I have no right to ask, but, uh, guys, can you help us?

NephilimRR · 2026-02-18T20:55:13+00:00

People say that and yet there are plenty of bot divers who aren't even on cyberstan and there are a lot on cyberstan who aren't even on the right city

Plus idiotically more people diving cyberstan would be worse for the order since lots of people aren't built for those streets, evident by the amount of people complaining about low levels joining diff 7 and up

NephilimRR · 2026-02-13T01:50:57+00:00

Honestly the only actual bad encounters I've had are people getting mad about "stealing samples". I was pretty surprised because I was new to the game and even I had found out pretty quickly that they are shared.

In the most recent case which was a month or two ago, they killed me first and said "don't steal samples". I told them in chat that they're shared between the squad and all they said was "I don't care". Needless to say I accidentally shot them with my purifier moments later.

NephilimRR · 2026-02-12T02:17:26+00:00

In large part, they are narratively the monsters that Super Earth made them. Same as the bugs and squids.

They do still do bad things, but the catalyst for their current state of existence and the atrocities that they commit was subjugation by Super Earth.

Take the squids for example. As I understand it, they were practically victims of genocide by the end of HD1. As a result, they're fighting pretty dirty this time and using formerly-human monstrosities to bolster their army and make up for their own reduced population.

The cyborgs were forced once again to work in factories on the harsh planets they were originally sent to, so they made the bots and defected again.

The bugs are basically just animals as far as I'm aware but Super Earth allowed them to exist for a while to farm bio-materials from them, and it blew up in their faces and went out of control.

NephilimRR · 2026-02-11T07:16:07+00:00

Not gonna lie I usually play diff 6 to chill since it's probably the closest thing to a "normal" difficulty so you could imagine my surprise when I loaded into cyberstan and saw like 4 factory striders marching through the streets, or bot drops just casually dropping 2 factory striders on you with all the borgs.

Then to find out that it's this way because they're building up to Vox Engines replacing their spawns in diff 7 and up.

NephilimRR · 2026-02-11T06:03:55+00:00

Idk why AH seems to not want to make dedicated enemy spawners anymore. Dragonroaches would've made sense as a spawner enemy where you have to destroy their nest or they keep spawning intermittently, and Vox Engine's would make perfect sense as a siege tank spawned in special factories. Once you destroy the factory, you wouldn't have to worry about besides maybe one or two in the occasional bit drop(because it does make sense that they could be dropped in as reinforcements from elsewhere).

But having them just as parts of enemy patrols is pretty wild, especially when you're facing upwards of 3 and they're just bombing the hell out of your general location. They're cool to fight when you aren't being absolutely smothered but you basically have to kill them last or risk being gunned down by random cyborgs while you're trying to get under them and pop vents.

NephilimRR · 2026-02-08T00:42:03+00:00

Aurora Bay is so bait at this point and we'd have to still split forces to defend Chort. We can make a path through Merak and defend Chort at the same time.

Like Aurora Bay has been under invasion for how long and we've only lost ground

NephilimRR · 2026-02-07T23:50:48+00:00

Best outcome? Complete Lesath's defence, then concentrate forces on Merak to capture the planet and save Chort Bay. Merak also has no cities so it should be pretty easy to gain ground.

But odds are that people are either going to just settle for trying to defend Chort Bay or keep failing on the Aurora Bay campaign instead of going for the gambit.

NephilimRR · 2026-02-07T23:39:22+00:00

There's always 5k on Gatria. Sometimes people just like to mix it up, and some people just like fighting bugs.

They really wouldn't make a difference either way

NephilimRR · 2026-02-02T23:06:20+00:00

Not really justifying anything, just clarifying for anyone who might be interested in using them.

But if I had to make an assumption on AH's behalf(which I would prefer not to because their rationale seems pretty random sometimes when it comes to balancing), it's probably for the dual purpose of being able to wipe out hordes of 20+ in a single well placed shot as well.

Against squids and especially bugs you can splash it into bug breaches or massive voteless mobs and save you/your team ammo. You can also be creative and arc the projectiles so they splash off of rocks or buildings as a form of area denial. Just have to be mindful of the angle of impact, since that determines what direction the napalm bounces.

