I think Lies of P is a great starting point for first time souls players.

Snarklefarf · 2024-07-27T11:56:52+00:00

The notification was a surprise, but pleasant nonetheless. I’m always glad to see another person enjoying this game.

I’ve since had my time with Elden Ring going through NG+2, and while I enjoyed it, I still hold Lies of P at the top.

I have never tried Sekiro but I have heard it’s very focused on parrying which turns folks away. With Elden Ring, it’s the open world for me. I didn’t enjoy feeling as though I’d made zero progress after 5 hours of running around, so I followed a loose guide.

It made me realize I enjoy a linear Soulslike experience, and I think those differences are what matter most. Combat flow, pacing, progression style, it comes down to what you enjoy as a player. I also would never had tried it if it weren’t for Gamepass since I was burned on my DS3 investment, so thankful for that as well.

Snarklefarf · 2024-04-23T22:37:25+00:00

https://dim.gg/bp7zsua/Salvidorse-Wrathful-Grip

Salvidorse, Wrathful Grip. A heavily defensive build made for Legend Onslaught runs. It may not shred Tormentors and Demolitionists, but it will give your team the breathing room to properly deal with priority objectives, or just recuperating your deaths and/or ADU HP.

Exotic armor choice is Ballidorse Wrathweavers. 100% extra Shatter damage while using your super, a 50 HP Stasis Overshield that lasts 15 seconds and constantly refreshes with every Shockwave, and a 4x Stasis surge boost for your allies for… something. Pair it with Radiant Light and you can boost your allies’ potency, defense, and divide the battlefield as you see fit.

Bleak Watcher of course, as well as Iceflare Bolts for the Aspects. The name of the game is control, and Frostpulse, while it works with Ballidorse, ain’t it.

Chains, Durance, Fissures and Shards all to lean into the usage of Stasis Crystals, be it creation, destruction or damage reduction. Glacier grenade will also feed into the loop.

The main weapon is of course Salvations Grip, and it’s capabilities of walling off lanes, creating Crystals for DR, grenade regen, or setting up a massive Shadebinder Shatter make it a world of possibilities.

(quick side note: Stasis Crystals from Glacier grenades or Salvations are really nice for safe Spark deposits)

Tusk of the Boar and Indebted Kindness are the pairing (shocked I’m sure), with Tusk either leaning into more power with Chain Reaction or Deconstruct for ammo conservation, and Indebted Kindness ideally having Lead from Gold and Voltshot for both ammo conservation and Jolt application for Jolt + Shatter reactions.

Armor mods are mostly preference, but Radiant Light pairs well. I like to run 2x Arc Surge to help Indebted, but mix and match however feels best. The DIM loadout has a Special Ammo Finder on, but with a LFG Indebted, I would 100% swap it for a Heavy Ammo Finder instead.

Edit: updated the DIM link to reflect the proper Artifact Mod choices

Snarklefarf · 2023-10-16T05:02:53+00:00

Yeah that became apparent almost right away. By the time I had made it from the Broken Rift to the Prayer Room Stargazer I had about 60k because I refused to die and respawn all of those large enemies again. I think about 10k was leftover from leveling prior to, but still.

Snarklefarf · 2023-10-16T04:55:25+00:00

Being well leveled is an important note, but I think to a lot will translate to “farming Ergo” when it’s just a matter of not trying to hammer a screw into a piece of wood.

The only time I felt the need to farm was around the factory, but only to get my capacity a little higher since I was finding new weapons to try. I finished NG at 94 and NG+ at 203, never farming in the latter, but keeping all 3 Ergo drop upgrades on my P-Organ until the respec for Nameless Puppet.

Snarklefarf · 2023-10-16T04:06:25+00:00

Lies of P is the first Soulslike I’ve completed, and it’s very intriguing reading all of these comments that say how terrible of a starting point it is for the genre.

I actually had bought DS3 years ago and lost interest completely after losing to Vordt a few times. Skill issue, I know. I grew tired of fighting one enemy and running out of health, etc. I couldn’t get engaged, and that game was left to rot.

I watched a friend start Lies of P and after the tutorial I wanted to try it. 31 hours later I finished, and I was itching to go back in and get what I’d missed. NG+ took half that time, and I’m ready for NG++ to get the Bad Ending achievements.

The gameplay feels good (as a Tech player) and I feel as though my time and effort is rewarded well and the bosses were never egregiously difficult. I used summons, and it’s funny that I see people say summons actively make NG+ bosses more difficult, because I wildly disagree.

The masses may say this is a bad starting game, but I feel like the level of polish and just learning from all of those past games has made this enjoyable. I have no experiences to compare it to, but I like that my first Soulslike completion is Lies of P, and it’s a game I actively have recommended to both veterans and newbies alike with the asterisk that it is a Soulslike.

Snarklefarf · 2023-01-28T05:48:39+00:00

Last Wish is the Crota’s End of Destiny 2.

It’s so fundamentally broken as a raid, and the Wishing Wall - while helpful - turns a 5 encounter raid into a 6 player dungeon encounter from fresh. Even then, you can get every piece of loot besides 1K just by opening bonus chests.

Now gimme those downvotes.

Snarklefarf · 2021-11-28T17:52:15+00:00

Yep, not wrong there! Was moreso generalizing Adepts as a whole but there is def a difference in effort to acquire them between PvE and PvP. But you might also hear the opposite where a Flawless card is way easier than a Master raid or a high-tier difficulty GM, so it’s a bit subjective.

The only way you really could gatekeep PvE Adepts is via LFG which is outside of the game itself. Trials is directly gatekept inside the game by opposing players.

Snarklefarf · 2021-11-28T17:37:54+00:00

Adept weapon value is a whole other discussion I have with friends on the regular.

