#no one told that boss that aoe damage can still hurt him

[topaz-carbuncle]

Despite playing DoS2 and now this game to death, I still shouldn't be allowed to play these games... I make the worse choices in and out of combat

[moonlit-nightingale]

Trust NPC: Saranqerel Qalli

(”<this>’ = Xaelic)

DPS Selection: “Onwards to the hunt.” Healer Selection: “I’ll do all I can.”

Jobs: Starsinger (DPS) / Moonseeker (healer)

Weapons: Bow / Planisphere

AI Behavior: Though he’s become quite jaded, Sari hates that he still has a part of him that hates to see innocents hurt. This is even more so if they are friends or close acquaintances. If one of them are KO’d, he can enter a near-berserker rage and gain an increase in attack but decrease in defense. Otherwise he’ll move to marked players to assist in mechanics and overall prioritize the survival of the party over himself.

His specialty is as a ranged attacker, quick to use song to encourage allies. Quite mobile, he’ll prioritize survival over DPS to escape damage. This includes a bard’s Troubadour, Warden's Paean, and  Nature's Minne which are always prioritized when needed by the party. Sari will multi-DoT and AoE in pulls of three or more and will be quick to focus down spawning adds. He won’t Limit Break with a melee DPS in the party unless the boss drops below 5%.

Sari is a self-sacrificing healer, his want to boost his allies instead of himself augmented by astrologian skills. As expected, he uses Nocturnal Stance and its shields to allow for him to focus more on weaving his own DPS and cards throughout combat. He’s quite conservative on DPS, focused much more on keeping everyone alive and topped off. The one flaw he has is that he’ll  prioritize the rest of the party over himself and could lead to his own death in high damage scenarios.

Battle Lines: (DPS)

"I’ve got them sighted. On your word.” - Starting Attack Line, Variation 1 "...” - Starting Attack Line, Variation 2 "Let my song be worth something!” - Using Specialty Skills, Variation 1 (any Bard song) "Just die already!” - Using Specialty Skills, Variation 2 "I’m here!” - Assisting an ally

(HEALER)

"Let the stars burn you to dust!” - Starting Attack Line, Variation 1 "It’s a heavy weight, isn’t it?”  - Starting Attack Line, Variation 2 (Gravity) "I can hear them calling.” - Using Specialty Skills, Variation 1 "There’s been too much death today.” - Using Specialty Skills, Variation 2 (Ascend) "I won’t let you die!” - Assisting an ally

Limit Break: (DPS)

"...” - Using limit break with 1 bar "I have you now.” - Using limit break with 2 bars "♪ <Let the stars fall, let the moon cry. To these, I leave you to lie.> ♪” - Using limit break with 3 bars

(HEALER)

“♪<Hear the song of this fallen one. Cleanse their blood, raise their souls. Their stories are not yet told.>♪” - Using limit break with 3 bars

KO’d: "<...finally...>” - Variation 1 "<...it’s quiet...>” - Variation 2 "...I’m so sorry I was useless again...” - Variation 3

Revived: "...” - Variation 1 "I’m sorry for the trouble.”  - Variation 2

----♦•♦----

The plain background/Magic Wand trick doesn’t work well with characters with both white/black in their designs. So...Sari gets lazy banners.

Tagged by: @az-ffxiv​

Blank Templates {here}

Font downloads {here}

[nothingtoseeshhhh]

Be serious

→ pairing: Jungkook x Reader

→ genre: FLUFF and very mild angst

→ warnings: swearing

→ word count: 2.8k

summary:  You’re Jungkook’s older female friend and have known him for a few years now. Recently, however, you’ve been developing... unsettling feelings that you don’t know how to deal with. So, you do what you and Kookie know how best to do. Kill things in video games. 

______________________

Death. Death is the great equalizer. Everyone dies, eventually, and in that regard, there is no true humiliation in dying. Well, that would be the case if it weren’t for a certain Jeon Jungkook sitting right behind you, bowl of popcorn perched precariously in his lap, while he watches you grind your teeth at dying-yet again-to the Dancer of the Boreal Valley in Dark Souls III. She winds back, body twisting in that unsightly, unnatural way that you know isn’t right, and you know that you’re too close-too close to that pillar behind you to flee, and too close to her legs to get around and to her right where you might be able to skirt some damage.

Sure enough, the second you try to roll out of her AOE, her double blades chasing after your characters flailing form, she catches you in the corner of the pillar. One hit, two, three, spinning round and round like a goddamn top of death decked out in shear silks and your health drops to zero, your Ashen One fading to nothing as the screen darkens to a colorless grey except for the horrid, sharp, bloody words you’ve seen thirteen times before now:

“Game over, noona!” Jungkook almost sings from behind on the couch. You don’t know when you slid off the cushions in favor of the floor, having muttered something about being able to concentrate better without Jungkook constantly nudging you, but you do know that when you flop your head back in frustration to whine at him, his beaming grin almost makes you forget how angry you are. Both at the game, and with his constant cajoling of your playing. Almost.

“I can read, Kookie,” you said.

“This is what, fourteen?” he asks, cocking a brow at you, angling himself on the couch so that he is facing you a little closer. It’s times like this you could just about forget he’s the lead vocalist in the world famous band BTS. Just sitting here, relaxing, playing video games while he harangues you for your evidently lacking playstyle, he seems like a normal early twenty-something.

