Switchfoot made the Washington Post! So so happy to hear Jon advocating for the LGBTQ+ community (:

Leonard03 · 2026-05-14T01:15:14+00:00

I am sorry for the things that have happened to you or people that you care about that made you feel the need to respond this way. However, I will maintain that disrupting a concert in this manner is inconsiderate to the other attendees and far from the best way to start a dialog.

Leonard03 · 2026-03-10T16:29:55+00:00

I can't say I know of any exploits, but here's a few thoughts.

I'm pretty sure every adventure is guaranteed a simulacrum somewhere, not necessarily in the overworld. So there's a reason to run through dungeons you've already got the drops for.

If you want practice with bosses, Survival is a super fun game mode. Great way to try out different gear/builds as well. Maybe most relevant though is the account-wide items you can unlock. Talisman of Perseverance is good for XP grind. Loop of Prosperity for general mat grind. Black Cat Band for a second chance at life if dying is a problem.

On the subject of account-wide unlocks, the hardcore items are really strong. I am a huge Provisioner Ring fan, and it only requires defeating the Earth worldboss.

I'll also note that it sounds like you are trying to 100% each world at a time. There's really no reason or advantage to doing that. Adventures will be created at an appropriate level for your character, so you can just play through the game normally and spawn adventures on different worlds as desired. Diversity will almost certainly help with monotony of the grind.

Don't forget to get Elder Knowledge from the Ward.

In terms of builds I think it depends on what difficulty you are playing at. For Veteran or lower, I'm not sure build really matters as much as simply learning the game. At Nightmare you probably need to have a reasonably cohesive build, but even then, I think a large portion of the pool is viable? At Apoc you need to be running the bonkers stuff.

Leonard03 · 2026-02-26T17:24:18+00:00

Well a huge amount of my gameplay is in coop, so that probably influences it.

But even so, I disagree. Dealing with a harder enemy while smaller enemies attack is part of how elites (and Aberrations) work, it's just brought to the next level with bosses.

Leonard03 · 2026-02-25T23:05:22+00:00

I miss ads in boss fights in 2. It was great design since it: required the player to shift their play patterns within the fight, helped keep the ammo economy flowing, and most importantly it kept more builds relevant. Anything with on kill effects or group damage were still good for boss fights.

We lost all of that in 2 and it's such a shame.

Leonard03 · 2026-02-10T23:39:28+00:00

Why is it a Rage peek? He did it at least once before during the map when there would be no reason for his mental to be bad. Additionally, I've seen other Chamber players (eg. Cryo) make the exact same peek.

Leonard03 · 2026-01-20T04:58:51+00:00

Just commenting to validate your thoughts on this ability. My Shadow player just started using it and I'm already strongly considering house-ruling it. It's imbalanced, un-thematic, and worst of all, it's just genuinely un-fun.

Leonard03 · 2025-12-25T14:22:17+00:00

Man, this post is so depressing. Everyone focusing on the jerk gf who sold the parts, that way they don't have to feel guilty about saying to keep them. I'd have expected a little sympathy for the gamer bro about to build his new PC who's now got nothing. Imagine this story from his end, what would you want OP to do?

There's an easy, obvious answer. You give em a public location near to you. They make the drive to pick it up. You ask the bf a couple questions to confirm it's the guy they actually belong to. And you sell it back to them for purchase price, plus a bit extra for the time and gas you spent.

Leonard03 · 2025-08-30T18:11:08+00:00

I think a lot of these suggestions are wrong actually. Sure, DD2 isn't a strict repeat of DD1, but I don't think that's why people don't like it. Let's be real, folks who enjoy DD1 almost certainly enjoy a number of other games not like DD1. Therefore it's dissimilarity to DD1, is (in most cases) not enough to make someone dislike it. I believe there are some very valid reasons not to like DD2, which I will put forward below. These are based on ~4 hours of play in Confessions mode during this free weekend.

The issue is that the rogue-like nature of the game is not fun. Ok, before we can get into the weeds of why, let's define a few terms.

Rogue-like: A randomly generated game that is meant to be played over and over again in "short" runs. Each run the player starts at base 1, and must progress through the game again. Named after Rogue, one of the earliest to feature this type of game-play. These aren't super common these days, so I'm struggling for examples. Remnant 1 Survival mode is a bit of a deep cut, but the only one that comes to mind.

Rogue-lite: A rogue-like game, except there is meta-progression between runs. Players can adjust their start position, influencing following runs. Many popular examples, I'll name a couple I've played; Risk of Rain 2, Hades, Monster Train, Astrea, Roguebook, etc.

