#when the character in question can spam damage

[ozzgin]

Also I love your blogs sorry I’ve been spamming 🩷Hii Author, could you do another part for the small prehistoric reader, where she is actually really strong even though she’s small and innocent looking like stronger than Yujiro and Baki but she’s only really like that when she’s in heat. I wonder how the would react Yk 🤔

Sure! It’s been suggested in the comments as well and it does have a fun twist to it. Female characters stronger than the main cast is the one uncanonical construct that I deeply enjoy.

Baki Characters x Prehistoric! Small Reader Headcanons (II)

Featuring the Baki characters and a prehistoric but small sized reader that turns out to be unexpectedly strong.

[Baki Masterlist] [Part I]

The fighters keep a respectable distance from you in order to assure Pickle of your safety. They’d rather not pose as a threat to his mate, especially after seeing how protective he can get. He always keeps you under his watchful gaze, ready to interfere if you need to make use of his strength. At times he’s particularly anxious around you. Professor Payne has explained in more scientifically appropriate terms that you might be dealing with female specific issues. No one pressed it further.

This peaceful resolve does not sit well with Yuujirou. How very pathetic and boring that everyone concomitantly agreed to mind their own business. He itches for a little bit of action and what better way to rile up the prehistoric warrior than messing with his little protégé? He doesn’t want to risk fighting a half-assed Pickle, he wants the wrath, the readiness to kill. So with arrogant mockery he decides to give you a little nudge in front of everyone. Just a mere push, he does show mercy to weaklings like you. Baki is enraged and the other men join him. Everyone is waiting for Pickle to make his move, though bizarrely enough he just stands there, eyes wise in shock. Yuujirou didn’t expect this lack of reaction.

The Ogre is a man with battle experience and nothing can take him by surprise. It is to be noted, however, that sometimes a trade off for the sake of efficiency has to be made. A rational agent in artificial intelligence may have to take millions of variables into consideration in order to compute the most optimal solution and react to the environment. Realistically speaking, therefore, some less probable events are taken entirely out of the equation. So, for example, the idea that you would attack Yuujirou was not something his body expected to react against. The impact of your small fist was doubled by this element of surprise. His eyes roll back and his large body is thrown at quite the distance, leaving significant damage behind.

There’s a deafening silence that lingers for what seems an eternity. Baki feels a mild discomfort on the walls of his throat and he realizes his mouth has been hanging open for long enough that it almost dried up. Did you…did you just knock his father out with one single hit? He slowly turns his head to the other witnesses, wondering if this is a dream and the others will confirm it. Judging by the equally dumbfounded expressions surrounding him, he suspects fearfully that it is, in fact, something that just happened. Jack feels like he’s been kicked in the crotch. Katsumi is overwhelmed by a certain nostalgia, the nervousness he felt when he was a little child attending the Dojo for the very first time. Retsu purses his lips as a solemn frown creases his features. Tokugawa can feel the beads of sweat gathering in the folds of his wrinkled forehead.

The least impressed of the group is Pickle. Almost as if he expected it to happen, he walks up to you and grabs your shoulders before you can approach Yuujirou’s passed out body. Your face relaxes once again and you look up to him with a genuine smile, as if soothing his worries. You’ll stop here, no worries. You pat his large hands and turn around, prepared to leave the scene.

The frightful question now plagues the fighters within the arena: was Pickle protecting you from them, or has it been the other way round all along?

#baki #baki the grappler #baki headcanons #baki hanma #pickle baki #yujiro hanma #yuujirou hanma #prehistoric reader

[adozentothedawn]

My friends, enemies, frenemies, foes, buddies, fuddies, and everyone else, let me tell you a tale of a wild adventure I just went on. It involves unspeakable violence, daring rescues, shocking conspiracy twists, and the state of the world. And most importantly, a very, very, very bugged, Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough attempt. Strap yourselves’s in folks, it’s gonna get wild.

Our story starts with me deciding to ditch my current playthrough for a bit to start designing my next character. I threw on the game, clicked on New Game and watched as the cutscene started playing. And then I committed a grave sin. I got impatient cause I didn't want to sit through the cutscene and just get to the character creator. I spammed space a few times which didn't do anything. And then. I pressed esc. The screen went black. But instead of being able to build my character, I was suddenly here:

Ya. Just a group of naked guys and the default Dark Urge. Who is the only one to get clothes. So naturally I had to start exploring what the fuck this is and what I could here. The what the fuck question is probably answered with some technical details about developer stuff that I don't know about. As for what I could do...

Mostly just kill the other dudes. Who are called Dummy. So I kinda just did that.

You can do this by either punching them to death with your 1 damage attacks (also when you crit, the damage does not get higher), or you can use your weapons in your inventory! For example by throwing them, which is what I did cause I forgot you could just equip them. You can though.

You can't move the character though, the speed is set to 0 and jumping is turned off cause you're immobilized. The game is lying btw, despite the character icon, there are no clothes anywhere on this map, except on the Dragonborn. Who is btw the only one with more than 1 hp, specifically with 26. More fun facts, only the black guys have penises. The white guys only have Ken crotches. No not vaginas, I did check, Ken crotches.

They all have same stats of 10 on everything, have the race Human and the class None. Only I got weapons though. It was one of like 8 types, but I threw them all so only see that cleaver here. The rest are on the floor.

Fun fact also: When entering turnbased the game still registers the dead guys from your assigned party.

They are also still in your party. Still naked. But now dead on the ground. They also got the xp I got from killing everyone!

This map also allows for a day night cycle, which is influenced by how close to the character the camera is. It's night when you're close, when you get away from them the shadows move until it's day.

As for the excellent question of where this map even is: It is the character creation map! It's not just a background it's a full on map you can scroll around on! The corner is cut off as you can see, but north and east you can just scroll until the character leash is tight. Look it's the bird statue and the platform!

And now the most shocking of all reveals: That landscape from the dreams you can see in the background here? The pavillion and floating rocks? Yeah it’s fake. It’s a giant movie screen in space.

Yeah so that was my adventure in the bugged character creation. xD I have one last surprise! If you have any suggestions on what I should try doing there, you can give them to me! Cause I have a working save that loads directly there. Still bugged. Still very funny.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #glitch #now some attentive readers may ask but what about the rescue I mentioned? #the truth is i forgot where i was going with this joke while writing this post #whoops

[larnax]

no therion's story doesn't only make sense if you do a solo run. i've seen this take multiple times and every time i'm completely baffled because No It Doesn't. not true. false. incorrect.

like okay this does require you to understand that the literal words a character says are not necessarily the truth, but therion's story and gameplay both make way more sense if you accept the fact that therion is not a loner and shouldn't be one.

let's start with the beginning! the FIRST scene you see of therion is him meeting darius at age 11, who he will spend the entire rest of his childhood with and implied some time into adulthood, so he has spent probably the majority of his career as a thief working in a team, which is also borne out in his gameplay, because thief is a support class.

don't argue with me i'm right. while you can run therion as a DPS, investing in attack over speed and evasion means that therion's frailty gets in the way, and he struggles to do damage on par with olberic/h'aanit/alfyn, and cyrus/tressa do way more elemental damage than he does. however, if you instead spec him for support, share SP becomes the most insane skill in the game. a speedy therion can debuff a boss into oblivion before they have a chance to do much before stealing enough SP to let olberic fire off three divine skills without needing a refill. dancer therion is worth doubling up on weapons because his speed and evasion means that he can buff allies quickly and a dancer/thief is the only combo that will regularly dodge attacks before the late game.

therion's skills primarily revolve around giving allies openings to more easily take down enemies(i mean for balancing reasons but play with me in this space) because that's the job he had when he worked with darius. he's not an especially skilled combatant on his own because he didn't need to be, his job was to pin foes down so darius could spam sweep.

additionally, while i hate this decision badly, therion's percentages are fixed so that every chapter past the first has a necessary skill check that's very difficult to pass without either a glean info character and a KO NPC character(why did they do base 3% brigand leader's garb to him.), again because he's used to having someone else deal with gathering information and doing the majority of the fighting for him. he's not terrible at getting info out of people, but he's also not great at it, for example he just goes along with barham's scheme instead of finding a way to threaten or coerce him into revealing the info right away. like basically all of his plans would've failed if the guards or his informant had just said No and refused to help him as opposed to cyrus who responds to being told no by finding out that his informant's daughter died in order to manipulate them into coughing up the info he wants. therion might be capable of manipulation beyond basic impersonation or pretending to be friendly, but if he is we don't see it.

therion in general is also a very passive character if you look past his words at his actual actions. he resists for about two seconds when heathcote cuffs him before following their orders for the rest of the story even when he's uncuffed in chapter 2 when he's still not a huge fan of the ravuses. he again goes along with barham even when he's almost certain he's being fucked with. he is almost always either acting on someone else's orders or defending himself from someone else's attacks. the reason for this is best illustrated in one of the cutscenes with darius where it's made pretty clear that for the majority of their partnership, he kept therion dependent on him to make decisions, and because that started when he was relatively young it's likely that therion just doesn't have that strong of an instinct for advocating for himself or firmly saying no to people twisting his arm(he asks darius a question once and gets thrown off a cliff for it, implying he was even more obedient before that). he can say no once, but we have no idea if he would've given in to the bandits at the beginning if they hadn't responded to his initial no by attacking him, so it does actually make perfect sense that any of the stronger-willed travelers could just respond to that no by saying they weren't asking and dragging him along. he's prickly and verbally hostile, but that mostly seems like a defense mechanism because otherwise he's easier to coerce than ophilia. i get that this seems like i'm trying to infantilize therion but that's really not my intention, in fact that takes the Therion Doesn't Kill People point i made awhile back reflect less on his being a secretly good person and more being too passive to feel the need to finish the job and generally makes him more morally ambiguous because it's less clear what decisions he makes due to personal growth and what he makes due to inertia. is he a good person, or is he just too tired to be a bad person? ideally the story would actually go somewhere with that theme but it wouldn't be octopath if they didn't periodically drop the most insane writing that rewires my brain before either doing nothing with it or actively ruining it.

also, therion's story gets way stronger if he's in a party, because while cordelia and heathcote are (TREATED AS) the reason he learns to trust again, in-story they spend, what, one hour together maybe? cordy and heathcote are his bosses and the most either of them do cordelia using her empath powers to deduce that therion looks sad or heathcote telling him that he's the real asshole for being mad that he's being blackmailed. they're also canonically lying to him when they say they don't know what the dragonstones are, so even at the end of the story they don't really trust him(i wont spend too much time complaining abt them i just don't think you get to be a savior character if the town you own has a ghetto). on the other hand, if you do his story with a party the travel banters all make some attempt at showing therion slowly coming to trust and rely on them despite initial friction, and in gameplay therion acting as a support expresses the theme of him realizing that he actually can work in a team where his allies have his back and there are people he can trust. in that instance his final conversation with darius includes him talking about his companions, because to be here at all they have accepted him after seeing him at his worst and helped him despite it, and who he's been able to help in turn. if you're doing a therion solo run he's just talking about how his boss who's blackmailing him for free labor said he looked sad one time, which is a pretty weak climax if we're going to be real. i stand by saying that octopath works best when it's episodic and stories shouldn't rely on specific characters to work, but genuinely i do think therion's story's themes being expressed strongly in gameplay and the nature of rpgs with a party system are quite cool and my favorite thing about his story.

so it specifically annoys me when people are like "oh well he limply says no before letting you continue to drag him around" like it's a plot hole and not a character trait especially when therion's being a prickly asshole who is also a complete doormat is i think very interesting characterization!!!! ophilia commenting on the fact that therion has no instinct for revenge and therion says "yeah what's the point" makes me so normal.

