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According to the Entropy description: Tears at the target's defenses, shifting attack results against the target from Hits to Critical Hits. After receiving a certain number of strikes, this effect will fade. A certain number of strikes intimely stand for 3 strikes, wich includes criticals hits from rolls and others conversions bonus. For a Tiers 8 spell, this is disappointing. But in reality, it is not totally true ! I said approximately the same comment about the Call to Slumber asleep effect, and I think it is appropriate : Indeed, like for Call to Slumber and Charm, the entropy effect fade only on Damage hits. Not with debuffs, or pure DoTs spells (since they are Status effects that deal damages and besides, graze or crit only affect the duration of the status). Upon you give 3 crits from damages rolls, every debuff or DoTs spells that hits are shifted to crits, and contrarily to Asleep or Charm, without time limit. On top, the spell can be casted out of fight, for starting it and directely criticaly disabling the target in despit of their opening defenses maybe. The spell is not Foe only, that mean you can cast it on a charmed ennemy or a neutral PNJ without being confused. This spell is against fortitude. Then, in addtion to every Debuffing spells, I made a non-exhaustive list of DoTs spells to completely turn off the ennemy with the satisfaction of a full-crit combat log. Cipher Soul Ignition Recall Agony Disintegrate Death of 1.000 Cuts Druid Insect Swarm (scroll) Infestation of Maggots Plague of Insects (scroll) Chanter Winds of Death The Dragon Trashed ...and Evil Turned Away from the Sun Wizard Concelhault's Corrosive Siphon Combusting Wounds Concelhault's Corrosive Skin Priest Shining Beacon (scroll) Cleansing Flame (scroll) Blessed Harvest (damages are not affected by crit or graze ; however that dont break the Entropy) Martials Brand Enemy (Paladin) (auto-hit) Garrote ( Paladin) Pernicious Cloud (Rogue) Blood and Storm Frenzy (Barbarian) (work on casting this list of spell including scrolls, also on debuffing spells) * Most of abilities with weapon that deal not damage, if the ennemy is immune of the weapon damage type ---> Soul annihilation itself doesnt count as damage, is a status effect that deal damage, dont break the Entropy. Miscellaneous Death in life (Blackened Plate Armor) (auto-hit) Blood Frenzy (Crimson Panoplie) Garrote (Woedica's Strangling Grasp) From weapons, Carnage and Gore (Amra) doesnt break the Entropy *every of these spell gain a +100% damage from Takedown combo. Same with the Community Patch's Cleansing Flame. This list is also working on Asleep and Charmed target without removing these effects. Too bad a debonaire cant double-crit. DoT from Attack (Autumns decay etc...) doesnt count as an attack when applied before Entropy. * DoT from Blood Frenzy are like usuals status effects, they dont stack from the same source, the effect is ajusted for the duration. But the new Blood Frenzy DoT is applied directely when it proc (crit), that's mean if you cast a debuff spell every 1 s and crit each time (entropy), the tick is applied every 1s. It is easy with some non-damaging pulses-spells lightly delayed. Finally, Entropy seems to be one of the bests high PL spells, especially against lonely ennemy like some bosses. In the post about Asleep, I spoke to the Soft Wind chant that break the asleep effect ; but that did not, the damage roll was from my MC chanter monk' Rooting Pain.

Yep, if you've got channelers it's never going to be an out and out medieval equivalent. In some ways the books are also quasimodern- doesn't seem to be much if any illiteracy for example, when maybe 5% of a renaissance society would be literate. But, in most ways and for most people there was very little difference between medieval and renaissance anyway- more or less subsistence agriculture, horse power, horse or water transport, very low education etc. I guess, technically, it's most accurately described as a post apocalyptic society and if you want to get really technical, post apoc twice over. Yeah, it misses the feel except at very occasional points. It also doesn't feel consistent in what it does do- as simple as each person from the same small isolated village having a different accent. I'm sure half the complaints about it looking like cosplay is because of the lack of consistency in anything else, so far as I can tell the costuming is objectively fine. There's no sense of scale. Things are rushed, other things have too much time spent on them. And there's just enough good stuff there (put an example into the spoilers) to make me more disappointed with the stuff that doesn't work.

