#i already have enough main dps to make like 11 or 12 teams

[starlight-eclipsed]

DP X Pokémon Crossover AU

Because I lack restraint. (Dark version + AU details under cut)

1. Drs. Fenton are still very anti-ghost, only in this world they argue that as dead people they should not count as Pokémon. They are especially vocal about children having Ghost-types (comparing it to grooming/they want to steal your kids away, which is not helped by certain Pokédex descriptions), which is a perspective that gains traction in some areas. 2. As you can imagine, this does not make them liked in most circles.

3. Despite that, they travel all over the globe to spread their message and research sites with a particularly dense Ghost-type population.

4. The GIW are similar to Team Galactic in this AU. They're more intense than the Fentons and automatically class all Ghost-types as threats. Everyone knows they're bad news, but they're a well established organization and nobody can really go against them legally.

5. The Fentons are invited to the Alola region by the Aether Foundation, as they're currently invested in portals-ghosts-ultra beasts-ultra space and those fields are suspected to have a lot of overlap.

6. Jazz had spilt from the family when she was younger to go on her Pokémon journey when she was 13, having originally stayed back to look after Danny. She encountered a hurt Munna when they were in the Unova region, who would become her starter Pokémon.

7. She starts to realize just how wrong her parents were when she starts fighting Team Plasma alongside two kids her brother's age, but that's a different story. A part of her wishes she'd insisted on Danny starting his journey with her--she thinks he would've liked Sam and Tucker.

8. Danny is pretty disillusioned to the thought of a Pokémon journey by the time he's 14 and his parents still haven't let him strike out alone.

9. He does have a Staryu he befriended a couple regions ago. But considering his family's affinity for Psychic-types he was essentially told he couldn't go off alone until Staryu evolved into Starmie (a Water and Psychic-type). However he can't really train with his parents' supervision when they're always busy, so he's effectively stuck.

10. One day in Alola, he spots a wild Minior. His brain essentially goes 'hey look another star-themed little space guy', and he sneaks away from his parents to go see if he can catch it.

11. Water-type Staryu is super effective against Rock and Flying-type Minior, and he gets his second Pokémon!

12. He stops by his parents' lab to tell them the news, but is quickly distracted by a strange Pokémon being kept in a ring-like passage in the wall. He enters when he hears its cries.

13. No matter the dimension, the Fentons have a tendency to put switches on the inside.

14. Young Danny Fenton woke up on the shore of one of Alola's main islands, clutching a little Cosmog in his arms. The little space guy roster has expanded.

15. With some assistance from the local professor, Danny returns to the apartment, electing to hide Cosmog as he tries to figure out what to do. And then Ultra Wormholes start opening all over the region.

16. Good news! Thanks to whatever happened with Ozzy (He can't exactly call them Cosmog in fear of being overheard), he can now sense when a wormhole opens. Ozzy can even teleport them there and back.

17. Bad news! His parents and every researcher in the area wants to catch and study the beings that get dragged through and start causing havoc.

18. Which would be bad enough without the revelation that Danny can now understand what certain Pokémon are saying (Ghost-types or otherwise space-related).

19. On the plus side, his parents were insistent that he start his journey as a Pokémon trainer so that he can defend himself should these 'Ultra Beasts' attack. Due to some confusion in which they ask the local Pokémon Professor to help him start his journey, he also gets to pick a starter Pokémon despite already having some.

20. He initially goes for Rowlet because they're nocturnal, stealthy, can fly, and he could use a Grass-type on his team. The professor is hesitant to let the son of two very anti-ghost scientists to have a starter that gains a Ghost-type in its final evolution (especially right after the debacle in which he gave them a Rotom Dex and they proceeded to chase it out of the device and into the wild), and warns Danny.

21. Danny is thrilled. One day he'll be able to fully talk with his new buddy! It isn't until he's already gone home that he realizes what the professor was trying to warn him of. Thankfully his parents aren't native to the area, so when they scan Rowlet and hear 'Grass-Flying', they don't expect that to change.

22. He meets Rotom shortly afterwards--the one that was in the Alolan Pokédex given to his parents. It was emotionally attached to its old shell, but is scared of being seen taking it back.

23. Danny switches out the Rotom Dex for a standard regional one, which his parents are more than happy to use knowing it hasn't been 'possessed'. The Rotom in question decides to stay with him, randomly taking over various electronics to help Danny out and occasionally battling alonside him.

24. (Danny is both happy to have a new partner and upset that a Pokémon normally characterized by being a trickster is so insistent on proving it's useful and staying out of the way. Cue him and the others helping Rotom play pranks and showing that it's okay to act out sometimes.)

25. Insert brief adventure involving falling into a wormhole, crashing into Hisui, accidentally befriending a weird looking Zorua, and meeting the masters of time (Dialga/Clockwork) and space (he instantly recognizes Palkia--it's the embodiment of space!) to catch a ride back home.

26. The Zorua sneaks back home with him, joining as the sixth member of his team. Danny does some research on the history of Zorua, and discovers that there was a half-Normal half-Ghost strain of them that lived in ancient Sinnoh.

27. By the time he's fifteen, he realizes that with half his team being Ghost-type (that is, when Rowlet fully evolves) and having to hide both Ozzy and his own powers all the time, it's really not a good idea to stick around his parents anymore. What if he loses track of one of his friends, and his parents find them first? And that's completely ignoring the distance that's formed as Danny started helping out the local Ghost-types and hearing all the awful things the Fentons have done.

28. So he packs his stuff, takes a Fenton Thermos (a version of the mobile box storage used in the Galar region, invented by his parents and actually made functional when he and Rotom messed with it. Danny isn't risking catching a seventh Pokémon and them being sent directly to his parents, so he sets up his own account and isolates it to the Thermos), and leaves five years late for his Pokémon while his parents are visiting Aether Foundation's main research base.

29. Cue various shenanigans as Danny and his team travel through dimensions to keep the peace between Ultra Beasts and the rest of reality. Somewhere along the line he starts literally fighting alongside his Pokémon, possibly unlocking more powers. This teenager has no hesitation and will punch a god if given the chance.

30. (His Pokémon were thrilled, thinking it was about time their trainer starts learning some moves. Rotom is the only one distressed by the implications when Danny uses Shadow Ball.)

31. Jazz hears from her parents for the first time in years when they call her panicking about Danny disappearing. She connects some dots from her last call with him and figures he must've finally snapped and ran away to journey with his Pokémon.

32. Danny proceeds to get the most confusing message in his life from Jazz as he's restocking on supplies in a Pokémart somewhere in Kalos. Why was she congratulating him and offering him a couch in a Unovan professor's lab if he's ever in the area?

33. In completely unrelated news, people start recognizing a mysterious trainer that commits acts of vigilantism and speaks in favor of Ghost-types and Ultra Beasts all over the world, resolving conflict both peacefully and through battle. Some rumors say he's a Pokémon himself, a ghost with unfinished business. Others think he's an undercover ranger, finally losing patience with trying to stop bad people the legal way and resorting to direct action.

34. They're calling him Phantom, and his interference is attracting all kinds of attention.

35. Danny just wants everyone to be safe, and is more than happy to be traveling through space with his Pokémon by his side. Maybe one day he'll try a gym challenge or whatever trainers normally do, but for the time being he's more than happy to keep getting stronger while throwing down with various Pokémon across dimensions.

#danny phantom #pokemon crossover #my art

[raeynbowboi]

Building the Titans as a DnD Party

A typical DnD party is best off being a 5-man band, with roughly five main roles to fill: the Tank, the Blaster (ranged damage), Healer, Stealth, and DPS roles, and the Teen Titans fit this very very nicely. So, I want to approach building the team as a cohesive unit. I’ve tackled building the characters independently, but some fall into a build in relation to other characters’ builds. The challenge here is to build the team to function nicely together as a unit.

ROBIN ( Party Role: Leader, Stealth, melee combatant)

Race: Human Background: Entertainer (Acrobatics, Performance) Classes:    Mastermind Rogue (12)    Battle Master Fighter (7)    Monk (1) Stats:    (SA) STR 11 DEX 20 CON 16 INT 14 WIS 20 CHA 9    (PB) STR 11 DEX 20 CON 16 INT 12 WIS 20 CHA 10 Skills:    Acrobatics    Deception    Investigation    Perception    Performance    Stealth Fighting Style: Dueling Battle Master Maneuvers:    Disarming Attack    Feinting Attack    Maneuvering Attack    Parry    Reposte Tools: Thieves’ Tools, Tinkerer’s Tools

With Robin’s subclasses, he can study an opponent and discern their HP, Level, AC, and any stat compared to his own, allowing Robin to be an expert in deducing the weaknesses of his adversaries. He also has the ability to give himself advantage, allowing Robin to make use of Sneak Attack damage even in a one-on-one fight. Robin’s 1 level in Monk is only there for the AC, and if you feel it’s unnecessary, he can drop it for another level in Fighter and another ASI or feat. This Robin excels at infiltration and finding clues like a classic detective, and with his maneuvering attack can reposition his party around the battlefield, moving injured allies toward Raven for healing, or helping melee fighters close the gap with enemies. Robin’s other maneuvers make him adept at creating openings in his enemies’ combat, such as making mages drop their spellcasting focus. If the DM is willing to rework Commander’s Strike maneuver to not be exclusively for melee attacks, letting Robin tell his party to attack instead of him can allow party members to exploit an enemy’s weaknesses that he can’t bypass himself, which is a good quality for a leader.

STARFIRE (Party Roles: Blaster, Tank, Talker)

Race: Protector Aasimar Background: Soldier (Athletics, Intimidation) Class:    Phoenix Sorcerer (20) Stats:    (SA) STR: 14, DEX: 12, CON: 18, INT: 10, WIS: 9, CHA: 20    (PB) STR: 14, DEX: 12, CON: 18, INT: 8, WIS: 10, CHA: 20 Skills:    Arcana    Athletics    Intimidation    Persuasion Feats:    Elemental Adept (Fire) Metamagic:    Empowered Spell    Heightened Spell    Quickened Spell    Twinned Spell

Between the boys who are all mostly melee combatants and Raven who is more of a support role, Starfire is the long-range magical powerhouse whose spell list is exclusively Fire and Radiant damaging spells. While Starfire lacks the superhuman strength she really should have, I figured her alien endurance was more valuable, as it made her able to get up and keep fighting harder. While I did in earnest consider a build where she’s an aasimar Brute Fighter or Zealot Barbarian (both of which would prioritize her super strength) while reducing her starbolts to the Firebolt cantrips she’d pick up with magic initiate, when it comes to party composition, the party already has Cyborg who tends to use physical combat more often than Starfire, despite her being stronger than him, as well as Robin and Beast Boy who are also close-range fighters. The party is better aided by her making use of immense magical power.

BEAST BOY (Party Roles: Utility, Wildcard)

Race: Longtooth Shifter Background: Folk Hero (Animal Handling, Survival) Class: Circle of the Moon Druid (20) Stats:    (SA) STR: 18, DEX: 20, CON: 12, INT: 8, WIS: 13, CHA: 14    (PB) STR: 18, DEX: 20, CON: 10, INT: 8, WIS: 14, CHA: 14  Skills:    Animal Handling    Nature    Perception    Survival

This one’s pretty straightforward. We need to turn into animals, a druid is the only way to do that. If you want to channel your Beast Within, feel free to do a 16/4 split and add some Barbarian levels with the Path of the Beast, but for standard Beast Boy, focus on wildshaping into the highest CR monsters that you can.

RAVEN ( Party Roles: Healer, Magic Utility, Diplomat)

Race: Asmodeus Tiefling (Variant: Winged Bloodline Tiefling) Background: Far Traveler (Insight, Perception) Classes:    Theurgy Wizard (Knowledge Domain) (19)    Rogue (1) STATS    (SA) STR: 8, DEX: 13, CON: 16, INT: 20, WIS: 16, CHA: 10    (PB) STR: 8, DEX: 14, CON: 16, INT: 20, WIS: 16, CHA: 10 Skills:    Arcana    History    Insight    Medicine    Perception    Religion

While the single level in rogue is not mandatory, it gives Raven the ability to have Expertise in two skills, letting her super charge her Insight and Perception. As Raven is an empath who can sense people’s emotions, read people like an open book, and even sense how many people are in a city on the other side of a bay, Raven’s extrasensory powers should be extremely impressive. So despite Raven not being much of a people person, her ability to sense emotions makes her invaluable as a negotiator and lie detector for her party, as well as scouting for lost children and fugitives. With her Wizard levels, Raven can have a truly staggering amount of spells, including abjuration shields, telekinetic spells to move objects, psionic blasts, messing with the senses or emotions of other creatures, and bypassing environmental hazards. With this extensive list of abilities, Raven becomes a veritable swiss army knife of dealing with problems. Between healing, defensive, offensive, and utility spells, Raven becomes insanely adaptable. While Psychic Soul Sorcerer and Fiend Warlock could work for Raven, those are CHA casters which steps on Starfire’s toes as a Sorcerer. So, Theurgy is the best way for Raven to be a healer, and makes her an INT caster. Knowledge not only gives her extra expertise skills, but it fits her character as the wise scholar of the party. Asmodeus, the Greater Deity of the Nine Hells, has Knowledge as one of his domains, allowing Raven to pray to him while fitting her character. Arcana is another good option, as it adds to her Wizard spell list and helps her break spell effects on her party, but at the loss of her extra expertise. Life Domain can also work if you’re leaning toward White Raven and making her a dedicated healer. Making Raven a Winged Bloodline Tiefling gives her the ability to fly endlessly, a good answer for her floating in the show, but not all DMs will allow it. Her WIS score can be lower, I used 16 to super charge her Insight and Perception checks, but if concentration and health matters more, she can easily get by with a WIS score of 14 or even 12.

