flusterfluffwrites

[flusterfluffwrites]

Five years ago, I promised a story about a "SIT THE FUCK DOWN" button, and a post that I referenced in that one is long-lost to time now, so I might as well explain how Pelnar worked, mechanically, while I'm still feeling nostalgic.

For those who have joined us in the past five years, first, hi! I need to do this more often! Secondly, what I'll be going over today is how my unique* personal class* functioned in an old, now probably defunct PvP-focused private-server of an MMO that I used to play with ~7k-10k peak players. "Personal class" here meaning that I was kind of the person to pioneer the build I used and often considered the godmother of the archetype, and "Unique" meaning that I had, as of the time I left, three understudies who attempted it with varying degrees of seriousness. None really stuck with it, but one kept it in his back pocket for emergencies. I was the only player of note that did this, and I did, in fact, make waves.

To set the stage, I have to first explain the combat system, and what made it one of the more unique experiences that I've had in gaming. This was a private server of Perfect World International (PWI) that extended the level cap from I think 100 in the base game? To 150. It also allowed you to instantly HIT that cap, and most of the progression was focused on gearing, which was done through in-game events and "territory wars", which determined which factions held certain zones of the map. These territory wars (TW) consisted of weekly or so fights in dedicated instances for 'up to' 60v60 (the biggest I was in was 38v56) PvP combat in an attempt to push into another team's base with catapults, past towers, to destroy their crystals. Think like a scaled-up MOBA and you wouldn't be far off. Squads were up to ten people each, and organized by the leaders of each side's respective faction. This is where I thrived.

To emerge victorious in combat, at its basic level, one had to naturally reduce their opponent's HP to zero. In order to do so, you would have to 'beat out' a mechanic that was reserved for paying players in the base game that allowed an equippable "charm" that automatically restores their HP to full once it drops below half once every ten seconds. That is to say, to reduce their HP to zero, you had two options. One, deal 1.5x their maximum HP in the span of ten seconds OR get them to 51% of their HP and then deliver a single hit that deals over that amount of damage. Hit quick. Hit hard. If you don't win in a dominating burst, you don't win at all. So, long story short, I didn't.

The class that I played, a Venomancer, was a focused magic-support class that wasn't all that popular because it didn't have very good time to kill (TTK) and only really focused on building resource to unleash a large Parasitic Nova that increased damage taken by everyone inside of it by like 20% while inflicting a paralyze that made it hard for them to function. It was bad at killing, and was mostly just a squishy long-range support that people would, crucially, target and focus down the moment they saw it because it was ANNOYING to play against!

This was a game with more build freedom and diversity, so I was able to equip heavy armor, albeit at a slightly lower tier, that instead turned me from a squishy support with middling damage into a physical WALL that resisted most non-magical hits. Standard Venomancer had fairly high magic defense so most people didn't try to hit me with magic skills, just ASSUMING that it would be futile. But, it was a weakness that I had to compensate for, as I effectively flipped my defenses and multiplied my physical resistance to the point of an actual tank. Granted I was a -bit- squishier than your average Blademaster, and had lower damage by far, but that was made up for by my skill set.

I'm not going to get into it because the actual combination was so complicated that I don't remember how to do it now twelve years out from the events of our story, but it was possible for me to inflict what was colloquially known as a "metric shitfuckton" of damage, if you'll pardon my language. This was on a long cooldown, came at great resource cost, used two different kinds of consumable items and three different expendable resources, (mana, chi, and fairy gauge), but it resulted in enough damage to reliably half-shot and either charm-tick or kill from half anyone in the game not playing explicitly Standard Venomancer or Mystic. Or if Assassin got the dodge, it got the dodge but that was a pretty low chance. Regardless. Keep in mind that this build did have a kill button! It was just slow, plodding, and took about six minutes to come off of cooldown for a melee-range single-target nuke.

The main bulk of this class, those six minutes between cooldowns and while looking for an opening to press delete mainly consisted of abusing the hell out of my charm, surviving exactly ten seconds to refill my HP and then continuing to harass the enemy front line. My bread-and-butter filler attack was an incredibly low-damage conal AoE that inflicted an accuracy penalty on anyone hit, a casting speed slow, and a physical auto-attack slow, effectively miring them in the dirt and dropping their damage significantly just for being around me.

