#i swear I'm still doing dp art

[dashing-through-ecto]

I continue to be normal about one (1) blood thirsty cult leader.

[shuttershocky]

There's a thread on the arknights reddit asking why is Eyja so resistant to powercreep. About half the answers were because the devs virtually give no other casters the amount of res ignore she has and she was just made right from the start and casters past her are either meh or Goldenglow.

It's a fun problem to talk about and these answers are correct, but I would argue that fully understanding the issue of Eyjafjalla's effect on Arknights' design and why she's so hard to powercreep comes down to understanding the combination of four things:

Arts damage is calculated by reducing the initial damage by a percentage given by the target's RES

Arknights is a Tower Defense game

Eyjafjalla was first and with a very overloaded S2

Closely related to #3, Arknights is a live service (gacha) game

I'm not sure if I can explain this very cohesively, but I'll try. This is going to be a very long post going over all 4 points in detail, after the cut

I'll go over info you definitely already know to explain Point#1, but please be patient.

Arts damage in Arknights is calculated like how Magic Resistance works in many games—it's reduced by a percentage of the target's RES, vs Physical damage being a flat reduction by DEF or ATK - DEF. Let's explain Physical first.

The flat reduction from DEF means that while Phys damage does almost nothing if it's below an enemy's DEF, slowly slowly increasing the phys damage being outputted will get over the enemy's DEF until it starts being effective. The higher you boost the phys damage over the initial DEF, the more effective the attack becomes. 2000 DEF may be extremely tanky, but if you deal 10,000 damage per hit in one second, you're still dealing 8000 DPS. On the other hand, if you deal 1000 damage per hit 10 times in a single second, you're doing basically nothing (a minimum of 5% damage per hit) to a 2000 DEF target despite having the same DPS.

Meanwhile, Arts damage being reduced by a percentage dictated by enemy RES means that the actual damage per hit doesn't matter. If you make a 10,000 damage Arts attack hit an 80 RES target once per second, you do 2000 DPS. Do the same thing where an attack does 1000 damage Arts hits 10x in 1 second to the same 80 RES target, and you do 200 x 10 or 2000 DPS. This means Arts damage ultimately only cares about DPS, no cares about whether it gains it from boosting ATK or ASPD, it will be the same in the end.

Moving on to Point #2, other games that calculate magic resistance in this way aren't Tower Defenses, but Arknights is. Being a tower defense means that the objective in any stage is to beat all AI enemies in a stage before they finish their set path to your goal, and no matter what strategy you go with the only approach to victory involves killing all enemies in some manner. This foundation means that DPS is inherently king (as in many games, but with Tower Defense's especially), as your only form of gameplay involves destroying the AI enemies with set patterns, everything else only serves that purpose. The hypothetical ultimate Arknights unit is not the one with the best utility or versatility or strategic potential, it's the unit that can kill the most number of enemies onscreen more efficiently than everyone else. So when it comes to units that deal Arts damage, Arts units that can kill the most enemies the most efficiently are the most valuable.

In other games in completely different genres but with the same approach to magic resistance (a very big logical leap I know but hear me out I swear), DPS numbers cannot be the end all-be all. For example, Dota 2's magic resistance works the same way, and they even have heroes with similar approaches to the game, but being a human player vs human player game and actually being unable to win by killing all enemies alone creates nuance.

Lina and Skywrath for (an extremely simplified and obviously overlooking many, many more nuances) example, are both squishy magic damage nukers whose goals are to surprise one enemy and then destroy them as fast as possible with very high magic damage. However, they are usually incomparable, because they're not just fighting set AI enemies walking on pre-determined paths, but human players who will react in different ways to the smallest differences between the two characters (ex: Skywrath has no way to completely stop enemy movement so he'll have a partner nearby to watch out for, Lina has a stun so she's more likely to be alone, but there's no dodging her homing Laguna Blade like you can with Skywrath's ground-targeted Mystic Flare so kill her before she fights back). Also, you can only win in Dota by destroying the enemy's base, so a team with 100 kills can actually lose to a team with 30 kills if the team being beaten up constantly dodges fights but manages to destroy the enemy base still. The ability to kill your enemies must actually be in service of your ability to destroy buildings (which are normally magic immune), meaning a caster that can annihilate enemy players is the blink of an eye but is useless at breaking buildings or defending may become a liability if they don't help their team at pushing faster than the enemy or can't help defend their buildings. To put it short: in other games, the non-linearity of both the objectives and combat encounters means increasing raw magic DPS cannot always be a solution

So now we go into Point#3 and 4, Eyjafjalla was the first 6 star Caster, and Arknights is a live service game meaning it must change over time.

Eyjafjalla having an automatic and powerful skill with RES shred, multiple charges, and even AOE on her S2 spelt doom for the entire Caster class, even more than her infamous S3. With S2, Eyja was cheaper than Casters with AOE, dealt more DPS than them while having their AOE, didn't require any manual input from the player, and even shredded enemy RES.

