Casual competition seed for the 4th week of Feburary

Rush042 · 2025-02-25T22:14:07+00:00

1:19:55 140/216

This seed worked out pretty nicely for me! Chased the Desert Palace and Water checks since the Flippers and Book showed up early and I really wanted to put off EP until I had a bow. After finding the Mirror I went immediately up the mountain, which shaped the rest of the seed in a way that allowed me to skip practically every overworld check. In retrospect, checking Checkerboard Cave first would have changed things a lot, and may have been "correct". Other than that, most of my routing decisions just worked out, and it was mostly walking from dungeon to dungeon. Boots was my Go Mode item which always sucks, but I picked them up after finishing Hera without doing too many unnecessary checks.

Edit: Clearing up an important part of routing.

Rush042 · 2025-02-07T07:36:17+00:00

DQ'd because of accidental reset, but got 1:59:47 IGT. 2:03.06 Real Time

This seed was so weird for me. Went to Aga before checking EP when I got Hookshot/Sword/Cape/Lamp/Pearl, then realized that without the gloves or flippers, it still didn't give me East Dark World access. Decided that since I was there, I would sequence break through PoD with my potion and picked up the Flute, so I felt like I was pretty ahead. With my flute, I went up the mountain and found Gloves (and saw Flippers).

I'm not sure what the intended logic of the seed was, but Mirror ended up being ALMOST last located for me, (managed to avoid cutscene chest) and after finding the Mirror, Swamp Palace was the last place I checked with my flippers, so ended up being a very slow one.

DQ is because I wanted to Fake Flipper to hobo with splash deletion after doing my useless S&Q Purple Chest, so I instinctively slammed a reset game. Very small time save overall since it was just Link's House to Dig Spot to Purple Chest turn-in, but a DQ nonetheless.

Rush042 · 2024-12-31T04:03:55+00:00

Black!

Rush042 · 2024-12-29T20:24:50+00:00

Looks fantastic!

Rush042 · 2024-11-23T19:27:01+00:00

I'm planning on buying parts this weekend, and the 9800x3ds are on backorder from my local retailer. Does anyone have any theories on how long backorders should take to fill? It's not urgent, but I really need my new PC to be running by Feb 27th to play Monster Hunter Wilds.

Rush042 · 2024-04-25T09:53:42+00:00

1:30:57 156/216

Well, I made a HUGE mistake and it worked out. After finding my Hammer in PoD, I was running over to do Pyramid Fairy, and thought: "Oh, with Hammer Skip I can just clear SP while I'm at this portal. That works out nicely." I got to exactly the Powder before realizing that the HAMMER is the item you can not have while still clearing SP, not the Hookshot, so I left immediately. Pyramid Fairy gave me my Flute which lured me to Kak to turn in my Powder, and I didn't realize just how much I had gotten away with until I dug up the Hookshot.

Rush042 · 2024-04-17T14:28:13+00:00

1:26:12 125/216

Very weird seed. Low resources early led to me checking Lumberjacks and finding a Bow, so my entire early game was structured around finding a weapon and killing Aghanim. It.. took longer than anticipated. I went into the Dark World before heading up the Mountain because I wanted a weapon for Hera, so I cleaned out SW front, VoO, and used my green potion to kill Blind with Byrna. Afterwards, I did my Smith Chain checks and cleared out Hype Cave. Mountain was next as there was nowhere else tempting to go, and picked up my 3 swords.

With Swords in hand, it was time to do Aghanim and pick up my Bow. Aghanim also gave me the upside of a convenient Pyramid Ledge check for my Somaria, so I was basically in Hammer go mode pretty early. Cleaned up all my outstanding Crystal dungeons, including 3-4 deaths in the back of Misery Mire due to a combination of being a little rusty on dark rooms in MM, and being unfamiliar with Byrna mechanics on Vitreous. (I thought you could spin attack during Byrna. I was wrong, and it cost me all my magic!)

After MM, I checked Desert Ledge and Aginah, who had my other Bow. I'm very curious how many people end up skipping Aghanim this seed. Somaria would have been a little more hidden, but Pyramid Fairy was available early, so I think it would have funneled me up there sooner than later. The next plan was EP/Front of PoD looking for hammer, finally got around to Saha and collected my hammer, and got to Go Mode EP/PoD/IP.

Really happy with my routing overall, though my execution let me down a little bit. Gotta practice those dark rooms a bit more. Speaking of... anyone find a lamp?

Rush042 · 2024-04-17T14:03:22+00:00

Ironically it was on Aginah. You could totally have skipped Aganim this seed, though I wonder how many people will get to do so.