ALSO why's therion the poster boy for "hey this character's story doesn't make sense with their gameplay" when primrose exists???? why it so contradictory a character whose story is about them learning to trust in their companions again to be in a party while a character who starts off by telling you to fuck off and leave her alone because this is her fight before heel-turning for no reason and then just continuing to be your ally with no justification is totally fine. also why is primrose a support class???? she's not a dancer she's an assassin she doesn't support anyone in her story and her character is about her singleminded and specific familial revenge. she's also a very strongwilled character so it makes no sense that she wouldn't just say no and mean it. i know the answer is that octopath doesn't like women so primrose just got slapped into a princess jasmine costume and femme fatale character before any of her story was actually developed but like oh my goddddddd. primrose girl im so sorry they put you in the nightmare hell dimension.

#c.paradisi #octoposting #i get that to a degree this is an interpretation #octopath never says any of this stuff explicitly enough that i for sure think thats what they were going for #but at the very least it feels like a really weirdly uncharitable reading of his character #his entire story is abt learning to trust his companions again. why would it not make sense for him to have companions #to be uncharitable right back i think its a thing that happens a lot in fandom #where characters are reduced to who they are at the very beginning of a story #and then further simplified into tropes #therions a criminal so he is an evilbadman who hates people and loves crime #which is boring. i think thats a boring direction to take his character in. #it also makes other characters more boring bc you have people infantilizing tressa or alfyn so therion can be evilbadman-er in comparison #i have so many thoughts on cordelia and heathcote though #theyre very well-written villains that do a really good job of mirroring darius and illustrating therions passivity as a character #ot just doesnt uhhhh. seem to realize that.

[charrfie]

howdy laika! for that ask game, spamton with 17, 22, 23, 24?

LONG POST INCOMING PLEASE READY YOURSELF

17. What's a ship for this character you don't hate but it's not your favorite that you're fine with?

See this is a tricky question bc I wouldn't say I truly LIKE any spamton ships really; they all don't work for me for one reason or another. But I'm fine with seeing some* of them regardless because I do view a majority of them as having been a part of his history? Like him and swatch for example. I do not enjoy that ship or actively take part in it but do I think there was something going on there during spamtons big shot years??? Yeah. Do I have a problem with anyone that does enjoy it? No. Kind of a non-answer but it's the best I've got

* = "Some" excluding any addison ships (bc I personally view them as siblings) and also ones that aren't morally gross, obviously

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to ths character? Something you don't like?

OH BOY AM I A FIC READER. For the past month or so as my hyperfixation on spam has ramped up in severity again I've been trying to read every spamton centric fic that's ever been written and wow has it been a journey. So as for what I like!! The easiest answer to this is probably just the general statement of "when people write him how he is in canon." It's surprisingly rare to see him written in such a manner but is always a nice surprise when he is. Not only do I say this in relation to his character as a whole, but his speech patterns too! Which- admittedly- are extremely difficult to get the hang of! So I understand if people aren't super well versed in it and can't write him accurately in that manner. But it's my favorite thing ever when people do.

As for the second part of this question, I think the most glaring thing I hate when it comes to fics about him is just how often he's infantilized. It's SHOCKING how often it happens. Sure sure, he can be silly no doubt about it, but he's a grown man in his 40s and has experienced so much awful shit. Can we knock it off with treating him like he's a newborn or is stupid?? In the same breadth is when people make him excessively kind or sweet right off the bat... like is he not kind of an asshole??? I think its perfectly fine to embrace that fact; him being morally gray adds SO much to his character! Dare I say a lot of people who enjoy his character wouldn't have been intrigued by him without it, so I don't know why that element of his character is so often neglected. Same with his small moments of kindness/humanity; they wouldn't hit as hard if he was like that the whole time. Idk. I'm kind of picky about writing and literature so I have a lot to say sorry lol

23. Favorite picture of this character?

If we're talking about canon art of him only then I will forever be thinking about this gif of him. It makes me crazy. Same with this drawing toby did of him, you people have no idea the damage it does to me

If fan works are included... then this piece by @fatspamton is my absolute favorite picture of spamton EVER and it has been for the longest time, no question about it. It's exactly how I see him in my head and he looks so charming in it T_T <3 All of this artists spamton art (and other art/music too!!) is absolutely worth looking at if you ask me; the way he draws spam is unbelievably perfect, I think about all of its works of him very often :"^]

24. What other character from another fandom of yours reminds you of them?

Going to be honest I've been stumped on this one. I don't think I have any answer?? There's no guy that takes up my brain space which is similar enough to him for me to say in full confidence "yeah x is like him," sorry!

#THANK YOU FOR ASKING THIS LOVE U #also to the artist whose works i included: #please let me know if youd like me to take down the actual picture and just leave the link to it up! ^_^ #laika answers #should i put this under a read more. is it too long. lmk #long post #you can ask me about spamton and I do not shut up

[gentlemanthiefshowdown]

Come one, come all, to the Gentleman/Phantom Thief Showdown!

We’re lovers of characters who steal the unstealable, evade the inescapable, confound the unconfoundable, all with a smile on their faces and a tip of their hats! If you enjoy characters who steal priceless things, have a flair for fashion, have a rival (usually in the police), have impeccable manners, and follow a strict code of honor (even if it’s solely their own), then this poll showdown is for you! We’re collecting characters that fit the criteria of gentleman or phantom thieves from all forms of media:

Steals items that are not merely very expensive but often priceless (Such as: fine art, unique gems, historical artifacts)

Leaves a calling card for the intended victim

Master of Disguise

Uses trickery and illusions to escape undetected

Has a rival in the form of a detective or police inspector

Steals for reasons other than personal gain, such as personal challenge, vigilante justice, or just for the lols

May break the laws of physics or common sense to achieve their goal

Is meant to be admired by the audience (or at least respected for their wit, audacity, and adherence to self-made rules)

If there’s anyone in particular you’d like to see in this showdown, please submit characters in this form! Only one character per form, please, but you can submit as many as you’d like! Tthough please, don’t spam a character just because you want to see them! As long as you make a good case for a character, we’ll consider them, even if they’re only submitted once!

There are, of course, a few characters that are so well known that it’s obvious they’ll be here, so don’t worry about nominating them, they’re guaranteed spots in the bracket! They are:

Arsène Lupin (the face of the gentleman/phantom thief archetype!)

Lupin III

Kaitou KID (from Magic Kaito 1412 and Case Closed)

Joker (from Persona 5)

Carmen Sandiego

Please share this post! We’d love to hear from as many people as possible!

Update:

Just a PSA to all you lovely folks:

First off, we would like to thank everyone who has submitted thus far. Twenty-four hours ago, this tournament has gone from 6 nominations to over 60 and we are overjoyed by the overwhelming support. We have thoroughly enjoyed all the characters that have been submitted and the faces we have been introduced to.

However, there have been a few entries that have made us realize that our written criteria has been lacking when it comes to representing the actual gentleman thief. So we would like to add and clarify a few points:

Gender does not matter (Please feel free to submit some ladies! They are very underutilized)

Character must be a hands-on thief, as in pulls heists or rob places. They cannot be conmen, someone who steals through use of words and manipulation to earn their prize (they may pull cons, but that cannot be their primary gimmick).

Gentleman thief means that they are a thief that abides by the gentleman code. They are well-mannered and charming, and they do not kill/are not down for collateral damage of bystanders.

Please do not let this dissuade you from submitting! If you feel a character may qualify, we wold be overjoyed to see them. However, as this is a tournament surrounding the gentleman thief, we would not wish to lose true contenders to the suave conmen.

If you are uncertain, require clarification, or have any questions of the like do not fear sending us an ask! We would be absolutely delighted to answer

Thank you very much and may you have a swell day!

- Mod Silver

#gentleman thief #phantom thief #polls #character polls #character tournament #poll tournament #poll nominations

[crystalelemental]

Unit Teambuilding - Oleana

I feel like the opinion of Oleana as a sync pair is the ultimate proof of the sub-reddit’s weird stance on female characters.  “But she shouldn’t be PokeFair, she was the perfect candidate to be a general pool!”  Yeah, sure guys.  The conventionally attractive antagonist lady from a more modern Pokemon game was gonna be a demote in this day and age.  Very realistic.  Do you even hear yourself?

General Overview Oleana and Garbodor comes in and asks a very simple question.  A question by which one could argue they live and die.

Is Emma here?

If you got Emma...keep reading, learn some stuff.  If you didn’t, Oleana feels borderline mandatory.  We finally got a good Poison-type damage pair whose damage is not conditional on some nonsense.  Emma was the closest we had before, and while Emma is hard locked to the foe being poisoned, Oleana has Gunk Shot by default, which does fantastic damage.  Seriously, it’s only mildly behind Emma.  Her trainer move is very nice, giving the usual +4 Atk/+3 crit, with +2 accuracy to offset Gunk Shot, and a -1 sync cooldown to offset that turn 2 is going to be her Max Move.  Oleana wants to Poison, and when she does, it’s actually Toxic.  Max Move will inflict this Toxic, while also applying a Poison Rebuff to all foes, not just the target hit.  This leads immediately to Venom Drench, which is given a x3 multiplier by her last passive, hitting Atk/Sp Atk/Speed for -3 per action.  While it takes a minute to set up, and requires Poison, this is the fastest acting debuff to any of those stats, let alone all three at once.  This also leads instantly to Power Play, which is a ridiculous multiplier on a Tech pair, and is her innate sync multiplier as well, so A+ on consistency and avoiding the damnation of needing a status and being useless in Gauntlet.  Her last move is...Move Gauge Boost.  For some reason.  We were so close, girl.

Oleana is legitimately fantastic, pushing DPS nearly on par with Emma after rebuff, and a sync nuke that is more than double previous champion Koga.  Poison finally got a real, legitimate contender.  So okay, what’s the catch?

Oleana, like many Poison types, relies on the foe being Poisoned.  Not as badly as others, but you need at least one to set up Venom Drench, or she can’t really access her sync multiplier.  The good news is, she only needs one, so I’m not writing Cobalion off just yet.  The other is her DPS is listed so high as an absolute extreme, where you take all the various Potent Toxins and most critically, Ramming Speed.  Oleana is not especially fast, and while gauge is appreciated, Ramming Speed pulls it into nigh-mandatory range for Gauntlet, where Poison cannot be assured.  This means Oleana needs specific partners, or to run her own self-setup.  Which is either taking hits (Posthaste), or spamming Move Gauge Boost (Pep Rally 2).  The latter does have the nice benefit of boosting team speed, and is relevant for Emma synergy, but spamming such an otherwise useless move instead of doing any of the other fantastic things she does really isn’t worth her while.  So the theoretical maximum is fairly hard to outright impossible to achieve.

Still, what an entrance.  This is the justice Garbodor deserves.  Too many “bad design” jokes from the Gen 5 era has resulted in it releasing its fury here, as quite possibly the best Poison-type damage dealer in the game.  Sorry Emma, you know I love you, but holy shit.

EX and Move Level? Tech, so EX always encouraged.  Oleana also feels a bit more reliant on the 3/5 in many situations, but I fully admit, 1/5 is perfectly fine because Oleana has legitimate, actually significant support to offer a team at 1/5.  That Venom can Drench.

