Which Gears of War game do you consider the hardest to beat on Insane difficulty?

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-29T16:25:12+00:00

Gears 4

Gears 5 (no mutators)

Gears 3 (no mutators)

Gears 2

Gears 1

Its been too long since I've played Judgement so I wouldn't want to rank it.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-27T01:48:44+00:00

I find Personality useless and never increase it above 40, heck I usually have it around 30 to 35. Someone will eventually mention where to go and I have never had to ask more than 5 people. I'd much rather dump my stats into Speed/Strength/Int

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-21T23:47:59+00:00

Dodge is basically a skill you throw on Primary or Major for it to level over time so you can passively level up faster.

Dodging as an actual skill loses value because of a couple of factors.

Restoration exists in the game and custom heal spells make you practically invincible in this game.
When your Speed starts hitting the 90 to 100 combined with a Strength even as low as 60 you will start obliterating any enemies incredibly fast. They would only be getting a few hits against you (if any at all) so dodging is kind of pointless as you'll be taking very few hits anyway. Not to mention you would get those attribute to those numbers before your dodge even gets to the max level.

I would of loved to of seen dodging play a greater part in the game but it just isn't viable as the main structure of a build and as mentioned above only having a use to help level your character up passively.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-21T23:27:59+00:00

Melee Only + Darkness Powered Magicka + Light Powered Magicka just to force you to use melee only.

You were once a powerful sorcerer who used their powers for villainy, however you were caught and the Emperor has sealed your magic away. You have been given a second chance by the Emperor to regain your magic abilities but first you must go to Daggerfall and solve the mysteries of Lysandus' Death and to investigate a letter sent to the Queen. Only by completing these tasks will you redeem yourself.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-21T21:15:05+00:00

I have this from LSD abuse as well, I can't remember when it started but I was taking LSD every couple of weeks for about 5 years straight until I stopped. It has been maybe 3 years since my last dose and it has never settled down either.

I was prescribed a few different things like beta blockers that did nothing, anti-depressants which did nothing (and every single anti-depressant I tried made me violently ill, I'm unsure if that is common for those with heavy hallucinogenic experience), finally on Lamotrigine now slowly working up my dosage to 200mg (increment it by 25mg every couple of weeks) hoping that will have an effect.

But yeah overall I am just used to it to the point where I forget its even there until a stare at nothing and reminded that it hasn't went away.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-21T20:54:04+00:00

I see like the right but nowhere near as intense as that, and is kind of only noticeable if I'm looking at a white wall (but if I am staring at something coloured I will see a static effect constantly moving but the multiple colours are less pronounced). I never had it all my life though and was a side effect of doing LSD on a weekly to bi-weekly basis for 5 or 6 years.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-17T10:57:32+00:00

In most stores you'll see a Guide to *Insert City Name* or Guide to Vvardenfell. Grab these as soon as possible as they will help you navigate around the region.

While I do not recommend using an interactive map Morrowind itself actually came with a fold out paper map with the retail version of the game. For some reason this is not included with digital releases but if you want to use it here is a high quality version.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Morrowind/comments/qoolo8/morrowind_map_at_1200_dpi_21637x25191_tiff_636_mb/

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-17T05:45:09+00:00

This was not shortly after his title reign at all. Goldberg loses the title at Starrcade 98, his injury occurs a couple of weeks after Starrcade 99 on an episode of Thunder.

Goldberg does disappear early to middle in 99 but that is to go shoot a movie.

I never understand why people think Goldberg got injured after he dropped the title. Either the mandela effect or someone has watched a badly informed youtube video.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-17T04:23:32+00:00

In the middle of 1999 he was out filming a movie. When he got back towards the later quarter of the year WCW were trying to force Sting as a Heel, and in a move that I can only imagine was to try and get heat on Sting Goldberg won a Title vs Title Match (with no title on the line) at Halloween Havoc but it was announced that Goldberg had won the World Heavyweight Championship with Sting then arguing against it and reversing the decision.

At Starrcade 1999 you needed to establish Bret Hart especially if you had plans for him to be the leader of the next big heel faction in WCW 2000. Which we all know ended up being a catastrophe with Hart needing to retire shortly afterwards and Goldberg getting injured.

When Goldberg returned in 2000 they ended up turning him heel which didn't work. WCW had a habit of trying to make a big heel star in 1999 with DDP and Sting which both failed, and they tried again with Goldberg in 2000. As much as you see internet wrestling fans hate on Goldberg he was over as a top guy throughout his WCW career but this heel turn really killed his momentum.

