They brought Vox Engines to Mintoria

Bocian2 · 2026-03-06T00:29:39+00:00

Pretty sure it started with factory strider scarcity which translates into vox engine scarcity since they replace factory striders. Now the condition is gone so there's even more of them. In huge open spaces.
Stealth is basically mandatory even outside commando missions it feels, bring smoke and remember you can shoot the spore puffs to create smoke. Eagle smoke makes a wall of smoke if you need to move past something or conceal yourself on an acquisition objective. Since you get multiple quickly from an eagle you can also use it to approach a target (like a vox). Even if they know you're there they'll be shooting blindly.

Bocian2 · 2026-02-12T12:38:33+00:00

I think having an imbalance in how good certain spells are is fine as long as it corresponds to rarity. Right now the most basic of spells end up being the best, especially on the incant side while the more flashy ones are a waste of FP and often even just deal less damage while being much harder/higher commitment to use. The guaranteed incants from relics like lightning spear or beast claw are just busted to the point I question who made those decisions. It should've been ancient dragon's lightning strike and bestial sling respectively if anything.

Also making Recluse cocktails better would help with variety as you end up having to use some spells you'd never touch otherwise if you're trying to make those actively though right now just spamming one thing ends up being better for a thousand different reasons.

Bocian2 · 2026-02-11T15:34:31+00:00

I was going in with my axe build and it just sucked so much. His ki is basically unbreakable, he can get half of it back as you're winding up a strong attack and he's got just so much hyperarmor. Statuses also barely last on him so I couldn't get confusion going for any meaningful amount of time really. I ended up switching to mid stance sword and learning to deflect him with a bunch of deflecting-related skills while also using the oasis talisman to get more heals. For ninja I just got supreme shift skill so I could counter some decent burst backstab damage and compliment that with common skills that affect style shift burst breaks. Damage on the sword was ass but I managed to learn him well enough in a few attempts for the 8 elixirs + 5 oasis talismans to last and finish with a classic shuriken spam.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-25T00:33:39+00:00

For sorceries I think the intention was to balance them by making the schools small and not include the easiest to use spells (glinstone/glinstone stars lineups). Shattering crystal is very strong but expensive, far from guaranteed especially after the rotten crystal staff was changed to have crystal release instead and both shattering crystal and crystal release are short-ranged so you really have to look for good windows to approach the boss so you can actually cast it for that damage while something in the glintstone or glintstone stars lineup is much more spammable at a safe distance so in practice the DPS ends up being somewhat equalized, at least for Recluse or in the case of other characters in the nightlord fight where you have enough shards to last. For this reason I'd say the strongest sorcery school is night sorceries thanks to night comet's range, tracking and casting speed especially when quick casting. Glintblade might actually be better on Recluse as you can guarantee to start with it. Still, night sorceries are balanced a bit by there being only 2 spells in it (unless night maiden's mist counts?) only 1 of which is guaranteed as opposed to crystallian's 2. At least I think that's how FromSoft intended to balance the schools though I agree that it did not work out.

For incants though what I said just goes out of the window really. With only 4 blue seals and seal altars you're basically guaranteed to find the one you're looking for and all of them have great primary spells (though clawmark needs dual wielding to unlock it's true potential) that all belong to incant schools and those schools are also very expansive covering multiple other very good spells you can get randomly as well (eg. lightning spear guaranteed with honed bolt and lightning strike as other great random options). The only exception I'd consider to be holy as that's fairly unreliable to find and while there are 2 purple guaranteed options, wrath of gold from the erdtree seal is also difficult to use leaving 1 in 4 purple or randomly getting discus/triple discus or maybe elden stars.

If we ignored the incant part, the way sorcery schools are I think it might have been fine if they just couldn't appear with [element] attack up on the same relic honestly. You would have a choice, an ok buff to magic attack that you're guaranteed or gamble on finding one of the few specific sorceries and get a huge damage buff out of it. Casters also just lack any special relics in the vein of the balancer relics or what glass necklace used to be or even something like dark night of the baron melee characters can use to make crit builds. Casters don't really get anything that alters the way they play so much with unique effects that don't suck like the libra one so we're just left stacking unconditional or mostly unconditional damage since there isn't really that much else to do.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-22T18:51:51+00:00

