct me i mainly based this off my own experience and what the wiki says. im not perfect.

if you want even more information about everything i talked about, here are some useful links: official tf2 wiki official tf2 website

and also the petition for #fixtf2, bc the game is kind of overrun by bots atm :(

[lilyblackdrawside]

IS4's Deep Investigations bring a bit of variation by making you take a kind of radar device at the start of the run. Regular EXP is replaced with Investigation Points. You gain these just by killing stuff, but the radar devices let you get more. Most of these can be killed and the ones that are placed on the ground have block. They're completely unhealable, even with regeneration effects. The ones that you deploy as a static object cost 0 to deploy and when they're destroyed or expired, they're just gone.

Details below. Kinda long.

This one scans its surroundings in a 3-range circle every 5 seconds. It has to be placed on ranged tiles and is very basic, but does a good job. I usually find a decent enough spot to put it on and it can take a good few hits too, so you don't have to be too worried about guarding it. You do have to guard it, but take it easy. Steady and reliable.

This one also goes on ranged tiles. When deployed, it does nothing until you've charged its SP bar by having at least one operator deployed on an adjacent tile. It requires 50 SP to activate, which charges at 1sp/s per adjacent operator or other deployable (summons, traps). Once the bar is full, it starts attacking and deals 2% max health arts damage to single targets in a 5x5 square minus the corner tiles with a 1.5s attack interval, while also generating Investigation Points on hit. Its hp steadily degrades, even while it's inactive, so you have to make the most of it. It does stick around for a long time unless you let it get attacked too much. This one has really good output, so long as you can give it targets. The range is very generous, you just have to charge it.

These go on either ground or ranged tiles and have 1 block, but they're not overly sturdy so don't use them for that unless you're in a pinch. Being adjacent to a mushroom gives an operator +150 def which doesn't stack with multiple mushrooms. Enemies killed by mushroomed operators yield more Investigation Points. They've got reliable output, especially when your strategy is centered on one or two major damage dealers. Pretty alright.

This is not a deployable. It locks onto the ally with the highest block count and "fires" at them every 10 seconds, though the very first shot goes off after 3 seconds. You can tell when it's about to fire by the intensifying reticule. When it fires, a random ally in a 5x5 square minus the corner tiles centered on the locked-on ally suffers a random effect and you gain some IP. The effects I've noticed include loss of current hp% (33, 50, 80), loss of current sp%, ~10s stun, ~10s freeze, full heal. There are without a doubt more effects that I haven't noticed and surely there are a bunch more positive ones in particular. I don't know how effective this is for the purpose of IP gathering. I never paid attention to that part. The effects can be pretty bad, but if push comes to shove you can just kinda deploy a high-block operator in a corner and let them suffer. I like this one.

This gives you 5 deployables that deal 500 arts damage in a cross-shape on and around the tile you deploy them on after a brief delay. Deploying them costs 5 DP and each enemy they hit yields 8 IP. Very hit or miss. If you get at least 1 enemy per cracker, you get 40 IP which isn't much. But that's pretty much the worst case. I didn't feeel good using them, but they're pretty decent, but the actual output is very map dependant. You need clusters of enemies or have to be willing to just block a bunch, but I think if you just manage to hit 1 to 2 per cracker you're fine. The damage is nothing, but you can use them to wake up enemies, which is particularly handy on F1 where you can use them to make Beasts to the Slaughter and Ghosts in the Attic a bit more comfy. Not too hot on these, but they're not bad.

This one goes on the ground and has 2 block. After charging for a bit, you can expend 3 DP and 200 of its HP to send out a car that drives in a straight line until it comes into contact with an operator, upon which it will continue moving in the direction the operator is facing, or upon colliding with a wall which will destroy the car. The car deals minor damage to enemies it hits and is quite cumbersome to use, as it kinda wants you to twist your setup to its will. I will not submit to car culture. I do not like the car. It's annoying and doesn't perform well. Its only merit is being able to field the deployable as a decently sturdy 2-block unit for free. Do not buy a car.

All in all, I quite like this. It's fun to mess around with the deployables and the Deep Investigations themselves give you some fun challenges. Each of these radars is styled after a past mechanic. The Altar-type is a Sarkaz Originium Altar, the Portable Gramophone is a gramophone from the Dossoles Water Gate annihilation map they've never shown up anywhere else trust my word I'm not doing some joke, the Ornamental Giant Mushrooms are like the mushrooms from Great Chief Gavial, the Field Device is akin to the Londinium Defense Cannon, the Two-step Firecrackers are from Who Is Real where they played an integral role on any map you had access to them and the Self-Driving Recon Cart is from Ideal City where you committed vehicular durinslaughter via unmanned vehicles which I am loathe to admit was reasonably amusing. I like this. I hope they do more stuff like this. As is, there's not much you can do with them because the Deep Investigations are locked at Difficulty 0 and so far the stipulations only served to make me stronger.

[cerastes]

IS3 question: how do you deal with emergency Out of Control on higher Waves numbers with any sort of consistency? Or like, even at all, outside a run with perfect collectibles?

The bonethrowers start strutting toward the exit with around 35% of their big ass HP bars left, and they just about onehit even my strongest units, so it’s extremely difficult to get any damage on them before they decide it’s time to head out and take your whole squad with them.

I can’t even begin to imagine how I’d build my squad to accommodate this stage given all the other killers you have to deal with and the strain on your resources. Any advice?

