#the gauntlet is fun to spam

[hartlesshart]

Aloy: HAH HAH! Seyka: OH SHI-

[bladehorror]

Competitive Pokemon is too complicated and expensive for me to get into the nitty-gritty of strategic play, so I'm doing the next best thing and building gauntlet teams on Lorwolf

(note: not actually the next best thing. It would be if I could actually *play* the game as opposed to watching it play out)

[northwest-cryptid]

This shouldn't be nearly as much of a controversial opinion as it is; but I miss when games were literally and firstly designed to be fun experiences. That fun can absolutely lean into the demographic of the intended player; but the entertainment and fun used to be very clearly emphasized for the common player.

And see this is where I lose people. They get too caught up on the first part of that and ignore the last 2 words. I've heard people tell me "you're just salty because you're bad" but at the risk of sounding arrogant, no I'm actually salty because I'm better than the average player and if I'm getting frustrated and struggling to ENJOY the game then there might be a problem here.

Sure you can wave this off saying "you're arrogant if you think you're literally better than the average player" but honestly I see this issue a lot of in the communities of actually difficult games, where the difficulty is part of the fun. People treat it like a dick measuring contest and refuse to hear anything bad about it; as well as anyone saying they're actually good at it.

Thing is, I actually do enjoy difficulty in games. When I played ULTRAKILL I made a point to start the game on Violent. Even when I was told to go get all the weapons first; I found that I enjoyed a challenge that was designed with what I had available to me in mind. Sure I didn't P rank everything on my first go of it; but soon after I not only felt motivated, but enthusiastic to go back and P rank those stages with my new fun weapons.

Dark Souls 3 is literally one of my favorite games, it's clear that for all it's faults; there was a good bit of care put into the difficulty to match with where the player was expected to be at the time. Even with it's branching paths I never felt underleveled for a boss encounter. Bosses didn't have over the top wild combos that they could switch up on the fly; or ridiculous AoE spam that comes out exclusively in the last 10% of the fight. They were just balanced, challenging, entertaining fights.

I think the major problem people fall into with "Difficulty Is Fun" type games is that devs fail to understand who they're making the game for and when they're making the game for them.

Again going back to ULTRAKILL here, because it's a GREAT example of how a difficulty is fun game can be done right.

See the game starts very slow with a firm understanding of your basic weapons leaving you to figure out how to parry fairly early on and use it alongside your guns without thinking of it as something that's difficult to pull off. It's not this high risk high reward thing, it's just another tool in your kit.

But the dev/devs clearly understands this game is made for the Difficulty Is Fun crowd; so they don't just give us a difficulty option for the game; they additionally make sure the difficulty ramps slowly.

Throughout the first half of the game you're more than allowed to get used to how things work before being expected to use them well; and when you clearly have more experience and confidence with the game it begins throwing harder stuff your way.

But you know what's cool? The ultra-hard content that's made for the dick measuring contest elitists? That's locked behind getting Perfect rank on all the stages in an act; doing so unlocks the super hard boss mode stages and if you beat all of those you unlock the like ultra-hard masochist gauntlet stage.

Did I mention you can do this on any difficulty? Or that different difficulties actually change up how the game plays? With easier difficulties allowing you to counter your way through the whole fight but at Violent and higher you can't parry throughout the second phase? This means if I enjoy getting into the thick of it and scrapping by on 1 HP and a dream, I totally can; but my friend who wants a stress free fun time with the game can actually experience all the same content on an easier mode and guess what; we're both happy?

Like I'm sorry I'm not saying every game needs to have an easy mode; that's an argument in a totally different ball park. This isn't about "easy mode" because that's not what I want from games. I don't want my Difficulty Is Fun game to have an easy mode; I just want it to be fair and enjoyable.

People shit on Dark Souls 2 for a lot of stuff, but you know the one thing that has always bothered me?

There's this really pretentious achievement you get the first time you die, it's literally titled "This is Dark Souls" and you know why that bothers me?

Every SINGLE time I see someone unlock that the reaction is roughly "oh no, I'm not going to enjoy this game am I..." Which all the "hardcore Souls fans" laugh at and say "yea get ready to die for 40 hours lololol"

I'm sorry but like, that's the dumbest shit I've ever seen; go wank off to difficulty somewhere else. Did you hear what they fucking said? They're not going to ENJOY the game they paid for? What's the point of doing the thing that's supposed to be entertaining if they're not entertained?!

Are these games meant to be "rage games"? No that would seem almost insulting to call them that.

Why do I like Dark Souls 3? Because the game doesn't feel like it's looking down on you, the whole game is designed to cheer you on, to coach you. Every time you get knocked down the game is telling you "get back in there champ you got it this time." If you're not sure what I mean I should likely explain it like this,

I once watched a playthrough in which one person had never played Dark Souls and the other was a veteran player. The vet was a sort of coach to point out things about the game the newbie was likely missing.

The first boss encounter was pretty scrappy but whenever he's die the vet would ask him "did you see what happened there?" Essentially talking him through like "you dodged right but he's right handed so you dodged into the swing, try sicking by our left, his right; and dodge under his weapon instead." Or he'd explain things like attack opportunity and such. The idea of their turn and your turn, the enemy attacks; and then during their recovery you get to do an action as a reward for actually dodging the attack. This lets you heal, attack, or set up something for the fight. It's a classic back and forth that leads to players being able to play in different ways and not just build for Poise, Vigor, and Strength so they can play the most boring character known to man.

It's cool to watch because having someone there to point things out is a great way to show how a veteran vs a newbie is going to view the game. If you've played a lot of Souls before, or you've played the game longer you're likely going to pick up on the ways the game is trying to hint at you to do something.

I recently did a Dark Souls 1 stream in which I literally beat the first boss with the broken straight sword and doing so was a way for me to sorta showcase how. No the game isn't about DIFFICULTY; it's about understanding. I know that's a big meme in the souls community but I'm serious you know, if you learn the attack patterns (which they don't constantly switch up), you figure out what animations are tied to which AoEs and which attacks; and you focus your efforts on dodging those attacks and learning their timing. Now you know where your chance to hit the enemy is, you know how long you have, you can learn and gauge how you need to weave in and out of range.

There's this constant "git gud" saying that I really hate, because on one hand that explains nothing; on the other hand it's absolutely true. However when you tell a new player or even an existing player to "git gud" they're not going to know what that means, they're not going to actually take that to mean:

If you feel squishy, throw some levels into Vigor.

If you're rolling to slow, take off some gear; you won't need the defense when you learn the attack timing well enough to dodge it better; the extended i-frames will help you dodge more.

Take a moment to study the bosses movements so you know where your chance to attack comes in and roughly how long you'll have when it does come up.

Remember how scaling works, dumping 30 points into STR isn't going to do as much as upgrading your weapon to scale better. You can dump those points into Vigor and then throw a few points at whichever damage stat your weapon scales with and still deal considerable damage.

Use your estus early, if you heal for 50 HP with each estus, and you have 10 estus. With a total health of 100, you have effectively 600 health. If an enemy hits you for say, 30 damage; that looks scary, that can 2 shot you right now; but if you actually use your estus liberally you'll realize the boss needs to hit you closer to 20 times. As long as you're healing you have plenty of mistakes you can make.

When I say that games aren't made with fun or entertainment in mind anymore; and they're made to circle jerk the other top players and elitists of a community. I'm not just talking about how hard a game is to beat. I'm talking about nerfs made exclusively for PvP that effect the vast majority of PvE players who will never touch PvP. I'm talking about nerfs made to weapons that could help struggling players with specific bosses because they happened to pay attention to how damage resistance/weaknesses worked.

I'm even talking about how Elden Ring is a so called "Open World" game that refuses to tell the player the recommended level for an area. Meaning it's very much still a linear experience, just with more steps. You're not playing an Open World game, you're playing a Linear game with extra steps and longer walks between quest NPCs.

Okay so you start in Limgrave, cool; most the world isn't accessible to you until you beat some bosses; other parts are totally accessible to you, let's explore some of those first right?