My job in mass-fights was to spam this and apply it to everyone I could to keep my party alive! Easy enough, right? I contribute by being present and pressing the funny slow button. But that wasn't enough. When not casting that, or when I successfully gained the ire and wrath of those trying to do away with my team, I turned from a tricksy fox, beguiling their senses and slowing their assault to a metaphorical turtle, unable to die by cycling through a few notable skills.

The first of these skills was simple. Everyone has access to a heavy-cost "spark" move that freezes you in place for a short time and then ends by giving you a massive buff, increasing damage and such, but that wasn't important. In a pinch, burning this to survive another three or so seconds often was enough to buy me another ten and get a charm tick! Beyond this, another skill, Feral Concentration, did much the same but without other buffs for a lower cost but on a three minute cooldown. Invulnerability, but at the cost of taking two marked debuffs. One immobilizing you with an "immobilize" effect and one stopping your attacks as a separate "paralyze" effect. This will be important later! There was also a consumable item that had the exact same text as it but functioning for six seconds instead of ten, but either is enough to get another refresh on that ten second healing effect.

If you're following so far, to kill this character, you had to reduce them to 50% HP, then you have ten seconds to do it again. This triggers a ten second immunity, then you have to deal 50% of their HP again. This refreshes them to full, then you have another 10 seconds to do it again to get a shot at killing them. After you've burned that 50%, they're back at full and you have four seconds to kill them or else the consumable item gets used and they're back at max HP again. Four seconds that can, in an emergency, be filled by burning all of their chi and Sparking. All of this through an effective 70-90% damage reduction spammed at you through the base skill of Grudge Strike. Okay, surely now you can kill them, right?

Stunning Blow stops you from moving for eight seconds. It doesn't stop you from casting, just from moving. If you're a caster or a ranged DPS, that's fine (for now) but if you're melee, that's another eight seconds of not being able to touch this fox while also taking 20% more damage. Bewitch turns you into a squirrel for six seconds, making you able to move but not able to attack. That's another refresh on a sixty second cooldown. Blessed Physique is just a 50% heal on a five minute cooldown in case they get low, so effectively an at-will charm activation. Arcane Antinomy stacks with Grudge Strike to be a two-minute cooldown "reduce target's damage to zero". Lucky Scarab was a 12 second cooldown skill with a chance at a 2 second stun that I never had much luck with, but it was an option.

But none of this beats the Crown Gem. None of this is the "Sit the FUCK down" button. Malefic Crush, my darling, my beloved, functioned a bit differently in this server than in the vanilla game because it was seen as "bad" skill for PvP. With an incredibly short range of only five meters, it had a wind-up of 0.2 seconds, a mere game tick, before it started casting. During the whole 1.8 second cast bar, you are immune to all damage and status effects. That alone might be enough for a refresh. But this three minute cooldown skill, I believe was reduced to two minutes, and because it required Venomancer, a fairly squishy class, to get in close, had its effect moved from a three second paralysis to I believe a five second animation-lock that forced everyone in a ten-meter range into the /sit emote and stopped them from acting.

They cannot move. They cannot cast. They cannot attack. Sit. The fuck. Down. Stop your cast, that's a second gained from that. Start a new one, that's a second gained from that. And between 1.8 seconds of immunity and five seconds of raw SIT, you bet your sweet bippy that's another charm refresh. Oh hey look, it has been twelve seconds. Lucky Scarab. Stunning blow. Stop hitting me. Stop hitting me. Sit still. Shut your mouth. Stop casting. Get interrupted. Sit. Stay. Sit. Silence. Stun. HEY, SIT. My cooldowns are up again, you can't touch me. Get stunned. Get slowed. Sit. Eat a rock. Chase me off into the sunrise. Stand still, rooted in place. I'm over here now. Sit. Down.

