#give us that OP petrification
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My thoughts on Dr. Stone’s S03E01 (“New World Map”)
(Safe to read for anime-only folks.)
My thoughts after watching Season Three, Episode One:
01. The first two lines we ever hear in this season, THIS season, is Senku saying, "This scenery takes me back. I'm absolutely bawling" while he and the others are flying to Ishigami Village. Which I'm SURE is a direct reference to when he stood over Byakuya's grave, said "this takes me back," and cried the very first tear we've ever seen Senku shed... at his father's, Ishigami Byakuya's, grave :') Very, very well-done already, and it's only been two lines so far! :O
02. Chrome is NOT willing to let Ryusui have his village, haha! XD
03. I know Senku was looking to the side probably because he rope helped him navigate the balloon downwards, and stuff... but Chrome tossed the rope to Kohaku, so he should be looking somewhere in her direction, and I'm gonna choose to believe he was looking right at her! :D
04. The production quality in this first scene is top-notch! And of course we're getting a short clips show :) It's pretty cool to see what Ryusui was doing right before he was petrified! :O
05. The kids and adults are so excited to see Senku! :) He even has a hand on a little girl's head, and he's smiling; aww! :D And another little girl asked him to play, AND he said agreed! That is so sweet! :) I HAVE to remember this for my fanfic! :D
06. Apparently, "Come. We'll show you around Ishigami Village," is Kohaku code for, "Come, I'm going to give you a walking tour of why Senku's so awesome" XD
07. He has a globe in his laboratory... that's a nice detail! Something else I can use in my fanfic! :)
08. Ryusui teleported from the laboratory to the shed of science XD
09. What's Ginro holding in his right hand? Is it a tool for smoothing the wood? :O
10. A ship building team and an oil searching team, both working towards the goal of sailing and finding out the truth behind the petrification! :)
11. I must say, I'm not feeling the opening song of Dr. Stone: New World. It's too fast for me, and it doesn't help that I don't know the English translation of the lyrics yet, so it doesn't have any personal meaning for me, although of course I like seeing my favorite characters, and certain new characters that will be introduced later on in the season :) ...Well, except that big hat guy. I know his name, but I don't like him... -_-
12. The second-to-the-last shot of the OP is really nice. At the end of the previous seasons' three OPs, Senku was always, always alone. But in this season's OP, he's with so many people - Suika, Kohaku, Ukyo, Kinro, Ginro, Gen, Nikki, Ryusui, Francois, Kaseki, Yuzuriha, Chrome, Yo, and Taiju. He really, truly isn't alone anymore - he has friends by his side :)
13. Ah, the title of the first episode of Season Three... New World Map! :) And the title is on paper now! :D
14. It is so cool that they have enough metal now that they can use some of it on things that aren't vital to their scientific goals, but are just little things that make life a bit better, like those metal food covers! :)
15. Ryusui... what you're imagining ain't what you're getting... XD
16. Grilled fish, grilled fish soup, grilled fish salad, grilled fish desert, grilled fish... something XD Small fishes inside big fishes! :O
17. Small detail, but I like that Senku addresses Jasper and Turquoise by name :) I suppose it's too bad that they... WEREN'T attacked? XD
18. Ryusui is SO determined to find food! XD Poor guy... And Senku's being quite encouraging! :D
19. Kohaku! ^_^ Kohaku's flying!! Yay! :D She's so happy and thrilled! AND prepared; she has her sword and new shield on her even though she's hanging from a hot-air balloon! :O
20. Senku casually said she should stop freaking out like a child, but he looks pleased AND he called her "lioness!" Ah, it's been WAY too long... :) Kohaku noticed, too! :D
21. Finally, a shot with just Senku and Kohaku! They're talking about the possibility of finding oil :)
22. I wonder why that forest stood out to Kohaku? She's seen a lot of forests, and even on the hot-air balloon, she would have seen bunch of trees already. Maybe cedar is rare for the villagers? Or maybe something about how the trees looked made her think they were noteworthy or useful? :O
23. High-quality animation AND new graphics - they're really showing what they've got in this first episode! :D
24. First, Kohaku and Chrome worked as a team to find the cedar forest, and then Ryusui and Ukyo worked as a team to find that feral goat herd. And the way he showed genuine respect and care to that goat was so Ukyo :)
25. But... are they supposed to let the blood out in the water like that? I thought you weren't supposed to do that because the bacteria would go into the water and negatively affect the fish there... or maybe that's just for guts and innards and stuff, but not blood? Or maybe that's just when it comes to fish? Don't know... :O
26. Sigh, Senku writing and Kohaku pointing, with Chrome and Ukyo and Ryusui, making a map of the new world together... :) It's so nice to see this in detail and color! :D
27. The villagers were impressed by the map! :) Although, Ryusui, you could have been more tactful; I'm sure the villagers would have also liked more variety in their diet... -_-
28. This is the second time we've seen that particular elderly woman show her relief that nobody will starve to death anymore... poor woman... :( And something I hadn't considered was that anime lends room for empathy when it comes to voices. Turquoise said pretty much the same thing to the world woman, but it seemed more dismissive/annoyed to me in the manga and more empathetic in the anime :)
29. Ah, so the village was a lot bigger before Kohaku was born, but a lack of food one year meant a lot of people died, including Turquoise's family... :(
30. Uh, this "plants enslaving humanity" angle is new to me... XD
31. Oh, Kohaku might not know about currency yet, haha! Oooh, she found golden foxtail... or wheat! :D
32. They're going to their own food, by themselves! :)
33. Slash, slash, slash, goes Kohaku on the golden foxtail, just like she did on the green foxtail! :D
34. I love how Kohaku's hopping easily with at eight bundles of wheat, Chrome is carrying two with one arm, and Senku is using both his arms but is still struggling and walking slower than Chrome with just one bundle XD
35. I really like that they included Kohaku's special attack move question AND animated it a bit! :D
36. Kohaku seriously just loves to, like, all-out brag about Senku and/or science XD She did it in Season One with Kokuyou; in Season Two with Hyoga; and this season with Ryusui earlier AND with Nikki, Yuzuriha, Magma, Taiju, Gen, and Ginro now XD
37. Awesome detail that Yo's farm sign has writing and Magma's farm sign has a sketch of his face :D And even though they're rivals, they seem to be pals too, taking breaks in the afternoon and resting at night together like that :)
38. Yuzuriha has insight into why Taiju is the way he is; Taiju talked about his past... :) And I really like that Gen had his head bowed in honor of Taiju's words :) Also, about the petrification... uh... um... what about the- wait, actually, note to self: talk about this thing in the future when it won't be as spoilery XD
39. Taiju's farm looks so green and plentiful, and Yo and Magma's farms... have a few sprouts? XD Very cool that Taiju remembered what Senku said about seashells all the way from the first part of Season One :D
40. Senku looks proud and happy that Taiju remembered his words, and Magma and Yo look proud and happy that their farms prospered after they did what Taiju did! :)
41. And even though the latter two aren't thrilled about it, they're still in the crowd that gives Taiju the straw hat of the farming/food king! :D I like that Taiju bent his head so that Yuzuriha could put it on him, like he really was being crowned :)
42. Even Senku acknowledged Taiju as the food king! :D
43. Whoa, a couple of seasons passed and the wheat ripened, just like that! :O
44. Also not feeling this ending song, although I do appreciate that there are some English lines. Are the circle thingies related to chemistry, and elements and protons and electrons and stuff? And maybe I'll like it more if I understand the lyrics; I should look them up! :)
45. Sigh, I dislike the lack of Kohaku in the ED, but I do understand, the five wise generals and all that :D
46. Ooh, they have an brick baking oven now! :) Senku's clearly unprofessionally baked bread looks like... that... but Kohaku genuinely likes that it's like a rock and has a fun, crumbly texture :D (Or... stone? Haha! XD) And Chrome and Turquoise and the elderly man who believed in Senku in Season Two like the burnt bread as well! :)
47. Ah, so Ukyo learned that about food in the Self-Defense Force survival exercises... :O And Yo, you do NOT need to be jealous... XD
48. Senku and Ryusui are united in their resolve: They MUST revive a professional chef! :D
49. So ends the first episode about Dr. Stone's Age of Discovery! :) A triumphant arrival in Ishigami Village; reuniting with Kohaku and other old friends; making a new world map; looking for resources; the rediscovery of agriculture; the crowning of the kingdom of science's food king; a bread baking experiment that was very successful for some but not successful at all for others... and a new goal for the latest required skill set for the kingdom of science! :D
50. I'm so glad that I'm finally watching Season Three - my own goal is to finish watching all the available episodes before the second part of the season starts airing in October 2023! :)
https :// fireflyhwufanficwriter . tumblr . com / MyDrStoneEpisodeMangaThoughts
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About Zhongli's state in the game right now..