Now Eyjafjalla's S3 could be competed with, as it was a long cd multitarget DPS skill. Ceobe came with her own machine gun on S2 that could scale off enemy DEF, while Carnelian came with true AOE rather than a 6 target limit (though Eyja's S3 was still better in the end lol). However, her S2 being so easy and so powerful in a tower defense where efficient and strong DPS is the most valuable trait you can possibly have means HyperGryph either have to directly powercreep it with a similar skill, or work around it, which is where Point#4 being closely related comes in.

HG's approach was trying to work around it, which is why other Casters have clearly tried to stay out of her way either via utility or new features. Goldenglow has global range, Ebenholz sacrifices DPS for instant burst (but then eventually got a DPS module anyway), Mostima has big slows, Dusk creates summons to block enemies, etc. But even with all the utility or features being put into other Casters, if Eyjafjalla kills enemies just as quickly and easily as she did at release, then there's no real reason beyond your own fun to use anyone else. Eyja's S2 is still killing everything. That means enemies also have to change.

If Eyjafjalla killing enemies so easily with either S2 or S3 is a problem, then the only solution without being able to nerf her is make enemies harder for her to kill alone. This is why Patriot Phase 1 had 90 RES, so Eyjafjalla couldn't just kill him like she did all other bosses while Amiya's S3 had True Damage. Later enemies would also try other gimmicks, like the enemies in Lonetrail starting with very high DEF and RES that would lower after multiple hits, so strong DPS casters like Eyja can't instantly kill them with S2 (although her S3 will kill them from rapidfire lol).

However, unlike someone like Exusiai who had low ATK but monstrous DPS from multihits and ASPD, simply raising the floor of enemy RES will negatively affect ALL Casters, because of point#1— Arts only cares about DPS because of how it's calculated, damage per hit doesn't really matter. While Exusiai players can still play around with her by attempting to boost her DPH above the enemy's DEF threshold (and run the math on whether they should just try to lower enemy DEF instead), Casters will react the same to boosting ASPD and ATK, while lowering enemy RES will become more and more efficient the higher enemy RES gets, and hey, guess who comes with a RES shred? Eyjafjalla's S2.

Eyjafjalla trapped Hypergryph's design team. Keep raising RES and other Casters quickly become more and more useless without RES ignore / RES shred of their own, becoming a second support class when Supporters already exist for the idea of "Casters but supports". In fact, as RES gets raised, Eyjafjalla and other casters like Ifrit become more and more valuable as DPS units (in a tower defense where DPS is king), since they can ignore / shred RES when most cannot. Keep the game playable for other Casters however, and it means Eyjafjalla will continue to reign supreme.

HG tried to do a balancing act. This is how we got enemies start to get more RES over time, which weakened Casters overall enough that HG made a module for Core Casters to ignore 10 RES (that Eyjafjalla also got LOL). This is also how we got into the current state where Eyjafjalla is still comfortably killing 90% of the game and seen as near impossible to powercreep, because if she can't then people without her (and there WILL be people without her, because it's a gacha game and she's not guaranteed) would be totally screwed. Try to directly powercreep her by making a second Eyjafjalla with bigger numbers, and not only will you be pissing off people that rolled for Eyjafjalla, but you'll be creating an even bigger problem instead of fixing the first one.

So to tie it all together

Point # 1 means that Arts damage is a lot less nuanced than Physical damage, leading to raw DPS by any means coming out on top

Point # 2 means that if the only way to win is to destroy all enemies, then the ability to destroy enemies with damage faster and more effectively will always be the strongest solution

Point # 3 means that since Eyja was first and also very overloaded with features, everyone else was created with the knowledge of that they'll be competing against her, meaning you either had to directly powercreep her, or stay out of her way. HG chose the latter

Point # 4 means that while Arknights tried to address her, by either making tankier enemies or by event game mechanics, they were trapped by their own design. Because of Points #1, #2, nullifying Eyjafjalla too much would be screwing over everyone else because of the end result of Point #3, which is everyone tried to stay out of her lane when it came to DPSing. Not everyone can have Eyjafjalla because it's a gacha game and who you get is all RNG, and while you want new units to be attractive to make money, directly powercreeping old characters screws over your own players and makes them angry, while powercreeping Eyjafjalla directly will not even fix the problems created by points #1 and 2, it just makes an even more problematic, second Eyjafjalla.

Thanks for reading this far! If anything wasn't clear just ask and I'll try to explain it again

[dlamp-dictator]

So, taking a short break from Limbus Company since Walpurgis Night 3 and Zwillingstürme im Herbst are updating on the same fucking day (Lord help me and my wallet this and next month), I finally took some time to blitz through a bit of the story missions and finished up Episode 9.

Yeah, I know, I'm slow as hell in this regard, but at least I'm finally working on it.

I skipped most of the story since I plan on give a story overview later this week (hopefully) when I have time to sit down and read it, but gameplay-wise I've got some thoughts. I was honestly doing pretty well throughout the chapter. The overall mechanics of enemies having high arts resistance was annoying, but manageable. There's plenty of units like the Executors (the characters, not the Specialist subclass) and Franka that can ignore defense, and other units that have skill effects and modules that lower Res, and Eyja's still busted.

