#yes an ignore and a debuff are different

[dsknsk]

I just realized that Logos' second talent is not a RES ignore, it's a RES debuff (a flat debuff, to be percise - think Ifrit's S3). In fact this will mean that he serves as some sort of support and debuffer too because other operators that deal Arts damage will also be able to take advantage of that effect instead of when it were only an ignore.

It also means that it stacks with RES debuffs that are percentage-based, like Eyja S2, Ifrit's first talent, stacks with Arts Fragility, like RAlter talent, and (Arts Fragility does not stack with itself, but due to HG exact wording it does stack with...) Arts damage taken debuffs, meaning that his own talent is able to work with it as is Saria's S3.

The effect is not unique to him either, meaning that it's not like Carnelian's debuff which only increases damage the target takes from her, but instead the Arts damage the target takes from anyone. It's somewhat similar to how W's second talent works when the target is stunned, but does not signify who stunned it, meaning it will also activate when for example Mudrock or Texas stuns an enemy.

It also lasts for 5 seconds but his own ASPD is 1.6 seconds. Make of that what you will.

[thousand-winters]

Can you imagine Hunter trying to make himself as unburden as possible?

He sleeps as little as he can, eats just a little under the bare minimum, and does way to many chores in hopes that he Can makes Darius like him.

It probably doesn’t take long for Darius to catch on.

Oh, yeah, unfortunately he would so do that.

As I always mention, I think what really shakes him up between those months living at the Nocedas and when he first moves with Darius and Eber is that he doesn't have the other kids as a sort of "debuffer", nor a clear goal he can tell himself he's working toward that could justify that he's just kinda just having a good time here instead of earning his place like he had to do before, so a lot of anxieties he could ignore before just resurface and there's nothing to distract himself from it, no "well, my friends are doing this and it seems okay, so I suppose it applies to me too?"

Now he can't justify being "lazy" and sleeping more than, say, 5 hours, because there's no one else around doing the same, right? And it hardly matters in his mind that Darius and Eber obviously don't sleep that little because well, duh, why would they? This is where they live, they don't have to earn it unlike him. And the same goes for food and for asking for any necessities. He doesn't even want to mention when his scars itch or any lingering pain he might have from all those years at the castle.

First things first he has to earn something as basic as the right to stay here.

At first Darius thinks that it's reasonable that Hunter seems tired and that he always finds him awake already in the morning; he has gone through so much, having been dead and his best friend giving his life for him very much included, so for him to have trouble sleeping isn't odd. Concerning, yes, but Hunter is still a bit cagey when asked if he wants to talk about whatever's troubling him, so not too strange.

Similarly, it's normal for him not to have much of an appetite given all the traumatic experience he went through in such a short period of time, not to mention all the others he's barely processing now. And him seemingly not wanting to do much of anything? That's also normal, of course he wouldn't launch himself into trying to watch movies or read or do fun activities right away, everyone copes with trauma in different ways and if Hunter needs some quiet time for himself, that is alright.

But then Darius notices Hunter does seem like he's on the verge of falling asleep several times before waking up in a panic, and while he atributes that to nightmares first, Hunter acts as if he was caught committing a crime when he spots Darius watching him. At some other point he hears his stomach growling after he said he wasn't hungry anymore at lunch, and he certainly doesn't seem like he's planning to grab a snack or ask for one, so the suspicions start there. Darius knows Hunter and his unhealthy habits better than most after all, he witnesses quite a lot of them while they were both still in the coven.

The moment Hunter insists he would love to do the laundry when he looks a second away from passing out and he sounds more desperate than actually thrilled for a new life experience is when Darius decides enough is enough and he doesn't really need more evidence to know something is truly wrong here.

By this point, Hunter is probably at the end of his rope, so when Darius presses him gently, but firmly, he's just gonna break and spill. It's gonna be a bit ugly, but at least the problem will finally be out there, and while one single conversation with Darius clarifying that he doesn't need Hunter to try and mute his own presence for him to accept him won't fix everything, it'll be a start.

Now every time Hunter starts falling back into those habits, he can get some nudges and reminders that he can sleep a bit more, even sleep in late if he wants to (which definitely does NOT mean until 6am only), that he can actually eat his whole meal and ask for more (he's a growing teenager after all), and while it's good for him to do chores, he doesn't have to do everything, they can come to a household arrangement to see what everyone does, and that's more like basic house maintenance anyway, not something he's doing to earn his place. He can forget from time to time and he won't be kicked out for that.

It's going to be hard because it's going to be different but he'll get there.

[slugdragoon]

RPG Role Analysis Series #12 - Pokemon Red/Blue vol.IV

The first Pokemon games were working with a limited number of "character slots", counting only fully-evolved Pokemon, and yet many types overlap, and yet more interesting, some Pokemon are direct counterparts of one another. The design intent clearly wasn't to make them functionally interchangeable, so how did the designers differentiate Pokemon with very close types/stats and movepools, and can I say they fit an archetype we recognize from RPG gameplay in general?

Enter Nidoking and Nidoqueen:

In comparison, Nidoqueen is slightly physically bulkier (higher HP and Defence), while Nidoking is slightly more agressive (higher Attack and Speed), though the difference is not that vast. What else did Gamefreak do to emphasize Nidoking as an attacker and Nidoqueen as a defender?

By the way, they both lose access to some moves on evolution, but we count Nidorino and Nidorina's movepool, as a whole Pokemon "family" is really like a character class.

Nidoking gets Leer to lower opponents' Defence (taking advantage of his higher Attack), while Nidoqueen gets Growl to lower their Attack and take help herself block. While yes, 1-stage stat debuffs are not competitive moves in Pokemon, the question I'm asking is "was there intention behind giving them these moves for the average single-player playthrough, even if they didn't end up being worth using?" You know, the RPG underneath.

The last move learned for Nidoking is Thrash, a strong attack that locks him into attacking for several turns, but leaving him confused, suggesting a berserker archetype, whereas Nidoqueen gets Body Slam instead. A strong attack, but it has the secondary effect of possibly paralyzing the opponent (less attacks going her way). Nidorina also gets Bite, which can double up the stalling effects when your opponent flinches. I would place Nidoqueen as a type of endurance fighter/pugilist, she still seems geared towards attacking, and her heavily chance-based status effects all also seem incidental to attacking, so her moves might take an opponent off guard for a turn, and she can roll with the punches, but she isn't sitting there putting enemies to sleep.

Nidoking also gets Focus Energy to increase the chance to critical, which you want to do if you're attacking, as well as a chance-based insta-kill with Horn Drill. Instant kills that ignore your own Attack stat are interesting for characters who are supposed to be good at dealing damage, but given how likely Horn Drill is to miss, an all-out Hail Mary attack suits an uncontrolled berserker as well.

Interestingly, neither naturally learns any Ground-Type moves, and max out their Poison potential with the weak Poison Sting, so each of their types is incidental and they were not meant to deal elemental damage. All of their worthwhile attacks other than Double Kick are normal-type. I typically ignore TMs, as they feel more like limited opportunities to break out of an archetype into typical Pokemon gameplay, but it's worth noting there are no differences between their learnable TMs. They both obviously can get more type coverage, but there aren't any interesting differences here.

[kanna-banana]

Ok, serious talk, I know nobody wants to read this but I'll feel better posting somewhere as opposed to vomiting my feelings all over my friends again, they've had enough, please feel free to ignore this and I'll be back to being silly in no time

Ok so, I know my blog is uncomfortable to read, I understand that my negativity and constant venting is at best annoying and at worst upsetting, i am aware of that but I also know that bottling up is worse to me and i feel like a liar if i just pretend everything is fine and just post silly stuff here.

My friends keep telling me I'm not a horrible person and am pretty funny actually and I think that is because they've know me for years and I was like that but things have not been going well im the last few years.

Yes I am not a bad person and I can be funny sometimes, but all of that gets overshadowed by the numerous mental issues I have and cannot cope with properly.

English is not my first language language so this gets a bit confusing because this nuance is pretty tricky in the language but as you all know is that "i am" can mean either "i am like this at the moment" (example "I'm cold" or "I'm hungry", those are not things that are inherent to you, they are temporary states) or "i am like this PERIOD" (example "I'm human" or "I'm Brazilian", they are permanent states about yourself)

Now

I know I AM (inherent) creative, funny sometimes, alright at drawing, and a bunch of other nice things people say about me when I'm crying, but you have to understand that i also am (temporary) completely fucked up mentally and emotionally, I'm not saying I'm going to be "cured" from being autistic btw, I'm counting not being able to handle my issues "being a bad temporary thing", like, i will never stop having ADHD symptoms (cannot afford a diagnosis so I'll just call them symptoms for now, or signs if you thing the word 'symptom' is a bit tone deaf) but i know i can learn how to live with it and function, even if my functioning looks very different from what's expected from a neurotypical person.

I am, at the moment, NOT DEALING WITH MY SHIT PROPERLY, and THAT is the issue I believe can be fixed. I will never have a good knee again, even after the surgery I just feel less pain, but i can learn how to adapt to my limitations, you know?

So, I am not, inherently, a failure, i know I'm not stupid or ugly or boring, but I'm so full of debuffs that basically I'm a piece of shit right now.

Yes, I did quit my job and tried to become a web developer and it went catastrophically bad, but I can't even count that as a failure because i NEEDED to quit that job either way (it was destroying my mental health) and if you're gonna quit going to live with a friend so dear to you she's basically a sister for a while and learning a skill you always wanted to at least start learning, isn't it worthy?

Yeah I "failed", but the happiness i felt along the way was worth even if it didn't work out in the end.

I know that, my mind knows that, but my feelings are absolute chaos and I sometimes fall into a deep self hatred spiral that makes me believe lies about everything around me, it even makes me believe everyone secretly hates me, which is OBJECTIVELY not true, if there's one thing I am in this world is loved.

I know it's sad, annoying, or even upsetting to see my posts and I'm not going to pretend they're inevitable, I CAN stop myself and I should have better restraint, I'm failing at that and I apologize for all the negative feelings I might have caused.