Furthermore, due to my particular gearset, I was able to get a weapon with an off-meta skill that had a chance on being hit to purge all marked debuffs on me and "maximize my movement speed", which was effectively an Enhanced Sprint:tm: for ten seconds, making me immune to all further debuffs. The skill and item I mentioned earlier that rooted me in place and prevented me from casting? Purgable. Instead of being immobile and immune, this fox was at sprint speed cap and still damage and debuff immune for about twenty seconds of every two minutes.

The final skill I want to mention is just called Purge. The specilization I took turned it from a single target buff removal every thirtyish seconds to an AoE one that generated resource. Buff-stacking was meta defining, and I just got to say no to it. That is all.

Have a good day and SIT. THE FUCK. DOWN.

[flusterfluffwrites]

Hey, can y’all rb this if it’s okay to send you messages asking about your ocs, cause on god I wanna interact with y’all but I am terrified of being annoying lol

[flusterfluffwrites]

[flusterfluffwrites]

It's really fun playing a character with a strict moral code. It's even more fun to find the one exception to that moral code because fuck that guy in particular.

[flusterfluffwrites]

Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):

“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.

“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.

“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.

“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”

“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”

“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.

[flusterfluffwrites]

Thank you @flusterfluff and everyone who got me to 25 reblogs!

Omg a hit tweet

A bit of rambling about MtG

Most of you can skip this, but I've wanted to air my thoughts on this for a while. Those that know me probably won't be surprised by my fascination with a relatively obscure or nuanced facet of gameplay, but a lot of people might be surprised how much of a damn I give about small things like this.

There is a concept in gaming, specifically card games, known as "Card Advantage", and it is... rather hotly debated in some circles what does and does not qualify as card advantage.

There are things that are uncontroversial in their classification. Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Pot of Greed is a famous example of this, letting you draw two cards from your deck for the cost of one from your hand, increasing the total amount of resources that you have access to by one card. You spend a card, you get two. That's card advantage.

On the next rung down, you have something called "Card Selection". Cantrips like MtG's Ponder and Preordain fall into this category. When you cast them, you only draw one card to replace the one that you used, but you also get to "see" more cards and choose the best from among them.

While cantripping and having card selection may not be as powerful as true card advantage, what gives it power is the concept of "digging". The idea at the heart of this concept is that the player who has "seen" more of their deck in a game will have a higher chance of having access a specific desired card or effect. The most powerful cantrips let you see more of your deck, and potentially get rid of cards that don't interact with the game in a way that you want. Brainstorm comes to mind, especially when used in tandem with deck shuffling effects. But what is the bare minimum for having access to this powerful facet of interaction? Today, I'd like to talk about my current favorite commander, Gavi, Nest Warden.

"Cycling" is an ability that allows you to discard a card from your hand to draw a card. You don't get to choose the card you get. But it gets you further into your deck. One card at a time. Gavi lets you do it for free. Plenty of people will look at this and think "So what? It's not real card advantage, and you're limited to one each turn." Is that so? Is this not card advantage? After all, by the second rotation of the table that she's out, she'll have dug through eight cards for the cost of no mana. At what point does her ability become card advantage? Does it, ever? Does it take cards that break parity by having an additional effect when cycled to constitute card advantage? Or is it after she has cycled a certain number of cards?

All I know is that she's one of the most powerful commander decks that I have ever piloted, and the ability to dig through the entire deck in a matter of turns certainly contributes significantly. But does cantripping four cards per turn cycle compete in terms of a "value engine" as much as, say, the Narset across the table? The Chulane to your left? At what point is it correct to prioritize Gavi for removal? After all, she's not increasing the amount of resources she has. She's not actively harming anyone's game plan. But she always has that counterspell. She always has that board wipe.

I'd like to posit that cycling is, in fact, a form of card selection. Even if there's no choice in the card you get, the virtual advantage Gavi racks up is enormous, even from something as inane as cycling. And a lot of players might not understand that. It's really easy to look over. She's not doing much at any given time, just spinning her wheels. And that's why she's a dangerous commander for new players. Some archetypes are just stronger than others. For example, Guys Sitting In Chairs Tribal (Real deck, look it up) is going to be a lot weaker than than a random green deck full of Thragtusk-alikes piloted by someone of the same skill level. Is cycling one of those more powerful archetypes? Because just by doing what Gavi says on the card, you can end up stomping a pod of new players without even really knowing why. In conclusion, it's really hard to quantify how strong cycling is as an ability when built around like that. It's certainly no tier one deck, but it's definitely up there. And the fact that it manages to punch into such a high weight class must have some implications on the status of digging in relation to card advantage, right?