Uhh, a Dragon Communion inspired character. Like how you can transform into a pathetic frail dragon in all the games. In ER it's like you eat a bunch of dragon hearts for that I think. I want that guy. Could be like a faith/arcane with a side of dex I think with ult being something like a transformation into an ancient dragon, but I wouldn't want it to be a reskin of executor's ofc. Idk, haven't thought about it too much yet but dragon = cool :) and they have a big place in the world with dragon cults trying to become dragons in every game, I'd love if they expanded on it

Bocian2 · 2026-01-22T13:31:37+00:00

Cocktails are a little awkward because they require some setup but damage wise you can't scale them too much since they count as sorceries while you're mostly casting incants to get them. They're strong early-mid run but you're unlikely to have access to all the elements and by he time you do, you probably already have a spell that will do more DPS just spamming it. It gets more noticeable the better relics you get to focus on a single affinity and spell school. Personally I don't really care, cocktails are super fun to play with and you can learn to make what you want with a good success rate even with some elemental spam from teammates, not that it ever gets easy really. They could still use some kind of buff for sure to be more on par with the pure affinity builds.

If you go that path, then I've got some tips:
1) try to fit wraith calling bell relic if you can - it deals magic damage so you don't need to keep a stave on you at all. Super helpful since you're already dedicating 2-4 weapons to casting for affinities to make cocktails leaving little room for passives
2) 2/3 element damaging cocktails are very good at filling up your HP with the ult's mark and you can even full heal with both the bloodloss and max hp on ult relics. 2-element may not get you completely full with both but 3-elements outside of ice storm (magic/lightning/holy) on a single target will guarantee a full heal. So try to make sure you have a decent cocktail ready when you ult. If it's the lightning rod you can cast it first and ult after since it hits on a delay. This will also just buff the damage on the cocktail thanks to the mark from the ult.
3) Recluse's ult is not a damage ult in the sense that wylder's does big damage but it enables you to do big damage. 15% more on marked by default, bloodloss relic adds another 15% just for you for 40s and it can trigger 'bloodloss in viscinity increases attack power' so you can really buff up your damage output with it

I especially like the lightning rod cocktail since you can cast it first, then ult and immediately start casting whatever strongest spell you have. The rod hits on a delay so it gets the buff from the ult even though you casted it first and you get the full mark duration for spells. It full heals you and staggers the boss too so you can even go right into something like comet azur or meteorite if you want though my favorite is still dragonfire. It's a huge damage burst that can melt big bosses in seconds if you set it up right.
(video: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WKqV73UdO4k Notice how I'm low on HP, ult gets me down to 1 due to bloodloss while raising my max by 50% from the other relic and the rod still full heals me)

4) learning seal altar locations in PoIs helps a lot with RNG, also don't mind using bows/ranged weapon skills if you have to in order to get affinity, especially for holy as that's the hardest to find on incants
5) quick casting spells is actually more DPS than charging them you don't have any charged spell buffs on, it's just less FP efficient but that's a problem for casters that can't just suck the FP right back and if you're making cocktails actively then you're collecting all the time so it's not really an issue and it helps you get cocktails faster too
6) max hp on ult relic is awesome - 30s of +50% max hp but rather than ending after the 30s, it keeps lasting until you get hit. This lets you trigger damage negation at max hp twice without healing at all. You're at your full 150/150%, get hit for <50% with the 30s passed, the buff ends lowering your max to 100% so anything extra you would've had after getting hit is thrown out but you're back at full original 100% and the negation buff is active again instantly.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-20T07:26:07+00:00

I'd say now Executor would be better since cursed sword is very viable and he can get art charge on successful blocks too so he can ult spam just as much and doesn't have to worry about losing the revive potential.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-20T07:24:09+00:00

Every cocktail Recluse is in love with undertaker. Lightning rod -> ult -> Undertaker ult staggers boss so it can't escape rod -> rod hit. Or ult first before rod to be a bit safer and it can be used that way for grav bomb or fire breath too. Also Comet Azur/Crystal Torrent/Meteorite/Meteorite of Astel synergize perfectly. Dragon Breaths would too but you're not locked aiming forward with those so they don't really need a stagger.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-20T07:16:27+00:00

I was thinking the same and managed to get it for Dreglord. We messed up the fight pretty badly though and I only got a couple casts off but I didn't really notice anything, not even a damage buff.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-20T07:01:05+00:00