CYBORG (Party Roles: Tank, DPS, Blaster)

Race: Variant Human (PB: +1 CON, +1 INT) (SA: +1 STR, +1 CON) Background: Athlete (Athletics, Acrobatics) Classes:    Brute Fighter (16)    Artillerist Artificer (4) Stats:    (SA) STR: 20, DEX: 11, CON: 20, INT: 18, WIS: 8, CHA: 12    (PB) STR: 20, DEX: 10, CON: 20, INT: 18, WIS: 8, CHA: 10 Skills:    Acrobatics    Athletics    Intimidation    Investigation    Perception Fighting Style: Unarmed Combat Feats:    Heavy Armor Mastery (V. Human) (+1 STR) Items:    Molten Bronze Skin (Plate)    Force Ballista (Tiny)

Some may cry foul that Cyborg is neither a Warforged nor a 100% Artificer, but Cyborg was born Human, that is is his racial identity. And with the Molten Bronze Skin from Theros, the metal can coat Cyborg’s skin so skin-tight that it can’t be removed, like having metal skin, making it a perfect parallel to Cyborg’s lore and character. While Starfire is physically the strongest Titan, she doesn’t tend to prefer physical combat, opting mostly for ranged combat with her starbolts, opening a spot on the team for the heavy-hitting melee combatant, where Cyborg comes in clutch. Between multiple attacks per round, and being able to fire his Force Ballista every bonus action, Cyborg walks away with about the same number of attacks per turn as a full level 20 Fighter as early as level 14. As a Brute, he’ll also add to the damage he deals with each punch, making Cyborg a serious bringer of pain. If your DM hates UA though, Champion works fine for him, it just doesn’t deal as much damage.

This party composition makes the Teen Titans extremely well-balanced, as every member of the party has a primary role, but also cover a wide variety of skills, play styles, and abilities. They’re diverse enough to be able to handle most anything as a unit, and can handle just about anything thrown at them in combat. There may be some shortcomings like that many creatures resist Starfire’s Fire magic, but her Elemental Adept can help with that, and her other party members can make up for her shortcomings in such fights.

#dnd #dnd 5e #teen titans #titans #teen titans robin #teen titans raven #teen titans starfire #teen titans cyborg #teen titans beast boy #teen titans beastboy #robin #raven #starfire #cyborg #beast boy #beastboy #garfield logan #gar #rachel roth #koriand'r #victor stone #dick grayson #dungeons and dragons #dnd 5th edition #dnd fifth edition #5th edition #Fifth Edition #5e

[frightgothcar]

HEY! Hey, you, reading this!!! I fuckin love writing but what I need to be able to write is a little thing called approval!! If you like this please comment and/or reblog!!!!!!!!!!

Area 51 au thingy. Danny/Wes. Songfic? Not really but the whole idea came from this song. V is based off of @its-towarzysz (main)/ @we-all-horny-here (sanders sides sideblog)/ @cockworktower (dp side blog) you should check them out, they make hella good content. Thanks to all my friends who helped me with motivation/proofreading. Tw for Death, Blood, Guns, and Violence. (Tell me if I forgot anything). I love this pairing and the lack of content sparks deep anger in my soul!! :)) Thanks for reading, enjoy!!

EDIT: Posting this on ao3 also @/godcannotdefeatfanfic 

September 20th, 10:30 am

Area 51

Wes Weston had nothing to live for. Ever since his Mom had gone out for cigarettes on his 6th birthday and never come back his life had been a constant downward spiral. Maybe that was why he was in the middle of the Nevada desert, preparing to attempt to rush a highly armed government facility with a million other suicidal Millenials.  

He fanned his face with his hand. It was over 86 degrees and he was practically melting in his Casper High spirit T-Shirt and blue jeans. He contemplated getting into his pickup truck and blasting the a/c but considering he only had a quarter tank of gas left, and it was a good 20 miles to the nearest gas station, he decided against it. Instead, he got onto his phone and texted his friends for the third time that morning. 

Basketball-Boi: where r yall? its hot.

Phurry: we’re just driving in!! Do u see us?

Basketball-Boi: uhhh whats ur car look like

Phurry: the silver one

Basketball: V there are like a million silver ones what kind of car

Phurry: uhh Val says its called a subaru we’re right by a black car

Red_Huntress: They’re standing on the roof and waving. Can you see us now?

Wes looked up from his phone to see a person, about his age, standing on the roof of a silver Subaru, wearing a black band t-shirt and neon green booty shorts. Their long blond ponytail swished around their face as they jumped up and down excitedly. A girl stepped out of the car and began scolding her friend. She was wearing a matching red pair of shorts, there was black lettering on her backside that he couldn’t quite make out. He began waving back, which only excited the blond more. They lept over the brown-skinned girl and bolted towards Wes.

“Ready to fuck some aliens, Basketball-Boi?” They pulled him into a tight embrace.

“I was born ready!” He laughed, “How are you, V?”

“Pretty gay, thanks for asking.”

Wes opened his mouth to speak but V cut him off with an excited shout.

“Oh! That reminds me!” They slipped their arms out of their backpack straps and dug through the mint green bag for a minute before pulling a pair of hot pink shorts, “I wanted us all to match! Made ‘em myself!”

They flipped the shorts around to reveal ‘100% Nasty’ embroidered onto the ass in black. They then turned around to show off their own message, that read ‘Trash Man’.

“I made one for Val too, c’mon, we have to wear them!!”

Wes grabbed the shorts and held them to his hips. “Is this what you needed my measurements for?”

They nodded enthusiastically, “I was gonna make us team jackets, but that’s so cliche.”

“Huh, I mean, don’t get me wrong, these are… great, but are you sure pink is my color?”

V rolled their eyes, “Of course I’m sure, Wes! Just put them on, you’ll see.”

Wes sighed and walked behind his red truck for some privacy, not that there was much of that, the field was crowded with cars. He pulled down his blue jeans, thankful for the breeze on his legs, and pulled on the shorts. They were a perfect fit, clinging to his waist, and resting on his barely existent hips. The feeling of showing so much skin was odd to him, he’d never worn anything that short in public, but the look on V’s face made it all worth it to him. They didn’t laugh like he’d been expecting them to, instead clapping their hands and going on about how relieved they were that the shorts actually fit. He did a quick turn for them, and they nodded in satisfaction.

“I think it’s about time we caught up to Val, did y’all remember to bring soda?”

“Only the finest Mountain Dew the 7/11 could provide, M’lady,” V grinned. 

“Than shall we be going, M’lord?” Wes held out his arm.

“Indubitably.” V linked their arm through his and they wandered through the crowd, searching for Valerie’s silver Subaru. 

“Wes! V! Over here!” Val called, waving the hand that wasn’t holding a Mountain Dew at her friends. The two of them waved back and jogged toward her. 

“Hey Val, long time no see,” Wes grinned as he pulled her into a hug.

“I missed ya, Weston,” Val reached up to ruffle his hair, but Wes dodged, pulling her into a headlock instead. 

“Missed ya too, Grey,” He gave her a noogie and released her, leaving her free to jump onto him and boost herself high enough to get revenge.

“Aww, adorable! Old lovebirds rekindling an old flame?” V fluttered their eyelashes at their friends, who immediately recoiled.

“Ew, no! Wes? If I had to pick a guy, maybe. And that’s a hard maybe. I’m too gay for this.” Valerie picked up her can from the hood of her car and took a swig.

“Yeah! She’s like my little sister!”

“Hey, I’m older than you!”

“By like two weeks!”

V broke into laughter, “Cool it lovebirds, I’m only joking.”

Val and Wes rolled their eyes at V, who was now on the ground, rolling with laughter. 

“Permission to pour some soda out onto our hilarious friend’s head?” Val asked teasingly.

“Permission granted! Fire at will!” Wes saluted. Val tipped her can enough to sprinkle V with the sticky green drink. They got to their feet, still laughing, and lunged for Val’s can. They knocked it backward, spilling soda all over Val’s shirt.

“EEK,” She squealed, “You’ll pay for this, Trash Man, If it’s the last thing I do!” 

She tried to push the can towards V, but they still had a grip on her arm. They tugged the can back and forth for a few seconds before it crumpled under the pressure.

“Shit!” Val swore, letting go of the can and cradling her palm. “I think I cut myself.”

V dropped the can, game of tag forgotten, and crowded next to their friend. Wes joined their huddle. 

“I think I have a first aid kit in my truck. How bad is it?” He asked.

Val opened her hand to reveal a small, but deep wound on the side of her palm.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, this is all my fault, if I hadn’t-” V began.

“Naw, it was as much my fault as yours. Anyway, we were having fun, and it’s really just a scratch. Keep focused on those Aliens, Private!” Val reassured them.

“Aye aye, Captain!”

Wes walked back to his truck, ignoring the stares of passerby. He grabbed his first aid kid (thank god for boy scouts) and walked back to Val’s car.

“So,” Wes ripped open a disinfecting wipe with his teeth and got to work cleaning her hand of blood. “How’s your dad?”

“He’s doing-” She drew in a sharp breath as he dabbed along the wound with a clean wipe. “Fine. The new job’s working out great, he’s happier than I’ve seen him in a while.”

Wes nodded and began wrapping her hand in gauze, “I’m glad. He wasn’t himself when you left.”

“It really all did work out for the better, didn’t it,” V smiled and handed Wes a length of medical tape. “Oh! I forgot! Val, show Wes what your ass says!”

She groaned, “Do I have to?”

V scowled, “Of course you have to, it was your idea!”

“I was just joking!”

“Tsk tsk, I think you’ve known me long enough to know that when it comes to cursed content, there are no jokes.”

“C’mon Val, it can’t be worse than ‘100% Nasty’,” Wes smirked.

V gasped dramatically and feigned offense, “You’ve wounded me! I work so hard, and for what, ungrateful friends?”

“Fine, if it’ll make you happy I’ll show him my ass. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She winked at him before turning to show her backside. Black embroidery spelled out ‘Booty Hunter’.

Wes burst out laughing, which quickly turned to hysteric noises only vaguely resembling laughter, squeals, and snorts with shrieking giggles between them. V and Val couldn’t help but join in. The second one of them stopped laughing someone would whisper Booty Hunter and it’d start all over again. 

“Okay, okay,” Wes gulped in air, “We- hic -should calm down now.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Val wiped a tear from her eye, “I am the Queen of Calm.”

V got to their feet and dusted themself off. “Totally calm. Calmer than a… something calm.”

“When does the raid start?” Wes pulled out his phone and checked the time. 12:00.

“Around, 12:30ish, we have time.” V waved their hand.

“I dunno, it’s already 12, maybe we should start getting ready.”

“What do you mean it’s already-” V snatched the phone from his hand, “Huh. Time sure flies when you’re having fun.”

“Wait, get ready for what exactly? I mean, we’re here, we’ve got our shorts on, there’s enough Mountain Dew in my car to drown an elephant, what else is there to get ready?” Val questioned.

“Uhhh, I dunno, stretch?” Wes shrugged, “It just feels like we’re forgetting something. What exactly is the plan for this whole thing anyway? Are there gonna be waves? Do we all go at once? This is a pretty poorly organized event.”

Val shrugged, clearly unphased by the lack of organization, “We’ll just go when everyone else starts running. I’m sure the start of gunfire will tell us when.”

“Look, if it’s making you so worried, we can stretch before. I’m sure everything will be fine. Plus, we all get alien Girlfriends, so it’s a win-win!” V put their hand on his arm. Wes smiled thankfully down at them.

“Yeah, that’s probably it. Yall must think I’m being a nitpick-”

“Not at all! You’re probably right, after all, it must be at least a mile to the base from here, and we can’t let cramps keep us from sweet sweet alien romance.” Val propped her leg up on the hood of her car and pressed her head to her knee, “Plus that’ll give us an advantage over the Kyles.”

V nodded and fell into a lunge, “We’ve been training since July for this, can’t let it get away now because we forgot to stretch.”

Wes bent over and touched his toes, “Thanks y’all, you’re really the best friends I could ask for.” 

The screech of a megaphone rang out through the valley. A voice came through the static, “Raiders! Get into position, we’re storming the gates in exactly fifteen minutes!” 

A cheer broke through the crowd as people began chugging what was left of their sodas and migrating towards the front lines. 

“Well, this is it I guess. If I don’t make it out of the raid, put this on my tombstone.” Wes gestured downward, where he was holding his hand in a circle. 

“Dammit!” Valerie chuckled as Wes gave her a playful punch in the arm. 

“You’ll never take me alive!” V shouted and sprinted forwards as Wes moved towards them.

“On your marks!”

“Wanna bet on that?” Wes shouted back, weaving through the crowd to catch up with them.

“Get set!”

V pushed forward, using their small frame to their advantage, easily losing the taller one in the crowd.

“Raid!”

The mob roared, then began thundering forward, but the deafening sounds of the people were nothing compared to what followed. Thousands of guns began firing at once, hitting everyone and everything in the vicinity. Wes watched with horror as the first wave of people were mowed down right before his eyes. A flash of neon green caught his eye through the carnage. He ran towards his friend, who was standing, paralyzed, next to a few other survivors. He shouted their name, and just as they turned their head another hailstorm of bullets rained down. The first one embedded itself right into V’s chest, right above their heart. Wes sprinted to catch his injured companion, but by the time he got there the life was already draining from their eyes.

“V! V, can you hear me? Don’t go into the light, hold on, ok? You’ve got this, V, answer me!”

He pressed his head to their chest, a weak heartbeat answered him. “It’s gonna be okay. Shhh, you’re okay.” 

Something wet dripped down his face, and he realized he was crying.

“...Wes,” V rasped out, then began violently coughing up blood. Little flecks of red peppered Wes’ face like freckles. “Fuck an alien for me, okay? Can you promise me that?”

Their body went limp in his arms. 

“V? V! V, wake up, please, that can’t be it, please V, you’re only 17, please!” He shook their corpse, but to no avail. V was gone. He closed his eyes and let out a shuttering breath before standing up, still clutching their body in his arms. 

“Second wave! On your marks!” The megaphone blared to life.

The crowd let out another, less confident cheer. After seeing all the carnage most of the raiders were less enthusiastic to ‘see them aliens’. But this time Wes had made up his mind. He was going to make it into that Government facility, and he was gonna burn that motherfucker to the ground.

“Get set!”

He laid his friend on the ground and pressed a kiss to their forehead. If it wasn’t for the massive amount of blood they could’ve been sleeping.

“Go!”