I know it's a pretty hard goal considering how my life is a huge mess right now, but my goal in life is to be the trans person i needed to meet when I was in the closet.

I want to be the type of happy, mature and intelligent person that my friends were when I met them 6? 7 years ago?

The people that completely shattered an entire lifetime of prejudice and fear that was forced into my brain since i was a toddler, the type of people that made me look at transphobic posts and go "that's not true, I've met trans people and they're some of the best people i know", the type of people who made me realize living as who you really are is both possible and achievable.

I want to be that person, someone who, just by being themselves, can melt away prejudice or at least be that kink in the armor of an angry reactionary that one day will help shatter the barrier of lies they protect themselves with and help them see that this hate was manufactured to use them as paws in a stupid made up culture war.

I got out of this horrible place with the help of wonderful people i will never be able to thank enough, and my dream is to help others out too.

I'm not saying i want to "trans" others, obviously, just to show that we are not the weird monsters thet so many out there want you to believe we are. To destroy the prejudice with the power of a honest, happy existence.

I want to be the person I needed when I was younger, lost, depressed, considering suicide, and constantly angry at anyone the liars and grifters who I trusted told me to hate.

I want to become the person who would have saved me back them.

I know it's going to take a lot of work, I have many barriers ahead of me, some inside of myself, some external, but neither way I have a LOT of work to do, and if there's one thing i can never do is give up.

I don't even know what "giving up" means at this point, I have to keep going, not only for myself but for those I might help in the future.

I can't change the past. I can't erase the harm my bigoted ignorant words caused, but I can grow into a person who heals as much as i used to hurt.

I know I'm a handful right now, and I am trying to control my words until i have the means to work on myself and improve as a person. Just, please be patient with me. If my posts upset you in the past please for your own sake unfollow/block me, I'm sorry I hurt you while trying to hurt myself, but unfortunately it will probably happen again, and there's nothing wrong with distancing yourself from someone that hurts you, even if they didnt INTEND to hurt you.

I am NOT (inherent) a failure

I am (temporary) failing

But I will get better.

I don't know how, I don't really have a plan, but I will figure it out somehow.

Life is not a game. I am not in a "doomed run", I can and I WILL live and be the best person I can be.

Thank you.

[coreene-simblr]

Elodie had her graduation from her afterschool activity. It has been so long since I played a life stage different than YA, I thought this was the graduation with the diploma thing.

Apparently Karen's berate ignorance thing has spread to Elodie as well when she just randomly did it to her mother.

No hard feelings, Karen wanted to get a little selfie right after.

Hitting Bella's party at the Goth house, we are greeted with death. Unfortunately Karen knew this person, who I forgot the name of, and saw her die so we have a 2 day debuff of mourning now. fml.

Upstairs I see a tired Hank getting hit on by Bella who has just given birth to a baby girl named Sabrina. I was going to name her Cassandra but c'mon, Sabrina is perfect.

I was further shocked by Hank's refusal to flirt with her.

I see that the evil gnome is back to his antics. We're done Mercedes, that's a 500 simolean damage you caused me.

Which he paid...

Ah yes, there it is.

I sent them to the festival as it is Leisure day and it's raining. Every Leisure day, it rains. ugh. Anyways, while I was busy trying to get Hank to buy firecrackers,

These two idiots went and got their face painted. Fucking no! I hate this thing.

And when I was trying to get Karen to buy fireworks, Hank got his face painted as well. That's it. You all are banned from going to the festival together, ever again.

Yeah, clown is right, Karen.

She couldn't even light the firework correctly.

Second try...

Success!

NEXT

[nimona-antifa]

14# for the Salty Ask List! What's your unpopular opinion about your fandom(s)?

OKAY SO. (This will be long, TL/DR at the bottom)

First of all, I love league of legends (as you may have guessed from my profile picture) and my unpopular opinion is that it (both the game and the fandom) gets shit on WAY too much. As someone who loves math, figuring out optimal builds is so much fun for me! I love solving puzzles and making rune pages and builds for different characters and then getting to try them out is so much fun for me! Is there a big Shonen anime brand misogyny problem in parts of the fandom? Yes, absolutely. Is it probably a good idea to mute liberally because of rampant toxicity? Also yes. But I've met some great people there too!!! Maybe I'm just incredibly fucking resilient because I've been dunked in some of the deepest strongest acid vats of toxicity and negativity out there (conservative christian upbringing, league of legends, playing riven specifically, Twitter, tiktok, Steven Universe fandom) and am still a ray of sunshine in person, but I actually quite enjoy it. Do I wish it wasn't hilariously broken with a character roster that's very much male dominated? Yes. Is there a misogyny problem even within the character balancing (male OP characters get ignored or buffed while female OP characters get nerfed into the ground)? Yes. But there's so much fun to be had if you know how.

Okay. Second big fandom is Team Fortress 2 and I think that uh. Well to put it kindly I think a lot of them miss the entire point of the game. They basically have sticks up their asses about weapons being "fair and balanced" and while I agree that they should be to a certain extent, I also think focusing on that too much risks losing the spirit of the game. If I wanted an optimized, polished first person shooter, I'd play overwatch. If blizzard could get it's shit together for five fucking seconds and realize it's making some of the worst possible business decisions with the game that is. But anyway back to TF2. If we were to optimize every single weapon to be 100% fair and balanced, we miss the entire point of the game. Like, a vast majority of the game would be gone if that were the case. It's not very fair and balanced to run through a doorway only to get instantly blown up because there were 5 stickybombs there you couldn't see, but removing that would make it not TF2. I think probably the best example of this is the Sandman and Flying Guillotine combo, may she be restored soon. Was it entirely balanced? No. But in my opinion that wasn't a good reason to remove it entirely. Same with the degreaser/reserve shooter combo. Just because they're annoying doesn't mean you get rid of them entirely. Another thing they get too upset about is when someone dare suggest that a niche weapon should be buffed to checks notes fill it's niche better. Take the amputator. It's niche is to provide AoE healing. But the situations where that's handy become uh. Much less frequent thanks to the specific quirks of how it works. You enter a short taunt during which you can't move. I personally feel like it could be better served by some sort of recharging bar and a big movement speed debuff. The other big hindrance is that the damage is a direct downgrade to the stock. The other Melees all provide some sort of combat advantage to stock. The Übersaw has a slower swing speed but greatly increased critical hit chance, which if you ask literally anyone who has played with or against the Übersaw, is a significant understatement. The vita-saw provides a psychological advantage with slightly less health but the knowledge that if you do die, you won't lose all of your Über. And the Amputator is basically the Overwatch experience, trading swing speed for knowledge of the enemy's health. The amputator provides none of this, which makes it pretty shitty as a self-defense tool. It does less damage than stock with no increased swing speed or bleed effect to balance things out. I won't go into a whole bunch of detail about my fixes but I just find it ridiculous the types of things that they say will lead to power creep. The Ambassador used to be able to headshot people from as far away as you could headshot people without a zoom, and it was just accepted as part of the game for the longest time. And I'm supposed to believe that weapons filling their intended purpose is gonna be too powerful? Okay whatever. I doubt hordes of people will be swapping off of Soldier just to hit me to death with a slightly improved bonesaw on the class that has the least combat capacity but apparently it's definitely going to happen if the amputator isn't a direct downgrade to the stock in terms of self-defense!!! Sorry this got long but basically:

TL/DR:

League of Legends isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be and there's a lot of fun to be had if you know how to curate your experience

Some TF2 players are way too tryhard

[cherrynasb]

1.7 is THE perfect update for nasb2 AND HERE’S WHY

With the holiday season well behind us, NASB2 has seen multiple updates. We had 1.5 which added Mr.Krabs and brought the universal controller fixes offline, we had the 1.6 hotfix patch which fixed Grandma Gerties recovery and also brought forward some half way fixes to the way projectiles functioned but introduced a heap of issues and new “tech” with it. Finally, last Friday, fairplay labs pushed out the 1.7 update which might just be the best patch nasb2 has ever seen. Introducing a wave of new features like rotation mode, new items, new campaign power ups, and a long list of bug fixes and balance changes. 1.7 was capable of bringing all of this and so far NO huge bugs or exploits. (As far as I’ve seen)

What was fixed (there was a lot)

There was plenty of big things fixed with this update most notably the removal of the Flashing Mr. Krabs bug that I will NOT be showing on screen because it likely could cause seizures.

Fixed an issue where Projectiles and Items hitboxes would trade against character hitboxes where they were supposed to be destroyed instead.

Fixed an issue where Projectiles got stuck on platforms as they traveled through them.

They finally fixed the infinite victory screen bug, where the match would softlock if a player taunted with a certain timing during the “Finish!” screen.

Not only did this update fix some big issues, this update also added some pretty cool additions! (Grab footage)

New Game Mode – Rotation: 3 to 4 players can play in a King of the Hill 1v1 style of gameplay, where anytime a player is KO’d it goes to the waiting list, and the next player enters the fight. All seamless during the match. It can be played with Stocks or Timed variants.

New Stage: Added Clean, Double, and Triangle layouts for Food Dreams.

New Campaign power-up pack!

Ring of Rage and Crown of Fire: When both are obtained, all attacks ignore Block and Super Armor.

The Secret Formula and Krabby Patty Ingredients: When both are obtained it enables the chance for The Perfect Krabby Patty to appear.

The Perfect Krabby Patty: Ignores debuffs and a % of damage.

Jellyfish Jelly: Throw to spawn 3 jellyfish that try to shock your nearest opponent until they disappear.

Fenton Thermos: Throw the thermos and watch how ghosts appear to haunt your opponents.

Electrified Glove: Grab it to stun your opponents on your next hit.

Lawn Gnome: Throw the gnome and watch it follow you as it creates an electrical field in between you and him, electrifying opponents.

Ultra Snowzooka: Grab and shoot different sized snowballs depending on how long you hold the Light Attack button.

