#or give them synergies with new units

[watchmakermori]

I enjoy both genshin and honkai star rail but I feel like people vastly overestimate why hsr is more 'generous'. giving out a free 5 star is great but they would not have done that if the playerbase hadn't declined since it first launched. they're not just doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. it's a business decision. and it worked on me, to an extent - i booted up hsr for the first time in months because I wanted dr ratio.

the reason genshin has always had pretty crappy rewards is because they can get away with it. the game blew up without them needing to be generous, so they aren't. I'd like them to give a free 5 star, and I think it's dumb as fuck that they don't have a standard banner character selector like hsr does (I'm coming up on 4 years with no jean), but the hsr devs don't do these things to be nice

while it does drive me mad that hsr has added so many good endgame combat modes while genshin never has, i think it's important to compare the relative effort that goes into both games. genshin requires way more investment. the combat system is far, far more complex and the development of the character animations is a lot more involved. the world design is also way more complex - hsr is nothing in comparison.

I do wish genshin would add proper endgame content, but there's enough going on in genshin that it's not essential. hsr does not have much going for it outside of combat. It's fun in short bursts, but it's never managed to get a grip on me like genshin did when i first played it

my interest in genshin has waned a lot, but that's mostly because I've got so many fucking characters now and my account is really highly invested. there's not the same incentive or need to improve, and I was always going to reach that point eventually. but I do think it's quite telling that genshin was so many people's first gacha game, because it shows that what drew most people to it was not the rewards. it was the features of the game itself. by contrast, I tend to stay interested in hsr only for as long as I'm pulling for characters and getting new stuff, so my enjoyment of the game is a lot shallower

they're fundamentally quite different games and there's a lot they could learn from each other. but I think a lot of people ignore that hsr isn't just....a nicer game with nicer devs or whatever. they're both predatory gachas, they're just relying on different tactics to get their players spending money

#it's the powercreep in hsr that puts me off in the long term #the fact that genshin finds creative ways to keep old characters relevant #or give them synergies with new units #makes a character feel like a good investment #whereas a lot of the time in hsr I'm like hmmm how long until my current dps is powercrept by the Next Great Thing #I fucking wish genshin would add a mode like pure fiction though #genshin impact #honkai star rail

[exonia-robin]

We traveled....

We saw.....

We played....

We absolutely loved it!

4th edition Age Of Sigmar has left us feeling awesome! Our hopes and dreams continue to live on for Age Of Sigmar, whereas the ones for 40k are dying off (more on that another time...)

Whilst at the holy site of all warhammer, where hobbyists and Wargamers gather in a horde like fashion, we had the chance to play 30 minutes of 4th edition AoS and and FULL HOUR of Spearhead! Below you'll find our opinions!

4TH EDITION:

As mentioned we play 30 minutes of this in teams of 2. Our two opponents were absolutely lovely during this game and very friendly. We took the side of the stormcast whilst they got to use the Skaven.

The Models

Warhammer Community does not do these models justice at all. They are much better looking in person!! The stormcast have been given a fresh look, bringing them further away from looking like the Sigmar equivalent of space marines whilst the Skaven have been given some love this edition and have better looking, well, everything.

The models that stood out amongst the rest for both factions in the Skaventide box are:

- The Lord-Vigilant on Gryph Stalker

- Clawlord on Gnawbeast

Both of these are striking centre pieces for both of the respective factions and their armies. The supporting heroes for both are good, but these.... These are another level.

The Gameplay

The most important thing to mention here is that you can REACT to your opponent during their turn, making a turn rather interesting. While this was kind of a thing in 3rd edition with certain command abilities in certain phases, this has been expanded and improved upon, even allowing players to invoke the power of the gods through their priests in the enemy hero phase! Certain heroes also have the ability to react to themselves or friendly units around them creating a bit more of a synergy between outlying heroes that operate alone and the main forces.

Most of the core system remains the same as the previous edition, with changes to certain parts of each phase to make things easier and simpler. Each phase is now colour coded to allow players to easily find abilities that are usable in those phases.

In person the new warscrolls for each model/unit work well as well as being easier to read and find the abilities you are looking for. Ward saves are now a keyword so these will be found at the bottom of your warscroll.

One staple of 3rd edition may not be in the new edition. Heroic actions. These were game changers if used at the right time, however when we played 4th edition, there was no mention of heroic actions anywhere. It remains to be seen if these will return or not.

SPEARHEAD:

This was purely amazing. We cannot fault the spearhead game system at all. Literally there is nothing we can find bad with this.

We were able to play out 2 battle rounds in the time, and once again were in teams of 2. This time however we got to use the Maggotkin Of Nurgle Spearhead versus the Sylvaneth Spearhead. Both forces are literally the contents of their respective Vanguard boxes, in fact every army that was used to teach Spearhead was a Vanguard box....

Now, we are very excited if Spearhead gives any indication at the rules for the armies in the main game (we would hope there is some similarity between them)

Maggotkin didn't have contagion points in Spearhead and could only gain disease points for the ARMY. These were used to inflict mortal wounds to a unit that your in combat with, by rolling a number of D6 equal to your total disease points (max 7) and each 4+ was a mortal wound.

Sylvaneth had the ability to teleport a single unit across the board for free. This hurt. Teleporting Kurnoth Hunters is not fun for the opponent.

The game itself is highly tactical and is a good middle ground between Warcry and AoS. The uncertainty of which battle tactics you may have for a turn combined with how balanced the spearheads were, make this a game that simply comes down to a players tactical ability. Not army strength or ridiculous rules, but a players tactical mind. Spearhead is also brilliant in the sense that the random battle tactics teach you to be more tactical in your decision making, as each card contains a battle tactic and a command ability. Now you have to choose between these, either sacrificing a VP in order to kit your opponent harder, or maybe sacrificing a unit in order to score a VP.

You don't ever reveal your battle tactics to your opponent until you activate a command ability from one, or your score the battle tactic, meaning neither player will know what the other is trying to achieve at any one time. Though play with these cards enough and you'll soon learn from heart which your opponent will be trying to achieve through watching how they move their forces around the board. This aside, Spearhead is definitely something new, fun and definitely outclasses the 40k variant of it, Combat Patrol.

THE ROUND UP:

If you do love Age Of Sigmar as much as us, the new edition is for you. Whether or not you play Stormcast or Skaven the Skaventide box is definitely a worthwhile investment as this contains literally everything you could ever need for AoS to begin with including the matched play rules for the first season, a whole book dedicated to spearhead and the AoS rulebook, terrain and all the accessories needed to play Spearhead. Though we do see Spearhead taking off very quickly, so expect the decks, battle mats and terrain for this to be released separately at some point.

If your are not sure on 4th edition, then play Spearhead. Spearhead allows you to take your current Vanguard box out for a game so you can see what your army does, and play the core concepts of the new edition without buying into anything (let's be honest, someone you know will have bought the box...)

Lastly. We noticed a little thing at the top of the warscrolls we had to use for 4th edition, "July 2024"

This seems to be a potential release window.... (with the store Dawnbringer campaigns ending towards the back end of June and the new 2 week preorder's we are expecting early July)

#exonia #exonia wargames #warhammer world #age of sigmar #stormcast eternals #skaven #Maggotkin of Nurgle #sylvaneth

[buldrokkastee]

@nenestansunsthings I would absolutely love to talk about Deepcolor some more so thank you for giving me this prime opportunity. Although I'll preface everything I'm about to say with the classic 'I am not an expert or even particularly good at the video game Arknights'. I'm not doing big brain clears and I'm usually splashing around waves 1-4 of IS3 at the highest. I get through most new and old content with the classic winning strat of big fish with big numbers.

That being said, this is what you'll need to start off on the path of being a Squid Expert. A Squexpert, if you will. Now then:

This here is going to be your perfect Deepcolor.

Obviously she isn't going to be your go-to for DPS or serious tanking or anything like that, your general use for her is going to be as an opener. With her Module it costs 11 DP to get her and her first tentacle on the field (Yes that's the same amount you could use to put Mountain down instead but that's boring) so for most stages you pop her down asap right after your flagbearer and use her summons to block the early enemies around the map until you have DP to retreat them and set down your Big Boys. Easy, cost-effective, simple.

