#i do not care about passive and buff skills. just give me attack skills.

[foxgirlplushie]

I don’t know jack and/or shit about Arknights besides cute/cool kemono characters but 1 for the ask thing!

Ooooooh you CANNOT expect me to pick just one so I am going to infodump about some of my faves under a cut! (If you held a gun to my head I would have to pick Myrrh, then Perfumer/Sussurro/Frostleaf, then everyone else I talk about)

Ok first up is my url namesake and my icon Myrrh!! Look at her! She's a medic who joined Rhodes Island (the landship you live on) after her friend became infected with magical rock cancer, she specializes in herbal medicine that tastes *awful*, and she has debilitating social anxiety! Gameplay-wise, she has skills that let her heal an additional person every so often and she refreshes everyone's health when you deploy her. She is also transgender. (Myrrh is technically a codename, but she mentions that it was given to her by Kal'tsit [head medic of RI and a lot more but that's complicated lore stuff] and my headcanon is that when she joined up she didn't want to give them her deadname but she hadn't decided on a new name yet, so Kal chose Myrrh for a codename and she just rolled with it)

Secondly is Perfumer! She's another medic who runs the Convalescent Garden on the landship and does aromatherapy sessions. She's very nice and helpful with everyone she meets (she's the one who helped Myrrh develop her medicine to be slightly less awful tasting) and just. So so lovely. Also she's super pretty. In-game she's an AOE Medic, which means she heals for slightly less, but can heal three people at once (with an upgrade that lets her target four!), and a talent that gives every unit on the map small passive healing! Of all my faves she's the only one that's really "meta" (which means she's good for really tough levels).

Frostleaf!!! She's a former child soldier turned mercenary who came to RI for oripathy (magical rock cancer) treatment. She's super quiet and likes music and fashion and also hitting people with cold magic and big huge axes. She was my very first e2 promotion and theres so much good fan content of her. She's a ranged Guard with a massive range and skills that slow or bind enemies, but unfortunately she's very very underpowered compared to other units. HG please my girl needs a buff.

Sussurro!!! Yet another medic, but this one actually went to medical school! She became infected there and now works at RI in exchange for treatment. She's very small but is very serious about being a doctor, and god forbid you treat her like a child. (She has an Operator Record [which is a tiny side story] that focuses on her helping with the aftermath of a natural disaster and kicking ass and inspiring an NPC who doubted her at first to join RI) She has a skill that turns her healing into ABSOLUTE TURBO MODE, but she can only use it twice per level, so don't waste it!

Those are I think my big four favorites, but let's keep going just because.

Vermeil! She's an archer who was a feral child living alone in the woods after her village was massacred. She has a rad prosthetic arm and is my tiny gremlin child.

Red!! The first non-fox operator we have, she's a wolf who was raised by "Grandma" (who we know basically nothing about) and now is an assassin/bodyguard. She has one skill that massively buffs her attack and gives her dodge for a little while after she gets deployed, and one that stuns enemies in the tiles next to her when she's deployed. She has a lot of knives hidden in her coat and is autistic.

Liskarm! She's a defender with an electric shield she uses to zap enemies and a gun, which in this universe is powered by magic. (The electricity is also her specific magic) She's from rural nowhere and dreams of starting her own bodyguard company. Her partner is Franka and they have the specific *bickers constantly and claims to hate each other but really do care deeply about each other* dynamic that is just ... *Chefs kiss*

Franka, Liskarm's partner! She's lighthearted and optimistic and loves pranking people, especially Liskarm. They were both working for a separate mercenary company when Franka got infected and transferred to RI. Liskarm also filed for a transfer without her knowing and there was a *scene* when she found out. (They have a separate side manga series focusing on them and their apprentices and its very good and very gay)

One more because I'm almost at pic limit but we'll finish with Cliffheart!! She's a mountain climber who got infected after falling one day but now shes being treated at RI. Her brother is the CEO of capitalism and her sister is the Cat Pope and they aren't talking to each other which she super hates. She's a Puller, which means she throws hooks and ropes at people and pulls them towards her (usually into a bottomless pit).

#arknights #sorry for long post but i love my blorbos #if you wanna know more i will gladly infodump more about anyone listed or other characters depending #asks

[crystalelemental]

Unit Teambuilding - Melony

Okay.  Okay, I may have to call a mulligan on this one a bit.

General Overview Look, to get straight to the point: I think Melony's utility is strictly built-in Vigilance with Sing.  The ability to block crits and take Troublemaker 1 lucky skill is tremendous.  Adding Precision Pals makes this a perfect accuracy 1-bar spam that locks down Gauntlet stages that can't become immune.  It's unbelievably good.

But the rest of her kit is bad.  Dual screens and Safeguard with extension of all effects is something, but taking all three passives to accomplish it leaves Melony with little else to do.  Basically, you need Vigilance and Precision Pals to make the Sing work.  Then, you decide if you want Team Sync Regen.  If you want that passive recovery, then you take that, and have basically nothing left.  Or, you can ditch that, take Recuperation 1 and All Ramped Up on trainer move, and have self-sufficient healing on sync only, with some support to special attack buffing.  Considering her trainer move is otherwise just +2 special defense and +1 crit, it would be nice to do a bit more, but it comes at the cost of a really good skill.  While she has Hostile Environment 2 and Team Sharp Entry, the only way to reasonably acquire these is to give up the Sing tools, and that...may be worth it, but usually not.

In short, Melony is a counterpick unit.  She doesn't so much fit on any team structure, so much as she responds really well to particular stages.  Mostly Gauntlet stages.  If anything, Melony's a bit demanding as a support, since you need gauge control to maintain the chain, which is hard to do when you're slow and don't have guaranteed MGRs.

Move Level/EX Required? I want to start this section, because of the new 5/5 controversy, but also the recent increase in gem prices for certain locations spooked me enough I’m re-assessing my spending habits, and this seems like a good function to look at.

Melony is an all or nothing unit.  1/5 has the Sing utility, but it is far, far worse off without 3/5 for Vigilance, as you’d need to pick between survival and the sleep chance.  3/5 is required for her to really come together.  Is that worth it?  The main thing I’d ask is: how much do you care about Elio’s move level?  If it doesn’t matter a bit, just slap Troublemaker on her and call it a day.  3/5 makes her function well, but it’s far from required.  1/5 will do fine, you just give up some of her potential utility.  I’d also say Melony is one of the least essential supports to EX.  While the double damage buff is nice, Melony’s biggest utility is going to be sleep chaining, and you likely don’t want to disrupt that with a turn to sync.  Which...I’m legitimately thinking about skipping her.  I wouldn’t need to invest anything specific, and frankly her role exists completely uninvested.  If Elio gets away with it, so can she.

Team 1: Melony, Noland, Strike Scyther Noland is a perfectly self-sufficient buffer, with some decent Bug-type damage output.  This makes him a nice Gauntlet choice for Azelf, which can be sleep chained.  Melony is able to keep the lockdown, while Noland provides good sync damage.  I opted for Eggmon Scyther just because striker Eggmons rarely get to do anything, and Bug Buzz complements Noland's physical offense to handle Uxie's phases.

Team 2: Melony, Blue/Plumeria, whoever really Blue and Plumeria are both pretty solid Bulu answers, and wouldn't you know it Bulu can be sleep chained too.  Blue in particular benefits from Precision Pals and All Ramped Up on Melony to complete his buffing needs, with added benefit from Brutal Clarity on Hurricane.  Plumeria can buff her offenses just fine, but needs help with crit, which Melony can provide.  Plumeria is dangerous, however, as a rogue Poison chance landing means no more Sleep, so be prepared for that one.

Team 3: Melony, SS May, Hitmontop Melony can provide one (1) crit buff to May, completing her crit rate needs before first sync, while Hitmontop helps speed up the debuffing process.  Your goal?   Cobalion.  While not eternally sleepy, Cobalion starts with no resistance, making Sleep a potent status choice against it, so long as your sync nuke finishes the job.  And SS May will guaranteed finish the job once Cobalion is debuffed.

Final Thoughts Melony fills in some interesting gaps for teams, and can provide some really nice utility in general.  However, I feel like she's one Elio grid upgrade away from being second fiddle.  If Elio gets Vigilance on grid too, he basically has her utility. Slightly less perfect Sing accuracy, but in exchange gets legitimate buffing and debuffing utility, with better independent gauge control.  Melony will have a tough time keeping up.  But sleep chaining is always strong utility, so I expect Melony will come in with a pretty reasonable performance, and will maintain that performance pretty much forever.  A solid, stable unit if ever there was one.

#pokemon masters #unit teambuilding #melony

[morningstar-warriors]

Game Three

This game was in person! Wahoo!!! Everyone was able to attend which was fabulous, and the game went on for hours. Honestly I was surprised everyone wanted to play for nearly 7 hours. I bought mini toy cats for the game, and plan to paint (and maybe sculpt and add clay) the critters to look like their kitties.

A New Addition

Leaf was finally able to play, their kitty Dustclover. She was crafted fast with no trouble. My other players were able to assist Leaf in quickly making a new cat sheet by hand. I’ll give the game system this, the character sheets are very simple to recreate. There was a confusion with knacks, no surprise considering they’re a little confusing, but otherwise there were no issues.

Dustclover | She/Her | XX Moons

Dustclover is deputy of Fern clan. After asking Blue who she would have as deputy (a player or an npc) she settled on Dustclover. The joke being everyone else in the clan keeps getting high, but Darkstar is sober and Dustclover “can’t do that stuff.” I’m guessing alluding to it making her feel sick or paranoid.

Game Tweaks

One of the things I wish this book had— ENEMIES! Trying to fight in this game is a bit confusing and requires some tweakage. If you stumble across this I suggest you proceed to change and adjust to your liking, but this is what I have so far.

Combat:

Players can use skills or knacks to attack an opponent. For this I have them roll 3d6 (suggested for every roll in the book.) Aside from knacks, which are automatic actions that cost chips.

If they land an attack, I tell them to roll a 1d4 for damage. I’ve decided that bites are 2d4 and certain other buffs give 2d4 damage as well. (these will be brought up later in story.)

This is still very much in the trial stage… I’m not certain if it works as I’ve noticed my players can TEAR an enemy to shreds fast. Especially if I’m trying to make it something tough, like a badger. I planned on implementing AC, which has only just been introduced as a concept to the characters and my players. So I have yet to play with it.

Armor Class Ideas:

I’m thinking general enemies should have a passive AC. A no brainer now, but in the moment I really wasn’t certain how to go about enemy difficulty. In the source book I’m referencing, they have difficulty when it comes to prey hunting— which is nice but, has rarely ever come up in my games. I’ve decided to sorta use it as an outline when it comes to enemies.

(page 13.)

Tangent about the hunting mechanics:

It almost feels too fleshed out. Like the amount of steps would have me state “roll, roll, roll, roll” and you need a balance between dice and rp for pete’s sake. Hunting feels like money in D&D. Either care about it or don’t at all. Hunting feels almost like something that should be an implied rp moment. I say this because when attempting to hunt using these rules, it felt so fucking monotonous. Especially if my player misses or spooks the prey. It should be just a pounce or jump check I’m thinking. This game is quite simple, I think it’s simplicity should be embraced a little, but to each their own.

Using this model I do have a good outline set up for an enemy! If a player chooses to sneak, sniff or listen, attack, ect— this level of detail makes sense and can be accounted for. I’m going to replace the kill check with HP, and replace the grab check with AC.

I think a good AC for cats would be 11. A nice run the mill average number. I’ve kinda consistently made non-armored cats have no AC so I’ll stick to my guns there but I suggest changing that honestly.

tbd:

Thorn Armor — 11 AC (maybe add a check to see if the attacker is stung?)

Clay Armor — 12 AC

Bone Armor — 13 AC

Perhaps it’d be interesting to apply mechanics involving armor damage, since the armor is all relatively breakable. Bone Armor obviously being the toughest to destroy…

#games #warrior cats adventure game #warrior cats

[maifuyus]

at the very core im a hater so i would like to say that i HATE defense cards

#twst #mai yells #twisted wonderland #blah blah blah ig they have a function to provide u more hp but #WHO GIVES A SHIT (hint: not me) #I JUST WANNA DO BAM BAM KABLAAM DAMAGE #zzz when my cards do zero damage #IDC IF I DIE QUICKLY JUST ATTACK BAM BAM BAM #beansday vil is a defense card and tbh that just ruined my day #means i dont get to see his little beansday fighting icon in my roster each day :( #im like an elementary pokemon player #i do not care about passive and buff skills. just give me attack skills. #i literally do not understand anything else but violence

[tf2workbench]

Let’s settle this like gentlemen!

A week ago, I floated the idea of a grenade launcher that disabled primary weapons. While this is an interesting attribute, that isn’t the post to fully discuss it on. This post is.

Disabling a class’s primary weapon is extremely powerful, since it’s usually their primary way of interacting with enemies. A lot of classes carry a secondary weapon for this exact scenario, but remember that there are unlockable secondaries that replace the weapon with a passive, or at least not-a-weapon, effect. Examples would be the Heavy’s Sandvich, Soldier’s Buff Banner, or Sniper’s Razorback.

(As a note: “primary weapon” means the Scout’s Scattergun; Soldier’s Rocket Launcher; Pyro’s Flamethrower; Demoman’s Grenade Launcher; Heavy’s Minigun; Engineer’s Shotgun; Medic’s Syringe Gun; Sniper’s Sniper Rifle; and Spy’s disguise kit. For intuitiveness, I would have the Spy’s Revolver [ordinarily considered a secondary] fulfill this role.)

Because having your primary weapon disabled is rather significant, it shouldn’t be done willy-nilly, such that a stray bullet or explosion could do it. It also has to be within the range where the victim can do something about it. These traits point us toward a melee weapon.

Let’s start with the Pyro...

Dueling Melee Iteration 1 Pyro melee (+) On hit: Disables target’s primary weapon for three seconds (-) -25% damage (-) 50% slower holster (-) No random critical hits

(I vaguely remember an old custom weapon that did something similar. As I look around, it turns out it was the American Gothic from Advanced Weaponiser. I like the way those guys think.)

This allows the Pyro, a very close-range class, to ambush a target and incinerate them before taking a counterattack. It’s very handy, which is why I had to make the downsides so severe.

Of course, this isn’t a perfectly designed weapon, and may even end up being underpowered. There are other ambush options that 1) work better on groups and 2) kill targets even faster than the stock flamethrower. But let’s move on to another class: the one who inspired this post’s title.

Dueling Melee Iteration 2 Revolver (+) On close-range hit: Disables target’s primary weapon for five seconds (-) -30% damage (-) -30% firing speed

I know I said no ranged weapons, but this fit so well with the Spy that I had to. And, despite being a very cool concept, it didn’t work out so well. This allows you to salvage a botched stab (maybe). But is that something the Spy should have access to?

