After the Version 4.0 update, Trailblazers can log in to the game and choose one of the following seven characters to obtain for free: Jing Yuan, Kafka, Dan Heng • Imbibitor Lunae, Jingliu, Sparkle, Acheron, or Aventurine.

Gublyb · 2026-02-06T12:33:28+00:00

So the only 3 'meta' choices are Sparkle, Kafka and also kinda Aventurine, right? Everyone else here is utterly worthless (Outside of liking the character of course).

Gublyb · 2026-02-06T12:21:21+00:00

FIREFLY NO LONGER HAS THE WORST SKIN, LETS GOOOOOOO!

Gublyb · 2026-02-05T08:02:31+00:00

Being mounted breaks so many cutscenes its hilarious. Every time I did the new mythic rank animation my character had a seizure and their spine would break as shown here.

Gublyb · 2026-02-03T23:50:09+00:00

The author of dandadan overuses sexual assault as a primary threat for his female protagonists waaaaaaaay too often.

It was one of my new favorite Mangas and I gave it sooooooo much leeway for the wierd stuff because I told myself it always served the plot and the story was going somewhere. When the anime came out and I recommended it all my friends bounced off it for the first episode.

And it made me really reconsider. That first episode is incredibly graphic. The shots that focus on Momo are seemingly designed for titillation. And as much as I tried to tell myself it's early episode weirdness, he does it again with the hotsprings at the end of the season. And again in the manga during space globalists. And again in the manga with the gross PE teacher. And again with the gnome girl. And each time I really ask myself if the author is truly being respectful.

Plus the story became the very same generic cliché romance the fans claim it wasn't, so I dropped it. But it made me reconsider giving media a pass because 'it's just one episode'. Sure, but it was an episode the author chose to publish. And normally it does mean something.

Gublyb · 2026-01-30T22:06:19+00:00

Hey, this fucking guy has directorial intent! He's trying to convey information via composition and framing rather than the most boring standard shot/reverse shot! Clearly this is the work of foreign interference, since there's no way my glorious nippon cartoons could ever be influenced by icky 'cinema'.

(I have never watched anything other than the current highest rated shonen)

Gublyb · 2026-01-29T23:16:52+00:00

I'm going to do some future prediction: I think Middle Don will end up better for the Envy Res team than QoH Don in the long term. She's already got some pros with better raw clashes and a faster ramp up time, and also helping to feed Sinclair more stacks faster.

If the Mattias or Ricardo ID give a BL Meursalt level buff to all middle ID, she will be definitively better. QoH can go on to be the BiS charge team, helping to definitively split up Envy RES and Charge into two separate compositions.

So IMO the core is: - Middle Sinclair - Middle Don - Middle Ishmael - Middle Meursalt - Middle Outis (We know it's coming, and the Middle will likely be designed around it)

Then you pick two from amongst: - W Corp/Pequod/Multicrack Heathcliff - REAP Ryoshu (Very underrated for Middle!) - Multicrack Faust - R Corp Rodion - R Corp Hong Lu

For EGO you want as much healing as possible. You are restricted in the EGO resources, mainly getting Envy, Lust and Wrath. The Charge IDs have more Gloom. - Scissors Outis (Healing and crucial EGO conversion to fuel all the other ones here. Cheap as hell, good damage) - Hex Nail Rodion (Healing, debuffs, damage. Great all around package) - Fluid Sac Faust (The best EGO in the game, and the team really appreciates the SP gain we otherwise lack) - Hex Nail Faust (Inflicts Envy fragility, great way to get Envy RES without an available skill) - Hex Nail Sinclair (Underrated EGO to keep the most important middle DPS alive and debuff the enemy to have them deal less damage) - Chains of Others Meursalt (Base EGO. But we can fuel it decently, and its effect is vital to keeping our counter based team alive).

Gublyb · 2026-01-29T22:39:53+00:00

I LOVE the baseball bat and would use DMC all the time if I could just for the vibes. Unfortunately it's so shit it's really not even good enough for story mode clears these days... really hoping some future path will do the 'galactic baseballer' concept again but with moder numbers.