Aside from that, her summons are decently tanky for their cost so you can also use them to bait ranged attacks or the bomb drones or kill annoying spiders in the corner of the map. She can heal them back up too with her S1 if they survive, something none of the other summoners in the game can do so far (Though most of them have a way to refresh their summons, which Deepcolor can't do without retreating and redeploying). Basically you use the tentacles as mini-Gravels. With her module you'll have seven to work with, which is more than enough to get through most maps.

In SSS she's pretty much going to be a very cheap Supporter you can drop in and retreat immediately for free transfer permits, and in Reclamation Algorithm she's good for quickly scouting out around a new map with her summons. Nothing too fancy for those game modes.

The place I bring her out the most is as a starting pick for IS3, since in the early floors you'll usually have deployment slots to spare that she can fill right up with cheap blockers until you've built up your roster a bit more. You can use her S1 in situations where you need the summons to stay in place for longer, but her S2 can also come in clutch if Gopnik the One Punch or the invisible dog show up and you need to stall. For the cost of 3 whole hope you'll have 7 funny little tentacle guys with 35% dodge (50% at M3) that can keep the bear from hell in one spot for a surprisingly long time even with terrible RNG.

She's unfortunately useless against the duck, but you can't win them all.

You'll also find a whole lot of little spots in maps where you just need something that can safely kill a spider, or bait the stun snipers, etc etc. No she won't carry you past the third floor but she'll pull her weight very well while you're starting off.

Relics Deepcolor has good and/or funny synergy with are:

Glory Pack - Congrats you now have seven stun bombs ready to go anywhere on the map.

Sui's Wrath - And now you have seven random 3K damage airstrikes waiting to drop for 3DP a pop.

Glorious Kazimierz + The Return - 35-50% dodge on all allies in her range means she can really help these bad boys proc when you need them.

Timeworn Poetry Strips - Mostly self explanatory, but also: Unlike Ling, Deepcolor's summoning is only limited by your actual deployment slots. So she can put all 7 of her tentacles down at once with this, which is mostly just very funny to see.

Hand of Flowing Water/Stalwart Aid Books- I wouldn't recommend getting her just because you got these, there are other units that use them way better. Doesn't hurt to have them though.

There aren't any specific operators I can think of off the top of my head that she has unique synergy with, since the whole point of Summoners is just to fill in gaps when they're not soloing stages. But if you put her next to Andreana in your base or on a map I'll consider it a treat for me specifically.

#Arknights #My girl Deepcolor who I bring with me everywhere #this got long but I wanted to be thorough #If Hypergryph won't do anything with her #then by god the task falls to me and me alone #Also she straight up does a murder and I support women

[bulbabutt]

Transformers Prime is a show that exists. I don’t love it, I don’t hate it, it’s just there. I would consider it a square unit of a show. I love the Autobots but they’re literally the only well-written characters in the show, and even with that they get fumbled. As for it utilizing most of its lore from other series, that was sort of the point; this was meant to be a permanent replacement for Transformers as a brand going forward and it recycled and reinterpreted everything from it’s then 25-year-old history into one single "Aligned" continuity. That explains why it feels super middling, at least to me. I’m sure other people might’ve thought that the references and callbacks were fun, but they leave the show feeling like all it IS is a retread of other ideas. And this wasn't even supposed to be the case intitally! There was supposed to be a bunch of storylines with new stuff involving space pirates and intergalactic travel, but budgetary cuts and new directors more or less forced them into doing Beast Machines 2. It sucks that its one chance to find its own voice got canned.

its interesting that you say the autobots are the well written characters cuz to me they are bland pieces of wood here, outside of ratchet, and i find the decepticons way more fun to watch.

i understand that it was TRYING to bridge all the lore together and i can totally see that point, but i think the show just never understood the point of half the lore they were trying to bridge together. like for example throwing out the words 'key to vector sigma' for no reason other than to put the words in there. like vector sigma as far as i can remember was what primus was right? a mix of the allspark and primus? 'vector sigma the computer that grants us all life' was like their god, and prime uses the word 'key to vector sigma' to describe the magic key that unlocks optimus memory of becoming prime since getting the matrix of primes. like its giving word soup bad blockbuster movie plot (i wonder why)

and whhhaaaaat space pirates and intergalactic travel? damn that sucks they didnt get to do that. i will say i think they should have wasted a lot less time to get to that stuff, but based on the fact they called that final season 'beast hunters' for what i can only assume was toy synergy reasons, its proooobably not their fault.

#the tf binge thoughts

[hendolish]

hii girlie I'm just getting so many ideas in my head after scrolling through your Tumblr every single day so pardon me haha. But Marcus/Jesse fic? They had something going on when they were younger but stopped it and Jesse's defo not getting called up again and Marcus misses him so he goes over to his house and they start hanging out and one things leads to another and they have sex which leads to them talking about why things didn't work out (Jesse not ready to settle and Marcus barely seeing Jesse when he left United) and this basically get back together. I know that this isn't really that much plot and like I didn't explain it well but you get the gist right? Thanks so much💗💗.

marcus rashford/jesse lingard - echoes of old trafford <3

St. George's Park was never the same anymore.

Marcus felt the weight of the looming international fixtures. But more than that, he felt the absence of a certain presence - Jesse.

There had been whispers, subtle nods and hints from the coaching staff that Jesse wouldn't be called up again for the national team. The news didn't surprise Marcus, given Jesse's move away from United, but it left an aching void in his heart.

The two had shared more than just locker room jokes and on-field synergy. Years back, in the shadows of Old Trafford, there had been stolen glances, late-night conversations, and those warm nights when boundaries blurred.

A complicated understanding had sprouted between them, only to be cut short. The world of football wasn't ready for their story, and perhaps, neither were they.

Marcus sat in his hotel room, flipping through the photos on his phone. There was Jesse, always by his side, laughing, celebrating goals, or just being there during the tough times.

And suddenly it looms on him why he's felt so miserable lately. He missed that more than anything, even more than their complicated past. On a whim, he decided to see him.

Jesse was kicking a ball around in his garden when he heard a familiar knock. Opening the door, he found himself face to face with Marcus, who was wearing that signature shy grin.

"Hey," Marcus began, scratching the back of his neck nervously, "Missed you."

Jesse smiled widely like no time had passed at all, "Get in here."

Inside, amidst the familiar surroundings of Jesse's Manchester home, the years melted away. They talked about old matches, current teammates, and the general buzz of the football world. Hours passed, the evening darkened, and eventually, they found themselves sitting closer than they had intended, too many beers between them.

Jesse's fingers grazed Marcus', sending familiar shivers down both their spines. Old memories, long suppressed, resurfaced. They were drawn together like magnets, inevitable, lips meeting in a passionate embrace that spoke of years of longing and missed opportunities.

Morning rays found them tangled in bedsheets, gazing at each other with a mixture of regret and hope.

"Why didn't it work before?" Marcus asked, tracing the inked patterns on Jesse's arm; he'd been there almost every time when he'd gotten a tattoo. It made him feel a bit empty inside to see some he didn't recognise.

"We were too young to know what we wanted," Jesse sighed, catching Marcus' gaze before his eyes dart away again, "And after I left United, it just felt like we were worlds apart."

Marcus nodded, "It was like that for me too. But now, right here, I just know that this feels right."

Jesse smiled, his eyes glistening, hopeful, "It does... maybe it's time to give us another shot?"

Marcus pulled him closer, sealing the promise with a gentle kiss.

The football world might not know of their love, but in that moment, nothing else mattered. The two were ready to embrace a future, together.