Finally there was a ton of changes to the overall cast. Including a ton of hidden changes not mentioned! Overall while there isn’t anything new bug wise this patch the balance changes are for sure head scratchers for plenty of the cast. Some characters were absolutely gutted like reptar who while was a top tier character had his overall damage on all his moves reduced slightly once again, and has had his Down Special nerfed to oblivion. Where as another Top Tier in the meta Aang, had his light up air buffed to combo into Strong Up Air. This buff to a character who was arguably top 2 at absolute worst easily has made him the strongest character in the game and we’ve already seen it in full display. Aang has been this good since launch and while he’s had small nerfs to his up special height and the ability to cancel out of it with air dodge, the character just has too strong of simple options like Sup Air that can single handedly deal tons of damage, combo into itself, and take stocks. This combined with their wide array of recovery options and triple jump make aang an extremely strong character and that hasn’t changed since launch.

Which leads into the main criticism of this patch. Which is just the balance choices. Yes reptar is strong and probably deserved the damage reduction nerf, but buffing an even stronger character (even if the change wasnt intended to do so) and not nerfing other extremely strong options like sup air gives off confusion signs in terms of what the teams balance changes are trying to do.

Other similar changes to characters includes Raphael with him getting nerfs to his neutral EX special Shuriken having a damage and shield damage decrease when generally he’s fallen out of the meta for a month or two now. Another mid tier whos been nerfed this patch unexpectedly was Ember. Who had her charged up air hit box size reduced which is arguably a change that should be directed at Aang. Both moves do the same thing yet Embers kills far later and now it is smaller than it was before.

I won’t be going over the full patch in this video but I felt it was important to highlight changes like this to address and question why things like this were decided on. I’m not opposed to most of the changes but I think its fair to ask why the same nerfs werent given to aang and why reptar was once again gutted seemingly out of the blue.

Granted the answer as to why is the extremely high use in majors with him still being the most played character in top 32s of events offline like Genesis.

But I digress. If you’d like to see a video discussing all the changes in detail for Patch 1.7 make sure to let me know by leaving a comment for it below.

Balance

So overall I think this patch has earned a thumbs up from me overall. If I had to rate the patch out of 10 I’d probably give it like a 7 or so. In the past I’d say the patches were closer to a 5 area. I think the game is headed in the right direction at a faster pace than I’d expect it to. Make sure as a community to keep leaving comments on socials or videos like this one expressing your thoughts on the patches as well.

Conclusion

I’ll be back next week with a new Friday NASB2 series of causal content so keep your eyes open for that, new YouTube Shorts and Tik Toks, as well as a wide array of Weekly events I have planned as well.

[mlynar-nearl]

this is very long i am apologies

yes !!! i read ur essay (?) on mlynars grief too and i just think that youve got it down super neat (ive probably repeated this too many times) so like good job !!!

ah indeed i was the anon who asked abt his kit last time too (saw the art of him too btw its very pretty, very nice ur friend did an amazing job!) so do you think hed have a talent like aosta's in that he does extra (maybe % or maybe fixed) dmg to unblocked? or hes got like a skill thats like fartooth (global only target blocked but in his case its global only target unblocked?) i think either ways adding a different debuff to all of his skills would be fun ! do you think hed be rng based cc (like aak?) or like its specifically one debuff to each skill, those kinda stuff? honestly er this is a lot of questions you can selectively answer but i just think hes probably a neat wraith killer lol no more annoying unblocked assholes running around ehe but also on a separate note, do you think he has any special interactions with other operators (excl the ones from laterano) ? his hobbies etc (just go wild man, tell me wtv even his preferred breakfast or whether he hates grass or smth) also yes ty for the advice abt mandragora !! i only figured it out like... once i accidentally made her drop blocks on herself and she died due to low hp and i was like wtf cos ??? free elimination ? and i learnt i was very wrong later on but pozy saved my ass aha so it all worked out anyways ! just training for when i actually bother clearing ch 9 ig oh and until u said it i didnt rly notice that sss like... hates all snipers. (ive tried using chalter it didnt go well... pozy as well) like all the late stage sss stages just completely dont let you use snipers for anything other than like buffs (unless youre rosa ig might have chance) shit i screwed up this is even longer than last time im so sorry if this is uncomfortable to read :sob: if this is too uh ew to converse with i can chacha slide into ur dms (but give me time i am... well theres a reason im anon) but yeah anyways have a nice day so sorry for this length and as always u can selectively answer or ignore lol ! hope ur well !

don't worry about the length, i love answering questions! I will try and get to everything. thank you for the compliments ab my post i try (oh my god do i try) :]

i think his talents would involve extra damage + prio unblocked enemies + his source of crowd control. his CC would be strictly bind, not RNG like aak, because his arts are specifically grappling hook/rope shit. i think i've been theoretically calling this talent and arts type "tethering." in lore he mainly uses it for traversal, but there's no reason it wouldn't work on people, too, so i think it fits best as a crowd control bind. one of his skills would then just do a "talent trigger increase" as part of their functionality meaning extra bind chance. of course, how useful he would actually be as a concept depends on the numbers, which is the part i'm bad at, but still, fun to think about :]

for other operators, he would definitely get on well enough with some of the cooks among the RI operators, for one. his favorite flavor of sweet thing is cinnamon, and cinnamon is easy to incorporate into things, and he's smart enough to be polite to the people feeding his interests. he would also, i think, have interesting but awkward interactions with the iberians, because while he is not himself iberian, he has traveled extensively there and shares memories of the profound silence/aftermath thereof with Andoain. ultimately, i think he's polite to most everyone he runs into if he were to go to RI, but he's already rather closed off as a person and you have to open him up with a crowbar, so i don't know if anyone could be considered a friend of his. i don't even think fiammetta is really a friend of his (he would call it that, but that's far from correct), more that they have similar enough feelings on a specific topic that leads them to cooperate. i think even increasing trust with him still leaves a lot under the surface.

other shealtiel facts...he prefers cats to dogs but understands the appeal of both, but his favorite animals are birds. being a sniper, he sees a lot of them, and spends a lot of time in places birds nest. i imagine lateran schools have a class on religion similar to catholic school (where i have unfortunately been), and that was his favorite subject because his mother was a canonist and spent most of her time analyzing the scriptures and teachings of lateran. he's surprisingly flexible because of this- he actually idealogically overlaps with andoain more than he'd like to admit, he just hates the man's methods. and life choices. when he's on the road he survives off of breakfast bars and terran poptarts. he prefers chilly weather to heat, but hates heavy snow. he has a halfway decent singing voice but never uses it outside of when he's free enough to attend a lateran service. his plan for immediately after achieving his goal (killing andoain with fia) is to take a vacation somewhere cold-but-not-too-cold and isolated and not answer his messages for six to seven months. he's still on the fence about where, though. he would do that right now if he didn't have duties to fulfill. his favorite mixed drink is a gingerbread gin and tonic (g&t + baking spice infused amaretto.) his favorite non-alcoholic drink is cranberry juice. he's become partial to a dying brand of iberian cookies because andoain likes them and he's started buying them up ahead of him out of a petty sort of spite.

SSS really does hate snipers which sucks b/c i do love me a sniperknights. chalter doesn't fall off quite as bad as some because she's useful for bosses but it's still Bad. i still bring snipers for the aspd buffs, but most of them just arent gonna hold up too much. sad :( gj with mandra! she's annoying but at least in her actual boss levels that aren't TFN you get the automatic pillar destroyers. good luck on chapter 9 when you get there :]

[athela-3]

dub-ble trouble

1.7k words; gen/comedy; sequel/companion piece to laughter is (not) the best medicine, so some things may remain contextless here; link skill CO 12% up-type nonsense; no content warnings.

Three days into Kazunari's doctor-prescribed silence, Misumi has an idea to let him be heard. After all, that's what triangle buds do for each other, right?

You think your cheap tactics can work on me? Yosh, here we go—eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen hit combo! Hah! Take your stupid DOT debuff and eat it!

“Itarun! Whassup, my man!”

“Hm? Hey, Kazunari.” Itaru's eyes don't leave his handheld console, fingers still dancing as he chains one attack after another mercilessly.

Wait a second.

Kazunari?

Itaru looks up just as the final crit finishes off his enemy, right in time to see the rest of the room also gawking at Kazunari with varying expressions of surprise. Well, almost everyone else in the room. Judging by his regular face-splitting grin, Misumi doesn't seem very concerned, while Kazunari himself is wearing a look of perfect cheerful innocence, looking every bit as if he hadn't been explicitly prohibited from saying even a single word.

A clink from the kitchen. The Director sets down her mug, brows knitting, and uh-oh, Itaru recognises that look on her face, that's the look Sakyo has when he's this close from a ten-minute unskippable scolding cutscene. “Kazunari. Why are you talking.”

Misumi turns to Kazunari, blinking slowly like a confused cat. “Kazu? Is that a question? It sounds like one, but not really…”

Kazunari nods, still wearing a smile bright enough to light a small village.

Misumi pauses. “Oh. Okay!” He frowns for a second, then opens his mouth, and then Itaru swears he hears Kazunari's voice say: “Aww, Director! It's all good! Sumi's doing the talking for me, so I don't have to say anything for real! Dope, right?”

Silence.

“Dude.” Itaru stares at Misumi, then at Kazunari, and back again. “Are you… dubbing him?”

“Yep!” Misumi nods enthusiastically, hair flying in all directions. “I asked Kazu if he wants to try it, and he said yes! I'm going to talk for him!”

“Huh?!” Tsuzuru, standing in the kitchen with a cup noodle in his hand, blurts out. “How do you even know what he wants to say?”

“Of course I know!” Misumi declares, something strikingly like indignation clouding his face. “Kazu and I are buds, so I know what he wants to say! Right, Kazu?”

Kazunari grins, throwing an arm around Misumi's shoulders. “That's right, Sumi!” he—well, not says, not exactly, his mouth and throat didn't move and the voice clearly came from Misumi's direction, but Itaru is forced to admit that was an eerily pitch-perfect imitation.

