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Fate and Phantasms #16: Arash

Welcome back to Fate and Phantasms, where we’re bringing every servant in FGO to life in D&D 5e! Today we’re building Arash the Archer, a.k.a. that guy that you use for exactly one turn while farming hands. For this build, we have two goals in mind.

High burst damage.

You need to be tough. You wouldn’t know it thanks to his NP killing him most of the time, but Arash is a pretty beefy guy. He easily has the highest HP of all the 1 star archers.

We would  include the whole “killing yourself” thing in this build, but it turns out D&D doesn’t appreciate the fine art of disposeability like FGO does. The only options for self damage I could find were Berserkers, which don’t mesh with ranged builds, and Blood Hunters, which don’t do enough damage to be all that applicable.

As usual, a quick rundown of the build can be found here, and a more detailed explanation will be below the cut.

Background and Race

You are a Variant Human, because we need that feat, giving you +1 Dexterity and +1 Strength, as well as proficiency in Persuasion. For your feat, grab Sharpshooter, letting you attack without disadvantage at long range with your bow, ignore half and 3/4 cover, and especially important for this build, take a -5 on ranged attack rolls for a +10 to damage.

You are a Soldier, fighting for  King Manuchehr (or whoever your DM decides is lore-appropriate). This gives you proficiency in Athletics and Intimidation, the latter of which doesn’t really fit you as a person, but we’ll just have to live with that. I mean, you won’t, but w/e.

Stats

As always, we use the standard array here, but feel free to roll if you want to. I’d say make sure you keep multiclassing in mind, but if you mess this up that would mean you didn’t roll a single stat over 13, so you’d probably just want to start over at that point. Put your highest stat in Dexterity. You’re more buff than nimble, but D&D doesn’t play like that with bowmen. Next is Constitution, you’re tough and resistant to poison. Not mechanically resistant, but... anyway then get Strength, because I mean look at those biceps. Follow that with Charisma, because you managed to convince multiple people that Arash Airlines was a good idea. Put Intelligence next, you’re not dumb, but not smart either. Finally, dump Wisdom, because you also thought Arash Airlines was a good idea.

Piety

With the new Theros book, WotC introduced a more in-depth Piety system. just pick a god and pray! Obviously you’ll have to hash out details with your DM about how this will work, but if you can talk them into it base your god of choice on Pharika. At 3+ piety you gain the option to use Ray of Sickness a number of times equal to your wisdom modifier (minimum 1) per long rest, using your Wisdom as the spellcasting ability. At 10+ piety, we get to the real reason we’re here, an advantage against being poisoned, and immunity to disease. At 25+ piety you can pick one of two options as a touch action, either healing someone for 1d8 + wis modifier and curing them of one disease or poison, or inflicting a dc 15 constitution save, causing their weapon attacks to deal half damage for one minute on a failure. The target can repeat their save at the end of each turn. You can use these touch abilities a number of times equal to your wisdom modifier (minimum 1) per long rest. Finally, at 50+ piety, you can add 2 to either your dexterity or wisdom, and increase your maximum by 2 as well for the chosen stat.

Since this is a new feature, and requires a bit of worldbuilding to work in a game, we won’t include this in the final writeup of the build, but it’s something to talk to your DM about, and tying your character into the world is never a bad thing.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: As a fighter, you gain proficiencies in Perception, Survival, and Strength and Constitution saves. You also gain a fighting style, pick Archery for a +2 to ranged attack rolls, and Second Wind, letting you heal yourself as a bonus action for 1d10 + your fighter level once per short rest.

2. Fighter 2: You get an Action Surge, giving you another action in a turn once per short rest. It’s almost an extra turn, but not quite.

3. Fighter 3: You become a Champion of the people, giving you an Improved Critical that doubles your odds of getting a critical hit.

4. Fighter 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Medium Armor Master feat. Technically you could use heavy armor, but medium armor fits your spirit origin better, and now you don’t have disadvantage on sneak rolls because of it, and you can add 3 instead of 2 to your AC if your dexterity is high enough (spoilers: it is).

5. Fighter 5: You get an Extra Attack, giving you two attacks with an attack action, and meaning your chance at critting each turn has been quadrupled.

6. Rogue 1: Rogue doesn’t really fit your character that much, but that sneak attack damage is just too good to pass up on. First level rogues get Expertise, doubling the proficiency bonus of two skills (Athletics and Survival), Sneak Attack, adding extra damage to attacks made with advantage or with other party members standing next to the target, Thieve’s Cant a secret language between thieves, and proficiency with one skill from the rogue’s gallery (Insight) and Thieves’ Tools. 

