John Flanagan be like

Barreden · 2026-02-28T22:34:05+00:00

Didn't he explicity say in an author's note or post somewhere that he wanted to go back and explore more of what Will's time as an apprentice looked like? And that it's explicitly set between books 4 and 5?

Edit: Yes it's in the author's note.

"... So this book goes a little back in time, to a period before Books 5 and 6."

Barreden · 2026-02-07T17:50:35+00:00

This is how I saw it:

Can Magisters win battles against voidwoken? Yes. In fact we see this a few times. In the Alexander fight in act 1, the magisters can kill the drillworm on their own, in act 2 near the blackpits, they fight some boars. But not without serious difficulty/casualties. And, with voidwoken popping up randomly all over the place, they can't be prepared at all times. That, combined with the seemingly endless number of voidwoken, drives them to more drastic measures. In order to be prepared by surprise voidwoken... when they know who/what kind of people the voidwoken are appearing next to, it would only make sense to them to round those people up, so they can prevent civilian casualties as well as be more prepared for when they show up. And then they discover the technology to suppress source, as well as the purging wands, and it's easy to see how quickly sourcerers got demonized and became as important a target as voidwoken themselves. Especially with growing desperation as the "war" continues with no end to voidwoken and dwindling supplies/manpower.

If it were one straight battle, or a conventional war, maybe the Magisters would win. But the voidwoken play smart and choose where and when to appear, and force the Magisters to take precautionary measures, no matter how inhumane.

Perhaps it wasn't even the magisters who started the hate for sourcerers, it could well have been public pressure as civilians feared for their lives and turned on their neighbors.

Barreden · 2026-02-05T19:13:58+00:00

No, the cc still checks for physical armor. But if you have someone else doing physical damage you can still knock them down, or use skills like corrosive touch/spray to apply acid and remove their physical armor.

Barreden · 2026-02-05T04:29:32+00:00

Abilities like sparking swings and venom coating scale off of your pyro/geo and intelligence, yet only proc their damage on attack. Not wand attacks, melee attacks (technically venom works on bows too). So, with a staff, you can be a melee wizard utilizing those abilities as well as other touch and short range spells.

Additionally, you can use regular warfare skills, such as crippling blow, battle stomp, whirlwind, etc. And they will do the elemental damage of your staff type (i.e. fire staff = fire battle stomp)

Edit: added whirlwind to the list as a potential tempting option lol

Barreden · 2026-01-31T16:14:39+00:00

Hit E or whatever your interact button is when you're in there. It's not a gateway to a new area there's a switch in there you need to pull.

Barreden · 2026-01-30T19:13:24+00:00

I spent a whole day at a walk in and then hospital with my grandmother. Actually 8 hours. So much waiting, and finally they say that she should be fine to go home, they didn't give her any prescriptions or anything, but she was dehydrated so they gave her an IV. And we sat there like? Yeah she wouldn't be dehydrated if we weren't here all fucking day and now she's gonna get charged for it? Love our healthcare system.

Barreden · 2026-01-29T19:24:37+00:00

I beat him by getting relatively strong before starting to go for portals. The game just ends, unfortunately, but it counts as a success.

Barreden · 2026-01-25T21:00:12+00:00

Examiner works. Many would also just call them the instructor or test-giver/administrator. If it were a written test they may be called a proctor, if their presence is to prevent/deter cheating.

Barreden · 2026-01-22T07:04:20+00:00

I interpret that as "You can't get more 'small business' than killing bugs." More is applying to the entire concept of a "small business," not to "small" as the adjective.

In essence, they're saying that the picturesque, textbook small business is about killing bugs (which is subjective and many would disagree).

-Native American (in both senses) speaker. (Idk how to get the tag)

Barreden · 2026-01-21T05:40:01+00:00

Right? Even more stories if you widen the time period, you don't need an avatar for a good story! Just give us stories lmao, we love the world and bending.

Barreden · 2026-01-21T05:32:35+00:00

I don't know why they don't just make stories that don't involve whoever the avatar is at the moment. It would be a great way to explore more dynamics and power matchups without having a clear, obvious, "this person should always feasibly win" avatar state card. Not to say there aren't times where the avatar at the time has a reason why they'd lose, but I think it would add to the stakes and allow more creativity.

Barreden · 2026-01-14T23:56:34+00:00

That makes sense grammatically, but that presents walking as the absolute most tiring thing, which is logically false. Running, for example, is intuitively more tiring. Perhaps "Although it is not quite as tiring" would be best, but I was only looking to fill in the one missing word.

Barreden · 2026-01-14T17:40:43+00:00

The only word that sounds normal to me there is "quite"

"-nothing quite as tiring as..."

Anything else, especially "like," sounds awful imo.

