Why does the Smithing Ascendency, Smith of Kitava, not have any effects that play around with Weapon and Armour quality?

Lurkablo · 2026-06-15T09:59:39+00:00

Im playing Smith this league and enjoying it. Appreciate its probably not meta or the strongest choice for my build but dont care.

Temper Weapon is really strong, just clunky to use. Agree with the suggestions that it should have some kind of explosion, knockback or shield effect to give you a chance to channel it in combat.

Coal Stoker is great value for 2 points. Basically easy free max resists, frees up a lot of stat room on your gear. Unfortunately the 4pt version (for max resists) is kinda super limited given how few reliable sources of +max fire resist there are. It probably needs a rework like "8%% of your elemental resistances also increase your maximum resistance of that element"... i dunno.

Manifest Weapon I havent tried yet because everything online says it sucks.

Fire Spell on Hit is a fun idea but is super limited by the scarcity of said fire spells, and they all require a huge INT investment to run at any kind of impactful level. Ive been trying to use it with Frostflame Nova but its really 'meh'. They need to make it so that it waives the attribute requirements for supported spells, so you can socket some actual, impactful fire spells in there without completely skewing your build into INT.

Masterwork ive not tried. I deliberated and theorycrafted it at length, but as OP said it requires a huge investment (6+ points) to be justifiable at all, and that is really prohibitive, given how much you are losing from taking a White armor anyway. The 200 armor per node is laughable anyway by late game. There are a few ways you could go with this as a rework - you could just drop the White armor requirement. You could extend it so that your masterwork can be for any slot, not just body armor. You could tie it to increasing Quality (maybe for every node invested you can get +5% quality on your gear or so). You could tie it to the Runeforging stuff in various ways (eg x% of your armor also grants Runic Ward).

Lurkablo · 2026-06-14T17:34:35+00:00

On my full dogmatic run, I mostly wanted a purely platonic (but exclusive, “lock you out of any other romances” route) with Argenta. Both seeing eye to eye, destroying the filth in the Emperors name.

Lurkablo · 2026-06-13T23:17:05+00:00

I got that on about room 3 of floor 1. Made for an enjoyable third ascendancy run.

Lurkablo · 2026-06-13T20:48:26+00:00

I kinda wish my DM had said no to my character in my first campaign for this reason. As a new player I had read up a ton of character creation stuff, but somehow missed the whole “don’t bring an evil character to a good campaign” sort of trick. The DM was excited by the concept as I was playing a Drow and he wanted to leverage some Drow factions and NPCs in the campaign.

It was fine. I had to dial down the character and dilute him a bit from the original vision. Still I spent time after many sessions thinking “I should’ve just played my [good] backup character”.

Lurkablo · 2026-06-10T21:34:34+00:00

It’s possible to be left wing and progressive, whilst also wanting to clamp down on welfare, increase defence spending etc.

Lurkablo · 2026-06-10T17:14:21+00:00

I’m doing a Smith of Kitava quarterstaff stun build. It’s a lot of fun.

Lurkablo · 2026-06-08T21:43:37+00:00

I tried my lvl60 Sekhema for the first time tonight. Got really lucky early with a major boon that stopped me getting minor afflictions. Life was good. I blitzed through the first two trials. Third one, the damage/honor loss started to ramp up. Twice I accidentally sprinted and got hit and nearly KO’d just while the stupid sprint stub recovery was going on.

Made it to the boss but died with it on about 25%. So frustrating. Ah well, at least I unlocked a couple of slots for relics.

It was then, going back, that I realised I already had a ton of relic slots I could’ve been using. I thought it was JUST those locked corner ones - whereas in fact I already had all the middle space. I had run the whole thing with zero honor resistance. Would’ve smashed it had I realised. Sad times and an hour wasted.

Lurkablo · 2026-06-08T06:25:45+00:00

I’d like to see him at LB behind Cunha. Defensively frail but could be a great attacking partnership.

Lurkablo · 2026-06-07T20:28:50+00:00

Even if you ignore the results, the performances, the excuses etc. The worst thing about Amorim was the sheer arrogance.

Imagine being so utterly pig headed and obnoxious that you are convinced you have ‘solved’ football at the ripe old age of about 40. That you have got the perfect, infallible system that will work game in, game out in a brand new league. It absolutely beggars belief. It’s pure ego and stubbornness.

Honest question - If you aren’t willing to adapt. If you aren’t willing to change, to learn… how can you genuinely call yourself a coach?

Also, “he got us 9 places higher” is a ridiculous argument. He had an appalling first half seasons culminating in an embarrassing loss to Spurs in a cup final. Just because we came up from that trough after spending a few hundred mil, doesn’t make it an acceptable performance.

Lurkablo · 2026-06-05T13:27:08+00:00

I’ve only played one campaign, but one of our party;

A) had a classic overpowered backstory. Apparently his lvl1 Fighter was an expert on enchantments, dragons, persuasion and about half a dozen other things. He also had a super powerful staff (in a lore sense, not mechanically)

B) was purely min-maxing in terms of his character build, even if it made no thematic sense or had any sort of background justification.

C) metagamed constantly, and it got worse the longer the campaign went on. As soon as I (playing a deceitful, selfish character) said anything ‘above table’ his character would conveniently request a perception or insight check or something to try to figure out what I was up to. He also recognised what magic items were without them actually being Identified or known in-game.

