#in my defense i wanted to help max at all costs and it was worth it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bytheangell · 4 years ago

Text

Married to the Dark

( @shadowhunterbingo square: Vampire!Alec, Rated Teen, No Archive Warnings) (Read on AO3)

To say what follows Alec's suggestion of Simon turning him into a vampire is a ‘discussion’ is being generous. Everyone speaks at once, an overwhelming cacophony of voices trying to be heard over each other. When they do unify to take turns it’s only to shout at Alec one at a time, to tell him over and over that he’s being drastic.

Like Izzy hadn’t almost been de-runed to protect Meliorn and save his life.

Like Jace and Clary haven’t put themselves in the position to die for each other more than once.

Like drastic measures for the ones they care about isn’t par for the course around here.

“Listen, Alec. I know you love Magnus. We all do, and so does he. No one expects you to do this just because you can. He’d never ask you to give up your life,” Jace argues.

“And I’d never ask him to give up his,” Alec counters, immediately on the defensive. “It hasn’t stopped him before.”

“At least take a night to think it over. We’ll reach out to every contact we have, every resource. Give us the chance to find another way,” Izzy pleads.

Alec’s tired. He’s so tired; tired of being afraid, tired of regretting the decisions that he’s made, tired of regretting the decisions he didn’t make, tired of constantly being at odds with everyone around him. He’s just tired. Too tired to argue any longer or shout back, even though he feels like he should be screaming right now, as loud and demanding as the thoughts in his head are.

Instead, he sighs.

“Fine. We’ll reconvene in the morning.” Alec chooses his words carefully, not agreeing to wait. He already knows that the moment they leave he’s going to march himself over to the Dumort to see if he can’t get some other vampire to agree in Simon’s place. The sooner he can get the others out of his hair, the sooner he can get started - he’ll need a few hours to set his affairs in order in case things go wrong.

Hell, he needs his affairs in order in case things go right. Because worst-case scenario he dies permanently, but best-case scenario he dies temporarily and comes back a vampire, and he needs to make sure things are in order for Izzy and Jace to take over in his stead, for the Downworlder Council to still run without him to helm it, and a number of other bureaucratic red tape issues that come to mind.

The group disperses, each of them giving Alec parting glances full of concern, and he does his best not to meet them with looks of bitterness and defiance. He knows they’re trying to look out for him but they don’t know what’s best for him. They don’t understand the desperation in his soul that tears him apart more and more every second he fails to save Magnus.

Alec knows what he needs to do. As the people closest to him leave the room Alec thanks them for being here for him, he thanks them for understanding, though they don’t realize he’s saying it in the hopes of them understanding what he’s about to do next. He hugs each of them goodbye - possibly for the last time - and tries not to show the sense of potential finality he feels with each lingering embrace.

“Alec?”

Simon’s voice startles Alec, so lost in his thoughts he didn’t realize the vampire hadn’t followed the others out of the room.

“Listen, I’m sorry I put you on the spot back there,” Alec says, coupling the words with another heavy sigh. Simon hates blood, and his own death and rebirth are still fresh enough to probably be pretty traumatizing to relive like this. And that’s outside of asking Simon to not only break the accords but to stand back and passively watch him die… it was impulsive and entirely out of line. An ‘I’m sorry’ really doesn’t cut it, Alec realizes, but he doesn’t have time for much else just then. “That was… it’s a lot.”

“You’re telling me,” Simon says, with a laugh that doesn’t quite sound genuine. A moment later the forced smile fades entirely into a deep-set frown. “You’re doing this tonight, aren’t you?”

“Simon…”

“Don’t lie to me, Alec. Those were goodbyes.” Simon doesn’t phrase it as a question.

“Yeah, they were,” Alec answers anyway. “Obviously, I don’t expect you to be the one to do it. I’ll find someone else, just don’t tell the others.”

“That’s the thing,” Simon says. “I don’t want to, but I also don’t want you to go to anyone else. If you are going to go through with this… I’ll do it.”

“Really?” Alec feels hopeful for the first time since Magnus left.

“But you need to really think about it because this isn’t some solution you run with on a whim. Most of the vampires I know never would’ve chosen this life. I know I wouldn’t have.” It’s strange to hear Simon so serious.

They haven’t talked about Clary’s decision to bury Simon as a group since it happened. Alec assumes he and Clary have, but Alec isn’t particularly close with either of them. Instead of finding Simon’s doubt that he’s thought this through annoying, Alec takes the concern to heart.

“Do you regret it?” Alec asks. This isn’t a conversation he particularly wants to have, but it’s one he knows he should before he finalizes the decision he’s already entirely set on in his mind.

“Sometimes,” Simon admits. “Sometimes I’m pretty sure I won’t last long after all of you… after you’re gone.”

There’s a heavy pause, and Alec wonders if Simon’s ever told that to anyone else before.

“I’m not telling you not to do it. I just… I want to make sure you really think about it. I guess that’s my duty as the resident immortal while Magnus is gone.” Simon manages a half-hearted huff of a laugh.

Alec nods. “I know what it means for me. And for my family. I don’t even know if Magnus would stay with me afterward if I did it… if it works. That’s how I know I’m serious about it - because I’d still do it to save him, even if he leaves me for it.”

Alec knows the truth of it. He doesn’t have any rose-colored mental images of riding off into the immortal sunset with Magnus on the other side of all this. But at least the choice is his alone this time, unlike the deal with Asmodeus - whatever happens to the two of them afterward is Magnus’ decision, for better or worse.

One thing is still the same: he’d do anything to save Magnus, even if he loses him in the fallout.

“Tell me you wouldn’t do the same to save Clary. Or your sister.” Alec challenges, desperate for Simon to see his side of this, to agree without a fight, and maybe even help him convince the others that it’s a risk worth taking.

“Of course I would,” Simon agrees, after only a moment’s pause.

“What about Izzy?” Alec knows he has no right to ask, especially not now, but he can’t help it.

Simon tenses at the question.

“I know the two of you are… new. But if I do this and things go sideways… look out for her for me, will you? Promise you’ll be there for her, and Jace, too?”

“You want me to kiss Jace?” Simon asks, and though he tries to force the light tone of a joke it’s tainted by the weight of their topic of conversation.

Alec rolls his eyes.

“I’d say that I would, but if you die and I’m the one who killed you, I can’t imagine I’m going to be much comfort,” Simon points out.

“Fair,” Alec agrees, once more aware of the weight of what he’s asking Simon to do and the position he’s putting the vampire in. “But try anyway?”

Simon nods in silent agreement.

“Listen, Simon. I get it. The concept of immortality, the idea of abandoning the life I was raised in by turning myself into one of the things I was raised to hunt? It fucking terrifies me. But if it’s my only way into Edom before it’s too late to save Magnus then I’m going to do it. Maybe it’s foolish and reckless, and the biggest mistake of my life - but it’s mine to make.”

Alec watches Simon shuffle around a bit, bouncing his weight from one foot to the other while avoiding Alec’s gaze. After bouncing back and forth between desperate pleading and trying to force himself to stay calm enough to hold a rational conversation about his own life and potential immortality, Alec knows there’s a lot here to process. This isn’t a decision to be made lightly for either of them.

“Alright,” Simon says finally, more to himself than to Alec. “Fuck. Alright. We’re doing this. Let’s do this.”

Alec’s heartbeat doubles in speed at those words, the anticipation and anxiety ramping up immediately. They’re really going to do this. He’s really going to do this.

“Give me… two hours. I have some things I need to do first,” Alec says.

“Sure. That gives me time to get what I need, too,” Simon says. Alec doesn’t ask what he’s going to say to get the blood bags Alec will need when (if) he turns. He has enough to worry about on his end of things.

Simon’s nearly to the door when he stops and faces Alec again. “And to answer your question… I would. I’d do it to save Izzy’s life, too.”

Alec smiles at that, his first genuine smile since everything fell apart.

Izzy will have Simon. Jace has Clary. Maryse has Luke. Max has all of them. Alec’s decision sits a little easier knowing those who would feel his loss the hardest would be taken care of in his absence, should things go wrong.

Something in Alec settles with that reassurance, and he feels a renewed confidence that things are falling into place because this is the right call. He can do this. He has to do this because the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about.

So Alec gets to work, comforted by the knowledge that everyone he cares about has a person who cares about them just as much, someone he’s certain would protect them at any cost.

Alec has one, too - and now it’s time to go save him.

#alec lightwood #simon lewis #malec #sizzy #shadowhunters #shbingo #hmdiscord #a little 'what if' of Alec deciding to go through with the impulsive idea of turning himself into a vampire to save Magnus #with a touch of sizzy feels for good measure #elle writes a few deadbeat lines #long post

59 notes · View notes

murasaki-murasame · 3 years ago

Text

After what’s felt like a billion events dedicated to Emile’s redemption arc, he’s now finally available, in pog gala form! [Along with another event involving his redemption arc, lmao]

So anyway I went ahead and summoned for him, and here’s how that went :)

The TL;DR is that I had to spark for him [which tbh I deserved after how good my luck’s been over this holiday season], but I had more than enough for that so it wasn’t a big deal, and it was actually a really good spark, all things considered.

I think at this point I only have a little over 20 permanent adventurers and a handful of dragons that I’m missing, but along the way to sparking Emile I managed to get Summer Chelle, Humanoid Jupiter, Sharpshooter Sarisse, and High Chthonius, who were all new, so that’s exciting. Especially since Summer Chelle would have been in the running for my next dream summon. The rest are whatever, but the novelty of getting multiple new off-banner 5-stars at this stage in the game is really cool.

I think I started off with a little over 400 summons, since after doing the spark [and doing some of the new event], I’m at around 110 summons. So I’m probably gonna be skipping Valentines unless I want to deplete my entire emergency stash, but I can probably live with skipping it.

I haven’t had the time to play around with Emile yet, so I can only speculate about how good he is, but on paper he seems extremely good, and the showcase video they posted on twitter helped confirm some of my hopes about how his kit works.

Like, I wasn’t entirely sure how his ego gauge mechanic would work in practice, but it looks like it’s literally just the skill reservoir mechanic that Alex and Audric have, and he can indeed spam his skills three times in a row if he has max gauge. So as long as he has people on the team to enable team level 3 amps, and assuming his gauges charge as fast as other skill reservoir characters, he should easily be able to reach and maintain high amp levels.

It’s making me a lot more tempted to dream summon Sandalphon, since I think she’s the only source of team level 3 defense amp in water, and she’s probably be better than DY-Lily for endgame content. But we’ll see how that goes. Now that I have S-Chelle, the list of units I’d be interested in dream summoning is pretty small.

His amp skills also seem to work based on a large semicircular AoE in front or behind him, so you probably don’t need to be very precise to get them to work properly, which is nice.

Going by what I’ve seen of datamines, his ‘dragondrive’ is in practice a nuke with 10,000% skill damage mods, which sounds extremely good on paper. The animation is kinda long, but I don’t think it’s any longer than something like Catherine’s S2, so it’s still probably worth using. Either way, it basically seems like it’s an extra damaging skill on top of everything else in his kit, at the expense of not being able to shapeshift, which sounds like a good trade-off.

And then there’s the fact that he’s heavily built around shared skills, since he has enough shared skill points to equip any pair of them that he wants, all damaging shared skills inflict frostbite [which also seems to last 42 seconds, going by datamines, which seems really good], and they all have a 150% damage multiplier applied to them, which when you factor in the damage reduction for shared skills probably ends up being a 75% increase over the original damage mods of the skills, which seems extremely good, especially since he can get 46% skill haste from just his own kit, which should mostly balance out the high SP costs of most shared skills.

It’s hard to tell what’ll be ‘optimal’ for him in terms of shared skills, but in a broad sense I think the best part of this is how flexible it makes him. You can go for the highest damaging skills you can find, or you can give him skills that inflict multiple afflictions to set up a multi-punisher comp, or you can give him two healing skills, or you can give him doublebuff-enabling skills, or cheap dispel skills, or so on. He seems like he can fill basically any role that needs to be filled in your water team.

That flexibility also makes him feel very future-proof, since he’ll always be able to fill some kind of role, even if certain things become less or more important over time, and if we get entirely new mechanics introduced in the future [like overdamage or amps] that you can use via shared skills, that can let him find a place in future meta comps as well.

At worst, we might somehow reach a point where amps become useless, but even if you ignore his two main skills, you still have his shared skills, and his dragondrive nuke, so it’s hard to imagine him ever being totally invalidated. Unless we get other water units in the future with this exact same mechanic, lol.

All in all, I really love how his entire kit is themed around his personality. It’s very gimmicky, but in a way that works out to be very strong, and it makes him extremely unique.

Also, in other recent news, Sarisse’s spiral looks extremely good, but I don’t have as much to say about it, since it’s not quite as weird or new as Emile’s. I do have the whole Exodia comp so I might not have any real reason to invest in her, but I’m really curious about the idea of replacing Laxi with her, and replacing K-Elly with Y-Cleo, so I can see if I can get both team level 3 strength and defense amps going at the same time. It’d at least make endgame flame fights a lot more lenient if I can make that work, even if it might lower my damage.

I’m slightly bitter that they seem to be holding back Phares and Valyx to release them in a prize showcase or something after this, but oh well. I cared a lot more about getting Emile, so I’m content with how things turned out.

#murasaki rambles #dragalia lost #my little scrunkly scrimbo (shakes him violently)

2 notes · View notes

ljreflet · 3 years ago

Photo

Mercenary/Myrmidon/Dread Fighter Delthea (Guide/Analysis)

Growths

HP: 30%

ATK: 65%

SKL: 40%

SPD: 60%

LCK: 40%

DEF: 15%

RES: 4%

Analysis

Delthea has the misfortune of being Alm’s Est, the archetype of which a unit joins extremely late into the game with amazing growth rates, yet is extremely underleveled with low base stats.

Delthea boasts the highest attack growth in the whole game, and has arguably the best offensive growths out of any unit, with 70% in attack and 55% in speed, but is somewhat hindered by her low 35% skill growth. But being a mage at base means that her low skill is somewhat irrelevant due to magic having set hit rates.

However her growths are purely offensively-oriented, having among the worst defensive growths at 30% HP and 20% defense, tied with Genny (barring Nomah and Mycen).

Regardless, Delthea can be an offensive nuclear magic powerhouse if given time to grow. But by the virtue of the Est-archetype, she hardly has any time to grow.

Delthea is a very high-investment unit should you want to use her. However, she does prove to be a potent fighter if given the time and effort.

Now, if you do invest time in her, then reclassing her into a Mercenary is definitely something to be considered.

Mage isn’t a bad class for her at all, it’s actually a great class for her since magic is always useful in the game. However, the Mercenary line does offer a few things that being a Mage doesn’t.

One of biggest problems that mages have is being locked to 4-move throughout the whole game. Having 3-range spells helps, but Delthea doesn’t have that. Once promoted to Dread Fighter, she will be able to jump into the frontlines with 7-move on top of her monstrous attack and speed growth, proving to be a highly potent frontliner.

Apotrope on top of Delthea’s stellar base resistance means she’ll be near 100% immune to all magic attacks, making her the perfect counter for enemy mages--including bosses like Jedah. Her HP will be slightly more improved as a Dread Fighter, however her defense will remain as low as ever-which can be a drastic problem if fighting physical units.

Another plus to the Dread Fighter line is that she will have access to the Dread Fighter-loop, meaning she’ll be able to revert to Villager at level 10. Of course, her late join will mean that this may be unlikely, but it is something that can be of use if you would like to bring her into postgame.

A huge drawback to Dread Fighter Delthea is that she has to be a frontliner due to most--if not all--swords being locked to 1-range. Despite having amazing resistance, the Dread Fighter line does nothing to fix her survivability against physical enemies and being on the frontlines will leave her highly exposed. Despite this, the fact that Dread Fighter grants her an amazing speed stat, she will have a pretty good avoid-rate which can definitely help her survivability.

Overall, Delthea is a min-maxed offensive nuke that can deal crazy amounts of damage, but at the cost of her defenses. But her high resistance base combined with Apotrope will make her immune to almost all magic, making her one of the best mage-counter units as a Dread Fighter. However, her performance is heavily reliant on investment, and choosing to reclass her as a late-recruit does pose a high opportunity cost for the heavily contested Villager Pitchforks.

My Personal Experience

Kind of like what I said just above, I did have to think a good deal about if I wanted to use a pitchfork on Delthea. Around the middle of the game I was considering reclassing Boey since he was falling behind with his low movement and terrible speed, but ultimately I chose to hand it over to Delthea since I wanted a female Dread Fighter LOL.

True to her archetype, she did require a LOT of time and effort. I even turned to buying the DLC-exp maps just to train her up to put her on par with the rest of my party.

But man, it was pretty worth it LOL. It’s no question that she had the highest attack stat out of my whole team (she does have the highest growth), but somewhere out there, I knew Mila was watching over me cause I managed to get a Ladyblade in the Astral Temple around the time she joined LMAOOOOO.

Seriously, the Ladyblade was MADE for Delthea LOL. My gods, was her damage complete overkill. But I’m seriously glad I invested my time in her because she was a little monster with her damage and speed. I fortunately didn’t have a problem with her defenses since she usually managed to kill before she got killed, and she has good speed so her dodge rate was really high.

Arcanists, Witches, Cantors, and even Jedah stood no chance against the force that is Ladyblade-Dread Fighter-Delthea.

If you’re willing to put your time into Delthea and even gamble on her defenses, I definitely say give this build a shot ! Otherwise, the Archer line may be another build to consider to keep her away from the front.

#fire emblem #fire emblem echoes: shadows of valentia #fe15 #delthea fire emblem #mercenary #myrmidon #dread fighter #ladyblade #analysis #guide

4 notes · View notes

grailfinders · 4 years ago

Text

Fate and Phantasms #115: Sakata Kintoki (Rider)

This time on “Fate and Phantasms”: We’re always trying to make the best build possible. Little do we know that we’re about to face our greatest challenge yet: building a goddamn motorcycle. Join us as we build: Sakata Kintoki (Rider)!

(As usual, his build breakdown is below the cut, or you can check out his character sheet over here!)

Next up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8WvSGNEV24

Race and Background

Yes, we’re still doing that bit from the first time. This means Kintoki’s still a Golden Dragonborn, gaining +2 Strength and +1 Charisma. This also gives you a fiery Breath Weapon once per short rest and Fire Resistance. That’s not very in character, but you’re gold, and that’s good enough!

As a motorcycle delinquent/Kamen Rider expy, you’re a Folk Hero, giving you proficiency with Animal Handling and Survival. You can literally talk to animals. Handling them shouldn’t be an issue.

Ability Scores

You’re pretty strong, which is probably why your Strength should be as high as possible. Your preferred method of fighting is crashing into people with your motorcycle, so your Constitution should be pretty high as well. Third is Charisma- bad boys are in these days. Your wisdom isn’t that bad, we’ll need it for multiclassing and also you know animals well enough to speak to them. Your Dexterity isn’t great; despite wearing leather armor, your main defense is your bike being faster than the enemies. Finally, we’re dumping Intelligence. Changing classes didn’t turn you into a professor.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: Getting your ride is our top priority, but that’ll take a couple levels. In the meantime we should make sure you’re at least a bit competent off the bike. Your fighting style is Unarmed Fighting, giving your unarmed strikes more power and letting you deal damage by grappling. I’d think grappling someone and running your bike would already deal damage, but now it’s RAW. You can also use your bonus action to gain a Second Wind for a smoke break.