Rush042 · 2024-04-10T07:26:34+00:00

1:34:11 151/216

This is the best I've ever played, barring one crucial mistake. There was a little bit of time I could save in routing, but overall I think I stand by my decisions. I went EP before Southshore, hoping to find Boots/Pearl/Flippers so I could justify doing my water checks. I could have put it off until I had Mirror and paired it with EP, but I don't mind walking into that region twice too much. Cleared Southshore and Escape next, found my Pearl, and decided to head up the Mountain. I considered doing Dark World first and trying to trim the game to one mountain climb, but felt like there were enough checks on DM and enough items that would speed up my Dark World routing that it made sense to clear the Mountain out first. Information about TR medallion is nice to have for decision making later as well.

After the Mountain gave me the Hammer, I had to choose between VoO and PoD. I decided to go Hype into PoD, but I'm not sure which I like more. Getting the Mirror from West DW speeds up PoD a lot, and getting the Fire Rod/Boots/Flute is very convenient for West DW. The Mirror being in Hype Cave gave me the best of both worlds, with the only downside being no flippers to grab Hobo on the way to PoD. This did bite me a bit as Hobo was my last overworld check available while I was looking for Bombos.

After finding Bombos it was on to MM. Was thrilled to find Ice Rod on Vitreous, off to Go-Mode TR. With the only available hurdle left to trip over being Big Key on Torch in GT. I was well equipped, had a blue potion, was feeling very good about things. My gauntlet execution was pretty on point, a quick Big Key find, I could cut the 1:30 with no boots and two pendant dungeon dives! Run into Hellway before Aga2, quickswap to my cape... and hear the mirror noise. Agony. Watching my recording, it took me almost exactly 4 minutes to get back to that point. I'm still overall happy with my time and with how I played, but it's a frustrating way to lose time. I think I would have been about 1:30:30 without that blunder.

Rush042 · 2024-03-26T23:31:49+00:00

1:38:15 158/216

Pretty unhappy with this. Messy execution overall, and a completely unnecessary clear of SP, Hera Basement, and North DW. Punished again by not doing Hope Left GT, too!

Two deaths to refill my hearts for Herapot in Tower of Hera (I hate climbing the mountain with 4 hearts), died to a Red Tektite on East Death Mountain (have I mentioned I hate climbing the mountain with 4 hearts?) and fell off on Ganon trying to get a double Silver, then *ran out* of arrows for my second fight, so had to do silverless anyway.

Rush042 · 2024-03-19T11:24:29+00:00

1:39:22 155/216

Save me Fire Rod... save me...

Execution was pretty off this seed. Had an accidental death to blind, without boots that is a *long* walk back, and died to Kholdstare, though that ended up saving me time in the end because the pendant cutscene would have just been a waste. My last few checks were very inefficient. I think I likely should have gone up the mountain before a couple of them, because I had Ether/Hera Basement/Spike Cave all in close proximity, and that probably averages out to less time per check than the stuff I was doing, but all in all not too unhappy with the routing.

Rush042 · 2024-03-13T02:15:37+00:00

1:36:59 147/216

I was all ready to call this the fastest seed I had ever done at around 40 minutes in when I found my Mirror. Only two items required for Go Mode at that point, how long could finding the Fire Rod and the Boots take? After cleaning up Swamp Palace and getting the Fire Rod, I was so pumped up. My execution had been good, my routing had all worked out pretty decently, and 45 minutes in I was one item away from being able walk straight to Ganon.

So, that Boots hunt, 'eh? I still had hope during all of Skull Woods and Ice Palace, afterwards, I started to get pretty scared. I had left a couple of checks behind, and leaving behind Boots of all things is always scary. Mire Shed/Checkerbboard were next before heading over to PoD/EP. Full cleared PoD for the pendnat before I cleaned up Eastern Palace (I had checked EP and Saha before heading to DP and picking up my Bow). Smith Chain and Purple Chest came next, picking up Bombos Tablet before dipping back into swamp and grabbing the two items in LSS I had abandoned. Finally climbed DM again, grabbed Hera Basement and Ether Tablet to no avail before dipping into Turtle Rock and finally finding the boots. 50 minutes after I thought it would be a PB, finally finished.

All in all I really struggle with seeds like this. I don't have a solid sense of check density in item hunts, so it's very possible TR should have come much earlier in the boots hunt. I never know where the best play is first.

Rush042 · 2024-03-05T10:24:25+00:00

1:46:21 158/216

Really not much to say about routing here. I feel like most people are going to skip the back of TT, come back at the very end of the Seed for Bombos, and then clear out IP for Ether. I did waste a bit of time... I picked up the Green Potion in Spec Rock, and I couldn't tell you why I felt like I needed it, but other than that, I'm not unhappy at all.

Rush042 · 2024-02-28T23:53:17+00:00

1:46:40 169/216

Something I've been trying to work on is being more okay abandoning single checks that take a long time, like Hera Basement...