7. Rogue 2: At second level you get a Cunning Action, letting you dash, disengage, or hide as a bonus action. A growing amount of your damage is tied to sneak attacks, so being able to hide is useful if you’re trying to snipe someone all on your lonesome.

8. Rogue 3: Third level rogues pick a specialty, your’s is as an Assassin. This gives you proficiency with the Disguise and Poisoner’s Kits. (Again, there’s no mechanical use for the latter, so maybe you could use it to make antidotes?) You also get the power to Assassinate. You have advantage on attacks against creatures that haven’t acted in combat yet, and if you hit a surprised creature it’s an automatic critical hit. Assassinations are not really your thing, but dealing a ton of damage turn 1 and then being way less useful afterwards absolutely is.

9. Rogue 4: Use your Ability Score Improvement to empower your Dexterity for better bow attacks.

10. Rogue 5: You gain an Uncanny Dodge, letting you react to halve damage from attacks you see coming.

11. Fighter 6: Use your next Ability Score Improvement to grab the Tough feat, adding 2 hp per level and adding an additional 2 hp each time you level up. Your body isn’t weak, your bow arm is just that strong.

12. Fighter 7: As a champion, you become a Remarkable Athlete, letting you add half your proficiency (rounded up) to any physical check you aren’t already proficient in. Also, your long jump distance in increased by your strength modifier. Remember: Initiative is a dexterity check!

13. Fighter 8: Use your next Ability Score Improvement to max out your Dexterity. This means your bow is almost as deadly as it’s ever going to get, for both you and your enemies.

14. Fighter 9: You get one use of Indomitable per long rest, meaning you can reroll a failed saving throw.

15. Fighter 10: You get another fighting style. Grab Defense for one extra AC point.

16. Fighter 11: You now have a third attack attached to each action, thanks to another Extra Attack. I’m not a mathematician, but more arrows = more crits = more dead. It’s just science.

17. Fighter 12: Use your Ability Score Improvement to beef up your Constitution for some sweet, sweet, retroactive HP boost.

18. Fighter 13: Grab a second use of Indomitable per long rest.

19. Fighter 14: Use your last Ability Score Improvement for some more Constitution.

20. Fighter 15: 15th level champions get a Superior Critical, meaning every attack roll crits on a 18, 19, or 20 for a lot of crits and a lot of damage.

Pros: You have very high physical saves, high AC, and a lot of health, so you’ll probably be able to stick around in a fight for quite a while, especially as a ranged fighter. You have a +8 to initiative, so you’ll usually be high on the list, and when you go first you’ll be able to do quite a bit of damage. Unfortunately sneak attacks are only once per turn, but 3-6 crits in the opening round of combat is nothing to sneeze at. Assuming you use sharpshooter and your action surge you’ll be doing an average of over 150 damage in a single round of combat. That feels pretty Stella-ish to me.

Cons: Your soft skills could use some work, especially your int and wisdom. It’s a good thing you have indomitable, because you’re probably going to need that a lot. You also don’t have any innate magical damage, so higher level enemies will give you a lot of trouble, unless your DM gives you a break.

In short: Wreck shop the first turn, then mop up the stragglers in the second. Try to avoid any evil bards and you should be fine.

Advanced Guide - Arena Efficiency

06-07-2017, 01:32 AM

Originally Uploaded by Forum User: Shiki

This is a followup from my other guide - https://forum.a-tm.co.jp/forum/valky...ather-diamonds

I`m considering making efficiency guides that cover all aspects of the game - from quests, to onslaught, to scenario, to connects in the future as well. For now tho, I`ll write this one since arena has always been my favorite aspect of the game. On the two accounts that I play(ed) I made over 6000 arena and grand arena matches, so I doubt there is something I havent figured out that would surprise me. So let`s get started. This guide will cover the following: -Things you might or might not know about arena -Underrated heroes/stats/status effects that are hidden op -Advices on how to build your team depending on your Power score -Personal hero tier list and recommended team setups

