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Everyone believed so strongly that they had the numbers but how could they know? They didn't know anything about this place for all they knew the next room they stepped into could have dozens of wild Pokemon waiting to....did Pokemon eat each other? Even so Shawn decided to follow along. Though he made sure to keep his distance from the front of the pack. For one because the Falinks was insufferably insistent on being the leader and he didn't want to get into it with him but mostly because he still didn't know what to do when they ran into some enemies. Enemies who probably would actually know how to use their moves. "You're currently being attacked. If you're not used to fighting, or you're not sure what to do, try to think about what kind of Pokémon you are and what moves you might possess. Also, pick up any items you find. You never know what could be useful! Oran berries, for example, heal you when your health is low." The totally not suspicious voice decided to give them some advice and also a warning. If they really wanted to help why wouldn't they just tell them exactly what was ahead anyway? Stupid voice could talk in their minds but not anything else was that it? And what moves would he know? He didn't really know much about movesets. As far as the games went he was more focused with how things looked than what they actually did. He probably could punch things? Maybe grab onto things with these tentacles? Whatever, he would just stay out of the fights unless he had to join in until he figured all this out. This thought led him to be really, really, annoyed that a couple of them already figured out how to use some moves. Gust and...Leafage? How did they even find out they could do that does it just...come out of them? "That's real goddamn weird you know!" Looking around in the room it seemed that the whole "outnumber" thing might actually be true. There was only three others in this room that had come at them. A couple Staryu and... "Okay I'm not going to beat up a baby." A Cleffa, really? The others hadn't attacked it but surely they would once the others were down right? With a sigh Shawn moved his way past the others and stood by the little Fairy-type. "The hell you think you're doing? A little thing like you wants to try and fight all of us? Don't be stupid get outta here." The Cleffa let out an angry noise and marched its way towards Shawn. It's little fists were raised as though it was about to attack him despite looking somewhat afraid as well. Regardless the stupid thing wasn't going to reply it seemed. "Jesus! Damn baby blob is trying to fight me now." He should've just stayed in the back. As the Cleffa got near Shawn reached out and grabbed it on each side. He then proceeded to lift the Cleffa up as it flailed uselessly, unable to reach Shawn due to their size difference. Unfortunately all that wiggling, and Shawn not being used to holding things with these mitts, caused him to drop the baby. It landed on the ground and seemed to be in a daze but otherwise unharmed. "Just get outta here already before I really bop you one, dammit!"

the first time i did the Aglaia alliance raid in ff14, i did something against Nald'Thal - the last boss of the raid - and caused the entire 24-man raid to wipe about 2/3s-3/4s into the fight, Nald'Thal will charge a special attack, indicated by him asking "Can you maintain the balance?" While charging this attack, every player has a weight assigned to them, like this. While he's charging the attack, the players need to line themselves up to where the scales are balanced, before he unleashes the attack via a mid-battle cutscene. If the scales are balanced, it's a normal raidwide that punches all 24 players in the dick. If they're not balanced, however, everybody dies, and the mid-fight cutscene is long enough that there are no tank invulns or mitigations that you can use to sneak past it. The first time I fought Nald'Thal, I switched sides at the very last instant for reasons I can't recall, throwing off the balance and causing everybody to die. It wasn't something I did out of malice, but is regardless the single most chaotic evil thing I've ever done, and it's a very fond memory. 10/10, would wipe the raid again.