At least... until I ran into the wall known as 9-19.

Lord above, that was just the worst experience I've had with a boss since fucking Elbana. It would had been real nice if the boss blurb included the fact that Mandragora had anti-burst mechanics along with her damage reduction. This chick counter all my usual strategies. Even my pre-Texas Alter strats. It took a combination of 4 Executors (the Specialist subclass, not the character), speedrunning a module, and both Executors (the character, not the Specialist subclass) to get through it.

I swear, for every new Meta DPS operator they make they create two bosses that absolutely neuter them. That boss was almost as annoying as the The Amalgam. Took two days to beat it. Also, low-altitude enemies are actual cancer and the person that suggested their inclusion needs to be thrown in a dungeon.

[dp-marvel94]

Fanwork creators self rec! When you get this, reply with your five favorite fics/art/podfics/etc. that you've made, then pass on to others. Let’s spread the self-love 🌼

(No pressure if you don't want to though!)

Hope you have a good day! ✨

This is too sweet! 🥺🥰🤗

In no particular order:

Face to Face should be a surprise to no one. I've been writing it for three and a half years. It's almost 280K long. I'm so proud of myself for sticking with it this long. A lot has changed in my life since I started this. Writing the story actually was very important to understanding and accepting myself as an autistic person. I'm in a much better place emotionally now. And I literally just have the epilogue left to write. 😭 I'm going to finish it after Invisobang, I swear!

Speaking of Invisobang!

This is the 76K monstrosity I wrote in three months for the first Invisobang. There was a lot of tears in writing it. I'm pretty sure I gave myself headaches just about every day with the stress I was putting myself under. Honestly, I never want to do that again. 😅😓💀 But there were a lot of emotions in there I think I needed to get out of me. It helped me deal with some things; there were a lot of emotions I needed to get out of me so I'm happy I wrote in, even if it hurt.

So apparently, I'm going to be a debby-downer for all these. :( This was the first multi-chapter fic I ever wrote, my first real dip into writing fanfiction (after a one shot I wrote near by birthday in 2018 to cheer myself up). I wrote it in the month or so after graduating from graduate school. I wrote with a fever and excitement I hadn't felt in a long time and my sister beta-read it with me, just as excited as I was.

*Religious discussion to follow*

Honestly this story saved my life. For the past year or so, especially the last semester of grad school, I was in the deepest depression and anxiety I've ever experienced. I kept running into road blocks in my research. Nothing was going the way I wanted. I never got to see my family; with my sister being my best friend (and still is) that was a big deal. I did many things I am deeply ashamed of and I felt so alone. And I was so angry at God for letting me get that deep. I felt like he'd abandoned me. I was convinced if He didn't even care about me at all. Which was absolutly earth-shattering for me; I'd never had my faith shaken like that. In all honestly, I came really close to leaving the church. I'd already checked out mentally. I stopped listening to Christian Music (yes even Disciple) because I couldn't enjoy it anymore; all those promises in the songs felt like getting stabbed when I knew that God had forgot about me.

The point, the depression and guilt and running from God (because I was running from Him; He never abandoned me) turned into a vicious cycle, driving my deeper and deeper, farther and farther away. Things only started getting better once I graduated. And something finally pushed me to start writing. And writing Double Discovery was the first step in climbing out of that depression and coming back to church. Or rather.... it was what Jesus used, completely oblivious to me, to start to pull me out of the pit and bring me back to Him. Looking back now, I have no doubt. God lead me to the DP community. He gave me the special interest I have, the passion, my talent for writing, the ideas. I remember praying (ie begging), before things got really bad and I can't even stomach the thought of talking to God, for Him to help me. It didn't come when I want it to or how I would have imagined or even wanted. But He did help me. He never abandoned me.

*End Religious Discussion*

Okay, these last two will just be fun, I swear!

I wrote this for my first Phic Phight. It's the first story of mine someone made fanart for. Check out this piece by @paenling

Another Phic Phight offering, this one from 2021. I had to include one of my numerous clone sibling stories. XD

[empty-pizza]

thoughts on gideon the ninth chapters ten and eleven

so, this note they're reading mentions Nigella, in a cooking recipe. i noticed that in the DP, that was the fourth cavalier. doesn't really tell me much i didn't already know, though.

does remind me of that note that mentioned Gideon, but i forget some of those details and if we could have even gleaned anything from that.

i like how harrow says she finds the idea of making eyes at one's cavalier too revolting to bear. she doesn't know.

lmao abigail can tell there's way too many souls in harrow and that really pissed her off.

also that just made me realize something. it made me realize a character that Harrow is very similar to. another character who can, through understanding of their art and the human body, do a great many things that real-life medical science would call impossible. and another character with more souls in them than a person is supposed to have.

they're basically the same character.

(i think this joke is super funny but i think the overlap of people that care about the tf2 comics and the locked tomb is sadly very small)

I've changed my mind, flashback chapters are the best ones, because I get to read Harrow being willful and driven in them. Swearing she may kill Pent is the energy I'm missing in the present with her.

