#it just keeps him from going past 1 hp while you the healer get to panic about the living dead icon

[sntoot]

ironically i didnt truly learn how to play sge until well after i did this, but i think it holds up for hestias style of healing (yoinks aether from the enemies to use to protect their friends)

cant decide if aether chain would be like fairy tether or kardia tho bc im biased towards sch gameplay

[firelxdykatara]

Katara x Aang :3c

are you trying to get me in trouble

-cough-

no but in all honesty, my genuine feelings about kataang boil down to three major points: 1. it's boring, and does not jive thematically with either of their character arcs, to the point of, 2. actively hampering character development on both sides, and 3. katara deserved better.

points expanded under the cut. (please, if you're a kataang shipper and you see this, just keep scrolling. i've tagged it appropriately and put the bulk under a cut and at this point that's literally all i can do lmfao.)

send me a ship and get my (brutally) honest opinion!

1. It's Boring: This is the most subjective point on the list (I mean, in fairness, it's all subjective, but I have evidence from the show and post-canonical materials to support my other points; this one is just preference), but there's just... nothing to kataang. It's cute (when it's not actively aggravating), and... that's about it. It's not even that I dislike friends-to-lovers as a shipping trope (though it's not my overall preference), because there are a lot of friends-to-lovers couples that I do ship (kanej comes to mind, also will/elizabeth from potc, karolsen from supergirl, romione and hinny from hp, among others), but one thing that I think all of those couples have that kataang doesn't is that both sides of the pairing are teens or adults when they get together, with teen/adult dynamics and issues and stories to deal with, rather than one half being a teenager and the other being literally prepubescent.

And don't get me wrong, I have no problem with age gap ships in general. And as far as atla goes, Katara, at 14, has the same age difference from Zuko (16) as Aang has from her, and it's never stopped me--because both Katara and Zuko are well into puberty when they meet and I have no problem picturing them being into one another and growing together as they enter adulthood. Aang, on the other hand, is a child. And he acts like it. Which wouldn't be a problem, if the show weren't expecting me to believe he is a) ready for a romantic relationship, and b) ready for one specifically with Katara, who is not only older and far more mature but is specifically cast as his caretaker in a very maternal role for the entire show's run.

This show asks me to believe that a teenage girl well into adolescence is going to be attracted to and develop romantic feelings for a pre-adolescent child--and it asks me to believe this while showing us otherwise that Katara's type is actually older boys with fabulous hair and angsty pasts in all of her other potential romantic dalliances--and then enter into a relationship with him, all while ignoring the elephant in the room that is the fact that she was basically acting like his mother for the entire series to that point. (Something that is heavily lampshaded earlier in the very same season.) That just stretches the bounds of credulity way too far for me, especially when there's no evidence that Katara herself would get anything out of their romantic relationship.

There's nothing there for me to sink my teeth into. No delicious development, no parallels where they help each other grow, no internal conflicts that they have to work through together, nothing. Certainly no reason for me to actually believe Katara feels (or would grow to feel) anything for him other than the platonic affection of a caretaker. I can easily believe she loves him dearly, as a friend and quasi-little-brother, but I just can't see that developing naturally into romantic love--not the way it's presented in the show.

And even if they did manage to at least make the development of Katara's feelings believable, unless they changed something fundamental about the nature of their relationship, it'd still be boring, so.

2. It Actively Hampers Their Character Development--On Both Sides: I've written before (extensively lol im so sorry) about how kataang is actively detrimental to Katara and to Aang. In short (because ye gods this post is already getting long enough), Katara is narratively harmed by being shoved into a relationship that completely ignores her stated feelings--a relationship that had been presented as a one-sided puppylove crush for the vast majority of the series--and it inhibits her growth as a character in ways that become far more obvious in the comics and lok, where the very same creative forces that lead to her beginning a relationship with Aang in the first place reduce her to 'the Avatar's girl' and very little else, all the way through to the end of LoK (where she is a Healer and the Avatar's wife and, again, very little else).

As for Aang:

As to how this relationship is detrimental to Aang (other than the comics and LoK nonsense)? Just take a look at book 2, when he’s trying to learn Earthbending from Toph. Katara constantly coddles him. Much of the time, she’s afraid to be anything other than gentle and understanding with Aang--partly because of her fear that if she pushes him too far, he’ll run away. (Which he does, several times.) But sometimes, what Aang needs to grow is a sharp kick in the slats, which Toph was more than willing to provide--and which worked. Katara was great for teaching Aang to waterbend, but he needed more than that to grow as a person. And he can’t get that while he’s in a relationship with someone who will apologize for getting upset when he was very explicitly neglecting her.

In addition, it is pointed out by Guru Pathik at the end of Book 2 that one of Aang's chakras is blocked by his attachment to Katara. Aang takes this to mean (incorrectly) that he has to stop loving her in order to become fully realized as an Avatar, but this is actually part of the problem--because the issue isn't that he is in love with Katara, it's that he's possessively attached to her. He believes himself entitled to her love in return, rather than selflessly loving someone regardless of whether or not they return that affection. (This is obvious come the EIP episode, where Aang demands to know why he and Katara aren't in a relationship already--because he kissed her without asking [or even checking to see if she'd be ok with kissing him], which he phrases as mutual even though it very much was not, and he gets angry and violates her boundaries when she says that she is confused and doesn't want to think about it right then.)

It is his attachment to Katara--the need for her to return his love, the belief that she will and it is only a matter of time before he gets what he wants--that he was supposed to let go of, not his feelings for her in general. Unfortunately, while he pays lipservice to doing this (far too late for it to be useful--if he'd stayed with the Guru for five more minutes and unlocked his chakra there, that battle would've gone very differently), he almost immediately backtracks on that development come book 3, and there isn't another single whisper of Aang maybe growing up and moving past his one-sided and possessive crush and realizing that even if Katara doesn't feel the same way, it doesn't mean she loves him less or that their friendship is less important.

What really needed to happen, for Aang to grow as a person and become fully realized as an Avatar, was for him to grow up. To realize that his feelings were not of paramount importance, and that even if he was in love with Katara, he was not entitled to her love in return. He should have been able to move past his need for her to love him back, in order to get past that stumbling block, unlock his chakras, and regain the Avatar State in time to face the Firelord. But he didn't. As a result, they had to find some other way to just give him the Avatar State (a well-placed rock) and the means to defeat Ozai without killing him (the deus ex lionturtle) and his entire character arc just fell apart in the third act rather than reaching a satisfying conclusion.

3. Katara Deserved Better: This really ties into how her romantic relationship with Aang hampered her own development, but I'm still bitter enough about it that it gets its own bullet-point. And the biggest single reason I could never ship kataang--the thing that would've turned me off even if there were substance and a halfway decent storyline for them--is the fact that Aang kisses her without her consent (for the second time) in Ember Island Players, Katara gets angry at him and storms off, and then..... she walks out onto the balcony to make out with him.

With nothing to bridge that gap.

It's bad enough that a show aimed at children had a scene where the child protagonist kissed the object of his affections without her consent when she didn't want him to (made explicit by her angry reaction)--and this is absolutely an issue when the show is aimed at children and it may well be the first experience they've had with consent issues portrayed in media--but this moment is never addressed again. Katara just decides--completely off-screen--that she does love him Really and walks out to make out with him in the epilogue. There's no conversation, no apology for violating her boundaries, no discussion of why that was wrong or any indication that Aang understands what he did and why it upset her. They don't have a single one-on-one interaction between that kiss and the epilogue, and the only other time they are on screen together, Aang yells at her and storms off.

So, even leaving the comics and lok aside, Katara deserved much better from her own romantic plotline. In fact, she deserved to have one, rather than simply being the oblivious object of Aang's affections, given a couple moments where she blushes but otherwise remains completely ignorant of his feelings (she looks shocked and upset when he kisses her prior to the invasion, and then she completely forgets that even happened because she's confused as to what Aang is even talking about during EIP until he brings it up; that's not the behavior of a fourteen-year-old girl who was kissed by someone she was developing romantic feelings for), before the epilogue where it becomes clear that she figured all of that out off-screen and had feelings for him after all.

She's a main character, not a side-character written in solely to give one of the mains a love interest. She deserved a romantic plotline of her own. (She could have had one with someone else, with very few changes made to what was actually on-screen prior to the epilogue, but that's another conversation entirely.) She deserved to have her feelings considered at all important by the person she was going to be paired with in the end, rather than having him just assume she felt the same way and then get mad at her for never giving any indication of it when he'd never asked about her feelings to begin with. She deseserved agency in her own romantic narrative, and she just didn't get that with Aang.

So yeah, at the end of the day, my biggest issue with kataang is that it involved doing Katara dirty, and she's my favorite character and she deserved so much better damnit.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #180

Coming in fourth is Team Satisfaction H ∴ T ∴ E, led by Helena Blavatsky (Archer) and her Sanat Kumara Wheel! Since most of her goodies come from a generous loan via historic spirits, she’s a Lorehold Warlock for NYARF, the wheel itself, and the explosions that come with it. She also dips into Artillerist Artificer to dump some more tech into your gun and get a doll, as well as Fighter for a couple more spins on the barrel. That last bit is, admittedly, powerbuilding, but Helena made her new spirit origin with help from two of histories greatest inventive minds, so she did it first.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: The final racers: Team Prefect of Public Decency and Monk Sanzang!

Race and Background

Like we said in her first appearance, Helena’s a human. But she’s also really small and smart, so we’ll make her a Rock Gnome instead. This gives her +2 Charisma and +1 Intelligence, Darkvision to dunk on dumb human eyes, Gnome Cunning for advantage on all soft stat saves against magic, Artificer’s Lore which doubles your History proficiency when figuring out how items work, and lastly you can Tinker to create small clockwork items. The Clockwork Toy is a simple Colonel Olcott, but we’ll get fancier models as we go through the build.

She’s still a Cloistered Scholar, giving her proficiency with History and Arcana.

Ability Scores

This is exactly the same as her first time around, so if you want justifications just check that one out. From top to bottom: Intelligence, Charisma, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Strength.

Class Levels

1. Warlock 1: Now for something that’s actually new. Starting off as a warlock is not new, but the School of Lorehold you get your magic from certainly is. When you join the class, you get some extra Spells to complement the ones you can already cast using your Charisma, as well as an Ancient Companion. When you finish a short or long rest, you can shove a spirit into a medium statue nearby, creating one of three Ancient Companions: the Healer, the Sage, or the Warrior. You have to use your bonus action to command it in combat, otherwise it will just dodge. You can have one companion at a time, and you can heal existing companions by channeling magic into them as an action, spending a spell slot.

Warriors get extra AC and can throw themselves between allies and danger as a reaction thanks to Warrior’s Protection, adding a d4 to an ally’s strength or dexterity saving throw.

Sages give their Sage’s Counsel to nearby allies, adding +2 to all their intelligence and wisdom checks.

Healers can grant a Healer’s Light to a creature as an action, granting it temporary HP.

There’s also some abilities they all have, but this bit’s already running long, so check the character sheet for all the details.

Here’s another bit that’ll take ages, Pact Magic! It uses your Charisma, and it recharges on short rests. You get the cantrips Eldritch Blast for your big water cannon, as well as Blade Ward for a short lived Ultraman transformation, giving you resistance to physical damage. We’ll get better stuff later.

For first level spells, grab Expeditious Retreat to speed yourself up and Witch Bolt for a little electricity Tesla snuck into the design. You also get Sacred Flame and Comprehend Languages from being a lorehold mage. You’ll need a lot more fire for your NP, but it’s a start.

Finishing off this massive first level is your proficiencies. You get Wisdom and Charisma saves, as well as Religion to tell people the glory of the Mahatmas and Intimidation to help you break up fights between a modern thunder god and a man-sized lion.

2. Artificer 1: Bouncing over to artificer gets you Magical Tinkering, so you can slap a bunch of minor effects onto tiny objects. I’m sure a fantasy tape recorder in a feather will help your studies greatly.

You also get another Spell list, this time you cast and prepare your spells with your Intelligence. Also, while you are multiclassing here, pact magic and normal magic doesn’t mix your spell slots together, so just use the spell slots listed for each class at whatever level you are.

You get two cantrips, so grab Mending to patch up your wheel on the road (they don’t actually say you can heal an Ancient Companion with mending, but it’s a statue, I’m sure it’s fine.), as well as Light to spruce up your designs a bit. I’m pretty sure we made Tesla a human before, so that’d make him the only member of the team without darkvision. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.

As far as first level spells go, I’d make sure you pick up Longstrider. Making yourself faster is okay, but you should make your ride faster too.

3. Warlock 2: Moving back to warlock for a bit so you can get Eldritch Invocations, boons from your teammates for extra special powers. Armor of Shadows makes fighting in a bikini a slightly better idea thanks to your free casts of Mage Armor, making your AC 13 plus your dexterity modifier. You also get Agonizing Blast to up the pressure on NYARF, adding your charisma modifier to the damage of your eldritch blast.

It looks like your Sanat Kumara Wheel also comes with a bit of an automated defense system, or at least that’s the justification we’re using to justify grabbing Hellish Rebuke. Blast fire at people as a reaction if they hit you, it’s fun for the whole family!

4. Warlock 3: Third level warlocks get their pact boon. An obvious option here would be pact of the blade, but we’re already using eldritch blast for that one, so instead we’ll shore up your dolls with Pact of the Chain. Summon an imp, give it clockwork armor, there ya go.

To get your doll count up even higher, grab Flock of Familiars for some extra help, summoning up to three dolls (or two if you’ve already got one from Find Familiar). You can also blast down a door with Knock or stick a GPS chip on an item with Locate Object, both courtesy of the good people at Lorehold.

5. Warlock 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to become a Metamagic Adept, giving you two metamagic options and two sorcery points per long rest to use them with. I say you get two, but we’re really only here for Quickened Spell so you can cast eldritch blast as a bonus action. Since you also get a second beam per cast at level five, we just quadrupled your firepower in a single level. Not bad for a feat.

You also learn one more Edison goody attached to your wheel, Lightning Lure. Deals lightning damage, and drags enemies closer to the vehicle. It’s a shame it doesn’t last long enough to drag enemies around while you drive, but at that point I’m sure you can just use regular rope. On top of that, you learn Shatter for another kind of explosion to line your path as you run people over.

6. Artificer 2: Second level artificers can Infuse Items, up to two at a time. This adds major magical effects to existing items on your person, like Enhanced Arcane Focus making NYARF even deadlier with a +1 to its accuracy and damage, Homunculus Servant for another Olcott doll, Sending Stones to keep in touch with your pit crew, and a Bag of Holding just because it’s useful. You have to swap items between long rests, and you can only keep two in your head at any one time. I have no idea how this makes sense either, but it’s extra versatility, I guess?

7. Fighter 1: We’re dipping into fighter entirely for Action Surge, but we do get other stuff too. The Mariner fighting style gives you +1 to your armor when it’s not heavy, and you get a climbing and swimming speed to boot. You also get a Second Wind to heal yourself as a bonus action. It’s summer, make sure you take breaks so you can avoid heat syncope.

8. Fighter 2: Second level fighters get what we came for, Action Surge! Now you get a limitation free second action once per short rest, so you can shove three castings of Eldritch Blast into a single turn for six attacks. This is a little powerbuildy, but Helena did it first when she bought a gun from two genius-level inventors.

9. Artificer 3: NYARF’s getting pretty good, but if you want another kind of gun look no further than the Eldritch Cannon you get as part of being an Artillerist. This small or tiny guy takes an action to build, but afterwards, you can carry it in one hand for a sort of living gun. You can also just leave it on the ground and let it plod around. In either case, it’ll use your bonus action to command, and lasts 1 hour. It can be a Flamethrower, Force Ballista, or Protector, dealing fire damage, force damage, or temporary HP respectively.

You also get artillerist spells, like Shield and Thunderwave for more protection in an inappropriate combat outfit and more explosions for your NP.

You can always make The Right Tool for the Job over a short rest, creating a set of tools you need. They last until you make another set of tools.

10. Artificer 4: Use this ASI to bump up your Charisma for stronger and more accurate NYARF blasts.

11. Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks get third level spells, like Tongues. You’re talking to ancient spirits from beyond our mortal ken, you’ll really want a translator, trust me. Speaking of, you also learn how to Speak with Dead and you can summon Spirit Guardians, all thanks to your Lorehold college grants. You also get an Eldritch Mind, giving you advantage on concentration saves.

In NYARF news, your Eldritch Blast deals three beams now for up to nine attacks in a single turn. This is why people don’t allow machine guns in their DND games.

12. Warlock 6: At sixth level, Lorehold Mages learn Lessons of the Past, giving you extra bonuses based on what version of the Sanat Kumara Wheel you’re riding. While you have a Healer bike, your HP maximum increases by your Warlock level, and you gain an extra 1d8 HP when you’re healed by a spell. If you’re riding a Sage, you get advantage on Arcana, History, Nature, and Religion checks, and once per turn you can add 1d8 force damage to a leveled spell. If you picked a Warrior, you can attack as part of your action if you cast a cantrip, and the attack deals an extra 1d8 radiant damage.

Finally, as an Archer class servant you gain some magic resistance thanks to Counterspell. You only have like, two third level spell slots, so don’t go too wild here.

13. Warlock 7: Seventh level warlocks get fourth level spells, like Dimension Door. Making an entrance has never been easier! Why awkwardly dismount your bike when you can teleport off instead? You can also create an Arcane Eye to keep an eye on your bike, and if it ever gets stolen you can use Stone Shape to make a new one, courtesy of Lorehold College.

Your last goody this level is the evocation Gift of the Ever-Living Ones, making your little bits of healing extra powerful. If your familiar is within 100 feet of you, any dice rolled to heal you always count as their maximum value for you. With any army of dolls grabbing drinks for you, your second winds are always pretty powerful.

14. Warlock 8: Use this ASI to become a bit more Resilient in your Dexterity saves. This bumps up your score by 1, and you get proficiency with dex saves. Somehow you can drive through a bunch of explosions and not die, so your dexterity saves have to be pretty good.

You also learn the spell Raulothim’s Psychic Lance to create a big shiny laser for your Ultraman reference.

