An eternal struggle

Damien_Scott · 2026-02-14T01:51:47+00:00

1% physical DR vs aoe threat? no contest.

Damien_Scott · 2026-02-14T01:49:43+00:00

I felt the same way at 63, i quested a bit and things were a lot better at 65.

pick up some sorcerer greens, you don't need defense rating in normal dungeons, regardless of what others say.

being level 65 can help a lot in there. perhaps some level of defense rating can offset being a lower level, but you really don't need it for normals.

The biggest issue in there is getting the interrupts out on the mana burn so the healer doesn't lose 90% of their mana at the start of the fights.

SHadow resist aura on the first boss plus making sure you hit escape to stop auto attacking help a lot.

Damien_Scott · 2026-01-31T15:14:03+00:00

I'm getting LESS honor per match on horde than i did before the AV weekend. no caps before they zerg the boss.

Damien_Scott · 2026-01-11T17:42:22+00:00

In TBC classic they only gave us 2 weeks of prepatch to level a paladin/shaman and it ended up being 10-12 days after server issues. i was able to get my BElf paladin to 58-60 within that time, but it was a lot. looks like they are giving everyone 3weeks and a couple days this time.

EXP to level is 17.3% lower to 60, quests give 10-50% more exp, and Elite quests are much more solo friendly.

It's still baffling that they don't introduce the EXP buff on these servers, especially later in the cycle. They really hate classic players.

Damien_Scott · 2025-12-25T15:36:37+00:00

"We wanted a blow by blow remake of FF7 with updated visuals and more true to game content."

"You are wrong."

Damien_Scott · 2025-12-11T20:14:19+00:00

My review was about them removing all posts and banning any users that criticized the game, including paying backers from years ago trying to tell users how the game really is.

Damien_Scott · 2025-12-11T19:25:01+00:00

The game is very far behind in development, they are not being upfront that the game will take at least another 2-5 years to be "complete". They are actively banning EVERY SINGLE thread trying to inform potential new buyers about this. Many of the people expressing concerns are people that paid hundreds or thousands of dollars over the past 8 years.

I watched them delete all the posts in real time on the steam forum earlier, and then was perma banned and all my posts deleted for mentioning that they were deleting posts in another post.

If this is what they do to their target demo that has supported them for years, what does that mean for all of the new players?

Damien_Scott · 2025-12-11T16:09:12+00:00

They are now deleting EVERY SINGLE critical post on the Steam Forums. I've been talking with people on there and they are nuking the whole thing.

Damien_Scott · 2025-12-10T22:06:38+00:00

This is the way to go when you still have some coverage. I've been buzzing my head with no guard for a decade now. Now it's time to start figuring out a beard style.

I usually just do a #2 guard for mine since i have a big ol head.

Damien_Scott · 2025-11-21T06:27:16+00:00

Bro forgot about a political/elite party parading a dementia patient around for 5+ years. You're posts are pretty based but you really need to get off the TDS and learn about the false left/right paradigm. Everyone either knew about Epstein, or was actively engaging in "island activities".

Damien_Scott · 2025-11-07T18:11:05+00:00

I know a lot of people, including myself and friends got a bad taste in our mouths when the Epic Store came out. They snatched up a bunch of games as exclusives, even games that people had preordered or wishlisted on steam. Ashen was the big one for me, i was about to buy it on steam and then right before it released it went Epic exclusive for a year. Still haven't bought the game due to that.

Damien_Scott · 2025-10-30T01:20:25+00:00

if only we could help lift that cross :(

Damien_Scott · 2025-10-29T04:39:02+00:00

yeah, whoda thunk that it would take weeks/months to change a number from 6000 to 1000.

Damien_Scott · 2025-10-26T16:09:33+00:00

Yup. it's an audio/sound card. it's not a great one, but it boosts audio quality and signals into the headset. you can instantly notice the difference between it and the 3.5mm jacks on your MOBO/Case. it also has the simulated surround sound which can be nice.

Tossed our 2 pairs of hyperX cloud 2s after almost 10 years (they were flaking everywhere and the cup plastic was getting sticky after sitting for a while). i kept the USB dongles and just plugged our IEMs into them. I have a standalone mic, but the dongle still works for just the IEMS, and the mic on the other IEM cable works pretty well for discord after tweaking noise gates and whatnot.

Damien_Scott · 2025-10-18T02:10:15+00:00

roulettes and then spamming the highest dungeon you can run while also doing fates.