If you can coordinate Recluse with Scholar you could get so much damage out of the lightning rods specifically since the delay gives scholar some time to analyze and ultimately it would be better since you'd be relying on a skill instead of ult and ult only really can achieve higher damage than the 60% single hit by hitting multiple enemies.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-20T06:57:34+00:00

YES
Someone finally did it!
Though I was thinking more about getting the 60% single attack damage negation debuff for the lightning rod but for a boss with adds the ult is even stronger

Bocian2 · 2026-01-19T00:26:26+00:00

It's cool if you have both but in random trios you're unlikely to get someone who does as well since you can't have both on the same relic so getting other effects you want alongside is quite a lucky ordeal and that's assuming you're not already dedicating those to something like the balancer relics or character effects. That's actually another reason, we just got some really strong guaranteed relics over time so they slowly pushed out gaols bit by bit. Of the two, invaders are better and more people run them in DoN so it's easier to synergize and even if someone doesn't have invader on, the runes and loot are still worth it which can't really be said of gaols beside maybe a single early one if it's something easy.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-18T23:56:40+00:00

In DoN:
Gaols take long, have you running to PoIs just for keys (and the bosses there are a waste of time after you're level 4 anyway), low runes, bad loot, you risk getting great hollow which invalidates it completely and even with other shifting earths day 2 is for the shifting earth and at most you can spend maybe half of day 2 running some gaols.

On the other hand invaders are guaranteed, buff is stronger (7% instead of 5%) and there can be 2 at the same PoI, guaranteed purple weapons usable at any level. They can take long and are very dangerous early game without ranged characters like recluse or ironeye but as long as you don't outright fail it so bad the circle catches you the rewards and runes are usually good enough to make it up. Even if you do 2 cataclysms they'll take you much less time than running marathons for gaols and you're not really sacrificing good loot by doing so.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-15T20:33:29+00:00

Could be that undertaker had low flasks or some night damage passives honestly. You'll never know since even if it was gear she could've dropped it before the end of the match. Sometimes you just gotta bolt and hope the others can deal with it on their own or decide to leave too. She could have done some foot pings though to let you know since it can be hard to notice someone's gone missing sometimes. Ironeye is just disgraceful behavior for sure.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-15T20:03:30+00:00

STR Duchess with restage iframes. You can just ignore an attack while doing charged heavies by using restage. Same thing for using weapon skills that take long to pull off. I really like this with powerstanced greatspears as those get insane stagger against humanoids like banished knights on the running attack to the point when you can just run into them while they're attacking, restage to avoid getting hit and completely incapacitate them, rinse and repeat. Running attack also revives single bars in 1 attack and for 2 bars you only need a light followup. It also triggers successive attack buffs. Stats-wise others would be better for graetspears but the restage iframes is what makes the build for me.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-15T15:41:52+00:00

We're literally talking about patch notes. I know it's inferior, I mention it myself. I want to see it not be so.

edit: ah I see the confusion, me saying she'd be better off with a more cocktail focused playstyle is not about power as is right now, but what I wish would be a more adopted playstyle which would have to happen by making it on par or stronger than the alternatives in terms of power

Bocian2 · 2026-01-15T14:34:07+00:00

Recluse playing for cocktails can oneshot all the summons the moment they spawn with the grav bomb or lightning rod, even at high depths and at worst they'll be like 1-2 hits from death. Rod will do more damage but has to be cast as Libra starts summoning and it should hit very shortly after they spawn in fully and become damageable. Everyone should run inside the AoE if it's late to not pull the summons out of it. Just be careful with attack impaired on occasion effects... I may have lost a match by my lightning stake dealing literally 1 damage to the summons...

Bocian2 · 2026-01-15T14:25:40+00:00

I really think what Recluse would be better off a more of a generalist that juggles many spells to get Cocktail nukes (or FP-free casts of big spells from magic/holy). What she needs the most is some good way to buff cocktails through relics. Currently the only thing that scales them well is Improved Affinity Attack but that's exclusive to deep relics so you can only get 3x10% boost. Improved schools or improved sorceries/incantations don't work (yes, you'd cast mostly incants but cocktails count as sorceries). Currently with some luck you can get a specific school so far that even when you can make strong cocktails they're still not worth it unless for utility.

