Lurker > MariaTaylor

NFUN posted...

should I swap him and Luca?

this actually sounds like a solid idea to me

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Yeah twitch doesn't save VODs by default. I had to go into my settings and turn that function on manually. Even then, your video will be limited to the quality that you streamed in. It's better to record with your recording software directly, to prevent any loss in quality.

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Punnyz posted...

I can't tell if you're being serious or you're making some sort of commentary of the behaviors of streaming fans lol

I'm being serious but it's also meant in a comical way. My sense of humor is weird. Like, what I said is true, but it's obviously an absurd and unhelpful answer to the question you asked.

Punnyz posted...

also you better not make me play Phantasy Star

Hey if you were able to get through PSII it's almost certain that you'd like PSIV a lot more.

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Punnyz posted...

so recommendations do you have?

play good SNES and sega genesis games that I care about, but also understand that I won't watch your stream because I don't watch streamers usually (sometimes youtube highlights, but that's it)


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Oh also I came in this topic to post that I got my Lost Tonitrus, upgraded it to +9 and slotted in the optimal gems that I've picked up for it... was able to get the AR over 700 while buffed. This thing is crazy.


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Ailing Loran and Isz are both basically filled with enemies at NG+ difficulty level, despite the fact that you can access them in a regular new game cycle. That being said, I just did most of it myself with only +6 weapons, so it's definitely possible if you've got an optimized build and you're skilled enough at the game.

Either way, putting it off till you've got some max upgraded weapons won't hurt, but a lot of enemies are still gonna take 3, 4, or even 5+ hits regardless of how strong you get. This is just the nature of fighting the much stronger enemies.

So the tough part about getting the Burial Blade is that it's found in dungeons like Pthumeru Ihyll and the Lower Loran, which are both depth 5. This means in order to get it you need to do the following:

1. Get a Depth 5 Root Chalice
2. Make any Depth 5 Root Chalice dungeon (Lower Loran, Pthumeru Ihyll, or Isz Gravestone)

The good thing is that after you've done this, you can make ANY depth 5 dungeon without requiring any additional ritual materials. So all you need to do is get one of those three root chalices and make at least one randomized dungeon, and this will allow you to access chalice dungeon glyphs with KNOWN good loot.

This is done by touching one of your empty gravestones and hitting 'search by chalice glyph.'

One more note, I learned from experience that the Sinister dungeons do NOT give you access to the regular tier 5 dungeons. So make sure that you create a regular Lower Loran, Phthumeru Ihyll, or Isz Gravestone without the Sinister modifier. I can't remember if you need to do the FRC modifiers, so I always make sure to do all three of them just to be 100% sure.

To get the Burial Blade:

Pthumeru Ihyll, Floor 1 Treasure: cps9thzn

This will get you a Lost Burial Blade with a Radial, Triangle, and Waning slot. This is the best combination for Arcane builds.

Alternately, you can do this glyph:

Lower Loran, Floor 1 Treasure: kkqmduet

Here you can find an Uncanny Burial Blade. This one should have Radial, Triangle, Radial which is optimal for physical damage builds, but it can also work pretty well as a fire converted weapon.


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Oh yeah, I got this chalice gylph from a known database. I know I'm not the first person to discover this. I just couldn't remember if I'd encountered this type of hunter before personally. Usually I see the ones with the tomb prospector gear, augur of ebrietas, and either the kirkhammer or LHB. sometimes you see the bone ash hunter who uses the saw cleaver with fire paper, or the ones that use the beast claws.

The one who dresses and fights like the Bloody Crow was just a cool find for me. Even if I've fought one before, it's rare enough that it still stood out to me.

my gem set up is good now but I've hit the point where there are specific gem slots that I want and they are just not dropping because they are the more rare ones. the worst is when I look up a chalice that says it drops triangles of all types, but I'll farm it several times and I only get physical and fire ones because the arcane and bolt variants are so much more rare.


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Hmm.... Can't remember if I've ever seen this before, but I encountered a Blood Crow of Cainhurst type hunter in one of the Fetid/Rotted/Cursed chalice dungeons. He actually wasn't too bad, but I also exploited the Tiny Tonitrus against him to great effect. Want to go try fighting the actual Blood Crow and see if the Tiny Tonitrus works to the same effect. If so, this has a lot of potential.


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Blades of Mercy can carry you through the game. They are super, super good. I agree about the learning curve being steep though, which is why I don't quite rate them as a top tier weapon. Some people won't have as easy of a time mastering them, or even using them. And they do fall off in certain situations. They have low hit-stun which makes them less useful against certain medium and large enemies.

This reminds me of something, when I was asked earlier in the topic about a Skill/Arcane build. I forgot to mention the Burial Blade as another Skill+Arcane weapon. Although you technically can't get it until the end of the game, this isn't exactly true either. You can technically get any weapon you want from the chalice dungeons as long as you know where to look.

edit: also I swear me responding within 5 minutes to any post about Bloodborne is just a coincidence. I literally -just- woke up.

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Peace___Frog posted...

I'm really upset with myself, i thought that the augur was on the second floor of the lecture hall so i didn't bother ever going to floor 1 until after clearing out the second floor and not finding it... I could've had this incredible spell HOURS ago. Dammit.

Oh no... Yeah, you missed out, but at least you have it available now. It never stops being good.

Peace___Frog posted...

I never would've thought I'd have more than two weapons actively in use, but having one for fire, pure arcane, and then the tonitrus and moonlight sword is a very flexible setup. The enemies that are strong to bolt/ arcane are VERY strong to them both - looking at you, tiny worms and Ebrietas babies.

