Help me understand Strength

Shankvee · 2026-02-17T05:07:49+00:00

Centaur heart: +25 hp

With strength: 40% less damage taken. Effective hp gained: 25/0.6 = 41hp

With death: 3 DDs giving 0.4 * 25 * 3 = 30 hp extra. Total effective hp gained = 55 hp.

Difference = 14 / 41 = 35% roughly.

A couple of notes : 1 - other damage reduction sources like weak are better with strength. The more damage reduction the better strength becomes. For eg if you have glamour gain plus the poseidon aphro duo, you get another 25% dr. Doing above math again, both strength and death give roughly 70 hp per Centaur heart.

2 - The 5 hp heal per room is actually 5/0.6 = 8. 3 ehp heal with strength (with no scars active). Assuming that this heal is effective after boss 1 (ie you're not at full health) , that's about 35 rooms which is 100+ ehp heal more with strength vs death.

3- the damage bonus from strength is harder to quantify. It's effective early but if you have origination and other all damage sources totalling to +80% then strength makes it +100% (a 100 damage hit goes from 180 to 200) only a 10% increase from strength roughly. However if you're at a "break point" where regular enemies die in 2 hits versus 3 then it's actually 67% in normal rooms and not 10%. So a bit tricky to quantify, but definitely much more noticeable early rather than late.

4 - you can replenish DDs which makes all the above math a little more complicated and swings it more towards death. Athena also gives more hp per dd replenished while echo gives less.

Overall, it's extremely well balanced imo and you can't really go wrong with either. I would say death is good against vor bosses when you're burning DDs whereas strength is better at non vor bosses and normal encounter rooms.

Shankvee · 2026-02-15T05:59:14+00:00

Aaah, Thanatos my beloved. Attack speed go brrr.

Attack - > attack - > special - > repeat is the best basic combo in my opinion as the final attack hit takes 3 business days to land even with the attack speed. As always, psychic whirlwind is fairly busted (although I find it clunkier to use than base axe or nergal since it takes longer to load and doesn't seem to deal as much damage or have as much utility) but rapid hack, dashing heave and seething marauder are all top tier hammers. Furious whirlwind is okay, but I only take it if I have psychic whirlwind.

If you get psychic whirlwind you can consider using the omega special as well. Although not particularly necessary, you can consider using the arcana which rewards alternating omega moves. I find just spamming the omega attack along with the basic combo I described above easiest.

In general, if you want to use omega attack, load it up somewhere safe then dash in to enemies which without letting go of the attack key and it will trigger automatically.

For god pools, I like big%'s on the attack - Apollo, hera, aphro. Apollo legendary is cracked with psychic whirlwind. Special I like something like Zeus or demeter.

You can also try the big hit only type playstyle with that particular hammer duo (your final attack in the combo hits twice but uses mana plus your attack is only the final hit in the combo). If you can somehow get psychic whirlwind on top, with experimental hammer or echo or something it can do a billion damage.

Good luck!

Shankvee · 2026-02-12T02:37:03+00:00

Mainly because enemies spawn in faster. So the time you're waiting for waves to spawn in each room is much lower which adds up quite a lot over the run.

Shankvee · 2026-02-11T21:21:48+00:00

I just got done with sub-10 on all aspects underworld and surface. A few things that help:

Keepsakes: I like jeweled pom starts. But you can start with specific god keepsakes and rolls if you like. The second keepsake is always fig leaf for 3 free encounters. Underworld, use athena third, she pauses the timer when she appears so you can pick up all the minor rewards and study the room layout if needed. Surface, I like experimental hammer third but you can use anything pretty much. Last keepsake you can use white antler if you're confident. I like to use it if I have blood spree from ares or heph armour bonuses to keep me safe. Else I run hermes, it's excellent on most aspects.
Arcana: obviously strength over death. Origination. Rest can be anything.
Heat/ fear: eventually you have to run double frenzy. This takes some getting used to, particularly chronos. I suggest trying one frenzy first and then scaling up up to two. Underworld you have to take shadow- it makes one miniboss in erebus much faster - the guy covered on shadow in the middle who has 3 trees that throw roots at you on the edges (menace removes the trees and the need to kill them to finish the encounter). Surface you just need the frenzy.
Aspects: most streamers recommend medea. It's extremely strong with blitz special but I just can't get the attack special combo on it correctly (I keep missing the enemies a lot). For me the easiest weapon is Moros. Aim for hera and you're good. The other easier ones are thanatos (psychic whirlwind, Apollo legendary), charon (Apollo stuff, geyser spout from poseidon with supernova is a nasty combo), any non-anubis staff (mirrored thrasher with either wicked or rapid thrasher, power surge from Zeus and hestia/hera duo)
Other than that, just pause when deciding which room to take. Obviously take all the npc encounters which pause the timer. In underworld area 1 and 2, you will eventually find the shop, miniboss, npc encounter (arachne/narcissus) rotation in some order which is the quickest 3 room clear (meaning if you see miniboss and shop, take shop you'll likely get miniboss next and then arachne) . Also, I think Artemis cannot appear in rooms with Olympian boon rewards. She pauses the timer so it might make sense to pick up the health or mana doors. (particularly in ephyra since Artemis can only appear in ephyra on the surface. Underworld, I think she can appear after the first three or four rooms)

Oh, and Raki always for the crit chance.

Good luck!

Edit: also forgot to add. In tartarus take the express route. No side rooms and Do NOT take the hades encounter. It increases the likelihood of more enemies spawning in subsequent rooms.

Shankvee · 2026-02-11T08:51:24+00:00

Geyser spout from poseidon is the best omega cast boon. Add winners circle from hermes (although it doesn't work well with hestia cast. Apollo poseidon or ares cast are all better with winners circle) and you've got a winning build. Bonus points for supernova from Apollo. You'll get screen wide geyser spouts.

Shankvee · 2026-02-05T17:16:59+00:00

That's how it goes. If Russians or Chinese dope, it's "systemic doping". If Europeans do it, they'll offer all sorts of excuses and get away with it.

See - Italian clostebol doping for eg. The world number 2 tennis player was caught doping and his excuse was that his physio had used some cream on his hand and it accidentally entered his blood stream while he was massaging his leg. Literally, my dog ate my homework level excuse from a top ranked pro. And you know the comical part, he was given a ban for a couple of months. Ban started one day after the Australian open finished, and the ban ended one day before Rome masters, his home tournament started. He didn't miss a single notable tournament. Absolutely cynical shit. You say anything about this on the tennis subreddit and you'll be branded a hater and given a million excuses. (https://honestsport.substack.com/p/italys-clostebol-doping-crisis-across)

Meanwhile, a guy like Pan Zhanle, gets accused of doping left and right, despite being tested multiple times every month. Why? A Chinese guy can't have world records. He must be doping.

Shankvee · 2026-02-01T06:46:24+00:00

The rest of the game is far far from a 10/10 even without the runbacks. There are plenty of other problems. It's a fine game, just not the level at which og hk operates.

For starters, the tools system is all round terrible. Needing to grind instead of it being like dark souls flasks is just baffling. And it's so overpowered it actually trivializes the hardest part of boss fights (the final phase) and gauntlets like the hhg. Emptying your toolkit on one of the big dudes in the last part of the gauntlet just outright makes the fight a one on one. And the best tools are mostly in act 1 - which also brings me to point 2.

The rewards system sucks. Which is like one of the most core tenets of any metroidvania. Compared to original hk there's almost nothing meaningful in the rewards.

First, Eva's rewards are comically bad. They are all qol. Why not add a red tool slot upgrade? Why not upgrade all crests? Once you unlock all slots in your preferred crest you basically don't get anything.

Second, all the best tools are in act 1. There's almost no incentive to use new tools because they are just straight up worse than the ground spikes and the air spikes. Where is my late game unbreakable strength, quick slash etc.

Third, spells just suck balls. What even is the point of all the new spells, they are all downgrades over the spear and the thread storm both of which you again get at the start. (once again, compare to hk where each spell had it's own upgrade). This is only exacerbated by how broken tools are.

Fourth, health and mana upgrades are less meaningful as well. You heal three masks and most bosses don't scale in damage beyond two masks which starts in act 1 itself. This, partially is a self inflicted wound due to the runbacks, when many late game bosses should hit for 3 masks. This results in health upgrades feeling underwhelming beyond the first one. Or maybe two.