Things you might or might not know about arena Everyone knows arena is a place where a player can engage in a combat with another player(or CPU controlling the player`s team). You earn diamonds and mana for beating your best rank in arena, and daily diamond reward depending on the rank you have at your reset. The reset is at 5 am local(player time) so it differs for each player. One thing you need to know is, once you create your account, Ateam will store your original account creation location in their database and if you change the place you reside(e.g. move from Europe to America for example), the local time will remain the one of the country where you created your account. Here are few thing you might or might not know about arena. 1. Gear skills and basic attacks can be dodged, but action skills and limit bursts can`t be dodged - rather common fact about arena. 2. When you activate a gear skill, your action skill gauge briefly stops from filling - credits to @GICN for finding it out 3. As of recent update, element limit bursts (earthen breath,ice gorge,flame bulb, black hole, divine wrath) count as pure damage (neither ATK nor MATK), thus they can bypass barriers and reflects that are designed to block ATK and/or MATK damage(luflit skill,glacial cloak etc.). Those can only be blocked by skills and gear skills that absorb or reflect the said element damage(Glimmering armor, Arte, Aegir connect dark reflect etc.). Because they can bypass reflects, stacking mages with black hole vs luflit for example isnt that bad of an idea. 4. Reflected elemental damage amplifies if the attacker is weak to the said element. I cant confirm 100% if defenders resistances affect the damage, but I can confirm for sure that attacker`s resistances affect the damage reflected. So if youre resistant to the reflected damage(i.e. Odin to light) you will take significantly less damage, while if youre weak to the reflected element damage(i.e. Freya casting grimoire of accusation skill) you will take bonus damage. 5. Very few people know about this one - defender`s team has a hidden advantage because defensive gears have higher chance to activate on the defender side. This is one of the main reasons why turtle teams are so good. Defensive gears such as Winged Helm, Glacial Cloak, Urd Staff have increased activation chance when used by the defender. The same does not apply for the attacker, so that puts the attacker in a slight disadvantage. While Ateam probably won`t confirm this, nor does any website affiliated with VC, thus giving room for speculation that it`s purely RNG, I and the few others that know about this can confirm that it exist, due to countless observation of our arena matches. 6. Round 1 hero turn order - as you know, the pace of hero transition between different turns is based on your speed stat. However, something not many people know is that, to compensate the low speed of certain heroes(primarily tanks), at round 1 ALL TEAMS USE THE SAME HERO ORDER PATTERN. The philosophy behind this is to give slower heroes a chance to cast their skills before they can get statused by others(primarily for tanks). The order is the following: First Cast - nearest hero Second Cast - middle hero Third Cast - Farthest hero Fourth Cast - Fourth hero Fifth Cast - second hero How can you use this in your advantage - I can give two simple examples on how you can use this to turn the battle in your favor: 1)Your middle hero is a mage with mani little helper at gear slot 1, while enemy second hero is high attacker(like Thor) with winged helm at slot 1. Your hero will cast their mani helper first, hitting the enemy attacker while they are in mid-animation of casting their skill, blocking them from finishing casting the skill. This way they wont have regenerate skill up for 4 turns which will help you take them down faster. 