I think this is where arcane builds excel. For a physical build you may have niche cases where you want more than two weapons, mainly just for a niche moveset. But for arcane builds it's actually viable to carry around more than two weapons based on type coverage and other properties, and switch between them as needed.

Peace___Frog posted...

The other surprising thing is the damage from the tiny Tony. The second battle in the dungeons against the merciless watchers was a joke because of this spell.

I love it. I actually never used it until my first arcane item only challenge, but that run really gave me a lot of appreciation for all of the different hunter tools and the niches where they are best used. tiny tonitrus isn't useful in every situation, but it's one of my favorite hunter tools now and I always enjoy using it in the situations where it can be used.


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This topic series made me realize that I literally do not care about any character in the entire fire emblem franchise. I remember looking at the characters on the first day and being like "wow... there is no score that I would give to any of these. I just have no opinion on any of them." And this is coming from someone who has played a lot of fire emblem!

Anyway, just posting to say that Tharja is pretty hot.


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<B>Zack</B>

I actually find Cyclops to be pretty underwhelming, given what you can expect of comic characters usually.


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Yeah, save the reviews for the "professionals"

https://www.gamingrebellion.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Cuphead-750x400.jpg

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do you actually post these results anywhere

also what inspired you to run a contest with characters that we all nominated 70 years ago

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it's a "safe" activity they can invest in, something they feel comfortable doing and which they will eventually succeed if given enough time. setting such lofty completionist goals all but ensures that these activities will occupy their time and keep them distracted from the other aspects of their lives where they are incomplete, afraid to take risks, and are unsure if they could succeed.


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My file is already approaching 35 hours, and I just wrote down glpyhs for 11 chalice dungeons that I want to explore. I can't say 100% for sure that I will get around to all of them, but still. I'm really glad this topic was made! It's been a while since my last run through bloodborne, especially my last slow/complete run, and I was definitely inspired to do something that I have found to be very enjoyable.


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he's a frustrating boss for sure, but I've started to get more consistent at fighting him once I realized that he has a similar body type and fighting style to Amelia -- a boss I generally do VERY well again. granted he's bigger, has more range, and a trickier move set... and he fights smarter. thing about Amelia is that she is constantly leaving herself open to attack and making bad moves, while the Bloodletting Beast is the opposite. he's constantly guarding his openings and will punish you for trying to punish him too greedily.

anyway, got started on my post-chalice exploration delving and I'm enjoying myself quite a bit already. made a sinister pthumeru ihll root chalice with all four modifiers activated. this gives my character permission to summon any other tier 5 chalice or below -- with any modifiers -- by using chalice gylphs. meaning I can infinitely explore fellow player created dungeons now without the use of anymore materials. fun stuff!

my current armory:
+9 Lost Saw Cleaver
+8 Lost Saw Spear
+8 Holy Moonlight Sword
+6 Lost Kirkhammer
+6 Ludwig's Lost Holy Blade
+6 Tonitrus

At this point I think I have pretty much everything that i need, but it's still fun collecting weapons. and I definitely want to find a Lost Tonitrus at some point. I'm making way, way more use of the Kirkhammer than I expected. It's actually got a pretty solid move set for fighting the medium enemies in the chalices, which gives it a pretty unique niche. It has just the right amount of stagger and its unique transformation attacks can be used to set up very damaging combos. Even at +6 it's hanging with my +8/+9 weapons.


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I'm aware of the cut content chalice glyphs and the false depth glyphs, but I've never used any of them before.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

I have still never done more than the first one.

it's the reason I'm getting 30 hours out of this playthrough instead of 8. Bloodborne pretty much nailed the content distribution because if you just want to beat the game you can do it quickly, but if you want to keep playing there is SO much stuff for you to do.

I will say, your comment reminds me of something I was thinking of earlier. a huge problem with the chalice dungeons is that the first two or three chalice dungeons are pretty much the worst ones.

the first boss of pthumeru floor 1 is a little too difficult if you go in there right away, but the entire pthumeru chalice becomes obsolete and ends up being boring because it's too easy very quickly. the pthumeru chalices also have the most 'standard' aesthetic with nothing particularly interesting going on.

hintertomb is by far the worst, and the only positive thing I can say about it is that it only has a few chalices, and none of the deepest floors. on top of having the worst design, the mandatory hintertomb chalice also has a poison swamp filled with undead giants... and none of the floors in either of the hintertomb chalices are particularly fun to explore.

central pthumeru is where things just start to get interesting, and while the two listed above are clearly the worst, this one certainly can cause issues for unprepared players. since you have to get past Chalice Rom to beat this dungeon, and a lot of players have NO idea how to fight Rom correctly, it can be a source of frustration that causes people to give up pretty quickly.

all of the stuff after that I consider to just get better and better.

the defiled chalice is difficult but really fun, and a fairly interesting gimmick. I like all of the boss fights, they're all challenging but feel rewarding to beat. the dungeon itself is pretty standard but not annoying to navigate.

ailing loran and lower loran are both fun and challenging, have a solid set of bosses, and it has a cool visual aesthetic. you'll also start fighting some good blood gems here, so it feels like you're finding actual rewards aside from just materials to make new chalices.

isz gravestone is basically the same good points as what I just said about the loran chalices, except even better. it contains more rare blood gems of the triangle variety -- you won't have very many of these yet, so every one that drops is pretty exciting. and it has some great boss fights.

finally pthumeru ihyll is a return to the 'standard' dungeon, easier than loran or isz, but still pretty fun. the headless bloodletting beast is pretty challenging even with a strong build, and I think queen yharnam is a good and unique battle.

after this you have basically your pick of pthumeru ihyll, isz, and lower loran randomized dungeons which can provide additional content as you search for new and more powerful blood gems. curse your dungeon with modifiers that will really ramp up the difficulty level, but you'll be rewarded with some of the most powerful loot that can drop in all of bloodborne. and the fact that it's procedurally generated means that , at the very least, you're not doing the exact same thing you've been doing before.

yeah, the dungeon layouts can easily be broken down to a few cliches, and you'll start to see the same rooms over and over, but the distrubution of enemies and traps, the way things are all put together, can keep you on your toes. always wondering what is around the next corner and figuring out the best way to engage the next group of mobs is the part that makes it fun, when you're playing at the highest difficulty, and making things semi-random forces you to think on your toes instead of already knowing exactly how to deal with the next room.