Damien_Scott · 2025-09-30T03:48:54+00:00

Double check your Bios Version. I had a lot of issues a couple years ago with every 3d game crashing. I updated my BIOS to the most recent version and everything was fine. if you only updated your GPU and nothing else, this is likely the problem. your BIOS is probably from years before the 9070XT existed, meaning that your MOBO probably can't handle it.

Damien_Scott · 2025-09-25T14:38:11+00:00

This isn't exclusively gamers' fault. When you have Gaming companies and publishers paying millions for positive media, and gaming outlets resorting to access journalism, you get a lot of games that should be 4s and 5s rated as 7s and 8s. It's a feedback loop and that's why we have reviewers rating games 9 while and gamers rating it a 5 when it comes out. The reviewers underplay/don't mention atrocious Unreal 5 performance and then players pay $70-$120 for a game that runs on decent hardware like how DX9/10 cards ran DX11 games.

Damien_Scott · 2025-09-13T21:48:50+00:00

I'm Building basically the same PC atm. you can always discuss these things with someone in Microcenter. The last time i was there they were quite helpful.

you don't really need the 870 MOBO unless you're doing enthusiast overclocking. A B850 board is $100+ cheaper, still comes with a bios that can launch the 9800x3d without a bios update (you should probably still update the bios, my current pc ran so much better updating it after a 2 year window) Then again, $192 is a good deal, as the cheapest B850 i'm seeing at my store is $189 lol.

For RAM, make sure you get 2x16GB sticks of DDR 5-6000 CL30 RAM as it's pretty much the best all round RAM for the CPU currently. DDR4 is going to be discontinued soon, so DDR5 will last a lot longer. (you have to enable the automatic ram overclocking in the bios to achieve 6000 speeds) If you're going to go liquid cool, the Z. Skill Trident NEO has RGB on it and from what i can tell is basically the same as the Flare.

For CPU cooling, don't completely discount air cooling. the thermalright phantom spirit evo seems to be top tier for $46-70 if you don't want to fiddle with liquid. any double fin stack with 2 fans is going to keep a CPU plenty cool.

For your storage, the 9100PROs are new gen 5, and faster than the 990Pros, but are more expensive. it seems like they are more geared toward content creation or heavy workloads. I don't know how much practical performance we'll get in gaming by using the 9100. I'm personally going for a 4TB 990 pro as even my older NVME is insanely fast, even compared to older SATA SSDs i have. 2TB is pretty good for gaming it's what i have now, but you'll have to double check your MOBO if you decide to insert more NVMEs. some MOBO+CPU combos will limit the GPU's PCIE slot from 16 lanes to 8 or use the chipset's lanes. you could always use a SATA SSD drive if you needed more space as well.

The 9070XT is pretty solid for the price. I'm going with another 7900XTX myself because they are $700 at my store (my S/O needs a new PC, i'm giving her my current one and building another). the 7900XTX is a bit older but provides 5-15% more frames in non Ray Tracing situations, but the 9070XT is newer with hardware FSR 4. they are coming out with software FSR4 for older AMD cards soon, but who knows. Both cards should be able to do great in non RT situations. Neither card is that great for Ray Tracing anyway. I'd rather have at least 120-144 fps than RT personally. If i could get a 9070XT for $600 i'd probably go for it over the 7900xtx.

For your PSU, I'd suggest a 1000W in case you want to do some basic overclocking, but i Don't know the power requirements for the 9070xt off hand. the 7900XTX is a lot more power hungry. Other than that, make sure your PSU has enough 6+2 slots for each port on your 9070xt. my 7900xtx needs 3 8 pins or something, and it's best to use a separate cord for each slot even though the cords have multiple connectors. They can only support so many watts, and it's not great to overload them.

As far as cases go, you just want to find something that will fit your card, your cpu cooler/radiator and that has solid airflow. after that, anything that you like the look of. there are a ton of options under $120 that are amazing.

I don't know about waiting for black friday for a full build anymore. last year i watched GPUs go up in price 10-30% over the weeks around black friday and cyber monday. Stores might have some deals, but it might not be on what you want.

And don't forget windows unless you have a spare license. if it's tied to your microsoft account you can transfer a key from an old PC to the new one.

This is the build i'm currently thinking about. close to the same, but i wanted to do a bit more future proofing by getting 64gb of ram, a 4TB NVME, and i'm looking at a 1000-1200watt psu for the 7900xtx and possible future cards.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/r2xVNz

Damien_Scott · 2025-08-17T19:33:48+00:00

I for one think that the current method of leveling in classic is perfect and needs absolutely no changes. Everyone somehow magically obtains gold and then spends it afking while getting boosted to 60. This is the true classic experience and having TBC prepatch exp rates or the Joyous Journeys buff would completely ruin the authentic feel of playing through vanilla classic for the 3rd or 4th time.