Wes screamed with all the anger he had in him and charged forward. Bullets rained down near him, but this time there were less of them. This time he had a chance. He saw the gate coming closer. He was only 50 feet away, he could make it! He hopped over the fence, ignoring the blaring of sirens, and kept running. He pushed his way into the building, where, surprisingly, there was no security. It looked like they had invested all their soldiers into protecting the outside of the base. His adrenaline rush began to slow down. He dragged his feet down the linoleum hallway, looking at his bloodsoaked hands. 

“What the fuck just happened?” He whispered to himself, still shellshocked. A flicker of light caught his eye. Grateful for a distraction, he turned his attention to what looked like a futuristic control panel. The buttons were labeled in some sort of code, their luminescent surfaces grinning up at him.

“Looking for me, Short-Shorts?” A calm voice echoed through the hall. Wes whipped around, ready for a fight.

“Why so on edge, Ginger? Surely I’m not that intimidating.” It purred.

“Who are you?!” Wes shouted. He winced at the echo. Did he really sound that unhinged?

“On your left.” 

He turned and found himself face to face with the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen. He looked about his age, maybe 17. His skin was tan, but had a slight blueish tint, as if he’d been without oxygen for a while. Poking from his tuft of pearly white hair was a pair of blur antenna. He had a small build, maybe 5 feet tall at best, but was floating at eye level with Wes. Speaking of his eyes, they were quite possibly the most gorgeous thing about him. He had eyes greener and glowyer (is that even a word? Either way it was true.) than toxic waste, his pupils were like a cat’s, slit down the middle. He was clothed in a baggy black prison jumpsuit. He looked almost alien. Wes realized with a start that he must be an alien. 

“Are you done staring?” The boy asked, snapping Wes out of his trance. “It won’t be long before the guards realize you’re in here, and I’d rather get out without a bullet hole.”

“I- I don’t- what are you?” Wes stammered.

“I’m Project Phantom, or Danny if you prefer. What’s your name?”

“I’m… Wes?”

#danny phantom #danny phantom fic #fanfiction #my writing #wes weston #danny phantom au #area 51 au #unidentified flying ship #wes x danny #danny x wes #wes/danny #danny/wes #i dont know what else to tag this #Gayrea 51

[flickwatches]

Stage 2 Playoff Power Ranking

I didn’t want to do a power ranking before or after the Dallas Homestead because I thought that would be stupid.  Week 5 is over so now its time for the final stage 2 power rankings. 

20. Houston Outlaws

Stares in Howdy

19. Florida Mayhem

Not as bad as Houston. 

18. Guangzhou Charge

Got 4-0′d first 4 matches.  Accidentally beat Atlanta and beat bottom team Houston.  A lot of people would rather put teams like Paris or Toronto here but just because a team under performs doesn’t mean there worse than the bottom teams. 

17.  Washington Justice

Slowly improving but not to the point of reaching the mid tier pack of teams. I would say more teams fell below them than they improved over. 

16. Paris Eternal

Only 2 wins came against bottom teams.  I don’t think there as bad as people think they are.   Hopefully a meta change unleashes them.  Soon has shown he’s still one of the best this season. 

15. Toronto Defiant

Season 2 is obviously becoming an arms race.  Teams like New York and San Francisco are already holding powerful pieces on the bench.  But teams like Toronto mite need to add a little firepower to stay competitive.  

14. Los Angeles Valiant

There reaching beyond there abilities right now.  Stage 3 will say a lot about the potential of the roster.  I’m worried they’ll pull a Mayhem (season 1 edition) and add unwanted outsiders when there finally starting to show improvement. 

13. Philadelphia Fusion

They have a lot of questions and not enough answers. They don’t seem to show much potential in a different meta.  A sudden growth from the front line is needed. 

12. Atlanta Reign 

2 of 3 wins were against New York (wtf).  Look really strong, have 2 good Dva players (wtf), and a lot of potential in the DPS department still.  

11. Boston Uprising

Blase should be considered one the best new DPS players this season right along DDing and Nenne.  I hate the management of this team but the players are really starting to bring it together. 

10. Seoul Dynasty

A team that can compete against the best.  Awkward situation where Fissure mite be a better option but you don’t want to ruin the established synergy with the current main tank.  This team has made huge improvements since last season. 

9. Chengdu Hunters

Didn’t quite hit the next evolution they needed to make playoffs.  YXL is a great new addition for the team.  Team looks to be really scary if the meta changes. 

8. Dallas Fuel

Won the games they needed to win.  Solid team like Seoul but only better because of schedule (Home games are nice). 

7. Los Angeles Gladiators 

One of the easier schedules this stage and really haven’t been challenged since week 1.  Maybe there good and I’m underrating them or maybe I’m overrating the next few teams. 

6. Shanghai Dragons

Gamsu is a god and DDing is his weapon of choice. 

5. Hangzhou Spark 

Solid stage and showed strong improvements.  Easily dangerous in a different meta and have a strong front line for this meta. Not sold on Bebe as Zen but his Ana is amazing. IDK carries. 

4. London Spitfire

Thunder echoes in the distance.  Smoke can be seen coming from behind the hill.  The chants grow louder.  The whispers of old can be heard more and more each day. 

3. New York Excelsior

Good thing Atlanta didn’t make the playoffs or they mite have to worry. Good but not better than San Francisco or Vancouver. 

2. San Francisco Shock

You thought I was going to make them number 1.  Super’s Winston is babo and Vancouver still does whatever they want. 

1. Vancouver Titans

I’ll start ranking them lower when they start losing games.  

Bonus Playoff Predictions

San Francisco Vs Shanghai

Shock 4-0 Dragons in goats fashion. 

Vancouver vs Dallas

Vancouver 4-0 Dallas in goats fashion

London Spitfire vs Hangzhou Spark

Spark accidentally win 3-2 when London forgets they have to actually contest and fight to win. 

New York Excelsior vs Los Angeles Gladiators

New York wins 3-1 by reminding the Gladiators who they are. 

2nd Round

San Francisco Shock vs Hangzhou Spark

San Francisco 4-0 against Spark and still doesn’t drop a map. 

Vancouver Titans vs New York Excelsior

Vancouver starts to look Mortal but wins 3-1. 

Finals 

San Francisco Shock vs Vancouver Titans

Titans take map 1 ruining the Shock’s perfect map record in stage 2.  Shock bounce back and win 4-3. 

#Overwatch league #Overwatch #Flickwatches

[1358456]

SA Complaints

I find it VERY amusing that this appears NOW. SA ended a long, long time ago. Looking at the date of the very first review for the SA2 Preview, I can see that SA officially ended in December of 2013.

And I just got a couple of amusing complaints NOW. Heh. From someone who apparently only read the first half. Given how most of SA's stuff happened in the second half... Like I said, amusing.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't bother at all, but in the event that there are those with similar thoughts for Destiny/Legacy, I think it's worth taking a look at the complaints and my responses to them.

Now, since nothing will change... there's no real reason to take a look. So... continue only if you wish. Meh, I say.

1) Ok I have read till half of the story upto chapter 26 This story seems too female oriented I don't think Blue is so strong if you don't agree you check her pokemon levels in the net. Sapphire doesn't even compare to Gold's pokemon majority of his team is in 80 levels whereas all of her pokemon are only in 50 levels. And all those moves Platinum performed against Red, will a sheltered rich lady able to do that (I mean pokemon battles she has talent but fighting not really). Male Dexholders are portrayed too stupid it is not like that they perform really well in all the crisis in the manga. Most of the time they are only there for shipping moments not doing anything worthwhile.

Female oriented. As mentioned at some point a long while ago, my stories generally have female Dex Holders in the main focus as compensation for them being screwed out of it in actual Pokemon Special. Main two examples are Sapphire and Platinum. Sapphire got sealed in a car at the end of RS, and Platinum literally did nothing in the end of DPPt. And THEN there's White. Though recently, thanks to Y and Moon, the balance isn't that disrupted anymore. Sort of. But in ORAS, it was mostly Ruby and Emerald doing everything, and Sapphire was just sent through one wormhole after the next.

Again with the levels. Yellow's Pokemon can reach the 80s. Does that mean she's stronger than Blue? Pff. Nope. Besides, Blue's Pokemon levels were taken in FRLG, where she was 16. LOTS of time has passed. So what, Blue, who is about... 22-ish in SA, should still be just as strong as she was at 16? She would have improved. The example you've conveniently provided proves MY point. Gold's team being in the 80s are from HGSS. 16 years old. Sapphire's team being in the 50s are from RS (11 years old) and did not get updated in ORAS (15) with the exception of Gallade being added. Easily noticeable when you compare Ruby/Sapphire in RS and then in ORAS. Ruby's team got a lot stronger. Sapphire's team remains the same. Did not get updated. Given RS, those two should be very similar in strength. Especially considering... if a CONTEST focused dude got that much stronger between RS and ORAS, shouldn't a BATTLE focused girl get even stronger than that?

Of course 16 year old Gold would be a LOT stronger than 11 year old Sapphire. But that's not their actual age gap, now is it? I also have no idea how old they are in SA, but I'd imagine that they are both old enough that their teams would not be that far apart in levels. At a certain point, leveling becomes very hard. And this is why levels don't make any damn sense in a story setting. A 30 year old Red would just be as strong as he is when he's like 75. Because he hit the level cap. And at that point, even Moon would be just as strong as he is, since she would've also hit the level cap.

Platinum vs. Red. ... Um... hold on. Which one is this... Oh. The Unown thing? Would a sheltered rich lady be able to do such a thing? Who knows. They're ordinarily never in a situation like this. In SA, I had Platinum be quite physical at times, because she copied such a trait from Sapphire. Mostly for shock value, really. And also so that she doesn't DIE. ... Until the time came. It's either she does nothing like in DPPt, or she tries and dies immediately, or tries and survives by mimicking Sapphire.

Males being stupid and not doing anything? Clearly you have not seen the second half of SA. And in the actual manga... of course they perform well. THAT is the point of the female focus in my stories. The males generally hog the freaking spotlight.

2) In chapter 26 eight year olds just killed a bunch of ppl I mean that is insane how can they do that they are freaking kids

In a world where a bunch of RANDOM 11 and 12 year olds stop multiple doomsday events one after another, having a group of already-rowdy 8 year olds being forced to kill to survive in an apocalypse-setting doesn't seem that far-fetched. I mean, Groudon/Kyogre incident (RS, 11 years old), a literal doomsday cannon about to fire (XY, 12 years old), Legendary cryo cannon (BW2, 12 years old), space/time deity conflict (DP, 12 years old), etc. Not to mention in ORAS, a couple of 15 year olds went to SPACE to destroy a doomsday meteor. All that spatial radiation... and g-forces. To 15 year olds, who did not even PASS OUT. Bullsh*t. And also, it's very, very cold up there. And yet...

First you complain about the male Dex Holders who aren't being as amazing in my stories as they were in the actual arcs, and now you complain about kids being overly mature for their ages. Be consistent. The male Dex Holders in their own arcs were VERY young for all the sh*t they've done. So complaining about kids being too mature for their age is self-contradiction.

I'm more curious as to how the hell you managed to leave two signed-in reviews for the same chapter. I thought the site blocks you from doing such... unless some data got corrupted or something. The alert I got was that I received reviews for "SA chapter 26The Package". And "The Package" is chapter 1, not 26 (24+2 intermission).

So. In relations to RECENT stories...

Female Focus. - This will always persist, given Pokemon Special's initial imbalance. But for the most part, Destiny and Legacy will have joint focus. Especially later on in Legacy once... something happens.

Levels. - By the time of Destiny AND Legacy, the Pokemon Special arcs' levels are completely invalid. I have no idea how old Platinum is in Destiny (forgot), but probably around 16? And the last time we had a level update from her was when she was 12 in DPPt. 16 would be her approximate age in a theoretical DP remake, and given how everyone in the remake arcs were about 20~30 levels higher than they were before... ... Is her Empoleon going to be level 90? She's stronger than Red! ... Of course not. Red's last levels were taken in FRLG, when he was 16. In Destiny, he's like... 24. 50% older! - And in Legacy, Platinum is 18 and thus even stronger. And already there have been complaints. And I've already responded a few times. Would you still complain about Platinum being too strong, even if I kill off the first 10 Dex Holders thus she is the strongest one left alive?

Physical Activity: - Well, Platinum no longer has any reason to do what she did in SA. Y will now do that for her. ... Unless Platinum mimicks Y now. Which could happen, but in Legacy, she's a bit too mature for such a thing. She's not going to be kicking down doors and people. She'll order Y to do it for her. And Moon too. Platinum doesn't need to be aggro. She has people to do that for her. - And if I recall, no one ever complained about WHITE getting screetime doing things she normally would not be able to do. Like in SA. She did a LOT of work against the enemy... A LOT more than what she did in all of BW. And people just complain about Platinum. Come on. White is RIGHT THERE. Do you know what she did in all of BW? Fall off a ferris wheel, got a bit stronger, and then got kidnapped.

"Dumb" Male Dex Holders: - When has that ever been a thing to begin with? With the exception of Gold who's supposed to be a BIT like that, and MAYBE Black when a certain pink blob isn't munching on his brains. Besides, for the Dex Holders, the girls are generally smarter than the guys.

#qna #sa #destiny #legacy

[yekulan-dothkah]

“What The Job?!” - Scholar

1 - Intro:

Alright, so I’ve had a bunch of my friends say it would be super helpful if I made a “how to Scholar” thing because I do it, and I do it quite well apparently. Instead of just making it for them, I thought I would share this information with all of you. So here it is, my first, “What The Job?!”

This guide is as of 4.05 and I’ll try and reblog with updates as significant changes are made to the class, or small ones. First off I want to say; this is how I play scholar, and my recommendations, not the be all end all Bible or anything of the sort. Now settle down and get ready to let me tell you a thing I like to think I know.

