#dunno how this will turn out. mostly just ranting and raving about it. but i'm very happy with how the knight turned out

[racke7]

Update on my Divinity 2 bullshit.

So, I created a (personal, for now) mod that makes that Necromancer-variant of Master-of-Sparks scale with STR instead of INT.

This meant that my Knight became... basically god.

Like, I found a save-editor program (I wanted to not have to deal with the RNG of vendor-gear), and it included a "statistics" tab. In that tab, the ranger (known bullshit), and my new necromancer (probably bullshit) hit around 130k damage. My knight hit 240k.

Obviously, this is a Great Success (TM).

But then I looked at my rogue and it was at 60k.

That's... way too weak. What the fuck? So I started trying to think about why it was apparently doing fuck-all damage, comparatively.

(This got a little bit long, so...)

Rogues have a backstab-mechanic, where if they're behind the enemy they're attacking, they have "100% crit-chance". I've always viewed this as an excellent tradeoff, because it's not that hard to navigate behind people (especially with The Pawn, which gives you 1AP worth of free movement).

But as I'm now looking at this proof to the contrary, I was forced to ask myself why.

And the answer came pretty quickly. I'd been using it to teleport some enemies around (which is wasted AP for their own DPS), yes, but I'd also been using it as an AOE-CC. As in, I'd been using AOE-skills that did knock-down, and most of the time? Only one of those enemies have their backs turned to me.

So I'd been hitting them with very useful AOE-CC skills, and that basically made my backstab-bonus irrelevant. Which meant that I didn't have that crit-dmg.

So, in essence I'd created a shittier knight. It didn't have the higher base-dmg of the knight, it didn't have the often-boosted crit-chance of the knight, and it didn't have the extra crit-dmg boost of the knight. And I'd still effectively been using it as a knight.

This threw me into a bit of a panic, trying to figure out some way to bypass this.

See, I don't want to create a second knight on the team, because then I'd be very aware that the best way to optimize it is to have it also using the bullshit that is my Necro-Sparks. And that'd be repetitive and boring.

This made me look into spear-users, because spears are basically knight-weapons that scale with FIN instead of STR. So I'd be able to make a basic knight without that temptation.

The problem with this, of course, is that the basic knight? Is incredibly boring. I don't find anything about that thing compelling in the least.

So I'd need some way to "spice it up" with skills that only a spear-user could really benefit from.

Except, when looking into the modding-tool (all existing spear-mods are basically useless for me), I realized that whilst it's possible to lock skills behind "using a dagger" or "using a melee-weapon", it's not possible to lock them behind "using a spear".

So it'd need to be skills that would be detrimental or useless to a "true knight", but which a spear-user wouldn't mind.

One of these ideas was a "sacrifice physical armor for X"-skill, basically removing your physical armor (which is waaay lower as a FIN-build than as a STR-build) in exchange for... something.

I couldn't really find a definite "yes this is what I want"-thing in exchange, but it was an interesting idea (especially since it's pretty easy to get a FIN-build up to ~70% base-dodge, meaning that you don't really have to care about physical attacks anyway).

However, I don't really want to spend hours upon hours trying to craft skills that are good for a spear-user and kind of shit for a STR-build, because that sounds both complicated (theory-crafting) and incredibly tedious (mod-making and play-testing).

So, it occurred to me that maybe if I just made rogues better, then this problem would go away.

See, the problem is that the early WAR-skills with their AOE-CC are just inherently better than pretty much anything that the Scoundrel-tree has access to.

Sure, you could maybe kill one dude if you go all-in on Scoundrel-skills, or you could hard-CC five enemies at once. And one of these options is better for the team as a whole than the other.

And, since nobody seemed to have really done anything with the rogue-skills (other than either nerf the shit out of them, or "unlock" them for every melee-build) I'd have to make/remake all of those skills on my own. And that (again) sounds like a pain in the dick.

Which is when it occurred to me that I could just do some kind of stackable bleed-effect that's inherent to all daggers. As in, not only can they backstab, you will also set a stackable bleed-effect on everyone you hit (even if it isn't backstab).

