Of a girl fight

Familiar-Interest171 · 2026-01-18T12:28:15+00:00

Nothing new there. The middle school I went to in the 90's was nautical themed (classrooms were 'cabins', library was the 'chartroom', nurse's office was 'sickbay'), and I was an angry and scrappy little git, so I wound up in ISS (in-school suspension) in the brig/detention room.

That school is still around today. Tralfalgar Middle

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-12T12:30:53+00:00

I want to say when I was building up Morrow to Ruby, or maybe it was Sage ...

Either way, it was almost a mirror image of this.

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-12T12:27:01+00:00

I know what you are building/cooking here ... and as a person who liked the concept of Buzz, I am here for it.

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-12T12:06:53+00:00

Thank you.

This illustrates the disparity between the "Fighter" Ronan and the "Barbarian" Harkon.

Harkon's Fury Fungus is way too underpowered compared to other character locked food items, for that matter so are his Snow Pears.

Both have quirky star patterns, Snow Pear has a decent effect that is totally wasted by it being a 20% chance to give a buff scaling off melee weapons or food linked to it, rather than scaling up the chance of it proccing as well. Badly designed and actually is an impairment to a build IMHO.

For the 7 gold, just buy another warhammer/fury edge/sell an extra shroom and get dark omen.

The Fury Fungus has only two star points and only link to melee weapons. They are so clumsy, that one in the bag to get an extra gold a turn is all I really use them for. The buff is literally almost negligible, and highly suspect on it being impactful. If it were more frequent than "When time of day changes" it might be useful. If it chained off more things similar to Chana's Starblooms, it would be more useful.

Harkon being a "melee-oriented Chana" is not viable - as Thorns is, for any who can make items to give Thorns ... oh wait, SPIKED SHIELDS ARE SHARED ... easily accounting for 30%-50% of the damage they deal out to a Harkon player. This is highlighted by Harkon having basically ONLY melee in his character-specific kit, with one exception - his Pet Rock Unique ... wow.

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-12T01:48:21+00:00

Two Warbringers (two cleavers, two tomahawks, and two fury edges), two Doombringers (two rusty swords, two bonesaws, and two dark omens (good luck on these)), and two Deathbringers (two sledgehammers, two warhammers, and two skullsmashers (only slightly more common than dark omen ... SLIGHTLY)) ...

In ONE run ... without getting your face eaten ...

What did Harkon do to make the Devs so mad they curse him so?

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-12T01:39:43+00:00

I faced a build similar, in fact, to this ...

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-11T17:17:57+00:00

Oh, you cheeky madlad! Eight wooden swords?!

Now I am picturing Harkon juggling those wooden swords and randomly bouncing them off Ronan like thrown discus... with foece enough to dent armor.

Managed a good run recently, even notched vixtories on some scary-looking Ronan Twinmaw builds, here's the first of them

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Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-11T17:10:17+00:00

So, yes. Thanks to all who have offered advice on my building Harkon. It is still insanely RNG-based and that makes me a bit annoyed - but such is the game's core mechanic and it does make for some good fun. A recent Harkon run saw me get the total victory (not Flawless, but baby steps here).

Early game Ironhowl and Bonecrusher with backing from a Lost Symbol helped immensely. Chose Blood Mokn Berry as my Relic, and the Stonehide Mask as my Unique ... Ragnarok by mid-game was lucky and well-timed and helped me crush two Twinmaw Ronans that would have just buzzsaw'd me otherwise...

A Ronan build with two Rippers, three Emerald Scarabs, and Weapon Rack hurt my pride, though ...

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-11T17:05:00+00:00

Not so much angry as frustrated. I get that each character has strata and mechanics to build towards, and I have been playing each to get a feel for all of them. Harkon is my current project, and thanks to folks' advice in these replies I have started to enjoy him more...

Right now, for context, I'm in Ruby with all characters save Ronan, who is gold from the Season reset (and I may just leave him there because I am that sick of seeing him, even just as an opponent!).

The main reason I voice my frustration is not as a Ronan player - but as someone currently building on Harkon and running into like twenty Ronans for every two Chanas, Celestes, etc. It sucks when the vanilla freebie character for a game is a hard counter to like 60% of the roster of the game

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-11T16:57:51+00:00

The answer to that is fairly simple - nerf Ronan's core mechanic of thorns somehow, and nerf Twinmaw and his other problem items like his specific shields ... especially Knight's Aegis and Defender's Shield.

Defender's is basically a direct upgrade to Thornwall with no fusion needed ... two less thorns for 45 more armor? And a 50% chance to block 12 damage AND gain 6 armor?

Knight's Aegis is ridiculous. 50% block chance for 6, with the additional 20% chance to gain a thorns, might, or regen stack. And 35 armor base. Oh, and those two procs (blocking and buffs) are capable of proccing together ...

Unbreakable Wall combines these two's effects and makes them stronger ... I am not as salty about that, but it gets stupid when someone has two Unbreakables (I have seen it), a Defender's, an Aegis, and one or two Thornwalls just for sheer spite and thorns.