Now if we assume you're a common everyday player, maybe new to Souls games because you've been hearing all the Elden Ring hype and want to try it out. You're probably not good enough to immediately go and fight the first real boss of the game. You're also likely not going south, because the game doesn't point you in that direction.

In fact, one of the early game paths leads straight into a level 60 area. How would you know this? Surely the game has some form of a warning right? Like you know, maybe an NPC along the most common path that will tell you that you're not ready yet. Maybe a message left at a grace warning of powerful enemies ahead; this isn't uncommon for Souls Games having little messages around to clue the player into things.

But no, it doesn't; it just lets you go in and attack something and see you're dealing no damage and then when you inevitably get 1 shot you go "guess I'm not supposed to be here" right?

Well no.

Remember, This Is Dark Souls, you're gonna die fucker; you better get back in there and keep trying until you get it, because THIS IS DARK SOULS.

That's when they inevitably get fed up and if they're smart, they go somewhere else. So let's say you try to skip over the first remembrance boss of the game; you finally got passed Margit. You do not want to have to fight another big boss right now. You just want to explore the open world, maybe get a few levels; see the sights.

Well I hope you're already level... 40-50?

See this?

This is the wiki's recommended level per area, do you notice anything about it? A sort of linearity? Now you might not at first, you might say "but Cryptid there's multiple areas with the SAME recommended levels!" Sure there are, and accessing those areas may require you to beat a boss in another area, or travel through an area to get to that one. In other words; it's still a linear path, and while more than one of these is accessible to you. If you're not already a vet who might have over-leveled or who may be skilled enough to fight enemies significantly higher level than you; then it's possible to go from say Liurnia of the Lakes to Siofra Aquaduct and get your ass handed to you.

That's all well and good but the issue here is that it creates a sort of metronome of frustration.

When you know where the game wants you to go, and you're on par with it's damage output and such; you feel fairly confident even when the game does some genuinely bullshit AoE spam. However when you ping-pong between higher level (but technically "accessible") areas getting killed repeatedly and always having that core philosophy of "this is Dark Souls stupid, get used to it" in the back of your head where you can't tell if this is the intended path or not because sure it's hard but, and say it with me now; This Is Dark Souls.

You might be thinking "but Cryptid, even the cult classic Fallout New Vegas does this!" Which is wrong, they do in fact use high level enemies to dissuade the player from attempting specific paths and essentially railroad them into the intended route. However, there is one key difference; the fallout community doesn't pride itself on the difficulty of their games. The fallout community doesn't use the saying "git gud" in place of real advice. The fallout community is very open about cheese, breaking the game; and how this is a fun and acceptable thing to do. Not that if you cheese a fight or make something easier for yourself you're somehow "playing the game wrong."

So more often than not, if the player encounters a field of 50 Deathclaws they think "yea I'm not meant to be here yet" and move on. With many NPCs telling the player safer routes, the player actually not only has options if they want to leave, but actually knows where to go to progress as intended. They're still allowed to try to break that progression and do things their own way but you can't say they weren't literally warned by the in game system designed to make sure they understood the difficulty of what they were undertaking.

Dark Souls 1 and 3 feel like flawed, but enjoyable games; If I found myself frustrated with them; it was often because I was frustrated with myself for making the same mistake multiple times when both I and the game had been telling me not to do that again.

Elden Ring felt like a hot mess until I started paying more attention to things like recommended levels. Then it felt like a bit less of a still hot mess because I'm sorry but that's what it is.

Now I'm on the DLC and I hate that every time I get into a boss fight I begin to enjoy myself; I think you know, it's fun it's cool this feels fair but challenging. Then in the last like 10 - 25% of the HP bar they have to pull out some extremely spamming AoE that locks you into multi-hit and can 1 shot your entire health bar; or heal them for their entire health bar; or both!

Which you know, if I was a squishy glass cannon build or something then I wouldn't really complain. But I'm not, I'm literally playing the boring Vigor Poise Endurance heavy armor fucking bleed build ass piece of shit mimic tear summoning HP talisman + defense talisman build. I'm still getting consistently through most of the boss fight and then suffering because there's some cheap shit they pull out last minute to ruin the fun.

It's still impossible to know if you're on par with the area you're in, I don't want to look up a guide; sometimes everything leading up to a boss feels really solid; I dish out as much as I take; I'm feeling good about it. I go into the boss room, nope 1 shot. What, is the point?

Okay so now do I throw myself into the brick wall 40 more times or do I go grind? Or do I explore somewhere else? I don't know man I think I'll do the first because I got pretty close that time. Oh wait no I didn't not this time because I didn't really get to learn any of the moves. My camera is a mess, sometimes they can hit through walls, sometimes their hitbox extends outside their actual model; and sometimes they have a multi-hit AoE that launches so if you even get hit by 1 part of it then you're hit by the whole thing. Hope you somehow knew what this boss was and already preemptively built resistances to it or else you're not going to have fun dying to the last 5% of the HP bar repeatedly because oh yea it can still do other attacks while doing the bit multi-hit AoE bullshit. Fuck off.

I hate the feeling of "this is a fun boss fight I'm actually enjoying this; that's pretty solid I feel like I'm enjoying this game again." Being met with "oh no can't have that; let's throw some absolutely bullshit mechanic at the last 5 seconds to make sure you're here for 3 hours longer than you should be."

Look if I were particularly bad at these games I'd honestly shrug it off, but I'm not. I'm sorry if you think I'm fucking arrogant; I can't sit here and justify my confidence to you; if you think I'm arrogant there's no telling you otherwise. The truth is I used to speedrun DS3, I've done full no-hit runs of DS1 for fun; I actively enjoy getting P ranks on the fucking Prime levels of ULTRAKILL on Violent and fucking Brutal difficulty.

Not only am I actually good at "difficult is fun" games; but I genuinely enjoy them for it. I've not had a single boss fight in the DLC where I've won and still been excited about it. It's always a "fucking finally done with that bullshit" never a "WOO YEA BABY" is that what you want your players to experience?

There's absolutely a sort of bell curve in my opinion when it comes to the enjoyment of Difficulty Is Fun type games; they're the sort of thing you likely will be frustrated with a lot up front; but then as you spend more time with the fight you're going to learn it's mechanics and it's attack timing. So you begin to enjoy the flow of the game, you get into the sort of groove for when you can attack and when you need to dodge; or when you need to do a specific thing; or swap to a specific weapon. It all starts to come together in this kind of fun exciting back and forth between the game and you. However that runs out after maybe 15 - 30 minutes; now you've hit the point where you're confidence is so high that you don't feel like "you CAN do this" you feel like "you should have ALREADY done this 5 attempts ago." Your understanding of the attacks isn't "oh wow I should dodge INTO this one and AWAY from that one!" Now it's just "ugh right it's this one, god I'm fucking stupid I should be able to dodge that by now- oh right, cool yea fuck it go on do the fucking unavoidable chin move right right okay I don't get a turn to attack..." You don't celebrate a victory, you sigh in relief of it being done and over with.

I don't know about you, but I'm really sick of how especially in the souls community, if you dare to say something is bad and you've not beat it on your first try and mentioned how easy it is. You're ignored, told you're just salty; told to git gud, told to go play a different game if you don't like it. Now look where we are, FromSoft acts like the worst of the community, they refuse to let their game be accessible to the common average player. You pay $40 to get mad, frustrated, and give up repeatedly until you finally overcome the problem and don't even feel happy about it. Congratulations, I hope you "enjoy" your suffering because it's just not a good fucking time.

I remember how many people refunded Elden Ring back when it first game out, and I remember every fucking elitist dick measuring contest participant out here laughing about it. Why? Do you not think those people deserve to enjoy the same fucking game we do?

[tarmaarn]

Thoughts on Horizon Burning Shores. Spoilers ahead.

Cross posted from discord

Uhhhh 6/10????

Like I had some minor writing problems with HFW but the same writing problems were worse in burning shores. Granted, I LOVED seeing Aloys growth as a person here.

It was too short to let me get endeared to any characters and I was left wanting more in a bad way???

We had minimal side quests, the whole compliance thing seemed like it was getting set up for a big quest chain for example then was wrapped up so quickly I was left going "Wait I want to see more of that?"

