#this main guys build is making me feral insane. sorry

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

More therapy thoughts part 1/?

Behavior Theory Frameworks/Conditioning and What the fuck does Master Chief talk about in therapy?

Ramblings below - like a lot, like I spent too much time writing this and you should not read this

Behavioral Theory could work well as a framework with rehabilitating Spartan IIs if the case worker focused on Operant Conditioning Theory and Cognitive Social Learning Theory, which I talked about in this ask because I think I’m funny and this blog is an archive of me applying human behavior theories to video games.

Spartans have always been taught the mission comes first! Always! The 2s are indoctrinated from age 6-14 and then have that reinforced the rest of their lives. From the beginning they are taught to push themselves to the limits, earn their food by winning, form bonds with teammates but be ready to sacrifice them for the mission. The whole lives wasted vs spent conversation between John and Mendez after the augmentation surgery!

What the UNSC/ONI wants comes before their lives, the lives of other soldiers, civilians, AI etc. This constant conditioning of expectations and rewards has created the norms cemented in their minds. This becomes standard operating procedure.

Spartans are also an entirely separated social group, other people have made really great posts on how they are Othered and have their own way of communicating with body language. ODSTs hate Spartans, marines see them as cyborgs or saviors, and while they’re allies, Spartans are not seen or treated as human, by literally everyone. They are a means to an end, with the original goal being to maintain the UNSC’s position of power and crush the insurrectionists in the outer colonies, but uh oh Aliens!

Maybe the 2s aren’t as expendable as the 3s but the mindset and reinforcement of “mission first, people second” being repeated their entire lives is going to stick. So is the constant mistreatment and abuse from their fellow soldiers and handlers. 

Addressing the cognitive distortions that come from their upbringing while also balancing the fact that Spartans are so fundamentally different from the way they developed to survive would be so much work, especially considering how much information on them is given to their therapist.  The main distortion I would apply is minimization, making large problems small and not properly dealing with them, and specifically for John, personification, accepting blame for negative events without sufficient evidence. 

Like these are grown ass super soldiers who can kill you in less than a second and calculate the amount of gravity in a room on the fly but then also can flounder when trying to comfort civilians or make small talk because their experiences and values are so alien to adults who had more developmentally “normal” lives. 

Literally applying therapy to Spartans would be like, what was done to you was wrong, the ends do not justify the means, you were children and the adults in your life failed to protect you. You are a human person who is fallible and did the best you could with what you had. And the Spartan would say, “sounds fake but okay, can I pass my psych eval and go back to war now please?”

Jumping back to Behavior Theory

Different approaches to therapy under the Behavior Theory umbrella help modify negative behaviors with treatments like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical behavior therapy that teach individuals adaptive coping like emotional regulation, distress tolerance, cognitive distortions, and interpersonal communication. And that’s just one framework under the umbrella of human behavior theories.

Social work therapy is different from psych as it approaches individuals with heavily researched, evidence-based theories and frameworks in a holistic viewing of person-in-environment, instead of a strong focus on internal psychology. 

Social work looks at all the interacting systems, environment, history, and internal and external factors affecting an individual. One of the most useful frameworks is the Biopsychosocial-Spiritual Frameworks (BPSS) when helping a client. It helps with identifying all the intersecting factors, both risk and protective, that shapes a client’s lived experiences. The most important thing to remember is that the individual is an expert in their own life, they know their experiences best.

The hardest part is applying this to Spartans because they Are So Fucked, their lived experiences, their environments and systems and institutions interacting with them, and the amount of their personal information that is probably so classified.

BPSS is a tool to help social workers assess individuals and their situations by collecting info that is related to the presenting issues and current and past circumstances. Info like medical history, hospitalizations, substance abuse, mental illness, personal relationships, family history and background, culture and norms, education, legal history, spirituality and participation etc. is all under this framework. 

For Spartan 2s most of this info is lost or classified and helping someone who has repressed every negative emotion they've had for the sake of the mission would be so much to unpack but that’s also why you’re reading the mad ramblings over an over caffeinated nerd on the internet.