<3

#my first jarcus request!!!! thank you so much nonnie i love them<3 #my football ship tbh :((( #england #england national team #england nt #england football #football rpf #football #marcus rashford #rashford #jesse lingard #lingard #jarcus

[noblechaton]

welcome to the official "Noble rambles about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth" post wherein I get annoying about this behemoth of an experience

don't intend to talk much about story stuff here - tho I got a lotta thoughts about it so that might get its own thing later - but consider this a spoiler warning all the same; for gameplay and some story stuff

so just like to set a baseline here I wanna say I think this is a generational game and the biggest leap in quality I've seen a series take from one game to the other since maybe KH1 to KH2 - it's still got the same bones, but they've been rearranged and adjusted to the point of near perfection in a lot of spaces and while gameplay does still carry some flaws - lock on is still miserable, I'd argue they basically ruined Aerith lol - it's so sharp and addictive that I actually popped it back in yesterday to do the superboss stuff (which I think speaks to just how good I feel this game is since that superboss stuff is a real gauntlet lmao)

just about every character - aside from Aerith - feels really fun to play once u get used to them and I'd also say that Aerith is still fun to play with but it took so long to get used to her that I basically stopped using her outright well before the last few chapters lmao. they changed some stuff with her that I simply don't agree with and while there's some cool things in place of what was removed or changed it's just sort of not enough - she takes too long to charge ATB and can't do much without it now so she's kind of useless without a strong support setup around her which made me go "Ehhh. I wanna play as the cat again" or "Sure but what if I was Yuffie instead". I think the biggest thing is they took away the ability to hold the button down for her attack and made that tempest instead, with triangle being given to a ward shift that while neat I just never really used

but again even if she's been kinda nerfed I'd say everyone is just. so much fun. Cloud's still the great all rounder he was in Remake but they fixed the problem where bigger, aerial based enemies were basically gods by giving him proper aerial combat himself. when I first got hit with the tutorial for this in the demo prior to release I could have stood up and clapped that's how badly I'd hoped they'd do something for him

Tifa's still a stagger machine and yet feels even more necessary now thanks to that and just how quick she can be - but then Yuffie's even faster and is borderline broken which honestly rules. Barret's a lil less heavy and that makes him a lot more fun to control - I loved how grounded the cast was in Remake, but that heft just wouldn't work in Rebirth so I'm glad it was adjusted

meanwhile Red XIII is pretty solid - I didn't love him being so dependent on Vengeance Mode but after I'd learned his kit a bit more I'd say he was one of the more fun characters to play as. Cait Sith is really the only other new character u actually get to play as in this one and I can see why some have derided him/his gameplay but I honestly thought he was just as fun to play as as Red or Tifa or anyone else really - save maybe Cloud, who still has just a bit of an edge over everyone else - and I really loved how they integrated the fortune telling, casino style gameplay into his kit

it all just sort of flows really well in Rebirth that even Aerith and those that might be a bit wonky like Cait or Red end up feeling good when ya get into the moment and such. synergy moves are largely a really cool addition - don't think united refocus needed to take up so many slots lol - and I wish there were even more of them. the sidebar synergy stuff is also neat but I slowly stopped using it over the ~100 hours I played as a lot of em were just kinda difficult to properly pull off in combat

beyond just the gameplay - which is flashier than ever and brimming with character and quality alike imo - the game's just. something else to me

the music goes absolutely nuts and if this isn't soundtrack of the year I have no idea what possibly will be. it's visually stunning, the vocal performances are incredible across the board - especially Barret, who cemented himself as one of my favorite Square characters of all time with this one (but then, so did most of the cast tbh). it's so much more grandiose and higher in scale than Remake that I'd grown worried prior to release

so like. in truth I haven't played OG FF7 to this point - I sorta know what happens in that game, up to a certain and very popular point at least, but Remake is a very sentimental game for me for a lot of reasons so while I grew ridiculously hyped for Rebirth I'd wondered if I'd feel the same about it as I ultimately did with Remake - where I felt the game was this stunning, satisfying experience that does almost everything as well as it could with this grounded atmosphere and well threaded narrative with a strong, snappy mix of action and turn based combat. if I could even hope for it to live up to what was one of my favorite games of last gen, and of all time at this point

Rebirth lived up to my hopes and then some. the atompshere isn't the same as Remake's, which I loved, but it feels like the perfect evolution from the narrow, grungy alleyways of Sector 7, the tighter corridors of Shinra's construction, into this sprawling yet not entirely overwhelming open world that's varied so well from place to place that each ends up fairly memorable long before u even get close to finishing it out, every zone feeling both so wide and yet manageable, brimming with character and side content

that does bring me to my main complaint with the game tho - the side content kind of fucking sucks LMAO

the open worlds are gorgeous and carry some incredible musical tracks - Gongaga's a huge favorite of mine - buuuuuuuuut the stuff u actually do in them never really changes and grows pretty dull a good zone or two before the ending. it's a lot of Ubisoft open world stuff - towers, combat challenges, etc., with some variety thrown in via the protorelics (superboss related collectibles) but that's kinda not enough. even the more unique stuff to this game - like the lifespring scanning and the summon crystals - grow really stale and I wish they'd alternated the content from zone to zone a bit more. I think I was in Cosmo Canyon when I realized there'd be another zone and I was actively sort of dreading it lmao, mostly since I was doing just about everything someone could on a first playthrough

and I guess that's kind of not a huge complaint tho since like. ya don't gotta do it lmao. it's side content - but I wish it'd been. y'know. more good. I also wish the minigames weren't largely ass.

box buster's back from Remake and it's actually pretty fun, chocobo racing is solid enough, but most of the rest of the stuff is rough in some way or another - often in the controls, like the g-bike and 3D brawler. even the coliseum tournament stuff largely suffers from the bad difficulty problems that have imo long plagued the industry at this point - there's a few that are just infuriating and poorly designed and I'm unsure why the minigames as a whole were so hellish. as if the testers did too well and now we the casual players must pay the price for their sins (also the final side quest is related to the minigames and as of the most recent patch is bugged so while I've completed it, I haven't actually finished it 🙃)

and honestly for a while I thought all that would hold the game back for me. it's optional, sure, but it also makes up a good chunk of the game, to the point where the game's almost overstuffed with things to do, but it's kind of all shit with a few exceptions - Queen's Blood is crazy btw that needs to be a mobile thing or a real game asap - so that's gotta be a knock on things, yeah? and it totally is, but like. as I made my way through the final dungeon of the game and into the ending, I realized that it just. didn't matter

which would lead me into the story if I were going in depth on it here. I might later but to keep it somewhat vague - I loved it, and felt the pacing, twists and turns all really enjoyable. another solid evolution from things in Remake, with an ending that I genuinely adore even if things are a bit cloudy (I've got my theories - again, perhaps elsewhere). when I say the last few hours of this game shifted my opinion - which was already quite high! - even higher, I mean it. I understand why some don't like the story or the ending in particular, but I love everything they did and set up here and I'm ridiculously excited to see what comes next given just how much they managed to do with this game - tho I will say, if ya ain't onboard with the Remake project by this point I don't know if the narrative will sell ya on it given that it, naturally, does more than Remake did which ik was uh. somewhat controversial. lol

but yeah. I purposefully didn't deep-dive on Rebirth before launch save watching a few trailers due to spoilers and such so I kind of had no idea just how big it was gonna be - and even then, I don't think I could have guessed at how absolutely and utterly stuffed with content this game is. it's the first game of this gen that feels like it earns the increased price tag to me, that's worth the asking price as it's so much bigger and enthralling, so much more than I'd anticipated

which kinda sums up my feelings on Rebirth. that it's this massive game that kept me hooked for days on end, that constantly surprised and satisfied me even as my playtime steadily rose

I really, really enjoyed my near 100 hour playthrough despite the odds and ends bc I feel this is a near immaculate supergame that delivered on almost everything I'd hoped for an then some. it isn't perfect, there's some rough edges, but it does so much so well that it's impossible for me to view it as anything but this generational title that's both ridiculously good at its various peaks and sets up the final game in this trilogy to be another all-timer

so yeah I kinda liked it

#final fantasy renoble #ff7r #ff7 rebirth #mild spoilers

[emodialisse]

Greenwich Village, New York. Evening - 2017.

Int. Octavius Industries.

Otto: That was the day I came up with the idea for a neuroprosthetic! I remember it vividly. I was standing on the edge of my toilet, hanging a clock. The porcelain was wet, I slipped, hit my head on the edge of the sink… and when I came to, I had a revelation… a vision! A picture in my head. A picture of this. Just like you said, the synergy between our muscles and the command module computer to restore fine motor control, can be made possible. Our own neural interface!

Peter: And somehow you still refuse to let Gloria Maria interview you on the Globe.

Otto: Oh, Peter, if they really are waiting for a spectacle, WE will give it to them!

Cut to:

Schenectady, New York. Night - 1988.

Otto: Alright, then tell me, "future boy"... who's president of the United States in 2018?

Peter:...Donald Trump.

Otto: Donald Trump? The boxer's advisor?! Ha!

Peter: Uh, what?

Otto: And who's vice president, Mickey Goldmill?!

Cut to:

Int. Octavius Residence. Night.

A big tube shows the last remainings of footage that Peter was able to save.

Otto: Good evening. I'm Dr. Otto Octavius, i'm standing on my laboratory at Greenwich Village-- It's Thursday afternoon, November 1st, 2018, 6:18 p.m., and this is our latest big experiment, the one i've been waiting for all my life!