I just want to vent(?) and let out my thoughts about this whole ordeal as a Zhongli simp. Take note that if you are someone who has Zhongli or wants Zhongli/is planning to roll for Zhongli and wants to read this post, be prepared. Because as much as i hate to say it, this one is gonna be harsh. I wish it wasn't, but the truth really hurts and is also something that i struggled to accept sjdjdjchsk
Ngl i'm probably going to get hands thrown at me because of this post but i really, really want to vent about what Mihoyo did to his character. This week has been a roller coaster when it comes to Zhongli. From being super excited for his release, being elated getting him, to being absolutely devastated at all the comments and information that had come out prior to his release.
Basically, as a 5*, Zhongli is very underpowered and underwhelming. This is something i hadn't noticed myself because my Zhongli still didn't have a proper build and weapon yet, but when i did, i felt my own happiness plummet at the weight of the reality.
I don't care if he is strong as a support or a dps, and no i don't want him to necessarily be good at being dps. But this will include a lot of stuff regarding damage because he is a five star with nuking potential. It's also this way because he is THAT underpowered. Even having him be a very good support would be a blessing, but as it goes, he is not.
First it was the comments in Youtube videos, arguing with each other about how bad/good he was. Those comments made me question a lot of things. But i felt absolutely crushed when Jinx and Tuner uploaded their stream of their Zhongli and Xinyan testing.
For those that don't know, Jinx and Tuner run a youtube channel where they test many things in Genshin and provide objective information about them based on the results of their testing. When i saw how incredibly disappointed and frustrated they were with Zhongli, i felt really, really sad. After all, they provide maths. Not only are they one of the genshin youtubers that i trust but they also study characters closely and tell you if a particular 5 star character is worth pulling for or not. And you guessed it, they concluded that Zhongli was NOT worth pulling for as a five star character because he is so heavily underpowered.
Then there comes the arguements presented.
Majority of people thought that Zhongli was going to be more of a support character rather than dps, and i could see why, but ironically he has more potential as a phys carry. And this information comes from the testing that Jinx and Tuner made.
However
Xiangling is still a better physical carry than Zhongli especially when you take into account the abilities she can use while attacking. Zhongli's pillar has questionable energy recharge generation, something that i too had noticed. Every tick of the pillar does NOT guarantee an energy, and it drove me crazy. Meanwhile you have Xiangling who can easily bring out energy with Guoba if she so wanted.
And you need C6 Zhongli in order for him to heal like Noelle too by the way. And Noelle is a 4* that is guaranteed on your first time playing the game. 👁
Zhongli's shield is good for sure, but then you have Noelle who can shield + heal. In terms of stuff being done, Noelle's is better. Zhongli's shield is strong yes, but it can STILL disappear after one or two hits from enemies (at least from our experience in higher AR. I have no idea if the same applies to lower AR).
Now for his meteor. Yes, his meteor is good. Not only is it spammable, but it deals great damage as well. BUT THEN you have Ningguang who can be a better burst spam and possibly deal more damage than his could do (remember, Ning has a lot of jades that could each deal 1k if built properly). The duration for petrification is 3 seconds too, which, a lot of people argue isn't enough time (personally, i have no problem with this since i do not mind it much). And apparently his meteor got nerfed because it does not increase geo damage and phys damage as it used to in the beta testing with petrification.
How about his ability in being able to break shields by holding E? Truth be told, i expected that he was going to be able to explode all shields in one go, but it does not work for every one of them apparently. Shields by hilichurls do break with just one E hold. But the ones by Mitachurls don't. I also tried breaking the Geo Hypostasis's pillar using his E hold and it did not break immediately. This could differ however. 👁 I'm still not sure if its because i have not properly built him right for breaking them or not. And about Stonehide Lawachurls... it's the same as the Geo Hypostasis pillar. The geo shield does not break immediately.
I'm not saying all this because i am mad at Zhongli. Rather, i am disappointed at what Mihoyo did to him. I am absolutely happy to get Zhongli. He is the one character i had been looking forward to for MONTHS. I saved resources in advance for him and even held off on leveling up my current team so i could dump all said resources on him when i get him. I stayed as AR35 for many many weeks because i wanted to level him up properly before ascending my World Rank. I think he is super fun to use especially with his burst and i absolutely adore the animation and when he crosses his arms and does his 'osmanthus tea' monologue at the most random times with his lil hand gestures. Even just listening to his voice while being idle fills me with so much happiness. There is so much joy in getting him. Which is why i am very disappointed at Mihoyo for how they butchered his character.
After Jinx and Tuner made their video about the results of their testing with Zhongli, i was genuinely saddened but i gradually came to accept the truth. It sucks, it hurts, but it is the truth. Even they said that they wanted Zhongli to be a GOOD character, but he is just insanely underpowered right now. You can invest resources into him and make him work, but compared to 4* and the other 5*, it takes so much effort. To make him decent, you'd have to level his stuff up so much but that also applies to four star characters and they perform better than him. Husbando > meta yes, but i gotta say that it still stings when my underleveled Xiangling and Fischl could do a much better job being a dps and support respectively than him when he's many levels above them.
Which brings me to the main point of this post.
Why was Mihoyo scared of making him strong? OP? Why did they nerf him so much? He is a 5* character Mihoyo, make him be STRONG at something. It's why he's a five star. But no. They watered him down so much to the point where even four star characters can do his own job better than him. His pillar doesn't even deal damage upon being destroyed just like Geo MC's. The range of his pillar's resonance is too small, and given the fact that his auto attacks can push enemies (except for the bigger ones of) or can be easily walked out of range to is 👁👄👁
And it deals criminally low damage. Like, why? Why not rack up the numbers? What is the problem????
The more i think about it, the more i can see the points that people have been pointing out. If the issue of energy generation with his pillar is RNG based, then that's simply screwed up. It already adds into the lists of problems that doesn't help with how underpowered he is. And as i am writing this post rn, there are lots and lots of Chinese players enraged about how weak he is as a 5* and causing HUGE fights in forums. People in the genshin subreddit had been debating again and again over heated arguements about his abilities. Even if you visit the genshin subreddit today and check every post about Zhongli, you will see people in the comments mention stuff about how he performs in the game and his abilities.
Mihoyo, give him a buff. I know that giving buffs isn't your thing, but there is honestly thousands and thousands of people expressing their disappointment and anger in how weak you've made him. He is a fan favorite. I love him. Majority of the genshin fanbase do. His character is really good and it hecking sucks that he is having major difficulties in fitting in on the game right now. He deserves better. Make him strong. Buff him. Adjust some of his abilities. Literally give. our. geo. dad. justice.
Those who don't care about damage is probably rolling their eyes at my rant rn but given how objectively weak he is compared to the other characters in game, it won't hurt if he gets a buff.
When the survey for Zhongli and Xinyan comes, rate him low. I know. It sucks. It's despicable. Even i hate it. But that is why we have to do it. If we become honest to Mihoyo about how much weak they made him, then maybe they are going to consider buffing or adjusting his abilities.
I'm sorry for the negative post. There is still hope for geo dad. He is incredibly fun to use but if you are debating on whether to pull for him or not, my answer would be
If you absolutely love him as a character, go for it.
Otherwise, just wait for now. Because his state in the game isn't looking so good at the moment.