Life Course Theory which looks at developmental milestones and the individual’s experiences versus the socially expected markers, how do you apply that to children who were taken and have lived such different lives? 

While early adolescence is when “normal” development of thoughts of self and identity take place alongside the physical changes of puberty, Spartans were being turned into emotionless calculating weapons. Sorry John, no forming a sense of identity and peer bonds for you, go kill that Watts guy who betrayed us and joined the insurrectionists. 

And now that I’ve gone this insane and opened 2 whole textbooks up, let’s get to Master Chief thoughts. If you’ve read this far thank you, I swear I’m normal, 2020 has just been a weird year. 

Why the fuck did I think I could write a therapy fic on a guy with 20 minutes of actual dialogue across almost 2 decades of games?

I make fun of him and call him a himbo, but he’s smart, he knows he’s being used and there is resentment there that’s been building for years. 

There’s also decades of trauma and combat experience, physical, and emotional abuse, the lack of a support network,  lack of an identity, the biological factors and aftermath of the augmentations and injuries he’s received, a whole lot of grief and self-inflicted guilt. 

The loss of a third of his peer group with the augmentation surgery, Sam’s death, the loss of Reach (the only place he’s considered home), Keyes, the Pillar of Autumn crew, Miranda Keyes, Johnson, Cortana. He cares about the marines who fight with him!!!

He just stands there and takes it and rarely snaps, and even then it’s just small cracks on the surface with fissures running deep. The few details I will pull from Halo 5 are Blue Team’s reactions to John pushing himself so hard from the beginning of the game, and the literal crack in his armor from the fight with Locke. Like dude.  

John’s a leader and will get the mission done but he tugs on the leash. He’s earned enough of a reputation and uses it to get his way.

Halo 2’s “Permission to leave the station” with Mr. “I’m going to hand deliver a bomb to the fusion reactor of a covenant supercarrier and hope my friends catch me”. 

Halo 4 is when we see him say no to a superior officer and then 5 is him going AWOL. Palmer literally points out that no one is going to stop him.

Halo 5 kills me for many reasons but John bringing up Halsey and what she did to him and also pointing out that he knows Halo 5 Cortana is trying to manipulate him with psychological tactics hurts. 

He knows what’s been done to him!

I cannot remember which book it was but John isn’t used to working alone. He literally takes fire because he was expecting someone to have his back! 

He’s lost without Cortana! She was in his brain! Y’all! I played Halo Combat Evolved on the original xbox when I was like 8 and I knew these two were meant to be together. From the moment they met they had great chemistry and relied on each other! Cortana literally goes after people who have it out for John! John wants her approval and shows off for her in one of the books. 

I’ve already written too much here but like all of the games have John showing off for Cortana, making dry jokes, jumping out of things he shouldn’t. 

The whole point of this rambling is to try and get my thoughts about how to approach John’s character under control.

And that’s the thing. He’s lost control. He’s lost people, he’s losing his position and being phased out as an aging spartan, a relic. John’s used to following orders and making some decisions on the battlefield but it was always short term.

He has no identity beyond being a weapon. Complete the mission, clear the LZ, get put in cryo. Rinse, repeat. 

The timeline of the games are what I'm most familiar with but with the comics and books too it’s one long run from Halo 2 to Halo 4. Cairo station to the Dreadnought to the crash landing to Forward Unto Dawn to Requiem to “The Didact is Dead but not really but we’ll deal with him off-screen”.

I know Hood apparently gave John R&R orders before Halo 5 that he ignored and kept running himself into the ground. This is a man who has to keep moving and keep being useful. 

I imagine him giving in and seeking help as a last resort to fix any problems he has with performing his duties rather than helping himself be healthier. 

Any professional he sees is going to have to approach him like they’re approaching a self sacrificing feral cat, with lunch meat and quiet. This man needs to have his support network closer, set up long term goals, and do some serious, and most likely incredibly painful, self reflection on where he’s come from and where he wants to go. Get him out of that tin can and into therapy. I don’t have a nice neat ending because this was a ramble and also therapy is not neat and tidy. Thanks for reading my words about mr halo

[cottagecorewhore420]

Zukka Fluff <3

Protective!Sokka, Fluffy Zukka

Just a short drabble of these two lovelies being emotional on main; also, Sokka finds out how Zuko got his scar.

