Lurker > CaptainOfCrush

Just completed the Collectopedia and nearing the end. I'm keeping myself 7-9 levels underleveled in the last area and still having a somewhat easy time.

THIS IS THE [EXPERT MODE'S] POWER

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Heh, that's one of the worst side quests in the game. So easy to get lost in that area, too.

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Waluigi1 posted...

The problem I was having was against a unique monster who's spike was doing like 650 dmg and I couldn't get him to topple easily and Shulk's purge wasn't cutting it. I ended up doing everything else in the area first, leveled up a few times and then just outhealed his stupid spike shit with Sharla lol. Still dumb though.

Kinda sounds like that horse in Makna Forrest. If so, he gave me a bit of trouble too; he's definitely the toughest fight in that area when you first get there.

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Oh yeah, true that. Some enemies shouldn't be toppled, but I think Waluigi's problem right now is with enemies that just have a "normal" spike, and yeah, those killed me my first time through because I rarely about the topple mechanic.

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mnkboy907 posted...

Wait, there are people that actually use the armor without gem slots?

Eh, early game gems aren't that amazing, so it might be better to take the flat physical/ether defense. It isn't until late-game that gems get insane and really outshine the armor itself, imo.

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skullbone posted...

If you're dealing with an enemy who has spike damage when they get toppled then it does a fuckload of damage for some reason. I've never had an issue with spike damage unless it came from a toppled monster

This. If an enemy has Spike, chances are they are very susceptible to Topple, and tons of characters have good Topple setups (Shulk, Dunban, and Reyn are a great team for this). If you're having trouble Toppling them during the normal course of the fight, try it during a Chain Attack. Much easier to Topple em then.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Nah, it's been pretty chill personally.

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I maxed out Party Affinity today using the Stormy Bellagon method. It was a little more time consuming than I remember, but it still might be the fastest method. Got my team up to the mid-90s without setting foot in the last area, so yeah I'll be making use of Expert Mode when I get there.

Expert Mode is an amazing idea, by the way. In a couple days, when I have everyone's Skills earned and weapons/gems/Skill Links optimized, I'm guessing I'll be able to contend with enemies while like 30 levels gimped.

Also finally started to truly tackle Heart-to-Hearts... and I say again this is the best party I've ever seen in a JRPG. Love every one of these guys, even Sharla I guess.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Just did 18 on my door bar, but that has an easy narrow grip and comfortable pads. With a wider grip (wider = harder) on a less comfortable bar, maybe a dozen max.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Lol the part of that exchange where he says he "knows 200 black girl gamers in the scene"

Back during the heyday of SFIV and MvC3, I used to stream tourneys often, and I'm not sure I saw 30 girls in the audience that whole time. What a pathetic lie.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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best game ever

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Just wanna say that after replaying for 100 hours in 2020 (still a ways before I actually beat it), this is still one of the greatest games of all time. A real gem.

Have you guys felt the same way over the past few weeks? I feel like most of us in here are replaying it after several years, so I'd love to hear some other opinions as to how well the game held up for you.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Just wondering, do you know the prize for getting all 900?

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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You got 800 without using online maps/sources? That's... incredible. Good on ya bro.

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Grimlyn posted...

boy do I love the new chara models for these moments

100%

I had my doubts about the new models just because the Wii version is so nostalgic to me, but they all wound up being incredible. I could never go back to the originals.

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FC looks a liiiittle too Nopon-heavy

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Lets ignore his legislative career where he said gay people in the military were security risks and that schools that teach homosexual acceptance shouldnt get funding because he had a slip of the tongue and blurted out support before the administration, which was surely discussing it behind the scenes, was ready.

Progress is progress, my friend. I used to hate gays when I was a kid because hatred and judgment was the only opinion toward gay people that I ever saw being expressed by the people in charge, including my parents. Yes, we have our courageous luminaries who are decades ahead on some of these social issues (Bernie), and we should rightly be thankful for them, but most of us have to get dragged into improvement over time, and as long as we get there... that's good lol

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

maybe you cant find one person who has talked to all the same people he has, but there must be someone better who has talked to any individual guest he has on

Most people are way too lazy to do that. I know I am. The only other podcast I sometimes listen to (keep in mind that between all the snippets, I get maybe a few hours of Rogan a year) is Stone Cold Steve Austin's, and here's a take: Austin seems better than Rogan in just about every way, and considering he's literally Stone Cold Steve Austin, I'm surprised his show hasn't blown up like a nuke. I have to awesome it's because he's happy just shooting the shit with other pro wrestler guests and has little interest interviewing doctors and academics, because he'd be great.