For those that already have him and are also disappointed or saddened by what happened, take comfort in knowing that tons of people are still using Zhongli (including me who went through such roller coaster of emotions lmaoaoaoa) regardless of the information that he is behind in terms of being a dps and support. And that there is still hope for him (WAIT FOR THE SURVEY AND RATE HIM LOW YO 😭😭😭 IT WON'T GUARANTEE THAT MIHOYO IS GONNA BUFF HIM BUT WITH ALL THE PEOPLE RAGING RN THERE IS A HIGH POSSIBILITY THAT THEY WILL LOL)
Have some goofy screenshots that i took while playing as Schlongli
#[nanderthal.]#genshin impact#genshin impact zhongli#zhongli#hang in there my lovelies 😭😭#i hate it too but sjfjshfoehdoshs#our hope lies in the surveys#and the rage; ironically enough#other than that if you really want to use him then go for it 🥺#there is no one stopping you#he is super fun to play after all!!#he just deserves better goddamnit mihoyo 👁😭#give us that OP petrification#or even better pillars#anYTHING MIHOYO
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A History Lesson - Looking back at D&D’s history
Hullo, Gentle Readers. Well, this is the 5th Monday in March, and that means I get to write about anything I want! It’s also my birth month, which means it’s my anniversary of getting into D&D (42 years!), and that has me feeling nostalgic. Coupled with a discussion I had recently with some friends, I thought it would be fun to look back at the various editions of D&D and give you all a bit of history. I’m not going to get into Gygax vs Arneson or any of that. I’m only talking about the published game itself, not its creators or its storied origins.
The original D&D (or OD&D as it’s sometimes called) came in a small box. It had three booklets inside - Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures - along with reference sheets and dice. Each was softcover and roughly the same dimensions as a DVD/BluRay case. The game was pretty rudimentary - for one thing, it assumed you already had a copy of Chainmail, D&D’s direct wargame predecessor. It also recommended you have a game called Outdoor Survival for purposes of traveling through the wilderness. It had only three classes - fighting man, magic-user, and cleric - and nothing about playing other races. It did have the insane charts that 1st edition would ultimately known for, and it was possible to play a pretty fun game of D&D with it, as its popularity would come to show.
The game expanded through similar chapbooks - Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, Gods Demigods & Heroes, Swords & Spells. With the exception of the last one, each brought new facets to the game - new classes like Thief and Monk, new spells, new threats. It was clear the game was going to need an overhaul, and it got one.
I consider this overhaul to yield the real “1st Edition”, as so much of the game didn’t exist in those original games. The game split into a “Basic” game, just called Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
The basic game was a boxed set that included a rulebook, a full adventure module, and dice...or, well, it was supposed to contain dice. The game was so popular and new in those days that demand for dice outstripped production. My copy of D&D came with a coupon for dice when they became available and a sheet of “chits” - laminated numbers meant to be put into cups (we used Dixie Cups with the name of the die written on it), shaken, and a random number pulled out without looking. It was meant to introduce new players to the game, so it was a trimmed down version. Races were human, elf, dwarf, and halfling, and classes were fighter, cleric, magic-user, and thief. The box only included rules for going up to 3rd level, with the intention that players would then graduate into AD&D. This is where I joined, with the old blue cover box set and In Search of the Unknown, before Keep on the Borderlands even existed.
AD&D was the game in its full glory. Along with the races I mention above, we got half-elves, half-orcs, and gnomes. The four basic classes also had sub-classes, like paladin and ranger for the fighter, druid for the cleric, illusionist for the wizard, and assassin for the thief. There were rules for multi-classing, as well as “Dual-classing”, a sort of multi-class variation for humans only, which, when done in the correct combination, could yield the infamous bard...which didn’t actually yield any bard abilities until around level 13 or so.
This edition had 5 different saving throws for things like “Death Magic”, “Petrification & Polymorph”, “Spells”, and so on. It had the infamous Armor Class system that started at 10 and went down, so that having a -3 AC was very good! It also had specific attack matricies for each class; you would literally look on a table to determine the number you needed to roll on a D20 based on your class, your level, and your opponent’s armor class. It was fun, but it was very complicated.
It also had some, frankly, shitty rules. There was gender disparity in terms of attributes, which my group totally ignored. Because the game designers wanted humans to be a competitive the game, and because non-humans had so many abilities and could multiclass, non-humans were severely limited in the levels they could achieve in most classes. In fact, some classes, such as monk and paladin, were restricted only to humans.
As the years went on, things got a bit muddled. It probably didn’t help that the rules in Basic D&D and AD&D didn’t perfectly line up. In D&D, the worst armor class was a 9. In AD&D, the worst armor class was a 10. All of this led to an overhaul, but not one considered a separate edition. AD&D mostly got new covers and new books, like the Wilderness Survival Guide and Dungeon Survival Guide, Monster Manual 2, and the Manual of the Planes. It got a number of new settings, too. In addition to the default Greyhawk setting, we got the Forgotten Realms setting for the first time, details of which had been appearing in Dragon Magazine for years, thanks to the prolific Ed Greenwood. We also, eventually, got the whole Dragonlance saga, which yielded the setting of Krynn.
In this new version, Basic D&D broke off into its own game system to some degree. Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling started being treated like classes rather than races, with specific abilities at different levels. Higher level characters could be created using progressive boxes - Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal, each with its own boxed set and supported by Mystara, a completely different setting that got its own updates over the years. It was odd, because D&D essentially was competing for players with AD&D, and I remember arguments with friends over which version was better (I was firmly in the AD&D camp.)
In 1989, when I was in college, they finally brought forth 2nd edition D&D. This streamlined things a little. Armor Class still went down, but now attack rolls boiled into a single number called To Hit Armor Class 0, or THAC0. It made the whole process of figuring out what you needed to roll a bit less cumbersome, but it was still a bit awkward. The classes got a lot of overhaul, including making Bard its own core class. But what I remember best about 2nd edition was the boom in settings. This was the age of settings, and many beloved ones got started, including Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer.
It was also the age of the “Complete Handbooks”. They brought out splatbooks about every class and race in the game, as well as books expanding several concepts for the DM, such as the Arms & Equipment Guide, the Castle Guide, and the Complete Book of Villains. There were also splatbooks about running D&D in historic periods, such as Ancient Rome, among the ancient Celts, or during the time of the Musketeers. The game got new covers for the rule books again, and a bunch of books about options started coming out. It was a boom time for books, but many people complained there was too much.
Without going too deep, TSR ended up in severe financial troubles. They declared bankruptcy, and there was real fear of the game going away. And then Wizards of the Coast (WotC) stepped in. They helped TSR get back onto its feet, and they helped produce some modules specifically engineered to help DM’s bring an end to their campaign...possibly even their whole campaign world...because something big was coming.
That something big was, of course, 3rd edition D&D. The game got majorly streamlined, and many sacred cows ended up as hamburger. AC finally started going up instead of down. Everything was refined to the “D20″ system we’ve been playing ever since. Races could be any class. There were no level or stat limits for anyone. After years of the game being forced into tight little boxes, it really felt like we could breathe. I had stopped playing D&D, but 3rd edition brought me back into the fold. I often say that 3E was made for the players who’d felt constricted and wanted more flexibility.
The trouble with 3E, and its successor 3.5, is that it was still a dense and difficult game for newcomers to get into. It’s been acknowledged that D&D essentially created many of the systems we see and know in other games - experience points, leveling up, hit points, etc. But trying to break into the experience for the first time was difficult. The look of 3E was gorgeous, but I understood that it must seem awfully daunting to someone who’d never played.
4E and its follow-up, Essentials, was an attempt to course correct that. They tried to make this edition incredibly friendly to new DMs, and, frankly, they succeeded. By creating player classes and monsters and magic-items that were all very plug and play, they did a great job of creating a game that someone who had never DMed before could dive into with no experience or mentor and start a game pretty easily. Encounter design was given a lot of ease, and there were promises of a robust online tool system that would help out with many of the more tedious aspects of playing.
There was also a lot of shake up in terms of choices. Suddenly, new classes and races were proliferating like crazy. We got the dragonborn, the tiefling, and the eladrin right in the core book, but we said good-bye to the gnome and half-orc at first. Suddenly the warlock was the new class everyone wanted to try. We got paragon paths and epic destinies that would really shape a character as time went on. The game went very tactical, as well, which some of us loved. The concept of rituals came into the game. Later books like the Player’s Handbook 2 and 3 gave us back gnomes and half-orcs, and also gave us minotaurs, wilden, shardminds, and githzerai. We got new psionic classes, brand new class concepts like the Runeknight and the Seeker...
But there was a tremendous backlash. People felt that, in making the game so very plug and play, they’d taken a ton of choice away from the players. Without the tools (which were never that robust, frankly), it was almost impossible to navigate the massive panoply of options. And, worse, it was harder and harder to develop encounters without those tools. People complained that the game had gone more tactical in order to sell miniatures and battlemats. Given that I have never played the game without miniatures and battlemats (since I started in the days when D&D was still half-wargame), I found this odd, but I also understand my style of play isn’t everyone’s.