On higher Waves, like 12 and above, the best strategy is really to avoid Out of Control as best as you can. Dealing with it with no losses on higher Waves is pretty difficult, it is in fact one of the hardest maps, period, due to the way the stat multipliers just send the very high stats of the berserkers into space, and it's a pretty demanding map in terms of roles. It's not impossible but when doing Out of Control at highers Waves, always be prepared to lose a few Lives if it means clearing, as opposed to trying to not lose any and crumbling entirely. Taxes Omertosa and Kirin Yato S3s are good due to their ability to deal good damage safely, Fortresses (Horn, Firewhistle, Ashlock) are very good since they can be more freely deployed than ranged units (who initially only have the right tile and the mid upper tile) and have great range and damage, making them good at killing Bonethrowers. Paired with other damage dealers, Muelsyse Melee S3 and Eunectes S2 are great since they Stun blocked enemies for the duration of the Skill, making the rushers way more manageable. Pozy S3 is extremely good here due to the Typewritter. Trapmasters like Dorothy and Robin kick their asses with CC mines due to their high Physical damage and ability to keep them in place, as well as Out of Control having great Trapmaster tiles. Global attackers like Goldenglow and Ambriel work well on lower Waves, but not too well later unfortunately, due to their ballooning RES and HP being too much for them, respectively. Shifters have a bit of a hard time since the rushers' only real big lane to push them far into is the upper row which is well covered by Bonethrowers, so they only really pay dividends if you have ways to kill the Bonethrowers relatively quickly.

In terms of gameplan, you usually want the center and upper right Bonethrowers eliminated ASAP, while throwing excess means of damage at the left ones. Secure the right side to cover for fodder, take the right ranged tile and aim left or up to kill the Bonethrowers with a Marksman or anything that can reach (Fortresses can do this from Melee tiles), and use the mid upper ranged tile to the left to target whichever Bonethrower you aren't attacking first (I recommend aiming the top ranged unit to the right so that way they have better coverage of the rushers once the times comes). From here on, it really depends on what you're packing, but you ideally clear the map from right to left, and save skills as best you can for rushers. If you don't think you can avoid losing Lives, just pop skills to kill the earliest rushers and deal with the situation as it evolves.

Certain items make this map MUCH easier, like Civilight Eterna (their innate health loss is in fact True Damage, and it is amplified by Civilight), reduce enemy HP items in general (their innate health loss is a flat value, Bonethrowers lose 350 HP per sec, Leaders (aka rushers) lose 500 HP per sec, and their big HP pools makes the % based reduction good), Glory Pack if you have plenty of Fast Redeploy units like Executioners and Merchants (essentially lets you stunlock them!), Fincatcher's Shawl literally wins you the map instantly and is the best Out of Control item unless you have no ranged units at all, End of Times is, well, for obvious reasons, really good for this map lmao, and anything that extends CC duration especially if you combo with items that inflict damage while CC'd assuming you have consistent sources of CC. There's more utilities but those are the ones I rely upon personally.

Higher Waves Out of Control, not even the Emergency version, is an infamous run-ender. I personally handle it by sacrificing a few lives early if I can afford it to the first couple of rushers so I can bring out a strong latemap composition into the field, take out the second pair of mid and upper Bonethrowers, and then open the map up with units fresh and ready to cover the killer upper lane. I wish I could give you Magic Killer Strat but it's a difficult map that you never know really well what you'll have going into it. Hell, I try to make my Operator examples in these of varying rarities, but you can see how I mostly used 6* Operators as examples.

[coachbeards]

no but the way that the show treated beard's repeated drug use as another "oh he's just so wild and quirky 🤪" joke instead of the self-medication and self-harm it actually was....

beard being high during a match because he accidentally consumed drugs he wasn't aware were out..............that's not funny. being a drug addict, getting high without being aware you consumed drugs in the first place must've been genuinely terrifying. while high on shrooms, the best thing you can be is calm and relaxed...beard had to go to work. he had to pretend to be okay. he couldn't let anyone see, since his literal career would be at stake if it was discovered. dealing with the anxiety of an unexpected high (one you can kind of see beard blame himself for. "i drank tea from the wrong pot." instead of framing it like jane left it out and he didn't know. he framed it like it was his fault. and "it won't happen again." again, like it's his own fault) that's not funny. that's not a little haha beard you're so wild <3 especially since two episodes prior, ted was having a panic attack during a match, and all the characters treated that with way more sensitivity than beard's situation. even ted, the one who is aware that beard's life was almost ruined my drugs, just made a joke about it.

making jokes that implies beard routinely gets high with their bus driver.... that's not good, y'all! smoking toad venom with the bus driver??? and ted brushing it off too and the show treating it like a joke? the bus driver also being revealed to be beard's drug dealer being framed as nothing more than just a quirky beard thing. can i just say i hate how much they refused to delve into beard under the excuse that he's just enigmatic and quirky? yeah.

in sunflowers, beard refers to shrooms as his medicine. and yes, meth + shrooms aren't exactly in the same ballpark. but if i heard my best friend, whose life was ruined by drugs to the point where i had to rescue him and nurse him back to health, said that he took shrooms as a self-medication tactic, i'd be a touch concerned. but since they never framed it as an issue, despite beard's backstory (and brendan had headcanoned drug addict beard from the beginning, so it's not like it just was put into the plot for the sake of mom city,) ted didn't make a big deal out of it. he was seemingly fine with beard's drug use, and even agreed to do drugs with him.

but also........................a man devoted to not only ted, but to the team........i just don't think he'd be soooo casual about taking several illicit substances and he wouldn't do it all willy nilly.

especially considering nate leaking ted's panic attacks to the press (which......not that beard was ever nate's target, but he could've easily leaked beard being high, too. which...again. would've tanked his career), beard wouldn't be doing drugs with the bus driver or traveling with illegal substances on a team related event. he'd be aware that his actions have consequences, clearly given his prison record, and i just don't think he'd be so......open and uncaring. beard was guilted by being high during a match to the point where he had to come clean, as it was something eating him alive.

if beard's drug addiction was revealed, especially the port vale match or using the bus driver as a drug dealer or carrying illegal substances on team trips..........it wouldn't just be his reputation and job at stake. it could ruin ted's career, having been aware of his criminal record and his repeated drug use and didn't do anything about it. it could create damage for rebecca, for employing a man without carefully combing through his records (drugs are..............obviously very frowned up in society in general, but within the sports world? yikes.). the team would face struggles as well. beard wouldn't risk any of that. but not only would he not risk it, he wouldn't do it so openly and freely in the first place.

i do not care that brendan waved it away with the excuse that meth and shrooms aren't the same thing. a recovering drug addict using drugs to canonically self-medicate isn't exactly a good thing. beard has substance use disorder, and i wish it was treated better within the show, by the other characters, and by the writers.