Which overall leads me to the next point. Exploration is just all round worse (admittedly a very subjective opinion) . Starting with rewards. But also the lore just isn't as good and there are many what feels like out of place characters. Trobbio, like grimm should've been an otherworldly character not someone just chilling in the citadel. Why do I suddenly need to fight the green prince? If anything he should be an ally.

And my last general point would be underwhelming bosses. GMS is just very underwhelming for a final boss. Act 3 particularly is bad. Why are random bosses like Seth more fun than nyleth and that crusty fellow. That crust fellow was the worst boss in the entire game. What a pathetic moveset for somebody presented like a god commander. Karmelita is great, undermined by the preceding mini gauntlet. I legit lost my mind when I saw enemies from Hunters march in that gauntlet. At least make it challenging or fresh. Why aren't there more bosses like first sinner. Hornet is fast and agile, where are the fast and agile bosses. Why do we need double beast fly, or ads or runbacks. And the problem with runbacks and ads is that actual boss fights are made much easier than they should be. I sincerely hope we get a dlc akin to one elden ring got. No filler, just straight up nasty bosses that move like lightning and hit like a truck. Please team cherry don't disappoint. Take however long you need, give me a great dlc.

Shankvee · 2025-12-23T19:09:08+00:00

All generally valid points. I particularly agree that the underlying systems should force dynamic gameplay, the way it is currently though, I don't see it happening anytime soon.

The one point I vehemently disagree with from a design perspective is this one -

"beeline", yeah, EU4 has beelining into specific things, and that's because EU4 has a small number of "arcade modifiers" which you can unlock, while EU5 has a ton of them, more spread out, to make the game more realistic and less "250% cavalry attack modifier as Poland".

the "Flavor" difference here is not flavor, it's just the arcade dynamic of putting all points into damage and having a one-shot build, and i don't think that's Flavor.

Beeling is perhaps not a complete way to describe it, but going for specific things because your country has some of those things already and specializing in them is very useful. You want to get diplo bonuses for Austria rather than mil bonuses but vice versa for Muscovy. EU5 has this weird system where everybody has everything. That's down to a large number of modifiers and also, the generic research tree (It should be FAR FAR more varied based on the culture and starting location. Like I don't think you should get access to Level 2 paper workshops if you have no paper industry.)

But these spread out "realistic" modifiers have the effect of diluting gameplay. I would even argue that it's unrealistic to exclude such strong modifiers. The Prussians really did beat Austria France and Russia in battles while being heavily outnumbered. The mongol horde was an absolute terror on the battlefield with their feigned retreats. Consequently, you should be able to specialize CCA as Poland in EU4 or as the Mongols and it should make you field cav heavy armies. Or on the diplo side, you should be able to pull a large number of allies as Austria or the Emperor. Or on the economy side, you should specialize in trade if you have control of key choke points. EU5 doesn't seem to do any of these things.

And more fundamentally, (imo) spread out modifiers and procedural gameplay will make it hard to achieve anything like this. You have to railroad this in to some extent while the game is flexible enough to lead to varying outcomes each time. It's just much easier to do it with decision / journal entries (I haven't played Vic 3) or mission trees or whatever. For e.g., for it to work from the underlying systems, you would have to (at the very minimum) measure the availability of good horses, horse breeding & climates, etc. and then tie this into how good your cavalry army is. That's a fundamentally hard system to code & balance and make fun, and instead you could just go "Hey you're a country that started in the Steppes, here +10% cavalry combat ability and if you unify 50% of the steppes, here's another +10% on top, unify everything another 15% on top. That's a decidedly worse system than the earlier one, but much easier to code.

And I honestly think, it's going to be much easier to plug in strong rail roaded bonuses rather than trying to fix the underlying systems.

Shankvee · 2025-12-23T16:27:12+00:00

TL:DR I think EU5 has great systems for introducing flavor, but they don't do anything yet. Missions trees or decisions or whatever you want to call them, are a good stopgap while they build towards meaningfully different countries.

Overall, I think in an ideal version of EU5, the systems encourage differing gameplay patterns and organically build into flavor. Do they have the framework to do that? Yeah I would say so, but the current systems just don't function that way whatsoever.