You scrunched your nose when he throws a kernel of popcorn at you. “You’re wearing too much armor, noona. If you unequipped something or wore something lighter you’d roll faster.”

“I know how to play this game, Jungkook,” you grit, turning back to face the screen. You slam you thumb on the ‘x’ to keep playing, determined to speed your way back to the damn boss. Ignoring the way Jungkook egged you on to gather more souls so you could ‘git gud’ you managed to find your way through the pathways of High Lothric Castle, slashing and blocking passed as many enemies as possible.

“You’re pretty good against these weaklings, you know-”

“Kookie, I swear to God…”

“Now, if only that Dancer lady was one of these zombie things you’d stand a chance! But, no, you keep,” you shoot him a glare just as you backstab a guard, your stare daring him to continue, which he does, with a wide, shit-eating beam, “dying! Really, you’re so bad at video games!”

“I’ll show you bad at video games,” you mutter, sullenly, as you stagger a fatty and finish it with a quick fire bomb combo, scowling. No amount of trying to remind Jungkook that it scientifically proven that the Dancer was one of the most difficult bosses in the game could quell his incessant bothering, nor pointing out that his pestering only made it worse on you seemed to get through his thick skull. You needed him to be quiet while you fought the Dancer or you’d never advance. You’d taken on every other boss. Instead, the reminders seemed to spur him on, his body leaning forward as the back of her neck began to burn in both humiliation and anger at your continued failure.

“Ah! Are you blushing, Y/N? Because you keep losing?”

You scoffed and lifted an arm, trying to cover your cheeks to your ears. You were lucky in that you had stopped right outside of the Boreal’s boss room, so there were no mob spawns currently present to attempt to kill your Ashen One while you fought against the searing blood in your face. Refusing to look in Jungkook’s direction, you attempted to tamp down the conflicting emotions suddenly thrashing in your body. Both the adrenaline from the near constant boss fight, vexation from your inability to progress, and the ever present pleasant buzz that had surfaced around your best friend recently were swirling and battling for dominance. But, that last emotion you kept under tight regulation and a heavy dose of denial. After all, there was no way. Not with him, not for you.

You’d met Jungkook by pure chance and now, as his elder female friend, you treasured the limited time you got to spend with him too much to listen to your foolish hormones. It had just been too long since you’d dated any seriously. That had to be the explanation for the recent fluttering of your heart in your throat whenever he smiled like the adorable money made of sunshine that he was. Or how you wanted to wrap your arms around him and squeeze whenever he did that thing with his hair that showed off his forehead. Or when he told you to wear one of his hoodies when you forgot, stupidly, your jacket at your house again-not quite used to the quick drops in Seoul’s fall and spring evening temperatures-and how you wanted to just roll around and bask in his scent for the rest of the week.

Nope. None of that was allowed to happen. And he could never know about it.

“Shut it, Kookie, I can’t focus if you keep distracting me!” you whine, pressing your fingers to your face in an attempt to cool the burning. You had just picked your controller back up, determined to ignore Jungkook’s very existence, when you felt his finger graze along the sensitive skin of the back of your neck. It sent a shock of electricity through you, making you jolt and jump, both from surprise and to suppress the noise that would have escaped that back of your throat. Instead, you release an exaggerated yelp, holding your neck as if he’d scalded you and threw yourself a few inches away from him.

“Jungkook!?” you hiss, eyes wide. He sits there, looking at you with a surprised but spreading smile, as if he just discovered his new favorite thing. Damn his jawline. Damn his thick arms and glossy hair and the way just locking gazes with his deep chocolate stare was enough to drown out the blaring music of the game.

“Your neck is so red! Does it hurt, noona? And what’s with this cute reaction?” he wiggled his fingers, a silent threat that made you inwardly shriek. No, no, no! The last thing you could handle was more of whatever that had been. Your heart was already beating so hard you were sure it’d burst.

“My neck’s really sensitive,” you said, rubbing the skin in a desperate attempt to erase the feeling of him touching you. But it stuck like a brand continuing to send little bolts of something you refused to acknowledge through you, something too dark for you to want to think about around Jungkook.

So you chose to puff your cheeks out, waving your hand at him in mock annoyance. “Stop bothering me. I’m entering the cathedral.”

“Yes, noona,” he said, smirking.

The low thrumming of the Dancer’s choir music started up again, her snaking step moving in time to the steady whine of the high voices in the background as you flexed your fingers against the controller’s curved edges. You attempted to forget the feel of Jungkook touching you-after all, the two of you hugged and invaded personal spaces all the time-but that had been different. Unexpected. It made your nerves on edge, everything now hyper aware of every move and breath he took—which was making your fighting sloppy. The Dancer punished your inattentiveness with a sharp swipe, taking with her a third of your health. You sacrificed nearly all of your stamina to get away in order to use an estus flask in order to regain enough health to feel safe again, before returning to previous strategy.

“Do you want me to take the controller?”

“Do you want me to hit you with it?” you snapped, not even turning to look at his smug face. Soon, you were too engrossed in the erratic ebb and flow of the battle to pay attention to Jungkook or the way the smirk fell from his face. Gone was the cocky little shit that made your neck and ears burn, and in his stead was a thoughtful young man worrying his lower lip.