You also get proficiency with Strength and Constitution saves, as well as Intimidation and Athletics. Bikers are scary, man.

2. Bard 1: Okay, now we can get that bike. If you want justification for the class, you did mistake the Rider class for Kamen Rider, so there you go. You’re powered by Saturday morning kid’s shows.

Becoming a bard gives you one skill proficiency of your choice- I’m gonna say Insight. You look like you can read the room pretty well. You can also cast Spells using your Charisma, and you can give Bardic Inspiration to another creature as a bonus action a number of times per long rest equal to your charisma modifier. This is a d6 that the creature can add to an attack roll, skill check, or saving throw within the next ten minutes. You’re a nice guy like that.

This Kintoki’s a bit more thunder than lightning, so for your spells grab Thunderclap and Thunderwave to stay on brand, Friends and Animal Friendship to talk to squirrels, and Heroism and Longstrider to protect your wheels and give them a nitro boost.

3. Bard 2: Second level bards are Jacks of All Trades, giving you half your proficiency bonus on any skill check you’re not proficient in. This includes initiative, so even with your +0 dexterity modifier you can be a bit faster out the gate. You also gain a Song of Rest for extra healing over short rests if you like that sort of thing.

Also you can Speak with Animals now, so they can tell you how much faster you are than them.

4. Bard 3: Time to make some golden creations! As a Creation bard, you’ll find your inspiration dice are a bit more golden thanks to your Note of Potential, gaining extra effects. If used on an ability check they can roll twice and take the higher number, on an attack roll they force an constitution save (DC 8 plus your proficiency plus your charisma modifier) or creatures around them take thunder damage, and if used on a saving throw the creature gains a bit of temporary HP.

The bigger draw this level, however, is the Performance of Creation. As an action, you can create a medium or smaller item worth less than 20 times your bard level in GP. It lasts a number of hours equal to your proficiency bonus, and you can use this once per long rest, or by burning a second level spell slot to use it again. It’s not enough to make a motorcycle just yet, but you can at least make that cool belt buckle.

Finally, you get Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency bonus. I’d go with Athletics and Animal Handling. You’ll need some lower body strength to hang onto your bike while fighting.

You can also cast second level spells now, like Enhance Ability to give a creature advantage on a kind of skill check. Give yourself a constitution boost to help with those Thousand Mile Drives.

5. Bard 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to round out your Strength and bring your Wisdom up to multiclassing minimums.

You can also cast Mending for another way to fix up your bike, or Shatter to break everything else.

6. Bard 5: At fifth level your inspiration becomes d8s, and you become a Font of Inspiration. This means you regain inspiration dice on short rests as well as long ones.

To celebrate, you learn how to put on a proper tokukatsu Motivational Speech from Acquisitions Incorporated, giving up to five creatures temporary hit points, advantage on wisdom saves, and advantage on its next attacks after its hit. The spell ends on a creature once the hit points are removed, otherwise it lasts for an hour.

7. Bard 6: Now we’re cooking! Now you can finally use an Animating Performance to make your motorcycle, a large Dancing Item. The item stays dancing for an hour, and you can use your bonus action to command it. You can animate an object once per long rest, or by burning a 3rd level spell slot to do it again. Plus, your Performance of Creation can make large items now, so a motorcycle is totally on the table!

The movement speed on a dancing item’s only 30′ which isn’t ideal, but on the plus side your bike can fly, so... I’d say it balances out the cool factor.

Sadly bards don’t get Haste, but if we can’t speed up your bike, at least we can Slow down your enemies.

Oh yeah, you also get Countercharm, spend an action to give allies advantage against being charmed or frightened, not really great but you can always use it for an “I know you’re in there” fight.

8. Fighter 2: Now that that detour’s out of the way, we can get back to fighting. Second level fighters get an Action Surge, tacking an extra action onto your turn once per short rest. Cast two spells, multitask with healing and hitting, or just hit people over and over again. It’s pretty versatile.

9. Fighter 3: Cavaliers get an extra skill proficiency, and Performance will really help you sell your Kintoki action figures. You’re also Born to the Seat, giving you advantage against falling off your mount and mounting/dismounting your cycle only costs 5′ of movement.

As a hero of justice, you can also apply an Unwavering Mark to a creature when you hit them that lasts until the end of your next turn. If the marked creature is within 5′, it will have trouble hitting other creatures, and if it still does you can make a special attack against the creature next turn as a bonus action. The attack has advantage, and deals extra damage as well. You can make these attacks a number of times per long rest equal to your strength modifier.

10. Fighter 4: Speaking of advantage and being good at riding things, use this ASI to become a Mounted Combatant, giving you advantage on attacks against creatures smaller than your mount, the ability to redirect attacks to you instead of your mount, and giving your mount evasion, meaning it takes half damage on a failed dexterity save and no damage on a success.

11. Fighter 5: Fifth level fighters get an extra attack each attack action. It’s not very complicated, but it is very useful.

12. Cleric 1: Your dad’s a god, you get more thunder powers. As a cleric, you can cast and prepare spells using your Wisdom. As a Tempest Cleric, you can channel the Wrath of the Storm. When a creature within melee range hits you with an attack, you can react to blast lightning or thunder back at them with a dexterity save attached. You can use this a number of times per long rest equal to your Wisdom modifier. (So if you’re using the standard array, once.)

You can also cast Thaumaturgy for more dramatic entrances, Resistance so you’ll wipe out less often, and Light because every motorcycle needs a headlight. You can also kick up some dust with your domain spells, Fog Cloud and Thunderwave. You already have a better thunderwave from your bard levels, but hey why not be redundant.

13. Cleric 2: Second level clerics can Channel Divinity in two ways. You can either Turn Undead to make walking corpses into running... away from you... corpses... (not my best work), or you can channel it into Destructive Wrath, allowing you to deal maximum damage when you deal lightning or thunder damage. Your spells are pretty low level, so the extra efficiency is appreciated. You can use this once per short rest, or you can burn your channel divinity use to Harness Divine Power, refilling a spell slot that’s less than half your proficiency modifier as a bonus action.

14. Fighter 6: Use your next ASI to boost your Charisma for stronger spells and more inspiration.

15. Fighter 7: As a more seasoned cavalier, you could react to add a bonus to a nearby allie’s AC when they’re being attacked a number of times per long rest equal to your Constitution modifier. You could, but unfortunately Warding Maneuver requires a melee weapon or shield, and you do things barehanded.

16. Fighter 8: If your hands are going to cause you this much trouble, they’d better be good at their job. Use this ASI to max out your Strength so they’re great at their job.

17. Fighter 9: Ninth level fighters are Indomitable, letting you re-roll a failed save once per long rest. You probably shouldn’t use this on your intelligence saves, you’re not making those either way.

18. Fighter 10: Tenth level cavaliers actually get something we can use, the ability to Hold the Line. This means your opportunity attacks can activate on a creature moving within your reach, and they also reduce the target’s speed to 0 on hit. A good hero keeps the villains focused on them.

19. Fighter 11: We’re almost done, but first you get another Extra Attack for even more punching goodness.

20. Fighter 12: Use your capstone ASI for more Constitution to get more HP and better concentration. You only have so many spells, you’ve got to make the most of them.

Pros:

Thanks to Animating Performance, you can literally make your motorcycle out of anything, as long as its large enough to ride. It also means you’ve got a flying bike, though if you want to keep it closer to canon you could flavor it as having the ability to ride up walls.

You can deal very consistent damage thanks to your high number of attacks and free advantage from mounting your bike. You’re also able to make your limited spell slots count, maximizing their damage with channel divinity.

Your skills as a cavalier make you good at getting enemies’ attention and keeping it away from squishier party members. Mix in a bit of healing from your cleric levels, and you can be a surprisingly good tank in a pinch.

Cons:

You like to ride on things, and you also use a lot of spells with indiscriminate damage. That’s not a good combination, especially since your bike is a construct.

Having, at best, a leather jacket and a +0 to dexterity means your AC is pretty low. Your best defense is not being near the enemy when they get a chance to hit back.

Having to command your bike eats up all your bonus actions, meaning you’ll have to chose between using your unwavering mark or riding.

#Fate Grand Order #FGO #D&D 5e #Kintoki rider #Fate and Phantasms #Cleric #Fighter #Bard

25 notes · View notes

books-are-my-life-stuff · 3 years ago

Photo

Seven win streaks now, which was already higher than my previous gauntlet run. I’ll try to get at least three more wins, but if I cannot do it, then that’s fine. I could start farming. I’m already satisfied that I could reach this far.

First Moltres Team: So, I just realized the reason why Siebold needed to be EX for this team to be successful. It’s not his nuke, he could deplete Moltres’ second health bar even without EX. It’s also not his survivability, because he’s very tanky for a striker and could heal himself. The problem lies at his Water Pulse. Finishing Moltres’ first health bar before it sync-ed for the second time is needed, and without the stat boosts from 20/20, he just couldn’t do it.

As a comparison, 5* Siebold without EX, after Leaf’s EX sync buff and capped Special Attack with constant crits, couldn’t even reach 2k per Water Pulse, under rain. With EX, he could constantly reach 2k-2.5k-ish in the same condition. That damage difference is crucial in completing Moltres’ first half bar on time. Another comparison is that his second health bar nuke without EX is around 44k, while with EX it’s 53k, that’s a lot of damage difference. Both still nuked second health bar in one sync, but the phases before and after with lackluster Water Pulse damage without EX were painful. With EX, he’s more consistent in his DPS.

He had Foul Fighting on his grid, and having that with Tech Blastoise’s Aggravation 2 Water Pulse will significantly increase his Water Pulse damage, but taking that means cutting down his sync nuke, and there’s a likely chance he couldn’t nuke Moltres’ second health bar without his complete sync multipliers. I didn’t want to risk that.

So, yeah. Siebold is actually pretty good against Moltres, but EX-ing him is required for consistent result.

Leaf also got somehow lucky at flinches, but that’s at the cost of MPR at Potion not proc-ing at all. She spent two of them to keep Tech Blastoise and herself alive. Thankfully, it’s enough.

Latias: I talked about this team here and that’s it. This team is great. While Oak lacked recovery to be a proper tank other than First Aid, he at least tanked much better than Falkner. 308 on all stats except for HP (it’s around 400-ish) at 5* 0/20 is much higher than Falkner’s defensive stats under the same condition. Coupled with Swift that never missed and Unfortuitous to counter Latias’ gimmick, he’s basically the F2P Latias counter. And if you wanted him to nuke, you could do that too because he also had the multipliers available in his grids. Oak is very great and he’s worth my investments.

I’m actually quite proud of this clear, for once I don’t suck at team building. In hindsight I should have given the Psychic gears to this team to help Oak’s survivability, though.

Uxie: This team was a walk in the park. The only scary thing was Sycamore receiving 550 damage from supereffective Iron Tail, but as long as he has Impervious, he could regain his loss health with Horn Leech and be immortal as always. BP Erika is such a reliable status and trapper as well even at 4*.

Thanks to the Psychic gears, that gave a lot of boost on Giovanni’s special attack and helped his defenses as well. His pre-mega special attack with level 15 Psychic gears was around 580-ish. Since the Mega Evolution granted him around 103 special attacks (in max potential and level 140), that means with gears, his post-Mega special attack would be around 683, that’s pretty close to 700 (unless my calculation is wrong, I’m bad at math okay)! That’s nuts. Add Sycamore’s max Special Attack boost from Geomancy and with constant statuses from BP Erika, he basically speedran Uxie’s stage. Even when Uxie gained immmunity, Giovanni was strong enough to brute force the 40% damage reduction anyway.

I think I’ll use this team to farm Uxie instead of the Piercing Blows (N & Zekrom) team.

Second Moltres Team: This team continued to be great and sustained very well, though it had one catch that I just realized: SS Blue had to proc his trainer move MPR at least once, to offset the speed debuffs from Moltres. Plus, in this scenario, SS Blue also needed to DPS as well alongside Misty to finish the fight on time with his Hydro Cannon. I found that out by failing my first attempt with this team because he didn’t proc his trainer move and this team had to deal with severe gauge issues.

Once he proc-ed his trainer move MPR at least one time, SS Blue and Misty could go ham and spammed high-gauge damaging moves. Winona unfortunately wasn’t really lucky at flinches, but she survived and that’s all that matters. Hydro Cannon, boosted with rain, Smart Cookie, and Raging Rain 3, dealt pretty great damage even without super effective. It’s only 2-3k below Misty’s Hydro Pump with Smart Cookie and Critical Strike.

Even without rain (in second health bar and last half of third bar), SS Blue still could deal great damage with his Hydro Cannon, and combined with Misty and Starmie, could outdamage Moltres’ healing. It’s a very fun time for support to be able to deal great damage, just like how I used SS Elesa as electric DPS back then, and how I still occasionally used Hop as Steel-type DPS to this day.

Team Fist Bump and Team Triage Tank, while unreliable, could also mean the team’s survival, especially during second health bar where Moltres could constantly land a burn, and waiting for Healing Hand 2. 2/5 SS Blue could do this, I used 2/5 SS Blue in my first attempt a while back before Gauntlet, but 3/5 is just more consistent with Impervious, Raging Rain, and Team Triage Tank.

I really like this team. I had a lot of fun, and I’m grateful to Zinfogel to recommend this team.

#personal #pokemon masters #even though this gauntlet was much harder than the previous one #but my team has significantly grown since the last time #and i'm really happy that i could get this far

1 note · View note

prettycottonmouthlamia · 4 years ago

Text

Mata Hari Analysis: Because I LOVE HER

By god if there’s any of my analyses that get numbers please let it be this one, I’m very passionate about my appeals that Mata Hari is actually a very usable Servant, especially comparatively to other 1-stars.

Mata Hari Assassin Max HP: 6,565 Max ATK: 5,377 (Effective ATK: 4,839) Attribute: Man Star Absorption: 98 Star Generation: 24.6% NP Charge ATK: 2.1% NP Charge DEF: 4% Death Rate: 55% Traits: Female, Humanoid, Servant, Weak to Enuma Elish

QQQAB Quick = 2 hits, Arts = 1 hit, Buster = 1 hit, Extra = 3 hits Quick: 4.2%, Arts: 2.1%, Extra: 6.3%

Espionage A++: Increases own critical star generation rate for 3 turns. (10 -> 30%) Cooldown: 7 -> 5 turns

Pheromone B: Chance to Charm all Male enemies for 1 turn. (30 -> 60%) Reduces all enemies' defense for 3 turns. (10 -> 20%) Cooldown: 8 -> 6 turns

Double Cross B: Seals one enemy's skills for 1 turn. Reduces their defense for 3 turns. (10 -> 20%) Cooldown: 8 -> 6 turns

Mata Hari Arts Chance to Charm All enemies (40 -> 60%, NP Level) Reduces their attack for 1 turn. (20 -> 40%, OC) Reduces their defense for 1 turn. (20 -> 40%, OC)

Primary Role: DPS Support, Debuffer Secondary Role: Disabler

Mata Hari is one of my favorite Servants in the entire game, and not just because she's beautiful and I love her, but because she's a pretty competent Servant when used correctly. The key word there is correctly, and a lot of new players will end up overlooking Mata Hari because she doesn't play as simply as other Assassins do. She's not going to be as effortless to use as your Sasaki Kojirou and your Cursed Arm Hassans, but to a certain extent, it is understandable because DW has given her very little love. But that's okay, that's what we're here for.

Starting with her fundamentals, the first thing that will probably standout is her stats, which are pretty atrocious. Her HP is OK for a 1-star Servant, but she's not going to function as a tank any time soon, and her ATK is so low, especially with the Assassin ATK modifier, that she will struggle to deal any damage. Fortunately, Mata Hari is not really suited to tanking or attacking, and so largely her stats are mostly irrelevant. Her NP generation is actually quite standout, however, because of her very high base NP gain per hit. Her AQQ chain will generate on average about 44% of her NP gauge, which is quite standout, especially for a launch Servant. Even her QQQ chain has rather decent NP gain at 25%, especially since there are no Arts cards involved. However, when it comes to star generation, Mata Hari has a ton of problems. Her Quicks only have 2 hits which drastically limits her star generation potential. Her QQQ chain will generate 15 stars on average, and 25 with the Quick bonus, and with her 1st skill, she'll generate...18 stars on average. Without any star bombs like Sasaki Kojirou or Cursed Arm Hassan, she has no way to patch up her star generation. Even with maximum star generation though, she only has a potential maximum of 27 crit stars (6 + 6 + 6 + 9), or 37 with the Quick bonus. Low hit counts really suck kids.

Moving onto her skills, we first have Espionage, which is a borderline garbage skill. Star Generation buffs are nice, but 30% hardly moves the needle. All it does is give an extra 30% chance for a crit star. This is why the actually good star generation bonuses are much more often 50% or 100%. For Mata Hari's best chain this results in just a measly 3 extra crit stars, so this skill is only worth leveling if having a Servant at 1/10/10 gives you anxiety. Pheromones however is actually a pretty decent skill, having a moderate chance to Charm any Male enemies as well as reducing the defense of all enemies by 20%. The Charm chance is more of an added bonus, but the Defense down is what you're looking for the most here. This can be combined with Double Cross, which inflicts Skill Seal for 1 turn and reduces their defense by an additional 20%, and the gameplay strategy of Mata Hari might start to become clear. She's a Defense debuff stacker, and really more of a support Servant over anything else.

Mata Hari's NP is largely an optional bonus. It presents another moderate chance to charm, but this time its not gender locked, and she'll inflict an Attack and Defense down debuff to all enemies. This can be as strong as 40% with maximum OC, but it is extremely rare to get to that point or make it worthwhile, since the debuffs only last for 1 turn. Mata Hari doesn't need to use her NP to make an impact, but incorporating it into your strategies can be pretty helpful.

Mata Hari's role is to boost the damage of the team, and do largely little else. Due to this, her low stats don't really impact her, and in some cases, can be even beneficial. Since she's not going to do any DPS or real damage and she's not really meant to stick around for a long time, low HP and ATK will end up being okay. Of course, this also means that Mata Hari is a fairly inflexible Servant since she only does one thing really well.

Grails: Grails for a 1 star can be really important to cementing them amongnst competition. For Mata Hari however, this is largely just for love. It'll put her Max HP to 10,120 if you grail her all the way to Level 100, and her Max ATK to 8,355, or 7,520 effective ATK. Essentially, it allows her to stick along longer and have passable ATK.

Support Options: Supporting Mata Hari is...a choice, to be certain, but I salute you brave person for wishing to make a Mata Hari team actually work. You might want to grail Mata Hari just to make her a bit safer to use though. Since her NP generation is already pretty good, and her Defense debuffs will help sustain her damage enough, all she would really need is extra stars and added consistency to her Charms. Caster Gilgamesh can provide both of those, along with additional defense down and a source of DPS. Phantom of the Opera can also be used here, providing a massive, long lasting Debuff resistance down, Crit star regen for more crit consistency, and his own Charm with buff removal.

In reality, just use Mata Hari to boost the damage of your DPS.

Command Code: Since Mata Hari is mostly meant to be used asd a support, you can use some of the more supportive Command Codes like Bridge of White Rose or Jeweled Birds Coat of Arms. Command Codes that can generate critical stars ca be used to help out her star gen, and Command Codes that increase star absorption can be used to give her some extra help with NP. Command Codes that remove buffs from the opponent can also be useful, especially since they can be difficult to field on DPS with the large number of good DPS Command Codes.

