#I need to. go look up how to play DRK now because they literally give you 16 abilities right off the bat | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

textsacc · 4 years

Text

[01:56] セン: hi i went to study baseball. [01:56] セン: um. [01:57] セン: drawing yozora with a baseball bat is a missed opportunity. [02:00] セン: okay so maybe its for aesthetic. [02:00] セン: so [02:00] セン: thats fine [02:00] セン: but [02:00] セン: hear me out [02:00] セン: i now have opinions on yozora/sena for baseball [02:06] セン: so in baseball, theres one designated catcher, apparently, who acts as the backbone and effectively works as the leader with the most important job out of everyone, because they're the only one that gets to see the entire field and give instructions to others

that's yozora because she's club leader, and effectively club can't happen without her orders, but also because she's the smartest, schemiest person in the club, so it makes sense for her to strategize for her team. it also comes with the heavy burden of responsibility and getting hurt a lot to try and catch the ball (see ch. orion for more info)

for maximum efficiency, the catcher has to work effectively with their pitcher. the pitcher can be swapped in, usually they swap every 5 people or so, because a pitcher's work is super demanding; this means that the catcher has to know each person well enough to maximize their throw-catch rate, which essentially falls to the leader anyway, aka its still yozora-best-fit there [02:11] セン: now the pitcher usually consists of 4/5 people on rotation, so it could be literally everyone else on the team who's eligible for play (rika, yukimura, sena, kodaka) but the reason why its super important for sena to be the pitcher and for yozora to be the catcher is because of personal catchers

Because of the close mental relationship and trust that a successful pitcher must have with his catcher, a number of catchers throughout history have become preferred by pitchers on their teams, to the point that the catcher will almost always (especially during the regular season) start along with the pitcher. The catcher is then informally referred to as that pitcher's personal catcher. Personal catchers are often used for pitchers that specialize in throwing knuckleballs, due to the difficulty of catching such an inconsistent and erratic pitch.

you can theoretically swap out any pitcher during the game, sure, but you can't swap out catchers if i understand it correctly. literally anyone else on the team could be a catcher but they wouldn't have the same synergy as a leader would after they've bonded with everyone unless they did the same thing

which, technically, none of them have except for kodaka, and he sucks ass at everything to begin with, so he's not even qualified physically to do it and placing bets on him to do it would weaken the team performance significantly [02:24] セン: its like trying to get aigis instead of minato to lead the team in p3; like yeah itll work but at what cost

anyway yozora's secondary is sena in terms of performance, but since she's lacking in the social awareness department it's very difficult for her to accurately guess what her pitcher's going to do, and i'm not even going to get started on rika/yukimura if that's the case

so finally, why is sena the perfect personal pitcher?

Personal catchers are often used for pitchers that specialize in throwing knuckleballs, due to the difficulty of catching such an inconsistent and erratic pitch.

a. she's definitely wanting to throw knuckleballs. since they're almost a sure-fire way of leading the opponent batter astray, this means that all she has to do to ensure an out for the opponent team is to get her own team's catcher to just. catch shit. b. her stamina, strength and recklessness probably already add onto the effectiveness of the top -- the winning strategy here is to be as chaotically powerful as possible, which she does (see ch. orion for more details) and because it's a solo play she's allowed to go ffa instead of holding back to help her team out

c. i point out the synergy between yozora and sena in the following - i. werewolf (hotsprings) - ii. basketball (orion) - iii. romancing saga 2 (drk/pld)

tldr they're super fucking gay, but also yozora is able to go through the impossible mental gymnastics to support/hinder sena and it shows. because of how good their game rapport is even especially without communication, their tactics on the field are going to be amazing with how crazy sena's pitches will get and how yozora will do almost anything to get herself to follow through and catch them

d. sena is probably going to be able to last the excrutiating work of pitching on the field for longer than anyone expects, which means more impossible hits for the opposing team, which means a higher chance of winning the game [02:28] セン: e. as long as sena isn't the catcher (i think), she can also bat against the other team, and we know she'll be good at batting because of how much physical prowess she has. itll be especially good because the batter is the only offensive one on the field at that point of time, with everyone else on the benches as the opponent team fills up the field with defense -- she'll basically have a trip exerting herself on solo-mode if she's made to bat (which is entirely possible) e.i. also she's probably super lucky so she'll get to make a lot more successful hits than expected e.ii. yozora would probably be terrible at batting, but not to say she doesn't try -- she'll probably be one of the better batters on the team overall, but normally catchers don't take the offensive, they stay on defense (haha like a tank)