The one argument I will never understand is that it didn’t “feel” like D&D, or it was somehow ONLY a tactical game and not a role-playing game any more. Again, given that the original game didn’t even call itself a role-playing game, this felt odd. Personally, I roleplay no matter what game I’m playing. If I’m playing Monopoly, I’m roleplaying, doing voices, and pretending to be something I’m not. I honestly enjoyed 4E, and I know a lot of folks who did, too. A lot of it may simply come down to style of play. But I also enjoyed all the games that came before, including Pathfinder. To paraphrase the YouTube content creator The Dungeon Bastard, “Does your game have dungeons? Does it have dragons? Great. I wanna play.”
As a sidenote, in the months leading up to 4E’s release, a lot of internet videos were released by WotC emphasizing the nature of change and talking about differences in the rules. They also released some preview books showing the direction they were heading. WotC must have anticipated that people were going to find this edition very different indeed. They also cleverly brought in some very funny folks - Scott Kurtz from PVPOnline and Jerry Holkins & Mike Krahulik from Penny Arcade - and got them to play D&D for podcasting purposes. Looking back, this must’ve brought in a lot of listeners who might never have played D&D and given them a reason to try it out.
After its release, WotC clearly noted that missteps had been made, as this edition of the game was losing them players. They began work on what they referred to as D&D Next, and, this time, they did massive amounts of playtesting, some of which I participated in.
I don’t feel like I have to describe 5E to any of you, Dear Readers, as you could go to virtually any store and pick it up. I am a big fan of 5E’s simplicity and elegance, and I suspect this is the edition of D&D we’re going to have for some time to come, especially given its popularity. Given the effect of podcasts like Critical Role (and I might save an article on Critical Role’s importance to D&D until my next Freestyle article), D&D is likely more popular now than it’s ever been, with a much wider and more diverse audience than ever before.
I know I’m painting with broad strokes here, but I hope this was, at least, entertaining, and maybe you learned something, Gentle Readers. Until we next meet, may all your 20s be natural.
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lucien’s eye powers
(spoilers for CR 2.121!)
the more time we spend with lucien the more unsettling he becomes, but I want to theorize specifically about what his nine eyes are capable of!
first, the abilities canon has more or less confirmed:
scrying: lucien can seemingly spy on the m9 at will. it’s worth noting that, per his reaction to caleb’s tower, it seems like this ability is limited to beings on the same plane of existence the same way the scry spell is.
eldritch sight: normally a warlock thing, this lets lucien use detect magic at will and would explain how he was able to see caleb’s vault of amber and know to dispel it. if the threshold crest were not in a separate dimension (bag of holding), he would be able to see that too.
shared vision: lucien can see through the eyes of any member of the tomb takers, and while this is happening, their eyes turn red like his. it’s unclear if other members can use this ability through each other as well.
truesight: it’s possible this has been somewhat tweaked, but if the nonagon version works the same way as in the player’s handbook, this means lucien can:
see other people trying to scry on him (which he did)
see through invisibility
see through magical darkness (probably also magical fog, sorry fjord)
see through illusion magic
see into the ethereal plane for up to 120 feet
anti-magic: matt said this was not a spell and can’t be countered so I think this works the same way as a beholder eye! that would mean that when lucien chooses to activate this power, any spell or magical effect he’s looking at will end. beholders get this ability out to a range of 150 feet. (it’s possible that, like with the beholder cone, a caster could keep holding concentration on their spell and it would turn back on once lucien looked away, but hard to tell at this point—I doubt caleb or jester thought to maintain concentration on polymorph when they were about to fall into lava).
and now on to things that are pure speculation on my part but could potentially become part of lucien’s repertoire:
cause blindness: if the nonagon sees everything, it might also choose not to let its enemies see anything. this is a relatively low-level effect but could wreak havoc during a m9 vs tomb takers battle.
eyes of the rune keeper: this ability lets you read all languages, including arcane sigils. seems like it would be very useful for a mage hivemind seeking its own ancient relics. (I want this to be canon not for any lore reason but because molly literally can’t read)
bloodbending: this is how the tomb takers destroyed vess. I think it’s canonically one of cree’s channel divinity powers, which makes it not a nonagon ability, but it’s very possible lucien could learn to do this as well.
eyebite: normally a 6th level spell, this would cause a targeted creature to become either frightened, sickened, or asleep.
magical effect beams: another power that beholder eyes have, this seems a little OP for the current situation, but after what we heard about the somnovum I wouldn’t rule it out. these effects include:
charm
paralysis
fear
slow
sleep
telekinesis (restrained)
petrification (turn to stone)
enervation (8d8 necro damage)
disintegration (10d8 force damage)
death (10d10 necro damage and if you’re reduced to 0 hit points you die outright)
foresight: as a 9th level spell, lucien almost certainly doesn’t have this ability right now, but I worry that a fully-realized version of the somnvum possessing his body could reach this level. foresight lets you see just a little ways into the future, giving you advantage on all saving throws, attack rolls, and ability checks while giving other creatures disadvantage on all attacks against you. not great!
anyway, lucien is a freaky motherfucker and I entirely support the mighty nein bullying him until he lets molly out in pure self-defense
#cr spoilers#critical role#cr meta#lucien#nonagon#mollymauk tealeaf#eyes of nine#even just with the powers we already know he has this is gonna be a hell of a boss fight#let alone all the freaky shit his blood hunter pals can do#but like if he finishes that ritual and gets fully possessed?#levels up to contain NINE ASTRAL ARCHMAGES IN HIS BRAIN?#we're fucked#(beau will continue driving him up the wall to the very end and I love her for that)#the lore.mp3#matthew what does it mean
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jjk characters as genshin impact playable characters
this started as a conversation between a few friends during a co-op session, but i got obsessed with the idea and went too far. this isnt really a jjk x genshin lore headcanon post, but more about jjk genshin gameplay. it turned out way longer than i thought, so i only got yuji, megumi, nobara, and gojo :(
itadori yuji
pyro sword dps!! i think most anime protags are pyro swords
vision story: it really started with his grandfather's dying with for yuuji to save others
megumi was going to die and that was the moment murata gave him a vision... to save his future boyfriend !!
yuuji is highly reliant on physical dmg and his auto-attack
needs high energy recharge to deal pyro dmg more consistently
potential builds:
2pc crimson witch + 2pc noblesse oblige OR 2pc gladiator's finale
2pc bloodstained chivalry + 2pc pale flame (physical dps)
4pc gladiator's finale (auto-attack king)
4pc emblem of severed fate (maximize up-time of binding vow)
kit:
e: divergent fist
slashes the enemy in front of him, dealing a large amount of physical dmg
one of his constellations would give yuji a 10% chance to deal pyro dmg instead of physical dmg (black flash)
q: binding vow
calls upon the powers of sukuna, gives him an attack bonus and infuses his weapon with pyro but drains hp
like xiao but he cant do the plunge
instead of plunges he can use his e for a blast of pyro in a cone-shaped aoe using his e
i like to believe that his voice changes to sukuna during the ult and when it ends yuji’s like “whew! thats over”
utility passive: refunds 15% of the ores used when crafting sword weapons.