“Kazunari Miyoshi, CV: Misumi Ikaruga,” he murmurs. “Huh. Fancy that.”

Tsuzuru blinks, sighing deeply. “I feel like I'm watching a puppet show…”

Kazunari reaches a hand towards the playwright, and immediately Misumi jumps into action. “C'mon, Tsuzurun! This way, I can still say my lines when the Summer Troupe is practicing, and I can talk to you guys! It's faster than typing, too!”

“That doesn't make it any less weird!”

“Still,” the Director shrugs, “that's a good point. You can keep on LIME-ing things to us for daily conversation, but practice has been kind of tricky…”

Tsuzuru jolts. “Director—! You don't seriously think—”

“If it's for practice, why not? It'll help the others get the feel for their timing, and you have to admit, doing this sort of double-act takes a lot of skill and concentration. It's basically an extended role study.” She turns to the two, eyeing them pensively. “And like they said, it sure is faster than typing.”

“So you prefer dubs to subs, huh?” Itaru grins.

The Director shrugs. “We can try it out for today's practice,” she decides, completely ignoring his comment. Oof. “But no promises after that.”

Kazunari pumps his fist, triumphant, and Misumi mirrors him with an excited little hop. “Yay! Thank you, Director!” he shouts in his own voice, before following it with an in-character (?) “Thanks, Director! That's so poggers of you!”

“Really, you guys?” Itaru throws his hands in the air, letting his console drop onto his lap. “Isn't anyone gonna mention how scarily spot-on his Kazunari impression is? Seriously, you should consider becoming a voice actor.”

“Huh?” Misumi's eyes are round as melons. “But I already act with my voice!”

Kazunari elbows him lightly, and, oh, here we go, he wants to say something Misumi doesn't know about, doesn't he? On one hand, Itaru could step in now and explain how voice acting is a different profession from normal acting, but on the other hand, he could also wait this out and see how the dubber and dub-ee resolve this.

He expected pantomime, at least a few gestures, maybe even the return of of Kazunari's phone to type out whatever it is he intends to say. What he did not expect was a few seconds of eye contact, after which Misumi simply turns around and says, with perfect confidence is his telepathic abilities: “Whoa, is that really a thing? Can stage actors just switch and become voice actors like that?”

Tsuzuru slams his palms against the kitchen counter. “How?” he demands. “How do you do that? Miyoshi, was that even really what you wanted to say?”

Kazunari nods, and so does Misumi. Twin pairs of nettled glares pin Tsuzuru in perfect synchronisation. “We're triangle buds,” Misumi repeats, with every air of an older sibling who has to explain the same thing over and over again and is running low on patience, “so I just have to use my triangle senses! It's easy!"

Tsuzuru stares at them, confusion and frustration flashing into desperation across his eyes. Finally, he sighs, shakes his head, and takes another bite of his cup noodles.

“But, really. Can you switch from stage acting to voice acting that easily?” the Director echoes thoughtfully. “It's one thing to convey your emotions to an auditorium, but when your voice is all you have to go by… Without gestures, body language, or even eye contact, that's a whole different kind of practice, isn't it?”

“Funny, that's exactly what Azami said the other day,” Itaru grins. “But it does happen now and then. Sometimes they still do stage acting and only voice one or two characters, but some people change careers entirely. Like—

“I'm home!”

The door swings open, and in walks Tenma, eyes immediately seeking out the clock on the living room wall. When he notices the group congregating in the kitchen, he juts his chin and pops off a sincere, if somewhat exhausted, grin in lieu of greeting.

“Welcome back,” Tsuzuru says.

“Tenten! Welcome back, piko!”

“Hey, Tenma. How was the photoshoot? Did you have fun?” The Director smiles, and Itaru mentally adds it to his ever-increasing hypothetical list of Reasons Why the Director is Everyone's Mum.

“It was fine,” Tenma shrugs. “Regular stuff, just—wait a second, what was that?”

“I asked if you had fun.”

“No, not you, Director! Before that!”

“Welcome home, piko!”

And Tenma all but jumps in his own skin. “Hey! Aren't you not supposed to talk yet? You said it's going to take a couple weeks at least! It's only been three days!”

“Oh, here we go again,” Itaru rolls his eyes theatrically. “Dialogue re-triggered.”

“Kazunari didn't say that. Misumi did,” Tsuzuru rattles off, numbering the points off his fingers. “He's going to voice Kazunari for today's practice. The future is still undecided.”

“The future always is,” Itaru notes mildly, pretending not to see the dirty look Tsuzuru shoots him.

“It's all right, Tenma!” Misumi assures him, before adding in full-on Kazunari mode: “The Director gave us permission, so we'll be in your care, yeah?”

“Sheesh… Seriously, you guys?”

“It's not a bad idea,” the Director says. “Or do you prefer yesterday's drawing boards?”

“No! Not the drawing boards!” Tenma's eyes widen in panic. “That's impossible!”

“Aw, but I think your pictures were nice!” Misumi puts in, coated in pure hundred-proof sincerity. “I liked the beef with the face and wiggly bits!”

“The what?”

“Nothing! It's nothing!” Tenma shakes his hand in the air, as if physically swatting Itaru's question aside. “L–look, it's almost time for practice, right? I had to hurry back from the photoshoot for practice, you know! Don't just stand around like that, let's go!”

“You heard your leader,” the Director chides, though the twinkle in her eyes completely undermines any seriousness in her words. “You boys go ahead, I'll catch up with you after I finish my coffee.”

“Okay!” says Misumi.

Kazunari snaps a mock salute, complete with a wink.

“Yes, Ma'am! C'mon, Sumi, let's go, piko!”

And with that… dialogue? Monologue? Something in between?—the dubbing duo bustle out of the kitchen like matched whirlwinds, curtains fluttering and footsteps echoing in their wake, while Tenma trails behind with a considerable gap in energy levels.

“I'm never gonna get used to that,” Tsuzuru mutters as he watches them leave.

“Eh, could be worse,” Itaru offers philosophically.

“Like how?”

“Could be Citron doing the dubbing.”

Tsuzuru shudders, pain shooting across his face like a thunderbolt. He finishes the last of his noodles and drops the emptied cup into the rubbish bin. “Now, that's just…”

The Director shakes her head, half a smile tugging at her lips. “Relax, they'll probably get bored of it sooner than later. Just let them have their fun for now. Besides, it can't possibly get any weirder than this, right?”

[marshvlovestv]

My Hades weapon aspect tier list

Because I’m just Hades brainrot 24/7.

(Ignore the E-tier, I made my rankings before I realized this website uses an E-tier.)

I use all of the aspects all of the time because I love to change things up. Full disclosure, though, I’ve max upgraded most of them but not all of them; maybe I’ll like some of them better once they’re fully upgraded, but who knows.

I feel the need to explain my rankings but I’m putting that under a Read More because I’ve written a full paragraph for most of these.

Aspect of Zagreus

Most Aspects of Zagreus are a baseline C-tier. They get the job done just fine but their little perks don’t make them anything special to me. The only exception to this is the fists’ Aspect of Zagreus, which I would call A-tier. Dodge chance is very valuable to me - if you check my records, Greater Evasion is actually my most-used boon.

Aspect of Nemesis - C-tier

I actually used to really love this one, and I still think bonus critical chance is valuable. But as my heat gets higher and higher, I find myself having a harder time with the sword in general and often resort to just attacking wildly and not feeling like I have the time to use the special, which means I don’t take advantage of this aspect’s main benefit.

Aspect of Poseidon - F-tier

Congrats, Poseidon, not only do you have my least favorite boons, you also have my least favorite aspect! You’re going to notice that I dislike the cast-centric aspects, and that’s because I rarely use cast and often forget it exists. But this aspect in particular I just don’t understand. It’s not like the bloodstones aren’t going to dislodge themselves eventually, and in the meantime, don’t you want them to stay in the enemies? Having bloodstones in them debuffs them. Not to mention it doesn’t work with Stygian Soul and is useless if you use Demeter, Dionysus, or Ares’s cast. In my opinion, the only boon that synergizes well with this aspect is Exit Wounds; otherwise, it’s pointless.

Aspect of Arthur - A-tier

Once you get over how slow it is, this aspect has a really beefy attack that cuts through enemies in no time. I actually got my fastest time ever with this aspect. Not to mention, 50 free HP? Yes please.

Aspect of Achilles - F-tier

Don’t hate me? I just find this one really difficult to control. Also, I usually like to use the spear’s special against Theseus and the Greatshields, because even if they block it from one direction it’ll still hit them coming back. I guess I still have that option with this aspect, but it’s not as intuitive.

Aspect of Hades - A-tier

My go-to on the spear. It’s not very flashy or exciting, but it does what you want it to do.

Aspect of Guan Yu - B-tier

This aspect has grown on me a lot, although I do think I still like it mostly as a novelty - it’s not exactly ideal for beating the game, but it’s something different and it’s a lot of fun to play around with. The small health pool is stressful, but stealing your health back is satisfying.

Aspect of Chaos - B-tier

According to Tiermaker’s average rankings, this is the favorite overall aspect. And I guess I get that. To me it’s okay. The problem with it for me is that the shield’s base special never really impressed me that much, and adding a few more shields to that equation isn’t that much of an improvement.

Aspect of Zeus - S-tier

This one is just awesome. It feels great being able to keep attacking and blocking while your special is out there doing its thing. Also, a quick tip: this one is called Aspect of Zeus for good reason. The special synergizes great with Zeus’s lighting effects, which basically let it do double damage. It’s really satisfying to watch, too.

Aspect of Beowulf - F-tier

Not only is this cast-based, but I really don’t think that any benefits offered by this aspect are worth taking 10% more damage. Every time I start a run with this aspect I immediately think “Fuck, this was a mistake.”

Aspect of Chiron - S-tier

I love choosing a single target and just feeding arrows into them, especially with stackable status effects on the special. This is my ol’ reliable when I want to use the bow.