[02:29] セン: most of the reason they'd make a good battery pair just lies in c but a and b are also really good points, d and e are just if im not wrong [02:30] セン: f. yozora literally bleeds for sena i cant stress this enough (orion) so like her being the catcher is totally fucking apt because they have to be super padded to play catcher otherwise they'll be injured like 90% of the time [02:30] セン: thank you for coming to my ted talk,

[02:41] セン: hi im gonna run over some tldr quotes from butterfly soup to hammer in the idea of yozora/sena is literally perfect especially when put into the baseball allegory

(Noelle pitching) "Noelle doesn't have enough upper body strength to throw it that far."

"With a knuckleballer pitching, the catcher has to focus so hard on stopping it that runners on base will have an easier time stealing." "So basically, it's hard to throw right, it's hard to control even when it's done right, and it's punishing if you miss." "Knuckleball is the pitch of someone with nothing left to lose."

- The ball ricochets off Liz's mitt and catches her bare hand, striking her thumb at a painful looking angle. - Liz's thumb has turned a swollen purple. "Are you okay?" "I'll live..."

"I chose it because... uh.... it's hard to catch." "So Diya has to be the one to catch it. Since it'll hurt everyone else." "Diya's immune to it because she's special."

"Is it really that surprising? Diya (catcher) has always been good at sports." "No, but you don't understand! This goes beyond being 'good at sports'!" [02:58] セン: "A lot of knuckleball pitchers end up having one catcher who specializes in catching that pitch just for them. They're called personal catchers. The two of them get traded together, as a set. It's like a weird baseball marriage." "I should learn how to throw a knuckleball, and you can catch it for me!" "Wait, but didn't they just say it's really hard to catch?" "So what? You're like a baseball goddess!"

(Min, as pitcher) "I don't need anyone. I'll do everything all by myself. I'll become so happy and successful that everyone who was ever bad to me have to beg on their hands and knees for me to forgive them."

0 notes

spinneryesteryear · 5 years

Text

Spinner plays FFXIV Heavensward

SPOILERS AHOY

- I made sure to unlock and lvl DRG before starting HW because reasons

- I… don’t really understand why people love Foulques so much? I can only presume it’s because they find him attractive

- at first I wondered why the lancers’ guild quests emphasized courage so much, but once you realize lancer upgrades to dragoon it all makes sense: they’re training the absolute maniacs who jump headfirst at DRAGONS; of course they’re going to emphasize courage

- the literal first thing I did as a dragoon after getting my soul crystal and the jump action was to launch myself into an AOE so clearly I’m playing my job right

- the drama between Alberic and Estinien was the only reason I made it through the 2.1 - 2.3 slog, tbh

- I picked up GLD/PLD somewhere in there, too, but the GLD quests weren’t exactly riveting and the PLD quests weren’t any better. I was just biding my time for DRK

- meanwhile I had hit like lvl 62 on WHM thanks to running lots of roulettes with Adventurer in Need: Healer so I’d switch to that while wandering through a lot of the HW regions so the mobs wouldn’t attack me. I did the HW story on DRG but ran dungeons as WHM the first time bc it’s my comfort role.

- I’m… still not sure exactly how to do the mechanics on the Steps of Faith. Whoops. Fortunately, all but once I was WHM when I got it in roulette and I could just heal/spam Holy. The exception was on DRG and I just kinda… derped around killing what adds I could.

- those cutscenes at the end of 2.5, though. Dude. Duuuuuuude.