Otto: I pass the word to my partner, who will bear with the details since none of this would have been made possible without him. Peter? Yeah, yeah, come over here, I want you to be on the frame.

Peter: I-uh...

Otto: Go on, it's okay, let's keep the tape rolling.

Peter: Geez... Yes, I'm Peter Parker, and together we worked with a meshing networking to integrate directly into a intracranial neural interface, mostly to extract data from chemical synapses inside the brain, thus accelerating the information via neurotransmitters receptors at postsynaptic potential.

Peter: Doc, seriously, we need to--

Otto: And through extensive study in vivo for constraint in biomechanics, we were able to trace parameters for training procedure to better balance neural activity load, through simple synergy in motor neurons. Whereas action potential of the neurons are usually barried by the short coming of milliseconds, this amplified neurosensor allows it to happen under one nanosecond!

Otto: ONE NANOSECOND?! One... nanosecond...

Peter: You want to watch the rest of it?

Otto: Alas, just keep it playing, boy! I'm starting to feel an occipital neuralgia creep out my migraine aura.

Static starts to intemperate noise on the images.

A series of buzzing noises became proeminent as the tape begins to wear out.

Peter: Yes, and that's exatcly why we should think this through before it's ready to handle, I'm still not sure about the effects the excitatory amino acids-zzzthe overfitting aspects-zzzzzzzthe neural network layers can'tzzz

Otto: What are you doing?

Peter: I'm trying-zzzzREALLY-zzz-zzhard. Will you-zzzzzzzz

Otto: If you start making sense, maybe we can both come to a consense!

Peter: Then I guess we're gonna be here for a while-zzzz-zzzz I need to call my aunt.

Otto: This is insanity-zzz-zzz-zzzbelieve you're doing this to me-zzzz-zz

Otto:... Great Scott! When did I have become so careless?

Peter: Excellent question, mister “Reckless youth”. I think there's more.

Peter tries to fast foward the recording, but the image pendured as a black background.

...Until there was new images playing.

This time, both men are standing on the kitchen area of Octavius Industries, where a boombox is blasting to a rock mashup of the song "How Our Story Goes".

Peter is currently holding a wrench to pretend it's a microphone, while Otto uses a mannequin arm, moving his fingers like he's playing on guitar strings. Peter starts to improvise a really bad dance to the rhythm.

Suddenly he turns off the recording camera.

Peter: Heh, I-uh, forgot that was in there.

Cut to:

Ext. Park. Night.

Otto: But I can't hold any ill thoughts about her... Actually we almost had gotten engaged, how crazy is that?

Peter: Yeah, believe me, Doc. There's a lot in my life that I wish I could just... Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind it.

Otto:...

Peter: It's a movie.

Otto: Oh. Terrific. Is it somehow a variant of our post-german expressionism iconographies?

Peter: What? I don't know. Where the hell did that came from?

Otto: Just trying to find the appeal of 2000s cinema, I suppose.

Peter: Honestly, you got me there. Especially because there aren't many people like you, but a dozen like me, who really don't have time to notice that kind of stuff. But hey, we gotta have fun with what we get from it. Right?

Otto: Yes, it doesn't sound too bad, no.

Peter: Just don't get me started with sequels, I think that's been a dead concept a long time ago.

Cut to:

Ext. Main street. Night

Otto: I'll be really dispondent to see you go, Peter.

Peter:..

Otto: No matter what happened and how much bad blood we will have between us... You've really made a difference in my life. You've given me something to shoot for.

Peter: It's-- gonna be hard. Waiting before I can talk to you about everything that's happened in the past few days.

Otto: I know... you can't force yourself to do anything on my behalf, my dear.

Peter just looks at him, he can't really smile, but there was a faint intent to do it, and somehow, it was enough.

Peter: I never did. Helping you... I liked it, I was good at it.

Otto reaches his hand, which leads to an immediate contact being sealed.

Otto: "Let faith oust fact... let fancy oust memory... I look deep down and do believe."

Peter: I already know you're on your thirties, Doc.

Otto: Shut up, but it is my childhood favorite. Do you have one?

Peter: I really can't tell mine without you getting confused.

Otto: I fell right into that one. Didn't hurt to ask.

#this was supposed to be just a LITTLE joke #now i want to rewrite the whole movie to fit it #dia writes? #otto octavius #peter parker #back to the future au??

[unitedbydevils]

Match Review: Manchester United 2-1 Brentford

Football, bloody hell.

Since we're quoting Fergie, I'd like to pay my respects to the Ferguson family and give my condolences on the passing of Lady Cathy Ferguson. She was a remarkable woman and gave crucial love and support to a man who provided so much joy to Manchester United football club and its fans. May she rest in peace.

How apt though that it was one of Ferguson's academy kids Scott 'McSauce' McTominay who came off the bench and rescued United from despair with not only the equalising goal but also the winner.

Not just that, but the winning goal was assisted by Harry Maguire; an almost loathed figure amongst the fan base at present but one of our best players today. He had a very resolute game in defence and quietly got on with his job. Perhaps he was aided by the veterancy of Jonny Evans and that calm support and guidance. Perhaps he simply cannot play with Victor Lindelöf.

We should roll back to the earlier parts of the game though, and what for 90 minutes was simply dire football. United seem to constantly suffer lapses in concentration, which meant we conceded a silly goal to Jensen in the 26th minute after Casemiro lost the ball and Lindelöf failed to clear properly. Onana could perhaps have done more to save it, but he is looking behind a crowded box of United and Brentford players, and should he not expect one of his seasoned defenders to be able to successfully get rid of a ball?

Both Casemiro and Lindelöf appear to be devoid of form, and Onana's not far behind. After the international break it will be interesting to see if other players force them out of the side. Starlet Kobbie Mainoo is close to a return, Hannibal Mejbri has impressed, and if a left back can return to fitness then Amrabat can stay in midfield as the anchor or pivot.

United's play seemed to lack not only intelligence, but also energy. Are we unfit? Are we tired? What is going on? Because at this rate I'm more inclined to put our poor performances down to a lack of willing or desire, and simply put that isn't on at Manchester United. You fight for the badge or you sling your hook.

Confidence is blatantly lacking though, and that's definitely impacting United's composure to retain possession and perform habitual passing patterns, whether triangle moves, give and go, one-touch retention... it's sloppy and uncoordinated and very frustrating as a fan.

For all United failed the eye test, the statistics show we were the better team which (Thomas) Frankly is embarrassing for Brentford. 64% possession to Manchester United, 21 shots, 8 on target, 7 corners... the intent was there but it's about the execution, and that comes from confidence and synergy.

Højlund looked poor today, for example, but he's still young and new and bedding in. This is why he was talked of as a second-fiddle for a star signing like a Harry Kane - he will take time.

Erik Ten Hag is as culpable as the players for poor results, and many fans will say we got away with it today and decry the lack of standards from other fans for enjoying a 2-1 win. That was, after all, the first time United had trailed in the 90th minute of a Premier League game and then won it.

To the bitter fans I say go boil your head, because if you can't enjoy United winning then what's the point of you. We're not owed success. We're owed a desire for success - from players and coaches. We're owed a determination to do well. That's where we should rightly be criticising people. McTominay's heroics at the end of the game bagged us two goals in under 5 minutes. Now imagine if we play with that urgency earlier in the match. We could have snotted this lot and given them the sort of rodding that would boost any ego and make Gary Neville or Jamie Carragher think he had a chance at pulling Beyonce.

I also believe that Erik is as deserving of praise when things go right as he is of criticism when it goes wrong. His choices to substitute Casemiro for Eriksen, Rashford for Garnacho, and Amrabat for McTominay proved to be excellent decisions. We know he has tactical intelligence, we saw it at Ajax. He's been on camera and broken his style down in interviews. The issue is players, man management, and in-game decision making. We don't know the whole picture, but fuck it, at least today he got the decisions right.

The man is under huge pressure at a club owned by people who only care for money. He will get some things wrong. He also has to let players try and prove their worth, which might cost him and United. How many fans would have been happy at McTominay coming on as a sub to try and win the game? Honestly? The answer is not many. Yet he bangs in two in Fergie Time, the Old Trafford crowd roars, and McSauce pulls off yet another textbook knee slide. Fuck yes.

