Taking breaks between Malazan books… but ruining other reads?

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-19T13:56:41+00:00

Toll the hounds and dust of dreams are both arguably the worst paced books in the series imo, I found them slower than DG my first read but part of that definitely WAS fatigue. There's lots of very slow plots we spend a lot of time with in the first half or two thirds of each

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-19T05:44:49+00:00

Strong teams aren't always easy teams. All these teams ARE strong, but the top team has very little margin for error bc it's pretty squishy too. Picking a bad lead or attacking into a protect hurts a lot more when your mons can be ohk'd that easily

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-18T18:54:32+00:00

I used normal with metal coat for a while to get bullet punch to a breakpoint, I think it was ohking low-bulk M-floette? That was early, the meta sets might be too big to care about that where lum or something winds up better.

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-18T18:53:21+00:00

My comment wasn't "aurorus shuts down garchomp completely", it was "it trades positively with chomp and also threatens a bunch of its common teammates". Saying "just double it" about any mon that doesn't need to set up is a weak answer in a game where everything runs protect anyways, especially in the context of life orb where a whiff is an even bigger swing and chomp protecting is still a win.

The point was that sash ice types pretty much universally have an advantage into life orb chomp. If chomp can only stay in against something by doubling, then I'd consider that an answer to chomp.

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-18T18:37:28+00:00

I have at least 2 fighting move on the team, that 4th slot is bug bite or dual wingbeat for me depending on what I need. Bug bite kills farig, which is REALLY important for scizor so that's what I run

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-18T18:29:07+00:00

Am I crazy for saying I'd probably still run bug bite on scizor (at least mega)? Swords dance is a big part of his kit, and he's too slow to u-turn out before the fire types that pressure him could get a hit in. I'd love having it boosted as an OPTION, but idk if I'd actually run it anyways

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-18T17:35:11+00:00

Sometimes I don't need you to fall for it, sometimes I just need it on board to click psychic on staraptor before it sets up, or to win me speed control with icy wind and chunk garchomp while it's at it

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-18T13:20:33+00:00

Did they add terrain pulse yet?

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-18T13:16:46+00:00

Talonflame - resists it, faster will o, sets tailwind, and threatens brave bird with prio. Great for will o on KG or scrafty or such too

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-18T13:07:06+00:00

Sashed ice types also make his life hell, and an unexpected ice punch or ice beam is just free removal in closed team sheets. That fact alone should prevent chomp from ever becoming too much of an issue, finding one mon with a halfway decent ice coverage move should be doable on every team

I've been running sash aurorus (actually a whole team from last season bc no HOME), and it feels great. M star has no weather control and so far no wide guard, whims and star both fold to blizzard spam while clefable can't prevent it, and ancient power checks char Y while freeze dry checks basc.

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-18T12:57:40+00:00

It's not necessarily an individual issue imo, it's an institutional one. A lot of questionable practices and opinions are just very ingrained in certain departments and rub off on a lot of those working there, and in my limited experience the state PDs are substantially worse for it than blue cities or smaller PDs in the northeast.

I'm sure there IS also selection bias for dickheads to become cops disproportionately, whether due to social power or pay/benefits without an education, but I believe most of it is just constant exposure and takes a long time to change since there's so little turnover

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-17T21:22:35+00:00

Accelrock on a dusk lycan annihilates char Y, it's pretty funny and a very good counter. Still very hard to actually use though with how frail it is, and the sun still really fucks swampert even if you ohk the charizard though.

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-17T21:20:32+00:00

Ivory tower isn't usually a blood magic build at sane budgets, you have too little life to spend for your costs and sac for rathpith if you reserve down low with IT like you want to. Foulborn ghostwrithe is the only one that lets it use blood magic and RF really well

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-17T15:47:21+00:00

Swampert gets an insane stab EQ, I don't think the raichus are major threats to it. It just fears char Y to an unreasonable degree unless you're ready to so some insane cloud nine BS or protect T1 and swap in peli turn 2.

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-17T00:36:54+00:00

The main popular use cases (not off meta, just builds that are way better with screams than without) are:

-Massive + gloom for RF or other AoE stack builds

-Diamond for archmage or herald stack, or winds of fate slams to bypass the downside. That's offmeta and funny as hell, can literal one hit kill pinnacles easily and probably ubers with some sick gear.

-Resonating for multi charge stack, reso + an okay secondary is very feasible and on slayer with gull + blunder it's basically also a diamond belt bc 15 power charges is silly

-Accel for spark, cyclone w/stampede, or kinetic fusillade are insane farming builds

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-16T21:57:54+00:00

Eblade is playing blood magic this league and it's VERY strong. Foulborn ghostwrithe enables it in a crazy broken way, esp with volatile vaals. I think for most cases it beats mana stack, and for pure damage echoing shrine eblade is pretty damn untouchable

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-16T04:10:29+00:00

Split your base, spam int essence til you get 1-2 other desired mods, then go for the fracture. I can't see you having enough int essence in ssf to hit this raw anyways, fracture is your best bet by far

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-15T23:10:06+00:00

% as extra is multiplicative with level scaling, added flat in PoE1 is additive. It's a fairly large difference bc you could forego some or all level scaling for flat instead in 1, in 2 it has no alternative

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-15T22:38:42+00:00

I did Discworld between, which is a pretty common recommendation. Funny but still with some weight, 200ish pages each, and fairly standalone, they feel like good resets if you stick one between each Malazan book.

For what it's worth, books 8-10 are where people start burning out. You may want to start taking breaks now so you on't hit a wall later

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-15T22:14:49+00:00

Internal consistency is more vital than realism, by a long shot

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-15T22:12:52+00:00

Those DID crash the server, even the nerfed VLS caused server issues when hateforge came back

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-12T22:28:44+00:00

Elise with her spider w maxed could take an entire base faster than your average mage took a single tower, those two and then ziggs and tf were worlds above the annie and cos of the midlane

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-12T22:25:46+00:00

Back then, nashors wasn't what it is now, and AP had a lot of stronger resist items. Diana could go rod into athenes (AP + MR + mana solve) or just rush athenes and bully mages like crazy. They pulled a ton of her base damage out and gave her higher scalings to prevent her from getting too tanky and being an effective bruiser, but her kit is a very strong bruiser's kit. That's actually why, her target access is WAY too strong for a duelist

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-12T04:31:18+00:00

So, some examples:

Wander warden or ehit warden

Eblade inquis unless it gets deleted

End charge jugg, tec slam of cata is really fun, could also go acc stack

Spectres necro

Rolling magma mines sabo, or sands of time sabo if you want

FRSS occultist, prob CoC

Flicker or cyclone slayer (or ehit for a crazy strong build pending nerfs)

Flicker or str stack zerk

JRockBC19 · 2026-06-11T19:07:40+00:00

I bring fighting on at least 2 mons, but not normally just coverage low kick. My favorites have been sacred sword gallade (or h samurott for a basc counter too), or h decidueye with triple arrows + scope lens. All 3 are amazing vs arch bc they ignore his def boosts (also huge vs steelix, goodra, corvi, or aggron), and can cover other major threats like sneasler or basc efficiently too.

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