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Defeated the Headless Bloodletting Beast and Queen Yharnam

I think Yharnam gets a bit of a bad rep. I've seen her called underwhelming a lot, especially for the amount of effort it takes to get to her. And I guess maybe that's true, but I do think that she's a solid boss in her own right. Especially in her second and third phases. You can really suffer if you don't bring along a good option to control her clones, the fact that you can't repeatedly attack her without getting CC'd, and her combination of blood and poison damage makes her fairly challenging as long as you aren't overprepared. Fighting her with +8 weapons and only being around level 90, I still found it to be quite a challenge.

The one thing I will note is that the overall difficulty of Pthumeru Ihyll is MUCH lower than Isz Gravestone and Lower Loran, and this is a bit strange since I did both of those other dungeons first. So it does feel like you've just gone through hell and then the last of the three final dungeons is a bit of a relief since it's not quite as difficult.

All I have left now is some DLC stuff, and some more chalice exploring. I think the biggest issue with the Chalice dungeons is this: Exploring the randomized high level ones is pretty freaking awesome... but it takes like so long to actually get to the point where you can do those dungeons. I wish they had done something like make chalice progress global across all of your characters or something, because having to replay all of the fixed dungeons to get to the Chalice endgame on every fresh file is... less than optimal.


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Cleared Isz. Unlike the previously mentioned Chalice bosses, I actually think that Isz Ebrietas is easier than the main campaign version. Yes, she has more health and damage BUT... the only way you're getting to the bottom of Isz Gravestone is if your build is already well defined, you have upgraded gear, and you have a good variety of blood gems and tools at your disposal. It just makes her feel a lot easier, y'know?

On my way to take down Queen Yharnam next. Shouldn't be too much trouble at this point.

I also decided to specialize my Holy Moonlight sword for maximized arcane damage, and it was a very good idea. The weapon is a LOT more useful now. I am only using it for overhand greatsword attacks, trick attacks, and the arcane L2 and R2 attacks. All of these use the Arcane Damage scaling, which heavily rewards my choice of blood gem set up. Don't even bother with Nourishing gems that boost physical and arcane damage, unless they happen to be BIS for the Arcane. I seriously just ignored the physical modifier and pumped the Arcane as high as possible. This is one of those things that requires a good understanding of how the game works -- my listed AR is now lower, but the attacks that I actually USE are dealing more damage.

I've also figured out that the L2 is basically just the knockdown effect of the Augur of Ebrietas, sacrificing speed for range and damage which is super good in certain situations.

And the R2 is the Blacksky Eye, but sacrificing speed and range for damage and knockdown. Which is also really good in specific situations.

Essentially my Arcane kit just feels a lot more versatile, and I've been keeping the Holy Moonlight sword equipped as my secondary weapon -- sometimes even my primary -- ever since I switched to this set up.


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Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete Edition for PS1

It's kind of weird to me that I even obtained this game somehow because it was pretty rare even back when I was a young teenager. To the best of my memory, I think one of my family members got it for me without even really understanding what it was, just knowing that I liked games and specifically RPGs.

I remember spending a good amount of time playing the game to completion or nearly to completion, and I liked it a LOT at the time. That being said, my memory of my childhood and teenage years is pretty vague. I honestly can't tell you much about the game other than the fact that I really liked it when I played it.

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Peace___Frog posted...

Ah see I tried it against Amelia and it didn't go very well. Didn't have it against bsb, but maybe if I continue my dungeon runs I'll give it a go for that one.

it's good against Amelia too, but not quite as good. it's basically made for the bloodstarved beast. the most important thing is to get good at your positioning, which is something you really have to learn. if you've got bad positioning you won't be able to make good use of the flamesprayer.

it's also very good against the one reborn, bloodletting beast, and perhaps some others.

basically the "sprayer" weapons are weak against fast enemies that you can just kill in 2-3 hits with your cleaver.
they are strong against big enemies with large health bars who stand in one position for a long time.

Peace___Frog posted...

I spent 6 levels to be able to use the moonlight sword, and it barely outperforms my arcane beast cutter with mediocre gems, both at +6. I do love removing my ability to parry, but as far as secondary weapons go I'm unsure if I'll use it much.

same experience here. it's weaker than my bolt saw spear and my fire saw cleaver that I'm currently using. the one thing it's good for is launching arcane blasts. I've literally been keeping it equipped just as a ranged attack option... which may sound weird, but I have done the same thing with reiterpallasch and the bowblade in the past, so it's a playstyle I'm already familiar with.

Peace___Frog posted...

I began using beast roar a lot against some of the dlc hunters. What a great spell, can't believe I've slept on it for so long.

yes, it's pretty great. wait till you get to micolash. it completely trivializes him. you can keep him trapped in the corner and knock him down instantly every time you start to run out of stamina. he never gets a chance to cast any spells.