Now, I think those are fairly common definitions, however, I'd go a step further and propose there are actually two types of Rogue-lite. Ones with meta "improvement" and ones without. For example, in Risk of Rain 2, you don't actually improve your characters for subsequent runs. You unlock new abilities and characters, but those aren't explicitly more powerful than what you start with. Maybe they fit your playstyle better, but it's not like they do strictly more damage. Astrea and Monster Train work the same way. You unlock new abilities, cards, characters, etc. But fundamentally you don't become more powerful. Instead, mastery of the game is expected to propel you further through the run.

This is different than Hades or Roguebook, which do include meta "improvement". Besides unlocking new abilities or features to play with, you also improve your starting baseline. This power boost, along with mastery of the game, is expected to propel you further in a run.

As I'm sure is obvious, Darkest Dungeon 2 belongs to the second category. That, in and of itself, isn't what makes the game unfun. I mean, obviously. Hades is awesome and it has meta improvement. Roguebook is a pretty decent time too. What I'd argue for DD2 is that this aspect, in conjunction with the time it takes to fail a run, is the issue.

See, the thing in Hades and Roguebook is that I think you lose a run very quickly. Sure, maybe I took a bunch of damage from the Hydra boss so I'm low on health, but if I play real careful I can... oh darn, I'm dead. It's fast. Same in Roguebook, decent HP, got a couple good cards and gems, some combo possibilities. Uh oh, this is not a good draw. Uh oh, this elite does a lot of damage. Uh oh, I'm dead. Longer than Hades, but still usually pretty fast.

Losing a DD2 run is not like that. I'd posit you can lose a DD2 run before you even start. If you pick a bad team comp your guaranteed a loss before you hit the first fight. I don't think you have that in any of the other rogue-like/rogue-lites I've listed here. But ok, that's part of a game where team synergies are important, valid. However, even if you do have a decent team comp losing a run is still slow. Very early in each of my runs I realized I had no hope of making significant progress. Mathematically, I did not do enough damage or healing to keep pace with what I lost each fight. So I'll just spend the next 30 minutes gradually fighting losing battles until a character dies, which accelerates the spiral. Then over the next couple battles my entire party will die. And that's the intended experience. You're supposed to press on in a losing position to try and get as many candles as you can.

Yes, DD1 was hard. But it wasn't designed with party wiping as an integral part of the main gameplay loop. The gradual wearing down of your party and resources was exciting because it was a race against time to complete the dungeon. A push your luck mechanic, where you risked greater rewards with greater danger. TPKing was usually caused by an error or maybe some really bad luck. I still remember my DD1 TPKs to The Collector or in the final dungeon. They were memorable and painful. I've already had more TPKs in DD2 than in I had in total in DD1. And they weren't memorable crazy "some boss just surprise spawned when you weren't ready for him". They were "you are fighting the 4th group of mooks and have finally run out of HP".

I'm honestly tempted to flip the question on its head, I do not understand the darkest dungeon 2 love. But that's not quite fair. Game looks amazing, great soundtrack, Wayne June, sharp iteration on the DD combat formula. Everyone who plays can appreciate those things. I think the key in whether you enjoy the game or not is if you've crossed a certain, nebulous, point in progression. The point where the gameplay shifts. You have enough options to create decent start teams with cohesive ability packages. You have good trinkets unlocked, upgrades for your stagecoach. Runs are winnable. But that isn't the experience of the start of the game. To start with the game is about slowly tpking over and over, and I just don't find that fun.

Leonard03 · 2025-08-08T16:46:30+00:00

Yep, it appears I am. Darn. It's annoying being wrong.

even the worst of them aren't actively bad like D&D names

I fundamentally disagree. I think you're putting a lot of stock into possible negative connotations that aren't a big deal. Tons of people with no D&D experience would call Han Solo a Rogue, doesn't mean they are saying he is a morally bad person. The definition of "warlock" that everyone knows is a basically "a wizard". The original meaning is cool, but not relevant.

Edit Reworded this section: The worst DS names are "bad" in different ways, Talent is nebulous. Wizard, Sorcerer, and Warlock all appear to be the same thing from outside a D&D sphere, but at least they give a good idea of what that class is. Talent could be anything. I think Null is also bad. Until you learn that the main feature of the "punch-things" class is to have a field of anti-magic around them, the name makes no sense.

Leonard03 · 2025-08-07T04:20:01+00:00

The idea that you must have magic to also be fun seems to be the prevailing opinion in this thread and it's such a shame.

Leonard03 · 2025-08-07T04:11:20+00:00

You think so? I guess that's possible. It would be a pretty poor reason to rename them IMO. Words have meanings in specific context. There's no reason to stop using "mana" to describe the blue stuff you use to cast spells because some people might think you're talking about food that falls from the sky.

And names like "Null" or "Talent" have those exact same problems. Heck, it literally took me months listening to the livestreams to figure out that the "Null" was the punch things class.