Every side quest left me going "Wait. That's it?" And I remember when I first played Frozen Wilds I had a great time and wanted more in a GOOD way I was eager for the next game to explore Ban-Ur which obviously didn't happen.

Idk. Zero Dawn and Frozen Wilds feels like home and comfy and I love it and FW and BS just feel like a really nice vacation home that I love but it isn't home??? Does that make sense?

As far as mechanics go I did love the Zenith gauntlet and all the new moves, you saw in person how much I spam the grapple attack lmao so I loved the new stuff there. Horus fight was a ton of fun and I loved it and 10/10 would fight again. Fuck the frogs. Hate them all my homies hate the frog machine.

The big thing everyone is talking about is Seyka and man, with how short the DLC felt I don't think I had enough time with her? I don't wanna say the writing felt forced cause I enjoyed what was there but it was certainly something. Someone I follow, forget who now, said it was written like a summer blockbuster romance where things just happen and that feels like a good way of it to me. It isn't bad, but I didn't love it. I COULD love it with more time??? We love the biloy/gayloy rep tho.

[crystalelemental]

Zinfogel just posted his Latias solo run with NC Leaf, to probably answer your complaint of Leaf not being able to do anything in Gauntlet past bar 2. The tl;dr for it is that: "she's fine, because most of her strength came from the sync nuke so she'd want to spam Leer anyway for short animation which leads to faster access to sync. Otherwise, use Gordie to accompany her."

I personally think she's fine too. I like the utilities she provides. I might not pull for her, but I can see her being valuable. Though maybe it's just me preferring slow-paced clears than fast one.

Fine is definitely the right word to use for her, honestly. I'm learning the same in real time, and had suspected the sync might be all she needs in Gauntlet contexts to begin with. My main problem is that, without access to her buddy move, you run into problems of "cannot rely on the Burn so there goes good counterplay to Uxie and Cobalion," and that fast buffing options like Terrakion now can't be hit with the double drop, you have to just spam Leer. Similar issue on Solar Sync over Solarize; now she doesn't independently answer Terrakion. She wins, but through a slow grind of "We will get there eventually, and the 80% damage reduction just means this takes forever despite still being confident in the win.

Her 3v3 performance is hilarious though. She's a really fun tank with SS May/SS Hilda. You're throwing out like 10k damage per attack, and May's provided enough speed you get all moves in a rotation, it's bonkers. Just tears clean through off-type. Leaf feels very much like she's meant to facilitate other damage dealers while supplying supplementary effects, and would make a funny choice for that support cake.

It's just...I dunno. Maybe I'm just in such a bad mood over this shit anniversary, now compounded by really bad pulls, that I'm not willing to be forgiving about a sync pair who does a little of everything well enough, usually something I adore, and just feel jaded she's not out here crushing everything like NC Red and soon NC Blue. She just feels like the most overlooked of the three, so despite being really good, there's just this lingering frustration that they could've done a little more with her. It should've been Solarize. It should've been Extend 5. There should've been grid conditions to more rapidly debuff defenses, or add something like accuracy to the mix. But they held way back, which is staggering when compared to Mr. "Free +120% damage every action with guaranteed freeze," and Mr. "I literally cap special attack/crit in one turn, cap speed in two more, then steadily boost defenses/debuff offenses while having a pop team 30% heal and personal 60% heal that I can use twice." Of the three, it's pretty clear who was the limited choice. And I'm not happy about it.

[meltykitt]

⚠RED ALERT⚠ INCOMING FUNDRAISING EVENT STREAMS

Job hunt's taking a minute. Got some callbacks, but I need to do something about this in the meantime. So that it's time for my first big sub/donathon event! I have a lot of stuff planned for this week, and it all starts tomorrow @ 12PM MDT! More info below!

Your financial support has the power to directly extend this stream! Twitch bits/subscriptions/direct donations all contribute to the stream timer, which means more content throughout!

FEATURED EVENT: "As Seen on TV!"

Everyone loves a wheel. I've set aside a hoard of licensed games meant to sell its players on various shows, movies, toys, or food products. I'll have 20 minutes to stew on each selection presented! A great(?) way to pass the time!

BUT WAIT, THERE'S POTENTIALLY MORE!:

FIRST UNLOCK: The Link to the Past Randomizer Crash Course! I love randomizers, but playing them? Kinda scary. Logic? Checks? Fake flippers? I'll see what sort of miracles I can pull off as I bumble my way through and see what I can do through osmosis and a lil bit of research.

SECOND UNLOCK: The Mega Man Damage Shuffler! Now, this guy; I get this guy. I can dodge a projectile or 2! Every hit I take will throw me into another game. It's not over til all the games in the rotation are done, and each $150 adds another game to the list.

THIRD UNLOCK: Kingdom Hearts 2 Co-Op Randomizer, with GondorTowerGuard! But... We'll be running through the same seed (my first time with this randomizer too), but my game can be affected by y'all. Start hoarding your points now, so you can spam Anti Form and just make this such a mess.

FINAL GAUNTLET: The Knuckles the Echidna Comic Autopsy/Reading! Shadow government? Eugenics? Bee drugs? Human-sized swan lady? Why is this like this? Were we okay with this? My friends'll be on call to lend a hand and help us reconcile that some of us subscribed to this rag.

ALSO INCOMING:

Onion Night, Volume 3! RaRa and I are back at the wheel, all three of em. How pig can a man become? Has any ever called CPS on the Royaltys? Has Doug ever considered we'd rather do the remembering so we don't have to watch him try to? More details soon!

Everyone. I've been making it month-to-month for a bit solely from your support, and I'm thankful, but still feel bad asking for more help. I've tried to put in the work to make it so no matter how this goes, I'm gonna strive put on a fun show for everyone.

[theneverendingbacklogblog]

Thoughts on Dead Space Remake.

From the Evil Assholes (EA) that brought you (closing a famous and renowned studio) and Star Wars Battlefront 2s PR nightmare, EA has produced a stellar remake of its beloved horror Dead Space, without any unnecessary multiplayer or micro transactions tacked on, (As of writing this 22/2/23), which I now publish five months later.

Dead Space looks amazing, with an updated engine, and textures to match the powerhouse units of 2023, the USG Ishimura has never looked better, and never been more traumatizing to stay alive in. Isaac has also received a facelift, modelled to look like his voice actor Gunner Wright. Several roles have also been recast, Hammond and Daniels, with the new actors smashing their roles out of obit.

The story still follows the originals faithfully, albeit with several characters more fleshed out, several new side quests which give more time for side characters to shine. Isaac also drops his strong silent act, and instead comments on the scenario that he finds himself in, making the game feel a lot more natural, for instance Issac swears if he runs out of ammo, or if the player decides to spam the stomp button repeatedly. Neat!

The game is a technical masterpiece, the player can travel around the ship, and backtrack at their leisure, something the original did not allow, when I returned to previous areas, I found Necromorphs who I had killed, lying in the same position from hours before, next to ammo or pieces of the environment I used to kill them.

The games lighting and sound is something to be cheered about, I haven’t felt a more tense atmosphere in a horror game as of late. Hearing Nercomorphs in the walls, and far off in the distance creates a stellar atmosphere dripping with fear of what’s outside the range of my flashlight. Taking away that lighting and leaving the areas in pitch darkness, with the player only being able to use their torchlight to see, is another added mechanic that is a chef’s kiss.

Frustrating elements have been removed, such a transporting a huge spoiler through an area, instead, the player must survive a gauntlet before moving on to the next story beat. As well as the old gravity moving mechanic, instead of having to aim and jump spot to spot, Isaac can use his rocket jets in Zero G, a mechanic that feels fun to use, and could have been a disaster if the programmers didn’t get it right.

All in all, Dead Space 2023 is a game that should delight new players, and make old players rejoice. Gameplay feels fresh, and fun. A fresh face lift has brought this game back to life much like the Necromorphs in the game, it’s a solid horror, with fantastic action thrown in. I have high hopes for a Dead Space 2 Remake. If you are a fan of sci fi horror, this game is highly recommended.