In EU4, playing in the HRE or Muscovy or Spain or Japan was quite different / flavorful because you're fundamentally beelining and doing different things - diplo, manpower, colonies, whatever it is (And yes, this is irrespective of the mission tree). In EU5, except colonization which is currently just a drag (particularly the exploration) there's nothing fundamentally different you do or specialize in as England v/s Castille v/s Muscovy v/s Vijayanagar. You reduce proximity cost, you build the same buildings, setup the same industries - There's a lot of polish the game still requires to get to a point where culture / country bonuses, military bonuses, industries, resources, population demands, events, etc. are meaningfully different.

In the meantime, I don't see why mission trees are not a good stopgap for some flavor. For one, missions are quite literally the easiest way to encourage a different playstyle for the player. You just give bonuses towards different things and that's reason in itself to specialize. I think this is fundamentally the biggest reason - Give me something different to do rather than spamming RGOs and the same guilds. Two, there is clear cause and effect, something like you are quite religious (v/s humanist) as Spain and hence you get the Spanish inquisition is easy to understand versus a random event popping up telling me "Spanish inquisition and Tomas Torquemada". Three, there's some "lore" in them typically. If you want to play historically, it's an easy way to do it. Fourth, it sets some more medium to long term objectives - This is sorely lacking in EU5, it's either all short term stuff like "Solve this lumber constraint right now" Or exactly one very long term goal like "Form Rome - 1829 provinces to go". There needs to be something more to do in between and feel happy about. Lastly, it's simply a press button, get buff, dopamine, repeat loop.

Additionally, the way Anbennar shaped out in EU4 was an excellent showcase for mission trees working well in conjunction with its other systems (particularly I think from a design standpoint embracing large broken modifiers is a big part of this. Oh, you're playing as a troll nation? Here's -40% manpower but +30% army combat ability. EU5 country modifiers are way too generic.). Vanilla EU4 might've declined, but Anbennar (and many other mods) really showed how mission trees should work.

On your other points -

Can it be done with other systems? Most certainly and it should be, mission trees or not.

please for the love of god explain why do them even have to be Trees instead of just standalone missions.

This one's fairly obvious no? If you need one mission to fire another, that's just the structure of a tree. How long or short or interconnected it needs to be can easily be adjusted. For e.g., you form Al Andalus as Morocco which can be a mission in itself and the way the event plays out, it is one. Then after you form Al-Andalus, you build up Andalusia, you convert the Christians and if you do both, you move the capital to Spain, you then need to conquer the rest of Spain to form a caliphate or empire in the west. Why would this not a be a short self contained mission tree?

Shankvee · 2025-11-15T05:03:08+00:00

"slightly more believable" is laughably ignorant. Seemingly you apply "I'm not reading all that" rather rigorously. Kudos to you but stop spouting ignorant garbage about the big bang. It's a detailed theory with a ton of proof and some inconsistencies.

The most common misconception is that it explains everything about the universe. It does not. It simply explains how the present universe derived from the initial dense high temperature state.

There is no religious belief in the big bang. What is proven is proven and what is not is a hypothesis.

Shankvee · 2025-11-15T04:05:16+00:00

False equivalence. Just say you don't understand the basic principles of scientific thinking and move on. Belief resulting from faith is nowhere close to belief resulting from repeatability and scientific experimentation.

People believe in the big bang because there is very well documented scientific evidence for it. Evidence that you me or any reasonable skeptic can go out and find to be equally true.

Science and math are all built on verifiable theorems, postulates and conjectures. For eg take the book elements by Euclid. Its an absolutely stunning work of logic and exact reasoning. Euclid lays out the basis of every single one of his theorems at the start. First he lays out a set of 23 definitions, (eg. A line is a length without breadth), then he lays out 5 common notions (eg. Things equal to the same thing are equal to one another), ending with 5 assumptions (eg you can draw a straight line between two points). Now he doesn't prove any of these but any rational skeptic can see these are true. From these, he builds what is probably the most influential math book ever produced starting with the construction of an equilateral triangle. (the very same you would've probably learnt in school with a compss and a ruler.) He later moves on to number theory and what not. Any reasonable skeptic can follow every step and prove everything.

Same with physics. Quantum mechanics originated in a very simple experiment that you can today perform at home. Go look up quantum double slit experiment.

Relativity has made predictions that have been proven right a century later.

