#because light is just much more tankier

[teecupangel]

Hey, wanna read me defending myself in my plans to multiclass Desmond into a Rogue-Thief/Ranger-Gloom Stalker?

The thing about trying to play as Desmond in Baldur's Gate is that I'm forcing the narrative to work around my need to min-max in terms of classes allocation.

Narrative choices are easy because Desmond's more on the side of neutral good, sliding into true neutral with the whole 'stab them when it's clear they killed an innocent' guideline.

But the classes though... the thing about Assassins in Assassin's Creed is that they're not exactly a 1:1 of the Assassin subclass.

So my reasoning for the plan to multiclass Desmond into Rogue-Thief (4)/Ranger-Gloom Stalker(5) is...

Thief subclass is chosen because [Fast Hands] means +1 bonus action which would make it easier for Desmond to hide and/or dash/disengage. Hiding is the best way to get the Sneak Attack actions. [Second-Story Work] means less falling damage which could made into our narrative workaround for Leaps of Faith. Assassin subclass was passed over because Thief has more utility and Assassin is more combat oriented with focus on attacking targets that have not taken a turn yet. This could, narratively, be more or less the equivalent to the Hidden Blade's oneshot kills but it doesn't work because early level Rogue has a hard time oneshoting enemies at low level. Rogue will be leveled up to Lv4 so Desmond can get another Feat (Ability Improvement: Dex +2 to up it to 20)

Gloom Stalker Ranger is chosen because Favoured Enemy [Bounty Hunter] gives Investigation Proficiency and Natural Explorer [Urban Tracker] gives Sleight of Hand Proficiency. Narratively, Urban Tracker goes well with Desmond's background and his Bleeds are experts in the urban areas of their time. Anything that gives more Investigation Proficiency is good as part of Eagle Vision. Lv 2 will let us get Speak with Animals and Enhance Leap (Enhance Leap is pretty much necessary since Str is needed for jumping but Str is a dump stat for Rogues so yeah, we'll have Desmond cheat for this one). Lv 4 will let Desmond get Gloom Stalker subclass and automatically get Disguise Self which means we can put the Disguise Self helmet (I forgot the name) back to camp ([Dread Ambusher] is also more consistent than the Assassin subclass unique skills)

The reason why we're going for up to Lv 5 Gloom Stalker is that Desmond can get an Extra Attack + Misty Step at Lv 5 (and he can get Past without Trace as well for extra stealth)

This does leave 3 more levels to allocate and we have some options:

Rogue up to Lv 7 so Desmond can get Uncanny Dodge + Evasion and an additional 1d6 for Sneak Attack damage.

Ranger up to Lv8 so Desmond can get another feat (probably Dungeon Delver for Advantage on Perception and Saving Throws to avoid/resist traps or Savage Attacker if Desmond can now safely melee) and can get Land's Stride so he won't be slowed down by difficult terrain.

Rogue up to Lv 5 for Uncanny Dodge and an additional 1d6 for Sneak Attack damage + Ranger up to Lv 7 for an additional Lv2 Spell Slot.

Or... we go and lean into Desmond being a bartender and have him multiclass up to Lv3 Bard (or Lv2 Bard with Lv5 Rogue + Lv5 Ranger) so he can have more spells (probably Detect Thoughts and maybe something like Feather Fall? idk) or we go for Lv3 Druid (Wild Shape) as a reference to Tyranny of Washington DLC (which does have wolf and bear in the Circle of the Moon)

#desmond in faerun #where teecup shows how she normally plays rpg #look min-maxing is kinda a compulsion of mine #teecup plays as desmond in other games #just be happy i'm keeping everyone in their original class #except i changed shadowheart from trickery to light #because light is just much more tankier #and i need a tank

[ohwormwoodlore]

Introducing: Sanguine

Sanguine has been sitting on the back-burner for a while now, but since I started this account I decided that it was probably the best way to start off!

The idea at the center of this all is looking at the trope of vampirism in a different light. Not just humanizing it, which has definitely been done before, but extrapolating upon the actual effects of vampirism as a whole through the lense of modern medicine. When I first had this idea, I kind of toyed with it for a bit, then forgot about it. When I found it again, I proceeded to spend an entire day researching so that I could create an in-depth document that outlines symptoms, causes, and transmission.

That being said, trigger warning! Lots of blood related talk and medical topics, since I know some people are sensitive to that.

To better summarize over four pages of writing, vampirism, formally known in this story as called the Sanguis Endogenus Retrovirus, is a blood-transmitted disease, like malaria or Hepatitis B/C. However, its usually spread through animal hosts. Within nonhuman animals, it's functionally inert, but when the virus finds itself in the bloodstream of a human host, it begins to make copies of itself and insert them into the hosts' genome, causing mutations. Some key aspects are that the human host is essentially mutated to spread the virus, whether they wish to or not:

The salivary glands produce even more copies of the virus, as well as draculin, the anticoagulant (blood thinner) found in the saliva of real life vampire bats

Teeth undergo a process similar to tooth growth in shark, and are able to be replicated if lost

Muscle mass increased, though through the same chemical process seen in muscular hypertrophy (the overgrowth of muscles)

The immune system becomes even tankier, as the virus attacks any other foreign bodies to maintain control

The eye changes to be able to see more UV light than average

On one hand, a lot of these seem like they'd buff an infected person, but the "pros" (if you can even call them that) are significantly dimmed when you take into account the cons:

A lot of traits consistent with sickle-cell anemia like fatigue, dizzy spells, weakness, and paling of the skin become chronic

The stomach, kidneys, and bladder all mutate, making the host unable to consume plant matter (aka become an obligate carnivore), while still being able to survive the resulting increase in protein and iron

Eyesight in daylight grows increasingly more sensitive, to the point of migraines

Skin blisters in any kind of UV light, and takes even longer to heal than average burns

Can cause effects like coughing up blood and frequent nosebleeds, which can lead to further exacerbation of the anemic traits mentioned before

The glands that produce adrenaline begin to work overtime, alongside the amygdala, which controls survival instincts and causes extremely heightened levels of anxiety and paranoia

The body requires much more sleep than before, up to 18 hours a day as a means to compensate for the energy needed to sustain the body and the virus

Overall, it becomes something of a very aggressive chronic disease rather than the Twilight sparkly vampires or demon-like Nosferatu equivalents. And because it's remains dormant when inside of animals, its hard to predict or contain the disease. However, the upside is that it is incredibly rare yet fast-progressing, meaning that "damage control" is often able to be conducted early on.

By "damage control", I mean the general detainment and capture of people who have contracted vampirism and the overall proliferation of an intercontinental conspiracy to suppress the existence of the disease from the public.

So, like with everything, the government(s) are in on it. And they're not afraid to commit crimes against humanity to keep the social order in check.

This brings in the Seward Institute, a medical research and technology company that specializes in blood-related diseases, developing treatments and medical technology, all while beneath the surface performing (wildy unethical) government-funded studies on individuals infected with vampirism.

Because of their massive global influence, medical technology (and the medical field overall) have gained an even higher status, and STEM research within colleges has increased tenfold. Seward hands out internships to those who seem promising, and this is exactly where we find one of the main characters of the actual story behind this project.

But that's for another day :)

I gotta keep some kind of other content to show you guys for later. Can't reveal all the secrets at the very start!

I'll keep on posting more as we go, so tune in!

#worldbuilding #characters #sci fi worldbuilding #vampires #vampirism #psst... if you got down here i have a secret #this is secretly... a midwestern horror project #you'll see in a bit

[master-of-47-dudes]

Metroid Prime 3 is a fun game, but it's probably my least favorite Metroid game that isn't Other M.

I'm not very good with motion controls, so the light gun aspect doesn't appeal to me- but that's not really a flaw of the game so much as a preference.

What I think is the biggest flaw with the game is how absolutely poorly balanced the game is around Hyper Mode and how every enemy is a damage sponge.

I mean sure. I play on Veteran mode, but it's such a baffling difference coming from Metroid Prime 2, where your beams are incredibly powerful and take out the vast majority of enemies in 1-2 charge shots (but also only facing 1-3 enemies at any given time), to Metroid Prime 3 where you're often swarmed and most enemies can take massive amounts of gunfire (and often a few hyper mode shots!) before they go down... especially with the mechanic where the enemies can enter hyper mode themselves and you’re forced to either wear out your A button or enter hyper mode yourself to deal with them.

Naturally, you're regularly facing swarms of these absurdly tanky enemies; 3-4 at a time, and running past them is less of an option because the rooms take much longer to load, so you're stuck at the door waiting for it to open while enemies are taking pot shots.

The end result is that the cannon fodder either takes forever to deal with or you have to blow your precious energy tanks to deal with them as effectively as you would have in the last game. Sure, it's about as resource intensive as beam ammo was, but it's just that extra bit more inconvenient and it means having to swallow your pride a bit to activate the "OP" mode.

It also means hyper mode doesn't feel all that powerful, especially as you get later into the game. Later enemies still take tons of shots to take out in hyper mode! So it's basically paying a resource cost to be at the power level the game expects for every fight.

Corruption doesn't give you much in the way of force multipliers either. The beam upgrades unlock new abilities but outside of one-shotting a few select enemies with the x-ray and nova beam, the plasma and nova beams don't feel like they're that big a boost in firepower. You do get the Hyper Missile eventually, but that's Hyper Mode exclusive and eats a huge chunk of your Phazon bar... and they don't home in on enemies in a game where enemies tend to move a lot and your aim is less precise due to motion controls...

It's kind of a deal where I wish Hyper Mode wasn't the primary gimmick of the game, because it's too powerful early on and then from midgame onwards it just doesn't get stronger in meaningful ways while the enemies get tankier and more annoying, so it stops feeling like I'm tapping into massive power and more like the only reasonable way to get through the crowds of enemies the game throws at me.

#metroid prime 3 #metroid #i still like the game #this aspect just sours the fun

[raxistaicho]

“Dimitri... It's time! We can finally settle the question of who's stronger.”

The other day I stumbled across a post here on Tumblr arguing that the discourse surrounding Edelgard had become so ridiculous that soon her “stans” would be arguing against hard facts, such as who her voice actress was or what her birthday or her stats are.

This will soon be ironic, but follow along.

Another person replied, claiming we “stans” would try to deny that Dimitri has a higher strength growth than her and that we would try to screech that to call Dimitri stronger than Edelgard is sexism.

This is deeply offensive to me. Not because they’re calling us liars; you get used to that if you argue on Edelgard’s side of the discourse for longer than about a week. No, it’s offensive because they think we would need to resort to denying facts to argue the truth that Edelgard is a better unit than Dimitri.

“But he IS stronger!”

Okay, so Dimitri has a 5% higher personal strength growth than Edelgard. Unfortunately for him, she has a higher base of 13 to his 12, so on average he won’t climb much higher than 1 strength over her, and only quite late into the game. That’s true only if you discount class stat boosts or growth rates, however.