==============

2 - Index:

1 - Intro 2 - Index 3 - Terms 4 - Why/Should I Scholar? 5 - What kind of healing? 6 - Gear & Attributes 7 - Abilities    A - Special Note    B - Dps Skills    C - Non Healing Important Skills    D - Healing and Healing Related Skills    E - Aetherflow    F - Aetherflow stack skills:    G - Faerie Gauge 8 - Role Abilities 9 - Traits 10 - Pets/Faeries    A - How the Hell Does This Thing Work    B - Pet related skills and traits    C - Eos: The Perfect Child    D - Selene: The Multi-Tool 11 - Rotations    A - Gaging    B - Dps    C - Healing 12 - Stratagem 13 - Macro’s 14 - Hotbars 15 - Gaming Gear/Work Around 16 - The End

==============

3 - Terms:

Assuming you know the abbreviations for the classes, please see the below for further.

DOT = Damage over time AOE = Area of effect Crit = Critical Dps = Damage per second lvl = Level ilvl = Item Level HP = Hit points EPH = Effective Potency Heal - Healing of spell + shields combined MP = Mana Points Mnd = Mind Int = Intelligence Pie = Piety MSQ = Main story quest

==============

4 - Why/Should I Scholar?:

First off, Scholar is a job with a bit of an entry level issue. While Ast gets to start from 30 and gets a wide variety of heals locked behind 300+ MSQ quests and any one class to 50, and WHM is just CNJ 30 with a bunch of heals at the start; SCH is 30 levels of ACN, only to be given 2 heals total at lvl 30. It’s a rough start, but if you can make it to lvl 50 you really start to shine. SCH is a very strategic healer, you’ll find instead of the obvious answer you may have to read up a bit more on what you can do vs should do, or plan ahead of a fight a little to get the most out of the job at first. The more you play the class the less planning you’ll find you end up doing and the more reflexive you’ll become. This may seem tedious and a huge discouragement, but the job can be extremely rewarding to both you and the group when used effectively. I like to say I can pull rabbits out of my book, because sometimes that’s exactly what it feels like despite you controlling your own luck; it’s all in the execution.

==============

5 - What kind of healing?:

Galvanize, also known as Shields, all the shields, people joke SCH’s can mitigate enough damage your gear durability goes up (not actually). There’s also some micromanagement but honestly you have some of the most flexible, reactive, as well as proactive healing and dps available to a healer; SCH’s live up to the lore. Where WHM is big heals and big regen, and AST can buff, regen, and even shield like you, no one has a kit of abilities quite like you do. You can respond and react to almost every situation.

==============

6 - Gear & Attributes:

Everybody values these differently as a healer, for me it’s the following:    1. Mind: for healing potency you will spend all attribute points on this.    2. Critical Hit Rate: What makes SCH’s is the ability to Crit shield, I’ll explain this later but know it’s important, this also increases your damage when you do attack and Crit so it pulls double duty.    3. Piety: for MP to cast more spells for healing or Dps, since Aetherflow is a % of your MP, having more means a better return on the skill.    4. Determination: increases your damaging spells and your heals, always good.    5. Spell Speed: is nice but not necessary as your casts are decent times and a huge amount of your best heals and abilities are instant cast off global cooldown, and it doesn’t decrease your faerie’s recast timer which can throw her off sync in some combat.

Note: If you prefer surecast over swiftcast which is described later, bump spell speed up above determination as it will help greatly with resurrect and summon’s.

==============

7 - Abilities:

A - Special Note:

Anything that says “Shields” or “Galvanize” as part of the healing or spell effect DOES NOT stack with Nocturnal Sect AST’s shields. If you are in a party with an AST, please politely ask them to switch into Diurnal sect if they do not do so automatically as you do not have the choice of not using shielding heals like they do. If they ask why, explain that AST’s shields overwrite your shields, and vice versa, meaning you’re both wasting MP on casts that could be better spent. At this time AST actually shields MORE than a SCH, but they do not have the ability to spread shields like you, or the added flexibility that comes with your faerie. If they refuse… Well, pucker up and get ready for a rough run.

B - Dps Skills:

These first because you’re gonna have to get through 30 lvls of Arcanist somehow.

Ruin: lvl 1: 100 Potency Instant. Global cooldown. Ruin is you attack when you have nothing better to do and all your dots are already applied and everything else is on cooldown and don’t have broil yet. Okay, but not winning any awards. Shares global cast cast time. Ruin II: lvl 38: 100 Potency, Instant. Global cooldown. An instant cast ability on the global cooldown. Is it high on your priority list? Not really, and for 2x the mana cost of Ruin I it’s pretty hard to justify casting, really only use this if you are running away from an AOE, or need to cast quickly on a target that needs to be killed to avoid a wipe mechanic before lvl 54.  Bio: lvl 2: 40 Potency x 6 = 240 Potency over 18 seconds, Instant. Global cooldown. Part of your bread and butter Dps combo, it’s an instant cast and allows you to use other instant cast off global cooldown abilities while you wait to be able to cast again. Recommend to cast this while on the move or after Miasma; as you will quickly shoot off both abilities and give you a moment to cast Bane, both I’ll describe later. Bio II: lvl 26: 35 Potency x 10 ticks = 350 Potency over 30 seconds, Instant. Global cooldown. Another part of your bread and butter Dps combo, it’s an instant cast and allows you to use other instant cast off global cooldown abilities while you wait to be able to cast again. Your Bio upgrades into Bio II, same recommendations apply to casting. Miasma:  35 Potency x 8 = 280 Potency over 24 seconds, 2.5 sec cast. Global cooldown. Also a spell with cast time and the part of your bread and butter Dps combo, small cast time, recommend casting Miasma, then Bio II on each enemy, or Bane after casting the combo on the first enemy if you want to spread DoT’s more quickly. Miasma II: 100 Potency + (25 Potency x 4) = 200 Potency over 12 seconds, AOE, 2.5 sec cast. Global cooldown. So this is, different? You will want to use it with 3 or more enemies, but beware that MP cost, it’s steep and builds up fast, so don’t spam it. Again, this only pays off in any stage of the game if there are 3 or more mobs, preferably 4. Huge thing to note, this is an AOE around YOU; you will need to be in the thick of things to hit enemies with this, do not try to cast it from 15 yalms away from the mob. Shadow Flare: lvl 50: 50 Potency x 5 = 250 Potency over 15 seconds + Slow 5% (slows cast and ability recast time for enemies in the area by 5%), 60 sec cooldown. Instant. No MP cost. Shadow flare is a great opener, and a good skill to use if you’re not sure about being able to Dps and heal. The ability is cast instantly, this is great practice for nervous healers trying to get the hang of attacking and healing as you start to get a feel for what you can and can’t get away with. The fact this is a place-able AOE makes it better because at 4 enemies you reach 1000 Potency over 15 seconds which just under the average engagement time for a trash pull, this damage isn’t stellar on single targets, but still better than casting Ruin’s or Broil’s; regardless the extra damage will be welcome by your team, and the 5% slow will actually reduce incoming damage on the tank. PLEASE NOTE: Only one AOE placeable can be active at a time, this means Sacred Soil OR Shadow Flare Broil: lvl 54: 190 Potency, 2.5 sec cast. Global cooldown. This is a straight up cast, at lvl 54, you can finally stop casting ruin and Ruin II! However beware; the MP cost will creep up on you as it is 4x Ruin in cost and quickly leave you without resources to heal if you get too caught up doing Dps. This does replace Ruin when you get it so you do still have the option of casting a cheaper instant spell Ruin II in comparison to Broil. Broil II: lvl 64: 230 Potency, 2.5 sec cast. Global cooldown. Broil becomes Broil II, and with it a sizeable potency increase of 40, Broil II is doing decent damage; but still less that Bio II, Miasma I & II, and Shadowflare. The damage is more than Ruin II which we have available still, and Broil II upgrade does not increase the MP cost like it has done in previous iterations, thankfully.

C - Non Healing Important Skills: 

These abilities are just as important as healing, remember you have them. 

Resurrect: lvl 18: High MP cost revive, 8 sec cast. Global cooldown. No cooldown really, massive cast time, huge MP cost, SMN and SCH share this resurrect, but you gain it at lvl 18 so be careful in the low level roulette Sastasha with squishy tanks. Chain Strategem: lvl 66: Increased rate at which target takes critical hits by 15% for 15 sec, Cooldown 90 sec. Off global cooldown. A huge boon to team damage, especially with crit focused dps, but generally a boon everyone can share and enjoy, super powerful during a dps check or phase skipping, also makes some bosses that might have been hard to clear just a little easier by offering a faster kill. Always try to pop this when it’s off cooldown during a boss and on the tougher mobs of trash pulls.

D - Healing and Healing Related Skills: 

Time for your main healing abilities

Physick: lvl 4: 400 Potency, 2.0 sec cast. Global cooldown. Not something to shy away from using, it’s a potent heal for a low cost, and will help you manage your MP through long fights. Adloquium: lvl 30: 300 Potency + 300 Shields (also known as Galvanize) that can be doubled with a crit, Shield lasts 30 sec, 2 sec cast. Global cooldown. This skill is very special and very powerful, the healing however costs 3 times more than Physick for only 200 more effective healing. Why? First, because while the shield takes damage you can heal the health under it with your myriad of abilities. Second, because when you Crit, the shield becomes 2 times the potency based off the Crit bonus. Let me break this healing equivalent of an orgasm down. Example: you cast Adloquium for a 10k crit heal, this generates a 20K shield on that character to absorb damage as well. This means you can either sit and regenerate mana, or perform DPS depending on the scenario before healing again. Succor: lvl35: AOE HP for self and nearby party members, 150 potency, 150 Shields that can be doubled with a crit, Shield lasts 30 sec, 2.5 sec cast. Global cooldown. This is your AOE heal, it has a higher cost than Adloquium by 25% so don’t use it too heavily if you can help it. The heal + shield is good for topping up party members after a big heal, or a regen has be put on them by another healer, or if it’s a stack up mechanic. The extra 150 shields goes on top of a health bar and takes damage first, never forget this, I can’t stress it enough; a WHM or AST in dirunal can regen all they want but they can’t “overheal” like you unless they’re an AST in nocturnal sect. The same effects apply for critical heals here as with Adloquium; this is why the crit stat is so important. Deployment Tactics: lvl 56: Extends Eye for an Eye and Galvanize (shield) effect on target to nearby allies. Cooldown 120 sec. Instant. Off global cooldown. This is a somewhat situational but extremely useful skill and can be cast more often than you think. Cast Eye for an Eye, then Adloquium, and spread the effects from the tank to that dps that keeps getting hit by everything, your team will thank you. What this means is if you Crit heal or not, the shield and Eye for an Eye will be replicated on all nearby party members (range is about the size of Sacred Soil from target). This means any melee dps will likely share this double buff if they’re close to the tank you cast it on; helping spread the damage reduction debuff of Eye for an Eye if hit while protecting them from AOE damage thanks to the shield. Please note if the tank takes damage, this does not subtract from the original total that gets shared, as well if your Crit heal for 10k, the 20k shield will be spread to everyone within range. The only time you shouldn’t use emergency tactics is when the tank buster destroys the shield, it will not be shared if it’s worn off in such a case. So, go grab your hot pocket while you wait for people to start taking damage again (sarcasm; please don’t do this, Dps instead if you’re comfortable or just sit there gawking over how amazing that felt to pull off). Despite Eye for an Eye being a role ability and no longer a SCH/SMN specific ability, it has remained attached to this skill and hence why it’s nearly a must for SCH to take. Emergency Tactics: lvl 58: Turn the next Galvanize (shield) into healing instead of a barrier, Cooldown 20 sec. Instant. Off global cooldown. Say you crit a Adloquium again and get a 10k heal; rather than shielding 20k like a crit should, it instead is uses the 20k shield in addition to normal healing of 10k to reach 30k total healing; if Emergency Tactics was used beforehand. Short of Essential dignity at almost no HP as AST, or Benediction as WHM. Using Emergency Tactics with Adloquium or Succor can make them into some of the most potent healing spells in the game. On a 20 second cooldown, it’s like a stronger lustrate or indomitability with cast time when it crit’s. Dissipation: lvl 60: Order your faerie away, gain 3 stacks of Aetherflow and NO MP & Gain +20% healing Potency - Duration 30 sec - Cooldown 180 sec. Can not re-summon faerie for duration. Instant. Off global cooldown. This ability before stormblood may never see use on your bar, but given the recent increase in content difficulty, or any scenario where you have to carry your co-healer, this ability will save you. What you want to reserve it for is when you’ve pop lucid dreaming and you’re out of mp and aetherflow, and you need heals right now. This is an amazing last resort button. What happens is while you have say 2k MP and can barely cast a succor, you can now cast three lustrate’s for example and save the tank from a buster, or do indomitability and heal everyone from the room wide or stack up mechanic. Meanwhile, you have enough mp to cast physick it’s buffed 20%. This can help you limp by till the next aetherflow comes off cooldown, and post 68, it even causes aetherflow to come off cooldown sooner due to your trait that reduces the time for aetherflow to cooldown with each stack used. With mp refresh on, or aetherflow coming off cooldown, this can save your bacon when the going gets tough and your MP has left the building. Personal recommendation is as soon as you get the MP back, swiftcast resummon your faerie, or wait until a long wind up mechanic where nothing is happening and get your faerie back then. Please note: Dissipation’s potency increase does not affect the healing potency of Lustrate, or Indomitability, or Excogitation; so don’t use this hoping to make those abilities more powerful. Also see Fey Union for Dissipation interaction with the skill.

E - Aetherflow:

This is your life saver, your god/goddess, your savior in the dark, the glimmering salvation of your allies, or scythe to help reap enemies. This is your core mechanic.

Effect: MP regen of 10% + 3 stacks of Aetherflow - Cooldown of 60 seconds. Lvl 68 Trait: 100% chance that when casting a spell using a stack that it reduces cooldown of Aetherflow by 5 seconds. The stacks do not have a duration and are infinite.

These three stacks are gold and the 10% MP regen instantly can prevent a raid wipe as it’s enough to revive one character if your Piety is high enough, even right after being revived yourself if the plan went south. WHM and AST can’t do this, you are a special snowflake with this one spell and can turn a wipe into a recovery, and then a win. While you will want to constantly use your stacks of Aetherflow to get the best use out of them and then pop this to keep your MP up, know this is also the biggest “oh shit” button in the game and you may want to save it for a tough moment if you know one is coming up. As of Stormblood (4.0) at lvl 70, using aetherflow stacks increases your Faerie Gauge by a portion each time you use one for a spell/ability which will be covered more in depth later; so spending is better than holding at that point especially.

