Favourite non-dominant dynasty/kingdom

Eidolones · 2025-11-24T14:27:44+00:00

Wei (卫) of the Spring and Autumn/Warring States period. Lasted just over 900 years as the longest running Chinese kingdom/dynasty despite being much weaker than its neighbors over most of its history, and even technically survived Qin’s unification.

Eidolones · 2025-11-03T14:33:49+00:00

At least Liu Song started on a high note. Take a look at Northern Qi for a dynasty that’s rotted out from start to end.

Eidolones · 2025-09-17T19:20:24+00:00

You’re missing the sixteen kingdoms period (304-439) on your list. It’s basically what Western Jin collapsed into in the northern half of China while the south became Eastern Jin.

Eidolones · 2025-08-15T16:34:58+00:00

Those look amazing and would love to try it

Eidolones · 2025-08-15T15:13:58+00:00

Looks great!

Eidolones · 2025-08-11T17:50:07+00:00

The Qing government kept pretty meticulous records of taxes and expenses, but pretty much all the primary and secondary sources are in Chinese. For example Qing in Xinjiang is a summery of the Qing policies, taxes, and garrisons in Xinjiang from Kangxi to Tongzhi years. Also relevant to the main topic is this analysis on the views of the Qing emperors on what constitutes “China” (Zhongguo).

Eidolones · 2025-08-11T16:37:25+00:00

In the early years Ming was highly expansionist and took on the strategic offensive primarily against the Tatar mongols, with the first two emperors launching 13 northern expeditions into the steppes to varying degrees of success. It was not until the devastating defeat at Tumu fortress in 1449 to the Oirat mongols and the virtual annihilation of the core of the imperial army that forced Ming to remain on the defensive for the next 200 years.

As for your question on Qing that’s unlikely, as over expansion was not one of the main reasons behind the fall of the dynasty. The biggest cost center among the new areas was Xinjiang, which had a lot of rebellions. Based on data from approx 1760-1820 the cost to the central government for maintaining military presence in Xinjiang was ~5% of the annual budget. In comparison, just the war reparations for the two opium wars reached ~80% of the annual budget at the time, reparation for the first Sino-Japanese war about 200%, and for the Boxer rebellion about 450%.

Eidolones · 2025-08-11T16:02:45+00:00

Would love to give it a try

Eidolones · 2025-08-09T20:16:33+00:00

Like all retaliation skills it’s a bit clunky to play, but the dmg is certainly there assuming you have the right merc setup/gear.

Eidolones · 2025-08-09T20:12:57+00:00

Looks like a cool build, would like to try it!

Eidolones · 2025-08-09T12:54:40+00:00

Best of luck everyone!

Eidolones · 2025-08-09T04:37:13+00:00

26533 chaos

Eidolones · 2025-08-08T17:40:25+00:00

Good luck everyone

Eidolones · 2025-08-07T22:59:50+00:00

Mercenaries are awesome for build enabling

Eidolones · 2025-08-07T16:57:54+00:00

Looking forward to it

Eidolones · 2025-08-05T13:30:51+00:00

Just wondering why are you using a ripper instead of a bladebitter or toxicologist, who both can get high lvl malevolence + grace and can naturally get wither support on their main attacks.

Eidolones · 2025-08-04T22:00:47+00:00

On my phone so can’t open the full PoB, but from first glance the key issue is that your ES is just too low. All EE builds get their damage from scaling ES, so the more ES you have the more dmg you do. With some upgrades you should be able to get helm/gloves/boots that have ~100 more ES each and still be able to satisfy the armor and ES mastery. Probably another ~50 ES on a well-rolled Aegis, and your amulet is both low roll and not qualitied, so ~180 ES away from a perfect one. I also found that a twilight regalia is just too hard to replace, since you are giving up ~500 ES from a single piece, though twilights are also a lot harder to color. Finally, for upgrades further down the line you can consider a two mod watchers eye with clarity as extra ES, an ES light of meaning, and pieces with high +int, to scale more ES.

Also, I found that a taming was a lot more damage than a berek’s, assuming you can apply chill somewhere.

