#Delta Modulation

[mod-a-day]

The Jester (Fergus McNeill) "Mr. Diablo's Theme" (𝙳𝙴𝙰𝚃𝙷𝙼𝙰𝚁𝙲𝙷.𝙼𝙾𝙳) The Town With No Name (1992) Delta 4

I had to~

~ J

[awemazed]

one doesn't write for an audience, one writes for the one who will understand

One man's dream is another's nightmare. but

a machine's dream is everyone's nightmare.

[cetakbukumoduljagocetak]

HARGA MURAH, WA 0812-3119-3958 Distributor Cetak Buku Modul Delta Sari

HARGA MURAH, WA 0812-3119-3958 Distributor Cetak Buku Modul Delta Sari

JAGO CETAK.ID solusi cetak buku modul dengan pengolahan cepat dan ukuran personal. Berikan sumber belajar terbaik dan menarik untuk peserta!

Distributor Cetak Buku Modul Delta Sari

#DistributorCetakBukuModulDelta Sari

[little-lanterns]

something something necrosis team at 100% vs 99% power

[sbcdh]

“Oh gosh the fire. Yes it was truly a tragedy. You know, HECA79 was the prototype for the new regulation model. Well, haha, new for the time. It was the seventies after all. It really is fascinating. She was the first one we put in the class N tanks. Fascinating technology for the time, clever as the dickens. You see, the insides of the tank were to be lined with a thin layer of magnetically laminated gold calcite particles that formed a reflective lattice under electrical stimulation. A gold plated one-way mirror for brainwaves! I’m sure you understand, it was the best we could do for 1983-”

“So you subscribe to the, uh, equipment malfunction theory?”

“Huh? Oh! Oh. Terribly sorry. Equipment malfunction? As I recall, it functioned quite well.”

“So you believe the fire was caused by something else?”

“The fire? Oh. Well, I’m not quite sure. I don’t know the exact specifications, but if I recall correctly, there were all sorts of firebreaks and engineers and junior-engineers stationed all around –all helmeted, mind you– to make sure that sort of thing never happened.”

“And yet.”

“And yet. Indeed…Well, between you and me, I think It was one of the junior engineers.”

“Is that so?”

“Oh yes. We were a bit of a maverick bunch back then. Reagan gave us all that research money, but, well, its always a bit different when the wheels hit the pavement haha. Oh. Oh. I hope I haven’t gotten anyone in trouble. They were nice lads all. Well, some of them were Germans, but nice lads.”

“We are more interested in your observations of HECA79. I was told you were able to directly observe her during the incident. If there is anything you can tell us, please, speak loudly enough for the tape to hear.”

“Oh! Oh gosh. You know, I completely forgot we were being taped haha! And you caught all of my rambling! Well, I think I can help you out. Oh yes. Now. You must understand. A good half of this is going to be embellished. You know how memories go, you always get more heroic looking back as time goes on haha. But yes, I think I can help you out. Ah, where should I start?”

“What was the first thing out of the ordinary that you noticed?”

“Her lips were moving.”

“Is that out of the ordinary?”

“By gosh for a plutophant yes! At full emmanation, there is no part of them that is not the market! Every neuron soaked in hypno-amphetamine rocket fuel! Most of them –if you’ll pardon my language sir– shit their tanks the moment their Id touches the sub-finantial background grid! What do you think half those tubes are for! A plutophant in full emmanation doesn’t have a braincell to spare to keep their sphincters closed, much less perform something as complex as speech!”

“I see. Could you make out what the asset was saying?”

“Oh no. No, I’m afraid not. I can’t read lips. Back in those days, they were hooked up to a helmet, and then the helmet read the delta-wave patterns, and then printed that on magnetic tape. That way, we could feed the tape to some lob-, ah translators, and have them interpret the feed.”

“When did her lips start to move? What time of day?”

“Funny thing, almost exactly at 12:03. I should have been off at lunch, but I was procrastinating. I had a crossword I was right on the edge of solving. It was one of those big words that goes all the way across the page. TIMEPIECE. I remember that clear as day.”

“Interesting. I have here that equipment registered the fire almost exactly seven minutes later.”

“Oh dear. Do you understand what that means sir?”

“No, please, enlighten me.”