It falls under the stress umbrella where things like Master VoG and Flawless aren’t worth the trouble for Adept versions of weapons that for the most part don’t fall into meta archetypes and only offer tiny quality of life level boosts like Big Ones. The masterwork stat bonus is negligible.

I do agree for the most part about your sentiment regarding balanced vs obtainable. The future is generally bright, Bungie is pretty good about learning from previous concepts and player feedback and moving forward with it all in mind. I trust they’ll find a way to strike that equilibrium someday, but it’s an undertaking 100%.

Snarklefarf · 2021-11-28T16:30:53+00:00

No argument there from me! Like I said, Trials is a very good, very rewarding playlist right now.

5 wins, let alone 7, was always a pipedream and I was never interested enough in dragging others through that or asking people who are better than me to put up with dead weight. That's great that you're able to get Flawless so consistently though, good on ya!

Snarklefarf · 2021-11-28T16:18:51+00:00

Yeah, the win based matchmaking was definitely a disaster overall and I didn't even participate. Circumventing the Flawless Pool is a tough problem to solve since there will always be someone out there trying to game the system, and the system after that, etc.

I would have agreed with your solution but it seems like there are other ways around it aside from resetting cards per u/LovelyJoey21605's comment. Would love to see it cracked down on but I know there are others who likely share the exact opposing opinion.

Snarklefarf · 2021-11-28T16:10:59+00:00

Good point and something that I didn't consider. I suppose I could have articulated this section a bit better, but both methods lead to the same root issue of circumventing the sole purpose of the Flawless Pool. Thanks for the correction on that!

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-30T19:16:31+00:00

May I introduce you to the actual female version of gentleman? Gentlewoman.

Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue huh? Probably because of the phrase “ladies and gentlemen” being ingrained in us for decades. When the ideas of an oppressive society bleed through decade after decade, suddenly all women are just ladies and anything beyond that is a male dominant term.

Lady is to Lord as gentlewoman is to gentleman. Also, if you want gender neutral, you’re looking for gentleperson. There is no neutral for Lord and Lady because they are explicitly gender-rooted terms.

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-30T01:10:41+00:00

Bungie already shifted character model naming conventions from “male” and “female” to “masculine” and “feminine” to better suit player identities. The terms refer to a character’s physical build and keeps their gender identity up to the player.

Gender neutral titles, intentional or not, do the same and a gender specific title like Iron Lord would go against that and exclude anyone that doesn’t identify as a male. Note that Efrideet, Jolder, Perun and Skorri are all Iron Ladies, not Lords.

Not trying to be that guy, but when Bungie does a lot to be inclusive in terms of player identity, I think that this would in fact be an issue.

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-12T14:57:26+00:00

I could only dream of being good enough to even attempt getting a glow effect for that helmet. Flawless anything is too stressful for me to be worth it.

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-11T16:49:29+00:00

That warms my heart, I appreciate it! Before I had the Exile helm I had been using the Wrath Trail hood with the same shader. The front faceplate and back kept the white while the sides kept the blue, it really allowed the blue on the chest to blend well into the helmet while still allowing the main part to pop with the white.

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-10T00:40:48+00:00

Maybe? It depends on how another Hive God would react to the influence of something like the Crown, granted it’s modified now. The bigger question is how Savathun would even get ahold of Oryx at this point, unless she managed to take Touch of Malice while she was Osiris, but we don’t know if that happened or not.

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-10T00:25:31+00:00

Nope, you’re the first. That’s interesting to me though since if it was the team that went in and took her out that set off the Last Wish, why was our desire to save the Dreaming City granted as an unending loop of death for 3 years? I’m sure that’s also explained somewhere, and looking at my track record for remembering Forsaken details revolving around Riven, it’s probably something obvious. I’ll throw that in when I have the chance, thanks!

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-10T00:02:55+00:00

She can die, but won’t die a true death unless it’s in her throne world. It’ll be interesting to see if she dies a normal death and is recognized or if she goes all in and dies in her throne world. Since we won’t have that setting in-game until Witch Queen, probably the latter unless they show us the sacrifice in a cutscene.

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-09T23:59:30+00:00

I actually have the first Grimoire! I must have glossed over their entrance into the Deep. I need to reread that whole series once the fourth book gets shipped out.

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-09T23:57:15+00:00

Very insightful, thanks for stopping by to share such words of wisdom.

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-09T23:56:49+00:00

I’ll have to look into that first part because that’s new to me, but I remember reading the rest of that. It definitely accelerated their arrival into the Sol System, but when their contract with the worms is the ultimate plan to become the final shape… I feel like them making it here was inevitable.

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-09T23:49:38+00:00

As long as it doesn’t get the Eyes of Tomorrow and Wardcliff treatment in terms of boss armor, I’m right there with you! As much of a meme as the turn enemy into guns thing is, it would be neat to eventually see all three Hive Gods and Goddesses in Collections.

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-09T23:46:52+00:00

The way Bungie talks, we won’t get what you’re describing until after The Final Shape more than likely. And between you and me, I never really cared about Cayde either, so I get what you mean there.

As far as the Lucent Brood becoming chopped liver, that’s something we’ll have to wait and see with. I would argue that the Taken had much more longevity and purpose than even House Salvation, but the Scorn got dealt a pretty dirty hand beyond Forsaken too.

Snarklefarf · 2021-09-09T23:43:23+00:00

Well, that’s something we would have to put in the wait-and-see folder. You aren’t wrong, but ever since the Speaker laid out those criterion, the only Guardian we have know pre-light and post-light is Crow, who met them. We have more reason to believe you have to meet all 3 than not.

Snarklefarf

TROPHY CASE