Okay this eggs note is getting interesting. I'm really not sure what it might be referring to. Not sure how metaphorical the eggs part is. And the part about "you still sent him after me" is really something where... I just don't know what it lines up with! Maybe something in the 48 hours.

fun scene, how Ortus compliments her for having a witty retort, and then says something that she has no retort to.

Now, chapter eleven, that's interesting. Did we really need to double tap? Like, was that somehow necessary? What if it's not that we needed to extra-kill Cytherea so much as we needed the sword, which has gideon's soul in it maybe probably, to absorb power from her?

And like, Harrow is compromised, but what does that mean? Something evil could have taken over and done that, and that's how she's compromised. But also, something good could have taken over, and this needed to happen. Or maybe she just sleepwalked. Or maybe she did something but then forgot. I mean, clearly her mental state ain't great.

[purplekoop]

Role Requeue Status Update

So, as mentioned in my last post, I figured it'd make sense to elaborate on where my thoughts are with the Role Requeue AU, a project mostly focused around gameplay changes (with some lore changes to help explain some of the more drastic overhauls) to refit every existing hero into a brand new role!

Let's start out with a recap of the existing reworks, either the ones I've made myself or those suggested by others (which is so far a list of... one):

Tracer: Support. The poster girl of the main game was the first character I used to explain this AU's concept. While she hasn't gotten a formal post detailing her new kit, I explained most of my ideas in the original post. Her trip in the slipstream ended up with her gaining the ability to rewind not just her own condition through time, but also the ability to share this with others, healing wounds by rewinding the body to a state before the wound.

Reaper: Tank. The second character detailed in the initial post, the menace known as Reaper is being reimagined from a whispy specter to an almost liquid mass of a being, draining the life of his victims to be a resilient menace. Like Tracer, I didn't actually detail his kit, and I'm actually struggling slightly to do so, so expect his own post later too.

Widowmaker: Tank. Complementing Reaper with Overwatch's most iconic duo of longest-standing villains, Widowmaker is also given a major character overhaul to make her a terrifying type of tank. While I had her marked down as a Tank in the initial post with a vague idea in my head to take inspiration from a scrapped character from official concept art, @daylightcommand3 came in with a basically perfect kit to match the concept, imagining her using long cybernetic spider legs to move around, and web-based abilities to ensnare her prey and defend her team in the process. As far as I'm concerned for now, their post on her is as good as "official" for the AU.

Mei: Tank. Hey can you tell my favorite and least favorite roles yet. In seriousness, I don't think this one's much of a shock. Taking her already defensive playstyle up a notch, Mei is now outfitted with a cryogenic power armor suit to give herself the durability and stature needed for the Tank role. This was the first one to get an official separate post, detailing her entire new kit, so she's functionally "complete" outside of artwork.

Zenyatta: Damage. A more hands-on (and feet-on-the-ground) approach to Zenyatta's already damage-heavy playstyle, Zenyatta is now a melee-ranged fighter, with a variety of abilities letting him to get some damage in from a distance, get in close, finish off a target, and get out safely. The most drastic rework yet, but one I'm still fairly proud of. While his visual changes are less drastic than Mei's, I'd still like to give him some art eventually.

Sojourn: Tank. Last character to get a formal post as of now, and the first OW2 hero (let alone post-OW1-launch hero) to boot. With more high-power cybernetics to bulk up her build, and a bigger, badder Railgun she's now built to weild, Sojourn's effectively taken Zarya's role of "big lady with big gun who takes big damage and hits back with aforementioned big gun powered up by said big damage". While her post had more to do with the concept design process and lacked any real lore changes, I don't exactly have drastic story changes in mind for her besides "she buff now", so once I get a design out for her I'll be relatively content with where she's at.

And that's... six. Look I swear I have more ideas than just turning DPS into Tanks. Granted, I have more DPS I want to turn into Tanks, but that's besides the point here.

Let's go over some minor reworks first, ones that won't require major visual overhauls. I mentioned these in what was basically my second post on the AU, but here I'll keep things more focused:

Doomfist... is awkward. I mean, the devs beat me to the punch (ha) on this one, he's one of two characters who've been officially "requeued", and unlike the other rapidly approaching instance of this, I agree with them on the change. So... I'm at a crossroads of how I wanna be lazy. Do I just use old Doomfist's kit, requeuing him from Tank back to Damage, or do I accept his current kit as a requeue from Damage to Tank that happened officially a year before the AU itself. I like Tank Doomfist more than DPS Doomfist, both on a thematic level and a gameplay level (mostly in terms of fighting against him), so uh... current compromise is that he's a tank still, but he has Rising Uppercut instead of Seismic Slam. Somebody wins here.

Symmetra is the other hero who's changed roles in the actual game, and while her history in both roles has been tumultuous (as explained in that other post), I have a relatively solid idea for how I'd change her kit to make her actually work as a proper Support. I'll detail this later, but just know for now that it doesn't require any major design or lore changes. Maybe a minor design change would be fun, making her main color yellow like in her initial art would be fun, but her light blue is pretty iconic to her now so I'm not sure.