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Weeks Two and Three: Welcome to the Show I wouldn’t normally talk about The Butcher’s Circus this early. It’s clearly meant for people already familiar with Darkest Dungeon’s mechanics. But an event fires on Week Two that heals an extra 10 Stress if you play a round and I need as many edges as I can get, so here we are. I actually did a couple fights with a couple different teams just to confirm my feelings. I’m not going to go into the details of each fight, but here’s the gist of Darkest Dungeon’s PvP mode: Okay for starters, the mode is kinda hit or miss. I mean, it’s free and doesn’t detract from the rest of the experience, so, like, there’s no reason not to try it out for yourself, but the matchmaking isn’t great, the connections are likely buoyed by the game being turn-based and even then are prone to failure, and, well, the game just wasn’t balanced or even built for a competitive head-to-head environment. Changes have been made, still, in an attempt to try. The biggest one is that the “things that hit multiple targets do less damage” design choice has been pared back, so they’re much more viable now. Multi-target attacks are also the ones that tend to do stress damage to help that strategy become more viable as well -- not to mention a tuning of the afflictions. It’s also harder to kill enemy heroes, with the Death’s Door system (that I’ll explain in more detail later) applying to your opponent just as much as it does to you. It’s still a game of dice rolls, and sometimes your opponent is just going to win more dice rolls than you, but Darkest Dungeon in general is about weighing that risk versus the reward anyway, so it’s not all bad. That being said, some heroes are downright unusable. Here’s a tier list for you: S) Arbalest, Crusader, Houndmaster A) Man-at-Arms, Bounty Hunter, Abomination, Jester B) Flagellant, Vestal, Occultist, Antiquarian C) Shieldbreaker, Leper, Highwayman, Grave Robber D) Hellion, Plague Doctor Musketeer wasn’t on the tier list maker I found, but she’s actually different from the Arbalest in this mode, and I’d put her in C-tier because of that. Every single difference leaves the Arbalest in an advantageous position. The big pro-tip for your Butcher’s Circus experience is to be as disruptive as possible. If the opponent has to spend time fixing the problems you’ve created, that’s time they’re not enacting their game plan. That’s one way a hero can be high-tier: their disruptive potential, or ability to not be disrupted. The other is versatility, or “How many potential teams can this hero be a part of?” The Arbalest and Crusader both can act as pretty tanky healers while also serving to disrupt or straight kill the opponents, so that’s why they get the top slots, and the Houndmaster rounds out the S-tier by never getting caught out of position and doing whatever else you need in the meantime. I’m not going to go down the entire list because we’d be here all day. Instead, here are the teams I tend to work with: Stressed Out: What it says on the tin. Man-At-Arms’ Bellow inflicts stress and debuffs damage to keep the team alive while the Occultist pulls the enemy backline into Zealous Persecution and Grapeshot Blast range. Marked For Death: As much disruption as possible in one team. Pulls, pushes, stuns, marks… this team snowballs and snowballs hard. Jester could also be effective here since Dirk Stab is good at getting past Death’s Door checks and Finale just straight-up ignores them, but this is the combination I like the most. Caped Crusaders: All aboard the Leper train on this one. Battle Ballad buffs Accuracy, and the Leper’s Chop will mow everything down. Arbalest is to keep the stuns off and Crusader is to stun and keep everyone alive. Bleeding Me Dry: Exactly what it says on the tin. Three bleeders and a Vestal who can stun and keep everyone alive. Get Out of Dodge: The “cheese” comp. If your opponent doesn’t have a Jester, Man-at-Arms, or Musketeer (and those last two are going to require some upkeep), your opponent isn’t going to even be able to hit you. Eventually, your Graverobber’s poison darts will blight and/or stress everyone out. Have fun with those. Me, I’ve got some more Ruins to explore. I mean, first, we need to keep Hakima and Elmer Fudd busy somehow, so I’ve decided to have them pray away their sins. While I’m loathe to have a repeat adventurer so early into the run (we’ll get into why next week), Skaia doesn’t have any stress at all and one extra run isn’t going to ruin my plans. It does mean I had to agonize about who to put where, but I came up with a plan. You’ll notice the Caretaker hanging out in the Transept there. That’s just what he normally does when he’s not selling supplies, hanging out in the various stress-relief facilities, gumming up the operation just a little extra bit. There are a few new things on this page, so let me break it down real quick. The most noticeable is the firewood now joining the lineup. I chose a Medium dungeon this early in the game mostly because the heirloom reward was a couple of portraits. Portraits are probably the rarest of the four main heirlooms, and not only are they what most facilitates upgrading the adventurers' moves and gear, I would also like as close to 50 of them as I can by Week 10 for a surprise tool that will help us later. Medium dungeons are dangerous because, well, they’re longer than Short dungeons. There are also Long dungeons, and two other lengths that are spoilers to get into so I won’t right now. The longer the dungeon, the more opportunities for mistakes and bad luck there are. There is some respite, though. The firewood allows the adventurers to camp in any empty room, which can either provide buffs or help relieve stress as needed. Long dungeons give two such logs, for however much that helps. I should also talk about my selected party a bit. I already mentioned Skaia’s role in things, just keeping him busy for a bit, but Sethera is probably the odd one out here, given that the Jester, as mentioned, is a bleeder class and the skeletons in the ruins are very resistant to bleed. We’re not using Seth to bleed the skeletons, though. We’re going to make sure Yui can hit things. Alhazred can heal and help Skaia pull things into Yui’s blade as well, though, as we’ve discussed, taking an Occultist as the only healer is a little risky. Then again, Yui can heal