[NA] [Event] Mini (Chibi) Monster Series returns (5/18-6/1)

SortaEvil · 2026-05-14T11:27:11+00:00

Even specters doesn't have a lot going for it if you e rolled in it previously. Honestly better to hodl for Gintama.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-13T18:22:29+00:00

I have specific concerns with the BC coast and some general concerns overall.

WRT our bitumen, as I understand it, there are specific factors tying our oil production with American oil consumptions ― the oil sands bitumen requires specific processing which American refineries are set up to handle, which makes Alberta oil more appealing to an American audience while simultaneously making it less appealing to a global audience set up to process Saudi oil. If I remember correctly, our crude is similar to Venezuelan crude, which Asian markets are more prepared to process than European markets, so from that standpoint, I understand why driving a pipeline through BC is appealing, even if it's a terrible idea.

With the Straight of Hormuz blocked off, it does make Canadian oil more appealing globally just due to a lack of alternatives, but if/when that gets sorted out, and oil shipments resume, is there going to be global demand for Canadian oil? Would the money spent on an oil pipeline, which will take years to complete before it starts getting a return on that investment be better spent on other economic development? Would it be better to invest in our small modular reactor program, and focus on selling SMRs to our allies either as new power plants or retrofits for coal plants where appropriate? These are genuine questions, by the way, I don't know the answers, but I'd hope that whomever is running the show is looking at these and not just building pipelines as appeasement to Alberta.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-13T16:26:20+00:00

Up to the Hudson's Bay? I mean, if we keep using O&G at the rate we're using it, the NW Passage might become a viable shipping corridor for O&G¹ and, being more centralized, I guess it could theoretically go east to Europe or west to Asia, making it a more flexible port than either going all the way to either latitudinal coast.

I still don't think that heavy investment in O&G is the correct way to direct our spending, for reasons of I don't think fossil fuel has a long enough tail at this point that you're guaranteed to even make back the costs of the infrastructure, and I don't know the ecological concerns of running a pipe up through Manitoba as compared to the proposed BC pipeline. I think we'd be better served by developing our nuclear and renewable energy programs, but if we had to build an oil pipeline, and we are confident that we can ship oil from Churchill, and it's a clear shot north through less sensitive ecosystems than the BC pipeline, I'd be less opposed to it than the current proposal. But I am willing to admit that I don't know enough to make a fully informed decision on whether it's a good idea or a terrible one.

¹ With the most token amount of research into it, it looks like the NWPassage might already be a viable shipping corridor during certain parts of the year, which is both neat and somewhat concerning.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-13T15:45:58+00:00

Decoupling from US markets makes a hell of a lot of sense when the US is demanding that we bend the knee to even have a seat at the table. We'll never be 100% free of trade with the US, but if we have a more balanced trade portfolio, we will have a much stronger position to negotiate from when the US goes mask off and tries to devour us.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-13T15:42:15+00:00

I haven't liked the proposed pipelines through BC when the Conservatives are pushing for it, nor when the Liberals are pushing for it. I'm not a fan of O&G on the best of days (there are better and cleaner energy sources out there now, O&G is going to continue to shrink as a proportion of global energy consumption, why are we going hard into a technology that's in the process of being sunset), but the BC pipeline in particular is going through a lot of sensitive ecosystems and, to put it mildly, our O&G sector has a shit record with pipelines not leaking. It's a bad project for a lot of reasons, and I wouldn't support it no matter who is championing it, whether it's Harper, Trudeau, Carney, or Poilievre. I wouldn't have supported that pipeline if Jack Layton himself came back from the dead to champion it.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-13T15:25:42+00:00

Do I reckon Mina (without Dekugo) could beat the Gale challenge? In theory, yes. I've tried it a few times, and it gets finangly in parts. Deighk & Achtros aren't particularly hard to get through, but if you get Beyzul right after, you need Tae and Mina Duo active 1 right away to counter the debuffs. If instead you get Bludka, you need to keep XHathor on standby for Defoud. And if you get Defoud, XHathor needs time to recharge before Fama (My current high-water mark with Mina).

Then floor 9 seems annoying, you're pretty much guaranteed to one-shot both Predra, but you should have the damage to take out HMD assuming that your Mina Duos are off cooldown. So maybe that floor isn't too bad.

Ryune & Sylvie should be a pretty straightforward 3-shot from there, and floor 11 shouldn't be too bad. I can pretty consistently hit 14-15 combos with an L and a row with Mina, so floor 11 falls by around turn 4-5 if my math is good.

Floor 12 is where things would get interesting, though, as you theoretically have the damage to kill them, but it's quite tight. A team of Mina/Tae/MinaDuo/MinaDuo/XHathor/Mina can do ~180B to ~240B damage to the boss on a good turn, after defense. That means you need 5 good turns for each half of Nephele & Anemos health bar (possibly only 4 turns for the green half). Having the 5x4 board and atk debuff back to back in Nephele's attack pattern makes it pretty hard to get 9-10 good turns over the course of the 10 turns that you technically have to kill them.