He picked at his thumb, staring at your profile as you worked the Dancer’s health steadily further down, whittling it until it reached half. Your jaw was set, tense, eyes narrowed, and arms forward on your legs. He found himself loving seeing you so captivated, so focused on something, and even better was the dusting of pink still present on your cheeks and ears. He felt his fingers itch, twitch, to reach out and run over the flesh to see if it would burn him like it promised it would. IF you would yelp and react as cutely again.

Your words from before also repeated over and over in his head. ‘I have a sensitive neck.’ He frowned.

Just as the music picked up and the Dancer pulled her second damn sword out-because of course the bitch did-you heard Jungkook shift. You tried not to pay attention to him, too busy adjusting to the new shift in tempo to the Dancer’s move-set, when he hummed under his breath.

“Noona, it’s boring.”

The annoyed click leaves your mouth before you think, your brows furrowing.

“I watch you play Overwatch. Deal,” you breathe, twitching a shoulder as the Dancer lands a punishing hit. One more like that and you’re fucked.

“At least Overwatch we can play together.”

“You know I don’t play shooters,” you said, blocking one of her spin attacks by ducking behind a pillar.

“Did your boyfriends know about your sensitive neck, noona?”

You almost choke on the air passing down your nose and you have to resist the urge to drop the controller. You lick your lips, feeling the blush that had been seceding starting to reaffirm itself anew. Goddammit, Jungkook!

You let out a shaky breath through your nose, managing to not let his questioning effect your fight too much. Yet. “Duh. Why wouldn’t they? Random question, Kook.”

You don’t look at him, don’t see his eyes narrow or the way a quick flash of something that could be classified as possessiveness makes its way over his features is presented before it’s pushed back down. You don’t see the way his eyes flit from your face, to your neck, to your hands, as if trying to decide what to do, his lips firming. He hadn’t liked that answer at all.

“Did you act that cute with them, too?”

You wince, both from confusion at the question’s direction and from the dancer managing to almost corner you by the head of the room. When you processed his words enough, your mouth dried.

“Why the hell are you asking me these kinds of things right now, Kookie? I’m kinda-”

“I like you,” he said, cutting you off.

The words thundered into the room, drowning the game, the music, the Dancer as she reared up and brought her swords down on your Ashen One and you just stood there. Stunned. Your hands shook as you turned your head, slowly, eyes wide, mouth opening a bit, disbelieving what you’d heard. Jungkook ran his tongue over his lower lip before sucking it under his teeth, his eyes narrowing on you.

“I like you, Y/N,” he repeated, though this time quieter, less confident sounding than before.

You swallowed, unsure if you were hearing him right, unsure if any of this was real. How many times over the last few months had you daydreamed the thought of Jungkook saying these words to you? And now, here he was, sitting there, looking humble and reticent with his head bowed but eyes trained on your reaction, having just confessed that he… liked… you?

You opened your mouth but no sounds came out. He took your silence as a sign to keep talking.

“I don’t like the idea of any other guys getting to see that cute reaction to your neck. Or getting to see you blush like that. I know that’s immature,” Jungkook scowled at himself, looked down at his hands, as he continued, “but I want to be the only one who knows about that. I want to learn all your cute faces. Your cute sounds. I want to learn everything about you. I like you so much it hurts.”

The burning on your cheeks and neck spread rapidly to your chest, you feel it, and you pull your hands up to your face in panic. Shit. Of course you’d turn into a red troll right when Jungkook was confessing to you! Of fucking course you would!

You start when you feel hands enclose around your wrists, gentle but firm, before strong arms are pulling your hands away from hiding your face. He had inched closer, far too close for your comfort, and his doe eyes were wide with wonder and appreciation.

“Don’t hide from me. Please. I want to see everything about you,” he said, as his hands come to cup your face.  His thumbs traced over the tops of your cheeks, as if to press away the searing heat of your blush, but it only made it worse. You let out a nervous laugh, but quiet when pressed his forehead to yours: “I really want to kiss you, noona, but you haven’t said you like me back, yet.”

Your eyes dart to his lips, then back up to his eyes, before licking your own. Butterflies erupt into your stomach, nerves and anxiety wracking your entire body. What if, when he kissed you, he realized he was making a mistake? What if he was just playing with you? What if he was just being a little shit like usual?

But, as you stared into his warm, sincere brown eyes, you could see the emotion there was genuine. He was pleading with you to like him back. His hands were practically holding you in place, begging you not to run from his feelings, as he leaned carefully over you on the couch. Ah… Kookie… when did you get so insecure?

Finally, your throat clicks, and you feel like your tongue can work. The months of silently watching Jungkook, wanting to say something, anything, but being terrified to even so much as making one move wrong and give away your feelings melting away under his warmth. You can’t help the small smile the spreads over your face, inwardly chastising both yourself and Jungkook for waiting. All this time. How long had you liked each other?

How long could you have been together but were too scared to broach the topic?

Fuck being afraid, your heart decided.

“I like you too, Jungkook,” you whisper, eyes sliding closed. You bask for a second in feeling his breath fanning across your face, his warm hands grasping you, his presence surrounding your form, it felt… like home. When had he started feeling like the one place in the world that you needed to come back to? When had he managed to worm his way into your heart so readily.