Team 1: Oleana, H!Caitlin, SS Leaf Something something caps her own crit therefore Caitlin.  You know the drill, Caitlin is optimal always, but especially when your physical striker needs speed.  SS Leaf can AoE Poison without the Max Move so you can conserve that nuke and Venom Drench spam faster, and even shreds defenses and offers pop healing for Caitlin.  I’ll also point out that, given Oleana’s -1 sync cooldown and SS Leaf’s trainer move, H!Caitlin can run Head Start with no penalty thanks to Vigilance for a fast-ramp.

Team 2: Oleana, BP Janine/Hop, BP Erika/Roxie “I’m on a bit more of a budget, is there anything else?”  Sure, here’s an option.  BP Janine offers Oleana the last +2 attack she needs, and some speed buffs for gauge and/or multipliers.  BP Erika sets up Toxic early to conserve Max Move as desired, or you can dual strike it with Roxie, who loves the speed buffs from Janine, and gets a bit of a bump in efficiency with Janine’s Team Sharp Entry and X Atk All.  You could go Hop as support for the Galar skill with Oleana, which helps Roxie’s offense but limits gauge barring Pep Rally 2 on Move Gauge Boost.

Team 3: Oleana, V!Agatha/Bugsy&Scyther, Emma You wanna fuck shit up?  This is how you fuck shit up.  Oleana and Emma actually combo incredibly well.  Oleana provides Rebuff for Emma’s damage, which can and will one-shot sides on-type turn 2 provided a Poison (via Max Move, this is easily achieved).  All they need is +2 Atk, and ideally some defense debuffs.  Variety Agatha is worth noting because I need to justify my impulses, while Bugsy and Scyther are a nice alternative with move gauge acceleration, if they ever rerun him.  Leer is rare on a support, as it turns out.  At 3/5, Oleana can also offer Pep Rally, which caps Emma’s speed, giving her full multipliers by turn 2.  This is the kind of nonsense these two can get up to, and I am very excited.

Team 4: Oleana, Anni N/C!Iris, Lodge Dawn/Hop Alright, let’s talk about my personal favorite angle.  Oleana, in two turns, bottoms out foe’s attack and special attack.  Finally, full power first sync for Champion Iris and Anniversary N.  Pecking Order/Devastation combos are thriving, just add the relevant support.  This is a trait Oleana achieves at a mere 1/5, too.

Team 5: Oleana, Victor, SS Acerola Don’t say I never did anything for you, Victor.  Another great aspect of that Venom Drench?  Bottoms speed in two turns.  This is fantastic for partners who don’t care about the status, and is worth noting for Victor in particular, whose every multiplier revolves around speed debuffs that his slow ass cannot provide.  SS Acerola offers the Terrain and stacks of moves up next to get him throwing around the best damage he can.  There are other options, but I really wanted to emphasize something Galarian for theme skills.

Team 6: Oleana, Rose, Colress Okay, listen.  Listen to me, and hear my words.  Oleana and Rose do not have the greatest synergy, but you can make it work, thanks to one trait.  Pep Rally 2 on Move Gauge Boost.  Even with relatively slow options, this can achieve enough gauge to manage.  And with that, we select Colress.  This offsets some points in CS, and allows you to pack in defense drops, as well as accuracy drops, to support a fairly sturdy team thanks to Oleana’s offensive debuffs.  As mentioned with Rose, Colress also gets a free action at 3/5 when using status moves, so he’s gauge free and loving it.  Consider this him picking up a new job.  He has very poor taste in employers.

Team 7: Oleana, BP Clemont/BP Morty, Tech Lickitung Last one.  Stall strats.  Stall is a winning plan now, and Oleana facilitates it obscenely well.  Guaranteed AoE toxic turn 1 with max move, and two turns later you’ve removed all offensive presence.  Just add trap from an ally, and a supporter with something to do, such as BP Clemont with Synchro Healing or BP Morty with Potion (and also Synchro Healing), and you’re golden. 

Final Thoughts Legitimately, I love this kit.  I am a slut for debuffs, and fast-acting debuffs like this are tremendous.  I’m...really impressed with how this sync pair turned out.  Like, sadly, really impressed.  I kinda love it.  I’m so mad.  I don’t even really like Oleana.  But I do like Garbodor, so I guess it all kinda evens out.

#unit teambuilding #oleana

[conjoinedpubes]

The Dexterity Cheatsheet

Was inspired by this video. which asked the question; 'what does Dexterity have as a build niche?'. Hence, decided to come up with a easy reference for all the reasons to play a dex-character.

At its most basic, Dex gives the following...

1. Attack Power for weapons with Dex scaling 2. Cast speed 3. Reduces fall damage 4. Harder to fall-off horseback

Bonuses 3+4 are not relevant in most combat scenarios, and should not be taken into account for buildmaking.

Weapon Infusions

Dexterity has 2 infusions; [Keen] and [Lightning].

Keen - the physical infusion. Raises weapon AR scaling with Dex, also scales damage on certain Weapon Skills.

Lightning - The elemental counterpart to Keen. In PvP, lightning is advantaged over other elemental damage - as it tends to be the lowest defense on player characters.

Lightning is also affected by environment. Wet targets (eg. in rain) have reduced lightning mitigation. Hiting water with lightning causes an 'explosion' that deals an burst of AOE damage.

However, elemental infused weapons cannot be buffed by most sources. Lightning Infusion also splits damage between physical and lightning; hence mitigated by both the enemy's physical and lightning defenses.

Cold - Adds magic damage, int scaling and Frostbite status. Also retains more of a weapon's physical scaling than other caster infusions. Hence, on a innately dex-scaling weapon - Cold will scale well from both Int and Dex; hybrids take note.

Weapon Skills/Arts

Damage for Weapon Skills is very complex.

In general - skills that swing the weapon care about the weapon's attack rating (AR). Skills that shoot projectiles care about stats. (A detailed explanation can be found in this video)

Listed here are Weapon Skills of specific Keen/Lightning affinity. There are many excellent 'general use' Weapon Arts, just not innately dex-focused.

Thunderbolt Lightning affinity, bullet art. The infamous spam tool of arena duels; effectively gives ranged magic without needing to build a caster and while using any weapon. Lightning Slash Enhanced hit. Adds a fixed lightning damage buff to your weapon regardless of whether it lands. 'Elemental Slash' type weapon arts are one of the few ways to buff weapons with elemental infusions. Beast Roar Keen affinity, bullet art. Another infamous ranged spam, this time a physical projectile. As with Thunderbolt, effectively gives access to ranged on any weapon.

Cast Speed

"Shortens the animation when casting spells"

This is a complex stat, do note that...

This is based on specific breakpoints unique to each spell, there is no global %cast speed modifier. In general, 70 Dex is the cap for cast speed. Items that add Cast Speed (eg. Radagon's Icon) add 30 virtual dexterity (vdex), treating your cast speed as if you had +30 Dex.

Hence, if you plan to make a dex-caster hybrid - spell choice and your dex-int/fth split affects how much of an impact cast speed will make.

Consumables

"Consumables with scaling in Dexterity"

Throwing Knives (All) - Exceptional dex scaling on Fan Daggers (A) and Kukri (S). Others like Poisonbone Dart have significant scaling in both Dex + Arc.

Throwing Pots (Lightning) - 2 variants, Lightning Pot and Dragonbolt Pot.

Spark Aromatic - Damaging perfume, unusual in having fire damage while being dex scaling.

Noteworthy Weapons

This is not a list of best weapons, but weapons that are noteworthy within each class for dex characters.

Many weapon classes such as Halberds have broadly good movesets and can be scaled in many ways. Similarly, a weapon can be good purely off its moveset, even if the numbers are not the most optimal.

Dagger - Misericorde, Scorpion's Stinger, Celebrant's Sickle, Bloodstained Dagger, Great Knife Dex friendly weapon class in general. Misericorde is a critical-hit tool with high AR on Lightning, it also has the longest reach in class. Though in practice, this means little Scorpion's has innate rot and a dex bias scaling. Celebrant's has sheild pierce and high AR. Bloodstained and Greatknife are both regular weapons with innate bleed, while also scaling well with dex. However, do note that unless you started as a Bandit, these weapons are hard to acquire.

Straight Sword - Warhawk Talon, Noble's Slender Sword Among regular straight swords, these 2 have a bias toward dex scaling. The difference in reach and AR between regular straight swords is quite minor. Broadswords etc. are all very useable.

Greatsword - Flamberge Of the regular weapons, Flamberge is the only one with a distinct dex bias. Most other Greatswords have a Str bias, though many (eg. Claymore, Knight's Greatsword) are very playable on dex.

Colossal Sword UGS - Zweihander, Greatsword, Godslayer Greatsword For regular weapons, Zweihander has the lowest str req and scales best on Keen. Greatsword has higher str req, but has more AR on Lightning. Godslayer has faster standard attacks and is a rare source of dex-scaling fire damage.

Thrusting Sword - Cleanrot's Knight's Sword, Estoc, Antspur Rapier A dex-biased class overall, in general... Cleanrot's has longest reach and most AR at lower dex levels. Estoc has the most AR at dex softcap 80. Antspur has a 'Scarlet Rot' status while being infusable.

Heavy Thrusting Sword - Dragon King's Cragblade Longest weapon in class, innate lightning damage, has very high dex req. (37). HTS in general is a dex-biased weapon class, any of the regular options are also good.

Curved Sword - Bandit's Curved Swords Only weapon in class with a clear dex bias. Shamshir and Scavenger's are also good options.

Curved Greatsword - Bloodhound's Fang Bloodhound Fang scales very well to dex and is obtainable early. Dismounter is longest in class and infusable, but is drop-only.

Katana - Uchigatana, Nagakiba All weapons in this class (except Meteoric Ore Blade) are dex focused. Nagakiba has the longest reach by a significant margin, Uchigatana has the most AR for both Keen and Lightning. In short; Uchi for damage over reach, Naga for reach over damage. The Hand of Malenia is also noticeable longer than other katanas but still falls short of the Nagakiba. It is also not infusable.

Halberd - Guardian's Swordspear Unusual in having mostly sweep and slash moves. Highest AR in class on Keen, the 'big numbers stick'. Its Lightning infusion is noticeably worse than Keen for some reason, also has high str req. (16) for a dex weapon. Remainder of the Halberds (beside Gargoyle and Nightrider) can all be built toward Dex. Here, Banished Knight's Halberd tends to be the jack-of-all trades in AR and moveset.

Spear - Cross Naginata, Bolt of Gransax Of the regular spears, Naginata has innate bleed and dex scaling bias. Unusual in having a slashing attack-chain by defqult. Being a spear, the min-max setup is to dual wield and ignore the 'core-moveset'. But if you already knew that, you dont need to read this post. Bolt of Gransax; unique weapon with exceptional range (2nd highest) and innate lightning damage. Has very high dex req. (40), scales VERY poorly with str despite having 20 str req.

Greatspear - Lance, Treespear Lance is the only regular weapon in class. Treespear scales very well to dex (physical damage only) and has innate holy damage, it also one of the rare buffable weapons with an innate element. Vyke's War Spear scales well to dex, but is mostly a status weapon for pvp, hence its AR is not generally a consideration.

Reaper - Scythe, Grave Scythe The Scythe has longer reach, dex bias on Keen and features a unique double heavy attack. Grave Scythe has more AR in all cases except 80 dex + Keen. However, it has higher str req. and weight. Worth noting; is that Grave Scythe is rare drop. While the Scythe is a guaranteed drop and can be found early.

Hammer - Monk's Flamemace A str biased class in general. Monk's is the only regular hammer with a dex bias, it is drop only. The default Hammer does not have any dex bias, but has great range and moveset. It is likely a better choice than the Monk's even for dex builds.

Greathammer - None A very str-biased class, no standouts for dex.