Assuming Dimitri’s likely class path of Fighter into Brigand (these days I usually don’t even bother going Brigand with him since Death Blow is unnecessary for his build and Cavalier and Archer are both good classes) into Paladin or his unique classes (Paladin is better than them, for what it’s worth), his best strength mod is +2.

With Edelgard’s Wyvern class path, she gets a +3 strength mod as a Wyvern Rider and +4 as a Wyvern Lord. Just to rub salt into the wound, Wyvern Lord has a 15% strength growth mod to Paladin or Great Lord’s 10%, completely wiping out Dimitri’s growth advantage in the late game. 

Yes, Dimitri can go for the Wyvern class himself, but given he’ll be fighting an axe bane for the entire game it very much just changes this all into a “look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power” moment.

While Dimitri has a higher strength growth on paper, in practice, Edelgard will be stronger than him early and late game. At best he might catch up during the mid game, assuming they both go Brigand.

Strength is actually the least of her advantages over him, as we’ll see further on;

“Okay but he’s faster!”

When it comes to speed, same deal. Dimitri has a 10% higher speed growth but Edelgard has a higher speed base of 8 to his 7. While a 10% growth will catch up and bypass Edelgard more quickly on paper, there’s two things to account for.

Firstly, Edelgard has Pegasus Knight access with its +3 speed mod and +10% speed growth modifier. Dimitri can’t match this barring going thief (and why would he do that?), and he can never match her access to Darting Blow for +6 speed during player phase.

Secondly, Edelgard can trivially hit C armor for Weight-3 access by chapter 3. Since equipped weight is hard to mitigate early on without equipping very light gear, this artificially boosts Edelgard speed by 3 in most cases. This actually makes her one of the faster units in the early game.

And in addition, Dimitri doesn’t really CARE what his speed is. He can double some mid-tier speed enemies during the middle of White Clouds, but later on he’s usually one-shotting things with Atrocity or his crit build, and while he’s speedy enough he’s not especially fast and he’s also male, so naturally doubling things faster than a sniper will start to get troublesome later on.

“Well he’s... tankier at least?”

Okay, here we’ve got something! Dimitri has a base 7 defense to Edelgard’s 6, and a 5% higher growth, so he is tankier, right? ...Right?

Well, no. Again, not in practice. Remember Weight-3 from earlier? That means Edelgard can equip an Iron Sword and Iron Shield and not get doubled by things (since she’s usually only losing 1 AS to that combination). Axes are pretty bad early on thanks to their accuracy unless you’re using Smash, so she doesn’t miss out on much by favoring swords instead during enemy phase.

Then there’s the fact that Edelgard can easily certify for Armored Knight by the time she hits level 10, boosting her defense minimum to 12. Dimitri can only do the same with much more work, and in that case he’s only tying her. Edelgard can then go on to certify for Fortress Knight to further boost her defense minimum to 17, which realistically will be beyond Dimitri’s reach without extreme focus. And, again, Wyvern Lord provides a higher def mod than either Paladin or Great Lord.

As more salt into wounds, if Dimitri wants a battalion with Blaze on it, he has to use the Knights of Seiros battalion, which is strictly inferior to Edelgard’s Empire Knights option. Unfortunately, Kingdom Knights is the only part 1 “knights” battalion that does NOT have Blaze for a gambit.

In conclusion

I kind of dislike comparing Edelgard and Dimitri after the time skip once they get their big things that separate them; by then they do and want completely different things and which one you think is better comes down to whether you prefer Player or Enemy phase.

But during White Clouds, when both are playing the same game, there’s no denying that Edelgard is the better unit. She’s stronger, faster, and tankier, and she has access to flight. This is incontrovertible fact. All it takes is a little game knowledge.

#Fire Emblem Three Houses #edelgard von hresvelg #edelgard positive #edelgard discourse #edelgard critical

[askkrenko]

Krenko’s Guide to Pokemon: Bellsprout Line

Warning: This pokemon contains vore. DESIGN:  

I totally love this thing. Bellsprout’s adorable as a little pitcher plant running around on its roots, with that big yellow head and its leafy arms.  It’s got a simple face that’s expressive with its big mouth, and it’s all noodly with its lithe body. It looks silly, but also very right, because it’s just a plant.  Sometimes I wonder about its feeding habits, though. It explicitly eats bugs, but does that mean there’s actually flies and mosquitos buzzing around, or does it just beat up Caterpie and shove them head-first into its mouth? 

I’m less enthused with Weepinbell. It just looks really, really stupid. The big eyes and mouth become goofier than cute, and the leaves moving up to its head like big floppy ears give it a fishy appearance.  It has a tiny root hook to hang from trees with, but it mostly just looks incredibly immobile.  I am more afraid of Bellsprout than I am of Weepinbell.

Victreebel, on the other hand, is badass. Flipped over from Weepinbell it has a huge mouth with sharp pointy teeth for some reason, big enough leaves to seem like it can do real damage, a vine long enough to attack with, and angry eyes BELOW its mouth to add a really unsettling appearance to.  Weepinbell is a cartoon, but Victreebel is some sort of horror. And Victreebel is big, too. Weepinbell is a respectable three feet long, sure, but at over five feet tall, Victreebel is big enough to swallow a human whole- and we see this happen over and over again in the anime, though James does escape every time.  Weepinbell almost had an alternate evolution in generation 3, which looked sort of like a Bellsprout thicker. Fortunately, it was decided this thing looked too stupid to live, and so it never made it into a game. EVOLUTIONS:  Bellsprout to Weepinbell at 21 and then to Victreebel with a Leaf Stone isn’t something to complain about.  Like many stone evolutions, Victreebel mostly stops learning new moves, but the three it does learn- Leaf Tornado, Leaf Storm, and Leaf Blade- are unavailable to Weepinbell until it evolves. Because Weepinbell is stupid.

TYPING: Poison/Grass has happened in five lines... and three of them were in generation one.  It’s a decent combo with five resistances and four weaknesses, with five points of super-effective coverage.  It opens plenty of tactical options, with the only things that stop both being Steel and Poison.

STATS: 

Victreebel’s stats are not impressive.  Its defensive stats are below average, and so is its speed, and while it has solid attack and special attack, that’s redundant for the most part and they’re still not so high to make it good just for sheer firepower. 105 Attack and 100 Special Attack is fine. Victreebel can deliver a hit. But that’s the best it has going for it statwise.

ABILITIES: Victreebel’s ability, Chlorophyll, is what saves it. Chlorophyll doubles Victreebel’s speed in sunlight, and while its speed is below average, it’s still not bad normally. With Chlorophyll active, Victreebel can reliably go first and strike foes with its strong attack stat, and Victreebel has access to multiple moves that get stronger in the sun. Victreebel’s hidden ability, Gluttony, is not an inherently bad ability, but it’s not really for Victreebel. Gluttony allows a Pokemon to eat a held berry that would be eaten at 25% health when it hits 50% health instead.  This is just much stronger on tankier Pokemon, which Victreebel is not. Chlorophyll is good.

MOVES:  With strong Atk and Sp. Atk, Victreebel has a lot of options for moves, but we’re going to be looking at Victreebel in two lights: Natural and Harsh. That is, Victreebel when Sunny Day is usually on, and Victreebel when you can’t rely on it. You should not be running Victreebel on a team with no Sunny Day at all. When Sunny Day is active, Solar Beam is the obvious attack, which means building for Special Attack. From there, Weather Ball is a 100 power 100 Accuracy Fire Attack for Steel types that does additional damage from Sunny Day’s boost, and Sludge Bomb becomes your Poison attack of choice.  For the final move, a utility power like Strength Sap, Sleep Powder, Synthesis, Growth, or the ability to re-up Sunny Day itself are all viable options. For a Victreebel that can’t rely on Sunny Day quite as often, it’s better to build for physical attack, meaning Leaf Blade or Power Whip as your primary attack form, and Poison Jab for things resistant to Grass. 

After that, a physical attacking Victreebel can learn Swords Dance to greatly up its attack stat. As with the Special Victreebel, Strength Sap, Sleep Powder, Synthesis, and Sunny Day are all options. 

With Growth, it’s also reasonable to use a Victreebel that uses both Physical and Special Attacks. Though it winds up weaker at either due to splitting stats, having the safety of Leaf Blade when the sun’s down and the power of Weather Ball when the sun’s up can make for a much more versatile pokemon. One important note about moves here: As soon as Victreebel hits gen 8, it’ll probably be able to learn Solar Blade from the new TM12. This move is just better Solar Beam on Victreebel, though it would have the issue of not using the same attack stat as Weather Ball.  Victreebel has a lot of good move options, it’s just a question of mixing and matching the right ones, and making sure your Ninetails or Torkoal is setting up the sun.

OVERALL:  VIctreebel is interesting in that both its attack stats are good and it has good attacks for both, but its currently too reliant on the sun to be very versatile overall. A Victreebel without Sunny Day is not particularly potent, and it's just not built for Gluttony.

Still, Victreebel is basically fine. It’s got a very narrow strategy, but it’s good in that strategy. I’m not sure I have any specific hopes or desires for this pokemon other than learning a few new moves in Gen 8, though the fact that it only has two ability options when most Pokemon have three is a bit disappointing. They could give the Bellsprout line a second ability option.

#Krenko's Pokemon Guide #Bellsprout #Weepinbell #Victreebel

[gascon-en-exil]

FE16 Black Eagles (Church) Liveblogging

Chapters 20-21. The end, for the fourth and final time.

Shambhala is the same as it is in Verdant Wind - moving on.

Chapter 21, conversely, feels at first like a playable postgame. There’s no immediate plot hook, and during exploration everyone is talking about either how the war is over or how Byleth is going to become leader of Fódlan and will be the best ever because self-insert. Seteth even gives you the option to skip to the end of the month, which I took because I’m feeling pretty done with this game for the moment. I just missed a few final grinding opportunities.

Incidentally, I noticed I had Sothis as an option for S rank in some of my other playthroughs but not this one. I thought she didn’t have any requirements, but it seems like she does?

Silver Snow’s endgame though...whew. There’s a lot of heavy-hitting monsters that deal magical damage, and the Immaculate One seemed a good bit tankier than her Crimson Flower incarnation. She’s also got a very long range AoE attack she can use every turn, so overall she’s a bit more dangerous than Hegemon Edelgard. I’m only going off of Normal of course, and my playthrough of Azure Moon was rougher than the others being my first, but if I had to rank the final chapters in terms of difficulty it would probably be Azure Moon = Silver Snow > Crimson Flower > Verdant Wind.

Looking through the extras afterward to see if I missed anything apart from supports, apparently there are two music tracks that require you to be using the Japanese audio? The one of Rhea singing after the ball, and the credits, at least according to GameFAQs

Story/Character observations

Once again, it’s the former Eagles who carry most of the unique emotional heft for this route. I still don’t care about Caspar’s father dying offscreen (either in battle or by offering himself up for trial and execution, it’s not really clear) even though Dorothea also cries over him. Bernadetta reveals that the reason she’s much more confident in Crimson Flower is because Edelgard had had her father placed under house arrest, but after her death on this route he’s been released and she asks Byleth to either have him arrested again or exiled. I am...not touching that, with all the wank over Bernadetta. On a lighter note, Ferdinand wonders if his huge hole can ever be filled - the hole in his heart, that is. In light of his acknowledgement of Hubert last chapter, I’m going to guess that he might not be only talking about the end of the Empire here.

