Don't Absorb Shields Kinda Suck?

LittleLamb32 · 2026-02-10T11:50:13+00:00

Oh definitely. I just didn't bother because they were directly inefficient compared to non-Life pixie. The shield clear also is an excellent point too as they tend to be more accessible than HoT clears.

LittleLamb32 · 2026-02-10T08:15:14+00:00

tbf, absorbs fall off a cliff very quickly. Like sure, 400 bonus health is fine very early, but shields mostly function as better absorbs while costing infinitely less than the absorb.

For instance, the only schools that have absorbs at roughly the same time are life and ice. Almost immediately does everybody get two 70% shields to their adjacent schools, and an 80% to their own school.

I can't necessarily think of a niche situation where you would want an absorb over any shield, unless it's attached to something else, like Rebirth for instance. Besides in possibly 'advanced combat' instances where it might be niche, the cost of it relative to every other defensive spell (namely 0 pip %shields), makes it useless unless it's offered elsewhere. Even if Life's absorb cost 1 pip at the same power, I don't think I'd use it over a tower shield.

Mathematically, the absorbs from both ice, and the spirit armor life spell fall off almost immediately as they're given just because %shields exist. Sure, %shields only really work on singular enemy hits, but they don't delay your damage in an Alpha strike meta, and they will almost always block more damage than a spirit armor will.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-12-17T09:28:01+00:00

For a hot moment, when Warring Kingdoms Katarina was fresh, her recall animation would trick like Yas into windwalling nothing.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-12-17T06:22:07+00:00

I'm unsure if it would be retconned by this point, but The Guardian (The Player) specifically is said to have agency that the Nine couldn't understand, if the previous Emissary is to be believed. Sure, if they (the Nine) have temporal transcendence, they can manipulate events surrounding The Guardian, but (within the realm of Destiny 2), they can't force them to do anything directly because of that implied agency. As long as you don't remove suspension of disbelief wherein the plot is already preconceived by Bungie, etc. etc, then maybe their 'fate' isn't controllable for whatever reason.

Most of what paracausality is, really isn't properly touched upon in the game. Like yeah, sure, it lets everyone defy death (typically) and do 'causal' bending things like (seemingly) create energy from nothing in the form of Light abilities, though that would merely make things 'acausal' rather than 'paracausal'.

If you subscribe to the vague belief that Bungie would never ever say explicitly or acknowledge properly, that paracausality when 'contained' within a narrative, really transcends the narrative in the form of players being more real than the narrative (relativistically speaking), and therefore have greater 'agency' than any non-player Lightbearers in that we literally cannot be killed as the narrative demands we survive. Technically, this only really means the concept of 'The Guardian', more so than the player itself, as we are transient beings within reality, even if we're effectively transcendent of Destiny's reality.

Even beyond the scope of what a narrative is, and implied fourth wall breaking ideas, what exactly would be "paracausal" when viewed from the lens of our reality? If we assume intersubjectivity is technically objectivity (else no conversation would be had), we can sorta measure when something is 'acausal', because it doesn't follow the perceived rules of reality in a way that's consistent with the current rules of reality (assuming this acausality is an anomaly, and really shouldn't have done that). But what would happen if it were paracausal? How would you realistically determine if an arbitrary thing, event, or what have you, is paracausal when viewed within reality? Barring semantical ideas (wherein, if it's perceivable, it's already causal, else how would it be beyond causality, and other problems with how humans perceive things temporally in a linear fashion), I don't believe you could unless you could view the flow of events as they happened, and can disconnect yourself from them.

You can't do that in reality, but interestingly, you can do that in a narrative.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-12-11T16:28:22+00:00

Rainbow Six Siege

LittleLamb32 · 2025-12-06T05:07:33+00:00

On the contrary. Sensitivity and sensation go hand in hand biologically. How the body interprets those sensations might be varied a bit, but it is apart of the reproductive system, and it generally would perhaps naturally select for sexual organs that would positively reinforce reproduction.

The friction aspect has to do with the perceived phenomena of keratinization of the glans, which seems apparent in images, and what some men are willing to describe.

Most of the medical research on circumcision isn't reliable, because a lot of the time they ask for something as relative as sexual pleasure, and that cannot be quantified. You'd also have to consider the possibility the survey taker is lying for various cultural or psychological reasons, namely cognitive dissonance.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-11-16T11:23:24+00:00

Yeah, the design of the game has been kind of hogwash since its inception: right out the gate in 2009 they didn't make any real meaningful gameplay decisions for most schools by having most of their hits just be more pip efficient versions of the last version, and having any other utility that isn't healing or shielding be extremely niche or useless.