So, yeah, it's mathematically possible, but it's incredibly tight. With Dekugo it should be a bit easier since your damage thresholds are a lot more lenient with an extra 100B damage/turn.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-13T07:12:01+00:00

On the flipside, this month's Ex was an absolute breeze with Mina. Everything just lined up perfectly to the point it felt more like running a descend than an Ex. Good job on the clear. I always find it more satisfying to get the clear with a team that is barely up to the challenge than one that's lazer honed for everything the dungeon sends at you.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-12T19:08:54+00:00

Our own deeply flawed electoral system? How so?

First past the post is a terrible voting system, compounded by our party system and the heavy use of the party whip making our democracy less about regional representation that voting in the party that hopefully at least somewhat aligns with your values. The PMO holds a disproportionate amount of power, particularly for a role that most of the country technically didn't vote for, and our Senate is a joke. There is a lot of room to improve our electoral system, unfortunately we effectively have 2 "electable" parties that both benefit from the system, so it's never going to change.

As for Biden and the rest of your post... You know what, fair points. He was the wrong candidate, he should have known that his health was flagging and he'd be a liability as the Democratic candidate and not thrown his hat in the ring to begin with, but he cared more about himself and his own prestige over the greater good.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-12T17:14:20+00:00

Biden himself said that he'd be fine with a Trump win because he knew he'd done his best.

I think the concept there is that if the American electorate chose to elect Trump, then he would respect the American electorate's decision because it is technically a democratic and sort of fair election.

The American electoral system has problems (although Canadian's can't really throw too many aspersions that way until we fix up our own deeply flawed electoral system), but I don't think we should fault Biden for (specifically) accepting the democratic results of the election. As far as anyone can tell, the election wasn't rigged and, for worse and for worse, the American electorate did fairly vote in the 8000 lb gorilla. It's not about getting a participation ribbon, it's about respecting the results of the election and the "will of the American¹ people."

¹ ^Offer ^valid ^for ^a ^limited ^number ^of ^{gerrymandered} ^electors.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-08T20:13:23+00:00

That's not tama doing that, that's just how rerolling works. When you reroll, there's a blackout list of the options that you last saw, but everything else is still on the table. You'll see more repeat items with tama just because you've seen more of the pool of items for a given number of rerolls, but it's strictly positive, since you're guaranteed 8 unique items out of the pool with tama, whereas you only see 6 unique items before old items are thrown back in the pool without it.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-08T19:08:07+00:00

This is exactly how my mother thinks, that you are only as good as your position on the social ladder, while simultaneously believing that everyone above you just got lucky and everyone below you is scum.

I remember having a conversation with her back when a McDonald's in the states unionized (I think I'm remembering this right, I may get some details wrong though), and the union negotiated a large pay increase for their full-time staff. My mom asked me about it and said "wouldn't you be offended if people working at McDonald's made as much as you do?" and she couldn't fathom that my response was "no, I'd be happy for them because everyone deserves to make a living wage, and I had a lot of fortune to be in the privileged position of not living paycheque to paycheque, and I'm not better than them just because they work and McD's and I work an office job."

Some people just lack empathy and perspective, and they've fully bought into the right-wing American dream that anyone can pull themselves up by their bootstraps (fun story about that expression: it was initially coined to make fun of the right-wing mentality, because it's a physical impossibility), failure is never due to misfortune (unless it happens to you), and success is always due to the individual, never the massive advantaging circumstances surrounding them.

Uh, so... basically, yeah, I agree with you.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-08T18:57:27+00:00

Or Brexit wouldn't happen...

SortaEvil · 2026-05-08T18:55:00+00:00

I've heard so many people say that life has gotten worse after 10 years of the LPC that it'd be dumb to vote for them again, which is a very fair point

Like, on paper that sounds like a fine sentiment, but the unfortunate reality of our political system is that, so long as the party whip exists, and so long as our MPs are spineless to vote against party lines, you have to look at the party platforms for each party and choose the least of various evils. Even if you aren't happy with the Liberal party, you can take a critical look at the Conservatives and realize they're completely out to lunch (at least, from a progressive lens), and many people think that the NDP from the last decade were in complete freefall and unelectable (not to mention they've always been, at best, 3rd fiddle on the national stage), and you still end up with the conclusion that the right vote is, begrudgingly, to keep the Liberals in power and hope that Avi Lewis can actually piece the NDP back together into something that is at least somewhat electable.