The ginger warlock concerned for Dedue returns. Someone write a crack fic about them, or at least draw some porn.

A cleric NPC says that Byleth will be canonized after all they’ve done. In case this route making your self-insert a pope and supreme leader of an entire continent weren’t enough, you also get sainthood!

The content of Rhea’s big reveal is rather different here than in Verdant Wind, less about how Nemesis and the Agarthans violated her kin and more about the many different ways in which she and Byleth are related...one battle before you can marry her. Nice of her to lay out the incest so neatly.

But speaking of Nemesis...the game makes no attempt to explain why he’s resurrected upon the destruction of Shambhala in Verdant Wind, but not in Silver Snow. On a Doylist level I absolutely understand the difference in these routes’ final bosses, but thematic resonance aside it’s still weird. It doesn’t help that there’s zero build-up to Rhea’s transformation into the Immaculate One either, as if she develops sudden onset dragon madness because she realizes you still need a final boss.

It’s a little obscured (some references were lost in translation, from what I’ve read), but I finally got my answer for my question about Tomas’s lines about the church’s cardinals way back in one of the game’s first chapters. The White Beasts that support the Immaculate One in the final battle are identified as cardinals in their class description, and as Seteth explains the highest ranking members of the church drank Rhea’s blood and received pieces of Crest stones so that they would transform when she did. Good on them for working in such a blatant allusion to the Eucharist, but it could have done with more setup than around two lines in the last chapter. Also, Tomas knowing something about the cardinals would seem to imply something. Were the Agarthans aware of these blood rituals? Is this where they got the idea to use Crest stones to turn people into Demonic Beasts - or did Rhea get the idea from them?

In the end I’m not sure why the fandom sometimes refers to this as Rhea’s route when the main figure is clearly Byleth. I’m also not sure why they used two cutscenes to develop the antagonism between Byleth and Edelgard only to ignore them otherwise. Edelgard just doesn’t matter to anyone’s emotional arc in Silver Snow, and while that’s true of all the house leaders and their followers (minus Dedue, still carrying out his and Dimitri’s tragic Verdant Wind storyline half offscreen) it was surprising coming from Verdant Wind where I expected more out of her. It’s as though the game expects the player to assume that Edelgard is emotionally invested in Byleth in all routes regardless of anything they do. In summary, Silver Snow is essential for understanding who and what exactly Byleth is and how they relate to Rhea, but it’s largely superfluous otherwise. 

That wraps up my first full run of all the main story content of Three Houses. I’m not quite done liveblogging however - I’ve got some notes for the things I’ll have to pick up on future playthroughs.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Spoilers

[angermango]

[slides into inbox] wanna talk about those elementals real quick

OH BOY WOULD I !!!

so i dunno how much detail i should put out here on the get go, especially with the whole thing where i’m still unsure as to whether or not I should use them as Mortal Kombat OCs/fan interpretations of canon characters or just OCs on their own (in which case they’d be just ordinary elementals although i guess they can still be gods? :V)

Regardless they’re all supposed to be ageless immortal non-humans in human form sort of dudes who are basically the embodiments of the classical elements with so much power they’re basically deities by any other name so take your pick

Down here’s a guide to your friendly neighbourhood elementals (cut because it got LONG):

Ohona

Earth elemental/deity

Name based on a Japanese earth god named Ohonamochi (though he doesn’t really share much in common with the myths etc surrounding that guy, just the namesake)

He has control over the element of earth but also can manipulate anything under the earth so that includes metal and even minerals/gems

He’s the definition of a ‘gentle giant’ like he’s well over 7ft tall and broad like an ox but he’s the chillest and loveliest guy you’ll ever meet

Ohona’s kindness is freakin’ legendary. Even the nastiest of people would be hard pressed not to admit he’s such a nice guy they feel bad going up against him. If someone pulled a knife on him and demanded money Ohona’d fuckin give them his entire purse and then invite them for a meal and tea.

His big friendly giant thing means he’s probably classified as a pacifist, or at the very least one of those “Martial Pacifists” who doesn’t kill or use more force than necessary

His fighting style prioritises defence, the kind of Big Beefy defence trading on speed where he aims to outlast his opponents and keep his own attacking to a minimum. He’d much rather see his enemies give up than be forced to hurt them, sometimes deliberately letting them wear themselves out so he can approach and possibly talk it out with them without having to raise a hand

That said if he does ever have to attack he hits like a freaking bus on a train. He knows proper martial arts forms and everything so don’t think just because he’s a tank he doesn’t have skill or strength

He likes using his element to form shields and even armour around himself. He got the standard rock armour look down, but if the situation calls he can even scare up full metal or even diamond armour and shields

He is able to transform into a purely elemental form which is like a huge golem made of rock (like the MK Earth God). He’s even bigger and tankier in that form, but he rarely cracks it out unless it’s Serious Business and the situation calls for being huge and strong

He can also change up his elemental form if given enough time so sometimes y’all get metal golem Ohona or diamond golem Ohona stomping around. good luck if you ever go up against that.

Something of a nomad when he’s out and about in human form. He loves travelling, mostly for the hiking and scenery. I mean yeah he can teleport (usually as a small sandstorm or sometimes in a sort of ‘sink into the earth and pop out elsewhere’) but where’s the fun in that? He’s very much one with nature and his element and lives off the earth sort of thing, enjoying the great outdoors and sleeping under the stars

Brilliant gardener despite plants not being his domain, mostly owing to his naturally excellent care of the earth

Absolute animal lover and friend to everything that moves

That also includes the super freaky and dangerous animals. catch him treating a 13ft gator like a dog and getting it to roll over for belly rubs or calling one of them bird-eating giant tarantulas his hairy baby.

He’s really friendly and warm to humans he meets regardless of whether they acknowledge his power or not. He likes spending time helping them out however he can with his powers be it helping them do some gardening or fixing stuff up

He’s a talented hand in sculpting, carving, jewellery and pottery craft to name a few. He’s got a rather infamous habit of making some incredible pieces then just giving them away and fucking off, leaving people with these beautiful pieces of art which are completely anonymous and literally priceless

He always makes time to visit Hinoka and Suijin either separately or as a get-together. They’re his two best buddies and he is always happy to keep Hinoka company or keep an eye on Suijin.

Hinoka

Fire elemental/deity

His… is actually not a real deity’s name, I think i remember seeing some fan names for the unnamed MK fire god using it and liked it. sorry oddball

(ED) o I think i found the origin it’s probably from the Shinto fire kami Kagutsuchi who is sometimes known Hinokagutsuchi or Hi-no-kagutsuchi waddayaknow - he doesn’t share the same myth as Kagutsuchi tho but now we know his name isn’t completely random hey-oh

As a Fire guy he controls flame but also heat, being able to thermoregulate his body and the air around him. He can also absorb fire and heat so he’s like immune to burning too and can put out fires by standing in them.

His elemental form is of course basically a humanoid bonfire, though he’s able to not make himself wholly flammable so he can walk around indoors and around people without making everything catch alight, but his elemental form can also still burn people on contact through radiating heat. it’s elemental magic man he don’t got to explain

He’s a very capable fighter in both martial arts and also swordfighting as his weapon of choice. cause you know what’s better than a sword? A FLAMING sword. He also mixes in the classic fire-bending tricks where he can, fireballs and flamethrowers and so on.

Got a very fast and ‘keep away’ sort of fighting style where he favours AOE kinds of moves to keep people at a distance with the threat of getting barbecued or beat to hell. Expect rings of fire, explosions and sweeping fireballs sort of thing, as well as a lot of constant moving around to make it hard to pin him down.

kind of a hermit so he doesn’t actually really go out and interact with people a lot save for his fellow elementals. and even then he’s pretty quiet and shy and it takes a lot to coax him out of his shell

If you do manage to get through to him he’s quite a nice guy. perhaps still not the most talkative, but he’s not going to be rude or anything

He has a thing where if he gets startled or embarrassed he sometimes accidentally lights himself on fire and Shenanigans Ensue. It’s often a bit of a chain reaction because say you surprise him and he flares up, and then he gets embarrassed for flaring up, then he gets embarrassed that he can’t stop flaring up etc.

The reason for his reclusiveness is pretty sad actually. He’s cripplingly afraid of hurting people with his powers because he knows he can deal some serious damage with them. That’s the thing with fire, it doesn’t need a lot to get going and can spread very quickly. But because he isolates himself and stews in his fear he doesn’t have much control when he is around people and loses control when he’s stressed and then continues to fear being around people…

And the reason why this fear started is even sadder. A very, very long time ago, Hinoka once lost control of his powers in a blind rage and made a desert. A really, really big desert. Out of land which was once fertile and thriving. And inhabited. He still hasn’t forgiven himself for it and it’s really not a good idea to bring it up.

Because of what happened, that’s why he only hangs out around the other two elementals and any other immortals, because he knows he can’t hurt them that badly if something ever went wrong.

He tends to retreat to extremely remote regions and in very basic conditions, like a cabin or even a small cave, far from civilisation.

He prefers temperate to hot climates but like even if he was in the Arctic he is always warm himself so it’s not a big deal.

He spends most of his free time meditating and practicing forms in an attempt to de-stress and get some control over his powers. He also reads sometimes (though he fears for his books) and has gotten fairly good at cooking as a past time (even though he doesn’t quite need to eat like a human).

Speaking of his food the other two elementals always like dropping by to keep him company over a meal or to share new recipes/try his new recipes. Always an evening well spent.

Despite popular beliefs and stereotypes, he doesn’t like spicy food. Too much spice will hurt and then he’ll become stressed and because he’s stressed his fire aura will flare up and so yeah he doesn’t do spice.

Suijin

Water elemental/deity

Named after Shinto water kami of the same name

To put it bluntly Suijin’s like. a massive jerk.

Of all the elementals Suijin is the one with the lowest opinion of humans/mortals.

His reason is because he mostly spends more time in the sea and not integrating with humans.

And also because humans keep dumping their crap in the oceans and he’s left choking in it and clearing it all up so STOP DOING THAT YOU OIL PISSING FUCKMONKEYS

oh yeah he’s got an atomic temper and a vocabulary to match. being immortal just means he’s had more time to pick up some fantastic new curses to try out.

speaking of his temper he’s seriously got waayyyy to small a fuse and he’s so extremely hot-blooded there’s no in betweens when it comes to chill or no chill. one moment you could be talking about ice cream the next he’s chokeslamming you because you put sprinkles on it.

fun fact when he gets mad he often literally steams with anger

He also puts zero effort into his appearance when around mortals, his robes always looking scruffy and half-undone. see if he gives a shit what you think.