Finished the FF XIV Endwalker Main Story Quest. As far as MMORPGs go FF XIV easily has some of the best story and world building. The combination of setting things up many expansion in advance as well as how they manage to just make things that were more than likely not planned entirely deliberate is pretty awesome. As an example they reused the "Answers" song (this one, used when the Calamity struck on FF XIV 1.0 to reboot the game into 2.0, aka A Realm Reborn) three times over the course of the last decade, and three times expanded upon its meaning. It's pretty hard to believe that was the intent when they rebooted the game, but they sure manage to make it look extremely intentional. Pacing was bit off this expansion, some things that should have gotten more attention, didn't, others dragged on way too long. But the 5th map and associated trial (the second one) absolutely delivered and were definitely the high point for me, though the ending was satisfying as well. Aside from that, just getting into the game is a chore on a technical level. Square Enix, despite which FF XIV became a good MMO, has refused to invest in servers for a long time (the European data center was already close to capacity before the WoW exodus, or the silicon shortage, basically during a "low" player activity period there were still queues), so now that we have both (alongside New World refugees), along with a new, highly anticipated, expansion release servers are just way over capacity with multi-hour long queues just to get in. They even stopped selling the game, or allowing trial accounts in. So yeah it's bad... The good part is that the game is actually stable and once you get in you can actually play without really having to worry about crashing out.

This guy has more cheese than the number of days in a year.

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I am, admittedly, anti-timer in games, but I really liked the "timers" in Wizardry 7. For those unfamiliar, the game revolved around finding pieces of a map that were scattered across a planet, and if you didn't make it to the various map pieces in time, instead of failing, they'd been found by members of the various factions in the game, and then you had to get them from the factions (for money or you could just kill them.) The first time I got to a chest with a map piece and it was actually there, I was stunned, because I didn't realize it was possible (I started that game over an absurd number of times.) I always thought that was really awesome, and I can't recall any game doing something similar since.

I finished Disco Elysium. It seems like it is a new evolution in adventure games. It was very well done. The game definitely spoke to me on a deeper level. It helped that I was a beer or two in when I played it, and a bit deep in my winter moribundity. I didn't expect to have nearly this much in common with this down on his luck detective.

I guess I did pick the right portrait.

Finished Sekiro. And just in time for December gaming break.

Picked up AC: Odyssey and it seems like a fun historical romp. It even has the exploration setting that removes all the random acts of violence.

Simply to reduce spreadsheetness:

That's right and brilliant will give a good boost to phrases. I want to use mainly killers froze stiff, her revenge swept across the land, seven nights and maybe one summon. There'll be always a little delay between Invocations, but I guess it's fine. And I want to use fighter skills too so maybe Bellower gives me enough space in my action economy. Dont want to cast only offensive Invocations, even if it's very effective, so a big bang from Bellower sounds very very good !

It's not a downside if you're using the invocations as soon as you have enough phrases or if you just use the most powerful invocations.

Will be posting from my phone until tomorrow at least so I’ll not bother quoting too much, but let me allay one fear. It’s not too much about the cakes, they’re often just eating cake and drinking tea while talking… instead of practicing their instruments. Well, except when someone steals Yui’s strawberry. Kind of anti-Japanese in a way. They’re lazy and don’t just give their best like they’re supposed to. What else can I say. It leaves most of its issues behind at the end of season one and I thought the rest of the first season was uneven but generally still funny and nice overall. I’m not sure there are any direct panel adaptations because the basis for this was a four panel joke comic, but the not so fun weird jokes in between are probably based on the comics.

The crossbow is an exception. Its basic enchantment is faulty (but in a benefical way).

I may not have listened to the English long enough - it straight up just sounded like Usagi to me. The other characters I was definitely less keen on (even Viz!Rei as...character I don't know the name of yet, ), but hearing Usagi was nice. Honorifics, on the other hand...as I said before, reading them is bad enough - hearing them combined with English is an immediate termination, even if I really wanted to hear more Usagi. That seems like a good assumption - I'd already noticed a few moments that seemed really off-kilter for no real reason, like they'd just been randomly inserted and didn't fit. Panel for panel comic/manga -> cartoon/anime adaptations are not really...uh, workable for me. You say to the guy that literally stopped watching Steven Universe after the first four episodes because they were inexplicably all about food... I'm more of a cribbage guy, but I'd certainly try those out, .

Absolutely, as a SC Bellower, with end-game stuffs, a little preparation at the begining of the fight and a Salvation of Time priest (to keep the effects), you can reach the PL34. I explain how I made in the topic about Transcendant suffering Scaling if you want to see the screenshot of Eld Nary invocation at PL32 The Bellower is really interesting even multiclassed, but that depend of how you want to use the chanter part of your build

Bellower PL bonus is a class passive, stacking with everything including Empower. If you get a +7 PL when casting an invocation, then the invocation get the +7PL bonus for the duration (this point is important like explained before). The bonus is still +7 for the duration, whatever if you cast a lowest PL spell (it profit to the +7). An empowered spell gain for exemple +7 and +5 PL bonus.