[blackjackkent]

All right, time to learn to fight Thisobald!

Our boy the booze elephant ("Wretched Distiller") is uh. Sure something.

That's... gross. :P At max damage he could two-shot Rakha by burping.

Numb also makes things somewhat complicated. Rakha's party, though, is actually better suited to this fight than Hector's would have been; Hector's primary damage dealers at this point were himself and Karlach who did bludgeoning and slashing damage respectively. Rakha has a bit more of a spread by comparison; she herself focuses on fire, Wyll does force and necrotic damage with Eldritch Blast, Minthara does radiant with Divine Smite and various other things (or potentially fire with Searing Smite). Lae'zel's weapon is a slasher but also does 1d4 psychic damage, and Minthara can use Inquisitor's might to imbue it with some extra radiant as well.

Also we're on easy mode. :P Thankfully.

-----

After Action Report:

OK this fight is actually a bit more goofy than I thought at first glance. Thisobald's reflux feature CHANGES based on the type of damage you do to him!

I had to do a couple reloads to try out different damage types to see what happened. Each of them changes the feature name, a new skill associated with it, and dialogue from Thisobald and Rakha in response.

ACID DAMAGE "Acid Reflux" -> "Acidic Regurgitation" Thisobald: "SIZZLE! FIZZLE! MELT!" Rakha: "Watch it - the acid's altered his brew!"

FIRE DAMAGE "Burning Reflux" -> "Fiery Regurgitation" Thisobald: "Fire and flames, blaze and burn!" Rakha: "Flaming brew? This battle's taken a heated turn."

COLD DAMAGE "Cold Reflux" -> "Icy Regurgitation" Thisobald: "Brr. Cold, chilled, frozen." Rakha: "The brew's been chilled!"

LIGHTNING DAMAGE "Electrified Reflux" -> "Electrified Regurgitation" Thisobald: "Lightning strikes. Drink up!" Rakha: "Damn - the brew's acquired a spark!"

NECROTIC DAMAGE "Rotten Reflux" -> "Rotting Regurgitation" Thisobald: "Drink of dead, dying, death. Order up!" Rakha: "The drink - it's turned necrotic!"

POISON DAMAGE "Toxic Reflux" -> "Venomous Regurgitation" Thisobald: "I've picked your poison!" Rakha: "Hells. His brew's turned to poison!"

I just love that Rakha, who is like the least one-liner-ish person, ends up cracking jokes here. This is clearly not her canon behavior but I thought it was funny. :P

Anyway. There's probably some kind of interesting strategy one could do here around orchestrating him having a particular damage type that would be beneficial to us, but I am not thinking that strategically about it. XD

I did have Lae'zel focus on the other four little zombies wandering around the place since we have to fight them too and her damage is more effective on them. Everyone else just sort of laser focused on Thisobald to try to burst him down.

The other interesting mechanic here is that every time Thisobald does a puke attack, he gets drunker. After three attacks he is "Profoundly Intoxicated":

This is basically how he died with Hector - exploded after drinking too much - so it would certainly simplify things if we didn't have to bust his health bar all the way down.

And sure enough, after his next fire puke:

Nice. Rakha was downed in the fire but Minthara, being the hardened warriors that she is, immediately prioritized beating the shit out of their adversary:

Obliterated.

"A shame, what the shadows did to him," Wyll says thoughtfully, looking down at the strange, bloated corpse. "His death gives me no pleasure."

It's perhaps a good thing that Rakha is still unconscious when he says this, because probably neither he nor she would be very proud about what she would have to say about how much pleasure Thisobald's death gave her.

[spinaroos-47]

I started a new save a week or so ago, and here are most of the spirits Ive used so far.

It's been fun and refreshing to experience the new stuff in the way that its probably more expected. Im taking things slow, but yknow, some stuff has been going faster since I know more now.

I decided to try and name my spirits this time! I chose Ankylo as my starter, named Ponkylo, and... unfortunately he got replaced quite fast, there was a lot of times that he was getting oneshotted while in full health and armour, while my other spirits were doing fine, all around the same level, mind you. 

Oh Womr and AquaPlont were the first additions to the party after Ponkylo, Oh Womr being very useful to clean the area around my base especially. Cactise went to replace Oh Womr since most islands around were either earth, water or poison types. Plus I wanted to try using their hability of being the most likely one to be targetted to use them as a bit of a shield/tank. 

That worked well until I got to a water dungeon. When theyre weak to water nfjfjgn. They even used to be named Hydrange before I realized the fact, so I ended up changing their name to Cactise, and finding a poison substite to them, not pictured here

And finally, RubensBrutus. I just really wanted an electric type and he was the first one with a good level that I found. Not the biggest fan of Burgloons, but he's growing on me, kinda my main damage dealer right now. The name came because I was thinking of calling him Rubens, but wasn't sure, and my sister was around and suggested Brutus. So, RubensBrutus

I got two other spirits now, a Shadeling and an Emoshroom, but that was after I drew all these, so I'll draw them some other time

[safelynte]

A pattern I enjoy in games is the increase in volatility, complexity, and specialization as time progresses. This kind of game pattern reflects the rising action -> climax pattern from storytelling.

Rogue-likes start with some basic state, but as you get power-ups, they synergize with each other while enemies keep up. To take Slay the Spire as an example, characters have a set starting deck with almost 50% attack and 50% defense, little draw, and limited energy. As you progress, you begin to draw and play more cards each turn. Early fights chip your health, but as you progress, enemy damage becomes even burstier. But notably, your hit point total doesn't tend to increase very much. Heck, it often decreases. So the stakes of each turn/combat become a higher and higher % of your HP as you go ascend.