Craft Essences: The biggest one out of the gate is GUDAGUDA Poster Girl, which will give Mata Hari 3 turns of taunt. This allows her to use her skills, tank a couple of hits and then make room for another Servant to continue the job. If you don't want her to just be a sacrifical pawn, you can use CEs such as Kaleidoscope or Demonic Bodhisvatta to abuse her NP. Even her Bond CE is pretty okay, since it'll boost the NP generation of allies as well. Fragments of 2030 can be used to provide an extra 8-10 crit stars, helping to even out her crit star generation for the team.

Competition: While Mata Hari is definitely not a DPS support on the likes of Waver, Merlin, Tamamo, or Skadi, the Servant she most faces competition with is Shuten Douji. Not only is Shuten of the same class, but her kit is extremely similar, just largely better. Howver, Mata Hari has a couple of things going for her. She fits much better into the support role than Shuten does, since Shuten not only has much better stats but also a hard defensive option, which means that playing Shuten as dedicated support means you're missing out. Shuten has the highest ATK of any Assassin currently in the game, and that shouldn't be neglected. But the biggest benefit of Mata Hari is cost, since she only costs 3 in comparison to Shuten's 16. Support Servants are overwhelmingly benefited by being in lower rarities if they aren't meant to also be defensive some way, and Mata Hari fits that bill extremely. Her low Cost means you can run more expensive Servants around her comapred to Shuten.

Pros: -While having a somewhat flawed kit, it is surprisingly synergistic and will allow her to pull her weight -NP generation is quite good, meaning that her NP is never too hard to access if desired -Low HP makes her a fantastic Poster Girl option -Low cost on a support Servant is amazing

Cons: -Very inflexible. She's only really useful as a support Servant without extensive help -Low stats mean she will struggle doing anything else, even if it makes her very good in her support role -Crit star generation is really bad for a triple Q deck -Charm chances are pretty bad, maxing out at only 60% -DW didn't give her an animation update for either Salem or Ooku or Ooku re-run so she still has magic orbs

I'm biased a bit towards low-rarity support Servants since they are the least hampered by their stats. Using Kojirou as DPS, Bartholomew to farm, or Spartacus to tank will always run into problems with their low stats: low ATK reduces their ceiling on their damage and low HP means they simply cannot take many hits. But for a Servant who can be considered "fire and forget" neither stat matters and its much more about kit and cost, which Mata Hari delivers.

This all being said, Mata Hari getting a buff would really not be a bad thing in the long run. Espionage is a terrible skill, Pheromones is not only outclassed by Shuten's 1st skill, it's also outclassed by Europa's version which also outclasses Shuten. Her NP could also use an upgrade, at the very minimum to extend the duration of her debuffs although it could also boost her Charm chance, similar to D'Eon.

You will love Mata Hari though, this is non-negotiable.

#fate grand order #fgo #fate series #mata hari #servant analysis #literally the most overlooked servant in the game imo

30 notes · View notes

theworldbrewery · 5 years ago

Text

multiclass your... MONK!!

patient defense. stunning strike. stillness of mind. deflect missiles. Monks are pretty dang badass all on their own. but you’re here because you want to take your badassery to the Next Level, am I right?

Monks tend to put their highest ability scores in dexterity and wisdom, wear no armor to get their bonuses to AC and movement, and get two attacks when they take the Attack action. You don’t get spellcasting (except the Way of the Four Elements does, kind of, and so does Way of Shadow, kind of) but why would you if you can cast fist? Let’s actually find out.

Monk + Barbarian

Unfortunately, one of your two first-level perks from this multiclass is useless to you, because Unarmored Defense doesn’t double-up. However, you’d still get to Rage. If you have a high strength and a high dex, this can work really well! You can apply Rage Damage to your monk weapon attacks (including unarmed strikes) as long as you used your Strength ability score to attack, not Dexterity. If you put your heart and soul into maxing out Dex and let strength fall by the wayside, this won’t work great. Extra perks include advantage on Dex saves against effects you can see and the classic Reckless Attack feature.

Monk + Bard

Knowing your class, it makes the best sense to opt for several strikes, including your bonus action unarmed strike, instead of casting a spell. Now, there are certainly times when a spell wouldn’t go amiss, but the trade-off costs are higher because you can cast 1 spell as an action, or you can make two attacks. And when you get to your use of Flurry of Blows, a single bonus action cantrip or spell... it just doesn’t pack the same punch. Most of the bard’s coolest features at early levels pale in comparison to what you can use your turn for.

Monk + Cleric

Here’s a caster combo I could see working out, but it all relies on your Divine Domain. A trickery cleric/monk combo can gain advantage on attacks using their duplicate, while a tempest cleric/monk can deal damage as a reaction to getting hit, and a death cleric can deal extra damage. Now, of course you can take a domain like Arcana or Knowledge that offers more roleplay benefits than combat ones, saving your spells for utility only.

Monk + Druid

This one is fine, but only fine. If your DM rules that your unarmed strikes aren’t possible while Wild-Shaped, it’s barely worth trying. Your spellcasting is utility at best, so you’d really rely on your wild shape. Now, two attacks while in wolf form is nothing to sneeze at--or three if it counts as a bonus action unarmed strike--but it’s starting to drift from the monk specialty, enough so that you’ll be trapped between two very different classes.

Monk + Fighter

*Chef’s kiss* perfect. A high level monk dipping into fighter is excellent, because you’ll snag a fighting style (I recommend archery if your monk does darts/throwing stars/etc. or dueling if you wield a single melee weapon) and Second Wind, which lets you regain HP. But at second level, things go wild. Because you’re a monk with 2 attacks per Attack Action plus Flurry of Blows to attack twice more, you can use the fighter’s Action Surge and make a total of six attacks on your turn. It’s a sweet deal.

Monk + Paladin

This could be almost as clutch as Monk + Fighter... if not for the tiny detail of monks having a 13 or higher in dex and wisdom, and a pally needs a 13 or higher in strength and charisma. If you miraculously pulled it off and had the stats you needed, congrats! You can use Lay on Hands as a last-ditch heal effort, adopt a fighting style (dueling is your only valid option here, unfortunately), and cast spells (and i’ll admit, the smites would be pretty cool as a monk). The problem here is actually that Monk and Paladin are two sides of a very cool coin, but their abilities overlap and diverge too much at the same time. A monk/paladin fusion would most likely get...confused.

Monk + Rogue

This is more like it! You’re dextrous, rogues are dextrous, it’s a win-win. And early-levels sneak attack might not be, like, insanely powerful, but imagine successfully Stunning an opponent on your first strike and dealing Sneak Attack on your second. The only shame is that if you pursue Cunning Actions, a few of your ki point options become redundant, but for you that’s sort of a perk? Because now you can save your ki points for more stunning strikes, more flurry of blows action, deflecting missiles, and using your monk order abilities.

Monk + Ranger

This combination is really a shoutout to monks who want to be better at non-combat stuff. Rangers will get you extra proficiencies and languages, bonuses to things like tracking enemies, and spellcasting you can use as new bonus actions in combat or as utility spells plus a fighting style (see my tips on the fighter entry above). It’s not perfect--spellcasting takes focus away from your ki point methods--but if you were going for a nature vibe but druid won’t work for you, ranger is a great option!

Monk + Sorcerer

The sorcerous origins are going to do right by you, trust me. Draconic Resilience ups your AC by three (and since it’s not technically Unarmored Defense, it should stack with your existing AC bonus); Divine Soul lets you add a bonus when you miss with an attack to improve your roll; Storm Sorcery gives you the ability to fly ten feet without provoking opportunity attacks. Spells might help you out a bit, but I’ll level with you--they’re not as beneficial to you as your ki points, and the sorcery points you receive at 2nd level won’t help you do your monk thing.

Monk + Warlock

The nice thing about the warlock is that you’re not going to struggle with whether or not to use a spell slot. Blow it on a nice Hex right up front and start attacking as normal. Use a ranged cantrip to deal damage (eldritch blast or toll the dead) when you have an enemy out of melee range and/or don’t want to provoke an opportunity attack. If you pursue eldritch invocations, use them to either amp up that eldritch blast or employ them in non-combat scenarios.

Monk + Wizard

I’ve said it before, Wizard is the toughest one to multiclass. You likely won’t gain many benefits from this except to use Absorb Elements and Shield (both of which are reactions that will help you out in battle without detracting from your attacks). Still, if you’re committed to it, there’s nothing actively wrong with this multiclass--it’s just way, way outside the typical Monk skillset, and can lead to some issues keeping up with your powerhouse of a party later on.

That’s it for the Monk multiclass tips! Next up, we’ll be discussing Sorcerers, those most flexible of casters.

If you enjoy our work, consider supporting us on Ko-Fi!

#dnd #d&d #dungeons and dragons #monks #multiclassing #rpgs

115 notes · View notes

somethingusefulfromflorida · 4 years ago

Text

United States TCG: Update

I’m creating a sort of parody trading card game where the monsters are the 50 states and DC, and I’m basing their cost, attack and defense stats on their area, population, and population density respectively. Larger states cost more to play, states with higher population can do more damage, and states with low population density are the best defended.

I created a spreadsheet of 2010 census data to visualize the stats for each card, dividing them into ten levels per stat. I wanted to see if the real-world figures are in any way balanced (I doubt it), so I threw together some quick mock ups of the cards to see how they compare to one another.

I’m gonna have to play with a lot of these numbers, because right off the bat we have some low cost cards that are WAY too powerful.

Cost 1

DC: Attack 1, Defense 1

Rhode Island: Attack 2, Defense 1

Delaware: Attack 2, Defense 2

New Hampshire: Attack 2, Defense 4

Connecticut: Attack 5, Defense 1

New Jersey: Attack 8, Defense 1

These all cost the same, but Connecticut is above the power curve, and New Jersey is off the charts. 8 attack? It costs 1, so on the first or second turn it would be going up against cards with like 1 or 2 defense max. It’s OP, so I either need to nerf it or give buffs to the other Cost 1 cards. DC is useless, 1-1-1, not even worth the paper it’s printed on.

Cost 2

Vermont: Attack 1, Defense 7

Hawaii: Attack 3, Defense 4

West Virginia: Attack 3, Defense 6

Maryland: Attack 7, Defense 1

Massachusetts: Attack 8, Defense 1

Why would anyone play Massachusetts for 2-8-1 when New Jersey is playable a turn earlier with 1-8-1? Maryland is even worse, 2-7-1 puts it well below the curve.

Cost 3

Maine: Attack 2, Defense 8

Kentucky: Attack 5, Defense 5

South Carolina: Attack 6, Defense 4

Tennessee: Attack 7, defense 4

Indiana: Attack 8, Defense 3

New Jersey is still the strongest card; going up two cost levels only gives Indiana a slight bump in Defense, but at this point attacks are getting strong enough to blast through 3 defense like it’s nothing anyway. Might as well go with 1 defense because it’s cheaper.

Cost 4

Mississippi: Attack 4, Defense 7

Alabama: Attack 6, Defense 5

Virginia: Attack 8, Defense 3

Ohio: Attack 9, Defense 2

Pennsylvania: Attack 9, Defense 2

We’ve finally reached stronger cards than New Jersey, but even then only slightly. Ohio and Pennsylvania are twins at 4-9-2, so what makes one better than the other? Is the extra attack point worth waiting three whole turns over New Jersey? Defense is still way too low, so why bother?

Cost 5

Arkansas: Attack 4, Defense 7

Iowa: Attack 5, Defense 7

Louisiana: Attack 6, Defense 6

North Carolina: Attack 9, Defense 3

New York: Attack 10, Defense 2

Attack has been maxed out at only level 5; why bother getting any cards higher than this if they’re not gonna be more powerful? Sure, their defense might be higher, but they cost more for the same amount of damage, so New York is clearly superior.

Cost 6

Missouri: Attack 7, Defense 6

Wisconsin: Attack 7, Defense 6

Georgia: Attack 9, Defense 4

Illinois: Attack 10, Defense 3

Florida: Attack 10, Defense 2

Illinois would have to have a good effect to make it better than New York, but Florida, my dear Sweet Home Florida, is functionally useless. Same attack, same defense, higher cost; it’s just a worse New York (as in real life; ZING). More twins with Missouri and Wisconsin; Maybe I should have a mechanic for cards to work together, because the next two on the list make a lot of sense.

Cost 7

North Dakota: Attack 1, Defense 10

South Dakota: Attack 1, Defense 10

Nebraska: Attack 3, Defense 9

Oklahoma: Attack 5, Defense 8

Washington: Attack 8, Defense 5

The Dakotas are identical, min attack, max defense, the toughest but weakest cards yet. Maybe the twin mechanic could work by states merging with their neighbors to become more powerful; that opens up a ton of combo potential, like Yu-Gi-Oh fusions monsters or Exodia,who knows. So far, cost 7 seems pretty useless compared to those that came below it.

Cost 8

Idaho: Attack 3, Defense 9

Kansas: Attack 4, Defense 8

Utah: Attack 4, Defense 9

Minnesota: Attack 6, Defense 6

Michigan: Attack 9, Defense 5

Idaho is a more expensive Nebraska, and nothing has yet to beat New York and New Jersey. Michigan comes close, but it’s weaker and more expensive, so it’s objectively inferior.

Cost 9

Wyoming: Attack 1, Defense 10

Nevada: Attack 4, Defense 9

Oregon: Attack 5, Defense 8

Colorado: Attack 6, Defense 8

Arizona: Attack 7, Defense 7

Wyoming is a more expensive Dakota! I’m gonna have to rethink the fundamental mechanics of this game, I don’t think I can just tweak it a little to fix all the gaping holes. It’s nowhere near balanced, with early and mid-game cards knocking late game cards out of the park.

Cost 10

Alaska: Attack 1, Defense 10

Montana: Attack 2, Defense 10

New Mexico: Attack 3, Defense 9

California: Attack 10, Defense 3

Texas: Attack 10, Defense 5

California and Texas could hold their ground against New York, but for twice the cost,they’re not worth it unless they have some really major buffs. California is only marginally better, with one extra defense point; pittance. Maybe I could balance things by doubling the attack scale from 10 to 20, but then I’d have to raise defenses to match this, and now we have post-war hyperinflation, whoops.

There are no easy solutions, the concept is fundamentally flawed. I may have to go back to the drawing board on this one. I like the idea of a state-based game, but maybe it would be better as a board game like Risk or Catan. If I want to stick to the TCG genre, it’s imperative that everything be balanced. I need to study Magic and Pokemon and Hearthstone to see how they handle their cost-to-attack ratios.

Even limiting myself to just 50 cards is proving harder than I thought, there’s no way I’d be able to balance every state from every census dating back to 1790 under my current plan. No sir, I need to rework this from the ground up.

Again, I’m open to any suggestions. Any game designers wanna help a noob out?

3 notes · View notes

therainroguefanfiction · 4 years ago

Text

🔥 ℝise Ⱥbove I̾t ◈ Chapter 022 [Winchester’s Starting Line]

📑 Table of Contents | ◂Backward

Word Count: 3,282

⊱ ────── {⋅. 🔥 .⋅} ────── ⊰

〈“You know you’re fighting in a losing battle, Making a noose out of your hollow crown. I hold a match up to your paper castle, and watch it all burn down.” Ellie Goulding, “Hollow Crown”〉

⊱ ────── {⋅. 🔥 .⋅} ────── ⊰

The smoke cleared and the boss was on the other end of the room, his body embedded in the back wall. The male standing in front of me was breathing heavily, sword poised in front of him in both hands. Wait, I recognize that mop of green hair!

“Izuku?”

He glanced over his shoulder, giving me a nervous smile. “H-Hi, Jen-san.” He was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt under a green vest. His hands were covered by gloves and he wore a brown utility belt around his waist, legs covered by blue pants. He’s also a swordmaster.

“Deku?! What the fuck are you doing here?!” Bakugo yelled, stomping over to the boy.

“U-Um, I… you looked like… you n-needed help…”

“Hah?! As if I’d ever need help from a nerd like you!”

“You say that, but Winchester would have been a goner if he hadn’t stepped in when he did.” Iida approached the two, dressed in a suit of armor, his helmet tucked under his arm. He’s the knight class.

“That’s her fault for being a fucking weakling!”

“Gee, thanks.” I rolled my eyes, coughing again.

“Don’t worry, Jen, I can heal you!” Ochaco smiled brightly as she kneeled beside me, dressed in a short tan dress with a red hood over her head. Black leggings covered her legs, disappearing into brown boots. She carried a wooden staff, her right hand wearing a red glove. She’s the mage class. Ochaco hovered her hand above my stomach and it started to glow purple before my health shot up. “There, all better!”

“Thanks,” I pulled myself to my feet, dusting off my pants.

Iida snapped his gaze to me. “Why are you here? You’re not even level fifty yet!”

My eyes narrowed. “I’m half a pubic hair from being fifty. Fuck you.”

His cheeks burned. “E-Either way, this area is far too advanced for you! Show some responsibility for your actions.”

“You know, you really fucking piss me off, Prep.”

“P-Prep? My name is -!”

“I don’t fucking care,” I scoffed. “Oi, Bakuhoe. You got five minutes to finish this bitch off before I call it quits. I’m fuckin’ hungry and now in a bad mood.”

“Che, don’t tell me what to do!” He turned his back to me. “Let’s go, shitty hair!”

“Right!” Kirishima blew smoke from his nose.

Izuku and Iida joined the fight, while Ochaco stuck close to me with a magical shield up in case the boss decided to attack me again. Ten minutes passed and Kirishima dealt the finishing blow with a swipe of his clawed hand. Or is it a paw? Dragons don’t have paws right? Feet? But that makes me think of the back legs not the front.

As the boss shattered, an annoying jingling started to go off in my ear like I had just won the fucking jackpot on a slot machine. My level shot through the roof, jumping from forty-nine to seventy-nine. My body feels lighter, stronger, and now I have a shit ton of power points to assign again. For fuck’s sake.

Kirishima’s body started to shrink back to human form and he fell back onto his ass, a bright grin on his face. “I can’t believe we did it! You’re super strong, Midoriya!”

The greenette flushed at the praise, not missing Bakugo’s glare. “N-No, I’m really not -”

“Of course he is!” Iida pushed up his glasses. “Not only is he max level, but he also has the legendary Allmiber!”

Allmiber? What, is that the fucking love child of All Might and Excalibur?

“How the fuck did you hit max level?! And where the fuck did you get the most OP weapon in the damn game?!” Bakugo demanded, trying to grab the front of Izuku’s shirt, but the anti-PVP system prevented him from doing so.

“That’s so cool!” Kirishima jumped to his feet, eyes sparkling. “Only five people in the entire game have managed to find Allmiber!”

“And you, shitty hair!” Bakugo’s vermillion eyes snapped to the red-head, pointing an angry finger at his face. “How the fuck are you a Dragonling?!”

“What’s a Dragonling?” Ochaco whispered from behind me.

Izuku answered, his eyes shining. “Dragonlings are the rarest race in the whole game! They can’t be chosen or even bought, you can only get it as a drop from a powerful boss. The drop rate itself is only .01% and the drop location changes every week. They say that Dragonlings are unbeatable because of their massive health bars and insane defense and armor. They’re also the only race in the game that can change their forms in battle! Their dragon forms have been called the gods of the game! Did you know that the creator -”

I glanced over my shoulder at him, sweatdropping as he continued to ramble on about the game. A simple, ‘it’s rare!’ woulda been fine, ya know. But Ochaco and Iida are listening intently to him, as usual, nodding their head every few words.