Sombra, a hot topic lately who looks like she goes to hot topic, is the subject of the game's most recent major rework. So recent in fact that it's going live in literally a day from now. Her new kit definitely gives me ideas for how I'd tackle the Support iteration of her I've been considering for a while, but not by too drastic a measure. Again, no visual redesign or lore changes planned.

Echo is the last one of this bunch, another of the lovely ladies who I think should've been Support this whole time. Echo's a very funny hero to conceptualize reworks with considering her literal defining character trait is, like a certain silly little jester, doing anything. This is another one I've considered ideas for in the past, and while it definitely needs work I think I was on the right track. Once again, no story or design changes, she already looks and acts so damn much like a support it actively makes me a little mad.

So that's another easy four, only three of which I think really warrant posts of their own. 10 down, which is only about 25% of the cast jesus okay

Moving swiftly on, now I'm gonna go over the rest of the cast I have ideas for, starting with the (former) Tanks:

D.va: Damage. Considering my main issue with putting Tanks into other roles is size, D.va is an obvious first choice for a Tank to rework. Just make her not be in the mech and bam, already halfway there. Spoiler alert but D.va is probably gonna be one of the next few ideas I make a post for, and might be the first to get art to explain her new look! I'm excited for this one.

Orisa: Support. On the other hand, Orisa is a seven foot tall robot. I have... a couple ideas on how I plan to address this, but given she has effectively two whole kits to pull ideas from, the abilities themselves won't be the issue. Design... might be a little weirder, so another one that kind of needs art to explain.

Junker Queen: Support. While JQ is almost certainly the skinniest tank as is, it pains me to admit that she'll probably need to get shrunk a little bit to fit any other role. While it'd be easy to convert her aggro playstyle into pure DPS, I think it'd be both more fun and more thematically appropriate to make her into a Support. Considering this was the role I expected her to end up in for years, it's gonna be fun going back to those old ideas with the context of her existing kit. I have some more design changes to fit this new role, including a new weapon and some more "regal" attire, at least by Junkertown standards.

Ramattra: Support. Again, Ramattra's Omnic form is one of the smallest tanks as-is, so a minor shrink and the removal of Nemesis Form should already bring us halfway there. This is another one that feels thematically appropriate, and again, was kind of what I was expecting with the "Null Sector guy" that was teased all the way back in early 2019. Definitely leaning into his "mage" design inspirations here, and I'm not even sure I'd want to change his design all too much, but I'm not too certain how I want his kit to work yet. We'll see though!

Wrecking Ball: Damage. Listen, Ball is already a DPS that just sucks at killing things and is slightly better at not dying. sometimes. Hammond is also the smallest playable character outside of the mech, so just... give him a smaller mech. This is just gonna be D.va again but I like him less.

Roadhog: Damage. This one I'm not too certain on, but like... it's Roadhog, he's gotta be a DPS, right? He can't be a support at least. I don't like the idea of shrinking him in general, but according to one conspiracy theory I remember from before the 5v5 reveal, it's something that was officially considered. This might end up being more of a rebalance than a full-on rework, but I'm withholding further judgement until we see what his actual rework coming in a month or so is gonna be like, that might jostle the brain juices.

That's all the Tanks I really have ideas for, the rest I'm struggling with, mostly because of the size issue. I'm also torn between Damage and Tank for some of the remaining ones, but I'll get into that more later.

Now though, time for the Damage heroes I have ideas for:

Bastion: Tank. I mean... come on. He used to literally turn into a tank. He's on par in height with some of the tallest existing tanks. The only issue is... I don't exactly know how to make him play like a tank? All his current abilities are pure damage, and the "tankiest" part of his kit are his passive and his old self heal, which while potentially useful parts of a tank kit, don't exactly make a complete tank package. This one's gonna require some basically brand new abilities, but I think it'll be worth it in the end.

Ashe: Tank. Somebody might get where I'm going with this one, but uh... yeah, I'm gonna have fun with it. Probably the most drastic playstyle overhaul of the whole AU, which shouldn't be surprising when I see how I handle them. I think I have most of this kit planned out too, and it actually shouldn't require any new design work, so expect this one relatively soon.

Cassidy: Support. Yeah this one's actually gonna be another fairly minimalist one, my main idea is to trade his weapon with a similar feel but obviously with healing capabilities. His overall niche would actually be pretty close to Ana's, which I'm sure is gonna make some lore fans happy. I'm also stealing his mechanics from one of the supports from my original hero shooter concept, War Bots, just trading out one utility ability for Combat Roll being largely unchanged outside of how it interacts with his main weapon. Oh, and deadeye, War Bots doesn't have ults so I gotta figure out a replacement for that. Also possibly expect this one pretty soon.