Even in each combat, playing powers and enemy buffs create this ramping effect. I think a good 80% of the enemies gain strength over time or place debuffs. There's always a trade-off to consider between long-term set-up and immediate blocking or damage rush-down.

There's a similar escalation in Starcraft 2, where ranged units tend to be a higher tech tier than melee units, and splash damage units tend to be an even higher tech. (Ranged units tend to be more volatile because of their increased ability to focus fire compared to melee units, which are constrained to surface area.) The earliest ranged units are Zerg Queens and Terran Marines. Queens aren't that volatile due to their high fire rate, high hp, low damage, and transfuse. Terran is the most glass cannon of the 3 races, so it fits that they get ranged first. There's some negligible early splash from Reapers. Sometimes, Hellions, Banelings, and Mines can pop off. But I things get really volatile around Seige Tanks, Templar/Disruptor, and Lurker play. The mining out of resources and base expansion in SC2 also notably make conflict more frequent and more impactful as game time increases.

It's a pretty obvious pattern in League. You start off doing piddly damage to minions, and trading a full HP bar between champions will take tens of seconds. But most champions get a big kill-threat spike at level 6. With a couple level spikes and jungle ganks in between. Once towers fall, fog covers the map, and volatility increases from hidden information. At the same time, objectives gather teams together in big fights, creating more focus fire opportunities. As damage dealers begin specializing, time to kill decreases until the point where entire teams can fall in seconds. Interestingly, towers scale down in HP, too. Combined with extended death timers, the stakes of a single mistake slowly approach the entire game.

Even the age-old game of chess exemplifies such a pattern. Pawns are the shortest-range, least-threatening pieces. But as they fall, they unlock space for more powerful, longer-ranged pieces. These powerful units also start at the edge of the board. As they take center, they are able to threaten more and more pieces. It's a really clever design!

[krembles]

I wanted to make a comprehensive reference (both for myself for future use and for anyone else who might be interested) of the spellblade build I used for Sylh.

It focuses on maintaining a constant high buildup of stagger while still outputting decent damage with critical strikes.

I played it very fast-paced with a high offense, finger always on the dodge trigger. No parrying here.

(All of these screens are grabbed from the very endgame, so this is the gear I used to beat the end bosses with.)

Some of the skill points in my tree could be switched around for some branches, since some of the more reaching ones were there for far-off defensive abilities, but that also might threaten the actual survivability of the build.

Mage's Gambit remained my go-to orb as soon as I picked it up (and I believe I got it during the Cauldron quest). I would sub it out on occasion for a necrotic damage orb, but in the end it was my ride-or-die. (I also believe I had a +25% Stagger enchantment on it.)

And I am not going to lie, I only ever used my staff in battle to take pot-shots at dragons while I was running closer, or when I forgot to switch when entering a fight. I mostly used it to kill blight boils.

I always prioritized Ability Damage over Defense when it came to armor.

I also ended up having A Pale Reflection much earlier than I should have, since it is picked up during an optional endgame boss fight that I stumbled into at level 25. (However, I would also like it to be known that this build allowed me to beat that boss fight on my first try despite being 20 levels under the boss.)

The Amaranthine Loop at full ability unlock would greatly improve this build, I am sure; however, the game refused to give me many duplicates.

I tried swapping out different runes as I got them, but Pierce remained my go-to. It was great for breaking barrier and shield on tanky enemies, and good for eviscerating horde enemies with an area attack.

Most of my companions were structured around this build to be mostly support. My A-team was Davrin and Harding, and I would use Davrin's warcry ability and Harding's adrenaline rush ability as soon as they came off cooldown. (The upgraded warcry ability to trigger automatically at low health was a life saver many a time, as well as the perk in its tree to give it a ticking healing buff.)

When I could, Davrin was a party staple, but I would sometimes sub out Harding for Emmrich or Lucanis. Lucanis dealt good combination damage with his ability to detonate Overwhelmed, and Emmrich was my main damage dealer outside of myself (and also came with the benefit of additional healing abilities if Davrin was on cooldown).

For the most part, I could rely on having sufficient support from my companions so much so that I rarely needed to use my potions and would often come out of a fight unscathed.

The fundamental core of this build requires constant movement to sustain high damage and to not get hit since it is not very tanky, and performing a Takedown on an enemy as soon as it was staggered was a must.

[itsmearia]

New to Arknights and did my first CC!

This is the first time I’ve experienced CC and my goal was to get the medal for clearing rank 18. I spent 2-3 hours off and on for about 4-5 days trying over and over to make it work without much to show for it.

I took my A-team in and they got beat pretty easily. Tried all sorts of different deployment orders/placements/directions to no avail. Borrowed different operators to see if they could carry me and still wasn’t making it half way. Tried different combinations of contracts to see if some were easier than others. Realized pretty quickly block removal was going to be a hard pass because I couldn’t kill the trucks fast enough and that Horse Uncle (I do not remember his actual name, my friend calls him Horse Uncle and it’s suck with me!) was definitely the operator I should borrow because his skill was an AOE destruction of anything in his path. Didn’t matter if they were unblockable, the sailors, the robot, or the truck. It died under the glare of Horse Uncle.

Note: I am positive this is what the enemies saw as they approached Horse Uncle

After those realizations I ended up getting a bit over half way last night and felt like I made progress as the first chunk of the map was doable. I was able to deploy operators in a way to hold the line until Horse Uncle could pop off but was failing at the double boat coming through during his cool down. So that was the first thing I tried to solve today.

After some trial and error I realized that if I deploy Hoshi + drop Texas Alt with the right timing then I can kill the first 4 unblockable enemies without activating Horse Uncle, allowing me to save his skill for the first truck and tail end of the sailors/casters. This deployment was a nice bonus as Hoshi/Ptilo could also hold the line against the first of two trucks until the second one started coming. Then I popped Horse Uncles skill and kill both trucks together and all of the unblockable enemies inside. I was getting close!