Axe - Forked Hatchet Only weapon in class with a dex bias. However, it makes a poor weapon due to low range and damage. A dex weapon by technicality not practicality.

Greataxe - Butchering Knife Only weapon in class with a dex bias, highest AR on Keen. However, Lightning infusion narrows the AR gap for many of the regular Greataxes. Worth noting, as the Butchering Knife has very short heavy attacks.

Colossal Weapons - Duelist Greataxe Class with overwhelming str bias. Both the regular Duelist Greataxe and Rotted variant are the only weapons in class with dex bias. However, they suffer from low AR and have a significant str req. Another "dex weapon by technicality".

Whips - Urumi Exceptional dex scaling, has unique charged heavy attack with great precision and reach. All other whips also have a dex bias (except Giant's Braid). Fists - Katar Only fist with piercing damage and a dex bias. Has slightly longer reach than most.

Claws - Raptor's Talons, Venomous Fang This is a status focused class. Raptor's is another case of a weapon that technically has a dex bias, but this does not make it a good weapon. Venomous Fang is the only infusable weapon with innate poison status, it also has very high base AR.

Twinblades - Godskin Peeler Weapon class predominantely used for statuses. Peeler has a dex-bias relative to other twinblades, it also features a distinct moveset.

STARTING CLASS

Vagabond - A favourite shell for PvP characters. While it may not seem like a dex starter, this class saves a ton on stats for defense. This allows one to start with general defensive base and build dex as you see fit. Most weapons also have some str req. so the base str is also rarely wasted.

Samurai - 2nd highest dex, while having a good spread of hp, endurance and str. Wastes no points for 'caster' stats, good option for full martial dex characters.

Prisoner - Exceptional dex and int, very low base faith. Great starter for that specific hybrid stat combination.

Warrior - Highest dex of all starter classes. That said, its often less efficient in the long run (vs. Vagabond/Samurai) due to having an unusual stat distribution (few use cases for having extra Mind + Int + Arc).

Bandit - High Dex + Arc. Similar to Warrior in being less effecient for pure dex due having odd 'spare stats'.

In short, Vagabond/Samurai will be your go-to for generalist dex characters. The remainders are options provided you have a specific dex hybrid in mind. When in doubt, use the Elden Ring build planner here.

Thanks and Credits

Chrightt and his community for providing much of the in-depth math this post is based on. Rorydobson for the Elden Ring build planner.

#elden ring #build journal #elden ring pvp #elden ring coop #elden ring builds #kin's cheatsheet

[void-inked-pen]

Yo, sorry for the Like spam, but I have some questions, if you've got time?

I was reading through your posts about the turtles' fighting techniques, just because they were interesting at first, but I have a 2012 AU I'm working on in which their fighting styles change drastically over time, and I learned a ton from those posts. Trouble is, I... Don't actually know much of anything about real martial arts or combat in general. I want things to be more realistic in my AU, mainly because of how each weapon ties into their character development. If you have any, like, "actually decent combat techniques for dummies" video recommendations, that'd make my life a million times easier.

More importantly than that, though, I'm interested in what you have to say about archery. The AU is called "Sniper Leo" for a reason; he swaps to a bow in the middle of season 3 after discovering (or rather, finally accepting) that his knee injury isn't just something that can be brushed aside like Splinter was raised to do, and sure, he doesn't have all the same capabilities he's used to, but he's still a badass, competent leader with a longbow instead of twin katanas. His disability has changed his life, but certainly hasn't ended it.

(Similarly, as Don takes more of a tank role, she finds another weapon that fits her new style and allows her to adapt, but I'm not sure what it is yet; meanwhile, Casey gets a tomahawk, bc (1) he's Seneca and it ties him back to his roots before New York was New York - I'm native, this is important to me, y'know? And (2) that hockey stick is cool and all, but it's not great for fighting up-close and personal, so he needs to have something capable of dealing serious damage and punishing opponents who get too cocky, thinking they can just duck in past the effective range of his main spacing weapon. Plus, it's great utility-wise.)

Infodumping about traditional Iroquois weapons aside, my main three questions are:

(1) What kind of bow would best suit Leo, if he's trying to be stealthy, make use of his absurd upper-body strength from all that katana training, stay at a safe distance, and pierce enemy armor where possible? If those three things don't mesh well, what compromises would you suggest?

(2) What kind of secondary melee weapon would be good to combine with this? If someone manages to sneak up on him, he'll need a smaller, likely concealed Plan B to defend himself while his siblings are busy on the front line. I'm thinking a blade of some sort, since he has training with them and it'd lend nicely to him getting a better variant when Splinter... Y'know. There might be more fitting options, though, and any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated!

(3) What sort of hurdles would someone go through when switching from melee weapons like katana to a long-range one like a bow? Like, any base technique concepts that he might have to unlearn. I'm guessing there'd be a lot to do with positioning and stance, but again, I'm just kinda assuming right now.

This is a long-ass ask, and if you read all the way to the end, thank you. Even if no answer pans out, I appreciate you taking the time to listen. Keep being badass ✌️

your not spamming dont worry! i'm happy to help with this (I actually get these kinds of asks all the time on discord so this isnt anything new lol)

One of the biggest difficulties that your gonna face when switching weapons is the different requirements that each weapon needs. Bows, believe it or not, actually need more upper body strength than most melee weapons because of the tension in the bow itself and pulling the arrow back. Patience as well as accuracy long range is gonna be his main issues i thing both narrative speaking and training with a new weapon. Imagine being in a leader role for so long, running into the fray yourself, and then suddenly switching to being long range where the goal is to stay as far away as possible from your target but still in range to hit?

in terms of what kind of bow? i would suggest he get a more current era bow. old style bows like the traditional long bow in japan require a huge bow that doesnt really allow for much movement but are VERY GOOD at shooting long range. Japanese long bows were able to pierce through samurai armor and same for Europe long bows (which had to pierce through chainmail and steal.) so putting current era bows with a strong arrow head which gives the bow its flexibility, range, stealth, and piercing ability (plus maybe a little donnie tech on the side) could EASILY get through robots and armor, no problem! I would suggest you look at this video of the worlds greatest stunt bowman who helps with movies and stuff to give you an idea on what leo could still do with a bow:

for a secondary weapon, i feel like he'd still stick with tradition. which is a short katana. Japanese archers tended to have both a long bow and a short sword to defend themselves if samurai broke through the flank or came at them from behind. (they also had something guarding their back like a samurai to help with that but short katana helps too). I've seen people also have archers use the pieces of their bow as weapons in a fight as well like wrapping the string from their bow around an arm or their neck to stop opponents, stabbing with one of their arrows if they got to close and couldnt draw their sword, that sort of thing.

you don't HAVE to follow traditional martial arts to make a fight interesting, in fact the reason fights can be cool is because a character uses the weapon that has a traditional style for something new and unique! having an understanding of the basics DOES help with how a fight should go and what could be possible for a character but creativity is also important in a fight. not every fight is gonna work like a traditional "honorable" dual or tournament match.

I think leo would just have to relearn to be a stealth fighter, fighting long range, hiding in the rafters so his enemy has to find him with some interesting arrows that could cause smoke screens or explosions (both of these are actual things traditional bowman could do, especially ninja. this is not like a "oh donnie would come up with this!" kinda thing no it is very common to attach things to an arrow it just depends on how you use it creatively). it would be cool to see him become a long range expert when he used to be so close range. like he gets good at Senbon (throwing needles) which target pressure points but dont kill, or throwing knives, maybe even darts!

leo stepping back also... lowkey might be good for his mental health just saying~

(also to comment on the hatchet thing, i would LOVE TO SEE THAT HAPPEN!!! we dont see hatchet combat much anymore and its such a good and useful weapon for both long range and close range. like hatchet throwing? sick as shit. also imagine casey throwing a hatchet above an enemies head, teh enemy being like "haha you missed" and they look back to see casey running up to them, jumping to HANG ONTO THE HATCHET IN THE WALL and use it as momentum/leverage to kick harder! just an idea ;3c )

thank you for the ask!!! I appreciate talking combat like this, trust me~ feel free to ask any other questions anytime! (that includes anyone who reads this lol)

-Pen

#pen talks #fighting concepts/ideas #action #bow

[iamafanofcartoons]

It's kind of funny. I came out of Vol 8 hating Ironwood. Like, I wanted him arrested or his head on a platter. Now a days, I kind of just feel sorry for him. Dude was dealing with the guilt of his robots going crazy at Beacon, lack of sleep, his semblance probably firing on all cylinders, paranoia, and who knows what else. Taking all that into account, anyone would have cracked like he did. So many things could have been different if he just made some better choices. Telling Winter and the Ace Ops about his semblance as a 'stop me if I go to far' thing, trusting Robyn a bit so they could make a compromise. So many outcomes that didn't need to end with him being a shell of what he once was. Sorry, I know you don't like Ironwood and you have every reason to hate him. Guess it just bothers me that most of Vol 8 could have been prevented if Ironwood just trusted people more.

With all due respect, that is completely inaccurate.

I DO NOT hate james ironwood or adam taurus. They're fictional characters. A fictional character cannot harm others. Can you imagine people claiming that Slenderman physically killed somebody? Oh wait, they did, but he didn't do it, cuz he's not real. No, people used slenderman as an excuse for their actions or behavior.

I do not hate Blacksun. Its a fictional ship, which cannot harm others.

I don't even despise dead horse theories...they're dead, cannot harm others. How many conspiracy theories exist that aren't real?

But...you know what does harm people? Beliefs by themselves are harmless. Its when other people share and act upon certain beliefs that harm is caused.

Religious and political beliefs are perfectly fine when kept to themselves, or perhaps one of those discord servers. But you've seen society. How much harm and damage is caused when people embrace and act upon those beliefs?

My problem was never with the characters, ships or theories. Not in RWBY, not in any fandom.

My problem is always going to be the people who embrace said characters, ships, and theories with the same passion and devotion of those embracing political or religious beliefs.

I do not hate ironwood. I just detest the people who have decided to put him on a pedestal for the sake of their identity and their hatred for Monty's Oums friends...and then go forth to spam hatred against CRWBY and RWBY, which leads to an ocean of negativity against the show, causing others to either not watch it, or stop watching it.

Actually, I have something better. Two posts from people on Tumblr who have addressed this particular issue.

https://www.tumblr.com/supreme-leader-stoat/692413647915565056/gonna-remember-buddy-thats-not-the-character This is what I basically mean.

There is one other aspect, and again, it is not RWBY Specific.

bloodraven55 tumblr post 675914835550224384

But it does illuminate the issue, doesn't it?

At the end of the day, my issue will always be with the people who insult the show, the writers, the animators, etc. Simply because their favorite fictional characters, ships, or theories did not go the way they selfishly wanted.

You once asked me about Jaune Arc. I told you, my problem would always be with the people who cannot accept him or Oscar as deuteragonists aka secondary characters, and had their headcanons made up to the point of where they could not accept what was in front of them.

Weird question, but would you say that RELIGION could be considered a fandom? They carry so many similar qualities.

#rwby ask #rwby asks #rwby discussion #rwby character analysis #fandoms #headcanons #crwby #james ironwood #adam taurus #general ironwood #rwby analysis #rwby meta #Religion is a fandom #rwby #rwby fandom

[kalina-c]

(Dark Souls/Elden Ring posting) Split Damage Doesn't Suck. In fact it is the best damage in the game for a significant percentage of situations and setups.