“Thank god. I’ve been wanting to kiss you for so long. I love you…”

Your head swam with the question of, ‘how long is so long?’ but it was banished by his lips pressing against yours, his body now coming to curve over yours from the couch. He craned your neck back carefully, as if your neck were made of glass, afraid of hurting you, of you running away, but the second his lips had touched yours a flurry of emotions you’d never quite experienced before flooded you. Your hands came to grip his shirt, heart thudding behind your eyes, elation swimming through your blood as your mind tried to catch up to the fact that this was real.

He bit at your lower lip just enough to smart, a finger coming to caress at your neck and make you shiver as he pulled away. The smug Jungkook was back, all smirks and coyness as he sat back, though now he couldn’t keep his eyes or hands off of you. He pursed his lips before looking to the screen that read, once more:

“Game over, noona.”

“Shut up, Jungkook, and kiss me again, you little shit.”

[djgamek1ng]

Final Fantasy XIV Job Review: Machinist

Rules

So this came a lot earlier than I even expected it. I will not explain why here, but to summarize: it’s because of a deal I made with an FC bud (who’s probably grinning a lot after reading that). Anyways, this is my first DPS job I leveled. Why? MCH is considered the worst DPS job at the moment and I was curious if it’s really all that bad. I was already interested in MCH, but the sudden cast times in HW made me hesitate to really level it. SB came around and it obliterated the cast times, so I went to level it! Let’s start the review!

Story:

This one I’ll only split up into 2 parts: HW (which is 30-60 and since that is pretty much one whole story) and SB’s story.

The MCH story starts like this: you, the Warrior of Light, enter the Skysteel Manufactory in Ishgard. Stephanivien (the leader of the Manufactory) is excited to see you and you are eager to learn about firearms. Unfortunately, the manufactory’s master of markmanship has left the building. You, Stephanivien and Joye (another machinist) start your search and it brings you at Camp Overlook in La Noscea. You hear the people’s opinion about the guy, but this doesn’t deter the three of you. You eventually find him! It’s a Roegadyn called Rostnsthal. Rostnsthal challenges you to a trial (after Joye displays great skill with the firearm) and you of course beat the trial. Rostnsthal keeps to his word and comes back to the manufactory. You then get to the main theme for this entire story: Ishgard does not take to kindly to the machinists. They are stuck in the old ways of thinking, where a sword and shield (PLD FOR THE WIN) is the only right way to fight. Everybody is doubting Stephanivien, including his own father (the lord of one of the houses in Ishgard). During this all Stephanivien is providing you with new machinery to use and Rostnsthal is learning you new ways to sling that gun. Stephanivien and the other machinists get eventually challenged to a tourney by Tedalgrinche, a knight of one of the other houses of Ishgard. He’s a complete douchebag, just putting that out there. You triumph (but of course) and Tedalgrinche is still not convinced. Stephanivien’s father, however is convinced that machinists are worthy fighters and hands complete control of the manufactory to Stephanivien. Celebrations are cut short as Joye leaves the manufactory with no apparent reason. You find out a bit later it’s because she got married to some random guy...! Wait what? Well, this doesn’t last too long, since Joye’s dad got kidnapped and you save him. You even recruit the knight who was standing guard over him to the manufactory (yes, this does become a plot point). After you rescue Joye’s father, Joye gets divorced (pretty easily since the guy she was married to wasn’t okay with the blackmailing being done to her) and gets back to the manufactory. Celebrations about Joye’s return are once again cut short, because the manufactory is now accused for giving firearms to random commoners and is held to a trial. The trial is to kill a ferocious dragon terrorizing Coerthas Western Highlands and everybody who has to go through there. Tedalgrinche is of course behind all this and you do the trial. Tedalgrinche the dumbass and his stupid lackey are viewing the trial for a grand total of 5 seconds on a “safe” location. You and the other machinist are defending dumb and dumber and afterwards Tedalgrinche finally shows a bit of appreciation. Stephanivien says that the machinists still need the help of the knights, because they need a frontline, and this is enough to raise Tedalgrinche’s ego beyond human limits. You go celebrate with the other machinist’s, even though Rostnsthal takes his leave from the manufactory (since no one can match the Warrior of Light’s skill with a firearm). And so the manufactory and the machinist’s are there to stay!

So SB’s story! This isn’t going to be too long, but still here it is: You pretty much start where you left off. Rostnsthal has taken his leave and the manufactory is at rest. Stephanivien wants you to find Rostnsthal and before long it happens. Stephanivien convinces Rostnsthal to join the city watch and you meet up with Hilda. Hilda says that the rest of the city watch could use some training and Rostnsthal accepts the job as a trainer. You come back to check a bit later and training is going. Not great, but it’s going. You and Hilda look if her Hounds (as she calls them) can do anything around the city. You find out that Hrunting - a sacred blade (I WONDER WHERE I’VE HEARD THIS STORY BEFORE) - has been stolen even though it’s heavily guarded. You and Hilda are looking for info and you find it. A woman talking to a knight you guys where first talking to says something about a band of bandits using firearms and start blaming it on that (WE JUST DID THIS!). Not long after, you find the thugs who have taken it, but something is off. These thugs aren’t coordinated enough to pull off such a big heist. Also, the leader of the thugs says that their boss kinda set them up in a weird way. She told them to steal the sword and when they gotten back with the sword to her, she told them to take it back and do something with it. They decided to sell it and that’s where you busted them. It’s almost like that was planned... You and Hilda return to Ishgard and ask for the sword to be inspected. Ser Muscadain (who you met earlier) had already let it be inspected by a blacksmith, but after your request he also decides to let it be inspected by Stephanivien. Stephanivien has found a small bomb in the hilt, but it wasn’t enough to even hurt someone. It was probably to scar the reputation of the Hounds. You find out it was the woman from earlier in the story who had set this up. You go on and stop her. You do that and it’s revealed that Ser Muscadain and Hilda are brother and sister! And so end SB’s story!

