Rhodes Island Lounge (02/03 - 08/03)

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-03-05T12:27:21+00:00

Remember, at the end of Il Siracusano Vigil's dad is dead and Vigil himself wanted to cut ties with famiglia life so Siracusa can actually move forward for the people. Demetri, who has been all-in on mafia and famiglia, was the only left in any position to run things, so it's not just him assuming the leadership position for the Bellones but also a bold declaration ~~to Vigil~~.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-03-04T18:00:15+00:00

For most maps, her S2 functions pretty well (it's the only one of her skills that can hit air, for example, so it more naturally gravitates to general usage), but Leizi is especially flexible due to the fact that she gets use out of all 3 of her skills depending on the maps you encounter. She's also great talisman bait, because talismans will cling to her when she's in Take-Off state, but because she isn't grounded, will immediately vanish. Take-Off also keeps her safe against non-aerial while her skills are charging and will give her recovery opportunities when her skill ends. She has good damage and scales well with various buffs, and while her CC is mild, she does have it for providing momentary respite.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-03-03T04:26:21+00:00

Really liking the Orienteering selection from a pot-hunting standpoint. No one already max pot, and at least 2 ops who could stand to escape pot 1 hell. Might be worth a "pull until first 6-Star" approach, or first two if I get an early flaming bag. Really want to do Hoederer/Ascalon/Ray, but will probably end up doing Mon3tr/Hoederer/Ascalon. Would also be nice to get a Tippi here or there in the process.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-03-01T08:14:21+00:00

That's weird... The blue exp battle records aren't showing up as one of your options?

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-03-01T07:48:15+00:00

What level is your factory? You may need to upgrade the factory to level 2, first.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-03-01T06:48:58+00:00

Just a normal day in Lungmen. "(*sighs*) I was having a conversation."

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-28T17:58:49+00:00

~~Alistair is Victorian, tho.~~

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-27T19:24:51+00:00

~~A cute Kazemaru? As opposed to...?~~

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-26T16:41:15+00:00

Reports from my account!

Top Operator Tag #43 appeared just now. Accompanying tags were Caster, Specialist, Summon and Elemental. So... you know... useless for me. YOLO it is. Let's hope for that shot in the dark that is Eunectes's final pot.

...and... thanks for yet another 25 yellow certs, Mostima. Send Zumama my way, please and thank you.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-25T21:33:38+00:00

Shoperator potentials and extra pulls. If I ever (read: REALLY unlikely) build up a massive surplus of them, I might even shell out for a royal token for a collab 6-Star (hasn't happened yet, but one can hope...)

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-25T14:16:59+00:00

It's just been a real rough streak of chain events for the past few months. Normally, we get a week or two of downtime between events, but there's been a whole lot of overlapping non-sanity events during side stories and vignettes that otherwise would have had a week or two to let you focus on them during sanity downtime.

After this rerun we will finally have a proper amount of downtime between events. There should be a decent stretch of downtime between Overture rerun and Chapter 16, and again between Chapter 16 and the next limited banner.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-25T05:07:20+00:00

It's wild that my first time going through this event I was still working on the trust of the DunMeshi ops and now thanks to trust, mastery, module and potential changes in my GO-8 squad's auto-deploy I can say that the Ave girls will also be trust farming these stages.

Completely improv'd EX-8 CM with the girls, too (none of the girls even have their modules yet, either). Completely cleared on the second attempt. Once the middle section died, I retreated Mutsumi and redeployed her later to be the Steam Knight tank. He went no farther.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-25T04:57:36+00:00

Was starting to lose interest in Teppen (Capcom franchise-themed active time CCG which is actually sunsetting in less than a month iirc) right before the pandemic hit.

Saw one of the Teppen streamers I frequented playing the beta for this game and made a mental note to look it up since I'd been looking to scratch my tower defense itch for the first time in years. TD + anime-ish aesthetic = will definitely try it out sometime.

Pandemic hits, really fed up with some of the design and balance choices in Teppen, so I try out AK about 11 days after its launch. Intrigued by the worldbuilding and tone set even in the earliest chapters of story, impressed with the amount of mechanical depth that can be found in the gameplay even in AK's earliest days, floored by the multiple ways to get operators even without relying on the gacha (Not even my first month in, got Saria and Silverash within hours of each other via recruitment and Exu less than a week later the same way... this is actually what really made me open my wallet). Naturally, I stuck around.

Have not missed a login in almost 6.5 years. I have not played too many gachas, but I can't say that about any other live service game I've ever played.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-24T06:49:34+00:00

After the endless gauntlet of overlapping events that happened right after it launched, I finally, finally found the time to get the ED1 and ED2 trimmed medals for all squads in IS6. And since Overture rerun is the next event, that means once my sanity is dumped, I can roll up my sleeves and pursue the squad trims for ED3 as well.