himself, so maybe there’s less to worry about. In retrospect, I probably should have packed more bandages. There's another tip for you all: Always pack more bandages. Probably good life advice in general, really. The biggest help in Week Three is the Guild and Blacksmith buildings opening up. These are how we’re going to train you to be better units and get you better gear respectively. They’re costly endeavors, but they’re also one-time investments. Once a certain hero knows a move or has a better sword, they have it for as long as they’re alive. We can save a little money right now, then, by taking Doggo and Euryale on our next mission. As two of our three transforming classes, none of them need to learn new moves, simply upgrade them when the time comes. Boudica only really needs to learn If It Bleeds, and Ren just needs to learn Guillotine. So that’s the party I decided to take into the next dungeon. We’re moving a little bit. This time, we’re going into the Weald. I chose a short Weald mission because of the trinket offered as a reward: a Speed Stone. Trinkets are little charms you can add to the adventurers to give them little buffs. There are some drawbacks to many of them -- taking increased stress damage is a common one, for example -- but a Speed Stone just offers a generic +1 speed, so it’s worth fighting to get. That’s all for this week. I'm still reeling from that Collector encounter, but there’s no reason to panic. We’ve even, believe it or not, got a few more recruits coming in that should hopefully help us out. Plus, now that it’s Week 4, the Sanitarium is now open, and I can start making good on those threats promises to fix you into shape. Oh, and Thar, we’ll get you a turn in the dungeon too. ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

"Thank, you, name's Raki by the way. And don't worry, I do not plan to end up in any belly." he tried to recall if the tale of the girl had said something about giant foxes, but to be honest, while he didn't recall any such thing, he couldn't bring himself to deny the possibility either. Though, if the girl meant that as a threat, it wasn't exactly... well, threatening. Everybody knew that giant foxes were nothing more than a fairy tale, after all. Heck, even the armored knight, the girl's knight he assumed? Appeared to be embarrassed enough to turn his face away from him. "Ah'll return Icleias tae Amas, An' see if'n I can gather a'body else. Ye take care o' yersel, ye hear? Ye and Gonnafazeya both!" "Will do. Be sure to tell him about their heroic efforts" Raki smiled "I would've arrived much later hadn't it been for them." He waved at the boy, but he was already guiding the dogs away. 'And my introduction with this group would've been even more tense... heck, I probably wouldn't even be here hadn't it been for you guys.' He shook his head and turned back towards the group. Mene was talking about warning the mayor, fine enough, he had already decided that it was pointless to hide further, though a part of him still pointlessly hoped that, if he just never approached anyone directly, the town would somehow forget about him. Meanwhile the other were discussing how to proceed, until the girl with the pelt spoke, something about a missing person. Raki realized that he had never heard her speak before, or maybe she had and he just hadn't heard her. Her voice was incredibly quiet, to the point that he instinctively turned his hear towards her. Immediately after, he was taken aback as the thin voice turned into a shout. A moment later, she was darting away, cloak billowing and tail whipping in trail. Wait "That girl..." That... wasn't a pelt? A worryingly familiar sound from behind him. Raki turned. That, on the other hand, was, indeed, a wyvern. To be exact, the pink wyvern had woken up, and had taken interest in him not unlike Garinphasia had before. Except this time, the wyvern wasn't very interested in a staring contest. The beast flicked her tongue, and realization came crushing down on him as he slowly walked backwards, trying to make himself as unthreatening as possible without turning his back. The smell. The wyvern smelled Garinphasia on him. He would've gladly kicked himself then and there, had the action not been so detrimental in his situation. The worst part, he should really have known. At the stables they had a section for the new arrivals, separate from the main building and with isolated cells, to acclimate the wyverns, without driving them crazy by being locked in place with the smell of dozens of others all around. All well and good until someone had to approach them, soaked in the aroma of their work. Raki knew, many a time that had been his work. "I don't suppose any of you is the partner?" The pink-scaled wyrm seemed content with looming on him for now, but it wasn't of much reassurance. He foolishly thought to be at a safe distance since the wyvern was asleep and the others with him appeared to not worry, and now he would've tested if his practical abilities to work with wyverns were as rusted as his memories. Then, a savior came. Well, the partner of the wyvern, but for Raki it was basically the same. "Don't worry, I should have seen it coming, I was careless." The Isaurian girl kept making sure that his head remained on his shoulders for the rest of the conversation, effort that Raki tried to help by keeping himself as far from the two as possible, background growls notwithstanding. Distance he maintained as the group took to the streets, determined to not be as careless a second time, not until he was reunited with Garinphasia. And... to be honest, a part of him was quite nervous about confronting the Isaurian rider as well. If nothing else, the event helped him not to worry over the looks some of the villagers were giving him. There was something he had meant to ask, he believed, before the whole wyvern thing. If only he could recall... "Right. Looks like trouble never comes in moderation." He lifted up his gaze. In front of the... house, for lack of a better word, stood a girl on a horse. Another of the group. The guy leading them lost little time in presentation, going straight to invite himself into the house. "Ciela, right? I'm Raki." He turned towards her as the group passed by. "Oh would you look at that, we've been invited right in how considerate. But no one to greet us, what kind of a noble is this man, I swear." "Pleased to meet you."