Kirishima laughed as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I was just killing some scarecrows for a quest and it dropped.”

“You got a Dragonling from a fucking level five quest?! I’ll kill you!”

My lips tugged down as I watched the two groups interacting with each other. Why do I feel a sudden pang in my heart? I cursed, turning toward the exit portal that had opened up after the boss with destroyed. It took me back to town and I quickly logged out of the game, pulling myself off the wooden floor and turning the console off. I can still hear Bakugo screaming over the phone and I hesitated.

Should I say something? I decided I didn’t want to bother them and just ended the group call without a word, glancing at the clock. Nine-thirty.

The front door opened and closed, Toshi stepped into the living room looking tired and ragged. He smiled when he saw me. “Hello, young Jen. What would you like me to make for dinner?”

I grunted, pushing past him before he could step into the kitchen. “I wanna work on my cooking skull. You don’t mind, yeah?”

He sent me a confused look, but it soon melted to one of warmth. “That’s fine with me. I’m guessing tacos since I lifted the ban?”

“Nah. I’m in the mood for some curry.”

“Oh…” he shifted in the doorway, watching me closely. “Is anything bothering you?”

I sent him a small smile. “I spent all day playing an RPG with Bakugo, so I’ve just got a bit of headache.”

He sweatdropped. “That’ll do it. I’m gonna go take a shower.”

My smile dropped as soon as the bathroom door closed. To be honest, I don’t really know why I’m suddenly feeling so… isolated and down, I guess? I don’t wanna worry him, especially when I don’t even technically know what my problem is. Thinking about it, a lot of time has passed since I came to this world, since I started at U.A.

While everyone else has been forging friendships, I’ve been too damn busy keeping people at a distance. I haven’t made any efforts at all. Bakugo only asked me to play with him because he had no one else, but now he knows that the golden trio and Kirishima also play. They don’t need a low level to babysit that knows nothing about the game.

I groaned, rubbing my forehead in frustration. “Why is this bothering me? Get a grip.”

⊱ ────── {⋅. 🔥 .⋅} ────── ⊰

My phone buzzed for the millionth time and I sighed, opening my messages. From Bakugo:

‘Where the fuck did u go?’

‘Oi, fuckin answer me’

‘…somethings wrong aint it?’

‘Stop fucking ignoring me!’

And from a number I didn’t recognize:

‘Hey Winchester! Got ur number from Bakugo!’

‘This is Kirishima btw’

‘Whyd u log out so suddenly? Everything ok?’

‘That sword u got is really cool btw, it costs a million gold!’

My brow furrowed. Why did he give my number to Kirishima? Why’d he want it in the first place? Are they really worried about me? And that sword… why did Bakugo give me something that’s worth so damn much? I don’t understand anything.

I sighed, throwing my phone onto the couch before plopping down onto the floor so I could put my sneakers on. I heard shuffling behind me as Toshi walked quietly down the hall, pausing when he noticed me.

“Young Jen, you’re up early!”

“Don’t sound so surprised, Toshi.”

“You’re never awake when I leave in the mornings.” He commented, sliding his feet into the over-sized loafers. He suddenly grinned, his body expanding as he took on his muscle form. “Shall I carry you to school today? Ahahaha!”

I rolled my eyes as I pushed the door open. “I’m not a kid, but I’m sure Izuku would take you up on that offer, though.”

He laughed again, closing and locking the door. “I’m sure he would! By the way, I wanted to thank you for befriending young Midoriya. I feel more at ease knowing that you’re there to watch his back.”

“I’d hardly call myself his friend,” I muttered under my breath.

“Hm? What was that?”

“I said you’re welcome.”

He smiled brightly, slapping my shoulder. “Be safe on your way to school, young Jen!” He kneeled down, kicking off the ground as he took to the sky. I waited until he was out of sight before starting to walk, stuffing my hands into my pockets.

It was still dark outside, the neighborhood peaceful as the residents slept. Crickets chirped tiredly in the distance, pausing when the wind blew through the trees. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always found solace in the darkness. I’ve always been a night owl, preferring to be awake through the night rather than during the day. Maybe it’s because I hate the sun, or maybe it’s because there are fewer people around at night… I don’t really know the reason. This little strip of time before the sun starts to rise makes me feel at peace.

I took my time walking to school and the sun was just starting to glare over the horizon as I walked through the archway, casting shades of orange and purple across the sky. It was beautiful, sure, but I ain’t fond of the sun.

I entered the school building, heading for class 1-A. The room was empty and, for a minute, I just stood in the doorway. It felt weird without the loud chatter of the other students. It was eerie, like I had just stepped into an alternate dimension or some shit.

“Fuckin’ creepy,” I muttered, flicking on the light before heading to my desk. What do I do now? I left my phone behind, so I can’t play any games. I guess I could work on my homework… I started it last night but couldn’t concentrate so I ended up giving up and going to bed. Scrunching my nose up, I grabbed my notebook and the worksheets we had been given and got to work.

The door slid open a few minutes later and I glanced up, meeting surprised heterochromatic eyes. I returned my gaze to my notebook, where I was working on a doodle of Deadpool wearing a taco hat. At least he ain’t glaring at me, but the day is still young.

The legs of the chair scraped against the floor as he sat at his desk. He was quiet for a moment before speaking up, almost hesitantly. “Good morning,”

I raised a brow at him, but he was staring down at his desk. “Uh… sure.”

“Are you all healed up?”

“Yeah,”

“That’s good,” he nodded his head, pulling his notebook from his bag. “Does my voice really keep you calm?”

I nearly snapped my pencil, a bead of sweat rolling down my cheek. Damn, talk about being blunt. I cleared my throat, “Why are you even talkin’ to me?”

His eyes met mine, growing wide. “Should I not be?”

I shrugged. “You’ve always seemed perfectly content just glaring at me.”

Peppermint quickly looked away, his hair covering his eyes. “I’m sorry. You just… remind me of someone.”

“Who?”

He was silent for a moment and I figured he wasn’t going to answer. When he finally did, his voice was like ice. “My father,”

I raised a brow, humming. So a pretty boy with daddy issues, huh? Interesting. “Right. Good to know I remind you of an old man.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he mumbled, his cheeks gaining some color. “Will you answer my question now?”

“Yes, you have a calming voice. Happy?” I sighed, turning back to my notebook. Man, I accidentally stabbed Deadpool in the face.

The door slid open again and Fumi stepped inside, tilting his head as his eyes met mine. He approached my desk with a smile. “Good morning, Jen-san.”

“Sup, Fumi.”

“You’re usually one of the last to arrive. It’s quite alarming to see you here so early.”

“Sheesh, a girl tries to be a diligent student and everyone thinks the world is comin’ to an end.” I grinned, leaning back in my chair. “I wanted to try somethin’ new, but don’t worry, I hate it and won’t be doing it again.”

He chuckled, his eyes scanning my notebook. “You did this problem wrong,”

“Heh?” I glanced at the math problem he was pointing at. “Fuck math,”

“If you’d like, I can give you a hand.”

“For sure, thanks Fumi. The last thing I need is a lecture from Ectoplasm about not paying attention in his class.”

He nodded toward the pencil. “May I?”

“Go for it,” I watched as he scribbled down a number on the corner of the page.

“You can message me anytime you find yourself stuck and I will do my best to assist you.”

“Yeah, I will.” I smiled at him. “Thanks, Fumi.”

He nodded, returning the smile before heading to his desk. I caught Peppermint’s gaze but he quickly looked away. What’s his deal today?

Students slowly started to filter into the room and the silence morphed into loud chatter. In a way, their loud natures is annoying as all hell, but… I think I prefer it over the alternative.

“Wait, who are you?”

I glanced up at the sound of Alien’s voice, seeing Rin standing in the doorway. What’s he doing here?

He bowed, offering a kind smile. “My name is Hiryuu Rin from class 1-B next door. I’m looking for Winchester,”

Her eyes fell on me, half-hidden behind Momo. I stood up and approached him, grabbing his wrist and tugging him from the room. I could already hear her excited whispers. I swear if she starts spreading some stupid shit… I brought Rin to the stairway, which only had a few students passing by. As soon as I turned toward him, his arms were thrown around my neck, my body tensing at the contact.

“Uhh…”

“I’m so glad you’re okay.” He spoke with a voice full of emotion, his grip tightening around me. I could feel his heart hammering in his chest. “I heard about the attack, about two students being seriously injured along with Aizawa-sensei and Thirteen-sensei. I came to see you yesterday, to see if you were okay, but your entire class was gone. I was so worried about you, Winchester!”

My body relaxed as I wrapped my arms around him, gently rubbing his back. “The faulty thought it would be a good idea if we took a day off after the attack. Me and Izuku were a bit reckless, but it ain’t a big deal.”

“‘A bit reckless’?” He pulled back, eyes narrowed in frustration and worry. “You could’ve been killed.”

“I didn’t think you cared that much,” I muttered, scratching my cheek as I glanced to the side.”

“You’re my friend, of course, I care!” He sighed, letting his arms fall to his sides. “You’re okay, that’s what matters.”

My heart skipped a beat, my chest growing warm as my lips curled up. My hand rested on his head. “I’m sorry I worried you, Rin.”

“Call me Hiryuu.”

“Only if you call me Jen.”

“Deal,” he grinned.

“Hey, Rin! Class is gonna start soon!” An orange-haired girl smiled at us as she walked by with a girl that looked like she just stepped out of My Little Pony.

“Be right there, Kendo!” He called before turning back to me, pulling his phone out of his bag. “Can we exchange numbers?”

“Oh, uh, sure. I forgot my phone at home, though, so I’ll text you back after I get home.” I gave him my number and we parted ways, entering our own classrooms. Two numbers in one day? You’re turning into a player, girl. My good mood fizzled a bit when I entered class 1-A, eyes locking with angry vermillion.

“Morning, Winchester!” Kirishima grinned. “Last night was so much fun, let’s play again sometime!”

“Ooh~ What did you two do last night?” Alien asked, clapping her hands excitedly. “And who was that boy? Is he your boyfriend, Winchester?”

Satan, grant me the strength I need to not kill anyone today. “No, he’s just a friend.” I ignored her disappointed pout as I headed for my desk. I was almost there when a hand grabbed my shoulder roughly. Green met vermillion as we stared at each for a moment.

“You didn’t fucking answer my messages,” Bakugo’s voice was surprisingly calm as he gauged my reaction.

“I fell asleep after getting offline,” I lied, keeping my expression blank.

“Why the fuck didn’t you answer when you woke up, then?”

“Forgot my phone,”

“Stop fucking lying to me!”

I grunted, pulling myself from his grip and plopping down at my desk. Why do I suddenly feel so guilty about lying? Why did I even lie in the first place? It had been an instant reaction, I didn’t even consider it. We’re not even friends. He just tolerates me because I do the same for him.

He clicked his tongue in annoyance before stomping back to his desk.

“Hey, you guys! Did you watch the news?” Invisigirl asked, excitedly. “It was so cool that we got a few seconds of screen time. Though I bet nobody noticed me hanging out in the background…”

“Probably not,” Octo agreed.

Tail sweatdropped. “It is difficult to stand out when you’re just gloves…”

“We’re totally big deals.” Sparky’s voice was full of arrogance. “Those news channels love us, we’re basically celebrities!”

“Yeah, it’s kinda crazy, right?”

“Get over yourselves. The hero course that pumps out pros was attacked and that’s what they care about.”

“Who knows what woulda happened to us if the teachers hadn’t shown up.”

“Death. That’s what woulda happened.” I commented, dryly.

“Why’d you say that?!” Grape freaked out, his eyes full of tears. “I’m gonna pee myself just thinking about it!”

My lip curled back in disgust. Why is this fucking brat even in the hero course? I’ve seen more heroism from a fucking cockroach.

“Ah, shut up! Grow a pair, loser!!”

“Did you guys see All Might fighting the bird guy? That guy was super strong and he still destroyed him!”

“Yes, his strength is truly a thing of wonder.”

“Attention! Homeroom class is about to begin! Everyone stop talking and take your seats!” Iida ordered as he stood at the front of the room.

“Uh, we’re all sitting.”

“You’re the only one standing.”

Iida fell into his chair, body shaking. “Dang it,”

“Don’t sweat it,” Ochaco smiled. She’s honestly too precious for this world.

The door slid open and a heavily bandaged Aizawa appeared. His face was still covered, and both arms were in slings across his chest. “Good morning, class.”

⊱ ────── {⋅. 🔥 .⋅} ────── ⊰

▸ Forward

📜 Read more by checking out my masterlist 📜

5 notes · View notes

crystalelemental · 2 years ago

Text

Unit Viability Speculation - Sygna Suit Lyra

And the other “must have” in my book, Lyra’s sygna suit with the adorable Celebi, who I love very much.

420 special attack. Nice. They knew.

ANYWAY, this is extra fucking funny because what the hell is your goal, Lyra? Physical base attack, special sync, and Johto Pride. So your main boosting passive...only works for your physical move. Okay. Neat. Her trainer move is also just...Palentine’s Dawn’s. +2 to both offensive stats and Gradual Healing, on a chosen target. Which isn’t bad, but is a carbon copy. Dire Hit All+ is nice. And of course, the coveted Grassy Terrain is upon us. So let’s start there.

Grass types finally, FINALLY get their boost, and is it worth it?! There are a lot of Grass-types kicking around, and Lyra...actually serves as a support incredibly well to all of them. Like, every single one is a good partner. Because she can buff both offenses and crit. Lyra’s an ideal option. The only thing that can be considered a hangup is that some Grass-types also really want Sun. So I do hope you got SS Morty for a frontline tank to make your Grass-type teams effectively immortal. I didn’t. I thought he would be okay to skip. And now I have three Master Fairs to contend with. Mistakes were made, kids. Mistakes were made.

Anyway, Lyra got Johto Pride, which is the really strong physical attack buff for having multiple Johto units. I’m not 100% sure how great this will be, most of the Johto units I can think of tend to be specially inclined, or are Kris, who really wants Aaron and a Rain setter. Shoutouts to Bugsy, I guess. Lyra gets to inflict trap, confuse, or flinch when she attacks, and Grassy Glide gets no gauge cost in Grassy Terrain, so this seems to be her technical use. All interference is on the table for Celebi, and she’s just naturally strong with Pride, with no gauge consideration. Turbo Turf 2 is just getting the move gauge sped up in Terrain. But then there’s Ruthless 9. Lowers one core stat by 2 when an attack move is successful. She has Power Play. Pog.

In base move damage, she has Mighty Friend 9 on her trainer move. This is funny because, if self-buffing, she gets three stacks of physical moves up next. I can’t recommend that, but it’s a possibility. She also got Defense Crush 4, which is...funny but inconsistent. For some reason, they split up the damage multipliers into specific forms of interference, which sucks because the selection of effect is random. She also got Mind Games, which is just funny, but obviously setting up sync nuke. She can be immune to status under Terrain, and has Grand Entry and Fierce Entry for +2 special attack/attack on entry to speed up her setup phase.

Without seeing her grid, I’m going to say it’s good. My sole, serious hangup? Why is it a special sync? You gave her the Pride skill, this feels unnecessarily harsh. Otherwise, her kit can do a lot, but it feels like she’s not the best at anything. Max offense setup is 5 turns, that’s too slow to be independent, she needs a support partner to help out. Her debuffs are okay, but Power Play requires -18 debuffs, and she can get, at most, -3 per attack, it’s too slow on its own. It’ll do great in Gauntlet when she’s defensively supported, but in CS it feels like she’s going to have fantastic potential but need specific supports to accomplish her goal efficiently. Still, Grassy Terrain is great, and I’m really, really looking forward to it. And...kinda regretting not getting SS Morty.

#pokemon masters #unit viability speculation #sygna suit lyra

4 notes · View notes

shurastealthdragon-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Deck Building 101

So by now, you should know about the various clans, should have a solid understanding of how Imaginary Gifts function, and should have access to places and information that have provided you a solid idea on how to play the game. If not, there’s no worries: Make sure to check out my previous posts to help fill in some of the gaps.

At this point, you’ve probably starting looking at cards and are going “I want to build a deck for this clan, but I don’t know where to start” or “How do I upgrade my trial deck from here?” This is a common issue for new players of any game, and unlike other popular TCGs like Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic the Gathering, there aren’t a lot of places to look up online decklists to help nudge new players in the right direction. This article is aimed to help you identify some positive resources to help you build you’re deck and teach you some of the main things to consider when building your own deck list. There are a few rules you need to consider when making any deck in this game.

1) Every deck in Vanguard must consist of 50 cards in the main deck.

2) You can’t play more than 4 copies of any card with the same name in a deck

3) Your deck must include exactly 16 trigger units, and you can only use up to 4 heals.

And without further ado, let’s get started:

First thing’s first: every deck needs a focus. Put simply, a deck’s focus is described as one of two things: The main card the deck uses to win and/or the strategy used to win. For example, a Link Joker player may choose to build an aggressive deck around Docking Deletor, Greion (see above) and focus on beating down on the opponent by lowering the opponent’s defenses and killing their key combo pieces, or the Link Joker player may prefer a more disruptive strategy such as Wandering Starhulk Ruler, Brandt, which focuses on hindering the opponent’s plays and keeping a heavy defense to try and make the opponent do themselves in.

When building a deck, it’s very important to figure out how you want to win with the deck in order to find cards that support it in the most optimal manner. The first thing every player should do is find their ‘boss monster, ‘avatar’, or focus unit and decide how to best build around it. Once you have your focus, it’s time to start looking at other cards you can use to help your focus do it’s job.

Every leader needs his army, and Vanguard is no different. In order to help your plan succeed, you’ll need to think about how your cards work together.

As you can see above, Greion is a powerful unit, capable of removing your opponent’s rearguards for the rest of the game and forcing your opponent to crumble beneath his aura as he sets the opponent’s Vanguard down to 0 power and with no abilities. What this means for your opponent is that they have to throw even more cards down to guard against your might blows, and unless they ride on top of the deleted Vanguard, they’re stuck with a unit who’s only real function is to perform twin drive.

However, if you notice, Greion’s power does not come for cheap. Greion requires two counter-blasts to use his ability, a cost that isn’t easily mitigated in a deck that loves to eat through its own resources. When looking for rearguards, we may want to look for cards that can potentially give us some of our resources back (placing cards back in soul or turning cards back face-up in the damage zone).

Additionally, because Greion plays aggressive, it’s likely we’ll need cards that can also be used to lay down aggressive pressure in order to capitalize fully on our opponent’s moments of weakness.

Ill-fate Deletor, Drown is a unit that pairs very well with Greion. Since Greion’s ability to ‘Delete’ the opponent’s vanguard is a skill that can be activated during the Main Phase, you can call Drown to the field right before using Greion’s skill and activate Drown as a result. Not only can Drown remove a pesky rearguard from intercepting or furthering your opponent’s plan, but if you overextend your resources to lay down pressure, Drown will immediately refund you one Counterblast and place itself in soul in order to use for other skills in the turn.

Swift Deletor, Geali is another rearguard that pairs really well with Greion due to it’s ability not only to buff itself, but to place pressure on the opponent that makes them practically have to guard. Against a deleted Vanguard, he requires a 15000 shield value unboosted to stop, and if the opponent does not guard, they risk either letting you draw a card or kill off another one of their units. With a Force 1 Imaginary Gift, he becomes a 24000 beater unboosted the turn it gets played, forcing your opponent then to to use 25000 shield to either stop your attack, take a loss to their field, or give you a plus to your hand. And if they guard, that’s 25000 worth of shield they can’t use to try and stop your Vanguard’s attack.