passive 1: increases dmg by 5% during the duration of binding vow, continues to increase every 3 seconds and caps at a 25% dmg bonus
passive 2: increases crit rate and crit dmg of divergent fist proportionate to his energy recharge
megumi fushiguro
hydro polearm dps / sub-dps <3
i always think of polearm users as very graceful in combat and i think it suits him ? it is hard to explain
hydro vision bc of his strong conviction and sense of justice
I feel like he would have oceanid type powers? like how rhodeia can summon water animals
excellent for consistent off-field hydro application for elemental reactions
for people who like having minecraft dogs
ideal build:
weapon: primordial jade-winged spear or skyward spine
2pc noblesse oblige + 2pc heart of the depth (hydro dps)
4pc noblesse oblige (full support build)
kit:
e: nue and great serpent
press e: nue
summons nue, dealing hydro damage by slashing all enemies directly in-front of megumi
hold e: great serpent
crowd control, restrains the nearest target, but does not deal damage
both uses apply wet
q: divine dogs
summons two divine dogs that attack nearby enemies, dealing hydro dmg and applying the wet status
utility passive: 15% increased movement and attack speed at night
passive 1: applies a 15% hydro dmg bonus during the duration of divine dogs
passive 2: divine dogs: totality
if either of megumi's divine dogs falls in combat, the remaining dog receives a 25% atk bonus until it expires or is killed
constellation 6: domain expansion: chimera shadow garden
upon using divine dogs, megumi floods a small aoe with hydro, applies wet, and can summon an extra shikigami with his divine dogs
the second shikigami has 50% of its usual duration
hold q for great serpent, press q for nue
nobara kugisaki
strange take but..... geo bow dps (nuke)
i was thinking that she could be claymore but a bow would be more conducive to her straw doll technique
its really hard to get the "straw doll causing damage to real targets" to translate into genshin, but i tried my best :(
her kit feels very albedo-y
ideal build:
weapon: hamayumi, amos' bow
2pc archaic petra + 2pc noblesse oblige OR 2pc gladiator's finale (nuke)
4pc archaic petra (support)
kit:
charged basic attack: infuses arrow with the power of geo and applies a straw doll mark
marks stack up to three times for increased damage and last up to 5 seconds
maximum number of marks are increased by a constellation (up to 5)
duration of affliction can also be increased with constellations
e: straw doll technique: resonance
activates a burst of geo spikes from targets afflicted with a straw doll mark
scales off def%
temporarily stuns small targets and causes larger ones to stagger
q: straw doll technique: hairpin
triggers geo arrows from the straw doll mark to explode, dealing large amounts of geo damage to the target and surrounding enemies
scales off def%
utility passive: increases chances of gaining double the ore from one deposit
passive 1: gains an attack bonus of 5% for every enemy afflicted with a straw doll mark, caps at 20%
passive 2: upon activation of straw doll technique: resonance or hairpin, enemies not afflicted by a straw doll mark will receive one for 5 seconds
gojo satoru
anemo polearm main dps
i think cryo would work well too
BUT anemo suits him when you consider how he wants to guide his students to a better future
"all anemo users have at least one dead friend" trope
all his abilities have to do with the manipulation of space, which is the easiest to accomplish with anemo's cc
has a delusion acquired from the toji fight ... he doesn't need it tho it kind of just hangs around
ideal build:
weapon: primordial jade winged-spear or staff of homa
2pc viridescent venerer + 2pc gladiator's finale
kit (warning: he is kind of cracked)
e: cursed technique lapse: blue and cursed technique reversal: red
press e: blue
pulls enemies in a certain aoe, deals anemo damage
sucks the enemies in like a tornado
lasts for 2 seconds and increases with talent level-up
can be infused with elements it comes in contact with for swirl reactions
hold e: red
repels all enemies within a certain aoe, deals anemo damage, and interrupts the actions of all enemies hit
q: domain expansion: unlimited void
unleashes his domain expansion, creating a large aoe that causes petrification and forms a shield on the border of the aoe
blocks dmg from outside sources and prevents entry into domain
shield strength proportionate to his hp
activates swirl reactions upon contact with other elements
utility passive: gliding stamina consumption decreased by 20%
passive 1: six eyes
a passive similar to kazuha
grants an elemental dmg bonus to all party members for every point of elemental mastery he has after triggering a swirl reaction
passive 2: infinity
normal attacks and charged attacks produce a shield for gojo (does not apply to other party members if gojo switches off the field)
each normal attack increases shield health by 5% of gojo’s max hp
the concern here would be that the shield would break before you could build it if you get hit once, but there will be a short period of time where the dmg the shield takes is reduced so u dont lose ur shield immediately
shield caps at 60% of gojo’s hp
enters a 2 minute cooldown upon shield break
strong enough to ascend to archon i think ?
only reason he would ascend is to change whatever the fuck is going on in celestia lmfao
ty if u read this far ! i dont rly expect anyone to see this, but i will probably make a second post with other characters soon. i currently have nanami, toji, and maki in the works <3
#jujutsu kaisen#jjk#genshin impact#itadori yuuji#fushiguro megumi#kugisaki nobara#gojo satoru#jjk headcanons#genshin impact au#jjk x genshin
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@intoxicatingimmediacy I can’t seem to answer your actual ask, so hopefully this way works. You sent:
I had a thought re: WWX never using that snap of petrification again. It might not work on other cultivators, and the Mo clan aren't, so that might be why we only see it in the first episode?
That’s a very fun idea! I hope you don’t mind if I just run with it for a bit here; I thought about it a lot at work the other day.
So. This move.
Possibly only works on non-cultivators, which I’m choosing to interpret as meaning sufficient spiritual power can act as a shield or negate it. This might also explain why it works so well on fierce corpses—which raises all sorts of interesting questions about the spiritual distinction between “dead” and “alive” for non-cultivators in this universe. As Mo Xuanyu has low spiritual power and Wei Wuxian is at this point fairly used to doing things without a golden core, I think we can infer that he’s harnessing resentment to do this, which has the (to me) extremely interesting implication that Wei Wuxian can use the resentment of living people as well as dead ones. (okay, okay, the Lan juniors are there for a reason, maybe, as in the novel: there are other dead-resentment hanging around. Mo Xuanyu did just effectively kill himself in a huge resentment-fueled ritual too, so that’s another possible source. But can you imagine? If Wei Wuxian could literally use people’s hatred of himself to fight them? Wow. Talk about power moves. OP as all get-out.)
As I think I mentioned in the tags of that reblog that started this, we don’t see this move again in the drama, but as I thought about it more I realized we do see similar moves. Wei Wuxian can control the movements of fierce corpses and spirits and (in the drama) yin-iron-infected super-soldiers. Control in general is a huge theme of the whole story, so it comes up a lot. Wei Wuxian often uses Chenqing, or the Yin-iron tiger amulet, but as @vera-invenire pointed out recently, he doesn’t need those tools because his greatest weapon is just “being Wei Wuxian.” It’s in how his brain works and how deeply he understands things. Other people use talismans to light fires and ward off spirits. Wei Wuxian uses talismans to attract spirits and to make fiery butterflies that can be used for light, or a distraction, or to break a ward.
(I just really love the butterflies)
Other people use musical instruments to shape power. Wei Wuxian can do it with a whistle, or by clapping his hands or snapping his fingers, because he is a genius and he views the world in a fundamentally different way from most of the people around him, which is just extremely fun to think about for me (more on that later, I have a whole thing in progress about just that), and it also gives him a more flexible, more immediate kind of control over his environment. It’s also possibly what makes him so potentially terrifying to the rest of the cultivation world. The ability to control the movements of people so directly, living or dead...yeah, that’s a lot. And we actually do see him use it on a cultivator, in a way: he uses a talisman on Lan Wangji in Cloud Recesses, to stop him from chasing Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang.
(Full disclosure, I hate this moment. Why does he have that talisman? What was it originally meant to do? Why is it his go-to option here? Was there no other way to get them to talk about family stuff? Like at least in the later scenes where Lan Wangji drinks he makes a choice to do so but arrgh).
So how much protection does cultivation actually provide? I think there are mentions, as with Jiang Cheng’s broken arm after his duel with Wei Wuxian, that high cultivation aids in healing and preventing illness. It also seems to convey a certain amount of physical prowess, and the ability to use a sword with a spirit of its own. But it’s also clear from the Jiang clan’s spirit bells, the Lan clan’s embroidered talismans and Wei Wuxian’s gift for Jin Ling that additional protection against spirits is both common and useful. Also, the cultivation Sects are all very careful with their dead, despite the soul-cleansing ceremony that should prevent them from becoming fierce corpses/vengeful spirits. And Xue Yang’s yin-iron nails can control cultivators (dead ones, but… still). So maybe… maybe it takes more than a snap to control a cultivator, but not as much more as the cultivators would like? Maybe it’s a secret no one was ever supposed to find out. Maybe the reason Wei Wuxian doesn’t use it more often has less to do with its difficulty level or protections provided by cultivation, and more to do with how very short his lifespan would become if people found out he could.
Man. Now I really want to see him do it to an enemy, in full view of other cultivators, and watch the fallout.
#intoxicatingimmediacy#wei wuxian#the untamed meta#the untamed#chen qing ling#thank you for sending this#i had lots of fun thinking about it#finally making some progress on prompts and asks again#woohoo
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Trespasser Liveblog, Part Four: The Keeper and the Betrayer
In which Menel has a disarming experience. Featuring rampant headcanoning.
