Lurker > Calwings

I wish MTG Arena wasn't PC/mobile only. I'd play it if they released it on Xbox or Switch.

I made my way through routes 6-7 and Wela Volcano Park, and I'm saved right in front of Kiawe's island trial. Two things to note along the way:

1) I thought about other options for a Water-type like Goldeen, Staryu, Clamperl, and Finneon, but I decided to stick with Popplio. I'm still thinking about whether to replace Crabrawler with another Fighting-type like Stufful or Pancham, but aside from that, the rest of my team is basically set in stone at this point.

2) I had trouble with a random trainer's Kadabra who knocked out 3 of my Pokemon on the way to Kiawe's trial. I don't have any priority moves on my team, so fast attackers like Kadabra might be a big issue later, especially when they're evolved and I'm still using my unevolved Pokemon due to my challenge run.

My current team: (asterisk = getting boosted experience for being past its evolution level)
Lv26 Popplio*
Lv25 Magnemite
Lv25 Cutiefly*
Lv25 Gastly*
Lv24 Crabrawler
Lv24 Mudbray

Modern Warfare 2 is a shit tier Call of Duty game, and Infinity Ward are the worst of the CoD dev studios by far.

SkittyOnWailord posted...

I only liked 2D Zelda game. I didn't like and/or found the 3D ones boring.

I also agree with this.

I continue to play Call of Duty because it's the only series on the market that has the FPS gameplay that I enjoy. I want fast-paced and arcade-y gameplay, so something slow and tactical like Rainbow Six Siege doesn't suit me. I want small maps and a focus on the gunplay without extra stuff like vehicles or environmental destruction, so Battlefield doesn't suit me. I want a mostly boots-on-the-ground experience, so Halo and Titanfall don't suit me. I want a game where you can always play how you want and aren't forced into a certain role by your team's character choices, so a hero shooter like Overwatch doesn't suit me.

Until the day Ubisoft finally launches XDefiant and I try that out (and trust me, I'm hyped for it) there's simply nothing else out there that fills the same niche that Call of Duty does. So that's a big reason why I continue to play it even as the newer games aren't as good as the old ones.

https://iili.io/JkmgFSI.gif

It's good to have these lovable morons back.

Trumpo posted...

They been out for a while

Not legally. The first two episodes were leaked early, but today was the official premiere date on both Japanese TV and Crunchyroll.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Is there actually a difference between Self-Destruct and Explosion aside from one having 200 base power and the other having 250?

Nope, none at all. Explosion is objectively better, and the only reason to use Self-Destruct is if the Pokemon can't also learn Explosion, which only applies to specifically Muchlax/Snorlax and Mewtwo.

EDIT: To clarify, there are some situations where a Pokemon can learn Self-Destruct but not Explosion within a generation, like Sudowoodo having Self-Destruct as an egg move in G/S/C but not being able to learn Explosion until the gen 3 move tutors. But Muchlax/Snorlax and Mewtwo are the only Pokemon who have never been able to learn Explosion but have been able to learn Self-Destruct.

I loved the Oracle games. I generally prefer classic 2D Zelda to 3D Zelda, and those two games were the peak of 2D Zelda IMO.

uwnim posted...

Being two different games and each being a full game made it okay, imo.

I agree. Each one was a full and great game on its own, and I always saw the linked features from having both games (or through trading codes with a friend) as just a nice bonus on top of that.

Skies of Arcadia
Pokemon Colosseum/XD

WWE Battleground 2015, a couple of RAW episodes, a couple of AEW TV episodes, and one local indy show. Sadly, I couldn't get tickets to the AEW PPV that's coming here later this month.

https://iili.io/JkNHZhX.jpg

F

Just got done with Lana's island trial, and it was easier than I expected. I found the TM for Charge Beam inside Brooklet Hill and taught it to Magnemite, gave Magnemite the Quick Claw, and then it managed to solo the Totem Araquanid all on its own. First turn I got a Quick Claw activation and paralyzed Araquanid with Thunder Wave, then second turn I set up Light Screen to lessen the damage from incoming rain-boosted Water attacks. After that, it only took one Charge Beam on the helper Dewpider and two more on the Araquanid to take it down. Of course, the good luck of Araquanid being paralyzed and unable to move for three of those turns certainly helped a lot.

Next up is Kiawe's island trial, which will probably be a lot tougher.

Only Tales of the Abyss and the two Pokemon games. And I agree, B2/W2 and Explorers of Sky top tier Pokemon games.

IceCreamOnStero posted...

Tropius, its a pretty good HM slave in general.

This. Between Tropius and a water-type like Marill or Psyduck, you can cover all 8 HM's in Hoenn with only 2 Pokemon.

Letsago posted...