[stevetown]

Dark Souls III + DLC

Completed: 10/02/2022

Playtime: 36h 34m

Ah Dark Souls III, sometimes even more of a black sheep than Dark Souls II. The first time I played it, there was definitely a bit of a Souls burnout going on. The areas felt too familiar, it mashed together elements of the original Dark Souls with Bloodborne but didn't do anything particularly better than either, and the formula was getting a bit...too easy and predictable.

I never played the DLC though, so I took the chance to replay the game from the start after taking a healthy break to see if my opinion on the game changed. I gave myself the added challenge of making it through without using a shield, relying on twelve years of experience to get me by. And you know what? The game is pretty damn great.

The world design, while not as metroidvania as the original game, nor as tantalizingly exciting as its progenitor Elden Ring, really nails individual Souls level design perfectly. Areas are large and layered, with shortcuts and secrets and hidden paths to explore and I found myself impressed by the sheer scale and design of it all. In fact, sometimes areas felt too large, and I found myself going down one path for quite a ways before realizing shit, this is the way I actually need to go and then backtracking to get all the trinkets. Fun stuff!

The DLC is also quite excellent. While I didn't appreciate the enemy spam in a few of the areas, the unique and gross world design felt fresh for the series. The experience is also capped off by a series of excellent boss fights. Slave Knight Gael gets all the glory as the best boss of the series (and he is indeed quite the distillation of the best kind of boss Souls games can offer), but I had the most fun learning the multi-stage kick-your-ass gauntlet of Sister Friede. I wasn't disappointed in either encounter and was pleased to find the series still had surprises up its sleeve.

I also got a good chuckle at the digs at Dark Souls II.

[feitanswife]

Daily ish updates:

Started the Goron city questline. Uh. This is creepy as fuck

Also: I heard you like boss fights so I put some boss fights on your boss fights

Yunobo’s ability is so fun though! Yeet the boy!

I’m glad I got to bitch slap him tho it felt good

Also I did the lurelin village gauntlet it was cool I guess. I just spammed ice chuchu arrows and too the enemies out one by one but I never said I was GOOD at the game

Tried to haul logs with horse. Failed. Made a big 3x5 stack of logs and threw it down the hill instead.

Still don’t know where to get rice though I’m spending my life savings buying it from shops cause I’ve never found it foraging.

Met the horse god and he’s kinda creepy ngl. Like on top of the speaking to you in your dreams to infodump about horses thing, he threatened to eat me. I think Sweet Pea will just continue to be a mid horse.

Also I understand that the gear doesn’t fit the horses but I still want to use my giant horses for towing stuff cause that’s what big horses are for! Ash and Daffodil are literally so stronk let them tow shit (though Ash would probably be a bitch and bite me again. He actually did bite my leg while I was riding him back to the stable after taming him. He’s a bastard and I love him)

[marukrawler]

I'll never forgive NV for not having the Vestals see Earth Brawling in either season (Triple Node, Diagonal Relation, the fact battles take place involve slowing down time to a halt whilst travelling to a POCKET DIMENSION accessed by LITERAL CARDS) (Mira: You guys just... go to an alternate plane of reality and never questioned it?) (O6: No, why?)

lolol nv literally stripped the bakugan game of everything that made it strategic and fun. no pocket dimension, no attribute correlations, no strategic gate card placements, no card limitations, no neat attribute exclusive tricks. it was interesting how the bakugan cards used in s1 rained down on new vestroia but the fact that they didn't fight not once using the rules from s1 was a letdown, especially since a lot of fighting happened on earth. it was either the vestal way or the highway lol.

if you took away the gauntlets from the vexos i bet they wouldn't be so tough once they actually had to rely on strategy and not spamming cards and attribute reactor cards. or maybe they'd actually like the game more?? who knows.

[meursaulty]

The Albion gauntlet is so fun!! The dialogue is hilarious and it’s not too hard except for the last fight bc of crazy weakness spams. Def recommend to anyone on test realm

[tigerkirby215]

5e Ezreal, the Prodigal Explorer build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Suke “hugehugesword” Su. Made for Riot Games.)

In my constant and continued effort to deny Ezreal’s existence I finally had to get around to building him. Again it’s not that I don’t like him... I mean I don’t. But I kinda forgot what I was going to build him as. Lol.

Dorans & Dragons also made a build for Ezreal back in like... early 2020. Christ that’s before the world went to shit, ain’t it? Well regardless they also made their build before Tasha’s Cauldron came out and I think I can make a build that is different enough to warrant my build existing alongside theirs.

In short: this is an elaborate excuse for me to make another Artificer build.

GOALS

Gawk at this! - We need many a glowing projectile to spam at foes before blowing them up. Ezreal isn’t the type to just autoattack.

I always know a shortcut - Flash on a 15 second cooldown is nice. We’ll need to be able to blink around constantly throughout the entire fight.

Time to show 'em who's best - Nothing’s more dangerous than a well-placed Trueshot Barrage sniping through the entire enemy team.

RACE

Back to good ol’ Variant Human. As a Variant Human you can increase two of your ability scores by 1: increase your Intelligence and your Charisma, to be the hot smart twink you are. You also learn a Language of your choice along with a Skill of choice. You spent plenty of time studying The Void so Abyssal would make sense as a language, and for your skill Perception would help you spot traps or incoming ganks... as long as you remember to ward.

For your feat we’re going to be grabbing Arcane Shift as fast as possible with Fey Touched so you can start Flashing. (Not like that!) You can increase your Intelligence score by 1 and also learn the Misty Step spell. You can also add a Divination or Enchantment spell to your list and a little Heroism never hurt anyone. You can cast both of these spells once without spending a spell slot, and can then spend spell slots on them after the fact.

ABILITY SCORES

15; INTELLIGENCE - Archeology is a lot of history and facts... If you do it the boring way, that is!

14; DEXTERITY - Repeat it after me: “something something Medium armor.”

13; CHARISMA - You’re a pretty boy twink who got at least two girls on the Rift to fall for you.

12; WISDOM - Traveling through ancient temples and traps takes a degree of common sense. Not necessarily common sense you have, but a bit of boost never hurt.

10; CONSTITUTION - You’re an ADC, which means you’re squishy.

8; STRENGTH - Twink.

Feel free to swap Constitution around with another stat for better health but worse roleplay.

BACKGROUND

“Archaeologist” is just the nice way of saying Tomb Raider, which is the mean way of saying Adventurer! You get proficiency with History and Survival (hey you’ve gotta tough it out in the desert sometimes!) You also get proficiency in a language of your choice (I went for Dwarvish because Dwarves seem to have built most ruins) and proficiency in either Navigator’s Tools or Cartographer’s Tools... “Who needs a map?”

You spent enough time in ruins to pick up some Historical Knowledge on ancient dungeons and temples to know who made them. And if you find anything that belongs in a museum you know how much it’s worth to the museum!

(Artwork by Sangsoo Jeong. Made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ARTIFICER 1

Starting off as Artificer to “borrow” a few inventions. But also because you get training in Arcana to know your magical artifacts, Investigation to find said magical artifacts, and Calligrapher’s Tools to slay Ascended and Darkin alike in one blow. You also get Magical Tinkering to wave that gauntlet of yours around on some Tiny objects, making them glow or play sounds or do all sorts of things that Prestidigitation would probably do better. But at least you can play your own theme music too!

But of course the main appeal of being an Artificer is the Spellcasting. You can learn two cantrips from the Artificer list like Message to coordinate with your support and Guidance to help yourself find treasure! (Or help others I guess.) You can prepare a number of spells equal to your Intelligence modifier plus your Artificer level (rounded down.) Cure Wounds will let you summoner spell Heal yourself or your Support. Faerie Fire will serve as a more basic version of your Essence Flux, making an enemy easier to hit (therefor making them take more damage!) And Feather Fall is always useful in a pinch!

Also yes you don’t have your gauntlet yet so you’re going to have to use a Light Crossbow for now. Feel free to take a combat cantrip if you want but you don’t really need it.