MCH’s power as a DPS: Oh boy, we’re getting into this topic aren’t we? MCH’s power as a DPS. I’m just gonna put a trigger warning right here, since the popular thing is to completely crap on MCH. TRIGGER WARNING! I think MCH is a fine DPS. Is it flawless? No. To name a few things: Flamethrower is pretty much useless, it has both less utility and damage as its direct counterpart Bard (shortened to BRD) and the heat gauge can feel more like a burden then actually an upgrade (especially before level 62... Ugh...). MCH needs some work, but at the same time it isn’t in the swirling black abyss that people are claiming it is. What I would want for it is to either give it actually some utility to match or even compete with its counterpart or just give it a lot of damage. Still it’s relative power as a DPS is alright. It could use some work, but it’s definitely usable for all content (including Savage).

MCH’s gameplay: So the MCH gameplay. Well, let’s begin with the basics. You have Split Shot, which is your basic skill damage skill, which has a 50% chance to get a proc to empower the next skill, Slug Shot, your second combo shot. Slug Shot also have a 50% to get a proc for your next skill, Clean Shot, your third and final combo shot. You have Hot Shot, which is a shot you’ll use every 30 seconds, because it gives you a 30 second damage buff. Oh and you have Spread Shot, you’re AoE damaging ability.

Let’s talk about your ammunition system, shall we? Reload fully reloads all 3 ammunition and Quick Reload only reloads 1. Ammunition powers up all weaponskills (so every on GCD shot) and for Split Shot and Slug Shot it gives you a 100% proc chance for the next one!

Time to talk about oGCDs! Heartbreak is an execute type skill, meaning you can only activate it when your target is below 20%. Gauss Round is just a oGCD you activate every time it’s up. Ricochet is an AoE oGCD you also activate every time it’s up or to use when you use Wildfire. Speaking of which, Wildfire is a bomb you put on the enemy and it takes 25% of all damage done by you (not the turrets we’ll be talking about in a bit) and after 10 seconds explodes. Reassemble makes your next weaponskill a guaranteed crit. Rapid Fire decreases your GCD to 1.5 until you’ve done 3 weaponskills. Blank is a 15 yalm knockback, useful for putting a mob you might have aggroed back in melee range for the tank (LIKE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO USE IT, NOT FOR “LOL LET’S KNOCK SOMETHING BACK, BECAUSE MY TANK WON’T MIND THAT RIGHT????????????”). You also have Dismantle, which reduces the enemy’s damage dealt by 10% for 5 seconds, useful for party wide damage or to mitigate tank busters a bit. 

Now on to the turrets and their skills! You have 2 turrents, Rook Autoturret and Bishop Autoturret. Rook is used for single target situations and Bishop is used for multi target situations. You can also use Hypercharge to power up the turrets and inflict Vulnerability Up to all enemies hit, which means more party/raid wide damage. You have Rook/Bishop Overdrive, which sends out a big shot to the target, but also removes whatever turret is out and makes you unable to place a turret down for 30 seconds.

Hmm... Let’s talk about role skills now! Tactician and Refresh are party wide TP and MP regens respectively. Palisade makes whatever party member you target take 20% physical damage for 10 seconds. Arm Graze stuns a target for 2 seconds and Head Graze silences a target for a split second (like all silences). Foot Graze binds a target and Leg Graze gives a target the Heavy status, meaning they move more slowly. Peloton increases movement speed, but fades upon gaining enmity and can’t be used in battle. Invigorate gives you 400 TP back and Second Wind heals you for a bit.

Well that was everything about the MC-. W-what’s that? Gauss Barrel? *sigh* Okay okay, I’ll talk about the heat gauge. The Gauss Barrel increases damage dealt by 5% and gives you access to the heat gauge. At 50 heat, your basic 3 shots (Split, Slug and Clean shot) get enhanced, so keep it there at all times (when you are level 64 or above at the very least). Cooldown is a weaponskill which is stronger on 50 heat or above, but also lowers the heat gauge with 25 points. Barrel Stabilizer sets the heat gauge to 50 heat instantly, but can only be used in battle. Flamethrower is an oGCD AoE ability which ticks for 60 every second and increases your heat gauge by 10 every second. When your heat gauge reaches 100, it overheats giving you a damage buff of 10% for 10 seconds. When those 10 seconds are up however, you are for 10 seconds locked out of the heat gauge and need to reattach the Gauss Barrel after those 10 seconds. Don’t let your barrel overheat (I know it’s impossible not too before level 62, but believe me it gets better when you do hit level 62).