Said and done, after a bit of experimentation, I managed to get it to show up properly and activate properly-...

And it double-stacks.

Turns out, because I removed its "stack-id" to get it to stack? Dual-wielding daggers means that it triggers twice. It's the same thing as if one of your daggers has "bleed" and one has "atrophy", they will both apply on hit, even if it isn't a "true double-attack".

So, I've now (accidentally) created a DoT that double-applies anytime a dual-wielding dagger-user hits the enemy. Which means that getting "four stacks of bleed" on an enemy is incredibly easy (you just hit them twice).

Now, I dunno if I want to go that route, because even if it's good damage it's a bit... hmm... I don't really trust DoTs in this game.

Alternatively however, it occurred to me that you could make a status-effect that makes a character weaker to physical damage. Which would make any multi-hit skill or combo scale incredibly quickly in damage-output.

I don't know if that would really help with my "the rogue doesn't do any damage" since it would also boost everyone else's damage (and probably even more so, since the rogue would be the one applying the debuff, not taking advantage of it). But I suppose it'd make "supporting rogue" a much more blatant role.

Anyway. I paused here and went and play-tested it for a little bit.

The armor-break variant is interesting, but it basically means that you're rewarded for attacking "in the right order". Where first you build up stacks, and then you hit them with a "really strong" attack. Which is... not really compatible with the idea of "big AOE-CC" being the main attack-skills (they scale very weakly).

In comparison, I found that I could set the bleed-effect to "trigger on apply and on turn", meaning that it triggers for (in my brief testing at least) around 5% of their health per stack both on my own and their turn.

What this basically amounts to is that if I use Flurry (3-hit attack), my armor-break causes it to do about 60% more damage, before leaving it open to having 80% more damage to be done to the enemy by allies.

And my bleed-effect instead causes it to do about 30% of their health as damage on my turn, and then another 30% on their own turn. But what order I hit something with is irrelevant.

What this means is that I could theoretically hit someone with Backlash (1AP), and then Flurry (3AP), and by the time their turn rolls around? They'd have lost 80% of their health (even if you never broke their armor, because bleed deals piercing-damage and doesn't care about your silly armor). And considering that Scoundrels have Adrenaline (+2AP) for another attack? Removing that last 20% sounds incredibly easy.

(Not to mention that Scoundrel has a source-skill that will insta-kill anyone with less than 20% health left. Which I can imagine this working very well with.)

From this, it very much feels like the more powerful option is this stackable bleed-effect.

Which leads to the obvious question of "is this too blatantly bullshit, even for me?". And... hmm... I don't know.

I suppose I could go back to the spear and make this change for that? That way it can only apply once per attack (since spears are two-handed), and we won't have access to Flurry (has to be dual-wielding for that).

Theoretically I'd be doing more damage with my base-attacks, and I'd still at least be able to get to a total of 20% health-damage from the on-apply and the on-turn. Which is... kind of pathetic in comparison.

(If I use the source-skill Onslaught (4AP, 5-hits), this goes up to a total of 50% health-damage. Which is still... kind of shit, and not really the point of this whole thing anyway.)

That said, it would mean that it wouldn't clutter up the UI like a motherfucker (displaying each instance as a separate effect).

Or, I could go back to my "agony weapon"-mod that uses Odinblade's Agony-effect (which is basically just "stackable bleed"), where I can't double-stack it with single-attacks (because it has a stack-id). That might work too, even if it means having to deal with... the rest of that mod.

Tested it, and it scales... really badly? Like, it doesn't do as much "base"-dmg as the bleed (more like 2% than 5% of health), and then it seems to increase by 1,8 (instead of 2, which is how the bleed-stack works).

Yeah, sure, the stack boosts itself, so you get 2->4->8=14% from three hits, which on the next turn does... another 8%, for a rousing success of 22%. As in, basically the same damage as the spear-using bleed-effect.