15. Warlock 9: Ninth level warlocks get fifth level spells, like Contact Other Plane so you can finally talk to the Mahatma directly. You also get a Destructive Wave for one more explosive ride and Legend Lore. You’re a nerd, you know stuff. For your invocation, grab Repelling Blast to launch people backwards with the power of water!

16. Warlock 10: Tenth level Lorehold warlock is where things get extra spicy. Once per turn, Proficiency times per long rest, you can use your reaction to force a wisdom save against a creature you hit with an attack roll. If they fail, they become vulnerable to one damage type in that attack’s damage roll, doubling its damage until the end of its next turn. This includes the triggering attack.

This means, if you’re up against a particularly unwise opponent, there’s a pretty good chance you can double all those eldritch blast attacks, effectively attacking 18 times in a single turn. And it only gets sillier next level.

You also learn True Strike. I hope you’re aiming that thing, at least...

17. Warlock 11: Eleventh level warlocks get a Mystic Arcanum. Instead of letting you cast a sixth level spell each short rest, you get this, which limits you to casting a sixth level spell once per long rest without using a slot.

Conjure Fey lets you bring the Mahatmas back to earth with you, bringing in a Fey or Beast creature of CR 6 or lower for up to an hour. If you lose concentration though, it’ll be hostile and might attack you. Meddling with forces beyond your control isn’t a great strategy.

18. Warlock 12: Use your last ASI to bump up your Charisma for a bigger NYARF. Your watergun also makes your enemies all soggy and gross thanks to becoming a Lance of Lethargy, slowing them down once a turn. I mean you’re using eldritch blast anyways, might as well make it fancy.

19. Warlock 13: Your first and last seventh level Mystic Arcanum is going towards Crown of Stars for some long turn explosive fun. For an hour after casting,you can use a bonus action to throw small stars at enemies, dealing radiant damage on a hit.

20. Warlock 14: Your capstone level tunes you into History’s Whims, which kind of turns you into Ultraman. For up to a minute after you start it as a bonus action, you can pick one of three benefits to last until your next turn, as long as you don’t pick the same one twice in a row.

You can gain some Luck, adding a d6 to all incoming saving throws against damage for the round, Resistance for resistance to physical attacks, or Swiftness for more movement speed and no opportunity attacks.

You can transform yourself this way once per long rest, or by spending a fourth level spell slot.

Pros:

Remember how we were all “Sanson can do sooo much damage” when he got vulnerability strats, even if they were super awkward? Yeah, Helena’s Eldritch Blasts blow him out of the water, and they’re way easier to use. With twelve eldritch blasts in a single turn from Action Surge and Quickened Spell, plus vulnerability from War Echoes, Helena can pump out 2*(12d10+60) Force damage in a single turn, assuming all hit. (with an enhanced arcane focus that jumps to 2*(12d10+72)) On the low end, that’s 144 damage, which can down or seriously injure most builds. On the upper end, that’s over 360 damage, enough to take down a max constitution barbarian with the tough feat in a single turn. And the best part is, if they make their save you can just hold off on everything else for a round, you don’t have to commit unless it’ll work. It really is NYARF or nothing.

While we have made plenty of builds recently that ride around on stuff, but yours is the only one where your ride doubles as a built-in medic. With a healer Ancient Companion, your HP gets bumped up to a more reasonable amount, and it can heal you with your bonus action every turn. And if you’re fine, it can help out party members as well.

Speaking of, as an Artificer you can make plenty of gifts for your party as well, ranging from little trinkets to magical items for stronger attacks. On top of that, your bevy of familiars can be handed out to party members so you’re always within range if they need some healing.

Cons:

A lot of your stuff requires your bonus action to use; You can use your eldritch cannon for more damage without spending sorcery points, your Second Wind for healing, or your Ancient Companion to move around and provide support, but you can’t do all of those at the same time.

Since almost all of your magic is coming from your warlock levels, you don’t have many spells ready at any one time. You have three 1st level slots from Artfiicer, three 5th level slots from Warlock, and two Mystic Arcanums. Similarly, you can only really go ham with NYARF once a day. I’m not saying you can’t make a serious impact with what you’ve got, I’m just saying you’ll have to be careful with how you use it.

Without your ride you’re pretty Squishy, with slightly over 100 HP and an AC of 16. Normally that wouldn’t be that much of a problem for a mobility focused spellcaster, but destroying a boss in one round tends to draw a lot of attention. Be ready for that.

[twstgameplay]

First customer! Welcome to the VIP room~

Thanks for sending us your current team and cards, I’ll give some tips, as well as suggest some teams and explain them under the cut. - 🦈

Disclaimer: The teams that we suggest for our customers may not guarantee the score you are looking for at the levels we suggest, as we use our own cards to test and extrapolate from there. However, the combinations and buddy perks they offer are well thought out. If you find yourself just shy of your goal, leveling buddies/magic up a little past our suggestions may be the ticket.

——

Heyoo~ I’m having trouble with scoring higher on the basic test. Mind helping a gal out? Here’s the squad:

Here’s my SSR’s & SR’s:

My goal is to score an A. Thanks in advance~

——

Some tips for getting A on Basic Test:

Getting A on Normal is possible, but REALLY difficult, you need to finish on turn 4 and have a lot of overkill. Only recommended if you have a lot of atk, but not enough hp to survive Hard (a good example would be a Dorm Riddle-focused party, considering both of his magics and buddy with Cater are Lv.10, with both Azul and Cater on team to maximize his potential);

Hard is, ironically, much easier to get an A. You’re likely to get it just from surviving with more than 50% on the damage bar;

Recommended levels for Hard test is Lv.60 to 80, SR magic at Lv.5 and SSR magic at least Lv.5, but it’s always good to level it up as much as you can if you want anything higher than A (gotta aim for Lv.10);

There are 2 approaches for Hard test: You either have enough hp to survive all 5 turns, or enough atk to defeat the other team before they can finish you off (3 or 4 turns).

For this test, use your strongest magic against Trey and not Kalim. Kalim’s atk debuff is nasty!

Now for team building!

I have 3 different teams for you, but 2 of them would need you to level up a lot of different characters.

——

Leona-focused party

I’m considering Lv.80 for Dorm Leona and Lv.60 for the other 4 SRs, all magic and buddies at least Lv.5.

Leona has high neutral atk and his duo (Vil) is also his atk buddy, which is GREAT. If you can get his M1 to Lv.10 he will deal not 1, but 2 strong hits;

Robe Vil is better than Dorm Vil for this basic test, that’s because he’s an atk card and also has strong fire magic, being able to deal more damage than Dorm Vil. But you can go back to Dorm Vil if you’re having difficulty staying alive on Hard test;

Lab Ruggie has strong fire magic and atk up M if you get his magic 1 to Lv.5. He can hit pretty hard on his M1 (for reference, Lv.45 Ruggie with Jamil buddy Lv.5 and M1 Lv.5 deals 6.5k damage). When you use him, try to use both M1 and M2 at the same time, that will give him 2 atk buffs;

Lab Jamil has strong fire magic and heal (4.7k hp at Lv.60 and M1 lv.5) + his M2 is also strong, he boosts Lab Ruggie’s atk and he has atk M with Kalim, making him hit pretty hard despite being a defense card;

Lab Kalim has atk M with Ruggie and also boosts Jamil’s atk. I’ll be honest with you, he’s mostly here for support. The boy hits pretty weak, but his hp and double fire magic are great to help keeping you alive! 

——

Epel-focused party

Considering Lv.80 for Dorm Epel and Lv.60 for the other 4 SRs, all magic and buddies at least Lv.5.

Epel has fire duo and 2 atk buddies. So to get the most of his potential, try to always have Vil and Jack with him;

Lab Jack is a healer and has neutral/fire magic, he boosts Epel’s atk and will be a great help in keeping you alive;

Robe Vil is here for that sweet damage, I chose him over Lab because Robe has both buddies present, while Lab would need Trey to truly shine;

Lab Rook is an atk card with 2 damage down debuffs, you can also try Robe or GM (if you have him and managed to max both in level and magic);

Lab Jamil has strong fire magic and heal (4.7k hp at Lv.60 and M1 lv.5) + his M2 is also strong, he also boosts Lab Rook’s atk.

This team is actually kind of tricky. You can definitely survive with it, but damage is more on the lower side and Basic tests need you to deal more damage than the enemy to win, contrary to Defense, that only needs you to survive with as much hp as possible.

——

Full SR party

Let’s not underestimate SR cards! Once again, consider all SRs to be Lv.60 and magic/buddies at least Lv.5.

Lab Jack is a healer and has neutral/fire magic. He has atk M with Ruggie, hitting harder this time;

Lab Ruggie I’ve already explained why he’s great, just remember to try to use both M1 and M2 at the same time for that double atk buff;

Robe Sebek is a great atk SR and Jamil boosts his atk. Like Ruggie, try to use both of his magic on the same turn, he has 2 damage buffs;

Once again, pair up Lab Scarabia. They work well together.

Overall damage might seem low, but this is the team with the most fire magic and only a single water magic. I’d say it’s worth a shot. 

[jq37]

The Report Card – Fantasy High Sophomore Year Ep 10

System Reboot

What is up? Happy Year of the Double Crit to everyone and welcome back to our jailbreak already in progress! To remind you of what’s happening, Fig along with Kristen and Ayda went to Calethriel Tower to bust out Adaine. While all the hirelings (except for Gilear who is with the Van he is not allowed to drive) went to destroy one pylon and the boys went to the closer pylon with a plume of smoke coming out of it. 

Ayda casts invisibility on her group and flies them to the tower (guess we have us a buff wizard here).Meanwhile, in the tower, things are still going crazy. As Anguin and Kier are confused, time goes wonky and Adaine sees a rift open to a live feed of Aguefort back at his desk. When Adaine confirms that she is kidnapped and her kidnappers have decided on the  way of pain, Aguefort crawls through the rift, enlarges himself to 300 feet, declares war on Falinel, grabs the SUN out of the SKY, breathes fire, raises 1000s of Terra Cotta Aguefort warriors, and starts marching with them away from the tower. 

All EXTREMELY wild things but, as you’ll notice, not things that directly get Adaine out of jail. 

Adaine’s rescue party sees all of this and can generally tell this is Aguefort doing a thing that’s probably supposed to be helpful but trying to read him is always a total crapshoot. Ayda freaks a little at being in the vicinity of her dad but Fig helps to reassure her. 

Back with the boys, they’re all Naruto running towards their pylon which is an elven smithy. It’s a stone building, covered in moss and, inside there are 3 braziers holding coal and 3 statues holding pitchers of water. In the center of the hexagonal room is a firepit with a helix of magic that is clearly the source of magic powering the permanent magical effects on the tower. There are channels going from the pitches to the pit in the center, not to the braziers. 

On a 27, Riz sees that the braziers are super trapped with a Conjure Elemental spell. After aggressively emotionally supporting each other (“I believe in you.”), Gorgug and Fabian prepare attacks while Riz triggers the trap by shooting the mechanism since it is supposed to be triggered by a cantrip and they didn’t bring a single spellcaster. (Which was actually for strategic reasons but it sounds crazy when you actually think about it). 

A fire elemental pops out but, with them getting the jump on it, they’re able to womp it with very minimal problems. Then, they break the corresponding pitcher of water so it flows into the center of the room. One down, two to go. The magic fire thing changes colors and they figure some alarm has been triggered but with all the Aguefort nonsense going on they hope it will draw the attention away from them.

They trigger the second elemental and things get a little hairier. People are on fire. It becomes very clear that not bringing a healer might have been a questionable decision. But then, lo and behold, Fabian springs into action, dancing around and putting out Riz and Gorgug when they ignite with an elven blanket which everyone knows puts out fire. He even asks to make an extra roll to do it all fancy which is something we haven’t seen from him in a while. And he rolls well!    

They finish off the second elemental/statue pitcher and the indicator in the firepit is blinking. Plus, there was a flash from the other pylon earlier so they know the hirelings are doing well. That just leaves the last elemental. 

Riz has the idea to put out the fire in the brazier before triggering the final trap and Fabian, citing the common knowledge that Brennan made up twenty minutes ago, says that everyone knows elven blankets put out fires. Brennan tucks himself into the bed he made for himself and has Fabian do an acrobatics check (DC 20 to not have something bad happen, DC 25 to have something good happen) and with +8 and advantage he hits a 24. 

Fabian runs up to the brazier and triggers a trap that makes it erupt. The elemental bursts out and Fabian pulls it into his blanket and does one of those ballroom dancing dips. Brennan asks if he truly believes in the power of dance enough to take the damage from tangoing with this elemental. It’s Lous Wilson. What do you think he says? Fabian takes 22 points of fire damage, but holds on. It’s so beautiful that the elemental is stunned out of combat and Riz doesn’t attack it, breaking the last pitcher instead. 

The elemental gains a more humanoid form and face, thanks Fabian, and kisses him for 8 points of fire damage, which he is SUPER into. As they kiss, the elemental extinguishes except for a spark that finds its way into Fabian’s chest. Wild. But that’s Spring Break bay-bee!

Now, back to the girls. 

When they get to the tower, Kristen sees Kier, Anguin, and four green men-like magical constructs. Fig disguises herself to look like Aguefort (which is majorly distressing to Ayda), hoping she can do some intimidation. With the permanent magical effects on the tower down, they have no problem getting in and they clock where Adaine is being held immediately so they fly up and Fig casts Shatter. Time for Combat, part 2!

Fig Hexblades curses Anguin 100% out of solidarity/spite rather than strategy, which I respect. Anguin charms Fig to attack Ayda while still disguised as her dad which is distressing for both of them. Adaine messages Aelwyn and tells her to get ready for a rescue. 

Anguin Dominate Persons Fig but Ayda dispels it so she’s back in it. 

Kristen calls her grad student Spirit Guardians and Adaine, who is still super locked up and in the process of being rescued, takes the time to snark at them. Kristen and Ayda make their wisdom saves to not be forced to flee by Kier but Fig fails. Ayda dispels it with a, “Dad, don’t leave!” Yikes.

Fig hits all the green men with Burning Hands and they super don’t like that. Adaine uses her turn to send Boggy out to help Fig. Anguin tries Dominate Person on Kristen but she just makes her save.

She fires back with Blindness which Kier saves from but Anguin doesn’t. Kier tries to Banish Kristen but fails and then Ayda dispels Adaine’s orb and runs out to get Aelwyn out too. Adaine firebolts the most injured green man to death and then, in a very on brand move, almost immediately slaps her dad. Amidst all the damage, Fig asks Adaine whether she wants her dad killed or just maimed. Adaine, keeping the same energy she’s had all season, wants him dead. Fig is happy to help with the request. Kristen Banishes Kier who fails her save with a big ‘ol Nat 1. Then Ayda runs in holding a practically comatose Aelwyn. 

Adaine tries to get a bead on her fleeing dad who’s gotten rid of his blindness and gone invisible (in a bitch move according to her) but she just singes the edges of his clothes. She can tell he’s probably going for the Vault downstairs. Which is why Kristen, the former chosen of Helio and current main party healer, in her infinite wisdom and with her -3 to Dex, decides to ribbon dance/rappel (????) down a ten story tower to catch him before he escapes. Brennan, decides to let the dice handle this one and she rolls a 17 minus 3 which is 14. Believe it or not, that is not enough to “use a dance ribbon to fly.” Brennan asks for another acrobatics roll (presumably to see how bad this is gonna go) and Ally, after totally Beyblading the die out of the Box of Doom, rolls a 2 minus three for a total of *Negative 1*. 

Amazing. 

Kristen slams into the ground, takes 36 points of damage (down to 3 hp), and snaps her ankle. She then casts Zone of Truth in case Anguin runs past her I guess. And, because she took so much damage, she loses concentration on Banishment which makes Kier reappears with the green men to attack some more. Ayda comes in clutch and, following Kristen’s lead (just not about the ribbon dancing insanity) Banishes Kier again. On her turn, Fig Dimension Doors herself and Adaine down to the Vault where all her and Aelwyn’s magic stuff is (while Ayda stays in the room, attacking green men).

Adaine finds a magical talking sword called Fandrangool which she uses as a glowstick to look around the dark vault (much to its annoyance). There’s a bit of minor retconning that happens here due to a redo roll that had to happen but I’ll spare you the backtracking and just give it to you straight. On the way out of the room, Anguin had to run past Kristen’s Spirit Guardians which made him visible. Which means he’s visible to Fig when she tries to trip him on his way to the vault (meaning no disadvantage on her roll, which succeeds) and he goes unconscious when he hits the ground.  

Ayda comes into the vault to tell them they have less than a minute before Kier un-Banishes and they need to leave ASAP. Everyone makes rolls to find cool/important stuff. With a Nat 20 Arcana roll, Adaine finds her and Aelwyn’s spellbooks and the items taken from them as well as a bunch of top secret scrolls containing her mom’s research. On a 17 religion check, Kristen finds Adaine’s mom’s notes on the location of a temple in Sylvere (presumably to the Nightmare King) and, combined with what she already knows from the book in the pirate library, she knows where the temple is. On a 14 persuasion check to “make the gems dance” (idk y’all, I just record the things Emily says, I can’t explain them) she finds something about gem lore in the research and accidentally makes the tower self destruct. Oops. Ayda Invisibilizes everyone and they get OUT of there. And by “they” I mean everyone but Anguin because Adaine was serious about wanting him dead. Fig kinda wanted to keep him around to see if he could cast Planeshift but, Adaine gets the final word and the words she chooses are, “He sucks and I want him to die.”

Everyone meets back up at the Van and then they Teleport back to Fabian’s folks’ place. The elves there are very psyched to see Adaine, as a fellow elf, and her party members are even happier to see her. While talking to Telemien, they group finds out that he made the sword Adaine found and that it’s the sword of the North Star. When Gorgug suggests he should make Fabian a sword too, Adaine offers Fandrangool to him and he takes it.

Kristen pays Ayda to cast Sending to Jawbone for relationship advice. Jawbone is happy to help and agrees to find a way for them to have a longer conversation. I want to note that Kristen paid for two messages and the second just consisted of this exchange:

Kristen: Fuck yes!

Jawbone: Hell yeah.