F - Aetherflow stack skills:

The below skills use stacks of Aetherflow gained from the skill by the same name described above, utilize these carefully because you only get 3 stacks every 60 seconds roughly. All Aetherflow skills use 1 stack of Aetherflow, and there cannot be more than 3 held at one time. All of these casts are instant as well.

Energy Drain: lvl 6: Absorb damage dealt as MP and HP at a Potency of 150. Instant. Off global cooldown. This is the “oh shit” button to your “oh shit” button when MP is running low. This may be because you’re dpsing really hard, or healing is going well and you don’t quite need Aetherflow stacks to heal and maybe got caught up, or maybe didn’t spend your MP as wisely as you could. You can easily squeeze out an additional 20% MP over 9 seconds and heal yourself at the same time for about 20% of your HP too. Using this with Dissipation when you’re strapped for MP and need to revive someone is one way to recover from a bad scenario and low resources. Bane: lvl 30: Spread the target enemy’s Bio, and Miasma spells with their remaining duration to surrounding enemies + 15% chance to spread the spell with full duration instead of the remainder. Potency of DoT’s is reduced by 20% for second enemy, 40% for third enemy, and 60% for the fourth, and 80% for the fifth and beyond. Cooldown 10 sec, Instant. Off global cooldown. To explain, say your DoTs (Bio II & Miasma) are at 21 seconds remaining on both DoT spells, you have only casted them on one target and a bunch of adds spawn, let us say there is 5 adds on top of the first. You spread the remaining 21 seconds to all 5 mobs if they are within range of the initial target with a 15% chance for each spread spell it resets to full duration. This means you can spread 490 potency worth of spells to the first enemy it hits, followed by the following for each successive enemy hit depreciating (392/294/196/98 onward) without actually having to cast on each one. The total potency for the six mobs for your simply two spells cast becomes 1960. Yes this got a huge nerf in Stormblood if you remember the heaven’s ward days, but it is still saving you a bunch of time and energy you would have spent casting (roughly 18 seconds of spell casting), and ideally you cast Bane well before the 21 second mark, instead at the 24 second mark right after you Bio II & Miasma combo which increases the potency even more so. This is amazingly useful if you find your heals are in good working order and you don’t find yourself using your stacks on healing spells; great for working up to the boss and making trash pulls go faster. Sacred Soil: lvl 45: 10% damage reduction to all friendly targets in the place-able AOE circle - Duration 15 sec, Cooldown 30 sec + 20% chance your next Succor within 15 sec is free. Instant. Off global cooldown. This ability is amazing for mechanic and boss attacks in raids or dungeons as it reduces all damage by 10%, while AST can do this and provide a regen, AST has to be in the center of the mess with this and is unable to perform other actions during the duration of the cast, where SCH can deploy this without being in the fire themselves and still healing allies. WHM can throw down a regen bubble, but it does not prevent 10% of damage which can prevent a wipe where a regen doesn’t. Again, you are flexible where others have to dedicate or lack your utility. While we already explained what Succor is, reflect on the fact that after casting a 10% damage reduction circle you have a chance to free cast an AOE heal + shield spell which proc’s surprisingly often, and can be combo with emergency tactics for a big heal as discussed earlier instead of a shield heal. PLEASE NOTE: Only one AOE placeable can be active at a time, this means Sacred Soil OR Shadow Flare. Lustrate: lvl 50: Heal for 600 Potency, Cooldown 1 sec. Instant. Off global cooldown. You read that right, 600 potency, and without any MP cost, instantly; but you can only cast 3 every 60 seconds assuming you don’t use your Aetherflow stacks on anything else and don’t use Dissipation. The boon this has is the instant cast for emergencies, and the fact you can spread all 3 casts across multiple members of the party at different times of need. Great for topping off a tank after a buster and then healing two dps. The only thing with comparable single target is Tetragrammaton at 700 Potency once every 60 seconds from WHM; and Benefic II from AST at 650 Potency, which while can be cast with global cooldown regularily, can quickly use up all your MP where Lustrate does no such thing. Indomitability: lvl 52: 500 Potency, Cooldown 30 sec. Instant. Off global cooldown. Another instant cast, this time an AOE heal, while WHM wins this round having Cure III on global cooldown and 550 Potency, and AST with Helios for 300 Potency on global cooldown; the fact you can cast this between your own heals without MP costs is where it shines, or weaving it in between other off or on global cooldown casts. For example: Lustrate, Indomitability, Lustrate: One target gets 1700 effective potency heal, and the whole party gets 500 in under 2 seconds. Second example: Cast succor first for 150 heal + 150 shield, on top of the other casts mentioned previously for 2000 effective potency heal in under 5 seconds to single target and 800 effective potency heal to party. It is extremely hard for the other healers to pull off this much burst healing on command so frequently. With the trait on aetherflow at lvl 68, this could happen as often as once every 45 seconds, 30 seconds with Dissipation. Excogitation: lvl 62: Target party member gains Excogitation status effect, when target falls below 50% HP, auto healed for 800 Potency, Cooldown 45 sec. Can not be cast on self. Effect duration 45 seconds. Instant. Off global cooldown. Another Aetherflow ability making your stacks even more precious. This ability can be pre-casted before a tank buster for example, or protect your co-healer, even casted after losing 50% hp for an instant trigger. While more potent than Lustrate by 200 potency, this is more useful in preparing for a bad day than it is for using in the heat of the moment. Note this ability does have a duration of 45 seconds and a cooldown of 45 seconds. This isn’t a bad choice to use on a target when they’re being resurrected, because as soon as their HP show’s they’ll have the effect trigger and heal them up to past half HP; without wasting an Aetherflow stack on Lustrate for a 0 HP heal because they’re “not alive yet” according to the server. If only the tank is taking damage and there is not tank buster coming, avoid using this ability, as your faerie can heal them for a surprising amount and stop the effect from triggering which wastes the stack. With patch 4.05 this now lines up well with Aetherflows recast time so spending at least one stack on Excogitation isn’t a bad idea and helps you get the most of your stacks. G - Faerie Gauge: This gauge is how you cast your lvl 70 ability Aetherpact, to begin the effect of Fey Union, which is slowly depleted by Fey Union. The bar increases by 10 for every aetherflow stack you spend while your Faerie is summoned, and decreases by 10 for every 3 seconds Fey Union is active. Goes up to 100.

One thing worthy of note is if you Dissipate your Faerie, you maintain your Faerie Gauge numbers from before using Dissipate. Say you have 70 Gauge, and you Dissipate, you can resummon your faerie after the Dissipate wears off and still have 70 Gauge. Please note however that you will not gain Faerie Gauge for any Aetherflow actions used while the Faerie was not summoned, and death resets the Faerie gauge. 

Rouse does not affect Fey Union potency, only Fey Illumination does.   Aetherpact/Fey Union: lvl 70: Order’s faerie to execute Fey Union with a target party member other than self, costs 10 Faerie Gauge per 3 seconds. Instant. Off global cooldown. Healing Potency 480. Turns into Dissolve Union upon casting and activating. 15 Yalm Range. First off this allows you to dedicate a few seconds of healing to a character that needs it while you pay attention to the main target, or it can help work through a tank buster full of boss combos. This is an instant cast but the faerie has to move to stand within 15 yalms of the person it is cast on to maintain the tether, even though it can be cast at a distance of 30 yalms. Keep the range limitation in mind, you either have to be in the thick of the action, or wait for your faerie to fly over and begin casting; both scenario’s demand your faerie to finish casting their current spell/ability before executing which is bad in a clutch heal situations and better suited for preparation. With a potency of 480, it is like a buffed Physick going off constantly on the target, and is very potent as a result.

Dissolve Union: Turns into Aetherpact when cast or when Faerie Gauge reaches 0. Ends the Fey Union ability early without using unspent Faerie Gauge. With a 5 second recast time shared with Aetherpact, you’ll likely spend 20 on the gauge before the effect can be canceled, however this does allow the gauge to be saved for later use instead of all at once. Things that increase Faerie Gauge: & How Much - Energy Drain: 10 - Bane: 10 - Sacred Soil: 10 - Lustrate: 10 - Indomitability: 10 - Excogitation: 10

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8 - Role Abilities:

Alright you made it this far, but what the hell should your spare abilities be? You only get 5 so choose wisely! In order of appearance, see below.

Cleric Stance: lvl 8: 5% increase to damage for 15 sec, Cooldown 90 sec. Instant. Off global cooldown. Thanks to the Dev’s, the cleric stance discord is mostly dead, but not whether or not you should be healing or attacking unfortunately. As a SCH you probably will get the most pressure to attack because your Faerie can heal most trash pulls on old game content, and some trash pulls on new content. Please, if you are learning, state you are learning, and no one in their right mind will bug you about this. If anything just do your best and give it a shot, if someone dies/you know you can’t dps during this pull & heal, then don’t dps and state that you can’t dps and heal the current scenario; at least then they can’t say you you’re standing around for “no reason” or “being lazy”. You won’t get better without trying either, so don’t be too afraid about throwing a spell out now or then, even if it’s just a Ruin or Broil, or maybe a Shadowflare. Learning how to dps and heal is fun, and is very rewarding when it comes to end game content. While 5% isn’t much, consider taking this over Break for example if you have everything else you want in the other 4 slots. Break: lvl 12: apply a 40% heavy for 20 seconds, 2.5 sec recast. Global cooldown. I state the recast time because this is one of few Healer Role Abilities that don’t have a huge cooldown. The heavy is nice, good for running away from something trying to kill you, think of break as “the push back that doesn’t actually push anything away.” Of course there will be mobs resistant to this ability which will make it useless, but it can be useful during leveling when something you don’t like attacks you. Protect: lvl 16: Reduces party member physical and magic defense by a %, duration of 30 min, 2.5 sec recast. Global cooldown. This buff means a % of damage taken is reduced, but granted the damage numbers are reduced by a larger amount on people with more physical or magical defense than those with lower numbers, this means using protect on a level sync’d content while your ilvl is unsync’d will cause damage to be reduced by a large amount. I’d say this is mandatory unless your co-healer decides to take it and you both worked out who has what. The percent isn’t precisely 10% anymore or even consistent I found after some math. For example: when cast with 1013 physical defense, physical defense went up to 1164, which is roughly 16% increase. Magick defense however went from 1769 to 2034, which is roughly a 15% increase. Highly recommend taking this if solo healing or designated protect caster in raid/trials. Esuna: lvl 20: Removes a single detrimental effect from target, 1 sec cast, 2.5 sec recast. Global cooldown. This ability now has the cast time of the old SCH ability Leeches with the same name of the WHM ability pre-Stormblood. This is very handy, so make sure someone is on Esuna duty if you are co-healing with someone, both of you have it, or just always have it in your set. You will have to Esuna SOMETHING eventually, and getting caught off guard when the status Doom is cast that needs to be Esuna’d and is going to kill the tank in 15 seconds is not fun. Alternatively, you can summon Selene and keep her on a tight leash (use obey and steady) as she has a group wide Esuna available every 60 seconds. Lucid Dreaming: lvl 24: Refreshes MP with a Potency of 80 every 3 sec for 21 sec (560 total potency), and reduces enmity by ½, Cooldown 120 sec. Off global cooldown. Now you’re probably thinking “I have Aetherflow, I don’t need this-” wrong, this is the second most useful thing you own, next to Aetherflow. Using this ability allows you to cast the high mp cost Broil’s, Adloquium’s and Succors more, and is a good emergency button to pair with Dissipation. If you’re using Dissipation, things are desperate and you need Aetherflow + you probably need a little MP too to make the most of the increased healing you receive from Dissipation, the enmity reduction is a boon because some content you might pull aggro/enmity/hate when you put out the next massive amounts of healing and damage, making it incredibly useful. At the same time, I’d say this is optional, because a SCH can run solely off the MP made from Aetherflow and Energy drain, it’s just a lot more resource monitoring than most are comfortable with. Swiftcast: lvl 32: Instantly cast 1 ability, Cooldown 60 sec. Off global cooldown. Now SCH has a lot of Instant cast abilities if you haven’t noticed;  in fact, only their Miasma, Broil, Resurrect, Summoning either Faerie, and 3 heals (Physick/Adloquium/Succor) have any cast time. Really, priority for swiftcast goes as such; Resurrect, summoning faeries, healing spells, and dps abilities dead last. Is it a mandatory ability like Esuna and Protect? Yes and no, you CAN survive without swiftcast, life just sucks when things get really clutch during content. You can skip swiftcast if you know your co-healer, or you know the fight really well and when you can get away with long cast times, or you took spell speed over determination. Eye for an Eye: lvl 36: Cooldown 120 Seconds. Instant. Off global cooldown. Erect a magic barrier around a single party member for 30 seconds, provides a 20% chance that triggers a 10 second debuff, the debuff reduces target damage dealing abilities by 10%. This is a great spell to use in large mob groups as each mob that attacks as the chance to gain the debuff. Additionally the debuff can be reapplied on the enemy if it procs again so the 10 second can work out to be 30-40 seconds of debuff on the enemy if they’re super unlucky. Works on some but not all bosses. I would say this is mandatory for every scholar, more so than protect or esuna for the sole fact your deployment tactics is only half as useful without it, and this is a huge potential damage mitigation ability that should not be overlooked; especially if there is a lot of mobs or boss AOE’s constantly. Largesse: lvl 40: Increases healing magic potency by 20% for 20 sec, Cooldown 90 sec. Instant. Off global cooldown. This is both a necessary and optional skill. If you’ll be using Selene for the dungeon, consider taking this ability, if you’ll be using Eos, consider skipping on this ability. This ability DOES stack with Eos’s increase Fey Illumination 10% heal buff, so it’s not bad to take it with Eos either. Eos can end up with a 50% healing potency increase thanks to rouse, while you can end up with total 30% increase, or 50% if you use Dissipation right after her Fey Illumination ability. I will reiterate however that these potency increases DO NOT affect the healing potency of abilities that use Aetherflow stacks, so only Physick, Adloquium, and Succor benefit; hence the situational nature of its selection. Surecast: lvl 44: Makes next spell that requires cast time ability uninterruptible: the caster becomes immune to attack interrupts, sleep, stun, knockback, and draw in effects for the duration. Duration 10 sec, Cooldown 30 sec. Instant. Off global cooldown. Due to the increased utility of this spell come Stormblood, I’d arguably take it over Swiftcast now if speed doesn’t matter to you. There is now the utility of setting your faerie to heal someone while you do other things like resurrect as well. It can be cast twice as often as Swiftcast, and the added utility of being immune to certain effects for the duration of 10 seconds could be very potent depending on the situation. Useful situations are; literally any knockback, stun, sleep, or draw in ability. Think Palace of the Dead, Bismark EX, Titan EX,Leviathan EX, Sophia HM and EX, casting a big heal while multiple AOE’s go off, the list does go on quite extensively despite how situational it is. Again, a toss up between swiftcast and surecast, so choose what best suits your playstyle, but I would say at least pick one or the other. Rescue: lvl 48: Instantly draw target party member to your side. Range of 30 yalms, Cooldown 150 sec. Instant. Off global cooldown. This ability has some very unique utility to each healer, especially SCH. With your lvl 70 ability being a 15 yalm healing leash, dragging said injured person into range of the leash could be very valuable while you remain focused healing the tank. I know a lot of people with bad pings that would be super happy to have me use this on them to save their butt from an AOE. I see the most use of this being another healer who’s hurt/ player just revived and is in an AOE, possibly a dps like DRG or MNK who can dash right back into the action easily after getting healed or saved from the AOE, and tanks after a swap on something like Odin’s fate where they need healing because they just got the snot kicked out of them. This would be super useful to a tank like a DRK who just used Living Dead and needs immediate intensive healing attention. Very situation, but not to be overlooked, consider it over Cleric Stance and Break, especially if you notice/know someone is struggling with AOE’s. Please note: however, the player being targeted by rescue can dodge, and you can miss. My personal preference: 1>2>3>4>5 Protect>Lucid Dreaming>Eye for an Eye>Largesse>Swiftcast/Surecast OR Protect>Esuna>Lucid Dreaming>Eye for an Eye>Swiftcast/Surecast The reason for the first choice would be if you have Selene as your faerie for reasons explained in the faerie section. Same goes for the second choice, only Eos would be equipped. The other option is to use the first selected 5 if you know there are no debuffs or very few in the current content, or remove Protect if you are co-healing raid content and the other healer is on protect duty. Having two healers with Esuna can be very powerful in heavily debuff focused content like Dun Scaith. Swapping out Eye for an Eye with Esuna or Largesse respectively, on a trial or raid where the bosses are immune to the effects, is a good choice as well.

