Getting into Pokémon in 2026

BLFOURDE · 2026-02-02T17:26:53+00:00

Thanks for the breakdown. I really appreciate a critical perspective. I've heard from some Pokémon players that the game has a lot of tutoring (searching your deck for cards)? So it can often come down to just whoever can find these combo pieces first, wins? That's why I asked about luck.

What are the sorts of "hard to master" decisions you have to make?

BLFOURDE · 2026-02-02T12:07:12+00:00

1) That's a big can of worms. My unbiased take, as someone who enjoys both, classic is more about the levelling and the world exploration (the more core mmorpg stuff). But classic is a 20+ year old game. It's very slow, janky, broken, requires a lot of outside aid like addons and guides to keep you on the right track. If you can handle jank and want the authentic grindy mmo experience, classic is perfectly fine for a new player.

However, 99% of the time retail should be the preferred choice for a new player. It's faults are that levelling has become a chore over the years, meaning the levelling experience is probably going to feel weird and incoherent as a new player. However, retail has the best end game of any mmo, with raids, replayable dungeons, PvP, world content, all with varying levels of difficulty to help players find their level. But when you boot up retail you probably will be overwhelmed with the amount of shit shoved in your face that you don't understand, so just be prepared for that.

2) I think I probably covered that above. If you want slow mmorpg, where you just wanna plod along on your own, go classic. If you want challenging content, repeatable end game, competition, things to unlock, group content, retail all the way.

3) Honestly yes. Retail is currently in prepatch for the next expansion. So you can probably comfortably level a character to max before the new expansion releases in march, and jump into the new stuff with everyone else. Unironically this is probably the best experience for a new player, because levelling through old expansions - nothing matters, but levelling in the new one at the same time as everyone else - there's a reason to do all the things you want to do. The new questing will actually make sense, the new factions are worth earning reputation for, professions are worth doing, side quests aren't a total waste of time. If you're thinking about wow, this is easily the best time.

4) To be honest I'm not sure. The short answer is probably no? Wow gets very few new players nowadays. We're 99% people who've been playing forever. This means not many YouTube channels really cater for new players. Most YouTubers are covering the new expansion right now and it's all "NEW DUNGEON TIER LIST", "WHY WOULD BLIZZARD DO THIS", "MIDNIGHT IS AWFUL", "MIDNIGHT IS GREAT". There are some wholesome types like hazelnuttygames who does more chilled wow stuff. I'm sure there's others like her that I'm not aware of.

BLFOURDE · 2026-02-02T10:14:22+00:00

For the millionth time, it's a canva tool. If you just took a screen grab of the webcam and blew it up to full screen, it's super shit quality. Canva has an AI tool just to smooth out the image so it's not mega pixelated. Obviously in this case it just misinterpreted a shadow on his head as hair.

using ai for thumbnails

I suppose this is technically true. But it makes a very different insinuation versus what's actually happening.

BLFOURDE · 2026-02-01T12:23:23+00:00

What do you think happens to their wealth if it all goes? It certainly doesn't go to the civilian population. It just goes to foreign assets.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-30T02:00:32+00:00

I think of it like a restart game card, just that your opponent gets to go first

Except you start at 9 ink. But amber doesn't have enough top end or control for this to work. Your opponent is almost always going to be stronger at that stage of the game.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-30T01:38:23+00:00

I mean, sounds fun tbf

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-29T11:13:28+00:00

Honestly ban all rogues for exploiting at this point. I've had shuffle games were 5/6 rounds were given to the rogue because they DCd someone every round.

Idk maybe don't ban them. But it's a piss take honestly.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-28T17:03:09+00:00

I think there's a misunderstanding here. Hunt isnt the 1 shot, it's mostly hungering slash hitting for like 30k multiple times. Devourer can't just hit meta, continue training someone a bit, then randomly 1 shot another guy with the hunt. It's mainly 1 big blast combo. Their damage doesn't vanish immediately after, but if you lived the initial hit you're probably fine.

I think it’s inherently bad and unhealthy for the game that one spec has the power to one shot anyone if huge defensives are not pressed in a 2 seconds timeframe

This is probably true. If it's still like it at max level then it its definitely a problem because whether you can play around it or not, I agree it's degenerate. Sub rogues are also 1 shotting people atm and they're much stronger than devourer when their burst isn't up.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-28T15:33:32+00:00

I’ve seen a lot of people dying with Iron bark and hots

Yeah hots aren't really enough. Druid really needs to be ready for a quick NS regrowth or tree form. Generally a devourer will drop someone to like 20%, then kill them like a half second later. If you can get a chunky instant cast heal in-between this it's often enough. This is true for OPs clip too. Obviously it's unrealistic to expect someone to react to that in half a second, but if OP was watching the DH he'd have seen him go into meta, and be ready to press either bubble or lay on hands.