I hope you like it! Please lmk what you think, I’d love to hear!! <3

They were laying out under the stars, Zuko’s head cushioned by Sokka’s chest, laying contendlt as Sokka carded his hands through the elder’s hair.

“It’s hot,” Sokka complained. Not because he was truly bothered, but he wanted to break their (albeit comfortable) silence.

“Do you want me to move, because I can-“

“No!” Sokka held tighter to Zuko, wrapping both arms around him to prevent him from leaving. Zuko laughed, reorienting himself in a new position, accepting the aplogetic ‘please-don’t-leave’ kiss from Sokka with a grin.

“I was just observing, is all.”

“oh.” There was a beat, before Zuko continued. “Well...You’re hot.”

Sokka looked down at Zuko, who was grinning cheekily up at him from his new position of laying with his head on Sokka’s lap.

“Just observing, is all.” The fire lord said flirtatiously, before turning and looking out to the ocean.

Sokka chuckled quietly, so happy that they had made it to the point in their lives that Zuko was happy and  felt safe enough to joke and flirt like he did. It wasn’t suave, by any means, but the attempts at seduction were so Zuko that it was all the better.

Zuko was idly tracing patterns on Sokka’s calves, when he noticed a scar, about three inches long, shining white in the moonlight. It was obviously old, and long-healed, but he hadn’t ever seen it before.

Admittedly, though, they had only been dating for a few months, during which time Zuko had been trying to make reparations to the rest of the world on behalf of his nation and family.

He wanted to know what it was, wanted to know everything there was to know about Sokka, but additionaly, he knew how hurtful it was to always be asked about a scar; how it reduced you to nothing but some messy looking skin tissue.

Sokka had noticed the traced patterns starting to zero in on the old wound though, and unbothered, decided to tell Zuko.

“It’s from a fishing accident when I was a kid.”

Zuko jolted slihghtly, worried that he had somehow made it too obvious he was interested, but Sokka pressed on, obviously still content and not upset at all.

“Me and Katara were going with our dad and Bato to the ice-holes, to go fishing. Me and Katara had one hole, and then Bato and dad had one each. Me and katara were, predictably, arguing back and forth, and we started pushing each other and arguing- we hadn’t caught any fish, and we both were convinced it was the other’s fault. Anyways, I decided I was gonna make my own fishing hole, to prove that it was her fault we weren’t catching any fish. So, I stomped about ten feet south of her, and then realized I needed something to make the hole. So, being the stupid little kid I was, I yelled at Katara to throw me the bone-dagger we use to skin the fish. And, being the stupid little kid Katara was, she threw it. It, uh-,” Sokka sheepishly cleared his throat, before continuing. “It detached from the holder mid-air, and went right through my leg. It slashed my calf really bad, but that’s all that’s left, at this point.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Nah, it’s all healed up now. Besides, I’ve heard scars are sexy. They apparently help pick up cute guys.”

Zuko sat up, quirking his non-scarred brow at Sokka, who laughed and just grabbed Zuko, moving him towards him until they were hugging, stomach to stomach, Zuko in Sokka’s lap.

“I’m just kidding- I really only wanna pick up one guy.”

“Hmmph.” Zuko looked away playfully, ignoring Sokka’s attempts to kiss him. “Is this mystery guy a cute guy?”

“Oh, the cutest.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s got this really hot teen angst, brooding vibe, but once you get to know him he’s a total softie. It’s really quite endearing.”

Zuko’s cheek colored, blush matching his other cheek’s red.

“Well… seems like a lucky guy if he’s managed to catch you.”

“Oh, I’m definitely the lucky one.”

“Yeah?”

Sokka was in Zuko’s face suddenly, breathing in the same air, hot puffs of breath hit Zuko’s lips. Blue eyes met gold, both blown wide with lust.

Leaning forward, centimeters away from his lips, Sokka whispered “yeah.” Before leaning forward, capturing Zuko in a heated kiss, grabbing Zuko’s thighs and moving him higher up on his lap, stabilizing him.