2)Your highest MATK mage and enemy highest MATK mage both have Valhalla staff at gear slot 1, but your mage is your middle hero and enemy mage is their fourth hero - your mage will petrify the enemy mage first. If your heroes have same gear, same target, and same hero order, speed stat will determine whos skill will fire off first. Additional Note: Gear skills have their own animation speed with Elysian Dress being the fastest, while Mjolnir being the slowest. Some skills activate so fast it technically bypasses enemy turn - example if your Hel is in the middle and cast Elysian dress, because of the animation speed, it will cast BEFORE THE ENEMY EVEN CASTS THEIR SKILL (e.g. tanks casting regenerate or something else). If said scenario occurs, once the enemy is out of the status effect (shade), they will attempt to cast THEIR ROUND 1 SKILL, NOT THEIR ROUND 2 SKILL. So basically you can only interrupt skills if both your and enemy gear skill actually fire off(the yellow window with the skill name pops up) 7. Multi target skills(Ranco, Canon, Wolfgang) can hit the same target more than once depending on your RNG. A fun fact- they can also target dead heroes if they were alive during the skill wind up(cast animation). 8. Gear order determines which gear skill you will cast each turn. E.g. slot 1 will have its skill being cast at round 1,5,9 and so on, slot 2 will have its skill on round 2,6,10 and so on. Underrated heroes/stats/status effects that are hidden op Starting with heroes, there are 3 heroes that come to my mind, which many people consider rather underperforming, that are actually hidden op if used correctly. 1)Loki Considered by many as an utter garbage because his skill and lb are MATK, while he`s a physical damage dealer and there aren`t any hybrid gears, Loki has 3 things that actually make him a viable hero in PvP: -High dark and light resistance - most people heavily focus on these two types of element damage so his survivability is pretty decent, especially combined with his high EVASION -His gear confuses the target with lowest MDEF. Confuse in general is very strong stat and if applied to the person with Highest ATK(which usually happens since those tend to have the lowest MDEF), its even better. -His action skill is direct counter to Luca as it does light damage and confuses humans. The only downside is that its RNG based and might not hit the right target. 2)Michelle Considered an utter garbage, she has 2 things that actually make her hidden op: -Highest evasion in the game -Her gear gives her and the ally with lowest evasion(95% chance its the tank) curse immunity - extremely powerful vs anti turtle teams that rely on curse. 3)Mani While not as underrated as the above, she`s still considered lackluster because she doesnt have charm/petrify/ w/e reliable status to hit the front. However shes extremely strong at dealing with the backline due to the fact that almost all backliners are weak to dark. Strong against turtle teams. Underrated stats that are actually OP The only stat I`ll note is Evasion - greatly helps with survivability because if high enough, you can dodge almost all gear skills and basic attacks, making your enemies waste their turns for nothing. Status effects that are actually OP -Blind - while it doesnt disable heroes from using gear skills and activation skills, it makes them miss almost every gear skill/basic attack during the duration of the effect. Sometimes this can be better even than disabling effects, especially if an enemy uses a 1 or 2 turn buff skill before they use their next gear skill, as it will both waste their buff and their offensive gear skill, thus making them have to wait another 2-3 turns till they can activate them again -Slow - one of the most underrated but arguably one of the best status effects in the game. It severely reduces the pace of transition between hero turns to a point where other heroes will be able to do atleast 2 turns before the slowed hero can even move to their next turn. This alone is a reason you shouldn`t underestimate heroes like Nautica for PvP. -Silence - while not as underrated as the above, theres one thing about silence that not many people know - not only it disables the hero from using action skills, it disables them from using GEAR SKILLS as well