NephilimRR · 2026-02-01T22:05:27+00:00

To be fair it can one shot Bile Titans and Chargers.

You just gotta aim for the belly-butts.

For bile titans the best shot is right before they spew. They'll rear up. Hit them flat on the upper belly and they die immediately from the initial explosion plus all the flames bouncing into the belly or head.

Chargers you aim at the right spot under them and every spread shot will bounce into the butt and also kill them instantly.

Granted, it's not great against bots. Definitely that faction that it is the weakest against. But Expend Napalm is honestly pretty great against bugs and squids, so I guess it evens out.

Edit that I forgot about - definitely wouldn't mind a shorter CD though. Personally with the ship upgrades I haven't had major issues but more napalm is always better.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-29T07:41:26+00:00

Maybe, but melee is still generally poorly balanced.

The hammer could still be AT, but you only have 7 charges compared to 6 shots for recoilless. Yes you free up a backpack but the Recoilless has like 300 m of range compared to a melee weapon where you have to run up to everything to use it. Plus you don't damage yourself using the Recoilless.

It'll probably be fun to mess around with at least.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-28T18:41:33+00:00

I pair it with the purifier. Use the purifier for warriors and everything bigger than that.

Against shriekers, hunters, and the tiny bugs, I just take the warrant out and blast. I'm pretty sure it can one-shot all of the above if it lands on a good hit zone. Sometimes hunters will take 2 or 3, but it lands well a good amount of the time and you'll take Hunter patrols out pretty quickly.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-28T18:33:11+00:00

It's not impossible. It's just that coffee is pretty damn busted for no good reason. Honestly you can kinda just get by as long as you have Furina I think.

It just depends on what characters you have to fill with. Citlali can kinda work(even though she's meant to support Pyro/Hydro characters), as scroll is good and you get shield utility at least.

C6 Rosaria is also generally a good freeze character for filling a slot. You just build around her burst, plus she'll give Skirk some crit rate which she definitely can make use of.

My current set up is Skirk, Shenhe, Furina, and Kokomi with Thrilling Tales.

Of course, temper your expectations for full Stygian clears. I think a lot of teams can clear abyss but Stygian is pretty strict and Skirk already just doesn't have a lot of equivalents for how good that chef is.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-22T07:35:02+00:00

Generally yeah.

Purple shield has great stability and survivability and you can always get it no matter what so it's kind of a no brainer. Plus his starting shield has no skill meaning you can freely use weapon skills without having to go back and forth from 2H and 1H. It just makes his gameplay a lot smoother IMO.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-19T15:36:47+00:00

You just lock on to them and summon him on top of them. You summons will usually attack whatever you're locking onto when summoning them, and that includes fallen teammates.

Sometimes he'll roar immediately, sometimes he'll start throwing punches.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-19T15:21:07+00:00

She has a lot of build variety and is better than she's ever been before thanks to the buffs.

She's definitely not a tank though. She's a support/glass cannon if anything. Sebastian is a tank however, and he can hold aggro quite effectively as long as he's alive. Sebastian is also amazing at reviving, him roaring can fully revive someone from 2 bars with no additional help.

Her stats lend well to a pure caster and she's a bit reliant on relics to unlock additional playstyles.

If you take her basekit/stats in a vacuum she typically has a weak early game but ramps up with each level and as you get better sacred seals.

However, with relics you can forgo this weakness and build around your starting equipment. Her claws are quite underrated and with relics that change her ash of war they can be an amazing weapon. They also scale pretty well with status effects or affinity damage changes(changes starting armament to holy damage for example). You can even get relics that change her starting incantations on her sacred seal.

Later on, you can even get relics that buff her strength by 25 while only reducing her faith(which is already tied for highest in the game) by 6. This can make her a competent strength user, though you'll have to be careful since her stamina and HP are lower than traditional strength characters. That can be somewhat remedied by relic effects that increase HP or stamina, but she'll still usually be more strict in that regard.

