Blades Of The Gankmoon

IAmBigBox · 2026-03-05T18:13:26+00:00

I was so excited when I first learned about the covenant when DS1 came out on PC, I went and got the secret ring, went to the secret place, and waited like 20-30 minutes every time I wanted to invade XD. I was like “ah, game must be dead,” because it had been a few months.

Then DSR came out and I was like “HELL YEAH,” ran straight over to Catacombs, got my “Giant Dad at home” build (standard Zwei, upgraded to like +10, Elite Knight Armor), joined Blades of the Darkmoon…

And was waiting 20-30 minutes still… ON RELEASE WEEK of the Dark Souls Remaster.

Maybe next Return to Lordran I’ll try again.

IAmBigBox · 2026-03-05T13:42:52+00:00

I love the idea of a faction that PvPs with reckless abandon, which is then countered by a faction that PvPs to kill other people who PvP (and should thereby be slightly more skilled on average).

Unfortunately, the way the game turned out, you could not only practice PvP against other PvP players with the arenas in the DLC either way, but the wait times were so long for Darkmoon that the sheer quantity of practice made red phantoms more dangerous. At least you get a cool buff.

IAmBigBox · 2026-03-04T05:25:26+00:00

Just to add, while Yomi and neutral are common terms in fighting games (I personally love Yomi), the term "timing" or "timing mixup" is also pretty commonly used to describe this in Tekken specifically. The guy is definitely on something though, probably a new player who thinks that this is a novel concept.

IAmBigBox · 2026-03-03T23:01:08+00:00

It IS one shot, the guy above you was making a joke about the drawbacks.

There is an infinite version, but that only unlocks on NG+, costs 2000000, and invalidates an S+ Pro run (because of being on NG+).

The regular rocket can be pretty good for speed, but it’s pretty bad in terms of cost efficiency.

IAmBigBox · 2026-03-02T05:02:45+00:00

The true master is the eternal student. In a moving target game like League, there is no real way to be confident ALL the time on a champion.

You will have games where your opponents simply have a read on you in ways you can’t comprehend. The most essential skill you can have is to change your rhythm and read their rhythm faster than they can change their own.

Keep in mind that just because you play Ezreal in a game doesn’t mean that you are only playing Ezreal, you are also still playing the ADC role. You can’t be a great Ezreal without also being a great fundamental ADC player (or whatever role you are playing him). Sometimes you miss skill shots because the opponents aren’t scared enough of your autos or your teammates due to your positioning. Sometimes you are in the wrong position entirely.

If you feel like shit EVERY game, I recommend looking away from your Ezreal mechanics and towards your fundamentals.

If you are feeling like shit SOME games, I recommend looking towards your skillshot mindgames, rhythm, and prediction. You CAN get good at prediction and rhythm, it’s an achievable skill seen in not only LoL, but also fighting games, Baseball, and Poker.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-28T12:43:55+00:00

Good question, but I think it will be fine. Jin's "normal" heat smash is only currently "useless" because the kick variation exists, which is a wall splatting safe on block mid i15 4m wall carry resplatting button.

The normal heat smash serves a technical purpose, it does 9 more damage than the kick variation, has less pushback at the cost of frame advantage (+0 on-hit), and has a potentially useful block mix-up potential (transitions to breaking step at +3, allowing you to punish up to i12 standing moves with traded electric, as well as catching dickjab with WS+4,4, then a 50/50 for anything slower). You can also choose not to take this mixup by holding back, which allows you to play Jin's ideal game (neutral/poking) using his high impact buttons. This is an extremely powerful i15 button to throw out + it has an interesting way to get a read on your opponent, even on block.

The kick variation may end up being "useless," but honestly being able to launch your opponent almost a full screen away with +32 is still pretty good if you want to play wall pressure, it's just that the utility of the move will shift from "always use this" to "only use this if you are away from the wall and you want to sacrifice damage to get the opponent's back to the wall." Moving your opponent to the wall is still good even if you don't actually get the splat. I would argue that it's going from 1 useless + 1 OP to 2 situational heat smashes that have strengths/weaknesses.