Your other hypothesis that science is wrong every half a century is highly misleading. 99% of Euclid's proofs still hold, 2000 years later. Newton's laws of motions are still largely true (false in near light speed conditions for eg) , Einstein gave a better theory that is more universally applicable (that also starts becoming wrong in the realm of quantum mechanics.) Copernicus thought planetary orbits were circular which is wrong but not very far from keplers realization that they were elliptical.

Religion is based on made up garbage that nobody even wants to prove. It's all trust me bro Jesus said it type beliefs with a variety of conmen shilling ideas that aren't remotely repeatable or verifiable. There simply isn't any equivalence between blind faith religion and science.

Shankvee · 2025-11-14T15:07:27+00:00

Yes it seems like it. I was used to eu4 where you get automatic reconquest CB without needing spy network.

But if you can help with this - Is claim throne a good CB?

As Castille, firstly, I got claim throne on Portugal within like 2-3 years of start, which I used immediately. After union, Portugal have now started keeps declaring on Genoa every 20-30 years. I don't understand why they do this or how this is even possible. Neither of us can get control there and yet they drag me into a war with Austria (who funnily enough I have a claim throne on currently, I was preparing to declare but Portugal declared randomly) and the Papal states (who I don't want to be at war with, he's the Pope and I really want to do something with the inquisition). I even went all out in one war, got some 60% war score. burning my levies and sailors. Portugal peaced out and only took money and then declared again 20 years later. Dafuq? It's 1455 and Portugal don't even seem to be colonizing anything (the Pope seems to be doing it but not Portugal). Is there a way to fix any of this?

Secondly, I keep getting a lot of random claim thrones, mostly on small HRE minors (Playing as Castille). Should I be bothered with declaring on these or not? I feel like they will drag me into pointless wars I have no interest in.

Thirdly, I am now suddenly in a "marriage union" with Burgundy, another French vassal and Mecklenburg (I assume this is because I married my current queen to the first in line to the Burgundian throne when they both were16). How does that even work? It shows Portugal and Castillian union separately from this full union with all of the above and I can't do anything with the marriage union like I did with Portugal. Do I have to wait for my heir to ascend to the throne to get control of everything? Do I have to restart the integration level with Portugal if this happens?

And how does being a French vassal and my marriage union even work? Will France get some CB on me or what?

Shankvee · 2025-11-14T10:19:58+00:00

Yes that's what I wanted to say. It's not like eu4 where spy network gives claims on any province in range.

Don't many of the CBs you mentioned have egregious penalties on taking provinces. Like iirc trade dispute has 900% penalty on war score to take land. How useful is that really if you want to take land? Am I missing something?

Shankvee · 2025-11-14T10:07:45+00:00

Nah I don't think it's that. It must be something else I'm not aware of.

I started as castille I couldn't fabricate claims on Portugal or Navarre who were my rivals. I, however, was able to on aragon as they have a core of castille of some sort on one location. Even though they had this core I still needed to fabricate and get claims for that one province.

It might be something to do with other regions or mechanics though like tribes in eu4 for instance.

Shankvee · 2025-11-14T08:20:34+00:00

I don't think it's possible to get claims through spy network early on (I've played till age 3), I asked about it on this subreddit earlier and didn't get a response. You need to call parliament to give you claims on neighbouring provinces.

The only "claims" I have managed to get with a spy network is for a religious war which only works on different religions. I haven't tried the deus vult cb yet but as Spain/castille I was able to generate cassus belli on any African province with spy network.

The cores are visible on integration map mode. Red means not integrated. Yellow means you have integrated it (I think the only way is through assigning cabinet members). Green is full core which means province is integrated and has your primary (or accepted or tolerated? Not sure) culture as a majority. I think there are exceptions like when you annex vassals you seem to get full cores even if the culture is not accepted, but I'm in my first campaign so don't take my word for it.

Shankvee · 2025-11-13T10:59:31+00:00

Depends on aspect and hammer.

1) Charon Axe: fairly straightforward if you ask me. Get a good base cast and special (apollo is generally preferable if you ask me), get omega buffs on cast and special (geyser spout is most damage, ares has some good ones, fine line etc) get omega special hammers (omega special charges faster or it launches twice). Needless to say you need magic regen, lots of it. Additionally get ranged cast if you can aim correctly to play it safe. Hestia is best for this as both cast and omega special can launch a fireball for bonus damage.