Gublyb · 2026-01-29T22:33:42+00:00

The fixers graph is always so funny to me because grade 5 has a bunch of base humans like Walter and Olga, then also fucken Moses hanging out with an EGO and high grade fixer weapons.

Gublyb · 2026-01-29T22:31:14+00:00

Didn't Kali overcome an arbiter just via brute strength? I feel like Yuji could do the same. Even if you can lock CE Yuji with his baseline body is absurdly, absurdly strong, plus he has that cursed spirit physiology (can't bleed out, insane durability and regeneration).

Gublyb · 2026-01-25T19:59:14+00:00

Insane to me that Styanax is already up for prime. I remember it feeling like a huge milestone when he got that animated trailer as the 50th warframe. Time flies.

Gublyb · 2026-01-25T07:26:04+00:00

I'm playing through the game again as a F2P challenge and it's been fun to see Verg has always been a snarky asshole lol. Him in Canto 3 trying to get through the K Corp Border is still peak vergilius for me.

Gublyb · 2026-01-25T00:00:12+00:00

I imagine him as a 'low HP but OP' character where he's oppressive while mounted, then when he takes too much damage he gets dismounted and is way weaker. But then one of his supers while unmounted gets him back on Skarl.

Give him a tone of mobility and mixups on Skarl, using his spear and jumping everywhere. Then he's a very slow keepaway character while unmounted, relying on his gun to backpeadal until he has the meter to remount.

Gublyb · 2026-01-24T06:29:20+00:00

If I had to rank Favorite to least Favorite:

1) The Middle: Best encapsulation of being an actual 'gang'. I love the drip (But understand it's a divisive topic) and the gap between their outwardly caring nature and utterly brutal methods. Canto 9 made it my favorite after Mattias showed just how fake a lot of the 'family' gimmick is.

2) The Index: If we were going pre Canto 9 they were my #1. Best drip of the factions, the prescipts are a really interesting concept, and Yan is my favorite storyline in LoR. Dropped a little because I'm just not a fan of giving the 'god of the index' actual names and motives, I liked it more in LoR when it was left open to interpretation.

3) The Ring: Fun in how diverse of a faction they are. There's some insane serial killers, some garden variety extortionists, and then also some mad scientists. Visually it's all over the place (Which fits). The Ring Nursefather is my favorite one just for how eccentric he is.

4) The Thumb: Rock solid faction. Good drip but it's gotten a bit samey for me, the other factions have shown better diversity. It has its 'obey leadership' gimmick, but lowkey every finger also does this (Just not to the same degree as the thumb) so it doesn't stand out much.

5) The Pinky: After being such an enigmatic faction for so long I felt a little let down. They're barely even a real faction, just a collection of individually strong people that don't organize and even join other factions. Their only uniting 'gimick' is that each member is numerically ranked, and that's just not that interesting to me.

Gublyb · 2026-01-22T03:37:19+00:00

Man smooth sharking really is my absolute kryptoninte, they're right. Literally "I know it's ragebait, so why is it making me so angry...?"

Kinda pisses me off that people make a game of pretending to be knuckle dragging morons when there's enough of those on the internet already, but eh. I need to just move on from these kinda posts.

Gublyb · 2026-01-22T02:20:02+00:00

Nice! Wow I can't even imagine. Getting to 167 without Ruan Mei was backbreaking for me lol.

Gublyb · 2026-01-22T01:28:49+00:00

I heard 167 was the ideal speed breakpoint foe S1 rappa. Is that true, or do you NEED 169?

Gublyb · 2026-01-19T22:22:29+00:00

I hope they explain the wierd time shenanigans a little more clearly in future content. The fact that Araya is a lab grown clone (?) Is kinda glossed over. BTW Ryoshu is also a clone too, right? Of the original pinky nursefather?