The movement and flippant showing of strength from his insanely hot water-tribe beefcake of a boyfriend made Zuko moan brokenly into the kiss, which just allowed Sokka access to lick into Zuko’s now-opened mouth.

~

They laid there, panting, Zuko completely atop Sokka, his non-scarred ear pressed against Sokka’s chest, listening to the beat of his heart, allowing it to comfort him.

Despite laying fairly-openly on the beach, he hadn’t felt this safe and protected in a long time than when he was here, right in this moment, basking in the afterglow with Sokka.

“I have a scar from a family member too.”

“Yeah, baby?” Sokka’s tone was light; he didn't want to pressure Zuko into sharing his scar’s story. 

Even when Katara had pressured him when they began dating, he had remained firm that if Zuko never wanted to discuss it, it was his own prerogative, and that was fine, too.

“Yeah… I was thirteen, and my uncle had talked the war-room guards into letting me sit in on my first strategy meaning. So, we went in, and this general was talking about how he was going to move an entire division of troops into a suicide-mission, purely as a distraction.”

The night around them was quite, still except for their voices, as if Yue was watching to make sure nothing interrupted them from this obviously-important moment.

Sokka was sickened at the horrifically brutish militia tactics the fire nation used to employ- to willingly sacrifice hundreds of lives, just for a slight strategical advantage? Disgusting.

“I… I didn’t agree, didn’t think that was right. I spoke up, even though Uncle had warned me not to. But I went on and said how reprehensible that was, how those were real people, with families and lives, and a loyalty to our nation. I was quickly rebuked, and in a show of anger, I agreed to an Agni Kai.“

“Oh my god- at 13?!”

“Yes. And I was stupid enough to take the offer.”

“Oh my god- baby, I’m so sorry.” Sokka curled an arm protectively over his boyfriend’s form. Sokka ached for 13-year-old Zuko, scared and desperate to please his father, to please his nation.

“When I got to the arena, and prepared for the Agni Kai, it was revealed to me that I wasn’t going to be fighting the general. Because I had spoken out of turn in the fire lord’s war room, my slight was against the fire lord, not the general.”

“No-“ Sokka gasped, heart clenching at what he suspected was going to come next.

“My father was there, and said he would be who I battled in the Agni Kai for my honor. I- I had no idea it was him I would be fighting. I dropped to my knees, in front of the whole stadium, crying, pleading. I refused to fight my own father, and I told him as his humble and loving son, I refused to do so. I was so sorry, I was so scared.”

Zuko at this point had sat up, staring out at the ocean, legs crossed in a meditative-esque pose, hands on their respective knees. His voice was small, almost drowned out by the gently cresting waves. 

To hear him, Sokka had moved so he was sitting directly behind him, purposefully not touching his boyfriend despite a visceral want to do so. He  knew this was a hard thing for Zuko to discuss, and he also knew physical touch was something his boyfriend struggled with.

“My father… he told me I had brought dishonor to myself, and in punishment held his hand over my eye, and shot a burst of flame into my face. He banished me that night, and Uncle went with me… he said I would only be allowed back, to restore my honor if I brought him the avatar.”

Sokka jumped up, and started aggressively pacing back and forth, parallel to Zuko.

As if pulled from a dream, the thousan yard stare Zuko had adopted broke, looking shocked at the tensed body of his boyfriend.

“Sokka?”

When he didn’t get a response, Zuko worriedly stood up and approached his stony faced boyfriend, shocked to find tears rolling down his dark cheeks.

“Where is he?”

“Wha-“

“Where is Ozai?!”

Zuko was shocked at the aggressive tone of Sokka’s voice. He had never heard him this… feral sounding. And, pushing past the thought that is was insanely (I mean, really, insanely hot), he was worried.

“Why do you need to know where my father-?”

“Don’t call him that, Zuko! That disgusting animal doesn’t deserve any relation to you.” Sokka looked like a mongoose-viper, coiled and ready to strike. His growled words and obvious anger were very confusing to Zuko, who just watched warily. He didn’t think Sokka would hurt him, but he was confused at the anger literally emanating from Sokka in waves.

“Why are you mad?”