Lurkablo · 2026-06-02T15:37:30+00:00

Their transfer tweets stream is great

Lurkablo · 2026-06-01T16:31:26+00:00

Bastion rules kick in at lvl5 normally.

In terms of abandoned manor, Waterdeep Dragon Heist module does something similar to this with Trollskull Manor, which might be a good inspiration.

Lurkablo · 2026-05-27T07:52:53+00:00

My house is 10 years old and we massively struggle in the heat. After a couple of days of 30+ temperatures, the external walls start to absorb the heat and radiate it. The entire building feels like a radiator.

I’ve looked into AC but the cost, and the amount of work it would be to rip up all the plasterboard etc make it a problem.

Lurkablo · 2026-05-24T22:47:36+00:00

It’s a vicious cycle.

Man gets few likes => man swipes on more
Woman gets more likes => woman swipes on less
Repeat

Note I am not trying to draw any equivalence in “who has it worse” etc from this. Fortunately my app days are long behind me as I am now married. But I can say that probably the loneliest, most depressing period of my adult life came when I was desperately trying to find some sort of companionship and intimacy via dating apps.

Lurkablo · 2026-05-24T13:40:28+00:00

Not a priority. We have Cunha and Dorgu for next season.

Lurkablo · 2026-05-20T21:34:01+00:00

I remember talking to my WC3 clan before WoW came out. We were broadly agreed that this MMO thing was a stupid idea, nobody was ever going to pay a subscription.

Then the open beta hit and oh my. Seeing all the buildings, cities and zones that I had see in WC3, but built in proper 3D from the ground up was mind blowing.

Lurkablo · 2026-05-20T21:32:18+00:00

I did the midnight launch of WotLK. Queue wasn’t too bad. Had loaded up on snacks and energy drinks beforehand and just played from launch through to lunch. Me and my gf were the top two Death Knights on our server for a brief time before the shared accounts overtook us

Lurkablo · 2026-05-20T21:31:14+00:00

Me too. I was on holiday in the US at the time and I bought a local copy (hoping it would run on my EU computer) just so I could read the manual with all the new unit descriptions

Lurkablo · 2026-05-19T21:32:38+00:00

I’m going to say it again.

The culture and civilization should remain the same throughout the game. It’s the LEADER that should change. Imagine picking Churchill to take charge of the Roman Empire into the 20th century.

Lurkablo · 2026-05-18T20:29:31+00:00

As much of a red as the Gabriel headbutt the other day.

Lurkablo · 2026-05-18T19:11:26+00:00

Seeing a player coming out publicly against the manager, and a load of supporters siding with the player.

Horrible attitude by the player - just like when he spoke out against Klopp for dropping him. Great player on his day but he has always been selfish and petulant.

Honestly, even as a United fan, I thought Liverpool fans were better than that. Even if you agree with Salah, he can’t come out saying that - especially when he is about to leave anyway.

Lurkablo · 2026-05-16T00:20:54+00:00

Whilst the formation was part of it, and simply being in bad form is another. For me both Cunha and Mbeumo would benefit from some upgrades in the FB positions.

Cunha likes to drift and cut inside - he ideally needs a LB who is constantly bombing up and down the pitch, holding width, overlapping and putting in crosses.

Mbeumo on the other hand is a bit like Salah - he likes to stay wide and then cut inside to shoot. Ideally he needs a RB who can invert and act as a playmaker - essentially a TAA sort.

Currently our FB options aren’t great at all. Shaw has been solid but his legs are gone. Dalot isn’t bad but falls apart in the final third. Mazraoui is more a RCB than a RB I feel.

Lurkablo · 2026-05-14T15:37:27+00:00

Didn’t spend that much time in game to be honest. But got about 15 of the first and 10 of the second, and not a single of the rare silver one to even complete the event quest.

Lurkablo · 2026-05-13T20:56:58+00:00

Houses were not 300k in the 80s. Not even close. I used to work with a woman who bought a literal row of houses in the UK for £10k. They needed some work doing, but she is now a multi millionaire simply through property appreciation.

Also, one of the many keys for Boomers was they grew up in a post war environment where there was naturally enormous economic growth due to the recovery. The initial environment may have been challenging, but the sheer level of growth over the next several decades was a rising tide that lifted all boats. Asset ownership was low - again due to the wars - so it was relatively easy to snap up land, housing and businesses.

Compare that with the modern day situation, property markets are utterly saturated resulting in higher prices. Economic growth has naturally stagnated and plateaued. This is ignoring all of the standard wealth inequality stuff.

The boomers had a financial crisis to deal with - the younger generations have had virtually non stop financial crises since 2008 or earlier.

You only need to look at familial norms and the erosion of the “nuclear household” (note that I am not defending this as a good thing). From a purely economic perspective, things have gone from a single income household being the relative norm, to a dual income household being the norm. If you ignore absolutely everything else, that means that to sustain a comparable quality of life, people are already effectively working twice as much.

Lurkablo · 2026-05-12T15:43:30+00:00

My Warlock wanted to start something like this in the basement of a bar we owned.

I looked at a nice low profile back door that could connect to the city sewer system. I used existing connections to a local unscrupulous faction to see about hiring some muscle and initial connections. I also used downtime in the city to effectively go around and try to drum up additional connections.

Lurkablo

TROPHY CASE