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. Advices on how to build your team depending on your Power score I`m gonna break the Power score into 3 sub types: -Early game - from 0 to 100 000 Arena team Power score -Mid game - from 100 000 to 160 000 Arena team Power score -End game - from 160 000 onwards Early game Early game most heroes are still 3* and unorbed, also lack decent gears. This mean they lack defensive stats as HP, def, mdef and are fairly easy to kill. This is why at this range, heroes with AoE type of attacks (Thor, Amaterasu, Odin etc.), AoE gears(stillwater greatsword, thiazi cape etc) and the limited bursts Fimbulvetr and Thousand tomb are the your best option. Usually you will get carried by your 5* ticket hero at early stages so my best advice is to focus on them(orbing, leveling gear etc.) and give them a good bunch of AoE gear so they can one shot or almost one shot any non tank unit. Two things you need to know here; -Most people pick Thor as their 5* hero because of his overall usefulness at connects,quests and arena so it is good idea to have either Freya or Gullveig(preferably Freya) in your team to be able to status the enemy thor. -Tanks have high DEF and low MDEF due to the lack of orbs and suitable mdef gear. This is why mages are more viable early than melee. Additionally, since tanks are more fragile early due to lack of orbs/gear, they rarely survive more than 3 or 4 turns before they get killed. This is why Staff of Anguish(onslaught 2* gear that applies fear for 2 turns to nearest enemy) is INSANELY good as it can entirely block the tank from filling their gauge and they will most likely die before it wears off, if you have solid DPS. Mid game In midgame your heroes are already orbed or almost orbed. This is where gear plays the most important role. Here, heroes have abit better defensive stats so you can`t one shot easily anymore thats why in this range, status effect inflicting gear plays major role in winning your matches. Focus on gear with status effects - valhalla gear,mani little helper, vigrid, Elysian dress etc etc. while still keeping some DPS and AoE gear to take the enemy down easier. Late game At this point all the heroes are orbed, you have solid gear, skills and LB barely take half or 1/3 HP of squishy targets so everything is about who has the higher power score, luck and the most suitable heroes to counter the enemy. Personal hero tier list and recommended team setups Some heroes are better at early stages but wear off at end game(Thor). Others are weaker at early stages but scale better at end game(Thrud). And third type of heroes are very good all arounders (Odin). Additionally, some heroes have a lackluster skill but extremely powerful gear(Hel). Others are very strong as heroes but their gear is lackluster (Luca). And ofcourse some are both powerful and have strong gear (Odin). This list is solely based on their PvP capabilities and not their connect,quest or other content capabilities. Heres my list of top PvP heroes: SS tier: Luca - while I hate her to the bone and promised that I`ll never use her, shes undoubtfully the best tank in the game and nothing really stands above her. She`s also a human and female so she can wear both purity ring and hardstone, making her resistant to charm and petrify. Urd - the best healer and arguably the best all around hero in the game by far. Odin - his combination of buffing and debuffing along with his strong dark and light resistances and AoE damage make him very formidable mage, especially effective on setups that run 3 mages due to his mdef debuff. Freya - the most reliable status effect inflicting mage. Is tanky, has the best magic limit burst, high MATK. Nothing much to say Ranco - the best all around archer in the game. Her skill does neutral damage so you dont have to worry about resistances. Also applies strong status effects and her gear applies a strong debuff that is useful for connects and boss stages(cough 6-6 Forgotten memories hell mode jormungand). S tier: Thrud - tanky, targets the enemy mages. Nowadays many mages lack water resistance(Odin, Amaterasu, Rin) so shes the most reliable damage dealer from the melee heroes. Thor - while he wears off at late stages, his AoE skill with the paralyze effect can still be solid. Especially if you run abit off meta and use him as a tank - he will be able to cast his skill faster thus blocking enemy humans(beasts and elves) earlier at the battle. Young Ymir and Genesis Ymir - both of them have the same strengths and weaknesses - while they deal high damage and bypass barriers, they dont bring anything else on the table like Odin does(buffs/debuffs) to be considered as good as him. Amaterasu - Highest MATK mage in the game, AoE skill, applies defense debuff and burn. I put her as S tier because her gear is rather lackluster compared to Odin and there are plenty of heroes resistant to fire. Matisse - the MATK ranco. The reason she isnt SS tier is because she hits less amount of targets and doesnt have her own gear. Additionally, shes more of a defensive support type of ranger while Ranco can be both defensive and offensive type. Momiji - shes the hero you can rely the most on taking care of the enemy backliners, her gear is exceptionally good. Hel - main reason she is ranked high is (surprise) her gear. It can however be a double edged sword since it can both help you win or help enemy win by time out. Sif and Zato - situational heroes but they have their use especially Sif since she does light damage and heroes like Skadi and Luca are weak to light. Skadi and Niji - they are very flexible as they can be used both for offense and defense. The main problem about them is due to their flexibility, their skill design is made to be viable for both tank and DPS setup but because of that it is lacking compared to real tank and real dps skills - niji barrier lasts only one turn, skadi can status effect only aesir etc etc. Marmalade - extremely useful turtle team hero thanks to her MATK reduction. Luflit - powerful anti mage hero, sadly she is only viable vs heavy MATK setups thus making her useless against melee Hrungir - the opposite of Luflit, extremely powerful vs melee as his skill paralyzes almost all melee heroes(including non airborne dwarfs like niji). However he is easy to status effect (charm) and only hits the front row so 1-3-1 teams for example counter him hard Best end game setups for every role I can divide the roles into 3: Conventional - all around tanky heroes with good offense Full offense - very strong at offense but also easy to kill Turtle - very tanky, low damage, their goal is to stall the game until you time out Here are my personal best setups for end game: Conventional - Luca, Thrud/Saber, Odin, Freya, Hel Focused primarily towards MATK. With gungnir and good bunch of AoE and status gears it can be deadly. Turtle - Luca, Skadi/Hrungir, Witch Idun, Urd, Matisse For me atleast this is by far the best turtle setup in the game. It has everything - buffs, barriers, status effects etc. If youre gonna build a turtle team I strongly suggest you avoid offensive gears and focus on defensive ones(glacial cloaks,druid cloaks, urd staff etc.). Only exceptions you can make are spine crusher, valhalla staff and gun, and curious mask. Offense team This is all depending on what kind of enemy you face. Not recommended against conventional teams Best if you use one melee, 3 or 2 mages and 1 or 2 rangers. Best melee to use include Mia, Ayame (still unreleased) and Thor Mages - Freya, Odin, Amaterasu, Ymir, Hel Rangers - Ranco, Matisse, Momiji, Canon That concludes this guide, I hope people find it useful. Happy PvPing

