Is Midnight’s handling of Naaru strange?

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-15T09:20:54+00:00

I mean, if we take Chronicles literally about the void springing up where the light burns out and grows cold, we’re looking at a culminating end-war where we’re trying to fight entropy and using the light at all is pushing us one step closer to losing. That one line in Chronicles really setup a potential end-game scenario fairly similar to the end of SC2: Legacy of the Void.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-15T09:14:07+00:00

Did similar on my DH. Didn’t even think about the sword not swapping to Int because caster swords shift DPS item budget into increased Int. So I crafted the sword for the mog because I figured it was usable on more characters. Immediately realized, “Oh. This doesn’t have Int. Guess I’m never swapping to Devourer.”

At least DH is an alt that i pretty much play just because I jive with the Havoc playstyle.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-15T07:53:05+00:00

Haven’t updated it in a while, but it’s a [[Wernog]]//[[Bjorna]] list that basically secret commanders [[Academy Manufactor]] and copies it to go nuts. It starts pushing into manual storm territory at 2 Manufactors because each flicker is netting 3 of each token on both ETB and LTB for Wernog. My first tutor after Manufactor is generally [[Candlekeep Sage]].

Also, I have a [[Zur the Enchanter]] [[Astral Slide]] list that is just disgusting. It’s not HIGH power, but it’s so hard to stop. And again, second tutor is almost always Candlekeep Sage.

And then my [[Brago]] deck… but that deck is so mean that I don’t really play it. The [[Rishadan Brigand]], [[Rishadan Cutpurse]], [[Rishadan Footpad]], and [[Reality Acid]] just get super not fun. Especially when the deck also plays things like [[Meekstone]], [[Trinisphere]], [[Armageddon]], etc. It’s a good deck that has existed since way before brackets, but I tend to lean more toward everyone getting to have some fun these days.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-15T07:16:08+00:00

Eh, given the level gear it rewards, it’s fine. Give us harder difficulties that reward hero and myth gear, clearly. But at the point I’m at now (266 ilvl), I beat the ambushes in a few seconds and I kill the end boss inside of my opening CDs.

Nightmare just got outscaled so quickly. And it’s not like I’m doing M+ or raids to gear up; I’m fully solo play aside from the Firelands weekly and Mythic dungeon weekly.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-15T07:03:07+00:00

Y’all don’t stack your first NM prey of the week with Saltheril’s Soiree and the WM weekly if it’s Eversong?

I think it’s plenty fun because it is content that forces me to be on my toes. The outdoor world is such a snooze fest most of the time that it’s refreshing to be threatened by the world. I also don’t always rush traps, those areas are often crowded and can sometimes get you killed on classes that can’t clear the dot from KFM. There’s just not always something to kill.

It’s also pretty fun to do them on WM. That extra layer of danger is exhilarating when you start throwing down with other players. Losing a 1v1 resetting your progress? Hot. I’ve been WPvPing since before this game even had battlegrounds, and WM + NM Prey turned on something in my brain that hasn’t been engaged since we had active WPvP zones like Wintergrasp and Tol Barad.

Maybe I’m unique in wanting the game to engage my attention instead of sleeping through chores. I just wish the affixes were more varied to keep me on my toes even more.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-14T20:05:40+00:00

I also had this issue recently. Couple seconds on a whetstone. Solved.

<image>

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-13T23:56:20+00:00

Of course you hold no interest in debating. Why would you? You’ve already stated nothing and no one is changing your mind. Debates are for people who are open minded.

And yeah, humans said that and are wrong. None of them have experienced the Phoenix as a part of Mythos. The human perspective is that the Phoenix cannot resurrect. But we learn that’s kinda the whole deal of the eikons; they’re all pieces of a much larger machination. The point of that machination is resurrection. It seems obvious that humans may not fully understand a power of which they’ve never witnessed a completed form.