Indeed, not necessarily for its content, because that is mostly fine (some exceptions in season one), but the presentation takes some getting used to, from the animation to the semi-chibi style of the characters, and the first season has some rough edges where the showrunners still had manga panels to work with, but more on that as a reply to the actual post. Wee! Fun, random fact: Games of chance have a state monopoly here, which means that only the state is allowed to run casinos or paid, large scale lotteries. Betting on the other hand doesn't fall under that regulation, because it's considered a game of, uhm, skill, because indeed, it's entirely possible to place your bets in a way that will make you win money regardless of the outcome, you just need to find it. That's also the reason why there are private poker tournaments as long as they play Hold 'Em, because that's arguably more about being able to calculate your chances than random chance as a whole. Black Jack, on the other hand, is only played in casinos. Not that I like either, to be honest. I enjoy card games, but it's mostly either Schnapsen or Tarock, and in the case of the latter specifically a locally enjoyed variant that makes for much tighter gameplay. I thought you'd switch the moment Yui says something because that voice direction is just weird, but if adding honorifics in the dub did that, okay, at least the predicted result is fine the same. No, they're all semi-chibi for some reason. I actually ended up liking the first song on repeat listens, but that's the only one. Well, and the silly rice song, but that's more because of the underlying scene than the song itself. It's hard to hate a song out of a soundtrack that's like the culmination of half a season of character growth and preparation, regardless of how much I'm not into the music style (which is I don't know what, exactly, I keep calling that ska because that's what I think ska is, but hell if I know). That'll stick, beause Yui is such an Usagi at times... wait for her to flunk an exam. That's better than I thought the first episode would get, and yeah, it's rough. Yui won't drop paper sheets from now on, and won't be unable to talk, among a few other things (being Sakura and afraid of ghosts and scary things is shifted to Mio). The first season keeps having these randomly extreme moments that I'm assuming come from the manga, they're not entirely gone in the second season but toned down. Episode two has the girls buy a guitar for Yui (or try to, at least), that was... much better, and the third episode has genuinely funny moments when Mio tries to, uhm, prepare Yui for her makeup exam. Outside of the random extreme moments that seemingly don't fit into it, it's more of a matter of presentation than content, by far and large. At least, I think. The show is mostly silly girly stuff. And cake. Lots of cake. Man, Yui eats more than Usagi. Well, no, but eh...

The Shannara series was better than it had any right to be. Which isn't saying all that much. You'd not mistake it for anything other than MTV (though iirc they quit scripted dramas between S1&2, orphaning the show), down to the lead actress in S1 being a model who unfortunately couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. She did really look like she was trying though, to be fair to her, as did pretty much everyone involved; and they looked like they were enjoying themselves. Dunno if I could recommend it- at the moment I'd probably have to say it's better than WoT, but then I never read Shannara and didn't expect much, so limited capacity to be disappointed. Fal Dara I thought was OK, the environs were certainly too desolate and I also never envisioned the Blight as shown, though that's not a big deal if it's now more of a fort specifically guarding Tarwin's Gap than a city. The star design of the fort is very renaissance/ musket and pike, but you can justify that as it potentially having to repel 'magic artillery' in the form of dreadlords. On the waygates etc:

K-On, episode 1. The jam session to introduce the show was pretty nice. My dub was set to English and hearing Usagi as the main character was a bit of a jolt, but I then remembered that majestic actually mentioned this being the case at some point. I'm not sure which I prefer in this first scene so far - I'm leaning English for the moment, but I'll keep switching. Oh...oh no, they just said "-senpai" in the English, guess I have to do the Japanese, because that is just nasty and unacceptable. Oh gosh, this intro song is...uh, an experience. The song is bad enough, but the video is about seizure-worthy. The 3D animation that's in this already looks real bad. Also, is it just me, or do all the characters have tiny little babby hands? Funnily, even though I'm listening to the Japanese, I can still mentally hear Viz!Usagi doing Yui(?)'s lines through the subtitles here anytime she talks. It's...actually kind of weird. I...uh, don't know about this, this seems kinda...er, bad-ish, but you did say the first episode is pretty rough, so I'll try to bear with it. Plus, even though it is rough, it's not...making me want to peel my brain yet exactly, at least. Well, it kind of is, but not so many layers that I would forget who I am, ya know? ...I'm going to have to start calling bad shows "brain-peelers" from now on.