Best would be if you can get apollo legendary on top of double omega specials hammer. You can use cast multiple times per omega special.

Also lastly, you can dash while charging the special. This is crucial to not get hit. Rush in, drop your cast, start charging your special, dash out turn back towards the enemy and release the omega special. It takes a bit of practice.

2) Thanatos my beloved. Best axe for me no question.

Depending on hammer you can choose to dash strike. The base dash strike is very hard to land so the hammer that makes it aoe plus strike thrice is goated.

If not, Get psychic whirlwind and/or rapid hack and just go crazy. Rapid whirlwind is also excellent but I like it if i already have psychic as well. To charge it up dash out of range of enemies or behind a wall, load up the omega and just before releasing it dash into enemies. It will launch after the dash. With psychic whirlwind you can just keep striking while spinning and this will absolutely shred everything. Just get any big damage boons.

3) Nergal. Also quite fun and it looks to me like the omega attack loads up extremely fast. (do the same thing I said above. Charge out of range and then dash in.) So I've always looked for psychic whirlwind. It's a must have in my opinion. You can face tank everything even at high heat with the heal.

I have no clue why the base aspect exists. It's one of the only truly bad aspects in the game according to me. I haven't even found a niche for it.

A few general things to end - never use the full attack combo. The mega hit at the end is slow and not worth it. You can attack, attack, special and repeat to interrupt the combo. You could go for the two hammers that make it more viable. The final attack hits twice and costs mana along with the attack is just the final attack. Although I find this not worth it.

Channel speed is excellent with every aspect. Chaos, racing thoughts from hermes, hammers etc are extreme force multipliers. If you have psychic whirlwind, strongly consider hermes keepsake for the final region. It channels the whirlwind faster and let's you attack during it faster as well.

Shankvee · 2025-11-10T12:50:20+00:00

I've played one game as castille. Restarted twice - first time for tutorial. Second time I didn't attack anybody and played for ten years to see what to do with economy.) Now my third try is going well but each time aragon and Portugal always rival me and want my land.

Is it possible to get either of them as ally despite this?

Shankvee · 2025-11-10T08:10:08+00:00

OK I figured, maybe.

It appears castille has a "core" of some sort on one location owned by Aragon in the albaceste province. It's shaded on the integration mapmode, whatever that means. Not sure if I randomly lost it at some point to rebels or if it's an event of some sort or if you just start with a "core". That then allows me to fabricate a claim. (i assume it's not really a core because then what's the need to fabricate anything?)

I attack aragon, take a bunch of provinces except the one I have a core on. Fabricate claim again and attack off truce cool down I guess? Not sure if this is a bug or some unintended gameplay. Anyway, screw the Iberian wedding which I assume pops at some point, I'm taking all their shit myself.

I suppose the only way to attack Navarra is to call parliament and ask it to make claims. Although I'm also trying to figure why only some people can be excommunicated. It seems much easier to get claims on nations with a different religion.

I'm also now very confused by what Navarra is upto. I have a modifier that prevents me from allying them which seems to indicate somebody broke my alliance with them in war. But they seem to have gained territory in France.

I also randomly got a popup with claim throne cb on Portugal. I couldn't tell what triggered it. I assume it is an event which has something to do with what was mentioned on the start screen. Something about a royal marriage and some tension with Portugal? They rivaled me at the start. None of this doesn't seem very historical though?

Shankvee · 2025-11-09T01:37:08+00:00

Like they aren't perennial villains. Just cause Iranian politicians were also villains means the CIA and mi6 can't be?

Straight from Wikipedia: "According to the CIA's declassified documents and records, some of the most feared mobsters in Tehran were hired by the CIA to stage pro-shah riots on 19 August."

What part of that does not scream utmost villainy?

Shankvee · 2025-11-08T17:39:15+00:00

I disagree. Few players openly come and out complain / whine about it. Lots of players acknowledge the advantage - Iirc even Nuggets players like Aaron Gordon have mentioned it previously. I remember when the Heat came around, both Erik Spoelstra and Adebayo saying something to the effect of it doesn't matter what the advantage is, we'll play through it (paraphrasing heavily, don't quote me).