It’s also a good place to point out some inadequacies of disabling primary weapons: some classes don’t care. The Spy and Medic do far more work with non-primary weapons, while the Demoman is arguably more dangerous with his secondary. And the Engineer’s sentries don’t care what their creator can or can’t shoot. Of course, I could make it “locks targets to melee”, but that raises a different problem: it’s a way to stop Medics from charging their Uber, which is an absolute no-no for the flow of the game.

Is this attribute unsalvageable? Maybe. Is that gonna stop me from working with it? No!

Dueling Melee Iteration 3 Demoman melee (+) On hit: Disables target’s primary weapon for five seconds (-) -25 max health on wearer (-) No random critical hits

Make it a sword if you want. Heck, stick it onto the Claidheamh Mór if you want, because that weapon’s still having an identity crisis. This is highly suited for the Demoknight and, if you can get that close without dying, the Demoman too. Restricting attackers to close-range combat is something both variants of the class really, really like.

Because I’m full of ideas, let’s try another!

Dueling Melee Iteration 4 Scout melee (+) On hit: Disables target’s primary weapon for four seconds (-) -30% damage (-) 50% slower holster speed (-) No random critical hits

Like the others, really. The Scout benefits from a defenseless foe, although it’s probably more sporting to just dodge all their shots. He’s also very well-equipped to bonk some enemy in the middle of a push, giving his team an easy target. That’s why I put those significant downsides on the weapon, although they may not keep it from getting annoying - it’s hard to dissuade a Scout who wants to get into melee range, although skilled players can certainly stop the incursion.

What’s your opinion on this attribute? Who needs it most? Who absolutely does not need it?

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #pyro #spy #demoman #scout #melee #primary

[icharchivist]

How good are the twins and/or Fediel? I tried looking at their skills and such but I don't understand why they are necessarily good or not

for the twins, you know how Earth Narmaya broke the Earth game by being one of the most powerful unit and that if you have her you're an earth god, especially if coupled with Mahira because of Mahira's unique buff?

well this tweets sums it up:

if the twins can outdo a Ringed Narmaya, they must be insane.

things i think may also make them stand out:

-They may have a linked skill, but their CA allows to reset their cooldown AND allows to use them both at once. -Both linked skills have major Skill DMG + major buff and debuff that stacks with Mahira's, so with Mahira's support they are extremely strong -High hostility/High Dodge and Substitute effect make them really handy especially as buffer/debuffer since it gets them to live longer. Triple attack is always good. -When they can't attack their passive gets unlocked, so, either by using their 3rd skill (which gives them sharp boost to ATK still), OR if you bring them to v2 raids.

Genuinely i think this skill can be a gamechanger for v2raids.

Also this is the first time a Zodiac weapon is extremely good and not just for Titan Grids:

The first skill only matters if you have a titan grid, but the two others work even in a regular Earth grid. Critical hit rate is the heart of a lot of grids out there because this skill is the most efficient for high DMG output, so the fact this is a weapon you can use even in omega for crits is great. Skill DMG is also really sought after and Earth especially relies a lot more on Skill DMG, especially if you happen to have Lobelia.

For Fediel she may be sought after both for her skills, but, especially, for her weapon.

those are incredible skills for a weapon that runs on an Hades grid. My friend the "Dark Primal King" got two Fediel's weapons and max uncapped them both right away and it's doing really incredible damages.

as for her as a character and her kit, - having a shield in dark is always pretty good, esp from fist characters imo (fist dark are often a sougth of set up based on their dodge rate, re, Seox or Predator, but with Fediel being fist and sword she can work in those team and be a shield in case). -"debuff immunity/buffs can't be removed" is super yummy -a 6-hit and Debuff skills have their uses in dragon raids especially. -the fact this 6hit/debuff skill gets autoactivated on normal attacks when her s3 is on is unsane. That makes so much damage to have. -Her "take damage every turns" condition most likely make her really good on grids that rely on Enmity, which is the majority of the Dark gameplay. -Malice of Despair does lower both enemies and allies DEF down but her support skill actually boost sharply dark allies def. so if you don't use her with non-dark allies, this is a no issue. -Also she activates her CA twice when Malice of Despair is on. -"Boost to multiattack and Boost to CA spec" is fantastic in there are you kidding me -"End Fediel's skill cooldown upon activating a Fated Chain" she is MADE for the V2raids this is such a neat feature.

So for both of Cidela and Fediel: -Good Buffer and Debuffer -Pretty unique gameplays in general -Their power and use seem to be designed to be used in V2Raids (dragons, belial, beelzebub) -Their weapons are incredible for Primal grids and the Zodiac girls's can be used in regular grids as well.

tbh i didn't take a close look until you mentioned it but yeah personally i see why people are really excited about those.

i hope i somewhat made it clearer for you though?

Take care!!

#ichareply #ichafantalks gbf #ichablogging gbf #ichablogging gbfgp

[nemrut]

Epic Seven / Re: Zero Collab Units

So, a lot of units were revealed. Three five-star collab units and five three star regular units, and it is amusing to me that the three-star units are creating more buzz.

Since I am not a big Re: Zero fan, I am also more drawn to the three-star heroes, although, I have to say, the collab units seem solid so far.

Personally, I am mostly drawn to Emilia as of now, at least on paper, simply for her more offense oriented Soul Weaver kit. From what I remember, her kit doesn't really seem to work thematically for her all that much, or to her in show capabilities, but it works for the game.

So, Emilia. Her S1 gives healing based on her own max health to the ally with the lowest health. That's solid. Nothing too special but solid. Makes counter viable on her, similar to Destina only without the potential cleanse from the EE. With the right artifact, she can either heal one target with the same effect twice or heal two different units at once.

Her S2 is her best skill. It dispells two debuffs from an ally, gives increased attack for two turns and increases their CR by 40%. It also increases her own CR by 25%. With mola, the CR on the target can increase to 50% and it is on a two turn CD. SB also heals the target unit for ten souls. That's one packed skill. Can be used for cleavers or units like Straze or LQC or any other offensive unit with no atk buff who is a bit slower than her.

Her S3 cleanses two debuffs from her whole team, heals them and gives a two turn barrier. Nothing amazing but respectable.

So, all in all, she doesn't bring any new skills or abilities on the table. I will probably give her Ray's equipment and call it a day. She is a typical cleanser soul weaver where one should focus on speed, ER, HP and Def in that order. She is still very solid and I would personally benefit because I have no cleanser who provides and atk buff and cr push at the same time. I think she is also better than ML Kawarick even though they have similar kits, lol. But anyone who already has one built could probably pass on her but dunno, she has better animation and her ER imprint does make things easier.

Her artifact is interesting, in that it gives a flat ER of 15% on top of healing an ally once a turn for what I assume is 15% with no copies at plus 15. It serves her well, but of course, soul weaver artifacts are good across the board and all of them can work there.

While her S1 might allow for a counter set, I do think speed/ER set is the way to go. You want her fast enough to use her S2 or S3, depending on the situation and she has to go before the rest of your team. She doesn't even care that much whether she goes before the enemy or not. If she goes after, she cleanses their debuffs, if now, she just uses the S2 and starts an attack with your cleaver or damage dealer. She is definitely going to be useful.

Rem is more interesting in that she is getting new abilities, but that also makes her a bit harder to predict.

Her S1 can defense break the enemy. 35% odds without mola and 50% with mola. If she is in demon mode, she attacks twice.

Her S2 is her weird new stuff. When anybody dies, she cleanes all debuffs on herself and activates Demon Mode for two turns. This can only happen once every 5 turns so, basically, in pvp/rta that means it can only happen once in a fight. Demon Mode means that she is immune to debuffs, it cannot be stripped and the debuffs she applies ignore ER.

When an ally is attacked, she has a 15% chance to counterattack with iron strike. In turn, iron strike attacks all enemies, decreases their buff durations and makes them unhealable for 1 turn. It also says that iron strike takes priority over counterattacks with basic skills, so that means she counterattacks with Iron Strike instead of her S1. Molas increase her counterattack chance to 20%

Her S3 gives herself an attack buff and aoe attacks all enemies and decreases their hit chance for two turns and increases her own CR by 50%.

Her artifact increases crit chance by 15% and whenever somebody dies, it gives the user a CR push between 12 and 24%. Not sure how much CR push that is for +15 without any copies.

Artifact is meh, tbh. I guess it can be useful, but dunno if I would give her that.

Team imprint is health and on her self it is plus crit chance which would make it easier to go for dps build but have fun getting several copies of her with three collab heroes and artifacts plus summer Iseria and her artifact around the corner.

So, what about Rem? Her kit is interesting at least. She needs for someone to die before she starts going crazy which is somewhat fitting. That means she probably doesn't want to go first if one wants to take advantage of the ignores ER thing. In fact, one can build her with no effectiveness at all, which makes things at least a bit easier. That said, she seems to be a lot more gear hungry than Emilia was in order to use her effectively.

For her S2 condition to activate she needs to be teamed up with an ally who is rather fast and can snipe at least one enemy unit before she takes a turn, in which case one can get away with a bit less bulk. Still, I do think one wants to build Rem as tanky as possible, as she should remain on the field for as long as possible and hit the enemy team with Iron Strike and attack twice with her S1.

So, I am unsure how she would interact with a counter set. Does the sentence "Iron Strike takes priority over a counterattack with a basic skill" refer to all counterattacks she makes or only those which are facilitated by her S2? If only her S2, I would probably go for a bulk and damage with medium speed. So, speed or atk sets. If it refers to all counter-attacks, maybe go with counter. I think one can give her Champion's trophy and hope for stuns on top of everything, although her skill makes it clear that the ignores ER effect does not apply to artifacts, so enemies might resist there, especially if there is no effectiveness on her otherwise.

All in all, I can see two options with her builds: Either go for dmg or go for debuffs. Either way, she wants to stay on the field for as long as possible to counterattack as much as possible. She should be fun, but I don't know how good she will work.

Think will have to sit on her kit for a while longer. I could also see the cockroach approach with her, where you accept that the one person dying is on your own team and hope Rem can turn things around afterwards. If the one dying is on their team, you are kinda wasting the self cleanse but then again, planning for someone on your team to die is not a great strategy, even if you have a reviver on your team. That said, maybe she works really, really well with Arby, who should count for the team death thing. I don't know, it seems fun at least.

Last and maybe least is Ram. She is a mage, gives her team health with imprint or effectiveness to herself.

Her S1 attacks one enemy and has a 60% chance (75% with mola) to decrease attack for 1 turn. If she is buffed, it reaches 100%. Soul Burn allows her to attack all enemies for ten souls.

S2 is a passive and increases her own Atk by 30% and reduces the effect of CR debuffs on her by 80% (100% with mola).

S3 attacks the enemy and inflicts def break on them for two turns and gives herself Greater Attack Buff (also called GAB in case you heard a youtuber say it and didn't know what they meant)

Her artifact increases her ATK by 15% and decreases dmg suffered by elite or boss monsters by 15% at +15.

So, I'll be honest, she seems a bit underwhelming. Her S1 is aptly titled How Boring. because it is a very boring skill. Decrease Attack is not useless, by any means, but it is also not that great. A possible aoe on her S1 with ten souls can be useful against enemies hiding in stealth, but there are better options. Her passive is interesting at least, since it means she can't really be pushed back, and she has a lot of atk. That said, her S3 is okay, but also not great.

With her artifact, she seems more of a pve unit, but she also should be useful in pvp. Like, with 30% atk from her s2, 15% atk from her artifact and GAB on herself, alongside a decent attack set, or a speed set with good atk, that should translate into a lot of dmg with her basic attack, especially if it can be a potential aoe with only ten souls. She can also be paired up with Lilias who benefits from her high attack to cleave, especially if she goes after her and there is someone def broken there.

Could build her with no crit chance and crit dmg in order to get her speed and atk as high as possible, or a bit less of both and go for a more traditional damage dealer for pvp.

As for pve, I don't know, maybe expedition? She could def break for Banshee, but so can a milllion other units. I don't know if she is useful after that, but can't imagine her replacing Baiken there. Also find it hard to believe that someone wouldn't have Leo or Bellona or kluri or any other def breaker for that, so can't see how she is good for wyvern. If she had been ice or fire, I would say good for either one of those two hunts, but banshee might be the one hunt her skill-set is ill-equipped for. Might be overlooking something, though.

So yeah, those were the collab units and artifacts. Seems solid enough, I like Emilia and Rem seems interesting enough. A bit meh on Ram.

Still, the three stars seems more exiting, oddly enough.

#epic seven #epic 7 #re:zero #re zero #collab #emilia #rem #ram

[shoichee]

GoMs + Kagami as Persona Users

Headcanons on the Generation of Miracles (and Kagami) if they were to become a persona user in the world of the Persona series (Kuroko and Momoi included)

@akichan-th​ THIS IS FOR YOU

Warning: KNB series spoilers !!

Kuroko Tetsuya

since his presence is nonexistent in the real world, as a phantom thief, he’d probably desire to be a noticeable hero, you know? even in the 22.5 OVA, he told Kise that passing around wasn’t fun but he was going to do it for the sake of the team

his phantom thief outfit would be flashy in a sense of maybe eye-catching color schemes, or bold patterns

his attire could be baggy/oversized navy blue/black street clothing with TASTEFUL neon-colored accents and his mask would be a neon-colored huge sports shades/goggles situation (i was about to say some trendy sunglasses but sunglasses don’t stay on at all); he’s a skater boy ???? basically??

like, his PT attire could very well be a Persona 5 Dancing in Starlight DLC outfit 👀 it has those vibes

persona element is curse and let me explain why: he doesn’t have the gifted physique like the other GoMs and he’s cursed to rely on others for him to make a difference, and his motif has always been “shadow” ALSO he’s the PHANTOM sixth player YOU CAN’T CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE

he’s a front-line battler, but his skills are very support heavy: support skills that increase attack and defense for his teammates; i also wanna say he has spells that inflict dizziness ailments because in the anime, players are always losing their shit and whipping their heads around to find this tiny boy LMAO

he would definitely have a signature move that would direct all enemy attacks and status moves to himself for a set amount of turns to aid his teammates

his persona would have an extremely high Endurance and higher than average Luck stat but everything else is an all-time low

i’m going to say it, his shooting weapon is gonna be a paintball gun filled with neon paint just to fuck with the shadows and still make it HURT

code name would be “Umbra” (which means innermost part of a shadow) or “Ghost;” imagine some PT member shouting, “Oh no! Umbra’s knocked down!” and all the shadow sees is this brightass, neon kid on the floor

i would love his codename to be “Shadow” but there’s already the term shadow to describe the monsters in the metaverse

Kise Ryota

he views a “rebel” as your basic punk

since he’s a model, he knows japanese punk fashion very well

guess who’s gonna come into the metaverse being this hot ass punk boy? Kise motherfucking Ryota

black spike collar

lots of those tiny chains and harness/buckle action somewhere

ripped black leather pants that give Joker’s own leather pants a run for its money PLUS WITH SHINY BLACK BELT

lots of patchwork and stuff

THIS IS WHAT MORE OR LESS  I’M TALKING ABOUT IF YOU WANT VISUAL REFERENCES

his mask would totally be a visor goggle to add further to the punk theme

part of me is biased that Kise is a blondie and “kise” is based off of “yellow” and Ryuji is blonde and so now i headcanon him as the electric element

okay, but since he’s an “all-rounder” he’ll probably be able to access mid-tier level attacks of all elements, including almighty to an extent

but if i was basing his element off of personality, he’d be ice for sure; he’s actually cold-hearted to people whom he doesn’t consider “worthy” and the anime only showed his friendly side because most of the time, he’s shown talking to his friends and people he respects

speaking of all-rounder, his stats would be all high all around, with his Magic stat peaking the highest