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flamesprayer does not have ANY stun. it's not very useful against normal enemies, but it's actually good against bosses. as long as your positioning is good, you can hold down the trigger and get a lot of damage on the boss without breaking him out of his attack chain. the lack of stun is actually an advantage in this case. the boss will keep swinging wildly, meanwhile you're burning them the entire time.

it works better on some bosses than others, and you need to learn the correct positioning and timing, but that is basically the niche of the weapon. also it can be buffed with bone marrow ash, so keep that in mind. bloodstarved best is an example of a boss that is really weak to the flamesprayer, as most of his attacks can be dodged by simply walking around him and you can continue to walk while spraying. and he's weak to fire.

also, similar to your gun, the flamesprayer needs to be upgraded if you want to use it for damage. I usually get it to +6 as soon as possible, use it for most of the early and mid game, and then leave it at +6 for a while. you can decide to upgrade it to +9 later on for use in lategame activities, but generally you only have enough bloodstone chunks to upgrade a few weapons. at that point you're better off focusing on a good bolt and a good fire weapon in your right hand instead.

bloodstone shards and twin bloodstone shards can be purchased in bulk, however, so there's no harm in getting as many +6 weapons as you can.

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Couple of other fun things...

I actually used the Loch Shield against the Loran Darkbeast, mainly because none of my left hand options were very useful, but it was still interesting that I was actually able to use the shield to... some effect. It completely negated some of his attacks. Though I was only able to block 1-2 attacks before running out of stamina. It was absolutely wild to be able to use a shield in Bloodborne.

I also relied on the Holy Moonlight Blade as my ranged attacking option. It fires a bit slower than the Blacksky Eye, but deals more damage per shot and still only uses 1 bullet. Hitting his legs is very effective but the hitboxes are so wonky it becomes pretty unreliable. Especially in the last part of the fight, I actually opted to just face him head on and then shoot him in the face with an arcane bolt whenever he left himself in a recovery frame for too long.

To come back to what I said earlier about the weapon scaling letters because absurd nonsense. The Flamesprayer has a D in Arcane, and the Rosmarinus has an A in Arcane scaling. With 50 points in Arcane, guess how much the difference in damage is? I have them both at +6 and the Rosmarinus deals 2 more points of damage. Lol...


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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Having to reload in and out again for the brain fluid makes that the worst quest.

I can't disagree with this, but it still wasn't too bad.

Defeated Lady Maria, was pretty easy. I can't believe I ever struggled with this boss. The fact that she is susceptible to hit stun in every single one of her forms makes her one of the easiest hunter type bosses in the entire game. I was also landing a bunch of parries despite shooting fairly blindly, just whenever it felt like maybe I could land one.

Got the Blacksky Eye. It's not too bad, but I still find myself rarely using it. Like I mentioned above, there's almost always a better tool for the job.

After that I finished clearing out Ailing Loran and got started on the Isz Gravestone chalice.

Man, the Loran Darkbeast actually reminds me a lot of what I was saying about Laurence earlier in the topic. He doesn't actually get an upgrade to his moveset but I think he's faster and more aggressive? Hard to say. Either way, Darkbeast Paarl in the main game is such a pushover that you rarely get to experience the actual fight. Having to battle him here in this arena, as a NG+ tier enemy, really allows you to experience the awesomeness and tension of the boss fight.

On the other hand, the Celestial Emissary in the Isz Gravestone is still kinda a pushover. I will admit he's a little bit harder than his companion in the main game cycle, but... he's definitely easier than the easiest of the Undead Giants, and fights in a similar way. His extra HP and damage are still not enough to stop the Hunter from absolutely murdering him.

I've been a little unlucky with blood gems so far but I still get excited whenever I drop a decent one. It feels like all of my work delving into the lowest depths has finally started to pay off. Right now my fire weapon is by far my strongest... so of course I dropped a few more great fire gems while I was clearing Isz floors 1 and 2. What I really want are some Bolt and Nourishing gems, but I haven't been lucky enough to drop any yet.


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Turns out I didn't miss any of the brain fluids. You get the third one from Adeline herself, and the only way to advance the quest is to keep leaving the area and coming back. Okay, I sort of remember this now. But I guess I'm not surprised that I forgot.

Will be fighting Lady Maria shortly, and probably clearing at least one more floor of a chalice dungeon tonight.

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This was originally written as some examples of the fact that Rick constantly loses to female characters, but I think there's actually even more relevant information in here about how inconsistent his powers are overall. I'm too lazy to rewrite the parts that are specifically about losing fights to female characters, but just read this like it's a list of all the times his powers have done absolutely nothing to protect him in the most mundane of situations... and you start to see a pretty clear pattern that I think is best summarized by my last bullet point (3x8). I didn't write anything about season 4.

1x2 - Lawnmower Dog: He does manage to grab Miss Pancake and hold her hostage. This is probably his best showing against a female character and that speaks volumes.

1x7 - Raising Gazorpazorp: Rick is totally helpless against the all female society of warriors. You can argue that this is one of the many cases where he lost his portal gun but also consider the following... his portal gun was broken by someone throwing a rock at it. And Rick for some reason didn't use any of his innate cybernetic implants of other enhancements to get himself out of this situation, to prevent himself from being captured by the female gazorpians, or anything. Great example of Rick's inconsistent power set.

2x4 - One of my favorite episodes, Total Rickall: Not a female combatant but it's worth noting that in this episode he gets his ass beat by a symbiote, and easily captured. Guess his nano-defense mesh didn't feel like activating in this scene either.

2x9 - Look Whose Purging Now: I said this before already but Rick almost gets killed by Arthtricia in this episode. Rick, who has a gun, a portal gun, and supposedly an endless supply of high tech gear on him at all times. Arhricia is an unarmed teenage girl. She steals his gun, shoots him in the liver, steals his portal gun and his ship. This is an example of how easily Rick can be defeated when he lets his guard down.