LEVEL 2 - ARTIFICER 2

Second level Artificers can make Infusions, special definitely-not-stolen magical treasures that make them more awesome than everyone else. For a little more AD an Enhanced Weapon is useful to have. You can also put those goggles on your head to use by making Goggles of Night to see with your dumb human eyes. A Mind Sharpener may feel like a cheat, but I’m not going to say no to keeping Concentration in check. And for your final infusion? A Rope of Climbing might be useful? Honestly the more impressive stuff comes after you’ve done a bit more exploring.

You can also prepare another spell like Alarm, just in case someone’s planning to steal your... legitimately earned treasure.

LEVEL 3 - ARTIFICER 3

Third level Artificers get to choose their specialty and Armorers don’t have to wear an entire suit of armor; just a gauntlet! Along with proficiency in Smith’s Tools you can turn any suit of armor you find into Arcane Armor. The armor has a variety of benefits: no Strength requirement, the inability to have your armor removed against your will, the ability to take it off or put it on as an action, and some replacement limbs. But notably it works as an Artificer spell focus!

There’s two different Armor Models and we’ll be going for the Infiltrator variant for a Lightning Launcher. This makes your Gauntlet a weapon that deals a d6 of lightning damage, with a regular range of 90 and a long range of 300 in case you want to go for long ranged snipes. Additionally once per turn you can pop Essence Flux to do an extra d6 of damage on hit! And I didn’t even mention the best part: this works off your Intelligence! So no more need for the crossbow.

You also get your boots for Powered Steps, increasing your movement speed by 5 feet. And thanks to your Dampening Field you can hide in bushes with free Stealth advantage! I’d recommend trying to get a Breastplate because that’s the best armor you can get that doesn’t also impose stealth disadvantage, but even with Half Plate you can still be sneaky! Heck, you can even wear Platemail if you want! "And my boots are not waterproof. Fantastic."

Oh and you get some Armorer Spells! Magic Missile will autoaim for you like your Arcane Shift projectile, and Thunderwave is helpful for some self-peel.

LEVEL 4 - ARTIFICER 4

4th level Artificers get an Ability Score Improvement: seeing as we have uneven Intelligence take the Observant feat for +1 Intelligence and a boost to your passive Perception and Investigation to watch the minimap for people to snipe! Additionally you can spy on the bad guys if you want and read their lips to gain knowledge of all their secret plans!

More Intelligence does also usually mean more spells prepared but I’m going to wait for...

(Artwork by Xu “Crow God” Cheng. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 5 - ARTIFICER 5

5th level Armorers up their Attack Speed with Rising Spell Force, gaining an Extra Attack with the attack action!

You also get Mirror Image and Shatter added to your list of Armorer Spells, and can prepare spells like Rope Trick for a safe place to rest for awhile, and Heat Metal to really lay in that Essence Flux.

LEVEL 6 - ARTIFICER 6

6th level Artificers get more Infusions which is what I was waiting for! A Radiant Weapon is all the fun of an Enhanced Weapon but it also doubles as a flashlight for your dumb human eyes! And Boots of the Winding Path will let you Arcane Shift back to safety in case you accidentally run into danger.

Feel free to swap some of your old infusions around too. A Lantern of Revealing or Cloak of Elvenkind would be helpful... and Gloves of Thievery never hurt anyone.

And finally you can prepare Aid, as your natural awesomeness rubs off on your allies. "Oh, please, don't die. I can't lose a sidekick. Not again."

LEVEL 7 - WIZARD 1

You didn’t think this would just be a pure Artificer build, did you? Even if that would’ve been stronger I’m legally obligated to needlessly stick multiclass levels into all my builds. And Wizard is definitely a good multiclass for more slots to do Spellcasting! You learn 3 cantrips and six leveled spells as a first level Wizard:

CANTRIPS

To help your allies land their shots take Mind Sliver to weaken an enemy’s saving throws.

Prestidigitation will let you do a bunch of simple magic, and if you want you can have your own hero music too!

Finally Friends is good to make friends you don’t mind losing after they tell you where the ancient ruins are.

SPELLS

I basically just took everything with the Ritual tag. Alarm (yes you have it as an Artificer spell but you can swap that out), Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Identify, Tenser’s Floating Disk... and sure why not Find Familiar too? Seeing as you can ritual cast at will most of your early level stuff is going to be reserved for Ritual Casting, as you’re probably going to be spending most of your first level slots on Magic Missile and Faerie Fire anyways.

You also get Arcane Recovery, letting you recover spell slots equal to half your Wizard level (rounded up.) So right now you can get a first level spell slot back at the end of a Short Rest! And later on you can get more!

LEVEL 8 - WIZARD 2

Second level Wizards get to choose the school that their parents left them in before disappearing in the jungle, and the School of Evocation has a surprise tool that will help us later. Along with being an Evocation Savant (allowing you to copy Evocation spells into your spell book with half the time and cost) you can Sculpt Spells so that they only hit the bad guys: when you cast an Evocation spell (from any class, not just Wizard!) you can choose a number creatures equal to the spell’s level + 1. The chosen creatures automatically succeed on their saving throws against the spell, and they take no damage if they would normally take half damage on a successful save. This will be really useful when we get our (pseudo-)Global ultimate; wouldn’t want to fry your pals now would you?

We may as well grab some of those Evocation spells, right? Earth Tremor will let you hit an AoE Mystic Shot because Riot decided that Tiamat should have a cleave I guess, and I mean... Shield is never a bad thing to have?

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 9 - ARTIFICER 7

Back to the big brain plays: 7th level Artificers can make the biggest brain plays thanks to Flash of Genius, letting you boost an ally’s skill check or saving throw with your own natural perfection. The boost is equal to your Intelligence modifier and you can use this reaction a number of times equal to double your Intelligence modifier.

LEVEL 10 - ARTIFICER 8

8th level Artificers get another Ability Score Improvement? Well seeing as Intelligence still controls just about everything we do it would do good to increase that by 2! That does mean you can prepare more spells (both as a Wizard and as an Artificer) but I’m going to wait for...

LEVEL 11 - ARTIFICER 9

Every ADC dreams of being six-slotted; now you can be with Armor Modifications! Your Armorer armor counts as 4 separate items for the sake of your Infusions: the chest piece, boots, helmet, and the armor’s special weapon can all be infused. Far more importantly however you can have two extra infusions! Those infusions have to be on your armor, but you can put the Radiant Weapon (weapon) and Goggles of Night (helmet) onto your armor and save your other infusions for your allies! Or for yourself; yourself works too.

And we can’t forget the third level spells! You get Hypnotic Pattern from your Armorer Spells for an AoE stun, but far more importantly you get Lightning Bolt which will serve as Trueshot Barrage! And since you’re an Evocation Wizard you can shoot past your friends without blowing them to bits. "Oh, a plan. Yeah, I totally have one of those."

You can also prepare spells like Haste for more DPS (just don’t get stunned), Blink for some Duskblade invisibility, and replace Alarm with Revifify... Ya know: just in case.

LEVEL 12 - ARTIFICER 10

As an ADC it would be good to get six-slotted, and Magic Item Adept lets you get your 4th Legendary item! That’s because you can now attune to 4 magic items at once! (And can also craft Common and Uncommon magic items more easily.)

Speaking of Infusions, we can make more of them, such as a Cloak of Protection or Winged Boots! These are just generally useful but not really Ezreal specific; they’re mostly for your allies. "The gauntlet's for show... the talent's all me."

You can also prepare another spell like Fly which is just universally useful, and holy shit you get another cantrip. Take Mage Hand and maybe try to be a little more cautious when tomb raiding?

(Artwork by Bo “chenbowow” Chen. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 13 - ARTIFICER 11

Do you want a lot more Mystic Shots? 11th level Artificers can make a Spell Storing Item and put an Artificer spell of first or second level inside. What’s cool about this is that anyone can use it, allowing them to cast the spell as if they were you!

My recommendation? Give them Mirror Image. It’s an amazing buff that doesn’t require Concentration. Even a low DEX Paladin will appreciate the chance to not be hit, and a high DEX ally can really get value out of Mirror Image. Yeah the Barbarian technically can’t cast while raging, but they can use this before going into a Rage to be very hard to hit!