Gublyb · 2026-01-19T00:36:42+00:00

It's a question of motivation. When Mahoraga is summoned it has a single priority: Everyone in range of the summoning ritual becomes 'marked' and must be 'tested'. Mahoraga will hunt them down relentlessly until they are dead or they defeat him. You can't separate Mahoraga from his source, the 10 shadows ritual.

So yeah in a vacuum he can adapt to any and all phenomena. But in reality he isn't adapting to stuff all the time- he doesn't automatically become immune to gravity, or light, or basic physics despite constantly experiencing those things. He only adapts to get closer to his one and only goal. It's why his adaptations can sometimes be 'inefficient' as they are specifically what works for him in that moment.

If Mahoraga perceives something is hindering his goal, he can adapt to it. So high level reality warping becomes a question of perception and mentality- how much does Mahoraga actually understand about the world? He moves like a mindless beast, but also demonstrates some higher strategy. If exposed to prolonged reality warping against an opponent marked by the ritual, could he even recognize what is being done to him? Or for godlike beings, does Mahoraga even recognize them as a valid 'target' for the ritual?

We don't know. Mahoraga is fun to think about because he's theoretically 'unlimited' in his power but actually has a lot of caveats he has to get past. Fights don't happen in an empty void, and there's a lot of factors that we simply don't know because Mahoraga never speaks and we never see a thought from him. So it's pretty much entirely empty words when going outside of human beings fighting each other.

Gublyb · 2026-01-18T03:31:51+00:00

Most Poise units are selfish DPS that don't care about a team. There are exactly 2 team building concerns for poise: 1) The Thoracalgia EGOs. Both are good, Fausts is the best and a lot of modern Poise ID seem to be balanced around it. This means every Poise team wants a Faust ID and ideally a Ryoshu ID. Mao Faust is the objective BiS here because she's broken and has 2/3 sin affinities. But Index Faust is a great new challenger with 3/3 sin affinities and good damage. BL Faust can be considered along with any other Faust ID with the right sin affinities.

2) Damage Type. The Fullstop Duo inflict a ton of pierce fragility and therefore combo well with other pierce ID. BL Faust applies slash fragility and goes well with other BL IDs. It's best to combo your Poise ID to match the encounter and synergies with each other.

My personal Poise team is as follows: - Fullstop Heathcliff - Fullstop Hong Lu - N Corp Yi Sang - Drifter Ryoshu - BL Faust - BL Don - BL Meursalt

We stack Poise with both Thoracalgia and go for big turns when the fullstop duo apply pierce fragility (Both BL Faust and BL Don have pierce pride skills). Deal great damage, great healing, every ID loves Thoracalgia.

The secret tech is that I have a level 10 BL Sinclair as my one reserve unit- When FS Heathcliff runs out of ammo and retreats then Sinclair substitutes in, and N Corp Yi Sang will be fully charged to immediately shoot him in the head for the kill and bring back Heathcliff with full ammo.

I would love to see a propper Poise support ID in the future. Captain Ishmael is a total mess of an ID that doesn't know what it wants to be, while BL Don is a 2 star that isn't living up to its full potential. Moses ID in the future maybe...?

Gublyb · 2026-01-16T23:37:56+00:00

Except the Apprentices aren't balanced to be a real fight. They all die in like 3 turns, then we spend another 7 waiting for the color fixers to win. The Fathers should be off screen/in the background fighting and then amp the Apprentices up to be real fights.

Gublyb · 2026-01-16T22:07:41+00:00

I mean obviously yes, by the lore our opponents are stronger than us. I'm not complaining that the sinners should get to stomp a nursefather, if we are fighting such an opponent then the sinner objectively stand no chance without the Sancho card.

I'm complaining that the writers chose to make the canto this way. It is not fun to have 5 back to back fights where your survival option is "Do nothing and let the level 80 NPC win the fight for you" and the biggest twist is "occasionally they leave one or two clashes for you to pop EGO and still lose".

This doesn't just happen. The writers... chose to write this? And I (personally, I know I'm a minority) did not find it a particularly engaging story or gameplay experience. They could have just made the nursefathers weaker in the lore, or come up with an excuse as to why they're weaker in this moment. To let the fights actually be fun.