I just couldn’t close it out though. No matter what I did there was one unblockable enemy that snuck through.  I droped Ch’en down at the goal to try and kill it. Not enough. I used Tex Alter to kill two other ones right before so she was on cooldown. I tried Kroos poking at it. It had too much health. I was so close but just couldn’t quite get there and I wasn’t even really close to killing it. I needed a lot more damage.

Enter Ifrit. Let me rephrase. Enter 99 DP Ifrit because I was using the triple DP cost for casters contract.Some of you may remember my love for Ifrit from an earlier post (https://www.tumblr.com/itsmearia/714611965966860288/new-arknights-player-update-one-of-the-first?source=share) but glad to say she was BACK. I thought maybe with her S3 I could kill the unblockable enemies as they went towards her. So I hop in, grind all the DP I can get, and boom drop down Iffy my love. Skill pops, things start dying and...

It still leaks through. It still has a little bit of health but no worries I think. I’ll drop Ch’en in front of it at the end and kill it. Get back to the same spot. Iffy sets the ground ablaze. The enemy walks towards the goal. Ch’en hits it and..

This thing has the tiniest sliver of health still and leaks. I’m distraught now because I’m so close and yet so far away. I’ve tried everything with this combination of operators and I’m just a taaad short. Ch’en is my best damage dealer for melee that will be available. I have almost no DP for any snipers or casters because I need to use it all for 99cost Iffy. And then it hit me. If I can’t deal more damage myself can I let the level deal more damage for me? Enter our savior and one of my absolutely favorite operators now who will forever mean a lot to me. Enter: thebestfirefightyouveeverseen.

  Only e1lvl30. Her attack isn’t very good and she doesn’t really do much for me normally except knock enemies into holes - of which there are none on this map. What there is however is water that deals damage over time to enemies that are in it. So the squad gets set up again. Horse Uncle is casting his disapproving glare at anything that dares interrupt his reading. Texas Alter is dropping mass aoe damage on enemies as much as she can. Hoshi is blocking enemies the best she can. Ifrit is setting the ground on fire. And Shaw is waiting patiently at the right goal having not swung her axe all round yet. That unblockable bane of my existence walks through the fire, wades through the water, and gets up to shaw with a teensy tiny bit of health left. And Shaw knocks it back into the water with her skill where the damage + water dot combines for it to die as it walks back towards her.

The final wave comes with a bunch of heavies but Hoshi has played Mass Effect before and remembers her job

And that’s that! For the first time since I’ve started playing I was able to try and complete a CC event and let me tell you, the dopamine rush I got was incredible. I love my little mobile tower defense game. I love my little operators trying their best as I work through every possible configuration I can think of. Most importantly I love Shaw, who with a lil knock back gave me the sweet sweet victory I had been working so hard for.

[making-arcanum-the-ttrpg]

Sorry for the delay between posts, life is kickin some of our asses. We'll try to get it a tad more frequent soon!

But anyway, we're here to continue introducing the actual features, so now for the actual playable classes!

Martials:

The Adept, designed to be a skill monkey that's capable of high utility in a fight, alongside delivering large single damage hits

The Berserker, designed to be a face tank that directs the enemy's attention to themselves by being the best target and having enough health to manage that

The Elusive, designed to be an Evasion tank that directs enemy's attention to themselves by being a threat, but also being very hard to hit

The Executioner, designed to be a high damage class that is easily hurt or killed (essentially a glass cannon) requiring lots of teamwork to properly manage, and running off of adrenaline from killing opponents

The Martial Artist, designed to be fast, capable of both defending the allied backline while also targeting the opponent's backline, along with being always dangerous in almost every situation due to not needing a weapon

The Vagabond, a backliner damage dealer, focused on firearms and bombarding does with high accuracy attacks, while also providing support by keeping an eye on combatants

The Warrior, a versatile Frontline, capable of taking a decent amount of hits and dishing out good damage and control effects due to being the best at using maneuvers

Half-Casters:

The Devout, a Frontliner capable of taking hits, supplying buffs, and providing healing, while also being able to dish out a decent amount of damage, making them very versatile

The Maker, a support class focused on keeping the party equipped and stocked, being the best at crafting and repairs (sidenote Arcanum has more defined crafting rules), while taking a more defensive role in combat

The Wanderer, a flanker which focuses on stealth and using spells to disrupt foes, with it's unique gimmick of letting you transfer the concentration of a spell to an external source

The Martyr, a terrifying frontliner with unique casting, focused on sacrificing hp to deal better damage, buff themselves, or apply debuffs

The Exorcist, a support class with some decent damage potential, focused on cleansing buffs and debuffs

The Magus, a more selfish, self-sustaining Frontliner, assisting the team by not needing excess assistance from the party

The Shaman, a Frontliner focused on AOE debuffs, weakening foes to keep themselves and allies alive

Casters:

The Mage, a powerful blaster focused on using magic through knowledge, allowing them to control the elements as if they were a part of themselves

The Innate, a caster blessed or cursed with magic, capable of controlling the fundamental forces (such as Gravity, Time, Light/Dark or Magnetism)

The Attuned, a controller focused on nature, capable of stopping foes in their tracks in a myriad of ways

The Priest, a highly versatile caster, whether it be divine blasts, buffs, healing, or whatever else, specialized by whatever they worship

The Creative, a highly variable and unique class that can take a myriad of unique rolls, whether it be setting traps through painting, dancing about the battlefield, blasting your foes with sonic rage, empowering your allies with peppy music, or suing your enemies

The Scion, a caster who has traded a piece of themselves for power, which we currently picture as weakening themselves to use magic out of their league (this one is a bit unclear, and is more subject to change than others)

The Enlightened, a psionic focused caster, gaining power from innate understanding of things others cannot

The Witch, a debuffs focused class, with access to a ridiculous collection of curses, from "you can no longer have kids" to "your hands are always dry and flaky" to "your blood now alights when it touches air"

The Channeler, a rather weaker caster in terms of direct combat, they support themselves and allies by summoning all myriad of spirits, monsters, robots, and whatever else to fight for them

[mmeveronica]

Why build would you recommend for someone who has never played or even read the books of lancer(yet) and mainly plays healers and supports in every video game she plays?