I don't know. It's an interesting thing to think about. I certainly value digging a lot more after running this deck. What do you all think, if you read this far? I want to hear some thoughts on this, even though I know it's not likely that I'll get any. And if you want to hear more about my adventures with Gavi, or her decklist, feel free to ask. I love talking about MtG, but I don't get to do it much.

[flusterfluffwrites]

It's a cold day, or so the biological reasponse of the woman you're bound to seems to indicate. Cold, but not cold enough for the heaters. These life forms confuse you. That is not the problem, though. The problem is that your bond-mate, Doctor Kal'tsit is scheduled for an intensive operation.

Not on her, mind. You would never let her come to harm, and her meticulous self-care regime leaves no room for anything to cause such a need. She would say that her schedule does not permit illness, but you know just as well as she does that it's not her schedule that keeps her in pristine health. No, instead, she is to take up her station in the only area of the landship that you lack clearance for-- the operating theatre.

Armed guards are posted outside, denying you entrance. They aren't there to keep you out, but as your mandibles clack together to plead to return to her side, to take their posts, they shiver and shake. You can do their jobs so much more efficiently and so much less intrusively. You can withdraw into your crystalline prism and be out of the way until you're needed, but alas, the two guards stand between you and your rightful place. Ambient moisture levels rise almost imperceptibly when you push air through the jagged oriface that passes for a mouth in their eyes. Did they think you were a threat? You want to protect her. To guard her. To know she is safe.

She isn't pleased when she emerges from the room, gloved hands covered in viscera. She knows how happy you are to see her, she has to! Why is she angry? "Mon3tr, stop hassling the guards." You're not hassling them! You pout in a way that only she can recognize. The guards tense up, preparing to ready their pathetic weapons. "The surgical theatre is a sterile environment, free of contaminants by necessity. Your very nature would put the patient at risk. Go for a walk or something."

Walk? You don't have legs, at best, you could- "Or float. Or whatever. Patrol the halls if you need to. Just stop harassing the guards. They're enough." She can't read your thoughts. Or quite understand your words, for that matter. Nevertheless, her ability to read your body language continues to please you. At least someone can understand. A resigned chitter, rocks grinding against rocks, seems to only further unsettle the two life forms assigned to protect her for today. It's not for them, though. The sole woman who understands gives a sigh and waves you off as she retreats to the only place you can't reach her. "I'll be out in a few hours, anyway. Just keep yourself busy."

It wasn't a few hours.

It was twenty.

Twenty hours of long, grueling, high-precision work. You can feel her heart rate escalate over time as she ingests her plant-based ichor. She says it helps, but it only ever makes her more irritated. You grumble your deep, earthy growl as a ceramic cup reaches her lips. "Don't lecture me. The paperwork for a failed operation is going to keep me up another hour or two, I need this." It's not going to be two, it will be six. Her entire body is attempting to shut down into a rest cycle to preserve function, and still, she resists her biological needs. Admirable, you think, even if it's foolish.

Your job is to protect Doctor Kal'tsit from all threats. The largest threat to her at this moment is, undoubtedly, herself. Calculations run in your head. The black ichor in her cup is causing harm, and must be disposed of. The most efficient way to render it inert would be the destruction of its vessel, the ceramic that contains it. As you raise your razor-sharp claw, a command comes at once; not from her words, but from her eyes. You are an immortal weapon comprised of a substance that is neigh indestructible by any force known by these biological life forms. For the first time in your very, very long existence, you know fear. Doctor Kal'tsit may not possess the means to destroy you, but in one glance you know that she will do far far worse if you act to preserve her.

You do not. Mess. With Kal'tsit's coffee.