“Is that a schematic of the N class tank you have there? Hand it over. Thank you sir. So. Back in 1983, we didn’t have any of the fancy digital equipment we have now. Well, we did, but not to the same degree. Most of our equipment was good old analogue. You see this module here? These weren’t part of our system. No, we were waiting on the replacements to show up.”

“And, what is that part?” 

“Think of it like the uh, ah yes, the carburetor in a car. It keeps everything balanced. Keeps the subjects metabolism steady so they don’t chew through the drugs too fast, keeps the tank at the ideal temperature for chemical reactions, without boiling the subject like a lobster haha. But the key is, it was completely mechanical. But at the end of the day, it's just a bunch of tubes full of fluid that move based on pressure differentials.”

“Which means?”

“Well, heat would throw it off.”

“Here, I think we have a schematic. Now, doctor, this is very important. I need you to explain to me exactly how the machine malfunctioned, and how it would affect HECA79.”

“Well technically, it wasn’t malfunctioning at all. It was functioning correctly, just under less-than-ideal circumstances. Oh, haha. Yes, haha, but thats not what you’re looking for haha. Yes. Well. What side did the fire hit it from? Do you know?”

“This one here.”

“Fascinating. Well. Then, the apparatus would have uh, hm. Oh dear.”

“Doctor.”

“It would have spiked the hypnostimulant feed, while introducing impurities.”

“Which means?”

“I- I haven’t the slightest idea. It would've been deadly, I can assure you that. But its as if…Its as if you had a car, coasting in neutral, downhill at terminal velocity, and then you switched gears to high gear, and then slammed the gas while spraying rocket fuel into the intake.”

“Could we ask you to write a full report on your speculation?”

“Frankly sir, I am as intrigued as you are. You would have to hold my wrists to keep me from writing on this. Fascinating.”

ENCLOSED: FINAL READOUT OF HECA79

"BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD BUY GOLD"[Phrase repeats over twenty thousand times.]

[wistfulvulpine]

first time i'm not going for all the medals from an event and i can't even feel bad about missing out bc i hate reclamation algorithm's grind that much (only got 2/4 and i can't bother to care to actually get the first ending or build a million constructs)

finished CC12's medal set tho so 👍 unfortunately can't clear risk 18 with guyknights bc i'm lacking in certain ops and e2s

funniest thing is when sal viento karst shows up everyone flocks to borrow my mr. lee (12 borrows in 2 days)

[pawseds]

I just woke up from session 1 last night and I just gotta put it out here. SPOILERS for Lover in the Ice. Again just woke up so bear with me.

MAN Ryan Whitehead is so STUPID. Like, 'the Canadian airport has the US flag under the sign for international immigration because Americans kept going under domestic, but even after that, Americans still insisted on going under domestic' kind of stupid. Of COURSE it was an American who brought a flesh parasite from Brazil to the US. Come on man. If you can't bring certain types of plants into the US, what makes you think it was a good idea to bring a whole PARASITE? In an AMMO BOX?? 'For journalism-' sir anyone with two working brain cells would know that's a terrible idea.

Obviously, this isn't me dissing on the module itself. This is just the Ryan Whitehead hate club, and don't take this seriously because I'm not lmaoo. Still looking forward to the horrors! It's fun watching Rovin turn his backpack into a bag of holding with his 90% INT! But man was he stupid.

Putting the sweetest, most wholesome, most gentle man with a wonderful, loving family through the most gruelling, crushing gates of hell, part ??

Meet Rovin Sokolov, or Agent XOR of X-cell. Though he's a NASA engineer and now a Delta Green agent in this timeline, he's still the same man he is in Helvetia: kind father, loving husband, best friend.

[thydungeongal]

Actually, when I think about it, in the context of most traditional challenge-based TTRPGs (your Calls of Cthulhu, Dungeonses & Dragonses, and Rolesmaster) "no consequences for failure" doesn't really track as a system criticism but more as an adventure design issue. Okay, it's also a bit of a system issue, but I digress.

In most official Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green scenarios I've read the authors seem to consider their story a bit too precious not to have it happen, so they build a bunch of fail-safes to make sure that the investigators get funneled towards some kind of satisfying outcome, which comes off as feeling very inorganic. And I don't necessarily mean fail-safes like "multiple paths of clues to follow," instead I mean "if the investigators are struggling with finding information let them make IDEA or LUCK rolls!"