Aspect of Hera - D-tier

I don’t hate this quite as much as the other cast-based aspects, because if I am going to use the cast, it’s good to get some range on it. Still, I find it underwhelming.

Aspect of Rama - D-tier

I like the special, and the heavy attack is pretty good. I just can’t get over how slowly this thing charges up.

Aspect of Talos - D-tier

I like to put Aphrodite’s Weak effect on this aspect’s special so enemies can’t hurt me as much even though I’ve brought them in close. Unfortunately, sometimes if an enemy is too far away when I use the special on them, it will give them the “magnetized” status effect (or whatever you want to call it) but won’t make them Weak, which is really annoying and the main reason I ranked this so low.

Aspect of Demeter - C-tier

The supercharged special is great in theory, but in practice it doesn’t help me very much because I always seem to waste it on a small enemy, or an enemy that already has very low health, or by just punching the air.

Aspect of Gilgamesh - B-tier

My boyfriend’s favorite aspect. He likes the risk-reward system of making an enemy both take more damage and deal more damage. I don’t like that. Usually I maim an enemy and then get the hell away from them until the effect resolves. What elevates this one for me are the extra dashes.

Aspect of Eris - D-tier

I was going to make this one F-tier, but last night I did a run with it and it was actually kind of decent so I bumped it up. It’s still really unwieldy to get into the right position to get the buff. Also, hot take, I think that they shouldn’t offer you the Hazard Bomb upgrade while you’re using this aspect because that’s just stupid.

Aspect of Hestia - F-tier

Reloading will give me one good shot? Just one? Great, thanks, I love it. Too bad it’s useless to me because my first shot usually misses.

Aspect of Lucifer - S-tier

I don’t know why everyone hates this aspect. It’s totally badass. Maybe I only ranked it S-tier because the other rail aspects suck so bad that this seems fantastic in comparison, but damn, I really love this crazy laser gun.

[windblooms]

answering meta/build asks i got over the past week below!

Anonymous said:

okay team comp help,.. I need your advice - I want to use diona, bennett, rosaria and childe on my team but I’m not entirely sure about rosaria’s mechanics... what do you think?

rosaria is meant to deal physical damage - of course she can be a cryo damage dealer, but just like xinyan, physical damage is more convenient with the nature of their skills.  it’s too early to definitively say what rosaria’s mechanics are, so i’ll just comment on your team’s elemental resonance and synergy: two cryo gives +15% crit rate against enemies affected by cryo.  bennett and childe is already a good combo, great for vaporize and big damage.  you also have a freeze comp going on sans bennett.  rosaria could be your dps whenever childe switches back into ranged form!  so i think so far your team is pretty solid :0 

Anonymous said:

I have a question! Are you familiar with the Genshin yourtuber Zy0x? I really like their videos, but do you know if they’re any good? Thank you!

i have heard of him yes!!  admittedly though i don’t really watch a lot of his content . . . all of the things i’ve heard about his videos, though, have been very positive!  in-depth and explains the nuances between different artifacts, weapons, etc.  i believe he’s (mid)core with how he explains things as well . . . ?  overall someone who i’d trust if i was lost on a genshin topic.

Anonymous said:

what artifacts/weapons would you suggest for a sub dps/support xingqiu? c5 btw

i would recommend support xingqiiu over (sub)dps xingqiu.

subdps: 

weapons: primordial jade cutter/skyward blade > sacrificial sword > festering desire.

artifact sets: 4piece heart of depth > 2piece heart of depth + 2piece noblesse. 

artifact main stats: hp flower, atk feather, atk% timepiece, hydro damage bonus goblet, crit rate/damage circlet

artifact substat prio: crit rate/damage > atk% > hp% > energy recharge.

support: 

weapons: skyward blade > sacrificial sword > festering desire.

artifact sets: 4piece noblesse > 2piece heart of depth + 2piece noblesse.

artifact main stats: hp flower, atk feather, hp% timepiece, hydro damage bonus goblet, hp% circlet

artifact substat prio: hp% > energy recharge > atk%. 

Anonymous said:

hello!! i’m not sure if you’ve already answered this type of question before but with the fact that childe’s potential is locked behind his constellation is he still worth pulling for a f2p? :0 he’s not really kind in that regard lmao so i’m still trying to decide who to pull between him or venti and which bow would be best for who when i have both stringless and rust sitting around unused ㅠㅠ

yes!  childe is still worth pulling.  let me put this on a scale, hm . . . if diluc is the best dps in the game, a 9/10 on the scale, then childe is like . 7.5/10??? even if he doesn’t have constellations.  his aoe (in my opinion) is actually more than diluc’s due to riptide procs.  he also has amazing synergy with bennett, even when not ulting.  my point with bringing up childe’s constellation lock is that there’s just so much more he can do with them than without - c0 childe and c6 childe are not the same character, unlike c0 vs c6 keqing (hahaha someone fight me over this).  

stringless is currently venti’s best gacha bow, besides skyward harp, but the new 5star weapon elegy for the end is looking to be venti’s own 5star weapon.  so weapon prio for venti would go elegy of the end > stringless > skyward harp > favonius warbow imo. 

for childe, skyward harp > viridescent hunt > rust > stringless, but only stringless if you build bennett!  explanation here. 

hopefully i helped clear any confusion. :0

liastark0:

Hey! I have a few questions, which is a better healer, Qiqi or Barbara? Also, can I be considered really luck if I get two five stars within thirty pulls (hu tao and qiqi), cause people are talking about getting a good five star in ninety pulls and im like “???”, I barely have enough primogems for a three ten pulls.

Istg, your such a good help when it comes to genshin.

qiqi is the better healer - 5stars have higher base stats than 4stars.  qiqi scales off of atk, while barbara scales off of hp.  qiqi’s skill can also apply the physical debuff superconduct because it’s electro, whereas barbara’s hydro skill cannot apply debuffs. 

same logic kind of applies with their ults, with the addition that qiqi can just quick cast and switch out to have her allies attack enemies who are marked, continuously gaining health until the mark wears off, while barbara’s ult heal value is fixed. 

and yes, you are really lucky if you get a 5star within 70 pulls - much less 30!!  and about the “people are talking about getting a good five star in ninety pulls”, this is true.  90 pulls is hard pity, and there is a chance to get a 5star between 76-80 pulls.  getting a 5star in less than 76 pulls is rare enough already, so the fact that you got 2 within 30 (when the pull rate for a 5star is 0.6% - not even a full percent) is amazing. 

Anonymous said:

Hi, could I have some Genshin advice please? If not, feel free to ignore! I currently have an r5 white tassel on Hu Tao as her weapon. I like the crit rate stat, but I feel bad having a three star weapon on her. I also have the favonious lance and a dragonspine spear, should I swap the tassel out for one of those? Thank you!

keep white tassel, especially if it’s r5!  don’t use dragonspine spear because the physical damage bonus on hutao is icky.  r5 white tassel beats out favonius lance on all regards imo as well, since the white tassel r5 passive increases normal attack damage by 48%.  yes, even if it’s a 3star weapon, i’ve seen lots of hutao players excel with it.  so it seems as if white tassel r5 is your best option so far!

Anonymous said:

Catch me looking at childe's complicated af playstyle and thinking "big brain time"

HSADLJFSDFD YEAH?  his playstyle doesn’t take long to get used to though :0 it’s just about counting your seconds or getting a feel for when you should switch him back to ranged form so your skill cd isn’t too long.  he also has a lot of repetitive terminology in his kit LOL thanks mhy ;; but i promise playing him is easier than it sounds :0

[winglssdemon]

I helped out (as a healer) with a different guild's ops last night and I came to a very big realization. I am absolutely spoiled by my guild.

Before I hopped into the first ops, I let my guild know that I was doing one before our own guild's ops. And I even told them, 'there's no way this ops will take two hours, but a heads up just in case.'

Spoiler alert, it took two hours. And it was Karagga's Palace which I've done with fight explanations in my own guild in roughly an hour.

This group like made me think of all the healer memes I've ever seen.

-A DPS yelling 'I need heals!!!' when they were at roughly 60% health

-With the exception of one person, everyone stood in the fire and the red circles at least once and like, I'm a decent healer but I'm not a healer who can heal 6 players at the same time.

-A DPS kept acting like a tank and running ahead before the fight explanations were finished and aggroing everything in sight

-DPS telling me they're dying while I'm trying to keep the tank alive (like, did they think I'm just ignoring them completely? Like I said yes, I'm gonna come heal for you and then just not play?)

-To be fair, I also struggled a lot as a healer in the last boss fight since I am not good at cleansing debuffs. I've only just got my UI to show the debuffs properly but I still forget to look at the bar.

Did I mention we 7-manned the 8 man op and I was solo healing too?

Overall they were really nice and friendly in voice chat. They definitely didn't really know what they were doing fully but they all seemed open to learning.

[haloraptor]

Tell me your answers to every question >:3c (you know who this is nerd)

I AM LATE BUT YES I KNOW WHO THIS IS

(Ask game in question)

1. What level do you usually play on?

Despite having nearly 900 hours logged into this game, most of my saves are on radiant. I’ve started playing on darkest tho and it’s going smoothly so far!! Or as much as it can.

2. First building/amenity you maxed out?

Checking my achievements, I think it was the blacksmith. I always upgraded armor whenever possible at the start because I was nervous and thus played a bit defensively (I’m no longer nervous but now it’s just a habit)

3. Who was your first character to die?

My darling crusader Cheney. He got crit down to death’s door with a bleed by a collected highwayman and bled out when his turn came up. That’s what I get for not bringing adequate backline damage to a Collector fight //wheezes and cries but hey he lasted past week 100 so I did good keeping everyone alive until then :’3

4. Favourite character?

Since there’s a favorite class question too I’m just gonna,,,use my heroes. Anyway //grabs my jester Warci under the arms and holds him up like Simba

I could talk for hours about why I love this lad so much but I’ll summarize it with: comic relief with a gigantic heart ft. an overwhelmingly strong dad instinct and ceaseless love for his wife.