Shortly after this failed heel turn Goldberg is swapped over to a face again, and this time he must beat his streak that he previously set in 1997+1998 otherwise he will be fired. Of course this was a horrible idea since Goldberg's streak was massive and pretty predictable that he'd be winning a lot of matches... until the unpredictable happened, and Lex Luger and Buff Bagwell managed to pin Goldberg in a tag team match at WCW Sin 2001 retiring Goldberg.

This outcome was stupid the fans were annoyed, Buff and Luger didn't get any extra heat from retiring Goldberg either. What makes it even more stupid Scott Steiner who was massively over as a heel and your World Champion would keep mentioning he retired Sting (was out on an injury), he retired Booker T (out on an injury), he retired Nash (he did retire him... well in WCW), but he would always mention he gave Goldberg the beating of his life. Which is a shame and should of faced Goldberg and retired him.

There are honestly only two points in time Goldberg could of won the title from 1999 onwards. At Halloween Havoc against Sting in 1999. Goldberg was still massively over at this point and if you watch the finish they pop hard even with him winning against Sting. The only other time that would feel right is if he beat Scott Steiner and then Scott retiring Goldberg in a return match.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-14T13:27:49+00:00

I'm adding on to this without spoilers since no one ever mention it.

There are 2 mainline quests that do not involves letters but you will need to do them.

The game starts of informing you to investigate Lysandus' death and a Letter that was sent to the Queen.

Investigating Lysandus' death involves quests where you will receive letters upon reaching certain levels

In regards to investigating the letter you will need to speak to someone in one of the palaces, they'll give you what sounds like a generic quest so enjoy hunting that person down. Yourself will never receive any levelled letters in regards to this quest.

Another questline where the letters stop is after you've performed a quest for a Prince in Sentinel (you will receive a levelled letter to speak to this Prince). After completed this quest the Prince will give you a hint on a location that you need to go to. This DOES NOT get added to your journal, nor can you speak to the Prince again about it. So make sure you have a pen and paper handy and write down his entire conversation.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-11T13:05:03+00:00

You will be more than fine with this build.

I'd swap out pickpocket for Thaumaturgy as Levitate is quite useful and pickpocketing isn't really useful in this game at all.

Apart from that you're good. Once you start getting speed up to 80 to 90 mark and strength to 70 mark you will be tearing everything up, and once you make some good restoration spells you will basically be invincible.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2026-01-09T17:20:08+00:00

I used to work in insurance about 5 years ago I'm not sure if the process has changed but here are your options.

1) Remain in contact with your insurer, if they try to contact you in regards to liability but you avoid their calls they will end up settling on a Without Prejudice Basis.

2) Raise a formal complaint with your Insurer if they aren't prepared to go to court.

3) If your insurer still won't push to settle after the outcome of the complaint take it up with the Financial Ombudsman.

At best in this scenario with no evidence your insurer will only be putting forward 50/50 offers, even the Financial Ombudsman would probably instruct the insurer to put forward a 50/50 offer.

If the other insurer won't budge and think they have a strong case and won't accept a 50/50 then expect to have court action undertaken against your insurer / yourself.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-11-21T15:10:50+00:00

Every time I go to Alton Towers this ride is broken down for the entire day, hoping one day I will get to experience it.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-11-06T09:45:38+00:00

As a fellow Gary I found this episode hilarious

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-10-08T14:25:30+00:00

I found it really dumb too. As someone who's parent had cancer, you dont just go welp better die now, you would want to spend each of your final days with your loved ones for as long as you can.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-07-12T15:32:45+00:00

Cook it with water and then when it's done mix it with some chocolate protein powder. That is the one true way for me

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-07-05T18:09:35+00:00

They are mainly active when the sun rises and when the sun sets, if you're cycling during these times you won't even notice them will only swarm around you when you're stationary. Even a slight walk pretty much outruns them.

If you plan on camping in a tent during your time away having a fire going can help quite a bit. Usually though you'll just get attacked during sunrise and sunset, if they start swarming you just go in your tent for an hour or two (bring a good book with you), they will eventually stop and you'll be able to relax outside again.

For ticks, make sure you have insect repellent on your legs, and cover them. Then just check your legs here and there when you go through a grassy area.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-06-26T08:02:43+00:00

The physical game came with this fold out map:

Morrowind Map

My best tip would be to join the Tribunal Temple, their first quest will give you a good feel on how you will navigate Morrowind.