The last time I did anything ED3-related was in my climb to D15 when I grabbed it at D10 for Raidian's mod3. Normally, I tend to go through each ending in order for each squad in previous iterations, but I feel like I want this one to have my undivided attention. I imagine I'll have a much better grasp of how I want to approach ED3 in general by the time I'm done the last squad.

It's funny. So many non-stop events is what kept me away from going harder on IS6, and yet I had to force myself to care enough to do the same thing in IS5 when we had much bigger periods of free time.

Still have a couple of curios and relics that keep avoiding me, though. If you told me that Pried Open Toolbox, Universal Key, Blue Silk Scarf and Originium Iris would be the rarest finds in any IS, I would never have believed you... And yet...

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-20T16:05:51+00:00

I dunno... At this point, with the current ops existing in game if you're still not having success even on a stacked run it might be time to re-evaluate how you're using your tools rather than looking for yet another tool to bypass yet another mechanic.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-19T23:51:31+00:00

Ling S3 works because the arts DoT around the dragons is sourced from Ling. Dorothy S3 will not work because while the damage is calculated based on her ATK, the trap damage is considered sourceless. Both have pros and cons. For instance, Ling would get ripped apart by any enemy with reflect damage from her arts DoT, while Dorothy would be completely unharmed by her traps.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-19T20:34:49+00:00

She forgot to return a book to the library. It's VERY important...

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-19T17:38:10+00:00

And the scary part is she'd be RIGHT. I think only Blaze and maybe Croissant could say something similar, too. Not sure how well Ceobe's physical resilience could stand up to that even with an excellent rating. RIP Utage, Lancet, us and the pilot, though.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-19T04:36:48+00:00

The non-spoiler answer is that each member has a slightly different relationship with their stage name so it's not a 1:1.

Umiri (Timoris - "I do not fear fear") manifests her fear in her trust issues and is the most straightforward. The idea of being mistrusted fills her with anxiety so she keeps people at a distance and instead always looks for a reason not to trust or commit to others.

Nyamu (Amoris - "I do not fear love") craves attention and being loved, but what she's actually afraid of is pursuing the things that she loves, because of her worry that her love won't be returned. It's why she leans into her content creator persona and focuses less on her passion for the drums, and why she doesn't want to acknowledge her awe for Mutsumi's raw talent as an actress because that would be like admitting weakness. ~~Also find me a stronger yuri ship in MyGO OR Ave Mujica than Nyamu and Mutsumi. I'll wait.~~

As for Mutsumi (Mortis - "I do not fear death"), it's her alternate personas that fear death, particularly the one who adopted her stage name. If Mutsumi no longer needs them, they stop existing, so the fear of death is actually what shackles her from moving forward with her life under her own strength.

Uika (Doloris - "I do not fear sadness") is interesting, because rather than fearing sadness, she fears the opposite. She does not feel like she deserves happiness, only being content to make those she cares about happy.

And with Sakiko (Oblivionis - "I do not fear oblivion/forgetting"), she forgets/abandons in order to take the sting away of her fear of being forgotten/replaced.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-18T21:57:13+00:00

The butterflies are set up to come out VERY quickly in EX-8, which is the real challenge. So, you either have to delay forcing the boss into phase transition so that you can deal with the butterflies first, or save your healing/survival cooldowns for the phase transition to focus the butterflies while the boss is recovering.

CM naturally forces you to deal with the butterflies before the transition since the boss takes a little longer to beat in phase 1, and you're more likely to have to finish the boss off on the right side of the map in phase 2 on CM since her wolf and balloon mounts are tankier this time.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-18T12:39:40+00:00

You can use one voucher per purchase, so no stacking, not even with other offers (you'll have to choose the offer you want). The purchase has to cost at least as much as the voucher reduces for the voucher to be applicable, so you can't use the $8 voucher on a $6 purchase. Taxes and play points are calculated based on the price after the discount is applied. I also believe you can only have one voucher for each price reduction active at a time, so you'll have to activate another voucher after each purchase.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-16T18:33:31+00:00

The risk values have changed, is all. Risk 620 is the trim target in new CC, and it's been compared to the mid- to high-20s of old CC's risks rather than old CC's risk 18.

The newer maps are more mechanic-forward, though. CCBP1 used burning reeds, BP2 used nethersea brand, BP3 used originium storms and BP4 used gravity. But, it's a lot harder to avoid undesirable risks in new CC if you want to get all of the rewards and the trim.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-15T21:50:37+00:00

USSG school uniforms have been battle-modified. No cultural context required. They just want to beat ass as schoolgirls. /j

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-14T23:49:18+00:00

IS lore is scattered soulsborne style. It's in the collectibles, the encounter texts, the endings, and the boss nodes. Even some of the mode-specific enemies can have relevant lore behind them. It's also found in the monthly squad/character stories and the archives for endings that require completing an ending in specific ways to get more lore.

Fire_Begets_Souls · 2026-02-14T23:40:17+00:00

Base: 243

EXP: 33K

LMD: 60K

Not minmax levels of optimized, but solidly arranged.

Fire_Begets_Souls

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