5. Favourite ship?

I’m a hoe for reymas but if we’re ignoring that???? Occultist/arbalest. They just work so dang well together that it kinda baffles me that we all seem to be sleeping on this gierosjg;ieosr (plus my occultist/arbalest pair are heckin. cute as heck)

6. Favourite class? Why?

I really like the jester because I’m a sucker for them clowns and them bards so I’m a mega sucker for them clown bards rosejgoigesr plus “jester therapy” has saved me so much dang money it’s unbelievable. Who needs stress relief when you have a clown with a lute

7. Boss that you absolutely hate?

The Hag can just heck RIGHT OFF tbh, if it wasn’t for how the brigand 32 pounder trophy is a staple for my houndmasters I wouldn’t even bother (she hasn’t killed anyone she’s just annoying)

8. Best quirks?

I really like luminous, corvid’s eye, natural swing, deadly, and quick reflexes, those are usually instant lock-ins on nearly anyone. Hard-skinned, fated, and steady are cool too. From there though it’s more about what class gets the quirk (I have eldritch hater and eldritch slayer on an occultist and it makes life fun)

9. Worst quirks?

//shakes my fist at compulsive and curious and the yips

10. Which area do you find the scariest? Which boss?

Area: CHAMP WARRENS CHAMP WARRENS OH GOD like the ruins are easy, the cove’s fun, and the weald’s annoying. The warrens are just scary and have been responsible for most of my hero deaths. I go there when I wanna feel the fear of god in me.

Boss: Either the Shambler or the Countess. The Flesh also kinda puts me on-edge but not nearly to the level of those two. I think the Countess wins out though because I’ve become more used to shamblers with how many times I’ve fought them by now.

11. If you could remove one negative mechanic from the game (ex- bleed) what would it be?

Idk if it counts but I’d remove how even if certain attacks miss their effect is still triggered (like a flagellant missing his exsanguinate giving him debuffs anyway or an ectoplasm’s cytokinesis missing and spawning an extra anyway). It’s so heckin,,,,ahgauhgu

12. Have you ever killed Vvulf? Be honest.

I’ve stomped all over him three times at this point. First time was so much of a wreck I wrote a fanfic of it, second time was easy, third time was just. An utter curbstomp. He didn’t stand a CHANCE-

13. Opinions on the Light/the religion of the setting? Headcanons?

Uhhhh I honestly haven’t thought about it much,,,I’ve just used it as a vague backdrop for character backstories. I don’t even really have any concrete opinions of it because funnily enough, my opinion tends to fluctuate depending on what perspective I’m writing from. So??? Yeah cop-out lame answer 

14. Weirdest headcanon you have.

The Thing from the Stars works at Walmart

15. What would you name your heir?

The heir(ess) of each save has a different name. The heiress of my primary save is Catherine, the heiress of my secondary save is Genevieve, and the heir of my tertiary save is Jeremiah.

[your-turn-to-role]

vax'ildan and mollymauk: boyfriends

this is my favourite anonymous ask i've ever received

i don't even know if it's asking a question or just asserting a fact

boyfriends: discuss? sure, let's do that!

many different angles you could go at this from

is it possible in canon? not when they're both alive, for sure, by the time molly was molly vax had been dead for over 20 years

but we live in a tragic world with a canon afterlife so let's keep going

have they met now, in that case? highly likely

would either be looking for a relationship in the afterlife? well, i imagine molly's down for anything that makes being dead less boring, he's all about new experiences and things that look fun. his whole thing was "you're probably gonna die soon so experience as much as possible before you do," but if he dies and keeps thinking i can't imagine that goes away

vax.... on one hand, this boy has more than enough romantic drama. he trapped himself in a never-ending guilt spiral over just gilmore and keyleth. he does not need to add a chaotic circus tiefling to the mix. also a part of me wants to say he's still waiting for them, and he would be, once vax loves you he loves you, but if keyleth and gilmore can eventually move on and find other people, i guess there's nothing saying he can't either?

and on the other hand, the idea of vax waltzing up for work one day with this random tiefling in tow and giving the raven queen another instance of her bi-weekly "what did i get myself into" breakdown is fucking hilarious

(and listen..... she loves her bird son. but knowing someone's soul and having to live with that person are two very different things and a very lonely goddess who hasn't been mortal in millennia cannot and will not be prepared for full time adoption of a very bisexual, very ADHD disaster bird, just saying)

(could i write a whole sitcom that's just these two adjusting to living together? yes.)

(am i ignoring any vax characterisation in dalen's closet that contradicts this? also yes.)

but also this is fandom where the rules don't matter and the universe is fake, so how about AUs?

would they even be into each other? well, probably

vax's type is, in general:

-heart of gold

-unpredictable/spontaneous

-could murder him with magic

on the surface of it, not sure how much of that is molly, he has a bit of magic but it's blood hunter magic which i can't imagine the raven queen looks favourably on, and it's generally more for buffs/debuffs than spells in their own right. also molly, like most of the mighty nein, has kind of a difficult to pin down sense of morality? (the unpredictability, however, he has in the bag)

but reading deeper, i think molly's ethics are more in line with vax's than a lot of the group, i feel like the whole "leave every place better than you found it" thing would resonate well with him? and molly does care about people, he's quick to drop anyone outside of his immediate family if they don't respect him, but so is vax, and they both kind of follow a "steal from people if you need to, but only people who don't need the money, do good things for people where and when you can, no one's going to help if you don't so be the one to change things" kind of code. vax is more likely to beat himself up over mistakes, whereas molly would just move on, and vax is infinitely more self-sacrificing (as are both keyleth and gilmore), but i don't think that necessarily disqualifies. and molly's a lot better at taking care of people, vax by his own admission doesn't handle emotional confrontation well, but that's half of molly's job, so it evens out

as for the magic part, he may not have the magic, but he sure as fuck has the spectacle, which is half the fun. vax likes cool things and impressive things and interesting unique things and that's pretty squarely in molly's corner, so they could make it work

molly's type, by his own admission, is nearly everyone. he admitted to being attracted to most of the m9 under zone of truth. and as for compatibility on his end, i think with vax's trickstery nature there's enough to keep him interested. might not be a fan of vax's tendency to obsess over his worries, life is too short to be emo about things, but a) molly's good at dealing with that, he's had plenty of practice, and b) vax was trying to get himself out of that depression spiral, and what really helped with that was the exact kind of rhetoric molly has in abundance

plus, both dex high fighters, the most openly bi/pan members of their respective parties, both have themes of stealth, trickery, and death/undeath, both (along with vex and fjord) have some of the more noticeable fantasy racism backstories (neither tieflings nor half elves were particularly welcome in the environments they grew up in, and occasionally get negative remarks on it from random npcs, also molly got instantly protective of jester when he realised she might not be aware of that, trying to make sure she didn't get arrested just for being a tiefling in the wrong place at the wrong time, and from what we know of pre-stream vox machina vax got similarly attached to keyleth), so they've got plenty in common

(also worth noting: molly was taliesin's backup character for when he expected percy to die, so there's a universe out there where these two were in the same adventuring party and that would be something)

ultimate verdict: chaotic good

(and to clarify, anon, if you're reading this, am not making fun of you, this was genuinely fun to receive/answer!)

[megareviews]

Octopath Traveler Combat Review

Hello whoever’s reading this, I’m here to talk about Octopath Traveler’s combat system, and how it sucks. Now you might be wondering, why am I writing about this now, isn’t that game kind of old at this point? Yes, it is, but I only “finished” playing recently since I was working off of a borrowed copy and it’s more the level of disappointment I felt while playing it has stuck with me much more than many other games I’ve played. Since I want to go into game design and development, I thought that it would be good practice to do a deep dive on game mechanics, and it’s easier to write about something that I have strong feelings about to start with. While I have many issues with Octopath, the combat system is what the player is dealing with the most (which in itself is an issue), so the fact that it was lackluster dropped the enjoyability of the game more than if it were better balanced with story and exploration. I’ll try to hit everything that I had a gripe with, from minor things I personally would want changed, to what I view as major flaws that lower the enjoyment for everyone. I will be talking about the post-game boss, because a lot of my issues come into focus during it, so spoiler warning.

For reference, I’ll be talking about the game the way I played it, so I’ll give my main character loadouts in relation to the final boss. Team 1: Hunter Therion, Cleric Alfyn, Sorceror Cyrus, and Thief Olberic; Team 2: Warlord H’annit, Scholar Ophelia, Apothecary Primrose, and Runelord Tressa.

Now the big overarching problem with this game is its simplicity. Making a game simple can be a good thing, and definitely makes it more accessible, but there are a plethora of sub issues that I will be going into throughout this caused by how oversimplified many systems are in this game. For starters there is the lack of skill diversity, as in, there just isn’t very much that characters and enemies do over the course of the game. The offensive skills have 12 possible damage types, 6 weapons (Phys) and 6 elemental (Elem) and there’s only really 4 different ways these are implemented: single hit, multi hit, wide (hits all enemies) hit, and wide multi hit. Multi hits are generally just better due to the break system and damage limits, and wide hits are better the more enemies there are. Those of you good with numbers might have already multiplied those to get 48 ways of hitting an enemy, and I’ll add two, since the Merchant has an single hit untyped skill and the Starseer has a wide untyped skill, for a grand total of 50 that I can remember. Looking at that number I actually don’t know if that looks like a lot for somebody who hasn’t played the game, but the damage types only really matter in the break mechanic of the game and which stat is used for calculating damage. No particular type of damage is better for damage or accuracy skill wise, and the elem skills will do the exact same thing no matter which element is used since they’re only based on the user’s Mag stat. Phys attacks are a bit different since each one is affected by the weapon the user has equipped for that type, but they’re generally all +Str and then +Mag / +Acc / +Crit / +Spd / +Eva. Some Phys skills also have side effects that help differentiate between them, but the basic attacks are the same when the weapons are similar.