And speaking of spells you can prepare another one, so how about you grab Create Food and Water to keep yourself sated on longer archeological trips. "Why didn't I eat before I got here...? Ezreal, why?!”

LEVEL 14 - ARITIFCER 12

12th level Artificers get another Ability Score Improvement... we got all we need in terms of stats (Intelligence lol) so now it’s time to really make some impressive trick shots: the Sharpshooter feat will let you attack at long range without disadvantage and ignore cover bonuses, but most importantly you can take a -5 to your attack roll for a whopping +10 to damage! Don’t use this on high AC targets obviously but if you think you’ll hit why not go for the one-shot? "No applause, please. ...Okay, maybe just a bit of thunderous acclaim. ...A little?"

LEVEL 15 - WIZARD 3

I do still want more spell slots, as well as more spells known! Truthfully there isn’t too much I want from second level, so take Locate Object to find hidden treasure and Augry (added to the Wizard spell list thanks to Tasha’s!) to know what to expect in the next dungeon... sorta. "No plan survives first contact with me."

LEVEL 16 - WIZARD 4

4th level Wizards get an Ability Score Improvement: we got all the abilities we wanted really, so why not Get Lucky? The Lucky Feat will give you a bit of anime protagonist power to guarantee that you make the perfect daring escape. Feel free to take Warcaster or just increase your Constitution however; by this point Ability Scores don’t matter too much.

You can also learn two more spells like Melf’s Acid Arrow for another Essence Flux-esque DoT ability and See Invisibility, in case you need a Sweeper Lense to deal with any clowns.

LEVEL 17 - WIZARD 5

Ima be honest I kinda just wanted third level for Thunder Step to get an Arcane Shift that does damage. Artificer 18 / Wizard 2 (or even just Artificer 20) would’ve been a fine build for Ezeal too, if you don’t think this one spell is worth a 5 level class dip.

Anyways you also learn another cantrip and I mean... you may as well take Shocking Grasp for some defense up close? You also get one other spell and I’m gonna suggest Galder’s Tower this time which is like Tiny Hut... but awesome. And really small. This is mostly just a way for me to talk about a fun spell and also recommend my homebrew fix for it.

(Artwork by Alvin Lee. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 18 - ARTIFICER 13

You got third level spells as a Wizard, you can now prepare 4th level spells as an Artificer! Fire Shield and Greater Invisibility are both available as Armorer Spells, one of which is far more useful for you than the other one. Bro imagine how crazy Evelynn would be with Evelynn’s passive. But yeah feel free to swap around your prepared spells a bit for more 4th level spells, since you definitely have the slots to do so.

LEVEL 19 - ARTIFICER 14

14th level Artificers are Magic Item Savants who can attune to 5 magic items at once, meaning that along with your boots which are technically magical but whatever you can finally be properly six-slotted! But far more importantly you can attune to any item, regardless of any class or race restrictions tied to the item!  "I can't get hauled into wizard court again. Technically I don't have a permit for the gauntlet."

Speaking of more attunement: more Infusions. An Amulet of Health will let you boost your bad Constitution from a 10 to a 19, giving you a solid 76 health boost near max level! Other than that more movement speed is never a bad thing, and Boots of Speed may give you more value than your other magic boots.

But holy shit forget all that because you finally get your 4th Artificer cantrip! Grab Mending because somehow we don’t have that yet; gotta keep your outfit in check! Oh and you can get around to preparing another 4th level spell! Truth be told though the 4th level spells for Artificer are kinda... bad? But at least Tasha’s gave us Summon Construct which is a surprisingly strong summon!

"Last time I was in Shurima, I decoded some glyphs. Something about a jackal head... End of times... The usual. All I wanted was this ruby scarab. It looks great on my mantle."

LEVEL 20 - ARTIFICER 15

Our final level is the 15th level of Artificer for the Perfected Armor Armorer capstone. When you shoot an enemy you mark them with Essence Flux, giving them disadvantage to hit you. In addition the next attack (including your own I’m pretty sure!) has Advantage against the enemy while they’re marked with  Essence Flux, and if they’re hit they’ll take an extra d6 of Lightning damage!

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Blast 'em, gauntlet! - With your capstone ability you do 4d6 + 10 damage with your Lightning Launcher, and that’s before using Sharpshooter. Even without your capstone 3d6 + 10 is still really good damage output, especially when you can cast spells for big bursts of damage.

See if you can handle this! - Speaking of spells your slots go all the way up to 7th level, and while you’ll mostly just be upcasting a 12d6 Lightning Bolt is nothing to sneeze at! Not to mention other options like a 7d8 Fire damage Heat Metal or +30 HP Aid.

If anyone asks, I didn't see any of these priceless artifacts for sale - It goes without saying that having two more attunement slots than the average character is massive, especially when you can stick infusions onto your armor to maximize the amount of treasures on your person.

CONS

I wasn't strong enough? - Investing fully in INT gives us maxed out combat stats but it leaves a lot of our other abilities lacking. We’re nowhere near Charismatic enough to sell (somewhat) illegitimately gotten gains, and while Infusions can help augment our health (and even our Strength if you grab a Belt of Giant’s Strength) your Wisdom and even your Dexterity are rather mediocre, which is bad for both skill checks and saving throws.

Impossible comebacks are sorta my specialty - Most of your coolest stuff is tied to spell slots and other Long Rest dependent mechanics, and while you have a lot of spell slots (as well as Arcane Recovery to get some of them back) they are still quite limited. You’re perfectly viable as just an auto-attack and Q spammer, but who doesn’t want to shoot lasers and explosions, ya know?

Never met a problem that I couldn't blast away with magic... that I don't even understand - 5 levels in Wizard give us big spell slots but that’s about it, and yeah a 7d6 Lightning Bolt (that won’t hit your allies) is nothing to sneeze at but for the most part you are more of a Martial character. Just saying that level 18 of Artificer would’ve given you Magic Item Master for a whole 6 attunement slots! And level 20 of Artificer would’ve given you Soul of Artifice, essentially operating as a +6 to all saving throws and a 6 time use Guardian Angel.

But if a teamfight breaks out you’re more than a capable ADC. Artificers are the masters of magic items and it doesn’t matter if you make them yourself or “borrow” them from an ancient tomb; you can be the hero mom and dad always wanted you to be! Just concentrate on your farm in the early game and don’t take unnecessary risks. You may be the perfect man of magic but you’re not immortal, despite what the ADCs I’m forced to support always seem to think.

(Artwork by Jennifer Wuesting. Made for Riot Games.)

[books-are-my-life-stuff]

Seeing the electric team bathing in the spotlight makes me so happy, especially Hau and Sonia because I like them a lot. Generally it always feels nice to win the final battle of Champion Stadium with characters that I like a lot.

Lear is there because...hey, better make those money that I have spent for him count, right? So, a debut battle it is! Well, actually, it was an unintended debut battle.

Koga: The Base Cynthia banner rate really sucks, so I guess I’ll have to deal with not having Ground-type for a long time and use cheese-strats anyway. I also don’t get Ingo from the Pokefair scout banner which doubly sucks as well. At least Koga’s team doesn’t have full Poison resistance or anything.

Bruno: Now, here’s the thing. Will is weak to ghost. Usually, in ghost-weak stage I would have used Allister (or Morty if I felt yolo enough), but I already used him against Koga. So, I have decided to use Giovanni in Will’s fight. But, who’s gonna handle Bruno?

I didn’t really have much choice in Psychic-type damage dealer, either. Well, other than Lear. A level 105 Lear & Hoopa that I just got yesterday from the Pokefair scout which I couldn’t level up more due to the lack of manuals. The reason why I chose Lear is because I need a backup psychic-type damage dealer should there be a situation exactly like this, when Giovanni is needed in future fight/has been used in last fight, and the upcoming fight is weak to Psychic (other than Legendary Gauntlet, and also because I like him). So, yeah. I was like: “sure, let’s try an extremely underleveled sync pair into Champion Stadium, surely nothing bad would happen!”.