[flusterfluffwrites]

A bit of rambling about MtG

Most of you can skip this, but I've wanted to air my thoughts on this for a while. Those that know me probably won't be surprised by my fascination with a relatively obscure or nuanced facet of gameplay, but a lot of people might be surprised how much of a damn I give about small things like this.

There is a concept in gaming, specifically card games, known as "Card Advantage", and it is... rather hotly debated in some circles what does and does not qualify as card advantage.

There are things that are uncontroversial in their classification. Yu-Gi-Oh!'s Pot of Greed is a famous example of this, letting you draw two cards from your deck for the cost of one from your hand, increasing the total amount of resources that you have access to by one card. You spend a card, you get two. That's card advantage.

On the next rung down, you have something called "Card Selection". Cantrips like MtG's Ponder and Preordain fall into this category. When you cast them, you only draw one card to replace the one that you used, but you also get to "see" more cards and choose the best from among them.

While cantripping and having card selection may not be as powerful as true card advantage, what gives it power is the concept of "digging". The idea at the heart of this concept is that the player who has "seen" more of their deck in a game will have a higher chance of having access a specific desired card or effect. The most powerful cantrips let you see more of your deck, and potentially get rid of cards that don't interact with the game in a way that you want. Brainstorm comes to mind, especially when used in tandem with deck shuffling effects. But what is the bare minimum for having access to this powerful facet of interaction? Today, I'd like to talk about my current favorite commander, Gavi, Nest Warden.

"Cycling" is an ability that allows you to discard a card from your hand to draw a card. You don't get to choose the card you get. But it gets you further into your deck. One card at a time. Gavi lets you do it for free. Plenty of people will look at this and think "So what? It's not real card advantage, and you're limited to one each turn." Is that so? Is this not card advantage? After all, by the second rotation of the table that she's out, she'll have dug through eight cards for the cost of no mana. At what point does her ability become card advantage? Does it, ever? Does it take cards that break parity by having an additional effect when cycled to constitute card advantage? Or is it after she has cycled a certain number of cards?

All I know is that she's one of the most powerful commander decks that I have ever piloted, and the ability to dig through the entire deck in a matter of turns certainly contributes significantly. But does cantripping four cards per turn cycle compete in terms of a "value engine" as much as, say, the Narset across the table? The Chulane to your left? At what point is it correct to prioritize Gavi for removal? After all, she's not increasing the amount of resources she has. She's not actively harming anyone's game plan. But she always has that counterspell. She always has that board wipe.

I'd like to posit that cycling is, in fact, a form of card selection. Even if there's no choice in the card you get, the virtual advantage Gavi racks up is enormous, even from something as inane as cycling. And a lot of players might not understand that. It's really easy to look over. She's not doing much at any given time, just spinning her wheels. And that's why she's a dangerous commander for new players. Some archetypes are just stronger than others. For example, Guys Sitting In Chairs Tribal (Real deck, look it up) is going to be a lot weaker than than a random green deck full of Thragtusk-alikes piloted by someone of the same skill level. Is cycling one of those more powerful archetypes? Because just by doing what Gavi says on the card, you can end up stomping a pod of new players without even really knowing why. In conclusion, it's really hard to quantify how strong cycling is as an ability when built around like that. It's certainly no tier one deck, but it's definitely up there. And the fact that it manages to punch into such a high weight class must have some implications on the status of digging in relation to card advantage, right?

I don't know. It's an interesting thing to think about. I certainly value digging a lot more after running this deck. What do you all think, if you read this far? I want to hear some thoughts on this, even though I know it's not likely that I'll get any. And if you want to hear more about my adventures with Gavi, or her decklist, feel free to ask. I love talking about MtG, but I don't get to do it much.

[flusterfluffwrites]

Yes, yes, I know "Alice likes really long songs and I don't have time to listen to everything she posts" But I just HAVE to share this track. I love it SO SO SO much. This song got me through some of the longest car rides of my life. Not like, chronologically long, but I have very clear memories of listening to that slow, marching intro on my way to an appointment with a doctor that very, very much did not like me. That appointment changed a large chunk of my life. And this was the song I was listen to on the car ride there. In the waiting room. Epica is a good band. I really recommend them, even if some of their music might make me ramble about unrelated things. Oh, and if a fourteen minute track is too much for you, listen to Chemical Insomnia instead. Good track, but a lot shorter.