Since I brought it up, let’s talk about the two main mechanics of combat that this game has, the break and boost systems. Overall, these systems are pretty good on their own, and most of my issues are rather small here. First up is the break system: hit the opponent with their weaknesses a number of times, and they lose any remaining moves they have this turn, any they would take on the next turn, and all attacks against them deal more damage, though on the turn after the next, they are guaranteed to move first. This is where most of the fun of the game is, figuring out the enemy’s weaknesses, as they are hidden when you first encounter an enemy, only revealed when the weakness is hit, or with the Analyze skill, and then timing the breaks to be the most beneficial to your team. Many enemies belonged to groups with similar weaknesses, so it’s interesting to learn like winged creatures are generally weak to wind and / or spear attacks. The main problem I have with the break system is that once an enemy is broken, all damage types have the same effectiveness. Before being broken, an enemy that is weak to fire will take extra damage than if it’s hit with an ice attack, but while broken these attacks will do the same damage. Any accuracy bonuses don’t matter, since you can’t miss an attack on a broken enemy and speed bonuses only really matter if the order in which skills are cast is important, which there are some cases, usually with buffing allies. Then a bit smaller is how the weakness bar is always ordered, so some damage types are more useful to figure out all of the weaknesses. For example, if a weakness to staves is the leftmost weakness to be found, the player knows that there are no other physical weaknesses and to just start trying elemental ones. There were also some interesting extra mechanics that were only used a few times, such as shuffling weaknesses after a break, or, one mechanic used exactly once in phase 1 of the final boss, rotating through weaknesses when being attacked.

Then we get to the boost system, which complements the break system very well, with only minor annoyances. It makes the player decide between spending power against an unbroken opponent to break them faster, save up to deal massive damage to an opponent once they break, or how frequently turns need to be spent to cast buffs or debuffs. One issue that I have here is that magic users get the short end of the stick again, as basic attacks are the only moves (besides Bewildering Dance, the RNG move) that boosting will cause more instances of the move to occur. Boosting three times on somebody that will basic attack an enemy can cause them to lose 4 shields, while doing the same on a fire skill will just cause it to do more damage, which is objectively better to do when the enemy is broken. This usually isn’t an issue, as the BP can be spent on status effects and healing which will always be helpful, so besides Cyrus (laugh at him, he’s a nerd) there’s always something to spend BP on, thought your personal playstyle might dictate otherwise. Something that’s more personally annoying is how the limit is 5 BP max per character, since the most you can use is 3 per turn. What would be really nice and satisfying would be to break an opponent, have everybody spend 3 BP for full boosted whatever on the break turn, and then have everybody spend another 3 BP on fully boosted whatever else on the second break turn.

Next is another facet of the simple problem, is that there is significantly less character variability than the game wants you to think, and that’s not much in the first place. There are only 96 total skills for player characters, as there are 12 jobs with 8 skills each, and each character has their default job and may also equip a secondary job, letting each character go into battle with 16 skills, ignoring the path actions that grant others conditionally. The 8 base jobs can be simplified into 2 categories, DPS and Utility, 3 if you want to split the utilities into physical and elemental which I see as reasonable, or if you want to stretch it and split the 2 DPSs in the same way. I’ll stick with 3 since I can show how to best simplify them this way, watch. DPS: multiple damage type skills; Phys Utility: one weapon type set of skills, one single target elem skill, and a couple (de)buffs; Elem Utility: a single target elem skill, a wide elem skill, and a bunch of buffs. The advanced classes are even simpler, three of them being every attack type in either weapons or elements and then the remaining one being a bunch of buffs with one multi element skill so that every element had 5 related skills. I’m debating going into each individual job, but there are two that I will be getting into later for sure, Thief and Starseer, for opposite reasons.

Related to the lack of damage types and skills, is a lack of feeling of progression throughout the game. You gain access to 66% of the skills you will ever have by the end of the first quarter of the game, and the last 33% you won’t get until about the last quarter of the game. While the beginning of the a game it makes sense to give the players a bunch of tools rapidly, especially given the whole theme of versatility of the 8 different starting characters the game is based around, skills just scale up with the player’s stats, given through levels and equipment, otherwise they stay the same. While the middle half of the game can be used to mix and match secondary jobs on characters, it’s all just variations on the familiar. While this lack of progression just makes the game a bit boring until you start finding the advanced jobs, the actual issue is how SP scales through the game. The game ends up getting significantly easier as you progress further into the game since the SP costs become a smaller percentage of each character’s SP pools, and most forms of SP regeneration are percentage based, so characters get back SP easier too. For example, I had Ophelia with Second Wind (which I will get to in detail later) and a bunch of SP equipment, which by mid-game meant she could cast most spells and heal back more SP than they cost, and late-game everything was free outside of revive, which took two turns to fully heal. This is contrast to the beginning of the game, where a single skill cast could deplete a character’s entire SP pool, especially the physical jobs, as they usually came with smaller SP pools in the first place.

But where the runaway scaling is the worst, is actually on the thief job. Thief is a physical utility class, so it comes with dagger skills, the mandatory single hit fire skill, phys str and def debuffs, and some slightly more interesting abilities that falloff as the game goes on and you don’t need items or SP as much. All three dagger skills have special qualities, the divine skill uses the characters spd in the damage calculation, but HP Thief and Steal SP are the really broken ones. They both function the same way, hit twice with the dagger, then recover some percentage of the damage dealt to the stat in the name, 50% to HP or 5% to SP. The cost is also the same for each, 6 SP. There seemed to be a bit of a decrease in accuracy for each compared to just basic attacking with a dagger, so early on it was a bit of a risk to use it on enemies, especially if they were unbroken and not weak to daggers, as you would be losing SP to gain 30 health, or getting two dagger hits without boosting. But then, once the total damage of both hits reached 120, or even if you wanted to be safer, the damage of either hit, you start having a move that is free to use and hits more times than a basic attack without using BP, while also being able to heal yourself in a pinch. Now, the max damage you can deal in one hit without the Surpassing Power is 9,999, and you can very clearly see that a thief becomes an invincible slaughterer, as one can either heal themself for 9,999 HP, which is the max, or 999 SP, which is also the max, per turn. Now this might take a bit of set up, such as decreasing the enemy’s physical defense, which I remember mentioning is an ability that the thief job has, or increasing the thief’s physical strength, and there are a few ways to do that, but what I’m saying is it’s pretty much just all lined up for you to do way too easily with next to no drawbacks.

I’ve mentioned two support skills by now, so I should probably talk about them and the issues that they have. There’s 4 for every job, so 48 total, and each character has 4 slots that they can have support skills assigned to with no job related restrictions. This theoretically is about 200000 combinations, but since many support skills don’t synergize well with either the other ones or with the character or just are worse than others, there’s actually a lot less. The first way the options are culled are through support skills that are basically required. First on that list of required ones is that everybody needs Saving Grace, full stop. It changes the equipped character’s max HP from what is listed to 9,999, though if their HP is above their listed max, they can’t be healed any further until they have returned to a normal HP level. This gets very important for many late game bosses, and I feel like every paragraph is opening another two or more topics to go to, as most character’s 2k~3k isn’t enough. After that is some form of SP assistance, as the support skills are the ones with all the fancy %SP recovery. There’s 4 options to choose from: % max heal, heal % basic attack damage done, halve all SP costs, and heal % damage taken. Your magic casters will generally get the % max heal, since they have large mana pools to take advantage of that, and your DPSs will have the basic damage one, with much smaller mana pools and higher physical attack damage. Anyone with the Thief class can skip this, since as I’ve said, they will never run out of mana anyways. The % damage taken isn’t particularly useful as it’s such a small percentage and much less reliable than the others given it’s based on the enemy’s actions and targeting rather than yours. The Halve SP costs skill is situational, as some classes have higher SP costs, but losing the ability to actually regenerate SP makes the longer (and usually harder) fights more dangerous as you still run the risk of running out of mana. I used it on Tressa, since I played her as a caster and her mana pool is a bit lower than the other main casters, plus her Rest ability allows her to regain SP on her own. Third is either of the stat buff skills, once again the choice is based on how the character will be dealing damage. There’s Physical Prowess for Phys attack and defense or Elemental Edge for Elem attack and defense, and instead of being a stat boost like other similar skills from base jobs is that they permanently grant the combat buff to those stats, which means you don’t need to spend time casting the skills that do that AND that they can’t be dispelled by the enemy. What you do with the last slot (or two for thieves) is more open and is going to be where you can have ideas about different builds.

For me though, that last slot went to Surpassing Power on most characters, because by late game, most of my characters were hitting the damage limit pretty easily. Now the damage limit is just the fact that no single attack can deal more than 9,999 damage, because the developers said so. The support skill Surpassing Power, similar to Saving Grace, ignores that, and instead makes the max 99,999, though have fun trying to reach that before your character’s stats max out. Octopath unfortunately has a lot of these kind of arbitrary limits which only seem to exist to highlight an ability that can get around it, like purple treasure chests and Therion’s job ability. By the time I got to the post game boss 5 of my characters were consistently hitting the damage limit, and due to the sometimes absurd amounts of health that opponents had, Surpassing Power just made most of those fights so much faster.