This same is true of D&D adventure design starting already in the early eighties but really coming to fore in the AD&D 2e era. Some of AD&D 2e's adventure modules are the absolute dregs in this regard, with the player characters literally as spectators to a linear succession of events that have a great effect on the metaplot, and with combat encounters sprinkled in. It's not even that without the player characters the story won't happen, it's that without the player characters there will be no one to watch the actual story happen. (This is a good campaign design question by the way: are you writing a campaign where the player characters are always reacting, always running after the bad guys who have already done a bad deed, always rushing to prevent a bad thing from being done, or are the player characters actual agents causing things to happen in the world?)

But anyway, that's not great. The mystery that has to be solved or the player characters won't get to see the exciting climax or the caravan moving through a series of plot points will make failure feel bad, because within that kind of adventure design failure can only ever feel like "the player characters must take a scenic route to victory."

But it actually is possible to have an adventure which accommodates for failure even when mechanically failure itself only means "the character didn't do the thing." It's the character-driven challenge game, best exemplified by the dungeon crawl.

"How do I make sure the characters find all the clues" becomes a non-issue once you accept that they might not find all the clues and the consequences of that can be as interesting as finding all the clues. "What if this fight is too hard" well then the characters can choose not to engage, and if they do engage and find it too difficult they can retreat.

[cerastes]

Lowlight if you are currently browsing here for future ideas, remember to implement the Irene Delta Module that does absolutely nothing except make Irene count as an Abyssal Hunter, trust me this one, you GOTTA trust me on this one.

[mod-a-day]

The Jester (Fergus McNeill) "The Town With No Name" (𝚃𝚃𝚆𝙽𝙽𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙼𝙴.𝙼𝙾𝙳) The Town With No Name (1992) Delta 4

I accidentally stumbled onto (most) of the Amiga Protracker soundtrack for this game, so I figured I'd share some select tracks with you all. Some of the music is pretty good.

Sadly, my favorite song from this interactive movie doesn't appear to have a MOD equivalent. Very disappointing.

~ J

[frostbitebakery]

LOUD.

part one two three four five six seven eight nine

“You’ve got something there,” Quin says, gesturing vaguely at his own shoulder.

“I’m aware,” Obi-Wan signs. “It’s some sort of monkey lizard fungus.”

The monkey lizard fungus giggles into his shoulder.

Quin nods grimly. “I heard the only cure is to placate it with sweets and hope for the best.”

Anakin precariously leans over, heels accidentally digging into still bruised ribs.

Obi-Wan bites his lips behind the collar but of course Quin immediately detects his movements turning stiff.

Quin holds out an arm, flexing his bicep with wiggling eyebrows. It has the desired effect and Anakin jumps from Obi-Wan, swinging around the elbow before hooking his knees over Quin’s arm.

“He’s heavier than he looks,” Quin strains out.

They walk to one of the mess halls that’s open around the clock and mainly offers food and beverages to those clinging with teeth to their sanity during exam season.

One of the cramming Padawans looks up from their dozen holo books displaying graphs, and squints at them. “Master Vos, there’s something growing out of your arm?”

“Monkey lizard fungus,” Obi-Wan signs, hiding a smile behind his collar at the Padawan nodding to themselves as if that makes perfect sense.

“What’s with them?” Anakin asks, looking at the sleep deprived tableau and hoisting himself up and swinging one leg over Quin’s shoulder.

“This is your future,” Quin says gravely and Obi-Wan is catapulted to melting stone fire Darkness “You were supposed to be my Master!” yellow familiar eyes from a smoking alive corpse and the grief is ripping him apart “—see once you take your first assignments. The only places you’ll be is either here or the Archives.”

It’s been years since he last had a vision. It’s staggering, his heart thumping in his chest like a clock ticking down the inevitable countdown. But it’s not.

He looks over to Anakin who’s already watching back with wide eyes, the fear in his hands gripping onto Quinlan. “I won’t let it come to that,” he promises, fingers thudding together heavily but he’s still shaking off the vision and Anakin’s fear is a taste in the air by now. He can’t not make promises he only hopes he can keep.

Quinlan is silent during their exchange, gloved hands keeping hold of Anakin. The calculating look in his eyes a guarantee Obi-Wan is going to get cornered later.