Part 2 (ctrl-f “so let’s count up the ways”) Part 3

Stumbled upon a youtube review of elden ring's daggers and rapiers, the critical hit weapons, in response to patch 1.10 the patch specifically buffing ripostes and backstabs, and the first and constant thing the youtuber says is that Split Damage Sucks?

My friends, Split Damage is so very specifically the final form of specifically critical hits in particular that Chaos Daggers have been the parry king weapon of dark souls 3 since forever.

There's a hundred and one details about how "split damage sucks" came to be accepted wisdom and why it's actually wrong in way more situations than you'd think, but in the first place, just, if you're looking for a good dagger for backstabs and ripostes, Split Damage Is The Absolute Best. A weapon that gives you elemental damage right away without any whetstones/ash hunting just yet, and on the weapon class that specifically multiplies elemental damage in particular to high numbers on its signature attack? Surprisingly good utilization of the game systems! (The weapon in question might suck, but for entirely different reasons than being the same damage type as the kind of Misericorde that can do ~3k ripostes.)

Split damage weapons are so good at crits that a dark souls 3 character with fire gem starting gift and a Fire Dagger +0 as soon as you reach Firelink gets a gigantic 500-600 damage one-shot weapon for absolute free, on like nearly everything in the early game. Conventional wisdom was that the best lightweight riposte in dark souls 1 was a normal +15 rapier with a damage buff applied, which is hilariously easily disproven by side-by-side testing with any Chaos or Enchanted Rapier maxed out in the same game.

So anyway, let's get into the really autistic detailed breakdown of the whole thing right after the break.

So why does "Split Damage Suck"?

Probably someone tried a magic weapon on their pure physical build and found it to do less damage than a pure physical weapon with a buff applied. They then needed an explanation for why that happens.

I don't know if that's exactly what happened, but going by the way "split damage sucks" reacts to the fact of elemental damage and the lightning infusion in elden ring, that is like literally the only thing I've ever seen it saying in practice.

Isn't that just making a bad build decision and blaming it on the weapon?

Literally yup! But for the sake of fairness we'll just leave that aside and focus on the facts of how split damage works in practice.

But isn't it worse to apply damage multiple times and eat defense multiple times, than to do one big number and eat defense only once?

Technically yes! in an extreme case. When I was taking my sorcerer through my first dark souls 1 run and damage testing on the crystal golems in Seath's garden, I found that Dark Bead did significantly less total damage than Crystal Soul Spear.

Yes, Dark Bead did less total damage than Crystal Soul Spear. In Dark Souls 1. The game where Dark Bead is so overpowered that pvp'ers everywhere have been spamming and dreading it since the original release of the DLC and PtDE, and that speedrunners have been incorporating it into all bosses routes until move swap completely obliterated the game.

Do you begin to see the problem with just a flat 1:1 damage comparison on paper. Theoretically, in the right very situational interaction, using only the same R1 to R1,

on a specific build at that not even all builds because the specific reason I've been researching and testing this stuff since my first dark souls character in 2013 or so, is because of finding that my pure int build did the opposite of what people said and I did gigantic R1 damage with split damage and absolutely piss-poor R1 damage with unsplit damage,

yes a split-damage weapon can do less damage than an unsplit weapon. Theoretically. Not in practice, where for every other enemy and especially boss in the game the literally split damage by definition Dark Bead is specifically the singular most broken attack in all of Dark Souls 1; or Chaos Dagger backstabs and split damage Lothric Knight Greatsword charged R2's do the best-in-class damage for their respective weapon classes; or the optimal speedrun route in Dark Souls 3 involves tumblebuffing a Fire Shortsword which is *literally* actually a three-way split damage attack, *never* an unsplit damage stack even when it's fire buff on fire infusion.

---

The fact that this canard took off during Dark Souls 1 in particular is actually pretty specifically egregious, because like,

The overwhelming very smart-sounding argument is that if you look at the AR on paper of an unsplit weapon at 300 physical attack, vs the AR of a split weapon at 150 physical and 150 fire, and then apply the damage formula with such and so defensive values, you will see that the 300 AR, on paper, does better damage than the 150 + 150 on-paper AR.

In other words, it's an all-in focus on AR to AR, in the status screen only, as if that is always a reliable indicator of how much damage a weapon will do when it hits.

Friends, we're talking about a game that specifically has a weapon that contradicts every possible thing about that entire understanding of AR, and one that does so to such a spectacular degree that it is far and away one of the most popular weapons in that entire game.

There's two "middleweight" weapons in dark souls 1 that are notable for kind of punching above their weight, the Great Scythe and the Claymore. The Claymore is an eternal series favorite (and my actual vote in Elden Ring for best main-hand weapon in a powerstance generally) because it is pretty much always the only great sword with a thrusting attack in its moveset. The Claymore bounces back and forth in the relative ranking of how much AR/attack power/etc it has in its weapon class depending on the game, but the fact of the thrusting attack's speed and safety and counter damage means that the Claymore is frequently a real contender no matter what the game.

Now here's the real rub. The Claymore and the Great Scythe in Dark Souls 1 occupy the same niche, in being a high ROI weapon for the weight and the stat requirements. The Claymore has a higher AR than the Great Scythe for any given build and infusion (called ascension in souls 1), but the Great Scythe can consistently do more damage than the Claymore, not just on one or two attacks, but on the entire moveset unless there's a counter hit situation where the Claymore can do more damage. (Counter hits with thrusts are so punishingly precise in Dark Souls 1 that I never learned how to land them consistently enough for easy damage testing.) This should be the first clue that AR on the status screen isn't everything and that there's multiple multiple multipliers and damage variance between movesets that goes into just a normal, unbuffed R1 on a normal enemy before we apply any buffs, rings, special defense situations, etc.

The Monster Hunter community coined the term "motion value" to refer to the fact that each move in a given weapon's move set applies a multiplier to the attack number on its status screen before anything else in the damage formula applies, and the term has found obvious use in describing basically the same combat design philosophy in Dark Souls. Say a longsword does like 80%, 80%, 100% on its first R1, second R1, and uncharged R2. (I don't know the exact numbers, but anyway) That means that a 300 AR longsword is doing 240 AR, 240 AR, or 300 AR on those attacks, before defensive values are applied.

The Great Scythe very obviously, very blatantly has Motion Values that are bigger than its AR on paper suggests, on every one of its moves. I've run Enchanted vs Enchanted Great Scythe and Claymore side by side on enough sorcerer runs to know that it's in there and on the entire moveset, not just the riposte that impressed everyone looking for the best dex weapon back in the day. This is also blatantly the reason Chaos Daggers are the best ripostes in Dark Souls 3. The riposte attack on a dagger's moveset already multiplies the attack power to an absurd degree, way bigger than any singular number from any other weapon class on any attack (save for ultra greatsword and similar weight charged R2); and then Dagger applies the highest crit modifier in its weapon class for the biggest number yet.

Contrary to what it looks like on paper, a split-AR Chaos Dagger is not doing split damage at all in the slightest, it's doing the most concentrated unsplit fire elemental damage all at once to the enemy's defense, and then a nice beefy concentrated unsplit big fat physical damage number on top. This is literally the same reason Magic Misericorde and Dark Moon Greatsword with its weapon buff up in Elden Ring do damn near the highest crit damage in the entire game.

---

There's a hundred other fun little details too about how people have entirely the wrong understanding of split damage, even when they're really really good at beating dark souls in the most skillful of ways. GDQ events will tell you that tumblebuffing fire resin onto a fire weapon will give you better damage than applying lightning damage onto the fire weapon, implicitly because Split Damage Sucks ("because of the way defenses are calculated"), which is an absolute lie. I've spent hundreds of hours damage testing various combinations of damage types to hell and back on Dark Souls 3 in particular, on Lothric Knights and Ringed City bosses, very specifically trying to figure out the optimal damage setups for my mage, and tumblebuffed fire resin and lightning resin will apply exactly the same damage increase for exactly the same numbers on a fire shortsword before elemental resistance disparities are applied.

See, here's the thing about Dark Souls 3 and damage calculations. Say you have a weapon that does like 100 damage on an R1 attack and 900 damage on a riposte. With a Crystal, Chaos, or whatever other elemental infusion, that can jump to like, 180 R1 and 2200 riposte or something.

If you apply a damage buff on top, whether from resin or from spell, that might bump the R1 to 150. The riposte also only goes up by the same flat damage amount, to 950. The split infusion scaling is so real that even Fire and Dark Daggers, with their zero stat scaling, do outright better ripostes than physical infusions on the same Daggers. Like, Fire infusion has been a pocket pvp meta pick for builds that don't have int and wis investment for the Chaos maximization and Dark Lothric Sword.

I've tried this like a billion different times on a billion different weapons. Weapon buffs conspicuously do not scale with any motion values ever in this game. Crystal infusion in particular is far and away the most optimal use of int investment for weapon damage, no exceptions, even on a longsword spamming R1's where you'd think applying a flat damage increase would be more optimal. Nah, the absolute disparity in stat and motion value scaling is just entirely too big.

I've also tried this like a billion different times with all four elements of buff. The same flat damage increase applies in the same way across all elements. The same scaling rules date all the way back to Dark Souls 1, where tumblebuffing reveals that the magic buff onto a magic weapon does not stack with the innate magic scaling at all, it's a completely separate hit split off as another instance of enemy defense applied all the same as when it's buffed onto a physical weapon.

(Fun fact, Crystal Magic Weapon and Lightning Blade apply the same multiplication from the catalyst spell buff. Dark Blade has the worst scaling, probably from being technically available at the almost-start of the game, and Carthus Flame Arc has far and away the best scaling probably to compensate from being usually confined to just one catalyst and not having access to Yorshka Chime or Court Sorcerer Staff-levels of spell buff.)

So in other words the real reason tumblebuffing fire resin is better than lightning for the Cursed Greatwood is because it's hitting his elemental weakness, not because it is unsplit damage at all. It's literally a goddamn three-way split, exactly the thing that makes people say Drakeblood Greatsword is sub-optimal in the same game. You're literally using the same damage type and split as the Drakeblood GS when you tumblebuff fire resin on a fire shortsword.

---

Incidentally the other conspicuous presence of a gigantic all-in-one motion value, that turns a Split Infusion into an Unsplit gigantic fat smash of elemental damage, is the biggest burst hits on giant weapons.

Ultra greatsword criticals are absolute ass in Dark Souls 3. Like I'm not talking about the crit modifier at all, a dagger or thrusting sword in any of these games with a 100 crit modifier is usually doing better riposte damage than other weapon classes with a 110 modifier. Giant weapon backstabs are just about the same damage as a basic R1 swing, making it feel like a waste of an opening to do the backstab and relegating the move to i-frame safety only.

There were three conspicuous hits on my souls 3 sorcerers that hit nearly identically the same giant one-shot number. Crystal Soul Spear off of a Court Sorcerer Staff, obviously; Crystal Dagger crits; and— Crystal Lothric Great Sword charged r2's! They seriously beefed up the motion value on that attack so high that it's one of the strongest burst hits in the history of this running ruleset.

Like, this is the reason it's important to pay deep attention to the moveset and motion value of the weapon, not just its AR on paper. Ripostes are supposed to be your giant damage opportunity and they're part of the Demon Greataxe one-shot against Gwyn in Dark Souls 1, but they're the ultra greatsword's singular worst attack in Dark Souls 3. Charged r2 is so gigantic that elemental infusions on ultra greatswords specifically outstrip anything physical infusions can do on the weapon class's best attack.

This absolutely carries over to Elden Ring, where charged and jump R2's are a colossal weapon's best friend and Lion's Claw is easily the best melee DPS on a generic ash-swappable big boy sword. The scaling rules have not changed any since Enchanted Great Scythes were doing 4-digit ripostes in Dark Souls 1, my Elden Ring mages have been doing absolutely cracked damage with the obvious moves on Magic Zweihanders.