Are you going to do Rainbow Rocket or end when you become champion?

I'll stop when I become the Champion, like I always do with these challenge playthroughs.

GeminiDeus posted...

Ultra Necrozma is stupid against Zorua/Zoroark's Illusion and will only spam its Psychic attack against it, then you can just whittle it down with Toxic and some attacks. Never used that strategy myself, but that's one way to do it.

Ding ding ding, you got it. That was my plan. When I'm about to face Ultra Necrozma, I'll bring Zorua back out from the PC, teach it Toxic via TM, and use it (along with the AI's stupidity when it comes to dealing with Illusion) to take down the big bad. But that's a long way off.

I'm now on the second island, and now that I'm here, I made a team change. On route 4, I caught a Mudbray, who has an usually high base stat total for an unevolved Pokemon (385 compared to most of the other Pokemon I've used so far being in the 300-340 range) and was definitely a Pokemon that I wanted on my team for this run. I thought for a while about which Pokemon to replace, and in the end, I decided to bench Zorua for Mudbray.

I went through route 4, the Paniola Ranch area, and route 5, and I saved right in front of Lana's island trial in Brooklet Hill. On the way, I got a free egg from the daycare, which hatched into an Eevee. If that Eevee had Adaptability as its ability, I might have considered using it, but it had Run Away, so into the box it goes.

My current team: (asterisk = getting boosted experience for being past its evolution level)
Lv23 Popplio*
Lv22 Magnemite
Lv22 Cutiefly
Lv23 Gastly
Lv21 Crabrawler
Lv21 Mudbray

I'm still thinking about other team options, but knowing that I would need to train those new team members more to have them catch up to the rest of the team level-wise, I'm hesitant to make any more changes to the team later on. so what's listed above might be my final team going forward. We'll have to wait and see.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/280/734/6ec.png

It hasn't even been officially revealed yet and I'm already more hyped for the next Call of Duty game than I have been for a CoD game in a very long time. Just knowing that this is a Treyarch-developed CoD game with 4 years of development time since their last title has my expectations for this game through the roof. Treyarch (IMO) makes the best CoD multiplayer experiences, but their last few games have had rushed developments for one reason or another, so I'm hyped to see what they can do when actually given plenty of time to cook.

Across last night and today, I went though route 3, rescued Nebby at the Melememe Meadow, got back to Iki Town, and defeated the first Island Kahuna of the game, Hala. Cutiefly made short work of his first two Fighting-types, but after baiting out his one-use Z-move with Gastly, I decided to finish the battle with a Crabrawler vs. Crabrawler honor battle, which my Crabrawler obviously won. Nothing too challenging yet, but eventually I'll be facing more evolved Pokemon with my unevolved team, so the difficulty will go up later on.

My current team:
Lv20 Popplio*
Lv19 Zorua
Lv18 Magnemite
Lv18 Cutiefly
Lv19 Gastly
Lv17 Crabrawler

Also, I should make note of this now: from gen 6 onward, there's a new gameplay mechanic where a Pokemon will gain 20% more experience points if it's capable of evolving at a certain level but has gone beyond that evolution level without evolving. My Popplio started getting the boosted experience at level 17 (the level where it normally evolves to Brionne), and all of the Pokemon in my current party except Crabrawler (since it evolves by level up at a certain location and not at a certain level) will eventually get the same boosted experience later on. Once my Pokemon are at that level, I'll mark them with an asterisk in my team list.

Sengoku Youko is a new one that has a foxgirl protagonist, and its first season just finished airing. Sadly, it doesn't have an English dub announced. I also second checking out the Spice And Wolf reboot that just started airing. That one does have a dub announced that should be coming in a couple of weeks.

I second the other mentions of 86, Delicious In Dungeon, Madoka Magica, and Overtake, and I'll also throw in:

* Assassination Classroom
* Code Geass
* Dr. Stone
* Fruits Basket (the 2019 reboot, not the original from 2001)
* JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
* Kaguya-sama: Love is War
* Laid-Back Camp
* Outlaw Star
* Shakugan No Shana
* Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online (technically a spin-off of Sword Art Online but can be watched by itself)

There's a decent mix of older and newer anime to choose from. All of these have English dubs except for Overtake. Delicious In Dungeon and the third season of Laid-Back Camp are currently airing, while Dr. Stone and Gun Gale Online have future seasons announced to be coming in the future. Finally, unless something's changed in the past few months that I'm not aware of, all of these should be available on one of the streaming sites you mentioned.

Cardinals home opener today, and it happens to be against my other home team, the Marlins. Normally when my two favorite teams face each other, my #1 loyalty lies with the Marlins and I cheer for them, but they're so awful this year (and they just lost their best pitcher to Tommy John Surgery) that I've already pretty much given up on their season. So go Cardinals.