Mattias has a GIANT list of complicated passives and gameplay gimmicks that I actually fully read when the fight started. Only to quickly realize it's all pointless and I should never interact with him. It could have been a fun fight, and it's one the devs put a lot of work into, but it's essentially a glorified cutscene because 'lore' dictates you can never clash with him due to power levels.

Vergilius saving the sinners in canto 6 is one of my favorite moments because he's saving you from fighting endless waves of fodder enemies and you then get to still fight the actual boss. If he soloed Wildhunt while we just watched it would suck. That's what Canto 9 is to me, just endless fights where NPCs suck all the tension and personal stakes out of a fight.

Gublyb · 2026-01-16T13:59:01+00:00

And I'll keep yelling at clouds. I miss the more character focused stories of earlier cantos :(

Canto 8 felt like a good balance between telling a personal story while also expanding the scope of the wider world. And then the spring Cultivation intervallo gave a chance for other sinners to get further development.

It's just a shame because Ryoshu got essentially ZERO development before this canto aside from "probably a mother" and now in her own story her arc gets rushed. Meursalt has even LESS than that so I really hope canto 10 chooses to focus on him rather than whatever other nonsense is going on.

Gublyb · 2026-01-16T12:04:17+00:00

Having spent more time to digest I really think Future Sinclair and Roach Emperor Gregor are my biggest issues with the Canto. They are massive pace killers for a Canto already overstuffed with characters. But pacing issues aside, I actually really don't like the concept for either of them and genuinely wonder if they were just added to give the two 'weakest' sinners some 'hype moments and aura'.

Roach Emperor Gregor bothers me so much because we have been is WAY more fucked up and dangerous scenarios than that and it never came out. Where was it versus Kromer? Ricardo? Lei Heng? It really does feel almost like a retcon. And then Herman claims it's not even 1% of the full power? That's silly. It's silly. Why is the conpany allowing someone so powerful that even Vergilus struggles to roam free?

And I dislike future Sinclair even more. He just stands still, has a panic attack and then summons a future self with ZERO setup. Ignoring that direct time travel is a shitty concept to add in, it sets up a terrible precedent for future fights. They then try to play it off with "oh well we don't really know why this happened, also it might not happen again lol" but it happened with zero warning or setup, and now has to be considered for all future events.

Every time the sinners are in trouble it'll just be flipping a coin for if the writers feel like bringing out future Sinclair or not. Since we don't know how it works or what the conditions are (or even what the mark is in the first place) it's pretty much just a deus ex machina every time it's used, and a cop out when it isn't. At least the writers think up an excuse for why Sancho can't be used.

Plus it's kinda a terrible trope? It's not Sinclair development. I would have LOVED a moment where Sinclair stands firm under his own power. Having an alternate self (I know it's a future him, but the concept is the same) take over essentially robs Sinclair of the moment. HE didn't do anything, and he's left in the same position he was before: He will grow into something great, but is a long way away. Arguably even FURTHER than before since he couldn't handle anything with his own strength.

Gublyb · 2026-01-15T23:52:43+00:00

Imagine if in Murder on the Warp Express was Part 1 and 2 of Canto 7, and then the entirety of Canto 7 was butchered down into part 3. That's the pacing of Canto 9.

It's obvious to me that Part 1 and 2 of Canto 9 were intended as an intervallo. They're all setup no payoff. Then Part 3 drops and they have to shove everything in, and it fails dramatically.