.

“Do you like Depa being your Master?”

Let it be said, paranoia is a common infliction amongst Shadows.

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin sighs, voice breaking with puberty and annoyance. “Depa is wizard. She’s amazing even though she’s signed me up to all these classes.”

Obi-Wan looks over all the models, plans, and concepts with added calculations. There’s a data pad displaying language modules and another proclaiming the joys of agriculture. “It’s almost all in the engineering field,” he signs.

“Which makes her so wizard. You’d never have me taking up gardening though,” Anakin adds sullenly.

Don’t yearn for things I cannot give you, Obi-Wan has thought a lot in the past few years as the Galaxy seems to slowly steep in Darkness.

“Knowing what can poison you is important,” he signs, feeling restless and helpless. The mission he’s finished two cycles ago may still reside in his bones.

“I’ll just bite back,” Anakin says, tongue sticking out as he connects wires to ports. He presses a button and the thing he’s been tinkering with since before Obi-Wan left starts to purr smoothly. “Now she can even juice cocadooms,” he says, satisfaction purring just as smoothly in his voice.

“Well done.”

“I know,” Anakin responds airily and swivels around to face Obi-Wan fully. “You’re lurking in the shadows again so let’s get this tradition over with: Depa is an awesome Master and maybe I sometimes wish you’d have chosen me but,” he adds loudly when Obi-Wan lifts his hands to protest, “I also sometimes daydream Master Tiin had chosen me because he’s got his own modded Delta-7.”

The paranoia settles down as Anakin waxes over how wicked the new wing box skins and sensor fusions are, no, truly, you should see them, Obi-Wan!

[anim-ttrpgs]

Short A.N.I.M. Hiatus

Just so y’all know, I, the only full-time employee of A.N.I.M., will be on vacation/hiatus from about now (April 7th, 2025) until the last week of April, so there will be very few new posts and very little progress on our various projects until then, but I will be setting the queue to keep cycling through old posts and reblogs.

As for where everything’s at right now:

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy (Beta)

Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is being continually polished and tweaked based on massive amounts of player feedback, but editing progress is still very slow due to our editor dealing with lots of difficult life stuff. We are really hoping to continue with regular, speedy editing progress in May.

At least 16 dedicated Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy adventure modules are currently in development, 2 of which are being developed in-house by A.N.I.M. and the rest are fan creations from the game jam we ran last month. Within a few months everyone can finally stop relying on Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green modules.

Eureka: The Fanservice Files (Beta)

This was an unexpected hit and a big part of the reason we’re doing so relatively well on money this month (still not in the clear though). It made more money in the first 4 hours than Eureka Adventure Modules Vol. 1 has in 65 days. For this reason I have decided to definitely continue work on it as a legitimate expansion. Patreon subscribers have already gotten an updated version last week, and can expect an even more updated version to come in May. These updates will come to the general public at the same time as the next public beta update for Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy.

And also because this was such a big hit, I have decided to try to always have a reserve expansion in my back pocket, which I’m calling a “ripcord expansion” to reference its short and emergency nature. These expansions will be about the same length as The Fanservice Files and include content that fits with the canon and themes of the main rulebook, but is just a little bit sillier or otherwise different in tone. These are “emergency” releases because I’m keeping them on the shelf in an outline stage until it starts to look like we’re in serious danger of not meeting our income quota, then quickly finishing them up for a surprise release and some quick money.

The next one, to finished up and released when-needed, is called Eureka: The XXX-Files.

Edge Hedge Arena (Beta)

Has anyone even played this?

Silk & Dagger: A Sensible Drow RPG (Alpha)

We are just getting through the second round of playtesting for Silk & Dagger and, as is to be expected for an alpha, it’s looking rough. Despite it actually being perfectly reasonable to do so, especially with how much we need the money, I still can’t help but feel a tinge of embarrassment at showing one of my games to the public in such a messy state. I take game design very seriously and hold RPGs to a very high standard. At least y’all and I both can take comfort in the fact that this is the worst Silk & Dagger will ever be, and it’s only up hill from here. (And it’s still pretty good already)

I’m writing down all the feedback so I can reference it when I bring Silk & Dagger back to the front burner after I get Death Bed: A Souls-like RPG into the barest minimum of a playable state.