To be continued because this rant is breaking the editor lol

#dark souls #elden ring #fromsoft #fromsoft games #rant post #build discussion #game discussion

[raxistaicho]

Could you elaborate on your gameplay tier list please ? Like what you think of the gameplay of each game

Yeah, for sure :)

S tier

New Mystery of the Emblem is just very tightly balanced and it really teaches you to respect things like enemy move order, spacing, and damage counting, and the rainbow potions, reclassing, and the star shards strongly reward careful examination of stat benchmarks. Also it's one of the few games in the series where nearly every promoted class has some valuable niche (Warrior sadly doesn't live up).

Thracia is kind of on the extreme opposite end of things, where instead it's very experimental and just flat busted in a lot of ways, and there's a lot of oddball ways to build units (Amalda spamming a sleep staff while holding a fire sword is a good example) and the game is actually well balanced around getting you to exploit its busted mechanics, which fits the story of Thracia.

Conquest in a lot of ways is kinda like New Mystery's answer to modern Fire Emblem. Kinda the same stuff is all there.

A tier

Tear Ring Saga has some really fascinating ways to make units unique from one another (Maerhen would so easily just be hot garbage but he actually has a fun niche, Raquel is one of the best-designed turn based strategy game units I've ever seen) and he and it has a better party split than Gaiden or Sacred Stones could dream of having (which lends to replayability) but it's also a LONG game (I think it has around 40 chapters not counting map spawns and dungeons) and has some just inexplicably shitty units who have absolutely no value to bring to a party.

Shadow Dragon is mini New Mystery in a lot of ways. Its first three chapters are hot garbage but the mid-game is actually quite fun and there’s unexpected ways to make some units work out. Also being able to control ballisticians is all kind of fun.

Three Houses REALLY pushes you to learn and use all its myriad ways to build a team (see my post on why “oops all wyverns” is stupid), and I’m just really into the character and team-building side of it. That said, I can easily see why the monastery would get very tedious and the map design is really weak, honestly.

B tier

Birthright is my first guilty pleasure game. I just think it’s a pretty solidly-built game with no major flaws aside from being rout-heavy and Ryoma being hilariously busted.

Radiant Dawn is a super guilty pleasure game, lol. I like some of the creative things it tried, and ledges brought some really nice strategic depth to some maps, but there’s no denying the game is a balance disaster.

Mystery of the Emblem is just distilled good Fire Emblem design, but the game shows its age and it’s unbearably slow to play nowadays.

Binding Blade has a really good mid and late game, but the starting squad’s competence is a myth. Accuracy is a joke. We are all pawns, controlled by something greater: huge maps and status staves! The DNA of Binding Blade!

C tier

Genealogy of the Holy War is a game I’ve soured on. As I mentioned earlier on I like team and character building, but unlike Three Houses and Conquest the answer is actually who fucking cares about the other kids when you have Seliph and Leif. I unironically really like chapter 2, don’t @ me. But yeah, this game’s very slow to play and enemies are pretty incompetent compared to your chosen lord.

Shadows of Valentia is plagued by questionable map design, units that get samey once they promote, and just honestly getting kinda boring as the game progresses. Another guilty pleasure, since it does do some things I kinda like, like town exploration and dungeons.

D tier

Path of Radiance, slow as fuck game. Everything takes forever, the enemies are incompetent but really bulky, and late game basically devolves into A-moving a bunch of paladins and fliers at the enemy.

Awakening, fucking balance disaster of a game. You’re better off just lowmaning and making an unkillable juggernaut because difficulty is all about bigger enemy numbers and more enemies. Basically every map just swarms you with bodies in the hopes that eventually one of them manages to get the wheels on your meat grinder caught.

And as I mentioned, I haven’t played 7 or 8 recently enough to fairly vote, but 7 would not get very high (most of the unpromoted units are not worth bothering to raise, the ranked system is terribly designed, and higher difficulties fucking restrict your deploy slots) and 8 might be middling at best (just really weak challenge)

#fire emblem

[slanax]

Assorted Fire Emblem Three Hopes gameplay tips and tricks for newcomers

(Disclaimer: This is less an expert guide and more an assortment of things I’ve picked up after playing through the game once that some people might appreciate especially when they’re overwhelmed by all the choices the game gives you. None of this should be taken as gospel and there’s exceptions for everything, and especially when it comes to class or skill recommendations, what you want to play with should always take priority)

A lot of this will focus on out-of-battle optimization, aka how to get the most out of your base and how to best develop your characters’ skills. Some gameplay elements will be spoiled, but plot or specific recruitable characters won’t get mentioned at all, no worries. If you have any more questions related to anything I wrote or regarding other (gameplay) aspects of the game, feel free to ask and I might add something about it to the post.

This got long so under the readmore it goes

- The Training Grounds are incredibly useful. Not for leveling up someone’s main class - if you use the unit enough, that’ll just happen on its own - but to collect abilities and combat arts from other classes. The Training Grounds let you train any class the character has available, so look through what your characters can get from their various classes and see if anything could help them in the class you want to play them as. Standout abilities I went for on a lot of units are Offensive Tactics from Wyvern Rider (free damage boost) Armsthrift from Archer (lets you spam out more combat arts and spells, extra useful in long battles or if your character has a very expensive spell) and the Essence abilities from Warlock if the character in question was using a lot of elemental attacks. Trickster, Mortal Savant and Dark/Holy Knight can also benefit greatly from using the Training Grounds to learn spells from the Monk tree. Just read carefully to make sure the thing you want actually works with the class you have - the [Class] Ploy and [Class] Wisdom abilities only work in their own class lines, for example.

- If you, like me, don’t really vibe with playing as mages or bow users, the Training Grounds can help you out too - keep them around and have the AI control them in battle, and let your mages climb through the Soldier class tree through the Training Grounds. Once they can become Dark or Holy Knights, they can bring all their favorite spells with them, and all you need is a magic lance (for example, one with the Invert Physical/Magic effect on it) to get a very strong unit out of it. Casting big spells is much safer when you can immediately use your horse’s mobility to get out of danger. Bow users work similarily because the Bow Knight’s moveset makes your archer a lot more mobile.

- Forging, at least early on, is for suckers. The game keeps giving you stronger and stronger pre-forged weapons and you need to invest a lot of resources into your weapons to even keep pace with the cool new stuff the game throws at you, especially if you’re trying to forge a weapon for everyone. Related, the materials needed for forging Hero’s Relics and Sacred Weapons are best saved up until you upgrade the Blacksmith enough to be able to unleash their effects - it’s a massive power and durability boost, and gives each weapon special effects as well, so you definitely want to make sure you have the materials saved up to do it as soon as you unlock it. Once your character has what you think will be their final weapon - an unleashed relic, a strong unique weapon or a weapon with a nice Lv3 effect - that’s when you start forging away.

(the only exception to the above tip is if you have a unique effect like Invert Physical/Magic that you really want to keep around bc your unit depends on it. That can be hard to come by, so it can be very well worth upgrading your weak weapon for)

- Similarily, upgrading the selection of the weapon shop is pretty much a waste of resources too. You’ll only ever be able to buy Iron, Steel, Killer and Silver weapons, no speciality weapons anywhere and they won’t have any unique effects on them, and usually only after the point when the game starts giving you pre-forged versions of them anyways.

- While we’re on the subject of forging, I’ve found that Silver weapons with good effects on them can be a lot more worthwhile than Brave weapons in lategame. Brave weapons require the rare and expensive to trade for Wootz Steel to forge, while Silver still only needs simple Smithing Stones, so you can get a lot more forges on a Silver than on a Brave for the same resource cost, which more than makes up for the small head start Brave weapons’ stats have. If you get a random Brave weapon with good stats or effects, go for it, but don’t upgrade your Silver to Brave, it’s not worth it.

- So, if you’re not forging early on, what else to do with all your Smithing Stones? Upgrading your base, of course! The Supply Master lets you trade them in for the materials needed to upgrade your base, which can give you all kinds of advantages that’ll do more for you than a quickly powercrept damage boost on a weapon. Personally, I’d recommend going for the Collect Some Surplus Goods upgrade on the Supply Master as soon as you can - the added stones you get for trading in your random garbage add up really quickly to let you do more upgrading elsewhere. Other priorities I go for are unlocking new class certification exams at the Training Grounds (incredibly important to do asap!), letting you repair better weapons at the blacksmith (rusted weapons turn into some of the strongest stuff you’ll get) and expanding what you can do at the Tactics Academy.

- I do have one in-battle tip (by which I mean an equipment tip that helps in battles): Keep your combat arts and spells in the same slots for all your characters based on what they do. For example, all my skillsets follow the same general pattern: In the X slot, a big area of effect attack for crowd control, and in the Y slot, a more focused attack that deals lots of damage to a single target to take down bosses. That way, I don’t have to constantly re-think which character had what art in what slot, even if I’m switching between them a lot. If I need crowd control, I hit the X art, and if I’m fighting a boss, I hit the Y art, and even if I get my characters and skillsets mixed up they’ll still generally do what I want them to.

- Final tip: Windsweep is probably the best combat art in the game. It draws in big crowds and/or multiple minibosses at once, interrupts nearly every enemy attack, starts an aerial combo, lets you break the Stun Gauge, is usually enough to let you get a Critical Rush off on an axe user, and if you happen to have a big fuckoff spell or combat art it’s the perfect opportunity to fire it off while your targets are still stuck in the tornado. Any sword user that can get Windsweep should have Windsweep in their moveset and max out its level as soon as possible so you can spam it more often for less durability cost.

#few3h

[blackroseraven]

Uh oh so I finished the FF7 Remake.

The TLDR? I am displeased.

So let’s start where I roughly left off. Where they decided “we need more fight filler” and turned the climb up the plate into a fight up the plate. They also moved the Heli Gunner fight here and renamed it for some weird reason.

I mean, I guess if they’re going to have a fight up the plate thing moving the Heli Gunner to here makes sense. Annoying fight. Once again the cutscene phase-changes prove to be a burden rather than a blessing.

So we immediately screw up stealthing into the Shinra building and have to kill everyone in the parking garage. This makes zero sense as it would be a high-traffic area so even with someone turning off alarms and stuff for us inside the building it would still. Not work. And the fights get repetitive quick.

Also Soldier 3rd Class are annoying. And yet Crazy Motorcycle was a Soldier 3rd Class and he was super tough, while these guys are just “randomly counterattack with vacuum wave” and “spam magic.”

Get to the lobby. What do we find? An unnecessary interaction sequence. Also we know for a fact that Cloud and Tifa can definitely jump high enough to get on top of the open-ceilinged reception area. But anime rules, where the hero got no ups unless they’re in battle.

Tifa falling on her ass into the rear lobby is stupid. She’s a combat master athletic genius. I hate how they did some very basic outfit changes to appease whiny people about the “depiction of her character” and then she’s constantly in need of being saved or failing at life, which makes her appear far weaker than a lady in a skirt. It’s the same problem the RE3 Remake had, where they put pants on Jill and then made her cry and scream a lot.

Anyway. I of course choose The Stairs. Which they ruined the comedy of because part of the joke was Cloud getting to the top of the stairs and being fine and the others being exhausted. Also you can find secrets in the staircase in the original, but hey, we can’t have that.

I loathe the redesign of the Shinra building. It’s so lame and wastes so much time, and they clearly took things they wanted from the original game - the Cosmo Canyonesque theater, for example - and then just shoved them in here.