[flusterfluffwrites]

Once was a good album. This isn't my favorite track from it, but it's certainly the most underrated one.

[flusterfluffwrites]

I'm going to put this under a "keep reading" for those of you who aren't interested in hearing me ramble about the finer points of MMO Healer Theory for several inches of dash scrolling.

There are several different types of healers, and it's not always fair to compare them qualitatively. So ask yourself, as a healer, what's your priority?

It is the ultimate goal of a healer to keep their party alive while dealing as much damage as possible to help mitigate risk to the party by preventing damage via enemies being dead. A dead enemy can't kill your party after all. So at this point, one might look at, say, a FF14 white mage and judge them based on their DPS while keeping their party up. And in a group of highly skilled players, this is ideal. If nobody's fucking up, the goal is just to have you be another DPS and a way to make sure unavoidable raidwides don't whittle your party to death.

That view is kinda flawed though. Sure, a good healer can keep their party alive through end-game content and dish out a massive amount of (comparative) DPS, but they're missing something that is important to the survival of an MMO. Lets say you just got out of TEA, and you cleared with seconds left before enrage. You do a levelling roulette to calm down, and you get stuck in Longstop with a sprout tank and a first timer bonus. Do you take in that same mindset? Do you deal as much damage as possible? You're a good healer after all, and good healers do DAMAGE. The tank is waggling back and forth, stopping after each pull, and, what's this? They're a DRK. A good healer will make note of them being slightly below sync level, and keep in mind that they might have to heal the slightly squishier tank more than normal, but still prioritize DPS, and end up wiping to the last boss, despite it being objectively easier than Alex. A great healer, though? Will check their info, see that their highest and only other class class is BRD at 52. This is likely their first dungeon as a tank. They're running in circles, not holding mobs still, and dragging more packs than they want. All of their cooldowns pop at once the moment they go below half health on the first pack, and you know, just know what's going through this DRK's head. Sure, you could keep your GCD rolling and do more and more and more damage, but in the span of the one GCD you spent on Stone, that tank can die from full health. I guess my point here is that you don't always have to be performing at PEAK, OPTIMAL efficiency, and that it's occasionally okay to stop DPSing to keep the tank alive and explain dungeon mechanics. Give a little prodding, and some advice. Read your party. It's easy to tell when someone's nervous if you're trying. And the comfort your tank gets from not going into the red constantly can be the difference between them listening you telling them to pull the dragon out of the poison and them breaking down in tears on the other side of their screen because some high-tier player is yelling at them.

Be gentle. Be understanding. But most importantly, be kind.

I may never be the type of player who can clear on-level Extremes and Ultimates, but I will always take pride in how many people enjoy the game more for the help and patience that they're given in content that someone embroiled in late game content might consider trivial.

Everyone's at a different place in their journey, and a great healer can recognize that there's a time and place to be a Glare Mage, and a time and place where a bit of reading the room can make the game more fun for everybody.

[flusterfluffwrites]

I have very strong feelings about Varis zos Galvus. Spoilers for FFXIV Stormblood and Shadowbringers below.

Dude is legitimately trying to do the right thing. But being brought up by who he was, his view of how to go about it is a bit wrong. He wants very desperately to save the planet, and has better informed goals than even the Warrior of Light at the start of Stormblood. It’s just, brought up in the Empire, as the grandson of Solus, who MANY OF US have strong feelings about, I don’t think that a peaceful solution is something he can  even comprehend the concept of. And that’s so fucking sad. 

Like dude, you want to be rid of primals? Look what I’m doing! Look what I’ve done! You don’t need to invade us! Your invasion is only making things worse! We’re working so hard towards the same goal, but because your grandpappy never taught you patience, you’re pushing the beast tribes harder and harder to summon their gods instead of trying to broker peace the peaceful way instead of conquering everything. Solus’ alignment was Chaotic-Bastard and his one goal in his overly long life was to make people miserable because he lost his people and was miserable himself. So of fucking course he wanted his progeny to go to war. He wants to destroy things, and Varis was playing into that. But how could he not? That’s all he fucking knew.