- it did give us Pipin Tarupin, however, and he is Best Lala.

- So, like… what exactly did Ysayle expect would happen when she broke Ishguard’s magic wards and opened it to assault by hordes of dragons??She seems genuinely regretful of the innocent lives lost when spoken to in the MSQ later in HW proper, but when she actually did the deed she was channeling ‘deranged witch’ for all it was worth and talking about how the sons should pay for the sins of their fathers. Did this incident give her a rude awakening about the Dravanian desire for vengeance?? Idk, maybe further quests will explain this.

—– me: *just arrives in Ishgard*

—– me: *taking the grand tour of the city*

—– me: *notices mob near cathedral, inquires about it, learns about recent violent death of heretic*

—– me: *finds heretic corpse*

—– me: *derails grand tour of Ishgard by slaughtering my way through the streets and through various chapels, laughing maniacally as I enjoy the greater reach of my brand-new greatsword and spam Unleash*

—– me, standing amid the broken corpses of a few dozen temple knights: Count Fortemps is probably gonna regret letting me into this city.

- that one dude in Camp Cloudtop who’s entirely too obsessed with the menu deserves to be booted off his lookout platform. I’ll even rescue him via flying mount before he splatters on the ground (however far down the ground happens to be, idk), but I really want to kick him off at least once. He gave me far too many fetch quests and my inner Fray is disgruntled, to say the least.

- me, just trying to make my way across the map: WILL EVERYTHING IN COERTHAS STOP CHASING ME???

- other people think the gaelicats are too cute to kill them. I, however, just want to kill them all the more. I’d be perfectly content to leave the mobs alone and continue on my merry way, but, nooooooo, they have to attack me. So I respond in savage kind.

- me, doing sidequest chains and getting mildly attached to extremely minor characters: So, I kinda ship Ayleth and Saintrelmaux now…

- ever since I unlocked it, I get Dusk Vigil all the time in lvling roulette so I’m now an expert on ice age megafauna, undead knights, and murderous griffins of the non-Sloppeh type

- Ravana is my fave HW primal, hands down, and his theme is definitely among my fave primal music. I would say it’s my absolute fave (I have listened to it on repeat for hours at a time, but I’ve done that with other music, so it’s not conclusive evidence) but it has stiff competition in the form of the Ultima theme, Leviathan’s theme, and the Knights of the Round theme.

- going on a life-changing field trip with Alphinaud, Estinien, and Ysayle was amazing. All we needed was Zuko.

- far too many side quests in Tailfeather. Far too many. And that one quest chain ended up with the poor dude’s pet baby chocobo as chicken tenders? If I didn’t hate chickens so much IRL that would have been super painful.

- the moogle quests required to progress the MSQ weren’t that bad. The sheer amount of moogle sidequests needed to unlock flying for that zone and their beast tribe quests, however…. well, I’m completely on board now with any plans Sidurgu might have for utter moogle genocide.

- lol, the moogles were about to give us more chores to do but Estinien’s sheer murderous rage panicked their chieftain into sending us on our way. I love him. (Estinien, that is. Not the moogles. I love to hate them.)

- Estinien is just… I love him so much. It’s more than his armor. It’s more than his jumps. It’s more than his sass and swearing. No stereotypical elf qualities to be found here, folks. Honestly, he could give some elves from The Silmarillion a run for their money, with even his own equivalent of Angband PTSD post-Nidhogg. I also immensely love that he’s a character on a power level similar to the WoL. (I don’t actually enjoy the main character being the most powerful person in the world, without equal. I like someone else being better in at least some ways and that being okay.) Heck, when possessed by Nidhogg he’s the final boss of the expansion + patches. And he lives. (Which is in itself a pretty powerful moment and Alphinaud and the WoL’s desire to save him lifts the whole plot point/theme into something more sublime. It would have been easy to kill him regretfully, both from a Watsonian and a Doylist perspective. The devs had no problems throwing painful deaths at us in this expansion. But we took the harder route. And it was worth it.)