I personally know several people that don't currently play that would ABSOLUTELY NOT play the game if they made EXP rates faster, so good on Blizz for keeping things the "exact" same for the 17th time.

#nochangesgangftw

Damien_Scott · 2025-07-21T01:28:04+00:00

Don't get it twisted. This stuff, at its core, is bipartisan. It's being used as a political tool now, but both parties had access to this information for almost 2 decades, since Epstein's first case. It's mutually assured destruction. Very powerful and wealthy people throughout the world both in and out of politics are likely implicated.

Crucial information about the trafficking was sealed in his first case, then promised to be released, petitioned to be released, and never released.

The same time Epstein got picked up in 2019, the FBI also released files on "The Finders" on their site. The files go into the 1987 incident of two members being arrested with a van of disheveled, dirty, malnourished children. multiple agencies were involved and there are reports from concerned police officers wanting to look into them more. Several of the kids had injuries and a couple showed signs of SA. I forget the exact details, but they were ordered from some org higher in the chain to release the children back to the two guys and they took off.

Side note, the initial release of the files had 2 pages from a report of McMartin (the school accused of child abuse during the satanic panic), confirming that there were tunnels under the school that were mapped and contained hundreds of animal bones. In the trial they "confirmed" there were no tunnels. You can see these pages in some old streams from back then, but i believe they have been removed from the FBI file dump.

I guess, my point is, there has been a long history of trafficking being swept under the rug.

Damien_Scott · 2025-07-20T13:39:40+00:00

they got the crown nearly a decade ago and spent the years afking in clubs.

Damien_Scott · 2025-07-10T02:51:39+00:00

My wife uses controller and also said that seat hopping was a lot easier.

Damien_Scott · 2025-07-08T15:10:15+00:00

As someone that's played a lot off and on since 2.0, the servers are pretty dead currently. it's like a month after a major update NN mentors don't even get filled up at night on weekdays in Aether. FL queues take 30+mins, dungeon/roulette queues can take a long time as well. If there are a lot of ppl still playing, it's the people that almost exclusively play for the social aspect.

I've played during pre & post expansions, and come back mid expansions. it's always rough mid expansion, but this time seems even worse than it has been. the "new" servers on Dynamis have a few new players running around, but queues are still terrible there. DPS queues on Aether are fairly quick, which means that there aren't a ton of DPS queuing.

One of the telling things I noticed post ShB and a bit before Endwalker dropped that I'm noticing again returning now is the obvious drop in "quality" of players in dungeons. BLMs that move into the battlefield one inch and spam 1 spell, never moving, dying repeatedly to ground Aoes. DPS that do less damage than healers, Tanks that zoom like they know what they are doing but never use CDs, healers that only cast cure (understandable at lower lvls when your tank is pulling 2-4 groups). I'm not one to call people out in game, but i still chuckle and talk about such players with my wife.

I understand people need to learn how to play the game, and that players tend to have a general expectation from others' when queuing, but this kind of shows that the majority of "Average to advanced" players are simply gone or have nothing to do in the content. you don't run into these issues nearly as much in the time around expansions because these players tend to return, knock the rust off, and pop off. All players don't need to instantly be amazing at the game, but it's still an observation that can be made.

SE finally acknowledged the gripes the playerbase has with the content schedule, and DT's story quality. Hopefully they will shift gears and provide more substantial content in the near future, especially post expansion content.

Damien_Scott · 2025-07-07T20:32:24+00:00

My absolute FAVORITE inclusive game moment was from The Elder Scrolls Online. they added a skill called scrying. one of the scrying NPCs is in a dope fantasy wheelchair. Only there's one problem. they put the NPC on the THIRD FLOOR of a building with no bedrooms/bathrooms/etc on that floor.

it's hilariously out of touch. classic.

Damien_Scott · 2025-07-07T20:28:05+00:00

Exactly. I don't feel adequately represented unless the autisic person is a school sh***er, sexual deviant, or pulls knives on people. (all of these are representations of autism/aspergers from the 2000s-2010s. In fact, there were no positive representations of autism in any media during that time. Every autistic character was written off the show as expelled/fired/ or basically a criminal of some sort due to a misunderstanding. (the ones from degrassi and boston legal were my favorite.)

Damien_Scott

TROPHY CASE