He prefers being in his elemental form most of the time, which is just a human-shaped mass of water. In this form he can melt into bodies of water and travel as a puddle, letting him go pretty much anywhere he likes. However he’s also vulnerable to extreme heat or cold in this form since it will dry him out or freeze him solid

His control of the element of water means he’s also technically got power over all water in all its forms including vapour e.g. steam and clouds. He’s also not limited to the water which is immediately around since he can call up water from any source or even move some clouds over for a top up. He could even create water on the spot from the air or dump a tidal wave on your doorstep even if you live inland. don’t try him. He’s also picked up some ice tricks, which also helps make him less vulnerable to being frozen

True to his personality and element he’s got a very aggressive and fluid fighting style that attacks on all sides and constantly moves and changes to take everyone by surprise. One minute he’s in your face with his fists the next he’s using Hydro Pump from a distance and then stabbing you from behind with his spear and calling you a bitch.

Okay so i said he’s a jerk and he is, but he’s also kind of a ‘jerk with a heart of gold’ guy in a way. For all his temper and foul mouth he can be decent to people when it matters. He’s still a surly grouch even around friends but he makes the effort not to be needlessly cruel and if his yelling and cursing genuinely upsets anyone he’ll dial it back and even apologise if he overstepped.

He’s also very loyal to those he is actually friends with. He may be a little intense about it, but he’s super ride-or-die and will tear anyone who threatens, upsets or insults his friends a new one. And he might not be the best with his words, but he would want what’s best for his friends and won’t hesitate to speak his mind with advice or criticism in their best interests.

He mostly keeps the company of the other elementals and non-mortals, though whenever he does make contact with humans who haven’t ticked him off it’s by the sea since he rarely roams far from his element.

Believe it or not, he and Hinoka are best friends. Hinoka is like Suijin’s one soft spot who he’ll move heaven and earth to keep happy and safe.

When Suijin is around Hinoka he basically does a 180 and becomes super considerate and careful around him. He won’t raise his voice and minds his manners, though he knows Hinoka doesn’t mind him grumbling and cursing a bit and it’s more he will be more mindful not to sound all negative and get loud and mean around Hinoka because he knows Hinoka doesn’t like it.

He knows about why Hinoka is so afraid of going outside and has been doing his best to support him ever since the incident. He visits often to check in on him and keep him company. He also knows Hinoka feels safer with him around because he is the only person Hinoka can’t actually hurt with his fire powers (as in Suijin can’t even get burned where Ohona can still) and Suijin can always put out fires quickly.

Hinoka is also Suijin’s biggest berserk button. Don’t ever insult let alone hurt Hinoka in front of him or Suijin will actually tear you in half.

He’s also just as close to Ohona despite not seeming it at first glance. He often seems like he just gripes a lot to Ohona but he genuinely appreciates Ohona’s consideration and patience around him and being a loyal friend. Suijin will just as easily jump in to defend and fight for Ohona too like he does Hinoka, but less often since he knows Ohona can handle himself and barely has problems.

#igot2ne1problems #asks #my ocs #suijin (oc) #hinoka (oc) #ohona (oc) #wow that really got bigger than i anticipated #once i got going i just couldn't stop ^^; #i really love them but i am so indecisive about them #not that i'm very good with my other ocs who are just floating in private creative limbo in docs and doodles you'll never see #just realised that despite giving them japanese names (at least 2/3 of em) i been dressing them in chinese clothes :U #that's totally on me man i really like them in traditional chinese fashion #i know the mk fire god had noticeable clothing in his elemental form but i just chose not to put hinoka in it in my pics for simplicity's sa #it's like armour and stuff but i wanted him to also have some casual wear #>>mangowaffles

[cawfulopinions]

Fire Emblem Fates: Just Shove Your Children into the Puberty Void

           I really wanted to like Fire Emblem Fates. I really, really did.

           But there’s only just so much anime I can take, you guys.

           Fire Emblem Fates is the fourteenth entry in the long running Fire Emblem series of fantasy, turn-based strategy games. The series has always made itself distinct from other games in the same genre with its strong sense of fantasy aesthetic, its character writing, and smooth, smooth animation, but has always failed to get traction in the West due to its difficulty and occasional iffy mechanics choices. Fates’ predecessor, Awakening, sold very well, however, and proved that there was a place for Fire Emblem in the states, but sacrificed a lot of franchise difficulty, so Fates promised to give an experience that both fans of Awakening and fans of previous Fire Emblems could enjoy.

           It… certainly tried. I don’t think it quite got there, but it tried. But there was a lot going on along the way that makes me question what the hell they were thinking.

           Fates, ultimately, feels like it’s torn between being a Fire Emblem entry and being a cool light novel that all of the kids will like. There’s a lot that feels like it was cribbed from the latest cheap anime on the airwaves, just for the sake of appealing to people who’re into that. It’s a very weird atmosphere and it doesn’t really fit for what Fire Emblem has previously been. There’s some serious war drama, but there’s also some creepy incest stuff involving your non-blood related siblings and a lot of fanservice. There’s this soap opera stuff involving whether you should be loyal to your birth family or your adoptive family, but also a dimension crossing dragon man’s evil army that wants to destroy the world. There’s DLC gating. There’s a lot of DLC gating.

           It’s not a bad game, persay, but… well, there’s a lot to talk about. Let’s dive in.

           Disclaimer: All images in this long pile of salt are either pulled from official Nintendo press releases or official art, from Miiverse posts, or from other sources. Every image is a legitimate image from the localization, at least as far as I can tell. There’s exactly one image I ‘capped myself, and it’s because I wanted a good shot of a booty. Otherwise, I didn’t screencap them. Please excuse my laziness.

            So before we get into my gripes with the writing, let’s talk mechanics. Fates is split into two versions, Birthright and Conquest, with a third route titled Revelations available as DLC. Each of the versions sports a different plotline, with different units and different maps. However, rather than each game being their own separate thing, the three routes actually branch from a single choice point a couple chapters into the game, after which point you’re locked into one version’s storyline.

The three versions offer different gameplay experiences – Birthright has you supporting Hoshido and is most similar to Fates’ predecessor, with access to skirmishes to level your units and a generally easier experience; Conquest has you supporting Nohr and is a fairly traditional Fire Emblem experience, so resource management is the name of the game; and Revelations has you rejecting both countries and running off with the intended blue-haired waifu, and features several unique map mechanics and access to almost all units from both games, opening up strategies and marriage options that aren’t available in the other two versions.

This is basically foreplay for these two.

           These are all pretty ambitious ideas, so it’s a shame that they all just… don’t really work. For starters, unit types are largely divided by kingdom, which creates some weird balance issues. The majority of the units you get while playing with Hoshido are samurai, ninjas, and mages – speedy foot units with low defense –while the majority of your mounted units are Pegasus knights – low defense, low HP flying units who are vulnerable to archers, which Nohr has in spades. Which is a problem, because the majority of the Nohr units… are slower, hard-hitting mounted units who can tank hits way better than you can. When playing on Birthright, you have to work for your mounted and tanky units, as for a long time the only non-flier mounted unit is Silas, a defector from Nohr who brings along the precious Cavalier class, which can reclass into the tankier Great Knight class. It’s a helpful move, but it’s just not enough a lot of the time.

           In a move that’s clearly meant to balance them, Nohr’s units tend to have low resistance, making them more vulnerable to magic. This makes Conquest an exercise in frustration all on its own because the enemy AI on Conquest can afford to throw endless mages and ninjas at you to carve through your resistance and lower your stats with their throwing knives. And, of course, there’s the occasional Spear Fighter with a Beast Killer spear there specifically to fuck up all of your mounted units’ days,

           Only on Revelations do you have access to units to both types, since you get every recruitable unit between both games, save for a few specific plot units who you could only support off with the Avatar anyways. Besides the absolute pile of warm bodies you’re suddenly given, it opens up a larger experience with the game and better strategies you can now put into place… so it’s a damn shame that the route’s only available as paid DLC, and not as the base game.

           Unfortunately, all three routes (but especially Birthright and Conquest) have a particularly damning, unfun issue: their map design sucks. It’s awful. The maps are almost entirely designed around the quality of “how can we make it easy for everyone ever to get swarmed by everything” and it makes everything an exercise in frustration. There’s one particular map in Birthright where you’re storming a fort, and the lead up to the fort is a large, open field, and the moment you move into one enemy’s range, you’ve basically moved into every enemy’s range, and whoever you send up there is about to get swarmed by everything. Which is an issue, because your tankier units are in short supply, and there’s only so much that Pair Up can do to fix everyone’s defensive issues.

This map’s probably the most extreme case, but it’s far from the only one; several of the maps can more or less be described in qualities of either “big open rectangles” or “awful mazes of corridors”. There’s also a surprising dearth of interesting terrain – I think I can count the number of maps with actual forest tiles on one hand, and since the final chapters on both Birthright and Conquest are all indoors, the terrain’s even more limited.

           Making things a bit more interesting is the Dragon Vein mechanic – every map has special tiles that can be activated by any members of royalty you have in your team due to their draconic heritage, causing different effects depending on the map you’re on. These can be used against you or to your benefit, since there are more than a few maps involving you fighting the opposite kingdom’s royalty too. Honestly, it’s probably the shining feature of the game, aside from the rebalanced Pair Up mechanics, and I’d like to see something like it return in later games.

           It’s fairly obvious from how the routes were designed and the various balance issues that appear that the decision to split the game into three full games worth of content meant nothing was really properly balanced. Admittedly, difficulty is subjective, but for me, Birthright, when played on Normal, was disgustingly easy. When played on Hard, it was a ball-raking experience in frustration and bullshit deaths. Conquest remains frustrating for the entire experience, especially if you’re playing on Classic, but it never feels frustrating in a fun way – it always feels like you’re clawing against the game, desperately trying to find a foothold while you’re being relentlessly carved apart by a million ninjas. And for all of their difficulty, Fire Emblem games do generally feel fair about it. It never feels unwinnable unless you’re on, like, Lunatic or some shit. But god, there were legitimately moments in Fates where I felt like snapping my 3DS in half because it felt flat out unfair.

You can change the difficulty mid-game, but you can only turn it down – Hard to Normal to Easy, Classic to Casual to Phoenix, where units, upon dying, come back the next turn. There’s basically no middle ground when it comes to difficulty – either you’re coasting through with absolutely no challenge whatsoever, or the game actually has your testicles in a vicegrip. Doesn’t help that the game gives you a few really good units in the form of your royal siblings, some of which come pre-promoted, and others with their own unique weapons. In fact, Ryoma’s weapons and stats are so good that people have actually soloed Birthright with him.

Beware the lobster man, for his lust for destruction is endless.

           On the subject of weapons, Fates does away with something that’s been a series standard for decades – weapon durability. Instead, the game gives you several weapons with several differing effects – for example, the Sunrise Katana gives the wielder an insane dodge rate, but has a lower strength. Extra weapons can be forged into one another, letting you steadily improve their stats and, over time, make a weapon far superior to the one you started with. This is a pretty contentious subject in the fandom, but honestly? I don’t have any problems with it. Healing staves still have durability, and it means I don’t feel afraid to use my cool weapons like I always do in other Fire Emblems.