Death Bed: A Souls-like RPG (Pre-Alpha)

What started out as a “simple” “OSR” dungeon-crawler which aimed to represent the combat of Dark Souls in a turn-based TTRPG format has ballooned into a project that will probably somewhere close to the scope of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. A harsh and brutal, but optimistic dungeon crawler with themes of disability, medieval culture, and medieval Christianity. It will also feature combat and other mechanics reminiscent of Dark Souls but translated into something that’s actually fun as a TTRPG. And I’m really autistic about medieval culture, medieval Christianity, game design, and swords, so you can expect this to be really good, once it’s finished.

Currently it’s looking like the game won’t be in even a remotely playtestable state until at least early May, and even at that stage it’ll just be a combat-simulator without any actual dungeon-crawling elements ready yet.

Financial Situation

We are currently at $558.08/$1,964.33 for the monthly income necessary to keep us afloat, and even though this actually puts us a little ahead for the month at the time of writing this, obviously I am very nervous about stepping away from the wheel for 2 weeks when we cut it so close every month, but if I keep pushing 35-70 hours a week every week without taking a few weeks off, I’ll probably die.

At the very least, members of our team appear on two different podcast episodes that will be releasing this April, so that should introduce us to some new audiences. One of those podcasts is @literalcatpod.

For my sake please continue to reblog our posts, play and talk about our games, and buy them and/or subscribe to the patreon in my absence. I need to be able to relax over the next two weeks without worrying about returning to a company that is woefully behind on its income quota with only one week left to fix that.

Thank you again to all our fans and supporters. This is anim-ttrpgs signing off.

[hellfiresky]

That cursed Kaminoan sex ed

The downtime between missions was always a drag. Delta Squad spent their time lounging in their barracks, doing whatever they could to rest, and fill in the mind-numbing hours. Scorch, naturally, was never content to let a dull moment fester.

“Oi, vode,” Scorch, sprawled across his bunk wearing his ill-fitting red cadet fatigue as his top and full armour from his waist down, piped up. “You lads remember that kriffing awkward repro health module from Kamino? What class was that? Sentient Bio 101 or some dwang?”

“Sentient Reproduction and Biological Sustainability Efforts. Worst hour of my life. Long-necks droned through it as if it was some kind of sick droid sex.” Hunching over his datapad, and slicing through some random codes he picked up from their previous op, Fixer didn’t even look up.

“Ah, yeah, that’s the one!” Scorch’s grin was delightful. He yanked his own datapad from his pack, fingers excitedly tapping across the screen. “Guess what, vode? I still have it.”

“You kriffing didn’t,” Fixer finally looked up, his face was a perfect combo of disgust and resignation. “That thing’s foul. Why would you keep that?”

“Mmm why not?” Scorch hummed, scrolling his datapad to no end. “Oh, here we go! Jackpot!” The bleached blond haired RC stood up, and walked towards the broken holotable that was coated in dust in the middle of the room. “Ahem. As his anatomical conduit—”

“His dick,” Fixer cut in, deadpan, still typing binary codes at his datapad.

“—enters the designated receptive structure,” Scorch continued, voice shaking with barely contained laughter.

“Pussy,” Fixer chimed again.

“Scorch is,” Sev coughed from the corner. He pushed himself to focus on the array of weapons in front of him - clearly trying to stay out of this but failing miserably.

“—a critical phase of sentient synchronisation is initiated,” Scorch plowed on, finger jabbing the air.

“He’s pounding,” Fixer supplied with another non-lab grown definition of the act.

“Ugh, find a better word, you di’kut,” Sev lobbed a rolled-up towel at Fixer’s head. It missed and thwacked Scorch’s shin instead, but the demo expert didn’t flinch. “—This interaction, facilitated by coordinated muscular responses, creates a platform for genetic exchange within a controlled environment,” Scorch kept going.

“That’s literally just a corpo way of saying ‘he’s mounting it in,’” Fixer groaned, finally tossing his datapad aside to entertain his brother. “Who writes this stuff? Droids?”

“Really, vod? Mounting it in?” Sev snorted. “You’ve never gotten laid, have you? Kriffing mounting. What are you - describing two banthas fucking?”

Scorch, ignoring his brothers’ continued bickering, powered through to the end of the passage. “—The interaction typically resolves in a peak state of high-intensity release of all tensions!”