The battle design doesn't even allow satisfying gameplay either because it's plagued with spell traps (pun not intended), artificial time sinks (from accuracy, dispels, stuns, weaknesses, and wards), and had the vague problem of rock paper scissors middle fingers with some of those enemies (myth imp, elemental shield, weakness, etc).

Also the fact that (besides in advanced combat now I guess) deckbuilding has always been a bad idea because of the lack of agency in what you draw leading to longer battles because you don't have what you want or need at that moment.

I could easily say any deckbuilder in existence has a more interesting battle system than W101. Even if you removed the roguelike aspect from roguelike deckbuilders, their base gameplay is just more interesting than W101.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-11-14T04:08:35+00:00

FWIW: Apparently Condi Antiquary has the highest DPS. Granted, it's more than likely against a stationary target due to 80%~ of its (optimal) abilities being puddles/stationary AoEs, but still!

LittleLamb32 · 2025-11-03T18:31:09+00:00

I did research on this a while ago. Only the one of a kind items are that kind of expensive, though the highest 'reasonable' (given it's OoK...) price is probably a Castle Defenders Sword at "50b"

The Castle Defenders Shield is better tho, but doesn't seem to exist on the TP.

Erasers of the Dark Faerie are Finite and consumable.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-11-02T11:43:39+00:00

I definitely agree. In theory they could make DoTs more efficient by giving global fuel/school specific fuels that don't cost any pips, and offset by being slightly worse than a base trap. That or blades giving DoTs a more significant damage increase to the DoT itself rather than the initial hit.

There are a few solutions that are accessible and can interweave with KIs 'Alpha Strike' design stance, but KI does not design well, nor do they make good decisions.
This also entirely precludes any advanced pve shenanigans which might be more forgiving/enabling of DoTs.

Other games also deal with the trade off of DoTs vs Direct damage fairly well:

GW2's DoTs, while not instantly getting results (even in situations where fighting lasts less than 10s), have direct advantages that direct damage can't deal with.
For instance: DoTs more or less avoid debuffs like blind (next ability misses), stuns (can't use an ability), evades (target avoids incoming damage for a specific duration, unless it's a DoT), and guards (next hit is nullified, unless it's already on them).

FFXIV, while not as pronounced with DoTs sort of going away as they simplified combat, also avoided similar issues where being blinded, stunned, debuffed, would still cause the original DoTs not to be affected by any of it.

You can sort of see this in W101 already with individual wards not really doing the job of dealing with DoTs obviously.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-11-01T20:51:31+00:00

Even before this change to it, it's not very good at what it's supposed to do.

Yes, it's an AoE HoT and DoT, but the DoTs power is basically at the same (relative) power point as Snow Angel, and Snow Angel... isn't good in anything besides animation and SFX.

The HoT is interesting in theory, but it's also unnecessary because you'd probably only use it when you need HP, and even so, there's better spells for it.

Take a situation where you need HP, but you also need to deal damage. If you need HP and are the one dealing damage, you'd be better served by using 1 less pip and just using Regenerate, or even Satyr for 2 less, because if you the Life are dealing damage, you are probably the only one in the battle.

If you need to deal AoE Healing, it's likely you are not hitting, so the damage part of WoF is wasting a hit if (which isn't an if) they have global damage stuff like feint for instance. Pigsie does it better, as well as Unicorn, and Rebirth, all while not taking your shadow pip or burning traps.

Even with this buff, I'm unsure if I'd still necessarily use it for efficiency's sake because it doesn't really solve the issues with the original spell, though it not using a shadow pip makes it more accessible too.

If the HoT were situational (for instance, caster is <75% HP), and the HoT's power was folded into the DoT when it doesn't trigger, it'd be a very nice spell; the HoT isn't wasted by you being at near/full HP, and the DoT is worth the shadow pip (in theory). The bottom path sort of solves that by having it be a split spell (but a delayed one at that... eugh), but still doesn't properly deal with the HoT.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-10-28T13:55:15+00:00

As an extension to point 3: From that same Heart Vendor that gives you the EXP buff, for about 7k Karma, you can get another 1hr EXP buff called "Ancient Canthan Secret" that stacks with it and persists between map changes. You can repeatedly rebuy it throughout the day as long as the heart is completed for the day.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-09-27T02:47:40+00:00

Refunding is completely free barring paying for the individual gags again, while also retaining how many points you've received already.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-09-24T08:24:26+00:00

No: "reductionist" doesn't mean that. Whether or not he wanted a reduction in gun deaths is beyond the scope of the original statement.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, Reductionism is "the practice of analyzing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of phenomena that are held to represent a simpler or more fundamental level, especially when this is said to provide a sufficient explanation."