           It also carries over the Pair Up mechanic Awakening introduced, with some new balancing to it – now, units can only aid in attacks if they’re standing to the side of the units in question, and only defend if they’re paired up with (on the same space as) another unit. Enemy units can also pair up, which leads to a lot of frustrating moments when you’ve got two heavily defensive units bottlenecking an area and you’ve got to get past them to make progress. Still, it’s an improvement, and I’d like to see it come back in a game with more unit variety, so I could fully take advantage of it.

           Another thing Fates introduces is unique skills for every character – some get bonuses depending on the type of terrain they’re on, or the characters they’re around. Others have conditional bonuses or abilities, like Orochi and Niles being able to “capture” units that can be convinced to join your army, or Sophie being able to strip enemy units every now and then. This is actually a pretty cool thing overall and it really makes me think more about who to use beyond just stats and if I like them or not.

           There’s also been several changes to how supports work, specifically through the addition of the A+ rank and the new class change seals that have been added. While S-rank is still exclusive to units of different sexes (symbolizing them getting married), A+ notes a “best friend” unit of the same sex, and like S-rank, every unit can only A+ rank once. The new Marriage and Friend seals allow a unit access to classes of their maxed out ranks, giving greater variety in the skills and classes they can earn. It’s a nice change. Master Seals are still in, as are a new variant that allows a child unit to upgrade to a promoted class immediately after recruitment if they’re recruited after a certain point in the game.

…but we’ll get to that later.

           There’s also the My Castle, which is an expansion of Awakening’s barracks, and is honestly such a weird part of the game that it barely garners mentioning. It’s where your shops are, and over time you can add more facilities, gather materials to use to upgrade your items and make stat boosting food with, and participate in some faux-multiplayer matches to get points for other upgrades. It’s interesting, but its existence is… odd, especially since the plot explanation for it has to deal with Fates’ weird flirtation with alternate universe bullshit.

…but we’ll get to that later.

           Overall, the mechanical changes are for the better, it’s just they’re marred by a lot of other dumb shit. Like the map design, the terrible balancing, and Jesus Christ, can I just have a knight, please, so I can stop getting punched in the face???

           This is all without getting into the story, writing, and aesthetic, which is some of the most contentious in the franchise for a good reason. It’s, to be frank, kind of bad. It’s weird and anime in ways that Fire Emblem hasn’t really been in the past, and it feels more like I’m playing a not-so-great light novel adaptation than a fantasy war simulator. And it’s not like Fire Emblem isn’t tropey – for how much people love it, Sacred Stones’ plot sure wasn’t winning too many writing awards, and a good chunk of Awakening’s characters are better described by what anime tropes they adhere to – but Fates really goes all in, complete with some of my least favorite tropes: people being prideful about dumb shit, and sibling fetishism, because no light novel style plot is complete without siblings who want to bang the protagonist.

Some, more blatantly than others.

           So here’s the basic outline of the start of the plot: the player Avatar (default name Corrin) is one of Nohr’s princes/princesses, and have been raised in seclusion in a castle distant from Nohr’s capital. Your siblings, who are also children of the king, Garon, have visited you over the years to keep you company and have grown very close to you. After a series of events, Corrin is captured by Hoshido, the neighboring kingdom, it’s revealed that the protagonist was actually born a prince/princess of Hoshido and was kidnapped by Garon in a previous war. In retaliation, Hoshido kidnapped a Nohrian princess, Azura, and raised her among their royalty. A rapid series of events take place following these reveals, with the Hoshidan queen being assassinated through a curse on your sword and the sudden attack of half-invisible soldiers, Corrin suddenly turning into a dragon, and Nohr invading Hoshido, all leading up to the moral choice that marks the version split: do you stay with Hoshido, the family you were born with; do you return to Nohr, the family you were raised by; or do you seek a third path?

           So let’s talk about something that becomes very, very obvious when you start off: Nohr is evil. Nohr is hilariously evil. One of the literal first things that happen after you meet Garon is him ordering you to execute a pair of prisoners who were captured in a recent skirmish. When you don’t execute them, and your brother Leo pretends to execute them for you so you can let them go later, you find out that your siblings have to do this shit all the time and spend a lot of time only really following the letter of the order under ol’ Dad. One of the next things that happens is you walking in on Garon literally praying to an evil dragon skull. Basically every Nohrian army executive you meet who isn’t one of your siblings or their retainers is also some degree of evil and/or stupidly bloodthirsty. When you get to Hoshido, you find out that Nohrian mages have been sending literal animated corpses over to Hoshido to fuck shit up and just letting them do whatever they want, because Hoshido has a magic barrier keeping Nohr from directly invading it around it (in fact, this is why the queen had to be assassinated in such a roundabout way).

           So when the route choice is presented, it’s supposed to be less “I want to be with this family” and more “I want to stop Nohr” and “I want to change Nohr from within”. Or at least that’s the intent. And while much ado has been made about Treehouse’s various translation changes (which I will not be getting into here, because that’s a can of worms I ain’t touchin’), the changes made at the route split were absolutely for the better. In Japan, when you choose to go with your Hoshidan family, it’s explicitly because they’re your birth family. In the NA version, it’s because you can’t reconcile your own morals with what Nohr’s done.

           The weird part is, it really would not have been that hard to present Nohr in a sympathetic light – it’s stated that due to their perpetual night and poor weather, they have always had poor crop yields and had to invade other countries to support themselves, and ultimately it’s Garon’s dickishness that’s perpetuating the war. Previous Fire Emblems have also had antagonistic, but sympathetic enemy armies, including the Plegians from Awakening, who go to war in the first place because their mad tyrant wants revenge for the previous slights of Ylisse. So Nohr’s levels of cartoonish evil aren’t because it’s not a thing the franchise does… it’s because they just didn’t want to put the effort in to make it actually nuanced.

           From the choice point onward, the plots follow three different paths. Birthright’s path is a fairly standard trudge through a Fire Emblem plot. I’ve heard it called the best “plot” out of the two starting routes, but I think that’s more because its plot is actually paced out well and doesn’t spend the first 15 chapters fucking around making you do Garon’s dirty work and complaining about it ad nauseum. What makes Birthright annoying is in the individual plot beats. There’s two distinct instances of characters killing themselves for no goddamn reason that occur during the story, and while the writers clearly want you to feel something during them, the actual reasons and circumstances are so contrived it’s hard to feel anything about it.

*muffled Rihanna plays in the background*

Furthermore, the further you get into Birthright, the more contrived the reasons for your Nohrian siblings to not ally with you get – Elise is blatantly on your side (and gets a storyline death for it), Camilla is clearly considering defecting before some contrived plot bullshit happens to make her want your friends dead again, and Xander and Leo just keep fighting you for reasons. Reasons that are never adequately explained beyond “Me Nohr, you Hoshido, you traitor, blaaaaaaugh”.

           “Contrivance” is the name of the game with Conquest, too, which sounds like it’s going to have a sneaky storyline about you trying to pull a coup on Garon and change Nohr that way, but is actually about you putting down rebellions for him and fucking up Hoshido because you found out that he’s secretly a monster, and the only way to convince your siblings that he’s a monster is to sit him on Hoshido’s magic throne, because the plot device that Azura pulled out of her ass to reveal this to you with was a one-time use. And your character complains about this a lot. A lot. Half of the dialogue between them and any members of the Nohrian army boils down to “BUT WHY—“ and then your siblings rushing in and saying that yes, you’ll do the evil thing, don’t worry about a thing, and then your character resuming complaints. By the end of the game, you succeed on putting Garon on the throne, revealing that he’s a gross monster, kill said gross monster, and then have a surprise boss fight with a possessed Takumi, who had previously appeared to kill himself for inadequately explained reasons.

           No matter which route you finish first (because let’s be real, you have to pay extra for Revelations, so you’re definitely not playing it first), you’re going to be left with a lot of unanswered questions, first and foremost being “Who were those semi-invisible enemies I fought all the time? What was up with that alternate dimension I fell into with Azura that one time in Conquest? Why were Takumi and Garon possessed by weird gross monsters? Why did Azura just suddenly die at the end for no real reason?” Good news: these are all explained if you buy Revelations. Bad news: You have to buy Revelations to even get so much of a semblance of an explanation, because otherwise these plot things are all left completely unexplained. The plot for Revelations barely has anything to do with the plot for the other two versions, too – while Birthright and Conquest are about the war between the two countries, Revelations is about a dragon that went mad, an alternate dimension kingdom, and how basically every problem in the game was because of these two things.

           All routes manage to hit on one of my bigger pet peeves about Fates, though, and that’s that for all the plot tries to be about this moral quandary of the war, it ends up being more of a soap opera about how much it’s tearing you apart to have to fight your siblings, with a lot of very anime bullshit along the way, and by the time you get to Revelations, it’s gone so full anime that it’s not even pretending to be about a war anymore. The weirdest bits of the writing are in the alternate universe stuff, which you’re first introduced to early in the game when they introduce the My Castle, a pocket dimension only the Avatar can access where time doesn’t pass and the army can just hang around and chill. This alternate universe stuff then proceeds to go wholly unreferenced until a brief visit to Valm that takes place in Conquest, and Revelations, where it’s suddenly the crux the plot spins around.

           Or unless you have a kid.

…but we’ll get to that later.

           There’s a myriad number of other things that make the plot feel weirdly anime and amateurish for such a huge production. Azura is pretty much just “Plot Device: The Character”, with the song she sings through the game basically just being “Plot Device: The Song” with how many different things it gets used for (its actual effects, naturally, are unexplained unless you play Revelations). Azura being a songstress in the first place is a very tropey move – singers and divas are frequently very important characters in Japanese media, and having their songs have magical effects is one of those very common tropes that always feels contrived when it shows up. She’s extremely obtuse with her intentions, which turns out to be because of a literal curse that keeps people from talking about Valm (the alternate universe kingdom) without being in Valm (so again, you want explanations for stuff, better buy  Revelations).

           Similarly, Corrin tends to basically stumble onto new powers and weapons as the plot demands, giving the feeling that they’re meant to be a self-insert wish fulfilment character of some sort. In order, Corrin is a member of all three courts of royalty (yes, including Valm’s), is part-dragon, can turn into a dragon, suddenly has a magic weapon reveal itself to them that’s actually the key to saving the world, and spends a large portion of the plot seeking out a massive power boost so they can go fight Garon on his terms. And while there’s definitely something to be said about a character you can customize being meant to be something of a self-insert, since Corrin’s appearance is fully customizable, and since they can support with everyone, have the most versatility class-wise out of anyone, there’s an amount of wish fulfilment fantasy I can take, and we crossed it a while ago here.

           Oh, and while we’re on the subject of Revelations and things that come out there, one of the big plot points is that your birth parents actually aren’t the same as your Hoshidan siblings’ birth parents, and your dad’s actually a dragon. This is something that’s also told to you when you S-rank one of your Hoshidan siblings, in the form of a secret letter your mom left for them, but up until that point on Birthright? You just think you’re partaking in some incest of the highest degree. So if you want to get that explanation without thinking you’re banging your biological siblings? Better buy Revelations.