Torbjorn: Support. This is another one like Bastion (fitting enough I suppose) where the broad idea is there, but I don't know the execution. He's also like Echo in the sense that his broad character archetype means he can do basically whatever, so it's just figuring out what engineer capabilities he needs in order to work. This might be another one where I steal from a War Bots character fairly heavily, since that cast also features a support who's a fire-themed mechanic. This one might not be too hard either all things considered.

There's some more I left out so far, but we'll get to them later with the other stragglers that are in TBD limbo, but for the rest of my semi-solid ideas let's wrap up with the Supports.

For this one though, I'm gonna do a sort of lightning round deal, since I honestly haven't thought about these ones too much.

How fast of a lightning round?

Lucio, Ana, Moira, Baptiste, Kiriko, Illari: Damage. Yeah. Look, we need more Damage heroes, and the guys with guns are the easiest to work with. I don't have much to say about these, since like... it's damage. Just dumb down their existing mechanics to do damage instead of healing... I mean not with Lucio, but that's the gist for the others. I have some fun ideas for Moira (who I also considered for Tank but I fear that'd overlap with Reaper too much), but again, there's not much to say about these.

Lifeweaver: Tank. I mean it's Lifeweaver, "damage" is the last thing that comes to mind with him. He's also got the most health and height out of any of the current Supports, plus his abilities are already primarily defensive and protective. I'm not sure on specifics for his kit, but the general idea visually is to bulk him out with some extra thematically appropriate armor to give him a bit more width, but to be honest he's already borderline tank sized, so there's not that much extra he needs.

So yeah, that's everybody who I have at least some half decent idea for. Let's look at the stragglers:

Reinhardt: ...look, Reinhardt is my favorite character of the cast, it makes my stomach not feel right to consider him as anything else but the big german-engineered block of meat and metal I've loved all these years. If I can give any character a free pass to not rework at all, it's him. It just hurts my heart too much to consider him getting shrunk down enough to work in either other role.

Sigma: Similar to Rein but with less emotional investment. In theory I could see him work as a Support or maybe DPS, but I'm just not sure what direction to take him in. I wouldn't be as sad to see him shrunk a bit, most of his tanky bulk comes from his shoulder pads and the fact that he's floating, plus to be honest the fact he's so excessively shredded canonically is a little jarring, so there's slimming down you could do to make him work, I just don't know for what role and how.

Winston: Fun fact, Winston is above average in size for a gorilla, even before Primal Rage! So sizing him down a bit isn't too unrealistic, but again, I don't know what direction to take him. Support could be interesting, the last War Bots support could be used as inspiration given their shared electrical aptitude, and it fits his personality better than DPS, but I'm just not too sure, especially considering the overall lower amount of DPS in this roster right now. Ironic, I know.

Zarya: Again, lacking great ideas, and I'm torn between DPS and Support for her. She has big gun and big muscles, but her bubbles allow her to be a lot more of an "enabler" Tank normally, so I might want to extrapolate on that. I'm leaning Damage though because again, kind of low on those so far, so she's probably just ending up with a (relatively) smaller gun and new abilities to replace her bubbles. She still might end up a relatively big and tanky DPS, like Bastion is normally, but it's the best idea I got even if it's not perfect.

Genji and Hanzo: I'm grouping these up because my initial suggestion was to swap their roles as Damage heroes with each other, but... to be frank I have no clue where I was going with that. With Genji I could see a melee tank playstyle, and for Hanzo there's some possibilities for a supportive archer playstyle, but again, there's just a major imbalance in Damage heroes relative to the main roster at this point.

Junkrat: So like. he's gotta be Support, because I don't think he's got the staying power to fit as a Tank. Honestly could be interesting, and the kit could lean a lot more into the "tinkerer" theming that I like about Junkrat normally, though that could overlap with Torbjorn now. Eh, they both constantly emit fire normally, I guess it makes sense they overlap a little.

Pharah: Another splodey person, this one flies. Honestly her above-average height and armor makes it so Tank is the obvious choice, I just struggle to think of defensive abilities that'd make sense for her. I might copy my own homework here again, though this time for my notes for how I'd turn the TF2 mercs into Overwatch heroes. I'll elaborate more later but I put Soldier (TF2) as a tank there, which I might take some of that design and put it into Pharah here.

Soldier 76: I feel like he could be the replacement for Baptiste in this roster, with healing rockets instead of healing grenades, and biotic field instead of regenerative burst, but that feels... too easy. Maybe. I dunno, probably overthinking things. I think the way to make this feel interesting is with his characterization, which... I guess is also what makes Baptiste interesting.

Brigitte: I know Tank seems obvious for her, but... I dunno, I'm not ruling out Damage yet? The main reason I say that is because if Rein is my free pass to keep, then Brig would just be a semi clone of him. If there's room for another melee-based DPS, then I think Brigitte could fit just fine there too.

Mercy: full disclosure I just want to entertain the idea of Big Mercy. That appeals to me deeply. Damage probably makes way more sense but uhhhhh. I dunno, lemme have this. maybe. I dunno I'm not sold either way yet.