Gears 5 Video Game Review

3 STARS OUT OF FIVE

Ah Gears of War, the franchise that popularized the cover-based mechanic built to regenerate health and shoot locusts from cover to cover. It’s what generated the basis of fun with its horde mode and online competitive matches and of course, the chainsaw lancer which never cease to be satisfying everytime that goes off. Those 360 games were just a blast to play from the never-ending shooting gallery of locusts to the witty and awesome banter between Marcus Fenix and his COG friends, sure there are some douchey moments, no thanks to Dom but everyone just feels like space NFL quarterbacks with their hunky space armor and chainsaw lancers - its just awesome.

However, afterwards the GoW 360 trilogy ended and games like Judgment and Gears 4 appear, it really lost its charm and appeal, its just the same old Gears game streamlining the cover-based mechanics and just basically another shooting gallery of disappointment to say it at least. I mean, having Marcus back as this “old retired” COG alongside a squad of new kids just has been done before and sadly Epic and eventually The Coalition really didn’t entice new fans but still feed into their old Gears fanbase. Now with Gears 5, it just feels like another disappointment and I feel like they really did not improve much since Gears 3 although there is a new Escape and Horde mode which seems more playable like before the 360 games.

The game picks up right after Gears 4, you start as JD, Marcus’ son as he, Del, Marcus and Kait from the previous Gears, want to launch a rocket into outer space and activate the Hammer of Dawn so the COG can be able to combat the Swarm. It is very much a controversial and risky move as it can also affect tremendous human casualties. The game starts as JD but you mostly play as Kait Diaz as she constantly gets headaches and hallucinations from her mother’s amulet and heirloom which somehow is connected to the Swarm. She and her squad goes and ventures through a perilous journey to find the root of her problem and stop it. Much like the Gears game, there will be sacrifices and climatic movie style moments,

The gameplay didn’t really change since GoW 3, it’s the same “stop and pop” action and some new additions. Again, it’s just another Gears’ shooting gallery of never ending Swarm enemies until you have reached the next checkpoint and then rinse and repeat. It’s really the same old conventions and they seemed to downplay it to death. There seems to be only a few new weapons and as well as old and new enemies with painted weaknesses that you hit before killing them. However, it is nice to have corrupted Baird’s DeeBees in the mix of Swarms, it seems to be a nice combination of facing bastions shielding Scions and huge creatures as a new way of creating intense action rather than just jump from cover to cover. It is just a nice touch to the gameplay. 

The AI of your teammates however aren’t as smart as the developing Swarm despite having a new ability to target them, it seems countless of times, the AI will just run to the enemy without taking them down and in harder difficulties such as Experienced (Hard), it seems to be a hindrance of trying to revive them one by one as they stupidly get picked off by Swarm while you are trying to survive Wardens and Swarm drop-shotters that will blow up you instantly. Although, the first Act seems nice, when you are fighting in the settlement that you received a distress call of a Swarm invasion, you can summon Baird’s robotic reinforcements and you have the choice of picking Guardians or Sentinels which is fun, albeit only for the first Act and afterwards you mostly are facing the corrupted versions and they really don’t tell you why they are corrupted, although there are just malfunctioned. Again, it just feels like the AI, the part of the gameplay seems really outdated with the typical fixed gun sequences that seems to be aggravating due to annoying cooldowns from those sequences. Granted, it makes those moments hard with no moment to breathe but there are a lot of them and it is not due to its spiked difficulty that I’m playing. And of course, enemies like Brumak and others still the typical video game painted coloured sections where you shoot to take them down. 

One main component of the campaign is Del’s, well your trusty robotic friend, Jack as a companion in this game. Introduced by Baird, this new robot is an upgrade from Dave’s short yet untimely demise and still has the cute Wall-E charm to it. These flying robots have been in previous Gears’ games but they are part of the COG army and not playable at all. This new companion has a set of abilities whether passive, combative or defensive that will greatly benefit you against the Swarm. Ranging from Shock, Stim, Pulse and passive abilities that can camouflage, instantly revive and so on, it’s pretty much an arsenal of useful perks in your disposal. These abilities aren’t restricted to a RPG-like tier trees but will require an amount of components to unlock them which can be found during both the main and side missions in chapters. In addition to the three unlockable abilities, there is a fourth and final skill that unlocks only through main and side quests that is the ultimate perk of that specific ability (i.e Shock final unlock can freeze enemies for a period of time and such). During gameplay, you can toggle these two sets of abilities, combative and defensive which when used has a cooldown timer after you have used either of them. It really is a life saver to have these abilities, especially stim which can buff up your health and can be upgraded as an instant revive while you are down. Other useful things such as retrieving weapons/ammo from hard to reach areas or in an intense dogfight or laying shock traps/mines can really save you from those large, intimating Swarm creatures from decapitating you