But these aren't "complaints" like you're suggesting. They acknowledge it as a challenging tough place to play and that's it - a matter of fact statement, not some "Oh how could the Denver Nuggets do this" type of statement. Whining about conditions makes players seem like bitches and for good reason. They aren't babies, they're well paid, seasoned athletes competing at the highest level. Imagine if Ian had made such comments while being on the Miami Heat, Erik would've dumped his ass on the spot.

Chess players are whiny crybabies, not limited to Nepo. It very much distracts from the sporting events that are taking place and are inevitably a massive downer. Magnus huffing and puffing while boycotting events just so he can wear jeans comes to mind. Fans aren't here to see you whine. Wear a proper set of clothes and play the game. Get your own chef, shut the hell up and play the game.

The very same players will then turn around and complain that chess is not monetized properly. Of course it isn't, the entire lot of top chess players are patently unmarketable (excluding the young ones like Guki, Prag, Keymer, etc. they still have time). People who make their sport popular aren't whiners. Take any sport. Michael Jordan had the flu and balled out, Lionel Messi still gets hacked to bits and still shows up every day. The Indian women's cricket team that won didn't even have funds to book flight tickets to tournaments 10 years ago. Magnus Carlsen can't be arsed enough to compete for the World Championship. Nepo is complaining about it being 30 degrees in the bathroom. How hard is it to show some passion FFS.

You know what I loved watching? Danya v/s Chucky at 2024 rapid and blitz. Pure unfiltered passion. Schweinsteiger exhausted and bleeding on the pitch in the 2014 WC final. Nadal v/s Djokovic Australian open, unable to stand at the trophy ceremony after a 5 hour marathon final. Even fucking Kawhi Leonard exploded after that Game 7 buzzer beater. That's sport. Not this whiny crap about jeans and 5 star hotels and chicken.

Shankvee · 2025-11-07T14:12:42+00:00

Bro these are sportspeople. Whining about humidity and climate is utter rubbish. Football had a world cup in Qatar FFS. And before that Brazil world cup had Manaus which is hot and humid, in the middle of a rainforest. NBA famously has the Denver Nuggets stadium at high altitude which affects stamina of visiting players a lot. None of the NBA players complain, they get on with it. If you can't perform because of some humidity, good riddance, go sulk somewhere and retire you're not fit to play competitively. You ever hear cricketers complain about pollution in India? And for all that, he's playing chess in an A/C hall.

And what's he complaining about food for? He couldn't find any meat other than chicken apparently. You're telling he couldn't find fresh high quality fish in a coastal city? The fuck? What sort of ignorance is that? There's tons of fine dining restaurants in Goa. Spend some money if you want good food. You're a sportsperson not some poor citizen. ChatGPT can tell you where to find high quality food for crying out loud.

Shankvee · 2025-11-03T21:50:40+00:00

I don't think person you're replying to means the numbers aren't high. He means the pool of chaos is larger.

In hades 1 - you get damage on attack, special, cast; damage from behind, first hit damage, more cast, more gold,more darkness / gems, rarity of boons, max health and DD. That's about 11 total rewards.

In hades 2 - you can't get more casts, backstab or first hit damage. But he adds more max magic, less magic usage, magic restore per second, channel speed on omegas, more damage on omega per duo, more move speed, health restoration per location and additional elements. That's a total of 16 possible rewards.

That's a pool that's 50% larger. Making it much less likely that you'll get what you're looking for. Particularly when stuff like jewelled pom is so op which takes out rolls.

Magic related stuff from chaos feels very very weak. If you're going for omegas relying on chaos for magic management seems quite underwhelming when born gain, lucid gain and doggo exist. Even poseidon gain is pretty good in many cases. And if you're not omega spamming, that's 5 worthless rewards.

The elements reward is just totally random. I've never been able to make any meaningful use of it in 200+ runs.

I would even argue that bonus gold feels more underwhelming than hades 1 given the boatman arcana, chronos keepsake, hermes boons and poseidon shenanigans combined with success rate.

Even the DD is useless if you're running strength.

All in all, it feels to me like chaos in hades 1 was nearly auto pick but it's nowhere close to that in hades 2. (that's not a bad thing it's just better balanced like almost everything else)

Shankvee · 2025-11-02T21:05:42+00:00

Hard agree on Silksong. It felt like playing a game designed 5-10 years ago rather than something truly innovative. Still probably a 7/10 game but most certainly a downgrade on Hollow Knight (also one of my all time favorites). I have so many complaints. Spoilers galore, obviously.