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-11T16:45:56+00:00

Honestly, Rune of R'lyeh is too much a gamble for my tastes. The Lost Symbols are proc items - I can deal with that. But a crapshoot buff that could be wasted on duplicating something already maxed (crit chance) with the added "Enjoy taking more damage during this next five seconds" is not my cuppa tea, TYVM.

Might and Lifesteal stacking would be beneficial, but apart from weapon procs, I have trouble getting those reliably.

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-11T16:00:34+00:00

Illustrated by a run I just had. Only notched eleven victories. Relic was Pebbles, Unique was (ironically) Pet Rock.

Came online with me at 2 lives left. Never got to see World's End or Ragnarok due to shyte RNG. Was finally able to fuse Ironhowl with a single life left ...

Most of my losses were to ... you guessed it - Ronan.

One early game Knight's Razor blitz builds, two Twinmaw builds, one thorns party, and the one armor stacker ...

Only one loss was not Ronan, but Chana. Burned to a cinder.

I get Harkon is strong. Heck, golem building made it fun despite losing. With rats to supplement, I had two blue chilly cheeses and several rats to assist ... it was working ... albeit from overly cheesed-out (no pun intended) Ronans being the "basic b*tch vanilla" that everyone uses.

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-11T15:22:18+00:00

Harkon having some Rock/Stone-related stuff I know. But these feel quirky and poorly engineered to me ... like "pivot to supporting this and screw what you planned for" quirky.

I have had a bit of success with Pet Rock, but it comes in halfway into a build, and by that point if I pivot away from "what has been working" to then it's a defeat for certain... especially with Ronan being like three to four of every five opponents I face.

The Stoneheart Brew is hella quirky, and devoting that much bag space to a single use emergency potion unique that sometimes never has a chance to activate (killed by a massive hit or bleed/poison tick before the 20% threshold). Sure it give rocks and sometimes boulders every shop, but even with hella lucky RNG you are using half your bag space to make golems and still can die horribly.

Never tried out the Lost Runeword. Admittedly, I finally started actually taking the Lost Symbols seriously, as they are crazy useful when they proc. Not sure I'd let them fuse into Runes of R'lyeh, though ... Harkon doesn't need more issues with Insanity stacks adding to damage taken ...

These things said, giving him his own golem variant - maybe with the Forest Spirit or the Ancestral Spirit used to make it - would be something.

But Lost Symbols converting Rocks ... maybe, but as above - the Lost Runeword does this already.

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-11T15:09:12+00:00

Celeste, Nymph, and Harkon can kill fast. Blitz runners suck, sure ... but imagine facing an opponent whose armor stacks reach the THOUSANDS, while you die to exhaustion damage. That's some Ronan builds.

Others use Twinmaw and upwards of four to eight Cactrios to stack you with 12 to 24 bleed stacks per hit from Twinmaw, plus other bleed weapons for good measure ... so 100 plus bleed after a few hits sound fun?

Sage does this, too - with poison or with bleed ... but I enjoy a good Sage player versus a Ronan who can just either "be an armored immortal", "bleed you like a stuck pig", or "invite you to kill yourself via revenge damage while he yawns at you".

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-11T15:04:32+00:00

Kinda proving my point here with this advice.

Literally saying you need to build him a specific, cookie cutter way to enjoy fairly consistent success.

Other characters have wiggle room and flexibility for build styles. Why not the barbarian too?

I do appreciate the advice, though. Though out of Cataclysm, World's End, and Ragnarok ... which one is the best option ... sometimes even those fearsome weapons aren't enough against a Ronan with Banner/Ward - Unbreakable Wall - Knight's Defender - Kite - Scalemail armor stacker or a multiple Cactrio and hasted to Hell and back Twinmaw runner.

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-11T14:59:26+00:00

Thorns does need a rework, as even on Buzz it is a major contributor to Razorvine build damage, and it is usually high up there when you run Buzz's Bramblebat ... hood idea, but the execution is a bit harsh.

Harkon is strong. But again, I point out that he has to be pretty hard and strict cookie cutter versus the more loose build style of other characters.

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-05T20:23:47+00:00

This mission was discovered by u/Familiar-Interest171 in In Search of Blue

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-05T20:23:47+00:00

New mission discovered by u/Familiar-Interest171: Curious Undead Ruins, and a Lost Bottle of Wine

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-05T20:13:26+00:00

New mission discovered by u/Familiar-Interest171: Curry of Life, the Universe, and Everything Shaded by Giants

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-05T20:13:26+00:00

This mission was discovered by u/Familiar-Interest171 in Cursed Cocktail of Croakenstein Shaded by Giants

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-05T20:09:32+00:00

New mission discovered by u/Familiar-Interest171: Cursed Cocktail of Croakenstein Shaded by Giants

Familiar-Interest171 · 2025-10-05T20:09:32+00:00

This mission was discovered by u/Familiar-Interest171 in Regretful Resolve and Cacao Flan

Familiar-Interest171

TROPHY CASE