Very quickly it becomes easy to see how cards can play off of your focus/strategy, and the more you look into the cards in the clan you’re building, the more options you’ll find to potentially help compliment your win condition.

The biggest question for every player once you find cards you like is how many of each card should I run?

This is a very difficult thing to answer at times. You have to have exactly 50 cards in the deck, and 17 of those slots are taken by Grade 0 units (16 triggers and 1 starter). That leaves you 33 slots to divide up however you like between your Grade 1′s, 2′s, and 3′s.

Because of the unique nature of Standard, and the need to ride to Grade 3 as soon as possible, most decks have developed the following rations of their 1-3 lineups (barring a few exceptions):

Most decks run between 8-10 Grade 3′s.

Most decks run between 10-12 Grade 2′s.

Most decks run between 11-14 Grade 1′s.

Clearly, if a card is extremely important, you want to run as many of it as you can. For example: since Greion is the focus of our deck, we’d naturally want to run 4 copies of him to ensure we draw him as quickly as possible. And since we noted how useful Drown is, he’s likely another card we run at the max limit to improve consistency.

However, let’s say you decided to run the following card in your deck.

Embroil Deletor, Jaega is a solid card that trades a minus 1 on your end for a minus 2 on your opponent’s end. However, due to it’s cost, it can potentially be a hindrance if you draw it at certain points in the game. You won’t always be able to afford a minus 1 off your field. When a card isn’t important enough to your win condition, you can afford to cut back to two or three copies of the card.

Consistency is the most important thing in any card game. When balancing your ratios and determining how many of a card you want to run in your deck, it’s necessary to consider ‘How well does this card add to the consistency of my win condition?’

When you’ve finished the first draft of your deck, go test it! Play a few casual games with your friends, take it and play around with it at locals, or hop online and test it against other players on Cardfight Area (an PC version of the game hosted through winrar). As you play, take notice of what does and doesn’t work when you play. Does this card feel like it never helps when you draw it? Take it out. Does this card perform better than I thought? Keep it in and play four if it’s working hard enough. Make sure to get practice in with your cards. Sometimes things look or sound a lot better on paper, but when you start practicing with it, it doesn’t perform as well as it seems it should. Deck building in large is a process of trial and error. As you slowly start to tinker around and practice, you’ll learn the combos of your clan, how best to use them, and what sorts interactions your cards has with other decks.

Although there are very few places to look at other people’s lists and compare them to your own (Bushiroad posts the lists of the top 3 players of every BCS tourney), one of the most helpful places you can go is, oddly enough, Facebook.

There are a large number of Facebook Groups dedicated to Vanguard, including some dedicated to specific clans, and there are a large number of players who are willing to help new players getting into the game. There are a few notable Youtubers who post deck-based content as well, such as Solemn Vanguard, Differentfight, and more, however: I personally do not recommend using a number of Youtubers as source material for a beginning point for decks. I personally recommend looking at Bushiroad’s website and using the various Facebook groups to help you get started. Bushiroad’s Japanese website even occasionally post suggestive lists for a clan everytime a new set releases.

That’s all for this time guys, stay tuned for more down the road!

-SSD

#cardfight vanguard #cfv #cfvanguard #standard

16 notes · View notes

murasaki-murasame · 5 years ago

Text

Now that it’s like 90% confirmed that the next Agito boss will be Ciella, who we’ll use wind units against, I have some thoughts about how I want the fight to be designed, and how I want a new batch of wind mana spirals to work to go along with it.

I’m gonna put this under a cut cause it got long, lol.

For one thing, I want them to avoid making the fight hinge on buff dispel, no matter what. The shadow roster already has a poison meta that overlaps with the wind roster, and it’d just be asking for people to only bother using their existing shadow teams against Ciella if their buff dispel utility also ended up being important to the fight.

I also hope that they make her immune to stun, so that Hawk can’t cheese it quite as easily. That’d at least be way less punishing to the entire wind roster than making her poison immune.

The fight’s probably still going to have some sort of unique mechanic to it like Volk and Kai Yan do, and personally I like the idea of Ciella routinely inflicting debuffs on all of your characters that need to be cleansed with specific debuff cleansing skills [which would be introduced via upcoming wind mana spirals and new wind units in general].

Depending on how they tune it, this sort of mechanic would give you a reason to use more support-oriented units instead of just going full DPS, and it’d make it a lot harder to do off-element clears unless you bring a wind unit with debuff cleanse. Since otherwise the debuffs would just get more and more punishing.

It’s worth noting that there’s some vague precedent for us getting fights designed around debuffs, and skills with debuff cleanse. Several of the void dragon fights inflict strength debuffs, and Natalie’s S2 technically cleanses debuffs from herself, if I remember right. So the mechanics are there, we just haven’t gotten any endgame bosses beyond the void dragons that inflict debuffs, or characters that work around debuff cleanse. But the foundation is there. [Also, giving people skills that cleanse debuffs would work so much better than how the void dragons are based around using relatively weak weapons to resist certain effects, lol]

As for the units who I think might get this sort of thing added via mana spiral upgrades, my best guesses would be OG Ranzal, Sylas, Wedding Aoi, and Lowen. Ranzal’s almost certainly gonna get a mana spiral designed around Ciella’s fight, like how Cleo got buff dispel, and it’d give everyone at least one accessible option for debuff cleansing.

Sylas just really needs a buff in general, and if they keep him as a support-oriented unit, I think they need to give him this sort of unique utility. And honestly I think him getting a debuff cleanse effect would just fit him as a character really well.

Lowen might not really need this sort of buff, but it’d fit his kit nicely, and it’d be nice to get another Agito fight where healers are actually useful.

Wedding Aoi’s a bit of an out-there option for this since she’s more of a DPS unit, but she’s one of the wind units that really needs a buff in general, and this would help her stand out, while also fitting with how she’s also kind of intended to be a support unit as well. She has a team heal on her S2, so they could just add a team debuff cleanse effect to that as well.

Specifically my ideas for mana spirals for those three are along these lines:

Ranzal:

-Maybe add poison punisher mods to his S1

-Give a team debuff cleanse to his S2, and maybe make his shield work like Grace’s where it absorbs damage instead of breaking the first time you get hit.

-I think he’ll get some sort of unique addition to his A1 like Euden and Cleo did, which might be where they fit in the debuff cleanse stuff, but who knows.

-His Last Defense ability will probably just get changed to 100% and nothing else because these abilities continue to suck lmao.

W-Aoi:

-Maybe add poison punisher mods to her S1

-Add team debuff cleanse to her S2, and maybe make the team heal a bit better

-Change her A1 so that her S1 will always give a 15% team strength buff, with it being increased to 25% if she inflicts sleep.

-I think they’ll just increase her striking haste ability to 15% and leave it there.

Lowen:

-Add team debuff cleanse to his S1

-Increase his S2 defense buff to 25%, and the max HP buff to 15%

-Increase his skill prep to 100% and add 5% skill charge

-Increase his recovery potency ability to at least 10%

[Alternatively they could give Wedding Xania this sort of buff instead since she’s basically just a worse version of Lowen at the moment, lol]

Sylas:

Oh boy this dude needs some heavy reworking in general. I’ve been toying with what to do with him for ages, and I think he should be reworked so that he has a stance shift mechanic like recent water units. They might have to retroactively change his entire kit to make this work, though. But basically I imagine him as having two stances, with them impacting his whole kit as follows:

-Make his S1 inflict a defense debuff in stance 1, and a strength debuff in stance 2, with the damage and poison affliction happening in both stances. I think they should also add poison punisher mods to his skill so it’s less weak.

-Overhaul his S2 so that it’s SP cost is reduced to around 8k, and it’s ‘base effect’ is a team debuff cleanse, with the stance 1 effect being 20% team strength and 20% team skill haste, and the stance 2 effect being 20% defense and 15% HP increase. Sylas’ main weakness is that this skill as it is now is a super high-cost roulette buff, which is just kinda awful all around.

-I’m less sure what to do with his A1, but it could be nice if they made the heal affect your entire team, even if it still happens once. Maybe they could tie it to his stances, and have the heal effect happen while he’s in one of his stances, and some sort of a strength buff happen if he’s in his other stance when his HP drops below 30%.

-I think they’ll just upgrade his HP70 = Strength ability to 15%, or maybe 20%, and leave it there.

I’m pretty likely to be wrong with Sylas in particular because the way I want to buff him is so massive compared to everyone else, but he really needs this sort of ground-up rework, lol. I basically imagine him in this scenario as being a hybrid support/DPS unit who can switch between what he wants to focus on mid-battle. I assume this wouldn’t make him *too* overpowered or anything. He definitely runs the risk of having too much utility in his kit for one character, but the way he is now is way too punishing, with him being unable to fulfill any role properly because his S2 is so expensive and random.

I’m expecting the meta for Ciella’s fight to still just end up being 4DPS runs, and/or off-element shadow runs, but really the whole point of this post is that I want the support-oriented wind units to be meta for the fight too, lol.

#murasaki rambles #dragalia lost #tl;dr: cygames please buff my boi Sylas I am literally begging you ;_;

5 notes · View notes

hockeylvr59 · 6 years ago

Text

Proving Your Worth part 2 || Jonathan Toews

Requested: [ ] yes [x] no

Authors Note: Here’s part two. Let me know what you think.

Warnings: none

Word Count: 1864

Song Included: Lights Down Low by MAX

Outfit in this chapter:

After Jonathan brought you home, you didn’t see him for the next two weeks. It wasn’t that you were avoiding him, you were just both busy with your jobs and you had taken a few days off of work after finding out some life-changing news. Turns out what your boss thought was the flu was really just your first encounter with morning sickness...you were pregnant. Of course, while a lot of people would be shocked and scared, you were completely overcome with emotion and overjoyed. After all, this is what you had wanted since you were just a teenager who was far too young to even be thinking about becoming a mother.

You were sitting at your desk on a Friday afternoon in mid-October when you heard a knock on your office door that caused you to turn. Looking up, you were suprised to find Jonathan standing there.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Toews?” You questioned clicking and unclicking your pen a few times as you shifted to face him more fully.

“A few of the guys were going out tonight, to relax, have a few drinks...any interest in joining us?” He propositioned, taking you completely by surprise. After a moment of thought, you brushed a strand of hair behind your ear and nodded.

“Sure, but I’ll be a designated driver, not really in much of a drinking mood.” Really you weren’t going to drink because of the baby but you definitely didn’t know Jonathan well enough to want to share all of your personal business when you hadn’t told anyone else yet.

____

When the guys had decided to go out, it was Jonathan’s suggestion that they invite you to join them. He wasn’t sure why he suddenly wanted to spend time with you but after dropping off the ginger ale and crackers, seeing you curled up on the couch stirred something inside of him. You’d looked utterly miserable but your wet hair had signaled that you’d showered while he was gone and your Hawks sweatshirt was now paired with a pair of tiny shorts that he could barely see the edge of underneath the shirt.

So, after practice he’d made his way back to the UC and walked down the halls until he reached your office, knocking firmly on your door. Before he could even fully decide what to say, the invitation was out there and he was waiting for your response. He quickly swallowed the lump in his throat that appeared when you brushed a single segment of hair back behind your ear and found himself grinning when you agreed to go as long as you could be one of the designated drivers.

“I don’t think any of the guys will complain about that. I’ll text you the address of the club?”

____

After giving Jonathan your number to text the address to, you worked to finish up the rest of your workload for the day before gathering your things and heading out just a bit early at 4:30. You figured that they weren’t planning on getting together right away but you certainly weren’t the type to frequent clubs so you needed to try and figure out what the hell to wear. Three hours after leaving work you were finishing up a piece of pizza as you waited for your curling iron to heat up. You’d thrown a pair of jeans on as well as a grey and gold sweater. Jonathan had assured you that the club you were going to was more of a bar/lounge and less of a dance club so you felt at least a little more secure in your clothing choice.

Loose curls and a light coat of makeup applied, you grabbed the few things you would need before stopping in the kitchen and taking myyour prenatal vitamins. You really did need to get going if you were going to be there on time but you knew if you didn’t do it now you would likely forget, and well the baby inside of you needed all the nutrients you could provide to grow healthy and strong.

The last thing you did before leaving was throw on your black boots before grabbing your keys from the doorway and heading down to your car. You really didn’t like to drive in a city as big as Chicago but seeing as it was past rush hour and the address you’d been given was a decent distance away you knew it was a better option than the ‘L’, plus you would have to get drunk hockey players home somehow.

____

Jonathan had gotten to the bar shortly before nine and reserved a table. It wasn’t long until Kaner, Saad, and Seabs had joined him at the table, drinks in hand. Since he was the one that had invited you, he offered to drive as well, not wanting you to feel uncomfortable. As usual, the guys were giving him crap about how he needed to get out more when he saw you looking around the club before slowly making your way to the table.

As you approached, his jaw almost dropped and he swallowed hard. It was evident that your makeup was light and the fact that you were still completely stunning threw him for a loop. While he was taking in your appearance, he noticed that you seemed nervous and so he quickly stood up, motioning for you to come closer and hugging you gently.

“Hey...glad you made it! You know all of the guys right?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of my job…” You replied, your tone of voice signaling that your words were meant as a teasing quip. Kaner commented on how he didn’t think he’d ever seen you not in work clothes and Jonathan couldn’t help but smirk.

“Clearly you’ve never passed her office after a game, I’m pretty sure she’s always in a Hawks jersey.” He threw out there bumping his shoulder against yours gently as you moved to sit back down in the booth.

“What can I say...it’s my second favorite color palette. I have to say I much prefer you in red, white, and navy there Brandon.”

___

The moment you made the comment, the guys all looked at you like you had a third head and you couldn’t help but laugh. “Relax...I’m only kidding, I can’t stand the Jackets.” You proclaimed, throwing your hands up defensively. “After all, they really do suck...talk about choking when it’s all on the line.” Your parents were currently living about an hour south of Columbus but you hadn’t grown up as a Blue Jackets fan, they didn’t even exist until you were seven years old.

Motioning for Jonathan to slide out of the booth you rolled my eyes. “I’m going to go get a bottle of water, want anything?” While all of the guys there had drinks, Jon’s hand was empty and while he’d said he’d also serve as a designated driver, he could at least have water or tea or something.

“Water sounds great.” He agreed and you slid through the crowds to the bar, quickly ordering two bottles before sliding a five dollar bill across the counter to cover the cost. Returning to the table you passed him the second bottle before smiling at the song that came over the radio. While you were gone, Patrick and Brandon had gone to find girls and Anisomov and Wingels had joined the table in their place.

Jonathan shifted to let you into his side and you couldn’t help but giggle at some of the stories that were being told.

“You guys are ridiculous.” You murmured just relaxing and trying to take in the situation you’d found yourself in. About twenty minutes later, one of your favorite new songs came over the speakers and you looked down at your empty water bottle. “So..which one of you wants to dance with me?” You teased, certain that at least one of them would take you up on the offer.

To your surprise, it was Jonathan again who motioned for you to lead the way and once you were pressed back to front on the crowded floor his hands moved to rest on your hips.

“Are you having fun?” He asked you, and you couldn’t help but tilt your head back as you nodded, your hips moving slowly in his grasp. Singing along to the words softly, you just enjoyed the feel of his body heat though it was clear that he was not a dancer, something that made you appreciate the moment even more.

“I promise you that no one else will ever treat you better

And if you don't believe me, please see I don't need no effort

All you gotta do is flip that switch before we bed-up”

____

When you had asked someone to dance with you Jonathan wasn’t about to let the chance to touch you pass him by even if he wasn’t the best dancer. You had quickly found a spot on the floor and your hips moved slowly, fluidly as his hands rested on them. Soon your soft voice reached his ears as you sang along and his pulse pounded through his veins in reaction. Hearing the phrase ‘bed-up’ leave your mouth forced him to bite back a groan because even without any alcohol you were sending his head spinning in directions he hadn’t expected.

You were always so professional and seeing this side of you had Jonathan wanting to know more. His grip tightened on your hips a bit as you finished off the song and as you were heading back to the table your eyes went wide and suddenly you’d slipped out from your spot at his side, dashing toward the bathroom.

A creeping feeling entered Jonthan’s mind before it all hit him like a ton of bricks and he found himself following after you, waiting outside the bathroom until you returned, your hair pulled back into a ponytail and your eyes sunken slightly. The moment you saw him you looked away and unconsciously he reached out to you, motioning for you to follow him outside.

Standing in the cool alley he shoved his hands into his pockets before looking down, his gaze staring holes into the pavement. “You’re pregnant aren’t you?” Enough of his teammate's wives had gone through the experience for him to put the pieces together. You’d offered to come but didn’t want to drink and this was the second time in two weeks that he’d seen you thrown up. There was nothing but the sounds of the street filling the air between you until you eventually turned your head to look up at him.

“Yes.” You breathed, a mixture of fear and relief in your tone. “I...I can explain if you want, but not until we get all the guys home safe.”

Jonathan wasn’t sure how he felt about your admittance that you were expecting. Had he really been that off the mark when he was reading you the past few weeks? You were having a baby and that had to mean that you were involved with someone right?

#jonathan toews #jonathan toews imagine #chicago blackhawks #chicago blackhawks imagine #nhl imagines #nhl imagine #hockey imagine #hockey imagines #cblackhawks #008

93 notes · View notes

carmenlire · 6 years ago

Text

Higher than the Big Trees Ch. 41

read chapter one

read on ao3

Alec watches from where he’s sprawled out on the bed as Magnus shrugs into a button up. His hair’s still damp from the shower and Alec had found an easy contentment watching his boyfriend apply makeup with practiced hands through the open bathroom door a few minutes ago.

“You could’ve waited for me to shower this morning,” he says, stretching his arms over his head.

Magnus just throws him a look as he buttons the front. Alec watches silk covers bare skin and can’t help his disappointment.

He doesn’t get to do anything, though, before Magnus is dryly replying, “If I’d done that, I’d be running late and while I might be persuaded by your smile, I don’t think my department would take that as an excuse to be tardy. Plus you were so tired last night-- and so relaxed after this morning-- that you needed every minute of sleep you could get.”

Alec can’t think of a reply to that so he just glares. “Whatever,” he mutters under his breath.

Chuckling, Magnus walks from where he’d been standing in front of the mirror to the bed. Leaning over Alec, Magnus cages him in with arms on either side of his head.

“Walk me out?” Magnus’s voice is low as he smiles down at Alec.

One of Alec’s hands searches under his boyfriend’s shirt until he can lay it low on his back, the other pushing back Magnus’s hair from where it’s falling into his eyes.

“It’ll cost you,” Alec murmurs, eyes trained on Magnus’s mouth.

Magnus hums a little, as though in thought, before leaning down until his lips are a hair's breadth away from Alec’s. “And what about earlier? What does that get me?”

Alec’s face is serious even as he shivers at the memory of the wonderful way Magnus had woken him up an hour ago. “That gets you a cup of coffee.”

“Just coffee?”

Biting his lip to keep his laughter from spilling out at the umbrage in Magnus’s tone.

“Hey,” he says defensively. “That espresso machine is what dreams are made of.”

Magnus studies him before he rolls his eyes, giving up. “You’re lucky you’re so cute, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alec breathes. “Kiss me.”