“They come,” Fixer said as a matter-of-factly.

“Yep. Both finally blow the hatch, game over,” Sev groaned.

The scattered laughter that followed was broken by the thud of a datapad hitting the floor. Boss, who’d been quietly suffering in his little corner by the window, finally snapped. “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ABOUT YOU LOT?!” he shouted. “I’m trying to finish our report - cause NONE of you did it, and you’re over there reading Kamino’s sex ed instead of helping me?!”

“Maybe you should get your anatomical condui—“

“SHUT UP 62!”

—

There you go @orangez3st!

[leithanienwnt]

Viviana Delta Mod Review/Analysis:

Three months ago I did the math to try to figure out if a Viviana burn module would be any good. Yeah it’d give her a way of reducing enemy res, but she’d have to get past that res to apply it in the first place and I wasn’t sure how that would go for her. I took a look at the other elemental delta mods, put together my best guess as to what she’d get, and did the math. My conclusion? Yeah it’d be busted.

Well, three months later, they actually did it, and it’s even better than what I simulated in that test.

Before we get into the damage numbers, let’s look at what they gave her.

Her mod is actually very different from the other elemental delta mods. Crucially, it is much more focussed on application of the status than it is on doing bonus elemental damage during the burst. In fact her bonus elemental damage to enemies under the effect of burn is by far the lowest of any granted by a delta mod at only 15%. However, while the others have 8% of damage dealt as build up in their trait, she has 9% in her talent, and that gets doubled with an elite or boss in her range. This is really, really good for multiple reasons. The biggest reason is that bosses require twice the build up to even apply the status in the first place. That can make all the others take significantly longer to trigger a burst, but when Vivi is up against one, she’s able to keep pace by doing double the elemental build up. And then for elites, she can still double it but against a regular elemental build up bar, resulting in incredibly fast triggers. But it goes beyond that too. For one, this focus on the elemental build up is actually perfect for burn damage specifically. Necrosis deals more damage (and DPS), but it lasts 50% longer (15 seconds to burn’s 10). Vivi being so good at triggering the status means that she can fit multiple bursts in one S3 activation against a wide range of enemy RES values (below 60 for bosses, below 80 for elites). So yes, necrosis deals 12k damage over its duration, but dealing 7k twice is still more damage overall. What’s more is that this isn’t just the initial burst damage, but rather increased overall coverage of the status (15 seconds for one necrosis proc vs 20 seconds for two burns). Because burn specifically reduces enemy res by 20, this means that not only does it increase the bonus elemental damage, but it also lets her (and her allies) better apply arts damage as well.

But enough about how it’s really well designed. To figure out how good it is, we still need to look at how it stacks up against her pre-mod state as well as the other units in her archetype. So, let’s look at the numbers:

[These numbers are calculated at max potential and investment for all operators, are for a single target, and were calculated with the average DPS over 25 seconds of skill duration (the duration of both Vina and Vivi’s S3s). I also calculated it with the assumption that both Vina and Surtr would gain the ASPD bonus from not blocking for the entire duration.]

Now, you don’t need a statistics degree to see that wow, Viviana sure does damage now. Against elites with 55-90 res, the mod more than doubles the DPS she was doing before (and at 90 res specifically, more than triples it). Bosses requiring twice the elemental build up does reduce the jump for them, but she still increases her damage against those with 30-85 res by no less than 60% (with that number climbing depending on burn breakpoints, peaking at a 114% increase against 80 res bosses). But it’s not just impressive because of how she compares to her own pre-mod damage, but also how she now stacks up against the other six star arts fighters. Against Elites, she out DPSes Surtr until 80 res, and is either ahead or in a dead heat against her with bosses up to the same threshold. In fact, when the lines are near each other, it is legitimately too close to call. Viviana’s DPS is not linear throughout her skill, but rather peaks with each burn trigger and dips during the burn build up, meaning that for certain enemy HP values, if the peak DPS comes at the right time, she will still be able to take them out before Surtr. Now, it is worth noting that Vina can still out damage both of them starting at 50 res against elites and 45 res against bosses thanks to her true damage, but I don’t think it needs to be said that out DPSing Surtr is a pretty big deal. However, that does begin to touch on each of their respective use cases, as if you’re familiar with Vina’s kit, you might be thinking about that 50sp cost that she has.

