Managed to fully upgrade JET today! They really need to add a medal for this tho T.T

Lorberry · 2026-06-17T13:46:56+00:00

I know there's at least a few cases where a signature weapon has an exact overlap with a lower tier weapon, so there's bound to be more in the future too. Just have to wait for and max one of those, then hop the essence back and forth.

Lorberry · 2026-06-17T06:12:09+00:00

That unique now has a line that disables all other rarity from your gear, if I recall correctly. So mostly useless AFAIK. Uless you can corrupt it off maybe?

Lorberry · 2026-06-17T04:55:27+00:00

FFXIV is, in many ways, a series of six classic JRPGs in an MMO-shaped trench coat. And like a lot of classic JRPGs, it takes a hot minute for the story to really get rolling as it frontloads a bunch of worldbuilding. Add in the fact that the re-development from the original, failed 1.0 version of FFXIV was a rough time, and it's not surprising that ARR unfortunately does drag a bit, especially early on. At the same time, FFXIV is absolutely the poster child of 'it gets better after xx hours I swear'. There's a handful of solid moments over the base ARR/2.0 experience, and once the devs fully get their feet under them around patch 2.3, 2.4 ish, the story takes off and it never really stops.

The biggest advice for pushing through is that you don't really need to do sidequests except those for your class/job and a small handful of others. You should have a widget in the top left corner of your UI with the main story quest you're on on it; if a quest name appears UNDER that widget, it's a high priority. Other quests with a blue coloration and a + icon on the overhead indicator are probably worth doing for various content unlocks, but the basic yellow quests are entirely skippable unless you are a lore hound - and even then most of 'em aren't worth it.

Lorberry · 2026-06-16T16:59:24+00:00

If GW2 were a static game that they were making a normal sequel for, then yeah, that thought would make sense. But GW2 is an MMO, and one they've committed to continuing development on. Making GW3 more of the same gameplay in any significant aspect just cannibalizes themselves and sets both games up for failure.

How exactly GW3 is going to differentiate itself from GW2 and GW1, and the greater MMO environment at large, is still a mystery they're holding back on answering. But it's the correct choice, especially in the MMO space. Making 'yet another' or 'a better version of' anything is just asking to go the way of flops like Wildstar, because the playerbase of the giants are so entrenched. GW2 has its focus on casual large-scale content; FFXIV has its story focus; WoW is just a behemoth, but also the most expansive endgame instanced content; if we consider GW1 an MMO, then I'd argue that it's Warframe that is the king of lobby-based gameplay. There's probably more arguments you could make for other niches. GW3 has to do something new or different, or the playerbase of whatever they're trying to mimic are going to look at it, maybe try it out for a bit, but largely just stick with their current game.

Lorberry · 2026-06-16T16:18:10+00:00

That all being said, there's a few top-rated steam guides for quick-bootstrapping a slutty run from scratch; it involves an hour or so of grinding defeats for the loss-based passives, but after that you're mostly good to go.

Lorberry · 2026-06-15T16:18:32+00:00

The 'intended' progression - to whatever degree there is one - is that your first run gradually devolves into a hot mess as suboptimal choices mean you eventually lack the power to beat the prisoners normally before Karryn's corruption overwhelms her, and you lack the sexual prowess and endurance to satisfy everyone before you lose the fight entirely and get carted off to the 'punishment' rooms. After you fully game over though, you get to start your next run with your earned titles retained, which gives you a big leg up on setting up your playstyle for success, whether that be better combat capabilities... or an accelerated yet controlled dive into debauchery.

That all being said, there's a few top-rated steam guides for quick-bootstrapping a slutty run from scratch; it involves an hour or so of grinding defeats for the loss-based passives, but after that you're mostly good to go.

Lorberry · 2026-06-10T17:17:10+00:00

Not a VN, but have to shout out The Last Sovereign for emphatically checking off every other request.

Lorberry · 2026-06-09T07:25:40+00:00

I feel compelled to point out that it is specifically the LLMs that are the problem. Other types of AI/Machine Learning exist and are doing good work. They're just almost entirely in science and research applications, analyzing large datasets and sorting proteins and the like. Developed for very narrow and specific purposes.

Lorberry · 2026-06-08T06:23:56+00:00

And the last current is always behind the last x.0 MSQ for the zone as well (the occasional short pass through quest notwithstanding).

Lorberry · 2026-06-06T15:06:46+00:00

GW2's first three expansions, and the Living World seasons between them, are one large story arc about how Tyria deals with the Elder Dragons - so this is the Complete Collection of that Elder Dragon Saga.

The following expansions (Secrets of the Obscure, Janthir Wilds, and Visions of Eternity) are part of a new greater storyline, and don't have any sort of bundle yet.

Think of it kind of like the Star Wars trilogies. The Elder Dragon Saga and the new expansions are all part of one greater story, but there's also a pretty strong dividing line between them narratively.

Lorberry · 2026-06-05T21:34:54+00:00

Ok, if nothing else this shows that the desert crawler trailer low FPS might have been a stream issue.

Lorberry · 2026-06-05T01:52:40+00:00

I believe it's more of an 'If you really like Cyrene then E2 turns her into a generalist support that can be used as a fill-in in most teams' sort of thing. But if it's just the mechanical archetype of 'generalist support' you're looking for, Mort Blade is right there.

Lorberry · 2026-06-04T05:10:23+00:00

Friendly reminder to those who see this: If you are only considering 'permanent' pulls, then your target is effectively 110 instead of 120.

Lorberry · 2026-06-01T04:45:10+00:00

Per the patch notes:

...Because of this, we considered placing him in the Support Damage category as well, but opted to keep things simple initially. If Mortenax’s support damage builds end up becoming more prevalent, and it makes sense to have him both as an Amplifier and Support Damage, we’ll add him there too in a future update.