Anyway, Fabian dances all night (sure) and Riz, Keeper of the Braincells, finds Adaine and asks what the deal with Aelwyn is since the last time the group saw her, she was super trying to kill them. Adaine gives him the short version of what happened and then Ayda comes in, carrying Aelwyn. Upon being given permission, Ayda lays Aelwyn down in Adaine’s bed and Adaine holds her. Riz reads the room and peaces out. As they trance, Aelwyn starts to regain some of her spell slots and unconsciously shields Adaine with an abjurer’s ward which is so cute and bittersweet that it nails me with 1d4 psychic damage. 

From one sweet moment to another, Ayda finds Fig and they proceed to extremely frankly compliment each other. Ayda tells Fig that she’s loud, brave, funny, charming, and exciting. Fig says Ayda is direct, analytical, and has a very unique perspective. Also, she cries fire which is dope as hell. When Ayda says that she really doesn’t have any female friends her age on Crazy Pirate Island, Fig suggests she just join up with the Bad Kids and Ayda is very down. They do the slumber party thing and it’s all very cute. 

After everyone else has turned in, Kristen gets a magic video-message from Aguefort who is looking messed up. Apparently, he OD’d on a bunch of experimental magic doing all the BS he did at the top of the ep, he seriously pissed off the government, and now he has to figure out how to move the sun back to where it’s supposed to be. Oh, and also Jawbone wants to speak with her. 

Jawbone and Kristen have a conversation where Kristen skirts the issue of what she hid from Tracker that made her upset (because, as you remember, it’s the fact that he was cheated on). Jawbone basically says that people can usually sense when they’re being manipulated and if Kristen got Tracker flowers just to make her not be mad rather than to make her happy, then of course she’s still be pissed. He also says that full transparency is important to Tracker and if Kristen genuinely didn’t realize that because it isn’t to her then she should explain that. Kristen seems to get it and also asks Jawbone to call back the next day at the same time (probably so he can talk to Sandra-Lynn).

In the morning, Fabian has a nice chat with his granddad. He would like Fabian to get to be a chill forest elf with him but Fabian knows he has a heroic duty. He does submit to eating a flower though. Elf stuff. 

Everyone meets up except for Adaine who is still with Aelwyn who is doing poorly. She brings Aelwyn to the resident healers but refuses to leave her alone. Telemein offers to take charge of Aelwyn but Adaine says it’s up to her if she wants to stay. When Aelwyn comes to, she’s not sure if they made it out of the Tower via escaping or dying. Adaine lets her know that they survived and promises to protect her while she recovers. When she sees that Aelwyn is having trouble thinking straight, she gives her Boggy to hold and ritual casts Detect Magic which pings some kind of Enchantment deep within her mind. In response, Adaine casts Detect Thoughts and finds herself in Aelwyn’s mindscape which basically looks bombed to hell like the Blitz. Her metaphorical emotional walls are represented by literal walls and battlements which have been torn up and, though they are jumbled up, Adaine can see shared childhood memories from Aelwyn’s POV. She can see that Aelwyn has spent basically their entire childhood suppressing her natural protective instincts towards Adaine out of fear of their parents and hating herself for it.

In the middle of everything, Adaine finds a really powerful magical charm made of Aelwyn's protective energy and whatever Enchantment she sensed before. Adaine can tell that this is what they were trying to torture out of Aelwyn but weren't able to. On the charm, there's writing. It says, "Despite all of the torment and tribulation, let this be proof I always knew there was only one person clever enough to find this." Adaine senses that she can dispel it and it will trigger whatever effect Aelwyn intended. Adaine does so. 

“I’m going to describe something very heartbreaking now,” says Brennan, causing me to add an item to my list of “Things You Seriously Don’t Want To Hear Your DM Say.”   

 Adaine is snapped out of Aelwyn’s thoughts and Aelwyn is briefly overcome with pain as her mind is forcibly rewritten back to its default state by the backup copy that Adaine just triggered. That’s right. No more soft-Aelwyn. The bitch is back. Eat your Goddamn dice, Brennan.

Detention

Kristen for Whatever the Hell She Thought She Was Doing With That Ribbon

You are the PARTY HEALER and you have NEGATIVE THREE DEX. Leave the parkour shenanigans to Fabian!

This was so funny though. I think I compared the Womping of Fabian to the Keyfish thing from CritRole* but this was the actual Keyfish moment because it was super dumb, unnecessary, involved a huge fall and sketchy grasp of physics, but crucially, was hilarious and not heartbreaking. 

Never change, Ally.

*lol, Now Kristen can join the club with Keyleth and Bev from Naddpod. 

Honor Roll

Fabian for Getting His Groove Back 

Look, I don’t think this episode is the most competent Fabian has ever been or the most heroic he’s ever been or the coolest he’s even been. But...didn’t he seem happy? And open? And a little daring? This is the most Fabian that Fabian has been since The Wicklaw Incident. He did so much support playing in this episode and it felt so right. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets his subclass back soon or picked up some battle dancer or fire stuff (or maybe something totally different), at least for flavor.

He still probably has some ways to go (“I’m not sure about myself but the two of you have got this.”) but I think he was doing so much better this ep than when this little arc of personal growth started that I have to give him props. Welcome back Fabian Aramais Seacaster!

Random Thoughts

Note: Because of this ep’s title, we now 100% know that the canon spelling of Adaine’s sister’s name is Aelwen (not -wyn) but I’ll deal with that starting with next ep because this has already taken too long to finish. 

Note #2: @jamiebluewind just put up this post with various character and location descriptions you might find helpful.

OK, so are we sure the alarms triggered at the end of last episode were triggered by Aguefort? Because they went off before he actually did anything. His recording played, they pressed a button, alarms went off, and THEN he video-called Adaine. It could just be that Brennan got the order a little off after the hiatus (or that making the video-call is what caused the alarms) but I wanted to bring it up. 

Why the hell was whatever the hell THAT was Arthur’s play and not Chronomancy? Like, stop time, grab Adaine, and go. Simple. I understand the reason is that he is insane and beyond human comprehension but geez (and he has to be or else he would be the ultimate deus ex machina with no reason to not solve literally every problem above a certain level of severity).

“Why would I carry my dad in this battle he never carried me.” Aydaaaaaa.

With all the fun Fabian had playing support this episode, I wouldn’t be shocked if be picked up a level of Cleric or Bard. Or even if he just got the Magic Initiate feat which could easily be explained in story as him taking an elective or working with Fig/Adaine/Kristen to learn some basics. 

Ayda and Fig’s little, “Did he see me?”/“No, because your Invisibility spell was that good,” back and forth was so cute. They were super cute all episode really. People were shipping Adaine and Ayda which I personally didn’t get at all from their interactions which I found just friendly but I would be a lot less surprised if Fig and Ayda happened based on that whole pre-sleepover scene. (Based on their convo it also seems like they’re close in age but even if Ayda is like in her mid-20s or something, she’d still be Fig’s most age appropriate relationship which is, como se dice, slightly troubling). Anyway, y’all know I’m not a shipper but I’m very invested in their relationship however it ends up.  

Similar topic, Fig insisting Ayda be mad at her and not her dad for attacking her while Disguised? Gah, that was so much. 

Emily’s line of the episode was casually summing up her entire character by going, “I usually look like someone else but I mean what I say.”

Also, LOL at her just rocking into the fight as Aguefort playing the bass. What a visual. 

Murph’s Tomb Raiding 101 bit was extremely funny. 

“I would like to toss The Ball.”

Did you catch when the group realized that they left the boys with no healers and Emily was like, “Oh no, I forgot you weren't a paladin,” to Murph? I figured that was a reference to the fact that Murph’s favored archetype (in his own words) is a grizzled old knight who has to do the right thing but now I’m also lowkey wondering if he’s playing a Paladin in S5 (or maybe in their homegame).

Ayda was also very endearing towards the other girls this ep. Asking permission to grab Kristen (“Enthusiastic consent!”) and running up and grabbing Adaine’s hands after dispelling her orb. I am so glad Adaine decided to make friends with her.

Valid choice for Adaine to give the sword to Fabian but Give Adaine A Sword 2020. She should have proficiency as an elf and she needs a way to physically attack people that will do actual damage. Alternatively, Adaine should take one level in fighter or monk so the next time she slaps someone, it does actual damage. 

I know Jawbone is both extremely chill and a consummate professional, but wild to talk to your girlfriend’s uncle about falling out due to him being cheated on. I for sure would have found someone else to talk to 

Emily’s face when the Ribbon Dancing sequence was happening was so bugged out in disbelief which says A Lot coming from Ms. Hilda-Hilda herself. 

So they fully destroyed Calethriel Tower which seems problematic seeing as there were for sure other prisoners in there. Like, even assuming all of them were peak evil and deserved to die (which seems extremely unlikely considering the people we do know who were locked up here) that still seems like a political disaster.

“Where is she on the earth? Can we teleport there?”/”She’s actually in the next room.”/ “Extremely convenient.”

Curious about when exactly Mom Abernant’s (I promise I’ll learn her name as soon as we have an official spelling I can commit to) research was taken from, her. Was she working for the government and forced to abandon it or was it taken from her while she was researching privately?  

“Your modifier is bigger than their total.”

“Describe the room to me.”/”It’s a vault and it’s on the first floor.”

Adaine shows up to Telemien’s BS high elven pronunciation of Gorgug and is immediately like “There are hard G’s in high elvish.” I love her. Zero chill. 

“I have it too if I sleep goodbye”

I lost my favorite sweater recently so I was vibing with Adaine’s temporary devastation at having forgotten to get her jacket (no worries, Brennan said it would have been with the rest of her stuff).

I just wanna say, wild of the elves to basically put Adaine and Aelwyn in adjacent cells. 

Imagine you’re just a normal ass resident of the world of Spyre and, one day, you wake up and the sun is a huge YES! Which is super weird, even for a fantasy world but you take it in stride and, eventually, it gets sorted out. And then, six months later, it’s the middle of the day and the sun suddenly lurches across the sky and just stays there. And then you find out that the dude who did it is the same dude who kicked Sol out of the sky the last time!

I thought Fig was gonna offer Ayda access to her dads when they were talking about how Aguefort is a subpar dad because she has two. At the very least she needs to see Jawbone. 

As a lawyer (#2 demographic for FH after CEO’s) I was very into the Similar to But Legally Distinct From Blitzkrieg Bop track. 

“I have much more money than you.”

One of my favorite D&D tropes is the group splitting up boys/girls and then the two groups having wildly different experiences. 

I think it’s interesting that everyone in Adaine’s family talks Like That except for her. Like, Aelwyn does it, even when she’s brain-fried and not being a bitch so we know it’s not just that but Adaine talks like a normal teenager like 80% of the time.  

I just realized, Adaine called her shot last episode when she cursed her dad and then let him die this episode. It’s easy to be an Oracle if you follow through on all your threats.  

(Also, absolutely not convinced he’s dead until we see a body. Kristen fell 10 stories this episode and she’s fine.)

I find the grudging respect that Aelwyn had for Adaine, even at her most messed up extremely interesting.

I mentioned this already in another post but, as womped as I was by Aelwyn’s personality getting reset to normal, it really was the right thing to do, storywise. Like, I’ve really been enjoying vulnerable Aelwyn but that wasn't really earned. Even she said it herself. She can’t give a full apology if she’s not in her right mind. And, in this episode, we got confirmation for what I think we all pretty much assumed. Aelwyn wasn’t just “born bad”. In fact, if anything, it’s the opposite. She was born with such strong protective instincts that the entire way she is able to use magic is based around protection. In a better world with better parents, she would have been the best most Ride or Die older sister anyone could ask for. But, instead, she was ruined in the opposite direction of Adaine and built walls to protect herself instead of others. It’s so poetic I wanna eat my dice. But, I digress. Resetting Aelwyn back to her last save file is an extremely clutch story move because it feels like back to step one but it’s not because now, Adaine fully understands what her deal is and Adaine knows she has the capacity to be good and kind and just decent. Aelwyn might have reset but Adaine didn’t. And, like, after your sister who is barely strong enough to sit upright or think straight tries to magically shield you from nothing in particular because she feels like she should, are you gonna give up on her just because she’s retreated back to the safe waters of name calling? Doubt it. I really can’t wait to see what their initial interactions are like. Is Adaine gonna treat her with kid gloves knowing what she now knows or fall back into sparring with her? Is Aelwyn gonna be totally back to her old self or will she have enough self-awareness to know that if Adaine reset her (will she know that happened?) then she must have seen inside her head and know what’s going on in there? Will she understand that but still stubbornly refuse any attempts to reach out by Adaine and try to go fully walls up again? Don’t know but I can’t wait to see how it shakes out. 

But seriously. How cute was Aelwyn trying to do shields on Adaine this ep? The first time she non-grudgingly steps up to the plate to protect her for real you are gonna hate me so much because I am not going to be able to shut up about it.  

One last thing: We haven’t heard from the Shadowcat in a while and that Concerns me.

This episode, Fig, Adaine, Gorgug, and Riz each rolled one Nat 20. Fig rolled one Nat 1 and Brennan rolled two.

[semi-imaginary-place]

In which I play maddening classic with only Byleth and Dimitri and liveblog on discord 1/15/20 - 2/2/20

because if I’ve got to see a character die repeatedly, countless times, it might as well be dimitri.  

So I'm on maddening and classic with only dimitri and I’m going to kill off every other character. I heard if they reach 0 hp in part 1 they stick around the monastery and you can talk to them they just aren’t a part of your class anymore. Give me your blessings.

I died on the prologue! ... i dont have a healer... Death count:2

I am definitely new game+ cheating this for professor level and skills. I was thinking magic focused but she can't be too squishy... Gremory would help that. Also why do all the magic classes have bad growths. Give me a moving fortress of magic!

Ashe went down, 7 to go. Ch3 turned into a survival horror... but i made it out

Ch 6 is hell. Any idea for how to kill every last one of them in 25 turns with only byleth? Or alternately get to and take down the death knight. Only byleth and dimitri run. And no dimitri this chapter, Byleth's a thief

My main problem in crowd control. If i had infinite turns then i could agro them 1 by one... Maybe I've built byleth wrong and just don't have the stats. Is the warp route faster? Haven't tried that yet. In hindsight this was a bad idea for my first maddening run. I'm so used to not using byleth much that this is very different. Damn archers...  Got done in by chip damage the first time...

I I dont know what happened... but I beat the death knight.... I was expecting to die becausr i accidentally opened the door so i skipped what actually happened.... Next thing I know game is telling me i got a dark seal What  Did I crit? With a silver sword? Im in shock I DONT EVRN I dont even know if it was a crit! But byleth is thief so lethality is out of the question Maybe I should go give a sacrifice to rng god

so I was in shock but yeah I used the warp route and avoided fighting most of the enemies.

So i'm now at the winter ball chapter and felix is still alive (i've decided to off one character every chapter so Miklan downed sylvain. oh and first time through ch5 i accidentally stepped into range of one of the center archers so every unit rushed me and i died) and i tried felix's paralogue and wowo its impossible. Rodrigue dies in 2 attacks, outruns my healing and likes to charge headfirst into the enemy. My record so far is 3 turns before he dies. Might give up since this is optional.

(i eventually finished the paralogue but gave up saving anyone else so i didn’t even get anything good out of it)

The ally A.I. is sooo bad. Jeralt. Dad. Please stop getting yourself killed

Almightly Father in Heaven preserve me. I'm making dimitri learn reason.  maybe his rationale will start making sense no more moon logic for you boy

Hey. Why wont the game let me make dimitri a dark bishop

I need dark mage certification first? Or is the internet lying to me

Well dimitri is at c+ reason but I'm tired of grinding.  

got dimitri from c+ to b+ in a battle. But the boredom makes me want to cry.  Also might have miscalculated.... Fighting an assassin in a forest.... i have 35% hit and no other weapon. They have like 18% hit....  When will i be free...

I made dimitri into a dark bishop and he beat lysithea in the magic tournament.  Also just the thought of dimitri in slithers is funny to me

wrath is how i survived the sothis paralogue. crit everything

chasing the empire around in the hold tomb with 2 units was actually kinda fun

I cant believe that worked... Final battle of part 1. I charge down the middle. And it works 4 turns for infanty to cross the field... and it worked ... Welp i somehow made it to part 2 intact. Endless waves of reinforcement here i come

(Oh yeah and rng is punishing me right now by giving terrible level ups)

For the bridge is it best to go straight for the commander?

bridge wasn’t too bad but I was convinced to spare dedue so i had to fend enemies off him like ants to a dropped ice cream cone. if dedue reaches 0 hp or you don’t do his paralogue he dies in fhirdiad and I’m trying to get everyone off my party but not dead, soooo he’s along for the ride

I'm stuck on am ch 14 ... how do I defend 4 spaces when I have 2 units... Those pegasus knights keep dodging too... Damn pegasus knights.... without them i could just hold a choke point with 1 unit. I have 4 gambit uses maximum... Another thought I had is to out fly their flyers so I can shift byleth over quickly. if I take out randolf in delusional prince the map doesn't end. It just stops reinforcements right? 

Soo I tried to kill randolf but my movement is too low. It takes 3 turns to reach him...

Yup this is possible. But because I can't do things the quick way. I'll have to do the long way of waiting out the right side and then heading for randolf with byleth all the while holding out with dimitri in the center and hoping rng favors me for lije 20 turns

ALRIGHT WhIcH oF yOuSe a LIAR Sooo .... killing randolph does not stop reinforcements nor does it get you a victory, the fire attack is the only way. Time to go guard another npc with a death wish. Also Gilbert is unkillable in AM

FEAR ME The only way to beat a pegasus knight to to out pegasus knight the pegasus knight Falcon knight bae-by! I am unstoppable I. Am absolute (I am never doing this again)

Finally got past that defend 4 spaces with 2 units and endless reinforcements

I've figured out how to level grind since same level enemies are giving like 7exp each

Alright. Taking suggestions, on how to keep hilda and judith alive in golden deers plea.  Alternately, how to kill arundel in 2 thurns without archers destroying me.  With only byleth and dimitrti.  Right now I'm thibking retribution-> byleth and gunning it. Suggestions for abilities/battalions? My current thought is vantage, alert stance+, renewal, wrath, pavaise, and evasion ring and bridgid hunters

Well i can get to arundel before hilda dies but not judith. I'm starting a campaign to save judith. Please pledge your support on the indiegogo page below

whew judith and hilda and both alive! Stride was a good idea. just make a run for arundel. Kinda sad i didn’t get the aurora shield but eh I got the stat increases at least. I also tried propping up judith with byleth healing them but tanking doesn’t exist in maddening so that didn’t work.