Midorima Shintarou

this boy is a bit tricky to figure out what his PT attire would be

he doesn’t have any time to think about “what he would be as a rebel” type of thing

however, if he were to desire to become something, i’d say he would want to be a supernatural being who can distribute good luck for himself every day

think of those JRPG wizard/mage/warlock outfit motifs (and they match up nicely with the idea of astrology and horoscopes); probably lots of brown/beige/hues of green scheme? or a black/various colors of purple for a FULL on witch vibe

it makes sense too because as someone who always shoots from afar and never dunks, mage classes always cast from afar and never attack up close to their opponent

and his frog puppets remind me of a witch’s animal familiars LMAO

there you have it

his mask would be a dark dark purple or a pure black domino mask that has little stars littered sparingly everywhere on said mask

his shooting weapon? my guy is stacked on staves ready to cast long-range spells

wind element for sure (because his basketball shots all catch air with lots of hang time | (• ◡•)|) with tons of gun skills

signature move would be a magic skill that never misses no matter what (his range is the entire metaverse)

his persona stats are also pretty well rounded but his highest stats would be Magic and Luck, with Endurance being a close runner up

Aomine Daiki

also hard to figure out a PT attire for this guy

according to KUROFES, his alternative career would be a police officer so i would think he despises criminals and the Phantom Thieves altogether ?

if anything, he’s more suited for the S.E.E.S. investigation team in Persona 3

Aomine doesn’t give a fuck, but he has a soft spot to protect others so like having a gun evoker definitely suits him more than a mask summon BRJWBDJW

i see him as a fire element, but his persona would have a lot more physical skills than anything else

bonus: since he used to be Kuroko’s “light,” he can have some mid-tier level bless skills

to make a reference his “formless” shots and forms, as well as his rapid changes of pace, his signature move would be a 5-hit physical skill that changes targets with every hit

statwise, his Agility stat is the highest out of everyone in the GoM, and his Strength and Endurance would be runner up stats; his Magic stat would be extremely dismal

Murasakibara Atsushi 

this guy thinks about nothing but food and how he hates Teppei-species people basketball, so honestly he’s not interested in the Phantom Thieves business

like what? Murasakibara dressed in a getup? it’s a big “press X to doubt”

so i envision him to be more suitable for Persona 4, where he has to confront the other self that loves basketball and truly does care about people, and he had to be honest and accept that side for him to attain a persona

would he ever go back to the said “persona world” to go fight some shadows? unless there’s a good reason why he should or you bribed him with snacks, he won’t budge an inch

just give this man a Persona 4 school uniform and he’s ready to fight

his persona would primarily have physical skills, with lots of “wall” support skills, element “break” skills, and lots of passive skills (lots of nulls/resists) available for it to learn

highest stat for him would be Strength, then Endurance, and surprisingly have Agility as the runner up

he’s a huge tank of a persona user

Akashi Seijuro

i’ve talked about his PT outfit in this headcanon here, including his mask and why

hear me out, since this man is good at everything in school, and since there are archery clubs in Japanese schools, i wouldn’t be surprised if he was a Robin Hood with the scopes; what am i tryna say? his shooting weapon would be bow & arrows

i feel like people would automatically think he’s a bless/curse element like Akechi since “he has two sides,” but i feel like it’s not exactly right? if anything, i headcanon him to be more of a psychokinesis element

why? i want to attribute that to his emperor’s eye and his perfect passings, both each specialties from their respective “sides” of Akashi, and that requires extreme precision, almost to the level of “telepathy”

there’s also everyone thinking he can see the future too i mean

in the end, Akashi’s dual sides merged into one again, so having a whole bless/curse element wouldn’t even make sense anymore

but i will say, this man deserves to have a persona with almighty skills back to back

this guy isn’t the captain for no reason

so his persona would utilize psychokinesis and almighty skills, with special buff skills that increase critical rates for his allies (to refer to the fact that his passings enhance other players); his persona would also enjoy a large selection of passive skills to choose from to either be ultimate support or ultimate offensive sweeper

to also reiterate from the mentioned headcanon i linked, his code name would either be “Crimson” or “Scarlet”

his persona is a literal glass cannon, referring to the fact that Akashi is actually a mentally fragile basketball player; extremely high Strength, Magic, and Agility (but not as high as Aomine though) stats, average Luck stat, but extremely low Endurance stat

Momoi Satsuki

Momoi, i think, would envision herself in the metaverse as someone who’s never underestimated because of her usual demeanor or physical looks

even me, i got fooled thinking she was just only a fanservice girl and not this incredibly intelligent girl who was critical to her teams’ successes

so i would think she would imagine herself to be in a huge respectable position of power, like a lieutenant or general, who can command others and strategize to victory

her outfit would be similar to the attire from the Assassin’s Faith set from Love Nikki with the black Army Floppy Hat from the Army Major set on top (also from Love Nikki) 

color scheming i can imagine a lot of black/white with gold trimmings/accents here and there

her mask is a Venetian eye mask i can literally see it; it’s so pretty with the gold plating !!

her role would definitely be a navigator + analyzer/tactician from the backlines, so while she isn’t in the battle most of the times, if worse comes to shove, she’ll be in the frontlines as a last resort

in other words, she’s a Futaba, but she isn’t a sitting duck and can fight if needed

she has an incredible Luck stat, higher than average Agility stat, but average stats for the rest (Magic, Strength, and Endurance)

ailment, healing, support, and buff skills are all at her disposal, along with some gun skills (which can definitely be broken when paired with her high Luck stat)

“Duchess” (a woman having a noble rank) would be a really cute codename for her

Kagami Taiga

why do i literally see him as a shinobi (ninja)

i have no idea why i do, but i think it’s just his name:

“While Kagami's name is associated with the ‘tiger’, Himuro's name means ‘dragon’. In Chinese mythology, the Azure Dragon of the East and the White Tiger of the West are eternal rivals. This rivalry is further expressed in their surnames: ‘Hi (氷)’ means ‘ice’ while ‘Ka (火)’ translates as ‘fire’.” - KNB wiki

so i literally see both Himuro and Kagami as rival clans duking it out

jokes aside, Kagami is a very honorable player, but he did at one point exhibited a “darker side” to himself, playing selfishly and being arrogant in the beginning

shinobis were considered to be “dishonorable” and “beneath the honor” of the samurai in their eras, so i feel that this could be a great image for what Kagami thinks is a “rebel” 

being a ninja would make use of his jumping skills too

i imagine him in a fitted black halter neck top (so his abs are for us to see), with an iconic long red scarf wrapping his neck and hanging down to his waist at the back side

black forearm guards/wraps?

and then he has mahogany/dark red??/black???? loose cloth wrapped around his waist, like how you would tie a jacket over your waist ?? and then black nu-bakama pants and finally some dark boots for those pants to be tucked in

no one can convince me otherwise, but he’s gotta have a red full-face oni mask with black horns and some golden tiger stripes on the sides of the mask and around the eyes

HIS PERSONA ELEMENT IS BLESS BECAUSE HE IS KUROKO’S “LIGHT”

he would totally have some almighty skills and “Heat Riser,” a move that raises all of the user’s attack, defense, and accuracy/evasiveness (because the colors of the move’s animation remind me of Direct Drive Zone, something that was pretty much unlocked by Kagami for the team)

his persona is one of the OP/late game personas where all their stats are amazing across the board; even if his stats were high all around, his “lowest” would be his Luck stat

codename for him is “Tiger” no one cannot argue with me for this one NRNEIJFEO

#knb #knb headcanons #headcanons #persona headcanon #persona 3 #persona 4 #persona 5 #kuroko tetsuya #kise ryota #aomine daiki #midorima shintarou #murasakibara atsushi #akashi seijuro #momoi satsuki #kagami taiga #gom #generation of miracles #persona #knb fics #p5 #phantom thief #phantom thieves #persona 5 headcanons #p5 headcanons

[hilltopsunset]

4 Ways to Breathe New Life into the Pokémon Franchise

I love the Pokémon franchise. It’s because I love it that I truly want new installments of the game to feel meaningful, to make an impact, and to provide players with something new, different, and worth coming back for without relying on complexities that could turn away new players.

As I will talk about in a later blog post, Game Freak seems afraid to stretch Pokémon’s creative muscles any further; meaningful innovation has been petering out since the end of Generation IV in lieu of minigames like Pokémon Contests and Super Training alongside inconsequential time sinks like Secret Bases and Poké Pelago. While I do enjoy the inclusion of things to do outside the main storyline, these additional events and sidequests should not be the only significant additions to new generations of main-series Pokémon games.

The main attractions of recent generations have provided slight twists to gameplay with the addition of mega evolution and Z-moves, but these changes don’t fundamentally change or challenge the way players experience the game on a moment-to-moment basis. And despite the graphical and processing power of recent gaming devices, and even the long-awaited shift of the franchise to a main console, we are still getting the same low-effort and outdated battle animations we’ve been seeing since X and Y. We are continually denied a more genuine battle experience with Pokémon physically interacting with each other through animations that more appropriately suit each Pokémon’s unique identity.

So what can be done? Here’s a short but detailed list of 4 things I would like to see in a new Pokémon game, in no particular order of importance.

1.       Let the Player Character Be an Active Part of the Story

When has the player character ever been a consequential part of a Pokémon game? They never speak; they never have any personality whatsoever. They never experience any growth, regardless of NPC’s trying desperately to iterate how much the trainer has grown over the course of their journey. Certainly the Pokémon carried by the player character have some impact on the story, but the trainer?

Let them speak! Let the player character actually interact with NPCs in meaningful ways rather than just listening at all times. Give the trainer a personality of some sort. Don’t just slap a never-changing pleasant face onto the model regardless of tense, frightening, or sinister scenarios (I’m looking at you, Sun and Moon). 

Giving the player character a more active role in the story provides intrigue—as a player, it doesn’t feel compelling being pulled from one place to another; it’s not interesting when the only thing pushing me forward is NPCs telling me I need to get the gym badges, or stop Team Rocket. It would be much more interesting if the Player Character had some imperative reason to pursue these endeavors, rather than get involved simply because “it’s the right thing to do” or, worse, “it’s the ONLY thing to do.” I want to watch the character I’m controlling grow as a person and make choices that have positive or negative consequences on people they care about and the places they visit, rather than be a perpetual observer of events with no real stake in the game.

2.       Trainer Levels

Speaking of the player character, create a leveling system for them. There are so many possibilities for a system where the trainer more actively impacts gameplay. For instance, there could be a class system and each class can have unique skill trees that provide access to passive and/or active abilities that improve how the trainer interacts with the world throughout the game. It could be required to choose your path at the beginning of the game, or perhaps you can access them all throughout the game, but can only have one active at a time.

Here’s a list of example possibilities:

Explorer: The explorer class specializes in travel, as well as tracking and catching new Pokémon—this tree can be subdivided into those paths: Travel, Tracking, and Catching. This tree provides skills that assist them in accessing otherwise inaccessible locations, increasing encounter rates with rare Pokémon, and specializing in different types of Poké balls to improve catch chances. Experience for this class is gained through catching Pokémon, encountering rare Pokémon, and exploring (walking in new places, finding treasure, accessing hidden areas, etc.).

Combatant: The combatant class excels at offensive battle prowess through its three branches: Type Affinity, Commands, and Reputation. This tree allows a trainer to specialize in certain Pokémon types (up to 2) to improve their STAB damage. Eventually, you can get a skill that provides STAB for your specialized types even for Pokémon not of those types! You gain access to in-battle shout commands that provide momentary buffs to your party, like improving damage, resisting a big attack, or improving critical hit ratio. A strong reputation will allow you to avoid battle even with trainers who have caught your eye; and in battle, an enemy Pokémon may flinch due to your intimidating presence. Experience is gained by knocking out Pokémon, winning battles, using moves of your type specialization, and issuing commands.

Breeder: The breeder focuses on developing deep relationships with their Pokémon. Skills of this class can be divided into the Breeding, Bonding, and Healing branches. Through this tree, trainers can hatch eggs more quickly, improve high IV chance from newborn Pokémon, develop friendship levels more quickly, etc. Bonding provides Pokémon with beneficial defensive capabilities during battle, like providing a chance to survive an attack that would otherwise bring HP to 0, and having a strong will to resist abnormal status effects like paralysis and confusion. A Breeder’s knowledge of caretaking allows for healing outside of battle, and can even teach Pokémon how to slowly recover in-battle. Experience is gained through hatching eggs, developing friendships with your Pokémon (through feeding/petting, etc.), participating in Contests/minigames, and having Pokémon in your party with whom you have developed a close relationship.

The establishment of a class system like this, where experience is gained through different means relevant to each class, incentivizes players to participate in those aspects of the game, and provides extra rewards for players who already want to get involved. It makes the trainer feel like a relevant and impactful part of the team, rather than a hollow vehicle strictly used to lug the real heroes—your team of Pokémon—from battle to battle.

And for those who think the inclusion of such a mechanic would trivialize the content, I have several suggestions: first, they could easily make the game content more difficult to compensate. Second, they could mitigate the strength of these class skills during key battles like Gym Leaders, the Elite Four, the Enemy Team (Rocket, Galaxy, etc.). Third, NPCs (especially the aforementioned key NPCs) could have access to these skills as well. Remember, I’m asking for significant changes, and this would provide something new, interesting, and impactful.

 3.       Battle Animations

Update them. It’s that simple. Let Blastoise shoot water out of his water cannons rather than out of his face. Let Scorbunny run up to its opponent and give it a nice kick! Get rid of the old, outdated animations of a drawn foot—we now have well-rendered 3D monsters on gaming systems capable of handling the graphical processing necessary for this to happen. Give each Pokémon a more unique identity with their animations; make them feel like they’re actually in a battle with one another. It’s time.

I acknowledge that providing significant animation updates for the 800+ models is an enormous undertaking that would require a massive amount of time and manpower to make possible. To this I say: spend the time doing that rather than developing Dynamax or whatever. Spend the time on more significant animation development instead of wasting that time on another gimmick that isn’t going to significantly impact gameplay anyway.

To be honest, this point alone would be enough to convince me to buy a new Pokémon game.

 4.       Populate the World with Pokémon

I know that the Let’s Go series and Sword/Shield did this a little bit, and while it certainly wasn’t executed perfectly, it was fun running around and actually seeing all the Pokémon that inhabit it. Spawn rates in both games were often a bit too high, resulting in cluttered areas. Adding aggressive Pokémon would further enhance the immersive experience—being required to sneak around certain stronger Pokémon could be a really fun mechanic and provide tension; it was a bit too easy to avoid Pokémon in Let’s Go and in the Wild Area. While it was nice to get through Mt. Moon without encountering a single Zubat, imagine instead running through a section of the cave with a trail of 15 Zubats on your tail? Make me work for it a little!

Ultimately, I want to see Pokémon behaving more naturally in their habitats, and not just in sections of the world that I can’t get to. I want to run into a Caterpie hanging from a tree, or a Fearow fishing for Goldeen, or a Pikachu grooming itself. I want to interrupt Pokémon from their lives, not run into a giant gaggle of automatons circling tiny areas for no reason.

So there it is: a look at just a few things Pokémon games could include to make things more interesting and breathe new life into an aging franchise. These changes would require work, but any new game should—I would hate to see Pokémon continue the troubling trend of easy and/or insignificant content when there is so much potential to do so much with what they have.

With all that said, I do want to offer a bit of praise—Sirfetch’d and Galarian Ponyta are pretty awesome, and Galarian Weezing is perfectly ridiculous. But I ask that you keep in mind what your money is telling Game Freak when you purchase their games: it tells them that you don’t mind the severe lack of innovation and improvement. It tells them you don’t mind Scorbunny hopping in place as a giant, orange, human foot strikes its opponent. It tells them that you’re willing to fund their copy/paste animations from 6 years ago, their uninspired gameplay updates, and their ever-increasing focus on gimmicks and minigames.

As for me, I will continue holding Pokémon to a higher standard and hoping that, eventually, Blastoise will fire water from his cannons.  

#pokemon #game review #game freak #hilltop sunset #suggestions

[raijinhasverybigpecs]

THE RE-UP: Tu’er Shen, the Leveret Spirit 🐇

“While other gods may proclaim endlessly over the power they have over their domains, causing no end of trouble for their fellow pantheon members and their followers as a result, Tu’er Shen patiently and quietly tends to those who request his services with unmatched loyalty and dedication.”

Name: Tu’er Shen, the Leveret Spirit​

​Pantheon: Chinese, Minor Diety​

Class: Hunter/Healer Hybrid, Medium Difficulty​

Positives: Healer, High Movement​

Negatives: Hybrid Specialisations​

please click on the read more for everything else lol

appearance details 🐇

old (above) vs new (below)

so perhaps i made him a bara rabbit after all lmao. blame the new outfit and how much better it’d look if tu’er shen has big ol bitties to work with :^) it’s still the same hair as the ears work really well with that colour but the basically the whole face has changed to be a lil more Dramatic(tm). the makeup skills have also improved with new tu’er shen rocking more subtle eyeliner alongside some very pretty and shiny pink liner. the eyes are also another major change, they’re a pretty grey as it goes nice with his hair. i still love the idea of his eyes changing colour according to his mood and grey is just a neutral mood :^) anyways, yes he looks beautiful, yes you can compliment him!

outfit details 🐇

tu’er shen now has an in-game outfit!! yay 🥳 it’s been a while coming mostly bc i have no art or visual character design skills but i’m pretty proud of how this turned out lol. it’s super cute and p goddamn chinese if i say so myself but it’s still very hoe and feels modern enough to fit smite’s standards i feel lol. big thanks to @izahunny​ (who is dead on that blog but a clown on twitter) for helping me with designing the outfit, the back layers and lil extra dress fabric for the front bottom left corner of the dress were his idea and they make everything much more balanced 🥰 i didn’t add a weapon but he’s just using a bow, i might update this later if i care enough to add that lmao

abilities 🐇

(please note that i am terrible with stats and don’t care about how viable in-game he actually is, these are just general ideas and the stats can be changed lol)

PASSIVE - Protector​

Tu’er Shen passively grants a medium range aura of regenation around him to his allies, increasing their HPS, MPS and magical and physical protections by 5% of their totals for each statistic. Additionally, Tu’er Shen gains a 3% movement speed bonus every 4 levels.​

40 unit aura radius, 5% increase of total HPS, MPS and protections​

3% bonus movement speed every 4 levels, total bonus is 12% at level 20​

ABILITY 1​ - Passion Arrow​

Tu’er Shen charges his arrows with passion, amplifying his next basic attacks with a small AOE on hit or at max basic attack range and causing them to go through minions. If Tu’er Shen hits an ally while Passion Arrow is active, he heals them for a flat amount. If an enemy is hit the charges deal increased damage on impact and if they are hit 3 times they are charmed and walk harmlessly towards Tu’er Shen for 1.5 seconds.​

Cooldown: 10 seconds

3/3/4/5/5 charges, Heal: 50/75/95/125/150 + 30% scaling​

Extra damage: 10/30/60/90/120, Mana cost: 55/60/70/75/85​

ABILITY 2​ - Matchmaker​

Tu’er Shen calls upon his matchmaking skills to select and connect two allied gods or one ally and one enemy god with each other in a 55 unit targeter. If two allies are linked then their damage is increased by 10% and they receive a heal over time. If an ally and an enemy are connected then the enemy is revealed to Tu’er Shen’s team and the enemy deals 20% less damage to their partner. Additionally, the connected ally receives 50% of their enemy partner’s healing.​

Cooldown: 20/19/18/17/16 secs​ 

Duration: 6 seconds, Heal over time: 20/25/30/35/40 + 20% scaling​

HOT ticks every 1 second, Mana cost: 50/55/60/65/70​

ABILITY 3​ - Bunny Hop​

Tu’er Shen hops in the direction he is currently travelling. If Tu’er Shen hits a wall, player-made deployable or god he bounces off the surface, doubling his movement. Additionally, enemy gods are stunned for 1 second upon impact. Tu’er Shen can store 1 charge of this ability.​

Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10 secs

2 charges maximum, range of 55 with an amplified range of 110 units​

Damage: 100/150/200/250/300 + 100% scaling, Mana cost: 70/80/90/100/110 mana​

ULTIMATE​ - Romantic Rush​

Tu’er Shen, after a short duration, channels the full extent of his love powers, amplifying all of his basic attacks with the effects of Passion Arrow for 10 seconds. If an ally is hit and they are at full health they receive a a health shield equal to half of Passion Arrow’s healing. On enemy hit, the charm duration is doubled but they cannot be charmed again while Romantic Rush is active. The effects of Matchmaker are doubled and Tu’er Shen receives a 20% damage buff if he is linked with another male god.​

Cooldown: 80 seconds

Duration: 10 seconds​

Mana cost: 80/90/100/110/120 mana​

lore 🐇

While other gods may proclaim endlessly over the power they have over their domains, causing no end of trouble for their fellow pantheon members and their followers as a result, Tu’er Shen patiently and quietly tends to those who request his services with unmatched loyalty and dedication. For he is not a god who takes to the spotlight easily, but one who will see his responsibilities through to help and protect those who he serves, an opportunity he was once not afforded in his youth.​

​Such are the origins of Tu’er Shen, the Leveret God. ​

​Once a young man known as Hu Tianbao, he fell deeply in love with a handsome imperial inspector of Fujian Province. Such was the intensity of his love that he looked upon the inspector while he bathed, peering at him through a bathroom wall. Tianbao was caught in the act, confessing his sincere affections for the other man in hopes of reaching an understanding. The inspector was quick to retaliate in violence, sentencing him to death by beating.

Underworld officials, seeing his crime as one of love, sought to justify his death by appointing him the god and safe guarder of homosexual affections. A month after his death, he appeared in the dreams of a man from his hometown – not as Hu Tianbao but reborn as Tu’er Shen. From this came the erection of a humble shrine for his worship and Tu’er Shen has dutifully served those who seek him ever since.​

​The battlefield of the gods is a strange place to find Tu’er Shen, usually one so far removed from the world of ugly violence and mindless bloodshed. Even so, perhaps love can soothe and heal the wounds caused by the warring of pantheons, or maybe it can even help end the war in some way. Knowing firsthand the true cost of thoughtless hate and violence, Tu’er Shen picks up his bow in the hope that he can protect even one person of those who cannot protect themselves in the war of the gods.

voicelines 🐇

god selection

“Tu’er Shen!” (duh)

introduction

“Is anyone in need of my services?”

“Let’s see what I can do.”

“Wonder if there are any cute gods around? Wait, no! Work first, then play later!”

“In their own ways, everyone here is fighting for love.”

(this isn’t an official one but as a joke it was highly entertaining) “Come on Season 6 let’s get sickening!”

abilities

ability 1 - passion arrow

“Fallen for me yet?”

“I’ve got you!”

“Coming for your heart!”

ability 2 - matchmaker

self/ally match - male gods only

“Our connection is strong.”

“Let your heart speak to me.”

self/ally match - general

“Together we’re stronger.”

“I’ve got your back.”

ally/ally match

“You’d make a good pair.”

“Another successful match.”

ally/enemy

“Swipe left next time!”

“This’ll end badly.”

ability 3 - bunny hop

“Excuse me!”

“Coming through!”

ability 4/ultimate - romantic rush

“Feel the love!”

low health

“I will not give in just yet.”

“I don’t mind playing rough, but this is a bit too much even for me…”

items

when placing wards

“Reveal their hearts to me little ward.”

“Any romantic confessions I should be aware of?”

when buying consumables

“Isn’t this interesting?”

“The colour is lovely.”

when buying offensive items

“I don’t want to harm others but if I must.”

“Love hurts indeed…”

when buying defensive items

“Will this protect my ears?”

“Hope this won’t slow me down.”

“Even the gods have to use a little protection.”

kills

when in a killstreak

“I can heal them later on, right?”

“Love never misses its mark.”

when killing a jungle boss

“That creature was awfully big…”

“Thank you for your sacrifice.”

when destroying a tower

“Love conquers all, man and structure alike.”

“Ack, that’s so loud!”

death

“You’ll never kill my spirit…”

“Love is eternal…”

directed voicelines

Aphrodite - “It’s a great honour to finally meet the goddess of love, I have much to learn from you.”​

Cupid - “Speaking from... past experiences, it seems as though you should work on your aim.”​

Jing Wei & Xing Tian - “I admire your perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds, we are not too dissimilar in that way.”​

Loki - “If you haven’t already, I suggest you pay Chiron a visit at some point. He is single after all...”​

Bellona - “Any luck asking Amaterasu out yet? She’s still waiting for you to make a move you know..”​

Raijin - “I’m willing to bet you’re more satisfying in bed than you are an opponent on the battlefield.”​

Bacchus - “I’m not the drinking type... but perhaps you’d like to come in for tea?’​

Achilles - “How’s Patroclus doing? Maybe you should spar with him more often, you’ve gotten rusty.”​

Apollo - “Playing the lyre isn’t the only thing you make look easy.”​

Ravana - “When I see you, the term ‘rope bunny’ comes to mind...”​

jokes

“I hope Cupid doesn’t get jealous of all the time I’m spending with Aphrodite…”​

“Technically I’m not this closely associated with actual rabbits, but the aesthetic was too cute to pass up.”​

“Considering what I’ve been through, I think I’ve earnt the right to proud of who I am.”​

“It is technically homophobia if you hit me. Just saying.”​

“The Jade Rabbit? He’s certainly cute... but I think there’s another rabbit who’s cuter.”​

taunts

Animation: Tu’er Shen draws a neon heart in the air, shooting an arrow through it shortly after.

“[Yawns] I think I might have a nap, perhaps that’ll give you a chance to catch up.”​

“You have an awfully big weapon there, are you compensating for something?”​

“I’ll show you why they say love hurts.”​

“Fighting for your overblown ego isn’t a good reason to wage war.”​

“Take it from a matchmaker, I don’t think anyone’s standards are low enough for you.”​

skin concepts 🐇

new tu’er shen body

floral fairy

squeaky clean, night corps, bunny server

country cowboy, casual, devilish

old tu’er shen body

kitsune, spring revelry, leather bunny

hello nurse, debonair devil 

old notes 🐇

this concept is super inspired by Kaios’ concept for Tu’er Shen (which you’ll find linked in the description of this post), i loved his ideas for rabbit lad and wanted to add more to the concept. my final kit concept is a lil bit similar but i think i’ve changed enough for it to not be a copy lmao. anyways, i’ve wanted a hunter support since i played tyrande a while ago in heroes of the storm. she was super fun and the mix of dealing strong consistent damage and still being able to support allies is something i’d kill to have in smite​

​tu’er shen is also a really cool god, and recently I’ve been prokoved by my mutuals making lots of god concepts when i haven’t made any in a very long time lol (if you remember my other smite oc you’re a real stan). obvs i don’t think hi-rez would do him justice and gamerbros would totally complain about the Gays™ shoving their unsatiable need for Representation™ down their throats and what not but it’s still a fun concept regardless!

new notes 🐇

he’s back and 10x beefier and sluttier looking than ever lmao. the self-insert squad may be missing plenty of people (y’all better come back like...) but it’d be a waste of time and effort to not do more with tu’er shen. also i love him so! i’m still kinda sad over twink tu’er shen being replaced by bara tu’er shen but it’s for the best, he’s v handsome now and big ol bitties in that dress? iconic. he does fit better into the male cast, the added beef makes him more attractive to basically everyone (he’s serving taric teas now lol) and he was a soldier so there’s plenty of reasons to make him a hunk. anyways... i don’t have much to say about the outfit than it’s flawless lol. it was interesting and p fun to make although i always feel awkward about posting drawn stuff in a serious context. it’s weird but i’m happy about the final product 🥰 i’ll try to write more stuff about him soon but don’t expect too much lol

links/resources 🐇

personal

headcanons (they’re a lil outdated in reference to his body lol)

tu’er shen’s tag

original post

my smite oc tag

other

kaios’ super cool concept for tu’er shen you should check out as it’s cooler than mine lol. his art of tu’er shen goes full furry and it’s kinda cute ngl

other links you can read for more information about tu’er shen: 1, 2

a beautiful short film about tu’er shen helping a guy accept his sexuality, gore warning towards the end

thanks for reading if you got to the end! please send asks or whatever, i’m dying for any excuse to talk about him lmao 🐇

#smite #smite game #hi-rez smite #smite oc #gay rabbit stuff #MY OCs #pwease support my boy. i care him

[secret-engima]

Hey, all your stories have inspired me to try the ffxv game and i haven't played the other games are there any tricks to it?

Hmmmmm You don’t need to play the other FF games to get into FFXV? So there’s that. Get the Royal Edition, PLEASE, it has all the extra DLC barring Ardyn’s and an extra map to explore plus quests.

For tips/tricks lemme think-

Overlevel. Side-Quests are your friend, Hunts are your friend. Until you get comfortable with the various combat systems and strategies having a higher level is Great. Even after you get comfortable having a higher level is Great.

Collect everything. If you see a shiny blue spark on the ground, go over and collect it. Be careful what you sell. There are guides on what is safe to sell or not but as a shortcut tip DO NOT sell Rusty Bit, Glass Gemstone, and if you somehow get a Sturdy Helixhorn while taking Hunts for the love of the Astrals DON’T SELL IT. Those three ingredients are what you need to upgrade your Engine Blade, which brings me to my next tip-

Talk to Cid after you’re in the open world (so ... post Noctis learning of Insomnia’s fall and the cutscenes/short quests associated with that). I forget when you’re free to go talk to him (probably after the set of Cor quests? I think? Been a while.) but just- try as soon as possible and keep trying. He has these nifty quests where he will upgrade certain kinds of gear, including your Engine Blade. If you upgrade the Engine Blade three times (Rusty Bit for the first one, Glass Gemstone for the second, Sturdy Helixhorn for the last) it will turn into the Ultima Blade, which is easily the highest powered blade in the game for like- 99% of the game. I’ve been in post-game for a LONG while now hunting down the really hard post-game dungeons and I still use that thing. It’s a relatively easy set of quests to get the highest level blade in the game and you can do it REALLY EARLY on in the game.

Wait System is Your Friend In Specific Instances. So- there are two kinds of combat mode in the game, Real Time and Wait System. I usually don’t bother with Wait System because I prefer Real Time BUT when hunting for specific monster parts (like the Sturdy Helixhorn), if you pause in combat and go down to ... i forget what it’s called but the came will show you in the tutorial, there’s a spot where you can swap to Wait System. That essentially pauses the game while you’re holding still (on a timer though so don’t dally too long) so that you can look around and lock onto desired monster parts. If you want the horn- lock onto and repeatedly warp attack the horn until it breaks. Repeat for any other part you particularly want on a given monster. I only do that with Hunts when I need a specific part though so (shrugs).

Take your time. You are in no rush, exploring and overleveling are your friends, and really except for specific quests, nothing is timed. Just enjoy the game and get comfortable with the systems before trying to tackle the late game/Altissia/post-Altissia content. There. Is. No. Rush. Stockpile potions and elixirs, enjoy the scenery, go catch some funny colored frogs. Saving the world will wait for you.

I’m sure everyone has a different opinion, but for me, I like to upgrade the Exploration branches of the Ascension menu (basically your skill tree, it has sub categories for upgrading magic, upgrading health, upgrading/unlocking your companion’s special attacks, etc) There are ones that will allow things like Gladio picking up extra items while hiking as well as gaining EXP and Ascension points (skill points) just by driving the car around and another for riding chocobos. I’d recommend getting the car and chocobo = ascension points ones first before moving on to snag whatever boosts or abilities you want because that way you can just- earn skill points by doing whatever on the open world map.

Pay attention to the exp bonus rates of various hotels. You only “level up” when you Rest at either a Haven or a hotel or caravan. Haven’s have the bonus of Ignis cooking meals (pay attention to the buffs offered, and if you see a chibi figure of one of the chocobros next to a recipe that means they like it and will get a passive exp boost for eating it), but hotels and caravans will boost how much exp you get per Rest. The best one early-ish in the game is Lestallum’s, which doubles your points when you Rest there (so if you go in with 100 points, it will tally 200 points instead etc etc). The Best one is the hotel in Altissia but that’s later game and also much more expensive.

Do the Dead-Eye quest as soon as you think you’re leveled up enough for it, because it unlocks Chocobos and those are priceless for running around the map in places the car can’t go (make sure to have a few flasks of Fire Elemency in your inventory, because there are red barrels in his lair and it is satisfying to set him on fire).

Elemancy is your friend (as long as you throw from far enough away, because your own bombs WILL hurt you if you throw too close). It took me forever to get the hang of Elemency and I still prefer using blades BUT it’s a fun system to play with. If you combine raw elements like Fire with an ingredient from your inventory (say, a banknote or silver coin) you can get additional effects like boosted exp, slowing the enemy down, poisoning them, even instant death (though that one is ... iffy).

Pay attention to the numbers that come out of monsters when you fight them. Purple means that whatever you’re using isn't effective. Gold means it’s super effective, white is normal. If you’re getting purple numbers, try swapping to another type of weapon like spear, dagger, great sword, or pistol. If you watch close enough, you can spot if one of the other chocobros is using a super effective weapon and as Noctis you get to use all of them, so just swap to that.

Don’t Fast Travel unless you have to. Filling up the gas tank on the car and running everywhere on chocobo may be boring sometimes but if you get the exp and skill point bonuses for doing those things, it will be worth it. But if you fast travel you don’t get those skill points.

There’s an mp3 player thing you can buy in the car store menus under key items, it will let you play music from other games while you drive/ride/walk. You can buy the soundtracks from various stores and gas stations throughout lucis so make sure to check for those when you stop.

Do the Cindy quest chain. The sooner you successfully complete it, the sooner you get a car with an unlimited gas tank, so no more worrying about having to spend gil refilling the tank while earning ascension points. Also the fully upgraded car can fly, but I don’t recommend it because landing is hard and one mistake will murder your entire party. Also if Cindy sends you into a dungeon to get a part, look it up ahead of time on the internet, because chances are you don’t have to go too far into the dungeon to find it, but if you do, it’s probably a scary high-level dungeon so good luck.

Prompto is a Gem. I mean that. He is one of my primary tactics in the game other than be Warptastic with Noctis. He is also a Glass Cannon so if you get/buy decent health and defense items I recommend giving the best ones to him (there are ascension slots that can unlock more accessory slots for specific characters, I recommend upgrading Prompto’s and Noctis’s first). The longer you can keep him alive in a fight, the more times you can use his Piercer ability. It’s his basic special attack, but it doesn’t take long to recharge and you can use it to break an enemy’s defense VERY often if you level it up all the way (just spam it, more use = higher level special attack). I still use it post game because it’s short and fast and relatively powerful. But that’s just me.

Try to keep everyone alive. If you don’t have phoenix downs to spare obviously you CAN just let them lie there until the fight is over, but if you do that then the “dead” member won’t get exp for the fight. This is bad because you need all the bros to be at their best to survive the whole game. Try to keep an eye on all health bars and if you can’t get over there to manually revive them, there are ascension skills that let them use health kits on themselves or you can just go into the potion menu and order them to use one on themselves before they get too bad off health wise.

If you think you are overleveled enough to handle the boss fights in Gralea. You Are Not™. Either don’t go to Altissia until you are higher leveled than you currently are or when you go to Altissia, take advantage of Umbra’s new time-travel ability and go BACK to Lucis to level some more. I recommend being like- at least level forty-five, PREFERABLY FIFTY+, before going to Altissia but that’s just me. Check the “recommended level” of each quest before doing them and decide if you want to tackle it. They are fully beatable if you are at the recommended level or even a little under but personally I saved a lot of potions and elixirs and tears of frustration by just- making a point to be 5-10 levels higher than the recommended at minimum.

Strategy Guides on the internet are your friend. I suck at explaining my strategies, and other people have actual numbers to crunch to prove their methods. If all else fails, there is no shame in looking up how to handle a boss fight on youtube or ign or whatever.

That’s ... all I can think of atm though I could ramble on for ages on different tactics and things I find useful. Hope this helps!

P.S. be polite to people in the dialogue options. You will be rewarded with exp and skill points for Not Being a Jerk and in one case in Altissia a conversation can literally decide if your game kicks into Hard Mode or not. So Be Nice. For Your Own Sake.

#SE asks #theladyinthedarkforest asks #Secret Engima Rambles #ffxv #tips #my tips #i am not good at hard strategy okay #over leveling is my friend #so is being nice to npcs

[crystalelemental]

Unit Teambuilding - Variety Mallow

I am someone prone to pettiness.  We know this.  Remember Victor?  I remember Victor.  And while I generally have tried to be more fair, sometimes there is a line.  Shiinotic is that line.  I’m sorry, I hate this thing.  Morelull was such a cute mushroom design, and it evolves into this gross alien mushroom with a diaper.  And it’s a variety scout of all things.  I’m not a big fan of Mallow either so this whole sync pair just rubs me entirely the wrong way.  Everything about this bothers me.

Okay, I’m done complaining.  Moving on.

General Overview Mallow is a Grass-type support who focuses on special attack and crit.  +4 special attack, +2 crit, +1 accuracy.  It’s fine, but 1MP means not capping crit unless 3/5, don’t you love that in a support?  Moreover, no way to cap special attack.  X Sp Def All gives bulk, and Shielded on grid makes it mixed bulk.  Giga Drain is survival, and her gimmick is recovering HP when hitting a paralyzed opponent, which she sets up with Stun Spore.  She also debuffs attack when she hits a paralyzed foe with a healing move, and can debuff special attack too from her grid.  So to sum up, she’s a paralysis unit with good personal healing, that can debuff both offenses, and rapid-fire buff specially offensive sync pairs.

You ready for the windfall?

Champion Stadium isn’t happening.  Unless you’re on-type, Vampire Tanks don’t work.  Her debuffs only work with paralysis, which removes the ability to work with other status options, unlike V!Agatha who could use any status.  Nothing spreads, so no AoE para or debuffing.  A 3-bar move on a slow support is not good, and her solutions for gauge are not placed well, so they rarely come in.  Grid heavily demands Team Sharp Entry for her to cap crit if literally nothing else, and it sharply cuts into her energy reserves.  Her self-healing is going to be only okay, dependent on her damage and the passive recovery of hitting a paralyzed opponent, the latter condition of which slows down her rotations.  Her team healing is locked only to Synchro Healing, a decent skill for supporting DPS units, but otherwise hogs sync for herself.  While her Gauntlet utility is fairly high, combining strong self-healing, debuffing of both offenses, and boosting both defenses for survival, Mallow is fairly slow acting at the role.

I feel like V!Mallow is going to be decent for people who care a lot about Gauntlet streaks, but broadly not as useful.  Very similar to Kiawe, she feels like a pair that has broad, far-reaching utility, but functionally is only better than stuff you likely have for a handful of niche situations.

EX and Move Level? Support, so EX encouraged.  Support, so 3/5 required to do much of anything frankly.  Mallow’s basic skills are...okay, but not exceptional.  You lose full buffing of crit and team healing with 3/5, but you retain the pretty significant buff from her trainer move.

Team 1: V!Mallow, Erika, Blaine/Tech Ninetales I am trying, admittedly very hard, to make something stupid work.  V!Mallow quickly caps out offenses, more or less, and supplements Erika’s defensive bulk, while debuffing offenses of the foe when paralyzed.  Given that Erika’s sync condition is paralysis, this is a decent match, just add some Sun.  I’m probably aiming too low for Erika to succeed with, but let’s all just pretend a moment shall we?

Team 2: V!Mallow, Clair, Lucas/Winona Another that’s probably aiming way too low, but Clair actually gets most of what she wants from Mallow’s single trainer move.  Mallow even paralyzes, which is one of Clair’s big multipliers.  You can add in Dragon Zone, or if you’re aiming a bit cheaper, Winona for Rain.

Team 3: V!Mallow, Lance, Lucian Alternatively, V!Mallow can support 3/5 Lance pretty well, thanks to the specific buff combination she provides.  She patches up accuracy, saving an expensive node, and his Ramp Up 2/Critical Eye can cover what’s missing.  It does nothing for his sync, but Hyper Beam DPS is never a truly bad call.  Lucian has to be mentioned at least once.  As a guy who buffs team speed while debuffing special defense, he’s ideal to partner with Mallow, who sustains in part off her absorption effect, and is otherwise painfully slow.

Team 4: V!Mallow, P!Serena, Anni N The last thing I’ll mention is Mallow’s debuffs.  Mercifully, they are consistent, pending the foe is paralyzed.  Palentine’s Serena offers speed for the team, and an AoE paralysis, while the debuffs and fast-acting setup is great for Anni N.

Final Thoughts Just like with Kiawe, Variety Mallow feels like an odd niche pair that exists to fill in for very specific picks.  Clair is the notable one.  Fixing accuracy, buffing needed sp atk/crit in one move, and applying paralysis solves for a lot. V!Mallow is legitimately the next best thing after SS Kris.  Presumably, base Erika also appreciates her, and the +1 accuracy with near full buff support makes her a surprise partner to Lance.

But that’s kinda it.  Niche utility does not a worthwhile limited pair make.  It’s a notable step above Kiawe.  But we are like three days from datamine.  Save your gems.  Whatever’s coming next month is going to be anniversary bait, there is absolutely no way they can’t outdo this.

#unit teambuilding #variety mallow

[calucadu]

The Summoning Rift - A Boku no Hero Academia/League of Legends crossover story

This is the piece I made for the @lolbnhazine! 

The zine looks great! Please check it out if you can!

The Summoning Rift - A Boku no Hero Academia/League of Legends crossover story.

Summary: “Welcome to Summoner’s Rift.” A female voice startles Kirishima, forcing him to open his eyes.When he looks around himself, he finds that he’s in a very peculiar – yet familiar – place. At first, he’s not sure where he is, so he turns to look behind him. His heart misses a beat as his eyes land on the giant abyss just behind him. The floor he’s standing on sounds like stone, and he confirms his suspicions by looking at it, finding that there are runes written on them.

Characters: Kirishima Eijirou, Bakugou Katsuki, Ashido Mina, Jirou Kyouka, Tokoyami Fumikage, Ezreal, Cassiopeia, Sona, Malphite, Nocturne.

Rating: General

Read on AO3

Or read below the cut

“Welcome to Summoner’s Rift.” A female voice startles Kirishima, forcing him to open his eyes.

When he looks around himself, he finds that he’s in a very peculiar – yet familiar – place. At first, he’s not sure where he is, so he turns to look behind him. His heart misses a beat as his eyes land on the giant abyss just behind him. The floor he’s standing on sounds like stone, and he confirms his suspicions by looking at it, finding that there are runes written on them.

He’s happy to see he’s not alone, since Jirou and Tokoyami are at his sides and Mina’s in front of him, with Bakugou next to her.

There’s a big, furry animal laying behind the scowling blond, with its long tail curled around a very small creature. Upon further inspection, he realises the mammal is some sort of shop, and the smaller one is in fact, a yordle. Suddenly he realises just where exactly he is.

He’s on the Rift.

He looks at his hands, but he himself looks normal, and so do the others.

Kirishima frowns. The people standing next to him are all his teammates, friends who he usually plays a few LoL games with. They even have a team together, but just… how did they get there?

“Why are we on Summoner’s Rift?” Jirou breaks the silence with a whisper and he turns his attention back to her.

“Is this some sort of training?” Mina asks, tilting her head and shrugging her shoulders.

“That’s ridiculous.” Bakugou scoffs. He raises his head and turns towards their nexus. “But I have a feeling that we’re going to be stuck here until we battle these losers and win.”

“Is this a dream?” Kirishima mumbles to himself, his brows furrowed. He can’t recall what he did before they got stuck there.

“This is so weird.” Mina whispers, narrowing her eyes as she looks around her. “How’d we get here?”

“Who cares?” Bakugou rolls his eyes.

“But… is this, like… dangerous? Is this some sort of training?”

“What if this is like in those films and if you die on the Rift you die in real life?” Kirishima asks, sounding worried as he stares at their nexus.

“That’s stupid!” Bakugou snorts. They all let the uncomfortable silence speak for them until the blond’s voice rings again. “But don’t die.”

“And, like, what are our passives? What about our abilities?” Jirou asks, a note of hesitance in her voice.

“My passive is that I’m way better than all you extras.” Bakugou smirks at them.

“I bet your passive is you lose one health each second you don’t brag.” She replies, rolling her eyes at him. He shoots her a look and she shrugs her shoulders.

“Not like it matters what our stupid passives are because we’re going to beat the shit outta them!” He shouts.

“But hooooow?” Mina whines. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Are you stupid?” Bakugou looks at her, scowling. “You’re training to be a hero. You know what to do. Just go out there and fight.”

“He’s right.” Tokoyami mutters, raising his head.

“But this is like… a different world, isn’t it?” Jirou asks, watching as minions start spawning magically. “And we’re in it. I guess we’re subjected to their rules?”

“I don’t care. Just go out there and do your fucking best.” He snarls, kicking at the ground as he walks towards the shop.

“Was that encouragement, Bakugou?” She smiles mischievously, knowing fully well he isn’t going to turn around to look at her shit-eating grin.

“Fuck off!” He directs at her, turning his head towards the yordle to get his starting items.

Mina pushes him out of the way as she buys her Doran’s Ring and some health pots. He’s about to complain when she rushes past him, her eyes beaming. “C’mon team! Let’s get on with it then!”

“Yeah!” Jirou exclaims, also grabbing the items she needs and going towards the bottom lane.

“Let’s show those losers who the real legends are!” Bakugou laughs, excited. He’s got that look in his eyes that he gets when he’s ready to fight. It makes Kirishima feel equally excited.

“C’mon, team, it’ll be fun!” He shouts, bumping his fists together as he hardens and unhardens his skin. He quickly starts running towards the top lane, trying to avoid the minions slowly making their way there.

Tokoyami takes longer to exit the base, since he’s considering what to get. They don’t know who they’re against just yet, so he’s not sure what items to build. He sighs when he decides, making his way towards the jungle.

He finds most of his teammates waiting for him at his red buff. Bakugou’s looking at Mina, grunting something at her. “If you feed I’ll go mid and kill you myself!” He warns her before turning to Jirou. “And you better do your absolute best. I want you being aggressive. And don’t you dare die.”

“Aye, aye, captain!” She mock salutes him, rolling her eyes when he turns his back to her.

“Thanks for the help.” Tokoyami whispers, summoning Dark Shadow to help him defeat the jungle monster that has just appeared. Mina heads towards the mid lane, whistling a simple tune to herself. “Good luck everyone! I’m rooting for you!”

“You too!” Kirishima cheers her from under his top turret.

“Don’t you dare steal it, Bakugou.” Jirou warns, a sly smile on her face as she looks over at her lane partner.

“That was one time!” He snaps at her, promptly stopping his auto attacks towards the monster and heading towards bot.

A giggle escapes the girl’s mouth and she rolls her eyes, turning to Tokoyami. “Was that a good enough leash or do you want me to stick around some more?”

“That was fine.” He replies, giving the red buff a last attack. Dark Shadow nods to her and she sighs, realising she can’t postpone the inevitable anymore; she’s got to go to the bottom lane.

When she gets there she sees Bakugou already hitting minions, as well as their lane opponents, Ezreal and Sona. He uses small explosions that burst from his hands to finish the minions off. He also uses them against their enemies, but he isn’t going as aggressive as he’d like because he’s wary of the situation. He’s not sure what the consequences of his actions will be, and that scares him a little.

Jirou’s actually proud of how cautious he’s being. Normally she’d be telling him to take it slow, and that’s why she complements him so well when they play. She helps him when he gets too overconfident and is quick to stop his impulsive moves. Together they make a pretty strong team. They can be an undefeatable duo when he stops being stubborn and she doesn’t provoke him.

Although it is true that she likes teasing him a little bit too much since he’s easy to tilt. When she’s in a playful mood she’ll go into the enemy’s jungle and pretend to feed the enemy a kill or two. Even though it infuriates him, he always goes after her to help her out whenever she actually gets in a tricky situation. He’s died saving her more than once but that usually makes her start playing better.

Bakugou used to main mid, but was convinced by Kirishima to try the AD carries, and he quickly felt more comfortable there. It’s not like he feels he needs a support, but he grew to understand that having someone with him can be beneficial. Even though that doesn’t stop him from playing recklessly and boasting about how he’s the star of the show. He believes he carries everyone with his displays of skill and tactics and his aim is to always do the most damage. Some of the times he gets greedy, and despite the fact that he knows very well he shouldn’t get cocky, he has died trying to get a kill more than once.

In the mid lane, Mina’s against Cassiopeia. She darts around her lane, trying to predict her rival’s attacks, dodging most of them successfully. She squirts acid at the enemy minions, laughing maniacally as she darts from side to side.

Mina just likes playing mages. Sometimes she switches with Jirou and lets her go mid, where she picks assassins, but Bakugou doesn’t like when the pink haired girl supports him because she’s more in her own world and plays less aggressively than him. When she goes to the bottom lane and supports him, they both keep dying. She has no control over Bakugou, and they’re both greedy and reckless. She’s a bit like him in the sense that she doesn’t understand when to stop and doesn’t put limits on him like Jirou does. That’s why when they’re together, it basically always ends badly for them.

Tokoyami murmurs to himself as he skulks around the jungle, killing camps mercilessly, but also paying attention to his team, just in case they need him. He uses Dark Shadow to tank the creeps, making it dance around them to distract them while he deals damage.

Tokoyami’s been a jungler for as long as Kirishima has known he plays league. He says he likes the darkness of the wild. Or something like that. His favourite and most picked champion is Nocturne because he relates to him. He normally just stays in the jungle playing his own game, in his own world, although he still ganks and helps take objectives. Kirishima thinks he’s the best player out of them, but mainly because he has Dark Shadow to help monitor the minimap and tell him where the enemy is or could be. He sometimes even provides help by steering the mouse in the right direction or pressing the correct keys.

Some consider using quirks cheating, but there are millions of players that exploit theirs just to get into a major league and become famous. And in a world where quirks exist, using them can hardly be considered cheating.

Bakugou, Mina, Jirou and Kirishima can’t really use their quirks to help them play better. Sometimes, in fact, it’s more of a handicap. Both boys have accidentally – and not so accidentally in Bakugou’s case – destroyed mice, headsets, keyboards and screens. That last one was recently: the blond got so angry he decided to blast his computer screen with a powerful explosion, wrecking it completely. They actually managed to win despite the absence of their ADC.

Kirishima snaps out of his thoughts when he sees a familiar shadow coming towards him. “OMG, it’s Malphite!!” He squeals when he recognises his opponent, his eyes gleaming at the sight of his favourite champion. He approaches him cautiously, keeping an eye on him and the enemy minions, as he hardens his skin just in case the other decides to throw him his projectile. All they do is farm for the first few minutes, completely ignoring each other.

Kirishima likes playing tanks. He doesn’t mind where, as long as he feels like he’s protecting his team. He says it’s like in real life, he’s there to take the brunt of the damage. That’s how he started playing in the top lane.

That’s one of the reasons he admires Malphite. He feels like he’s a lot like him in many ways, but now that he’s against him, he doesn’t know what to do. At first, they barely touch each other. All they do is farm peacefully. The redhead is scared the other is waiting until he hits level six and can just use his ultimate on him and basically obliterate him. He can harden his skin, but he’s not sure how effective that will be against his opponent. He has this huge dash, and Kirishima isn’t very mobile. It’s one of the cons of his quirk.

They both reach level six pretty much at the same time, and, as predicted, Malphite immediately hits him with his ultimate move, but Kirishima uses his Unbreakable just in time, and doesn’t receive much damage. They slap each other until they’re both very low and they both decide to back off, without anyone dying.

He recalls under his turret, feeling slightly dejected. “Hmmm, I feel like my hardening doesn’t last very long.”

“My explosions aren’t very impressive either.” Bakugou mutters, disheartened.

“I keep running out of acid.” Mina moans, throwing her head back. “This is frustrating.”

“We’re on the Rift. I think it’s normal that we have limitations here. We’re in this world and this world’s rules apply to us too, now.” Jirou says. “Just learn to use your resources better.”

 Apart from that, everything seems to be going fine. They don’t play too recklessly, since they’re kind of wary about the situation they’re in, but they don’t let the enemy push them up to their turrets.

That’s until Bakugou gets a little cocky and starts harassing the enemy a bit too much, so of course the enemy jungler ganks them before they can retreat.

“Nocturne’s bot!” Jirou shouts. “Can someone come and help?”

“Coming.” Tokoyami whispers, and true to his word, he appears behind them, Dark Shadow alert and ready.

It suddenly gets darker, so Jirou takes a step towards Bakugou and they share a look. Before they can act, Nocturne appears above them, but Dark Shadow is quick and gets in front of them to shield them.

“We meet again, old friend.” Tokoyami whispers ceremoniously as he runs towards them, commanding Dark Shadow to grab Nocturne and pin him down.

“Weird.” Bakugou grunts, but quickly starts attacking the enemy, blasting them with explosions. Jirou emits the sound of her heartbeat, standing beside her carry, ready for anything. Sona’s manages to stun all three of them momentarily, giving Ezreal enough time to hit them with a powerful release of energy, dealing a lot of damage.

They retreat to their turret with the intention to recall since they’re pretty wounded, but the enemy follows them. Sona dives them just when Jirou grabs her with her earlobes, letting her take enough damage from the tower and Bakugou that she dies just right after flashing.

Ezreal goes in to try and finish them off since Jirou is nearly dead but she backs away just in time, letting her team take the kill and saving her.

Nocturne manages to get away, leaving a dark trail behind him, and they decide it’s not worth it to follow him. Jirou, despite the fact that she should go back to base, stays and helps take bottom turret and then they all rotate to mid, where they help Mina take her opponent’s after successfully killing Cassiopeia.

“Jirou!” Bakugou barks at her. “Back immediately.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She sighs.

“It’s best if I leave as well.” Tokoyami whispers sombrely. He did end up quite injured after their last fight when he went under the enemy turret just to make sure his team secured the kill on Cassiopeia.

“You probably have a lot of money, Bakugou. You should come with us.” Jirou says, walking away so she’s not in range of any possible enemy coming their way.

He just snarls at her, but does as he was told, knowing she’s right.

“I should go, too!” Mina cheerfully adds, skipping to where they’re backing, but suddenly, she stops. She turns her head towards the enemy jungle when something catches her attention.

Before she knows what she’s doing, she’s in the river, enjoying the little stream of water.

“I never noticed how pretty the Rift is!” She calls to her team.

“Are you in their jungle?” Jirou asks after using her quirk to find her position.

“The fuck are you doing there? Get outta there! You’re going to get killed.” Bakugou calls for her, running down the mid lane.

Jirou follows behind him. “Hold on, we’re coming to get you!”

“No need! Everything’s fine! Wow, look at blue buff! It’s so cute! I want to have it as a pet!” Mina whispers, stroking it gently.

“The enemy is going to come.” Kirishima warns, hardening his arm and blocking Malphite’s auto attack. He knows how Mina is: she can’t seem to stay still in one place. She always moves around the terrain, roaming recklessly; without paying attention to the minimap.

He doesn’t get an answer, but they all hear her scream in terror. Bakugou and Jirou shout at her to try and escape, but they see the enemy have her cornered. Sona slows her with her empowered attack and Ezreal hits her in the face with his various magical shots.

Mina’s unable to dodge all the damage they’re dealing, and she quickly loses her health, falling to the ground, apparently dead. Jirou starts screaming but Bakugou tugs at her arm, instructing her to go back. Nocturne and Cassiopeia are behind the other two enemies, so it’s better to retreat.

“Mina… are you okay? Did you die? Are you dead?” Kirishima desperately asks, punching Malphite right in the face.

“I think I’m okay.” She replies. Her voice sounds different, like she’s in another plane. “I’m definitely dead in the game, but I’m okay!” She follows with a laugh.

“What’s it like to be dead?” Tokoyami’s tone gives away how curious he is to know the answer.

“It’s weird. Not bad, but also not good. It’s kinda tingly actually, the sensation.”

“I told you not to go there!” Bakugou screams at her. “I’m gonna kill you when you come back!”

All he gets as an answer is her shrill laughter which echoes around the Rift.

After a sigh, Jirou comes up with a plan. “Let’s all just group mid and push. Kiri, think you can come help?”

“Sure!”

When they go as a team, they definitely feel like they have an advantage. They take a turret before their opponents do anything to stop them.

When their surroundings turn black, they huddle together, prepared for the enemy’s attack.

“Darkness is all around us.” Tokoyami mutters, signalling to Dark Shadow to step in front of them so that it blocks any incoming damage. The shadow creature does, and just at the right time, since it stops Malphite from landing on his team, and prevents him from coming any closer.

“I’m going in!” Kirishima shouts, going Unbreakable and running towards the darkness. Bakugou blasts himself forwards and lands next to Ezreal and Sona, prepared to do as much damage as possible.

Jirou tries to protect him from where she stands, but Nocturne positions himself between her and the rest of her team, so all she can do at first is try to get him off herself. Dark Shadow helps by diverting him, and she quickly runs off to aid Mina.

Cassiopeia is the first one to die, because Kirishima separated her from the rest of her teammates. After defeating the mid laner, Ezreal and Sona have nowhere to go, so they’re pretty easy to eliminate.

Nocturne and Malphite fall too, but so does Tokoyami, who dashed in front of Bakugou to save him from the enemy.

“It’s not so bad being dead.” He mutters solemnly from beyond the grave.

“Can we win from this?” Jirou gasps, hurrying behind Bakugou and trying to get the enemy’s third turret.

“I think so.” Mina whispers, concentrating. They get the inhibitor and she sighs in relief.

Kirishima tanks the first few hits of the nexus’s right turret before the minions come, and they destroy that one too. By the time they’ve managed to knock down the other one, Sona and Ezreal have come back up, but there’s not much they can do to prevent them from winning.

Just as Kirishima hits the Nexus with his hardened fist, it explodes into a million little pieces. He can feel the shards hit his skin, but it doesn’t hurt; instead it feels kind of nice. A smile spreads on his face as the loud female voice rings in his ears and tells him they’ve won.

He takes a step back, but his feet don’t move, and he suddenly feels something against his back. He notices he’s sitting on a chair.

Bakugou cheers next to him, slapping his arm enthusiastically. “Yeah! We murdered them! Take that, you lousy shitty extras!”

“Yeah…” Kirishima mutters, slightly confused. “Good job… everyone!”

He blinks as he looks around him, and he finds that he’s not on the Rift.

He’s in his dorm, playing on his desk with Bakugou, both using their laptops and trying to be comfortable in such a cramped space.

He can hear Mina scream triumphantly from the other room, and he scrunches his eyebrows, confused.

What just happened?