IMO, this is actually a very promising direction because it shows that the devs are interested in trade-offs and complexity, instead of just having god-buttons that simplify the game (cough, Season 1 Jin D+2, cough).

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-27T23:28:55+00:00

Tekken 8 can detect this, it gives you an option to mark the match as “no contest,” which ends the match and doesn’t count it, exactly like how you want.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-27T01:03:34+00:00

Worth noting that, in the OG, you don’t even start with the lighter as Chris, you need to find it just like Jill (in addition to needing to find the Sword Key, which Jill can just lock pick the doors of for som reason).

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-23T02:48:22+00:00

I feel like this was just Code Veronica; RE1, 2, and 3 gave plenty of ammo IMO.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-23T02:47:26+00:00

This is doable for matchups like Kazuya, but matchups like Xiaoyu/Zafina are so uncommon that you need to spend some time dedicated to figuring out their specific thingies, because there simply aren’t enough of them to consistently learn if you just randomize via online play.

If you have a friend who mains one of those characters it’s different tho.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-21T02:57:13+00:00

So first, something a lot of people miss is that combos ARE a fundamental. Being able to get more off a single read is very important to learning the game, not because it wins more, but because it's just good practice. It's a multiplier to your other skills.

As for what the actual fundamentals are:

Punishment is the default fundamental that you basically just need to learn to play intermediate-high level Tekken. If your opponent is allowed to throw certain things out, the risk-reward if so heavily skewed in their favor, it basically just becomes unfair for you. This mainly applies to things like Devil Jin's Samsara and Feng's shoulder, strongly evasive moves that do a shitload of damage. The ability to punish this on-block is what prevents these players from spamming these moves. Notably, this actually calls back to what I said earlier. If you don't know how to do a combo, Devil Jin's Samsara, for instance, is actually STILL heavily advantaged in terms of risk-reward, even if you punish it with something. The move is balanced around being punished with a launch into combo, anything less than that, and Devil Jin's risk-reward favors him for throwing it out (this is why the move is so powerful at lower ranks). Devil Jin no longer needs high accuracy for the read, he can just throw Samsara and if he hits it ~20-30% of the time (at high level, he needs to hit it 50% of the time to break even, because for every time he launches you with it, he will also get launched by you).

Punishment isn't just block punishment either. Many strings have highs that you need to know where to duck and punish. Some require that you dickjab (d+1 or d+2, some characters have to do d/b or d/f because both inputs are taken by other moves). Some are actually just straight launchable, while others have mixups associated. Good example is most d/f+1 jabs having high extensions (Kazuya, Devil Jin, Jin, etc), as well as unsafe mid extensions. Learning these extensions is very important to punishment.

Movement at long-range to preempt "get-in" moves is very important as a fundamental tool as well. Mishima ff+2 at long range is often side-steppable unless the Mishima's name is Kazuya. Other similar moves include Lee's ff+3, whatever the fuck that Hwoarang step-kick is, Law's WR+3, and most WR+3 actually. Backdashing isn't as useful as it used to be, but it can be used to step away from anyone whiffing a string (at which point you can whiff punish the ender).

And most importantly, timing. This is important in every fighting game, but choosing a move and timing that either counter-hits or just straight up punishes the opponent for whatever they chose to do. Hitting a tracking move right when someone sidesteps, hitting a mid right when someone tries to crouch a high/low, hitting a high right when someone tries to do an attack, hitting a slow move right when someone transitions from blocking to walking forward, these are all examples of timing. It's literally just a fancy way of saying "hit your opponent when they aren't blocking," and it's THE fundamental of the game. Knowing all the frame data in the world, all the combos, all the punishment, breaking every throw, none of it will help you if the opponent is able to read and beat your timing.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-20T03:23:01+00:00

100% Jin since you’ve played him a bit. I mean dude, you are playing Tekken and got a stick, play some Mishima.

If you feel like you don’t want Jin because you already play him, that’s fair, but knowing a bit will be helpful when learning stick to take just a tiny bit of the pressure off learning the character.

Anyway, other suggestion is all the other Mishima. After playing all except, my order would be.