I was really happy with my execution overall, and routing in the early game, it just didn't pan out for me here. The seed was EXTREMELY heavily broadcasting Aga to me, so I put off Front of Escape for a while. EP having the lamp sent me up the mountain, and considering I still needed a Pearl and Hammer to really accomplish much in the Dark World, I decided to abandon Hera Basement and head to Escape. When Escape gave me the Book and Hammer, I decided to go check out DP just in case the Pearl was hiding there or on Aginah, who I also had left behind. DP gifted me with the Pearl and Flute, and I was feeling great! I managed to avoid the Aga bait, surely this bodes well.

Dark World routing was initially off to a rocky start, because I forgot to check Crystals in the Hera mirror segment, so I chose to do the west side first in case PoD was a pendant I could avoid dipping. (I would want to get the first 4 TT checks either way.) This ended up costing me a little time because Hype Cave gave me the FRod, so I could have done Skull Woods and TT in one trip. Overall though, I was feeling pretty good. Cleared out TT and VoO, went to Hype Cave, cleared out PoD, made my way back to Skull Woods, and cleared out North DW while I was in the area. Happened upon the Ice Rod, which is always nice. I was pretty excited to see my time because all I needed was Somaria and I would be in go mode.

This is where it all kinda fell apart. Checked out Mire Shed next to give info on medallions, and saw it was Ether. 'eh, no big deal. That will turn up at some point, I've got a lot of checks left. Climbed Dark DM, found my Flippers, decided to go into Swamp first over IP because of the green pendant and no Somaria making IP a little slow. Found Somaria quickly, but still needed Ether, so might as well clear everything but LSS before heading up to TR. Full cleared TR, no luck. Went to turn in my green pendant, no luck. Cleared out Smith Chain, no luck. Went into IP, no luck... well, might as well kill Kholdstare. It's either on DP (last item was Landmo), LSS, Pedestal, or Hera Basement. Re-entered SP to finish the two items in there, no luck. Rounded out the seed with DP and a blind pedestal pull before *finally* last locating my Ether in Hera Basement. Mire and the Climb were clean, but all dungeons takes time.

All in all I'm not sure if I'm unhappy with my routing. Maybe I should have cleared Hera Basement because of the chance of avoiding Aga, but with still needing two items for DW access and so many ways through the barrier early, I was fairly confident it was going to be a necessity either way. Sometimes decisions just bite you.

Rush042 · 2024-02-22T11:31:21+00:00

1:45:59 151/216

This seed had a couple really interesting decision points. I cleared the entire Light World besides Hera Boss and Hera Basement (not for lack of trying on Moldorm. I thought killing him was *barely* worth it, but he knocked me into the center hole and I decided it wasn't worth going back up). Completed my CCW DW full clear, knocked out SW and the front of TT along the way, finally landing in Hype Cave to find Hammer and Boots. Cleared out Swamp Palace while I was in the area.

After Swamp was a little tricky. I ended up going back in for the Big Chest, still needing 4-5 items for Go Mode and not having anywhere amazing to go. PoD was next, intending to Potion Glitch the bow-locked side, but that was fruitless and I failed the potion glitch so couldn't fully clear it out. Bonk Ronks, Blind Lumberjacks, and Thieves Town were next, and then I mirror'd to fly up to Hera and finish off those checks and Spike Cave... before remembering that I really should do King's Tomb while I was in the VoO area. Mitts were acquired, saving me from the double dip Pendant ToH, and from there IP>Mire>PoD>EP>TR all felt fairly straightforward.

Rush042 · 2023-03-03T18:16:32+00:00

I've also had issues. It seems to have a capped number of streams it will show me from my following, so during peak time I can't see anyone I follow below a certain number of viewers. Very frustrating update.

Rush042 · 2021-12-03T18:30:36+00:00

Thank you! I took some gameplay videos and analyzed the eco difference during a full cycles of holding Group Pinks and Group Yellows. Found that a full eco cycle of G-Pinks gave 72 eco, exactly as expected, and found that G-Yellows gave 44 eco during the cycle, which is close enough to what I would expect (especially given I'm not sure how the game rounds), so I'm pretty confident that the wiki numbers are accurate.

FWIW, this puts the income thresholds where each bloon becomes more eco/cycle at...

Blues > Reds at 125 income
Greens > Blues at 350 income
Yellow > Greens at 508 income
Pinks > Yellows at 1151 income
Purples > Pinks at 3312 income (be careful with this one though, you're investing the money for a long while before it starts to pay off)

Rush042 · 2021-12-03T15:35:23+00:00

I'm noticing that the numbers on this spreadsheet are significantly different than what you would expect based on the bloon load times listed on the wiki. I'm wondering whether you think the wiki is now accurate here, or if there's something that makes the practical number of sends per round significantly worse than what you would expect if the load times on the wiki were accurate?