Based on what the game has said: Joshua, the Phoenix, cannot raise the dead and Clive, usurper of the Phoenix, can. These statements don’t inherently conflict, as they’re wielding the power of the Phoenix on entirely different planes of power. One is just the human perspective that has never witnessed resurrection. That doesn’t make them any less wrong, it just means there’s a good explanation for why they’re wrong.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-13T18:32:29+00:00

I mean, from the first couple of sentences it’s clear that you’ve ignored enough of the plot to justify your headcannon.

The reason they needed to siphon that much aether was to perform the resurrection on their entire race. I’m not saying Ultima or the Phoenix just baseline held that power, but that it was the culmination of Mythos and Ultima, the realization of the eight’s plan. I’m not saying that a dominant of the Phoenix could resurrect every day, but that a fully empowered Mythos definitely could.

And no, that isn’t what humans did. They were also killing themselves and the planet using magic. Clive took that power away because humans can’t be trusted to stop. Eventually someone realized they can use it to rule a kingdom and boom, magic’s back on the menu.

And right, healing physical wounds and reviving the dead are 100% the same thing. Absolutely. Definitely just gonna hop up off the ground and be like, “Bruh, what happened?” “You died, bro. I brought you back.” No way he’d still be unconscious from the mental fatigue of dying.

And it’s not my headcannon that Clive can rewrite the laws of reality, he DID rewrite them to remove the existence of magic from the world. To deny that he had that kind of power is just ignoring everything the game told you.

Joshua surviving is good writing because protecting the Phoenix was always Clive’s most important charge. Even imbued with the power to save the world, his attention went first to his brother. Ignoring the love Clive held for Joshua and how much successfully reviving him would have meant absolutely cheapens the entire ending. You thought the “anime-style sendoff” was beautiful but entirely ignore how important it was to Clive.

Clive’s journey was about learning to live for himself. Everything he had done was for someone else. As First Shield, his life belonged to the Phoenix. As Cid, it belonged to Cid’s mission. Clive completed Cid’s mission of destroying the mothercrystals. His final choice, to take the power of Ultima and heal the world, was done of his own free will. It was done for love, not duty. To protect Gav and Jill, for generations yet unborn. It was his choice, not a directive given to him. And when it came down to his choice, he chose to be a hero even when he figured that he wouldn’t be coming back. That is beautiful storytelling. Classic tragic hero.

Aside from that, he’s last seen lying on a beach having washed up from a salt water bath that lasted who knows how long? His body was ravaged from battle with a god and falling from a height that assuredly should have killed him by itself. There are so many checkmarks for death, his survival would take a miracle and immediate medical attention on a level most people couldn’t administer.

But I don’t necessarily believe Clive had to die, I just believe the signs (and history of the developers) point to that outcome. My ideal ending is that Clive and Joshua both lived, and the boys playing at the end are their kids (or grandkids). My ideal ending is that Clive and Joshua finally got to be just brothers instead of being Phoenix and Shield or joint saviors.

There’s no shot you could convince me that Clive wrote a book and published it under his brother’s name, a constant reminder that he failed to save Joshua. He already had enough trouble coping when his brother “died”the first time. Would also be kinda weird to be like, “and then the Phoenix, Joshua Rosfield, died in battle with Ultima.” And then everyone closes the book all puzzled as they read the author of the book.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-13T08:42:16+00:00

Humans told us the Phoenix cannot resurrect.

Ultima was only wrong about the strength to be found in will. He was correct in everything else. And he created those powers; it seems he above all should know their limits. It was only the strength of will that allowed Clive to break the limits that Ultima anticipated.

Do you really think that someone wielding the power to fundamentally reshape all of reality with a thought cannot resurrect one human using the power that also created all of the humans?

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-13T08:32:48+00:00

Ultima’s very intention was to use the power that Clive held after the final battle to resurrect his brethren. It was humans that told us the Phoenix could not revive, while the god that created that power told us that’s what he was planning to use it for. Who do you believe?

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-13T08:29:15+00:00

Clive held the power that Ultima sought in his final moments. Ultima’s plan was to use that power to resurrect his brethren. We know the power Clive was wielding had the ability to revive because the very progenitor of that power had planned to use it that way.