So that's everybody so far. Updated tier list to reflect the changes:

And here's a less conservative list, putting people where I'd put them just based on gut instinct and cutting out my indecisiveness.

So that's 12 Tanks, 13 DPS, and 13 Supports. A better split than the actual game right now, almost perfectly even between the three roles. I ain't shrinking Mauga either so hey, perfect 13/13/13 split, I solved Overwatch.

Again, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, I'm wide open! Feel free to tag me in your own post or submit them to my ask box and I'll be sure to respond ASAP!

Hoping to get out one of my ideas soon, so stay tuned folks!

[teddy06writes]

Friday Night Fun, Monday Meetings

requested by this anon: "Dps fic idea: Chris drags her best friend to a party, Knox drags Todd to the same party. MC and Todd both get drunk and make out. Then they recognize each other on the Monday after.- <3"

Todd Anderson x reader

Trigger warnings: Some swearing, drinking/drunkenness,

premise: It took a lot of work for Knox to convince Todd to go with him to Chet Danbury's party, and even more work for Chris to convince you to come; all down the drain as soon as you were both ditched, but hey, maybe something could still turn out.

{It's like, implied that your at the same school as the poets/like an au where everyone goes to Welton}

It was loud, and people crowded around in the Danbury's house, talking and drinking. Chris had spent all week begging you to go with her to this party, but now almost as soon as you had stepped in the door, she disappeared, calling out to someone in the crowd you didn't recognize.

Still, a drink found its way into your hand, and you set yourself to making the most of it.

Todd had never particularly enjoyed parties, but when Knox had insisted on taking him with as a thank you for proof reading his poem to chris, he couldn't find a way, or an excuse to say no.

So, he found himself standing around awkwardly, several drinks in, and bored out of his mind.

You coming up to him had been just about a miracle, and words were coming out of his mouth before he even realized, "I'm Todd An-"

"Can you-"

You both stopped, laughing, until he managed to nod, "Uh, you first."

"oh- uh, can you move out of the way- your standing in front of the drinks."

"Oh-" He quickly shuffled to the side, blushing heavily, "Sorry..."

You smiled, moving past him, "It's alright."

He stared down at his cup, trying to think of anything to say, but you beat him to it as you refilled your cup, "So, you drinking alone?"

"Kinda..." He chuckled, "My friend uh, ditch me."

You nodded, "Yeah me too. Drink alone together?"

He grinned, tapping his cup against where you had lifted yours, "Sure."

Somehow, you found yourself sitting with the boy you had found on the stairs, talking and joking, both of you drinking yourself a little deeper as the night went on.

"So then I had to look him in the eye and tell him that his poem was good!" He laughed.

"And he believed you?" You asked incredulous.

He nodded hurriedly, "And he read it to her in one of her classes! Just walked straight in, and up to her desk and started reading it!"

You laughed, hand coming up to cover your mouth, "no way! You know my friend Chris had something like that happen to her once!"

"Really? That's wild!"

"She thought it was romantic- I guess she's lucky she got a good poem read to her."

"Well, Knox doesn't right bad poems- their just..." He trailed off, thinking for a moment, "Well they certainly aren't Shelly- or Byron- or even Whitman!"

"You into poetry?"

Todd nodded, and then doing his best to exude Charlie's confidence, leaned in toward you a little closer, "Shall I compare thee to summers day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate."

You giggled, quickly racking your brain, "That was pretty smooth, maybe you should teach your friend to level up his game."

"Oh no- I could've never done that sober." He chuckled.

You hummed, taking a sip of your drink, "Fair enough."

He sighed, taking a deep breath, "See the mountains kiss high heaven and the waves clasp one another; No sister flower would be forgiven if it disdained its brother; and sunlight clasps the earth, and the moonbeams kiss the see; what is all this sweet work worth, if thou kiss not me?"

Your eyes darted down to his lips, and then quickly back up to meet his, before you were bridging the gap between you, pressing yours to his.

It took hardly a moment for him to kiss you back, one of his hands finding its way to your waist, as you cupped his cheek with your own. Almost unconsciously, he pulled you closer as one of your hands drifted into his hair.

By the time that Chris found you sometime later, you were practically in his lap, almost as rowdy as the couples you had earlier been making fun of.

"We have to go! (y/n)!" Chris yelled, grabbing your shoulder.

You pulled away from Todd, taking a moment to breath before saying, "I'm in the middle of something."

"(y/n) we have to go, my mom's gonna kill me if we get back after midnight!"

Half an hour later, Knox had found Todd sitting alone on the stairs, staring at the partial phone number you scrawled across his hand before Chris had dragged you away.

~~

After a weekend spent at Chris's, nursing a hangover, you had managed to drag yourself back to school. By now, your whole friend group had heard about the party, and everyone was speculating about who the mystery boy you had made out with was.

The Poets, were chattering with the same speculations, all though in the opposite direction. Meeks and Neil had even spent a solid two hours of their weekend into trying to figure out every possible combination that your phone number could've ended in.

Todd had been halfway through walking across the courtyard to the lunch room with the poets, when someone caught his eye. He turned, locking eyes with you from where you sat with your friends.