Magnus closes the last bit of distance, laying a lingering kiss on Alec’s mouth. Arching into it, Alec pulls him down until, with a huff of laughter that’s easily swallowed, Magnus lands on top of him.

Letting out a pleased sound, Alec widens the space between his legs for Magnus to settle against him and he quickly loses track of time as the morning sun shines through his curtains.

However, Magnus pulls away before he’s ready, breathing hard. “While I’d love nothing more than to stay here with you all day, darling, I really do have a morning faculty meeting I need to get to.”

Sighing dramatically, Alec sweeps a hand from Magnus’s shoulder’s to just above his ass. “Coffee?”

“Wouldn’t mind if I do,” Magnus agrees before he’s pushing off the bed.

Alec’s smile is dopey as he takes Magnus’s hand and climbs to his feet. Still holding hands, Magnus follows Alec as they make their way to the kitchen. Thankfully, no one else seems to be around and Alec washes his hands as Magnus leans against the counter next to the coffee machine.

“What are you up to today,” Magnus asks, rolling his sleeves up his forearms as Alec grabs one of the dozen to-go cups he’s accumulated in the past decade from the overhead cabinet.

It’s a tall tumbler in the colors of the bi pride flag. When Magnus looks at it, a little questioningly, Alec just saying, “It’s Simon’s-- he must’ve left it here one day.”

“And he won’t mind that you’re giving it away?”

Alec laughs a little as he sets it under the drip. “It serves him right for leaving it here. He probably doesn’t even know it’s gone.”

As the coffee starts percolating, Alec reaches a hand out, sweeping a thumb over Magnus’s jaw. “I have a meeting with the label this morning but other than that I don’t have anything going on,” Alec says, getting back to Magnus’s question.

Turning his head, Magnus kisses Alec’s wrist. Alec doesn’t melt at the gesture by sheer force of will.

“Don’t tell me that Isabelle didn’t let you know about our plans.”

Startling, Alec’s head whips over towards the hallway where his mother’s standing with a little smile on her face as she watches the two of them.

“Mom,” Alec’s asks, voice strangled. “What are you doing here?”

Maryse just sends him an arch look. “I was in the back room reading while waiting for your sister to finish getting ready. I heard voices so I thought I’d pop in here and see what was going on.”

Her gaze sweeps over to Magnus as she steps forward, holding a hand out to shake, which Magnus does with alacrity.

“I’m Maryse, Alec’s mom," Maryse greets warmly. "You must be Magnus?”

With a sidelong look at him, Magnus replies, “Don’t tell me that Alec’s mentioned me?”

“Oh, maybe a time or two,” Maryse says with a sly look in Alec’s direction.

“It’s always nice to be thought of-- and it’s a pleasure to meet you, Maryse.”

Alec watches as the two of them meet, talking easily. Seeing Magnus and his mom together is weird but welcome. He’s never brought a man to meet his parents before-- not even his high school boyfriend-- and to see two of his favorite people warming up to each other makes something light in Alec’s chest.

It’s realization.

Shaking his head a little, Alec clues back into the conversation to hear Maryse say, “I’m only in town until Alec’s birthday but--”

“Wait, what? I thought you were flying back to Seattle Sunday,” Alec interrupts.

Shrugging, Maryse replies, “Max’s first semester is entirely online and I don’t have anything pressing that needs me back in Seattle, so I thought I’d extend our trip a little longer. Why? Anxious to get me out of your hair?”

Alec rolls his eyes. “You know that’s not it, mom. I’m happy you’ll be here for my birthday. I can’t even remember the last time I saw you on the actual day.”

“You were twenty-two,” Maryse offers immediately. She smiles at him as she leans on the bar that separates the living room from the kitchen. “It’s been five years since I’ve seen my favorite son on his birthday.”

Alec merely looks at her. “I heard you tell Jace last week that he was your favorite.”

“And this is a different week, isn’t it?”

Shifting in place, Magnus looks between Alec and Maryse. “Your birthday’s coming up?”

Alec doesn’t answer right away, instead pulling Magnus’s mug from the coffee machine and reaching for the fridge. Pulling out the almond milk, he says, “In a few weeks.”

Handing the carton to Magnus along with the tumbler, Magnus pours some milk into his coffee as he asks, “Weren’t you going to tell me? These are things people in relationships know about each other, darling.”

It’s Alec’s turn to shrug as he says, “I didn’t think it was a big deal,” he says under his breath.

“Well, I beg to differ. I need to plan what I’m getting you, after all.”

Alec’s expression is mystified. “You don’t have to get me anything, you know. Just spending time with you is enough.”

Magnus just scoffs. “Sure I might not have to get you anything, but are you going to ruin my fun if I want to?”

“Of course not,” Alec says, frowning. “As long as you know I’m not expecting anything.”

Magnus just waves that away as he blows across his coffee before taking a sip. “Noted, Alexander.”

Setting the milk down on the counter-- which Alec picks up and places back in the fridge-- Magnus screws the top of the lid closed before turning back to Maryse.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Maryse, but I need to be getting to work.”

Rounding the counter, Maryse pulls Magnus in for a quick hug before pulling back and resting her hands on his arms. “It was lovely meeting the man my son can’t shut up about,” she says dryly, with a wink in Alec’s direction.

Alec wants to sink into the ground but Magnus’s surprise that Maryse would hug him followed by his warm laugh makes it worth it. Barely.

“As I was saying,” she continues briskly. “I’m only in town for another few weeks but I have pictures of Alec that you might be interested to see-”

“Well, students won’t learn by themselves,” Alec cuts in hastily. “Don’t want to be late for work, babe, do you?”

Magnus makes a show of considering as he slowly says, “You know what darling, I’m sure they won’t miss me for just a little while longer--”

“No,” Alec says firmly.

Magnus laughs before lifting his cup in a goodbye to both Maryse and Alec. “Very well, darling. Dinner tomorrow?”

“I’ll be there with bells on,” Alec confirms.

Magnus goes to walk past Alec but he stops him with a hand on his side.

“I’ll walk you out,” Alec says easily and follows Magnus to the front door.

Opening it, Alec leans against the doorjamb as Magnus steps in the hallway. He pulls him close, though, before he can make it to the elevator.

“No kiss?”

Smiling, Magnus merely offers, “I didn’t think you’d want to be so demonstrative in front of your mother.”

“You can kiss me whenever you want,” Alec says wryly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Alec repeats before giving Magnus a peck on the mouth and stepping back.

He laughs at Magnus’s frustrated expression. “You weren’t going to kiss me at all,” he point out.

“Yeah, but now that I know I can kiss you whenever I want, nothing’s stopping me.”

Without warning, Magnus pulls Alec close by his t-shirt and plants a searing kiss on his mouth that has Alec forgetting his damn name before abruptly pulling back.

“Talk to you later, darling,” Magnus says with a wink before turning towards the elevator.

Rolling his eyes, Alec shuts the door and makes his way back into the kitchen to make his own cup of coffee to see his mother cutting a slice of shortcake she must’ve brought over this morning.

“Aren’t you here exceptionally early?”

“Careful, Alexander, or I’ll start thinking you don’t want me around.”

“You know that’s the furthest thing from the truth, mom.”

Maryse laughs lightly but doesn’t say anything else.

Alec watches as his coffee drips into a black mug that says better gay than grumpy in rainbow colors that had been a frankly obnoxious gift from Simon a few months ago.

“You haven’t let me call you by your full name since you started middle school.”

“So,” Alec asks, pulling his mug from under the drip and taking out the sugar, dumping a few spoonfuls into the cup.

“So,” Maryse says dramatically. “You must really like him.”

Scoffing, the only thing Alec can think to say is, “You knew that already.”

“Yeah, but it’s different seeing it compared to just listening as you gush about him. I like him. Magnus. He seems like a good man.”

“He’s the best,” Alec says simply and scowls as his mother slaps at his shoulder absently.

The two of them enjoy a few minutes of companionable silence as Maryse cuts another piece of cake for Alec. He’s just taken his last bite when Isabelle appears from her room.

“Ready, mom?”

“All set, dear.” Swiping her hands, Maryse drinks the last of the coffee she’d brewed before he’d come into the kitchen.

“What are you two doing today?”

“Shopping,” Izzy says brightly. “We’re spending some quality time together, starting with breakfast and you’re invited to join us later.”

Alec narrows his eyes at her, thinking, before shrugging. “Sure. I have a meeting this morning with Institute but I’m free in the afternoon? I’ll text you when I’m finished and you can let me know where you want to meet up.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Isabelle agrees and then the two of them are out the door in a flurry of movement that makes Alec’s head spin.

Alec drains the last of his coffee before setting the mug in the sink and heading back to his bedroom to get ready for the day.

Settling into one of the empty seats in the glass-walled conference room at Institute Records, Alec doesn’t even flinch as someone throws themselves into the chair next to him.

“Hey, man.”

“Simon. How are you?”

Simon grins as he leans back in his seat. “I’m great! I’ve been working on a few songs in my free time and I’m thinking that I might even have enough material by the end of summer to put together an EP. What about you? How is Magnus?”

Simon asks the last question with an exaggerated waggle of his eyebrows and Alec’s reply is droll as he replies, “My music’s going well, too. I think I’m going to start recording in earnest by the beginning of the month and my boyfriend is doing just fine. What about you-- How’s Raphael?”

Taking a quick sip from his coffee, Simon grins into his cup. “Raphael’s doing just fine, too. I know we shouldn’t work-- he has a tendency to be a little grumpy, not unlike someone else I know-- but his humor is so dry and holy shit, have you seen the man in a suit? I need to ask him who his tailor is because if I could look half as good as him--”

“Simon,” Alec says slowly. “Please stop talking.”

Simon glares at him halfheartedly for a moment before his face lights up again. “Hey, we should totally go on a date sometime!”

Alec just stares at him, brow arched.

Rolling his eyes, Simon just clarifies, “A double date, asshat. Me and Raphael, you and Magnus. That would be so much fun because we’re best buds and Raphael and Magnus have known each other for, like, ever!”

Simon looks like a particularly enthusiastic puppy as he says, “Are you guys free tomorrow?”

Sighing heavily, Alec knows that he isn’t going to get out of this, much as it pains him. “Are you sure Raphael’s free tomorrow? You don’t want to set something up only to have to reschedule.”

“Tomorrow is date night,” Simon confides. “We hang out most of the week, but Fridays are when Raphael puts off grading and any other work for the whole evening and we spend it together. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind inviting you and Magnus along.”

Scowling, Alec tries in a last ditch effort, “What if we have completely different ideas on a fun date?”

“What,” Simon asks. “Is dinner not in your Wooing Magnus repertoire?”

“Whatever.”

Taking out his phone, Alec sends a quick text to Magnus as Simon crows in his ear.

Change of plans for tomorrow night. How do you feel about a double date with Simon and Raphael?

Feel free to say no.

Really.

His phone lights up before Alec can even put it back in his pocket.

What a wonderful idea, Alexander! I can’t wait to tell Raphael that we’ll be joining him on his date.

This will give me enough material for weeks, at least.

And it’s just a bonus that my boyfriend will be spending time with one of my best friends :)

From where he’s reading over his shoulder, Simon gasps dramatically. “Awe,” he says, drawing out the one syllable until it’s easily a dozen. “Magnus is so cute!”

Alec looks up and Simon backtracks, offering in a weak voice, “Hot? You know what,” he says hastily, ‘I’ll leave complimenting your boyfriend to you.”

“Thank you,” Alec says dryly before asking, “Mind if I make the arrangements?”

“No problem,” Simon replies absently, texting. “Why?”

Alec just shrugs. “There’s this place outside of the city that I’ve been meaning to take Magnus. I don’t get to go to often but the food’s excellent and the estate’s pretty beautiful. Should be good for a group, too.”

“Sounds great,” Simon agrees easily enough and then the executives for the label are filing in, Jia and Lydia at the front.

The meeting begins and the next few hours are a humdrum of discussion as Alec gets briefed on the timeline for his seventh album. He’s set to start recording in just a couple of weeks-- he has a few songs demoed but the next couple of months will have him spending upwards of ten, fourteen, even eighteen hours in the studio as he works with producers and mixers and the dozens of other people who work to create the perfect record.

As that moves along, his album is slated to be released in the spring and that brings Simon into the meeting as the two have agreed to tour together again, with another act or two working as openers. As everyone discusses timelines and figures and deadlines, Alec listens intently, butting in when he needs clarification or when something doesn’t strike right.

His next tour will be his biggest yet. It looks like the next album cycle will last at least two years, with half a dozen legs tentatively scheduled.. He’ll be hitting five continents on a whirlwind thirteenth month tour. That doesn’t take into consideration other press obligations or second and third tour cycles for this album.

It’ll be grueling but it’s nothing Alec hasn’t done before and as they talk expenses and premium packages and aesthetics, Alec's mind is a whirlwind. They spend almost an hour on Simon, reviewing his proposed track list and expected new material and how it will complement Alec’s set.

By the time everything is done and Alec has a much better idea on how the next year and a half of his career will roll out, he’s exhausted, head swimming with figures and concerns and the hundreds of details that go into a tour this size.

Lydia stops by for a few minutes of small talk before her phone rings and she’s out of the conference room like a dervish, off to bail a client-- who Alec has a sneaking suspicion is Sebastian-- out of jail.

Alec and Simon watch her for a minute after she’s left before Simon asks, “His contract has to be up soon, right?”

“Yeah but not soon enough for Lydia, that’s for damned sure.”

The two of them sigh at one of their peers spiraling down, tanking his own career, before Simon blinks and turns his focus onto Alec.

“Have you talked to Magnus about this tour yet? Or your album in general?”

“No,” Alec says, a little confused at the change of subject. “Why?”

Simon rolls his eyes. “Why, the man asks,” he mutters under his breath.

He slaps Alec halfheartedly on the shoulder. Alec doesn’t get a chance to react before he’s saying, “Maybe because you’ll be gone most of the year and your boyfriend deserves a heads up?”

Something curdles in Alec’s stomach at Simon’s words but he just scowls. “My tour isn’t slated to start until June. That’s almost ten months away.”

“Yeah, but Magnus might know that touring is a necessity but that doesn’t mean he’s fully prepared for what a long distance relationship relationship means. Time zones that mean you can’t talk on the phone? Months where you’re on different continents? It’s a lot for a relationship-- and know that this will be your first time, too.”

Simon’s expression is serious, voice knowing as he says, “I’m just saying don’t go into things cocky. Relationships take effort and you both have to be willing to put in the work when you’re not in the same city.”

Alec’s quiet for a minute before he swallows. He looks up and meets Simon’s eyes, smiling a little. “Thanks, Si. I appreciate the warning and I’ll talk to Magnus about it soon.”

Face brightening, Simon claps him on the back as the leave the room, heading towards the elevator.

“I don’t mean to be a negative Nancy, but you’ve never dealt with a long distance relationship on top of a huge tour. I have and let me tell you, it’s not for the faint of heart. I’ve got to say, though, that you and Magnus seem pretty solid. I don’t imagine anything could tear the two of you apart. If Aldertree didn’t do the job-- and don’t think I’m not waiting to hear the full story on that-- then I’d say you two have a pretty good chance of going the distance.”

“Simon, it’s only been a few months. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay?”

Alec doesn’t know why he bothered trying to appeal to Simon’s common sense as his friend just half-assed salutes and replies with, “Aye, aye captain!”

His sigh is beleaguered, long suffering, but he’s laughing in the next minute, Simon joining him.

The two of them walk out of Institute Records onto the teeming sidewalk. Putting his sunglasses on Simon says, “Well, my brain is fried but I’ve got lunch plans with Raphael so I need to get going. See you tomorrow, dude, right?”

“I’ll text you the time and address,” Alec agrees and then they’re fist-bumping before going their separate ways.

Ducking into a smoothie shop, Alec grabs a green juice as he texts his sister that he’s officially free for the rest of the day. Isabelle’s sent him their location-- a Sak’s a few blocks away-- and he sighs as he tells her he’ll meet the two of them in twenty.

Alec’s mind spins with plans and timelines as he meets up with his mom and Isabelle. He spends the afternoon shopping and dealing with their good-natured ribbing, all the while his thoughts are preoccupied with Magnus and his career, the two most important things in his life.

To his credit, Alec’s only mildly terrified as the two of them merge their importance, Magnus coming to mean more and more to him with every day that passes.

Alec pulls up to Magnus’s apartment building, nabbing a spot right in front of the entrance. He’d told Magnus that he’d pick him up at six sharp and as he locks his car and makes his way toward the door, Alec’s a little surprised to see Magnus step onto the sidewalk.

“Hey, you.”

“Hey, yourself.” Magnus returns his grin as he walks over to him. Laying his hands on Alec’s chest, Magnus tilts his face up for a kiss. Alec obliges with a smile before pulling back, wrapping his arms low on Magnus’s waist.

“Don’t you look amazing,” Alec says, voice low.

Magnus is dressed to impress in a red and black blazer, black button up underneath. His makeup is suitably dark with sharp eyeliner and his hair is swept high off his forehead in a look that has Alec’s mouth going dry.

Tone nonchalant, though there’s an unmistakable gleam in his eye, Magnus merely offers, “Oh, do you like this? I picked it up last week when I went shopping with Cat.”

“You look great,” Alec says, and there’s nothing facetious about his tone. His boyfriend genuinely looks wonderful-- as always-- and Alec’s duty bound to let him know.

At the sincerity in Alec’s voice, Magnus’s expression loses some of its levity. “Thank you, darling,” he says softly before reaching for Alec’s chin and bringing him in for another kiss, this one lingering for two heartbeats, then three.

Still holding hands, Magnus pulls back and gives Alec a slow, appreciative once-over. “You do clean up well, Alexander.”

Rolling his eyes, Alec just mutters, “Whatever,” but he can’t help the smile that lights up his face.

Pulling Magnus to him, they walk over to the passenger side of his car and Alec hides a grin as Magnus’s eyes widen.

“This is yours?”

“Yup,” Alec says, popping the ‘p.’

“Well, aren’t I in for a treat tonight?”

“Yeah, yeah, just get in the car.”

Magnus huffs out a laugh as Alec opens the door and ushers him inside his Audi R8. It’s been a few months since Alec’s driven his favorite car and he’s excited to get out of New York’s traffic and have a little fun.

Rounding the hood, Alec slips into the driver’s seat and starts the car. Checking his rearview mirror, he pulls out and joins the hectic stream of rush hour traffic. Shifting gears, Alec looks over to see Magnus looking over the dash with something approaching awe.

“Like it,” Alec asks and doesn’t care that his tone is just the teeniest bit smug.

Running a careful finger over the black interior, Magnus absently replies, “I’m not a car guy but even I have to admit this is a nice ass car.”

Alec barks out a laugh, punching the gas as he passes someone. “Feel free to touch whatever,” he says easily and Magnus looks up to meet his eyes for a second, expression warm and curious.

“What are the chances I get to drive this car?”

Alec winces goodnaturedly. “Not gonna happen.”

Magnus pouts and lightly pokes him in the shoulder. “What if I asked really nicely.”

“Still no,” Alec laughs. “I don’t let anyone drive this car and trust me, if I can handle Isabelle and Jace on my ass trying to test it out, I think I can deal with you.”

“I like a challenge,” Magnus says and Alec just snorts, shaking his head, before flipping the hand on the armrest that’s between them, an invitation that Magnus takes right away.

It’s a little while to get out of New York on a busy Friday evening and they enjoy the silence as music plays on the radio. With the windows down to enjoy the late summer air, it’s damned close to perfect in Alec’s estimation.