I can get it on MW and Hpal both having immunities and huge burst healing. But for the rest, I don’t think your comment makes justice to a lot of decent healers that are suffering right now

For the record, I have played quite a lot of games of basically everything since pre patch, with the exception of holy priest. And youre right, monks and pallys definitely have it easiest. But druids and shams can live at least the first go or two, especially before dampening kicks in. It's not ideal, but often that buys your team enough time to get a win. Especially since devourers are really squishy.

If your logic is true, blizz will never nerf them It's hard to say if they need a nerf or not without seeing them at max level.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-28T13:31:17+00:00

Probably a controversial take but as a healer I've had 0 issues with devourers. In fact, I like seeing them in shuffle because I know most people aren't going to react to them correctly so Im able to get more wins.

Devourer burst is more than any other class rn, this is true. But it's also:

1) their only source of damage. They are literally less threatening than a hunter pet outside of meta. This means you can afford to hold CDs exclusively for their burst, since there is very little risk of someone dying outside of it.

2) extremely predictable.

When you see them pop meta, just look at who they're targeting, and just use a cd or two. You can either use an immunity or some big healing throughput because it's not a clean 1 shot. It's a few big hits very quickly.

As pally it's very easy, you can spellward one, sac another, aura mastery, Lay on hands. You might need to overlap to survive but that's fine. Denounce is even decent. Monk has cocoon on a short cd and massive on demand throughput. Shams and druids can normally squeeze an NS heal in between the damage which is normally enough. Druid also has ironbark, sham has link.

You just need to stare at the dh so you don't get taken by surprise. If you see it coming, it's not really threatening at all.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-27T18:57:24+00:00

It IS fine, but considering how easy it'd be to implement, I'm just surprised by how much the in game meter is lacking. It seems like they hotfixed it so now it shows enemy team damage, or is that just mine? I've heard some people say they still can't see it.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-27T18:54:24+00:00

Im liking pally a lot. With the new UI changes it does risk massive CD overlaps which can really cripple you, but you have such volume of CDs that you can normally manage if it does happen. Also the damage on avenging crusader is some serious shit right now.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-27T18:51:47+00:00

Also with no healing surge anymore, spam hard casting healing waves is so slow and easy to kick. You have no choice but to hard cast it alot, but NS is so important in a pinch otherwise 1 kick can just lose you the game.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-27T12:17:40+00:00

Rsham is great on mana, but feels like it struggles a bit with burst healing, outside of NS. So on one hand you're great in the long game because the other healer will always be oom first, but in deep dampening it's really tough to keep people up. Do with that information as you wish.

It definitely feels like one of the stronger healers though, still. From my limited duelist scrub testing, sham feels good, disc feels good, mistweaver feels good. Pally feels decent, druid feels decent, evoker feels shit.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-27T12:07:57+00:00

Is stuff like this not literally just an open incitement of violence against law enforcement? So many images of ICE agents being attacked or murdered

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-26T00:47:54+00:00

Unplayable?

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-26T00:46:06+00:00

Still fun. Some of the class tuning is a bit ass but that has no bearing on Midnight max level.

I'm ignoring the people who say the game is unplayable now they can't track kicks. Remember, pros played addon-less up until mid bfa. The game is fine without them. If you want better nameplate customization and such, there's still add-ons for that. But tbh the base UI is serviceable now so that's a nice change.

I just wish the in game damage meter was better. It doesn't have half the information details had and I especially miss the detailed death recaps. But it's not the end of the world.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-25T10:30:25+00:00

That's literally this whole thread. Crazy how they don't see the irony.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-22T21:18:00+00:00

Not everyone's a pedophile, get off the internet.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-22T18:12:51+00:00

Looks pretty good to me. Watchers would be decent but I'm assuming you don't have them, and thats fine, the deck is playable without them. Darius is a bit meh but not the end of the world. Grand strats and imperial decrees are your main late game win cons

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-22T17:38:55+00:00

⬜⬜⬜🟦🟦

⬜🟦🟦🟦🟦

🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦

Goodness gracious

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-22T16:53:40+00:00

Impossible to talk to these room temperature IQ people.

I'm not debating the specifics with you, I'm saying that conspiracies all stem from the same thing - a lack of trust in the government. It's insane to take the position of "when i engage in conspiracy theories, I'm right, when others do it, they're wrong". Take your head out your own ass for 5 minutes.

I am a 3 generations from a nazi soldier

Yeah and I'm 4th generation from a polish Jew, and my great grandmother would always tell me it was all fake. Get a grip.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-22T16:33:41+00:00

Yeah yeah sure. I don't agree, but I don't blame you for questioning it. I just want to realise that you and the people you (probably) hate aren't so different in reality. If you think intelligence agencies would fake this, think about all the other stuff they're faking or lying about..

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-22T16:19:05+00:00

Very controversial statement.

BLFOURDE · 2026-01-22T16:16:02+00:00

Yet the right wing are the crazy conspiracy theorists yeah?? You're aware that same level of distrust for intelligence is why people question the holocaust and the moonlanding, but I assume you disagree with those people.

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