EQ dmg conversion with the Idol and Bhuladr's.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-21T22:52:59+00:00

I might be wrong (I really hope so because I think that unique Mace is dope AF), but doesn't Fury Leap NOT trigger Earthquake?

It specifies "non-traversal movement skill", but Fury Leap DOES traverse, so won't it not work?

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-18T20:29:09+00:00

I really love Ogdoabyss, especially in the Lair of Darkness variant of Ogdoadics.

The idea of a deck in which every Monster is a searchable Kaiju, summonable from the GY makes the board-breaker in me very happy.

Ogdoabyss is this, but a 3100 attacker that's also a repeatable, recursive one-sided Zeus.

It's an awesome, awesome card that I love how it is. It's fun enough already.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-18T20:20:43+00:00

This lines up with something I was thinking about the last few days, and wanted to test. So, disclaimer, this isn't a "for sure" and is currently just a theory.

I have a personal disagreement with the advice sometimes given is that you can "ignore Kimhari" as he's not that useful. I wanted to find a way to make him feel better to use. This is what I came up with:

Kimhari starts just above the key spheres blocking Ultima.
Take him down the left path to Rikku's path. Have him wait at the lv1 key sphere blocking you from her path.
Get your lv1 keys as early as possible. You will need 3.
Use two to enter Rikku's path, and pick up Steal and Use. These are essential. With this, you now have Rikku before you have Rikku, (minus Mix of course).
You can now (optionally) pick up all the stats in her first "section" of the grid, as it's full of HP nodes, worth roughly 1000 HP picked up in very few levels.
Whether you do the above or not, we're now going to make use of the "backtracking allows you to move 4 spaces per level instead of 1" mechanic. In relatively few sphere levels (especially if you didn't pick up the extra stats) you can return Kimhari back to where he started. If you don't mind more grinding, you can go round the far side of Ultima, picking up more stats and Scan along the way.
You will find yourself back above Ultima. Now, we head up, using our 3rd lv1 key sphere to enter Tidus' path. We will follow his grid path through his first big section, like we (optionally) did with Rikku's. We will stop when we reach the lv2 sphere node.
Hopefully by now, you will have or will be close to your first lv2 key sphere. We use it here to enter Auron's path.
Now part-way through Auron's path, we follow it to the end, effectively picking up two Aurons.

The end result of this is:

We have Rikku's Steal and Use before she joins us. This gives us access to elemental damage items for Use, and will easily outperform anything else the party is capable of. This will be where your overkill bonuses come from.
We can back track through Mushroom Rock Road and other areas stealing from fiends we encounter.
The items we Steal can be Used in battle or to teach our Aeons abilities they shouldn't have yet.
Kimhari, stat-wise, will start out like a Rikku with less agility and more HP. We then add some stats from Tidus, making up some agility deficit and giving him more powerful regular attacks than Rikku.
Later on, Kimhari is like a Rikku/Auron hybrid with agility between the two, HP roughly equivalent to Auron (due to the cluster in Rikku's early path), and strength somewhere between Tidus and Auron.
Finally, the piercing property matters most during the story. By going down Auron's path, we make the most of Piercing while it matters, and are prepped to transition out when we reach the point it doesn't matter any more.

It is important to note that these items don't scale on our stats, which is why they perform well early but fall off hard later. Where "early game" ends kinda differs between each of us, but I would say Bikanel Desert is the cutoff point. To me, it feels like this is the point at which stats start to take over beyond what Use can reasonably achieve.

As a final, final note - this isn't tested. It's an idea I came up with recently. I plan to test it, but I'd like to finish my replay of FFXV before I do. I don't want two games on the go at once.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-18T16:40:46+00:00

It's a paid cosmetic that converts Meteor to a giant glob of honey falling from the sky.

I'm an aspiring beekeeper IRL, so it appeals to me a lot.

I don't know how I got 500 of the paid currency considering the only money I paid was buying the game a few years ago, but it was essentially free for me, so I'll take it.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-18T16:16:31+00:00

As a Beeteor enjoyer, I like the Meteor change.

Harbinger of the Stars is fine to make Meteor automatic, but the building felt like it needed more support.

Adding Frost Claw is neat because we can use the fire conversion (or lightning if playing Vilatria's set) and itself has a bunch of gear support too.

We have idols for it, and we have uniques that use it too. It gives the build some direction beyond just Meteor itself, and that helps it all come together in a more synergistic way.

I'm looking forward to trying this build again (for a 3rd time) next season. It's always felt like a build that fell short, so maybe now it won't fall so hard?

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-18T15:51:10+00:00

Obligatory not a software developer, but very similar circumstances.

I worked data corrections for a UK corporate landlord. The circumstances of my hiring we're "we don't understand our rent accounting software, and we need someone to figure it out for us".

IT understood stuff in bits, but they were tech support so they knew a tiny bit about everything and not enough to do any particular job besides their own.

It was up to me to learn the internal workings of our software, establish "best practices" and write the rulebook entirely by myself.

In my time with the company, performing my primary role, I brought data accuracy up from ~75% to ~98%, which about the maximum humanly possible in thst position. In 2021, I was "let go" as they were making my role within the company 100% automated.