So what is my rating of MCH? - Story: 72/100. Not amazing, but honestly not too bad either. It’s at least consistent in terms of quality, unlike a certain other job I could mention (PLD WHY?!) but it wasn’t mind blowing or anything. It’s the perfect addition for Ishgard if you want more story in Ishgard. - Power of the job: 64/100. It needs some definite work from Square Enix’s side, but it’s not as awful as the community will lead you to believe. If you like gun slinging or machinery, definitely try it out! - Gameplay: 80/100 after level 64, but 60/100 before level 62. The Gauss Barrel heat gauge has no purpose before 62. It’s literally just an annoyance, because to maximize damage you use skills, but when you do you overheat the gauge meaning you got to reattach the barrel again and again and again. At 62 you at least get Cooldown, meaning you can actually manage the gauge, but at 64 when you get your heated versions of your basic 3 shots it actually has a point to be managed. Still, it’s quite satisfying to see a huge Wildfire explosion do massive damage!

Overal score: 72/100. It’s a worthy job to just pick up and play, because even though many people disagree with me, I still think it’s extremely fun to play, but at the same time, there are some huge glaring issues with the job that make it tedious to actually level up. I can get if people wanna wait until Square “fixes” the job, but it’s still there to try out and I would suggest you do so! If Square does fix the job, many people will be flocking back to it and suddenly it’s the most amazing thing ever again (just like people did with PLD in SB, when it became really strong).

And that’s a wrap, ladies and gentleman! I want to thank you all for reading this. I do believe it’s a bit smaller than the PLD one, but that’s because I honestly had much less story to write out. I could’ve written out all the drama that comes by, but it’s essentially “manufactory gets doubted, Rostnsthal gives you gunning lessons and Stephanivien gives you machinery lessons, you (try to) prove that machinists aren’t lame” a lot. It’s still a good story to just experience, so I would recommend you do that in some form or fashion. Anyways, I’ve taken enough of your time! Thank you for reading and take care! Next up... Let’s see if this job can make me an complete edgelord. The Dark Knight (DRK) is coming up next folks! See ya guys then!

[lemonadeflashbang]