Obligatory angst re: my party being trapped on the other side of the Eluvian, truly helpless now, and the last time they saw Menel things were looking truly horrible, and this is going to be a long conversation cause Solas likes to hear himself talk and that whole time they’re stuck there helplessssss. Cassandra just finally reunited with Menel after they were separated by their respective duties and now it seems like they had so little time time, and Sera is holding back the urge to shoot arrows at the stupid mirror cause that will only make things worse but she can’t do anything, everyone left to shoot is dead or gone, and Dorian is a mage who was able to work out a way to travel through time once but for all his brilliance can’t figure out how to unlock the Eluvian
And on Menel’s end realizing they didn’t make it through, Menel who had taken comfort in at the very least his friends were at his back, and now they aren’t, and with the chaos of the battle and rushing through the eluvian he hadn’t held on to those last moments, Menel whose pain at being alone is mixed with a bit of this chilling instinct telling him that of course it would be this way
So I recall petrification is in some of the mage spell trees but that seems to be less permanent? It’s hard to tell sometimes with mechanics to story and what qualifies as average magic. Definitely petrification on that scale is insanely op.
Well, Egg, haven't heard your voice in a while, especially because I did two whole DLCs between Inquisition and Trespasser
Goodbye Viddasala and the tragically plot-irrelevant book on your shoulder
“That should give us more time” isn't comforting
Wait I can flat out say he's the Dread Wolf???
YES
SWEET CREATORS YES
I was not looking forward to having to deal with the “legasp you’re Fen’Harel I’m so surprised it wasn’t obvious or anything” dialogue and it’s so in character for Menel to piece things together especially as he was meant to be a Keeper, he knows the lore
Plus it’s amusing that the Viddasala thought she knew everything but Menel pieced together the actual truth
I do wonder if Menel had happened to pass this information along to the party with everything going on cause with his anchor breaking down he could die before that and it’s probably important information
Actually, he almost certainly wrote a letter to those he cared about in case he didn’t make it and at some point I should write it out cause angst
When I watched @inner-muse play I kind of found the ending anti-climatic cause I guess I was in the big final boss mindset and the saarebas didn’t feel like a final boss but then the Viddasala gets turned to stone before you can confront her. Playing it now though, I find it really works, which is to some degree being more invested in and attuned to the story and knowing that in the end the Viddasala was sadly just another pawn in the chess game, but I also think the choice of character helps. Menel is a thinker and diplomat and teacher, only fighting because he’s forced into it, and this entire DLC was trying to resolve things peacefully and just getting violence thrown at him instead of debate or answers, so ending this with a conversation actually is a relief and an achievement. Plus for Menel this is the equivalent of a final boss battle. It’s of wits and wills and old Dalish tales, of knowing that you’re facing the Dread Wolf himself and he will play with truth and lies like the trickster god he is.
Yeah, title that all replaces your name Solas does have a point there and yet not. They might have similar trappings, male elven rift mages who like learning and studying ancient things, who are known more for their titles than their true names, but their choices are what matter. Menel listens to others and is willing to accept change, to take the scars and heal even when it’s hard, and seeks to use the past to move forward, and Solas is stagnant despite all that he experiences. I love literary foils.
Well at least he admits the Dalish legends have some truth to them
Menel is sympathetic to some degree, but still on guard, and still trying to wrap his mind around caring for Solas as a friend and being aware that this is the Dread Wolf, and while Dalish legends may not have all the details, they generally have a core of truth, and the Dread Wolf has already deceived him before.
Okay saving the elven people is good, we’re currently being subjugated and divided in numerous ways and there’s a great deal of work to be done to move forward—wait what is that about the world dying?!?!?!?!?
Our people OUR none of this yours versus mine bs, Solas, the elves live even if they’ve grown and changed you’ve learned nothing
“I never thought of you as someone who would do that, Solas”
Be a jerk, maybe, but genocide, seriously?
Menel uses guilt trip. Like Josephine, he kills with kindness. Unfortunately it is not truly successful because Solas is all tied up in his I feel guilt but your deaths are a sacrifice that I must make to assuage my guilt about the other apocalypse I caused. Ugh.
“I had plans.” re: the fact that the Evanuris/Creators will be released by tearing down the Veil
Yeah they've gone so well so far that’s so comforting
I’m sad I can't ask about the Forgotten Ones. Cause Dalish legend says those were also sealed away with the Creators so they should also be a concern if Solas tears down the Veil. I still think the Forgotten Ones are the Old Gods, but I guess the Forbidden Ones like Xebenkeck could also be a possibility.
"I am not a monster" Not taking pleasure in destruction doesn’t mean you’re not a monster, just a different flavor of monstrous you Egg.
You know, I don’t entirely buy the running out of time thing. I think he gave just enough time to answer the questions he wanted to answer, and stopped before Menel could strike any further under the pretense of “there’s nothing I can do”.
I’m not sure Menel could have survived with the Anchor but I’m not ruling it out. I can’t take Solas at his word cause of course it fits his agenda to claim that Menel couldn’t have handled it and Solas was almost certainly purposely aggravating it. Plus even if Solas believes that a mortal couldn’t have handled it and all he was doing was speeding up the process of the Anchor breakdown, he tends to underestimate mere mortals a lot.
Also the contrast between their outfits is so good and I need to write a separate post on just that
...I can’t believe Menel is being conflicted about the saving versus defeating thing, really Menel
Then again it is so like Menel to wish that he could solve this problem by changing a god’s mind rather than a war against a god cause he knows the latter is insanely dangerous and will likely result in mass casualties, but he’s angry at being manipulated and frustrated at himself for being duped and knows that the fact that Solas hasn’t been persuaded despite learning the people of modern Thedas are people doesn’t bode well
Menel tries so hard to be good and kind and Solas was a friend and he’s still dealing with accepting that “Solas” never was. Just another humble guise of the Dread Wolf. Cause in the end regardless of whether Solas’s opinions of people in this world were changed, regardless of the experiences and the teamwork and solidarity in the Inquisition, what matters is that he seeks to destroy this world.
You know Solas, you claim to be wise, yet there are three things all wise men fear: a sea in a storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man, and Menel is pissed.
Still, it feels like a defeat. All of it really. The Qunari are repelled, but the world is imperiled again, and by a force far more tricksy than Corypheus, and Menel ends up choosing war over a likely futile attempt to reason with an unchanging god.
The very end of the conversation I headcanon went differently. I love this meta on how Solas probably took the anchor which is BAD, and I feel like Menel as a rift mage would have suspected and picked up on it, and tried to either retain the Anchor or perhaps turn the momentum of Solas tearing it away into destroying the Anchor or having it slip out of the Dread Wolf’s grasp. Better to die than let Solas carry out this insane plan. It was futile, Solas’s plan to weaken Menel was extremely effective and the power difference between them is so insane, but that didn’t stop him from trying. It did mean that the removal was far more agonizing and was far closer to killing him. Menel was definitely on the ground screaming as Solas dismissively walks away. The Dread Wolf disdainful about and pitying these pathetic mortals who can’t be grateful for the time he’s given them, perhaps shaking away the slightly unnerving knowledge that Menel fought back harder than he expected.
Still debating whether Solas allowed the others to run through the eluvian cause he feels bad and Menel’s death could lead to chaos and pain even if he is going to destroy the world anyway and then they found him there cause angst, or whether Menel dragged himself back through the eluvian. Maybe both. Also I like to think Menel’s arm wasn’t fully disintegrated and Cassandra was the one to chop it off and then Dorian cauterized it or something and Sera was again in pain because she can’t put arrows in it to fix things and Solas ran off so she can’t put arrows in him.
Although the logistics of the chopping would be a bit weird as his arm is encased in armor and you would probably not want to be touching the arm to get the armor off to chop it off? Unless the mark was burning to the point where it was melting the magically reinforced armor which is a terrifying thought.
And somehow Menel mustered the strength to march into the Council.
Yeah, Solas is a threat but it’s official I’m disbanding the Inquisition
Okay not sure what speech to give on the disband side
That speech worked well “We will not become what we once fought against” indeed
Everyone's legasp
I was kind of expecting a mic drop with the book cause dramatic but given Menel would likely never do that to a book handing it off to Josephine works too
Sorry to leave you there after such a short speech but I’m pretty sure Menel collapses not long after
And the party together one last time
Now for epilogue slides! I love the art style here
Oh good no mass unemployment issues post-disbanding I was honestly worried about that
Cassandraaaa
Staying on the Exalted Council and working with Leliana, and the braid
And the fact that she and Menel don’t give up their respective goals, but still frequently meet up excellent
Plus the image of them suddenly appearing at each other’s side is beautiful
That smile too
Also hurrah for Josie bringing back her family’s trade
So we don't know what happened at Weisshaupt except it's apparently settled cause Hawke is back in Kirkwall and Thom Rainier is walking in and out no problem?
