Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Stairway to heaven*

RIP Donald Sutherland. Liked you in every movie I saw you in. Especially Kelly's Heroes.

Someone at squenix didn't think harp bows were inane enough.

Good morning you who look forward to the weekend to just do nothing so the next week can comes faster.

I miss playing FFXI because I at least could AFK while doing nothing

How do I check how many playthroughs of elden my save game is?

The gaol boss with the GSD and xbow had a couple moves capable of one shotting me.

Only way to check mid playthrough is to kill a mob that drops a known number of runes at each ng+ and see how many you get.

Will say that these DLC mobs slap. Without shadow blessing stacks that first field boss was a menace even at lv200

I started a new character on my off days this week to experience the DLC fresh on NG.

I'm only done with Limgrave and Caelid(well no Radahn yet cause not set foot on Altus). Have some loose ends in Liurnia (visiting Blue Waifu), and then I can press on to Altus.

This is my 6th playthrough of Elden Ring, and I'm doing a Sorcery build finally. Honestly it makes me miss my 5th playthrough. I'm sure I'll feel better once I hit the DLC, but my 5th playthrough was Faith based, and there are so many different incantations revolving around every element with a vast array of animation differences. (Frost Lightning, Uber Rot Dragon Breath, Lightning, Fire, Blackfire, bloodyfire, Holy, Death-Holy, Non-elemental physical, giant rock throw, madness, ground cleaves... the list keeps going)

Sorcery seems milquetoast and boring by comparison, so far, though obviously it got an over haul and several different schools of sorcery as well.

Though I do know part of it is that my 5th playthrough was started less than a month after I finished my RL1 playthrough, so I still had all my reflexes and skills and bosses and things memorized. Now it's been 11 months since I last played Elden Ring, and even taking the no holds barred approach, I have lost a lot of skill and patience. And some boss cheeses definitely got patched out. And Barricade Shield seems weaker than I remember, but then again it's probably just my lack of upgrades on the shield. Guard Counter distance also seems shorter than I remember, though.

Meteoric Ore Blade shining again though, yeehaw!

We dont like traitors

Who betrayed you Panta?

Im ready to fight Bumba

Apparently some guy in Japan stole the Yen equivalent of $250k from their grandma to spend on gacha games. What a time to be alive

It could be worse.

Like wasting it on low quality hookers, illicit drugs or FFXI subscription

All gacha games:
NQ Hookers = did u get shot by a pimp, get a std, caught in a sting and in jail, or just a wild night
Drugs = how much fentanyl on your supply
FFXI = did you get picked by the GMs for their ban quota

Even knows you'll get the pull you want at 251. so close, Junior

These types do it to their own family let alone their grandmother truly are addicted similar to drugs.

I really hate gatcha games because some of them are fun but those companies prey on people's tendencies. They farm the data of every month's sales and then give it to psychiatrists and data analysts to review how to squeeze out even more.

It's crazy how there is little pushback from people regarding how this very thing changed the landscape of gaming for the worse. sure EU tried but nothing is really stopping these guys.

Money is more important than people. Always has been, always will be.

If they never leave the house who else can they steal from other than family?

Rest in rest, best johnny 5

Good morning you who steal money from your grandma

That money was supposed to buy her remedies for her terminal illness.

Still, you stole it to buy cocaine.

To party with those futile friends.

To pay for some random *** in the street.

To just satieate your futile needs while your life goes nowhere.

But if today you ask your grandma if she can forgive you for being the worst grandson ever

She will say YES

Because in her eyes, you are still a little chld

the most beautiful thing that ever existed

From other internet discussion that game isn't average gacha that getting strong characters are completely optional for completing story. That game is Chinese pay to win MMO that rich people gets strong advantage on leaderboard and ***.

That's totally 2 different kind of game. There are a lot of rich people who paid even more than $250k on pay to win MMOs just to win. In story focused gacha game without leaderboard/pvp the incentive to pay that much is much lower.

Back when I started FFXI, one of the first guy who I regularly meet for leveling was a guy who used to play as a DRK. And I was a smelly THF. Figures how good our teamwork were working.

But the thing is, at that point in life, where everything was basically new for me, I started to think DRK was the de facto DD. It was a time where Abyssea and VW were at its peak, and SoA would come just the next year.

I always thought of leveling DRK. But as I progressed my "FFXI carreer", DRK actually never became the "de facto" DD. Abyssea was the time of 1h DD, SoA was the time for WARs and MNKs. Later SAM joined the party. Ark Angels made ranged DDs more popular. SR, Escha made bursting interesting. Conduit made SMN great till Dyna D, where CORs came out like a bandit.

But I dont remember any time in those dozen of year I played FFXI where DRK was the main bandwagon. TBF, I dont even remember a time where you would choose a DRK over a WAR or SAM without a second thought.

That is to said, I still have to fullfil my old time wish of playing at least a bit of DRK. Its on the todo list next to the beating Odyssey one.

I dont like Scythes though.

IDK, its such an uncool weapon. IRL, is a Scythe comparable to swords or spears? It uses the sword concept of slashing, but the cutting edge is only on the tip. It uses the concept of extended range of spears, but you need to slash it what I suppose is less anatomically easier than slashing with a sword or piercing with a spear.