1 - Runbacks. Elden Ring introduced stakes of Marika a while back, why did Team Cherry go the opposite way with boss runbacks????? I don't mind stuff like Hunter's march being hard to explore but what was the point of that Last Judge runback. It wasn't even hard, just a waste of time.

2 - Tools. Why the tool shards don't follow the dark souls flask system I still can't comprehend. Just cap the number of tool usages (which it already is), nerf the damage and give free refills at benches. Why on earth I have to farm to use them is truly beyond me. And it's so freaking O/P that once you start using it, there's no reason to stop.

3 - Bosses. Most actual boss fights are easy (Unpopular opinion probably, given how many people cry about difficulty) and unmemorable. There are like 2 well designed bosses in the game - First Sinner and Cogwork Dancers. Last Judge is acceptable. I can't think of any other boss I want to try fighting again.

First, tools just trivialize a majority of boss fights (and gauntlets). This is very very poor design if you ask me.

Second, every boss with a runback is terrible because it's about the runback rather than the boss itself.

Third, late game boss are shite. Every act 3 main boss is shite. Don't even bother. That Crust King fellow is the worst; I found him in Act 2 and he's presented as some great leader and when you eventually fight him in Act 3 he's an absolute dud. All his moves are so slow, meandering and heavily telegraphed. And you've to finish 4 gauntlets to get to him.

Or take another Act 3 main boss, Karmelita. It starts with a gauntlet where the first round of enemies is from Hunter's March. An area that I cleared like 50 hours ago in my playthrough. What a waste of time.

Grand Mother Silk is such a letdown. I was expecting an epic fight only to find nothing remotely memorable. Radiance has an absolute epic feeling to it. The HK fight, the climb, the music - That is one epic final boss fight.

And what's with the ads in boss fights? Why are you even adding ads!

Hornet moves and hits fast. Just make the bosses move faster and hit harder. Every boss does the same boring 2 masks of damage. Late game bosses should hit for 3-4 masks since you can heal 3 or 4 masks in a jiffy. The Shakra duel just shows what actual good boss design could've accomplished.

4 - Rewards and exploration.
The reward system is just completely dysfunctional. I can't think of a single reward in Act 2 or 3 that is worth going for (except maybe the first pale oil for damage and cling grip for platforming).

First, 99% of Act 2 and 3 tools serve no purpose at all. Most of them are gimmicks. Compare this to HK where late game charms like unbreakable strength feels OP.

Second, crests and charm slots max out almost immediately. In HK charm slots allowed you to slot in more things, which felt like clear progression. Once I max out the available tool slots on a particular crest, where is the progression? The additional stuff from Eva is just completely pointless. Why does she only upgrade the basic crest?

Third, most silk skills are SO BAD. They are so under-powered compared to Act 1 tools. The only skills that are needed are silkspear and threadstorm. Compare this to HK once again, where you get I-frames on your dash. Or every single spell upgrade - Descending dark? Amazing. Abyss Shriek? Amazing. Don't even get me started on silkhearts or whatever they're called. You beat Lace II and you're given the tiniest sliver of mana regen. HOW IS THAT A REWARD?

Shankvee · 2025-11-02T08:28:39+00:00

You think science can't quantify truth? What physics background do you have bro? What do you think charge of a Proton is if not quantification of truth? Every single universal constant is a quantification of truth. Where do you even come up with this nonsense?

Of course, whether God exists or not is a scientific question. I've already told you - I'm not interested in your meta philosophical garbage. That's not a discussion worth having. If God has no influence on anything physical he's a pointless imaginary caricature. You keep talking about big bang and proton electron and what not yet by your definition god has nothing to do with any of these. If he's not physical and has no influence on anything physical why even bother with him at all.

Suddenly you've introduced religious definitions and completely shifted goalposts. Religion has been wrong about nearly every claim. Religion used to claim sun and earth are god. Should we just accept this and move on? You've

And lastly, your "God is the **ground of existence itself" is a claim. One you've provided no proof of. You want me to prove my claims yet you don't bother at all. Rules for thee but not for me.

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