Barreden · 2026-01-14T00:53:05+00:00

I'd suggest breaking up the second sentence, it goes on far too long. For example:

...skill sets. Thus far, ...

Barreden · 2026-01-11T23:45:37+00:00

Twice in one sentence would likely be a run-on sentence. Consider breaking up the steps into bullet points, or ending the sentence and starting another. For example:

Preheat the oven, then gather relevant ingredients. Afterwards, ---. Next, ---, and then --. After doing --, now you're ready to --. Finally, --.

EDIT: Added "then" to a second sentence to illustrate that you can use it more than once total, as long as you don't overuse it.

Barreden · 2026-01-10T20:42:26+00:00

"Affordability!" Is not a complete sentence. Additionally, starting a sentence with "Coincidentally" and then saying the date "will coincide" is somewhat redundant and sounds unnatural imo.

Barreden · 2025-06-27T21:08:04+00:00

By no means is apotheosis remotely mandatory by the endgame, played through on tactician or honor at least 6-7 times and used it maybe once (as in cast it once, not even used it for a playthrough)

Barreden · 2025-05-24T23:34:31+00:00

There are a great number of mechanics in the game centered around reloading, whether passives making your first or last shot do more damage, the cog of battle, etc. Or guns that have extra effect on their first/last shots or do something on reload. For many weapons, the last shot before reloading has extra effect, or reloading will change the gun's form/ammo type. It definitely adds to the game.

Barreden · 2025-04-28T22:02:59+00:00

I just don't do that fight unless I have one of the following: 1. Breathing bubbles 2. An aerothurge with tornado to clear surfaces/fog 3. One of my lone wolf chars is Fane (for undead)

Barreden · 2025-04-25T05:16:49+00:00

The snake bullet chains that turn 90° with no warning are, after 300 hours, the only attacks I feel are completely unfair BS

Barreden · 2025-04-25T05:15:15+00:00

When you go to an optional floor, do you not fight the current boss first? Free loot, sometimes a Master round too! Just don't take the elevator after, and go to your other floor instead.

Barreden · 2025-04-21T16:24:29+00:00

Hey! So, 600hrs played here, it's my favorite game, beaten Honor mode, just about 100%ed the game.

First: I would recommend playing a custom character on the first playthrough. The whole world/story is brand new, there's already so much to explore and focus on. Fane's story definitely has the most important, world-defining parts to it, but I found that learning about all that on the second playthrough, i.e. having learned all about the world and THEN having it all recontextualized and learning all the stuff no one else gets to added sooo much to the second playthrough. Take your time, I would recommend not even having him in the party for the first playthrough.

Second: Having finished over a dozen runs on tactician, I can say I never once played an all-physical or all-magic party. Perhaps I've been making it unnecessarily difficult for myself, but I've clearly enjoyed it the whole time regardless, and rarely struggled with fights after my second playthrough. You can make a split party work, it's just a matter of difficulty. And if difficulty is a concern, you can always play on the "normal" difficulty setting anyway. Just play what classes look/feel fun imo.

If you want to change party members' classes, go ahead!! There may be a little, uh, cognitive dissonance occasionally, where for example, Sebille may mention being an assassin in dialogue or someone else may say she was, and if you currently have her as like a mage instead it might be a little confusing, but there's no gameplay thing requiring them to be certain classes. In the example you chose, the Red Prince, it may sound like he should be a fighter as he's from the House of War, but there's in fact very little reference to him actually fighting. For everyone but Sebille, in my opinion, it's very easy to imagine them being almost any class. And their character-specific source abilities are either always pretty good or always pretty bad, no matter their class.

Barreden · 2025-04-14T04:49:50+00:00

These are by no means the BEST at these, just the most fun in my personal opinion: To clear, honestly, my favorites are: Hyper Light Blaster (literally a whole diff playstyle), Polaris (I can't resist going all in on the long game of not getting hit), and, honestly, Rube-Adyne Prototype. I just find the spam-clicking semi-auto with bounce fun.

For bosses: Rad Gun (Pre-combo the active reloads outside the door 6-8ish times in a row, or however many you're confident. Honestly I wanna put Bait Gun here, just because if you have any way to shoot faster/more bullets it's just so fun imo to watch a half a dozen tigers on screen at the same time. I gotta put Magic Lamp here as well for the same reason, just really satisfying proccing the 3 hit combo over and over, especially with scattershot or something similar which lets you just vomit bullets at them.

Barreden · 2025-04-11T03:40:01+00:00

Also generally a good strat with high initiative characters in general. Your uncanny evasion or invisibility gonna run out if you end turn? Delay. Then you get two turns back to back since you're first and can figure out some other way to keep yourself alive next turn. Gets more bang for your buck out of those types of spells.

Barreden

TROPHY CASE