Turns out, nothing bad happened! Lear is very self-sufficient despite being underleveled. I was using the same strategy like when I still used Giovanni as the primary DPS in this team: Sabrina used Reflect, Sycamore used Geomancy, and let the DPS run wild). It’s especially helped with Lear's Propulsion proc-ing a lot, so Geomancy could quickly go off and let Lear run wild.

It was a ton of fun using Lear in my team, I’m happy to finally have him. After he took away 20k+ of my gems without coming home in his banner when I played the game for the first time, now he decided to rob my wallet before finally joining my team. What a jerk (endearingly).

Will: Thanks to Lear, now Giovanni could be used in Will’s fight. Nothing much here to say since it’s pretty much the same, so I guess if there’s anything that I want to say about Roxanne is that, despite her great defensive stats, she still needs a lot of help in tanking department. I hope she can get sync grids soon. Same goes for Liza.

Karen: The parameter demands me to use status-lowering effects, so I chose Anni N on debuffing duty. Halloween Caitlin is the natural choice for the tank because she applies barriers on sync, buffs both defenses, and takes advantage of the Unova Flag Bearer too. This is just my desperate attempts in keeping Lusamine alive no matter what.

Thankfully Lusamine survived until the end because Anni N never stops debuffing stuff, that makes me feel so relieved, especially after I had crapshoot luck in my attempts at Full Force Battle in the New Year Event re-run.

Lance: I was going to do the same yolo strats like I did with Bruno, but instead of level 105 Lear & Hoopa, it’s level 106 N & Zekrom. I decided to not do that, because it’s very risky, considering N’s trainer move lowers his defense. So, I just played it safe. 

I was going to try using SS Elesa as main tank because her trainer move helps Hau to spam sync move in Electric Terrain, but I chose Sonia, because she deserved to stand on the Hall of Fame stage, to show that she too, can be a battler and can be a Champion. Besides, even though 1/5 Sonia is very limited, she’s still a damn good tank anyway.

It was a pretty smooth fight. Inertia is really a game-changer, especially if it’s given to sync pairs that can buff their own speed. Maybe someday, when I get around to revamp the grids, Barry will be able to do so too, especially since he has an EX privilege that Hau doesn’t have.

It was a bit late (since I want to wait it out until I get the Pokefair sync pairs), but happy to finish the Johto Champion Stadium! I hope I can finish the next one too!

[outofcontextgamersagainstgaming]

Speter (a GAG fanfiction)

A Spider-man fanfic, written by 6.5 people in Gag, one line at a time.

Spider PeterBiggus Question Uh – Penned by diego, gecko, Leaxi, rii, katrina, and lovi

Spider-man took a walk. He used all eight of his little spider-feet, to run up a building. Pit pat went the little spider-feet.

“I hope I don’t fall!” He exclaimed. He was nervous, all eight of his spider-palms were sweating.

And suddenly, Doc Ock appears. (Whichone? All of them)

“Hey, peter,” said Doc Ock, “can I ask you a personal question?”

“Yes” he screamed.

“Okay grea- why are you screaming?”

Mider-spam begins to sob.

“Why are you sobbing? That isn’t my personal question, I just wanna know.”

“I’m sorry,” spider-aman says, “I just get emotional sometimes. And my favorite show just got canceled.”

“This also isn’t my question, but what show?” asked Doctor Octagonapus.

“General Hospital.” Said Peter.

“Does it take place in a hospital?”

Peter looks away. “That’s too personal of a question.”

Dock ock smiles and says “well are you ready for my question?”

Spider-man crawls into a nearby air vent.

“Here’s my question” says doc ock as he takes off his mask to reveal…

Doctor Connors! Scolding peter for being late to his class! Doctor Connors took out his Glock and shot peter in one of his eight feet. Peter screams for ten minutes. He ceases his screaming and then pulls away his shirt to reveal a bulletproof vest!

“I was wearing this just in case you decided to shoot me in the chest” Spider-peter says triumphantly.

“You should have had it ON YOUR FEET” doctor Connors says, shooting another foot. He continues to shoot all of his little spider-feet until he only has two left, like a normal boy. “That’s for missing my class, you son of a bitch spider.”

Idontknow I cant breathe

Spiderman put his finger to his lips and thought ‘Hmm maybe he’s right I thought’ why did I say I?

“Don’t put your finger on my lips again,” said doctor Connors. Doctor Connors smacked his fricking little fingers away, and then Doctor Connors’s arm pops off.

Peter looked down at the arm, confused. “Doctor Connors, can I ask you a personal question?”

“Ask question, Peter-man.”

“Now listen, my question is: Do you believe in life after love?”

“Well-“ doctor Connors begins.

But then suddenly, Peter falls out of the air duct, plummeting to the streets below. Doctor Connors watched as Peter fell down to the streets below. “wait I still have to ask my personal question” he said.

“Why is gravity working so well?” said Electro, leaning out of a window in the building next to them. Electro was filing his taxes that day. But unknown to him, the Green Goblin was also in the building, filing his taxes. The Green Goblin’s accountant, Sandman, was also in the building.

Meanwhile, Peter-man finally landed and six of his eight arms fell off on impact. But that’s okay, because he used his regen-ability to grow them all back. Two of Peter-man’s arms didn’t grow back right and fell off again. “Aw beans,” Spider-parker said sadly, holding his two fallen arms.

Doctor Connors, finally getting to the ground also, said, “Ha! You’ve been nerfed, man-parker!”

“Just because I’ve lost two of my arms- doesn’t mean I can’t kick your ass, doctor conor.” Said peter.

Gwemj were on a date and they both picked up two of peter’s hands off the floor and high fiving each other with them. They ate them.

Gwen says “wow these fucking suck.” MJ nods in agreement, and then turns and looks in the sky.

Electro, leaning even further out the window, yells down at them, “Grow better arms next time, Peter!”

“Peter,” mj said looking down, “how you doing gayboy?”

“Well that’s a personal question.” Peter said. “But I will tell you, it may or may not involve the rainbow.”

Well how about the real Doc Ock came slapping around the corner with his big eight legs and said “We’re asking personal questions?”

“Whoa! We’re asking personal questions now?” said the greeb goblin as he floated on downwards on his hoverboard thing.

Doctor Connors slams his hat that he was wearing on the ground. “I haven’t gotten to ask my question yet!”

Peter, looking up at all of his enemies together, “Alright what are your personal questions?”

“It’s my turn to ask the personal question!” (who!?) Says doctor Connors of course. Doctor Connors wanted to ask a personal question. Doctor Connors says “do you know what first aired on March 22, 2002?”

“Uhoh”, said Gwemj. “No time for personal questions, look!”

As everyone looks to where they were pointing, they see Electro falling out of the building as he leaned too far over. The Green Goblin shakes his head sadly, “ just heard about gravity. Man that shit sucks bro.”

Gravity said “well maybe you suck.”

Electro clips through the floor. “Oh shit” is what everyone says when they see Electro clipping through the floor, also at the same time theys ay this together. As they realize that he’s stuck there, they all turn around and see the true final boss, Hodd Toward.

Peter looked at Hodd Toward in absolute fear. “Oh no… you’ve released him.”

“You motherfuckers have no idea what you’re fucking up against.” Said hodd toward.

Doctor Connors takes out the chalk and says “Fuck this shit I’m going to chalkzone.”

Peter-boy smacks the chalk out of Doctor Connors’s lizard hands and says “shut the fuck up”

Hodd Toward jumps high into the air and begins to charge a spirit bomb. (But he needs people to give him his energy, who’s giving him that? Everyone who bought skyrim duh. He’s stealing their energy there was like a thing in the user agreement that no one read.)

“Oh my god” peter said “if only I had all eight of my little spider-arms attached to my body.”

“Who the fuck bought skyrim?” gwemj said immediately.

Harry opens up the sewer grate and crawls out. He says “Hey Peter, I found eight infinity gauntlets, if you want them. And also,” he continues, “don’t ask why I was in the sewers. I was having fun.”

Peter says, “aw thanks! It’s just the snack I needed! You always know whats best!” as he eats all the gauntlets.