Once they leave the city and get on the highway, Alec lets loose a little, steadily accelerating until he’s hovering a couple dozen miles over the speed limit, zipping along in the fast lane. He has to take his hand out of Magnus’s to shift gears, which seems the worst sort of betrayal, but the appreciative look his boyfriend casts his way doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Where are you taking me, anyway?”

Magnus’s question breaks the quiet. Alec reaches for Magnus’s hand again, intertwining their fingers before bringing it up to his mouth for a quick kiss along the knuckles.

“Alicante. It’s a mix between everything, really. You can get everything from cheese fries to coq au vin. It’s at this bed and breakfast north of the city. We should be there in about twenty five minutes.”

Nodding, Magnus sweeps his thumb over Alec’s as he replies, “I can’t wait. I didn’t have a chance to eat lunch this afternoon and I’m starving.”

“Let’s hope it’s good then,” Alec says easily.

They pull into the winding drive of the hotel. Reaching the parking lot, Alec sees Simon’s car already there.

“Huh,” he says as he turns off the ignition. “Simon’s usually at least fifteen minutes late to everything.”

“Not with Raphael,” Magnus says, voice sure. “Raphael can’t abide tardiness. They were probably fifteen minutes early.”

Magnus takes his hand as they start toward the door. He looks behind him as Alec strides across the parking lot.

“How do you know they’ve arrived, anyway?”

Alec doesn’t break pace as he jerks his head toward a car in the corner. “See that van?”

From his peripheral, he sees Magnus look over at the van that was at least thirty years old, covered in spray painted logos and looking rather the worse for wear.

“Yes,” he asks warily.

“That’s Simon’s. He’s had it since he was in high school. He refuses to get rid of it, even though he could easily get something else these days.”

“How. . . charming,” Magnus offers after a beat of stunned silence before he snorts. When Alec looks at him, question in his eyes, Magnus just says, “I’m sure Raphael loved that.”

Alec’s own mouth tilts up as he pictures the serious man sitting in the passenger seat of a van that Alec knows from painful past experience has absolutely no shocks to speak of.

Holding the door for Magnus to walk through, Alec sees Simon and Raphael talking near the hostess stand.

“Have you been waiting long,” Alec asks.

“Nope,” Simon responds brightly. “We just got here and had just told the hostess your name. She’s making sure the table’s ready now.”

Simon’s attention shifts to Magnus in the next beat and, if possible, his grin increases tenfold. “Hey, Magnus. It’s great to finally meet you!”

Magnus shakes Simon’s hand, smiling warmly. “It’s wonderful to meet one of Alec’s best friends. Especially when he’s dating one of mine.”

Alec, for his part, is greeting Raphael when he hears Simon exclaim, “Hey!”

He looks over to see Simon staring at him accusingly. “Yeah?”

“I’m one of your best friends? Who’s above me? Who’s even in the realm of best friend when you talk to three people besides me on a regular basis, all of whom are related to you?”

“Well, there’s Lydia,” Alec muses. “My doorman, the post office guy I see every other month. . . The list goes on and on.”

Simon doesn’t say anything to that, just looks crestfallen for two painful seconds before he’s back to looking bright enough to eclipse the sun.

The hostess returns and they’re taken to their table. Alec and Magnus sit across from each other with Alec next to Simon.

What follows is a few hours of surprising good company. Dinner is delicious with Alec ordering calamari for the table and a Delmonico steak while everyone else tries one of the specials.

While he’s only hung out with Raphael on a handful of occasions, Alec’s pleased to see that Magnus’s friend-- Simon’s boyfriend-- has an incredibly dry sense of humor and his long suffering glances whenever Simon or Magnus goes off on a tangent or say something particularly dramatic has Alec in stitches.

Seeing Magnus interact with Raphael is always amusing and it’s interesting to see two people who obviously care and know each other interact. It’s even more interesting to see Simon with Raphael. Alec can’t remember the last time he saw Simon so gone over someone, from the smiles he tries to hide whenever Raphael says something gruffly caring to the way he insists on sharing a milkshake.

Raphael, for his part, glares with little heat. He ends up giving in to Simon’s prodding, sharing the strawberry milkshake with a put-upon expression, though Alec sees the faint flush that sweeps up his neck as Simon compliments him.

Alec knows that he isn’t any better. Magnus slyly hooks a foot around his ankle under the table as their appetizers are set down and when their dishes are swept away for dessert, Alec reaches for Magnus’s hand on the table.

Alec can’t quite remember the last time he enjoyed an evening more. It’s relaxing, having a good meal with friends, and distantly Alec’s happy that he’d decided to join Simon and Raphael on a double date that hadn’t ended in disaster.

The couples say goodbye and Magnus and Alec linger outside as Simon and Raphael climb into his death van. The chug past them a few minutes later, Simon enthusiastically waving and blowing his horn while Raphael sits in the passenger seat with a scowl on his face.

Alec’s focus shifts to Magnus as he leans against his car. He widens his stance as Magnus steps closer, pressing against him. The sun’s starting to set and the sky is a riotous mix of pink and orange and purple.

“Thanks for agreeing to this.”

Confused, Alec says, “Why are you thanking me? I’m the one who asked.”

Sighing, Magnus wraps his arms around Alec’s neck, playing with his hair. “Raphael’s a dear friend and it was nice meeting Simon. I’ve never enjoyed a date with another couple as much as I did tonight’s.”

“It was fun, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Magnus agrees. “Did you hear Simon call Raphael his ‘grumpy little snookums?’”

Alec barely holds his laughter back as he says, “I did. I also saw the way Raphael tried to glare but couldn’t help smiling.”

“They appear to work well together.”

“Simon’s into him,” Alec says confidently. “I’ve never seen him like this. He's always bubbly but this was a whole other level.”

“Yes,” Magnus says slowly, leaning a little more into Alec. “It’s a little harder to tell with Raphael but he was very much enjoying himself.”

“So, tonight was a success?”

“I’d say so,” Magnus agrees.

They fall quiet, enjoying the sounds of summer. The breeze cools and as Magnus shivers, Alec pulls him closer.

Shadows deepen as they kiss in Alicante’s parking lot. It’s freeing, being able to share this in public. Even if it’s in front of a quaint bed and breakfast, Alec doesn’t have to worry about a flash from behind the hedge or a particularly aggressive reporter.

Sometimes getting out of the city, even for the evening, is the best way to clear his head and let him just be a regular person enjoying a quiet moment.

It’s almost dark by the time they climb back into the car. Magnus cranks the radio up on a top 40 station and the two of them spend most of the ride singing along, joined hands resting on Magnus’s thigh.

All of a sudden, though, Alec turns down the radio as he remembers something he’s been meaning to tell Magnus.

“Did I mention that I finished your book?”

“Which one, darling,” Magnus asks absently as he watches the landscape outside. Before Alec can answer, though, Magnus is continuing, “The anthology?”

“European Conquerors, yeah,” he confirms. “I finished it on my flight home Wednesday.”

Alec smiles a little as the hand not in his automatically goes up to readjust the ear cuff. It’d taken him a little while but Alec now realizes that’s one of Magnus’s biggest tells and that his boyfriend only does it when he’s trying to hide how much he’s invested in the conversation.

“And,” Magnus prompts when Alec doesn’t immediately say anything.

“It was good. Your essay on the Dutch East India Company and its effects on Indonesian agriculture was illuminating. I hardly know anything about Indonesia but I learned a lot.”

“I can’t believe you really read that entire thing. It's dense as hell, Alexander,” Magnus says, bemused.

Alec shrugs, slowing down for an upcoming curve. “Why,” he asks. ‘I told you I would. It took me little longer than I might’ve liked, but I always planned on finishing it.”

Magnus doesn’t say anything but when Alec turns to glance at him, he sees Magnus staring out his window, smiling.

They’re just a few miles from the highway when Alec has an idea. It’s surprising but probably shouldn’t be and Alec grins as he decides fuck it. Slowing to a stop on the deserted country highway, Alec throws the car in park.

“Darling, if you’re planning on killing me and dumping my body in the woods, I’ve got to tell you Simon and Raphael might have something to say about it.”

Alec just sends a deadpan look over to his boyfriend. “If you want to be a comedian instead of getting behind the wheel, just say the word.”

Straightening in his seat, Magnus smiles in disbelief. “Seriously?”

“Why not,” Alec says, raising a brow. “Unless you don’t want to.”

“Of course I want to, Alexander. Get the hell out of my seat.”

Laughing, Alec opens his door and the two switch places. Settling into the driver’s seat, Magnus takes a few minutes to get acquainted with the controls before starting the ignition, the low growl of the engine muted but still powerful.

They’re taking off in the next instant.

Magnus is an effortless driver, punching through curves and accelerating on straightaways. Flipping on his turn signal, Magnus merges onto the highway's entry ramp a few miles ahead and Alec watches as the scenery goes by on their way to the city.

It’s fully dark now, the console lights the only illumination in the car. Alec looks over at Magnus barely visible and when his boyfriend looks over, grinning, Alec can’t stop his laugh from spilling out.

He feels light, happy in this moment as Magnus expertly drives his car. It’s attractive as hell, all that restrained strength, the sharp profile, that laser focus on the road ahead.

When Magnus downshifts before reaching for Alec’s hand, Alec squeezes it. They share a smile before Magnus turns his attention forward.

Alec loses himself in watching Magnus and doesn’t even notice that they’ve pulled in front of Magnus’s building until Magnus pulls his hand from his, shifting to park.

Magnus has just started to say, “Thank you, Alexander--” when Alec reaches over, laying a hand on his neck and hauling him close for a searing kiss.

Words cut off, Magnus immediately opens up to him. One kiss tapers off into another before gentling and when Alec ends the kiss, breathing heavy, he doesn’t open his eyes immediately.

No, he wants to remember this, wants to sear this moment onto his memory. The way the moonlight spills shadows over them, the faint but intoxicating scent of Magnus’s cologne, the way his boyfriend still tastes faintly of the chocolate cake they’d shared for dessert.

Pulling away from Magnus’s warmth, Alec opens his eyes to see Magnus studying him. He’s just getting ready to say something, anything, when he remembers that he’d stashed something in the glove box.

“Oh,” he exclaims, reaching for the compartment. Magnus doesn’t say anything as Alec opens it up, taking out a slender box and handing it to him.

He accepts with a confused smile. “What’s this, darling?”

Shrugging, Alec’s equal parts confident and self-conscious as he explains, “I went shopping with Izzy and mom yesterday and saw this. It made me think of you, so I figured why the hell not.”

Magnus’s lips turn up into a smile as he dryly echoes, “Why the hell not, indeed.”

The box is black velvet with a bold blue ribbon tied around it. Magnus carefully undoes the bow before cracking the lid open only for his breath to catch.

Nestled in the fabric is a silver necklace with an onyx pendant on its chain. It’s simple, elegant, and when Alec had scene it in a storefront as he’d been walking past, it had immediately caught his attention, reminding him of Magnus’s style.

“It’s beautiful, Alexander. Thank you.” Magnus’s voice is soft, pleased, as he studies the piece of jewelry under the low lights of the car before looking up and meeting Alec’s eyes with a little grin. “Put it on me?”

Alec doesn’t need asking twice and as he reaches for the necklace, he picks it up, working the clasp and bringing it up to Magnus’s neck.

He leans close, putting the necklace on, smoothing it over warm skin and letting the pendant lay on the bare skin exposed by the open v of Magnus’s shirt.

“Perfect,” he whispers.

Magnus doesn’t say anything for a minute, just watches Alec in the low light before kissing him lightly. “You didn’t have to but I love it nonetheless,” he says when he pulls back.

Alec shrugs. “Like I said, it made me think of you and I like buying you things. Sue me.”

“Oh no, Alexander,” Magnus says lowly. “I have better plans for you.”

Heat licks up Alec’s spine at the words, invitation heavy in the tone.

Turning the car off, Magnus abruptly opens the door, climbing out. Alec follows but doesn’t take more than a step onto the sidewalk before Magnus is reaching his side.

Taking his hands, Magnus takes a step backwards, toward the building’s entrance, head cocked to the side as a slow smile spreads across his face.

“Stay the night?” From his voice, he already knows the answer and Alec would’ve teased him if he wasn’t ready to be upstairs an hour ago.

“Lead the way,” he breathes, following Magnus inside with a grin.

#httbt #my writing #malec fic #malec wip

34 notes · View notes

notajinn · 5 years ago

Text

Top 10 Games I Played in 2019

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am finishing this at nearly 2 AM in the morning, so I did not proofread. Excuse any typos.

With 2019 closing out the decade, I want to make a "Top 10 Games of the Decade" list, but first I have to point out my favourites of the year. I actually played over 10 games this year (which is very unusual), so I chose my top 10. As usual, these are not all games that came out in 2019, but I played them for the first time this year. I'm not ranking carried over mobile games this time, although at this point the only mobile I play is Dragalia Lost.

Let's go.

10. Untitled Goose Game (Switch)

There's a lot to love about this game concept alone even though I ignored it for the longest time pre-release.

Pros

The entire goal of the game is just that you are a goose and also an asshole. I've talked many times about how I think being unique is overblown in place of being high-quality, but this is a unique take that really works.

With a vaguely open-world that you're thrown into with no real purpose, you really capture the feeling of just setting out that day to be a jerk. I appreciate that there is a progression system with a list of mischievous tasks you have to do to reach the next area, but it's still presented in a very free way. You'll do some of them accidentally just trying to be a jerk, and others you'll really have to think about. Eventually there will come a clear end goal, which I was pleasantly surprised by.

Controlling the goose is also perfect in how unwieldy and overconfident you feel. You don't exactly move quickly, and there's no attacking, but you still feel better than the humans around you.

The minimalist art design helps sell the really low-stakes nature of the goose's quest. Sound effects are also pronounced thanks to this, and sound is very important for the goose. I also like the slight stealth gameplay that's not at all punishing, as someone who enjoys but is bad at stealth.

Cons

Even for a budget game, it's quite short to reach the "end goal". It's very much a game you can continue to mess around in, and there's a "New Game+" set of tasks you receive, but as far my "have to reach the end" mindset...I was expecting it to take a little longer. I'd say it was maybe 3 hours max, including lots of goofing around.

I also found that I VERY much don't enjoy being a jerk to children (see screenshot), and very begrudgingly did the minimum mean things to get past the kid. Luckily there is only one kid.

Final Thoughts

Honestly the lower ranking is not so much because of negatives, but because I played so many good things this year combined with this being mostly a fun little novelty. I feel like people who are interested would have already played it (if they have the console). Really you can go with your gut instinct of whether or not being an asshole goose sounds fun for you.

9. Kingdom Hearts III (PS4)

If you told me Kingdom Hearts III wouldn't even make my top 5 in the year it was released, I'd think you were crazy. But here we are with the long-awaited game.

Pros

So much of this game is fanservice for the series, and I had fortunately caught up on the spinoffs enough to enjoy it. Seeing the 358 crew and the BBS crew, all the Organization members...there's a lot of love here.

KH3 also has some of my favourite worlds in the series in Toy Story and Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates in particular managed to scratch that Wind Waker sailing itch just enough. Meanwhile Toy Story going for a unique plot really helped pull me in, and there's that now infamous Woody scene that I love. Even other worlds like Monsters Inc get some great scenes (like Vanitas and the doors). Tangled is also one of my favourite Disney movies, so while the world itself was pretty average, I was happy to be in it.

Combat-wise, I appreciate getting so many options like dodge roll and blocking right off the bat regardless of your initial choices; previously I always forced myself to take the Shield so I could start with the super-useful dodge roll.

The music is as stellar as ever, although they loop far too quickly given how much time you'll spend in a single area sometimes (looking at you, Toy Story). I especially love Don't Think Twice, which had the bonus of being a complete surprise.

Cons

KH1 was the first Aladdin. KH2 was Return of Jafar. So logically KH3 should have been King of Thieves. Instead we get no Aladdin at all! Just the Genie as a summon I think?

For all the character fanservice, it still feels like only the main trio, Riku, and Mickey are really useful. I can't believe how poorly Aqua does as a Keyblade Master. I can't believe Kairi and Axel's training basically amounts to nothing. I know it's Sora's game, but it's still so frustrating.

And the final fight with everyone is very much so "good idea, bad execution". It just feels so messy. The entire climax is just not paced very well.

The Frozen world is one of my least favourites in the series. Nearly nothing interesting happens (outside of one good Larxene scene), you don't get Elsa as a boss or a party member, and the progression is just "got to get to Elsa's castle, oh no we fell" repeated three times. Also did they really need to put the full Let It Go song in there? I say this as someone who likes the song. This whole world is just a mess, and I think we'd be better off it was cut. And replaced with ALADDIN 3!

Where is the Wreck-It Ralph world? You know, the Disney movie about video games?

The combat somehow feels less smooth than KH2, possibly because of so many things constantly going off. The Park Attraction skills are fun at first, but later they take so long and often aren't worth bothering with. But I think HP of the enemies assumes you'll use it, because some enemies get really spongy later on.

There was also literally no reason not to end Sora's plot with this game; they had a very easy chance. But they also had an easy chance to end at KH2 and they didn't. I don't know why they're so afraid to use a different protagonist. Even if they don't want to make one, there's so many other potential-protagonists in the game already. Some of whom are also technically Sora!

Also the stupid Toy Story music loop is like 10 seconds long. Stop it.

I was actually originally going to put this at 8, but after typing out these Cons I moved the ranking back.

Final Thoughts

For as many pros and cons as I wrote out, the biggest thing about this game is that it's somehow incredibly forgettable. Kingdom Hearts 3, the game we waited over a decade for, is forgettable. And that really hurts.

The ReMind DLC has some real potential to help with this, but it also costs $40 CAD. If you're on the fence for KH3 as a whole, maybe wait and see what people say about the DLC fixing stuff.

8. Cadence of Hyrule (Switch)

It really hurts to put Cadence of Hyrule this low, because there's so much I love about it. And I want to see more third-parties work on Nintendo IPs.

Pros

You can finally play as Zelda in a proper Legend of Zelda game! Yes there's the rhythm mechanic and roguelike nature, but you're ultimately still going around a 2D LoZ overhead map in the same way you would a mainline game. But now you can have Zelda go around and play a little differently. For example, you have no regular shield but you have the Nayru's Love barrier which can work defensively in a different way. I appreciate that the characters all play differently when the developers could easily have easily given you three different sprites with one moveset.

The rhythm mechanic of moving on the beat works very well with the LoZ map style. Being able to see the bar speed at the bottom also helps a lot to learn in the first place. Most importantly, you have the option to completely turn it off to play this like a classic LoZ. Obviously the soundtrack itself is full of great LoZ remixes.

The difficulty is just right without being too rough or too easy with only occasional exceptions, and the game is fairly forgiving about respawing when you do die; it usually doesn't feel like a BIG deal. There's tons of LoZ equipment to use, which I really appreciate after how barebones Breath of the Wild was in that regard.

As with any roguelike, you also have a lot of replayability with the map changes and different characters and equipment to try out.

Incorporating classic bosses with musical instruments is also really fun.

Cons

It's as short as you would expect a budget game to be, but it's more expensive than your average budget game. I'm going to chalk that up to using a first-party Nintendo IP, but the price fools you into thinking the game will be longer.

I also personally don't really care for roguelikes, so the selling point of replayability isn't for me. It's a bit unfair to judge the game for something the genre is supposed to do, but I don't think it's a bad game for being like this. I just think it's a game I like less because of that emphasis.