I wasn’t expecting any news on Mahariel but I’m still disappointed. At least I know she’s probably alive since the Warden is mentioned if they romance a Leliana made Divine
Sad they don’t mention any efforts to cure and help tranquil
Aaand nothing about Dalish. Admittedly in this game there’s no opportunity to do anything for the Dalish cause it’s so human centric with ancient elven aesthetics and antagonists. I just really really am terrified because of the vallaslin on the elf in the epilogue slide that the writers are going to retcon things and have the Dalish side with the Dread Wolf despite him literally being the villain in their story and him constantly dismissing and hating on the Dalish
And nothing about the Well. Given all that happened you’d think that the Well would have come up for more than one dialogue option and I admit I really wanted at least a hint of what the consequences of the ending of Inquisition were on Menel’s geas.
Ah, final scene
It’s really nice to see Leliana in her spymaster outfit again.
Honestly this is a dream team: Cassandra, Leliana, Scout Harding. And likely Josephine and Sera are helping too despite officially being involved in other things.
The Inquisition arguably saved Thedas and changed Menel and ended up despite its Chantry origins bringing people from a variety of backgrounds together, and accomplished some impressive things like giving the mages at least some degree of independence, but it was in a way a quasi-antagonist, very close to becoming a different sort of evil and Menel was very aware of that throughout. And now he is finally free: he’s passed through the fire that changed him and many others, and it is done. He still has a lot of healing and soul-searching to do, especially given the really really stupid awful revelations on elven history in Trespasser that I wish I could just deem not-canon, and also has the sword of Damocles that is his geas to Flemythal, but he's finally moved forward to another chapter of his life.
And I still can’t believe its actually over.
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Chapter 34: The Light of Devotion
“The seeds of that fate were sown here.”
Previously, a rebellion occurred. It was swiftly handled, but was a pyrrhic victory: Proto was damaged, the Oxsecians found selection was bias in favor of the royal family, despite (in some cases) their genes saying otherwise, and finally Oxsecia imploded. It was not a good day for anyone, really.
34-1 It had to live solely for its objective – as Proto had.
Whereas chapter 33 had Electric enemies, this chapter will have Ice enemies for most of it. This is a bad team to bring, for reasons that will become fairly clear.
Side note: this was done during a half-stamina event. It was originally 24 stamina, then a later update reduced it to 20.
Though despairing, the Oxsecian king could not simply stand by while his people destroyed each other in a civil war.
Animata was responsible for all of it. This tragedy started with her.
It wasn’t the king alone. Rancor towards Animata was swelling among the people. The only way to cleanse it was to strike at the root.
Options were few. They no longer even had a place to call home. He needed to take up the banner and lead the fight against her.
The king’s hand rested on Proto’s remains.
They needed a symbol. An unstoppable weapon that sought only bloodshed and destruction. It had to live solely for its objective – as Proto had.
36AIS was sound asleep. Gazing at her peaceful face on a nearby monitor, the king declared his intentions aloud.
“…We shall dispose of the unfit.”
The hand gripping Proto’s remains trembled almost imperceptibly.
That resolution went into effect almost immediately.
Those branded unnecessary to the cause of the Oxsecian people frantically sought escape. Shunned and stigmatized by the public, they howled their resentment, raged, and desperately fought back.
Ironically, they proved unfit in this, too. The royal forces crushed their resistance as easily as ants.
The king saw their pain. But it only convinced him that these weak links were his people’s biggest obstacle to destroying Animata.
Emotion often clouds judgement and vision, leading us off course.
The Oxsecian ship, meanwhile, reached its destination. The unfit would be exiled here.
Welp.
Four battles, with ice enemies. Both are pretty annoying; the Ice Golem’s Blizzard attack hits everyone, and the Snow Spook’s Icy Counter hits fairly hard.
As shown.
The wiki claims the last battle has four of these guys at level 75, but my image order says they’re apparently level 78. I guess it’s not that big a difference either way.
Still, they can hurt, especially if you get multiple attacks hitting your team. I came into this last floor with everyone alive.
By the end, the team’s been halved. Amazora’s only alive because she has Anti-Ice Shield as a skill. Pretty sure this would’ve been a wipe if I didn’t have Gatz or Rikken on the team and instead went with frailer units.
34-2 You’ve been assigned to take them to the execution grounds.
Now this is a team that’s more suited for much of this chapter. It helped that I’d managed to yolo roll Koko and Lewto a while back. (This is not the first time I’ve gotten some useful units in this game from that…)
If I hadn’t rolled them, hard to say how I’d manage in all honesty. I never worked on getting Bahamut or his recode until chapter 40 because I just never had Piz’fer a lot of Ice units prepped and able to reliably clear Bahamut Ultra until recently, but he’s a fantastic free unit and really good for this chapter.
If I were diligent at the time in gathering the materials, I could have recoded Lewto and Koko, which would also make things easier. Still, even just having those two helped. Currently, you could probably field a team that’s either all-Fire or a mix of Fire and Solar units, something like Bahamut^/Lewto^/flex/flex/flex/flex, and coast through much of this chapter.
They have execution grounds on the old hunting place… So what, does this entail leaving them to fend off wild animals? A nice place to sit and freeze to death?
Icebind is fun and familiar to anyone who has Leviathan^. It freezes anyone caught in the radius, preventing them from moving/acting, and works a lot like petrification in many JRPGs in that if they’re attacked (pincered, in this case), they shatter and die even if they would’ve normally survived the pincer.
The other, similar looking enemy is a Mini Frostshroom, which just has Glacier, Area (1).
Icebind can be cured with Panacea or blocked with a Dragon’s Badge/Amulet (Icebind Guard) or Dragon’s Talisman/Buckler (Icebind Ward), but those are CoT/F otomos. Easiest thing to do is just avoid being in range and pincer the mushroom horizontally.
34-3 “He needs someone who understands him.”
Another new stage, another new enemy. Are those little beady eyes? How cute!
Things sometimes got dicey for the team, but Sorman and Rikken are there to keep everyone’s health topped off.
34-4 A heavy thud shakes the area.
You can tell I covered this a long time ago since there’s no Solar/Lunar signs, stamina cost was 24, and co-op mode is still present. Anyway, I show this because there was a fatal error – namely, having units with odd levels for reasons you’ll see shortly.
You’d think, but even in real life, this is so rarely the case…
The boss of 34-4 is Layla. She’s not very nice and opens by confusing anyone who isn’t evenly leveled or lacks Confusion Guard/Ward (whether by skill or otomo equip) for nine turns. You really don’t want anyone confused, especially when the stage is packed full of enemies like this one.
Confused units do not take part in pincers, so that’s fun. I guess if you have to bring someone odd-leveled (tired of level grinding?), you could bring along someone with Clarity (Kana, R’zonzand, Palpa) or otherwise able to cure status effects.
I didn’t, so it’s just a real bad time for everyone.
Let’s try that again with better levels. Incidentally, for this stage, it plays The Shattered Land instead of the regular boss music.
It’s a vast improvement; I can actually get in some pincers and clear out the Ice mooks. Anything that helps kill them is another thing keeping the team from being overwhelmed.
Everyone can even get to work chipping Layla’s health down. From what I’ve seen, she’ll use Blizzard once she starts getting low on HP.
3 turns in, there’ll be a message that says, “Poised to strike back…” and Layla will start glowing. Avoid pincering her during this time; she has a hidden skill called Icy Retribution where she counters pincers with 8x physical and ice damage counterattacks. As a reference, the strongest attacks have a 3.5x multiplier – getting hit by this is generally a total party kill.
The game cheekily describes the skill with “Let sleeping dragons lie.” She can be hurt indirectly though; even if she’s hit by AoE skills, Magic Bombs, your own units’ counterattacks from pincering the mooks or vice-versa, she won’t retaliate against those.
If you don’t pincer her, you’ll get the message “Counterattack disrupted” and she’ll use Icefall instead.
The Treants aren’t as threatening, but they can do a lot of damage if they group up and gang up on a few of your units or move in ways where you can’t really make a good pincer or heal someone about to die.
Once the mooks are gone, it’s just a matter of slowly chipping her down, ideally with vertical pincers instead of this.