For the longest time arts fighters were just the Surtr branch, and unfortunately finally adding a second six star to the archetype did not change that. A well balanced subclass has units with different strengths and weaknesses, each with compelling use cases of their own. And Surtr definitely has her own drawbacks, primarily needing to wait for her 70 second redeployment timer in order to use her S3 a second time. But that was easy enough to work around given that her retreat would free up a deployment slow for another helidrop unit, and her damage was just so good that any drawbacks just didn’t matter; it was always worth it. Sure, if the boss had two phases, she’d be a bit before she could hop back in for round two, but there really wasn’t any competition for how well she could deal with those phases. This threw off the balance of the archetype in a way that I genuinely didn’t think could be altered. Even a very solid unit like Viviana with excellent survivability and skill uptime and good arts damage struggled to find use because that damage just didn’t compare. But now that Viviana’s damage stands up to the other two, finally all three six stars in the archetype have their own niches. Vina has a large sp cost for S3, but is a source of multi-target true damage that makes her indispensable for certain enemies and mechanics; Surtr has to retreat in between skills, but has guaranteed, helidroppable damage thanks to her undying talent, res ignore, and low sp cost; and Vivi is single target and needs to ramp up to reach her full power, but once she does, she has damage that matches or exceeds that of Surtr with 50% uptime and a ton of survivability. This increase in damage, though perhaps more than they really needed to give her (not that I’m complaining), finally lets the other strengths of her kit shine in ways that not even Surtr can replicate (just as she can’t replicate the specific ways in which Surtr or Vina shine).

But where does this leave her? If I’m honest, there’s already a blueprint for this. I’ve watched the community react to Eben’s module; I’ve seen what happens when a unit that’s underrated to begin with and widely regarded as a bottom-tier six star is given high tier damage, but can’t escape the overwhelming initial negative perception. You can already see it in the comments on showcases, and if seeing her out damage Surtr isn’t enough for the redditors et al, I doubt I will be able to change everyone’s minds. And they’re right that she has weaknesses, but let’s talk about how those actually play. There are a few complaints of her kit, but the main ones are that she’s weak off-skill, that she only deals single target damage, and that she needs to ramp up to reach her full potential.

I won’t argue that Viviana is weaker off skill than she is on skill. Most units are. In fact that’s kind of the point: you want a skill to be a big deal. But as a one block unit that can be particularly difficult to manage as it’s a lot easier for enemies to walk past her. However, this mod actually helps with that somewhat as well, as she’s surprisingly good at applying burn even off-skill, meaning that even if she ends up with an elite stuck on her during her (might I remind you: incredibly short) downtime, she can still trigger burn on elites up to 70 res in between skills.

Viviana is also single target only on S3, but that’s a lot less relevant now given that she kills most things so quickly now that it just doesn’t matter. Plus, if enemy numbers are your biggest concern, she has her S2 (which has even better uptime and is also quite good at applying burn, though I’m not doing calculations for that one as it has so much RNG that it’d require me writing a script to simulate it). Additionally, even sticking to just her S3, once you have a strategy for dealing with the map’s elites and bosses, clearing out the trash comes a lot more easily.

The third of these is the most interesting. Because yes, she definitely needs to ramp up to reach her full potential. Her first activation of her S3 only lasts for 15 seconds (as opposed to the subsequent activations’ 25 seconds) and hits enemies twice (instead of three times). Most stages start slowly enough that you have time to get her through that initial cycle early, but in the cases where you don’t, it could be pretty limiting. But, just to focus on that worst case scenario for her for a second, her mod affects that activation too. In fact, well, I think the best way is to just show you.

Depending on the target and its resistance, this initial activation now has an extra 50-100% DPS. In fact, the improvement is so extreme, that it now out DPSes her pre-mod full activation S3 at most res values, even against bosses. Yes, you read that right. The weaker version now has a higher DPS than the pre-mod full version. The total damage will still be lower, as the duration of the skill is shorter on that first activation as well, but it’s still plenty to tear through just about anything a stage can throw at you. For a quick example: with her mod she can clear phase one of the NL-10 Blood Knight on just the initial activation, only seven seconds after being deployed. It’s worth noting that it’s still a far cry from Surtr’s helidrop S3, and this isn’t to say that the ramp up isn’t a weakness, but rather to point out that it’s really not all that hard to work around it, and that the reward for doing so is incredibly high. After all, once that first activation is over, she’s right into her normal rotation, and from then on will be able to do her full damage with just a 25 sp cooldown. No 70 second redeploy required, and even if we ignore the now quite strong initial activation, the 47 seconds it takes for her to reach her full S3 is still less than the 50 sp charge time for Vina’s S3.