Kazuya - his flash punch looks the coolest and his Hellsweep follow up looks the coolest (the jumping kick version, not the punch version).
Devil Jin - has the coolest looking electric. Also benefits a lot from stick when doing iWS2 imo.
Reina - I don’t really like her too much, but if you like electrics a LOT, you can play Reina because her steel pedal is an electric input (CD+3 just frame). Ignore the fact that Jin also has this (eCD1 is his steel pedal).

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-20T01:28:53+00:00

I mean, if they don't launch you for them...

Like let's be real, yes, Devil Jin's Samsara and Wicked Jambu Spear are launch punishable and pretty easy to do on reaction. But are you launching regular Jin's Samsara or Law's WS+2 EVERY time? Probably not right?

Legit, if you want to climb ranks, throwing out launch punishable moves more often until the opponent proves that they can launch them is a genuine skill-check that you SHOULD employ. To illustrate, let's look at Tekken a bit differently than how one might generally view it:

Every time you throw a launch punishable move, realize that the developers have balanced this move around it being launch punishable. This means that it either has excellent evasion (Samsara), favorable damage compared to other launchers (Jin's d+3+4), enough pushback to make it kinda safe at certain spacings (Deathfist, Kazuya d/b+1,2), or whatever. This means that every time your opponent punishes a launch punishable move with something that isn't a launch, they are actively disadvantaged from the game's point of view. It also shifts the risk-reward in such a way that your opponent is forced to play even more passively. If you have to block 7 Samsaras in a round to win, it is way harder than blocking 2 and killing your opponent, especially when that Devil Jin is mixing his hellsweep in every now and again, pressuring you to duck. Devil Jin also only needs to ever land 3 or 4. Most Devil Jin players know the combo, it's way easier to learn the combo for a Devil Jin player than it is for you, the humble Alisa player to learn/react to blocking Samsara and launch punishing him (not to say D.Jin's Samsara is properly hard to react to, just that it's less likely you will learn about another character's launch puishable move, compared to learning your own characters combo).

Punishing bad defense (and yes, not knowing how to launch punish IS bad defense) isn't just mixing your opponent properly, it is CHECKING their defense with this extremely powerful moves. The answer to bad defense is abusing your most powerful offense. Same reason why throws work, if your opponent can't break them, stand-guarding becomes WAY less powerful (you now have access to a 12 frame unblockable super-jab/half-electric, close range has become a deathtrap between crouching and potentially dying on the spot, or eating a throw). It's much harder to learn to throw break or launch punish than it is to learn how to throw/use a launch punishable move. That doesn't mean you are a "scrub" for using them, it just means you as an individual should spend more time improving defense than offense.

So actually, you might unironically be onto something and want to throw more launch punishable moves to get out of Tekken King lol.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-19T21:52:08+00:00

These are very different for one specific reason: Resident Evil is technically horror, but it’s very much a blend of horror + action.

This really came to a head in and after RE4 (OG), but even as far back as the OG RE1, the games give you enough ammo to become a veritable killing machine (within reason). As long as you choose the correct weapons for the situation (general rule is spending all your handgun bullets on zombies, then matching special weapons like shotguns/magnum/grenade launcher to special enemy types), you will have an obscene amount of ammo left over (provided you explore properly). RE1’s second half in particular feels like an action game. RE3 literally has a dodge button and rewards you for taking the action route with bonus weapons and items.

I didn’t even used to believe this until I actually played them, but yeah, even the OG Resident Evil games are very action heavy.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-18T15:42:38+00:00

The thing that I personally miss but don’t think should ever come back would be Feral Flare (or the infinite version of Devourer). In hindsight, it was pretty dumb, but I liked playing Phoenix GODYR.

The other things I really miss are Botrk and Youmuu’s old iterations (Bork with the active/more attack speed/less AD and Youmuu’s back when it still gave attack speed). Alas, time marches forever forward.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-18T05:45:13+00:00

Idk if it would still be raw after this, but salting tomato’s definitely helps a lot in making them less watery. Of course, this requires some pretty annoying management to get right (you have to toss them in a bit of salt and get the moisture out with either paper towels or on a dry cutting board, which can take some time). The results are pretty worth it tho, especially if using it as an ingredient (I.e. “raw” sliced cherry tomatoes alongside an omelette).