- low-key painful Heavensward moments (bc heavens know there’s enough high-key painful moments): Alberic is extremely worried about his adopted son, whom he last saw nearly possessed by a dragon’s millennium’s worth of hate and rage, and who then vanished in an explosion, but he can’t do anything about it so instead he helps another retired dragoon worry about his own missing daughter

- ngl there was some red herring foreshadowing that the primal Archbishop Thordan planned to summon was actually Halone, the Fury, Goddess of Justice and Patroness of Ishgard. Which would have been badass. But I’m pretty sure Square Enix is going the Dragon Age route of never confirming/denying the presence of the Maker with their Twelve, Halone included, so I deemed it unlikely even as I secretly hoped. A lot of players probably missed these fake hints and would wonder what I’m even talking about.

- I couldn’t even get mad about all the bad things that happened during the Vault because the characters were juggling Idiot Balls. (1) Aymeric thought his father, who has been consorting with Ascians and plans to summon a primal, could be reasoned with. (2) Aymeric went alone to go reason with him and was correspondingly captured and tortured. (3) We fought three of the twelve Heaven’s Ward in the Vault itself and NO ONE APPARENTLY QUESTIONED WHERE THE OTHER NINE WERE. Plus, said three have clearly already been tempered and are feeding off primal energy for their second forms, even if the mechanics are unknown. Those without the Echo should have promptly skedaddled after rescuing Aymeric. (4) After a dungeon full of ambush mobs, no one thought to secure the little airship landing behind the Vault before arguing with Archbishop Thordan. In Ishgard, city of verticality with its gravity-defying dragoons, personal airplanes, and millennium-long war against flying dragons. Everyone involved should have thought to check the nearby roofs for hostiles. Am I seriously the only person who has ever thought tactically about this situation??? (5) The WoL and Haurchefant rush forward to delay the Archbishop, again without considering the whereabouts of the rest of his presumably also tempered bodyguards or whether any hostiles remain in the building behind us. And so events happened as they did.

- Regula van Hydrus has a cool name and a cool silhouette with that helmet. Better than Varis, anyway.

- the Vundu are probably my fave HW beast tribe. The moogles are the crafting tribe so Imma do them anyway (and have fun tricking them into doing work) but I’m actually looking forward to the Vundu. I’m just benevolently apathetic towards the Gnath.

- I just, like… did not care about Azys Lla in the slightest. It was more Allagan BS and I hated the map. (I still don’t have it fully explored??? What am I doing??) The ‘terms and conditions’ bit with the node was amusing, but… the entire place got old almost immediately. Finding Tiamat and talking to her with Midgardsormr was the only high point.

- why isn’t there an option to have Hrasevelgr come and talk to Tiamat to persuade her to abandon her self-chosen imprisonment??? Or to have Estinien later come and talk to her to possibly give her Nidhogg’s perspective? Bc I think Nidhogg would have some insight into her situation, definitely. She summoned elder primal Bahamut out of grief at his loss, while Nidhogg launched a millennium-long war out of grief at Ratatoskr’s loss, and now they’ve both abandoned their vengeance.

- ARF TILL YOU BARF

- idk, man, the Aetherochemical Research Facility is such a weird conglomerate of things for a dugneon. Firstly, you got Allagan tech and machines. Then you got mutant creatures the Allagans made (bc, if it was mad science, then the Allagans were all over it). Then you got Ascians, evil ghosty dudes who laugh evilly and throw standard Evil Ascian Attacks at you before doing the fusion dance from Dragonball Z and becoming a Giant Evil Ascian. Igeyhorm has a feminine voice but is she(?) actually female or is she just presumably possessing a female body? Do Ascians have gender or do they even care about such things? (I am very much Not Thinking about Solus/Emet-Selch reproducing here.)