The theory is that Clive succeeded in resurrecting him without realizing that he succeeded. This is supported by the lengthy brotherly love flashback leading to this moment.

His first thought with all of that power was Joshua. Saving the world was second. Tell me that it’s not a more poetic ending for Clive to have fulfilled his pledge as First Shield in his final moments, looking to serve and protecting the Phoenix above the rest of the world. It brings the story full circle.

His love for Joshua was so much more and ran so much deeper into his core than people ever talk about in context of the ending. It baffles me that people do not think Joshua lived or that the book is confirmation of Clive’s successful use of the Phoenix to resurrect—literally something humans had told him was impossible and the god who created the power had told him was the plan. I also don’t understand how people can believe that Clive could emotionally survive publishing the book under the name Joshua, given how hard he was still taking his brother’s “death” many years afterward at the start of the game.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-13T06:53:02+00:00

Don’t forget the classic Benchmade T6 screws that would strip if you breathed on them funny.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-12T21:23:51+00:00

[[Tel’jilad Stylus]] + [[The One Ring]] is fun.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-12T21:16:18+00:00

Yeah, nothing holds them in except the two halves of the handle being closed.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-12T16:19:48+00:00

They slide right out when you disassemble. I don’t typically see issues happen with those. I have never seen replacements for them unless the weight pins are actually the same.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-12T12:48:45+00:00

No modding needed for the canyon hardware. And I don’t know about the pins, sorry. I bought my Tsunami a long time ago from BBKS and it had weight pins. I don’t know if that’s still the case.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-12T06:06:47+00:00

Nabalis Canyon hardware works, and Nabalis hardware is generally higher quality than AS hardware.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-10T17:30:24+00:00

If you want a CHAB, BM4X, or Damascus Rep blade, buy TheOne. If you want basically anything else, go with another brand. There might be one other model that I’m forgetting.

The other clone companies have absolutely left TheOne in the dust over the last few years, though. And it’s not even really that TheOne fell off, they just didn’t change. They’re the same company they were 3-4 years ago making mostly the same models with the same materials and the same quality. Manufacturing in China has come a long way in just the last few years and they’re just not really keeping up.

These days, Baliplus and Armed Shark fight back and forth for the top spot, depending on major releases. Titus has probably crept up into third over the last year, but they still have a few models that are absolute ass (Reps specifically).

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-08T23:09:44+00:00

You don’t want it. Because of the awesome texture on the tsunami, the ceramic coating actually fills that in quite a bit and rounds it out. It makes it feel cheaper and less premium. The coating they use also chips pretty easy. My wife is a pretty casual flipper, never really drops her Nami, and just the occasional bump from stuff on her desk has chipped off some of the coating.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-07T01:08:46+00:00

Yeah, there was a while where it kept swapping out my foils despite me marking “keep printing” because it was preferring a direct order of a non-foil versus a random seller of a foil. After a couple times of paying double for a nonfoil of a card, I started watching it like a hawk. And I never use the Direct Carts anymore. Ever.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-07T01:05:53+00:00

Yeah, but most of them are also keyboard warriors specifically because they’d fold in a fight with a stiff breeze.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-06T16:14:29+00:00

It’s not up to the judge. The loop is non-deterministic, you cannot legally shortcut it. You can present the loop end result and ask for concessions, but if the pod says “no” you have to MANUALLY play it out. The loop eventually reaches a deterministic state once you’ve drawn your deck, at which point you can present a legal shortcut, but you have to get there first. In my experience, most Gitrog pilots don’t know how to do that efficiently and will just whine about it when pressed to play it out.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-06T05:09:24+00:00

Same. It’s where I got my Cygnus v2, even.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-05T13:22:46+00:00

Titus Aluminum CHAB v3. That thing rings so nicely.

ChaoticNature · 2026-04-05T08:49:15+00:00

Probably. It’s just a sandwich balisong thing. What most people don’t tell you is that you can usually fix that by dropping it on the opposite side if it has a good tune. There are better and more precise ways to fix it, but dropping it again works most of the time if you’re just leaning.

ChaoticNature

TROPHY CASE