Children of Morta Thoughts/Review

Children of Morta is a good game. It could, with some tweaking, even be a great game. But for the time being, it’s just a good game. If you’re considering this game because you want an APRG/roguelite hybrid with tons of playtime, I’d consider Heroes of Hammerwatch instead. Children of Morta does have more character, prettier art (wow the art), and a more narrative focus- so consider this game if you want something with some more bells and whistles. This is an interesting one. It’s a Diablo style ARPG, with some roguelite elements and a focus on story. Most of the other indies I’ve discussed in these posts don’t have a lot of sticking power- you beat the games and there’s little to no reason to come back. Children of Morta does have sticking power- but suffers from some design issues that make me want to really deep dive it. The gameplay loop is really satisfying and fun, but there are moments of frustration littered thoughout. The game has two primary modes. The main story- which is much more ARPG’ish, and Family Trials, which is more roguelite-ish. I’m going to tackle them separately, starting with the main story, as they’re very different experiences. For reference, I played on Nintendo Switch and on the game’s “hard” difficulty for the story, and “normal” for family trials. --Main Story-- You dive into dungeons, explore until you die, then spend your gold on additional stats and do it again. As your characters gain levels they transfer passive benefits to the rest of your characters, encouraging you to play the whole cast. In addition, if you play the same character over and over they’ll become fatigued- getting a health penalty until you switch off of them for a run or two. When you return from a dungeon, you’re greeted by the narrator who gives you some more information about the characters / the world, and then you do it again. While it’s neat that there’s a constantly evolving story, I have to say that I could sure have used less of it. The story is at it’s best when we’re watching the lovingly animated sprites interact with one another- they can be expressive and full of character. A great example of show, don’t tell. Unfortunately, most of the story does the opposite. For the most part, the story is quite literally told to us via the narrator. Some classic “Ben felt sad” kind of stuff. And that’s... fine? But I didn’t care about the story or the characters (who I didn’t really know) despite all the effort that went into the storytelling format. It’s a story driven game where the story feels tacked on at the end and isn’t all that exciting. It’s not bad but it’s not good either. It’s just kind of there, taking up game time that could be spent on the actual fun parts of the game. I think the big issue is that it doesn’t leverage the fact that it’s a video game to tell that story. It’s basically an audiobook. The moments that elicited the most emotional response to me where story events that occurred in dungeons where I needed to rescue an NPC character- where the narration was kept to a minimum and I could just focus on saving some cute critter that did the heartbreaking thing just a few seconds ago. Let’s move on from story for a second and talk about gameplay. Firstly, the gameplay loop, like I said above, is fun. This isn’t a surprise. Games that are part of a successful genre like this one are often fun, because they’re built on top of a really solid base. But the game suffers from some serious issues with its’ enemy attacks. An attack has a windup, to telegraph an action, an active component, and then a window of opportunity at the end. Pre-lag, action, post-lag. The enemies in this game have very short pre and post lags. This leaves enemies capable of quickly attacking without much time to respond, and not much opportunity to punish them. The players, on the other hand, have very long windups for whatever reason. Often, in games a windup for a player will be near instant to avoid an attack feeling laggy- see Hollow Knight for an example. Not in this game. This means that even if you start attacking in an enemy’s windup, you will almost certainly get hit and might not even hit them back because many enemies will immediately retreat after striking. And it’s not just that they have long windups on their attacks. Open a chest? Here’s a window of vulnerability. Activate an obelisk for a defense or attack buff? Window of vulnerability. Activate your rage bonus to enable your AoE to clear an oncoming mob? Here’s a big fat window of vulnerability. I found myself not using my rage bonus (effectively a super bar that buffs your character) at all because I would get overrun by any sizeable mob worth using it on in the time it would take to activate. It just turned into a boss killing tool. Unless, of course, I was ranged. And, let me remind you, this is a genre where there may be over a hundred enemies on a floor. So even though you may be able to compensate for the difference in frame data 1 v 1, you almost certainly cannot do it while swarmed. And you can’t always compensate either. There’s a midgame boss who is stationary- summoning enemies to fight with. If you sit in melee range and start dumping damage on them, they’ll raise their hand and then slash forward- doing about 1/2-1/4 of your health (depending on how much hp you’ve invested in) in a single blow. The melee units probably need to hit this guy like, a hundred times to kill him- for the record. The issue here is that the windup (raising the hand) doesn’t actually leave enough room to dodge away from it. At least, with my reaction time (which I have never had an issue with before.) The hitbox on the swipe is so large that if you try to “dodge” the move as you see the windup, you will dodge back... and still get hit. I found myself having to hit a couple times and then pre-emptively back up just in case, essentially having to predict a windup that wasn’t always there. You end up using all the heals the game supplies you to help with the mobs to restock after getting slapped almost unavoidably... or slowing down so much the fight drags on and it becomes much harder to win. And more deflating to lose. In the end, I lost for 45 minutes then just switched characters and cleared it effortlessly. But I shouldn’t have had to just “pick a different character” to one that wasn’t destined to get slapped. I should have been able to play around the windup. And this issue is not exclusive to this boss. The core problem is the same one the basic mobs have! In addition, your dash takes time to recharge- and characters only have 1 or 2. If you need to use a dash to close the gap, to say, hit a ranged unit- you’re left with limited options to evade enemies and their very fast attacks afterwards. If you’re out of dashes as a melee, you’re going to get hurt. This leads to a massive difference in melee vs ranged gameplay. There are two ranged characters, and they’re on an entirely different level than the melee ones. It’s not really comparable. A ranged unit only has to dash defensively, and both ranged units have skills that give them very strong kiting abilities allowing them to play significantly safer than their melee counterparts. And since they don’t have to close the gap, they have a higher damage uptime too- the ranged characters aren’t just safer but they do more damage. Melee characters end up needing way more stats in order to function because they will take damage. There’s no perfect play that’ll let you perfect clear a dungeon- your frame data is too much of a disadvantage for that to be true. So as a melee you need hp and dodge chance to survive, and damage in order to kill enemies quickly so they don’t run you over in your range. Ranged units, on the other hand, can invest purely into aggression. It was about the middle of the game until I got my second ranged unit. Remember what I said earlier about the game punishing you for spamming the same unit? Even if I’d only wanted to play ranged, I’d have been forced into a melee unit. In my specific case, I actually jumped around a lot and played mostly melee just to unlock the full skill trees- but the game really puts the heat on the player. Finally, lots of the melee kits just aren’t good without loads of stats or without all their abilities unlocked. This means that most characters you get will flat out suck until the midgame, because they don’t have the tools they need to succeed. The monk, for example, has the ability to dash-attack folks and suck people to him... but has such piddling damage output that if you reposition enemies early they’ll just slap you silly. It’s not until he has access to the AoE dash-jump and AoE knockback that you get the ability to deal lots of group damage, separate the enemies, and start picking foes off. Of course, by the time you have these skills, the game’s starting