United are in a bad way. The players are playing like shit, and the manager has made some dumb mistakes, but we have to be fair and give them time to fix up. That doesn't mean they are exempt of criticism, but there's a balance to be had that isn't just TEN HAG OUT, SELL RASHFORD, TAKE AWAY BRUNO'S CAPTAINCY, BENCH ONANA. Honestly, go and watch United in the early days of Fergie, or even before that in the void after Sir Matt Busby. Understand that there will be bad times - yes, even more than a decade - and that it's on us as fans to be loyal and support the club.

What next though... I already jumped the gun and said that the Burnley win might be the turning point, and the Palace cup match seemed to prove that, but we're still faltering. We need a good international break now and to regroup with fresh ideas and renewed confidence ready to go on a run to Christmas. We have the talent, but do we have the mental fortitude and that drive to bounce back? Now's the time to show up.

#manchester united #man u #man united #manchester reds #man utd #erik ten hag #casemiro #old trafford #marcus rashford #christian eriksen #victor lindelof #harry maguire #scott mctominay #mcsauce #thomas frank #brentford #andre onana #sir alex ferguson #lady cathy ferguson

[switch]

I just want vlad to be good and the way I can seek them doing that is similar to how they do mash where certain ascensions offer different skills. With one for vlad that allows the true power of the vampire with all the lore they’ve built up, because that 30% atk defense boost is bullshit and should be higher, and his bond ce should also be overhauled to be more accurate

a separate Dracula form would be sick and i’d absolutely love it, but like i said, Vlad is already S-tier. he is good, he’s extremely good. the only unit better than him at his job in sheer numbers is Kriem, and that’s because she’s part of the new “trend” of high SE damage mod units. but she’s also storylocked, and the absolute requirement of using georgios’ NP for her does cause difficulty to arise in the scenarios of fights where full command card chains are needed as the result of some gimmick (e.g. cernnunos), which both leaves Vlad with more flexibility and more freedom to get copies of him. his bond CE absolutely needs to be overhauled, yeah. 98% of the other servants’ do as well, unfortunately.

30% defense mods are the standard for 3 turns, no one’s broken that as far as i’m aware unless they’re a defensive unit who gets two separate defense buffs. the only higher defense mods are on 1 turns, or 3 times, which i don’t think he needs in conjunction with his double guts and heavy castoria (and therefore invuln) usage. now, melusine does have a 40% attack on 3 turns, so you could argue about bumping vlad’s to that as well.

in terms of lore, i do think the main thing vlad needs at this point is pierce invuln/defense. it’s silly that he still doesn’t have it, and none of his primary supports can give it to him. in terms of gameplay synergy, he objectively does not synergize with his own NP’s starbomb due to not having a star absorb, which is sort of a glaring omission and makes the starbomb awkward to use.

now, i’m being kind of pedantic, but i do get what you’re ultimately saying. Vlad is very good, but he’s not Stupid 2020’s Era Levels of Busted like melu, kriemhild, draco, etc etc. he’s S tier, but he’s not S++ tier, and dracula vlad has an excuse to be and it’s fun to think about.

the best way to go about making Vlad modern FGO levels of busted would be giving him SE damage like his lancer form has. i don’t think alignment or attribute-based SE necessarily makes sense for him, but i think you could do two things with that:

1. make his Vampirism skill apply a trait onto the enemy that he deals 50% SE damage to and ignores defense against (referencing how his bite works)

2. give Vlad an on-attack effect that applies a trait on attack, which his NP deals 150% SE damage to and pierces invuln against (referencing the effects of being hit by his spear in apoc)

this is admittedly basically just a minor reskin of Kriem’s two SE mods, but it’s an example. it would admittedly have some difficulty in timing it out because of the hit requirement (and needing to use vampirism instantly might be awkward), but it would synergize with Vlad’s tendency to use BNPxE chains and maybe give this…. some semblance of balance. that would inflate his numbers a lot. otherwise, he could benefit from buff removal resistance, crit absorb up, and crit damage up somewhere, but galatea already took most of those.

you could also give him either an AOE-ST NP switcher or an Arts-Buster NP switcher, because fuck it.

it’s a fun kit to think about, but ultimately gameplay is the one facet of vlad that i think got off overall very well even if some lore pieces are missing. just as long as galatea or some other clone doesn’t powercreep him again. if that happens i will immediately become discontent.

#vlad isn’t the one giving me an aneurysm every time i use him for a challenge quest. that’s moriarty. #fate #switch speaks #long post//

[lgcmedia]

I'm a legacy fan (you can check my post history as proof) so I hold no prejudice against any of their groups. I was very excited when legacy debuted new girls groups. They have no significant overlap so I feel like I can love them equally since they are so different. I think Legacy purposely gave them two different concept and promotion type to target different public; everybody on the streets know Crystallis’ songs while Fabula is mostly just popular among kpop fans. However, Crystallis' core fandom is weak. I don't want to accuse any particular fandoms, but it's obvious there are very little OT7 Crystallis stans. Meanwhile, Fabula has a huge core fandom. I went to some Legacy family concerts and their sections were always almost as big as BLAZing's. 

Concept aside, I've been wondering if I would prefer public fame but seeing my fans spit on my group mates or if I would be more comfortable in a relatively less known group but have a united fandom...

[ + / - ] i'd 100% prefer to be a crystallis member since lgc lets them all make a name for themselves. they won't be dependent on the group's name once their contract expire. even the less popular crystallis members have recognition and solo work. meanwhile, i only know eunhye in fabula LMAO.

[ + / - ] honestly, fabula is a gangster lol. they are like a boy group with their physical sales but since they are a girl group, they automatically do better than them in the charts. i think i'd prefer to be in fabula; just work hard and make money now from album sales, tours and merch, then in the future i can kick back and relax since i will have made all my fortune in my youth lol

[ + / - ] i'm a crystallis stan and istg this fandom is a war zone. almost all the members have an insane number of akgaes that only care about their fave girl lol. i think i'd personally prefer to be a member of a group with an harmonious fandom like fabula after living this but i love my girls so much

[ + / - ] i think because fans of fabula mostly met during lgc summer girls, there was already a synergy. others just joined that group of people who supported the lgc summer girls, that's why they are freaking organized when it comes to prevotes, streaming, and sales. being in either group has pros and cons. i don't think the issue is only with the fandom but also with how lgc markets and pushes each group. i hope they can invest in creating ties within crystallis' fandom and give more public appearances and public friendly songs to fabula. but i know better than to expect something like that from them x)

▷ load next 15 comments?

( A/N: this post is curated by the lgc team and meant to give members of the group an insight on current popularity standings within the two girl groups. )

#lgc:netizens #lgc:staffcurated

[waheelawhisperer]

Integrated Strategies Unit Review: Siege

Now that I've had some time to play the new game mode, I figured I'd share my thoughts on how various units performed. I'm not doing this to create any sort of tier list, nor am I trying to set the meta. I'm just reviewing the units I've used based on the criteria I set out when I posted my initial impressions. There are people with larger brains than mine who can figure out the meta much faster than I will, nor am I an expert on Integrated Strategies, so I'm just taking the chance to use units I like.

I'll be rating operators purely on the strength of their base kits rather than taking into account any synergy with items. This game mode is such a crapshoot that you can't reliably supplement your units with specific relics most of the time anyway, and an individual operator's effectiveness can vary wildly based on the contents of your inventory. I will consider each operator's Versatility, Self-Sufficiency, Dependency Upon Promotion, Sustain, Crowd Control/Utility, Range, Cost, and Boss-Killing Capability and assign each category a score of Poor, Adequate, Good, or Excellent before giving the operator an overall score.

Let's start with one of my old favorites, Siege. Saber Lion is the reason I started playing this game, and though Margaret Nearl has supplanted her at the top of my list of favorite units and the Vanguard meta in the main game isn't as friendly to her as it is to Bagpipe and the flagbearers, Siege is still very fun to use and has proven to be effective in the new game mode.

Versatility: Excellent. Siege is remarkably versatile for a Vanguard, with three solid skills that offer different things to a team. You'll probably get more use out of her S2 than anything else, since that combines high damage output with the ability to generate DP, but S1 has its uses on certain maps where positioning melee units to attack the enemies consistently is annoying and you just need DP to get your damage-dealers and medics out, and S3 lets her play the role of a Guard at need. Being able to flex roles is very valuable in a role where basically everything is a crapshoot, so Siege's adaptability is very nice.