Now a bit of time talking about enemies, because the difficulty scaling of the game is pretty boring, once again due to how simple the game is. This is really an issue among a lot of this type of RPG, since the game is just a numbers game and bigger numbers = harder fights. There’s two points specifically that make Octopath particularly bad with this, the lack of weaknesses on player characters, and enemy health. Since the player characters don’t have any weaknesses like enemies do, you really don’t have to pay attention to what specifically the opponent is doing, at most you can pay attention to whether you are taking physical or elemental damage, but the types are completely irrelevant. There’s a slight exception since there are accessories that reduce specific types of elemental damage, but as far as I could tell it was just better to use accessories that gave stat bonuses. Some enemies had abilities that could inflict status ailments, or had secondary abilities similar to player skills, but they were so few and far between that once again it doesn’t really contribute much. The other issue is with enemy’s health, in that they generally have way too much and causes the game to become so much slower. Fighting basic enemies is almost never a danger to your team assuming you are properly equipped, but the fights can still drag on for 5~10 minutes just whittling down their health. This even applies to fighting enemies that are much lower level than your own team, mostly due to the defensive bonuses that an enemy that hasn’t been broken has. This culminates to a final boss with about 700,000 HP, ignoring all the summons that it has and that it can’t take damage while the summons exist. Again remember that the maximum damage per hit is 9,999 in most cases and 99,999 in the other (which I’ve never gotten close to even with max offensive stats). Then also add in that you probably won’t be anywhere near that first max damage unless the boss is broken too, and you can see why the fights just take so long.

Ok, time to talk about the other job that particularly stood out to me, the Starseer. It’s a healing support job mostly focused around manipulating the party’s BP. Or at least the good skills it has are focused around BP. The divine skill is a wide untyped elemental attack dealing damage based around the whole team’s BP stock, and one of its utility skills also increases damage when the user uses BP, which you have to for divine skills. Another skill it has increases the BP gain of an ally to two per turn, rather than one. Unfortunately we’re already starting to get into the ok skill territory, as due to the way BP is gained, it is only useful for about half of the duration. After a character uses BP, they don’t gain any for the next turn, and since the max is 5 BP, there can only ever be two turns in a row where you benefit from this, and depending on support skills, the maximum benefit a character can get from this ability is an additional 4 – 6 BP. Now there is a Merchant skill that can give another character 4 BP instantly for the exact same cost. The rest of the skills range from decent but situational to worse versions of other job skills, and remember, Starseer is a secret job, meaning you don’t start with access to it, all the abilities are relatively expensive, and you have to fight a boss to unlock it. Continuing to a decent but situational skill is one that can target either enemies or allies, and prevents all stat buffs from being able to be applied to an enemy or prevents all stat debuffs from being able to be applied to an ally. If you know the enemy is a type to be able to apply either, this can be helpful if you can time it properly. The other skills of the job are mostly more expensive and / or worse versions of skills that other jobs have. From dealing multiple types of damage (worse than just 1 in 95% of cases) to healing over time (enemy’s damage considerably outpaces the healing it provides) to a counter that doesn’t prevent the damage like its counterpart, pretty much every active skill they have is disappointing.

I ran out of steam on that last paragraph, and stopped writing this for about 3 months, so I’ll just get one last point in. There are actually a lot of mechanics in the game that are kind of complicated, but since this game is about oversimplification, much of the most important nuance that the game actually has is hidden from the player. There are a ton of little bits of information that would make decision making in the game so much easier, but because the game refuses to display them, there’s a lot of guesswork. In some cases, this hidden information is obfuscating mechanics that subvert player expectations, so what they thought was an easy decision should actually be harder. The following is a non-comprehensive list of some of the worst offenders of hiding information in my opinion. The stat nuts, which raise character stats permanently, give different amounts of their stat depending on which character eats it. Moves that hit a random amount of times ignore all bonuses and penalties to accuracy and evasion. Items that reduce damage or recover HP/SP don’t say by how much, or whether it is percentage or a flat number. Healing skills scale with the caster’s elemental defense. What makes these and similar mechanics the most annoying is that there are some skills that do list exact numbers or percentages for their effects, so it is inconsistent too.

I will end this now and hopefully I covered everything I meant to. A lot of this was thought up while mowing the lawn or laying in bed trying to get to sleep so if something was lost in the recesses of my mind that’s unfortunate. I hope whoever made it all the way down here enjoyed reading, or at least thought it was interesting, and feel free to reach out to me if you’d like to hear more.

[katieskarlette]

WoW Deep Dive

I’ll be watching this panel on the livestream and typing my fingers off.  Check back for updates.

[Edit:  Panel’s over, post is finished!]

-----------

Covenants:  

Kyrians:  Angelic Soul Guides.  Their job is to shuttle souls from the world of the living to the world of the dead.

Necrolords:  Liches, warlords and spies.  A proto-Scourge vibe.

Night Fae:  Guardians of Nature, Shepherds of the Cycle of Life and Death

Venthyr:  Vampiric punishers of the unworthy.  They break down those who were wicked or prideful in life and build them back up.

Each Covenant has a sanctum.

Covenant abilities:  not class specific.  “Solve a problem without fighting it.”

Night Fae have one called Soulshape:  dash ability, turns you into a spirit fox/butterfly/deer/your pick, and while active enemies ignore you.

Kyrian’s is Unburden:  a dash, slowfall, and reduces your aggro radius

Necrolords have Transcend the Flesh:  out of body experience, lets you go away as an invisible soul for a time, leaving your body behind doing whatever it was doing

Class abilities:  similar to artifact active abilities.

Kyrian mage ability:  Radiant Spark, does damage instantly plus dot, and more damage for other spells for awhile.  Night Fae give mages Shifting Power, channeled AOE and haste buff.  Necrolord’s Contagion Bolt, a damage spell I ran out of time to type about, and...yeah.  I’m sure someone else will screenshot them all.

Soulbinds.  Example benefit is 5% increased crit against targets with lower health than you.  Unlock new tiers of power over time and customize a “conduit” that is basically a talent tree.  Switch soulbinds when strategy demands, just like talents.  Each character you can soulbind to has a backstory to uncover.  Soulbound NPCs do NOT follow you as a bodyguard.

Covenant rewards:  upgradeable mount, backpack-style “cloaks”, weapons and armor, world benefits, campaign quest chain.

It will be possible to change Covenants but it will take time to build your rep with the second one, so it’s not something to do lightly.

...

Leveling changes:

Current leveling issues: - Takes too long - Not every level is rewarding - Confusing timelines and storylines (the Warchief shuffle, e.g.) - Expansion stories are lost

Goals: - Streamline leveling - Choose the story you want - Make every level rewarding - Modernize the introduction Azeroth (new starting zone)

Updates: - New level range is 1-60 - Every level unlocks something - 60-70% faster to level 1-50 - Choose your story, level 10-50 in the expansion of your choice - New Starting zone:  Exile’s Reach 

Existing characters at level 120 will be changed to level 50, and other levels will scale to equivalents in a similar way.

Character power doesn’t change, i.e. you can do exactly what you are doing now.  Farming old content won’t be impacted.

Exile’s Reach:  new starting zone.  Mandatory for a first character for a new player.  It’s got murlocs, harpies, quillboar, ogres, etc.

Story: An ogre has captured your forces and is going to sacrifice them to rez a dead dragon (I WANT DETAILS ON THAT DRAGON PLEASE--it uses the model of nightmare dragons from Legion).

It ends with a two-boss mini dungeon.

First-time players must do Exile’s Reach as their starting zone, then must do BFA to level 20-50.  This is to help new players feel more connected to the current story and community, having experienced the next-most-recent content.

Your second time through you can pick whatever starting zone and leveling zone you want.  So it basically doesn’t impact existing players, only those starting from scratch.

After your starting zone (or right away if you’re an allied race), Chromie will help guide you to pick which expansion to level in 20-50.

------------

Class Philosophy

They added new stuff with each expansion up through MoP, then got feedback that action bars were too crowded, etc.  They did the WoD pruning with “the best of intentions,” and that freed up room to make Legion artifacts interesting.  In the process of fleshing out the artifacts, however, it became more about spec identity than class identity.

Shadowlands is an opportunity to recalibrate all that.

“We want to fix problems” but they don’t want to change things so drastically that you load up 9.0 and suddenly have no idea how to play your character anymore.  They’ll be adding stuff as you level so the adjustment is gradual.

Specs should “double down” on an aspect of the class, but that aspect is part of all the other specs, too.

Class defining mechanics:  e.g. paladin auras, shaman totems, rogue poisons, warlock curses

“Are there any rogues here?”  *cheers from crowd*  “Not anymore.  You failed the first test of being a rogue, shouting out ‘I’m here!’“  LMAO!

Class range:  different magic schools, roles, weapons

Mages should still be able to use the other two schools of magic (frost and arcane as a fire mage, for example), even if their spec dictates what most of their spells are.

Iconic class abilities:  Raise dead, Frost shock, Consecration, Ursol’s Vortex...and I ran out of time to type the rest.  But they’ll be coming back class-wide, no longer spec-dependent. 

Demonic circle, summon gargoyle, hunter’s mark, etc, will no longer force you to choose one option in a talent tree to get an iconic class ability.

Eyes of the Beast is coming back!  YAY!  Shattering throw, kill shot, ritual of doom, and challenging shout are also coming back.

-------------

The Maw

-- A max level zone -- Access point to Torghast -- Home of the Jailer -- A prison for the vilest souls (those that cannot be redeemed), and, more recently, an unjust prison for millions of others--including casualties of Teldrassil and the 4th war.

We are Maw Walkers, who possess the ability to leave the Maw, and potentially save others who are trapped there.

The Maw is dangerous, not just the same stuff as earlier zones with a “deathier” coat of paint.

You can get a debuff “The Jailer has noticed you” that makes some mobs aggro more easily on you, and sends kill squads after you personally.

Torghast, Tower of the Damned:

-- Icecrown-esque architecture -- Scaleable for 1-5 players, role agnostic (Yes, you can take 5 DPS and not have it be a trainwreck) -- Both you and your enemies grow in power as you climb higher -- Progress unlocks new challenges and complexity -- Floors built to encourage exploration -- Not a timed mode, not Mythic+ -- The goal is to climb higher and higher, but detours to seek out Anima are a good idea, too.  Collecting Anima gives you various buffs (more health, more damage, chance to Blind targets on attack, ability to see which enemies carry Anima, make abilities last longer. --Always changing from visit to visit, and also from events (Jailer floods the tower with beasts this week, e.g.) -- Climbing Torghast lets you collect runes to forge legendaries. -- Learn lore on the origins of Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination