Social Zelda Social - Still the queen of Smash...and maybe queen of low tier for a decade, too. Shall we make it two?

EODM07 · Jul 15, 2020

Time to do my daily catchup of what I have done! :yeahboi:

First off, onto BBTAG stuff.

I took part in my first EU Switch Tournament, and it was a small tournament of about 10 players, and I came 3rd. Not bad I guess.

I got sent to Losers by a VERY good player who also plays Granblue Versus. And then when I in Losers, I got eliminated by the TO who I sent to Losers in my first match. So oof on my end.

But hey, for my first tournament, I think I did okay. But I also feel like I got very lucky with some of my wins. They were also only streaming Top 6, so my 2nd match was the time you got to see me play. But yeah, I enjoyed myself, but I just feel like I got lucky. Also, I'm planning on trying out Jubei, because I just LOVE how he sounds, acts and his theme is the best in all of Blazblue, don't @ me.

For those curious, Jubei's ENG VA is Kirk Thornton. Who has also voiced Isa/Saïx from Kingdom Hearts, Orbot and Shadow The Hedgehog from Sonic The Hedgehog. I just love how he performs his role as Jubei. I think it suits him perfectly. Now, I have been told that one of his best teams is ironically enough, with his wife Nine The Phantom. Because of the really nasty and saucy stuff they can do, such as mixups, unblockables and just insane cross-up shenanigans. Also, I miss Nine's old Japanese VA. FeelsTragicProtagonistMan (Before anyone asks, she's currently on break from VA roles, as she I think either has gotten married or has had a child.)

Also, speaking of BBTAG VAs. Can you imagine if each character has a unique Assist Call Out for EVERYONE? I would've loved that... Even though Blitztank would have none. Oof. So I might as well post them.

w/Yosuke:
"Yosuke!"
"Back me up!"

w/Chie:
"Chie!"
"Kick their **** in!"

w/Yukiko:
"Yukiko!"
"Don't burn me up, will ya!?"

w/Kanji:
"Kanji!"
"Go get 'em, kid!"

w/Teddie:
"B-Bear costume?"
"No bear puns, please..."

w/Naoto S.:
"Naoto!"
"Solve this one!"

w/Mitsuru:
"Mitsuru!"

w/Akihiko:
"Akihiko!"
"Muscle freak!"

w/Aigis:
"Aigis!"
"At least you're not Nu..."

w/Labrys:
"Labrys!"
"Careful where you swing that!"

w/Elizabeth:
"Elizabeth!"
"Nuke 'em!"

w/Adachi:
"Adachi!"
"Hey, officer!"

w/Linne:
"Linne!"
"Kid!"

w/Waldstein:
"Giant arms!"
"Gorilla!"

w/Carmine:
"Carmine!"
"Blood perv!"

w/Gordeau:
"Gordeau!"
"Let's do this, Greed!"

w/Orie:
"Orie!"
"Justice freak!"

w/Seth:
"Seth!"

w/Yuzuriha:
"Yuzu!"

w/Merkava:
"Weird beast!"
"Merkava!"

w/Vatista:
"Vatista!"
"Do your job!"

w/Hilda:
"Hilda!"
"Paradox!"

w/Mika:
"Mika!"
"Punch 'em kid!"

w/Weiss:
"Weiss!"
"Ice Queen!"

w/Blake:
"Blake!"
"Cat!"

w/Yang:
"Yang"
"Crazy Kid!"

w/Neo:
"Neo!"
"Do you ever talk!?"

w/Blitztank:
"A-A tank!?"
"The hell's a tank doing here!?"

Now onto Duel Links stuff. New Mini BOX has been released, and people have been saying this new Mini BOX... Is pretty crap. There's hardly anything good in this BOX, except for Megaliths. Which are an Archetype which are all about using their own Ritual Monsters as Ritual Spells to get each out, and they can help support other Archetypes. From what I've seen, we got a Cyber Angel X Megalith deck someone made. Am I going to dive into the Mini BOX for them? Not really. They also put in some Tuner Synchros as well, other than that. Not bothering with it. I'll stick with Dragon Sorcery and get the rest of the Witchcrafters in that, and maybe make a Predaplant deck from that one. I'll just need to get the remaining UR and SR from the Main BOX for Witchcrafters and then that's done.

Lacrimosa · Jul 15, 2020

Abandoning Zelda for a good character :mybodyisreggie:

.

https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/61649449

Lil Puddin · Jul 16, 2020

idk I just like the sound of it. Added to the B•GAL along with

Ffamran 's kazoo melody ofc.

Also I just got Dynasty Warriors 8 for the Switch a while ago. It's not as smooth or refined as the spin-off Dynasty Warrior games, but it is pretty damn fun. Most units are fun in their own weird way and there's 4 categories to give them all a consistent element of gameplay between the 80+ of them.

Dash: can forward-jump cancel any time and double jump. OFC there's a way to make some of them fly around the map via glitching lmaoooops.
Dive: can swirl out of any enemy-hit with short i-frames.
Shadow Strike: can cancel end-animations of strong moves with an attack dash forward.
Whirlwind: every weak attack has a small whirl of wind around the character which helps rack up chain count/protect them/build meters.

Then there's weapon switching attacks for utility. 3 elements that act like a weapon triangle. A weapon triangle that's actually balanced since ALL weapons adhere to it and disadvantage weapon = very hard to KB the enemy officer(s). Advantage = longer stun times/higher damage and switching in when an enemy is midattack leads to a super nice buff. Equal = 1v1 me loser.

The downside is there aren't many flashy/magical strong combo animations like in HW/FEW. That's probably because there's over 80 characters and each comes with their own unique weapon/weapon moveset. Along with 3 types of Specials and 2 character-only strong combo finishers. So I can forgive the lack of flashiness for the basic attacks.

All in all, it makes me dislike how awkwardly polished HW/FEW is. Yeah, sure, everyone gets dodge cancels. Characters are awesome and animations are very pleasing... But then there's clones. And just a basic combo system. Weapon locks. And everything's tied to the ground. So in short, it's very pretty/fluid but then veeeery basic. RIP

This ends my review. OK brb collecting my 5 cent payment from Nintendo for advertising. :secretkpop:

btw Resplendent M!Robin is coming and he's dressed as Hel's Husbando basically. Just to remind you he is the vessel for the spoopy evil dragon ofc. :^)

Lacrimosa said:
Abandoning Zelda for a good character.

https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/61649449

You come into our thread, slap our bread, and expect us to be OK with it???

Lacrimosa · Jul 16, 2020

Of course I do >:3.

Also this is just a placeholder (this is a very old avatar I), currently looking for a different Zelda avatar.

EODM07 · Jul 17, 2020

I forgot to share the stream I was on. So if anyone wants to see me fail horrendously in Winners Finals and Losers Finals.

Here is the stream for you beautiful people.

Blazblue Bi-Weekly Euro Tournament

For those that want the timestamps for when I'm on:
00:54:50 (Winners Semis)
01:38:20 (Winners Finals)
02:03:03 (Losers Finals)

You're welcome.

Now onto some other stuff. I've now made a Witchcrafter Deck in DL, so I am now done with that BOX. I am not bothering with the Mini BOX at all though, as I see no point in that one. So that's fine. But this means I can save up for the next BOX.

Lacrimosa · Jul 20, 2020

Kinda satisfying to 0-to-Death a Pikachu three stocks after sd'ing due to lag at 0% respectively (and yes, that happened to me yesterday).
Certain opponents really rely on their bad Wi-Fi.

#FixUltimateOnline

EODM07 · Jul 22, 2020

I've been getting some more BBTAG videos up onto YT of some combos I've been doing and learning. And I've also had a discussion with some people on the BBTAG Discord about characters we want to see buffed and nerfed. I know I've mentioned it before, but for a recap:

I said that I wanted Gordeau, Celica, Platinum, Blitztank and Makoto buffed, whereas I want Adachi?, Seth, Yumi, Ruby and Yang to be nerfed.

Now, to be honest. I'm having trouble thinking over what I want nerfed to Adachi, but the rest I can easily think up stuff I do want altered or nerfed, plus some single options to be added too for players in the Sound Options too. And while I did think about Celica and how I simply wanted a 4P buff so it would function like her Unlimited Version in Chronophantasma, it came to light that Celica is quite inconsistent with her moves.

Her 5B has two hits during the swing, the initial start-up and then the main hitbox. However, if spaced at max distance, only the 2nd hit will connect, this can make it inconsistent for Celica, since her 5BB can whiff and she cannot do her B&B (Which for some reason doesn't work on every character), I also found out her 236BC which is her projectile Distortion is inconsistent in the corner as well, I've seen clips where it's supposed to hit the full amount of 20 hits, but if done point blank in the corner, it'll only hit about what, 3 times? So now I can at least think about how I can have these characters adjusted, right?

So time for a repost but with an errata made to them. :yeahboi:

- Give Gordeau new moves:
4A (5A from Under Night) so he can have an alternate safe option to RB into after 5B. Plus if possible, make it a Low as well, since Gordeau's High/Low mix is terrible.

22x (Precise Aim from Under Night) as an OTG would be great, hopefully it'll contain enough hitstun for Gordeau to confirm off of it in BBTAG.

Adjust either Gordeau's 236x hitboxes or 5B hitbox.

- Give Celica some new moves:
4B (Her original 5D from BBCP/CF) so that way she has a move to start from instead of 5B

Make adjustments and fixes to her inconsistent moves (5B and 236BC), and make her 4P the Unlimited Version.
Make 5AAA jump cancellable on hit.
Make 214B actually groundbounce the opponent, allowing Celica to do more combos and give her more sauce. One other choice could be to make her 5BBB be a hard knockdown on hit.

And rework/overhaul Celica's Drive. Since she can easily be denied of her shenanigans. PLEASE for the love of God, fix Celica.

Again, this one is a bit difficult for me to think of what they could give her. But one I can easily ask for is to give her Dream Sally (214A/B/C in BBCS and onwards).

I'd probably make it her 22x.

Also, she needs more of her Items. They could have it go on a fixed roulette like Teddie has with his items, so that's one other adjustment I'd make for her. Probably make Platinum's Item draw be her 22C or 22B.

One simple buff I want for Blitztank.

GIVE US HIS 22X FROM AKATSUKI BLITZKAMPF FOR GOD SAKE. This way he would have an actual Anti-Air to deal with pressure from the opponent. And yes, this too would be 22x (Entladung).

Makoto needs a complete rework or overhaul in order to be anywhere near good. I mean, good god have you see the list of issues she has on Dustloop!?

Fix Makoto's DP (It is missing Active Frames during the start-up, similar to Heart Aino's DP) which makes it a DP you can bait out and block just as you're about to land.

Makoto's Comet Cannon is inconsistent with its wallbounce and there's an unintended bug where during a pushblock, Makoto can still fire the projectile from a distance without hitting it.

Sirius Jolt (236C) is a high unblockable... That can be blocked high that whiffs. Seriously, what is with the hate for Makoto Mori!? WHAT HAS THE EVER DONE TO YOU!?

Makoto's Astral can also trade on hit, which means she has the worst Astral in the game.

I could go on, but I'll leave the links to a Twitter Thread and the Dustloop page of Makoto Nanaya to show how bad she is for anyone curious.

Makoto Issues Thread

Makoto Nanaya's Dustloop page (Check the Cons section and the notes on some of the mentioned moves further down.)

Now while I do feel like Adachi could use some nerfs in this game, here's my problem... What nerfs would he get? Because I'm stumped on these and don't know what he could get to nerf his tools, since yes he is problematic in the meta when partnered with Yumi and with the right setup, he can be a huge threat. But the problem is I don't know what I want to see him get nerfed. What do you lot think he should get nerfed?

Out of all of the Under Night characters, Seth is probably my least favourite. And this is probably because I don't know the MU or how to deal with him, but thanks to Zave who I fought in that Tournament, simply grabbing him stops his projectiles. But honestly, I think his damage output needs to be outright toned down, since Seth can get so much damage off it is ridiculous. So yeah, reduce the damage output Seth has so that way Seth mains will have to think up new routes to further optimize his damage, since having to take something like 8k or 10k from a command grab or projectile of his is ridiculous.

One of the main three priorities on my hitlist. Now while I did do a paragraph on Seth and Adachi. I'll list the problems she is causing with BBTAG 2.0.

So... What can Yumi do which is problematic to the meta?
...
Unburstable move which does too much damage for very low effort.
Her projectiles from both grounded, air AND assist can freeze the opponent.
So has too much range and reach.
She has an unblockable setup which is ridiculous.
Her damage output is ridiculously dumb.

These issues mean that Yumi mains don't have to think in order to do well with her. And she is an extremely problematic issue in BBTAG 2.0. So the main and obvious issues would be to make her Aerial Rave burstable, make it so her projectiles do not freeze the opponent. Slow down her moves and reduce the range of them, give her DP slower start-up and outright nerf her damage proration.

These should be more than enough to take her down from Top 3 or 5 to probably High Tier. But this is Blazblue and ArcSys balancing, you know how wack that can be.

One of few characters I absolutely hate in this game.

I honestly think she was also the problem in vanilla BBTAG, but instead they gutted Gordeau and gave Ruby a slap on the wrist. Now, Ruby's moves are stupid. She's annoying to catch and has good buttons and good hitboxes which I think they should simply slow her down and make it so that the hitboxes she has aren't as oppressive. I cannot stand Buzzsaw at all, such a stupid move since it auto corrects when she lands, and what's worse is that she can cancel it into her teleport. The sooner this rat gets nerfed, the better. It's funny because the two buffs she got in 2.0 helped her significantly. Faster teleport and projectile. Bias much Mori?

The other character I absolutely hate in this game.

She has a gimmick which I think she does not even need or deserve, her Install is just awful to deal with and her music when she enters her Install overwrites the current song, with no way of turning it off without having to either mute your TV or Speakers or having to turn off the music entirely in game. She got unneeded buffs too which makes her more annoying to deal with. Example being that if she does a move with armour and it clashes with an opponent's move, the opponent EXPLODES and gets hit, meaning she'll get advantage off of it and continue her combo, it's stupid.

Simply remove her armour on all of her moves and give us the option to disable I Burn when she enters Semblance, that is all. She will be then much easier to deal with. Remove her gimmick with being able to beat moves with her armour too, that is unnecessary. But yeah, I hate Yang and Ruby. Two of the most stupidly boring characters in this game. If they could at least make them fun to watch and play, then I wouldn't hate them. But alas, they're incredibly dull and boring to play, fight and watch.

That's basically my wishlist on Buffs and Nerfs for BBTAG 2.0. I'm glad I had that talk with members of the BBTAG Discord, since it did help me think about what I want fixed and buffed for these characters. As for my universal option, I simply want an option to turn off I Burn and give us the option to change Blazblue's Astral Theme from Crossing Fate to True Blue and vice versa. So that we can have some variety.

Buddhahobo · Jul 22, 2020

EODM07

Nammy12

FATE/EXTRA REMAAAAAAAKE!!

WE'RE GONNA SEE ARCUIED IN HD!

Also, Rin is now a VTuber.

Lil Puddin · Jul 22, 2020

So I watched Hamilton this weekend and lordT was it somehow good. By all accounts, the premise was straight garbo and very uninteresting. Especially since the stage was very basic and didn't have sets or anything - just 2 revolving platforms. My family wanted to watch it so I was on my phone playing Waifu Emblem Husbandos. But Rap/RnB proves that making fire soundtracks can redeem even the most dull of history lessons, along with the dedicated "special effects but not really" actions.
#TurnAllHistoryIntoSuperFlySoundtracks

I also mention this because there is a very important part in one of the good songs that applies to us Zelda mains.

You know... 0:46 to 1:11 is the disorienting soundtrack that played after we first used Zelda/chose to main her

I jUsT mIgHt ReGrEt ThAt NiGhT fOr ThE rEsT oF mY dAyS

i JuSt MiGhT rEgReT tHaT nIgHt FoR tHe ReSt Of My DaYs

edit: Obligatory Zelda bashing aside, DW8 is super fun! And FEH is still... FEH! We're getting Hel's Husbando Robin soon and Cake Truk Blue Olwen next. I guess a flat +2 stat buff is a way to fix her? I'm saving my orbs for the Legendary Banner or w/e we're getting in a week.

ok bye

Lacrimosa said:
Of course I do >:3.

Also this is just a placeholder (this is a very old avatar I), currently looking for a different Zelda avatar.

Ye u rite. It's not like we have the frame data to do anything about it anyway. :secretkpop:

Lacrimosa said:
Kinda satisfying to 0-to-Death a Pikachu three stocks after sd'ing due to lag at 0% respectively (and yes, that happened to me yesterday).
Certain opponents really rely on their bad Wi-Fi.

#FixUltimateOnline

The lag makes me sad in general with Ultimate Online. When it's obviously even on both sides the matches are actually fun. But rarely do both sides have the same amount of delay or similar enough delay to make it a totally fair match. You can really tell when someone's using an ancient TV with a LAN connection - it's like they're playing in real time. Meanwhile us people who are in the future/not in 1990 have typical input delay on top of the wifi delay oopsie.

I personally stopped using LAN for Online because it usually results in me having a frame advantage. It's not fun swatting around someone who's character SHOULD be able to fight back, but cannot fight back because of the increased delay on their side. idk how people find it fun to stomp people purely because their hardware is top-notch compared to other players. Like. Um. Gorl. Whatchu gonna do when you play in real time and realize all that "training" is useless vs people with the same input delays as you? lmao take several seats heauxes before your booty gets permanently disfigured from all the butt whoopins.

Eddie The Pacifist · Jul 23, 2020

Lil Puddin said:
So I watched Hamilton this weekend and lordT was it somehow good. By all accounts, the premise was straight garbo and very uninteresting. Especially since the stage was very basic and didn't have sets or anything - just 2 revolving platforms. My family wanted to watch it so I was on my phone playing Waifu Emblem Husbandos. But Rap/RnB proves that making fire soundtracks can redeem even the most dull of history lessons, along with the dedicated "special effects but not really" actions.
#TurnAllHistoryIntoSuperFlySoundtracks

I also mention this because there is a very important part in one of the good songs that applies to us Zelda mains.

You know... 0:46 to 1:11 is the disorienting soundtrack that played after we first used Zelda/chose to main her

I jUsT mIgHt ReGrEt ThAt NiGhT fOr ThE rEsT oF mY dAyS
View attachment 279746
i JuSt MiGhT rEgReT tHaT nIgHt FoR tHe ReSt Of My DaYs

The interesting thing about Hamilton is that it kinda gets away with the glorification of the Founding Fathers by having some of the most consistently great music I have ever heard in my life. I have counted 10 different songs as my favourite one since I first watched it. Lin-Manuel’s a goddamn genius.

Though I should tell you: Avoid the fandom, and don’t look up “Thomas Jefferson with a miku binder“ unless you like pain.

Also I’m not sure if you watch a lot of musicals, but if you don’t there’s a great musical theatre company called StarKid Productions that puts out their musicals for free on YouTube. They’re genuinely really funny and well made, plus I think their humour would suit you.

If you’re interested I’d recommend watching “The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals” first, as it’s easy to follow and just really fun imo.

EODM07 · Jul 23, 2020

Buddhahobo said:
EODM07 Nammy12

FATE/EXTRA REMAAAAAAAKE!!

WE'RE GONNA SEE ARCUIED IN HD!

Also, Rin is now a VTuber.

~~MELTY BLOOD REMAKE WHEN~~

I haven't played Fate/Extra, so this'll be my first time trying out this RPG. I've only played Extella: The Umbral Star and Extella LINK. And that's about as far as my knowledge goes on Fate. Other than that Nero is my favourite girl from Fate.

By the way, I've signed up for that Bi-Weekly Tournament again in BBTAG this Saturday at 5pm BST. I think it'll be on the same stream as it was two weeks ago. Fingers crossed I do well. Though I bet I'll either get 3rd again or I'll get bodied HARD by the same guy as before and give them free Ws in Grand Finals. :V

Buddhahobo · Jul 25, 2020

Did somebody mention musicaaaaaals?

I'd watch Hamilton, but unfortunately the play was completely ruined by TFS and I can't take the plot seriously if the role of King George isn't being played by an intergalactic genocide mutant tyrant or the role of Hamilton isn't a Vampire hunting scotsman.

My current musical obsession due to Quarantine would be Beetlejuice fanimations on youtube:

Cress! said:
Also going back to Pirate Warriors 4 since I haven't brought it up in a while, the first DLC pack has been announced. All 3 of them are new characters, none of which were in the datamine. Smoothie, Cracker, and Judge. So that makes me wonder what the datamined characters were for. Maybe they were going to be in the game, but got cut due to time? Maybe they'll be a separate DLC pack apart from the main 9? Who knows.

On one hand I'm still annoyed they removed international rap god sensation Enel.

On the other hand P I R A T E D I N O S A U R S

Eddie The Pacifist said:
I can say that I definitely felt there was some sort of culture that promoted this behavior. The way women have been talked about by this community feels like a big red flag that we were all too blind to see (Calling them grils, making “Respect women” into a MEME.)

...I fail to see how any of that has anything to do with a 24 year old woman to start a sexual relationship with a 14 year old boy, Nairo and Ally both sleeping with an underage boy, D1 blaming alcohol for ****** a woman and a history of getting people massively drunk in order to sleep with them, the number of people accused of literal sex trafficking, or the...anything involving Sky William's house.

Eddie The Pacifist said:
To be honest this social is a miracle as far as Smash discussion goes. Everyone here is either kind, funny, mature, smart or all at once

But how can you say that if Evan hasn't posted here in years?

Our good attributes dropped 12.4% when he left, it's just science.

Eddie The Pacifist said:
The interesting thing about Hamilton is that it kinda gets away with the glorification of the Founding Fathers by having some of the most consistently great music I have ever heard in my life. I have counted 10 different songs as my favourite one since I first watched it. Lin-Manuel’s a goddamn genius.

It's really bizarre seeing an Irishman who used to change his avatar through whatever catalog of US President mugshots you have saved on your computer to be talking about something "getting away with the glorification of the Founding Fathers".
Though we know you're just defending your homeboi Georgie from us traitors to the crown across the pond.

Lil Puddin said:
But if everyone was a crepe, that means no baby making and the end of the human race.

Ur rite, evrybuddy donut b leik Puddin.

Now if you don't mind, Kenneth Jose Puddin, kindly stay out of my Otome manga.

Eddie The Pacifist · Jul 25, 2020

Aw crap, they’re about to tear apart something stupid that I said, aren’t they?

Buddhahobo said:
Did somebody mention musicaaaaaals?

I'd watch Hamilton, but unfortunately the play was completely ruined by TFS and I can't take the plot seriously if the role of King George isn't being played by an intergalactic genocide mutant tyrant or the role of Hamilton isn't a Vampire hunting scotsman.

My current musical obsession due to Quarantine would be Beetlejuice fanimations on youtube:

...I fail to see how any of that has anything to do with a 24 year old woman to start a sexual relationship with a 14 year old boy, Nairo and Ally both sleeping with an underage boy, D1 blaming alcohol for ****** a woman and a history of getting people massively drunk in order to sleep with them, the number of people accused of literal sex trafficking, or the...anything involving Sky William's house.

But how can you say that if Evan hasn't posted here in years?

Our good attributes dropped 12.4% when he left, it's just science.

It's really bizarre seeing an Irishman who used to change his avatar through whatever catalog of US President mugshots you have saved on your computer to be talking about something "getting away with the glorification of the Founding Fathers".
Though we know you're just defending your homeboi Georgie from us traitors to the crown across the pond.

I love the Beetlejuice musical! Say My Name is great, and my personal favorites are The Whole Being Dead Thing and Dead Mom, which are so full of life and emotion in spite of their titles.

As for the Smash allegations, the point I was making was that predators will naturally settle in an environment where the community is so laid-back about weird attitudes that have persisted for so long. Look at the reactions to the allegations, all the people jumping to the defense of the accused as if it’s no big deal, that they can take a break and come back later, that’s moreso the area I was trying to hit.

I still have all those pictures of the US presidents oddly enough, I never got around to deleting that strange phase of my time on here. As I’ve gotten older I realize how horrible so many of them were and how they don’t really deserve to be looked up to (with exceptions of course, not all of them were bad).

You‘re probably joking about “homeboi Georgie” but in case you’re not I should let you know that Ireland isn’t part of Britain. Well, Northern Ireland is, but the vast majority of the Island is called the Republic of Ireland which isn’t part of the UK but which is where I live. Also Ireland has had multiple attempted revolutions against Britain so I’d be pretty hypocritical to call any American a traitor lol.

Buddhahobo · Jul 27, 2020

In Gacha news,

Cress! has infiltrated Nintendo and turned Dragalia Lost into Danganronpa

Eddie The Pacifist said:
I love the Beetlejuice musical! Say My Name is great, and my personal favorites are The Whole Being Dead Thing and Dead Mom, which are so full of life and emotion in spite of their titles.

Dead Mom is probably my second favorite song from the musical, it's honestly such a nice soundtrack.

I've been meaning to track down an oldish album of "Chess" for awhile now. Never seen the musical, but this rendition apparently stars Idina Menzel and Josh Groban so I'm not entirely sure how it can sound bad.

Eddie The Pacifist said:
Look at the reactions to the allegations, all the people jumping to the defense of the accused as if it’s no big deal,

Eh, from what I saw, serious allegations were taken seriously, and frivolous allegations were treated as such.

Eddie The Pacifist said:
I still have all those pictures of the US presidents oddly enough, I never got around to deleting that strange phase of my time on here. As I’ve gotten older I realize how horrible so many of them were and how they don’t really deserve to be looked up to (with exceptions of course, not all of them were bad).

*shrugs* And yet they still managed to be better than more of their contemporaries in other nations. Something I've always found weird is how many people who I know learned history in school just...don't really realize what events are happening more or less simultaneously if they didn't learn it in that same class. So you'd have people who took, say, both US and European History, but basically only can think of them in a vacuum unless it's one of dem massive crossover events like WWI or II.

Eddie The Pacifist said:
You‘re probably joking about “homeboi Georgie” but in case you’re not

Treason to the Crown =/= Treason to Britain, though as it turns out I was both joking and misinformed. Never knew that Ireland withdrew from the Commonwealth unlike...I wanna say every other country from the former British empire?

Eddie The Pacifist · Jul 28, 2020

Buddhahobo said:
In Gacha news, Cress! has infiltrated Nintendo and turned Dragalia Lost into Danganronpa

Dead Mom is probably my second favorite song from the musical, it's honestly such a nice soundtrack.

I've been meaning to track down an oldish album of "Chess" for awhile now. Never seen the musical, but this rendition apparently stars Idina Menzel and Josh Groban so I'm not entirely sure how it can sound bad.

Eh, from what I saw, serious allegations were taken seriously, and frivolous allegations were treated as such.

*shrugs* And yet they still managed to be better than more of their contemporaries in other nations. Something I've always found weird is how many people who I know learned history in school just...don't really realize what events are happening more or less simultaneously if they didn't learn it in that same class. So you'd have people who took, say, both US and European History, but basically only can think of them in a vacuum unless it's one of dem massive crossover events like WWI or II.

Treason to the Crown =/= Treason to Britain, though as it turns out I was both joking and misinformed. Never knew that Ireland withdrew from the Commonwealth unlike...I wanna say every other country from the former British empire?

Regarding the accusations, it’s true that the majority of the community handled them respectfully and with nuance, but there was definitely a vocal minority who stood up for the accused no matter what. Even when ZeRo said that all the allegations were true, fans were still attempting to minimize it and saying that he just needed a break, not an outright ban or anything of actual consequence. Similar stuff took place with Nairo too.

As for Ireland and it’s independence, it’s a weirdly drawn-out part of our history. First we fought a war of independence like America in 1921, then we got a “Free State” that made 26 out of the 32 counties independent from Britain but still part of the British Commonwealth, (the six that remained part of Britain are what make up Northern Ireland today.) THEN in 1937 the head of government (the Taoiseach, essentially our version of a Prime Minister) drew up a new constitution where we were still part of the commonwealth but changed our relationship with Britain in small ways, and finally in 1948 another Taoiseach declared the 26 counties a republic, separate from the Commonwealth and thenceforth we were known as the Republic of Ireland. So in short, the whole “Independent from Britain“ thing took 27 years, certainly not as speedy as the US, but hey, it worked out well in the end so we can’t complain.

Buddhahobo · Jul 28, 2020

Eddie The Pacifist said:
Regarding the accusations, it’s true that the majority of the community handled them respectfully and with nuance, but there was definitely a vocal minority who stood up for the accused no matter what. Even when ZeRo said that all the allegations were true, fans were still attempting to minimize it and saying that he just needed a break, not an outright ban or anything of actual consequence. Similar stuff took place with Nairo too.

Hmm, I'd say part of my response at the moment is more a general dislike at large brushstrokes, but the main issue especially when it comes to ZeRo is that it was a multi-day affair with a bunch of back and forths. Originally the allegation against him was, what, he watched porn on a television? I'm sure there were plenty of people defending Zero simply due to something as simple has being a human and going to sleep at some point, thus assuming when they woke back up everyone was still talking about the same thing; a matter of miscommunication. Once the Jisu doc came out and the twitter DMs of him asking for nudes from minors, any defense all went away so long as the conversations were about the stuff that actually mattered (and not, for example, people screeching how shocked they are that there is porn on the internet or that Vanessa can't be trusted to know her own age due to Jisu's bull**** accusation about her being a groomed abused spouse).

I don't think I heard anyone defend Nairo, though I'll take your word for it cause I didn't find out about all of this until he deleted all of his social media. All I saw were people trying to argue Samsora, Tweek, and Salem should all go to jail for knowing it had happened, lots of concern that Nairo was going to hurt himself, and whether or not CaptainZack should be unbanned. Honestly, it was one of the quickest "**** him and salt the earth" communal responses I've seen in a long time.

Eddie The Pacifist said:
As for Ireland and it’s independence, it’s a weirdly drawn-out part of our history. First we fought a war of independence like America in 1921, then we got a “Free State” that made 26 out of the 32 counties independent from Britain but still part of the British Commonwealth, (the six that remained part of Britain are what make up Northern Ireland today.) THEN in 1937 the head of government (the Taoiseach, essentially our version of a Prime Minister) drew up a new constitution where we were still part of the commonwealth but changed our relationship with Britain in small ways, and finally in 1948 another Taoiseach declared the 26 counties a republic, separate from the Commonwealth and thenceforth we were known as the Republic of Ireland. So in short, the whole “Independent from Britain“ thing took 27 years, certainly not as speedy as the US, but hey, it worked out well in the end so we can’t complain.

Sure, but secession from Britain and withdrawal from the Commonwealth are two separate things; just look at Australia, Canada, and India for a handful of examples.

Previously I thought maybe it was religion based down the typical Anglican / Catholic Ethnoreligious divide, but when the cut happens a few years after 1948 I wonder if maybe it was reconstruction or ration based?

EODM07 · Jul 29, 2020

It's been a while since I posted here, so here goes once again.

Buddhahobo said:
Hmm, I'd say part of my response at the moment is more a general dislike at large brushstrokes, but the main issue especially when it comes to ZeRo is that it was a multi-day affair with a bunch of back and forths. Originally the allegation against him was, what, he watched porn on a television? I'm sure there were plenty of people defending Zero simply due to something as simple has being a human and going to sleep at some point, thus assuming when they woke back up everyone was still talking about the same thing; a matter of miscommunication. Once the Jisu doc came out and the twitter DMs of him asking for nudes from minors, any defense all went away so long as the conversations were about the stuff that actually mattered (and not, for example, people screeching how shocked they are that there is porn on the internet or that Vanessa can't be trusted to know her own age due to Jisu's bull**** accusation about her being a groomed abused spouse).

I don't think I heard anyone defend Nairo, though I'll take your word for it cause I didn't find out about all of this until he deleted all of his social media. All I saw were people trying to argue Samsora, Tweek, and Salem should all go to jail for knowing it had happened, lots of concern that Nairo was going to hurt himself, and whether or not CaptainZack should be unbanned. Honestly, it was one of the quickest "**** him and salt the earth" communal responses I've seen in a long time.

Since I'm seeing talk on the dicussion of pros being caught and getting... *ahem* "cancelled" on the Smash side. I recall that one player from the Blazblue side got himself done in as well.

That was ironically enough, the guy that I didn't like because of the team he played. Shinku who ran Yang/Ruby, who won EVO 2019. He was caught sending DMs to a friend of his about wanting to do some... innapropriate things to a drunk woman and take back to his hotel room. He was pretty much one of those who is overly friendly towards women as well. So what did he do? He wrote a half-assed apology and got called out for it. So now he is gone from both BBTAG and Granblue Versus. As long as these communities are safe from these kinds of people, the better.

Guess I can go onto better news and topics to discuss.

I took part in my 2nd Bi-Weekly for BBTAG. However, I had to ask the TO to DQ me because food was getting ready by the time I was about to play. So oof. I didn't get 3rd like I predicted, I technically drowned in pools. :V

But hey, at least I had some fun and ended up on stream once again. I'll leave a link to when my set starts.

My only set in the tournament before I had to DQ due to food.

Speaking of Blazblue. I've gotten to Central Fiction after so long, and I've decided instead of trying to learn Celica or Kokonoe... I'm going to learn Susanoo, since he feels the most fun and I like how he plays as well, it is also because his challenges are the only ones I've managed to complete in BBCF, so I'll be looking at VODs of Susanoo play in BBCF.

In gacha related news... That banner is STILL going and I'm focused on Arena now, I'm very close to hitting S Rank in Dawn of the Breakers, then I'll have to hit S+, and then I think the Arena Rewards will be done. I hope.

Because the Arena meta for DotB? Ohhhh boy, do I think it's gotten pretty bad now. You either run the new 17LIVE members, Shiranui or Ophanium. What's worse is that I do not have Ophanium or Shiranui, and I honestly think those characters are stupidly overpowered. Since they have range and disjointed moves. As for the 17LIVE members? The Last Jackalope is the most braindead of them all, she simply has to do this fast horn charge and she can do over 1,000 points of damage, it has armour as well and can be cancelled too. Heartful Heroine is simply Jumping X, since that has homing projectiles, each doing at max, 250 damage per hit, so if all connect, that's probably 1250 damage in total. Again, can be cancelled into a dash or attack. And finally, Fluffy V-Liver... Same as Jackalope, all she has to do is her Rush Skill which is her running towards the opponent, arms flailing. And she can combo this into itself three times, what's worse is when they use it outside of the Arena you're fighting in, since it has the potential to cause a Ring Out. And I got sick and tired of not getting any progress done, I've decided to join those that have the three 17LIVE Members and bring them into Arena. Oh, and their Ultimate Skills all have homing projectiles too... Minus Heartful Heroine's who tracks where her target is before firing off a giant spirit bomb.

Here's the Event SRs from DotB as well.

Duel Links wise... We now got the Kalin event happening, which will be nifty. I mean original Kalin, not Dark Signer Kalin. And this is convenient since Infernity Support is coming in the new BOX. So hooray for timing! Still waiting on Xyz World to be added.

Edit: Anyone excited for PSO2 coming to Steam!? :yeahboi:

Buddhahobo · Jul 30, 2020

In other gacha news, for it's 5th anniversary over in the JP server FGO has a new opening and I can't stop watching it.

If it weren't for COVID, the IRL 5th anniversary celebration would have been huge this year especially with all the fans who would be able to double dip and attend due to the Olympics.

EODM07 · Jul 31, 2020

WELP. Since we're on the topic of gachas.

I found out yesterday that Dawn of the Breakers is closing on October 29th. rip. It didn't last 3 years, which is a shame. I did have some fun with it, but man I do wish they did continue with it, but alas.

CyberStep at least has 3 new projects coming out, but it'll be a shame to see DotB gone. From what I've read, they've recently closed the ability to buy Spirit Gems, and then on October 29th, they'll close down the services, and finally on December, they'll close down Mail Support. But they've brought back every Event Banner and cut the Spirit Gems price of them by 50%. So I burnt all 1,500 Spirit Gems on one Banner, because I really want to get an Event SR that we call "Shiranui"... Didn't get her. fml.

I'll probably continue to play it until the day before closure. It's been a fun ride CyberStep, and thanks to them I learned about Hololive, Nijisanji and HimeHina. So things aren't all bad.

Buddhahobo said:
In other gacha news, for it's 5th anniversary over in the JP server FGO has a new opening and I can't stop watching it.

If it weren't for COVID, the IRL 5th anniversary celebration would have been huge this year especially with all the fans who would be able to double dip and attend due to the Olympics.

I'll admit, that OP looks really nice and it seems addictive to watch. From the looks of things, it'll focus entirely on Mash and developing her character more.

Also, Duel Links wise. New BOX is coming out and it'll contain three cards for Infernity players. Archfiend, Randomizer and Launcher. Which will be nice, shame is they haven't added Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Barrier yet, so no cheesy plays with Beetle, Necromancer and so on. But hey, with Kalin unlocked, I'm sure we can have some fun with Infernity decks. Other stuff that is in the BOX are Performapals, so no comment on them. But I wouldn't mind giving Infernity a shot, since we have Doom Dragon from the Banner and Barrier as Kalin's Level 40 reward.

Ffamran · Aug 2, 2020

So, I played Helltaker and yes, it was because of all the ~~demon waifus~~ art that popped up everywhere. Music is good too; they're all by Mittsies. I felt like I should change my avatar since it has been a while and I picked Justice because she's awesome. I was debating if I should have gone with Malina or Zdrada, but Malina usually has alcohol at least in her official art and in addition to being a smoker, Zdrada's title is The ***** Demon, so I can't really call myself The ***** Mod or The [REDACTED] Mod on a (supposedly) family-friendly site. Zdrada apparently being not as popular kind of made me want pick her, though, since I like her design and some fan art have portrayed her as having a kind, older sister side that is definitely masked by her being rough to say the least.

That said, while it's just a theme thing I went with, not that comfortable having "Awesome" in my title. Kind of feels narcissistic or egoist or something like that. What sealed the deal, though, was this fan animation of Justice dancing. It was so damn cute to me. Justice gives off this best friend, big sister, and/or cool aunt that everyone wants feel.

Justice Dancing #Helltaker pic.twitter.com/fqylnx6rFw
— RigidFouling (@RFouling) June 6, 2020

Some things I wanted to talk about that happened, but got lazy and didn't say anything. New game-related stuff would be Dragon's Dogma is getting an anime and Bomb Rush Cyberpunk. A Dragon's Dogma anime is rad and I hope it's a hint that Dragon's Dogma 2 might be happening soon. Well, it could have happened since I think it was said that Itsuno Hideaki said he wanted to do Devil May Cry V or Dragon's Dogma 2, but decided on DMCV first. Hopefully he is making Dragon's Dogma 2 since it my opinion, it's such a rare kind of game: a RPG with a good, hack 'n' slash combat.

Next up is Bomb Rush Cyberfunk which is apparently or appears to be a spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio. It's being developed by Team Reptile who developed Lethal League and Megabyte Punch. Naganuma Hideki had provided a song for Lethal League, "Ain't Nothing Like a Funky Beat", and is working on Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. I really want to see how this game will play out. I was introduced to Jet Set Radio through ProtonJon and I loved it. The aesthetics and music are wonderful. Unfortunately, Future hasn't been remastered or ported to any recent systems, and Sega hasn't really pushed for a new Jet Set Radio. Perhaps they will in the future, but for now, maybe Bomb Rush Cyberfunk will fill in the shoes or show that a lot people really want another Jet Set Radio. Here's the teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSnnAH3zRTI.

A few other things is that Setsuka's the next DLC character for SoulCalibur VI. I don't think I remember or paid attention to her voice in the previous games, but apparently Tara Platt is returning to voice her from SCIV. Kari Wahlgren who used to be Lady's voice in DMC3 and 4, voiced Setsuka in SCIII. Pretty neat and I like her outfit in SCVI. There's something elegant about it. Tekken 7 is getting a season 4 and apparently plans for rollback netcode is being worked on.

Last things are on Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy XI is getting an update. The 18 year old MMORPG is getting a story update: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/57098. Some MMORPGs have lived for a long time like Runescape although it is very different compared to back then is still alive and kicking and Ultima Online is still playable.

Final Fantasy XIV's patch 5.3 that is scheduled for August 11, 2020 is expanding the free trial to allow players to get to Heavensward. With that comes a level cap increase from 35 to 60 and the Au'Ra, the race introduced in Heavensward, and Astrologian, the Dark Knight, and Machinist, the three jobs introduced in this expansion, will be available for free trial players. Kind of weird that they don't have a new post on it on their official website, but several other sites have covered it.

The uncompressed audio files for Star Fox 64 was interesting to hear. Without the compression, Mike West's 64 Fox sounds like his 64 3D, Zero, and Smash 4 and Ultimate Fox voices with Zero and Ultimate having Fox sound less high-pitched, Katt Monroe and Slippy Toad you can tell they were voiced by the same person, and I'm really liking the uncompressed audio of Bill Johns's Falco. It's in the middle of pitch from the lower registers of Mike Madeoy in Assault and Dex Manley in Brawl and Mark Lund's sharper, slightly higher pitched Falco in 64 3D, Zero, and Smash 4 and Ultimate, Jacob Craner in The Battle Begins, and Ben Cullum in Adventures. Makes me wonder what it would have been like if Bill Johns returned to voice Falco in 64 3D onward.

guest-san did a jazz-style cover of Undernight In-birth's Mika's theme a while back and it's pretty awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MERLiTvUtk. It reminded me of "This is True Love Makin'" from Capcom vs. SNK 2 and a bit of the "Sophisticated Fight" from The Legend of Heroes VI: Trails in the Sky.

"Epitomize" by Mittsies reminds me of something and the closest thing I can think of right now is Combichrist's "Sent to Destroy" and I think it's because of the beat being a bit similar. "Epitomize": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_YbbAhRbIQ.

And then there's the song that's everywhere, it's the stage, main gameplay theme, in Helltaker, "Vitality": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnDXGQmCz3U. Without context, it's a fun, bubbly song, but now it sounds mischievous.

"NIGHT RUNNING feat. AAAMYYY" by Shin Sakiura was in the suggestions bar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T3ofoKfEoY. It's the ending theme for BNA: Brand New Animal. I might want to watch it just for the song.

Lorde · Aug 2, 2020

We got another FEH channel and it was pretty uninteresting imo. Pirate-themed seasonal banner is a cool concept, but none of the units pique my interest. Xander/Marx is one of my favorites and him being a Harmonized unit with Veronica was bound to happen eventually, but it's lame that he's the background character that doesn't do anything except jump around when Veronica attacks. She's not a character I like or even care about, so it's a pass for me even though pirate!Marx is beautiful. I hope they give us legendary Marx as a counterpart to L!Ryouma at some point, even if it'd make people salty. Seriously, besides someone like Micaiah or maybe Elincia, who else is left for legendary alts? I guess Corrin is plausible too.

They also did another Thanos snap of units from the summoning pool, except for Book 2 units now. I would’ve liked Owain to demote so I could more easily merge him on the revival banners, but IS said no. The only one they removed that I care about is WoF!Hinoka, but that's mostly because she used to show up all the time for me whenever I summoned on colorless. She's currently +5 and I've given her some good skills like Sturdy Impact, so maybe I should save up the orbs to fully merge her eventually idk. Also they confirmed CYL2 refines for September, which is annoying because that means we have to wait even longer for the remaining gen 1 refines lol. Hopefully Veronica's refine means that IS will throw the other healers a bone, but it seems unlikely at this point. She was already the best healer by a long shot (her only real competition is like B!Fjorm), so it's hilarious she's the first to get a weapon refine too while all of the others get paid dust.

As for the Hero Fest banner, I used my free summon + tickets on colorless before I dipped, and managed to get a +spd Emmeryn! I instantly promoted her and now she's +4. I already have 2 other +10 healers, but honestly idc because I've been waiting for Emmeryn's inclusion for a long time. At least she has a niche in being the fastest 3-4* available staff user ig. It's also funny that IS managed to **** up this Hero Fest so badly by making it possible to summon the Book 1+2 5* exclusives they explicitly stated would be removed from the pool starting today. We'll see how they handle this mistake because it's probably the most serious one they've made so far. People pay money for orbs so pulling trash units that shouldn't be available in the first place is pretty ****ed if they're not going to somehow compensate players for it.

The first AC fireworks show is tonight, and I'm excited to experience it. I see a lot of negativity surrounding the game on TBT, but I'm still having as much fun as I was back in March when the game dropped.

Also I'm 1 match away from being able to buy my next gold weapon in Overwatch. I'm thinking of getting Moira's because she's the only other main healer I can tolerate playing (sorry Bap but I'm not a fan), but it's such a lame weapon to spend 3k comp points on. Maybe I should save them for OW2? That's a long ways away tho so idk.

Ffamran · Aug 3, 2020

Listened to "NIGHT RUNNING" more and man, it's really good. Just a funky and groovy song.

I forgot to tag

Cress! and I guess

Lil Puddin if you're still interested about the upcoming changes to Final Fantasy XIV's free trial.

Lorde said:
Pirate-themed seasonal banner is a cool concept, but none of the units pique my interest.

It's such a bait banner with what it's offering and what's coming after it. A colorless beast flier who isn't a refresh unit and he has a Killer effect and introduces a what appears to be a flier exclusive Desperation effect B passive? Pirate Tibarn is stupid since he probably has a similar follow-up effect as his regular self, but now he has a Killer effect and a Desperation effect with the new B passive and by default, he comes with Galeforce and Heavy Blade 4 to help charge it. The new B passive is interesting with people guessing it's Forseti, Shadow Sword, and Worldsea Wave's >= 50% HP Desperation effect in skill form and probably only for fliers.

Geese being an infantry lance and being the demote also feels like bait for people who want a relatively fast lance infantry who isn't 5*-only. Problem is he's a seasonal unit, so he isn't in the regular summoning pool. The fastest lance infantry in the 3* to 4* pool is still +Spd Donnel at 32 base speed and also Sharena who can't get merges with the same base speed. Meanwhile, axes and sword infantry. Both started out with +35 base speed, neutral or +Spd, units at launch and continued to get more units with +35 base speed, especially sword infantry. Geese is the first 4* available lance infantry to have 35 base neutral speed and he's seasonal. Also, why is a Boost skill appearing on a seasonal unit of all things? Dump that on some random demote in the regular pool so that a seasonal unit could have anything better than a Boost. If it were a tier 4 Boost and worked like Tobin and Virion's unique refinement where it compares max HP, then sure, whatever, but a tier 3 Boost? Seriously?

Someone on the FEH subreddit said Darros's art makes him look like a guy from old kung fu movies. Posters weren't mentioned if I recall correctly, but after seeing that comment, he definitely looks like he could have been on an old kung fu movie poster. As a unit, it's nice we're getting even more axe infantry, but it kind of sucks that he's basically +Spd, -Def groom Hinata with a worse skill set aside from whatever his weapon does.

Lorde said:
Seriously, besides someone like Micaiah or maybe Elincia, who else is left for legendary alts? I guess Corrin is plausible too.

Aside from the remaining Three Houses leads, the likeliest ones would be Sigurd and I guess M!Robin if they want M!Robin to be himself while F!Robin represents Grima. Some people have mentioned Sothe considering he's technically a lord in Radiant Dawn with Micaiah and Ike, but I'm not sure. Sigurd's the biggest one since he's the lord of the first half of Genealogy while Seliph's the lord of the second half. The only issue is that means a fourth version of Tyrfing and he'd likely be a cavalry unit and if they don't have him use Tyrfing, then he would probably use some kind of made up version of his infamous Silver Sword because Sigurd was a busted unit and arguably the best lord in terms of gameplay in the series.

Otherwise, people have thrown out things like Camilla and Lehran for a spoilers reason. I figure Arvis from the second half of Geneaology and non-deity or very powerful villains could be legendary heroes to add to the mix. Greil in his prime could work, but the problem is he would likely be another sword unit -- probably sword cavalry -- since he would be before when he cut the tendons of his sword arm and used Urvan more. Karel as his Binding Blade self I could see working as a legendary since in Blazing Blade, he was still on his journey so to say as the Sword Demon while in Binding Blade, he was the Sword Saint and even if he's rusty, he probably was much more skilled than he was when he was younger. There are more obscure units who are considered legendary or have some sort of reputation like I could see Volke being introduced as a regular and legendary unit for also spoiler reasons, Jeralt if he doesn't end up being a GHB or something for CYL4, Ismaire who being the queen of Jehanna and thus, highest ranking guildmaster, would imply she's very skilled and that could lead to us getting two versions of Ismaire where one wields Audhulma and the other Magvel's Excalibur, Stefan considering his implied heritage, or one of the Dragon Laguz where Dheginsea probably should be a mythic and a dark one since his affinity in Tellius is dark. Not sure if Athos should be a regular, legendary, or even mythic hero. This probably wouldn't sell well, but a younger Gunter, Jagen, or whoever used to be strong back in the day could be an interesting thing.

I was going to wait until maybe the pirate banner since I don't think I want to summon much because of the back-to-back Forging Bonds draining more orbs than I would have liked even though I did want to get Ephraim & Lyon and F!Kris as lance infantry are rare units and a fast one in the case of F!Kris. That, and space issues as always. I think I might only do one full summon from the pirate banner and at most one full from the hero fest after they say what they will do and if it's basically nothing, then I think I will only burn the tickets and forget about it.

3* Athena: +Atk, -Res.
4* Azama: +Atk, -Spd.
4* Echidna: +Atk, -Def. Already have a +Atk copy, so this one was used for a merge.
3* Est #1: +Res, -HP.
4* Selena: +Res, -Def.

4* Eirika: +Res, -Atk.
4* Est #2: +Res, -Atk.
4* Fae: +Spd, -Atk.
4* Mustafa #1: +Atk, -Res. +Atk or +Res; 41 base Atk or 31 base Res as a 5*. Tough choice.
3* Silas: +Def, -Spd.

4* Lena #1: +HP, -Atk.
4* Lena #2: +Atk, -HP. When the first one showed up, I hoped for a second one and it happened. Opposite asset and flaw too.
5* Velouria: +Def, -HP.
3* Sakura: +Atk, -Spd.
4* Shigure #1: +Spd, -Atk.

3* Abel: +Spd, -Res.
4* Cain #1: +Def, -HP.
4* Lissa: +Res, -HP.
4* Peri: +Res, -HP.
4* Tanya: +Spd, -Atk.

3* Frederick: +Atk, -Def.
3* Gaius: +Def, -Atk.
4* Gunter #1: +Spd, -Def.
4* Gunter #2: +HP, -Def.
4* Serra: +Atk, -HP.

3* Clair: +HP, -Res.
4* Odin: +Spd, -HP.
4* Roderick: +Def, -Spd.
4* Shigure #2: +Def, -Atk.
3* Soleil: +HP, -Spd.

4* Cain #2: +Spd, -Def.
3* Hinata: +Res, -HP.
4* Lena #3: +Spd, -HP. I think Lena is the first unit to exceed three summons on their debut banner. I think everyone else showed up at most once. Forrest and maybe Rath showed up twice?
3* Seth: +Spd, -Res.
4* Tharja: +Def, -Atk.

4* Cordelia: +Res, -Spd.
4* Donnel: +Spd, -HP.
3* Forrest: +Atk, -HP.
4* Leon: +Atk, -HP.
4* Mustafa #2: +Def, -Spd.

4* Arthur: +Atk, -Res.
3* Bantu: +Atk, -Res.
4* Henry: +Atk, -Def.
3* Odin: +Def, -Spd.
3* Raigh: +Def, -Atk.

3* Beruka: +HP, -Res.
5* legendary Edelgard: +Res, -HP.
3* Frederick: +Res, -Spd.
3* Nanna: +Atk, -Def.
4* Seliph: +Atk, -HP.

Edit: And someone made an 8-bit, VRC6 remix of "NIGHT RUNNING" that's pretty awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHS0ZdpSWfk.

EODM07 · Aug 3, 2020

Dustloop is a magical place for BBTAG and other games. (Yes, I did contribute to some of those captions on Celica and Teddie. :V)

Now onto other stuff. Firstly, Duel Links wise, I'm getting closer to getting my Infernity Deck done. I just need to get one more copy of Infernity Launcher, then get normal Kalin Kessler to Level 40. Since he will give me more copies of Necromancer and Break, but at Level 40 he'll give me Barrier which is perfect. I'll just need to get some backrow next to deal with some pesky cards like Dark Magicians, Blue-Eyes and so on.

Also, fighting game wise, I've taken a bit of a break from it because I just haven't been bothered to return to them, I still do watch them, but I just can't be bothered to play them right now. Maybe in a few days, I'll get back to them since I do wanna work on my Susanoo in BBCF. Speaking of ArcSys, any announcements you guys are hoping for are ArcREVO this October?

I'll also need to finish Final Fantasy 9, I still got Ozma left to beat and unlocking every character's Abilities. Only other spells I have left to unlock are Vivi's Doomsday and Dagger's Ark. That's about it. But everything else, yeah Abilities still need to be done, same with getting every Card and finally defeating Ozma.

Alicorn · Aug 3, 2020

That guy looks so sad in that yuri picture.

Y2Kay · Aug 6, 2020

Hey gorls, how y’all doin?

Eddie The Pacifist · Aug 8, 2020

Y2Kay said:
Hey gorls, how y’all doin?

Mediocre at best, a bit like myself.

in all honesty I’ve been both better and worse. On one hand I had an excellent holiday recently where I met two donkeys and pigs and bought Catch-22 which I’m excited to read. On the other hand cases of Covid-19 are rising back to what they used to be in the start of quarantine. I feel very uncomfortable about the future, but quite content with the present.

I visited a friend and we watched Revenge of the Sith and counted the number of memes from the movie (it turns out the number is 127 for 140 minutes. Nearly a meme a minute!)

How are you?

Ffamran · Aug 8, 2020

Y2Kay said:
Hey gorls, how y’all doin?

Doing sort of okay, but I am disappointed in myself for not prioritizing tasks better and tunnel visioning or rushing too much on financial matters regarding my father's death. I neglected my summer course and had to drop it. I was able to enroll in it for the fall to retake it, but it's disappointing having wasted what was a gift in a time such as this. I could have had something productive to keep my mind off of things and actually move forward in life, but I wasted it. People have told me not to be too hard on myself, but still.

The person who did the 8-bit, VRC6 remix of "NIGHT RUNNING" also did a really groovy song from Animal Crossing: New Horizons which apparently is unnamed in the OST of the game? "Hazure02" with it being said to drawn inspiration from Yama****a Tatsuro's "Sparkle", thus, the person called the remix "K.K. Sparkle". Regardless, it's a good listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoofWcXYDN4.

I was going to save FEH talk until CYL4 drops, but I see someone has joined the Legion and that the 2020 Hero Fest banner ends today, so I burned the tickets and did one full summon since I want to save my orbs for CYL4 because as much as I would like Brigid or perhaps two Brigids so I can get Steady Impact for Clair or someone else, pirate Tibarn, and an actually decently fast lance infantry, the pirate banner and the Hero Fest banner feel so much like bait when CYL4 is probably going to have the 40 summons for a 5* pick and an accompanying Forging Bonds, so it's going to be an orb dump. That, and I have barracks space -- as usual.

Anyway, that full summon on the Hero Fest banner netted me my final merge copy for Echidna, so she's finally +10. She's my fifth +10 unit and my first one who isn't a gen 1 unit. Still have yet to +10 a 5*-only unit, a grail unit, or a colorless unit now that I think about it, but who cares about that right now because Echidna is beautiful. She'd be more beautiful had I been able to get Lull Atk/Spd for her among other stuff...

The 642nd full summon was from the pirate banner and it definitely made me not want to do any more summons on that banner while the 643rd full summon was from the Hero Fest 2020 banner which was kind of good to me since I was able to get the Echidna merge as discussed above, but also Bernadetta and I guess Sothis through Elincia being the first unit from the banner as a freebie pick. I burned the tickets on red orbs for Sothis and once on a green orb when there were no red orbs since I figured having a spare Distant Counter and Special Fighter would be useful. Freebie Karla (+HP, -Spd) from the Bartre & Fir BHB revival banner, Ike (+Atk, -Def) from the Titania & Mist BHB revival banner, and Elincia (neutral) from the Hero Fest (2020) banner which I guess means Sothis as well.

4* M!Corrin: +Atk, -Def.
4* Jeorge: +HP, -Res.
4* Raven: +Res, -HP.
4* Stahl: +Atk, -Spd.
3* Virion: neutral.

5* Bernadetta: +Atk, -HP. +Spd probably would be safer for speed creep, but man, she is wild when she has an even more lenient Desperation HP range that also works if she has a debuff on her and gives her Atk/Spd+5.
4* Echidna: +HP, -Atk. Finally, my last Echidna copy to +10 her.
4* Frederick: neutral.
4* Laslow: +Def, -HP.
3* Ogma: +Res, -Atk.

Buddhahobo · Aug 11, 2020

Y2Kay said:
Hey gorls, how y’all doin?

I hated everything about my involuntary vacation / solitary confinement, but now I'm back in lab trying to get research done again and both places are still standing so I can't really complain.

Well, besides my neighbors. My apartment has really thin walls and now I know it is actually possible to loath people you have never actually met.

Are you still in the city? All my family in the tristate area lost power for like a week and are only starting to get things back now. Couldn't really do anything but offer moral support as the ones who could got all the elderly ones into places with generator-powered ACs and the like. It'll probably be a pain replenishing all that food for the family members we've been taking care of due to Quarantine and the sort.

Ffamran said:
She'd be more beautiful had I been able to get Lull Atk/Spd for her among other stuff...

For some reason I read this and was still expecting a picture of Knuckles with the Re:Zero character's face photoshopped on.

EODM07 · Aug 11, 2020

Y2Kay said:
Hey gorls, how y’all doin?

Eh.

Too damn hot and just like Eddie mentioned, rise of cases over here due to the virus. Hopefully things will improve next year, if not, then oof. I feel like this has been a recurring thing. Outbreak in 1820s, one in the 1920s and now one this century.

Anyway, onto much nicer and brighter topics.

I've started to play through Breath of Fire 2 again but this time on the Switch's Super Nintendo Online. I've managed to recruit Nina and now heading off to Wyndia to bring back her sister Mina. Also, Katt is my favourite out of the cast, never was too keen of the frog you can recruit. Playing Breath of Fire makes me want Capcom to bring Breath of Fire 3 and 4 to the Nintendo Switch as a bundle. Please do that. I'd love to replay BoF4 again and experience BoF3 for the first time.

Duel Links wise, we've been getting hints and subtle messages of Xyz coming to the game, so that's going to be very interesting. Also, I've managed to FINALLY get the cards I need to make an Infernity Deck. So I'm happy with that since I had to level up normal Kalin all the way to Level 40 just to get Infernity Barrier. The problem is I do not have the Skill that I want, which is Infernity Inferno (Which has the same effect as the Trap). Also, I dunno whether to now go and make a Shiranui Deck or just wait for Xyz to come out so then I can mess around with some ideas and combos. I also feel like when Xyz come out, we'll be seeing a few Xyz monsters in the Extra Deck but mostly Fusions and/or Synchros.

...I just hope we get the Ghostrick Xyz cards when ZEXAL World drops. Since I like Ghostricks. And there's only 4 Xyz monsters anyway for the archetype. Succuteboss, Alucard, Dullahan and Angel of Mischief.

Fighting game wise, I haven't been playing BBTAG as much unfortunately, but I did watch some of AnimEVO during the 1st week of this month, I watched a bit of Dengeki, Them's Fightin' Herds, Garou and one called Breakers Revenge, well I think it was called that. They were interesting to say the least.

Also, Kobayashi's Dragon Maid is now getting its 2nd Season, named "Koabayashi's Dragon Maid S". The promo art for it looks really nice.

There's also a Social Distancing version where Tohru, Kanna, Elma and Lucoa are wearing face masks and are more spaced out. The S in the poster stands for the following:
"Super" "Supreme" "Second Life" and "Start"

The social distance one is cute and the S means "Social distance" and "Stay home".

I'm genuinely happy that Kyoto Animation recovered and they're back on their feet.

Also for those that play Granblue Fantasy and/or Granblue Versus. What're your thoughts on Belial being playable in the 2nd Season Pass? Oh, and Cagliostro being teased too. I like Belial's theme song though.

Buddhahobo said:
For some reason I read this and was still expecting a picture of Knuckles with the Re:Zero character's face photoshopped on.

Knuckles will do anything to protect the Master Emerald.

Buddhahobo · Aug 18, 2020

So the CYL4 servants are out. I'm having some difficulty justifying who I pick for my free summon and my spark.

It's hard to go Dimitri given I already have my invested Lukas. So far as I can tell, Dimitri might just be an invested SB Lukas with a legitimate speed stat (so can dual phase instead of just enemy phase) along with DC built into his weapon?

Like, let's say it's enemy phase and a blue physical unit attacks each with 60 ATK, 40 SPD, and 30 DEF. For my Lukas, he's going to have a base 45 + 8 DEF for a total of 53 DEF to tank it and take 7 damage without factoring in a seal, then QR an Ignis or Bonfire for massive damage, enough that he'd probably one shot them. In this example with Bonfire which he'd be guaranteed to procc, he's doing 55 damage in his first hit. Sure if it doesn't kill he'll just be hit again...but who cares with that sort of damage output?

If we put +0 Dimitri in the same situation, if I'm reading this right he'll have an effective 45 DEF due to his A skill along with a 40% damage reduction due to his second, along with making a guaranteed follow-up attack. So he'll take 9 damage and be able to do the same QR/SB combo for some decent damage though Bonfire wouldn't be the best choice. Probably Dragon Fang or such based off his effective 61 ATK stat. Sure it's only 2 more damage, but that adds up when my Lukas also has +11 HP over him.

His biggest difference besides DC on his weapon is that his defense-based close call works on all damage types so he could theoretically "tank" mages, but why do so with a unit with 19 Res even if he can probably get a 40% attack reduction on all the magic attacks and AoE moves? Pretty sure Ophelia is still killing him.

IMO, Claude looks great. His effective stats from his basekit alone are lowkey absurd, basically being a current gen Armor unit, only as as a bow flier with access to flier buffs on top of it all. And then there's his healing potential, where he blows L!Ephraim's unique B-skill out of the water (L!Ephraim's is 30% HP heal when special proccs, Claude's is 50% HP heal) while also still having a B-slot to put something in. And from using him, L!Ephraim's B-skill was already super useful. Claude even has a respectable HP stat to use it with, likely owing to his weapon providing so much of his effective stats that the devs could put give him that bit extra HP compared to most other fliers.

It's just...when would I use him? I have a +6 WP!Hinoka who I love but can barely use cause of her own issues. If I grab Claude than even if Hinoka gets a refine it's possible I just made one of my favorite characters utterly obsolete.

Fury 4 + ATK/SPD Rein 3 would be cool fodder, but as far as I can tell the characters I would want to give the latter to aren't the characters I want to give the former to. If a character is picked just to be fodder, Lysithea would be the definite choice to throw the tier 4 Push skill and the lull on another mage.

And finally there's our fourth Eldegard. I'm leaving it for other players to tell me what her main function is. She's yet another axe armor, but if she can in practical settings actually keep that HP of hers over 25%, I think that would make her one of the best candidates for a green galeforce option? Not really sure, she might be too balanced in stats to keep over that HP threshold to be useful.

Lorde · Aug 18, 2020

3H brave banner is finally here! I had about 270 orbs saved up for Dimitri and Claude (130 or so were left in the Feh Bank). I got up to ~4% rate before summoning a lone Ylgr (+res -spd) with the last few orbs I had on hand. Then I collected the ones Feh was holding onto for me, and I was lucky enough to pull a B!Dimitri on my 40th summon. That one was +HP -def so I chose him as my spark and merged into the neutral copy for the extra atk and def. I chose Claude as my summon from the free 5* banner because I really don't care about F2P guides at this point, and I wanted to have him even if I already have a +5 WoF!Hinoka. I don't like Lysithea nor Edelgard, so I don't care about summoning either of them, even if Lysithea in particular has great fodder. Atk/Spd Push 4 is overrated on anyone besides healers imo, but Lull Spd/Res in particular is juicy. My B!Caeda would love it since she can still run desperation in her tome, but it's not worth spending the orbs to replace NFU.

My only +10 lance unit is Donnel, but I built him as a mixed tank so Dimitri is different enough to warrant use. I'd have to do the calculations to see exactly how many orbs I'd need to summon 9 more copies, but luckily CYL units get a rerun with Hero Fest rates during the anniversary in February, so I could hopefully save enough orbs by then for the copies I need. However I still need 3 more merges for Yarne, and he's more important to me so hopefully I'll have enough time to recuperate my orb stash in time for his next rerun (which could be at any time so I have to be ready).

Out of curiosity, which boon does B!Dimitri want most? Both atk and def are superboons and have their merits (atk for more oneshots against squishy opponents, def for helping with his exclusive B skill), but spd is also a consideration to deny doubles and improve his player phase. Honestly I was leaning towards spd if I happened to get it, but I'd like to hear arguments for all options.

Ffamran · Aug 18, 2020

There are apparently a lot of different arrangements of Final Fantasy VIII's "The Man with the Machine Gun". My favorite one is the 30th Anniversary arrangement that I think was featured Record Keepers which there isn't a video on it alone and I'm not sure I could buy the album of the 30th Anniversary arrangements. There is the medley which has it and the other arrangements, but apparently the first video I had listened to it was deleted or taken down and two other people uploaded the entire medley later. Record Keeper has at least two other ones and one of them was used in Dissidia NT which also had a separate, more electronica arrangement. And then there is the Distant Worlds II orchestral arrangement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17-q1dJJsaI.

Here's the original as it was from FFVIII: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jho-peCAKs.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2's OST is rad. I had only listened to "This is True Love Makin'", but then started listening to the other stage themes.

Buddhahobo said:
It's hard to go Dimitri given I already have my invested Lukas. So far as I can tell, Dimitri might just be an invested SB Lukas with a legitimate speed stat (so can dual phase instead of just enemy phase) along with DC built into his weapon?

Although I understand why you are comparing CYL Dimitri with Lukas, I feel like Shiro might be a closer comparison than Lukas because of the speed difference making CYL Dimitri and Shiro a different kind of beast than Lukas.

To "make up" the BST gap, Shiro with 15 Dragonflowers has 44 HP, 38 Atk, 33 Spd, 38 Def, and 25 Res to CYL Dimitri with 5 Dragonflowers 42 HP, 41 Atk, 37 Spd, 41 Def, and 20 Res. I figure if someone were to give Shiro 15 Dragonflowers, then giving 5 to CYL Dimitri would be fair. It's more than just the two stats I'm picking, but CYL Dimitri is like a +Spd, -Res Shiro. That's the big picture for me between the two in stats.

Compared to CYL Dimitri's default kit, Shiro with unique refined Bright Naginata trades Distant Counter, a Breath effect, reversing Atk/Def penalties, and a defense check for damage reduction and a guaranteed follow-up attack on enemy phase for Sturdy Stance 2 and neutralizing all stat penalties. Blue Lion Rule is the most unfair comparison since it's a personal skill, but it is an advantage and distinction CYL Dimitri has.

Because of Moon Gradivus's Distant Counter and Breath effect, CYL Dimitri's A slot is open for any A passive you would want if you don't want him to run Atk/Def Unity like you would rather have a tier 4 stance for Guard. At the same time, unique refined Bright Naginata essentially provides Shiro two A passives, so Shiro running Distant Counter is comparable to CYL Dimitri with his Moon Gradivus and default Atk/Def Unity. The main difference other than how they address penalties then would be Shiro not having a Breath effect which you can cover by having CYL Lucina or someone with Infantry Breath to support him. With regards to penalties, I feel like neutralizing penalties is better or at least safer than reversing penalties as by neutralizing them, Broadleaf Fan, F!Corrin's Gloom Breath, Gunnthra's Blizzard, Matthew's unique refined Spy's Dagger, CYL Micaiah's Light of Dawn, Saizo's unique refined Star, and Ursula's unique refined Blue-Crow Tome won't work because there are no penalties present. Reversing penalties can have a higher stat boost and by default CYL Dimitri and berserk Ike have damage reduction effects, but foes with those kinds of weapons will be able to take advantage of the penalties on them or break even in the cases of F!Corrin, CYL Micaiah, and Saizo. Furthermore, Shiro is able to neutralize all stat penalties and not only Atk/Def whereas CYL Dimitri is only able to reverse Atk/Def penalties.

With unique refined Bright Naginata equipped, Shiro with 15 Dragonflowers has 47 HP, 54 Atk, 33 Spd, 38 Def, and 25 Res. On enemy phase, he would have 58 Atk and 42 Def when he is not within 2 spaces of an ally or 63 Atk and 47 Def if he is within 2 spaces of an ally. On player phase, he would have 59 Atk and 43 Def if he's within 2 spaces of an ally. Once again, either phase he will be able to neutralize all stat penalties on him if he's within 2 spaces of an ally.

With Moon Gradivus equipped, CYL Dimitri with 5 Dragonflowers has 42 HP, 57 Atk, 37 Spd, 41 Def, and 20 Res. With his default Atk/Def Unity, CYL Dimitri will have 62 Atk and 46 Def when he's within 2 spaces of an ally and can have upwards to 69 Atk and 53 Def if he has a Atk/Def-7 field debuff on him. In general, CYL Dimitri will have higher attack, speed, and defense, but his Atk/Def penalties will still be on him and nothing is done about his Spd/Res debuffs, so he could end up as fast as or slower than Shiro and have an even worse resistance disadvantage compared to Shiro where as noted, while he does have damage reduction, he is still operating on 19-20 base resistance whether or not he has Dragonflowers and unlike New Year's Lethe, he's not as fast as her and not trying to stack a ton of speed for damage reduction which would also help in avoiding a double that could finish him off should that unit survive a counterattack against him.

That's just how I see them and I'm not saying CYL Dimitri or Shiro is better than the other. They're more comparable to each other than CYL Dimitri and Lukas to me.

Buddhahobo said:
And then there's his healing potential, where he blows L!Ephraim's unique B-skill out of the water (L!Ephraim's is 30% HP heal when special proccs, Claude's is 50% HP heal) while also still having a B-slot to put something in.

CYL Claude's heal effect is so stupid. It's a guaranteed 21 HP heal if =HP when he triggers a special regardless if CYL Claude does damage and if he initiates or is within 2 spaces of an ally. Solar Brace and the specials like Noontime and Sol probably can heal higher if the unit does a lot of damage against a foe with a lot of health or zero if the foe has little health or the unit does no damage.

Buddhahobo said:
And finally there's our fourth Eldegard. I'm leaving it for other players to tell me what her main function is. She's yet another axe armor, but if she can in practical settings actually keep that HP of hers over 25%, I think that would make her one of the best candidates for a green galeforce option? Not really sure, she might be too balanced in stats to keep over that HP threshold to be useful.

CYL Edelgard is really unique where she can get around armor movement by giving herself +1 movement and the ability to warp if her HP is >= 25% HP. The rest of her kit involves maintaining that HP threshold as well as Flower Hauteclere's other effect inflicts Atk/Def-6 on her foe when she's at that HP range and Black Eagle Rule grants her a follow-up attack and reduces her foe's follow-up attack on enemy phase by 80%. Kind of a shame that she can't run Time's Pulse since being able to have an instant Sol would greatly help her to keep herself healthy, but Noontime and ally support should be fine. Anyway, her mobility and HP management I feel like are what give her a unique role as an armor. Pretty much all tanks are like this, but she wants to maintain her HP not just so she can survive and tank for her allies, but for all the effects of her Flower Hauteclere and Black Eagle Rule. Her better movement as an armor means she can get to positions that other armors cannot get to as easily without Armored Boots requiring an even tighter HP threshold to maintain, another armor ally for Armor March to work, or to not be adjacent to an ally for Armored Stride to work. CYL Edelgard just needs to be healthy to which her damage output might be worse and closer to a tank in MMORPG or something as to help with maintaining that HP threshold, Noontime or Sol for sustain would be better than a damage special.

As a Galeforce unit, I feel like her legendary self is better. In addition to the movement effects and inflicting Atk/Def-6 on her foe, Flower Hauteclere's Killer effect means CYL Edelgard just needs to hit twice with Heavy Blade 3/4 if you're keeping Black Eagle Rule on her or with Bold Fighter. Black Eagle Rule would work on either phase and reduce damage on enemy phase from a foe's follow-up attack, but Bold Fighter means she doesn't have to run Heavy Blade as it provides special cooldown charge +1 and its HP threshold is much more lenient at don't die from the counterattack when you initiate. Legendary Edelgard on the other hand, doesn't need to maintain a HP threshold besides not die, and can potentially have two extra turns from Galeforce and Raging Storm. Her only requirements are that she is not adjacent to allies as much as possible for Aymr's inflict Atk/Def-6 and follow-up denial on her foe, Raging Storm's grants another turn when initiating and guaranteed follow-up attack against beasts and dragons, and Armored Stride's +1 movement. If she doesn't want to run Aymr, she can run Brave Axe+ instead at the cost of being able to inflict Atk/Def-6 and denying a follow-up attack. They're both finicky, though, as CYL Edelgard needs to be at >= 25% HP which for a =HP Edelgard is 12 HP or higher and legendary Edelgard's position requirements can be troublesome on certain maps or if you end up having to clump everyone together. The main thing is the HP threshold where legendary Edelgard could be at 1 HP and as long as she's not adjacent to anyone, she still gets all of her effects from Aymr, Raging Storm, and default Armored Stride, for example, she could initiate against someone who either does no damage to her or can't counterattack and still be able to get a Galeforce proc where a clean kill with Raging Storm would mean two extra turns with it and Galeforce. CYL Edelgard on the other hand if she drops below a still lenient >= 25% HP threshold would result in her losing Flower Hauteclere's and Black Eagle Rule's effects of which losing the movement buffs is probably the biggest thing followed by the guaranteed follow-up attack. Running Bold Fighter instead of Black Eagle Rule would only fix half of it as she will not be able to get +1 movement and be able to warp to allies within 2 spaces when she's below 25% HP.

Lorde said:
Out of curiosity, which boon does B!Dimitri want most? Both atk and def are superboons and have their merits (atk for more oneshots against squishy opponents, def for helping with his exclusive B skill), but spd is also a consideration to deny doubles and improve his player phase. Honestly I was leaning towards spd if I happened to get it, but I'd like to hear arguments for all options.

CYL Dimitri's speed is pretty decent and I did see a person comment they feel like at low merges, +Def would be fine, but +Spd would be better at high merges and investment. There's also the idea of a unit in general gaining bulk twice as fast as attack and speed with merges since HP factors into the unit's overall physical and magical bulk. With someone like CYL Dimitri who uses a particular stat for an effect, however, +Def would be good for Blue Lion Rule, but against units who are already matching or above his defense, +Atk or +Spd might be better for him to deal more damage to them. Against mainly ranged units, he should be fine since the highest defense a ranged unit has currently is 35 which Alfonse & Sharena, spring Bruno, Halloween Dozla, Valentine's Faye, and Silque have before any skills and Dimitri only needs 5 more to get 40% damage reduction. Alfonse & Sharena would match his defense if their special is charge and likely to be so.

The Dragonflowers cap was raised today. I thought it was going to be raised as part of the September update, but nope. Even more, they were raised by 5 for all units up to the pirate banner, so not the new units starting with CYL4. Gen 1 and gen 2 infantry have be given 15 Dragonflowers and everyone else can be given 10. I promptly gave Clair and Echidna 5 more Dragonflowers when I saw that I could. Going to wait on if I want to give 5 more to Eleonora, Eliwood, regular Mareeta, or Selkie.

However dubious his placing was, Jorge is a pretty neat unit. Stat-wise, he's a +Res, -Atk legendary Chrom without To Change Fate! and whose prf bow makes him more supportive at the cost of not making himself as strong. Daniel-Made Bow trades Atk+3, effective damage against armors, Atk-1 and Def-6 on his foe, and penalty neutralization for a Killer effect, Drive Atk 4 as it grants Atk+5 to allies within 2 spaces, and inflicting Atk-5 on foes within 2 spaces of him, so he doesn't need to always fight foes at full health to inflict an in-combat debuff while also being able to debuff his foes for his allies. Jorge is pretty bulky with his 35/29 base neutral defenses and Atk-5 on his foe effectively giving him 40/34 defenses in combat. The best part is that legendary Chrom provides two things that Jorge would be able to make great use of: Close Counter and Lull Atk/Def 3.

I am stuck at 40 summons for a 5* pick on the CYL4 banner because I did not expect to get any of the focus units. I'm not sure who is going to be the F2P pick where I thought it would be CYL Claude, but some might use CYL Dimitri and even though I don't feel like CYL3 or CYL4 has had units that were that impactful compared to CYL Lyn being the first bow cavalry and CYL Veronica being the first cavalry healer with a prf, I still want to keep a unit in case a map requires them. Claude was the first Three Houses lord to show up and he's the first of the CYL4 to show up and on the first full summon. I think I'm being told to pick Golden Deer. Dude also has a fantastic asset and flaw. I was going to pick CYL Dimitri as my first guaranteed 5* pick and CYL Claude from the free pick banner as the copy for guides while hoping to get a copy to freely invest in, but CYL Dimitri showed up and ruined that plan. I wanted CYL Edelgard regardless because of her uniqueness, so that saves me the trouble of having to decide if I wanted to do 80 summons for her to be my second guaranteed 5* unit. Also, a freebie Ylgr (+Res, -Spd) Weekly Revival 2 I think.

3* Beruka: +Atk, -Def.
5* CYL Claude: +Atk, -Res. That was extremely lucky. I am also getting a stronger feeling that something is telling me Golden Deer should be my first playthrough when I eventually pick up Three Houses.
4* Mercedes: +HP, -Res.
4* Peri: +Def, -Spd.
3* Roy: +HP, -Res.

4* M!Corrin: +Atk, -Def.
4* Jagen #1: +Def, -Atk.
4* Lena: +Res, -Atk.
4* Libra #1: +Def, -Res.
4* Mathilda #1: +Res, -HP.

3* Cordelia: +Atk, -HP.
3* Gordin: +Res, -Def.
4* Libra #2: +Atk, -HP.
3* Matthew: +Res, -Spd.
3* Ross: +Atk, -Res.

3* Hana: +Res, -Atk.
4* Oboro: +Def, -HP.
4* Raven: +Atk, -Def.
4* Seliph: +HP, -Atk.
4* Setsuna: +HP, -Def.

4* Altena: +Def, -Atk.
3* Camilla: +Spd, -HP.
4* Leon #1: +Atk, -Def.
3* Stahl: +Def, -Spd.
4* Sully: neutral.

4* Cecilia: +Def, -Spd.
3* Eirika: +Spd, -Atk.
3* Jagen #2: +Atk, -Def.
3* L'Arachel: +Def, -Atk.
3* Reinhardt: +HP, -Def.

4* Abel: +HP, -Atk.
4* Hana: +Spd, -Def.
4* Legault: +Def, -Spd.
4* Mathilda #2: +Def, -Atk.
4* Selena: +Spd, -Atk.

5* CYL Dimitri: +Res, -Spd.
5* CYL Edelgard: +HP, -Def.
3* Leon #2: +Def, -Spd.
4* Palla: +HP, -Def.
4* Sakura: +Res, -Spd.

EODM07 · Aug 19, 2020

I've been going back through Valkyria Chronicles 4 since I'm still on Chapter 15. However, since I feel like I may not be strong enough for the upcoming fight, I've gone back to do some Skirmishes and Squad Stories.

And because I've liked VC4, I've decided to go and get the 1st one as well. As that one was on sale on the eShop, was about 60% Off from its original price. Not bad to be honest.

Also, with Xyz Summoning just around the corner for Duel Links, I'm curious on which archetypes will get their Xyz monsters. I'm more or less hoping for Madolche and Ghostrick to get their Xyz monsters.

Madolche having Teacher Glassouffle, Queen Tiramisu and Puddingcess Chocolat-a-la-Mode. Whereas Ghostricks have Dullahan, Alucard, Socuteboss and Angel of Mischief. I still hope that Colossal Fighter gets added to DL though. That Synchro is my favourite.

I've also been playing through Breath of Fire 2 again. I think I'm halfway through the game now, so that's not too bad. It makes me wish Capcom would bring Breath of Fire 3 and 4 over to the Nintendo Switch.

Buddhahobo · Aug 19, 2020

Ffamran said:
Compared to CYL Dimitri's default kit, Shiro with unique refined Bright Naginata trades Distant Counter, a Breath effect, reversing Atk/Def penalties, and a defense check for damage reduction and a guaranteed follow-up attack on enemy phase for Sturdy Stance 2 and neutralizing all stat penalties. Blue Lion Rule is the most unfair comparison since it's a personal skill, but it is an advantage and distinction CYL Dimitri has.

Gorl I know you like Shiro but you've basically compared cricket to baseball and handwaved the differences cause they're both sports with a circular ball and wooden bat in it.

One big thing you're forgetting is that, like Lukas, B!Dimitri's lance has a slaying effect while Shiro doesn't. So on enemy phase Dimitri is gonna play a lot like the quintessential Lukas build; (a) stacked up defense (b) with breath effect (c) with a slaying weapon to (d) proc your low CD special on every counter attack via Quick Riposte. Remember that Blue Lion Rule, before anything else, is a non-conditional Quick Riposte with a second conditional damage reduction effect tacked on top of it.

Like, I understand your argument about how stat penalty neutralization is superior to stat penalty negation, but that's not really a point for how Shiro is the more apt comparison to Dimitri than Lukas imo, that's a point for an invested Shiro being favorable to Dimitri (and to Lukas).

Lorde said:
Atk/Spd Push 4 is overrated on anyone besides healers imo, but Lull Spd/Res in particular is juicy. My B!Caeda would love it since she can still run desperation in her tome, but it's not worth spending the orbs to replace NFU.

Just want to give a call out to your fully invested healers btw, they're the MVP on my team every time there's a Raid Battles event.

Lorde said:
Out of curiosity, which boon does B!Dimitri want most? Both atk and def are superboons and have their merits (atk for more oneshots against squishy opponents, def for helping with his exclusive B skill), but spd is also a consideration to deny doubles and improve his player phase. Honestly I was leaning towards spd if I happened to get it, but I'd like to hear arguments for all options.

Ffamran said:
Against mainly ranged units, he should be fine since the highest defense a ranged unit has currently is 35 which Alfonse & Sharena, spring Bruno, Halloween Dozla, Valentine's Faye, and Silque have before any skills and Dimitri only needs 5 more to get 40% damage reduction. Alfonse & Sharena would match his defense if their special is charge and likely to be so.

At +0 and with his A skill taken into account, Dimitri actually hits 45 DEF with an incredibly easy to achieve conditional (have an ally within 2 spaces) so he naturally achieves the full 40% reduction on every ranged unit in the game if we're ignoring enemy skills and the sort.

With feathers and merges this will naturally increase to the point that a +DEF superboon will likely just be important in that it provides an extra +4 DEF as opposed to how it interacts with Blue Lion Rule.

Specifically, let's see where the cutoff is:

+0 neutral Dimitri w/ A skill active hits 45 DEF, so he achieves full damage reduction on all units with 35 DEF or less.
+10 / +10 flowers neutral Dimitri w/ A skill active hits 52 DEF, so he achieves full damage reduction on all units with 42 DEF or less.

The former as Ffamram pointed out is the exact threshold for all ranged units in the game. The latter is the exact threshold to get full damage reduction vs every single character in the game, assuming +0 and ignoring skills.

As for the choice between ATK or SPD...maybe it'll help if we look at his magic tanking ability?

Magic tanking stuff:

I'm not really sure what sort of mages show up in AR nowadays, so I threw a fully invested Lilina into the battle simulator (Death Blow 9, her special effect active, +10 +ATK, Infantry Pulsed down for an automatic Moonbow).

Naturally she should oneshot +0 Dimitri with 54 damage.
With Blue Lion Rule + A skill (I'm always going to assume this procs), she is only doing 32 damage and +0 Dimitri 1HKOs her with a 50 damage noontime.

I threw a +10 Aversa into the calculator too and +0 Dimitri kind of destroys her with a 1HKO 54 damage counter attack. Without AR blessings that's enough to 1 shot her even if she's at +10 and has some HP boosting skills. Though Aversa is something of a special case too because Dimitri gets even stronger by neutralizing her prf weapon.

I'm not sure about other red tome nukers, but an important thing is that even if he does get a 40% damage reduction against AoE specials he's still going to die to them. Throwing an automatic Blazing Light on a significantly weaker Lilina (+0, neutral IV, special effect disables, just regular Death Blow 3) will still 1HKO +0 Dimitri. And if an uninvested Lilina can do it with IP support, chances are all AoE mages can do it regardless of color.

Throwing some other characters into the calculator...

Reinhardt is still gonna beat him.
A +0 NY!Alfonse (highest DEF mage in the game at 35) will beat him with if his special procs.
If he doesn't proc, +0 Dimitri comfortably 2HKOs him with 26 damage each hit, and would be able to do so due to Blue Lion Rule's QR effect even if he wasn't fast enough to do it naturally.

So it seems like magic-wise, Dimitri either survives the first hit and wins the exchange or dies to a special, no exceptions.

On one hand, an ATK superboon is always useful. SPD does give him a better player phase but it's useless on defense given he already has a guaranteed follow up in Blue Lion Rule and most things nowadays you'd want to prevent doubling you have some skill or effect that lets them do so anyway.

On the other hand, the meta bigwigs over on reddit have always championed +SPD B!Ike if fully invested, and Dimitri is eerily similar to the infamous B!Ike + B!Lucina combo, just in a single package. The argument for +SPD B!Ike are likely identical for Dimitri.

Ffamran · Aug 20, 2020

It's been a while, but Sonic Color's soundtrack is amazing. Planet Wisp's themes are still my favorite.

Buddhahobo said:
Gorl I know you like Shiro but you've basically compared cricket to baseball and handwaved the differences cause they're both sports with a circular ball and wooden bat in it.

One big thing you're forgetting is that, like Lukas, B!Dimitri's lance has a slaying effect while Shiro doesn't. So on enemy phase Dimitri is gonna play a lot like the quintessential Lukas build; (a) stacked up defense (b) with breath effect (c) with a slaying weapon to (d) proc your low CD special on every counter attack via Quick Riposte. Remember that Blue Lion Rule, before anything else, is a non-conditional Quick Riposte with a second conditional damage reduction effect tacked on top of it.

Like, I understand your argument about how stat penalty neutralization is superior to stat penalty negation, but that's not really a point for how Shiro is the more apt comparison to Dimitri than Lukas imo, that's a point for an invested Shiro being favorable to Dimitri (and to Lukas).

But I like ginger stud Lukas and Top Nephenee, though. The one thing I forgot to talk about was that Shiro's availability is significantly worse than CYL Dimitri much less Lukas, a 3* to 4* gen 1 unit. Although he was just introduced, a player can guarantee two copies of CYL Dimitri through the free pick and as one of their four 40 summons for a 5* unit and as Lorde noted, CYL banners have been re-run on FEH's anniversaries and with a 5% focus rate which is a bit higher than the weekly revival's 4% rate. Shiro himself offers no skills that cannot be gotten from current units in the 3* to 4* summoning pool or they're not exceptional like I could see Ayra making a return for a Swift Sparrow banner. Besides Tempest Trials and Voting Gauntlet, the best he has is being on a Tactics banner since Stance has stronger competition with units who have tier 4 stances like fallen Berkut, Say'ri, Shannan, and Surtr. Even then, the other units who have a Tactics like SoV Catria, CYL Celica, Siegbert, and Ylgr either are good on their own or offer other skills you could get with Siegbert at worst being Death Blow 3 fodder. Legault would be better than Shiro when you can get one of the better inheritable daggers in the game versus Steady Stance 3 or Def Tactics 3.

Moving on from ripping on Shiro, CYL Dimitri doesn't have a Killer effect, special cooldown count -1, on his weapon. Moon Gradivus's effects are: "Unit can counterattack regardless of foe's range. Grants Special cooldown charge +1 per foe's attack during combat. (Only highest value applied. Does not stack. Special cooldown charge granted even if foe's attack deals 0 damage.)" That's Distant Counter and a Breath effect.

Bright Naginata doesn't have a Breath effect, refined or not, but you can still get it through support through CYL Lucina's unique Geirskogul, someone being adjacent to Shiro with Infantry Breath, or only on Shiro's hits with Infantry Rush if you can stack enough attack on him. My argument is given all the resources, Shiro running Distant Counter would be similar to CYL Dimitri running Atk/Def Unity where both have Distant Counter, both get Atk/Def+5 from being within 2 spaces of an ally, and both have a penalty addressing effect. The major skill differences are that Shiro trades a Breath effect for Sturdy Stance 2 and that he lacks CYL Dimitri's exclusive Blue Lion Rule. Shiro can make up for not having Breath on him through support, but he obviously cannot make up for not having Blue Lion Rule. Stat-wise, Shiro has better magical bulk, but is slower, much slower if CYL Dimitri is +Spd.

The other thing is if I am understanding Blue Lion Rule's description correctly, the follow-up attack on enemy phase part is tied to him needing to win the defense check: "If unit's Def > foe's Def, reduces damage from attacks during combat and from area-of-effect Specials (excluding Røkkr area-of-effect Specials) by percentage=difference between stats × 4 (max 40%), and also if foe initiates combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack."

The reason being that the follow-up effect follows a comma and states: "and also if foe initiates combat..." This is also why I think Black Eagle Rule's damage reduction effect on enemy phase against a foe's follow-up attack is tied to the >= 25% HP condition. If it were on its own, "If foe initiates combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack", then yes, it would be an unconditional Quick Riposte and a pretty busted one since it would require CYL Dimitri to not die from any hit while other effects require them to be at a certain HP range or some other condition other than not be dead. Then again, descriptions aren't always correct.

I still feel like Lukas isn't as comparable due to the massive speed difference between him and CYL Dimitri or Shiro. Lukas's resistance only matches CYL Dimitri with 10 or 15 Dragonflowers, but since his attack and defense are high and his speed not a major stat for him, you could invest in Lukas's resistance and him running +Res is an easier decision compared to +Atk, +Spd, and +Def for CYL Dimitri where +Atk and +Def are superassets of which Blue Lion Rule runs off of his defense, and he can be decently fast with +Spd where at least he could use it to break Wary Fighter or similar follow-up denial effects by being that faster which might not be a problem with =Spd. His resistance still won't be terribly high and he doesn't have Blue Lion Rule or access to a defense check damage reduction skill because they do not exist. To me, Lukas is a slow wall who shrugs off mainly physical damage except against legendary Alm nd who can inflict a ton of damage with Bonfire/Ignis while CYL Dimitri is wall with decent speed which could allow him player phase at times, but his enemy phase will be more troublesome for his foes with his damage reduction, having Distant Counter and a Breath effect through Moon Gradivus, and whatever his A passive is if he's not running his default Atk/Def Unity.

Buddhahobo said:
At +0 and with his A skill taken into account, Dimitri actually hits 45 DEF with an incredibly easy to achieve conditional (have an ally within 2 spaces) so he naturally achieves the full 40% reduction on every ranged unit in the game if we're ignoring enemy skills and the sort.

I did not mention his default Atk/Def Unity because for whatever reason, a player could choose to have him run something else like a tier 4 stance for Guard instead of a higher Atk/Def stat boost ceiling and being able to reverse debuffs. Against foes who don't make use of debuffs or if he has an ally that can address the debuffs on him, a tier 4 stance might be better as would something like Distant Def 4 and Close Def 3 as his seal. It's up the situation and the player.

Buddhahobo said:
SPD does give him a better player phase but it's useless on defense given he already has a guaranteed follow up in Blue Lion Rule and most things nowadays you'd want to prevent doubling you have some skill or effect that lets them do so anyway.

I did talk about it already, but +Spd would allow him to break through follow-up prevention effects with Blue Lion Rule. If he passes Blue Lion Rule's condition against the unit with a follow-up prevention effect, then CYL Dimitri would only need to have 5 speed or higher to be able to make a follow-up attack on enemy phase. Granted, most of the units with a follow-up prevention effect are slow, with high defense, and green to boot and CYL Dimitri's base neutral speed is 36 and 39 with +Spd, but there are some units out there who are fast, either able to naturally double him or fast enough that he can't naturally double them, with a follow-up prevention effect and could possibly match his defense. Beast cavalry in particular will inflict Atk/Def-4 and deny a follow-up attack when they initiate where we do have a two remaining non-alt cat laguz that could be introduced as non-red: Lethe's younger sister Lyre and Kezhda who probably would be a GHB unit since he is a boss. Not sure about kitsune from Fates. Although a seasonal bow, Budding Bow exists for archers, Leon's unique refined Bow of Beauty grants him Atk/Spd/Def+4 and denies follow-up attacks if his HP >= 50%, and Steady and Sturdy Impact exist, however, Steady Impact is currently seasonal only.

CYL Dimitri's speed is weird, but I think expected since from what I heard about him in Three Houses, he's like Alm where he's a beast of a unit. If his speed was lower, say, 30, then sure, +Spd wouldn't be that helpful, but his speed is decent enough that it prevent doubles or allow him to double regardless of phase.

Lorde · Aug 20, 2020

Buddhahobo said:
Just want to give a call out to your fully invested healers btw, they're the MVP on my team every time there's a Raid Battles event.

It makes me happy to hear you say that. A lot of my favorite characters are healers, so idc if they're all slight variations of the same thing and don't really have their own niches; I'll build them regardless. My #1 most wanted character (Mitama) will probably be another infantry healer if she ever gets added, but I'd rather have it that way instead of her being another archer (though archers are my other favorite weapon type ngl). I also forgot to mention that I pulled another Emmeryn while summoning on the CYL banner, so she's up to +5 now. As for Brady, I think I'm going to switch his IVs over to +spd because I literally never use his CC vantage set.

Buddhahobo said:
+10 / +10 flowers neutral Dimitri w/ A skill active hits 52 DEF, so he achieves full damage reduction on all units with 42 DEF or less.

Totally minor nitpick, but starting with the new CYL units + Jorge, they can only get up to 5 dragonflowers. I do appreciate the fact that they raised the cap for older units, but it also means that I need about a billion infantry flowers to bring my favorites up to speed again (basically Brady/Emmeryn/Odin/M!Corrin/Sophia/Jaffar). ofc I had to grind flowers to max out Niles first, but it'll be a long time before I can finish anyone else. Thankfully most units have at least 1 dump stat so you don't have give all 15 flowers, but it's annoying that we still are getting dripfed flowers when it costs like 1600 to max a single unit. It's also fun that Forrest reaches a disgusting 50 visible res now, which is 60 with the Phantom Res seal. His sabotage is basically unavoidable if enemies are adjacent.

Ffamran said:
CYL Dimitri's speed is weird, but I think expected since from what I heard about him in Three Houses, he's like Alm where he's a beast of a unit. If his speed was lower, say, 30, then sure, +Spd wouldn't be that helpful, but his speed is decent enough that it prevent doubles or allow him to double regardless of phase.

Yeah, Dimitri was disgusting in 3H. He has the highest strength cap in the game (but I think Edelgard has the highest growth), along with a good 50% spd growth. He was a crit machine and murdered every enemy he faced, which does follow canon lol. I had a lot of fun with the game, so hopefully you'll enjoy it too whenever you're able to play. The biggest flaw of the game imo is having to replay the academy phase 4 separate times to see all of the different routes. Honestly I've been thinking about replaying the Crimson Flower route because I never actually beat the final boss; I had like a billion cavalry units and got rekt every time I attempted the map lol. That was also before a certain masked blond man became playable, so I wanna use him too.

Btw, do you gorls have any ideas who you're going to use the IV mangoes on? I want to switch H!Niles' IVs over to +spd because spd creep is real and he needs to double, but after that I'll just save them for a rainy day. I don't have any grail projects, but Jorge is a cute guy with a ponytail so I may build him up depending on who's released by the time he gets his rerun.

Ffamran · Aug 21, 2020

Forgot about these.

Buddhahobo said:
For some reason I read this and was still expecting a picture of Knuckles with the Re:Zero character's face photoshopped on.

Should there also be an awesomely stupid scene of Dante from the Devil May Cry series playing soccer with the plant pods? Imagine it: the head of Echidna from Re:Zero, the upper body of Knuckles the Echidna from Sonic the Hedgehog & Knuckles, and the lower body of a plant demon thing from Devil May Cry 4 featuring Dante of the Devil May Cry series. Behold! The ultimate lifeform: Echidna!

EODM07 said:
Knuckles will do anything to protect the Master Emerald.

Knuckles in Fire Emblem: "I will protect the ~~Master~~ Fire Emblem!"