And the goddamn Sephiroth visions just giving everything away.

Also I disliked the Mayor. And how he was Briefly Important and central to the plot and then just completely forgotten about. He was much better as an honest asshole who wanted power but fell victim to it. I hate how much Avalanche has been expanded; it helps shift blame away from Barret but also creates a lot of questions about just what this rebel military-armed group was doing while Barret was accomplishing things in his messy way, even if him doing so was part of Shinra’s plot.

Also the fact that Avalanche exists only when convenient for the game’s plot and otherwise it focuses on the Avalanche that is you three.

Well, at least Hojo is still a lunatic asshole.

I did not like the Experiment boss fight. It literally just became a mock Resident Evil boss with too many phases. 

Well, we save Aerith. Which is followed by Armored Shock Troopers appearing, because they have to work them in, but they have lightsabers. They still explode - which does an idiotic amount of damage, and the character AI is too stupid to back off and thus DIES - and the skater bois that come out of them are obnoxious.

What the hell is up with Red XIII. With this whole sequence. Why is he in uncontrollable beast mode after clearly being calm and quiet. This wasn’t necessary.

More plot revelation. And Jenova. Including a full-on Cloud Meltdown.

Now we cut abruptly to the Turks and get their perspective for a bit and a touch of conscience. It’s ridiculous, though. Rude is again saying they did the wrong thing but he’s the one who hit the button when he had a great excuse not to. They did such a bad job with this part. Tseng also spouts some fake wisdom, because clearly Heidigger or the President wouldn’t have any guilt about dropping a plate. President Shinra wants to just abandon the whole city, after all!

This part just sticks in my craw because there was so much they could have done to help excuse what the Turks were forced to do, there were so many little outs to give them more conscience and character, and they keep fumbling the ball and making them “just following orders” guys instead, which takes away any redemption or humanity.

.............Whispers.

............................Aribiters of “FATE.”

What the GOD DAMN SHIT IS THIS.

Noooo no no no no noooo. This is something I hate because it’s second only to Time Travel in “Ways To Hide the Deus Ex Machina of Author Influence,” and it’s almost always done badly.

Guess what guys it’s done reaaaaal bad here.

First off the Whispers change destiny purely through their existence and interference. It’s ugly and unsubtle. Second there’s no explanation why “The Planet” wills this; it’s just a lot of “look we gotta do it this way guyz” to hide the fact that “The Planet” is “Sort Of the Original Plot of FF7.”

And yet there’s also been so many changes to that plot that the Whispers haven’t cared about! It also just erases the idea that your choices ever mattered throughout this whole game.

Avalanche HQ is coming to rescue us apparently. Have I mentioned there was no giant Avalanche organization before?

Aaaaaand of course they had to cram this infamous scene in of Sephiroth before Jenova. Because of course he’s here. In the flesh. We’re just going to meet him right now.

Cloud falls into. A mess. He’s also fine after his fall because anime.

Did I mention this game is a victim of filler over content?

What in the hell you can’t even use Red XIII he’s just a bot? COME ON. Like you were supposed to have him during the Experiment boss fight and I was like “oh they changed that oh well” but to not have him playable or even commandable at all? It feels so lazy and it feels like this ended up being a lot of messy rushwork.

My lord this whole section ends up feeling like a bad Resident Evil fanfic mashed into Final Fantasy world. We’re just murdering BOWs. Some of whom have extremely annoying attacks that they spam and made me really mad.

And then the Brain Pod. A completely unnecessary boss battle that went from “strategize” to “mash the attack button angrily while my PS4 gets angry at the crazy amount of slowdown from all of the Pods staggering at once.”

Anyway this was gross.

And it all just leads to Hojo letting us go once he has enough “data.” I hate this.

We find President Shinra dangling off the edge of the building. Why? No one knows. The girls cry that Barret is being too mean to the evil corporate capitalist. Barret somehow ends up alone with Shinra who turns from crying man to Bond villain, complete with Golden Gun, monologuing away until he gets backstabbed by Sephiroth. Who then stabs Barret. Who ends up being fine because Whispers.

Literally saying “hey don’t worry it’s fine if you die we’ll just fix it” making it feel as if everything is pointless.

Oh good, Jenova.

The fight wasn’t terrible. I am going to complain that Jenova Dreamweaver is not in the naming convention of the Jenova. It’s Birth, Life, Death; they couldn’t go with Embryo or something like that?

But again, the fight was. Longer than it needed to be but not awful. 

And then Sephiroth. Who. Just. Fucking flies away. TWICE. Pointlessly. Carrying the dead body. And yet another unsubtle reveal. 

Of course they made Rufus even prettier - also how did Reno and Rude get to that helicopter? - and of course he has a Coat of Many Belts.

And of course he’s an Anime Prettyboi now too. Sure, President Shinra was a Bond Villain but Rufus and his Doggo fight and Assess literally just gives you riddles instead of fucking telling you what to do I wasted an action for goddamn NOTHING.

I hated this fight. I hated that they made him apparently stronger than a soldier when he’s only been depicted as a dude with a shotgun, not a Trigun character. Like that was the point of Rufus; he’s ballsy and brash but he’s ultimately a corporate head. Now he’s Anime Bad Guy No. 1.

Anyway, Triple Slash him when he’s Leashed, then wait for him to reload and Braver him when possible to Stagger in the next phase.

Even though Braver has a garbage charge-up time and terrible accuracy and half the time he reloads too fast so he just counters you and then does random anime moves until he sporadically decides he’s out of ammo and reloads his gun(s).

The Arsenal fight that follows is very poorly designed. The Barrier phase doesn’t add much to the fight, and then it constantly forces you to target the wheels when you want to hit the Main Cannon. They also emphasize Red XIII as just a bot by the way he only Staggers barrier drones when you do a certain action, which is obnoxious, and then he might as well not exist otherwise.

This was a lot of just. Tanking and picking away. Also the fact that the Arsenal loves to corner itself and then use Homing Laser, meaning you can generally only hit the Laser Gun with Thunder-type spells to stop it. And sometimes even that doesn’t work.

“oh no what do we do it’s a Chargin’ its Lazers” oh it’s dead before you finished your gasp because of course we just FUCKING SHOOT IT.

Motorcycle Time. I guess the Whispers would have save Heidigger because “important” but who knows better luck next time, Cloud.

You know what really annoyed me here, though? 

They did Crazy Motorcycle Man before, and this is the perfect time for him to show up, especially since he promised a rematch.

And he never shows up.

All that potential. All that buildup. For nothing.

Anyway I died like four times on the Motorball boss fight because of control issues and a lot of frustrated mashing. Like actually Yes, this is something that was improved on: Motorball as a motorcycle boss makes sense.

Then. Sephiroth.

Who clearly just defies fate or whatever and opens a magic portal to. No Fate World or something.

frick.

Like a) this is dumb and b) this is clearly what Sephiroth wants and if they stopped to think for a moment they’d realize maybe his destiny is to be defeated which is why he’s doing this. Except c) Sephiroth clearly disobeys the Whispers whenever he pleases and they can’t do dick-all about it which MAKES NO SENSE.

and Zack. And the Crisis Core ending, no less. Just with Whispers now in the background because WHY NOT.

I hate this. I hate all of this.

Aerith wants to stop Sephiroth. Yes I would also like to stop the man I have visions of killing me and the planet. They like largely stopped writing her character at the end of the game, did you notice that? She becomes very flat apart from a few really stand-out moments and it bothers me a lot. I get that they’re trying to show “inner Aerith” and create pathos but all the lines she’s given are so flat. So stereotypical. It’s not like the good moments where she’s like “I don’t care, he sucks.” in response to Cloud warning her about fighting Sephiroth. 

And.

JUST A MINUTE YOU GUYS I NEED TO GO BACK TO THE VENDING MACHINE AND BUY SOME STUFF BEFORE WE BREAK THE BONDS OF DESTINY ITSELF.

oh my lordt this was so crudely done and absolutely just shatters the atmosphere. There were better ways to do this and time the Point of No Return than this. It’s like if you reached the Heart of the Planet in the original and then were like “oh wait I gotta go to the store” and you went five feet backwards to a random shop run by a moogle or something.

First we fight the Whispers. And they’re just Spammy Assholes.

The first phase of the fight was probably the hardest part because the mirrored Whispers were just. Jackasses, and Assess was useless as always.

It’s so messy. They crammed so much “action” together and the phases are badly thought out and long and aggravating. What the shit is “Whisper Bahamut” and why does he have unblockable high-damage energy balls he can just spam at you? Why does he randomly get to Mega Flare with like five seconds of warning? 

I didn’t even know when to summon because I thought “oh there’s gotta be something even worse we gotta fight the Big Guy, right?”

No we just break Bahamut up and then the rest of the phases are remarkably easy. Like they dumbed down the AI and even when they rage you can shred them pretty quickly.

Just a Bell Curve of Terrible.

And of course. We immediately follow up with a Sephiroth battle. SE PHI ROTH

I hate this. I hate all of this.

Punisher Mode to pressure and stagger Sephiroth. And that’s all I’ve really got for you until we get to the Stupid Phase where for some reason he starts using basic bitch elemental magic and charging himself with those element for Really Obvious weaknesses. This is like Magic Opposites 101 and you can’t do this for a final boss battle. The only time I’ve ever seen this really work as a final fight is in Lords of Shadow when you fight Satan.

Also. Scanning Sephiroth? UNKNOWN UNKNOWN.

You know what that reads to me like? They couldn’t be assed to put in any information.

Anyway, I get Sephiroth to his last phase - why is he using Supernova he DOES NOT HAVE THE BLACK MATERIA - and nuke him with Tifa and Cloud’s Level 2 Limits.

“Mwah I’m still here Cloud : ) you can’t beat me yet”

7 seconds. Is that supposed to be a reference?

Because guess what it makes me think of?

“SEVEN MINUTES. SEVEN MINUTES IS ALL I CAN SPARE...”

thanks guys great ending.

Also Zack is alive? Somehow we changed the past by changing the future? 

I hate this different timeline bullshit. I really, really do. The only good thing about the final fight in this game is that I was able to get the Buster Sword stronk enough to use it instead of any of the other stupid weapons.

I am Not Happy. 

The worst part, though, was definitely how in the endgame phase I was having issues not because of strategy or even being underleveled, but because enemies just... spam attacks at you. There’s a lot of poor design choices too, like how Sephiroth purposefully chases and targets whatever character you’re currently controlling: it makes it extremely frustrating to get AI characters to disengage so you can heal and such. 

Also like. Sephiroth is literally just using his moveset from Dissidia for the most part. Again it gives that feeling of jankiness at times, and like things were rushed in development and production. Like there’s ways to pay homage to the style and keep the way he moves without seeming to copy directly; a lot of the time he doesn’t feel smooth but rather sudden and sharp, and there’s a big difference.

So yeah.

The ending is stupid. We broke destiny for the whole world?

This isn’t FF7 at the end of it all. It’s not even really a remake. It feels more like FF7 III, or FF7B. Not a retelling or reimagining, but deja vu, something happening all over again because I dunno, someone made a wish on a monkey’s paw for a chance to save the world.

Especially because of the scenes where they have “memories” and visions of things that were really supposed to be huge surprises in the future. Does everyone know Aerith dies in FF7? Sure. Is it necessary to bring it up over and over again in the remake? Absolutely not. 

So yeah.

Finished the game. I might do one or two levels on Hard Mode just to see what these “manuscripts” are. I hate how it eliminates the importance of any choice or variance along the way with the destiny bullshit that then gets deus ex’d away anyway by Sephiroth. I hate the constantly feeling of authorial intent and interference, the plot holes and railroading. 