“Why am I- Because I am trying to stop myself from building a ship, sailing to mainland, and hunting through every prison cell in the fire nation until I find your deadbeat father.”

“What- why?!”

“Tui and La, Zuko, because that vile excuse for a human had the audacity to lay his hands on you, his own fucking son with such a sick fucking intent- I just. That shit isn’t okay. If this were back home, I would have his fucking head, for doing that. To a- to a kid, Zuko!”

Sokka was crying now, tears illuminated under Yue’s averted gaze.

“Baby, I’m okay.”

“But it’s not okay. I am- I’m so sorry Zuko. The hand that you were dealt was so fucking unfair. I am so sorry, I wish I could protect you from that fucking monster. I just- I want to rip his head off. How dare he-“ Zuko brought his distraught boyfriend into his arms, who slumped down into the smaller framed man.

Sokka’s tears were steadily flowing, soaking Zuko’s bare chest.

“It’s okay, Sokka. I’m sorry I said anything, I-“

“No, please- I’m- God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be the one being comforted right now.” He pulled away from Zuko, scrubbing his face with his hand. His form, now fully matured, towerd over Zuko. (Holy shit that’s hot Zuko thought staring at his jutting muscles in the moonlight, before admonishing himself that now was not the time to be horny on the beach.)

“It’s just- the mere thought of someone laying a hand on you, baby, especially with such an evil purpose, it makes my blood boil. I love you so much, Zuko, and I know you probably aren’t ready to say that, which is fine, but I love you so fucking much and all I want is to protect you, and heal you, and save you from-mmhph!” 

Sokka was silenced by Zuko’s fervent kiss, hungrily moving his lips against his boyfriends.

When they both needed air, the pulled apart regretfully, panting in sync.

 “I love you too.”

They fell back into the sand, and back into each others arms, languidly kissing, feeling blessed to be with the other, in their small, personal realm of love and safety.

~

“Iroh.”

“Hello, Sokka. What an unexpected surprise!” The reitred war general regarded his nephew’s boyfriend warmly, if not slightly appraisingly as he stood outside Iroh’s quarters in the palace.

“Is it?”

“Ah, well, perhaps not entirely. My nephew mentioned he has told you the story behind his scar.”

“He did.”

“When he came to me, he seemed very shocked to find your reaction so… visceral. I had to explain to him that anyone who loves him truly and deeply will react much the same. He still has trouble realizing his worth, how his treatment as a child was so flawed. He’s still accepting that the world’s treatment of him wasn’t right, and wasn’t deserved.”

“I… I haven’t felt that kind of anger in a long, long time. Maybe ever.”

“Hmm. That is just the price of love, Sokka.” he mused. Turning his wizened eyes to the younger man, “Now, I’m sure you’ve come to see me for more than a hello, yes?”

“Do you know where Ozai is being kept?”

Iroh regarded the man, studying him, not letting the shock show on his face.

Far from the young child-soldier with traditional face paint on who he first saw many years ago; Sokka had grown so much.

In place of that lanky, pubescent boy, stood now a full-fledged southern water tribe warrior, who had the traditional tattoos, battle scars, and hard-earned wisdom to prove his standing in the world. He had fought for all he had, and he protected what he saw as his.

With a deep sigh, Iroh moved aside from the doorway. “Hmm... this may be a bit longer than I thought. Do come in, Sokka… won’t you play me in a riveting game of Pai Sho?”

[feralknights]

Palablog: OB56+OB57

Hoo nelly, fellas.  OB56 + OB57 were absolute doozies for me, and I mean that in the best way possible.  I'm sorry I haven't responded to asks or been updating much lately, things just got busy and then I was running a lot of hardware upgrades so I missed a chunk of the OB56 patch cycle, and ... yeah.

I'll get the Skye gushing for OB56/OB57 out of the way now:  These two patches have been significant quality of life improvements for me as a Skye main and all across the board.  I think the art team knocked it out of the park with both the Samurai Ash skin (I didn't call it Ronin for a reason, will explain!) and Kunoichi Skye.  We saw the entrance of the Skye Mastery skins, too.  OB56 brought us the 1800->2000 HP boost as well as Retribution finally getting the nerfs it's needed since Lex was released, and OB57 gave us the reworks to Debilitate and Surprise Attack.