============== 9: Traits: These are the modifications that take place while you’re leveling, I’ll note important places, but please acknowledge that when I was explaining everything above, I assumed you were lvl 70, and these traits do not stack on top of what I said, I’ll do my best to be clear and simple about what changes each time so you know while you’re leveling why X isn’t healing like it’s supposed to, or Y isn’t as high of damage. Aetherdam: lvl 6/20/40: Gain +1 aetherflow stack So at lvl 6, you get a total of 1 stack of aetherflow, at lvl 20 you have 2, and when you hit lvl 40 you have 3. This is the resource explained above which is used for your unique healing abilities. Enhanced Intelligence & Mind: lvl 20/40/60: Increases Mind and Intelligence stat by a total of 8/16/24 Maim and Mend: lvl 20/40: Basic action damage and HP restoration effect of caster and faerie increased by a total of 10%/30% Corruption Mastery: lvl 26: Bio I upgrades to Bio II, simple yeah? Broil Mastery: lvl 54/64: Ruin becomes Broil, pretty simple. Later on Broil becomes Broil II Quickened Aetherflow: lvl 68: 100% chance that Aetherflow’s cooldown time is reduced by 5 seconds upon executing an Aetherflow Resource ability. Only trait that really needs explaining, this makes it a huge deal to try and spend your stacks instead of holding onto them, and with some of the added utility added in Stormblood you have more flexibility now. Don’t be afraid to use one or two stacks and save 1 for the last few seconds of Aetherflow’s cooldown to see if you get a shorter cooldown or not. At a 5 sec reduction to a 60 second cooldown skill, you can cut Aetherflow’s cooldown by as much as half! Using Dissipation and spending those Aetherflow stacks in conjunction with normal Aetherflow stacks can make the cooldown extremely short and reward you with 9 stacks in 30 seconds and the 20% MP that comes with two triggered Aetherflow’s. ==============

10 - Pets/Fairies: 

This deserves its own section just due to the sheer amount of stuff going on.

A - How the Hell Does This Thing Work: Know your faerie scales off your Mind stat for heals AT THE TIME OF SUMMONING. A popular thing SMN’s do is pop a high level Int potion before summoning their Egi to fight, you can do the same with a Mind potion right before summoning your faerie in addition to food buffs with Mind. When the buff runs out, if the faerie/Egi is still alive, the buff persists until the faerie/Egi is summoned again, or dies and needs to be re-summoned. Your faerie also gains any AOE team buffs performed by the faerie only but not others. Yes the faerie gains the buff by their name, but NO the faerie does not actually gain the effect; I’ve done testing and proven abilities like Bole or Sacred Soil on a faerie will have it still take same damage as without. Putting your faerie on Obey and Steady is highly recommended to ensure abilities are activated at the most opportune times; however this takes a lot of practice to achieve, leaving them on Sic isn’t terrible it’s just not optimal. Please note: Faeries will cast whatever ability you tell them to after their current task is finished, if you line up two spells make sure one has cast time first or the faerie will cast Skill 1>Embrace>Skill2 instead of Skill 1>Skill 2 if someone needs healing. This issue is most prominent with Eos when doing Healing buff > AoE heal, so be quick on the draw or sadly you’ll have to wait.

B - Pet related skills and traits: Pet Reduced Damage: (Not shown) Pets/faeries take less damage from AOE’s and direct attacks than normal characters due to their lack of armor and I believe also the bad response time. This is a unwritten rule that you won’t find plainly stated anywhere, this is all from player based observations. AOE’s especially they receive a huge damage reduction, while the exact number is unconfirmed, most AOE’s will do minimal damage to your pet/faerie with a few exceptions, some AOE’s won’t even touch it since your faerie can “fly”. Rouse: lvl42: Increases all damage/HP restoration done by faerie by 40%, faerie becomes immune to stun, sleep, bind, and heavy. Duration of 20 Seconds, Cooldown 60 sec. Instant. This is like the humane way to give your Faerie steroi- I mean… More magic! A 40% increase on a 250 Potency heal you’re not paying MP for every 3 seconds, means 350 potency for free on top of your 400 potency Physick. Now every 3 seconds you’re actually healing for 750 instead of 650 for the price of the cheapest heal all three healer classes get. Very useful!

C - Eos: The Wonder Faerie

Eos is the healing Fairie version of the summon spell variety, she focuses on defense, AoE heal over time, and increasing healing done.

Embrace: 250 Potency heal, 2 second cast, 3 second recast. Eos will heal a target automatically if they fall before 80% HP with this ability, please keep this in mind if your tank is doing a big pull. Either put your faerie away, or constantly spam “Obey” while the pet is on “Steady”, this tactic can be done on both faeries. Good potency heal that can be paired with your healing for some large number. Whispering Dawn: Gradually restores HP of faerie and all nearby party members with a Potency of 100 x 7 ticks = 700 Potency over 21 seconds. Cooldown 60 sec. “Instant”. This is the only regen heal available to you, if Eos is not on steady and obey she will just do this whenever she wants. Fine for leveling up to 60 or so, but you’re going to have to start micromanaging her at some point to get the most out of her, especially endgame raids, extreme trials, or new content dungeons. I put “Instant” because there is about a 1 second cast time, and any orders before it finished will prevent the full cast from being completed, the cooldown is thankfully refunded if the spell does not go off. Fey Covenant: Increase magic defense by 20% for faerie and nearby party members, Lasts 20 seconds, Cooldown 120 sec. “Instant”. Short of being a dark night or using virus, this is really the only way to reduce the magic damage a party takes, again, a huge reason you should control your faerie instead of leaving it on auto; timing this to a magic attack from a boss is a huge life saver on MP and can make the squishier members survive things they shouldn’t. I put “Instant” because there is about a 1 second cast time, and any orders before it is finished will prevent the full cast from being completed, the cooldown is thankfully refunded if the spell does not go off here as well. Fey Illumination: Increase spell based HP restoration of self and nearby party members by 10%, Lasts 20 seconds, Cooldown 120 sec. Instant. Short and sweet, a huge boon to you and the co-healer, but shared Dissipation/Largesse drawback; this DOES NOT affect Lustrate, Indomitability, or Excogitation. This does affect things like an AST’s Essential Dignity or Benefic II, and a WHM’s Cure III or Assize, very potent heals that 20% makes a big difference on. For you this affects Physick, Adloquium, and Succor, but it also boosts your faerie. Combine a Physick and Embrace can reach an 775 Potency heal every 3 seconds for a very cheap cost. Conversely, your 10k Adloquium Crit heals 11k instead, with a 22k shield instead of the 20k shield, combine Emergency Tactics, and you have a 33k heal.

D - Selene: The Multi-Tool Selene is debuff and buff, essentially a poor man’s Ast with some extra utility missing from the other healers. Embrace: 250 Potency heal Same as Eos Silent Dusk: Silence target - Cooldown 40 sec. Instant. I don’t know what we feed Selene, but honestly she is the only pet I leave on “do what you want” mode at all. She will literally only use Silence when it is applicable to something nearby you are attacking having a silence capable ability. Honestly, she deserves some credit here, a Faerie cookie, a pay raise, something. You can literally skip the odd mechanic here and there thanks to her. With a 40 second cooldown, it’s the fastest faerie ability recast aside from Embrace for Eos and Selene. Fey Caress: Remove a single detrimental effect from nearby party members, Cooldown 60 sec. Instant. Okay, if you didn’t think she deserved a treat before, pretty sure she does now. While on auto she may waste this, but she’s still trying to save you from using leeches on the whole party, kudos for trying? If you have her on obey and steady however, you can control and perform the skill at the optimal time and save yourself a massive migraine, even ignore a mechanic; and not when the tank has a poison stack of 1 and everyone one else is ok (she will do this on sic, so beware). Fey Wind: Increase nearby party members weapon skill, spell cast, and recast times by 3% for 30 seconds, Cooldown 60 sec. Instant. Most underappreciated exceptional skill any faerie has, possibly any pet in the game. If you’re running dual scholar, please, please, please consider having one of you decide to use Selene and the other use Eos. 3% more damage for 30 seconds every 60 seconds is a lot in the grand scheme of things; alternately if you’re good for heals and need to pass a Dps check, have your co-scholar and you both use Selene and time it perfectly in tandem for constant buff. That’s a 1.5% (for one Selene)/3% (for 2 Selene’s) damage increase every minute, and if timed with a SMN’s Dreadwyrm Trance, or a BLM’s Enochain- really any DPS and their damage buffs or modes, it’s amazing. That 1.5%/3% a minute over 5 minutes becomes 7.5%/15% more damage done, that may very well be enough to push phases fast enough, kill the boss before the rage wipe mechanic, really just strengthen the party as a whole. While a AST has this capability, it’s 10% for 20 seconds to the whole party as either damage or recast times that may or may not affect your Job, and only if they draw the right cards to share the cast with everyone which is a stroke of dumb luck at times and draws are 30 seconds apart meaning you may not get a group buff like this for another 2 to 3 minutes. Selene is a reliable Dps increase and deserves some love for that, you can leave her on Auto for fights with no debuff mechanic.

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11 - Rotations:

What you’re ideally going to be doing, but is always subject to change based on the needs of the party and what you are able to do with your current MP and Aetherflow.

A - Gaging:

Adloquium the tank, stop and gauge the dps and tank. Did they take a lot of damage, or are the shields still up, did the mobs die? Wait till the shield’s break, counting from the first hit; how long did it take?  Based on your answers to these questions you’ll either want to top off with heals, wait and see how much damage the tank can really take, or swap to attacking.

B - DPS:

S1: Shadow flare then Miasma II if 3 or more enemies, otherwise skip to S2 > S2: Miasma > S3: Bio II > S4: Is there a bunch of enemies (3-5 or more)? Have Aetherflow to spare? Then Bane or skip to S5 > S5: Is tank still okay? Broil until damage of time expires.

C- Healing:

Sorry. I can’t really tell you what the healing rotation is because that is a scholar’s best boon, there is no clear rotation, there’s only the situation at hand you will have to learn how to handle each one and ones you didn’t know existed. Other healers have the same problem, but Scholar more so. If anything, Adloquium then Physick is your friend.

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12 - Stratagem:

Here is where I note ability combo’s I’ve learned or theorized, and state the situations I’ve used them in.

Strong AOE DoT heal Ability Order: Rouse, Fey Illumination, Whispering Dawn Use: Good for upcoming AOE damage, or just topping everyone off while dpsing. At ilvl 230 healing went from 800hp per tick to 1.2k per tick .

No Aetherflow - Heals needed Ability Order: Fey Illumination, Largesse, Rouse, Emergency Tactics, Adloquium/Succor Use: Aetherflow is on cooldown, but MP is high, the tank/party needs a big heal but you’re either solo healing or the co-healer kicked the bucket. Can replace Adloquium with Succor. Congrats, at ilvl 230 assuming you crit, you just healed for 21k (7k if you didn’t crit which is a Lustrate heal practically), that’s literally my DRK’s HP pool at ilvl 210 shy of 1k and if you have your Faerie set to co-heal, you just made them survive Living Dead’s effect (DRK has 22k HP even at ilvl 210).