The game itself? It’s not terrible! It’s got a lot of good things going for it. It feels rushed at times and like there was a lot of quantity over quality. But here’s the thing: it doesn’t feel like a Final Fantasy game. It feels like an anime JRPG, like it would fit right in with the Tales series.

Here, freebie for you: rename it Tales of Midgard. The uh... Storm Discord, Diva, and Pin fighting against the evil Megami Corporation. And Storm keeps having visions of the former AGENT, Sefirah, and Neyhewh. Destiny says they will call a great Armageddon to the planet but they can break the bonds of Fate, blah blah blah, I’m not turning this into a Tales game for free hit me up Bandai.

Anyway I’m obviously bitter and jaded and probably being a little unfair, but these are my long and cranky thoughts. The ending of it all just ruined a lot of the game for me, as fun as a lot of it admittedly was, and when they did things well, they did things well! 

But they did so many of my unfavorite things and the quality just seemed to drop by the endgame, which really killed it for me. 

Especially that fucking ridiculous “pull up contest.”

Literally gave me a headache trying to do that minigame. But that might just be because of my brain problems, so. You know.

Okay. I am off to find some new thing to torment myself with.

#games #blackroseraven plays games #blackroseraven ff7 remake #rant

[fnaf-phoenix-au]

Hello and welcome!

This is the blog for the Phoenix AU, formerly the Everyone Lives AU.

I'll try to answer questions when I have time (and if I don't forget the blog exists but that's a secret between you and me), but chances are your question will eventually be answered!

You can ask a character a question, or me if it's about the AU itself that either can't be answered in-universe or you want a response from me as the creator (please specify if it's the second one, but otherwise any questions answered directly by me are because the characters can't explain).

There's very few rules to this blog, but there are some boundaries to what you can ask for my own safety (and sanity in some cases).

You CAN: - Ask silly things! The Phoenix AU is basically just my "it's my AU and I decide what's canon" AU, so asking every character you can if they can do a flip is definitely within the ruleset. - Reblog the post to continue a conversation! I'll probably cut it off in the tags at some point to keep one ask chain from taking over the entire blog, but until then feel free to keep going.

You CAN'T: - Ask sexual things. I was going to say general NSFW, but since blood and gore is often considered NSFW I will specify sexual. This doesn't mean you can't ask about a character's sexuality, that's completely fine! There's a difference between asking if a character is gay and asking if you can fuck one of the characters. - Spam the ask button with the same thing over and over. There has to be different question and/or character for each ask.

I am very ready to add to these rules if I must.

DNI if you are:

A pedophile, necrophile, zoophile etc.

Proship

Racist

Sexist

LGBTQ+phobic (yes, this includes you, TERFs)

Zionist, pro-Israel, or neutral

I will probably be adding to the DNI list at some point. These are just the things I can think of off the top of my head.

Finally, now that everything else is out of the way, we have the sheer insanity of just how many characters you could theoretically ask in this AU! It takes place a bit after Ruin, maybe a few weeks/a month. I'll sort the characters by game/first official appearance (characters who are technically the same as another will be listed as the name/appearance they use in the AU, such as the Withereds being the Classics):

FNaF 1

Classic Freddy

Classic Bonnie

Classic Chica

Classic Foxy

FNaF 2

Toy Freddy

Toy Bonnie

Toy Chica

The Mangle

The Puppet

Shadow Freddy

Shadow Bonnie

Charlie Emily

FNaF 3

Springbonnie/trap

William Afton

FNaF 4

Evan Afton

Sister Location

Funtime Freddy

BonBon

Funtime Foxy

Ballora

Circus Baby

Yenndo

Bonnet

Lolbit

Michael Afton

Elizabeth Afton

Pizzeria Sim

Rockstar Bonnie

Rockstar Chica

Rockstar Foxy

Funtime Chica

Mr. Hippo

Orville Elephant

Happy Frog

Nedd Bear

Music Man

Helpy

Henry Emily

Security Breach/Ruin

Glamrock Freddy

Glamrock Bonnie

Glamrock Chica

Roxanne Wolf

Montgomery Gator

Daycare Attendant

Vannesa

Gregory

Cassie

Other

Susie

Gabriel

Fritz

Jeremy

Cassidy

Unavailable Characters and Why

Golden Freddy/Fredbear: by this point the animatronic is too damaged to function, and while Michael could fix him, he's not sure he wants to (everyone understands why, for one reason or another)

Jeremy Fitzgerald: something happened, I'm not sure what yet but it leaves him unavailable

The Phantoms: they're hallucinations and not real characters you can hold a conversation with

The Nightmares: similar to the Phantoms, they are nightmares and you can't hold a conversation with them (they'd just kill you)

Bidybabs/Minireenas: this is going to sound lazy but honestly I can't be bothered with them (yes this counts for Electrobab too)

Rockstar Freddy: Everyone Lives was technically a lie since the fire absolutely fried his circuits beyond repair

Lefty: Charlie shoved Henry into Lefty and he hasn't gotten out yet (Charlie's letting him figure that out on his own since he thought trapping her in the bear-shaped timeout box was a good idea)

Glitchtrap: it's basically just a lil bit of William's soul that got into some circuit boards and didn't get the "I'm in hell" memo, so it's pretty much the same as asking William something

DJ Music Man: Michael and the Funtimes couldn't move him out of the ruined Pizzaplex, so sadly he's still left there (don't worry, he understands)

STAFF Bots/PatPats/Map Bot/Mask Bot: I hopefully don't need to explain why

The Mimic: let's just say there was a scooper incident while Michael and the Funtimes were getting Cassie and the other animatronics out of the Pizzaplex

None of the characters from Fazbear Frights or Tales from the Pizzaplex are here If I did do something like that it would be a different AU blog!

And that concludes my Mr. Hippo story of a post on a probably overambitious project that luckily I am doing on my own time and can figure it out as I go!

#ooc post #fnaf phoenix au

[prismatic-glow]

A little bit of an odd question; do you have any teams you like and find fun that have a decent synergy but are somewhat outside the norm (of the meta or default character team suggestions)? It’s ok if not! I’m just trying to dig up anything neat to try since a lot of team suggestions default to variations of national and the like.

Hi there!! thanks for this ask

One of the reasons I learned teambulding/character building was so I could make my own teams that worked well but weren't just xiangling/kazuha/bennett. Honestly, this is why I love Chevreuse so much!! Overloaded has never been meta but she gives a lot of flexibility to play around with teams of characters I like that end up working well because of her very strong passives.

The one I'm enjoying right now is Yoimiya/Beidou/Chevreuse/Bennett. It does use bennet who isn't everyone's fave but it's super fun to just spam normal attacks with Yoimiya to create lots of explosions, while still dealing good damage. I suppose if you don't like using Bennett, Thoma or even Dehya if you want to use her would probably work fine, too!

I also used to play some fun and comfy Kokomi taser (electro-charged) teams! Not sure how they preform in Abyss but they are super fun to use. I believe the the team was Kokomi/Fischl/Beidou/Sucrose (this was before I had Kazuha). Electro-charged has always been one of my favorite reactions and I love Kokomi (especially onfield, her animations are sooo pretty) so I made this team! Starts off with the basic swirl hydro swirl electro and then you burst on Kokomi and get to throw fish at the enemies. Electro-charged tends to really melt HP and when combined with good personal damage from Kazuha, Decent damage from Kokomi and clam, great damage from Fischl + Beidou, Kokomi's healing, AND tons of energy from Fischl, it's overall a very fun and comfy type team

One genre of teams that I haven't tried yet but really want to are the different rainbow Dendro team variations. It seems like you just combine as many Dendro reactions as you can and it just looks super fun. I definitely plan on trying it out!

that's all I can think of atm but I hope this answered your question!

have fun playing!! <33

#genshin impact #genshin #genshin ask blog #genshin guide #genshin help #genshin impact advice #genshin advice #new to genshin #˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ ask replies

[quickdeaths]

is there a specific character archetype you enjoy writing the most? what inspires you when making your ocs? what genre do you enjoy writing in the most? (Hey Bryn, you got any of that OC brainrot? I need to spam your askbox with that good brainrot. It's leaking out of discord!)

is there a specific character archetype you enjoy writing the most?

I did already answer this, but I prepared a second answer just for you, Rae. This should be of truly Zero Surprise to you, but I like characters who are emotionally closed off about their own feelings and eventually open up. This doesn't always look like same, I think. Just on this blog alone, I would say that Shinobu is closed off where it's obviously coldness and general discomfort with emotions period, while with someone like Izumi it's more anxiety and feeling like a burden on other people and not wanting to drag people down with her issues, and with Tsubasa, it's a veneer of "I'm funny, I'm cool, I'm laid back and chill, I'm not damaged, I'm not sad, I'm totally fine, let me take care of you, pretty girl, I don't want you to worry about me."

I think in general, it can be hard to be open about your feelings and it's easy to build up walls and mechanisms that keep you from having to think about them and frankly, I put my characters through the goddamn wringer sometimes. So, then the questions of "how are they dealing with this, what coping mechanism are they adopting , and how, ultimately, are they going to try and take those walls down and turn those mechanisms off in service of connecting intimately (whether that's romantically or platonically) with another person?" just naturally follow.

what inspires you when making your ocs?

Depends! Sometimes it's to be a foil to another character (either an OC that a friend is writing, or more rarely, a canon character). Sometimes (often) it's a situation where there's a hole in the canon, or some idea that I think would have been interesting but wasn't explored. Sometimes I am simply gripped by Pure Spite at some piece of canon that I hate and a powerful drive to change it in some small way. Increasingly, other people that I know in the RPC are the biggest inspiration, and not in a "I want to design a character like X's character" way, but rather a "I want to design a character that would have interesting interactions with X's character." That's kind of how the DR OCs were all made, since they were originally designed to do things with my girlfriend's Discord DR OCs.

The things I try to keep in mind are like, A) is this character different enough from what I already have to justify existing? B) is this character grounded in the world that they are inhabiting (or if they're fandomless, are they grounded in the genre or macro-setting)? C) Is there enough here that I am going to be excited to write them for weeks, months, or years? D) Are there ways for other people (IC, and OOC) to meaningfully impact the direction of the stories?

The process can be a little different every time, but it's broadly things like coming up with an aesthetic, coming up with the themes of the character and what their struggles are, and then checking them against that little checklist above. It's not always possible, and these dorks end up surprising me sometimes, but I try to have a full image in my head of who a character is and what they're about before I write them with another person.

what genre do you enjoy writing in the most?

Well, I do like slow burn romance ehehe... It's hard to pick a "Favorite" though. Speaking of "genre" rather than "setting," I really enjoy character-driven stories that have romance elements, but also skew a bit more realistically in terms of time and realistic(ish) depiction of obstacles and pitfalls. I love angst (not all the time, a little can go a long way, but romance without angst is like food without spices for me). I like fantasy (although is that a genre or a setting or both?) but a specific kind of fantasy, at least when it comes to writing. I like supernatural/paranormal/whatever a little bit, but definitely in a more grounded and realistic way. I actually love horror and run a ton of horror TTRPG games, but I don't think I'm necessarily good at it in pure text mediums.

As like a big overarching thing, I would say that I do like writing romance when it makes sense and is mutually desired, and more generally, I just like writing stories with deep characterization, some kind of relationship, and a development of both that relationship and those characters over time.

#morethanaprincess #thanks for the ask! #answered memes #so many thoughts i have been enabled #thank youuuuuuu