Self-sufficiency: Good. Siege doesn't need a whole lot of help to do her job. Her high stats for a Vanguard let her serve as an early-game frontline while you build up your squad. Keep her HP topped off and she'll keep generating DP or caving in the skulls of particularly dangerous enemies.

Dependency Upon Promotion: Excellent. Siege benefits from access to her third skill and any masteries, but she doesn't need it. If you just need her to pump out DP, she'll do that just fine at E1. She benefits from access to additional stats

Sustain: Poor. Siege lacks any form of sustain and will require a healer in the long run.

Crowd Control/Utility: Good. It's not as reliable as some others, but a 40% chance to stun is nothing to sneeze at and can be layered on top of other CC if necessary. Her passive also gives a small stat buff to other Vanguards, which can be nice if you're running several of them.

Range: Poor. Siege is a melee unit and cannot attack aerial units.

Cost: Poor. Siege is a six-star unit, which means just recruiting her onto your team costs 6 Hope, and it's another 3 if you want to promote her.

Boss-Killing: Good. She's nowhere near as impressive as operators like Surtr or Schwarz, but Siege can serve as a boss-killer in a pinch with S3. The multiplier on that skill is absolutely massive, and if you give her a buff or two and let her go to town, she can take beefy enemies apart surprisingly quickly.

Overall: Good. If you're playing purely to maximize effectiveness and have an extensive roster, Siege is unlikely to ever be your optimal pick, but she's an interesting Vanguard and will pull her weight. I'll admit I have a soft spot for her, but I've been enjoying incorporating her into my team during my IS runs.

#arknights #integrated strategies #unit reviews #siege

[niuttuc]

Eh sure, give me your opinion of -1/-1 counters? I'm brewing a jund edh w -1/-1 counter theme, maybe you could suggest a commander?

-1/-1 counters pose some interesting challenges because, unlike +1/+1 counters, if they’re successful, they don’t stick around for synergies, being inherent removals. But that’s powerful by itself. They’re also much more niche because sets interacting with them are rarer.

As far as commander goes, there isn’t I don’t think any dedicated Jund -1/-1 counter commander. I would encourage you to stray away from the most powerful generic options for Jund -coug Korvold- and instead opt for something that will draw less attention to you and likely less agression. The new Xira Arien from the Dominaria United box toppers might be a good pick as far as profitting from creatures dying to your counters. Otherwise, something edicty like Wasitora or the Shattergang brothers might also do the trick because your -1/-1 counters will be able to clear smaller creatures easily, forcing edicts to make opponents sacrifice bigger and more relevant ones.

If you want a dedicated -1/-1 counter commander, subsets of jund do have those, from Hapatra in Golgari to the Scarab God in Rakdos.

#magic thoughts

[crystalelemental]

Ingo and Emmet - One Year Later

Fun fact: while it’s been over a year since I started playing, these two were like...the first new event that happened after I started, that I had the presence of mind to understand.  Technically, Summer Gloria and Summer Marnie were first, but I don’t like Grimmsnarl or Intellion, and I don’t love their beach outfits, so that was a super easy skip.  Ingo and Emmet were...a bigger deal.  Initially, my stance on train bros at the time was “Wait, people liked them?  People remembered who they were and chose them as favorites?  Am I reading this right?”  This has since changed, obviously, in no small part thanks to my wife and Legends Arceus.  But even without the appreciation for them then, Ingo in particular stuck out to people as a support, thanks to Sandstorm, while Emmet was a then-rare offensive typing in Rock.  Oh, how times have changed.  But with the changing of those times, I figured I’d do a reflection on these units, and how well they hold up a full year into the game.  With so much powercreep occurring, are they still worth it?

INGO Let’s start with the obvious: Ingo remains one of the top supports in just about every tier list for a reason.  A one-gauge spam that can debuff accuracy, Potion, Sandstorm, and a trainer move that can cap crit in two actions without the need for MPR.  All of that is really, really good.  But to add in a unique passive that buffs defenses 30% under Sandstorm while also removing the passive damage it deals, a +2 atk/sp atk for the team when Sandstorm is first used, and Sandy Pep Rally to make Mud Slap a +1 speed for the team every use in Sandstorm...yeah, he’s got amazing, amazing traits.  Potion, the +30% defenses, and the +2 offenses buff are obvious, but I think it’s worth talking about the other qualities that make him stand out.

Mud Slap being both a -1 accuracy on the foe, and a +1 on speed for the team, is tremendous.  That last part is really the big money, as speed is gauge control, which is built up off of a one-gauge spam.  His trainer move also giving Free Move Next to the team under Sandstorm just makes his gauge control even better.  Many argue that Ingo is still fantastic even without permanent Sand, and frankly?  This is why.  The constant gauge control is just that good, with Potion backing up his bulk.  But yes, Sandstorm must be considered, thanks to the role compression.  At the time, the big money was in having a good Cynthia support.  Finally, someone who could perfectly complement her needs as a unit, and wasn’t Acerola!  Unfortunately, Cynthia still isn’t that great, and there’s new tech in the game that...honestly means Ingo stocks haven’t peaked.

Zones are a thing.  And many old threats required weather as a primary source of damage.  This is especially true of Sandstorm, where you have Rock, Ground, and Steel-type damage needs.  At present, Ingo...doesn’t have a ton of synergy, thanks to Rock and Ground not having Zones.  They better.  They really better.  But Steel does, and it’s...a mixed bag.  Raihan appreciates the combination, but doesn’t synergize as well with Marnie.  Jasmine appreciates both, but only for Gyro Ball, which requires the foe boosting speed for max potential.   There just haven’t been that many Steel types in need of Sandstorm.  But Rock has plenty. Nearly every Rock-type has some level of Sandstorm benefit.  If and when Rock Zone drops, Ingo’s going to be the go-to support for that role compression.  Even now he does well, with most Steel, Rock, and Ground-types being physical.  In fact...every Ground-type is physical.  Huh.

That said, in my personal book, Ingo’s still #3 overall, and I don’t expect him to get much better.  This isn’t because Ingo is bad by any means, but...look, when your competition in Weather Support is SS Morty and SS Kris, you’re gonna have a rough go.  Starting with my #2, SS Morty pretty much does everything Ingo does...but better?  He sacrifices any serious offensive stat buffing for defensive buff support, and compression of speed buffs into the trainer move.  His crit rate buffing is more reliant on MPR, but what can you do?  Sunny Day works for a lot more threats, including being Fire’s natural multiplier, and now offering the needed role compression for Grass-types to access Grassy Terrain and Sun multipliers in their grid.  Both have Potion, but Morty’s got much better natural defenses, and heals the entire team every action under Sun.  The only thing Morty doesn’t have is one-gauge spam, but considering it’s Flame Charge?  He’s fine.  SS Kris, however, highlights the issues both have.  Specifically, offense buffing is limited.  Ingo gets +2 special attack, and +4 attack with both uses of trainer move.  It’s not bad, but it’s not to cap.  SS Kris can cap special attack and crit, while offering a ton of stacks of special moves up next.  Her role compression with Rain Dance permits Flying Zone NY!Lance, Dragon Zone Clair, and the natural Water-type buff.  Also she’s the least reliant on full grid to perform her main role.

But, those two are obviously performing massively different roles.  No one can replace Ingo as a Sandstorm supporter, and frankly?  It’s not likely anyone will.  With Kris, we now have one (1) support option that focuses on setting weather.  Granted, I don’t think Palentine’s Bea should count, but she seems to.  More than likely, if we get more support options, it might be the early Terrains.  I feel like Electric Terrain has a good argument for needing a support that sets it.  So as far as “Is Ingo still worth pulling,” the answer is “god yes.”  Being one of the top three supports in the game is a pretty automatic decision, and considering the two above him can’t replicate the specific role compression he offers, there’s no reason not to.

Oh, except that he banner shares with his brother.

EMMET Emmet’s a bit harder to talk about.  When Emmet came out, Rock was hurting pretty bad.  You pretty much just had Olivia, since Kukui was more support than anything, and your free options in the Brocks weren’t exactly...doing well.  SS Brock in particular was a joke for a long time.  And frankly.  Maybe still is.  So Emmet was very welcome at the time.

And then we got Classic Blue.  And Princess Hilda shortly after.  And then there were three really strong Rock-types, and how did you decide which one was best?