Recharge Faerie Gauge/MP - Warning: High Aetherflow Consumption Ability Order: Aetherflow, spend stacks(Energy Drain if not other abilities), If Eos: Fey Illumination, Dissipation, Largesse, Energy Drain (if low MP or spend stacks accordingly) and/or Lucid Dreaming (spend any stacks, or use Energy Drain for them), if MP is ok, hold onto stacks and use Dissipate in addition to Largesse to heal through faerie absence, resummon faerie, spend stacks, Aetherflow, spend stacks (again, Energy Drain or other abilities). Use: This will build up your Faerie Gauge extremely fast, in as little as 30 seconds if you’re lucky and you can gain 90 points on the gauge. You’re also recovering an absurd amount of MP with this rotation. 20% MP for both aetherflow’s + what you gain for the 560 potency MP refresh of lucid dreaming, and if you used Energy Drain to spend all 9 stacks of aetherflow roughly 1350 Potency restore of MP & HP for self in those 9 stacks alone. 

Really big AOE/tank buster coming - Healing needed before and after Ability Order: Rouse, Fey Illumination, if you have Aetherflow stacks spend them on Lustrate topping people off (alternate lustrate, eye for an eye, lustrate if this is the case), Eye for an Eye, Whispering Dawn, Dissipation, Adloquium, Deployment Tactics, Sacred Soil, wait for damage, Indomitability/Lustrate, Lustrate lowest HP/tank, Emergency tactics, Succor. Use: Heal like you mean it and cry for remainder of Dissipations duration till you can Swiftcast/Surecast/long cast a faerie summon; hopefully you have a co-healer while you spend 5 seconds summoning your pet if you do it the long way.

Maximum Eos Overdrive Ability Order: Rouse, Fey Illumination, Aetherpact Use: Simple, this makes your faerie’s heals very strong on single target, almost scary. What you can do is throw in a Whispering Dawn right before Aetherpact and your faerie will be competently healing everyone around you for roughly 20 seconds. With the Faerie Gauge depleting by 10 every 3 seconds at a total 60 gauge, the faerie would be able to make full use of the buff time.

============== 13 - Macro’s: Alright so below I’m going to highlight some things I’ve discovered, useful macro’s that make life easier. Most correspond to controlling your faerie more effectively with less effort. “Attack”: This Macro makes all your attacks attack the target of your target. Why? Because that means you can stay locked on the tank/dps for quick healing, and always attack what the tank/dps is attacking so you never accidentally steal aggro; this also allows you to use the same button to attack things on your own outside of instanced content. Just replace the ability names with the attack you want and have fun. (Can do this for Shadowflare too, remove third line, and it will cast on tank/dps/or the enemy in solo combat, but I prefer not to in case mobs make an oblong shape that requires more finesse.) /micon ruin /ac ruin /ac ruin Please note: I know it’s not rocket science to do this, but if you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend it This is a huge quality of life improvement to healers of any job, especially console players. Just make sure to have a focus target macro too so you can watch the boss cast times/spell names. “Faerie! Behave!”: A macro I made to control my faerie more when needed, this interrupts them healing say, Dps with 75% HP left, and opts to heal the tank you are targeting with 40% HP left, because the AI for faerie is not always the brightest. /micon physick /ac physick /pac “Heel” /pac “embrace” Please note: Replace “Physick” with whatever healing ability you would like to pair Eos’ or Selene’s Embrace with yours, good for adding to Esuna for example; this way you not only remove poison, but heal the damage it did. Use to Embrace under a Succor or Adloquium on a priority target that needs a little more attention than the rest of the group. The faerie heals for free, do not forget this! Be sure if you do this to space out your casting and don’t just mash pyhsick, this is why I say cast speed is a low priority early in the guide as you will fall out of sync with Eos/Selene as your recast is roughly 2.5 seconds, and their embrace is a 3 second recast cooldown beginning from start of cast. “Faerie! Help?”: A slight variation on the previous macro; this has your faerie help you if they’re not doing anything else, which is rare, but helpful. /micon physick /ac physick /pac “embrace” “Dance!”: Because it almost looks like you’re dancing with your faerie at times. What this does is pairs Aetherflow with Rouse; this makes it so when you give yourself MP and Aetherflow stacks, Eos also gains a boost to basic healing skills so you can space out the Aetherflow more evenly or give MP time to regenerate by healing less because Eos/Selene is healing more. /micon Aetherflow /ac aetherflow /wait 1 /ac Rouse Please note: The added bonus is both of these are on a 60 second cooldown, and instant casts, so you can move while casting it and not interrupt. You could add an “Obey” for your faerie at the beginning, middle, or end, to get them to follow you if you want to use this as an additional “Move faerie, you’re gonna get hit.” button as well while the skill is on cooldown for double purpose. “Useful Faerie Macros!”: Biggest issue with Eos/Selene is they do whatever the hell they want really, even on “obey” and “steady”; they keep healing anyone below 80% hp instead of casting the skill you want when you want it. Make the following macros instead to not only control Eos and Selene simultaneously without switching hotbars OR making an extra 4 macros. On console you may have to turn off switching to pet bar automatically for this to work best. Obey!: /micon “Steady” pet /pac obey /wait 1 /pac steady Embrace: /micon embrace pet /pac heel /pac embrace AOE DOT / Silence: /micon “Whispering dawn” pet /pac heel /pac “Silent Dusk” /pac “Whispering dawn” M Res / Rmv Debuff: /micon “Fey covenant” pet /pac heel /pac “Fey Covenant” /pac “Fey Caress” Heal Buff / ATK Spd: /micon “Fey Illumination” pet /pac heel /pac “fey Illumination” /pac “fey Wind” Please note: As long as you remember/reteach yourself what Selene’s spells look like, this is extremely handy to use so you don’t access your pet bar and slow yourself down when you could be casting; or use 8 macros for what you can do in 4. Alternatively you can set up 2 Macro’s in the following style to replace your summon spells that remap your skills depending on which faerie is out. Summon Eos: /micon “Summon” /ac “Summon” /hotbar pac “Fey Illumination” 2 4 /hotbar pac “Fey Covenant” 2 3 /hotbar pac “Whispering dawn” 2 2 ==============

14 - Hotbars:

As a show to demonstrate my layout, see the below picture and the reasoning behind the madness:

The top row is my pet bar, you will have to click these abilities manually. Second from top (Hotbar 3) is Shift + Numbers/symbols “1 to =” across the top of my keyboard. Second from bottom (Hotbar 2) is Ctrl + Numbers/symbols “1 to =” across the top of my keyboard. And the bottom row (Hotbar 1) is numbers/symbols “1 to =” across the top of my keyboard.

The skills here constantly shift around, it would be impossible to always keep this up to date, but you can use the theory of: Healing bottom row, pet control and casting buff and resurrect middle row, attacks top row.

==============

15 - Gaming Gear/Work Around:

I do have a Logitech G600 mouse, highly recommend it if you have 50$-60$ to spare, definitely if you see it on sale. Also have used a Razer Naga for similar effect. Can also switch out numbers for numpad and play with both hands on keyboard, just remap Z, X, C, and V on your keyboard or similar to your thumb’s comfort so you can use your thumb for the first 3x3 set of squares, so on and so forth.  I even setup a key to make the bottom hotbar switch between hotbar 1 and 4 with 1 being full control and 4 being partial control versions of my heal macros for my faerie. You can then setup / and * to cycle targets close to far and - and + to cycle party members up and down with Enter being “select”, you can always get to say by doing “alt+s” and do the same for other chats like linkshells, party, and FC chat. I did this for a while when my mouse was damaged…

Have I spent a lot of time optimizing this to be the best for me? Yes, yes I have. But this may not work for you; so please try, comment, share, and enjoy.

==============

16 - The End Please Like or Reblog if you found this guide helpful, it helps me gauge the interest for making future guides of different classes.

Alright, that’s it, good freaking luck, see you all later… 

It’s done… 

Go home… 

The shows over….

Alright, fine well, Yeku says we might do one for other classes if people request it, but I you didn’t hear that from me…

Shhh, now go…!

#tales of mod #what the job?! #scholar #ffxiv #guide #how to scholar #i wrote this instead of being an angry smol #amen to writing as an outlet to help others instead of destroy shit

[365footballorg-blog]

Ranking the top 10 personnel moves of the 2018 MLS season

USA Today Sports Images

October 18, 20184:17PM EDT

As we near the end of the regular season, the time is ripe to weigh which squad moves made by MLS clubs have borne the juiciest fruit.

Bear in mind, this is not a straight production and performance ranking of the best transfers made. Fit and influence in a new team is also highly important to winning, so the same goes here.

League general managers have done such a fine job adding impact pieces to their roster puzzles that our honorable mentions collection is exhaustive and hard to argue: Adama Diomande, Cory Burke, Rod Fanni, Benny Feilhaber, Aleksandar Katai, Darlington Nagbe, Cristian Penilla, Diego Rossi, Johnny Russell, Danilo Silva, Ismael Tajouri-Shradi, Walker Zimmerman.

No. 10: Felipe Gutierrez

Felipe Gutierrez | USA Today Sports Images

I went back and forth between Gutierrez and Russell for this spot, but in the end, had to give it to the Chile veteran because of his clear advantage in replacement value. After all, he moved out of his optimal position to bring a new flavor to Benny Feilhaber’s old spot. 

He’s enjoyed easily his best offensive season since leaving his homeland six years ago while remaining one of the top tacklers in the MLS. The clincher? Sporting KC are a Supporters’ Shield-esque 9-3-3 when he starts, and a middling 6-5-5 when he doesn’t.

No. 9: Kei Kamara

The Vancouver striker is hardly a silent or sneaky guy, and yet somehow, he’s quietly put in the second-best season of his career. Kamara has given the Whitecaps the cobra’s head they’ve lacked since Camilo departed after the 2013 season, potting 14 goals (six of them game-winners, good for third in MLS) to go with five assists.

He’s provided all that production in fewer than 2,000 minutes, and the team simply doesn’t run as smoothly when he’s not on the field (1-3-2 when Kamara doesn’t play). And for all of his on-field value, it might actually pale in comparison to the advanced tutelage he’s offered to Alphonso Davies.

No. 8: Kim Kee-hee/Tim Parker/Milton Valenzuela

You know I love a good cheat pick, and this one’s a tripleheader. Let’s call it the “Wins Above Replacement” backline crew, to steal a baseball term. Simply put, their teams all would have suffered a significant amount if forced to turn to the next guy on the depth chart.

A safety officer on and off the ball, Kee-hee has stepped into the heart of a Seattle defense that had developed what you might call “Roman Torres problems.” The Sounders have logged 13 of their 15 wins and conceded less than a goal per game when the South Korea defender starts.

Over in New York, Parker has proved the perfect partner to Aaron Long on a team that often forces their center backs to fend for themselves on the run. The Red Bulls are 1-3-1 while allowing two goals per game when the hometown boy has sat this season.

Finally, Valenzuela has given Columbus Crew SC great balance in both directions. Looking north-south, the young DP is a top tackler who also stands third in the league among defenders in key passes. And by outproducing the left wingers that have played in front of him, he’s also scared opponents off of crowding Harrison Afful’s side.

No. 7: Kaku

 A lot of fingernails got chewed to the quick when the Red Bulls dealt away Sacha Kljestan, but that quickly became old news once the season started. Alejandro Romero Gamarra, better known as Kaku, fit right in with the Supporters’ Shield contenders right away in his debut MLS season (no small feat), making sure Bradley Wright-Phillips would not go hungry up top.

The playmaker dribbles past defenders, hits a mean splitting pass, gives up the ball far less than one would expect from a final third operator and presses like a demon, a certain requirement at Red Bull Arena. Because of all this, he stands tied for fourth in the league with 14 assists, and all five of his goals have been game-winners.

No. 6: Saphir Taider

 It has become quite de rigueur of late to moan about how underrated Nacho Piatti is up in Montreal. These complainers are not wrong, but I’ve got hot news for them: The three-time All-Star and 2016 Best XI honoree is not even the most underappreciated player on his team.

It says here that distinction goes to Taider, the do-it-all midfielder who’s the main difference in a side that has already surpassed last year’s point total by four with two games remaining. The Algeria star is second on the team with seven goals and third with eight assists by running their bread-and-butter counter, and gets stuck in defensively without fouling much. Without Taider, Montreal aren’t even in the playoff race.

No. 5: Raul Ruidiaz

The Peru striker only arrived at midseason, but his transformative powers have not gone unnoticed. Due to another Jordan Morris injury setback, Seattle coaches and fans spent the first four months of the season bemoaning the lack of an attacker who could stretch the field and unnerve defenders.

That all ended with the arrival of Ruidiaz, who give defenders fits, which in turn affords Sounders orchestrator Nico Lodeiro both space and a top target. Yeah, he’s bagged seven goals in 12 games, and that’s great. More importantly, Seattle are 10-2-0 with two goals scored per game when he plays (vs. just under a half-goal per game without him on the field).

No. 4: Borek Dockal

Borek Dockal | USA Today Sports Images

Oh boy, did Philadelphia Union fans seemingly cry out forever for a No. 10 to bridge their fine midfield and routinely starved attack. All those  prayers were finally answered with the loan move that brought crystalizing force Dockal to Philly.

Though it took the Czech playmaker several weeks to heat up, he eventually was dispensing fresh, tasty offerings like a Wawa. Dockal had but one assist through his first eight games, but now tops the league with 17. Thanks to his incisive link play and array of final balls, Philadelphia are back in the playoffs with a good shot at hosting their first postseason game since 2011.

No. 3: Carlos Vela

There’s no shortage of excellent pickups on the LAFC roster (see the honorable mentions above), and if we were counting head coaching hires in this list, Bob Bradley would rank near the top. Even so, Vela has truly been the straw that stirs the expansion darlings’ drink from day one. 

The Mexico star has 13 goals to go with a dozen helpers, and stands near the top of the league in non-penalty goals + assists per 90 minutes, key passes, free kicks won, dribbles and shots on goal. Nearly every frightening LAFC rush goes through him, and enough of them also end with him that the new kids on the block have a great chance to end their first regular season with a Knockout Round bye.