I suppose the concept of scythe is to hit in the blind spot of an enemy: using a wide range movement, you can hit the enemys nape and cut it leading to an one-hit KO. But for that to be viable, I suppose you would need some massive amount of strength, enough to make any sword or spear equally viable.

Not to mention you kinda get very open when youre attacking with a scythe

I would imagine using a scythe for a weapon would require a slash-pull technique and it wouldn't really allow for cutting people in two like we see in games. Gutting someone's throat? Sure. Cutting off limbs? Probably not.

Iirc, a katana has a funny way of using it too, like a chop-slice rather than a slash.

DRK was definitely bandwagon'd at times in the game's history. Just about every endgame shell at 75 had several DRKs for multiple reasons. Blood Weapon Souleater Zerg was extremely powerful even without Kraken Club with weapons like Bahamut's Zaghnal or Mercurial Kris or Fortitude Axe(this woulda been my pick if I'd been a 75 era DRK).

Outside of zergs, it had access to Stun, which stun rotations were very very practical for things like Suzaku or any boss that had some problem moves you wanted to stop.

Beyond that it had decent Marksmanship options for Bloody Bolts and the like on top of having neato mosquito black magic (most notably Bio II, Sleep II, Poison II, Drain, Aspir, Absorbs, and a little later Dread Spikes/Drain II).

It's just that, at the time, it faced a lot of competition from the SAM wagon, which was the biggest wagon given FFXI player's tendency to be weebs. Also though because of full power Meditate and SAM being off the chain in almost every era of the game for weaponskills.

It also faced a lot of competition from the ever present WAR wagon, cause WAR is like Old Faithful in that it's a great DD and super basic physical powerhouse and always has been. In 1handed era from 03-07, you had the standard dual axe WARs. After 2handed update, Great Axe WARs. In modern era you got Fencer WARs. WAR had incredible white damage all of the time in any situation due to innate Double Attack, and great WS damage and frequency due to that and Berserk as well. Pretty common to hear SAMs, DRKs, MNKs say something like, "If I was allowed to sub WAR I could out DD you easily!" to WAR mains. Later on in late Abyssea/Legion/Early SoA, "If I have a WAR in the party with Blood Rage (OG Blood Rage had +20% crit damage and rate) I do the most damage!" With people in the forum asking, "But how are you out damaging the WAR?" Answering having to be, "Oh I outgear them by a country mile..." -> This comes out as, "I'm better than them at FFXI."

Occasional blurbs from MNK or RNG mains, a lot of the MNK mains being MNK mains after that first big RNG nerf. Some cool ***from RNGs with Red Curry doing like 3k WS to Dynamis Lord under full buffs and similar/more in Barrage with Relic Gun. Or my brother getting the first Odin kill we ever did at 80 cap with kill shot being Numbing Shot, cause he was point blank at that point, afraid Sidewinder would whiff, and it looked cool.

But the mechanics of XI not really allowing raw DPS to take precedence over jobs that could still dish out plenty but also do important ***like buff/time nuke statues/crowd control/heal/not be taking damage while dishing out big damage etc.

Pissing contest used to mostly happen in Zergs and Meripos, since most events took a lot more from the backline than from the front line. Late Dynamis era before switch to Proc Solo Namis, the best DPS usually wind up tanking since PLD at that point couldn't even dream of holding hate due to mathematics vs. enmity.

Any way, I'm getting lost in the weeds now. DRK has always been a popular choice, it's just never been firmly the top choice. It has just enough complexity and jank to it, to be off putting but also be always appealing to somebody.

I'd actually love to play it myself, and have several times over the course of the game's history, but I've never been top tier. Never had all the sets you actually need to make the most of it. Last time I played it seriously was prior to the Twilight Scythe nerf for zerging Arch Omega with my Ex and our static at the time.

On another note I got Meteorite on my Sorc build last night, and am half way up Mt. Gelmir. Won't soon before long til I get to the DLC.

And when I get that Physick mixer that lets you have 15 seconds of infinite FP... Point Blank Meteor is gonna be a helluva a drug.

I think what you described is more about practicality and less about being cool (the latter having a degree of subjectivity). Afaik it's a fantasy weapon that reaps souls instead of grains (as in, scythes in the shape of FFXI weapons were used for agriculture, not war). Historical war scythes were closer to polearms.

Even without multi-hit weapons, a friend figured out Rune Chopper zerg, which was pretty decent back when hitting the delay cap was very hard (impossible even?) before they set it to 80% (you could reach over 90% delay reduction IIRC)

I've got bad news for you. It got nerfed to 10 seconds.

I don't like how they nerfed Taker's Flame too. I haven't played Elden Ring in 2 years, and the only thing I did in those 2 years was respecc my character to a Taker's Flame build to ***on Malenia every now and then. And I decided to go into the DLC using that build. I felt targeted. Miyazaki must've been watching me.

IRL the scythe is an agricultural tool.

When scythes went to war it was only the blade strapped to a pole to make a glave like weapon.



And in this day and age it is SO HARD to find even something like this hidden among all the fantasy weapons from video games including XI.