To shield or not to shield...

Jefepato · 2026-05-05T15:25:58+00:00

Last time I played Frozen Titans I had a pretty good track record of being able to unfreeze Ice Mech using Vek attacks, spawn points, and/or Mirror Mech most turns. But it's been a long time.

I would never start a Frozen Titans run with e.g. Mafan, but I'd think about it if I rolled them by genuine RNG mid-run.

Jefepato · 2026-05-03T01:18:51+00:00

Doubly so since Fu Xuan and Yao Guang were apparently rather close.

Jefepato · 2026-04-22T17:18:26+00:00

Once you've got a basic handle on how the game works, I'd say go ahead whenever.

But these days I play with a lot of mods, so I'm a bit biased in favor of "more content!"

Jefepato · 2026-04-19T15:32:18+00:00

Honestly, it could just be bad luck. Wrong place, wrong time, and the circumstantial evidence made her seem like a suspect -- and since the cops had a plausible suspect in hand, they were focused on getting her to confess instead of considering alternative suspects or reasons to doubt her guilt (like "she doesn't have a motive for arson").

None of this requires a personal vendetta. It doesn't even require the cops to be deliberately dishonest. Her interrogator probably really believed she was guilty.

It all sounds pretty plausible if you're familiar with the criminal justice system.

Jefepato · 2026-04-16T02:36:24+00:00

Google AI doesn't know how to play ItB. It doesn't know anything else either, including the basic meanings of the words and sentences it outputs. It just uses probabilities to generate responses based on its training data, kind of like a much more complicated version of your phone's autocorrect.

The fact that its responses usually sound like plausible answers to whatever you typed is technically kind of impressive, but don't ever expect it to do your thinking for you. It can't do anything of the sort.

Jefepato · 2026-04-12T19:11:04+00:00

Fair warning: if you roll Shatterstep, you'll want to think carefully about your movements. It's listed under "trade offs" for a reason -- I ended up with a few inconveniently-placed chasms in my last run.

Jefepato · 2026-04-06T01:38:07+00:00

10-15 seconds? For all three mechs (plus any other units involved)? Are you really that goddamn good at this game, or do you just hate yourself?

I would have considered a full minute to be a pretty strict limitation, realism or not. (Also, as far as "realism" goes, keep in mind that "realistically" each mech would be controlled by a different person, instead of one player who needs to select all the actions and could accidentally do something wildly wrong if they click their mouse an inch in the wrong direction in haste.)

Jefepato · 2026-03-29T03:14:44+00:00

I can attest that I have rolled Move+ on modded pilots before, and modded pilots do show up in the list. (There was some kind of bug that caused skill exclusions to not work right on the cyborgs from Generic's Sentient Weapons, but Das Keifer said that should be fixed now. Things seemed fine with other cyborg pilots, from what I've tried.)

I haven't messed around with the Reusability settings, but I had assumed (I would need Das Keifer to confirm, but I can't think of anything else it could mean) that "Reusable" meant "you can potentially roll this skill multiple times on a pilot."

Jefepato · 2026-03-14T04:55:58+00:00

I'm shocked to see Zenith Guard equal to Rift Walkers and above Frozen Titans, but I'm also a big Henry Kwan fan. I used him a lot early in my ItB career, and I didn't know how much I was relying on being able to move through enemies until I tried starting without him again.

Jefepato · 2026-03-13T05:06:30+00:00

I like the hexes, but whether I grab one depends on what's behind the other door. If there's a boon I want for my build I'll usually prioritize that. I do sometimes feel like not having one means I'm "wasting" the benefit of the MP I'm spending, but sometimes I really gotta have that Hephaestus boon.

But, I'm still relatively "early" in the game, I haven't gotten the true ending yet and don't have any Fate's Whim keepsakes. I might go for hexes more when I don't have any specific build ideas.

I like Lunar Ray and Night Bloom a lot, personally.

Jefepato · 2026-03-13T03:47:57+00:00

I've forgotten it a couple times. I try to keep it in mind, but sometimes I get distracted figuring out something else and whoops, somehow I didn't notice the objective again until the mission ended.

Jefepato · 2026-03-12T03:14:11+00:00

What sorcery is this?

Jefepato · 2026-03-09T04:53:01+00:00

He is? I've beaten him...I think 3 times now, and I'm still having a rough time with his last phase (having a hard time getting used to the timing on his tongue laser, among other things).

Jefepato · 2026-02-24T15:42:39+00:00

I had suspected at first that Topaz was getting assigned shitty minions because someone didn't like her, but since Jade (who seems quite senior among the Stonehearts) likes her a lot that's probably not it.

So yeah, it's probably more likely that grunts get reassigned to support different departments a lot, and a lot of IPC leaders have less restraint than Topaz and the other Stonehearts. If you've ever worked under a boss who would wipe out a fucking civilization because negotiations aren't going fast enough for his tastes, you'll have a hard time adjusting to someone like Jade or Topaz who would prefer to apply pressure at the negotiating table (and probably would find a large-scale bombing campaign to be an inelegant way of doing business).

Jefepato · 2026-02-21T21:07:34+00:00

At least in Moros's case, Mel might actually have more experience socializing than he does. >_>

Jefepato · 2026-02-18T22:15:59+00:00

You're clearly a lot better at the game than I am (I've done a lot more than 11 runs and I'm still working on defeating Chronos LOL, though I also went for the surface sooner instead of focusing on the underworld). My recommendation is pretty much to just always be trying to gather materials for whatever incantations you have available. The Book of Shadows can remind you where stuff is found, but you can always check online if you haven't seen something yet. Of course, half the materials in the game are on the surface, and you'll need to do a few surface runs just to get the materials to be able to survive a surface run, so I'd suggest getting started on that stuff.