Again, these aren't bad, it's just that I'm looking for something that can compete with the bullshit that is a STR-knight with a STR-scaling Master-of-Sparks, and doing 20% health-dmg per turn is kind of weak when the comparison is "killed everything in a single turn".

So... hmm... yeah, maybe if I require it to be a 1AP dagger-locked buff-skill? Then we can do that bullshit-level of damage if we want to, but it stops being an inherent part of things?

It would also stop us from doing 80% damage in a single DoT exchange (at least without using Adrenaline). Wouldn't stop an elf, obviously (because they have a +1AP skill), but it would make it a lot less bullshit.

And with two basic AOE on a turn that would hit for 40% of the enemies' health (20% on each turn) regardless of backstabs or crits. Still won't help you actually break through the armor (since it's piercing-dmg), but Scoundrel does have a few piercing-dmg skills (that are usually pretty niche), so I don't think that's a deal-breaker.

Might be a thought to figure out some way to include Acid though, since that is an anti-armor DoT. A second 1AP-skill that does that? Would let you choose if you care more about breaking armor or killing, which is... not bad. Rogues are supposed to be flexible.

[s0ckh3adstudios]

Curious, What’s ur beef with Miguel

you asked for it. slightly long post ahead i'm so sorry

WARNING: ACROSS THE SPIDERVERSE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

i have spent the last several days ranting and raving about about Spiderverse related things and like. I have such a complicated relationship with this movie, but THAT'S FOR ANOTHER POST IF SOMEONE ASKS LMAO but Miguel. Miguel O'Hara. Miguel.

I HATE HIS HOLOGRAM SUIT WITH NOTHING UNDERNEATH ASSS HE'S SO. WAGHGGHGAGK Like I know a lot of people do like him and there's stuff to like but I just don't see the appeal, and I'm also slightly biased because I can't enter the Spiderverse tag without seeing unfiltered Miguel NSFW LMAO

The first thing I thought after watching the movie was that it felt like he wasn't like... built up to enough? Like, my writer brain never turns off, and from a writing perspective it felt kinda weird. A lot of things in the movie did, but to me it just felt like there wasn't enough intro to him. Like he's supposed to be important but we don't like. i dunno HEJGKHKFL it sort of felt like we were already supposed to know a lot about him. WHICH I GUESS IS FAIR MAYBE THEY EXPECT ACTUAL SPIDER FANS TO COME IN AND KNOW WHO HE IS and I'm only a Spiderverse fan.

Miguel does have really charming and funny moments! Like, in the beginning Gwen section of the movie, he's got pretty funny dialogue while still remaining stern. He's got kind of a flat charm to him. But for me he just. loses it. after that part of the movie. He's a lot more of an asshole, which yes he's supposed to be. But for me there's just not that much to like. and just. and. and

Okay, kiddies, get out of the pool, that was the formal discussion. Now I'm just gonna LOUD

THIS GUYYYYY. IS SUCH A DUMBASS!!!!! He is so obviously wrong about the entire canon event theory. At least he is mostly. THERE IS SO MUCH EVIDENCE POINTING TO HIM BEING WRONG. AND WHAT DOES HE HAVE TO BACK IT UP??? ONLY ONE PIECE OF EVIDENCE THAT HE EVER BRINGS UP IN THE MOVIE!! And that's when he was Stupid and took the place of himself in a universe where he died so he could be with his daughter! And when you think about it, he didn't necessarily break the canon event rule- That canon event already HAPPENED. He DIED. But I guess you could suggest that him coming back ruined it. But that's the problem; these multiverse rules and regulations and details are just so confusing. And they're supposed to be.