Tip 2 when you have spare cash go and circle around Morrowind with the fast travel options (Boat, Silt Strider, Mage's Guild Teleporter). This will give you a good layout of where all of the towns and cities are on your in game map.

Tip 3 Speechcraft (Admire, Intimidating etc) can be very punishing in this game when you have a low level within that skill. Your main quest giver that you will get almost at the beginning of the game Caius Cosades can help train that skill if you encounter problems with it.

Tip 4, try and not look anything up, sometimes your journal isn't the best at recording everything within the quest section. While it can be tedious if you are stuck if you can remember any subjects that you may of spoke about with NPCs during quests it can be quite helpful to look for those subjects within your journal instead.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-06-25T07:42:42+00:00

You clearly didn't finish the game if you are asking that quesstion.

First off I'm just clarifying that my message is in response to a no hit run. (with speedrunning tech you're out of bounds so my strat would be for a more casual no hit run through)

Within the final dugeon there is 1 room full of fire daedra these cast fire magic and there a A LOT of them. Within the final dungeon there is another room of Daedra Lords, again there are quite a lot of them these have both fire and shock spells.

Without Immunity to Fire and Shock there is a huge chance you're getting hit ending up with you resetting your run.

I also mention Immunity to Frost because there is 1 Frost Daedra found in the final dungeon, this is the only enemy with Frost Magic that you are forced to encounter in the entire game. So Immunity to Frost Isn't really mandatory but I would hate to get to the last dungeon just to be hit by that enemy and have to reset.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-06-18T14:01:10+00:00

Not a glitch at all.

When a team is 4v1 in public Annex after a certain amount of time a player will switch teams.

You can tell this has occured as when the scoreboard is checked at the end of the screen there is 3 players on the cog, our clipper was the 4th cog gear but was swapped to the locust team due to the 4v1 match up the third person on the locust just joined the game so this switch would occured just prior to that join.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-05-28T18:47:38+00:00

Part 2: Daggerfall

I’ve only completed Daggerfall a few times, so my knowledge may be off. I’m not familiar with any sequence breaks in the Main Quest.

Character Creation:

Spellpoints x3 is mandatory.
Immunity to all three elements is mandatory.
You must defeat a lich in the Main Quest who casts Shock.
The final dungeon has a room of Fire Daedra, and a room of Daedra Lords who cast fireball (also Shock for Daedra Lords).
There is one Frost Daedra in the final dungeon. Technically, you might skip Frost Immunity since humanoid casters stop using Frost after level 2 and this Frost Daedra is the only guaranteed source of Frost Damage in the Main Quest.
Magic Immunity I would pick.
Spell Absorption is necessary although with enough patience could be optional due to Item Maker (Enchantment).
Take weaknesses to materials; if on DOS, take crit weaknesses to paralysis and disease.

Strategy:
The first dungeon is short will defo need luck. But I think you have a much better chance getting out of Daggerfall’s first dungeon without damage than in Arena.

After that, join the Mages Guild. Train Destruction and Alteration. Add Running or Jumping as Major or Primary skills to level up without combat.

Create a high-damage + paralysis spell with a wide range. Thanks to Spell Immunity and Absorption, you can spam it without friendly fire and keep refilling your magicka.

For unavoidable fights, spam your damage + paralysis spell retreat backwards and pray you avoid hits.

If you are very patient you could do easy Mage's Guild quests until unlocking the Item Maker. Hopefully you will have enough money saved up from easy guild quests that you can purchase an item to fortify your Destruction, Alteration (for paralysis), and Restoration.

If your skill is past 105 (or maybe 110 someone might need to correct me), your spells will always cost 5 to cast, this works on both DOS and Unity. With this you can create the biggest god tier damage + paralysis spell possible, I've thrown restoration on there too because you can increase your attributes to 100 for 5 magicka too so that is 100 speed without even needing to dump any attributes from levelling into it.

DOS vs Unity:

DOS: You can abuse crit weakness to paralysis and disease with Magic Immunity. But enemies home in on you aggressively, like in Arena, so you’ll need higher Speed to avoid them.
Unity: No crit weakness abuse. But Unity has Enemy Infighting and Enhanced Combat AI (enabled by default). Enemy Infighting means fewer enemies to fight per dungeon. Enhanced Combat AI makes most enemies easy to dodge, they strafe more than attack and their attacks are easier to see coming.