I've been skipping cutscenes because there’s no one else there but gilbert

Things I have learned this playthrough: how to grind skills, how to grind levels, how to save scum level ups. 

I’m actually getting a lot of dialogue I missed before just because Byleth and Dimitri are taking down every single enemy unit

At fort merceus, and i want the black pearl.  And i'd like to avoid lindhardt and caspar.  I'm thinking 1: fly over nab the pearl and kill death knight.  2: wait it out and eliminate every last unit ob the map.  What turn does death knight start running? Or is when you get to a specific part of the map?  Or am i thinking of an entirely different map...

New plan. Forget everything else and kill death knight

I have beaten the death knight. I have beaten the impregnable fortress. 44% crit rate.  But I didn't get the black pearl in the treasure chest and i want my item so... i might redo the battle

Got my pearl. for an idea what the battle is like each turn each of the 2 units needs to be on one specific tile for the best chance of survival, if they die i usually had to restart the battle or change something to get a reroll. and you do this for like 5 turns learning the combinations with a mix of guesswork and trial and error. you also need to move quickly because if 4 units surround you, you’ll be stuck until you’ve defeated every single enemy unit on the map or more likely you die.

Ok story time.  So I'm on ch 21 of AM now and aux battle no longer give me exp so my only way of leveling is healing (the exp curve is brutal). Even with the double use of bishop, i'm running down to the wire getting 1 level up/battle (plus the next battle where they gain stats for its more like 1 level/2 battles). I ran out of healing with like 500exp left to go so i restarted but by the end of the 20 heals and 10 recovers I had a different number and now I’m confused Reddit is telling me turn count? Affects exp gain?

Anyways I'm in enbarr.  One of the many wonderful things about playing with only dimitri and byleth is that you can't change their starting positions in battles

Wow i did that on my first try. O.o  Huh that actually worked... Good thing hubert is squishy. spared dorothea and petra too. huh.

I just had a realization... on the last map of AM. If I apply retribution to everyone... could I kill edelgard with that without having to cross the room? Hmmmm must try it out

Nope cant counter attack. Good thing enemy units on this map are acting defensively and only attack when you go into range.  If they swarmed me I'd be dead (again)

Once you reach a certain tile they do swam... i lasted like 4 turns... need to clear the room to stop reinforcements...

(its impossible to stop reinforcements with 2 units on maddening. once you get to the throne room a new wave comes each turn. but clearing the rooms before hand buys you time before you are overwhelmed). To give an idea of what’s going on aux battles are aprox 10 levels below my units. regular enemies are about the same level (so each is a threat and my 2 units can die on any turn) and bosses are usually a couple levels higher.

Hehehehe I am so powerful I have beaten maddening with only byleth and dimitri (Dedue came along for the ride too but was never deployed to battle)

The final AM wasn't as hard as some of the others (defending garreg mach) but boy is it long.  I think my final turn count was in the 50s.  Also the credit screen character battle  count maxes out at 999

I think I got dimitri and byleth up to like 70 base crit last playthrough. Plus wrath and defiant crit almost garunteed each hit was a crit.

nope it was more like base 120 crit

In the end for both dimitri and byleth I used rng based builts around avoid and critical hits (after i figured out what the hell i was mid way through part 1). dimitri went through the brawler line and then split time between war master and great lord. Byleth went up the thief line to assassin and then falcon knight. for both of them i also got most of the class skills.

considering this was my first maddening or classic run, I looked at 0 strategy guides (like an idiot) and had no idea what i was doing in the beginning, I’d say I did pretty well for myself.

oh and I was mistaken about something, if a unit reaches 0 hp in part one they die off screen during the timeskip (except gilbert to my despair) so there was no real point to sparing dedue. I really do hate gilbert, it seems no matter what you do you are stuck with him all of AM. there is no salvation. and this is why i skipped all the cutscenes this time around.

Dedue didn’t have much if any influence on the playthrough. Dedue was never deployed in any of the chapter battles but he did tag along as an adjunct (no weapon equipped) in aux battle sometimes because I felt bad for leaving him out all the time (that and dedue pops up later in battle on the map in part 2 and if he was still a level 1 commoner i would have 0 chance of beating the map since enemies rush him). so him leveling up was to negate the consequences of keeping him alive. If i had gotten him killed i wouldn’t have to worry about keeping him alive later. By the time I got to part 2 the skill gain from tutoring was negligible compared to the amount gained from grinding in battles, also both units were starting to max out on skills (S+) so choosing to explore the monastery gave little benefit. Interestingly, you can’t do a lot of the monastery activities if you only have 1 student (choir, dining, etc). So even after Dimitri stops loafing around, having dedue there for eating meals and stuff wouldn’t have helped and I’d choose battle anyways.

I now know more about how the game works than I ever wanted to... For example the calculations for any probability check (hit/miss, crit, level ups, pass/fail) are long done by the time you see them. so to reroll the dice so to speak you have to go back a certain amount of time (varies for each thing. Level up stats are determined before you enter the battle field so you have to reload a save on or before the preparations screen. Whether you pass/fail a certification is already determined by the time you reach as given calendar date, so you have to reload to before that day. If you divine pulse a 95% hit rate that your unit missed to right before any action is taken with that unit, they will still miss. With only 2 units you will probably have to rewind to the previous turn, but with a full party you need to go back at least a few units but I don’t know the exact number. More or less forcing the game to run at least one different probability calculation than your target will reset whatever result was determined for your target.

When you have an infinite number of iterations, even the most unlikely outcomes eventually come to pass.

This run was  60% luck, 35% perseverance,  4% "grinding", 1% skill, 100% pain

edit: 5/1/2020: looking back, i was a stubborn idiot (as usual) for refusing to look up strategies or other solo maddening runs that people had already done. i can definitively say omegarevolution dealt with the defend map far better than i did. i never even considered +20hit to deal with falcon knights

oh yeah and i don’t have dlc or the nintendo online subscription so i couldn’t use any of that.

[hogwartsfirebolt]

I know what you’re thinking! But I promise this third one is the LAST PART of my fic rec list for 2018!!! You can find part one HERE and part two HERE to see all 30 of my favorite fics I read this year. The banner art is by the wonderful @alek-r who was kind enough to let me use her work for this ❤️ Now, once again in no particular order, here it is:

            FAVORITE FICS I READ IN 2018 PART THREE

1. Hesperides - @lettersbyelise​ : Draco Malfoy is not the kind of man to lavish gorgeous Greek holidays on his flings. So Harry doesn’t really know what to make of his invitation.

In under 2k words, Elise immerses us in the lightness, elusiveness of a romantic getaway. Every word in this fic is purposeful and beautiful, and throughout the year I found myself going back to it more than once if only to relive that feeling. I can almost smell the salt in the air, feel the white sand between my toes and the sun warming my shoulders. The full sensory immersion of this fic isn’t limited to that, though, because I was also there for the slow, languorous sex, the butterflies in the stomach, the easy companionship. Simply wonderful.

2. Fast Forward, Two Steps Back - @emmagrant01​ : Everyone knows that Draco Malfoy died in the Room of Requirement ten years ago. So when he suddenly reappears at Hogwarts ten years later, still seventeen years old, Professor Harry Potter’s life gets very complicated.

When I first encountered this story, I couldn’t resist the pull of that summary, I opened it immediately, ignored absolutely all my homework for the day and effectively DEVOURED it. The premise is so interesting, and the way it navigates Harry and Draco’s dynamic when Draco is 17 and Harry is 27 is downright masterful. I am always weak for fics that explore Draco coming to terms with who he is after the events of book 7, and having Harry as someone who already went through all of that and is willing to help was a very refreshing take on the trope… and come on, sexy professor Potter? Sign me the hell up. 

3. Spokesperson - BummedOutWriter : “It was entirely consensual,” Malfoy drawled, as the lights from dozens of cameras flashed across his pale face. In fact, his face was paler than usual. Honestly, gray. “Councilmen Rupert and goblin Gornuk request privacy at this tender stage of their relationship. Excuse me.” And with that, Malfoy hurried off the platform with no explanation of why he was departing so suddenly. Harry could see the slight pooch in his robes where their baby was growing. Malfoy disappeared into the building and reporters yammered in protest. Morning sickness, Harry mused, not quite sympathetic, because Malfoy didn’t seem to warrant it. A bumbling young witch stepped forward and took over the press conference.

This fic is SO good. In just under 3k words, it has everything: a dash of humor, a tiny bit of angst, a teaspoon of pining and a pinch of fluff. It tells a story of a one-night stand that inevitably ties two people together when they’d very much rather not be. The presence of the press in it is really well done, and it has one of the most creative professions I’ve seen around for the HP world; Draco’s snark is inevitably present, and the way he attempts to keep Harry at an arm’s length away at all times without actually managing it rings very true to the pairing. 

4. A Man Named Potter - @l0vegl0wsinthedark​ : Potter begins to take me apart, each savage, pounding thrust peeling away layer after layer of everything that I am, reaming me open in a way that makes me wonder how I’ll ever be able to let anybody else but him fuck me after this.

I have read this series several times, and the reason is that it is simply scorching hot. Yes, like that, in bolds. It is composed of two fics, the first one in Draco’s POV and the second one in Harry’s. I was a bit scared going into it, because I don’t usually read first person POV, but this one is SO well done that I enjoyed it immensely, and the way it was told only added to the absolute hotness that is the first part and the sweetness of the feelings that surface in the second. And hell, if you need some more enticement to go read it, Harry calls Draco kitten. 

5. Boiling Point - @goldentruth813​ : Ferveret - n. boiling point. After an Auror raid gone wrong, Draco ends up trapped in a dodgy safehouse with nothing but Harry Potter’s dubious company and a dwindling supply of food. With only each other and the walls surrounding them, they’re forced to confront their past and their feelings which have long been threatening to boil over.

One of my favorites of Janel’s! The forced proximity trope is always an amazing way to explore how two people fit against one another while providing the space to build trust and get to know each other better, and it is breathtakingly beautiful in this one. It makes you feel it all, the longing, the fear of opening up, the defensiveness that comes with feeling vulnerable, the heartache when facing demons of the past and the love, the love, the love. 

6. Dwelling - aideomai: Curses, James and Lily Potter ride again, several Ministry balls, a teenage Summer of Love, a grim young adult dystopian winter, a few different Draco Malfoys, secrets and the problems re: not having any, alternate lives, impossible lives, real lives, allusions to Dirty Dancing, and just because it’s not called the Mirror of Erised doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know better.

WHERE TO BEGIN. This story is mind-blowing through and through, and it is so damn GOOD I can’t even put it to words. It’s an AU that’s not an AU, a story with all the tropes: childhood friends, post-war, case fic, eight year, everyone lives, nobody lives, canon compliant, non-canon-compliant, summer of love, a group of teenagers having to figure out what the hell is going on, and a DEEP study on how much it does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live. One of my all-time favorites, and one that you NEED to read asap.

7. What We Pretend We Can’t See - @gyzym​ : Seven years out from the war, Harry learns the hard truth of old history: it’s never quite as far behind you as you thought.

This fic is a Drarry classic for a reason. It has the most PERFECT characterizations I have ever, ever read. Draco is snarky and funny and dramatic and just a bit crazy, and Harry is noble and good and they’re both so complex, so lovely it makes my heart ache. In this story, there’s a case involving Draco that Harry is trying to decipher, and in trying to do so, they grow together. The way they are in this one feels like such a natural development, considering everything we know about them in canon, and the way their relationship develops is natural and amazing and I DREAM of the day I have the time to sit down and give this a very thorough reread. It decomposes and rebuilds each of their personalities and it feels so human and so real. A thing of beauty. 

8. Malfoy’s Anatomy - @novareblogs : Healer interns are nothing short of a bunch of little children running around with wands and severed limbs, having inappropriate sex in inappropriate places. What’s the worst that could happen, really?

Here’s something about me: I’m a medical student, and very partial towards Healer stories. It is a trope I actively seek, and out of all the fics that I’ve read that include it, this one paints the REALEST environments I have ever seen. I was cackling all the way through, the relationship between higher-ups and med graduates, how students tail the surgeons (and give them nicknames), having to find a place where you and your friends can study until four am, when you inevitably fall asleep against each other. It is literally what studying medicine is like. And not only is this fic hilarious, it also has a very fresh take on the characterizations. I had never seen Harry like this, and his relationship with his (very much alive) parents feels very real. The way he and Draco slowly come together as they uncover secrets about each other’s pasts is wonderful, and the medical consent that’s handled throughout the story is very well done. A very good read that I didn’t expect to find, yet surprised me in all the right ways.

9. Humbug (A Christmas Tale) - Snegurochka : Draco has been taking his casual relationship with Harry for granted. Visits from four key ghosts the night before Christmas just might shake up his priorities in life.

A beautiful retelling of A Christmas Carol, with delicious pining and gorgeous characterizations. I always do love stories of fuckbuddies who are definitely so much more, but pretend they’re not. That, plus a wonderful redemption arc for Draco? I was sold. This story made me feel butterflies and tear up at times, and I love it very, very much. An excellent fic to read this time of the year. 

10. Away Childish Things - @letteredlettered​ : Harry gets de-aged. Malfoy has to help him.

God. There is so much to say about this story. It’s beautiful, in every sense of the word, breathtaking. Lettered has such a way with words, I felt like I was right there next to Harry and Draco, like I was them, feeling everything they felt. It is incredibly powerful. It made me feel angry, empty, lost and sad and it made me feel excited and elated and hopeful. It made me understand things about myself as the characters discovered things about themselves. This story might be one of the absolute best things I have ever read, in and outside of fandom, and it’s such a thorough exploration of each of the characters that it feels inevitable, it feels like, no matter what the epilogue says, this is what actually happened to them. I cried, I cried so many times from both sadness and happiness. There are simply no words to explain how gorgeous it is. I am immensely grateful to have read it. 

Thank you to all who read my lists, and thank you thank you thank you if you decide to give these works and these authors a chance, because they deserve all the love in the world. All the way from here, behind a username and a few tumblr posts, I can honestly say that these 30 stories made my year. I hope they can make yours, too ❤️ If you ever want to discuss these (or any story really) my DM’s are always open. Happy New Year!

[scoutception]

Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light review: that which died so that Bravely Default could live

Ah, Bravely Default, Square Enix’s unexpected, but pleasant, little gift to the 3DS, an RPG meant to be a throwback to the days of the SNES, about a bunch of dorks bumbling their way into saving the world. With its great characters, fantastic music, downright gorgeous art design, and innovative battle system, it, and its sequel, Bravely Second, make for some of the best RPGs on the 3DS. I’m not here to talk about those, though, at least not quite yet. I’m here to talk about the Final Fantasy spinoff on the original DS that inspired them. This is Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, itself a throwback to older RPGs, and easily one of the most obscure spinoffs in the series. Does it measure up to the standards of its spiritual successors?

Short answer, no. But since nobody reads these for the short answers, buckle in your seat belts, because this’ll be a ride.

Story:

The game follows 4 teenagers from the kingdom of Horne: Brandt, Jusqua, Yunita, and Aire, who, after defeating the local witch, Louhi, who kidnapped Aire, the kingdom’s princess, are branded to be the Heroes of Light by the planet’s guardian, the Crystal, who warns them of a darkness that threatens to destroy the world. Upon returning to their home, they find all its inhabitants turned to stone by the curse of the witch. Unfortunately, the Crystal could not have picked a worse group of people to task with saving the world. Brandt is an insecure idiot who blindly dashes ahead to try to become stronger, Jusqua is a lazy jerk adverse to putting in effort, even when it’s a good cause, Aire is a greedy spoiled brat of a princess concerned mostly with keeping herself well off, regardless of the consequences to other people, and Yunita is a knight with severe self esteem issues, which wouldn’t be too damaging on its own... if not for her companions treating her awfully and ditching her at the drop of a hat. Needless to say, these are not attractive qualities in a hero, and they split up immediately after discovering what happened to their home, and while Brandt and Yunita do try to find a solution to their home’s predicament, with Jusqua and Aire essentially giving up and taking refuge in a different town, most of the plot boils down to them wandering around trying to fix problems they themselves caused, while trying to fix the problems of all the towns they come across, swapping between themselves in parties of two, and picking up and dropping guest party members. It gets more than a bit frustrating after a while, and feels quite aimless, until things get a lot more interesting once they reunite in the floating city of Spelvia.

Major game spoilers from this point on, just as a warning

The city of Spelvia is home to the original hero of light, Rolan, who saved the world three hundred years before with the help of his dragon companion. After doing so, his father, the chief of the town Invidia, ordered him to create an empire in Spelvia. His dragon having died in the battle against the darkness, and left alone to create his empire, Rolan became filled with bitterness and resentment, refusing to help the new heroes despite being the only hope to save Horne. The heroes try to help him by freeing his soul of his darkness... only to, as usual, completely mess up and cause the darkness to cover the entire world, somehow causing time to roll back to 15 years in the past. As it turns out, however, this was the best thing possible, as the troubles of the various kingdoms, including Rolan’s own darkness. are revealed to be the work of 7 demons, Asmodeus, Belphegor, Leviathan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mammon, and Satan. After defeating them all, they traverse to the source of the darkness and destroy the mastermind behind it all, Chaos (this definitely isn’t familiar at all, huh).

While the plot definitely has interesting ideas and cool moments, it’s still not a great success. The plot for the first half of the game is rather thin and meandering, and the characters just aren’t memorable, with the lack of interaction between the main cast being one of the biggest flaws. Still, it’s an interesting effort, if nothing else.