2x10 - The Wedding Squanchers: Tammy defeats Rick very quickly in a physical battle and forces him to surrender his portal gun. Once again, his cyborg enhancements did not seem to help him out.

3x4 - Vindicators 3: Once again at the end of the episode Rick is easily disabled and defeated by a single female combatant. Apparently he has no sci fi gadget which prevents him from being lifted up and choked, and no kind of weapon that he could have deployed to save himself while in this position. This is also a good opportunity for me to bring up the fact that Rick constantly lies about what his tech is capable of doing. We see in one episode where he claims he has a beam that turns people into snakes, but it's later revealed that he was just disintegrating them and releasing snakes from a holster in his leg. For some reason a lot of fans still take what Rick says at face value even though we're explicitly told that he lies about his own abilities. Now keep in mind that when the phantom train conductor grabs Rick, he claims that he had an automatic defense system protecting his body... but the tech didn't activating until after Rick explained this? It didn't stop the guy from grabbing him? It seems like maybe he needed to engage the device manually, hence the delay, and the fact that it's never shown to automatically protect him in any scene... not even this scene.

3x6 - Rest and Ricklaxation: When Rick is trying to get Morty to go back into the containment tank, the woman who Morty picked up runs over and easily overpowers Rick, throwing both Rick and Morty out of the containment tank. I guess his nano defense mesh did not feel like activating in this case.

3x8 - Morty's Mind Blowers: We're shown countless gags of Rick messing up in small ways, doing stuff as dumb as skiing directly into a tree. No automatic shields to protect him, nothing. He just knocks himself out. It seems that Rick is intentionally curating the narrative to make himself seem omnipotent, but this episode gives us a glimpse of the fact that Rick messes up fairly often. As the audience, we're usually only shown the outcomes where Rick looks infallible, and even that facade has been chipped away over time.


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I would even go so far as to argue that many of Rick's best showings are when he is outnumbered and outgunned, and some of his worst showings are when he is facing a single combatant who is seemingly beneath him, but always manages to get in good shots. That might be the reason why I'm leaning Elizabeth here.


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I'm actually gonna vote for Elizabeth

Rick has a lot of dumb bullshit on his side but it's very inconsistent and he is a known jobber. His epidermis is laced with a nano-defense mesh... except when it's not. He can instantly solve any problem... except when he can't. The list goes on and on.

Remember, this guy almost died to Arthricia. There's like a coin flip as to whether he'd even take the fight seriously or if he'd just make some dumb joke about being in a lame content for nerds to argue on the internet before getting his ass kicked. Elizabeth could easily capitalize on his personality and defeat him. I'm not saying I feel 100% confident that she would win -- it's really hard to know what will happen to Rick in any situation because his power level is so inconsistent -- but I do actually think that it is possible for her to win.

If she manages to defeat him, he can awaken a clone body and revive himself in another dimension. But we've seen how long that process takes, and I believe that taking him out one time would suffice to win the fight. All she needs to do is literally anything to make him lower his guard, and then take him out.

Also think about episodes like The Whirly Dirly Conspiracy, where a random ass flight attendant was able to inject him with a drug that completely neutralized his personality and made him go passive. Rick is VERY susceptible to dropping his guard, and while he likes to hype himself up as someone who can solve any problem instantly, his responses when he is caught off guard are usually clunky and slow. Once again see Whirly Dirly Conspiracy, after the time dilation effect wears off... it takes him like a full three seconds to trigger his arm gadget where he shoots a sticky dart at the other guy's gun to steal it, and then fumbles with the gun before shooting him. He really leaves himself open so, so often when you actually examine how he behaves in the series.

HE ALMOST DIED TO ARTHRICIA.


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Okay, that's what I was thinking. I'm probably still going to look up the details later because I think I missed one of the brain fluids anyway.

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I like dark souls 2 but I no longer have the energy needed to defend the game.

As for my bloodborne progress, I'm now bringing back 300k blood echoes from clearing one floor in Lower Loran.

Cleared the research hall and defeated the living failures. I think I did everything that is possible to do on a first visit, but I honestly can't remember how you get the key to open the door to the lumenflower garden so I might be missing something.


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Mm... I doubt I could give you any useful advice there, unfortunately. My familiarity with the game mechanics of the souls games is like

Bloodborne >> Dark Souls 2 > Dark Souls 3 > Demon's Souls >> Dark Souls 1

So yeah, of all the games, I am probably the least qualified to give advice on builds and mechanical tips when it comes to DS1.

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and Defiled Amygdala is down

Now all that's left is:
Lower Loran
Isz
Pthumeru Ihyll

Research Lab
Fishing Hamlet

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I'll play it when it comes to PS4

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Just cleared the Defiled Watchdog. Finally had to cave and upgrade my weapon from +6 to +9 because... Yeah. He just has so much HP and it's a fight where there is no room for error. The difference between needing 80 hits to kill him and 60 hits to kill him saves a lot of frustration.

Peace___Frog posted...

Question - if you use a gem to convert a weapon's damage to arcane, will it still scale off of strength at all? Or is it only off of arcane?

Arcane scaling only. It completely removes the strength and skill scaling, and replaces it with arcane scaling.

This applies to Fire, Bolt, and Arcane damage.

It ONLY works with weapons that have pure physical damage.

If the weapon already has Physical AND Arcane damage (holy moonlight sword, tonitrus, boom hammer, etc.) then there is no way to do a conversion. The weapon will always scale with both, and there's no way to make it 100% phys or 100% arcane.