No. 2: Wayne Rooney

Though “Señor Wayne” has only been in MLS for 17 games, the former England icon has completely changed both the look and the outlook for the Black-and-Red. Many doubted that Rooney could still star, but they’ve all been converted since mid-July, when D.C. United had 11 points from 14 games and appeared in need of a series of miracles to reach the postseason.

Rooney hasn’t walked on water just yet, but he does steal points late with an alarming frequency. The 32-year-old has done it all, dropping deep, leading the line and everything in between on the way to nine goals and seven assists. His presence has also unleashed the beast in Lucho Acosta, and the two have led the capital crew on a 10-4-3 surge that has them holding the East’s last playoff spot, four points ahead of the only foe that can still catch them.

No. 1: Zlatan Ibrahimovic

Who else could it be, right? The mighty Zlatan burst onto the MLS scene with a stunning derby double and has hardly slowed down since. The LA Galaxy superstar has had a historic debut season, chalking up 21 goals and nine assists to put the StubHub Center crew in position to pull off what rather recently looked to be an improbable rally for a playoff berth. Without him, they are nowhere near this station.

The striker’s goals-per-game rate is almost identical to that of record-breaker Josef Martinez, he’s hit for seven winners, buried all four of his penalty kicks and he’s one helper away from becoming the third 20-10 player in league history. And let’s face it: even if the Galaxy don’t manage to snare that playoff invite, Zlatan’s showmanship on the field, lion’s roar of a personality off of it and worldwide Q Rating has improved the league immeasurably.

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Ranking the top 10 personnel moves of the 2018 MLS season was originally published on 365 Football

#2018 #moves #personnel #Ranking #season

[flickwatches]

OWL Season 2 Preseason Ranking

20. Toronto Defiant

I really wanted to put Washington here because I have no faith in that team.  But the Toronto has a main tank I’m unfamiliar with and Main Tanks were extremely important in OWL way before goats meta.  I see Neko and Envy and it really inspires me.  I see Bishop and I’m like wow.  But Bishop doesn’t really have a history of winning in Overwatch lately.  From London to Cloud9 he really hasn’t been producing W’s.  I like the roster a lot and maybe the meta shifts heavily in there favor but right now I don’t think Neko can fix a frontline issue.

19. Washington Justice

I do not like this roster.  The late addition (they were all late) of Gido and Ado really inspires me but if Ado wasn’t enough to get Shanghai 1 W than he won’t be enough in what mite possibly be a more difficult season. 28 games and more down time in between.  Well rested players, highly practiced, and prepared for there matches.  Janus is really strong in this lineup and so are the coaches.  I guess this roster would do pretty good in NA contenders. 

18. Chengdu Hunters

I don’t trust the roster or the process.  Highest level league play does something to teams with potential.  It chews them up and spits them out.  Maybe this is the good side of the Chinese scene that Shanghai never showed us in season 1.  I probably have them ranked too low but what the Dragons did in season 1 worries me. 

17.  Guangzhou Charge

Either this team will be surprisingly good or really bad.  It really depends on the coaching staff and how well they are supported by the org. A lot of there season depends on Rio and how well he works with the different players on the roster. They mite catch themselves halfway thru the season and start playing well. 

16. Florida Mayhem

I like the roster a lot.  I know BQB was accused of boosting but he’s extremely talented.  xepheR is really good. Solid DPS, decent tanks, good supports (hopefully way better than last year).  Coaching staff and org staff still seems really small.  They could surprise people depending on the meta.

15. Boston Uprising

Huk, Could be worst team in the league.  Three main tanks.  Poorly coached and managed.  Extremely talented players. 

14.Shanghai Dragons

I don’t want to rank them this low but I’m floating 3-4 teams around this spot.  They haven’t won a game in OWL yet.  Hopefully they have a nice schedule of lower level teams and they can produce some quality wins.  Org seems ready to commit this season so I expect huge problems will be scorched away quickly. 

13. Seoul Dynasty

Fissure is cool I guess.  They have a balanced roster, experienced team, and a schedule system that will highly benefit them.  Older players mite not listen to new in game leadership this far into there careers. I’m not very confident in there synergy and I wanted to rank them a few spots back.  They do have piles and piles of talent tho.  

12. San Francisco Shock

If we remove all the DPS players from the roster and look closely will see some problems.  Mid tier off tanks and mid tier main tanks.  New season same problem.  One of there main tanks need to play at a higher level.  Off tank can exist well enough if there main tank plays well enough.  Support trio could be strong depending on the meta. 

11. Houston Outlaws

I have my personal disagreements with how they play.  I’m a fan of them and they upset me from time to time.  In a goats meta having someone like Spree who can slide into that 2nd DPS spot and play Zarya is amazing.  They won’t use Spree like that.  Houston is going to fuddle thru the season and end up worse than 11th.  Could easily reach top 8 if they make good decisions before matches even start. They prepare pretty poorly and depend to heavily on classic 2/2/2 roster lineups to play the game.  Polar opposite of what the Eastern OW scene has been doing lately. 

10. Atlanta Reign

May have similar issues with Houston.  Roster has built in solutions to potential problems but the team mite not use them.  I’m very big on the roster even without Dafran.  Front line has synergy.  Backup Academy front line also has great synergy.  Supports are questionable but Academy support duo is extremely experienced and reliable.  DPS is very solid for a trio.  Has 1 map sub potential which can be very powerful in OWL.  Team is built to work no matter what.  Mite not be lead in right direction to succeed.  

9.  Los Angeles Valiant

There mistakes finally show up in there results.  Remember when “development” was a big part of there OW decision making???  Suddenly you have an APEX coach and his players are at the top of the roster. This team goes as far as Kariv can take them while covering every hole on the roster. Honestly if this team finishes top 4 with Kariv starting at DPS he’ll deserve OWL MVP.  \

8. Dallas Fuel

I’m very high on them and very low on them at the same time.  Added players, added coaching staff, re commitment to the team on a whole. Schedule change will be huge for them.  New season same problem.  What happens when a projectile meta happens???  They’ll be able to play it but main players who aren’t as good as the bench players will have to play or bench players will have to step into major roles.  Could cause problems with how well they’ll play this season.  Dallas and Seoul need to remember how to win to be successful again. 

7. Vancouver Titans

They will have problems.  May it be there org or just how there playing.  They will struggle.  But this team has too much experience and inner support to just fall apart.  Where the org or players fail the fans and team will pick up.   They won’t get this far and go down without a fight. The talent difference will start to show throughout the season but they will overcome it as a team. 

6. Los Angeles Gladiators

I got a little down on them but than I remembered how well they play.  The support trio will play well no matter what. Surefour will show up.  Decay and R0ar will show up.  Void should be better this season if they don’t want to play Bischu.  Will win games like they’ve been here before. 

5. Philadelphia Fusion

I got a little down on them.  I love what Elk will bring to the team but he’s just a Lucio.  Poko is the only off tank.  When will Eqo run out of talent?  Will they even play Fragi during goats meta?  But they are a force of nature.  Carpe won’t give up.  Much like the Gladiators they’ve been here before and it will show. 

4. Hangzhou Spark

 I am extremely high on this team.  And also a huge X6 Gaming fan.  Krystal and Godsb (a widow god).  Ria and Nosmite AND Guxue if they want to mix up the main tank role.  I love this roster and its potential.  Mite step into the league like NYXL. 

3. Paris Eternal 

Maybe I forgot to rank them a few spots ago and just put them here (maybe).  I was very high on France in the OWWC and was a little disappointed.  The roster and staff is fucking stacked to the roof.  From Kruise on Support leading the team, Main tanks Benbest and Lhcloudy, and to the stacked DPS lineup of Soon and Shadowburn.  If OWL ever goes into a Dive meta they will near the top. 

2. New York Excelsior 

Hmmm.  

Hmm.

Could be #1.  They have the roster to go 28-0.  But its 28 games will bigger breaks between games this season.  I like to think that benefits the next team the most. 

1. London Spitfire

Back to back champions?  Barely any change to the roster and that’s ok.  The biggest offseason addition was the change to the regular season format.  Strong new teams should challenge London but I knew a few will bow before the world champions.  Look out for a repeat.  

Conclusion

I wrote this far too fast and without enough research (LOL I guess).  I’ve watched a lot of Hangzhou Spark players already on X6 Gaming.  We already know how good some of these teams already are.  This is mostly speculation.  And meta shifts could turn this list upside down at any moment.  

#Flick Watches #OWL #Overwatch League #London Spitfire #New York Excelsior #Paris Eternal #Hangzhou Spark #Philadelphia Fusion #los angeles gladiators #Vancouver Titans #Dallas Fuel #Los Angeles Valiant #Atlanta Reign #Houston Outlaws #San Francisco Shock #Seoul Dynasty #Shanghai Dragons #Florida Mayhem #Boston Uprising #Guangzhou Charge #Chengdu Hunters #Washington Justice #Toronto Defiant #Overwatch #Opinion Article #lol tags

[flickwatches]

Week 3 Power Ranking

Work week so I missed the majority of the weekend games.  Let me just watch a few Akshon Esports highlights.... Wait, what do you mean I can’t do that? 

20. Washington Justice

No matter how bad the next team gets they’ll never be as bad as the Justice.

19. Los Angeles Valiant

My sweet child what has happened to you.  Was the EU staff and players that important???  Was moving Kariv off of flex support to DPS and Kuki off of Main Tank to Main Support too dangerous of moves???  Maybe its time to invest into serious talent instead of expecting the team’s system to pull you out of it.  A number of players are still walking around without contracts.  But sadly a good chuck of them are signed to Academy teams (something you seem to be lacking).

18. Florida Mayhem 

I don’t want to rank them this low.  They are currently playing the best Overwatch of there entire existence as the Mayhem  McGravy is a great breathe of fresh air.  Apply is letting them bench Tviq (they’ve need to do that for a very long time).  And its let Tviq focus more on his strengths.  I really hope they carry over this improvement into Stage 2. 

17. Los Angeles Gladiators

Everyone’s spirits seemed to be dampened on the Gladiators.  A little wet so to speak.  Like there own personal rain cloud that won’t leave them alone. Beach is nice for a day but the Gladiators are drowning right now.  Mite be time to shelve Hydration till a different meta appears. 

16. Boston Uprising

To be honest ranking the next 10 teams is going be god damn impossible but I have to start somewhere.  And fuck this team’s GM.  HIRE A HEAD COACH.  Give Asking a 2 way contract before you lose him.  Honestly Asking should be on the main roster just to prepare him for a potential DPS meta. 

15. Houston Outlaws

Look to be figuring out there issues slowly.  But they mite be 1 step behind the competition again like last year.  Seeing Coolmatt, Bani, and Linkzr back on stage should give fans a lot of hope. 

 14. Chengdu Hunters

My favorite team of Stage 1.  Meta breaking team comps.  Can’t seem to keep it together once teams figure out how to counter play them.  Its hard to tell if they are being countered and being hard stopped by teams.  Or if they are being countered and get flustered so they play bad.  Would be extremely dangerous in any playoff situation this year. I wouldn’t want to face Jinmu and Ameng when they have nothing to lose. 

13. London Spitfire

Still look pretty bad.  Honestly don’t think this is the meta for them.  Profit and Birdring like to make decisions and sometimes they can tilt from being stuck in Brig jail or from the other team knowing what they want to do. Meta is very punishing to initial aggression. 

12. Guangzhou Charge

Fun team that’s figured out some secrets to off meta.  They don’t seem overly strong at current meta and aren’t even the best teams at off meta.  But they are willing to take just enough risks to find value.  Depending on matchup in the future they could stealing more than just a few extra wins. 

11. Seoul Dynasty

Difficult to rank the Dynasty.  Honestly Ana goats and or Sombra goats is there biggest advantage right now.  They can heavily enable Fissure but its just not optimal sadly.  But they are already adding new players and pushing to improve.  Already better than last year’s team. 

10. Shanghai Dragons

Gamsu fixes all.  One of the strongest Main Tanks in the league.  Shanghai is stacked with talent and he is giving them structure and space to work in.  This team can only improve as the season continues. 

9. Dallas Fuel

The last 2 teams here could be flipped next week because they go again for a rematch already.  Dallas is a strange team.  Either they dominate or are dominated this season.  The only exception being the slugfest against Shanghai.  

8. Paris Eternal 

Who even knows.  I don’t know. 

7. Hangzhou Spark

Have looked really good and really bad.  Could be shoved to the side if they are forced to play off meta. Have a really strong team but they don’t seem prepped at all for a DPS meta this stage. 

6. Toronto Defiant

LOL this must be a typo.  Wait, its not?! Bishop is a legit miracle work.  Super strong and consistent team that just appeared out of thin air.  Dark horse of stage 1 easily. 

5. Philadelphia Fusion

I’m always super high on the Fusion and I don’t know why.  They honestly need to play Fragi more just to create some aggression on the team.  I know Fragi goes against the current state of the game even the way the shot callers prefer to work on the team.  But sometimes you need to be on Ball and in the other teams backline.  #FreeEqoFromBrigJail

4. San Francisco Shock

Stupid good.  I notice early on something strange about the team.  All there dumb players are playing extremely smart in this meta.  From Super to Sinatraa the difference in actual IQ to in game IQ is astronomical.   They are getting the most out of the top tier talent they have.  Amazing coaching and player development.  

3. Atlanta Reign 

Seem to be riding on the razors edge that is Dafran’s mental health.  But damn if his teammates don’t legit love the fuck out of him and the coaching staff is seemingly doing what they can to help him balance work life right now. They took a risk on a player and its paying off. 

2. Vancouver Titans

Number 2 because they can’t be number 1.  Best team (not 6 individual talents) in the world.  The dedication and fruition of years of hard work finally realized.  No group of players and staff deserves this success more than they do.  Long live the true kings of Overwatch.

1. New York Excelsior 

I hear it coming.  The confidence.  The toxicity.  Oh Jjonak, you feel untouchable don’t you. Nenne is there anything you can’t do?  Don’t you hear the footsteps?  Don’t you feel the chill run down your back from the overarching shadow around you? Something is growing closer behind you.  And its much larger than you could ever hope to be. 

Enjoy it.

It ends soon.

“The kings desire a crown so the league better watch out.“

#Overwatch league #power ranking #flickwatches #overwatch