- Archbishop Thordan reveals the millennium-old, perfectly preserved corpse of Haldrath, the original Thordan’s dragoon son, with NIDHOGG’S OTHER EYE FUSED INTO THE CORPSE’S CHEST, and, like, no one really comments on it in- or out-of-universe???? What happened??? Haldrath gave up the throne, apparently because he wasn’t 100% on board with his dad’s treachery against Ratatoskr and consequent decision to kill all dragons to maintain power. Dragoons were apparently already a thing at this point (HC: to combat the voidsent infesting Abalathia’s Spine and the mountains between Coerthas and Gridania, e.g. Witches’ Drop), so what happened to Haldrath? Is this explained somewhere and I missed it??? Did Nidhogg hijack his mind? Estinien had Nidhogg’s eyes (both of them, incidentally, which Haldrath didn’t have to deal with) fused to his arm & shoulder but Haldrath had an eye fused to his chest. To his HEART. What happened.

- And then Archbishop Thordan somehow turns Haldrath’s corpse + armor + Nidhogg’s eye into a sword, the primal version of presumably Ascalon, King Thordan’s sword, somehow designing it to eat primal/Ascian aether. And then he kills Lahabrea, which, no great loss there. But it leaves my questions unanswered.

- Thordan + Knights of the Round is such a cool trial, I love it to death and not because it’s easy. It could be as hard as Nidhogg Normal and I’d still love it. I wish I had a static with whom I could do Thordan Ex and other more complicated content.

- finishing that fight and the cutscenes after, however… man, I didn’t know how to feel. I was screaming internally and torn in at least three different directions. Couldn’t get through the patch content fast enough to fight Nidhogg.

- had to fight Raubahn as DRG to represent my decimated Knights Dragoon brethren and my missing possessed dragoon brother and restore their honor. I’m also 100% convinced Raubahn learned of Ifrit’s nail trick and decided, “I can totally do that with Tizona.”

- has Aymeric ever done a dragoon jump? No? Then he’s not a real Azure Dragoon even if he has a nice color scheme and has ridden a dragon. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if he can do a dragoon jump (he’s survived years as Estinien’s friend somehow, and I can’t help but imagine he’s dragged Estinien off more than one rooftop), but until he does it I’m not budging on this.

- Aymeric getting stabbed by a rando with a pocketknife and nearly dying was (1) surprisingly realistic and (2) made him look wimpy next to all the punishment so many of the other characters take without dying. Sorry, man. It had to be said. I love you, Aymeric, but still.

- standing there on the Final Steps of Faith, on the broken bridge to the Gate of Judgment, staring down Nidhogg while that beautiful music plays (TELL ME WHY BREAK TRUST, WHY TURN THE PAST TO DUST) and waiting for the queue to pop… that was a powerful emotion unlike any other. Stormblood couldn’t match it.

- Nidhogg is such a fun fight because it’s still hard and I hate that I don’t get it in trial roulette more often. (Trial roulette is my favorite, actually. I love almost all trials - with the notable exception of the Chrysalis bc everyone runs around like chickens with their heads cut off on it and rages in chat, and with the possible exception of non-Final Steps of Faith.) Akh Morn is still a killer, I sometimes just want to watch bodies hit the floor, and Final Chorus is such a badass moment even as we’re all dodging for our puny lives. We’re fighting Bahamut’s brother.

- Estinien takes advantage of Nidhogg’s temporary aether depletion to regain enough control over his body to try to kill himself before being used to wreak any more havoc. Estinien survived weeks, possibly months of possession via ancient angry dragon, and having two giant dragon eyeballs embedded in his body and feeding him enormous amounts of foreign aether. Estinien survived his body being aetherically remade into the shape of an enormous dragon and then into a giant dragon-man hybrid. Estinien survived the Warrior of Light. IMHO he doesn’t get enough credit for this.

- do u ever wonder about Hraesvelgr and Estinien later meeting and Hraesvelgr identifying the spirit of his brother lingering within Estinien? Bc I think a lot of us have headcanon’d that Estinien is not as free of Nidhogg as one might think, what with his red fiery aura in SB and all. On the other hand… some of us further theorize that Estinien can’t be tempered now, so he could help us fight primals. It’d be awesome.

#Spinner plays FFXIV

1 note · View note