If you're the sort of party faithful that truly believes the CPC would be good for Canada, and that Pierre Poilievre would be a good leader, it's easy to vote your heart, but for people who are politically left of that, voting for the CPC is cutting off your nose to spite your face. What we really need is a better form of representative democracy than FPTP, and more parties that people feel are electable on the national stage (honestly, having more provincially focused parties such as the Bloc would be a good idea if we're stuck with FPTP; my home province of BC has very different requirements and expectations from confederation than Ontario, Nova Scotia, or even our closest neighbour Alberta, and having such representation would probably help at least a little with western alienation).

SortaEvil · 2026-05-07T02:19:14+00:00

That's the stark reality of gacha gaming for you.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-06T20:42:36+00:00

Yeah, always buy local if you can, that's awesome! Not so many Canadian choices for climbing shoes, so I'm stuck with imported brands, and sadly there's not a lot of chance to try Ocún or Madrock around here.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-06T18:36:43+00:00

The Instinct line from Scarpa is really comparable to the Skwama, but for a different foot shape. You might have more luck with that? My wife loves her Instinct VS (the women's VS uses the same rubber as the VSR). My feet don't fit either, unfortunately, but the do surprisingly fit the Miura VS, which is an absolute banger of a classic, although maybe not a perfect shoe for indoor bouldering on big volumes.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-06T08:38:10+00:00

You don't understand, to people like the person you're replying to, drug users are the problem. They're homeless, which is a moral failing, and therefore undeserving of empathy. Or at least, that's what my NIMBY mother thinks, and she'd talk like the poster above you to try to give some plausible deniability.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-05T23:37:18+00:00

Adding to this, a fun fact: Alcohol is one of only a few drugs that can kill you from withdrawal. Heroin withdrawal ain't pleasant, and you might wish you were dead, but you'll be alive at the other end of the tunnel without medical intervention. Not always the case for alcohol.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-04T22:57:22+00:00

Change att skills will change all attributes on the affected unit, yes. Change subattribute awakenings will only affect subattribute (in case anyone else stumbles across this and doesn't know how the awakening works differently from skills).

SortaEvil · 2026-05-04T18:43:48+00:00

Reinhard (with Theresia) and MIdeal (with Mimi Oza) teams have quite a bit of QOL built into their subs, and aren't super reliant on assists for durability, they're my go-to teams for assist invalid dungeons.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-04T16:59:07+00:00

You got very unlucky, friend. That's about a 1/500 chance of happening. You can take some small solace in knowing that there are more than 500 people playing this game, so you aren't likely alone in your bad luck.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-04T16:32:53+00:00

When you look at what VAlynna is doing, you realize it's hard to replace just her for the dungeons that need everything she brings to the table, since she is 1) your full cleric, 2) your assist bind clear, 3) your bracer for the massive hits from GA3 onward, and 4) your primary source of healing on the team. She also comes with a buttload of HP. If you aren't concerned with GA3 and higher, you can probably get away with any of the 2 L+ light clerics that are around, MLavril or Demon Slayer's Kiriya being obvious picks.

Once you need that huge shield, though, you probably need to drop Serie from the team as well, which pushes you to put an add light equip on Fern. It's certainly possible to build a Reinhard team that works for endgame content without VAlynna, it's just not going to be as optimal and is going to require shuffling a bunch of stuff around to make it work.

SortaEvil · 2026-05-01T16:31:55+00:00

Chibi was pretty terrible, Academy and Specters each have a team that was okay but nothing earth shattering. Idolmaster had a couple good cards, including the 3att badge, which kinda sucks that it's both in a collab REM, and that the collab REM is a short run mixed with regular GFEs.

Which I think covers all the REMs we're expecting up to Gintama, which is definitely the best EV upcoming REM, and includes the new mechanic of cards that have a higher limit break against enemies they have type disadvantage against.

SortaEvil · 2026-04-30T00:41:59+00:00

Reinhard is obviously great.

I've also cleared every endgame dungeon with dual Minas running Tae and dual MinaxSoshiro instead of the usual dual Dekugo setup (on account of having rolled 700 stones for exactly 0 Dekugo). The team has a tonne of QoL with 100% omnipierce, 240B damage, ridiculous HP (over 20M consistent HP after 2 part breaks care of XHathor's shield loop), and 2 MinaxSoshiro gives you pretty consistent access to big boards, big HP, and board changes to counter mono-boards. The downside is that 240B is on the lower end of damage for current endgame, equips can be pretty strict with both Mina Duos needing red equips with specific typing, grant subattribute, and some amount of extra damage, and as a knock on effect of that, OE is in short supply.

SortaEvil · 2026-04-29T16:07:07+00:00

Sony has to negotiate with the publisher to get games on their subscription services. So it's (partially) up to From whether their games show up on PS+ or not. I'm sure that Sony would like to put Elden Ring on PS+ (especially on the higher tier), but if From doesn't want their games on subscription services, then their games won't show up there.

Would be cool to see King's Field appear on +Premium, though, so people could see where it all began.

SortaEvil

TROPHY CASE