#fic #lol #the summoning rift #league of legends #boku no hero academia #my writing #my fanfiction #fanfiction #bnha #bnha lol

[moonscribe]

Dungeon Blogging #3: Wizard Hunter Monk

The monk often struggles to carve out it’s niche in a party of four or less. They aren’t healers or spell-slingers, they usually don’t make very good tanks, and they lack the skill versatility of rogues. Sure monks can deal good damage but 5th edition is generally pretty good about making sure every class has that potential. Monks are my favorite class so I spend a lot of time thinking about it and I’m here to share a build that’s designed to carve out a role for the monk in your party: The Wizard Hunter.

Spellcasters are very good, that’s just a fact. Left unchecked, an enemy wizard can be disastrous for your party and when your facing down a band of orcs, you’re going to want to disable that Orc Eye of Gruumsh before they can cast Bless or Spiritual Weapon. Your monk is here to be that check. Built properly, a monk can get in and out of anywhere, including right up close to whatever squishy magic-user keeps throwing Fireballs at your party.

The base class gives you a suite of important abilities for your anti-mage tactics. You get Unarmored Movement at level 2, a bonus to your movement speed that will help you blitz into melee range of a mage and escape when their reinforcements come. At level 9 your Unarmored Movement improves, gifting you with the ability to walk on water and up vertical surfaces. Wall running can let you bypass enemies blocking the way and being able to ninja up the side of towers will let you reach the balconies that wizards often cast from. You can’t stop moving while your on water or running up walls but given that you’re already level 9 that’s a 45 foot run, doubled if your dashing. That means you can run 90 feet straight up no sweat.

This pairs well with Step of the Wind, one of the Ki powers you get at level 2. For a single Ki point SotW lets you bonus action dash and doubles your jump distance. If you are level 9 and want to hit a flying caster that is up to 70 feet in the air and 20 feet away from any vertical surface, you only need to have a Strength of 10 to do it, running up the wall and kicking off of it when you’re at the right height. “But wait!” you shout, “That’s 70 feet in the air! How will you survive the fall?”

You’re a monk, you don’t care about gravity! When you were level 4 you got Slow Fall which ignore the first 5 x your monk level of fall damage. Since this free falling monk is at least level 9 they prevent 45 points of fall damage. Given that fall damage is only 1d6 for every 10 feet, that fall only deals 42 points of damage at the absolute maximum. In 5e fall damage caps off at 20d6, an average of 70 damage. A level 14 monk can walk the plank of a sky ship, plummet like a meteor, make a crater on impact, then walk off with a 50% chance of being at max HP afterwards. Make sure your other party members are aware of this specific scenario as it will definitely come up and they will definitely assume you’re dead.

Most spellcasters don’t have the best Constitution saves so your Stunning Strike at level 5 is going to land more often than not. Killing the caster in one round isn’t always going to be an option, so disabling them for that round can turn the tide of an encounter.

Finally in the core monk we have Evasion, a level 7 feature that monks share with rogues. It says when you would make a Dexterity save to take half damage, which is how most area of effect spells operate, you instead take no damage on a successful save and half damage on a failed one. This means that you can dodge Meteor Swarm and take no damage and always taking half damage from any Fireballs or Burning Hands that manage to hit you.

There are lots of races suited to wizard hunting. Humans can get a feat at level 1 and Mage Slayer is what made me first look at this build. It makes 5e spellcasters play by the old rules where casting spells next to you meant that you cast fist on their face. It also makes it hard for them to concentrate and gives you advantage on your saving throws against their spells. For a second feat I suggest Mobile. Since monks notoriously suffer from MAD (multiple attribute dependency) they rarely can afford to take feats over ability score increases. This is why Human is a very strong option. Wood Elves are always a good pick for monks with their bonuses to both Dexterity and Wisdom and Fleet of Foot making them even faster. Fey Ancestry gives them advantage against being charmed, very useful against spellcasters who would cast Charm Person or Suggestion on you given the opportunity. Yuan-Ti have advantage on all saving throws against magic due to their Magic Resistance which is crazy powerful. That said Yuan-Ti are strong to the point of it being controversial to some people so if you go this route make sure to ask your DM. Plenty of other races have relevant powers and ability score increases as well. I’m personally a big fan of high mobility races like Tabaxi or races with teleportation like Eladrin.

Way of Shadow is by far the best subclass for this build. Stealth is easily one of the most useful skills in D&D and the shadow monk is second only to the rogue. That said, the Prodigy feat (Human/Half-elf/Half-orc exclusive) or multiclassing just one level of rogue for Expertise is all you need to completely surpass the rogue in stealth. A stealth build will let you sneak behind enemy lines and preemptively kill the wizard before even rolling initiative. Shadow Arts gives you the Minor Illusion cantrip and 4 spells that you can cast at a cost of 2 ki points: Darkness, Darkvision, Pass Without Trace, and Silence. Since your Ki refreshes on short rest and the duration of Darkvision is 8 hours, be sure to cast it on your non-darkvision party members and short rest before each adventure. Pass Without Trace in 5th edition is crazy, granting +10 to Dexterity (Stealth) checks. With it you’ll probably be rolling somewhere around the 24-27 range at level 3. Stealth rolls that high are going to bypass almost any passive perception and help you get extremely close to the enemy mage. Once within range, spend 2 more ki points to cast Silence to shut off their ability to scream for help or alert enemies while also disabling their ability to cast any spell with a vocal component. Unless they are very observant and quick witted, they’ll likely waste a turn trying to cast a vocal spell giving you even more time to unload a Flurry of Blows on them. At level 6 you learn Shadow Step and can to teleport from one shadow to another within 60 feet as a bonus action. This is useful for stealthy infiltrations and escapes. Cloak of Shadows at level 11 lets you turn invisible in dim light or darkness, this only costs an action with no ki or cooldown involved so you can use this as much as you want! It’s an understatement to say that I’m a big fan of this subclass.

As for alternate subclasses, Way of the Drunken Master is a good option for escaping tight flanking formations with Drunken Technique evading opportunity attacks while giving you a bonus to speed. Way of the Kensei gives you a nice armor class buff in the form of Agile Parry at level 3, which is going to really improve your survivability given the relatively low AC of most low level monks. None of the other subclasses offer much for this specific goal before level 11.

A word to the wise: monks lack much in the way of survivability before they get early subclass features, this build assumes that you’re waiting until you have a decent amount of Ki points and HP before you go on your Wizard Hunting strategy. Until then, try to be at least a little cautious and avoid taking on enemies without your party at your side.

Although 5th edition is relatively simple, there are a lot of potential combinations to create lots of types of characters. If there was anything I missed let me know!

If you have a question or idea for a future Dungeon Blogging post be sure to send me an ask! ^^

Art: “Ojutai Exemplars” by Willian Murai

Gif: Code Geass, One-Punch Man, Legend of Korra

#5e #Dungeons and Dragons #DnD #Monk #Wizard #Dungeon Blogging

[kapanbenernya]

Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide 2 -- Extreme Rat Extermination Service

So not long ago, my friend told me about another game on steam that he wanted me to check out. The game in question was Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide 2. He said it’s some kind of four player co-op game like Left 4 Dead 2. Actually he needn’t explain the game to me because I actually owned Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide, the game that came before this one. I remembered buying it years ago and unable to actually play it until years later because my PC and my internet could not support the game. Actually now that I think about it, I still never get to really play it because nobody is still interested in the game. You know what? Let’s forget everything I said about it and refocus on Vermin 2.

Yeah, I’m just gonna call it Vermin 2, the full game’s name is too fucking long

In Vermin 2, you are some guy/elf/dwarf living in some Victorian Era London type of world fighting giant rats and buff white dudes. This very basic and very unrepresentative description of the world and the lore of the game might just net me an invitation to the chopping block by the Warhammer fanboys, but I don’t care. Look, it’s a Warhammer lore okay, so cheat-sheet's probably there’s a god or some gods with their respective cults and war happens, hopefully involving hammers. Here’s what I can gather from the prologue: a rat guy and some lovechild between a viking and an orc wants to open a portal to somewhere not good, and our heroes must stop them. 

Warriors from the northern region with horned helmets? Wonder where the inspiration came from

Our heroes are a ragtag band of five people which includes a soldier with kickass facial hair, a religious nutter, a fire witch, a scottish elf-woman, and discount Gimli. The gang was formed in the events of the first game which I have absolutely no idea how it happened because I didn’t play it, and I have no intention of checking the lore. I mean have you SEEN the lore? If you can be bothered to check, it’s actually rich and ornate, with multiple race and languages. That’s why I will never touch it without a 10-foot barge pole; I still aspire to have a decent sex life someday. 

But I’m getting sidetracked, so here’s how the number of heroes will affect the gameplay

The hero you choose will define your play-style. Or to be more exact, the play-style you prefer will mostly dictate which hero you will find enjoyable. You wanna be a quick whoosh whoosh DPS? Go for the elf. You wanna be a stone-wall tank? Go check out the shield-bearing duo: the soldier and the dwarf. You wanna be kinda useful and kinda useless at the same time? Go for the character that looks like he’s from Bloodborne. Interested in being the prick that fills everyone’s screen with bullshit? The fire witch’s your lady, matey. But that’s not all the depth that comes from choosing a hero. You got 3 class for each hero, each offers different passive buffs and hero skill. Don’t think you can try them all instantly though, the game’s gonna make you work for it. You will have to unlock the classes by leveling up with the first class already unlocked from the get-go. 

I mean if they didn’t do that, I’d be able to make a joke about being in a classless society etc etc.

After you’ve chosen how highly you are ranked above the local commoner, in comes the weapons. Your main bread and butter is the melee weapon. Of course there’s the good old stereotype on the weapon variety: fast but weak, strong but slow, and medium but medium. The only ones that are a bit different than the rest are the weapons that’s paired with shields, which allows you to block more incoming attacks from enemies before getting your guard broken. Okay, let’s see the variety of shield weapons available: fast but weak, strong but-oh bother, it’s just the fucking same. Mind you, these weapons are not shared among heroes, for each weapon are exclusive to one hero and one hero only. So don’t think you can cheat the game by giving the whoosh whoosh elf a goddamn mace and shield. 

But as the old adage goes: “man cannot survive on bread, rats, and buff dudes alone”, so here comes some tasty peanut butter spread to save us from blandness in the form of ranged weapons. As with the melee weapons there are also varieties of different types of ranged weapon for each hero and class, and also like melee weapons, exclusive to each hero. Now, don’t expect to me explain the uniqueness of each weapon type and/or combinations, because that shit’s up to you to try and decide which one’s up your alley. 

With those weapons explained, care for a little test drive on rats and buff dudes?

Believe me when I say there are a lot of enemy variations in this game. First off, there’s two factions of enemies going hand in hand to knock the living shit out of your party: the Skaven and the Chaos Army. Although for simplicity matters, I preferred calling them rats and buff dudes respectively, simply because that’s what they are. To start, you’ve got the mob enemies. They’re weak, plentiful, bland, and makes up for 90% of the enemy. And then there’s the elite enemies. They are enemies that have different behavior and approach towards your party. There are ones that disables a player, the ones that punishes loners and drags them away from the party, area denial, the big tanky mini-boss, and so on. These elite enemies are unique in design and therefore can be easily distinguished from the mob by audio cues and vision, especially after the in-game characters shouted callouts before the enemy can even be seen anywhere in this plane of existence. But the one thing I find curious is that design-wise and gameplay-wise, I find that the elite rat enemies are more interesting than the elite buff dudes. I mean you got the sneaky rat and the hooker rat that makes you stick together, the gas rat and fire rat that pushes you away from a beloved choke point, and gatling rat that’s 100% bullshit. But the elite buff dudes are just variations of even buffer dudes that charge in blindly with the mob with roughly the same results or fat dudes with magic hurricanes that’s just here to fuck your shit up, fam.

I gotta admit, still hilarious when it happens to everyone except you

Well, what else can I say about the game?

It’s your standard co-op four player PvE combat goddammit, what else do you wanna know? You grab your friends, choose your weapons, pick a map, and slay some rats. Simple, true and tried ever since the old age of beat em’ up games to the crowned exemplar of the 4 player co-op FPS genre: the Left 4 Dead series. But as of writing the previous sentence, why do I suddenly think that If I was given a choice to play Left 4 Dead or Vermin 2, I'd prefer Left 4 Dead? I mean they were basically the same: traverse map towards the objective, enemy mobs spawning at the worst possible timing, and stupid stupid teammates that just gotta fuck shit up right before the level exit.  After taking my time to reflect on both games, I think I kinda know why. I think it’s because some of Vermin 2′s elements is pretty fucking shit.

You see, the enjoyment of the game doesn’t stem from the gameplay alone.It’s also affected by the amount of bullshit you gotta go through to actually experience the gameplay. And with vermin 2, the bullshit comes from having to struggle with the bad netcode. My playtime was 23 hours, and I’m quite sure the amount of time I spent waiting for my friend to be able to connect to my lobby is about a third of that. No joke, you know the worst record? 30 minutes. And even after the four of us can connect, it’s everybody’s guess whether or not we’re still gonna be a four man party after the level or someone’s gonna get dropped from the lobby for no particular reason. And what happens when someone or everyone got dropped? That’s right! Restart the fucking lobby! 

And by restart the fucking lobby, I mean more gambling whether or not the fucking thing’s gonna connect again.

Another lesser complaint I got is the weapon power system. Unlike L4D which just plops you the same weapon on every campaign, in Vermin 2 you gotta find your own weapons via lootbox that you get by completing campaigns or challenges. Thing is, the weapon power you can get from the lootbox is capped based on the difficulty that you play. So get this, you start out with bad default weapons which will result in you getting beaten to mulch which motivates you to get better and better weapons until you hit the cap. What’s next? You have to move on to the harder difficulty with your capped weapons, which will result in you getting mulched again. So there you go, trapped in a cycle of mulch-ification towards better weapons. The small number of maps available didn’t help either. Only 13 maps in total, compared to 12 maps in L4D and L4D2.

13 is less than 12? This guy’s off his rockers

Yeah, yeah, dodgy mathematics aside, do remember that every map from L4D is divided into 4/5 segments each. That adds up into around 48/60 maps total, and I needn’t elaborate further to show you that 48 is bigger than 13. That’s not taking into account the numbers of custom maps readily available. Yeah, who’s the brainlet now, bozo? And I swear, the quick play is deliberately messing with my party. Somehow we always end up on the map where we gotta pop some pimples in a cave. If not that, the one where we gotta connect the lines on some temple. I swear to God, small map pool or not, this is ridiculous. It’s like this map tosses off the map RNG every once in a while so it gets chosen.

Now, if you’re a smarter person, you’d have followed the dotted lines all by yourself and successfully deducted the 20 car pile-up all these problems caused. But since unlike me and my big smarty brain, you didn’t know that 13 is less than 12, I fucking doubt it. Here let me explain to you and your slowy slowy boo boo brain.

visual pun, ladies and gentlemen

That’s right, 13 maps, 4 difficulty, and there you go on the mulch-ification cycle.  Hope you don’t get bored of running the same levels again and again before reaching the higher difficulty. I know I sure did.