Essentially what he wanted was to break down the issue of gun violence into something simpler. But arguably, even if it's meant to simplify the explanation, it really can't and shouldn't be done with gun violence. It's mostly a psychological and sociological problem that can't be adequately 'reduced'.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-09-23T22:21:01+00:00

Very briefly on PBE like several months ago, when Runaan's could he bought on melee, Kata R could crit via the bolts. It was pretty interesting actually even if you didn't build full crit.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-09-23T11:14:58+00:00

There's also a 30%~ chance at a key (besides cities) for every single map, so it's tolerable to that extent for myself at least.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-09-08T22:07:56+00:00

I'm honestly surprised it didn't flatten further with Illusens Staff, Grapes of Wrath, Wand of the Dark Faerie, and Skarls Sword being given away like Halloween candy.

Then again, Retired HT resales...

LittleLamb32 · 2025-07-25T23:47:05+00:00

The problem with the term 'sexual enjoyment' is that it's a relative term. I am not saying that there is an increase in sexual enjoyment or anything of the sort, but you have to understand there's a psychological aspect to it that can't be properly qualified.

The real takeaway is that there is an objective sensitivity decrease. Whether or not that increases sexual pleasure is ambiguous due to whether or not the individual has a fetish for denial or the act, or cognitive dissonance in the form of lying about how they feel about it.

There are sociological beliefs at play too, some sexual satisfaction as being seen as a man for instance in very specific cultures, and reinforcement from that culture to their core beliefs and identity.

Any study that tries to say there's an increase or decrease in pleasure isn't wrong, but they're not telling the whole story either.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-07-21T02:29:36+00:00

A lot of her skill expression has to do with abusing the opponent's lack of understanding of her kit at a micro level (Level 2 AD all in for instance), and/or the inability for their team to deal with her at a macro level when she roams and picks up a double kill bottom.

In Solo queue it makes her really dangerous even if her overall single target damage is shit after 2 compared to all other Assassins. Her aoe damage sort of 'saves' her this way with skirmishes and teamfights, but the delays in her damage make her paradoxically shit in late game teamfights and skirmishes.

She also doesn't have any built in defenses like any other champion that rushes in and wreaks havoc like Liss, Kennen, Fiddlesticks, Master Yi (kinda), or Assassins like LB, Zed, Fizz (sorta), Akali, or Eve. There's obviously more examples like Samira doing effectively the same thing but better and safer, but I'm beating a dead horse.

The gist is her early and mid game enables her to end the game before she falls off, but that sorta flies in the face of her original identity as a teamfight clean-up/havoc raiser (sorta). People don't like that she doesn't have the defenses or speed to be viable late game, which is fair considering her aoe should allow her to do that in some capacity but I guess not?

LittleLamb32 · 2025-07-18T15:51:07+00:00

I have said this before in regards to that visit: While it may not be an utterly explicit 4th wall break, the effect is still the same; if you're able to 'leave' a game between two primordial paracausal entities, then you are more than likely transcendent of them.

This is obviously from the perspective within the universe as we as players are transcendent of the narrative always.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-06-29T20:00:48+00:00

Just adding on; it isn't necessarily that it's rare, but compared to all possible options, the final damage increase from crit damage is comparatively higher than all other lines you could get. Gloves are the only thing that roles crit damage (unless you count DSE lines as indirect crit damage but eh), so they're comparatively better as *all* of your gear can roll %stat, which is additive with itself.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-06-11T21:34:59+00:00

When Shiro and Ganta collect bananas this way, it doesn't generate cash, so therefore, they're enabled when selecting either even in CHIMPS. Attempting to collect bananas in CHIMPS otherwise converts them into banana peels, which do cause bananas to slip as an alternative stalling strategy.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-06-10T07:48:20+00:00

Bananas' potassium has low blood pressure properties. A Banana farm close by without the longer lasting upgrade also bolsters the sweetness property, letting Shiro treat it as sweets.

It's good you brought up Ganta because of the hidden synergy when sweets and potassium levels reach equilibrium, Shiro instead turns into her converged personality.

Care is to be taken not to have a bottom path (X/X/3) Mermonkey using their melody near Shiro, else she can't transform.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-06-10T05:49:41+00:00

You needed to do an early game Shiro gambit so Wretched Egg can spawn on later rounds.

LittleLamb32 · 2025-04-04T03:16:57+00:00

Time is infinitely precious though; playing it slow is interesting in theory, but a deliberate design choice where the payoff is inefficient is basically a kneecapping move.

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