There's also one boss in particular that was super frustrating, and I think it's because I didn't understand the "trick" to beating it.

Final Thoughts

I do honestly recommend this if you like classic LoZ, but just know what you're getting into; something that emphasizes multiple playthroughs and won't take too long on a single run, but which executes the LoZ formula itself really well.

7. XCOM: Enemy Unknown (PC)

I can't believe how long it took me to play XCOM: Enemy Unknown given that Fire Emblem is my favourite series. I also owned it for years on Steam, but it was just this year I finally booted up this strategy RPG.

Pros

You want a challenging SRPG? Here you goddam go. This game is punishing as hell, but as long as you don't play Iron Man mode it's still reasonable to deal with. I don't usually care for games that sell on difficulty, but I've played enough SRPGs that I don't mind more difficulty in the genre that's not cheap. XCOM very closely skirts the line of difficult and cheap, again if you are not playing Iron Man (which prevents you from restarting missions).

There's so much dumb RPG numbers to gloss over and spec, and I love it. Things to research, order to research, facilities to build, equipment to craft, skills per each character to learn. If you like pouring over resources like me but don't like the real time nature of an RTS, this is perfect.

I also like the idea that you start off so overwhelmed against an absurdly powerful alien force, and everything you're doing is basically just trying to survive while looking for a way to hold your ground. There's a real desperation in the gameplay that captures the feeling of war in a way that Fire Emblem struggles with.

Cons

I haven't seen RNG that hates me this much since Fire Emblem: Sealed Sword. And it seems to be a universal experience that the RNG is more stacked against you than it leads you to believe.

I've also seen many people online suggest Iron Man for a person's first run, but that is AWFUL advice. It's why I almost quit the game twice, but ultimately just made a new file without Iron Man. It sounds fun for a second or later playthrough, but there's so many unknowns happening constantly in your first run that it just feels unfair to go Iron Man.

The aesthetic is sci-fi apocalypse; two designs I generally hate. Everything is so gloomy and blue and tech. It's all very forgettable to look at.

Healing options are so limited, at least in the relatively early sections I'm in (I did not beat this). Actually this is one of the very few games I started but did NOT beat before playing something else, which in itself means there's something that I really disliked. At this point I can't remember what that is.

Final Thoughts

If you like Fire Emblem gameplay but want it to be even more resource management based, and can deal with a drab aesthetic, absolutely grab this. Especially since it gets really cheap on Steam. Just do NOT start on Iron Man mode.

6. Telltale's Batman: The Enemy Within (PC)

There was a Joker live-action movie this year; an entire movie dedicated to him. And yet Telltale managed a better Joker.

Pros

I am one of those weirdo people who considers Joker one of his favourite comic characters. I'm a sucker for a good villain, and it was probably Joker in Batman: The Animated Series that is responsible for that. So I love seeing a good fresh take on the character, and Telltale delivers. This is season two of Telltale Batman, and we briefly got to see "John Doe" in the first season as a proto-Joker who's definitely a violent jerk, but not necessarily a villain just yet. While there are many plot threads in Enemy Within, the main one is about how John grows among the mess that is Gotham. Depending on how you play, you can actually push him to become a vigilante and ally of Batman instead of the villain. This is itself not only a fun take on the character, but also the most uniquely any Telltale game has branched.

I remember explaining once that Telltale is not so much "choose how the story ends", but more "choose how your character's relationships with others changes". But there, you get a wildly different final chapter depending on whether John is a vigilante or villain. I really appreciate the effort it took, but it's also bittersweet since this was one of the last games the studio worked on before being closed.

Telltale gives us other character portrayals that range from standard to occasionally good. They have Harley play the big mob boss who has John wrapped around her finger this time, and they do a good job selling it.

You'll get some great dialogue options, and it seems almost impossible to please everyone. Being forced to make hard choices that will inevitably make someone mad at you is what this genre is about, and it's often not exactly clear cut what the consequences will be.

Cons

Like other Telltale games, action sequences are done with QTEs. These are relics in this day and age, so I really didn't care for them. It's a good way to get around a probably costly combat engine, but it's ultimately filler to me to get back to the plot. Since this is a Batman game, it has more action sequences than the average Telltatle game.

Other sequences like searching for clues are less annoying, but still not really fun. I did not grow up on point-and-clicks, but it seems the developers did.

You also can't easily restart sequences if you selected an option by mistake; you have to restart that entire chapter. And a chapter is multiple hours. I get the implication of "you have to live with your choices", but when it's an actual mistake because I'm using a PS3 controller on my PC mapped to Xbox buttons...I get a little annoyed.

Final Thoughts

It's a little weird to start at Enemy Within if you didn't play the first season, and it will retroactively spoil things, but you honestly could. It is more fun than the original (which is also good). Easily the big selling point is being able to shape John the proto-Joker; if that doesn't appeal to you, this may not be for you.

5. Super Metroid (SNES Classic)

Not only is 2019 the first time I played (and completed) Super Metroid; it's also the first time I completed a Metroid game at all! I had played a decent amount of Fusion and the first Prime before, but fell off both of them. This time, I absolutely saw Samus reach her goal.

Pros

How do you talk about such a beloved game? First of all, the SNES era is still visually my favourite in video games. This has a lot to do with nostalgia since I grew with the SNES, but also because it was the height of sprites before the industry turned to 3D models. And as amazing as N64 and PS1 graphics looked back then, they did not age well. The SNES, however, still holds up so well visually.

For a game with a sci-fi aesthetic that heavily takes place underground, I loved the variety and colours Super Metroid offered outside my expectations. This is definitely up there as one of the most beautiful games of the console.

Where I think the game excels the most is Samus' controls. The level of precision they built into her abilities is nuts. Obviously there are games where characters have larger movesets (such as fighters), but for a platformer I love how well you can maneuver Samus. For example, when you do a moving jump. If you hit the D-Pad and then jump, you do the Spin Jump. If you jump and then hit the D-Pad, you do a more standard jump. It may not seem like much now, but I feel like for the time it's very impressive.

There's so many fun abilities you get, and the majority of them can be used simultaneously for some really fun platforming.

You also learn very quickly even without text based on the way power-ups and obstacles are laid out. Even storytelling is done well simply through gameplay; no cinema scenes or text explanations needed.

The bosses feel stressful but almost never too cheap; you always feel like they're possible to deal with. Occasionally you may need more missiles or energy, but it's usually learning and countering patterns.

Music can effectively be atmospheric or lively depending on where you are, and I retroactively wish we had a few more Metroid tracks in Super Smash Brothers.

Also even though I'm not a 100% completion-ist type of person, I appreciate when I do find some secret missile tank by really examining the area.

Cons

When you're not used to the controls early on, it can be tricky to handle Samus. Mostly those spin jumps. The wall jump also never really got easier.

Weapon switching is a weird situation. I appreciate you can do it on the fly with the Select button, but the fact it always goes in a certain order means it can often take a while to get to what you want.

Personally I also thought Ridley was a hell of a difficulty spike, and the game actually calmed back down in difficulty afterwards? Maybe I'm just bad at fighting such an aggressive and fast boss.

Phantoon was also a tough boss made tougher by the fact the closest working Save Point was a good 5+ minutes of platforming away for me. I like that the nearest Save Point doesn't work because the electricity is off, and it builds on the haunted ship atmosphere, but boy was that frustrating to jump all the way back nearly four times to fight that boss.

Final Thoughts

If like me you've somehow not played Super Metroid, you really should. It still holds up, and it's relatively short (my time was about 6 hours). It may be a little weird at the start with the limited abilities and getting used to the precise controls, but if you stick with it you're in for a good time.

The reason it's number 5 and not higher is not due to any particular negatives, but simply because the next few games left me with more positives.

4. Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight (PS4)

The fact that this game exists is incredibly stupid, and I love it.

Pros

Persona 3 is not a happy game in a traditional sense. There are happy moments, but most are bittersweet. It's a game about dealing with and overcoming tragedy, and has a dark visual atmosphere to match.

So the fact we get to see that cast dancing around with bright colours is nuts. But not at all in a bad way. These characters go through so many difficulties; they absolutely deserve to have a fun dance party where they don't have to think about anything else. This isn't the happy kids deciding to dance; this is a bunch of stressed out people who need a break. And as someone who loves Persona 3, it makes me so happy to...well, see them happy.

The majority of the original voice actors were brought back (the main exception being Elizabeth), and they do just as good a job as in the old days.

We get mostly great remixes of the P3 songs, and the original versions of others. Each song has a particular character assigned to it so they can more effectively match their dancing style. The models look amazing.

There's also minor Social Link elements which are used in place of a story, and their personalities are mostly intact. There's certainly some Flanderization, but it's not as bad as Persona Q.

You also get a decent progression system of unlocking songs in batches, and needing to beat them to get the next songs. The Social Link requirements help make repeating the songs fun while giving you something to work towards.

The rhythm game itself is hard to judge since I play very few rhythm games. I found it fun once I got the hang of it on normal difficulty. There's tons of modification options to make it easier or harder depending on your preferences.

Cons

As with every modern Persona game, the DLC is awful. Tons of Day One DLC, and they even locked Shinji to DLC! Does he not also deserve to have fun without paying extra? There's also a few songs I would have liked, but not at those prices. Otherwise DLC is mostly costumes and accessories which I both don't care about, and which are overpriced.

I also hate that we had an EASY chance to get the FeMC Minako in this fun low-stakes plot game, but didn't. It's not like Atlus forgot about her either; she was in Persona Q2 which came out a little later. If anything, SHE should have been DLC and Shinji should have been in the base game.

The jump in difficulty between Hard and All-Night is absurd. I can beat most songs on Hard with good ratings, but I can't beat the first song on All-Night at all.

Koromaru is not in the game, which inherently prevents it from being perfect. He could have jumped in during Fever Time at least!

Final Thoughts

This game is only for Persona 3 fans, but boy is it some great fanservice for us. If you're a Persona 3 fan that at least slightly enjoys rhythm games, this is for you.

3. Indivisible (PS4)

As of writing this, I have not actually beaten Indivisible. If I had to guess, I'm at the 2/3 mark? A big plot thing just happened, but it's clearly not the final plot thing.

Since this game is less known, it's a platformer/fighter/RPG hybrid with a heavy South Asian influence.

Pros

It's a platformer/fighter/RPG hybrid with a heavy South Asian influence.

Look at that sentence! These are all things I love!

I grew up on platformers and RPGs, and I have a lot of fun when I get into a fighter. And as someone who always desperately tries to find even one brown character in most video games, I'm all about a cast that is mostly South Asian!

The combat system is really fun. It utilizes something similar the classic Final Fantasy ATB style system, but at a very quick refresh rate and tons of fighting game elements thrown in. For example, a key is doing combos with your various party members. Each character has 3 standard moves, and knowing when to use what depending on the enemy's position is where the strategy comes in. There's also one party-wide meter that everyone dips into to use Supers. It's a very aggressive and offense-oriented battle system, but they manager to incorporate healers and support units comfortably. But yes, everyone is basically a fighting game character in an RPG battle system.

The platforming starts off very basic, but you get access to so many moves and can use them all fluidly together. There's some really fun platforming segments that really force you to use everything Ajna can do.

The character designs are top-notch, even removed from how ecstatic I am about the diversity. Again, they are designed as fighting game characters who have to be distinct and high-quality. Everyone also feels extremely unique in combat.

I wouldn't say the overall story and writing is amazing, but there's some good moments here and there. It also follows a somewhat less traditional path for Ajna so far, even though I'm expecting a fairly traditional climax.

Cons

Okay, so this is in some ways a fighting game. Which means you should have a move list you can look up. While you get a brief explanation of each character's gimmick when you recruit them, there's NO MOVE LIST!

That sucks, but you can go into Training and figure out the moves for yourself, right? Yes, except you don't unlock Training until almost 10 hours into the game! Which means for the early part of the game when you're still learning the mechanics of the system as a whole, you also have more trouble learning what each character can do. Combined with a very high rate of recruiting new characters early on, this can be overwhelming. If they didn't want to make a move list, they should at least have made Training available from the beginning.

Backtracking can be a bit of a pain; there's minimal fast travel points. Ajna doesn't cover as much space as Samus relatively to the game world, so it really takes some time to go around. Enough that it sometimes discourages exploration, which is not good in a platformer.

The sense of progression is also pretty slow once you get past the 1/3 mark. You don't get new characters quite as quickly, and it's not as though your characters learn new moves (they shouldn't, based on how the battle system works). You also only have levels for Ajna, which in my experience don't make a huge difference. And there's no equipment or items give you that sense of growth. What you have are the Ringels; collect enough of them and you can get a major defense upgrade, or add an additional attack slot per turn to every character. They're great upgrades, and fun to explore and find, but it's a long time between upgrades.

I also feel like healers and support are tough to use well in such an aggressive battle system, which is unfortunate because I traditionally love support-type characters.

Final Thoughts

Despite liking it more than most of the games on this list, it's a tough recommend. It's very specific to what it is, and there's nothing to really compare it to. However I really like it, and I especially love the South Asian influence.

2. Celeste (Switch)

If you showed me a 10-second clip of Celeste gameplay, I'd dismiss it as some easier Super Meat Boy clone.

I'm so glad I didn't.

Pros:

In many ways, Celeste can be called a long series of platforming challenge rooms. Basically once you clear a distinct "screen" and die, you move forward. You die, you restart on the same screen in seconds. There's infinite lives and no timer. You take as long as you need, and you keep pushing forward. It's a compromise of making a classically difficult platformer that removes all elements that make the classics feel cheap. And it's also a great representation of the story Madeline is going through.

Having a young-life crisis, non-mountain-climber Madeline sets out to climb the famously difficult mountain Celeste. There's a few other characters to deal with, but the majority of the game is spent with Madeline and the reflection that represents another side of her. A side of her that's always bringing her down and trying to force her to turn backIt's a short and well-written story, and absolutely worth experiencing. I love the weaving of the "keep trying" gameplay and story, and the fact an Assist Mode to make the gameplay easier is available from the start is important.

The music also nails that Super Metroid feeling of atmospheric or lively depending on what's happening.

Controls are similarly precise but reasonable, and the incredibly low stakes of failure make even the cheaper platforming segments doable. Some of the platforming is legitimately annoying, but being able to try again in literal seconds makes it less frustrating than easier platformers.

Cons

I don't care for the character sprites. They are small and faceless. You understand what they're going for, and I know they have to be small in relation to the area of the game. But it's just not visually appealing.

...I can't really think of any other cons.

Final Thoughts

I feel like Celeste is an important game that will stay with me, far beyond just a good game I played in 2019. It's short, it doesn't cost much, and it's absolutely worth your time if you have any sort of anxiety or self-esteem issues.

1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch)

My favourite series finally returns to a home console after nearly a decade. And boy does it deliver.

Pros

There's two critical things I look for when judging a Fire Emblem game; the cast, and the core gameplay.

The cast in Three Houses is nearly fully presented to you from the start of the game. You have your three separate houses with their individual students, and you choose one to lead. Fortunately you can recruit most students from other houses with some work, so you don't have to worry too much about mutually exclusive units. You will see a few new faces over the course of the game join your team as well, so there's still some surprises. At first glance, many of the characters can be relegated to anime tropes. Claude is the charismatic schemer, Marianne is the quiet girl who likes animals, Hilda is the lazy high-confidence girl, etc. But as you progress through the story and the Support conversations, you'll find that nearly every character has a lot of writing effort put into them. I do not want to give any examples because it's better to get to them yourself throughout the game, but don't take the characters at face-value. Don't expect a full 180 personality shift, but do expect lots of depth to explain both currently personalities, and being able to see the growth of these characters. There's some very relatable issues some of the characters face.

Honestly, it's not a stretch to say Three Houses has some of my favourite characters in the series. It's a big plus that one of the main Lords is dark-skinned for the first time in series history.

Then we have the gameplay. Off the bat we're into some very non-traditional Fire Emblem stuff with the academy system; you use things like lectures to build the weapon levels of your students. Also Cavalry, Heavy Armor, and Flying have their own weapon levels now? Also you don't buy spells, you learn them with weapon levels? There is a LOT that's different.

But what remains the same is the core formula of the strategy-RPG battles. Your process to build your units may be different in many ways, but you're still using the tactics you would expect in an FE game. There's just a few other things to consider now.

Basically I feel that Three Houses' new systems are a good compliment to the classic system as opposed to being a full replacement. Which is why even as an old FE elitist, I absolutely loves playing out the fights. Also they brought back Fog of War!

I really love the incorporation of visible agro lines. Basically when you move your character within enemy range, you actually see direct lines from the enemies so you see who will attack you. Combined with ability to go back to a previous turn, this helps make bad RNG feel less frustrating.

The story is also hands-down the best of the modern Fire Emblem era (everything from Awakening and beyond). It may start off as anime high-school, but having a cast of characters from entirely different countries attend school together as teenagers and then skipping forward to when they are leading their respective countries to war against each other...it's a lot to take in. And you have four different ways to experience the game, all of which are fairly distinct.

New gameplay elements like the lectures and academy activities are actually pretty fun, and dip into a bit of that Persona itch. You also get a better feel for the cast as you see them going about more normal activities. And it's all done in voice acting. Even every generic NPC dialogue in all four routes. Honestly the level of voice acting is incredible for a first-party Nintendo game. Voices also help the game feel so much more alive.

As always, the music is wonderful. The main theme Edge of Dawn is up there with Kingdom Hearts songs among my favourite video game vocal tracks.

Seriously, listen to it:

youtube

The option to freely change class so long as you can pass certification is weird, but feels far less busted than Awakening and Fates due to skills taking longer to learn, and mostly being less overpowered. It's also great aesthetically. Being able to use any weapon with any class was also an interesting change.

Also we have gauntlets as a weapon in Fire Emblem now. Which means you can run up to a goddam Wyvern Rider and punch them in the face. This is amazing.

Another plus is that despite incorporating a time skip, there is no child system. Which means Support is not longer a means to getting a perfect gene child unit, but instead to see how characters grow together while also getting a slight stat boost.

Cons

I kind of miss the Weapon Triangle. I know it's not even the most important thing in the old game, but I have nostalgia for it? You can sort of get the Weapon Triangle abilities once you raise your respective weapon levels enough.

As for more of a real problem...gender locked classes. It's very frustrating that there is only one class that focuses on Gauntlets, and it's locked to males. Like, have you seen Leonie? She's made to be a puncher! And I made her one, but I had to make her a Warrior.

Similarly, the only Master class that focuses on magic is locked to females. It didn't present a problem for me in the Golden Deer route, but I'm sure at one point during the other 3 routes I'll want to make a male magic user. Oh, the Dark Mage line is also locked to males, but doesn't have a Master class.

Master classes in general are a problem. Nearly all of them are Cavalry or Flying, and it's visually annoying. Also because most of my Advanced classes were infantry, so my characters didn't really learn Cavalry or Flying with certain exceptions.

I wish there were no gender-locked classes, and more infantry Master classes.

Also I know it doesn't make sense story-wise, but I wish I could recruit Claude to Blue Lions or Black Eagles because I really don't want to hurt him when I play those routes.

Final Thoughts

I mean, it's number one on my list. Obviously I love it. But it's important to note this is my favourite Fire Emblem game in a long time. I feel like I need more distance from it (and to play the other routes) to really compare it to my favourites, but for now it's at least my favourite game of 2019, and my favourite Switch game.

#games of the year #games of 2019

1 note · View note