           Not that any of this makes any of the sibling fetishism in Fates any less creepy. Since the Avatar, like in Fates’ predecessor, Awakening, can marry any character in the game, all of your Hoshidan and Nohrian siblings are fully marriageable. However, a few things are made immediately obvious when you’re interacting with these characters. The first is that both families consider you to be their family, which raises a ton of awful, creepy questions about power dynamics and the morality of fucking the people who raised you. The second is that the developers absolutely wanted you to fuck your siblings anyways, because Elise and Camilla exist.

From left to right: Three potential routes in the mythical bisexual anime dating sim that only exists in my dreams.

           All of the Nohrian and Hoshidan royalty characters are written around specific anime tropes and honestly feel like they could have been plucked from an otome game, or at the very least, a passably written light novel, but Camilla and Elise specifically play into a particular incesty trope-set that’s very common in Japanese media: the sister who wants a more-than-sisterly relationship with the protagonist. Half of Camilla’s dialogue is basically just throwing innuendo at you while simultaneously implying she wants to mother you, leading to a frankly disconcerting combo of MILF-femme fatale-big sister tropes. And just in case you hadn’t gotten the memo yet, Camilla gets an entire CG scene dedicated to showing off her tits and ass on Birthright, while on Conquest, a large part of the ending CG scene is dedicated to the protagonist running headlong into her titties. Subtle.

Elise, on the other hand, is a cute little gothic Lolita little sister who’s always cheering you on and calling you “Big brother!” or “Big sister!” – grating, but standard enough little sister tropes in Japanese media. The problem is that she’s marriageable, and unlike Awakening, where it was implied that the debatably legal characters all had their kids at least a few years into the future from when the game takes place, the children in Fates are all born not too long after characters get married. So either Elise is supposed to be a legal loli (which is creepy), or you’re banging your underage adoptive sister (EVEN CREEPIER).

All of the siblings in Fates have these problems, but Elise and Camilla really get it the worst, because they’re so overt about it. They’re characters whose entire identities are wrapped up in being your sibling, and you can fuck them. Even with them not being your blood sibling, there was a conscious decision to write them in this faux-incesty manner that adds a real creepy sheen to the whole thing. All of the other members of the royalty? They’re dating sim tropes. Ryoma and Xander are dependable, kind of dorky older guys, Leo and Takumi are supposed to be the standoffish, full of themselves ones, Sakura’s the cute, shy one; and Hinoka’s the hot blooded genki girl. And then there’s Elise and Camilla, who fall into two varieties of incest trope, with a double dose of lolicon on Elise’s end.

But hey, while we’re talking marriage options, let’s talk about the other characters in Fates. So a big thing about Fates is that since it’s technically two separate campaigns, both Birthright and Conquest have complete casts and full armies to take with you, with the characters you get determined by which route you’re on. This isn’t inherently a problem (at least until you get to Revelations and you get both casts, minus a few pre-promotes, giving you a massive pile of units you’ll probably never use), but something about the cast feels very incomplete. There’s a lot of character tropes that are reused from Awakening – for example, Subaki is a Pegasus riding retainer for the crown who’s well known for being absolutely perfect at everything, much like Awakening’s Cordelia; while Hayato is a child-like mage who wants to be taken seriously and has been trying to prove himself, much like Awakening’s Ricken.

It doesn’t stop with just tropes though – a few of the characters are wholesale lifted from Awakening, too. Did you like Cordelia, Tharja, and Gaius? Well, I hope you did, because they’re child units on Birthright. This is actually one point where Conquest has a definite leg up on Birthright, because Conquest’s Awakening cameos, Odin, Laslow, and Selena (Owain, Inigo, and Severa, respectively) actually came to Fates’ world using an actual plot mechanic from Awakening, and get a set of DLC dedicated to explaining their presence in the world in more detail. So that’s another paywall on massive plot material, because that’s the name of the game with Fates, but at least the effort’s been put in.

And something that doesn’t really help is a lot of characters seem to be written very differently depending on route and whether you’re in the main story or the supports. For example, Takumi, if you’ve only played Conquest, is a raging asshole. There is nothing good about him, definitely nothing that seems to suggest the popularity he apparently has in the fandom. If you play Birthright, he’s cold and standoffish and jealous, but there’s depth there. But then there’re his supports, and he’s awkward and prideful and somewhat endearing about it. It literally feels like three different characters.

Top: Takumi in Conquest. Bottom: Takumi in Birthright and his supports.

Overwhelmingly, the various Support chains feel better written than the majority of the game. Even with how tropey a lot of the characters are and how sick I grew of them in the main story, I still enjoyed the support chains a lot. Anything involving Mozu pretty much immediately became a feel good, good time, even with the less personable characters. Raging asshole Takumi became likeable through his supports. It legitimately felt like I was reading a completely different story when I got to the supports, and I genuinely wonder if they were written by a completely different writing team.

Fates also does something no other Fire Emblem has allowed before: there’s gay marriage options. There was much ado made about how stupid it is that they’re version locked, as well as the tropes that go into them, but I’ll give Intelligent Designs credit for trying. However, I won’t give them credit for the fact that the options suck ass. The gay marriage options are Niles, an innuendo spouting Nohrian thief with a thing for bondage and enough angsty backstory and hidden darkness to make him a stereotypical yaoi “top” character; and Rhajat, who is literally just Awakening’s Tharja, a creepy Dark Mage with a penchant for curses and is the Avatar’s stalker. These characters weren’t written to actually make them appealing to gay people – they’re written to fit yaoi and yuri archetypes to make them appealing to straight people.

Go away.

And it’s not like I didn’t give them a chance on my own playthroughs – both my Birthright and Conquest avatars were actually genders that matched the gay options for those routes – but as I got through their support chains, I found out pretty quickly that I didn’t want anything to do with either of them. I’m not interested in marrying someone whose only interesting character traits are his love for innuendo and his angsty backstory, or a creeper who wants my vagina because she’s convinced that I’m her fated lover, and is willing to curse everyone to make it happen.

Legitimately, there’s other characters that would have made more interesting gay options, like Silas, the Avatar’s childhood friend who’s dedicated enough to them to defect to Hoshido; and Soleil, Laslow’s daughter who loves girls so much that her personal skill is all about powering her up when she’s around other girls. Why she’s not the gay option, and Discount Tharja is, is beyond me.

There’s something that’s really jarringly apparent about the Fates cast the further you get into it, though. The game really wanted no business with any party members who weren’t conventionally pretty and young. And nowhere is this more exemplified than with certain pre-promotes you can get, the character of Nyx, and the non-recruitable boss character, Zola.

           So in Fates and Awakening, pre-promoted units (units who come to you already as an upgraded class) generally can’t be supported with any party members besides the Avatar. Both games have exceptions (specifically, Frederick and Anna in Awakening and the royal family members in Fates can all be supported with other units besides the Avatar), but that’s generally the rule. It was odd in Awakening, because in previous Fire Emblems pre-promotes usually could still support with other party members.

But something Fates does that Awakening didn’t is that all of the pre-promoted units who can only support with the Avatar are also old. From Reina, a Kishin Knight with visible wrinkles and a lust for murder; to Shura, a vagrant from a Hoshidan border nation who defected to Nohr; to Gunter, an old man who is one of the Avatar’s retainers. It seems like anyone over the age of 20-something is shoved into the “Avatar-only” category of supportable characters, regardless of their apparent depth of character. Some of these characters are also among the few who don’t come back for Revelations – Scarlet, a Wyvern Lord Resistance leader who joins you in Birthright, gets a particularly undignified death when you first go to Valm to justify her lack of involvement.

It’s the kind of thing that really feeds into Fates’ weird, creepy light novel feeling, because that’s not something other Fire Emblems really have done. Awakening had a good amount of visibly older characters who were still fully supportable (Frederick and Gregor come to mind), and previous Fire Emblems had multiple older characters per game and never really called attention to them the way Fates does. But here, every character (save, say, Benny on Conquest) has to be in the age of conventional attractability and look appropriately, and god forbid they don’t, especially if they’re a woman.

The most egregious instance of this is quite possibly Nyx, a child-like Nohrian mage who’s actually old enough to be an old woman. She falls into a long-standing Fire Emblem tradition of “characters who look like little girls but are actually super old”, which are usually among the various Manakete characters of Fire Emblem. These generally range from “wise despite their appearance” (Myrrh from Sacred Stones) to “uncomfortably childlike” (Nowi from Awakening).

Nyx is a rare exception in that she’s fully human, and looks the way she does because of a curse… and she’s also a Dark Mage, so she wears a bikini everywhere. It really does feel like they wanted an excuse to put a kid in a bikini, and used the “she’s really like a hundred years old!” excuse to justify it (which they also did in Awakening, and it was just as uncomfortable there). And yes, you can marry her as a male Avatar, and yes, she will give you a kid. Have fun with that mental image.

And then there’s Zola.

Who wouldn’t want to give this little creeper a hug?

Zola is a character with… very contentious writing, and another character where, in order to get any perspective on him, you have to play Birthright first. In all three routes, Zola is a minor boss who impersonates the Duke of Izumo, a neutral kingdom in the war, and uses this as a chance to try and execute the Hoshidan royal family before getting killed by Leo for his dishonorable behavior. It’s pretty standard Fire Emblem boss fare, and he’s pretty forgettable there.

But on Birthright, Zola lives past that chapter as a prisoner of the Hoshidan army, and this allows him to gain more depth as a character, revealing that despite his cowardly nature, he does have loyalty toward the Avatar and there’s something sympathetic about him. In any other Fire Emblem game, it’s entirely possible he would be recruitable. In fact, he factors into the Hoshidan army’s plans to fight Garon during the theater episode in Chapter 12.

However, by this point, keen-eyed Fire Emblem players have probably already noticed that Zola did not join the army after his “recruitment”, and the plot summarily executes him after taking three chapters to humanize him, and he’s completely forgotten from that point on. The thing is, more morally ambiguous characters are recruited to the Avatar’s team in Fates alone (cough cough Niles cough Rhajat cough), and they’re allowed to stick around. But Zola is executed despite the game clearly showing he’s loyal to the Avatar (he even pleads to Garon to spare the Avatar after he betrays the party) and him having a fully fleshed out character.

As far as I can tell, the only reason Zola is not recruitable is because he is not pretty. He’s a coward whose looks match his personality, and so he was always intended to be cannon fodder. It creates some legitimate questions about the equating of beauty and goodness in Fates, because there’s legitimately no reason why that plot development needed to occur in Birthright considering how that event is handled in Conquest and Revelations. It would have been easier to leave it all out.

So that’s three distinct cases of characters who are over the hump as far as “acceptable age” and appearance goes, and how they’re treated. It’s another thing that feeds back into Fates’ “big budget light novel” feel – you’re not going to see a ton of those with main characters who aren’t conventionally attractive young people, and the characters are generally designed in a way that they’re appealing to younger players and their aesthetics.