In a weird way, Skye having that extra 200 HP made something of a negative impact on me early on.  I was so used to the audio cues for low HP at 1800 that I'd overplay my hand and spent the first day or two fumbling around getting my butt handed to me.  I've gotten used to it over time; the tweaks to her damage dealing and range made my life a whole lot easier and has enabled me to (in some cases) actually work around people that actually buy Illuminate.

I still haven't tried Surprise Attack, but I'm actually somewhat curious to now.  At first I thought, "just slapping more damage onto it will not fix the fact that it is an objectively terrible legendary," but I gave it more thought and gave Raynday's video on SA a watch.  Now, he did amazing with it, but he also had a team comp and players on his side that allowed him to have some of that pressure aleviated from him.  Similarly, our test sample for his praise was one match-- I want to give it more hands-on time, but this means I'm probably going to have to build a deck that balances some of Skye's mandatory cards with cooldown cards and find what works right for me.

Is it weird I'm actually kind of looking forward to trying Surprise Attack at all?

Admittedly, I'm going to miss the innate cauterize effect of Poison Bolts, but if you think about it, the reworks to Decrepify allow it to actually be even more punishing, even more dangerous than it ever was before.  Decrepify is a card that rarely leaves my Debilitate decks with Skye, and now it's more than likely going to be a cornerstone for the Twilight Assassin.

With Strix's introduction, it did highlight issues that Skye still has with cards, but I can understand if the team wants to pump the brakes on further Skye adjustments for the time being:  Healing Vapors is still essentially a useless card at 1-2, mediocre at best at 3, and just not worth the value at 4.  Comperable cards on different champions grant way more value at almost any level, from Androxus' Abyss Walker healing a burst of 40/80/120/160 to Lex's Fortitude healing 25/50/75/100 damage across 1.5s, and then they have access to healing items such as Life Rip-- and Life Rip is essentially the only form of feasable long-term self-sustain that Skye has available to her.

I'm still trying really hard to Devil's Advocate myself on how to justify Slip Away still existing in the form it does.  Ninja and Dissipate both serve the purpose for stealth speed boosts, and I personally feel Victory Rush is one of the best cards in the game.  Again, personally, I'd rather it be "gain damage reduction while in stealth" at the same values it has right now.  Of course, it was easier to justify conditional up-to 20% DR when Skye was at 1800 HP.

OB56 brought a lot of exciting changes in general:  Ash was given an additional ult charge on Rally Here, arguably her weakest legendary.  Admittedly, if I know a team is going to try to maintain point presence and stay with me, I will play the hell out of Rally Here; the damage boost makes ally Ruckus players or even a good Fernando or Ying turn into crazy point-dominating monsters.  Buck's Bulk Up was given an extra boost-- and I'll be honest, I'm glad.  I sometimes feel bad for the guy, because I rarely ever see him played anymore.

Cassie's Exaction was given a light bop on the nose in OB56 though the thing I hear complained about the most is that her dodge roll is almost always up as long as you can land one shot-- and that's honestly not too hard given how much faster her projectiles move these days.  Jenos' HP reduction was warranted and welcome; I love the guy and I play him pretty hard as a support, but he was just too hard to kill.  I barely felt the adjustments to Stellar Wind or Astral Mark, I run a CD reduction build on him and just keep churning heals.

Jenos does present an interesting situation that I hope gets looked at:  Though negative status effects are cleared from her when she goes into her ice block, Astral Mark will persist.  Essentially, if Evie is running the Reprieve Legendary card, she will get all of that healing as well as the healing from Jenos, and all of that healing will just keep going right when she comes flying out of it.  In essence, this allows even a mediocre-at-best Evie to be an absolute immortal monster.

Retribution got nerfed hard in OB56, and I could not be happier.  I'm actually a bit surprised, if only because I was hoping for some QOL tweaks, or one or two touches, I didn't expect such a drastic swat on the ability.  OB57 brought some interesting changes to Lex, and slowly he's coming to the point where I feel like he could potentially be fun to play as as much as against.