34-5 All the years Proto spent with the king were wiped clean.
Amongst those memories is a father's strangled cry of anguish at having to abandon his daughter.
It's a recording of the king's voice. An auxiliary battery was evidently running after Proto's main power supply shut down.
A scientist hits the delete command with a practiced movement.
“...Error?”
The command is rejected. Resistance from Proto, perhaps?
“Bah. We have enough data already. Just format it.”
And with that, all the years Proto spent with the king are wiped clean.
Meanwhile, your party is still embroiled in battle with the alien beasts, never dreaming that such a thing is happening aboard the ship.
Godspeed, Proto.
Another new face. These guys cast a spell that curses anyone in range so they die in three turns. Notably, they can drop a Demon’s Tear otomo, but do people even use Demon’s Chronicles to farm SB still…?
When killed, they lift the curse, though.
Everything else is just standard fare, though.
34-6 That’s no reason to give up on the lives of the people right in front of you.
The crystals from Crystal Road/Roundelay show up to be a gimmick for three-fourths of this stage’s floors. They don’t behave any differently, so chains aren’t blocked.
Here’s Rossi’s Hex in action.
And here’s the team just laughing off a Blizzard.
34-7 Turning around, you and the exiles begin the long trek back.
Word suggested “a close up of a logo” for this image’s alt text. Great.
“The Oxsecian ship’s explosion triggered a curious phenomenon,” says another familiar voice.
It’s Peprope.
“The place you’re located in is someone’s memory.”
“Memory…? What are you saying?”
“The details can wait. But the gateway between there and here will undoubtedly open very soon.”
How can anyone possibly know this?
Many have reportedly come into contact with some sort of memory in similar fashion. Some have already awakened.
“Memory, eh…”
“Perfect. Let’s see the king’s fate through to the end.”
And so you resolve to take on the Oxsecian king. Turning around, you and the exiles begin the long trek back.
So we’re ensuring the timeline is stable. Nifty. Anyway, there’re five battles, all against the icy mooks seen before.
34-8 You’ve declared open rebellion against the king.
By then, we’ve reached civilization (of a sort), so I can swap the team around again.
Now we are the rebels.
Face-to-face with the Oxsecians again. I kind of wish there was something on the pre-battle screen that’d indicate if there was a non-elemental or weaponless enemy.
34-9 “Turned traitor, have you?”
Memorable, I suppose, but not memorable to get a unique sprite or be a boss himself.
Word alt text says, “this is an image containing text.”
gee thanks
I can only imagine how annoying this might be if there were just a bunch of those wild mooks out there to snow on everyone. It’d be rather reminiscent of everything that happened in the first few chapters after crashing on Planet Beastbait, though.
Also, that recruitment was actually just a drop for a Pig’s Amulet. Why not, I guess.
Some of the party cut things close.
34-10 Its name is Prototype Zero.
This is the team I’ll be using. You’ll notice that except for Rikken, everyone is B or A rank. 34-10 can be beaten with a team like this, helped when everyone is pretty much at level 90, equipped with some good otomos (Pahrl, for instance, has the otomo that gives her Terabow).
Of course there’s the fact that I’m bringing two-thirds of the Holy Trinity to this fight. Bahl and S’naip will be the main heavy hitters, and Rikken can dish out a good amount of damage too while acting as my mover.
Pahrl and Korin were brought to help bolster their respective weapon users’ stats, and their Defense +30% skills are one of the many things I used to make sure Bahl and S’naip survive enemy attacks. Sorman is there for healing (taken over Kuscah since he has slightly better defense), has a Regen Cane (A rank otomo, casts Mega Regen, chain) and Rikken has Heal, All to help a little.
34-10 is just a single battle, much like 30-10. It’s essentially the final boss of part 1.5; so let’s pull up the ol’ boss tunes, but the live version for a change.
Music: The World’s Awakening/Day of Reckoning (Live vers.)
Prototype Zero starts the fight with a huge lock-on; ideally you move everyone out the blast radius.
The turn after locking on, he’ll cast Ultima Assault, a non-elemental magical attack. Speaking of magic, he’s more resistant to it; not only is his magical defense stat higher, but he also has Magic Deflector (though I’ve never seen it be used). However, this isn’t a case where a team of mages or to a lesser extent non-crappy spellblades can’t win.
As you can see, I instead opted to do a triple pincer to damage Zero, but more importantly, clear out one of the Oxsecian machines and get some buffs up on the team. I would not recommend doing this normally – but hey, let’s see: how bad can Ultima Assault be?
Ow shit yeah that’s pretty bad
Prototype Zero will cycle through his skills (Breath Attack and Synergy Wave), while also summoning these mooks.
They will, on the turn they’re summoned, use their respective seal ability and severely neuter the physical attack stat of the corresponding weapon-users. It’s not a bad idea to bring a varied team for this reason, or, probably better, a strong mage. Just pincer with anyone who hasn’t been debuffed and work on clearing them out.
When Prototype Zero starts glowing, he’s rearing up to use System Repair. This is the chance to double pincer and get some damage in; hitting hard enough will disrupt him and prevent the healing.
Eventually, he cycles back to telegraphing Ultima Assault.
This was a good chance to kill him.
I missed getting a screencap of him fading away, so I went back and entered the stage again, killing Zero in around ~5 or so turns.
The nifty thing is that you’ll generally (re: 75% chance) get either a Mantle or Deepwater Helix and Metal Minion^ (guaranteed) for clearing this boss.
Also worth noting: 34-10 has a hard mode! To quote the Terra Battle wiki:
Start stage 34.10 during 00:00–00:59 or 12:00–12:59 UTC to access Hard Mode. Compared to the normal 34.10 stage, Hard Mode enemies have 50 more levels, 3 times the HP, and 1.2 times the ATK, DEF, MATK, MDEF. Hard Mode will also give x2 EXP and x4.5 coins. The boss Prototype Zero is guaranteed to drop the Avengers companion after being defeated in Hard Mode.
Avengers is an S class otomo that gives the unit Counterattack. Useful if you want to cover another skill phase to SBing...?
“The loathsome Animata is threatening not only the lives of our kin but the existence of our entire race. We must weather this storm together, for we have only ourselves to rely on.
“Look around you at the fellow countrymen who stand at your side. You are all comrades and equals, chosen to fulfill a common destiny. Social standing, origin, age are all irrelevant. We have all lost too much, and we must all fight to ensure those sacrifices were not suffered in vain.
“We are a chosen elite, supreme specimens of our race, and we are tasked with a common cause:
We must hunt Animata down and annihilate her. We shall have retribution.”
Thus began the long war against Animata. The seeds of that fate were sown here.
A dazzling light blooms in the heavens. Then it is gone, along with the Oxsecian ship.
All those who were locked in combat around the Life Breeder stand stunned and breathless. Humans, lizardfolk, beastfolk, stonefolk, the Oxsecian children with identical faces, even the wild alien creatures – all stand transfixed, gazing up at the empty sky.
“It’s… beautiful.”
As glowing debris from the Oxsecian ship disperses, a warm glimmer illuminates the heavens. It is as bright and unfaltering as the devotion born of a lifelong friendship.
Finally, it’s worth noting that upon clearing this chapter, 54B2 and 36AIS are added to the Pact of Truth/Fate. 54B2 is a Z class sword unit and 36AIS is a SS class healer.
36AIS is unfortunately not that great of a healer compared to the SS class Amis or even Sorman and Kuscah. I really wish she’d been like Amimari/Amina/A’misandra in terms of skills, or that she’d gotten a recode that brought her skills in line with Amina/A’misandra’s recodes, since otherwise all she has going for her is having Heal All and pretty art.
54B2 is a bit better, but by this point he’s not as useful as he might have been upon his release. Sure you could use him, and he’s not the worst unit to have, but why not just use Bahl^ and/or Suoh^? Some might consider him a troll rainbow pull, and considering the rarity of Z class units and how gacha games operate, that’s kind of a concerning thought.
Well... to not end an update being a Debbie Downer like in the past, I’ll conclude this by saying that this brings part 1.5 to a close! Chapter 35 will mark part 2 - and afterwards I’ll have for the most part caught up to where I was when I took a hiatus.
Fun fact: the word doc for this chapter is 73 pages and roughly 2600 words. That’s kind of a personal record, actually. I don’t think anything is going to be topping that besides a 7SU lp update or some of the shit I’ve got planned to play.
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