And boy oh boy, does this show in Fates’ character design.

While Fates borrows a lot from Awakening, one thing it does not borrow are Awakening’s class designs. Awakening’s designs were generally fairly simplistic, and aside from a few specific things (flying classes’ baffling lack of armor, those… shoulder things on knights, cavaliers wearing toilet seats for neckpieces), they were fairly reasonable fantasy armor. In fact, most female characters, including the prissy aristocrat troubadour Maribelle, wore pants. The downside there was that a lot of classes were gender-locked; Pegasus knights and troubadours were female only, but even so, they didn’t have particularly egregious designs.

Fates removes gender locking for all classes, but the female only designs are often… egregious. By which I mean, everyone wears panties. Everyone wears panties into battle.

Can you please put on some goddamn pants before you chafe your thighs into oblivion?

Hoshido classes, thankfully, generally wear loincloths over their panties, but the egregious lack of pants tends to be really blatant. But Nohr classes tend to be more than willing to let it all hang out there, even if (or especially if) they’re a horse-riding class. Nothing was worse than upgrading my daughter to a Great Knight, only to find out that she was now riding her horse into battle pantsless. I may have explicitly decided to go with a male Avatar for my Conquest run because I found out that the upgraded Nohr noble class just bares her panties everywhere for female Avatars.

Fates has a lot of really weird fanservice in it. The explicit focus on Camilla’s everything, the panty-baring female class designs, the access to a hot spring that doesn’t seem to have any real purpose beyond being there, and being able to strip enemy units with certain weapons all just gives it a really weird atmosphere for a game that’s supposed to be a serious war drama. It’s the same incongruity I get from a lot of recent anime, such as Re:ZERO, which is apparently a serious story, but also gives its generic main character a harem of pretty anime girls who all want to get with him.

A lot of Fates feels like it’s trying to appeal to the most common denominator by emulating what other games and anime are doing, like the dynamics between characters and the related character design, as well as things they felt were the most popular elements of its predecessor, which was the best-selling Fire Emblem game in a long, long time and possibly saved the franchise. So it gives you a massive cast of characters and a dynamic world-saving plot makes pairing them all up a major mechanic, and even includes previous games’ characters as a throwback to people who liked Awakening. And, most bafflingly, it includes Awakening’s child mechanic.

IT’S TIME.

           When two characters of opposite sex reach an S-rank support with each other, they get married, and their child can then join your army after completing a side mission. Awakening reconciled the fact that the parents and children could fight alongside one another through the use of a time travel plot – no one actually has any children over the course of Awakening’s story (besides Chrom, which is part of the set-up for this element); rather, their future children travel through time to help prevent the horrible future that happened in their own world. It’s a major part of Awakening’s plot, and while none of the child characters have major plot relevance outside of Lucina, the fact that they go out of the way to weave the explanation for why they exist into the plot helps ground them, and several of the children’s Supports involve them trying to connect with their younger, past parents now that they’re in a world where their parents are alive again.

           Fates, however, doesn’t use this explanation. Instead, after your first marriage scene, you’re treated to a cutscene explaining that the parents didn’t waste any time getting knocked up, and after the child was born, it was determined it was too dangerous for any kids to be kept around with the war going on, and so the children were sent off to their own alternate pocket universes (or “Deeprealms”) to grow up safely. Because time passes differently there, the children almost instantly grow to adulthood from the people in the army’s perspective, and by the time they’re recruited they’re fully trained, fully capable soldiers ready to go stab the shit out of some enemy soldiers.

Just shove ‘em riiiiight in. Don’t worry about any consequences, it’s fiiiiiiine.

           There’re a lot of stupid holes and questions that pop up as a result of this, first and foremost being the very obvious question of “When did anyone have time to have children?” All of the female characters in Fates are also combatants, so unless they’re all badasses on the same tier as Metal Gear Solid’s the Boss, they probably weren’t fighting at the same time they were pregnant. Also, Fates isn’t very clear about the time frame the game takes place during, but since no one ages significantly, it can’t be more than a couple of years. Since time doesn’t pass while the characters are in their My Castle, theoretically they could have stayed there for the duration of their pregnancy, but unless the gestational period in Fates’ world is significantly shorter than real life human gestational time, that would mean individual characters having to stay in My Castle for periods approaching upon months, at which point they would have their children, and then shove them in the puberty void to keep them safe while the parents go right back to fighting in a war.

           Which brings it around to the next unsettling implication -- the neglect in the children’s upbringing. Fates’ children only aged quickly from the perspective of their parents outside the pocket dimension – inside their Deeprealm, time moved for them at a normal rate, and the occasional visits the parents gave (as indicated in their Supports with their children) were separated by periods of years. Fates does not shy away from showing how this kind of upbringing affected their children – many of them have major gripes with their parents for essentially abandoning them for their own good, and a few of them have developed some odd quirks and delinquent behavior as a result. Several of their recruitment events are about guilting their parents into bringing them along for the war, and it’s a constant subject in their Supports, as well. No one is particularly happy with how the situation worked out in-story.

           The constant statements that it was done for the children’s own good in their Supports and recruitment events really pushes to the forefront how baffling the explanation is, because the game makes it more than clear that it was this distant upbringing that messed the children up so badly. It goes into absurdity if you’re playing Conquest, which features three returning child characters from Awakening as potential parents, who should know what it’s like to grow up with no parents (all of Awakening’s parent units are dead by the time their children travel back to the past) and would probably not want to subject their children to the same upbringing.

           It’s the inclusion of the child mechanic that pushes Fates from a passable, if flawed, game, right into “basically unplayable”. It’s blatantly obvious that Fates was not written with a child mechanic in mind, and that it was added because Awakening’s shipping mechanics went over very well, and they wanted to capitalize upon that. And it’s not like any of the child characters are bad characters--

           Well, most of them aren’t, anyways.

You are not my children. You are a disgrace.

           But ultimately, all they do is serve to give you more units in a game that’s already swimming with units, and end up being a massive distracting bit of bad writing in a game whose writing is already only passable at best. They literally could have been left out of the game entirely, and nothing of real importance would have been lost.

           (Also, it would have forced them to make a lesbian option that wasn’t just “Discount Tharja”. Or at least tried to make it less obvious that they were recycling everyone’s favorite stalker waifu.)

           Fire Emblem Fates is, ultimately, not a bad game. For all of my griping about the map design and unit distribution, there was clearly a lot of thought put into the new mechanics. Forging weapons to make them stronger feels more rewarding than the old durability system, which always ended up boiling down to “Iron swords for everyone!” so you didn’t waste your cool super weapon. And if you can look past the writing, you’ll definitely have a good time with it, or at least end up frustrated in the kind of fun way only Fire Emblem players do. But the obvious DLC gating, the poor writing, and the nonsensical puberty void bullshit make it a very hard game for me to like, and I don’t think I’ll ever get around to playing the third route as a result.

#fire emblem fates #fe14 #fire emblem #review #opinion #a massive pile of salt

[okayinkayblog-blog]

The Who, What, When, Why’s of: Malamar

(and some strategies/ev spreads/the works)

This is probably a surprise to no one, but Inkay/Malamar is my favorite dark type. But its hard to explain such a rocking Pokemon - an extraordinary ability in Contrary, an awesome signature move in Topsy Turvy, a hilarious evolutionary line,a species that can probably take over the world...what’s not to love here?

Who is Malamar?

Malamar is known as the Overturning Pokemon, and is #687 (six eight seven haHA) in the Pokedex. Malamar wields some of the strongest hypnotic powers of any Pokémon and can make its opponents bend to its will.

(reference: https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/malamar)

Malamar has made several appearances in the Pokemon anime, and is shown many times to be a villain trying to take over the world. This can be seen in the episodes A Conspiracy To Conquer and Facing the Grand Design, where Malamar is shown to control the minds of humans for their own gain. In fact, Malamar are so intelligent that they can control the minds of Kalos’s most renowned scientists. However, in Facing the Grand Design, Malamar living in the forest team up with Clemont, James, and Meowth to defeat the evil Malamar group after their forest friends are attacked. From this, it can be assumed that Malamar are very close knit and will protect those they care about. This is further proven when James’s Inkay tries to stick up to an evil Malamar to help Team Rocket and James himself. This is why I love this pokemon line so much. Its adorable.

Its name is a mix of the words Malice and Calamari.

(references: http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Malamar, https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/James%27s_Inkay,https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/malamar)

What is Malamar?

Get this - Malamar is based off of a squid. Wild revelation.

(reference: a picture of a squid)

Where is Malamar?

Inkay can be found on Route 8 and Azure Bay in Pokemon X/Y. You have to trade it over in ORAS and Sun/Moon via Pokebank.

Malamar evolves at level 30 when the 3ds is turned upside down. (no this isn’t a joke)

(reference: https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/malamar)

Why would I use Malamar?

You want a trick room sweeper? Malamar. Has your opponent been setting up during the battle? Malamar. Need an answer for Intimidate? Malamar.

Malamar is a versatile Pokemon that is a solid unit on any team and is awesome on a trick room team. Contrary works really great with Superpower, and Topsy Turvy can make Malamar pretty damn bulky.

(reference: personal experience with my Malamar)

Why would I not use Malamar?

This is a tough question to answer. It all really depends on your playstyle, I suppose. Malamar is good in physical bulk, but in special bulk it’s just alright with investment. It can take a hit, but it can be worn down by special attacks. This can be nullified by a Light Screen, however. Reflect also helps, but Superpower makes this somewhat unnecessary.

Its also got a base 73 speed. Ouch. I run mine on a trick room team, but if you aren’t into that Malamar probably isn’t the Pokemon for you.

If Bug and Fairy are a weakness on your team, this may not be the Pokemon for you unless you have an answer to these types.

Maybe you just don’t like squids.

Possible Strategies

Singles

This is more of a standard set, I think:

Malamar w/Choice Scarf

Ability: Contrary

Adamant or Jolly Nature, for this set I prefer Jolly

252 atk/252 spd/4 spdef

-Superpower 

-Topsy Turvy

-Switcheroo

-Night Slash/Psycho Cut

I’ve faced this Malamar before and it is annoying. It shuts down setup, and makes itself physically tanky and powerful with Superpower. Thanks, Contrary ability. It can lock you into setup or protect with switcheroo. When I faced this Malamar, it had Night Slash for the raw damage, but Psycho Cut is also a good option. Ugh, this set is so beautifully evil, just like Malamar itself. I love it.

This is more of a defensive Malamar set:

Malamar w/Leftovers

Ability: Contrary

252 atk/128 HP/128 def (Impish) or 128 sp def (Careful)

Impish or Careful nature, depending on what you wanna invest in

-Superpower

-Topsy Turvy

-Pluck

-Psycho Cut/Night Slash

The point of this set is to become tanky and have possible sustain behind Malamar. With the abundance of confusion berries in the meta game at this time, Pluck could be an option to keep you alive after a super power or two while doing a bit of damage. If you don’t wanna play the confusion berry guessing game, go for attract on a female Malamar or double team to make Malamar take less damage and have sustain through leftovers.