In Brief

After all the spanking I gave the game in the last paragraphs, it’s still fun, and it’s still a good alternative for L4D. Especially more so if you like L4D, but you’d like it more if it was melee-focused, class-based, grindy, and all-around dodgier. It’s kind of a shame really, because I can see that this game had potential to be better, but in the end it just got tossed aside with the remark “like L4D, but made by somewhat incompetent spods”. All because while the core gameplay is very much fun and functional, the elements that support it ends up being a hindrance, not unlike a brake on a car that could go off randomly. This game kinda proves that you can make a gold bar shaped like the world’s sexiest pair of titties, but bury it in deep enough bullshit and people are going to stop giving a shit, mainly because you already had shit deep enough to fertilize the Sahara desert.

P.S.

I am very much aware that the connection problem might stem from me and my friends’ own internet connection, but I did rule it out because L4D works like magic in comparison, and this proves that SOMETHING had to be wrong with the game to cause all the connectivity problems.

27/8/2018

#Vermintide 2 #vermintide #steam #pc games

[mysterylover123]

Maiko + Tropes

Back to Avatar the Last Airbender, where it all started. It’s time to do tropes for my ATLA OTP: Zuko/Mai. Prepare for some teenage grouchiness. (Sourced from TVTropes.) Also, Spoilers

1. ADORKABLE

Mai:  Mai is not normally very adorkable, but around Zuko she gets all giggly and blushy. They express their love in very awkward and adorable ways. The B-story in "Nightmares and Daydreams" is a good example.

Zuko: All of his attempts to be a normal and friendly guy end up charming failures. Notably, he practices an apology to a frog, then proceeds to demand an answer.

2. ANTI-VILLAIN

Mai: Though not to the extent of Ty Lee (what with being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold instead of a straight-on Nice Girl), she is still only going up against the good guys because she works under someone who is evil.

Zuko:  An early episode contrasts him with Zhao, who only wants to find the Avatar to bring himself glory while Zuko was only even there is to complete a mission so his father will love him.

3. BETA COUPLE

Mai:  With Zuko. 

Zuko: With Mai. While Aang and Katara dance around the issue, they're snuggling and watching sunsets. Flipped on its head in the comics, where Zuko and Mai go through a bad breakup while Aang and Katara are relatively stable Sickeningly Sweethearts.

4. BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Mai: With Zuko. They're both perpetually frowning Emo Teens with some kind of family issuewho are from the Fire Nation and use bladed weapons.

Zuko: With Mai. They're both perpetually frowning Emo Teens with some kind of family issue who are from the Fire Nation and use bladed weaponsWith Katara. They're both willful, compassionate, and emotional individuals who lost their respective mothers at a young age and are about equal in terms of bending abilities.

5. BROKEN BIRD

Mai: Her mother treated her like a liability instead of a daughter, was not allowed hobbies or even to speak unless spoken to, and her only friends were Ty Lee and Azula. No wonder Mai is so cynical and bitter.

Zuko: A rare male example; any innocence he had was lost between his father's and sister's abuse.

6. BROODING BOY, GENTLE GIRL

Mai: Zig zagged with Zuko — Both manage to be both with each other. For the brooding part, they both come from a dysfunctional family which led to them becoming Broken Birds but in different ways (Zuko having anger issues and Mai suppressing her emotions). As for the gentle part, both encourage one another to express themselves in healthier, non-problematic ways.

Zuko: Zig zagged with Mai — Both manage to be both with each other. For the brooding part, they both come from a dysfunctional family which led to them becoming Broken Birds but in different ways (Zuko having anger issues and Mai suppressing her emotions). As for the gentle part, both encourage one another to express themselves in healthier, non-problematic ways.Katara is the gentle girl to Zuko's brooding boy - they are a platonic variation of this trope, despite the Ship Tease.There's a very brief moment of this with Toph and Zuko - in "The Ember Island Players", Toph comforts Zuko while he's angsting over his Uncle. They go back to being Like Brother and Sister, though, when she punches him and informs him that "That's how I show affection."

7. CHARLES ATLAS SUPERPOWER

Mai: While turning her back on Azula at the Boiling Rock, she managed to consistently pin several guards onto solid metal architecture, using the same knives with which she attacks everything and everyone else. More passively, she's on even footing with the average elite bender, such as Early-Season-2 Katara and half the Terra Team sent to attack The Drill.

Zuko: While one of the most visibly muscular characters, he once punches a person across a room, and is seen shattering iron, steel, and wood with his kicks. All that training has served him well. Might be a result of Iroh's training: even among the Fire Nation, Iroh and Zuko are the only ones to display superhuman strength unrelated to bending.

8. CHILDHOOD FRIEND  ROMANCE

Mai: In a flashback, we see her admiring Zuko from afar as kids.

Zuko: With Mai. There's a flashback to Puppy Love.

9. DEADPAN SNARKER

Mai: Has a very dry sense of humor.

Zuko: Since Zuko's the most ill-tempered character in the show, this is a given. He's actually a lot like Katara in that respect: particularly sarcastic in books one and two, less so for a part of book three, and then more so for the other half.For instance, after some random kids threw an egg at Earth Kingdom soldiers, they blame Zuko, who continually denies it. It eventually leads to this exchange:Gow: The egg had to come from somewhere! Zuko: Maybe a chicken flew over.He also manages to get in a few good ones at Sokka, of all people:Zuko: I think I'm a little past your level, Sokka. Why don't you practice with the Duke or something. Sokka: The Duke? But he's, like, eight years old! Zuko: He should be a good match for you, then.Even eight-year-old Zuko gets in on the action.Azula : You waste all your time playing with knives. You're not even good! Zuko : Put an apple on your head and we'll find out how good I am!

10. DEFROSTING ICE KING/QUEEN

Mai: Much like her boyfriend, except it takes her longer to thaw.

Zuko:  It takes two and a half seasons, but he thaws with The Power of Friendship.

11. DUDE/CHICK MAGNET

Mai: Besides Zuko, another teen flirted with her in "The Beach", and Kei Lo admits to genuinely liking her.

Zuko: Sometimes in a relationship with Mai. He has loads of Ship Tease with Katara and a temporary love interest in the one-off character of Jin. The comics also have him being ship teased with Suki. Has almost as much onscreen romance as Sokka, plus a fan club and a bunch of random girls that swoon over him at the beach.

12. EERIE PALE SKINNED BRUNETTE

Mai: Emphasizing her emo personality.

Zuko: During the first season, where he has chalk-white skin coupled with a black ponytail. It later evens out slightly; sometimes his hair is dark brown instead of straight black, and he adopts a very slight tan that takes the edge off the eerie. That said, cutting off the ponytail and growing his hair out properly probably also helped.

13. HIDDEN DEPTHS

Mai: The gloomy knife thrower is a Cool Big Sis after off-screen Character Development.

Zuko: Badass, Determinator, Evil Prince -turned- The Atoner, is also a Momma's Boy and a lover of Turtleducks. In the "Ember Island Players", he gives hints that he likes theater, but just dislikes that specific group because while they have great special effects, they tend to butcher their stories. He admits to Toph that he's been doing Angst? What Angst? for some time, but the play is opening some hidden wounds.Toph: "Oh come on. Lighten up. They're just having fun." Zuko: "Fun? Of course you (Toph) like it. They made you a big buff guy! But to me... they're taking all the mistakes I made and throwing them right back in my face."His Uncle has indicated numerous times Zuko is also skilled with the fictional Tsungi horn.

14. JERK WITH A HEART OF GOLD

Mai: Generally quite a jerk but she has a soft spot for Zuko.

Zuko: He's Hot-Blooded and can still be quite rude, but Zuko is a good hearted person.

15. KICK THE DOG

Mai: In her first appearance, she turns down a hostage deal for her own infant brother.In the comics she dishes out a lot of emotional abuse against Zuko, although she still claims to care for him. She jokes about his death, his choice of friends after meeting Aang, and talks about how awful he is in general to Kei Lo.

Zuko: Often when he was in danger of becoming too nice, at least until his formal Heel–Face Turn in Book 3.

16. LONELY RICH KID

Mai: She has no friends other Ty-Lee and Azula, and they were off at the circus or war.

Zuko: He is the banished prince of the Fire Nation, but you can literally count the people who genuinely care for him on one hand (Iroh, Mai and Ursa). Eventually subverted when he makes his Heel–Face Turn, after which he becomes part of Aang's True Companions.

17. LOVE REDEEMS

Mai:  She follows Zuko in Heel–Face Turn because of his turn and her love for him.

Zuko: Averted with Mai. He leaves her before switching to the good side and the two don't reconcile their relationship until after the final battle. Instead it was familial love for Iroh, whom he acknowledges as his true father figure and role model, that redeems him. The shame he feels for betraying his uncle's trust is part of what compels him to make his Heel–Face Turn. He also influenced Mai to follow suit and betray Azula.

18. THE MASOCHISM TANGO

Mai: Her relationship with Zuko is not healthy. The two love each other but their conflicting morals and lack of communication leads to countless fights and their constant break-ups. She spends pages in Avatar: The Last Airbender – Smoke and Shadow describing what a horrible boyfriend Zuko is and how badly a relationship with him had hurt her. This leads to her making harsh jokes at his expense and she expresses the need for her to "move on" by dating Kei Lo.

Zuko: Has this type of relationship with Mai. They love each other but constantly fight, do not understand each other, have different morals and are always breaking up only to get back together again. Mai tells Kei Lo about how miserable Zuko makes her feel and she later says it to Zuko's face about how much of an idiot she was to date him.

19. MEANINGFUL NAME

Mai: Mai is the Cantonese pronunciation of 袂 meaning "sleeve of a robe", which is where Mai conceals her weapons.Her name is phonetically similar to the Japanese mei (冥, めい), meaning "dark", which is relatable to her gloomy personality.

Zuko: Zuko's name is written in Chinese characters which read as "ancestor's robber". It may or may not be intentional, but Zuko is an actual name in a Filipino dialect. Its meaning? "Madness" or "Angry." And he spends a lot of time angry in the show...

20. MUGGLE-MAGE ROMANCE

Mai:  In a relationship with Zuko.

Zuko: In a relationship with non-bender Mai.

21. NEW OLD FLAME

Mai: She and Zuko are a textbook "skip all the boring foreplay and get right to the intensity." Contrast with the heroic Official Couple, who were in the foreplay stage for fifty episodes. In this case we see a flashback of them as Childhood Friends before the reunion.

Zuko: Zuko and Mai are a textbook "skip all the boring foreplay and get right to the intensity." Contrast with the heroic Official Couple, who were in the foreplay stage for fifty episodes. In this case, we see a flashback of them as Childhood Friends before the reunion.

22. NOBLE DEMON

Mai: She may be on Azula's side, but she's not evil.

Zuko: Character Development for him in Season 1. He goes from burning down the Kyoshi Warriors' village in his pursuit of Aang to abandoning a later pursuit to keep his soldiers safe. Even right from the start, he threatens the South Pole villagers to get information on the Avatar but when Aang promises to come quietly if he leaves the Water tribe alone, Zuko agrees (and keeps his word).

23. OPPOSITES ATTRACT

Mai: She and Zuko somehow manage to be this and Birds of a Feather. Despite their apparent similarities, their temperaments are completely opposite: Zuko is a Hot-Blooded Determinator, whereas Mai is an emotionless Defrosting Ice Queen.

Zuko:  He and Mai somehow manage to be this and Birds of a Feather. Despite their apparent similarities, their temperaments are completely opposite: Zuko is a Hot-Blooded Determinator, whereas Mai is an emotionless Defrosting Ice Queen.

24. PERPETUAL FROWNER

Mai: Even when she's cuddling with her boyfriend she's frowning.

Zuko: "I'm never happy." Though it is averted around Mai, and after he joins Team Avatar.

25. RED ONI, BLUE ONI

Mai: The blue to Ty Lee's red. Or, since Ty Lee describes Mai's aura as grey, and hers as pink, Mai's the Grey Oni to Ty Lee's Pink Oni.

Zuko: The emotional, easily angered Red Oni to his sister's calculating, eerily calm Blue Oni, though it's reversed after her Villainous Breakdown. This is enforced by the colors of the Flames they produce; Zuko's flames are red/orange, while Azula's are blue.The hot-tempered, loud Red Oni to Aang's positive, peace-loving Blue Oni, which is visualized through their facial markings (red scar vs. blue tattoos)

26. RELATIONSHIP REVOLVING DOOR

Mai: She is in a constant on-off relationship with Zuko. It's unstable to say the least. They get together only to break things off a few months later. They make up but then decide to call it quits again. It is supposed to be a contrast to Aang and Katara's solid relationship.

Zuko:  His relationship with Mai is complicated and...unstable to say the least. They break up at least twice in the series and once again in the comics.

27. SOUR OUTSIDE SAD INSIDE

Mai: Like Zuko, she acts cold as a result of her past.

Zuko: He may act abrasive, but knowing his past, it's not hard to see why.

28. TALL DARK AND SNARKY

Mai: A raven-haired Snark Knight. It's a trait she shares with Zuko.

Zuko: Tallest teenager in the series with raven hair and a cynical attitude.

29. TOOK A LEVEL IN BADASS

Mai: Mai already established herself as a badass (but quiet and knife obsessed) Lady of War took a level in badass in the episode "The Boiling Rock, Part 2". Mai took out 13 prison guards and freed the gondola line to help Zuko and company escape the boiling rock prison...and Princess Azula. Although this could just be a case of Mai being Not So Stoic.

Zuko: He gradually improves throughout the series, but he makes dramatic improvements in season 3. It's then he learns to redirect the most powerful of lightning, holds his own against his sister, casually raise a huge fire tunnel that engulfs an entire hallway, and most importantly, firebends without relying on rage.

30. UNDYING LOYALTY

Mai: To Zuko. Even when their relationship is on the rocks, she remains loyal. Two instances: the Boiling Rock encounter where Zuko explains his treason and desertion and inspires her to defy Azula herself, and again in the "Rebound" free comic day issue where she discovers her father wants to use her as an insider against Zuko in a bid to put Ozai back on the throne.

Zuko: This is Zuko's greatest weakness and greatest strength. Loyalty kept Zuko on the side of his father and sister long after he stopped seeing things their way, but when he finally made up his mind to join Aang, he took a lot of punishment from them without complaint to win their trust, and he protected them over and over. In the sequel, Zuko abdicated the throne, naming his daughter Fire Lord, so that he could travel the world after Aang's death, to keep their dream alive while the Avatar could not.

31. WHEN HE/SHE SMILES

Mai: Just like her boyfriend, she frowns so often that she looks really cute when she smiles genuinely.

Zuko:  The poor guy is frowning so often (and for good reason), the few times he gives a genuine smile are really heartwarming.

32. WELL, EXCUSE ME PRINCESS

Mai: To Zuko. She doesn't put up with his angsting.

Zuko: Something of a male version of this trope in regards to Mai. She doesn't put up with his brooding and temperamental nature, instead encouraging him to lighten up.

#Avatar The Last Airbender #mai x zuko #zuko #maiko #atla maiko #mai #TV Tropes #parallels #atla shipping #atla #tropes #shipping