Thankfully they’re all strikers, so pretty simple damage and setup comparison.  Emmet’s setup is three turns and go.  His trainer move is instant max attack with +2 accuracy, and a nice damage guard next effect, but at the cost of 1 stage of defense.  Dire Hit+ is to self-buff crit as needed.  C!Blue, thanks to Sharp Entry, can similarly max in three turns, but unlike Emmet is a bit more bound by it.  He’s a mixed attacker, likely to use his trainer move for the offenses, but this comes at the cost of -1 to both defenses and no damage guard to protect him.  Dire Hit All+ is nice, and helps the team, though.  Princess Hilda is the outright worst setup.  She can’t cap attack, speed, or defense reliably in those opening turns to get the multipliers she wants.

By damage, according to the chart, Emmet’s #1 for raw move damage, even beating out Hyper Beam Blue.  That is...staggering, to me.  Not the least of which is because it’s not just Stone Edge with Crit Strike 2 that does it; Rock Slide outperforms.  And Rock Slide is the big money, because it has Aggravation.  This dude’s throwing around the highest flinch chance you can get in the game barring SS Lyra, on the second strongest Rock-type damage in the game.  And because he doesn’t need to take sync like the other two, he can let an EX support do it and just run laps around his competition.  Not that his sync is bad; fourth best, outdone only by Olivia, Grant, and Brock.  Granted, Grant’s conditions are ludicrously hard to achieve, Brock’s aren’t much better, and Olivia’s move damage is laughable, so Emmet’s kinda got all three of them beat.  Top of the damage charts, baby, woooo!

Now, this does require Sandstorm.  That’s the downside.  Hilda needs specific support too, while C!Blue is a bit more free in exchange for his overall worse damage performance.  But Sandstorm isn’t too hard to come by these days.  Acerola’s free and around, if you need her.  Ingo’s the obvious ideal support.  Anni Raihan has extended Sandstorm duration, and can apply both physical moves up next and supereffective up next.  Bertha...Bertha’s probably not an ideal partner, but I will point out, she salvages Emmet’s defenses and can cap crit for him in two actions, then apply a ton of passive chip damage to the opponent, so like...not too bad either.

The other hindrance is that his other move multipliers come with hefty downsides as well.  Hit the Gas adds 50% bonus damage at the cost of one extra gauge, and while Emmet is thankfully fast enough to make decent use of it (unlike every other option using this skill), it does put pressure on him if you’re going to partner him with Bertha or Acerola.  Your support better be built for speed.  The other is that his 50% attack bonus only works while at 50% or more HP.  And spread moves are real.  Guaranteed crit spread moves in particular are common in Gauntlet, with Sinnoh CS pulling out a lot of spread moves as well, suggesting this may be the meta going forward.  This means Emmet is the highest potential, but in practice, has a lot working against him.  Legendary Arena matches are not kind to weather effects, given how quickly they can fade, and again, HP thresholds and gauge considerations.  The only fight he’s got a really good matchup against is Moltres, where the high flinch rate and Rock-type damage means he has a good chance to beat it without needing to switch up the weather.  C!Blue and Princess Hilda are less powerful, but more consistent overall.

Still, in all this comparative talk, I think it’s worth noting that the three being discussed are the top three Rock-type damage dealers in the game.  Any one of them is going to be able to perform well for their role.  And looking just at the numbers, he’s still top dog a year later.  So yeah, I’d definitely say he’s worth it

#pokemon masters #ingo #emmet #sync pair retrospective

[classypostconnoisseur]

How AMD is Leading the Way in AI Development

Introduction

In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a game-changing force across various industries. One company that stands out for its pioneering efforts in AI development is Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). With its innovative technologies and cutting-edge products, AMD is pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the realm of AI. In this article, we will explore how AMD is leading the way in AI development, delving into the company's unique approach, competitive edge over its rivals, and the impact of its advancements on the future of AI.

Competitive Edge: AMD vs Competition

When it comes to AI development, competition among tech giants is fierce. However, AMD has managed to carve out a niche for itself with its distinct offerings. Unlike some of its competitors who focus solely on CPUs or GPUs, AMD has excelled in both areas. The company's commitment to providing high-performance computing solutions tailored for AI workloads has set it apart from the competition.

AMD at GPU

AMD's graphics processing units (GPUs) have been instrumental in driving advancements in AI applications. With their parallel processing capabilities and massive computational power, AMD GPUs are well-suited for training deep learning models and running complex algorithms. This has made them a preferred choice for researchers and developers working on cutting-edge AI projects.

Innovative Technologies of AMD

One of the key factors that have propelled AMD to the forefront of AI development is its relentless focus on innovation. The company has consistently introduced new technologies that cater to the unique demands of AI workloads. From advanced memory architectures to efficient data processing pipelines, AMD's innovations have revolutionized the way AI applications are designed and executed.

AMD and AI

The synergy between AMD and AI is undeniable. By leveraging its expertise in hardware design and optimization, AMD has been able to create products that accelerate AI workloads significantly. Whether it's through specialized accelerators or optimized software frameworks, AMD continues to push the boundaries of what is possible with AI technology.

The Impact of AMD's Advancements

The impact of AMD's advancements in AI development cannot be overstated. By providing researchers and developers with powerful tools and resources, AMD has enabled them to tackle complex problems more efficiently than ever before. From healthcare to finance to autonomous vehicles, the applications of AI powered by AMD technology are limitless.

FAQs About How AMD Leads in AI Development 1. What makes AMD stand out in the field of AI development?

Answer: AMD's commitment to innovation and its holistic approach to hardware design give it a competitive edge over other players in the market.

2. How do AMD GPUs contribute to advancements in AI?

Answer: AMD GPUs offer unparalleled computational power and parallel processing capabilities that are essential for training deep learning models.

3. What role does innovation play in AMD's success in AI development?

Answer: Innovation lies at the core Click here for more of AMD's strategy, driving the company to introduce groundbreaking technologies tailored for AI work

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[jcmarchi]

Vivek Desai, Chief Technology Officer, North America at RLDatix – Interview Series

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Vivek Desai, Chief Technology Officer, North America at RLDatix – Interview Series

Vivek Desai is the Chief Technology Officer of North America at RLDatix, a connected healthcare operations software and services company. RLDatix is on a mission to change healthcare. They help organizations drive safer, more efficient care by providing governance, risk and compliance tools that drive overall improvement and safety.

What initially attracted you to computer science and cybersecurity?

I was drawn to the complexities of what computer science and cybersecurity are trying to solve – there is always an emerging challenge to explore. A great example of this is when the cloud first started gaining traction. It held great promise, but also raised some questions around workload security. It was very clear early on that traditional methods were a stopgap, and that organizations across the board would need to develop new processes to effectively secure workloads in the cloud. Navigating these new methods was a particularly exciting journey for me and a lot of others working in this field. It’s a dynamic and evolving industry, so each day brings something new and exciting.

Could you share some of the current responsibilities that you have as CTO of RLDatix?  

Currently, I’m focused on leading our data strategy and finding ways to create synergies between our products and the data they hold, to better understand trends. Many of our products house similar types of data, so my job is to find ways to break those silos down and make it easier for our customers, both hospitals and health systems, to access the data. With this, I’m also working on our global artificial intelligence (AI) strategy to inform this data access and utilization across the ecosystem.

Staying current on emerging trends in various industries is another crucial aspect of my role, to ensure we are heading in the right strategic direction. I’m currently keeping a close eye on large language models (LLMs). As a company, we are working to find ways to integrate LLMs into our technology, to empower and enhance humans, specifically healthcare providers, reduce their cognitive load and enable them to focus on taking care of patients.

In your LinkedIn blog post titled “A Reflection on My 1st Year as a CTO,” you wrote, “CTOs don’t work alone. They’re part of a team.” Could you elaborate on some of the challenges you’ve faced and how you’ve tackled delegation and teamwork on projects that are inherently technically challenging?

The role of a CTO has fundamentally changed over the last decade. Gone are the days of working in a server room. Now, the job is much more collaborative. Together, across business units, we align on organizational priorities and turn those aspirations into technical requirements that drive us forward. Hospitals and health systems currently navigate so many daily challenges, from workforce management to financial constraints, and the adoption of new technology may not always be a top priority. Our biggest goal is to showcase how technology can help mitigate these challenges, rather than add to them, and the overall value it brings to their business, employees and patients at large. This effort cannot be done alone or even within my team, so the collaboration spans across multidisciplinary units to develop a cohesive strategy that will showcase that value, whether that stems from giving customers access to unlocked data insights or activating processes they are currently unable to perform.