That's pretty fair, especially given that you've maintained there's a strong possibility I'll dislike it this entire time. ...Plus, it's way easier for me to accept this deal knowing I'll only watch probably like 2 episodes at worst if I hate it right off the bat versus you having to watch all thirteen episodes of Ran, . Just have to balance the odds right, like an actual sportsbook. Give me those 1:100* odds that it'll implode at some point! *Bet $100, get $101 back if you're right, . I remember this one... Almost nothing is new...but sometimes things can feel new if it's the first thing of that type that you've played/watched and if it specifically appeals to you (or forcefully makes itself appeal to you, if you watched/played it during a formative period of your life). There's not likely to be a Souls-type ARPG that'll ever compare to the first time I played Dark Souls; there's not likely to be a MOTHER-esque JRPG that'll ever compare to the first time I played Undertale; I'm not likely to find many more shoujo animes that deeply and personally appeal to me on most every level like Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura do (particularly because the industry is literally not making anything that could even possibly hope to compare in even a few critical areas, never mind all of them...and there's only so many candidates to check out that came out during the correct era). So on and so forth, . Time passes and industries and their trends, conventions, and even goals all change while we mostly stay the same...and heck, while we mostly stay the same, it's not as though we would want to be inundated with the same exact thing over and over anyways. Inevitably, we're all left behind for some reason or another at some point and it's up to each of us to find new/different types of things to enjoy. Birth (1984). Wikipedia summary: I'd listened to the soundtrack before I watched the film, and liked the soundtrack enough to give it a try. Nope, it's sort of basically kind of a bad and dumber Nausicaa with way too much action. I tried like ten other things today, and this was the highlight of them because I actually made it like 30 minutes into it (the longest out of anything because most other things were immediately and obviously bad - to be fair, this was also the one I most wanted to be decent out of what I tried) before finally admitting defeat. Don't watch anything I tried today, folks. What did I try today? I don't remember and it doesn't matter.

I don't think I'll hate it from what you've posted about it, but let's make a deal, I won't hold that against you, and if you end up not liking K-On! (which I maintain is on the table, regardless of prognostications and that best of video) it's not going to be my fault either. I'm not taking any bets here. I'm weird, not insane. Heh, the things we did at school were pretty fun too. I already posted two essay style posts about it, one of them led Malcador to call me a sociopath, that was when I faked having had my school account hacked because I didn't do my homework, or when we started to acquire passwords by creating fake login screens. Simpler times, to be honest, much more fun. Decidedly more problematic too, so it wasn't all roses, or however that saying goes. You know, sometimes I wonder if the magic is gone from many activities I enjoyed back then because I'm older now, or if that is simply a product of experience. I can't recall the last time I felt about a game the same way I did when looking at games from the nineties. Sure, it's easier to enjoy things when you're younger and more carefree, right, but that can't be all of it. I've tried a bunch of MMORPGs, but none ever were as magical as EverQuest (or Ultima Online, which I played more in my mind than on my screen, what with dial up being unable to handle it by far and large). Me loving Cardcaptor Sakura so much seems to confirm that it's not just nostalgia and being younger. Eh, the hell, I'll stop rambling.

It's better on the rewatch. It manages to be more light-hearted than the Crusaders' fight against DIO while somehow doubling down on the weirdness in a series that rightfully has "Bizarre" in the title. And as a controversial opinion, I prefer the characters as twinks to gym gods.

If you hate it, it's not my fault. I don't know why it wouldn't be my fault, but it won't be. What are my betting odds for this? I'd like to place money on it. Absolutely! Weird, since those parts were specifically and masterfully crafted for you to laugh at. How strange! You weren't sure before now?

I haven't been able to play too much in a while but it is a damn good game that managed to make me laugh and think pretty regularly. Often in the same dialogue.