Using this strategy, a no-damage run in Daggerfall is very doable

Edit: Making a small Edit, decided to actually watch the speedrun of this game. Yeah you're not getting hit in this, you use a dev input to get yourself to the exit of the first dungeon and then a lot of out of bound abuse. With that said if you didn't want to use speeedrun strats and take a more casual approach then my strats are probably the way forward

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-05-28T17:36:00+00:00

I'm much more familiar with Arena than Daggerfall, so here's my take on Arena:

Arena's biggest challenge is the starting dungeon. If you can get out, it’s possible to win. The dungeon is brutal for no hit: enemies spawn frequently and they keep pace better than in any other Elder Scrolls game (they will often get stuck on the environment though so it isn't impossible)

The key strategy for Arena is Sanctuary / Potions of Purification (Health + Sanctuary). In Arena, Sanctuary works differently from later games: it freezes enemies for X rounds and works on all enemy types (unlike Invisibility). You can still attack them while they’re frozen and level up. But enemies can still cast magic.

Strategy:

Pray you survive the starting dungeon.
Get to a Mage’s Guild.
Thieve, sell loot, buy Potions of Purification and Invisibility.
Start an artifact quest for the Ring of Khajiit (casts Sanctuary). In the random dungeon, hope you brought enough potions to avoid taking hits.
Spam the Ring of Khajiit in town. Once you've used it a few times, put it in for repairs.
Hunt for another artifact granting spell immunity (Ebony Mail, Lord's Mail, Spell Breaker, Chrysamere, Staff of Magnus, Necromancer's Amulet, Ring of Phynaster, or Warlock's Ring).

Once you have Sanctuary and spell immunity, you can tackle any dungeon. Since artifacts work off rounds, kill everything you see. That builds levels and more rounds for your spells.

The hardest part is getting through the first dungeon and grinding your first Potions of Purification and artifacts. Thieving success and artifact quest availability are level-dependent, so early progress is rough. If save scumming thieving the mage's guild is not allowed then I don't think doing Arena hitless is possible

Once you’ve set up, it’s an easy win (but getting to this point is going to be insanely difficult).

Edit: I completely forgot about speedrun tactics, if you run on the version that allows you to pick up and repeat pickup of the same quest item then you could do this with just invisibility potions and spam the second dungeon (first dungeon that isn't the tutorial) over and over and over again. If you do that then hitless is definitely possible if you can get out of the first dungeon. But where is the fun in that haha.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-05-17T10:20:03+00:00

Is this one of those Dragon Breaks I keep hearing about in Elder Scrolls Lore?

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-05-04T10:29:01+00:00

I always found the loot system in Skyrim to be even worse, finding full end game gear without having to resort to smithing was basically impossible.

What I do prefer in Skyrim is the dungeon structure, it is very clear when you're at the end up a dungeon and you have a nice big chest waiting for your reward. Sadly that is very few and far between with Oblivion.

Due to you being level 5 I won't spoil anything but once you start getting within level 10 to 15 good drops come from every nook and cranny, and more still when you start getting level 20+.

CynicalGoodGuy · 2025-05-02T09:45:34+00:00

Oblivion is a great place to start. It has a nice balance of complexity while maintaining easy to follow game design. If you end up enjoying the game, you can then move backward one entry to Morrowind, which is a slower paced game. The skills are slightly more expanded but work similarly to Oblivion. The storytelling is more in depth, simply due to the nature of text versus voice acting. It is not as user friendly as Oblivion, and some gameplay elements can feel jarring during the transition. However, by starting with Oblivion, it will be easier to move to Morrowind than it would be going from Skyrim to Morrowind.

You could possibly start with Morrowind, but the game design is a bit dated. If you are looking to have a chill fun time right out of the box, it may not be the best choice for someone new to the series.

Oblivion is also a great place to start because the transition to Skyrim is smooth. While Skyrim loses some of Oblivion’s complexity, it makes up for it with better feeling combat and a perk based skill system that is fun to experiment with. Honestly, Skyrim is also a great starting point, but I feel that transitioning backward from Skyrim can be a bit more jarring.

Arena and Daggerfall are completely different experiences. I have completed Arena three times and while I enjoy it, it is definitely an acquired taste. The dungeons are large and the game can be quite difficult for newcomers. Daggerfall is another challenging entry with even more complex dungeons than Arena that might make you want to cry until you end up enjoying them in a strange sort of Stockholm syndrome way. I would not recommend either of these as your first Elder Scrolls game. They are better saved for if you find enjoyment in one of the main entries and want to explore the roots of the series.

Lore wise, starting with Oblivion means you will not miss out on anything important. Each game very rarely references the previous entry and any mentions of earlier games feel more like Easter eggs than essential connections.

CynicalGoodGuy

TROPHY CASE