I would consider BattleBots to be a combat sport, so that's my answer. If that doesn't count, then golf.

SomeLikeItHoth posted...

Tag! I love your walkthrough topics.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

SomeLikeItHoth posted...

If you catch a Rockruff, name her Taka.

I don't nickname my Pokemon unless I'm doing a Nuzlocke.

I caught a Cutiefly on Route 2 and a Gastly in the nearby Hau'oli Cemetary to add to my team, then I trained on all of the trainers in the area before reaching the Pokemon Center in front of Verdant Cave. Before I went into the cave for the island trial, I decided to check the nearby berry tree because "why not, maybe I'll get lucky" and sure enough, I got lucky... a Crabrawler showed up from the berry pile! I wasn't planning on using Crabrawler in this run because of the randomness involved in finding one, but since the game gave me one right away, I caught it and added it to my team.

After that, Crabrawler basically solo'd the entire Verdant Cave trial by itself. I picked up the TM for Brick Break inside the cave (why is such an amazing move given to you so early in this game?), taught it to Crabrawler, and it obliterated all of the Alolan Rattata and the Totem Alolan Raticate in the cave. The only thing it couldn't take on was a Drowzee used by the Team Skull grunt who showed up in the middle of the trial, but Cutiefly took care of that with Struggle Bug. So now the first island trial is done, and it's off to route 3 next.

My current team:
Lv16 Popplio
Lv16 Zorua
Lv15 Magnemite
Lv14 Cutiefly
Lv15 Gastly
Lv13 Crabrawler

The Marlins are 0-6. Pain.

Every time you post one of these card ideas, it's either so terrible that it would never see play (which this one falls under) or so broken and abusable that it would be banned immediately.

teep_ posted...

When I played UM I cheesed Ultra Necrozma. Not sure if that's something you'd be okay with doing

I'll talk about how I'm going to deal with Ultra Necrozma when I get closer to that battle... although someone might be able to guess my plan well before then.

I haven't done a Pokemon challenge run in a while (not since my Porygon solo through Red version back in late 2022) and I haven't played through a gen 7 game in even longer than that, but I was getting the itch to do both. So here I go, starting another challenge run. I'm going to beat Pokemon Ultra Moon, which includes one of the most difficult boss battles in the entire franchise in Ultra Necrozma, using only unevolved Pokemon. To further clarify, that means I'll only be using base form Pokemon that are capable of evolving, so evolved Pokemon and single-stage Pokemon that don't evolve at all are not allowed. I also won't be using any items in battle aside from Pokeballs to catch my team members. Held items on my Pokemon (including Z crystals to use Z moves) are fair game though.

I started the game with Popplio, then I caught a Magnemite and a Zorua near the Trainer's School on Route 1. So far I've only done the early-game tutorial stuff and taken care of things in Hau'oli City, which was a battle against a Team Skull grunt and a battle against Ilima and his annoying Smeargle. I'll head up Route 2 towards Verdant Cavern and Ilima's island trial in my next play session.

I don't know if this will be as interesting as some of my past solo runs, but hopefully it's at least somewhat fun and challenging.

You can drop in with a squad of King Kong, 21 Savage, Alucard, and Homelander in CoD Warzone.

Necronmon posted...

I just hope we get Soul cal 7 period

Same. I tried out a few other fighting games in the gap between when SC5 bombed and when SC6 finally got announced (because I was scared the franchise was dead) and none of them were as enjoyable for me as SC was. I really don't want the franchise to just die out.

I've definitely seen people complain that Eve's design is "unrealistic" (which is ridiculous because she's a literal 3D scan of a real-life Korean model) or "too sexualized", but I've seen more people complaining about the above complainers being "woke SJW's" than I've actually seen the above complainers complaining about the game itself.

So it seems to me like the complaints do exist, they're just being blown way out of proportion.

The problem is, Nintendo would never let that stuff from their IP be included in the non-Nintendo versions of the game. Either Bandai Namco would need to find decent exclusive content for the other versions of Soul Calibur 7 to make up for the lack of the Nintendo stuff (like they did with Spawn and Heihachi in Soul Calibur 2) or they would have to make the game exclusive to Nintendo's system, which I doubt they would do.

A better idea would be to not even bother with the Soul Calibur name and just make a full-on Nintendo x Bandai Namco crossover game, featuring weapon-based fighters from a bunch of franchises on both sides. The Nintendo side could have characters from Zelda, Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, Kid Icarus, even some oddball picks like Meta Knight from Kirby and a few Pokemon like Scyther and Sirfetch'd. The Namco side could have characters from Soul Calibur, the Tales series, the Souls franchise, Elden Ring, Baten Kaitos, Scarlet Nexus, even some anime characters whose tie-in games Bandai Namco develops or publishes like Trunks from DBZ and Kirito from SAO.