Knox frowned, noticing how his face turned bright red, "Wait! Is that them?"

"Yeah." He whispered, quickly turning away from you.

Charlie laughed loudly, "Well go talk to them you dolt!" And sent him off in your direction with a light shove.

You got up, meeting him halfway, "Hi..."

"Hey..." He took a deep breath, "Do you maybe wanna go get lunch with me?"

[seelestia]

can't blame him, his intuition is v v good~

yes yes as a wise and incredibly good-looking man once said, "every journey has its final day. there is no need to rush." 😌

hskdjskdj if you provide me with the art or video of your oc then most definitely!!! but also if you wanna do something similar just for a post or for a series for your blog, do lemme know, i can code it for you! i have the base code so creating something similar shouldn't take too much work! i don't mind doing it for my friends hehe c:

a walk alongside the harbor sounds so nice... sighhh oh to walk arm-in-arm with such a refined gentleman.... yes yes feel free to openly gush about your faves too, i love it when people get all excited talking about their favorite characters hehe

"a jar of expensive candied petals" i'm-- slfjsldkdl you're making me blush stoppp 🙈 ofc, let us release the plot bunnies into the wild!!! or, well, i'm holding back from releasing them in my blog for now bc tumblr put me in shadowban jail- BUT as soon as they release me i'm releasing a hoard of them and no one can stop me >:/

xiao do be like that... but i think it's good cause i get distracted too easily sometimes!! so he keeps my attention on the game hehe and my gosh kazuha is my first character for crowd control ( i mean ig jean is too but i like kazuha more oops sorry jean ;| ) and he's so good!!!

kazuha sees my simping and he's just like "nope" lol i love my anemo team it's so fun to have xiao-kazuha-jean <3 one day, i will build heizou... one day....

qiqi is so adorable i love her yes i'd like to adopt her thank you wait whatttt omg she's came home to me twice now... mona has yet to grace me with her presence... but tbh i played her on the gaa event and i... didn't really like her playstyle that much, so i'll take another qiqi if i lose another 50/50. or a diluc. i have his stupidly handsome outfit ready for him.

hubby is a good shielder and dps!!! try your luck and pull for him!!! i don't have him on my acc but i played him so much using my brother's acc where's he built as a dps- and hskdjsjdh he's so good ;w; oh is al haitham a 5-star character?? big oof, i thought he was gonna be a 4-star 😶 welp in that case he might not come home then... cause i'm prepared to spend whatever is necessary to bring zhongli home...... 🙃

also my day has been good so far!!! i hope yours has been great too <3

ty, zhongli, but we're like 12 minutes late and you're walking so slowly. (/lh) djwkkdkks ty, rin !! i don't have a genshin oc but if i ever need your help for similar things, i'll keep that in mind ;D

zhongli's voice is very calming, 100/10 would ask him to serenade me to sleep while he talks about cor lapis 🙏 aaaaa, me too !! when people talk about the things they love >>> nooooo, rin, have you seen the way i talk about those two??? i swear i word-vomit about them so much it's crazy 🏃 but ty tho! i'm terrible at holding back, hehe. just know you're always welcome to do the same about *cough* zhongli *cough*.

( discussions about banner leaks !! )

how dare tumblr put one of my fav writers in shadowban jail <//3 having to email them and then wait and then do a test post... it's definitely not a pleasant experience. please give rin's acc back and let her post more wonderful stuff??? i just saw that you moved blogs btw, so i'll follow real quick hehe! when you release new works, i'll be there to read and gush about them !!

ayato and al-haitham need company on my manifestation list, so i'll be adding xiao and zhongli to it >:) and oooo, if you build heizou, does this mean you'll be playing a mono anemo team??? 👀 that'd be super cool, people who build mono-element teams really have my respect 😭🤝

as a heizou main, the last part is so funny because i only recently got him to lvl 80 after maining at lvl 70 ever since i got him (but he still slays hilichurls like a pro) <//3 good luck with farming, rin !! go beat that ruin serpent to a pulp and as for the onikabuto's, i mostly search through the places we visited for the cleansing ritual, tatarasuna, and the thunder sakura trees! or you can search up farming routes~

the fact that you have no mona and c1 qiqi while i have no qiqi and c1 mona... ah yes, the contrasting destinies taste absolutely delicious here fjkwkdkskf mona is a good buff support, but i can understand why her playstyle isn't everybody's cup of tea !! at least, you got to a free trial for her from the event kfkwkkds >:)

DILUC <3 i have mine benched since i'm not much of a claymore enjoyer (maybe i should try to main him with klee artifacts for one day) but i'll be manifesting him for you !! his playstyle is super cool >:) i was busy fawning over his smile until i read kaeya's letters which was a cold angsty slap to the face <//3

from what i heard, al-haitham will be a five-star !! but dw, i think his banner is going to arrive later than zhongli's, so go all out for hubby !! hmm, maybe you might even have enough to pull al-haitham if you're not tempted by other banners??? 👀