Gameplay:

The 4 Heroes of Light is uses a turn based battle system that is somewhat reminiscent of its spiritual successor, Bravely Default, though still quite different. The main similarity is the use of AP. All your party members have a max of 5 AP they can store. One is given automatically every turn, and choosing to defend will give an extra one. AP is used for everything, from using abilities, to casting magic, to simply attacking, to the point there isn’t even MP. The stronger the abilities, the more AP they take to use, with high level spells using 4, and the most advanced abilities using 4 or 5. However, compared to Bravely Default, there’s a few major problems with this system. While not having to worry about having to keep your MP up seems nice, the trade off of having to use more AP for stronger abilities is actually rather damaging. If you, say, wanted to attack with Firaga, you’d need to defend twice just to build up enough AP to cast it once, essentially only being able to go once every three turns, which isn’t very efficient, especially when high level spells like that are one of your only methods for hitting multiple enemies, not to mention the problems healers face.

While using a lower level spell may seem like the obvious solution, it’s not that simple. TFHOL (I cannot type out that whole name everytime) uses a customizable ability system where, in addition to the basic three commands of attacking, defending, and using items, you have 6 free ability slots that can be filled with either job abilities, of which there are 4 each, and magic, which anyone can freely use. While this may sound fine and dandy, it’s actually a pretty restrictive number. Even aside from the job abilities, most of which are quite valuable, the sheer amount of spells available means a lot of spreading them out between your party members, who will likely be less effective at magic than others, and have duties to focus on besides magic. Even worse, in a move I can only call utterly baffling, there is no way to manually target in battle. Physical moves always hit the enemy in front, to the right, and magical attacks always hit the enemy in back, to the left, while healing and other support magic just goes to whoever the computer thinks needs it from a pure numbers standpoint. This can result in your meathead healing your paladin at low health for piddly amounts, while your dedicated healer heals your bard that already got off all their buffs off just because they now had a bit less HP, not to mention a dangerous enemy remaining in battle longer than you’d like just cause they’re in a spot that the auto target refuses to go for. There is absolutely no reason they couldn’t put in manual targeting. Aside from magic specifically, though, the ability system is flawed in how utterly restricted you are without it. For instance, the simple ability to run from battles, one of the most basic things in an RPG, is restricted to one specific job, one that’s rather poor offensively, to boot. Yes, if you get into a random encounter without said job, you’re forced to fight it, no way around it.

As mentioned many times, this game uses a system where your different characters can switch between various jobs. These range from the traditional white and black mages, the dedicated healers and offensive magic users, to bards and musicians, with job abilities to provide buffs to the party, to the more traditionally offensive rangers and bandits, to some very.... weird ones, such as the Salve-Maker, dedicated to enhancing the effects of items, to the elementalist, which manipulates elemental effectiveness and resistance, to, all things, the party host, which relies on psyching the party up, making them more effective in battle. They can get pretty creative, and they all have some kind of use in battle, regardless of how far in the game you are. They also all have passive abilities, such as the black and white mage reducing the amount of AP needed to use their respective types of magic by one, along with different stats that determine their effectiveness at certain things, such as using different weapons. The progression on getting them, however, is pretty slow. Other than the default freelancer, at first you’re only given the wayfarer, the aforementioned job able to run from battles, once you first assemble your full party, and afterwards, you unlock two jobs per city story arc, and while it’s not too awful a pace, it still takes a while before you’re given some kind of variety, though there’s a few that can only be gotten through minigames as well. This is only worsened by your party permanently being halved for half the game, or in some cases only being given 1 person to control. This limits your options even further. Trying to use more supportive jobs such as the bard can put all the pressure on your other party member, not to mention it’s a downer in general, having your creativity limited so.

Aside from the basic EXP leveling gained from defeating enemies, jobs can level up through gems dropped by enemies, unlocking new abilities. While fine in concept, in execution, it’s not well balanced at all. There’s 8 different types of gems, all of which are eventually needed to level up, and you need very specific amounts of each to level the jobs up. Additionally, gems are also your main source of currency for a while, since enemies don’t drop money, forcing you to balance saving them for strengthening your jobs, and being able to buy at least a few things. Gems aren’t guaranteed drops, and they can only drop a max of 4 per battle normally anyway, making it even grindier. Worst of all, the final type, the diamonds, are only dropped by bosses, which are obviously finite, with the exception of the respawning bosses in the bonus dungeons, which have their own problems, which I’ll get to in a bit. In the end, it’s just an unnecessary complication compared to enemies giving JP to level up your jobs like in Bravely Default.

No beating around the bush, this is a difficult game, and not for all the right reasons. Combined with the aforementioned difficulties such as no manual targeting, the encounter rate is pretty high, with enemies more than happy to wreck your day, and the game tries to do everything it can to spite you further. For instance, the inventory system works by each of your party members a limited amount of space to hold items. To equip equipment and spells, though, you need to physically keep them in said character’s inventory, which takes up quite a bit of space, and there’s no item stacking either; you want to have potions on hand, every potion you take is another space lost. While it generally doesn’t cause too many problems, from my experience, it’s still a pretty irritating wrinkle, especially when enemies can drop tons of items. Another, much more frustrating example, comes once you transition into the second half of the game, once the party reunites. The random encounters actually start scaling to your level, essentially meaning that your levels become meaningless. This is another detail that’s downright baffling to me, especially when them scaling means they give out more and more EXP as you level up, meaning you’ll hit the level cap pretty easily, and with barely anything to show for it. The bosses can also be huge roadblocks, especially the 7 demons, with special shout outs to Asmodeus, who has an attack that hits the whole party and has a chance of inflicting every status ailment in the game on your party members, including ones like stone, which pretty much kill them outright. Still, the bosses are also the highlight of the game, when they’re not making you pull your hair out.

You’re also restricted to saving at save points, which can be pretty annoying with how long and labyrinthine the later dungeons can get, especially with the final dungeon’s save point only being halfway through. You’re not even allowed to save on the world map. On that subject, the world map is extremely small and barren. While the early parts of the game sort of hide it with their extreme linearity, once you’re given free reign, and a dragon to ride, it quickly becomes apparent just how little there even is, with only a few optional locations, most of which are the bonus dungeons, which sane players are better off skipping. They’re 4 giant towers that go on for 100 floors, containing loads of random encounters, several bosses, and random equipment, and even jobs from the very last bosses. The problem is, everything except every 10th floor is a regular floor where you just have to find the exit, the problem being they get so utterly massive towards the end it can take half an hour to find the exit, not helped by the constant random encounters. Even with the rewards they offer, there is no word to describe them other than exhausting, and they’re easily some of the most miserable challenges I’ve gone through in a game. Even worse, you’re expected to farm these for gems and a special item that can upgrade your equipment. It’s a waste of time and sanity.

Overall, while the gameplay is a homage to older RPGs, it mainly captures the worst aspects of them instead. I’ve played many RPGs, and none have frustrated me anywhere near as much as this game.

Graphics:

The graphics of TFHOL are actually quite good. It was meant to have the feel of a popup book, and as a result, it has a bright and colorful feel to it.

It also has some pretty inventive location concepts, especially the final dungeon, the Star Chamber.

The biggest highlight to me, however, is the enemy designs, especially the 7 demons and Chaos. They tend to look inventive and distinct, and was even carried into Bravely Default, where it works even better.

Sound:

The music is simply fantastic in this game. It’s all in chiptune, and it works extremely well, even if it sounds a bit funny at first. From the blood pumping boss themes, to the creepy cave and dungeon themes, to quite a few that sound downright beautiful, like the dragon’s theme and Spelvia’s theme, being in chiptune does nothing to harm it. It also gets points for including night versions of every town theme, which sound beautiful in their own right.

Overall:

This is a game that does quite a few things right. The graphics, the music, even the story and the more climatic boss fights all work great. The base gameplay, however, is nothing short of a mess. I downright hated this game when I beat it, and while I’m not quite as emotional over it now, it’s still a very solid heavily not recommended. However, it did lead to the creation of Bravely Default, and for that, it deserves to be acknowledged. Till next time.

-Scout

[definitelyarkto]

Ah boy that took quite a while! I’m starting to see the appeal on Hyoh now. Too bad I never got one :’). I possibly could’ve succeeded in that final mission if I remembered Eiko had banish on her, but ah well. Hopefully, that ability won’t be super important in the future!

Strat for The Scorn of the 2-Headed Dragon:

This incarnation of the 2-Headed Dragon (TH Drag) can take a very long time depending on your setup. Like before, he will counter you if you use any abilities or magic with a 120% full break or a snort respectively. He also has 300% resist to all elements and 150 million HP... ouch. However, there’s a catch. Whenever you hit him with a damage dealing esper, he reduces all of his resists by 330% for the first time, 360% for the second time, 390% for the third time, and won’t counter your abilities or magic for 2 turns (it also gives you a free turn since he won’t do anything right after getting hit by the esper). The fourth time he is imperiled, he resets the counter back to 330% and continues the pattern. To get there, you’re going to want an evoker to fill your esper gauge, a fantastic tank to soak up all of the incoming damage, decent buffs and elemental resists, and a way to get rid of breaks and status ailments.

The Team:

MS Nichol- My buffer, again :’). Nichol’s incredible buffs can outlast his initial 70% AoE full break long enough for you to get a good defense up. He also has 70% buffs to your Ice, Light, and Dark resists, 3 out of the 4 elements TH Drag hits you with. And, just in case, his Limit heals your HP/MP by 20%, removes all of the nasty breaks on your team, and buffs everyone by 134%, good to use as a last resort.

Eiko- My evoker/healer of choice and, in my opinion, the MVP of this battle. Eiko is incredible for this fight, being able to heal and fill your esper gauge in the same turn. She can also remove breaks, increase your LB fill rate (a good edition for many of the units on this team), and dispel the boss’s ATK/MAG buffs. To top it off, her limit fills the esper gauge by a lot, gives a massive heal, and removes all breaks. This allows you to spam espers more readily if you have it up and can get rid of the TH Drag’s annoying breaks.

Wilhelm- My tank of choice. Aside from being super tanky (especially with that TMR ability), Wilhelm’s counters can fill the esper gauge much faster than just having Eiko do it. His limit also helps survive the boss’s huge AoE magic nuke under the 60% threshold.

Yan- Elemental support and break resist. Yan, one of the few units with AoE break resistance will completely negate his Dragon’s Voice, making the battle MUCH easier. She has Bushido - Freedom for the beginning of the fight and Rikku’s Pouch for Panacea. Yan’s limit also has 64% all elemental resist on it coupled with an AoE reraise. Perfect for surviving the multitude of elements he throws at you.

Raegen and Hyoh- Damage dealers, both with fire elemental weapons. Honestly, you could go with anyone here, but Raegen has side elemental support and side healing and I really wanted to try out Hyoh.

The Battle:

The TH Drag gets the first turn and he AoE 70% full breaks you right at the start. Fun, I know. Use Bushido - Freedom on yourself if you would rather not stress about that, get your tank ready, get buffs up, and start filling your esper gauge. Remember, don’t damage him with any abilities or magic until you summon an esper. Until then, he will break you again every 4 turns, hit you with a lightning/dark magic attack or an ice/light magic attack, heavy ST and AoE physical attacks, and will attempt to dispel one of your units every two turns (most likely your tank). Prepare for all of this through elemental buffs, break resist, and timing your esper summon to ignore the dispel. In addition to these attacks, he will use Save Up every 3 turns. Its a small ATK/MAG buff (you’ll want to dispel it anyways) but, after 3 uses of this move, he will use Big Release, an AoE physical nuke that will inflict a plethora of status ailments. Hopefully, you brought a way to get rid of those (i.e. Rikku’s Pouch). After you hit the boss with an esper, you get one turn to recuperate and hit him as hard as you can (his imperil only lasts for 1 turn). He won’t retaliate during that turn. Things play relatively simply until he reaches 60% HP. After that threshold, the TH Drag will use his Save Up ability every two turns, upgrades Big Release to Release ALL, will use Dragon’s Voice every 3 turns instead of every 4, and will use both his lightning/dark magic and his ice/light magic in one turn, every turn. Keep your resists up as best as you can and keep track of the amount of times he used Save Up. You don't want to get hit with Release All without any mitigation since he follows up with his normal attack rotation right after. Keep up the esper spam through all of this and you should be good!

And that’s it! This trial can take a long time, even when you’re spark chaining. Just don’t lose track of Save Up or your buffs; if you get caught without your tank tanking (I’m guilty of this ;-;) you’re going to get wiped. To be frank, this fight is very RNG heavy because of the esper orbs and Eiko herself. Sometimes, you’ll get the bar you need to save yourself from death, other times you won’t and you get wiped. Get past that, though, and you should be fine! Good luck!

[anadventurerisfail]

The Failed Adventurer plays FE:Echoes, overall thoughts

this ended up being a lot, so gonna put it under a Read More.

Stuff I liked;

except for dungeons, all characters you had recruited were on the map

how magic use was balanced

archers could counter in melee

the aspect of controlling two different groups

how the overworld map was used.  Especially with the roaming enemies.

weapons don’t break

the music.  Compared to Awakening’s grand and soaring opening music and title music, Echoes has a more grounded feel to it.  There’s a somber feel to it all the time, whereas Awakening only has one map where it has a somber tone.  That music following our two characters in the opening sequence, right when you boot up the game before actually creating a save file, making a promise to always get along with each other and the imagery of all the conflict, it’s saying that this isn’t going to be a happy romp through the countryside.

the characters reaction to getting a bad level up.  That was really good at taking the edge off of it.  Made the reaction go from a “sigh” to a “heh”.

the story through Act 3 was decent.

i like how the Necrodragons felt.  The first time you encounter them, they are big and scary, you need to use you one Defense tank to tank them while Celica is the only one with a spell that can deal heavy damage to them, and you need to keep those that can’t take a hit far away from their high move range.  The next time you fight them, you have additional characters with that spell and a few others can just punch hard through their high Def.

Stuff I didn’t like;

While I like how magic use was balanced, I don’t like how magic damage was balanced.  When a character levels up, each stat has a percent chance of going up.  The final chance is the character’s base chance and the class modifier (if any) added together.  Most character growths are somewhere in the 25 to 45 range, with the classes adjusting it by up to 10 in some direction if at all.  Resistance, the stat used to defend against magic damage, is in the 0 to 5 range for all but one character with an 8 (and no class adjustment ever).  Actually, only one character has a base 5 growth to Res (actually a 7 after class adjustments).  Only four clases raised Res growth; healer class and it’s promote by 2, and female mage class and it’s promote by 1.  When I finished the game, that 7% growth character had 15 Res, whereas a character I got a quarter of the way through Act 4 came with 18 Res.  What was considered my magic tank early in Act 1 (11 Res) didn’t grow ANY Res at all.  The common magic damage enemy had damage passing the mid 20s by the 4th Act.  This made Speed (not getting doubled) and HP the primary defense against magic damage.  It also forced the tactic to deal with enemy mages to be “burn them before they can touch you”.  The attack mages you get don’t get nearly enough Res to trade efficiently with the enemy mages, if they can’t blast their opponent away in one turn they can’t get used.  The only real use I got out of those magic tanks past Act 3 was to be a ward for the teleporting witches, who got up to 20 damage max, and they don’t teleport nearly often enough to be threatening.

OH MY GOD are Dread Fighters broken.  Dread Fighters come from the class line that gets high Attack, Skill, and Speed.  They hit hard (often with a crit), accurately, will often hit their opponent twice, and be hard to hit themselves.  Their weaknesses are magic damage and the bulky physical defense with high attack units.  Then they become the Dread Fighter, gain a flat +5 to Res, HALVE all magic damage received, and gets an increased move range.  Here is your goto squishy killer.  Here is your new magic tank.  Oh, and they can un-promote back to the Villager class, which allows them to potentially gain infinite levels (Villager > Mercenary > Myrmidon > Dread Fighter > Villager) and are the only class to do so without a DLC item.

I guess my main issue with how magic damage is handled is that your magic tanks don’t stay magic tanks, your magic users aren’t your offensive magic tanks, and your units that kill squishy mages just fine before become your defensive magic tanks as well.

Speaking of the Villager class, what they can promote into are different depending on the character’s gender.  Male units get the aforementioned Mercenary class line, as well as the Soldier (high defense and attack, low movement), Cavalier (horse back, high movement and speed), Archer (longest base attack range in the game), and male Mage (moderate magic damage, can heal on promote).  The Mage class is the only one there that doesn’t promote twice.  Female units get female Mage (higher magic damage, can use a sword and heal on promote), Cleric (healing class), Pegasus Knight (flying unit, low Def but high Skl and Spd and supposedly good Res.  supposedly), and Cavalier.  Only one of those can promote twice.  And I wouldn’t be surprised if Mathilda being in the game was the only reason they could be Cavaliers.

The story was ugh.  Alm never gets punished for anything.  After Alm and Celica have their spat, the closest he gets is when Nuibaba uses an image of Celica to get him into her trap.  But he gets Tatiana, and Zeke, out of that, and the death of someone apparently very high up in the Duma Faithful.  Celica walks straight into the lying antagonist’s hands and needs to be rescued by Alm in the end.  Does Alm ever really grow?

I swear I’ve seen/heard this before.  The Female MC and love interest to Male MC does what she thinks and believes is right without telling ANYONE ELSE about it, is drawn by the Antagonist into his lair to be revealed that the Antagonist is lying too late for her to back out and is turned on the Male MC who is forced to kill her except she doesn’t die cuz deus ex machina.

there were a couple times where the maps started out as...empty.  here is a map of the last map to really feel that way.  Half the enemies are teleporting witches, the other half are Myrmidons and the Dread Fighter boss to the far left.  2 witches and Myrmidons to the right.  Every map beforehand, you moved forward to engage the enemy.  Why would they give all that space behind you?  The only reason I can think of to delaying the arrival of the enemy is to give time for the witches to teleport behind you and to kill them off before fighting the Myrmidons and Dread fighter, but they don’t teleport nearly often enough, sometimes not at all, for that to really work out like that.  If we give 3 lines below the southern most notable thing, the ramparts we assemble around, we could easily drop 6 lines off the bottom of the map.

the game difficulty was...really easy for being on hard mode.  The only times it was actually difficult was in Act 2 when I was facing a Cantor for the first time and when I fought Jedah for the first time in Act 4.  Every other time it just felt like a puzzle that had an easy answer.  For that Cantor, NONE of my units could effectively trade with it.  My one unit with high Res only had an attack that wasn’t very accurate and didn’t have the damage output to counteract the healing it was getting, my offensive mages couldn’t effectively trade against it, and my physical attackers couldn’t efficiently trade as well if they hit at all.  What I ended up doing was to summon a bunch of disposable units to have the Cantor eat away at his health counterattacking them and then just blast him with my mages afterwards before he healed back up.  For Jedah I didn’t realize two things.  1) the map would be over in 6 turns anyway with no indication that it was a defense mission, 2) that the key was 4 separate units attacking, not 4 attacks total.  I didn’t even bother trying to attack him because he was doing that much magic damage, even to the Dread Fighters.