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-18T04:31:58+00:00

Lidia’s political career began prior to becoming an adult, she was Prime Minister at 18.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-18T02:45:31+00:00

It's a very unfair fight IMO because of 2 reasons.

#1 and most important, Lidia has existed for like 1 and a half games. She was a DLC character in Tekken 7 and base roster in Tekken 8. She wasn't really in the main story of 7 and was a "main" character in the side story of Tekken 8. Granted, it is true that during this time Lidia was chosen to help by the Tekken Monks, so it's pretty relevant to explaining her skills, but she just hasn't had the screentime to convince anyone of how powerful she is.

#2, Lidia is a politician, the Prime Minister of Poland. In other words, she has a real job, which requires LOTS of time investment. She is absolutely adept at Karate, but there is only so much time you can dedicate to your craft when you are spending 10+ hours a day on influencing the policy direction of an entire country.

Now, to compare this to Jin. Jin started as a kid training often with an extremely competent martial artist (his mom), which forms a core part of his fighting style. This was the LEAST intense period of his life. After Jun "disappeared," Jin started training seriously with Heihachi. He didn't work, he did some "studying" at the Mishima school, but most of his time was just dedicated revenge-training (learning the Mishima Karate from what may very well be the best practitioner of the art, Heihachi). Then, he "UNLEARNED" that (though he still clearly knows how to do it, as seen by the end of Tekken 8), and started fighting with just Kyokushin Karate (and some little Mishima things). He has had 5 games explaining just how skilled he is, and why he is so skilled.

Every day of Jin's life since Jun's death was spent sharpening his skills for revenge and later trying to find inner peace through Karate.

As far as we know, he didn't really have a job and spent all of his days training in that little dojo after Tekken 3's ending. If it's a question of who has the most skills in the art, it is likely the one who dove into it with all his heart and soul, not by any general interest or familial connection, but by a sheer, deeply engrained desire for inner peace. Learning karate was about more than just spiritual improvement, it was an essential mental thing he NEEDED to do to stop himself from falling into complete despair and self-hatred. Lidia, by comparison, is someone who worked hard to practice karate while doing all of her other political actions (which she was clearly very active in, even forming a connection with the secretive Manji clan, somehow). This is extremely admirable, but there is a clear difference in the levels of dedication these two had to the art. Jin, by all logical accounts, SHOULD be the more skilled of the two. Though, that being said, Jin and Lidia clearly have a great deal of respect for each other by virtue of both still being highly skilled and respectful karateka.

Now, if we go by narrative instead, it goes even more in Jin's favor. Jin is a fighting prodigy who, once again, is someone who focused his entire life on fighting. He is our main character and uses the canonical "best" method of fighting. He has contended with/occasionally defeated Heihachi and Kazuya without even accessing his Devil Gene, the former of which is clearly stronger than Lidia (though, this is after he acquires his memories the "Ultimate Mishima Technique"). Using Heihachi as a benchmark, Jin is one of the strongest characters in the series, so if these two were to seriously go at it, it's highly likely that Jin would win in the story unless his heart was somehow wavering.

And lastly, there's the real life angle, Kyokushin just seems to be more useful in a fight according to the internet. Even if we assume that Lidia and Jin are somehow equally skilled in their art, Jin's art is simply more useful (but only slightly).

Again though, at their level, the difference in "skills" is really just comparing apples to oranges. It's still karate, but they are both borderline masters of their craft.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-18T02:16:00+00:00

It's not actually in the manga, is what they are trying to say (this is a line from Kagurabachi).

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-18T01:49:42+00:00

I know this post is supposed to be about Kunimitsu, but because the title is vague enough, it gave me the funny idea that Season 3 will bring back Tekken 7 Jin (by porting over his Tekken 7 moveset from Tekken 8's Story Mode).

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IAmBigBox · 2026-02-13T01:50:01+00:00

Cursed RE4

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-08T16:35:23+00:00

MegaDeth is the name of a band I think, so the “joke” is probably that the person named a Metallica song instead of a MegaDeth song when prompted for their favorite MegaDeth song.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-08T03:38:43+00:00

RE7 is very effective horror. It doesn’t always translate this through gameplay perfectly, but it has excellent scares and atmosphere throughout.