So where can you use Viviana? Well, she’ll be great in any casual content, but she already was great at that. Beyond that, elemental damage has been a staple of challenging content like CC and high difficulty IS since it was introduced. For IS, I think it’s worth noting that she scales better with buffs than either of the other six star arts fighters, as any increase to her damage affects both her arts damage and her elemental damage, letting her essentially double up on the benefits. For content like CC, her ability to shred elites and their lower elemental build up bar could also be huge given that pinch out and both CC battleplan events have featured elites as the biggest threats, not bosses (though she would also be very capable against bosses). Because of this I could definitely see there being a spot for her in advanced clears. That said, I do think that this is one of the very few places where her staying deployed might be more difficult to work around. In CC, with reduced deployment limits, it’s pretty common to focus on rotating helidrop damage units rather than keeping units out to recharge skills, but I still wouldn’t count her out entirely. Her damage is still very good, and her ability to negate damage with her shields could be incredibly useful when every enemy hits like a freight train.

In case you couldn’t tell, I think this is a great mod for Vivi. It’s definitely not the only thing they could have done (and arguably they didn’t have to go THIS hard on her damage), but I think it makes her into an even more compelling unit. Yes, she has her weaknesses and this mod doesn’t necessarily eliminate that, but I think she’s a lot more interesting for it. Any well designed unit has a degree of risk/reward to their kit when considering their use, a downside or challenge to manage in order to get the most out of their upside. Mods can either reduce the risk/downsides or increase the reward for managing those. While it strengthens her outside of her full activation, this mod is definitely mostly in the latter category, and I think that is the more interesting direction to go. And for the first time in the game, “who’s the best arts fighter?” isn’t a simple question, and actually requires thought about what situation you’re faced with, and even in my imagined best case scenarios for Vivi, I did not once think that would be the case.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Stephanie Soucheray, MA

Two new studies add to the growing body of literature on the lasting effects of long COVID. In the first, a study of 114 patients with long COVID in Israel, researchers found high rates of depressive disorders (46%), generalized anxiety disorders (21%), sleep disturbances (76%), and reported cognitive changes (95%) among those diagnosed with the condition.

In a second study, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers find that the prevalence of long COVID-19 in the US population in 2021 was 29.9%, and 77.2% of those with long COVID had not returned to pre-COVID health within 8 to 60 weeks after infection.

The first study, published in BMC Infectious Diseases, was an online survey given to long COVID patients composed of several established questionnaires, including the Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) for psychological distress, the Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD) questionnaire for cognitive decline, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) for sleep disorders.

The participants had an average age of 44 years, and 29 were men (25.4%) and 85 were women (74.6%).

The high rates of sleep disturbances and cognitive changes, including brain fog and memory loss, were the most significant findings. Social support negatively correlated with psychological distress, with those who reported more social isolation during their long COVID illness having worse mental health outcomes.

“Personality traits and social support were found to modulate symptom severity, with conscientiousness and social support appearing to confer protective effects, while neuroticism was associated with greater risk,” the authors said. “These findings highlight the potential for psychological interventions to alleviate distress in Long COVID patients.”

More than 75% of patients did not return to health The second study, published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, used data collected in 2021 to assess long COVID prevalence. Notably, the authors found 30% of those infected with COVID-19 in the pre-Delta period (March to December 2020) developed long COVID, or post-COVID Condition (PCC).

Among those, 3 out of every 4 patients did not return to prior health within 60 weeks of initial infection.

Certain symptom clusters were associated with not returning to pre-COVID health, including respiratory problems, gastrointestinal symptoms, and chronic fatigue syndrome-like symptoms.

“Understanding PCC symptom clustering may provide insight into pathophysiology, severity of PCC, and management for patients who have not returned to their usual state of health after SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the authors concluded.

Study links: bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-024-10308-0 academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/cid/ciae632/7929829