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Your build will really spike in power once you start to explore the chalices, or at least run around in the nightmare frontier a bit. Once you get a few elemental gems you'll be able to set up a second, third, or even fourth weapon. You pretty much nailed the two biggest problems with the tonitrus. The move set is SO basic, and the low durability can give you limited usage of the weapon. But yeah, with minimal investment into making it actually good, it's still the strongest of my current weapons. It's hard to justify not using the Tonitrus when it's SO good.

I'm currently carrying FOUR around most of the time.

Saw Cleaver - Uses my best Bolt damage gems. Good for general usage.
Lost Saw Spear - Uses my second best Fire get set up. Good for general usage against fire weak or bolt resistant foes.
Saw Spear - Uses my best Fire gem set up. I equip this when going into a boss room. Cursed to have low durability.
Tonitrus - Uses my best Physical gem set up. I equip this when going into a boss room. Has low durability naturally.

Basically the first two are for exploring areas and floors, have plenty of durability and I can use them to fight normal enemies along the way.

The second two are my optimal fire and bolt damage respectively, and I save these for once I get to the boss. When exploring a chalice floor you don't always know what's waiting beyond the fog gate, bu generally either my fire saw spear or my physical tonitrus set up is a viable weapon.

The main reason I'm doing a physical set up for Tonitrus is because it gets bonus elemental damage, and a huge amount of arcane scaling already. Now ideally later on I'll be able to get gems that boost all damage, for higher physical AND bolt damage, but for right now it actually makes sense to increase the base physical damage as much as possible and just rely on my arcane stat for the bolt scaling.

For my arcane tools I literally have to change my set up depending on what boss I'm fighting. The Tiny Tonitrus is really good in a lot of cases, but I really appreciate having the Executioner's Glove available for usage as well. I've actually noticed a trend of bosses who resist volt damage tending to be susceptible to the Executioner's Gloves, so that's pretty cool.

Also took down Ebrietas and got my Isz Chalice.

The fact that I'm staying at a fixed, relatively low level and keeping all my weapons at +6 has started to make some of these bosses pretty legitimately challenging. But I'm having fun as a result. I was still able to hit her pretty hard with the Tiny Tonitrus, I think each cast was doing around 1200 damage so I saved it for the end of the fight and used it to chip away at her health once she got more dangerous and aggressive. Ended the fight with like 4 vials and 3 QS Bullets.

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Ailing Loran cleared
Went and took out Ludwig, I got my Holy Moonlight sword but I need to go get a variant with a better gem set up
The Tonitrus continues to be one of the most consistently powerful weapons in my arsenal...

Peace___Frog posted...

Defiled watchdog is difficult because even if you have a lot of hp, and the runes equipped, and fire resistance, you are still likely to get one shot by some attacks.

this is pretty much accurate. although this might sound weird, but I actually appreciate this. battles like this forced me to get really good at the game, in a way that none of the other content could have possibly challenged me. I love the chalice dungeons for exactly this reason. I can more or less always beat the watchdog without ever getting hit, and this is because I've battled him in a situation where that needed to be the case.

and the skills to win this fight actually transfer over to general bloodborne play and just make you better at the game overall. like learning about spacing, safe attacking, safe healing rather than just face tanking damage while spamming overpowered blood vials. the power of trick attacks and knowing the range and tracking of every attack in your move set. stuff like that.

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I've seen the werewolf clip. Wanted to try it out myself but I just haven't done it yet.

Generally not the type who uses skips and stuff anyway... If I did it, it'd really just be for the novelty haha

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colliding posted...

and the conclusion you draw in your second number 1 is more like what I think is happening

that's good to hear. since I wrote that with the intent of taking the thoughts of people on this side, and writing them in a way that Santa could understand better. if this thought process does resonate with you, then I think it's at least a decent representation of that side of the argument.

Leonhart4 posted...

Not wearing a mask isn't incredibly rare around where I live.

GTM posted...

People who dont wear masks at this point are already convinced not to and wont change their minds unless like, their child gets Rona. Doubly so for people who aren't afraid to openly say they are a bad person (no shade intended)

.... okay.

I thought Leon was just being silly and making a pun, and maybe that is the case, but based on GTM's response I guess I need to clarify something. I am not talking about wearing a literal mask. I'm talking about people putting on an act.


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SantaRPidgey posted...

I'm just curious, have you guys honestly never been in a situation where you fucked up really bad and hurt someone?

I've done terrible things to other people. I have hurt them both intentionally and unintentionally, yes. I am definitely not a good person. I think generally, if someone believes they are a good person, they are probably incredibly delusional. Society demands that we wear masks and condemn all bad behavior, even behavior that we ourselves have engaged in. People like me, who don't wear a mask, are incredibly rare.

For a bit of perspective, it's very likely that one of two things is going on in this topic. They are listed in no particular order. THEY ARE NOT LISTED IN ANY PARTICULAR ORDER. I am not saying that either of these things is more likely than the other. I am not making any statement about how likely either scenario is. And, to reiterate one last time, THEY ARE NOT LISTED IN ANY PARTICULAR ORDER. Don't worry, despite me saying this about five different times, I'm sure I'll also get accused of defending rapists by someone who I just coincidentally happened to insult five years ago and still hasn't let it go. Here are the two things:

1. The kind of sexual misconduct and sexual assault that Santa describes is indeed relatively common, which is supported by university studies about how likely a woman is to be sexually assaulted -- the fact that most people are victimized by abusers that they know (rather than by strangers) -- and the reality that many victims of sexual assault never come forward. Now I think Santa has confused the issue here a bit, both by using hyperbolic language, and by flipping the perspectives. I wouldn't say that "most" people have committed sexual assault, but I would say that "many" people have been victims of sexual assault. This doesn't mean that every person, or even most people, are abusers. But I do think abusers are fairly common, more common than we're often willing to accept. This has created a WIDE gap of misunderstanding by which Santa, and the other group, are no longer even discussing the same issue. Are we talking about whether it's a common occurrence? Or are we talking about how serious these acts of sexual misconduct are? You can't conflate the two issues and accuse Santa of defending rapists, especially when the case in question is about sexual assault -- not rape. And yes, there is at least one instance of someone calling Mangs a 'rapist' in this discussion. So bear in mind that the hyperbole goes both ways. What Mangs did was really bad, but it was not rape. Words exist for a reason. To summarize this point, there is the possibility that people in this topic are simply wearing their "masks" and saying that this behavior is unacceptable when, in truth, they have done similar things in the past but would never admit it. This seems to be what Santa is arguing for. It's not that he thinks that sexual misconduct is okay, but rather, he believes that people are being dishonest about whether they've actually done sexually inappropriate things.