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Game of the Decade 2010

I remember loving the hell out of the contest, and probably in no small part because it was the first one where I co-hosted the podcast with Ng. Memorable couple of months for me. =)

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I'm sorry shine, I think we need you to make another topic. I'm still days away from Future Connected and I've really enjoyed just dumping my general opinions here (or anyone can make it, I'm just being a SMELLY ORLUGA)

Also, time to watch this like gospel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXC8H5XdOTE

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I'm just gonna say it

the way noodles are consumed in Japanese culture is pretty gross.

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God damn Melia's insane at taking out higher level Uniques. Would have never gotten Seven's fifth skill tree so early otherwise.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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One thing I appreciate about Rogan's approach is that there are no time limits to his podcasts, not even flexible ones. The last full episode I listened to was Bernie, which was about an hour, but I know he has some guests there for like four hours. He's keen on staying quiet and allowing his guest(s) to speak for several minutes at a time uninterrupted, which is just unheard of in televised interviews. I assume this isn't unique in the realm of interview podcasts, but Rogan's is by far the most popular, so it's the one I most often see on YouTube.

That said, despite his growth in popularity and attempts to speak with a broad spectrum of people, the dude's clearly still a meathead jock. He's always been obsessed with the alpha male crap and worships guys like Brock Lesnar. He's basically the college frat jock who read a couple more books than his buddies, but he's also a 50-year-old husband and father so it's a little weird and off-putting.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Pretty sure I missed the level 57 fortress mechon on Sword Valley. He's easily the toughest enemy there. Super difficult to best the first time you're in that area, and I don't think I ever went back for him.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Nice! I feel like I'm still at least a couple days away.

Also HOT TAKE - The Blood of Bafalgar has always sounded like the coolest quest name ever to me.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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After some great collectible/loot RNG earlier on, karma has come to bite me on the Bionis Interior - 83 failed pickups before the first Black Liver Bean (and this is probably the worst area in the game to run around looking for pickups).

That's another minor annoyance - we can't track Colony 6 reconstruction items. =/

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_stingers_ posted...

sidenote, how does that work in this game? I thought there was no way to check if you'd beaten a unique or not

Manually tracking is the only way. I'm pretty sure there's no Achievement for beating every Unique (just most of them), so it's entirely a personal goal that I probably won't be attempting.

With all the QOL improvements they put into this, I'm surprised that some Unique/general enemy menu wasn't one of them. It would have looked great too - enemy designs in this game are so varied.

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The original Jill Sandwich

Resident Evil

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Discord didn't "end" User of the Year; we just got older and our priorities changed. You can see that clearly reflected on the board - outside of the Politics topic, we aren't nearly as competitive or confrontational as we used to be. Hardly anyone tries to "make their mark" on the board these days.

I remember loving making a Stats topic so I'd get that guaranteed 500 posts. Nowadays, I'd really prefer someone else make the damn topic (bless you, Leon).

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He's been pathetic the last few months even relative to his own standards, but there are still over four months before the election, Biden is an uninspiring opponent, and the electoral college favors the Republican.

Despite what polls say, my gut feeling is that Trump is still the favorite in Florida. That alone gives him a very sporting chance.

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ninkendo posted...

which also means I might as well just grind Final Marcus a bunch now to get a bunch of love sources and max out the affinity with everyone

You're a high enough level where you can use the Stormy Belagon method on Eryth Sea, but I'm not sure which way is faster.

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Seven > Dunban > Shulk >> Melia > Reyn >> Sharla > Riki

Seven has fun Arts and the best animations in the game, especially when you get some Haste effects stacked and they start attacking like the world's strongest crack addict. I also love Seven's combat dialogue. Dunban is... maybe the strongest character in the game. Amazing Talent Art, the best Auras, huge DPS, functional in any party setup. The quote he yells during Blossom Dance might be my favorite in Xenoblade. Shulk's also good fun due to his positioning, but he's just not as fast and cool as the other two, though getting a good Backslash is satisfying af.

Can't comment on the other four as much. Melia is fun but NEEDS to be player controlled. Reyn is fun and Sword Drive is satisfying... I hardly use Sharla or Riki.