I would probably reccomend the build I just gave out for the last ask. (This One)

A Lancaster like that I think is simple, but I'll break down the parts for you.

Firstly, why the Lancaster? The Lancaster has two important abilities as a support. It can let its allies use its repaircap (what you use to heal with the stabilise action) and it can fire a unique healing gun called the Latch Drone at its allies to heal them. Using the Latch Drone to heal is less efficient than an ally healing themself, but it spares them the action and can be done at range.

Another reason to choose the Lancaster is its speed. Many support abilites require adjacency to work, so being to move to where you're needed is very useful.

Now, the systems. The two main systems I chose for this build are the Restock Drone and the ACESO Stabiliser form the Lancaster liscence. Here is what they do and why they're good;

Restock Drone: It basically lets you an ally split up a Stabilise action for them. The drone when used by an ally clears heat and reloads a weapon allowing them to keep rocking the enemy with their big guns and it clears a condition to keep them free to kick ass. Very useful for ensuring someone is at tip-top shape.

ACESO Stabiliser: This is a preventative measure. It gives an ally Overshield, basically bonus health or temp hp if you're familiar with DnD, and protects them from the Impaired and Jammed conditions which can really hurt your damage dealers or tech focused friends. This is another way in which you prevent your allies from being messed with.

Now, for the HASE or what I think might a be good way to invest in Hull, Agility, Systems, and Engineering.

Hull: While useful, you can probably stick to cover and use your high repaircap as a Lancaster to stay alive. Also at LL 3 you can get the Rienforced Frame core bonus to get +5 HP.

Agility: I think having 2 points in Agility is somewhat important, the extra point of speed, it's just that slight edge to get where you're going.

Systems: You're not using tech attacks much so this can be safely left behind.

Engineering: I think this is really important because every 2 points of Engineering gets you another use of your Restock Drone and another use of your ACESO Stabiliser.

Now onto Talents, I wouldn't say any of these are vital to the build except Grease Monkey, but they can really come in handy.

Grease Monkey 3: This lets you exchange your massive stock pile of repaircap for uses of your Restock Drone and ACESO Stabiliser and get some extra stuff once per mission for the whole team, very very good for a support.

House Guard 1/2 This is from the KTB lcp. At Rank 1 it lets things that require allies to be adjacent to you instead be used while there is one space between you and them. Rank 2 lets allies use you for cover, which is nice if you want to be more of a defender.

Exemplar 1: When you attack an enemy from close range, which is easy to do with your mobility, you can let an ally reroll their attack against that enemy!

Spotter 1: This lets an ally roll twice and pick the better result when they attack someone and consume lock-on while they are adjacent to you (House Guard 1 would increase the range of this).

SysOp: This is from the Operation Solstice Rain lcp. It lets you use the bolster action to get more better effects, particularly against enemy tech attacks. It is handy to have.

Something I glossed over is that the Lancaster does get to use actual weapons too! The Lancaster gets a main/aux mount, on which I'd reccomend installing an Assault Rifle and a Light Nexus. These weapons have the same range which is very handy, but they're also good at hitting things. The Assault Rifle has reliable so even if it misses it still does some damage, and it has reliable 2 so a little bit of armour won't stop it. The Light Nexus has Smart which means it targets e-defense instead of evasion, so if your Assault Rifle missed this is likely to hit. This weapon combo is great for taking down more evasive enemies innacurate big guns may struggle to hit or even just taking down the little enemies running around.

Finally, a little ace in the hole this build has is a neat strat with the Stabilise action. While Stabilise is primarily used to restore your HP or clear your Heat, it comes with a variety of secondary effects. These effects are clearing burn, removing a condition that is affecting you, reloading a weapon, or clearing a condition that is affecting an adjacent ally. As a Lancaster you're immune to burn. Rank 2 of Grease Monkey automatically clears most conditions from yourself when you stabilise. You don't have a weapon to reload. This means that if you're ever needing to stabilise it is really easy to clear a condition affecting an ally while you're at it (and don't forget House Guard 1 means there can be 1 space between the two of you).

Now all of this has been mostly about LL3 when you get all of the Lancaster Liscence, but above that level I think the HA Sherman is a good choice, not only because Harrison Armory has the Integrated Ammo Feeds core bonus which gives two more uses to all limited systems (Restock Drones and ACESO Stabiliser), but the Sherman has systems that let you stabilise as a quick action and the Asura NHP which let's you take even more actions.

[mdhwrites]

What Honkai Star Rail Gets Right That Most Turn Based RPGs Get Wrong.

Its enemies.

That might sound basic but I genuinely mean it. This is a lot more complicated than it sounds though so let's first start on the player side of things. One would think that the player characters are the most important element of a turn based RPG like this feeling satisfying and so the lack of options with your cast is a problem. After all, you only get a basic attack, a skill attack and an ultimate attack. That's not a lot of options.

Here's the thing... How many ACTUAL extra options do you have in 90% of other turn based RPGs? Take Persona for an example. Amongst ALL of its abilities, your main options are: Attack. Buff. Debuff. Heal. Big version of any of these. That's not actually a lot of options. This is further compounded by party composition. Your damage dealers end up not having half of this list. Your healer technically can have the whole list but they'll only meaningfully be doing the heal option here or a basic attack... Just like a sustainer in Star Rail literally only can do.

But unlike Persona, 99% of the enemies DON'T SHARE YOUR MOVESET. Persona, and Pokemon (outside of competitive) are severely kneecapped by the fact that the basic nature of your options are also literally all your enemies can do. Dragon Quest even suffers from this but they will give some unique skills to their enemies at least. Persona bosses will also tell the rules to go fuck themselves and introduce quirks but if your bosses are the only ones with quirks, which is the case for most turn based RPGs, that means like 7-12 enemies in the entire game where the fight asks you to think at all beyond "Yeet big number."