Miguel doesn't necessarily have the right to put himself in charge of protecting this and claiming these things to be true when he absolutely does not know the full scale of the multiverse- Nobody knows exactly how all this works!! And we have seen so many things to contradict him!! If what he says is true, the events of Into The Spiderverse would have absolutely shaken things up. But the everything's fine for the most part, isn't it? The events of that movie changed all the characters in different ways (except for Ham. Ham's ok. Ham didn't change LMAO). Peni's SP//DER bot was destroyed, Noir brought color to his universe in the shape of a rubiks cube, Gwen made a new friend. Peter B was inspired and fixed things with MJ and went onto have a daughter, a DAUGHTER WHO'S VERY EXISTENCE ISN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! AND THAT'S BECAUSE OF MILES! And if what Miguel is saying is true, why is the fact that Miles is Spiderman now and everything he's done not severely messing things up? The 42 spider's corpse is still chilling in his universe, too.

I've seen people compare the Spider Society to like. a cult? And honestly I can see that- Unintentional by Miguel, I'm sure, but it does seem similar. He's gotten everyone to believe in his theory and have them acting upon it, even Gwen, Peter B, and Peni. (Noir and Ham we never saw in the Spider Society, likely because their VA's weren't available. But I also like to take this as like. These two would not join the Spider Society, no way in hell they would. The society is against a lot of what Noir fights for and Ham would see this as a joke LMAO) NOT TO MENTION THAT OH MY GODDD LIKE GWEN KNOWS NOW THAT IF SHE GOES BACK TO HER UNIVERSE, SHE'S GOING TO HAVE TO EXPERIENCE THE CANON EVENT OF HER DAD DYING. AND MIGUEL AND THE OTHERS KNOW THAT TOO. AND THEY THREATEN HER WITH THE IDEA OF GOING HOME. THEY KNOW THAT. LIKE WTF?????

A detail I'm also obsessed with is that in Pavitr's universe, you see the damage and glitching before the Spider Society shows up. They call it a "quantum hole" or something, because that's what they believe it is. That's what it HAS to be, right? It can't be anything else. It has to be damage from the disruption of a canon event. But that is NOT what that is. That deep blackness- That's damage from The Spot. You can even hear it in the music, you can hear Spot's motif. It's probably also glitching because Spot is literally becoming some multidimensional being.

BUT MIGUEL IS SO DUMB AND SO UNLIKEABLE TO ME LIKE HE COULD HAVE AVOIDED THE WHOLE CONFLICT WITH MILES IN THE FIRST PLACE IF HE DIDN'T TELL HIM HIS DAD IS GOING TO DIE!! LIKE HE SCREWED HIMSELF OVER!! Sure, maybe he figured he should know what's going to happen, just accept it and join the club, but like. MAN.

BUT WHAT GETS ME. WHAT GETS ME THE MOST. WHICH MAKES ME ROLL MY EYES HARDER THAN ANYTHING.

"I'm this dimension's one and only Spiderman. Or, at least I was. But I'm not like the others. I don't always like what I have to do. But I know I have to be the one to do it. I've given up too much to stop now."

OH BOOOHOOOOOOOOO, CRY ME A RIVER. LIKE OH MY GODD. THIS IS LITERALLY ALL THE MOST CLICHE AND GENERIC QUOTES FOR A CHARACTER OF HIS TYPE. LIKE HOW DO YOU TAKE THAT SERIOUSLYYY I'VE HEARD IT ALL BEFORE. OKAY DRAMATIC EDGY MCEDGE I GET IT. I DON'T FEEL BAD FOR YOU!! I HAVE NO REASON TO!!!

I can not WAIT for Beyond The Spiderverse to have Miguel be faced with the fact he's wrong. But he can't face that. Because if he knows he's wrong, he has to face the fact that he's done all of this for nothing. And when people learn the truth, they're likely going to be a bit pissed!!

This came out a little more disorganized and incomprehensible than I wanted, but I think I expelled all my energy yelling about him and stuff in DM's on Discord, so I'm just piecing together all the pieces I left scattered LMAO

Sorry Miguel fans,,,,, you may think he's hot but I do not. This is all just my opinions and thoughts, keep that in mind!!! No hate to anyone who likes him, I know a lot of people do!! I'm just not that big a fan

anyway if anyone wants to hear more of my thoughts on Spiderverse ermmm shoot me more asks :] I enjoy talking