Doubles

This is my personal Malamar set that I use under trick room with some pretty nifty wins:

Malamar w/Lum Berry or Leftovers (I use Leftovers)

Ability: Contrary

220 HP/160 spdef/128 def

Sassy Nature

-Superpower

-Topsy Turvy

-Attract/Pluck

-Night Slash/Psycho Cut

This EV spread is so that you can maybe survive a fairy type hit while doing fairly fine against neutral hits and become tankier with Superpower.

Topsy Turvy to support your team when coming in (I wouldn’t recommend it as a lead, since you can shut down setup pokemon after a bit of time) 

If your Malamar is a female, try an attract for the 50% chance of immobilization. If male, or if you just don’t like attract, try Pluck for the sustain. Be careful of confusion berries against the Sassy nature.

Night Slash or Psycho Cut for STAB - it’s your pick.

Potential Partners:

Klefki: An awesome support. Light Screen, Reflect, and Thunder Wave can shut down a pokemon really well. However, it’s pretty much useless in Trick Room because of Prankster.

Mega Audino: My favorite Pokemon partner for, well, a lot. Malamar is no exception. Mega Audino is bulky as heck, and it really appreciates Topsy Turvy on a swords dance. This way it can set up trick room, calm mind, and destroy. It can also check Malamar’s 4x weakness to Bug with Flamethrower. Alternatively, Heal Pulse can heal it if it takes a fairy move and is more reliable than pluck since Audino will most likely be the fastest thing on the trick room field.

Eviolite Misdreavus: Can take both physical and special hits, can set up trick room, can set up will o wisp and/or thunder wave. A well rounded support imo. Pretty underrated and needs more love. (hint hint)

In Conclusion...

I love Malamar. It’s such a cool Pokemon with a lot of potential to take on the meta. If you love anti meta teams and wanna have some annoying fun, try slipping a Malamar on your team.

Feel free to drop me a question, comment, or your favorite Malamar moveset :)

#malamar #pokemon #pokemon sun and moon #pokemon oras #pokemon xy #pokemon moveset #moveset #pokemon strategy #strategy

[ddrkirbyisq]

Things have been pretty okay!  I think the past few weeks have been some steps in the right direction, which feels nice. General Stuff I saw Kiki in a dream the other day.  I really wonder, what they think of me, how they are doing, and if I really will ever see them again.  Haha, well, not like that's anything new, anyways.  Only time will tell. It's better to prove yourself by following through, rather than offer promises. I've been thinking a lot about regaining more of a sense of my old self, and I think I've really started to get in touch with some things and made some realizations.  Perhaps most importantly, I have remembered that feeling of calm and peace that I carried in myself.  Not all the time, for there were also many periods of uncertainty, but those times when I would be content to just be.  I think that feeling is perhaps a large part of what I have been missing in recent times.  That mode where you are conscientious about everything you do, carefully placing your movements and actions as if you were performing tea ceremony.  I tried on Friday to return back to a time of quiet in my dance as well, and I think it taught me a lot.  It amused me a bit because it went against quite a few things that I have been preaching generally when I work with others on their dancing, yet I understood so clearly that this was also an essential duality of my nature, not something to be left behind entirely. Hoping to maybe mark the return of OHC and Monthlies next month =O Tactics Ogre Stuff Tactics Ogre (specifically, the One Vision mod) is proving to really be something that I have been sinking myself into...it's been pretty great.  Despite the fact that there are no sort of "cross-job skill combos" as there are in FFT (one of the funnest parts of FFT, IMHO), there is a LOT of opportunity for customization and flexibility in how you build out your squad and characters.  I've recently been exploring a bunch of these options to see what makes sense, and have learned quite a number of things along the way. One of the main customization options is equipment.  First off, there different =types= of armor, and you can only pick two at a time to wear: Body armor which offers the best defense but is heavier, Helms which are a bit lighter but still offer good defense, Legguards which focus more on evasion, and Gauntlets/gloves which forego defense in favor of upgrading your offensive stats.  But past that, there are different classes of each, with some jobs being limited to what they can wear.  The Ninja class, for example, only has access to light armor and caster robes, so he can't go in wearing heavy tank armor.  You could focus instead on boosting evasion, but that would still probably leave you soft to magic damage.  Knights, on the other hand, can wear heavy armor, and they can't use 2-handed swords, so they also have a shield to help with their defense. But wait -- there's more!  There are "sidegrades" (not upgrades) for both armor and weapons that let you make specific tradeoffs.  For example, you can craft gloves that sacrifice some of their strength bonus and give you a bonus to magic stats instead, for mage knights.  You can take a 2-handed sword and make it deal more damage, but at the expense of speed and accuracy.  You can take the avoidance bonus from legguards and replace it with a magic resistance bonus.  There's all sorts of flexibility! It's pretty interesting because in general when thinking about equipment, you want to maximize the unit's strengths, but also want to cover its weaknesses.  Previously I was taking a bit too much of a min-maxing approach and as a result many of my units were a bit too frail.  I tried to forego defense in favor of speed (allowing my units to act faster) and all-out offense (everyone had gloves!), but I've since had to scale back on that to avoid my units dropping like flies. Recently I've changed up a few of my builds significantly.  My two Valkyries/Spellblades (Rune Fencers), for example.  Valks are sort of a tricky unit to deal with since they can be front-line units but also can cast a limited selection of magic.  Previously I had them equipped with a one-handed sword or spear, and had them basically casting support buffs, as well as throwing items around -- basically full-on support units.  That worked out sort of ok, but the problem is that they were never super great at any of their roles -- if I wanted melee damage, my warriors and knights did better, and if I wanted healing, my priest can just sit in the back and heal from afar.  The support buffs were useful for a while, but nowadays the Sword dancer can actually apply them in a huge area (and I have him do that at the beginning of most battles to cover my team).  So right now I've changed things up so now my valks both have staves, as well as mage gloves and rings which boost their magic, so they are essentially mages, but a bit tankier so they don't have as many problems being in the front line.  This works pretty well because my lineup was actually fairly low on magic damage output, so this balances that out a bit. My priest (actually called a monk) sits in the back and pretty much just does healing.  Healing doesn't really scale with stats (confusingly enough) which means I'm actually optimizing her for speed, so she has no weapon!  That said, sometimes she also casts a speed buff on herself or someone else (very nice), or casts sleep on an opposing unit (also very useful). One unit I really haven't figured out how to work with is the Familiar, which is a faerie-exclusive unit.  This unit had problems in the original game as well, apparently.  It can cast healing magic, which lead me to basically use it as another cleric...though it can also cast a bit of offensive magic.  It also has a bunch of neat TP-requiring abilities, such as some nice debuffs and a large area heal...but the problem is that in order to gain TP you need to either deal or receive *physical* damage.  Unfortunately the Familiar is also really squishy and often dies if you put it in the front lines.  So it's sort of a weird conflict that I haven't figured out.  Right now I've tried giving it a dagger and shield, and an evasion cloak to boost its survivability.  It's still a bit awkward though, as if I need a heal, it's probably more important for it to heal.  And if it's attacking with its dagger, it's not doing a ton of damage or anything.  I could give it a one-handed bow, but again, that wouldn't really do a ton of damage.  It's a weird unit. Update: I've actually had a short discussion with the creator of the mod regarding the Familiar!  He says he hasn't gotten around to a full proper rework of the class and so right now it's a support-type unit with some mediocre stats, but also neat abilities, haha, which is sort of in line with what I figured out already.  I also discovered that besides faeries, you can also have gremlins (didn't realize for some reason they are a different race altogether) and pumpkinheads (!) become familiars, so perhaps I just have the wrong stats for the unit to be effective.  I'll have to try and recruit some more faeries/gremlins to see. I've changed up my winged human Canopus, which uses the "Vartan" class, as well.  Canopus has a pretty great mobility advantage in that he can fly, which makes a huge difference in many maps.  Previously I just gave him a two-handed axe and called it a day, but unfortunately as I got further on into the campaign, that led to him flying into the enemy, getting a great attack in, and then dropping dead soon after since he was super exposed and didn't have much protection -- Vartan can't equip heavy armor!  I also realized that it didn't make quite the most sense (?) to equip him with a melee weapon as he can't equip heavy gauntlets, so he can only wear the armguards that boost dex.  It's a bit confusing because dex DOES still increase melee damage as well, just not as much (well, it depends on the weapon, really).  It would be great if he could use a 2-handed bow or crossbow, but that option ended up being overpowered so it's actually not allowed in the mod (good reasoning).  Instead of a 1-handed bow I've actually just gone ahead and given him a throwing weapon -- so still a dex weapon, and still 1-handed so he can have a shield, but does more damage than a bow at the expense of having less range...which works out because he can easily fly behind enemy lines and get up close to the squishy units at the back anyways. Anyhow, I'm actually near the end of chapter 4 (on the "neutral" route) at the moment, ready to go into the hanging gardens and deal with the dark knights.  Not sure how long until the end of the game, but that's where things really start to get crazy as you can essentially newgame+ back to the other storylines and finish other sidequests and such.  There is like infinity hours worth of postgame content so...yeah, we'll see! Melee Stuff I've realized that I need to be a little more dilligent in what I am focusing on when I am playing, lest I just keep on doing the same silly bad things over and over.  My current biggest thing is working in empty jump -> grab into my game for all characters, but here's some other notes for things that I need to work on. All characters: - Stay shielding on a platform when they are below you, angle shield down, WAIT, don't just drop through asap (I really suck at this situation right now, every time I prep for a shield drop and either get shieldpoked or fall into a waiting uptilt because I did a braindead timing) Marth: - Empty jump grab - Backthrow on platform to shield->shield drop uair - Look for fsmash out of uthrow - Uthrow to reverse fair - Fsmash on tech away when under a platform - Upair strings out of upthrow on FD - Some random edgeguarding things Fox: - Empty jump grab - Upthrow -> use up on control stick to fulljump ff upair - Upthrow -> drill reset Falco: - Shinegrab - More uptilt in neutral, and in combos Falcon: - Dthrow at edge -> REACT, either turnaround sh ff knee if close, or run out dj uair if far (we'll see if i can get the actual timing right on the dj uair, if it keeps on clanking and they're too far to hit before starting, then maybe sh out is better than run off) - Fastfall timing for sh knee to cover missed tech (I miss this like every time right now and it sucks) - WAIT before back sh knee to cover tech roll in Sheik: - Mixup between sh nair and run off dj nair to edgeguard - Empty jump grab Peach: - Waveland on platforms to catch techrolls - Upthrow -> dash attack instead of trying to regrab - A lot of float stuff

Other Stuff

Been itching to play Space Alert again at some point, haha.

Tried Baldur's Gate 2 multiplayer a bit...the BG2 interface definitely takes a bit of getting used to and...I feel like this is definitely a game that needs to be played singleplayer, really.  I feel like it also requires a lot of knowledge going in already, like if you don't know what all of these gajillion spells do, good luck trying to figure out how to use them.

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