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MoogleKupo141 posted...

at some point incompletely stopped caring about alcohol quality so my taste is very cheap there and relatively cheap for food too. I maybe just dont have the palette to notice the difference too much.

I think I do have a discerning enough palette (with food, maybe not with alcohol), but to me, the difference in quality is usually not worth the price. If I didn't care about having a significant other or a social life, I'd probably be cool with the dollar menu for like 90% of my meals out.

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Not really, they're way too weak. I usually pay attention to gem crafting at the end when it's Superboss time.

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Xeybozn posted...

Confession: I'm not sure I ever heard of anyone celebrating Juneteenth until the last few weeks. Like, the name sounds vaguely familiar, but I've never heard of anyone doing anything for it until this year. Am I a racist?

Same, though I acknowledge being a racist and have been trying to work on that aspect of myself for years (and probably will continue to do so forever).

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I'd say it's zero more often than not. I might get sick just once a year or less, and knock on wood, it's rarely bad enough to actually sideline me.

If my sciatic nerve flares up, I can be in awful pain, but I've yet to miss any work from it.

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But yeah, I'm starting to pull a Shulk and FEEL IT as well. My pace has slowed and I've put off the damn High Entia affinity links for at least a week.

I say this as I've logged like 85 hours in three weeks.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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Regarding food, clothes, whatever you wanna discuss.

I'm... pretty damn cheap, at least when it comes to spending on myself. I hate shopping for nicer clothes (I'm in gym shorts and a t-shirt whenever I can get away with it), often prefer cheap fast food to sit-down restaurants, and rarely buy games or consoles before a price cut. I prefer my local cheap grocer versus posh places like Whole Foods, and usually pick up store brands because I can't tell the difference between the 97 cent ketchup and Heinz.

My car is a 13-year-old Camry that I bought used, and I'm trying to get at least a couple more years out of it. I also like traveling on a budget, at least within reason. When I traveled to Guatemala last year, I enjoyed the street food way more than the considerably more expensive restaurant fare. Traveling on a budget is also one of the reasons I've never gone to Europe - it seems like a challenge to accomplish that over there.

What about you guys

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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how dare you shirk your responsibilities of 400 glorious side quests

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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After struggling yesterday, I tore through Territorial Rotbart while underleveled by 5-6. Sometimes, all you need is that Chain Attack which goes off for 270k. Imagine my hype when I also got the exact Arts manual I was hunting on the first check.

I think I've now done everything before progressing the plot... except for maxing Alcamoth's affinity to 5*, which will require a ton of talking to these NPCs. Thinking about getting a pizza to get me through this experience.

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Yoblazer: Congratulating azuarc on a great Guru victory!
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I might need to switch to the original soundtrack in a NG+ run, because outside of a couple exceptions, I haven't really noticed a difference.

Which might be a good thing because the music is still awesome.

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I'd say Monado Armour is one of the best Arts in the game. Shulk in general is pretty OP even as the non-lead, since his Monado Arts are automatically available if you warn him of a vision.

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That's what I'm feeling as well. Imagine pulling a stunt like that at... wherever you work.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Atlanta cops walkin' out.

Good!

We've seen this all over the media, but I still have no clue if these "walk out" cops are actually quitting and relinquishing their salaries, or if they're just chillin while still expecting a paycheck...

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Guybrush. Nominate:

character who is somehow less interesting than me

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If this game is that nerfed on PS4, I might just wait until the PS5's first price cut to get it. Most of the recent PS4 games I've played (God of War, RE2/3) already pushed my console so hard that I was legit concerned it could start smoking.

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skullbone posted...

I did a side quest and it unlocked another option for one of the character's skill trees so now they have 4 paths instead of the standard 3. I'm assuming each character has 5 total skill paths but who knows which quests actually unlock those for people.

You're right, but there's actually one way to "find" these quests. Quests that unlock a skill tree can only be initiated if that particular party member is in the #1 spot. So if you see an NPC with an exclamation point over their head, but you can't get that quest unless Reyn does the talking, that's almost certainly a skill tree quest for Reyn.

Not a great method imo (I always just look at a guide), but it's there.

Also, I wish there were better ways to earn AP and SP on par with actual Experience (the AP gems really aren't enough). By the time a character actually earns enough AP to max out all their Arts, they've probably earned enough XP to theoretically level their character to 200 or something.

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Can you imagine getting Skill Points as side quest rewards, frothing at the mouth ova here

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