That game would sell like hotcakes despite being Nintendo-exclusive, and then they could use that money to make Soul Calibur 7 better later on.

The Showboats beat the Renegades in a close game, 18-12, to cap off the first weekend of the UFL season. I thought it was pretty solid overall, with the Panthers/Battlehawks game on Saturday definitely being the highlight of the weekend. I don't know if I'll be able to watch all 4 games every weekend like I did this weekend, but I'll definitely watch every Battlehawks game since they're my home team.

I'm just gonna post my whole damn CoD tier list. This is rating solely based on standard multiplayer. I don't care about the campaign, I don't care about non-Zombies side modes (Spec Ops, Blackout, Warzone, etc.) and I only started caring about Zombies with BOCW so it feels unfair to include it in the rating for those recent games but not for the earlier ones where I didn't care about Zombies.

God tier:
BO2

Great tier:
WW2, MW3 (2011), BO1

Good tier:
BO3, CoD4/MWR, MW3 (2023), BOCW

Meh tier:
BO4, AW, IW, Vanguard

Dumpster Fire tier:
MW2 (2009), MW (2019), MW2 (2022), Ghosts

Didn't play:
any of the pre-CoD4 games, W@W

Euripides posted...

Yankees with a four game sweep in Houston. Did not see that coming

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzItS5BmUNw

Link_of_time posted...

Here's hoping for a home game for St. Louis. They always sold pretty well along with Seattle, but the Sea Dragons aren't here this season.

I heard their home opener against the Renegades next week is basically sold out.

Damn_Underscore posted...

You have to fight fire with fire

Or try to actually make a balanced game that isn't a toxic dumpster fire in the first place

Damn_Underscore posted...

MW3 was like an improved version of MW2, reminiscent of MW2 but much better

Fixed for accuracy. MW3 fixing the broken, unbalanced, game-destroying bullshit of MW2 was one of the best things to ever happen to this franchise. If stupid shit like endlessly replenishable noobtubes boosted by Danger Close, 20-foot Commando knife lunges, quickscoping boosted by Sleight Of Hand Pro's faster ADS speed, and Stopping Power as a perk (without a Juggernaut perk to balance it out) continued to exist in CoD, the series would be dead by now.

hockeybabe89 posted...

It was such a massive pile of shit. No one who liked it has any right to ever criticize another game for being broken or poorly designed.

Agreed, the original MW2 was a dumpster fire and is still one of my least favorite CoD games. The only CoD games I hate more than it are Ghosts, MW 2019, and MW2 2022... oh look at that, they're all Infinity Ward games. Fucking garbage-ass dev team, haven't made a good multiplayer experience since CoD4.

deoxxys posted...

It's not even the best multiplayer Call of Duty.
Black Ops 2 holds that title.

deoxxys posted...

Unpopular opinion but Cod WW2, post divisions update was the second best cod.

You, my good sir or madam, have excellent taste. BO2 is the peak, and post-overhaul WW2 was amazing and deserves a lot more love.

BowflexPeloton posted...

Can't wait to see the Defenders destroy at noon.

Monotone announcer voice: "They did not." Anyways, the last game of the weekend is on now. The Memphis Showboats are beating the Houston Roughnecks.

I did learn something today though: I was technically wrong about the whole "5 XFL teams and 3 USFL teams" thing. The Houston Roughnecks in this new UFL are actually just the Houston Gamblers from the USFL (same coaching staff and mostly the same roster) re-branded using the name and logo of the Houston Roughnecks from the XFL. So in reality, it's actually 4 teams from each league that survived the merge.

I liked how the English dub came up with an entirely new set of boob-related nicknames for Takao.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/697/490/dfe.gif

I was a WCW kid, but I lost interest in wrestling before WCW really started getting bad and didn't get back into it until several years after WCW was already dead.

Fuck the human element, get the calls right.

Fantastic anime, 9/10, Roka is best girl

https://iili.io/JwT4cKb.gif

MarthGoomba posted...

Subbed is better

IMO, D-Frag is one of those shows where you can't go wrong either way. Even if the Japanese version is a bit better, the English dub is still really good.

I'll be damned, the Cardinals actually won

Looks like the Cardinals offense finally came to life

Marlins are 0-3, Cardinals are (at the moment) 0-2. Not a good start for my home teams.

TotallyNotAGirl posted...

Aw man is the USFL 2-0 after today? Lame.

Yep, the former USFL teams won both games today.

TheAwesomeMatt posted...

What happened with the combining it with CFL? Did that fall through?

I don't think that was ever a serious consideration to begin with. That was more of a longshot that was possible but very unlikely.

TL;DR: Pendulums were a mistake