Unfortunately, this line of thought and discussion is not very useful to the average board 8 user. This is not the place to have a productive discussion. By even addressing the idea that there has been a misunderstanding, or trying to discuss the nuance of a very complicated issue, I will immediately be flagged as "minimizing" these issues and discarded from the conversation.

1. (Yes, the automatic bullet system on GameFAQS is so bad that not only does it automatically force me to use the numbered list format, but it changes my 2 to a 1. Fucking genius, Allen.) Secondly, there's also the very real possibility that Santa's experiences have caused him to normalize behavior which is highly uncommon. I think we can all agree that sexual misconduct is bad, and even Santa has said this multiple times. But, to the best of my ability to actually follow this clusterfuck of a conversation, it seems like a large part of this talk is actually about how COMMON these issues are. If Santa thinks that "most" people engage in this type of behavior, it very likely results from normalization that he has experienced in his life. There are a LOT of negative behaviors and actions that were normalized in my childhood, and I was still at the age of 24 or 25 figuring things out which were obvious to most people but, to me, I always just thought "this is how things are done." In fact, I'd say that most people normalize negative behaviors to some extent. The big difference is between those who figure out their behavior, and correct it, and those who continue to do the same bad shit over and over because they believe that they can do no wrong -- and they won't listen to any criticism of their behavior. I've gotten a bit off track but, to summarize this point, this outcome explains the position best of the people who are arguing against Santa. That his behavior, and Mangs behavior, is NOT as commonplace as Santa thinks that it is -- that he only believes this because he has normalized the behavior, and that everyone in this topic is being honest when they say that none of them have ever engaged in sexual misconduct.

As with any post I make, I doubt this will endear the average board 8 user to me in any way, shape, or form. But I do think that if Santa reads this post it might better help him understand the thought process of the people arguing against him, and the general flow of this conversation as a whole.... not that it will help him avoid getting eviscerated in the future, but, well, yeah. Nothing is going to stop that. Santa could stop posting on board 8 for 10 years, come back, and in the very first topic he posts in someone would go "yeah it's no surprise that Santa is still a piece of shit, I've always known he was terrible." Welcome to board 8.


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this topic title was not nearly clickbaity enough. I almost missed reading this topic because you neglected to mention anything about the racism or getting fired in the topic title!

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third one. it's usually some variant of 'fine I guess. nothing really interesting to report.'

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Interesting. I'm not sure what the comparison is there, but it's always fun to see what other people think.

An update on my end...

Went ahead and cleared Yaharghul and the Nightmare of Mensis all in one go, more or less. Once you're already at your target level and you have more items stocked than you could ever need, there's no real reason to go back to the hunter's dream no matter how many blood echoes you have collected along the way.

This was probably my best fight against the Yaharghul Gank Squad, like, ever. The ultimate dominance of the Saw Spear and Saw Cleaver as my main weapons, with the added utility of arcane tools to keep them at bay, made the fight really, really clean.

One Reborn... Okay, so I'm going to keep this in mind for my next Arcane Item only challenge. Holy hell does the Flamesprayer completely melt this guy. I was using a +6 Flamesprayer, even -- still haven't upgraded any of my weapons past +6 -- and the damage output on him was still INSANE. If I have it at +9 as one of my only upgraded weapons, it's going to drain his HP bar so fast. Really looking forward to it.

I found a really efficient route where you run past and ignore everything at the bottom of the tower of mensis, fight micolash, go down the elevator and jump off to fight the winter lanterns. after you get rid of the brain and drop down to get the blood rock, you'll be back near the elevator that takes you to the bottom... coincidentally right on the far side of the loop. from here, you can run around the entire base level with no more brain to worry about, and pick up all of the items in one swoop. you also end up right back near the spot where you should go down to Make Contact with the brain of mensis after completing the loop.

also on taking advice posted earlier in this topic, I decided to just mess around and try to actually parry the winter lanterns. wow, I was doing myself a huge disservice in the past. they are very, very easy to parry. it took me like 30 seconds and two tries to figure it out. so yeah, parrying them is definitely the best way. it helps that I am playing a minimum BLT build, so my usual strategy of using a gun to kill them is at the least effective it can possibly be.


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Mm... Generally people are referring to Amygdala in the Defiled Chalice when they mention that. There's a few factors that go into this.

First, by the time you get to Depth 4-5 in the Chalice, the difficulty has already scaled up to the point of being on par with NG+ material. Being able to access this content in your normal NG cycle means a lot of players are going to walk into this totally unprepared. See above the 'not too uncommon' player I was describing, the guy with a +8 or +9 weapon and a crap build. This version of Amygdala is already going to hit hard enough to actually be a threat, and has enough HP that you can't just kill it instantly like the one you find in the Nightmare Frontier.