I beat and then fused Mother Harlot in SMT V. She's not in the base game, she's part of the Return of the True Demon DLC. Because I'm a sucker for MegaTen and just a sucker in general I bought all the content DLCs except the Artemis one, since it was the most expensive of the single demon DLCs and thus the worst value. Mother Harlot is the last of the 8 fiends you get to fight and then fuse, if you so wish, before getting to square off with the Demi-Fiend of SMT III fame. By all accounts, the Demi-Fiend is the single hardest enemy in the game, as he should be. He's the Emerald Weapon of SMT V, if you will. I won't be fighting him any time soon (I will eventually), but I'm super happy to have Mother Harlot on my team. She is so freakin' strong. I'm surprised she's only level 64 in this game. I consider Mother Harlot to be a S+ Rank demon, right up there with Metatron, Lucifer, Asherah, Brahma(n), and such. She has a very high magic stat, extremely strong skills, including the ludicrously powerful Babylon Goblet, her only weakness is force (which I already addressed via essence fusion with Null Force), and, most importantly, she reflects physical damage. Hitting a resist no longer costs an extra turn like it did in some previous games. Hitting a null does cost an extra turn. Hitting a reflect or a drain IMMEDIATELY ends your round, regardless of how many turns you had left. I've only had Mother Harlot on my team a short while and I've already run out of fingers to count how many times enemies have ended their round prematurely by foolishly physically attacking Mother Harlot. Needless to say, Mother Harlot is a keeper for the rest of the game and more often than not on my active team. I cannot overstate how insanely strong she is.

Huh, reading these last few comments I realized I still have the mobile phone number from '97. Same network provider too (slightly different mobile plan though ). I'm using a first generation iPhone SE (i.e. the miniature version of the iPhone 6S).

All of the recent screenshots you folks have posted basically look like spruced up spreadsheets. Is this a math forum?

Just a side-note on D:OS, I have only tried the first game, and hated it so much that I am unwilling to try the second one. Re. BG3, and again to note, I am not playing the EA and only know the game from a LOT of time I've spent discussing it on various forums plus watching every video of it I can find. Anyway, here goes, in no particular rank order: Don't like TB combat at all as I find it too slow, aggravating, and immersion-breaking. But, on this issue, I have come to terms with the fact that this is not going to change in BG3, and as long as they give me easy/story difficulty modes that I can switch to any time within the game so I can breeze through disliked combat I should be okay. Relatdely, don't know if there will be a robust set of difficulty modes and toggles that can be changed even after you start the game. Party size of four. This could be a dealbreaker all by itself. Too many Larian home-brew mechanics I dislike, such as elemental surfaces, barrelmancy, shove, etc. All of them I find to be cheap, lame gimmicks. The way Larian does party movement (i.e. their chain-linked party movement). No true pause function during real-time exploration. Only a pseudo-pause function by force-triggering TB combat. Do not like their concept of origin characters, and especially that a custom PC has no connections to the game/world and is the most irrelevant and disconnected member of your party. In a party with origin character companions, they are the "stars" of the party; they are the ones central to the story. Your custom PC just doesn't matter in the game. Not a single likeable companion for me so far, and especially the question of whether I will be able to have a full party (of six with a mod?) of likeable and good-oriented companions. Relatedly, no Lathander as one of the included gods? That's bullcrap. Having one companion with some deep dark secret and who is not what they appear to be is fine, even interesting. Having this be ALL the companions is just plain ridiculous, and reflects unimaginative and weak writing ability. Party companions locked at the end of Act 1, and companions not in your active party are lost to you. Game visuals/art-style looks way too much like D:OS (or more specifically like Rivellon, a game setting I hated). A writing style that is all about being hip and edgy and cool and angst-ridden. Even their so-called humor is just not funny to me. And may be a few other things I can't quite remember right now.

When are you going to release Skull and Shackles, my favorite base set and adventure path?

Hmmm. And here I thought the asymmetrical dice were going to be things like a d5 made out of a triangular prism, or something. Very much looking forward to all this.

I...wait, what? The actual episode 1 of K-On!: Well, uh wow, that was a real brain-peeler. At least the intro video + song is a lot better than K-On 2's. "It's a club that plays lighthearted music." You know, that makes more sense - for some reason, I was interpreting it as the energy type of light. And I guess Mugi doesn't like fries. What a monster. Dear lord, Usagi Yui is a truly advanced level of brainless in this. Hopefully, uh, the second episode isn't...the apocalypse.

When I think back to watching K-On! the only thing I really liked about the first episode was the ending. That Yui will end up joining the club was a forgone conclusion, but they played for her and after that just perfectly timed pause said: “You guys really aren’t good, huh?” and it was really funny. The second episode convinced me that there is some potential in it, and the third has the first real laugh out loud moment. Hmmm. The girls take up a really boring part time job in the second episode, and it has this really funny moment when Mugi goes to haggle with the store clerk who ends up selling her the guitar for half the asking price.

Pretty sure that is already his stripper name.

I think Shannara is an MTV series. I never watched it but I'm guessing CW level angsty teen level writing/acting. Would be glad to be wrong but my faith in humanity is at an all time low.