Another new addition to the game is revealed in Act 2 as open world and unfortunately there is a lack of one or rather bland and boring one. They chatted a big deal of a Gears game being open world but it resulted in a couple of side quests and activities that only rewards more components, big weapons and main components for abilities/parts of them in some cases for Jack and nothing more. These quests are only there for them, nothing more, whether or not you choose to pursue them is up to you. At first, it does feel like a stripped up version of the recent God of War’s open world as these main and side missions can be identified with yellow flags by them indicating there’s something to be done as well as the banter between the squad “to go check it out.” Like God of War, you have a method of transport to reach these areas, a skiff which looks like some sort of ski sledge with a parachute in front that accelerates how fast you ride from the wind. The skiff can seat four with you controlling and driving the skiff and mostly Del who sits and navigates, although you do all of the work. The navigational seat be used in Co-op where players can only mark the map (which you yourself can do while driving). Also, you can stow two weapons (heavy weapons like RL-Salvo Rocket Launcher to the Tri-Shot Gatling Gun) on each side of the skiff that can be used in these missions, it’s like a small storage space for your guns but only can be retrieved after you dismount from the skiff. The map itself seems to be an illusion of being an open world game, but it just feels linear, in Act 2, when you reach those communications' towers in part of the main mission, you can scan for these side missions in some sort of frequency mini-game that only appears in this whole Act, sadly not afterwards. It is also attributed that the skiff can take damage and in later cases, explode and kill everyone as there are sandstorms and obsoletes you’ll need to dodge and maneuver and it feels intense much like in combat with the Swarm.   

From a graphical standpoint, the game still delivers. Forgoing the brown and gruel colours of the Gears’ trilogy on the 360, it feels very vibrant and impressive much like the previous game. Each Act really delivers distinct areas to explore in this “open-world” game and it really looks pretty as you ride your skiff throughout the snowy terrain of Act 2 to feeling like Doom or Total Recall in Act 4 with its red sandy desert. It’s too bad that they didn’t make it more open-world to fully realized its graphical potential as it is resulted in a lack of activities to do. Nevertheless, each locale looks great even though it has been done in other better games. It’s also nice that they put nice touches to the characters during these Acts whether having Kait, Del and others wear winter jackets to Act 3 where they wear goggles and less clothing for the hot red sandy desert. The dynamic lightning only looks nice in main missions as the sudden change of effects change when you enter them and it feels weird with a short cut scene to substitute a loading screen in the mix. It does not hinder the visuals at all, the game looks pretty as it is and characters and enemies’ design with the Kait and his team as well as the opposing Swarm just looks menacing as hell. 

Unfortunately for the powerhouse of a game, it falls short on its technical problems. There are always problems with Early Access games, sure and the developers are fixing the bugs/glitches and problems with aspects like the online multiplayer matches whether its Horde, Escape or versus mode but it really is aggravating that I still experience these problems two days after the release. Things like the game freezing at spots reverting back to a save checkpoint, some bad audio clicks and the worst of all, seeing the “fail to load save” pop-up and doing the whole chapter again. The “always online” component of the game is a nice trend to prevent illegal privacy but sometimes people like me have a spotty internet connection and I sometimes get disconnected at parts of the game where I finished a brutal firefight and have to do it all over again which is annoying. 

Speaking of online, I didn’t really play it, after ten hours of finishing the campaign, I'm really not inclined to pursue Horde or Escape mode as I have a spotty internet connection. As part of a pre-order, you get Sarah Connor and a T-800 Terminator to play online alongside a roster of characters from the main campaign and surprisingly, Spartans from Halo Reach. You can customize them, their banner and taunts for the online aspect and thankfully, I will never touch them. Everyday, when you log in, you can also receive a daily cache of points and other perks, maybe cosmetic items for your character. However, Horde and Versus mode feels like they finally brought back the fun part of those 360 games and implement it with better features as what was said from them. Escape mode is basically an intense firefight where you and other players have to kill waves of enemies in some sort of Swarm hive mind while green gas is approaching behind you in a race to the finish. It seems like a challenging effort but requires a set of friends to really make it in this mode. Also, you and two other players can play the main campaign as Co-op where one of the players can even control Jack and his abilities, making it gameplay interesting. 

Other than that, Gears 5 is really a disappointment. The same, derivative combat that has made popular with its cover-based, has done better in other games since then. The game also promises open world which doesn’t have up its expectations with a bland and boring yet beautiful landscape to ride in and from a few side missions. It’s just sad that the Coalition didn’t really implement new features and only maintain it for Gears’ fans and not new players, well only Jack as a Co-op option but again it still suffers from the old “stop and pop” action even in harder difficulties, it just feels last-gen to me with the AI as well. Should it be recommended, only to Gears fan who are really interested in its online multiplayer and the ten hours of the main campaign just feels repetitive and boring to say it at least. 

Getting to Know Your OC

I was tagged by @lookbluesoup to give a bit of an infographic of sorts on my OC, so here I am! I tag @whathisbunnysthinking, @marvilus73, @xxatombombbabyxx​, and @tea-petty to write a little bit about their OCs, as well as anyone else who reads this!