Secondly, the Defiled Chalice has an interesting mechanic that can make certain encounters more difficult. Your max HP is cut in half, and the physical damage you take is reduced accordingly. This means that elemental and magical attacks deal effectively TWICE as much damage. Many magical, fire, and bolt attacks you find in a Defiled Chalice will outright oneshot your character.

While this isn't a huge deal with Amygdala, since many of its attacks are physical, this does make the dungeon itself very difficult. And it does have magical laser attacks -- easy to dodge, but fatal if you mess it up. I'd actually say the bigger challenge is the Defiled Watchdog and Defiled Keeper, who spam fire damage. Even their chip damage attacks can chunk your health bar, and you're susceptible to being oneshot if you make one wrong move.

But yeah, Defiled Amygdala does have a reputation for being difficult, and for good reason. The Defiled Chalice is about as hard as NG+, and is up there with the DLC as some of the most difficult content you can access in a base NG cycle. Too many players have wandered in there with no idea what they were getting themselves into, leading to the (rightfully earned) reputation for difficulty.

I'd also add this issue is even exacerbated by how easy Amygdala can be in the main campaign. You didn't learn how to fight this boss the fight time because you just shot it in the head 2 times and it died. But when you have to actually fight it, you have no idea what to do...

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Yeah the fog clone part is fairly dangerous, and you become more susceptible to it if your damage is lower. Imagine having to survive through that phase two separate times and having less of an idea of how to manage her normal attack patterns. I do agree it's fairly easy to get and stay behind her, but she also has attacks that hit behind herself so it's not 100% safe. The spinning attack at least has a delay on it, so it'll catch players off guard.

And if you imagine someone with a +9 or even a +8 weapon trying to do this, likely with a sub-optimal build, her difficulty level makes a lot more sense. This is actually going to be a fairly common experience for a first playthrough. People who post about games on message boards and learn everything there is to know are actually pretty rare in the grand scheme of things. Especially on their first playthrough, most will try to beat it without any help.

Though, ultimately, I'm still disappointed at the lack of a chalice version. One Reborn I understand, since his battle requires a special arena set up. I guess I can imagine that doing the fog phase would have been difficult in a chalice set up, but I still would have liked to fight a beefed up version of Mergo's Wet Nurse without needing to go into NG+

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Mergo's Wet Nurse, the ultimate combination of being aesthetically cool while functionally nothing.

they had to make a choice, unfortunately. because around half of the content in bloodborne is optional... you were either going to have endgame bosses who were too difficult to defeat unless you went and grinded all of the optional content, which wouldn't be fun for casual players. or, what we got -- the endgame bosses are pretty well adjusted for difficult for a casual run. but as soon as you start exploring the DLC and going into the optional areas, you're going to come back and find the endgame bosses are too weak to challenge you.

especially since the BIGGEST power spike is from the +6 to +9 weapon upgrade, which occurs during this end of game time period.

just keep in mind that mergo's wet nurse is adjusted to challenge players who have missed most of the optional content, and it's a bit easier to accept. the only thing about it that disappoints me is that she doesn't appear in the chalice. if there was a leveled up chalice version that I could battle, I'd be a lot happier. having fought her before with challenge characters and lower level quick runs, I know that she can be a challenging boss. it's just when your HP and damage is too high, it ruins the fun.


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UshiromiyaEva posted...

It doesn't help that on a regular playthrough they're no way to get more Shaman Bone Blades since it requires a Chalice Dungeon Badge.

... you only have to clear central pthumeru. it's like one of the first few chalices...

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Since I'm at 40/50/50 now, wondering if there would be a worthwhile investment amount for Arcane since I can finally use paper coatings again.

fire paper and bolt paper both give a flat bonus to damage. they don't gain anything from investment into arcane.

if you're trying to stay at a certain level, there's probably no room in your build for arcane. if you're going to reach 50 vit, 50 skill, and 50 bloodtinge and you still want to keep gaining levels... hmmm... honestly, there are two schools of thought. 18 arcane would give access to the augur of ebrietas, but it's admittedly less important when you have such strong options for guns. it does have some utility value but it won't help too much with damage compared to everything else you can do. the other choice is to start putting points into strength. even skill weapons gain a little bit of extra damage from a strength investment, and strength will see relatively large gains up to 25 points.

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MysticBrohan posted...

whats a guy gotta do around here i mean jesus CHRIST
SSBDarren64?? over ME?? i can shit talk him with impunity because guess what he isnt gonna fuckin read this. he isnt here. DigitalIncision hasnt even been on the board in like 4 fuckin years. Youre saying he didnt need 2017-2020 to beat out MysticBrohan? His 2016 and earlier must have been so fucking good they could just carry him onto the list. i mean NFUN got an honorable mention. literally NFUN. fuck off dude your 30s through mid-40s are full of literal whos. see me in melee first to 5 $10

imagine not making a top 100 list on a board with less than 100 active users

and TimJab is on the list

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CassandraCain posted...

imo learning the parry timing for winter lanterns is the best way to deal with them. You waste nothing but a single bullet that way, since the frenzy meter will fill right as you're in the riposte animation which negates the damage.

I don't disagree with this at all. I just tend to prefer low risk strategies over 'optimal' strategies. or, to me, my definition of optimal is usually the one that gives the least amount of risk. that's why I mention above that I'd rather spend more bullets to kill them in a position where they have a 0% chance of harming me.

the chance of getting killed isn't worth the difference of 5 QS Bullets and a Blood Vial since I have plenty of both of those things.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

I would literally rather fight any enemy in any Souls game over a Whale Shark.

yeahhh.... they are among the small group of enemies that I still have no consistent strategy for dealing with. though I plan to change that with this playthrough. part of the reason I've been going through everything so slowly is that I've been refining and developing strategies for things that I was 'weak' against before.


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