After watching peter eat all the gauntlets, Hodd Toward crumples like a sack of paper.

Harry grabs Hodd Toward’s crumpled up paper ball form and shoves it in the boytube that is in his pocket.

Pete says “anybody got alka-selzter? My tummay hurt from infinity gauntlets. Its like mcdonalds.”

Gwemj reached into their purse and pulled out not alka-seltzer. Meanwhile the energy from the spirit bomb explodes in the sky, scattering dust everywhere. Dust got everywhere. “wow” said doctor Connors” someones gonna have to clean this up. It’s not gonna be me but, someone.”

“Whoops,” forgot to put that away,” harry said.

Peter says “wow there’s dust everywhere. Can we kiss?”

“Sure thing” says harry, still covered in sewer water and dust also, “but we have to sweep up all this dust first bro.”

Peter says “Good thing I had this just in case” and pulls out a dust pan and sweepy thingy out from under his bulletproof vest. (Idont know what to do with that)

Everyone helped Harry and Peter clean up the mess.

“What if we were both boys and we kissed in the wake of the spirit bomb’s destruction”? And then they kissed for ten minutes.

[crystalelemental]

Unit Teambuilding - BP Barry

There are too many goddamn sync pairs today. At least this is a step away from Kanto for a bit. BP Barry and Roserade decided they wanted to be funny. Instead of being a good Poison type damage dealer, they're a Grass support. Everyone laugh. Laugh you fucking peasants! You wanted Poison anything? Fuck you! Limited! Variety Scouts! Variety Scouts for one million years!

General Overview Barry is a special support, granting +2 special attack and +1 to both defenses on trainer move. He can paralyze, and each attack against a paralyzed opponent is +1 crit for the team. It's disjointed, but eventually he gets where he's going. He also gets Team Pinpoint Entry 2, which is fairly fun. Absorb as a one-bar spam is also very nice for gauge conservation.

Barry's good. I won't call him great because he's not. But he is good. As a free pair, this is definitely getting some work done. But it does compete with Lodge Morty and BP Torchic. What Barry brings is, in exchange for speed of buffs or evasion play, he has Synthesis for sustain. I like this better. It's consistent, and it's clear. Stun Spore also makes him very useful for Gauntlet gimmicks. I won't call Barry exceptional. But he seems quite good for what he is.

EX and Move Level? Support, even as a 4*, is a 3/5 requirement. EX is up to personal preference. He doesn't gain anything in particular, but there are worse ideas.

Team 1: BP Barry, Caitlin, Bianca/Lucian A quick +2 Sp Atk with some defenses immediately brought me to Caitlin. It's exactly what she needs, and she handles crit herself. Meanwhile, Bianca can set Terrain, and Barry can slowly work on crit rate by paralyzing something and hitting it a couple times for crit rate. For a safer use of Barry, Lucian has speed boosting for Caitlin's Sync Power Flux, and you can turn off Offenses +5 to set No Field Changes.

Team 2: BP Barry, Eevee Kris/Clemont, Volkner/C!Elesa Barry can offload his Paralysis to an ally, and use it to buff crit rate as needed. Eevee Kris can also buff crit rate, but Barry supplies the added special attack for her and Elesa. Volkner is an alternative if you want flinch rate and a bit more Electric Terrain. Clemont is mentioned because Barry can pick up a node for debuffing speed, which helps Cakewalk a bit.

Team 3: BP Barry, NY Dawn, Fantina NY!Dawn appreciates any boosting, since she doubles the value. Dawn, if preferred, can evade tank effectively as well. Barry's buffing does give her +2 compared to his own +1. Throw in Fantina, and you have a decent damage core for the team.

Final Thoughts I admit, I struggled to find good comps for Barry. Paralysis isn't often a requirement for damage, so much as for Gauntlet gimmicks. So it's hard to really...bring up much for him. He's a good Uxie answer with the Attack Trap, and he's got Tornadus and Cobalion on lock too thanks to this. I don't know. He's good, but in a general sense, I guess.

[safestsephiroth]

for anyone curious

I have replayed all of the MSQ for FFXIV (aside from Endwalker) a minimum of three times. For the most part, I’ve played 10+ times.

Shadowbringers and prior spoilers below for details on things I learned from doing this. All information from the perspective of the goal being to get through ASAP and skip cutscenes because you’re not here to see the story again you’re here as an alt-addicted RP nut.

-The worst part of ARR is any time you go to Coerthas Central Highlands. It’s long, stretched out, the zone is annoying to navigate and unlike many other ARR zones there is no easy way to get to several points in it. There is no fast way to two of the three settlements present, for instance.

-The worst part of Heavensward is Coerthas Western Highlands, due to the altitude variation, enemy placement and inconvenience of several things (most notably the fact Dusk Vigil is completely optional for progress but can be situationally vital for XP and is so the hell far out of the way.) 

-Close runner up is the Churning Mists and the Sea of Clouds, both of which are supremely irritating to navigate without flight. The ‘upside’ is you never really go back to the Sea of Clouds unless you intend to do the beast tribe quests or unlock the Void Ark raid series.

-Beast Tribe quests get linearly better as time goes on - the rewards are more valuable (relative to level), the quests become less irritating and require less time to complete, and by the time of Stormblood all incredibly irritating mechanics have been ditched.

-The worst part of Stormblood is the Peaks. Backing out at any point past the midway of Peaks part 2 means having to run a *long* way since you won’t have flight yet, and I hate being ‘stuck’ that far deep. I also hate having to run through the same bottleneck multiple times for no good reason.

-The worst parts of Shadowbringers 5.0 are Rak’tika and that part in Ahm Araeng where you have to blow up the rocks and it takes fucking foreverrrrr. Rak’tika specifically because of the fact you have to do an EXTREMELY long instance, possibly the slowest dungeon of Shadowbringers (except for Holminster), and not one but TWO drawn-out statue puzzles that are fun the first time and exceedingly tedious the eighth.

-The absolute worst part of the whole game as of jan 7 2022 is the Seat of Sacrifice, which I have completed on multiple characters and have yet to have a single run go well. It doesn’t help that (when skipping cutscenes) it comes about 2 minutes after finishing Heroes’ Gauntlet, which is also not very fun to do with randos.

For positivity:

-The best part of ARR is getting to run MSQ roulette while spamming through the fetch quests and have it be extremely efficient for xp/min.

-The best part of Heavensward is the Dravanian Hinterlands, because Matoya is awesome. Alexander is fast to unlock and an easy way to get poetics in a hurry, great when you need more gear.

-The best part of Stormblood is the Azim Steppe. All the aether currents are trivial to get, the quests can be easily strung together efficiently for fast completion, there’s three aetherytes (kind of) so you can easily and quickly reach anywhere you need to go and there’s very little forced backtracking. And it’s very pretty.

-The best part of Shadowbringers is Il Mheg. Unlocking Pixie tribe quests is an enormous boon, Dohn Mheg is not a difficult or annoying dungeon, Titania is much easier to get a party through than Susano or [Endwalker Trial 1] (Ravana wipes are rare, but not unheard of. It’s been ages since I saw a Titania wipe.) Further, Il Mheg has three aetherytes and about 1/4 of the map is barely used so all in all it isn’t that annoying to navigate at any point and there are no quests that objectively suck ass to do on repeat. Also, no instances.

-

General points:

The biggest consistent bottlenecks are dungeon queue times and instanced duties. If you tank/heal and get paired with a competent healer/tank you can blast through basically any dungeon in short order. Instanced duties are miserably boring to do as healer at any point, nearly without exception, but also it’s nearly impossible to clear them faster than a WHM can as any DPS, to the point I’m convinced they secretly scale some things to make it so.

Flight is worth unlocking in just about every zone, the only one I consider open to debate is the Lochs, because there’s very few points where flight matters for you there if you’re just trying to prog MSQ and the time investment to go through the open-world dungeon may be more than it’s worth to you. There’s a big asterisk here, though - the Lochs are apparently very important for gatherers, hunters and of course for Blue Mages (as of right now. Once the BLU cap gets raised again that importance will drop through the floor.)