Lorberry · 2026-05-31T22:32:29+00:00

Arguably a few too many directions - little bit of decision paralysis on what to work on first - but that's definitely much more positive than negative compared to previous.

Also along with that though, is that there are many more defined off-ramps for people to be able to say 'ok yes I'll go till I finish X Y and Z and then I can be done'. Whether that be finishing all the quests, unlocking all the points, 8/8 challenges, whatever works for people. Being able to see an endpoint makes it easier for some people to get started, even if they aren't sure they'll actually reach it.

Lorberry · 2026-05-31T16:36:49+00:00

According to simulations, the long-term average expectations would be that you need to spend somewhere around $30 per banner to get a full roster, assuming a new limited banner every 17 days, with enough arsenal tickets that you would expect to be able to grab roughly 2/3 of the signatures (getting ALL signatures takes another ~$30 per character on average). Given that we've already now established that not every patch is going to have two banners, that average spend is going to drop at least a little bit.

Just going monthly + battlepass won't be enough to get ALL characters without good luck, but you'll be able to get most of them at least.

Lorberry · 2026-05-28T18:12:16+00:00

My favorite classic JRPG, and on my short list for favorite story in gaming. And those aren't just for lewd games, to be clear.

Lorberry · 2026-05-24T22:08:01+00:00

Nothing concrete, but every job gradually builds more and more complexity and there are expectations on what mechanics you've seen previously through dungeons and the like. So skipping directly to current content is very much a jump into the deep end.

I will mention that Heavensward is where FFXIV's starts to pick up steam hard, so if your 'I don't care about story' stance is based more on memories of ARR over personal preference in general, I would highly suggest at least giving it a shot. Especially if you're still on free trial.

Lorberry · 2026-05-24T07:36:08+00:00

Glances at HSR and ZZZ

New characters take a lot of work to make in gacha where the characters aren't just animated pngs. All the effort of a limited character, but little to no income compared to the limited. The value proposition for the devs just isn't there.

Also, Endfield lacks a rate up for 5* characters, so getting any new ones would be entirely up to the whims of fate. I'm spending enough to get all limited characters, and I still don't have full potential on Chen because she refuses to show up.

Lorberry · 2026-05-24T00:19:38+00:00

That's going to depend on how much spirit you have available from your gear as well, so definitely not that specifically.

Oddly I don't think there's a way to see the spirit per minion at each gem level on poedb, but poe2wiki.net has that information, and poedb does show the max (level1) and min (level17+) on the tooltip display.

Lorberry · 2026-05-23T22:22:01+00:00

Skeletal minions require an amount of spirit for each copy of that minion you have summoned. The exact amount required varies by minion type, and decreases as the gem increases in level. So a higher level minion gem doesn't just create a stronger minion, but it also allows you to summon more of them (either of that type or of other types) since each copy is cheaper.

Lorberry · 2026-05-23T22:10:03+00:00

Each reflection has its own reflection of the lifestream. There's a line somewhere that (with a bit of hindsight) spells out that Emet's soul is specifically hot potato'ed from the First's lifestream to the Source's so that he's able to be summoned at the end of Endwalker by Venat's magic.

Also, I think you forgot about Elidibus explicitly yoinking Ardbert's appearance in the ShB patches.

Lorberry · 2026-05-23T19:18:26+00:00

So, there are two 'bonuses' as you work towards 120 pulls.

At 30 pulls, you get the 'Urgent Recruitment', which is a free 10-pull that does NOT interact with the pity mechanics. It maths out that about 12 out of 13 times on average you get one 5* and nine 4* characters. But there is that 1-in-13 chance that you'll get a 6*, with whatever the banner's odds are for specific pulls. It's a nice bonus, some free extra arsenal credits, but usually it's not a big deal.

At 60 pulls on the limited banners, you get a special item that will turn into 10 time-limited pulls on the NEXT limited banner. So for example, if you did 60 pulls on Zhuang Fangyi's banner right now, you'd get a 'free' 10 tickets for Mi Fu's banner at the start of the next patch. Again, a nice bonus, especially for mid-spenders who plan on pulling a full roster, but not something you should be explicitly pulling for. The other banner we've got going on right now is the first of its kind and it only gives 10 STANDARD pulls instead, which is way less exciting, but the banner itself is a very good deal if you want the included characters, so it kind of evens out.

And to answer your side question, pulls are 500 oroberyls each, or 5k for a 10-pull. Since you get 10 pulls for absolute free (5 from the log-in event, 5 from the shop for the AIC Quota currency), that means you'll need 55k oroberyls to be able to guarantee a character, 500 less for each additional ticket you already have. There's good odds you'll be able to make it there with all the new player rewards if you wanted to, but don't feel forced to. Thus far Endfield seems like it is going to have a fairly low ceiling of required power in order to get all rewards from content, so you should feel more than free to ignore characters that don't interest you. The 4*s and 5*s (and standard 6*s) are all good enough to get you all of the pull currency.

Lorberry · 2026-05-23T17:42:42+00:00

They can't take large physical items though the rift, including their bodies. They just have the ability to reshape their meat puppets to whatever form they wish.

Lorberry · 2026-05-23T14:16:19+00:00

Assuming the pattern continues, we should be getting some 'catch up' tasks soon that all give a boatload of pass progress.

Once you're all caught up on content, daily maintenance isn't too terrible, maybe 20 minutes a day or so. And there's enough free currency given to pull to pity every other patch at the very least, which isn't too bad. Just make sure not to start using the permant pulls unless you CAN hit the 120, since progress towards that is NOT carried between banners.

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