(DISCLAIMER: I’m one of those people who bases their OC HEAVILY on themselves... so somethings are true, others, not so much!)  So, without further ado, here we go!

Name: Erich Richardson

Age: 25 at the time of the Great War

Species: Human, of German, Irish, and Scandinavian descent

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Title(s): Captain in the Army Pre-War, General of the Commonwealth Minutemen, Agent “Fixer”, Sentinel of the Brotherhood of Steel, father

Physical Description

Height: 5′ 10.5″ // 1.52 m

Eyes: Amber brown. Appears more gold in the sunlight

Skin: Olive skin tone. Like, he doesn’t burn very easily and stays fairly tan year-round.

Weight: 165 lbs // 72.6 kg

Physical Build: Well-built. More on that later

Family

Father - Bruce Richardson. Military man, retired Air Force pilot

Mother - Hannah Sullivan. Educator, retired professor of Mathematics (Utah Institute of Technology and Agriculture [UITA])

Siblings (All Younger)

Rebekah Richardson. Twin sister, younger by 7 minutes. Mechanical engineer assigned to Project: Liberty Prime. Killed in the Great War

Hunter Richardson. MIA, presumed POW/KIA during Chinese Invasion of Anchorage

Andrew Richardson. Senior at Lake Tahoe Technical High School. Status unknown

Other family: Honest confession, the Richardson family is Mormon. The extended family is incredibly huge haha

Pets: One incredibly loyal mutt named Howard

S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (post Nuclear Option) *I totally forget what his starting stats were...*

S - 6

P - 8

E - 7

C  - 8

I - 9

A - 8

L - 7

This stats net him a respectable 7.51 on the (ahem) canon scoring scale.

Skills

Endurance: While his endurance stat might suggest otherwise, Erich can go the distance. He was a cross-country athlete, allowing him to cover great distances rapidly.

Decent singer, and can play an instrument or two

Pretty handy. Can create/build anything, provided he has a set of plans and the resources to. This comes from his degree in engineering from UTIA. 

Decent shot. He’s no Hawkeye, but he can shoot well enough to take the head off of any raider within a half-mile radius

Training in the Scouting program and military make him a fair jack-of-all-trades kinda guy

Hobbies

Running: as a former athlete, running is a way Erich uses to keep himself ready for anything the Commonwealth has to throw at him, as well as being able to help sort out the issues that come with living in the post apocalypse. One of his crazy dreams is to be able to run the old Boston Marathon course without being attacked by ghouls, mutants, etc.

Swapping stories with Nick Valentine and reminiscing about pre-War establishments. Baseball is one of the more popular topics

Helping Piper around their house on Spectacle Island. While it is a bit removed from everything, they both agreed it was the safest place aside from the Prydwen, the Castle, or Sanctuary to raise their son.

Spending time with Shaun. While it’s not exactly how he pictured getting to raise his son, Erich loves the opportunity. Tinkering, playing catch, and cooking dinner are some of their favorite hobbies

Singing with the songs on DCR (to the eternal embarrassment of Piper and Shaun)

Tinkering with his armor or weapons, always trying to find the best way to make them more efficient

Traits, both + and -

(+) Loyal to a fault. Once friendship and trust had been earned, Erich will go out of his way to make sure that nothing bad happens to his friends. It pains him to have to destroy some of his friends in order to help secure the Commonwealth

(-) Overly ambitious. He’s way to willing to rush headfirst into a problem, even if that isn’t the best idea for the situation at hand

(-) Struggles with self-worth. A lot of how he identified himself was stripped away the day he went on ice, and he now has to try and find out who he is again in the Commonwealth

(+) Willing to help anyone. He will drop whatever he is doing if someone comes to him with a problem

(+)(-) He tends to be a really good listener, and will shoulder any issues his friends have, even if it is at the expense of his own mental health.

Favorite kit

Weapons

Anti-materiel rifle

Deadeye combat rifle

Penetrating combat shotgun

Righteous Authority

Steadfast Western revolver

2076 World Series baseball bat

frag grenades

Armor/Clothing

Auto Stim Studded Leather Left Leg

Chameleon Polymer Combat Armor Chest Piece

Commando Helmet/Militia Hat

Fortifying Microcarbon Synth Right Arm

Military Backpack - Medic w/ Sleeping Bag

Patrolman Sunglasses

Sprinter’s Studded Leather Right Leg

Vault 111 Jumpsuit

Wedding ring

X-02 Power armor

Well, I think that’s the big stuff. By all means, don’t be afraid to ask more! I love sharing about my Sole!