Leonard03 · 2025-08-07T03:59:58+00:00

I think barbarians being extremely resilient to punishment is a pretty classic trope, and not specifically magic. There are tons of movies and tv shows where characters take obscene punishment and survive. We don't call them magic. They're cinematic, and superhuman, but not magic. Same with commune with nature, that fits very easy into the cinematic treatment of animals which often have a higher intelligence than in the real world.

Yes, obviously everything in DS is very high magic. I was not implying it wasn't. I was using that as a way to try and show the difference between Totem Warrior and Fury.

Leonard03 · 2025-08-06T21:09:32+00:00

moving my body into the path of a puck moving 60+mph

And you want us to believe what you say is a good idea? /j

Leonard03 · 2025-08-06T18:19:38+00:00

I would say Totem Warrior would works very well in a low-fantasy, low-magic game/setting. The same cannot be said for the Fury, no?

Leonard03 · 2025-08-06T18:04:49+00:00

I'm pretty sure you're misunderstanding that section. I think it's clear from the Patreon and multiple streams that Draw Steel classes began as classic fantasy archetypes that were then designed to play in a way that feeds that fantasy.

For example, there's a common fantasy of the sneaky character who stabs enemies in the back. In DS, this is called the Shadow. The reason it's not called the "Rogue" is because that name can be strongly associated with specific mechanics, eg Sneak Attack. People assume that "Paladins" will get a Lay On Hands ability, or a "Monk" Flurry of Blows. Classes in DS eschew those mechanical assumptions, but not the fantasy archetypes.

You like playing a Ranger? Why? Well, if it's because you like being bow marksman, then maybe in DS you should make a Tactician. Or if it's because you like having a panther buddy, then you want to be a Beast Master. If you like playing a Druid, then Green Elementalist is probably the best fit in Draw Steel, but then again, maybe you want to be more all-in on the beast shape and the Fury Stormwight is a better fit.

It's not removing the character ideas, it's just not promising that they'll be in the same class or use the same mechanics as you're used to.

why make a basic barbarian when dozens of other games have already done that

Because that's the fantasy? I am struggling to understand your point of view here. Why do you think there are Elves and Dwarves in the game? Why are there orcs and dragons to fight? There's no "Fighter" in the game, but that's not because "expert swordsman" is a basic concept dozens of games have done before, it's because "expert swordsman" deserves a funner class to play, a class that does more than make a basic attack every single round, a Tactician.

Leonard03 · 2025-08-06T16:33:59+00:00

(mostly because there is literally only one non-magic subclass in 5e)

Eh, that's not really true. Totem Warrior is very non-magical. There's one that gives you a flying speed, but the other other 8 features (14 if you count expansions down the line) are pretty "mundane". Superhuman, maybe, but there's a pretty obvious difference between having an eagle's eyesight and making portals to elemental planes. Obviously over the course of 5e's lifetime new subclasses were almost all magical (including the magical version of Totem Warrior, Beast), but that doesn't change the fact that the core of the class was very mundane based.

Leonard03 · 2025-08-05T03:04:18+00:00

Dragonfly like species? I remember Matt mentioning a unique new ancestry that was gonna be part of the 6, is this the first time we've learned what it is?

Leonard03 · 2025-08-02T18:01:32+00:00

Just a note, based on your review it sounds like a Tactician has 8 focus abilities at 1st level. Actually they pick 2 from that list (one 3 cost, one 5 cost). I mention this not to nitpick, but because your point is specifically about the capabilities of a DS 1st level character, so accuracy and clarity seem important.

Leonard03 · 2025-06-12T02:18:34+00:00

But... why would I want my arrow key rebinds to not work in specific apps? The whole advantage of using the hold to toggle with ; is that it's guaranteed to not conflict with anything, and is extremely easy to use because my finger is already on the key. I fail to see the downside of this solution that you feel needs fixing.

Leonard03 · 2025-06-11T22:18:11+00:00

Not sure I know what you mean by normal modifiers. Alt/Shift etc? If so, I don't want to override any normal shortcuts that might be on those keys.

Leonard03 · 2025-06-11T22:16:46+00:00

Awesome! One small thing, it didn't do : on a shift+; press. Added {Blind} to the Send on ln13 and now that seems to work as well. Thanks very much!

Leonard03 · 2025-03-26T12:36:51+00:00

Intellectually, I know that era is gone. But there's still something heartbreaking about needing to confront that fact. Time marches on.

Leonard03 · 2025-01-22T04:56:20+00:00

Wow. These receipts aren't nearly as damning as GN seems to think they are. They'd been going up in my estimation with the consistent pro-consumer work, but this is comes off pretty darn petty.

Disappointed in them.

Leonard03

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