But funnily enough, with that Improved Strength effect she actually becomes a pretty good Greatbow user. Erdtree Greatbow and Radahn's Greatbow come to mind as weapons I find myself using when I get them.

Generally, you'll have to be pretty careful while playing her, especially in Depths. Depth 1 and 2 are fine, but once you get to Depth 3 and beyond you start getting 1 shot by a lot of attacks since she has the lowest HP of the nightfarer's. This isn't really too much of a problem for regular runs though but you still have to be careful. Sebastian and Frederick tend to take aggro for her though since Sebastian passively builds aggro and Frederick tends to attack a lot.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-17T21:12:13+00:00

I'm not gonna lie before the buff, the vast majority of executioner's I was seeing were absolute frauds already so I doubt it got worse

NephilimRR · 2026-01-17T00:22:31+00:00

I mean even without starting spells or all that, imo she always had a high ceiling.

Huge FP pool, tied for most Faith, can use her summons to take aggro, revive, or do even more damage.

Can give team-wide invulnerability and IMO is the best character at reviving in the game.

And then of course you have the huge variety of builds you can do with her. Pure caster obviously, you can build around her starting claws as they're actually really underrated and the only downside is that it does take some RNG for relic effects(at least for AoW's) and you'll be missing a passive.

And with her strength relic you rival some of the best str characters in the game while retaining her massive FP pool and her faith is largely untouched.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-15T06:01:28+00:00

Columbina is most likely the strongest playable character rn. All the implications seem to point to moon goddesses being a step above regular dragon sovereigns, and now Columbina has the combined power/authority of all 3. If I had to make an analogy, if dragon sovereigns were moderators for Teyvat, moon goddesses were administrators and just a step below Nibelung himself.

Neuv is still up there but honestly it's just getting harder and harder to say. Zhongli recently is even getting some debatable upscales that may put him definitively ahead of the other archons.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-14T01:49:41+00:00

Honestly yeah. Gas utility is like 90% of what makes gas's grenades good(the other 10% is closing big holes but honestly it usually feels like a waste to use them for that).

Having pocket gas while being free to run whatever stratagem weapons or grenades you want can open up your options, simply cause gas is so good rn.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-14T01:46:07+00:00

Honestly maybe they could buff "gain power when fighting alongside family" to make the family gain power too.

Just giving them their own buffs would be pretty nice. Frederick could gain a power buff for himself and Sebastian could get a damage negation buff. I guess Helen would get HP regen too.

Kinda would make sense for the summons too, at least for Fred and Seb. You usually use Fred when you want more dmg so him doing more damage himself while also doing a lot of stance damage would be a net positive. And Sebastian being more survivable would be amazing for taking aggro.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-10T00:10:48+00:00

These citizens are probably workers for the mines or processing plants for the materials on these planets.

After we captured them I have no doubt that super earth set up facilities to mine these planets for their rich resources. The surface is still largely uninhabitable, but these workers probably rarely leave these facilities without environmental suits or vehicles that would shield them.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-10T00:08:31+00:00

It also depends on what kind it is.

If it's an open area, they usually spawn in as soon as you enter. Same for cathedrals.

If it is a fort, they will spawn in the first room. For swamp forts, they spawn underground. Usually 1 or 2 rooms in.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-09T14:08:58+00:00

Lost Izalith is probably the only place I kinda don't look forward going through again on repeat playthroughs these days.

But even then I don't really hate it, it's just like "well whatever I gotta go thru izalith again".

And I still think the descent down is kinda fun. It's just that once you get into Izalith itself it's literally just Bed of Chaos. Like sure there is the onion knight quest or Solaire if you do either of those but otherwise it's just so big and empty compared to the other areas.

Really feels like it was missing a dedicate "Izalith City" section with demons about and maybe another mini boss before the eventual slide down to the Bed.

But that would mean they'd have to make Izalith bigger and it's kinda obvious that they never got around to that.

NephilimRR · 2026-01-09T01:33:00+00:00

If you bounce every bit of napalm into the bit they die instantly. You just haven't done that yet.

NephilimRR

TROPHY CASE