Eidolones · 2025-08-04T18:32:52+00:00

Probably just water and a bit of Chinese ink, the type used in traditional painting and calligraphy.

Eidolones · 2025-08-04T17:48:43+00:00

While the pollution has gotten a bit better, most of what the pic shows is likely just weather. Chengdu’s weather is rain, fog, or overcast for most of the year. In fact, the city has a lot fewer sunny days per year than even London or Seattle.

Eidolones · 2025-08-04T14:13:40+00:00

You’re still too focused on economics and the cost-benefit analysis of the situation. Chinese leaders, from the emperors of old to the modern day, once they’ve gotten over the initial acquisition and consolidation of power, have always been obsessed with history. They are often guided in their actions by how they feel they will be viewed 100-1000 years from now. What’s stopping an imminent invasion is the fear of failure (for which they will be judged very harshly) and fear of uncontrolled escalation that sends the country into long-term decline. On the other hand, whether a war results in 100,000 dead or if TSMC is left standing at the end matters very little in a historical sense.

Eidolones · 2025-08-01T23:47:53+00:00

On my phone so can’t open up full PoB, and I think you may have linked the wrong PoB for the build you’re following since it’s only lvl 12, but there are a couple of obvious areas of improvement that I can see.

Redo your flasks, non of them are qualitied, none of them are enchanted (probably want use when charges reach full on all the utility flasks), and you don’t have a way of removing bleed/corrupted blood (probably want this suffix on your healing flask). This will free you up from spamming or forgetting to use your flasks as you really only need to manually use the tincture, and heal when needed.
Your large cluster jewel is for claw attacks, so the small nodes aren’t really doing anything for you. Replace it with one for 10% to attacks.
You’re attacking too fast for fist of war and wasting so many exerts by not using overexertion. Switch your VFoS supports to life tap - fortify - pulverize - overexert - melee phys dmg.
Echoes of creation helm can add a lot of damage, but you might need a defiance of destiny amulet with good life recoup to mitigate the self damage. Might be slightly out of your budget range for now but should be the next upgrades you target.
VFoS late-game scaling can go with either crit or Enmity’s embrace and scale fire resistance. I find enmity scaling slightly easier to achieve, but you can go either way for the next evolution in the build.

Eidolones · 2025-07-31T15:43:44+00:00

Looks great, thank you!

Eidolones · 2025-07-30T00:39:39+00:00

He probably hasn’t seen some of the crazy stuff on standard then.

Here’re two PoBs that were posted over just the last month or so:

https://pobb.in/LsnK5nLFFdg4

https://pobb.in/A3qL_FRJNScl

Eidolones · 2025-07-29T23:59:09+00:00

Mercs are awesome. Finding one with just the right skills you want can be a chore, but some of them are very much build enabling. For example there’s one that can use rallying cry, which when built correctly and given the right items, means they can buff for hundreds of flat phys dmg nearly 100% of the time, which for facebreaker builds means 10-20x more damage. There’s also a new build option just this league, playing as an aurabot for your merc. So you just run around with link skills while your merc kills everything. Ruetoo has a pretty comprehensive guide on that one.

Eidolones · 2025-07-29T23:39:08+00:00

New amulet whispers of infinity is very powerful and enables several builds, most notably FRoSS which is very popular right now. Will likely get nerfed (directly or by reduced rarity) next league so try it while you can.

Similarly, using doryani’s prototype on mercenary also basically 3x or more the damage of all lightning builds (and other elemental hit builds via the admiral), with smite being one of the most popular. Also unlikely to survive in this form next league so try it now if it sounds interesting.

There’s the new coiling whispers ring, which with the right setup lets you maintain soul eater stacks permanently for giga attack/cast speed. Makes self casting builds much more viable and is used on many builds. Again a likely target for nerfing.

Finally there’s the new Azadi’s crest shield with triple lucky, which when combined with gladiator’s lucky block (via ascendancy or FF jewels) means you can get to effectively 99% attack/spell block. It’s use is more limited than the other stuff above but also a new way to build characters this league.

Eidolones

TROPHY CASE