What is the role of artificial intelligence in the future of connected healthcare operations?

As integrated data becomes more available with AI, it can be utilized to connect disparate systems and improve safety and accuracy across the continuum of care. This concept of connected healthcare operations is a category we’re focused on at RLDatix as it unlocks actionable data and insights for healthcare decision makers – and AI is integral to making that a reality.

A non-negotiable aspect of this integration is ensuring that the data usage is secure and compliant, and risks are understood. We are the market leader in policy, risk and safety, which means we have an ample amount of data to train foundational LLMs with more accuracy and reliability. To achieve true connected healthcare operations, the first step is merging the disparate solutions, and the second is extracting data and normalizing it across those solutions. Hospitals will benefit greatly from a group of interconnected solutions that can combine data sets and provide actionable value to users, rather than maintaining separate data sets from individual point solutions.

In a recent keynote, Chief Product Officer Barbara Staruk shared how RLDatix is leveraging generative AI and large language models to streamline and automate patient safety incident reporting. Could you elaborate on how this works?

This is a really significant initiative for RLDatix and a great example of how we’re maximizing the potential of LLMs. When hospitals and health systems complete incident reports, there are currently three standard formats for determining the level of harm indicated in the report: the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s Common Formats, the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention and the Healthcare Performance Improvement (HPI) Safety Event Classification (SEC). Right now, we can easily train a LLM to read through text in an incident report. If a patient passes away, for example, the LLM can seamlessly pick out that information. The challenge, however, lies in training the LLM to determine context and distinguish between more complex categories, such as severe permanent harm, a taxonomy included in the HPI SEC for example, versus severe temporary harm. If the person reporting does not include enough context, the LLM won’t be able to determine the appropriate category level of harm for that particular patient safety incident.

RLDatix is aiming to implement a simpler taxonomy, globally, across our portfolio, with concrete categories that can be easily distinguished by the LLM. Over time, users will be able to simply write what occurred and the LLM will handle it from there by extracting all the important information and prepopulating incident forms. Not only is this a significant time-saver for an already-strained workforce, but as the model becomes even more advanced, we’ll also be able to identify critical trends that will enable healthcare organizations to make safer decisions across the board.

What are some other ways that RLDatix has begun to incorporate LLMs into its operations?

Another way we’re leveraging LLMs internally is to streamline the credentialing process. Each provider’s credentials are formatted differently and contain unique information. To put it into perspective, think of how everyone’s resume looks different – from fonts, to work experience, to education and overall formatting. Credentialing is similar. Where did the provider attend college? What’s their certification? What articles are they published in? Every healthcare professional is going to provide that information in their own way.

At RLDatix, LLMs enable us to read through these credentials and extract all that data into a standardized format so that those working in data entry don’t have to search extensively for it, enabling them to spend less time on the administrative component and focus their time on meaningful tasks that add value.

Cybersecurity has always been challenging, especially with the shift to cloud-based technologies, could you discuss some of these challenges?

Cybersecurity is challenging, which is why it’s important to work with the right partner. Ensuring LLMs remain secure and compliant is the most important consideration when leveraging this technology. If your organization doesn’t have the dedicated staff in-house to do this, it can be incredibly challenging and time-consuming. This is why we work with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on most of our cybersecurity initiatives. AWS helps us instill security and compliance as core principles within our technology so that RLDatix can focus on what we really do well – which is building great products for our customers in all our respective verticals.

What are some of the new security threats that you have seen with the recent rapid adoption of LLMs?

From an RLDatix perspective, there are several considerations we’re working through as we’re developing and training LLMs. An important focus for us is mitigating bias and unfairness. LLMs are only as good as the data they are trained on. Factors such as gender, race and other demographics can include many inherent biases because the dataset itself is biased. For example, think of how the southeastern United States uses the word “y’all” in everyday language. This is a unique language bias inherent to a specific patient population that researchers must consider when training the LLM to accurately distinguish language nuances compared to other regions. These types of biases must be dealt with at scale when it comes to leveraging LLMS within healthcare, as training a model within one patient population does not necessarily mean that model will work in another.

Maintaining security, transparency and accountability are also big focus points for our organization, as well as mitigating any opportunities for hallucinations and misinformation. Ensuring that we’re actively addressing any privacy concerns, that we understand how a model reached a certain answer and that we have a secure development cycle in place are all important components of effective implementation and maintenance.

What are some other machine learning algorithms that are used at RLDatix?

Using machine learning (ML) to uncover critical scheduling insights has been an interesting use case for our organization. In the UK specifically, we’ve been exploring how to leverage ML to better understand how rostering, or the scheduling of nurses and doctors, occurs. RLDatix has access to a massive amount of scheduling data from the past decade, but what can we do with all of that information? That’s where ML comes in. We’re utilizing an ML model to analyze that historical data and provide insight into how a staffing situation may look two weeks from now, in a specific hospital or a certain region.

That specific use case is a very achievable ML model, but we’re pushing the needle even further by connecting it to real-life events. For example, what if we looked at every soccer schedule within the area? We know firsthand that sporting events typically lead to more injuries and that a local hospital will likely have more inpatients on the day of an event compared to a typical day. We’re working with AWS and other partners to explore what public data sets we can seed to make scheduling even more streamlined. We already have data that suggests we’re going to see an uptick of patients around major sporting events or even inclement weather, but the ML model can take it a step further by taking that data and identifying critical trends that will help ensure hospitals are adequately staffed, ultimately reducing the strain on our workforce and taking our industry a step further in achieving safer care for all.

Thank you for the great interview, readers who wish to learn more should visit RLDatix.

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5 Reasons Why Outsourcing to India Thrives in 2024

Certainly! Let’s dive deeper into the thriving phenomenon of outsourcing to India in 2024. As businesses worldwide seek strategic advantages, India continues to be a beacon for companies looking to optimize their operations. Here are five compelling reasons why outsourcing to India remains a powerful choice:

Abundant Talent Pool

India is equipped with abundant talent havens, spanning various spheres. Regarding software engineering, the data science Indians professionals exhibit their carrying of adaptability, skill, and effectiveness in the employment of new technology. The size of native English speakers in the country is 4.5 million, therefore effective communication with international partners is just an advantage. It happens that the organizations have a choice of these employee skills which allows them to provide the relevant professionals with their business goals already fulfilled.

Cost-Effectiveness

When the economy is the key problem, value-based planning is of the utmost importance. When compared to other countries that also provide the same services, the Indian exchange rate and labor costs are cohesive, giving enterprises more resources to do the same work. India's cost efficiency enables businesses to hit the best quality-to-cost ratio. It is a push-pull effect that helps growth in a sustainable manner.

Unwavering Focus on Quality

The Indian IT sector adds 25 years of experience in building technology and business models from scratch, which are globally accepted as the best. An example of such a company is Fox&Angel, which is a reliable, all-around partner whose purpose is to provide quality, which is the focal point of everything they do in outsourcing. A rigorous quality control system makes certain that outputs reach outstanding international standards greater than indicated. India’s expertise ranges from software development to customer support to back-office, and boy has it delivered quality results over and over again. The customer can take that safety record as a pledge, and they can use it to upgrade their own products.

Advantageous Time Zones

India’s geographic strategic advantage is the fact that it is located between time zones and links continents such as Europe, the United States, and Asia. It results in 24-hour operations, which in turn ensures undisrupted services. The day disengages in a big part of the world, but India’s labor force takes the baton from where the first part leaves off and does work steadily without break. The synergy of working together across different time zones allowed by the two shifts is indeed one of the major advantages that multinational concerns have.

Supportive Government Policies and Infrastructure

It is the Indian government that provides a boost to the IT industry through its customary policies and concessions. The realization of publicly owned top-of-the-line infrastructure, robust internet access, and technology parks serves as an enabler for enterprise propagation. Such a framework enables Fox&Angel to provide the open market with highly specific and valued solutions for customers internationally. Striking a balance between the government’s initiatives and the private entrepreneurial forces is the key feature that keeps the Indian economy excellent in outsourcing.

Conclusion

As you navigate the complexities of the digital age, consider outsourcing to India as a strategic move. Collaborate with Fox&Angel, a trusted partner that combines expertise, innovation, and reliability. Together, we can elevate your business to new heights. Reach out to us today!

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