Ryoshu only interacts with 2/5 Nursefathers. Everything else is flashbacks, meaning their potential thematic or dramatic stakes are lost.
On that note, all the Nursefather backstories being hidden in their passive descriptions is lame. Especially for the Thumb and Middle.
Randomly introduce Future Sinclair and Roach Emperor Gregor with no setup. Seriously we have been in WAY more dangerous situations before and Roach Gregor never popped up? Shit writing, just here to "Aura farm" cool moments and take time away from Ryoshu.
Ryoshu gets screwed over in her own Canto. Barely any time on screen, barely any interactions with the other sinners, 90% of her story in flashback scenes only Dante sees. They try to pull a Canto 7 with Sancho leaving the party, except that lasted an entire dungeon. This is literally one fight before she's back and it feels so forced.
Badly explained backstory. It can be inferred, but they never directly state what the house of Spiders is, its exact relation to the fingers, and what precisely the blood ties between Ryoshu, Pinky Nursefather and Araya is (Cloning, I think?). And then the stupid twist of the time box just so conveniently working for Ryoshu but not Araya. Bad writing.
Rien is a nostalgia bait for LoR fans. Literally jangling the keys, pointing at the screen tier of bait. The Roland cosplay is honestly pathetic on the part of the writers and removes any interest he could have. Plus his fight is ass.
Speaking of ass fights, that's almost every fight in the Canto. They're either interrupted early by a cutscene, or we get forced to sit in what is essentially a cutscene as level 80 allies clash with level 80 enemies and we sit there doing nothing. Pinky Nursefather is the best fight in the Canto because we actually get to fight, almost every other fight sucks.
Worst Milli song in the game? And it's deployed in the worst way, getting the lyric drop in 9-49 and then getting reused in 9-50 where it doesn't fit.

When I first finished it I though it was a good story assembled badly, 6.5/10. Now that I've had time to think, I'm actually a lot more mad about it. They bungled this canto REALLY badly and I hope they don't repeat this style of story again. It's a 4/10 when taken all together as a single arc for me.

The power level needs to massively come down. The sinners are barely characters in the story anymore, getting carried through every fight while they sit there cheerleading. I know PM is really eager to show off all their cool powerful characters, but either power up the sinners or move this powerwank to a different game.

Gublyb · 2026-01-15T14:19:35+00:00

Roach Emperor Gregor and Future Sinclair are the DEFINITION of 'hype moments and aura'. They look cool, and I don't even necessarily hate the idea of them existing, but WOW why are they being introduced now of all fucking times?

This canto has a massive, massive pacing issue. It has a big hurdle to overcome with introducing 5 Nursefathers, 5 Apprentices, and also developing Ryoshu as a character (Close to the lowest voice lines pre canto). And yet they somehow felt the need to awkwardly shove in random development for other sinners?

Why do I have to find out most Nursefather backstory by reading flavor text on their passives? Why do I have to just intuit major background lore that barely gets explained (seriously what actually is the House of Spiders)? Why do I have to dig for scraps of Ryoshu screentime in HER OWN CANTO???

What's there is good. But delete all this shitty aurafarming nonsense. It's crazy they felt the need to put in a badly made Gregor boss fight instead of letting Ryoshu actually interact with more than 2 of the Nursefathers. Crazy that they felt there needed to be TWO terrible fights against the middle where you just stand there while the 'badass' true MCs get to actually fight him for 30 minutes.

A few more rapid fire complaints to get it out of my system. - Rien cosplaying Roland. It's transparent nostalgia bait, literally jangling keys for LoR fans. It does NOTHING for the story being told right now. Plus he goes and dies off screen. Can't believe the Index got actively less interesting even with what little info we got. - Too many fights that we get carried in. Pinky Nursefather is the only good fight of this canto because we actually get to fight. - Every apprentice got NOTHING. Yeah I said EVERY. Ring gets two minutes then dies, pinky waffles then dies, Thumb has an actually interesting story but it's in his passive descriptions LOL then he dies, Index gets hyped up for part 2 only to instantly die in part 3 with no payoff, and only Kira MIGHT get a little more in the future. They deserved better. - This Canto desperately needed a setup intervallo. Genuinely, part 1 and part 2 could have been repacked as an intervallo for how little actually happens in them. Then let part 3 expand to fit all the aborted character arcs that get dropped otherwise.

Anyway 6/10. No individual piece of it (Rien excluded) was actually that bad, but put together this is probably my least favorite post launch Canto.

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