But despite that, he was honorable, polite, and even extended his hand to offer us a fucking treaty. He would’ve settled for a bloodless solution if either of our methodologies for ridding the world of primals were remotely compatible. But because of the ass-bastard that was his grandfather, may he rest in pieces, he just wants to genocide the beastmen because he sees them as lesser.

Varis, Varis, how I wanted to be your friend. But it was that honor itself that caused your death. You were quite literally too good-aligned for Garlemald, and your payment for considering peace was a patricidal yandere bastard taking your throne far too early and doing exactly what Solus wanted by starting a civil war.

God, I’m glad Solus is dead. That guy was a DICK.

[flusterfluffwrites]

I’ve written about my MMO experiences as a unique class before, just not on this blog. I’ve told stories of war, and of defending against assassin squads, but this? This is something else.

For those of you who do not recall, the MMO in question is a private PvP server of Perfect World International, and I was this server’s first, and to my knowledge, only “professional” Heavy Armor Venomancer. It’s a Magic-based class that gets a lot of debuffs and a few heavy damage spells that scale off of magic stats, but I took it in a vitality/tank direction that this server had never seen before. It was particularly effective at keeping single target physical attackers off of my healer, disabling enemy healers at range with a debuff, and surviving damn near anything. I was frequently mocked for my lack of damage, and inability to kill, but my usefulness in mass PvP combat was hard to deny for anyone that had me on their team. One instance we won, in a competetive game mode, was 32(36 in the last third) to 50 (56-58 by the latter half), only possible because of the “flex squad” roaming around with basically three ranged DPS, a healer, an off healer, a CC melee DPS, and myself, making the other three branches of our force neigh unkillable, even against stacked numbers.

Outside of mass-PvP, I often got ganked by squads of three or more players who tried to teach me “how good DPS is and why I suck”. They killed me once. While I was AFK. 4v1. And failed to kill me countless times, because I was careful, clever, and tricksy.

This story isn’t about them, though. This story isn’t about combat. This story is about politics, and a Faction who named themselves “Ruthless”. And a man who denied what happened until the day he left the game, despite having his at-the-time wife, and three ranking officers witness it. Now, I didn’t fit in many places. I got mocked for my build, and told to get lost everywhere. Everywhere, that is, except a faction who needed manpower, and didn’t quite realize at first that I was a Heavy Armor veno. Probably. I don’t know the exact circumstances, but I got in. I got along well with many of the members, and we achieved many victories together. They were my friends. I liked them. Most of them, anyway.

We fought and laughed, laughed and fought. Provoked our enemies, caused all sorts of drama, and won consistently. They certainly lost, but... maybe by coincidence, they didn’t lose a single Territory War that I was involved in. Not until the end. Not until I stopped caring.

Captain was certainly... an interesting leader. He let most of the internal affairs of our faction resolve themselves. There was drama, yeah. There were slight power disputes. Most of which were resolved by his wife and second in command. He was our battlefield commander, sure, but the second in command ran our day-to-day operations. And, to some extent, I helped. I didn’t get a named rank, but everyone eventually came to know me, and I helped a lot of people through their personal, real-life problems, always lending an ear when they had an issue, even occasionally issues with other members.

Things... Strained. Eventually to the point of snapping. Captain and his wife, who will remain unnamed so that this post doesn’t show up if she googles her IGN, got in a fight. I was... asked to listen by his wife, and got called a traitor for siding with her over him. Even though I hadn’t said a word, offered any advice, or lent any support to one side or the other. The faction split, and I ended up on “her side” of it, just because he called me a traitor.

At the time, I had a really, really strong complex about loyalty, and did my best to be impartial and listen to everyone. And, despite this, I was apparently a traitor? He stormed off, and things wound down over the next couple days as we prepared for a territory war. I waited patiently for him to come back online, and it took until the day before what was to be our last territory war. 