I like the game overall.  I look forward to potentially blinging out my weapons and stomping all over the postgame.

[bralef]

A lot happened this year at PortConMaine - mostly in the form of tabletop RPGs - so I decided to write all about them. This is basically just going to be a huge wall of text of me gushing about the fun I had doing tabletop RPGs for half a week.

Thursday was kind of a weak start. My uncle surprised me by taking me to the new Transformers movie. I appreciate the gesture, but it was not only terrible, but it made me late to PortCon. I’d have rather watched Wonder Woman again. As a result, I missed the DnD 5e session I was planning on attending, so I went with some Star Wars session instead. I played a Wookie Technician. Nothing particularly amazing or awesome happened, but it was fun and funny enough, I suppose. Then I played some weird Spy/Word-guessing game that takes way too long to understand. Me and the guy I teamed up with won both rounds. Finally, I played a few rounds of Lupinball, some (free?) game on Steam. One of those deceptively simple lightning-fast multiplayer games. It's pretty fun.

~~

Friday was great, exactly what I'd expect out of a good day at Portcon. I participated in three sessions, and will cover them in order from least exciting to most.

In between two better sessions was a Pathfinder campaign where we explored some haunted house. It only took a couple hours (I think that DM preferred multiple quick adventures rather than one big one) and ultimately was pretty boring. I played a half-orc Inquisitor. Nothing really noteworthy happened.

The last session I did was a DnD 5e session called the Sunless Citadel. I was a Dwarven Barbarian who I named Beerbeard McBeardbeer after a character in a long-term campaign I'm in (though I didn't roleplay him very similarly). What we were supposed to do was help these Kobolds rescue their baby god or something.

What ended up happening was, we convinced them to let us use their key to open some big important door. Someone touched a magic orb that forced everyone to make a Wisdom save or be feared, forcing them to run right into a pit (where they would take 1d6 fall damage, or half on a successful save). Beerbeard and one other party member passed immediately. The others, including the Kobold holding the key, all ran into the pit and took damage (keeping in mind this is Level 1 where the median health of everyone is like 9). One of them re-entered the room and passed his save that time. The other two kept running back into the room, failing the save, and chucking themselves into the pit again (Beerbeard watched). One of them, at one point, decided to kill the kobold (who had been knocked unconscious by the fall) and steal the key...for some reason. Finally we all made it past the Orb of Confusion and into the next room.

The next room was simply a riddle where the answer was “stars.” Nothing exciting there. The next two rooms were separated by a spiky pit. Our monk made it across and promptly got fucking manhandled by an imp. So, one of our other dudes jumps across. Beerbeard tried to join them, failed the check, and took 9 piercing damage (out of his 16 health). Another party member failed too, only she was way squisher so she immediately went down.

Beerbeard managed to carry the downed party member out of the pit...Right as the imp went invisible. Fuuuuuck. The next several turns consisted of us swinging at nothing and attempting to find the imp, who eventually went across the pit to fight our remaining party member who hadn't jumped across. He eventually managed to slay it, and we were left with a coffin that we were all pretty certain contained a boss. We were beaten to shit, our healer was out of spell slots, and two of us were at 1 HP, but we had already expended all of our (read: one) hit dice. There was nothing to do but try fighting the troll.

It killed us all.

The second session I played was a contender for the best one I played all week. I believe it was Shadowrun, or at least took place in the same universe/system, but was some kind of sequel or successor to it. One thing I really dug about the system is how on-the-fly and improvised everything is, even among tabletops. For example, once per session every player gets to declare a contact. It can be as specific and on-the-nose as you want. For example, if the party's mission is to infiltrate some facility, you can go, say, “Oh, a buddy of mine worked as a security guard there once, he might be able to hook us up with some floor plans or something.” Stuff like that. In addition to whatever explicit equipment you have, certain events or actions will give you “Intel” or “Gear,” which basically works in a similar manner. With gear, if you're in a tight spot, you can say “Oh, that gear I picked up earlier? That was a grappling hook. I'm going to use it to scale the building and get away.”

Anyway, I played an Adept, which is sort of like a cyberpunk monk. A cybermonk, if you will. (I didn't steal that from you JP, I thought it up too but let you say it since I was on a phone and figured you'd pick up on it without my input). Taking inspiration from the recommended suggestions for my character, I made him a wrestler named Red Rooster. “He sounds like a luchador.” ...Well, I did make him hispanic, so yeah, that works! One of my party members was a huge fan of Red Rooster, and another party member, who was a hacker, used Red Rooster’s mask as his online hacking avatar.

We were also told to create fictional facilities in the universe that would be relevant to the session. I came up with Koala Tea, a restaurant chain. I decided that Red Rooster is basically their mascot, and thus all of his moves are named after items from their menu.

We were tasked with stopping a facility from releasing a mind-control potion onto the market. We decided to do this by blowing up their manufacturing facility. Along with Red Rooster (real name Carlito Diez), we had Tuck, a human hacker; Dominic, a shaman who was capable of communing with the spirit world and its inhabitants; and Devontus Grimlore, a troll-kin hired killer who preferred brute force. In our backstory, Devontus once broke into a Koala Tea establishment and, very publically and conspicuously, removed an official's mechanical endoskeleton from his body. Forcefully. This resulted in a huge brawl between him and Red Rooster, that evidently resulted in them becoming friends.

Dominic declared his contact: Siri, spirit of smart phones and information. She gave him a general map of the building and allowed him to open a window of opportunity for us to infiltrate. Unfortunately this also garnered the attention of Clippy, an obnoxious spirit who constantly annoys Dominic and suggests inappropriate solutions to problems.

We entered the facility using automated trucks that Tuck had hacked into. When we got in, we opened the doors, and Red Rooster blasted into the room on his flashy motorcycle while Devontus pulled out a piece of gear he had gathered earlier: A minigun.

Devontus is gunning down machines and personnel alike, while Red Rooster holds off the guards by driving his motorcycle into them and leaping off with a Koala Slider™ Tackle. Shrapnel from a stray gunshot cost Red Rooster one of his eyes, and Devontus gets his arm caught in some industrial machinery (he's a troll, he'll be fine). I realized that he was the only one who hadn't used his contact yet, so I decided a particular guard looked very familiar, even without his signature mask on...Red Rooster's rival, former mascot of Kangaroo Coffee...Blue Bull.

“What are you doing here, Blue Bull?! Dressed in that uniform and using a gun, guarding such a dishonorable facility! What happened to you?”

“YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE WHAT'S DISHONORABLE FOR ME RED ROOSTER RAAAAAAA” cue the fight, which I planned on winning to show Blue Bull the error of his ways, making him help us in destroying the facility.

I rolled the minimum roll possible, so Red Rooster got his ass kicked. He went in for a Koala BBQ Rib™crusher, but Blue Bull countered with an Atomic Coffee™ Suplex. So he didn't help us...But we still destroyed it, and got away thanks to Dominic timing the mission beforehand so that we simply needed to board one of the automated trucks that was leaving.

We completed the mission, and all we needed to do was get paid. We rolled to see whether there were any complications with the payment. Turns out we were set up, by what was heavily implied to be an elder god. Multiple incarnations of Clippy suddenly appeared and we tried to fight them off. Dominic cast an anti-clippy talisman he had explicitly gained earlier, which vaporized them and caused a dark void to appear, no doubt leading to the one who had set us up. We had to decide whether to stay and fight and probably die, or run. Devontus was up for a fight. As for the rest of us:

Me: I have “Code of Honor” and “Pride” as two of my character traits. Red Rooster literally can't turn away from this fight.

Dominic: [turns to Tuck] Remember us! Tell our story!

Tuck's player: You're assuming I'm still there.

Tuck: [already long gone]

The session ended with the three of us remaining turning to the void and leaping into whatever mysterious adventure it held in store for us. End Credits.

~~

Saturday was a weird coincidence. I played three sessions, and my character in all three of them was associated with dragons.

The 5e session I planned on attending was full, so I went with a 3.5e session instead, where I played a Half-Elf Dragon Shaman. The DM seemed pretty new at the whole thing, as there was very little actual roleplaying and it was basically just filler to get us from fight to fight. Early on I was really bored and tired to the point where I considered making an excuse to leave. I stuck with it, though, and by the end we had had a few fun moments, more from just joking around than the actual session. At one point our dwarf clobbered a sleeping red dragon with his axe...and it failed to notice or wake up.

The DM from the Sunless Citadel session was running the same campaign again, so I decided to join in again and see if we'd be more successful this time. He gave us all potions to help in that regard. This time I was playing a Dragonborn Fighter named Lamarr, and this time we actually went ahead with the plot instead of taking a detour to an optional boss. We agreed to help the kobolds find their dragon baby god. One complication was the fact that we had a goblin rogue on our team – the goblins stole the baby god, so the kobolds hated them. We managed to assure them he was on our (and thus, their) side, so the baby god's caretaker (Meebo) escorted us into Goblin territory. After fighting a big mama rat and her children (made a lot easier by our bard Tom casting a Sleep spell) we stepped into a hallway filled with caltrops. Our half-elf tried pushing them out of the way but somehow impaled herself and fell unconscious. We then got shot at by some Goblins at the other end of the hall, but our own goblin was all “Hey! What are you doing?” and managed to convince them he was working for some big goblin boss. He was mentioning that he'd want to work out a trade for the baby god, when Meebo saw this and went “TRAAAITOOOOR!” He ran back to the other kobolds, who turned their weapons on Tom, assuming we were secretly working for the goblins. He managed to convince them that Meebo was simply being paranoid and that we were being slick by tricking the goblins. We basically had a pass with both factions, and that’s where the session ended.

Finally, was a session where we were all dragons. Actual, literal dragons. Young ones, who had been kept in a cryptid circus and used for entertainment by evil witch bitch Magna. My character was Bar, a clawed dragon who was capable of digging. I don't think I ever actually used digging to our advantage. Highlights include:

The one diplomat dragon we had convincing five axe-juggling dwarf brothers to stop fighting us and actually help us escape.

Phantasmapotomas, a dancing hippo who existed as an excuse for the DM to sing songs relevant to whatever situation was at hand.

“I want to take him out nonlethally. [crit fail]” DM: Whoops, his head popped off!

Blue Dragon tackling the “caretaker” that abused us for years. He survived, but it was heavily implied his spine was severed and that he was paralyzed.

A riddle door who required three questions: What is your name, what is your mission, and [insert randomly-generated difficult trivia question]?

Diplomat dragon's response: 1. [Name]. 2. “To escape this hellhole.” 3. “Wait, WHICH capital? There's four of th- *launched into the sky*”

Arrogant Dragon's response: 1. [Name] 2. “To escape this place.” 3. “A number.” *launched into the sky*”

The Dwarven brothers' response: 1. [hacks door into pieces with axe] 2. [eats piece of door] Huh, gingerbread! (“It's a durable, reliable building material!”) 3. Now THAT'S how you get past a riddle door! [steals Magda's paybox]

The DM talking/responding out of character in Magda's voice/in character, implying she had metagame knowledge.

Magda attempting to turn four of us into newts in turn, and all four of us crit failing the save while Diplomat Dragon was being attacked by clown ghouls.

Us freeing all of the cryptids except the mermaids, because letting them out would kill them and dumping them into the local rivers would wreak havoc on the ecosytem. As one player described them, they were basically Dire Piranhas.

Ultimately we succeeded, and in fact we got straight to the point quicker than the DM planned. This is the same DM who hosted Werewolf Wrestling Federation vs the Vampire Women (one of the most fun sessions I’ve ever played), and when I mentioned that to him he said that, just because I asked, he'd make another session of that happen next year. Woo!

~~

On Sunday I killed some time by playing a few quick scenarios with the same Pathfinder DM, where I played a Cavalier named Alain (horse named Dalahan I think). First we stormed a haunted estate and killed some bugs and a weird ghoul thing. He wielded a severed leg as a weapon, and there was a corpse with only one leg in the corner. Here's a few quotes from the session:

“Can I take the leg?” “You can take the leg.” “I take the leg.”

“I give him his leg back.”

“No wait, I changed my mind, I need it.”

There was a well in the middle of the room with like a million more ghoul things, one of which was climbing up. I jabbed down into the well with my lance, and got a nat 20.

“You see Alain plunging into the well with his lance, blood and gore spewing out.”

“It's like a satanic toilet.”

It was a very short session, but that's good because it ended right when the conclusion of the Sunless Citadel started.

We only had three returning party members (including me), and three new ones. Our goblin rogue was taken over by the DM for diplomatic purposes, as were Tom and one other character. Tom managed to gain audience with the goblin boss (actually a Hobgoblin), and several slaves (read: the players new to this session) were brought out to be used as footstools. Aurelia, our Paladin, tried sneaking food to one of them, but was noticed. A flying mug and a shout of “NO FEEDING THE PRISONERS” let us know how the goblins felt about that. Our Cleric distracted them with dancing long enough for Tom to pick the locks on their manacles. One of them (a Tiefling Wizard whose first name was Freedom) cast a cantrip to make one of the doors fly open to try and cause a distraction, but was noticed, causing the goblins to realize we had set them free. Commence fight.

We were holding our own, but eventually a small goblin woman who had been kneeling in the corner stood up on the throne and declared she was the ruler of the goblins now. This caused the hobgoblins and goblins to fight amongst themselves. Eventually we helped her take down the king and his lackeys. As thanks, she freed the slaves: Freedom; a Dragonborn Monk named Roger; and a Warlock who I think was a halfling. They joined us, and we went upstairs to try and find the baby god: According to them, they lost at least one goblin per day to the thing, so were more than happy to let us take him off their hands.

Tipped off by a goblin’s screaming and severed arm launched from a doorway, we found the baby god. He then unleashed frost breath and knocked down Lamarr and the Cleric, before finishing off Roger with a claw. Aurelia managed to drag Lamarr out, and eventually we got everyone out alive and healed up, after sealing the door shut. Concluding that this dragon was far beyond our capacity at the moment, we instead opted to go after our second goal: finding the source of some magical fruit that can cure any ailment.

We went down a well in the goblin throne room, and were attacked by some twig things (who were easily dispatched) and shovel-wielding skeletons. The skeletons were tougher, but Lamarr knocked one’s head off with a nat 20. We then fought a Bugbear and his pet rats (one of which was named Fang).

Eventually we tied up a second Bugbear (I think her name was Helga) and had her lead us to Bellack, the magician behind the mystical fruit tree. He revealed he was basically mind controlling two previous adventurers as slaves.

Bellack: You have two options: Leave this place, or become my slaves. It is too late to save these two.

Lamarr: But not too late to avenge them.

Aurelia: We won’t be your slaves!

Lamarr: And we’re not leaving, either.

Cue the final boss fight...Which I immediately had to leave because I had a bus to catch. What an anticlimactic end to a great campaign, right?

Fortunately, at my request, the person playing Aurelia actually Emailed me the results of the fight and how the campaign ended:

“So the good news is that we didn't die. You and Roger used your fire breath to burn up the evil tree and we took down Bellack- however after burning the tree freed Sir Bradford and Sharlin from the spell, Bellack's death caused them to either and die. We did try to heal them, but the magic was beyond us. The big tree was in a grove of saplings and we decided to torch the whole grove as the trees were just too powerful. We took the bodies of Sharlin and Sir Bradford back to Oakhurst for proper burial- Sharlin to her family and Sir Bradford to the temple of Pelor. And that's where we ended it. Our entire party did make it out in the end- though (as I'm sure you can imagine) not without more struggling to keep the cleric in check.”

Thanks, Abby. You’re a lifesaver. A perfect way to end the campaign, as well as Portconmaine 2017. This was a great year, and I hope to have an even better one next year!

[dailydoseofcolor]

Taking Stock of Units in Fire Emblem Heroes, Part 3

I’ve already written a small novella at this point, but I have the motivation, so it’s time to keep going. Next is character archetypes in this game that I don’t yet have merged, and would be beneficial to my enjoyment of the game. At this point, I’m in T21 for Aether Raids, and consistently make T24/T25. I do not need to be T27, that’s just too much. On the other side, I’m usually T19.5 in Arena. I just don’t have the resources to keep up with Arena scoring. I actively dislike that mode, All I need are units that will get me through every aspect of the game and keep me from falling to T17 in Arena. 

Now for the hard part. I think what I would really love is to, one day, have a +10 character on hand for every combat role in the game across a large variety of weapon/color types. Obviously there’s Player Phase, Enemy Phase, Mixed Phase, and Support. But within those, I feel like there’s more niche roles: Player Phase:  1) Nuke / One Shot (Lilina, Lysithea) 2) Galeforce (OG Eliwood, Tibarn, Raven) 3) Double / Quad Builds (Maybe a subset of Galeforce, but serves a different purpose on maps with inflated stats; Est, Cordelia, etc)

Enemy Phase:  1) Retaliatory Nuke (Rinkah with Bonfire) 2) Sustain Tank (Aether Builds like Legendary Ike) 3) Stall Tank (Brave Ike and other more niche builds) Mixed Phase:  1) DPS (Special Spiral Builds like NY!Alfonse) 2) Duelist (Ross, Donnel, Itsuki, etc) 3) Omnitanks (More of an AR choice, but the characters that can dish it out either in PP or EP; Again, Brave Ike, Ross, Echidna)

Support:  1) Full Support (Dancers/Healers with zero combat prowess) 2) Tank Support (Tanky Healers that can be on the front lines with Close Counter; doesn’t always require actually high defense) 3) Closers (Those random characters that accompany you on maps that only see combat every now and again due to one very specific niche they handle, or are good at moving characters around the field, and can block an entrance for a hit or two if need be / or support characters with combat prowess, like Dance!Reinhardt and Dance!Ishtar). _____ 

So if we take those roles into account, the characters I already have fully merged or are Merge Projects are: Nowi (+10): Enemy Phase Sustain Tank Sothe (+10): Player Phase Double Build Ross (+10): Mixed Phase Duelist Lyon (+7): Enemy Phase Stall Tank Micaiah (+5): Enemy Phase Retaliatory Nuke OR Player Phase Nuke (Depending on the enemy type) Mia (+3): Her most obvious build is a Desperation build for a Player Phase Double, but I submit that her Res stat is actually pretty good, and she’d be a decent Mixed Phase Duelist OG Eliwood (+3): Player Phase Galeforce, honestly one of the best ones Joshua (+2): Mixed Phase Duelist (that high Res stat tho) Donnel (+2): His stats allow for so much flexibility: Player Phase Quad with his new Refine, Enemy Phase Sustain Tank, Mixed Phase Duelist....he fits a lot of niches now that I think about it. Rath (+2): Player Phase Double Build Saber (+1): Honestly more of an Enemy Phase Stall Tank, but he can move into a Mixed Phase DPS given the right build.  Black Knight (+1): Again, super flexible because of the Fighter skills; but likely a Player Phase Double build with Bold Fighter. I have plenty of Bold Fighter fodder, and would love to watch him delete things off the map.  Nephenee (+1): Best niche is as an Enemy Phase Retaliatory Tank with Bonfire/Ignis Altena (+1): Pure Enemy Phase as a Stall Tank, especially against Bows. Even some Green units just can’t touch her Young Minerva (+1): Again, super flexible because of her speed. I like her as an Enemy Phase Stall Tank, though Matthew (+1): Enemy Phase Stall Tank, although magic really kicks him in the ass

____

Okay. Zero support units and very few Player Phase units. I def have a preferred playstyle. Although, I’ll submit that the units I get a lot of use from that aren’t merged helps cover that. Let’s go through and see if I have any options for Merge Projects that are sitting unmerged right now: 

Sword: Roy: Roy’s our boy! Roy’s our boy! I have his merges available, but I’ve been waiting to bite the bullet. His Res is just on the underside to make him a full Omnitank, so he’s definitely more of a Enemy Phase Sustain Tank. But he is getting a Resplendent soon... Soleil: Major Player Phase action. Honestly, along with Mia, could be an actually good contender for any future Close Call/Repel fodder I get.  Ares: Unlimited Bonfire makes for a strong DPS candidate. I worry that merging him and Eliwood would be too much, even though they serve completely different purposed. I hesitate only because I don’t know anything about him, really.  Fallen Ashnard: Fuck. His design is just *chef’s kiss.* I need to build him, and I have time, since he won’t hit the Grail market for another two months at least. But I feel like Ashnard, Altena, Young Minerva, and Myrrh would be a hilariously physically bulky team. 

Lance:  Valter: Disgusting villain, one you just love to hate. Smaller grail cost than others, since he’s been around a while. And he has to be up for a refine within the next 6 months. He’s high on the list. He could serve as a strong Player Phase Nuke Cormag: Much higher grail cost than Valter, but with a more balanced stat-line. More of a dream than anything.  Effie: Is it past time to build Effie’s? She was all the rage a year and a half ago. Although she can still put in work with her attack stat, and her speed is more than covered by Fighter skills. I just really have a hard time with Armor units.  Est: I see Est builds floating around and people rave about her. I wonder if it’s time to bite the bullet and build one myself.  Ferdinand: Shitty stat line, character I detested from 3H...why did I even put him on this list.  Oscar: Before this: WHERE IS BOYD. For fuck’s sake, it’s been years. Boyd deserves to be in 3H if Oscar is. Again, not a character I love, but has a refine that gives a niche(?). I honestly never see Oscar builds around, which tells me all I need to know.  Axe:  Raven: Easy to merge, great refine, easy to use Player Phase potential. One of the stronger Galeforce infantry units. Worth consideration.  Cherche: Similar to above, but as a nuke. I’ve seen her just delete characters off the map.  Titania: Super strong support capabilities. Tactics skills are pretty fucking dope most of the time.  Bow:  Norne: Incredible stat line, and I have a Midori that I could sink into her if I feel so inclined....now I just need merges. Clarisse: Honestly, her new refine is pretty sick, although she’s a very high level Grail cost. Might need to wait and see on this one, at least until her refine is fixed. Claude: I legitimately think that, if I decided this is what I wanted, I could get a +10 Claude. But that would me a LOT of Lull fodder that I don’t use. I’d love this, but I don’t think so. Halloween Rolf: Fucking adorable character and design, Grail cost is too high. 

Dagger:  Kronya: Stupid character, amazing options. Hard to justify with Sothe and Matthew above her in priority of characters I love.  Tethys: I dismissed Tethys way back when she launched, but I actually feel like she’s found a niche with her high Res stat? Again, hard to justify, though.  Winter Jaffar: Great character art, honestly. Top Tier. Decent combat potential, but his green coloring hurts him pretty hard. Also he’s armor, I just have a hard time with armors. 

Red Mage: OG Tharja: She’s on a similar level as Nino, for me. But has a refine that gives her a really interesting niche. I go back and forth, I need to test her out in combat more.  Aversa: Incredible support, especially in large maps like Grand Conquests. Her merges would be mostly about getting that HP stat up. I don’t really need her to be combative.  Arvis: I love his character design and he can have some really fun builds with his special B skill. I’m waiting for a refine before I make any decisions, though.  Iago: New character that I don’t love in terms of base game, but interesting support potential.  Male Morgan: He’s shown up so many times I could build two +10 versions of him (which crosses my mind sometimes). I wish his defensive stats were higher, it would make for a slightly more interesting unit.  Blue Mage:  Fallen Delthea: I realize that I really do love a lot of the Fallen character’s designs...except for Celica. Delthea has a strong presence and she could be worth the Grails. Brunnya: I’m seeing Brunnya everywhere on Reddit. I should pay more attention to her builds, I think. Why are there so many decent Grail units?? Reinhardt: Not a hot take: don’t love Reinhardt. But fuck if he isn’t super useful sometimes. It’s really remarkable how well he’s stayed either inside or right outside the meta. Still not gonna build him.  L’Arachel: I love her character and personality, and I just have this sinking feeling that her refine is gonna suck. So idk, hard to tell at the moment. 

Green Mage: Soren: Also capable of the Triple Chill strategy, but with more Combat Prowess. I don’t have enough for a +10 though right now. Definitely on the backburner.  Halloween L’Arachel: A person can dream, right? I have one and would love more. Maybe in the future.  Staff:  Silque: One of my favorite characters from SoV. And I just love defensive healers. I could get her to +2 right now, and I think it might be worth it to have her be a long term goal.  Forrest: I don’t have enough to +10 Forrest, but I do love his design. It leans into the aesthetic very well. His stats are pretty lackluster, unfortunately.  Mercedes: Pretty sure I could just copy and paste from above. Mercedes is one of the best characters from 3H, but her stat line and a lack of copies at the moment...hard to justify.  Brady: Another great defensive healer. Easier to merge than Silque, but his personality is kinda meh for me. Pass. 

Dragon:  Myrrh: Myrrh was on my “most wanted list” with OG Ephraim for forever. I only pulled an pitybreaker Myrrh a month ago. Her refine is INCREDIBLE, and I would love to try to get more merges for her. She has an upcoming banner coming up, and if I can score a couple of merges, I’ll be a happy camper. 

Beast:  Reyson: I’m close to being able to +10 Reyson soon. He gets a decent amount of work just as a dancer, if I fully kit him, he’d be able to hold highly with L!Azura in terms of usage, if only because of his weapon effect. Good solid passive healing is always hard to come by unless you use the healing specials. He’s worth a further look. 

I’ll analyze the rest of this tomorrow...Part 3, Section 2 will have to wait. 

[thomasroach]

Elder Scrolls Online Depths of Malatar Dungeon Guide

The post Elder Scrolls Online Depths of Malatar Dungeon Guide appeared first on Fextralife.

In this guide we will take a look at Depths of Malatar Dungeon and provide tips on how to beat many challenges this dungeon throws your way. Depths of Malatar was been introduced to Elder Scrolls Online with the Wrathstone DLC, that launched February 25th 2019 on PC and March 12th on Xbox One and PS4.

Elder Scrolls Online Depths of Malatar Dungeon Guide

Depths of Malatar is fun dungeon to experience, with 5 bosses and some nasty mob pulls. Bosses are mostly not terribly difficult to get through, except the last one which can be pose quite the challenge, especially in Veteran Mode. Trash that you find between boss fights are mostly common ones that just need to be stacked and countered with AoEs.

However after the easy early pulls, Stone Watchers are added to the mix making the fight much tougher. They have wide a variety of attacks but mostly focus on AoE damage. The rest of the group should not be positioned closely to doughnut-like AoE and only the Tank should stay inside it. It does significant damage and can kill DPS and Healers easily.

While other mobs are nothing special, Stone Watchers can pose a problem

For the most part, these stone watchers do not arrive on their own, and come accompanied with additional common mobs, that you have encountered previously. Focusing on smaller adds first with the Tank keeping Stone Watchers busy is the way to go.

This dungeon comes with 2 modes: Normal and Veteran. Sets that drop in this dungeon are:

Auroran’s Thunder Set

Scavenging Demise Set

Frozen Watcher Set

Symphony of Blades Monster Helm (Veteran)

The Scavenging Maw

The first boss you will encounter in this dungeon is The Scavenging Maw, it needs to be taunted and turned away from the group. It does a nasty conal AoE attack that can significantly damage other party members. Tanks can endure this but the problem for this role is the additional ground AoE attack that follow the conal one.

Damage from these two attacks combined can take down a Tank, and that is why it is vital for the Tank to move out of the ground AoE. While this is happening, the boss will also summon additional AoE circles on each player. Make sure these circles do no overlap otherwise huge damage occurs.

Maw does nasty series of attacks. Walk out of AoE circle to avoid lots of damage.

A special mechanic here is when the boss disappears during the fight and it is up to the players to find it. The best way to tackle this is to stick together while searching for the boss, because the boss performs a very dangerous channelling attack upon the player that finds it first. This attack needs to be interrupted.

Maw needs to be interrupted after found because it does massive damage over time

The Weeping Woman

The second boss is less problematic, thankfully. The only mechanics to watch out for are the AoE circles that spawn around the boss, these come in various shapes and forms. It is best to stay outside the any AoE on the ground and you’ll be fine. This fight requires lot of mobility to pull off.

There are adds present in this fight as well which need to be killed ASAP, since the two-handed add deals a significant amount of damage. Prioritise DPSing the adds, followed by the boss.

Only real problem in this fight are adds and AoE but all is easily sorted out

Dark Orb

The third boss is an Orb that is found floating in the middle of the room. The great problem here are the Auroran adds that the Dark Orb constantly heals. They will spawn throughout the fight and the tank needs to keep them on himself at all times.

Either draw the adds away from the Orb while the group stays there constantly, or tank them near the Orb, so that they receive AoE damage. They spawn rather quickly after they’ve been killed, so it is up to you to decide which approach you wish to take. DPS in this fight should focus on the Dark Orb.

Chaotic fight due to Auroran adds being constantly present and being empowered by orbs

The Dark Orb summons 4 more orbs that empower Aurorans. It is obvious when this is about to happen because a warning text appears saying “An Orb is empowering Aurorans”. These Orbs grant the corresponding Auroran a more powerful ability, for example Radiant Orb empowers Radiant Aurorans, Scintillating Orb empowers Scintillating Aurorans etc. Orbs need to be dealt with as quickly as possible. When these Orbs spawn, the Dark Orb cannot be damaged, so there is nothing to do besides killing them and all of the adds, so that the Dark Orb can be damaged once again.

King Narilmor

The fourth boss you will encounter is King Narilmor himself and this boss is not too difficult to deal with. His main mechanic is to split himself into 4 cloned versions. Best way to approach this fight is to get the Tank to gather all 4 clones and for the DPS to lay down AoEs.

Another way to do it is for both DPS to focus on one and take it down fast, then switch to another and so on. After clones have been dealt with, Narilmor gets back to his usual self leaving only one target.

Saving Tharayya by healing her makes the rest of the fight easier

The unique mechanic here is in regards to the NPC Tharayya, at the beginning of the fight she will start battling a ghost. If she losses all clones get a shield buff that makes them more difficult to kill, making the fight far more dangerous. To prevent her from losing, the Healer needs to heal her continuously.

Symphony of Blades

The final boss is quite a dangerous one, due to the use of Auroran Wall that insta-kills anything it touches. On its own, the boss does 2 attacks consisting of spinning and heavy. The tank should be able to block and deal with the damage from both, while others in the group will need to stay clear.

Eventually the Auroran Wall will spawn and starts making its way across the room. The DPS will need to work together to kill Aurorans in the wall to make enough space for everyone to pass through safely. One dead Auroran should be enough to clear a gap. When the boss puts his 4 swords into the ground, a healing debuff is applied so be prepared for that as this happens frequently.

To get past the wall without dying you will need to kill Aurorans who make up the wall

During the fight there will be a point where the boss will become invulnerable, and will summon 4 Aurorans one in every corner of the room. They will start walking slowly towards the boss. If they reach him, he will have empowered attacks, which is similar to the empowering orbs in the previous Dark Orb fight.

Getting all 4 of them down is impossible, so 2 is a realistic number you should aim for. Do not split up the DPS, as the whole team should focus on the same Auroran. Scintillating Auroran might be the worst of them all, so get it down first and then switch to the other. Here is what each Auroran does:

Blazing Auroran: grants Meteor Shower and Will-o-Wisp

Radiant Auroran: grants Radiant Oppression

Phosphorescent Auroran: grants Ice Pillar that immobilizes

Scintillating Auroran: grants Spark and Call Lightning

Execute Phase is difficult due to boss healing up at the beginning, with many walls going in all directions as well as the boss having empowered attacks throughout this whole phase

The Execute Phase is very chaotic due to many walls coming at you at once and the Boss being empowered with all 4 Elemental Aurorans. The boss also heals up to about 25% Health when entering this phase. Kite the boss around the walls, DPS while doing so and he should be brought down.

Veteran Mode

Veteran mode introduces some new elements besides the usual more health and damage.The Dark Orb (third boss) is summoned a couple of times throughout the fight and needs to be taken out to stop the empowering boss’ attacks. This is especially problematic at the Execute Phase due to sheer number of Auroran Walls being spawned, that travel in all directions. Also the boss heals up to 50% HP instead the usual 25% he gets in normal mode to make matters worse.

Final Thoughts

Depths of Malatar is not that tough on Veteran except for the last boss. By running every boss 1 or 2 times everything becomes much easier but that is same as with every dungeon. Normal mode can be beaten easily with full CP 200-300 party but for Veteran, proper gear and higher CP levels are required. Last boss is very difficult so do not attempt Veteran if not prepared. Overall this dungeon is a fun challenge with some nasty add pulls and unique bosses.

With this guide you’ll know what to expect going in, so go out there and have fun conquering Depths of Malatar! You can also check out our Frostvault Guide for tackling the other Wrathstone dungeon!

If you’re curious to find out more about new sets, PvP updates, CP cap halt, Racial skill changes and more for Update 21, head over to our Elder Scrolls Online Wrathstone: Racial Changes & New Sets.

You can also read about a couple new sets in detail Icy Conjuror Set and Frozen Watcher Set which came with the Wrathstone DLC. If you’re curious about what the future holds for ESO, check out next Elder Scrolls Online: The Champion System & The Future Of ESO In 2019.

The post Elder Scrolls Online Depths of Malatar Dungeon Guide appeared first on Fextralife.

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[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #67: Medea (Lily)

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re taking a blast to the past with Medea again, this time before Jason screwed things up. Medea Lily is a witch with an extreme focus on healing and removing status effects. If you think that sounds like somebody got their cleric in your wizard, you’re right! 

Check out the breakdown below the cut, or the build sheet over here!

Race and Background

Much like the older Medea, the younger Medea is a High Elf Noble. This gives her +2 Dexterity; +1 Intelligence; History, Perception, and Persuasion proficiency; 60′ of Darkvision; the ability to Trance instead of sleep; Fey Ancestry giving you advantage on being charmed, and the Prestidigitation cantrip. The only difference here is the cantrip- you’re not that aggressive yet. (Almost like they have the same backstory or something.)

Stats

Make sure your Intelligence is high-studying magic is hard, but you’re good at it. Second is Charisma- you’re a child, people like you. Most people, anyway. After that is your Wisdom- you failed one really important insight check, but you’re good at healing and some of your spells explicitly use your wisdom modifier even as wizard spells. Children are pretty nimble, so pick Dexterity next. We really don’t want to dump Constitution, so we’re dumping Strength instead. Medea was never a powerhouse, and you’re still a teenager.

Class Levels

1. Like Medea before (after?) her, Medea Lily is a Wizard, meaning at first level she has proficiency in Intelligence and Wisdom saves and two wizard skills. Arcana will help with your studies, and Medicine will help you heal when you run out of health slots.

First level wizards learn Spells that use their intelligence to cast, and they can also perform an Arcane Recovery, regaining half their level (rounded up) in spell levels on a short rest once per long rest.

Wizards get a lot of spells first level, so to speed things up, I’m just listing them and bolding the ones that are very important or very in character. For cantrips: Blade Ward, Mending, Light, False Life, Mage Armor, Protection from Evil and Good, Shield, Sleep, and Magic Missile. 

Mending is literally how Pain Breaker works, restoring something to how it once was. Mage Armor is one of those “you can’t prove they don’t know it” spells, but it’s good for not dying. You have 6 health. Don’t get hit. Finally, you might not specialize in offense, but having some caster balls to throw around in a fight isn’t a bad idea.

2. At second level you specialize in a school of magic, and Theurgy will help you get that delicious cleric chocolate mixed in with your wizard peanut butter. You get a Divine Inspiration, picking a domain that will flavor your later features and spell list. Life is pretty self explanatory for this character-it’s almost entirely what you like to do. You become an Arcane Initiate, letting you learn Life Domain spells, and after learning all those you can learn other cleric spells as well. Finally, you learn to Channel Arcana, giving you power similar to a cleric’s channel divinity feature once per short rest. Divine Arcana uses your bonus action to add 2 to your next spell’s attack roll or saving throw, and is useless in this build. Preserve Life uses your action to heal five times your level in HP split among any number of creatures within 30′ of you. You can’t heal creatures past the halfway point this way, and you can’t heal constructs or the undead at all.

Now that we have our list, it’s time to fill it out. Bless and Cure Wounds are our first Domain Spells, and they’re also very in-character. Being a white mage without healing is kind of difficult, and Pain Breaker lets you reset your party to peak performance to enhance their saves and attacks.

3. Third level wizards get second level spells, and we’re going to continue to fill out our cleric spell list out with Lesser Restoration and Spiritual Weapon. The former is another Thing Pain Breaker Can Do, ending one disease or the blinded, deafened, paralyzed, or poisoned condition with a touch. The latter... isn’t really your style, but if Jason can summon the Argonauts to fight for him, you should be able to get their weapons at least. You use your bonus action to summon a floating weapon that lasts for 1 minute without concentration, with the ability to attack with your bonus action (and on cast) and also move 20′ per round.

4. Use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab a feat. You’re a caster from the age of gods, so you’re just a little bit more magical than everyone else thanks to being Fey Touched. This raises your Wisdom by 1 to round it out, and you learn Misty Step and Beast Bond. You can cast one of these spells once per day for free, and again with a spell slot, but they both use Wisdom as the casting modifier. Not that this is an issue- neither one has a save or attack roll.

For even more spells, Spare the Dying is a cantrip that you technically shouldn’t be able to get yet, but whatever else you’d get we’d just replace at level 9 anyway. It lets you spend an action to stabilize a creature without a medicine check. Healing would be explicitly better, but sometimes you don’t have spell slots.

For your spells that need slots, Gentle Repose extends the timer to revive a corpse by a week, and the corpse can’t rot or become undead during that time. See Invisibility lets you see invisible things, as well as the astral plane. Pain Breaker returns things to the way they should be, and most things should not be invisible.

5. You know the deal: a new spell level, another notch on your cleric spell list added. Beacon of Hope gives any number of creatures in range advantage on wisdom and death saves for up to a minute, and they always heal the maximum possible from any source of healing. Revivify brings a creature that died within the last minute back to life with one HP. This is the one thing Pain Breaker can’t do, but we need it to fill out the list, so we’ll have to suck it up and be better than the real deal. Sorry, I guess?

6. Sixth level Theurgists become Arcane Acolytes. They can Channel Arcana twice per short rest, and gain the first level benefits of being a cleric of their domain. Disciple of Life heals creatures you’re already healing with a spell of first level or higher by 2 plus the spell’s level.

Speaking of healing spells... we’re still stuck in the wizard spell list, so we’re not getting any. Instead, grab Dispel Magic and Remove Curse so Pain Breaker can break magical effects as well as simple damage.

7. Another spell level up, another round of cleric spells. For the fourth level, Death Ward prevents one creature from dying when they would the first time it happens within 8 hours after casting. Guardian of Faith is another spell we have to take, flavor be damned but just say you’re calling down Herc to bust some heads; he’s always down for that.

8. Use your next ASI to increase your Dexterity to help you not die. You may have noticed we’re not taking a beeline for Intelligence this build- since most of your spells are healing, a super high save isn’t that useful for you.

Honestly there aren’t many fourth level spells that work for you, so let’s go back and grab Catnap to remove the tired debuff from the party in 10 minutes rather than an hour, and Protection from Energy for some proactive healing, a.k.a. blocking.

9. When you get fifth level spell slots, we can finally finish up the Life Domain spell list. Grab Mass Cure Wounds for our first healing buff since level 2 and Raise Dead for another spell that breaks canon but is super useful. Also, replace that last cantrip with Spare the Dying if your DM’s a stickler.

10. Tenth level Theurgists become Arcane Priests, gaining the sixth level benefits of being a Life cleric. The Blessed Healer feature means that healing others is the best way to heal yourself. Probably not the best way, but a way. Whenever you cast a spell to heal another creature, you also heal by 2+ the spell level. Now you can heal while you heal while you heal.

Now that we’re free to grab more cleric spells, we can spread out a bit. Resistance helps keep a member of the party on their game with 1d4 on a saving throw as a cantrip. Greater Restoration can reduce a target’s exhaustion level; or end a charm, petrification effect, one curse (including attuning to a cursed item), one ability score reduction, or one hit point maximum reduction. Dream lets you shape a creature’s dreams, either as a way to communicate, or a way to torture Jason. If you choose the latter, he’ll take some psychic damage and lose the effects of that rest on a failed wisdom save. Also, if you have a bit of his hair or body part, he’ll have disadvantage on the save. Just something to plan ahead for.

11. Eleventh level wizards get sixth level spells, but now that we have a whole new spell list to play with, we may end up going back for some low level spells too. Heal combines Lesser Restoration with Cure Wounds to heal 70 HP and end blindness, deafness, and any diseases on the target. Going all the way back to level one, Purify Food and Drink removes poison and disease from a 5′ radius of food and drink, which is probably how it should be.

12. Now that we have a way to torment Jason, let’s bump our Intelligence up a bit to make that save even harder for him. True Seeing follows that tenuous thread of logic that justified See Invisibility to its conclusion, giving one creature you touch Truesight and the ability to see the Ethereal Plane up to 120′ away. Contingency lets you cast a fifth level or lower spell up to 10 days in advance, taking effect immediately after its contingency is met. The tough part about being the healer is that nobody’s there to heal you. Now when you drop for the first time, you can instantly give yourself a fifth level Cure Wounds and keep going.

13. Thirteenth level wizards get seventh level spells. Regenerate and Calm Emotions will help you restore people to their natural states, both physically and mentally.

14. Fourteenth level Theurgists get to skip to the head of the class and become Arcane High Priests, nabbing the cleric’s 17th level feature before even they do. Supreme Healing means that all your healing spells always work at maximum power, no rolls required. This really amps up Prayer of Healing for out-of-combat heals, and all that extra HP makes Warding Bond a slightly less terrible idea.

15. With your eighth level spell slots, you can get a Holy Aura, giving allies within 30′ of you advantage on all saves, and imposing disadvantage on all attacks against them. Also, when a fiend or undead attacks, they have to make a Constitution save or be blinded for the duration. The Antimagic Field is more your older self’s domain, but most magical effects aren’t the way things naturally are, so we can swing it here too.

16. Use your next ASI to bump up your Constitution for more not-dying. Also, grab Telepathy for better communication with the party and Aura of Life for auto-healing and necrotic resistance. 

17. When you finally get ninth level spells, Mass Heal and Power Word Heal should come in handy. The latter is just about as strong as healing gets in D&D, fully restoring a creature’s health, ending any effect that is charming, frightening, paralyzing, or stunning them, and they can use their reaction to stand from prone.

18. You gain Spell Mastery in one first level and one second level spell, letting you cast them without using spell slots at all. You can swap these around if you need to, so don’t feel too much pressure here. That being said, Cure Wounds and Lesser Restoration are good picks, so you can always have some healing ready. Also, you can now Channel Arcana three times per short rest.

For spells, Invulnerability lets you heal yourself so quickly that you don’t take any damage at all, and Wish will cover anything that comes up you don’t have covered.

19. With your last ASI, max out your Intelligence for the highest saves and most prepared spells. Now that your saves are as good as they’ll get, grab Dispel Evil and Good to protect yourself from extraplanar creatures. The spell lasts for up to a minute with concentration, but you can end it early to end an enchantment effect from an extraplanar creature, or to try and dismiss such a creature with a melee spell attack and a failed charisma save. Hallow can protect an area in a 60′ radius from those creatures, and you can give it an extra effect when you cast the spell. Both of these features last until the magic is dispelled, but it takes a full day to set up and costs 1,000 gp per cast. Useful for setting up a base, not so much in an emergency.

20. Your capstone level gives you two Signature Spells, third level spells you can cast for free once per long rest. Picking Dispel Magic and Remove Curse means your Pain Breaker will be working even longer than before. For your final spells, Scrying is just useful, and Temple of the Gods, letting you create a small temple over the course of an hour with a door only creatures you designate can open, and the ability to force extraplanar creatures away from it. Casting the spell every day for a year can make the building permanent. Does it match Medea Lily’s skillset? Not really. But it’s cool, and you deserve cool things for making it to level 20 with less than 100 HP.

Pros: 

You are really good at healing, and you get to enjoy a late-game healing boost much earlier than you really should to be even better at it.

You can shut down a lot of status effects easily, or prevent your party members from getting them in the first place.

Spells like Dispel Magic, True Seeing, and Protection from Energy mean that you’re pretty good at dealing with magical threats, and at higher levels you’re especially good against extraplanar creatures.

Cons:

Ultimately, healing away damage isn’t as effective as preventing that damage by killing the threat, so your most effective use will be outside of combat. Statuses like being blinded or deafened are much more pressing concerns, though.

You have a very limited offense. Magic Missile can be fine to fall back on (unless they know shield), but you don’t have a lot of power behind it.

Your HP is super low, barely breaking 100 by level 20. That means power word kill will be a huge threat to you, especially without your older self’s counterspell. Also, plenty of martial classes can easily deal that much damage in one turn. Healing doesn’t matter much if you’re dead.

Next up: Time for a great victory!

[crijoh]

IntroMany of you who have been playing Disgaea 5 Complete will eventually hit a leveling wall.Some of you may be using 2-1, abusing the Tower leveling trick. That'll get you to 60-70 with the Cheat Shop's help, but no further.Others will be past that and doing slogging run after slogging run through 4-2, towering up to hit Level 99 Shrooms via the Cheat Shop, but even that starts getting trickier north of level 150 or so. (For those who don't know, a Level 99 Enemy will grant you the experience of a Level ~270 Enemy when defeated - started as a glitch, but now has been deliberately kept and passed on in each subsequent game.)A rare few of you may have moved on to 10-4 - not a bad spot, but also one you're playing through more than half the game to reach. Not to mention it also doesn't really pay dividends until you can rip through enemies over level 270 easily.And of course, to unlock the best leveling spots in the game, you need a lot more levels than that - because you can only ever get it in postgame.Wouldn't it be great if there was a method to get levels quicker to stomp through all of that?As it turns out, there is!And not only will it be more than enough to rip through the story in a flash, if you do it enough, you can tear through most of (or all of!) the postgame content as well.PrerequisitesYou'll need the following:At least a few thousand HL to spare. Not a ton - 5,000 is enough, but of course, you'll want more for other reasons, and the more HL you have, the more you can actually do this little trick.The Cheat Shop, unlocked and ready to go. You will want to turn Experience gain up as high as you possibly can. 350% or better (clear Episode 9) is recommended, as it's hard to see the gains if you do this too soon.A character with at least 5000 Mana to pass a certain bill in the Strategy Assembly. Depending on how much you've schmoozed your Senators in your game, you may need more HL or more levels to force the bill's passage through either sheer power or bribery with HL. It can be done without this, but it will be much slower. (Passing via HL bribery tends to cost about a million HL in my experience.)A map with +Experience % panels. 2-5 is good for this as it has a +50% Experience panel. Better still would be the first Martial Training map, as that has +100% Experience panels. That said, you also can't unlock Martial Trial 1 until you clear Episode 8, and you'd need to pass its bill to do so.A character with preferably at least 5000 HP. More is better. This isn't strictly necessary, but lacking this will force you to use 2-5.A healer who can ideally heal at least 5000 HP per turn. Ditto for the above - if you lack this, either grind to it or stick with 2-5.Patience. This trick will take up a decent chunk of time - at least half an hour, depending on how much you do it, and how quick you are on the buttons - but you will probably level faster than your old methods.Statisticians, while not necessary, are definitely a plus. You likely won't have many (or any!) if you are doing this early on, but if you would like to boost it faster, get them, put them in your Innocent Farm to level them, and try to get the Innocent Aid Squad to at least the level where Innocents are born subdued if possible. Pull them out when the farm gets full and when they've reached their maximum level (denoted by a star and a yellow level number), combine them, put them on the character's gear you're leveling, and repeat. This is quite a bit of work, though, so you can skip this - you'll still benefit from the key elements of the trick, just not as quickly.Abusing the SystemAll clear? Good. How are we going to level you ask?Simple: We're going to drink shitloads and shitloads of sodas.No, I'm not joking.Old hats may remember this, but it's something newbies are not likely to catch - mostly because it makes use of a relatively little-used function in-game: that of consuming items during your turn.The thing that makes it work is pretty simple - regardless of your level, using an item during your turn grants you 1/8th of a level's worth of experience, whether you're Level 1 or over 9000. In other words, the amount of experience you gain from using an item is fixed regardless of what level you are on - it's a straight-up 12.5% of a level's worth of experience, regardless of how strong you are.You may be starting to see where we're going with this - we're gonna game that system, and exploit stacking multiple experience-boosting things to our advantage, until we are literally drinking our way to higher levels.Go to the Item Shop and buy at least 100 Unopened Sodas. This will cost you about 3,000 HL or so, depending on your Customer Rank. (The higher it is, the less all stuff costs.) You can actually use anything, but Unopened Sodas give a bit of an extra perk - after you use them, they become Opened Sodas, which you can then consume. It's basically getting two items for one. If you buy more, that's fine too - the more you have, the more levels you'll get.Go to the Strategy Assembly. By hook or by crook, pass the Triple Experience bill. This is actually the toughest part of the strategy - you'll either need HL to bribe them or strength to beat them into submission since it's a highly unpopular bill, and of course, the 5000 Mana for the bill itself, which isn't easy to come by early on. Assuming that the Mana needed isn't an issue, but that passing the bill is, if you're doing this early on, HL is obviously easier to get than brawn; boost it up via Cheat Shop and then grind the toughest level you can do quickly. (If you haven't redeemed that Million HL bonus from the Special Content girl, this is an excellent use for it.) This automatically triples the experience gain - you'd now gain 3/8ths of a level (37.5%) per item used, giving you a level every 3 Sodas or so if you did this on some random map with no other experience-boosting stuff. But we're not done yet.Go to your leveling map of choice. 2-5 has a +50% Experience panel, but if you've got it unlocked, Martial Trial 1 has a bunch of +100% Experience panels and would be preferable - as long as you can beat the enemies, of course.Defeat the enemies. If you're using 2-5, kill all the zombies EXCEPT the one on the Experience panel. (Don't worry, he won't move off it or attack until you're in range.) If you're using Martial Trial 1, defeat two of the Nether Nobles, but not the third.Here's where your character with lots of HP comes in - you'll have them come out and lift the enemy up. They're going to be doing this for awhile. Assuming that you remembered to set your enemy difficulty back down to zero stars, in Martial Training 1, the Nether Nobles have about 8,000 HP, so your lifting character will need at least 4,500 HP themselves to be safe - lifting enemies means the character takes half of the enemy's max HP in damage per turn lifted. 2-5, on the other hand, should only result in about 150 damage to the character - easy enough to heal at just about any level.Bring out the character you want to level. Have them stand on the +Experience % panel, and on your next turn, start chugging down sodas like Steve Austin throwing down beers. Assuming you passed the Triple Experience Bill, and that you (for some reason) did not boost your Experience gain in the Cheat Shop, on a +50% Experience panel this should net you over half a level (56.5%) per soda, and on a +100% Experience panel, it'll be 3/4ths of a level (75%) per soda. With 350% Experience from Cheat Shop as well, you'll gain over two levels (262.5% - +2 levels, 62.5% of a third) per soda - and you can do this every 6-10 seconds or so. Obviously, higher percentages will make this even more, and Statisticians help even further - I've heard of some people gaining 8-9 levels per soda via combinations of Cheat Shop gain percentage and Statisticians.When your character who's holding the enemy has their HP get low, have your healer heal them. Put them in the +Experience % panels as well - they'll wind up quite a bit stronger themselves, especially if they're healing frequently and healing lots of burnt HP per heal.Lather, rinse, repeat until out of soda. Throw down enemy that has been being held up. Defeat enemy. Map clear.OutroWhen I found this trick, I was quite amazed at how fast it goes. I'd just gotten to 10-5, and the "conventional" leveling strategies would basically tell you to beat 10-4, then grind the enemies on a replay as fast as you possibly could - but due to the Level 99 Experience trick, it was still faster for me to level off 4-2 than to attempt repeated runs of 10-5, as there was no way I could beat Level ~270 enemies when I wasn't even above 200 myself.And then I did a not-efficient version of this and found I was still gaining a bit over one level per Soda. With 100 Unopened Sodas, that let me get Killia from Level 170-ish to almost Level 400.That was more than enough to get me through the next few things I needed to do to step up leveling faster. Martial Training 1 fell next, the Triple Experience bill was passed, and I did it again on Martial Training 1. Killia went from Level 400 to 1000 in about half an hour - considering you can do each turn in 5-10 seconds max, it sure beat pounding Shrooms into dust.At that point, you can pretty much ransack the story and most of the Postgame content, and begin to rapidly bring the rest of your team up to speed via the Boot Camp Squad.From there, you may want to do the trick once more. Once Killia (I know I keep mentioning him, but really, it's whoever you want to powerlevel) is up to 3000+, you can definitely beat almost all Postgame content - at least, enough to get Martial Training 5 unlocked (which is the best leveling spot in the game once cleared), and from there, the floodgates open.*Anyway, I hope this guide was useful to you. Sorry it was a long read, but maybe this will prove useful for those who are just getting into the game and series, and want to get as powerful as possible, as fast as possible. Better methods may well exist (once you have enough Statisticians, a 1-9999 run is basically 4-5 runs at Martial Training 5 and that's it), but for early-game experience, once you got all the stuff in place, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a quicker leveling method.Hope this helps everyone! Have fun smashing Void Dark beneath your heel!   *Although it still won't save you from the Carnage Dimension... via /r/NintendoSwitch