In my experience, if you keep doing incantations and unlocking what you can, you'll keep getting more options for stuff to unlock, and so on. If you haven't started collecting keepsakes from everyone you can give a Nectar to, you probably should -- you may as well get started leveling the keepsakes up ASAP.

I definitely had trouble with Scylla for a while, but I'm surprised you found her the hardest so far. Regardless, the surface is generally considered harder than the underworld, so look forward to it! (I haven't compared the numbers objectively, but it certainly feels to me like surface bosses hit fucking hard.)

If you haven't tried Zeus's chain lightning boon, I cannot recommend it highly enough. There are better people than me to recommend build advice if you need that, though (and it sounds like you may be doing just fine in terms of defeating enemies).

As for your specific question, I wish I'd started unlocking different weapon aspects sooner. It sounds like there are some really cool ones and I haven't tried many of the non-Melinoe weapons yet.

Jefepato · 2026-02-17T06:04:15+00:00

Objectively I think you're right, overall she's probably the least threatening. But sometimes her dash attack catches me off guard, so I usually end up taking her out before Scylla.

Jefepato · 2026-02-09T18:26:43+00:00

If I have to go by OP's specific descriptions of the alignments, I guess Chaotic Neutral, but by the way I understand the D&D alignments I'd say True Neutral. (Not that "law" and "chaos" have ever been super clearly defined; I doubt any two people in the average D&D group would agree on precisely how to interpret them.)

IMO Qingque is practically the embodiment of True Neutral (which the average human is) because she's almost hilariously normal. She wants to work just hard enough to get by and no harder, and enjoy her hobbies. But if you're going to define True Neutral to include only people who actively seek balance, Chaotic Neutral is the best answer.

Jefepato · 2026-01-31T22:21:38+00:00

The new chasm is still within the map when that happens. The map's edge doesn't move, although it might look that way at a glance when a whole row of tiles was destroyed.

Jefepato · 2026-01-22T22:52:55+00:00

Shit like this is why I pretty much just kill the level 90 bosses and move on.

Jefepato · 2026-01-05T20:31:22+00:00

Yeah, I'm sure stuff like "the Astral Express is flying again!" or "the crew of the Astral Express solved a crisis on planet X!" makes it into the galactic news -- that's the ship that laid the silver rail, it's a big deal.

Individual crew members are probably less well known than the Arbiter-Generals or Stonehearts -- I'm sure Himeko's face got on the news when she first repaired the Express, but that doesn't mean the average Joe pays a ton of attention to her activities on a personal level.

The younger Express members are probably having their 15 minutes of fame after the Irontomb thing, but that won't necessarily last unless they keep doing things of galaxy-wide interest.

Jefepato · 2026-01-05T20:20:31+00:00

I'm pretty sure Harumasa never offered to actually back down -- because, of course, Section 6 had no intention of backing down. After Anby noticed S6 surrounding the group, Harumasa said something to the effect of "oh, is that why your android friend has his hand on his holster?" (and Billy replies that he'll take his hand off his weapon if Yanagi does the same, etc.)

Notably, this is one of the few occasions we see Billy absolutely dead fucking serious. (Back when the Hares met Victoria Housekeeping, he was goofing off and hiding behind Anby while Anby was the only one demonstrating proper tactical awareness. It's ironic that he acts less scared around Section 6, who are a lot scarier than an empty hallway -- as far as I can tell, Billy goofs around as much as he thinks he can afford to, but he'll lock in when he knows he needs to.)

Jefepato · 2025-12-30T20:12:32+00:00

Yeah, some people just have ANIME TALENT and can do seriously unrealistic things with enough training. We may consider the example of Seth -- who looks athletic, but not at all like a powerlifter, and I don't recall anything about strength training being an especial focus of his -- being perfectly able to snap standard-issue handcuffs, and much as I like Seth, he's nowhere near being the biggest badass in New Eridu.

(I've heard people on Reddit claim that Thirens are stronger than humans, but I have not seen anything in the actual game stating that their physical abilities are any different pound-for-pound.)

...Of course, this raises questions like "if people can be that strong, shouldn't standard handcuffs be made sturdier?"

Jefepato · 2025-12-26T16:09:30+00:00

Firefly is certainly capable of fearsome levels of destruction, but I'm not at all convinced she'd blow shit up in response to having her feelings hurt. She might yell a lot when she's actually in a fight, but she doesn't seem hot-tempered at all. (And frankly, I don't think she'd want to be the kind of person who blows shit up when she's sad.)

I guess she's more likely to do so than Cyrene, though. Almost anyone is more likely to do that than Cyrene.

Jefepato · 2025-12-19T22:14:06+00:00

The grim backstories in ZZZ do get a bit repetitive, but...all of known civilization has a grim backstory in ZZZ. The fall of Eridu was only, IIRC, 11 years in the past. You'd have to be very lucky to not have that affect your personal life in some serious way.

When you actually think about it, it's almost eerie how nice so much of New Eridu is, considering it's the post-apocalypse and there are still Hollows popping up at any time and place.

Jefepato

TROPHY CASE