He had called me a traitor. Yelled at half our faction for no reason, and honestly, his wife was being a bit of a bitch about it too. I was done. So done. I did nothing up to that point to be anything but loyal, and he apparently wanted a traitor, so a traitor is what he got. I dialed up a person that I had a long-standing grudge against. A very long-standing grudge against. Those who have been here a while may remember the guy who got polymorphed into a cat every day for a year and a half. The leader of our biggest rival faction. Yeah, him. I typed out in guild chat to get our guild leader’s attention. Asked why he called me a traitor, while he was standing outside a safe zone, getting things prepared for the coming battle. I don’t remember what his response was, I just remember the next six seconds. Fourteen inputs. Flawless timing and execution. Less than a quarter second allowed error room between using things on and off my global cooldown. Six debuffs appeared over his head. Seven as GCD rotated off, eight as my oGCDs refreshed. Dead. Our leader. A tank class. Died to a pure support build. An angry pure support build, mocked for her inability to kill or do damage. An angry pure support that carried his faction’s weight on her shoulders. And told to fuck off as the faction’s name and icon  over my head disappeared, and changed to be that of our greatest enemy’s. You want a traitor? You have a traitor. Their next faction war was the only one I participated in that they ended up losing. Decisively. A normally two hour afair, over in thirty minutes. I don’t know if he even showed. But that was the end for them. A ruthless end to a Ruthless faction. 

[Next time on EPW Adventures: The story of the “SIT THE FUCK DOWN” button]

[flusterfluffwrites]

I still plan on writing that FFXIV story that I mentioned at some point, by the way

[flusterfluffwrites]

March 96th, 2020, 5:30 AM

March was a hell of a month. I hear the fourth of July is a month from now, but... how? We’re still in March. Right?

What will this country even look like in a month? I can’t say, exactly. I do know two things though. One is that thousands, tens, maybe hundreds of thousands, will be dead. For no justifiable reason. For every justifiable reason. Between protests going south and corona spreading through the masses... The second is inevitable. We’ll all be tired. We already are. But how much more tired can we get? I’m in a relatively safe position in a relatively stable part of my state. I have it easy, compared to millions in this country. And I’m tired. I can’t imagine how unbelievably, unfathomably exhausted others are. Healthcare workers, people of any shade not milky, fast food and retail workers. They must be so tired... I know I sure am. How the fuck are they surviving this? 

And how the fuck will the fourth of next month go down? Independence day? National pride? Right now? That’s not a thing we have. That’s not a thing any of us have. Not a thing any of us should have in my opinion. But that’s just me. A privileged white person in a white community whose ancestors have lived in America for too long to fucking matter. And I’m disgusted by this.  Fuck the man behind the horror sub-genre about fearing the unknown, but from what I’ve heard of the bastard’s works, there’s one notable thing. The monster you cannot know or comprehend is always more terrifying than one that can be given shape and form. And if I’m feeling this way? I can’t fucking imagine how others more impacted by this are feeling. Things need to change. 

Fuck Independence Day. We need to depend on eachother. To grow together, and be interdependent, so that we can finally fucking get rid of the abusive madmen in power, and write in place new rules to help us build our national community. Represent those who aren’t fairly represented, and help our fellow human beings rise up against this system that keeps pushing them down.

Independence Day is cancelled. I’m too tired. And I can’t imagine how tired everyone else must be.

[flusterfluffwrites]

This should also go here.

Anyone else every just think about how probably after their WoL dies, someone might accidentally make a WoL Primal and try to summon them? Like i can definitely see after the eighth calamity, in a timeline where WoL dies, someone trying to summon WoL back.

Then with all my alts and all their different personalities, I like to imagine what their primal would look like because I love to go that extra mile of pain.

[flusterfluffwrites]

This should probably go here.

Actually, you know what, this would be a fun game! Make your own post (or reblog too if you want) and tag it as Primal WoL Challenge!

Name/Title:

Battle Music: (this could be a description, or link to a song on youtube)

Appearance: (this could be a description, art, or screenshot in game)

Start of Battle Quote:

DPS Check, moveset name or quote said when casting:

Party losing to Primal WoL quote:

Primal WoL losing Quote:

Feel free to add whatever else you can think of!