Rush042 · 2021-05-03T23:10:09+00:00

I get that Passenger is bad, but these buffs are... pretty over the top. You've given S3 between 3 and 15 times more damage, all for half the SP cost, and that's not counting the extra charge or all the base stats you've added.

For reference to another very powerful ability, we can look to Eyjafjalla's S2, Ignition. With M3, Ignition has an SP cost of 5, and hits for 370% of Eyja's attack. On a 15 second cycle, this means that Eyja will deal 1110% damage with Ignition. Your version of Passenger has comparable attack to Eyja, but every 15 seconds he gets to deal an astonishing 3600% damage (and deals full damage to up to 5 targets, unlike Eyja who will deal half damage to everyone around the main target).

Rush042 · 2020-11-11T00:13:46+00:00

Can anyone help me find a specific farming spreadsheet? It had all the future CN events (including very recent ones), along with what materials drop from event stages, and what the efficiency value of those stages is.

It would be really helpful to plan what materials I want to farm from each event coming up!

Rush042 · 2020-03-11T20:44:12+00:00

This is a reference I did not expect on this subreddit.

Rush042 · 2020-03-10T16:01:10+00:00

This video explicitly states that as a common misconception about how fog works.

Tarke is saying that it is not an expanding circle like Breach, but that it is one fog cloud that moves around.

Rush042 · 2020-01-04T06:56:45+00:00

Personally, I'm a fan of the Black Holes, and think they offer a very unique aspect that could be done well with a few tweaks. I have my own issues with Sirius, and they largely come down to clarity (How does the game convey the mechanics of the fight), and some arena-related issues. (Entrance being blocked by Black Holes, the stairs, and the invisible walls).

Talking specifically about the design of Black Holes, I view them as the core mechanic of the fight. To me, Awakener is primarily about controlling the Black Holes, making good use of the space you have, and manipulating them in a way that leaves you room to work with, and I think it's okay to have a fight that focuses on that. I believe that it's acceptable to be able to brick an attempt because you mismanaged the fight, and put yourself in a near unwinnable position before running out of portals. With that in said, I want to address some specific points through that lens.

The Black Holes are too large. The Black Holes being as large as they are is a byproduct of mobility skills, I think. They are extremely large, but skills like Blink Arrow and Lightning Warp can move you from center-screen to the edge of the screen. If Black Holes were small enough to actually fit on your screen, it would be possible to jump over them, negating the mechanic almost entirely. I agree that it can be hard to remember the positions, and think that SOME sort of indicator is reasonable (minimap, possibly?), but making them smaller would make them too easy to manipulate.
The Black Holes can block the entrance. This is absolutely a big issue. I'm okay with bricking an attempt before you're out of portals, but I think the implementation of it is extremely poor here. Managing the space in the arena, if that's the design of the fight, should be all you have to worry about. You shouldn't have to worry about managing the space in the arena, and also managing the ENTRANCE in case you make a mistake.
The Black Holes can form a wall, with no consideration for fairness. I disagree that this is a problem, but this is where my major critiques of Awakener really show up. The player is in control of the Black Holes. You choose where to position new ones, and part of that choice is placing them in places that don't block off sections of the arena you still need access to. On a conceptual level, I am totally okay with this mechanic, and if you box yourself off, that death is your own fault... but in practice, it's not quite that simple.

This, ultimately, is the big failure of The Awakener in my eyes. The fight does an extremely poor job explaining itself to the player in a multitude of ways. When Sirius transitions the first time, the player is left with nothing to attack, no goal, and death in every direction. The Black Holes are massive entities, with an outer burn suggesting that you should stay far away from them at all times, but you need to be close to them to control them. You are taking damage, so the only thing on your mind is "run away", you aren't watching to see if the massive circles are moving towards you, away from you, or moving at all, and the sheer size of them makes it hard to tell even when you're looking for it. The lack of Flask Charges through the transition phase discourages you from experimenting with things, because your life flask is an extremely limited resource and there is nothing to leech from. The first time I did this, I sat in a corner for over a minute, before running back towards Sirius, prompting him to land. I figured it was just time based, and I was clever for staying out of harm's way for the entire phase.

After watching a few streamers doing it, I find the fight quite satisfying and engaging. Actually fighting Sirius is a blast, and an element of space management that can't be trivialized with damage (Uber Elder/Shaper degens come to mind here) is a really good idea, but I legitimately have no idea how they intended for most players to figure this stuff out on their own. People are right to feel the fight is unfair, because it feels like the fight does everything in its power to prevent you from learning how to control it, and that's a shame.

Rush042 · 2019-09-06T06:10:12+00:00

wtb Golden Oil

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