The semi-auto was a good change, I feel, but after a few days I started to see the problems with Lex's new Magnums:  The ammo count is too high, the accuracy drop from rapid firing is too low, and it does nothing to address the problem of Lex having In Pursuit, still arguably one of the most devastating abilities in the game.

"Feral, you're mad.  You just hate Lex.  1050 damage over 1.5s is nothing!"

I mean yeah I do dislike Lex's kit, but you can't argue with the fact that as he is right now, Lex can pop In Pursuit for unerring auto-aim accuracy for 1.5s at long range while Combat Sliding in at a target I dare say farther and faster than even Cassie's roll, then hammering 10 shots out for long-range *and* burst potential that comes dangerously close to Point Blank Skye.

In essence, I just hope that In Pursuit's functionality is given a second glance now that he's got these devastating new Magnums.  I also would like to see if it's possible to get the rapid fire inaccuracy increased a bit, because gosh.  dang.

Lian is an interesting case; I make claim about how much I hate auto-aim on Lex but I mind it slightly less on Lian.  I really wish I could better explain it, but something just feels "off" about her kit-- maybe it realy does have something to do with her being able to have two auto-aims?  I'll have to ruminate on it more.

and the grover puns man wtf arrghghhggh

Skipping ahead a little, the Ying changes are great.  Back as recently as 3 patches ago, I was on the train that Ying needed to have Lifelike boosted by 5-10% to help address her throughput, but Illusory Rift is absolutely great and the changes to her in-hand attack are almost terrifying to play against-- but in a good way, of course.

A'right, now that we've gotten this far:  It's time for Strix.

I love Strix.  Dude is insane.  His rifle feels great, offers a lot of feedback when you're firing, and it feels responsive.  His pistol does a lot to offer him some close-range gameplay, and I like that he's so polarizing (long or short range) compared to Kinessa (long or mid-range).  Flare is incredibly powerful, and I would argue almost *too* powerful-- I don't mean that this needs to be slapped hard, but definitely monitored.  They say "large radius" in his skill description, but from some light testing it looks like it's a near-100 unit radius.  I run Flare XL 3 (increases the reveal range significantly) and Overburn 3 (increases flare duration by 3s), so I'm covering a pretty massive swath of a map for about 6 seconds-- that's basically Cassie's ult without the CC/speed boost with a pretty short downtime.

I thought I'd be a little more leery of toggle stealth, but it actually works great.  I've compared Strix a lot to some Warframe friends as being like a MOBA version of Ivara, and when I say this, I mean it in the most complimentary fashion that I can possibly achieve.  Ivara is one of my favorite Warframes as her gameplay pushes for a methodical, strategy-driven focus, stealthing at opportune times, and playing to enemy awareness.

As I said earlier in regards to Skye and her sustain cards, Strix has a card, Escape Plan.  If you aren't familiar with it, if Strix is at 65% or lower health, Escape Plan will heal Strix for 100/200/300/400.  As a burst heal sustain, this is great, and arguably as good as a maxed out Abyss Walker and close to the potential of other non-legendary sustain cards for Flanks.  I really hope the team considers giving HV a rework to be closer to this; the current state of Healing Vapors makes it take too long for too little effect.  But, again, balance, and changing too much in too short of time, etc., etc. -- I can still hope, though!

And in case you didn't know, there's another one on the horizon:  PALADINS STRIKE!  A 5v5 actual MOBA-style Paladins game for Android/iOS.  The game has me excited, and I've signed up for the alpha.  I have some concerns and criticisms about the decisions the team has made for the game, however, and I'll highlight that in my next post.

edit: Made a few tweaks for clarity, going through and highlighting/emphasizing certain words.  Also forgot:

Why did I say "Samurai Ash" instead of "Ronin Ash?"  Because ... really, there's nothing about this incarnation of Ash that makes her a ronin.  She's wearing full armor and helmet, discussing honor very heavily, and carrying a flag that would signify she's actually serving a feudal lord/house, rather than being honorless.  I was kind of bummed that the only Ash/Skye interaction we got was a one-way "poison bad!!" thing from Ash that is just basically the same thing as her default voice pack.