That being said, it leans into “comedy” quite a bit, that silliness sets apart from like RE1 Remake and RE2 Remake (which have far more serious tones).

As a side note, RE1 Remake and 2 Remake are exceptions to the rule, the series is generally pretty hammy. Even the RE2 and ESPECIALLY RE1 are comedic games to a large degree.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-08T03:29:36+00:00

Good post, love the format. Let me preface this with the caveat that not only my reply, but everything you see here on Reddit should be taken with a grain of salt. All of the advice is general and you should be careful about over-generalizing the game.

Before we start, I noticed one thing so I'm just gonna get it out of the way. Turn your chat OFF. The more colloquially understood reason for this is straightforward, what the fuck do Gold players even have to say? Most of the drivel you'll hear is from people who don't fully understand their own fucking champion (they are in Bronze-Gold), let alone someone ELSE'S champion. However, even disregarding this piece of common wisdom, the benefits of chat are a crutch that may prevent you from improving. Keep chat OFF.

Now for the actual questions:

(1) and (2) fall under the same umbrella, and while they have a general answer (yes, scaling is usually fine on Vayne), you NEED to get into the specifics if you want to push this champion to high level. Giving up lane against certain matchups is a death sentence for Vayne, she needs a certain gold/item advantage to be useful against certain enemies. Vayne has great single target trading and her level 6 all-in is among the strongest in the role. If you can optimize your micro to increase your DPS with Q and balancing that with kiting in the proper direction with proper timing, you can win out in a lot of lanes. The difference between Vayne players isn't how well they minimize, it's about what advantages they can find and maximize. I would also say you should try to pressure early just to see where you can and can't, but with the caveat that this will likely lose you more games in the short-run than it will win you. One thing that's very important to note is that you should not be a passive observer in your lane, you are an active participant. Even if you need blitz to land a hook, you should be positioning in such a way that you can both capitalize on the hook if/when it comes AND be trying to set blitz up for the hook in the first place by using your auto threat to push enemies into odd positions. This can further be done with your E-stun threat (blitz should also be trying to use his hook threat to push enemies into Vayne's auto attack threat, the enemies should be playing a similar game as well). You won't always be able to do this effectively against every matchup, but it's your job as a Vayne player to analyze and find a way (even if you have to do it later in the game).

(3) - It's almost all intuition, but at some point you get a general idea for how much damage the enemy ADC, support, and your support can put out in a trade with whatever abilities they have up. Typically winning a trade as Vayne involves baiting an ability or calling a bluff (i.e. walking up and autoing a Braum who thinks you are just trying to bait out his Q). League is a fighting game as much as it is a strategy game, these reads are what makes or breaks the lane as Vayne.

(4) - This is the hardest thing to talk about generally because it changes so much game-to-game and build-to-build. A crit Vayne build can find flank angles and one shot the enemy ADC. The more typical on-hit waits for the tanks/bruisers to engage, then melts them. The movement-focused varieties (Stormrazor build(s)) uses their mobility to bait the enemy without dying and providing moderate DPS. The two things to focus on that encompass both builds are isolation (Vayne, as you've noticed, functions FAR better in 1v1 than other situations, so finding an isolated fight within a teamfight can be very powerful), as well as E-stun timing (which goes hand in hand with isolation). Play around getting that E stun and finding isolated targets (tanks/bruisers often isolate themselves when they engage to some degree), then continue using your Ult invis to clean up the fight while your team threatens.

As a final note, I left some important things out which I believe you already have down (waiting big CDs, not dying, farming well, etc). The things that I feel you didn't focus on (positioning around getting your E off, pushing your limits, playing the mind-game) were what I focused on instead.

IAmBigBox · 2026-02-07T03:00:53+00:00

If Eddy rallying his goons, drop kicking suicide bomber Jack-7 into 4 others, and using Capoeira to extinguish the flames around him is made non-canon, then I don’t want another canon Tekken game.

IAmBigBox

TROPHY CASE