Speaking of Knuckles related stuff, I don't remember listening to the map themes of Sonic Colors. The 8-bit tracks I don't remember either. In particular, I really like Aquarium Park's map music. It's very soothing, but also unexpected with the music style. Planet Wisp also continues to knock it out of the park with its music. Its map theme has a Sonic Galaxy vibe to it. The others are good too where Starlight Carnival's map theme makes me think of Christmas through its use of bells. I think what I really adore about soundtrack of Sonic Colors is that for each area, the music there all share a particular theme or style to it, but the composers were able make different songs for each area where you could tell, "It's Sweet Mountain", "It's Tropical Resort", or "It's Asteroid Coaster", and not really be tired of them. At least for me as I like the soundtrack as a whole. I'm not sure if you could call them remixes or arrangements of each other. Whatever it is, the composers did an outstanding job for Sonic Colors. I think this is probably the same reason for why I like the Faded Tone songs in Devil May Cry V so much where they're all this trance?, electronica song, but they have elements of the themes or something to differentiate them as being for Artemis, Cavaliere Angelo, or Goliath.

Faded Tone "A": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dETHmtTqZck. Artemis's is the most distinctive of the three with its intro and use of a harpsichord?.

Faded Tone "C": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMHRYAA1Ov4.

Faded Tone "G": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oZ4J-_rZ_U.

Regarding 8-bit music, it was totally unexpected when I played Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, but when its 8-bit version of its main theme dropped, it was freaking awesome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQDh8OziNVA.

Lorde said:
Btw, do you gorls have any ideas who you're going to use the IV mangoes on? I want to switch H!Niles' IVs over to +spd because spd creep is real and he needs to double, but after that I'll just save them for a rainy day. I don't have any grail projects, but Jorge is a cute guy with a ponytail so I may build him up depending on who's released by the time he gets his rerun.

Brunnya, Kronya, Legion, Linus, and Marisa for grail units. Maybe Ashnard. I should prioritize Brunnya and Kronya to make Astra season Aether Raids less... annoying. Probably +Spd for Brunnya and +Atk for Kronya. I'm not the biggest fan of Legion, but +Spd would be good for him. 36/35 base neutral offenses were never bad, but Legion was stuck with them as a GHB unit.

+Spd Linus has 37/36 offenses which is 1 point of speed higher than +Atk Raven's 37/35. Compared to being neutral, he would trade 1 HP and 1 Atk for 2 Spd when merged which is more important since he would like to double as much as he can. Neutral Linus compared to +Atk Raven before the merge update changing how merging with a neutral unit and fixing flaws with a merge had the same attack as +Atk Raven, but 2 less speed. After the update, neutral Linus has 1 more attack for 1 less speed which was much better. Except for the much higher defense, I figured since +Spd Linus would be similar to +Atk Raven that I should switch Raven to +Spd to differentiate them more and play on Raven's advantage in speed. Speed creep is also another factor since neutral, merged Linus's 1 less speed than +Atk Raven does give him trouble and +Spd Raven with unique refined Basilikos, L&D3, and the increased Dragonflowers cap can reach a similar speed threshold as neutral regular Mareeta when she's not adjacent to anyone with her sword's Spectrum Null Follow-Up and default Atk/Spd Solo 3.

I just like Marisa and I'm waiting for her to be on a weapon update. That said, Astram or Rutger would probably be a better investment since Astram has higher attack, but the same speed as her while Rutger has a +Spd superasset. All Marisa has is her HP which is still good since it means running L&D3 isn't that bad. I doubt they would do this, but Shamshir -- she probably would get a Shamshir since it only appears in Sacred Stones and she has it in her inventory -- having the heal 50% of her max HP when triggering a special like Wind Parthia as its unique refinement would be very fun. Marisa has 46 base neutral HP which becomes 49 with a unique refined weapon, so she would heal back 24 HP when she activates a special. Wo Dao with that effect would be fine since you could run Time's Pulse to make Moonbow or whatever a 1 cooldown special, but Killing Edge would be more versatile.

For other units, legendary Alm, Eleonora, regular Mareeta, Ophelia, and Yune are the big ones. Legendary Alm is self-explanatory; +Spd for him. Giving Light Blessings to Eleonora and Osian was the best idea. Eleonora being +Atk, -HP is fine, but Mirage Longbow requires her to have higher speed for its Firesweep effect, so +Spd, -HP would be better. I was fortunate for Mareeta to show up as +Atk, -Res, but speed creep is what it is and she and berserk Ike tie for the unit with the highest base neutral speed in the game currently, so +Spd would be better. Same deal with Karla, but I don't use her as much as I do with regular Mareeta. Yune's the only mythic I have with a crappy asset and flaw, +HP, -Res, and while it wouldn't result in my dark defense team suddenly winning things more, +Anything that is not +HP and -Anything that is not -Res would better for the flying poncho.

There are others, but they're either not as big of a deal for me because either they don't get used a lot, they're not that bad like -Atk Shannan still hits hard, or a merge could fix things like Ayra, Claude, Hilda, and berserk Ike are all +Spd, -Atk, so if I ever get another copy of them, I could merge them. That said, I am going to wait and see how the fruits are distributed. If they're going to be like Divine Codes for normal path or Heroic Grails, then I'm only going to prioritize them on units that are used a lot or grail units who cannot have access to assets and flaws normally. If they're miraculously like feathers or whatever where we do get a steady supply of them, then sure, I would go ham on them a bit more, but I doubt it.

Buddhahobo · Aug 23, 2020

EODM07 said:
I've been going back through Valkyria Chronicles 4 since I'm still on Chapter 15. However, since I feel like I may not be strong enough for the upcoming fight, I've gone back to do some Skirmishes and Squad Stories.

Do you have any tips for this game? I've tried to get into it but it's sort of overwhelming.

Ffamran said:
CYL Claude's heal effect is so stupid. It's a guaranteed 21 HP heal if =HP when he triggers a special regardless if CYL Claude does damage and if he initiates or is within 2 spaces of an ally. Solar Brace and the specials like Noontime and Sol probably can heal higher if the unit does a lot of damage against a foe with a lot of health or zero if the foe has little health or the unit does no damage.

My entire Aether Raids defense was curb stomped by a single +10 Claude.

Sure my defense isn't very good, but holy **** that healing.

Ffamran said:
Moving on from ripping on Shiro, CYL Dimitri doesn't have a Killer effect, special cooldown count -1, on his weapon

That's my bad; was going through tabs too quickly and glanced at Claude's -1 effect instead of Dimitri.

Ffamran said:
The reason being that the follow-up effect follows a comma and states: "and also if foe initiates combat..." This is also why I think Black Eagle Rule's damage reduction effect on enemy phase against a foe's follow-up attack is tied to the >= 25% HP condition. If it were on its own, "If foe initiates combat, unit makes a guaranteed follow-up attack", then yes, it would be an unconditional Quick Riposte and a pretty busted one since it would require CYL Dimitri to not die from any hit while other effects require them to be at a certain HP range or some other condition other than not be dead. Then again, descriptions aren't always correct.

I ended up grabbing a second Edelgard to solo the Jamke special battles or else I'd check.

I could see it going either way; sure it would be busted if it's how I read it...but so is Claude's weapon, and it's not anything they haven't been giving Armor units since the first year of the game.

Gave up getting a copy of Dimitri after my fourth spook (Tsubasa +DEF/-RES, Anna +DEF/-HP, Yarne +RES/-ATK, and Rinkah +DEF/-RES) .

On the other hand due to the surprise Kaden banner, I now finally have a Kaden. ...Along with a spook Helbindi (+RES/-ATK) and Dream!Corrin (+RES/-HP) because to this day I regret not using my spark for a second Lilith and now will never roll another.

Eh, there's always Herofest, and in a year he'll probably have a busted Fallen alt I could go for.

Lorde said:
Btw, do you gorls have any ideas who you're going to use the IV mangoes on? I want to switch H!Niles' IVs over to +spd because spd creep is real and he needs to double, but after that I'll just save them for a rainy day. I don't have any grail projects, but Jorge is a cute guy with a ponytail so I may build him up depending on who's released by the time he gets his rerun.

The mangoes are likely going to be my "Just Merge Them Already!" backup plan. I think I have enough in my barracks to +5 Minerva and +4 F!Grima but never merged them up due to not knowing what the best IV option was.

Your H!Niles +10, right? I remember seeing it before but can't find Spritzee on my friendlist anymore which is weird. If you managed something that good then it would make sense to use the mangoes on that.

In comparison, my best 5* exclusive merge project is still WP!Hinoka at +6.

Lorde · Aug 23, 2020

Buddhahobo said:
The mangoes are likely going to be my "Just Merge Them Already!" backup plan. I think I have enough in my barracks to +5 Minerva and +4 F!Grima but never merged them up due to not knowing what the best IV option was.

Your H!Niles +10, right? I remember seeing it before but can't find Spritzee on my friendlist anymore which is weird. If you managed something that good then it would make sense to use the mangoes on that.

In comparison, my best 5* exclusive merge project is still WP!Hinoka at +6.

Minerva and L!Robin both probably want +spd. You could argue for +atk because Minerva has the Wo Dao effect for her refine and Robin has low atk, but the extra spd is probably more useful to help secure and avoid doubles, especially since base 40+ spd is only going to become even more common from here on out. The boon/bane update kinda screwed me over on a few units, one of which was L!Robin. The first one I ever pulled was +atk -spd, but I eventually merged that one into a +HP -res copy much later. Now she’s +HP and I’m definitely not investing the orbs to fix that boon.

Yeah, my H!Niles is +10/+10 because he’s the only unit I’ve actually whaled for. I now realize how big of a waste of money it really was, but I’ve learned my lesson and have been F2P for almost the entire year of 2020 (and have zero plans of spending on gachas ever again unless they reveal resplendent Niles basically). The reason you can’t find me one your friend list is because I changed my name to something along the lines of $EFace. I’m not going to pretend that I understand coding, but apparently IS forgot to sanitize user inputs so if you set your username as certain things, you can make it so every time a character says your name, it shows their damaged art/special activation art/a giant face (which is what mine is)/etc. I just set my lead as H!Niles so you can check out his current build, but please make sure to click on him if he shows up at your castle as your visiting unit. It’ll show his massive face when he mentions my name and it’s hilarious. The early Forging Bonds pander mega hard to the summoner, so you can have a lot of fun if you use these certain usernames. The Loki/Aversa one in particular is great because they talk about killing as many foes as possible to please you and then it zooms super close on their faces. It actually made me laugh reading through it again.

Aside from H!Niles, my only other 5* exclusive +10 is L!Eliwood, but that’s mostly because he wouldn’t leave me alone and not because I was aiming to max him out. He’s a great unit and I like him a lot as a character, but that beast/dragon restriction is kinda annoying because I don’t use either type very often (aside from Yarne because he’s one of my favorites but he’s on a full beast team). My own WoF!Hinoka is +5 because she used to appear any time I’d summon on colorless. Same deal with Jaffar before I decided to save orbs and actually merge him up because I wanted to invest in a dagger unit and he’s the one that appealed most to me.

EODM07 · Aug 24, 2020

Buddhahobo said:
Do you have any tips for this game? I've tried to get into it but it's sort of overwhelming.

It did appear overwhelming to me at first, but I got used to it eventually.

I'd say that there are some units you can unlock throughout the game that do require you to do certain stuff to unlock them. There's also the Squad Stories which allow you to improve the abilities of some characters, so one character who may have nothing but negative abilities (i.e. Accuracy Down or Defense Down) they can be replaced with positive abilities (i.e. Anti-Personnel Up or Accuracy Up). And if you're stuck and need more EXP or DCT, there are Skirmishes you can also do which you can unlock as you progress through the story. Also, personally I'd experiment and use all of your units that you eventually will unlock throughout the course of the game, that's how you'll unlock Squad Stories by having combinations of different units.

Another thing is that there are times where you want to conserve your Commands (The Medals at the top of the screen), unlike Fire Emblem where you have a fixed amount depending on the number of units you got deployed, you start off with a certain amount, but you can make the same unit act in the same turn multiple times, and if you end your turn with Commands still available, they'll be reserved and transferred over to your next turn (Maximum number of Commands you do is 25), however if you make a unit act multiple times in the same turn, their stamina gauge goes down by 1/4 every time. There are also Orders which you can do which can be beneficial to helping you out in battle, and you do unlock more as you progress through the game and by leveling up your Squads. These can range from giving Buffs to 1 Ally or all Allies, Health Recovery, Status Recovery and buffs to Tanks and Ammo recovery which all take up a Command as well (Min. 1 to Max. 3).

Another tip is to take advantage of the environment and cover. If you're having trouble with Grenadiers, find cover in lips of a cliff, hide behind a building or get under a shelter. Your own Tanks can also make for valuable cover as well, since there could be an array of enemy soldiers around a corner, simply place your Tank where they'll have to walk around it (Which the chance of them getting killed thanks to auto-aim during the enemy's turn) and give your other Squad Units protection. Tanks giving you trouble? Have your own Tank (Ideally the Hafen) or Lancer get behind them and shoot out their Ragnite Engine, or if there's a Ragnite Crate next to them. ~~just schute box lmao~~ Simply shoot the Ragnite Crate with any character and it's gone. Grenadiers can also help out with taking out Tanks, but that's a lot more difficult due to accuracy (There's also one Boss you will encounter around the midgame who you can only damage with Grenadiers as the engine is located in the middle and under the nozzle of the cannon which is quite difficult to hit). One more thing I should mention is that all your units (Except Tanks) have access to unlimited recovery as well, if your unit is low on health, make them hide behind a wall, and make them use their healing item. They have unlimited amounts of it, but they will only heal about 100 HP. Tanks need to rely on Engineers to heal who can heal I think 2500 HP or maybe more.

It's a lot to take in, but it's quite fun and interesting. Each Chapter throws something new at you to keep you on your toes.

I am currently on Chapter 16 now and I'll be proceeding with that once I've hit 1,000,000 DCT to unlock one more character in VC4. Afterward, I might go and play VC1.

Social Zelda Social - Still the queen of Smash...and maybe queen of low tier for a decade, too. Shall we make it two?

Are you happy with the Link Between Worlds redesign?

Yes, she's gorgeous and expressive.

No, Breath of the Wild had such potential.

No, Twilight Princess death stare Zelda was the best design.

I'm happy with any design, just as long as she's viable,

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