So what does Star Rail do about this? I'm not going to say literally every enemy has interesting mechanics. There are literally enemies that go down so easy as to be essentially pointless besides as a small annoyance if you let them live. However, that's not even universally true for those basic enemies.

The best example of the design of Star Rail enemies and encounter design to me goes to the Mara-Struck Cloud Knights and their commanders. The first one is a basic bitch enemy. It has one attack that deals a little damage and inflicts a stackable DoT onto the target. However, it has a quirk no one else so far has: It has a revive. You knock it down once and it gets back up at half health. Suddenly, teams with only one DPS struggle to get rid of them before getting hit. Characters who can remove buffs can clear it without triggering the revive. A DoT character might be able to kill it with their attacks and then their DoT finishes it off after the revive. A couple wrinkles caused just by giving it one quirk.

The Commander takes this quirk one step further though. He will summon two of them during his first round of actions. He will lose health doing this but gain lifesteal on his attacks. So long as any enemy on the field has a revive, the commander keeps his lifesteal and next turn he's going to get back what he lost and much more due to how his specific lifesteal works. You HAVE to pop the revive on the two soldiers or else you're losing ground against the mini-boss you're fighting against. Teams that are only single target find themselves with little time to fix this problem. Teams focusing on DoTs have to face the fact that these soldiers come in too slow to go before the elite's next turn so they can't pop the revives just with their DoTs. So when in an area where you might face this enemy, the game asks "What is your plan?"

And if your response is "Nuke it from orbit because my team is that strong," good job for playing the game so long as to achieve that level of power. The autobattle button is your reward for that investment. It's not a bad thing to be able to overpower the system if you grind things out, not in my opinion at least.

This sort of strategizing though is part of the best turn based RPGs out there. FF X has one of the best turn based systems in all of Final Fantasy mostly because they genuinely every character a role to go against certain enemies. This mostly applies to small enemies but it does mean that even a basic random encounter is more engaging than "Yeet big number" like can happen for other RPGs. Darkest Dungeon gets most of its tension out of the fact that enemy party composition is as complex, if not more, than your own and if you don't know how to deal with each threat, ANY fight can go south really fast. But only because the enemies themselves are interesting.

And as just a small bonus to Star Rail's genre specifically: I think the Gacha ENHANCES these elements, at least early on. Because you need an actual answer, not just numbers, to a lot of fights, who you get early on can vastly change your experience and how you interact with the game. A limited tool set means you need to get creative with how you answer questions the games asks you. This is also why the Trailblazer starting with a DPS and a Sustainer version is brilliant because technically support is optional, damage and health is not so after the second planet, EVERY team will have access to at least the bare minimum they need (and that's without getting into all the free characters you get early in the game like Asta for support or Natasha for AoE healing).

I REALLY want RPG makers to look at Star Rail and take from it. I don't care if they wholesale steal from it. The genre NEEDS to understand that Star Rail isn't good for a gacha game. It is FANTASTIC, even amongst full priced options within the same genre. That should wake some people up and it's easily part of why Star Rail is as dominant as it is despite not being unique like Genshin was. There are SO MANY gacha RPGs just like Star Rail after all.

Pretty much none of them understand the turn based genre and how to make it good like Star Rail does, because Star Rail gets it right unlike so many others.

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Btw, for as critical as I got about them, it's not like I'm trying to say Persona and Pokemon are bad. They can be WAY WORSE. They deserve the praise they get but I wanted to highlight what I think they're getting wrong and how it helps explain why Star Rail has gained as much devotion as it has, especially from me who is anti-gacha 99% of the time and thinks Star Rail's storytelling can be kind of shaky at times. Its gameplay is a major part of what has kept me for over a year and I wanted to explore why, especially while I struggle to finish games like Persona or Pokemon.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

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[prancingintheshadows]

I've just finished FFVII Rebirth and RWBY's back with new content, so obviously those two things are the only thing on my mind right now. So of course with my brainrot I have to imagine and conceptualize what the RWBY characters would play like in FF7 rebirth. Especially since Monty was a fan of Final Fantasy.

For people playing Rebirth, there's not going to be any story spoilers, but this will go into gameplay and talk about certain abilities in the game as comparison.

This is mostly just 'how would these characters be designed in this gameplay?', so I'm not really making any big changes to Rebirth's systems to account for RWBY's in-universe mechanics. While Dust is similar to materia, there's some notable differences but I'm ignoring those differences for the sake of this. So these characters will all use Dust/Materia the way the game does, using mp or something rather than having dust be like ammo. And speaking of MP, same case. Aura is both HP and MP in RWBY, but for the sake of this, everyone's having separate bars for those.

My plan is to generally talk about the overall gameplay identity of each character, along with specific details like if they have attacks after dodging worth mentioning or holding square produces a unique attack or such. I will not be talking about synergy, at least, not in this post. Maybe in a future one if I have the attention span.

For the first of these posts I'm tackling everyone's favorite blonde brawler

Yang

Basic Idea

I'm starting with Yang because... she was the easiest. But not too easy. It's not like we can slap on Tifa's moveset and stats and call it a day. Tifa's combo focused gameplan is fun and fitting for a martial artist, but it lacks the defining features of Yang's semblance. Yang's the toughest member of her team by a long shot and her semblance builds up as she takes damage, so it's instead easier to take inspiration from Red XIII's Vengeance Mode. However, not everything of Red's is usable. Red features a lot of supportive moves that apply buffs or healing and that's not really in line with Yang's straightforward, frontline fighting style, so I'd ideally take a mix of Red's ability to turn defense into resources as well as Tifa's explosive damage potential.