to end. Remember, melee characters become viable by basically gaining enough stats to ignore how bad their kits are in the context of the greater game. That means you start hitting a point where the difficulty of a dungeon is mostly due to how underleveled the character you’re playing with because you have the stats to brute force the game’s challenges. As the characters also pick up levels and you get access to more and more gold per run, the game becomes progressively easier until you find you’re very unlikely to die even in a brand new area. So in the end you’re left with a game with a fairly tough start that just gets progressively easier and then just kind of ends since you blow through the third act so quickly. You don’t even have time to unlock all your toys before the game is over. And even if you wanted to play another dungeon, there’s nothing that won’t just kind of buckle over- even with underleveled characters in endgame dungeons. There technically are roguelite elements to each dungeon run- but they’re fairly light. You get runes, which are random drops that buff an ability but they basically all amount to “you’re better now” and don’t change your playstyle. Some active abilities, of which you can collect two but who knows how many you’ll see or if there’s any real decision to make there, and some more passive abilities as well. Nothing that really varies your experience from run to run- even with these elements your runs will feel the same. The Main Story is overall still fun just due to the core gameplay, but it’s really just okay. --Family Trials-- Family trials is an extra game mode, where you play through 9 maps (with 2 bosses and 2 shops, and more maps during harder difficulties) as one of the main 7 characters with the skill tree gone and replaced with a starting set of skills. As you level up, you are granted 3 level up options to pick from- and you gain multiple artifacts and bonuses as you continue to craft your full build. In other words, it’s much heavier on roguelite elements, and has much more sticking power as a result of it. It amps up the roguelite elements that were weak in the main story- and can lead to some different feeling builds and more interesting decision making. I consider this a huge win, and it’s something I’ll definitely return to. The problem, however, is family trials also amps up the worst parts of the game. The characters in this mode are no longer snorting super stats, which means the family trials normal mode is significantly harder than the base game’s hard mode. 5 out of the 7 characters are just bad. I beat it once with the archer and once with the monk, and I have to say playing it as a melee was a struggle. It wasn’t strange for there to be 200 some enemies on a floor, with no safe rooms, and they all required something crazy like 5 hits each for me to kill. So my strategy ended up being relying on random equipment to kill things for me while I just dodged around. On runs where I actually tried to invest in my character’s ability to kill, it simply wasn’t enough to clear a wave of mobs even with all my abilities hitting them for AoE meaning that I was pretty much always in danger of being swarmed by the 60 something units per room. I literally watched my equipment drones solo a boss while I just jumped around the room, because that was just way more effective than actually striking it myself. I was second fiddle to my drones. The final boss also gets a buff- the three times I fought him they were in floating purple crystals that would fire lasers towards each other in a grid, punishing you for stepping in them. They would also get more mobs. So basically, as a melee, you can easily get punished for approaching the boss at all- getting lasered, or pinned into a corner and surrounded by mobs with no way to escape. A ranged unit can keep their damage up during this time, killing either the oncoming mobs as they approach or the boss itself, but as a melee you just have to sit there and hope you don’t take too much damage. Overall it left a bad taste in my mouth. Sure, the game wants me to win once with or at least try all 7 characters- but why would I want that? The game’s just frustrating when playing with everything melee. With that said, it’s still super fun as one of the two ranged units. So if you treat it as a two character game instead, or play in coop with at least one ranged character (and the other character as a support), it can still be tons of fun. It’s not just me. I ran into numerous threads of folks who beat this on the hardest difficulty with ranged units, who couldn’t do it on normal with most of the melees. --Final Thoughts / Summary / Recommendations-- The game has a lot of potential. The upgrades are cool. Some of the kits are really unique and exciting. It feels good to power up and the core mechanics are really fun. The main story is fun enough, but doesn’t give me a reason to come back and the difficulty just collapses. I’d love a set of “postgame” dungeons on a file that just had ramped up difficulty. So essentially what NG+ is, but without requiring me to replay the whole thing over and over again. Something I didn’t mention before is the game does have some issues on switch. The end screen lags every time and once crashed on me, numerous audio bugs, etc., I’d prioritize PC for this one but it’s still mostly fine on the Nintendo console. The enemies need to be re-examined. The game could be made a lot less frustrating and close that melee/ranged gap drastically if they just re-did a lot of the enemy attack animations. For windups, you want the duration of the player’s escape + 0.25 seconds (average reaction time) + some buffer at a minimum. This means they should be at least half a second and often higher. The windows of opportunity need to be extended for ranged units and hit-and-run units. The hit-and-run units in particular cause melees to have to chase after them because they’re not even vulnerable for a full attack for most characters. Often you have to just leave them for last because you can’t feasibly chase after them in a crowd, like being in the thick of it wasn’t hard enough. Playable melee characters need shorter windups on their own attacks. If I use an AoE stun, it’s because I’m surrounded- giving me half a second to a second of lead time on the move just means I eat a bunch of free damage from the mob that the move is designed to help me against. This can be compensated by larger post-attack lag if necessary, but it’s ludicrous that you’ll lose most attack contests against basic enemies. Melee units in particular could probably benefit from a dash enhancement. There’s an ogre unit who walks up to a player and swings, and leaves only enough time for a single attack and dash back before they’ll land a second hit. And they’re in the first area. This means that you end up having to strike the ogre once, dash away, wait for your dash to recharge, get in range to trigger the attack so you can maneuver in, hit him once... then dash away. And then do that ten times. For a regular enemy. Perhaps rewarding aggressive dashing (partial dash refund on if you attack right after) can enable melees to dash aggressively to threatening units and still get out safely without having to sit around and wait for a cooldown to engage. In the ogre example, you could wait for a swing, dash to the other side, strike, then dash through him as he tried to club you again- giving you the ability to stay engaged without taking a long break to sit and think. They could probably use a bit of a stat buff in Family trials too. Specifically where damage is concerned- if I’m going to jump into fifty enemies and my attack has a full second of windup time I better be cleaving through these guys. Which I’m not right now, by the way. Instead I’m just running around laps activating relics and hoping they’ll do the work for me. But here’s the thing- these things are mostly fixable. There’s not going to be a change to the upgrade system for the main story, so its’ longevity is what it is. And the main story itself isn’t going to change, no matter how... just kind of there it is. But attack windups? Dash refunds? That’s all doable. And frankly a lot less work than the Family Trials mode was. The team did a good job, and I honestly mean that. I think mostly the game needed some stronger playtesting before launch. I am a bit saddened to see that in the year+ since the game’s release, and with the launch of Family Trials, that they missed the mark on the player experience for most of the cast though- given they’ve had plenty of time to collect feedback on it. My recommendation is- worth a play if you can get it on sale. If not, check to see if they’ve made any significant balance tweaks to melee vs ranged play. If they have- go for it! If not, maybe hold off until the next big Steam holiday.