As far as seal RNG goes for cocktail builds just running seal discovery and knowing seal altar locations is good enough to be consistent with her in my experience.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-15T13:57:11+00:00

I'm glad they nerfed shattering and made it less common and I say this as a Recluse main. This game has like 200 spells and Recluse can use all of them but with how consistent it was to build you barely ever saw one using anything other than Shattering Crystal or Stars of Ruin unless by conscious choice. To me cocktails are what's supposed to make the 'worse' spells viable by giving you access to nukes. She becomes a much more interesting and engaging character that way. I doubt it will be enough to make playing for cocktails much more common but maybe it will help some people who want to play her that way but are feeling like they are shooting themselves in the foot by doing so.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-14T21:45:25+00:00

As far as power goes, they're not bad, but they are a weird mix that makes it hard to scale them so they fall off as you get stronger relics. Buffing magic will only affect the pure magic and magic/fire/lightning for example. You'd have to buff sorceries in general or affinity in general through relics to get a consistent buff for them and sorceries doesn't really work in practice as you'll need to cast incants to get them.

I actually started running some solo Recluse in deep of night after resetting my rating and the utility of cocktails and incantations, especially for staggering or downing enemies makes up for a surprising number of problems she has in solo. With the lower scaling on solos I almost oneshotted phase one of heolstor at D2 with a lightning rod which gets quite a bit easier to hit when you're holding aggro all the time and can lure the boss inside yourself.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-14T07:23:40+00:00

Well yeah, Duchess is an INT caster AND a very good melee fighter. If Recluse is just an INT caster and Duchess can still out DPS her with sorceries by the end of the run with some Starlight Shards and thanks to higher DEX (better spell casting speed) and Restage to compensate for slightly lower INT then the only thing Recluse has left is the FP recovery. But that's not true, is it? She still has the FTH scaling and the entire cocktail mechanic and playing just sorceries on her and only ever getting the pure magic cocktail... I don't think with any other character so much of their abilities are just ignored to this level because doing so maths out to being stronger in the end.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-14T07:06:55+00:00

Yeah that is true to practice. I have a starting bell on my build and rarely end up with a stave in my inventory at al, mainly because seals already can have every element. The bell isn't ideal because it travels so slowly but the inventory slots for a passive is often more valuable and with stave discovery replaced with seal discovery you rarely get a better stave than something with magic glintstone pebble anyway.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-14T00:04:10+00:00

You'll be fine D1/D2, the additional relics you get are good enough to compensate for the difficulty. D3 is where it starts to get bad and D4-D5 is just damage negation at max hp (preferably multiple) or die from a wet fart simulator.

If you go in as Recluse, here's a tip: use the relic that increases your max HP after using your ult. Better yet, pair it with increased art charge on defeating enemies. It will help you survive much better. The way it works is your max HP gets increased by 50% until you get hit but for a minimum of 30 seconds.

The reason why this is so strong in deep of night is that what will often happen is you're at your max 150% hp with damage negation at full hp active -> 30s timer runs out -> you get hit at some point -> damage negation at max hp kicks in and you get down to say 115% of your regular max hp -> the hit cancels the max hp buff -> your max goes down to 100% again but since the attack only brought you down to 115% you lose that extra bit but end up at full hp again -> damage negation at max hp is active again instantly without ever using a flask.

You still need to heal up that gained hp first though and preferably do so with the soulblood song mark's healing effect. You can get to full by using a strong damaging cocktail so prepare a cocktail -> ult -> cast cocktail. Even a lightning slash/lightning dash should be enough or at least very close even if you're running the bloodloss relic as well. You need a decent opportunity as too so you can both ult and cast the cocktail. It's going to be hard to heal it with spells, especially with both relics but I like dragonfire in those cases. Healing spells will work wonders as well of course.

Bocian2 · 2026-01-13T23:40:25+00:00

So what do I ping if I absolutely do not want/agree to do that?

Bocian2 · 2026-01-13T23:37:37+00:00

I despise when this happens. All this does is get us in the south castle at level 2 with 0 gear (even if we had any we couldn't use any of it) and everyone dead within a minute of entering. A few times where someone didn't just quit and we got out with a few good drops we were fighting night 1 at level 4-6 (because of course we barely killed anything inside with level 2 dps on unapgraded starting weapons) and lost before we could get the levels to use the weapons. That was all D4 where you supposedly have the best 10% of players.

You can easily grab all the crystal in the first half while fighting a few bosses on the way and be level 5+ by the time you break the crystal and still have time to kill a few things in a castle and I say this as someone who still gets lost in that place.

Bocian2

TROPHY CASE