In keeping in line with this mix of tank and damage dealer, ideally Yang would have comparatively high health and defenses, though I can see magic defense being noticeably lower, along with good attack and low 'magic' or whatever the dust equivalent would be. Controversially though, I'd put her speed rather low. Yang's not slow, but everything's relative, especially in video games and video game balance. Comparing to everyone else on Team RWBY, Yang's slow. I'm not too sure on luck, but I'm leaning more towards low. Yang strikes me as doing a lot of damage raw rather than relying on situational damage like crits.

Yang, like Tifa, uses martial arts, so she has a short attack range that doesn't have much spread. As such, when coming out of a dodge, Yang will do a spinning kick. I get she's a punch girl, but she's not exclusively using punches. Holding square has her do a close range shot gun blast that can push enemies back. I'd also say Yang's dodge is only average. Again, relative speeds. She's got Ruby and Blake on her team, Yang has to be average at dodging at best by comparison.

Burn Mode

We gotta talk about Yang's unique mechanic. As stated earlier, I think elements from both Red XIII and Tifa work, so I'm trying to mesh them together. At the fundamental level, it works like Vengeance where blocking builds up a meter. However, this meter has several levels, much like Tifa's Chi or Cait Sith's moogle stuff. Obviously, building more levels increases the potency of the Burn Mode, which is functionally a super mode. I'm thinking maybe 3 levels? Like Red, Yang's attacks get a massive boost and increased range and the button used to transform is replaced with a new attack.

Unlike Red, this attack will drain the form's meter, similar to Tifa using up levels of Chi and falling to the lower level. Also, these levels drop quicker than Tifa's Chi or Red's Vengeance. This is just a byproduct of what I'm trying to achieve with Yang. While being a tank/dps hybrid can be a rather simple character, I want to give Yang's fighting game plan depth and complexity. Have her be able to fight smarter like in the show. It's why I want a healthy mix from both characters. Tifa's chi is cool, but you ultimately just spend all of it on a staggered enemy and there's no other uses for it as the buffs it gives you passively aren't enough to be worth considering, so Yang's Burn Mode needs to have passive benefits closer to Red's Vengeance than Tifa's Unbridled Strength. But it also needs to run out in a decent time frame to make spending Burn levels acceptable. I want that conflict of deciding whether or not using a level of burn for a potent attack is worth it. And similarly to Red, I want a lot of interplay between Yang's super mode and her abilities.

Abilities

I'm not going to make enough abilities to match the Rebirth characters. They have 10 abilities, which is an insane amount to be doing for 4 characters for a 'for fun' theory craft. There are certain requisite things Yang needs for abilities. For one, a rather standard damaging ability. You know, your Bravers, Divekicks, and Sidewinders. Likely some sort of punch. Easy enough.

Second thing, Yang's very block heavy, so like Cloud and Red, she gets an ability that puts her in a guard stance that builds up meter faster and is functionally a better guard. I call it Block Party, and no, I will not be using puns this entire section.

Most of Yang's abilities I want to play with Burn in some way to create that possibility for smart play while staying true to her fighting abilities. Dragon Throw is probably the ability that I've best made to fit this mold. In base, Yang grabs an enemy and chucks them at another enemy. In Burn, Yang instead grabs the enemy, and in true FF fashion, leaps into the air and comes crashing down on a different enemy. This gives Yang a repositioning tool without detracting from the brawler fantasy. I think this is also not out of the question as there's a few abilities in Rebirth that bring enemies closer, so I don't see any problem with just straight up manhandling them like this.

Meteor Impact is Yang's basic AoE attack where she slams the ground. It interacts with Burn the same way Dragon Throw does. While out of Burn, it's decent, but in Burn, it's range and power increases. It would be a simple and effective tool for people who like using Burn in a straightforward manner.

Bombshell is an ability that uses Burn meter the other way. You don't have to be in Burn mode to improve the move, the move will simply eat meter from Burn by default. Yang attaches sticky bombs to the enemy that go off the next time they're hit with an ability. The amount of stickies attached can be increased by holding down the command and spending meter. It's a move that has some thought that can be put in it. It doesn't deal immediate damage, so you have to either be willing to wait or have resources left over to set them off. You could attach bombs to an enemy and then Dragon Throw them to make them a living bomb. You can set them up when the enemies stagger is nearly complete so you can rebuild your ATB and resources and go for a truly devastating combo. You can go full throttle on the bombs or hold back so you can still enter Burn.

The next ability is one I really wanted to make once I had the concept of Yang down as a fighter with a lot of variability. Golden Glow takes inspiration from Unfettered Fury being a side grade to Unbridled Strength. It's an alterative to Burn. While Burn quickly burns out and has potent offenses, Golden Glow is a mode that lasts longer but instead focuses on Yang's defenses. While Yang mostly uses her semblance to attack, she's also used it a few times to take hits. An ability like this has lots of synergy with Yang's abilities that want her to be in her super form, but doesn't play as well with moves like Bombshell that prefer having meter being quick to build and spend rather than something long lasting.

Limits

Limits aren't hard to do, but I should still talk about them anyways. A solid chunk of Rebirth's cast has a basic Level 1 Limit, a Level 2 that increases stagger a lot, and a Level 3 which just does tons more damage. That's not to say all of them are like that. Red notably gets healing from his LB1 and a longer lasting mode from his LB2.

LB1 I'd make a basic damaging limit. It'd be just one big strong punch, like the one used against Junior in the Yellow Trailer, to mirror how quick a lot of the other LB1s are.

LB2 would put Yang in Burn with 1 extra level. If used while you have level 3, this would put you in the otherwise unreachable level 4. Because of course there's 4, this a RWBY character, I can't not slap the number 4 on things. I'd probably use a scene from the JL movie part 2 actually. The one where Yang activates her semblance, jumps up, and starts peppering the battlefield with gunfire. I just think it's good to have a little bit of variety between all the melee combat.

LB3, due to being a whole process to get up to, would be huge stagger increase and huge damage. It's meant to help end the fight, regardless of how the enemy is currently looking. I actually think I'd like her to do something new for this attack honestly. LB1 already uses something from the early RWBY days and LB2 uses more recent stuff, so there's a good spread of representation.