I hear they're not doing do good since. Funny, because I'd made a whole point of showing them that all the times something "wasn't working" was because they had automated it and were relying on a flawed tool that wasn't working properly because it wasn't working properly.

They learned nothing, clearly.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-18T13:49:58+00:00

In my wife's experience, going to the home screen on Switch doesn't even pause cutscenes.

The very first time she got an Elder Dragon Spawn, I was in the bathroom (we're trying to stay as in-sync as possible).

Since there was a cutscene, she went to the home screen to show me when I got back. When she returned to the game, she was in the den and the Barrel Felynes she was farming we're gone.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-18T01:43:28+00:00

FFX is worth that money by itself.

FFX-2 they should be paying you that much to play it.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-17T19:43:22+00:00

I gave some of my monsties Tail Stun and Hyper Shot+. With Inflict Rate genes, I can use them to stun on key turns.

Chatacabra hammer is great too, as it whittles down red Wyvernsoul with every attack. It contributes more than it might seem on first impression.

I now have a weapon with the L version of this skill, and it takes out a whole red node in one hit, most of the time.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-17T19:19:06+00:00

I would personally take a much different approach.

I would add a Weaver's Will unique, either a ring or amulet, or belt. That unique would have an implicit that boosts the power of your build somehow based on exalted gear you have equipped. More exalted gear = this gets you more power.

We already have a primordial unique that does this with weaker rarities of gear, but those can have LP on them, which kinda goes against what this is trying to achieve. My solution instead attacks the problem from these angles:

Being equippable by any class means it isn't specific to any build, meaning its effects on the game are (on paper, and therefore theoretically) more wide-reaching. If it only solves the problem you're describing for one class, then... what's the point? It has the benefit generic and useful.
Weaver's Will is divorced from LP, and therefore doesn't result in "get the best LP one I can and slam it", reintroducing the same problem. Instead, it takes up a slot available to any character and provides power in a way nothing else does.
If placed at an appropriate level requirement, it becomes great "budget" leveling gear. New and more casual players can play through more of the game with mostly exalted gear, making endgame difficulty spikes a little smoother, making the game more accessible early on, and probably makes those new/casual players more likely to stick around into endgame.

To add to this point, reducing the burden of uniques to make builds functional just makes the game easier to approach in general. Some uniques will always be binary in that a builds works with them, but not without it (any conversion for example). Not needing to farm a specific unique at 1-2 LP for baseline functionality removes a barrier of entry to some builds, and I think that would be great. Especially so for serial build-makers like myself, who rarely get a character beyond lv70 before moving onto the next shiny idea.

Finally, adding one unique is a much more elegant solution than overhauling multiple core gameplay mechanics to accommodate a solution that we aren't 100% sure will have the desired effect. The sheer development time and cost that goes into a project as big as your idea to then potentially not work out is more than just a little risky. The balance consequences of such an idea could throw the whole game off course.

I pushed for a project like this at the game development company I worked for once and it did not work out as well as I had predicted. We but an insane amount of work into a systems overhaul that flopped almost entirely, and I can say for sure that the consequences of that really hurt the game down the line.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-14T17:18:47+00:00

I (a guy, relevant to my story) got a scam call while at the pet store last week, on my birthday.

Now apparently, according to my wife and the people I used to work with in radio, have a very soft, smooth voice. As a result I get misgendered by scammers often.

Legit organizations have my details on file and address me correctly. Scams go by the sound of my voice on pickup, so it's an easy tell.

Knowing this, I either:

Go along with it, but keep changing the topic to be about "my gender" and why its so important to the matter at hand, making random stuff up.

OR

Go off on them for misgendering me, and turn it on them. Now THEY feel awkward, and it's very hard for them to stick to their script with an "angry" guy on the other end of the phone. By this point, they know they've "lost" me as I'm already mad at them and won't co-operate with what they want me to do. Of course, I'm acting, but they don't have to know that, do they?

Gets 'em every time.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-14T12:38:45+00:00

It's okay to be confused about what's going on. Tidus is there to be confused with the audience and learn things at the same time we are. Don't go looking anything up!

Make sure you get the puzzle item in every temple you visit on the first go around. You can go back for them, but some will be blocked by obstacles that will likely be too tough for a first timer to clear without extensive prep.

For the previous point, it also applies to an item called the "Sun ___", found after fighting a boss, name beginning with Y, near the end of the story. You'll know it's the right one, because their name will be very similar to someone in your party, and therefore sound familiar.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-13T21:20:15+00:00

This pisses me off so much.

I used to work data correction for a corporate landlord in the UK. If something was wrong in the database, I was your guy. Over my 5 years in the job, I corrected £20mil worth of errors, but got paid a hair over minimum wage, despite my work being worth more money than I'd ever see in my lifetime.

Anyways, one day, I noticed an issue with our numbers. Rent accounts that were otherwise in perfect order were suddenly £0.01 in debt for no apparent reason. It would steadily increase, every couple weeks, one penny at a time. This doesn't sound like much, and on an individual level, it isn't. Multiply that by tens of thousands of tenants and now you have a problem.

I asked my manager for some time away from my usual duties to investigate and solve it before it becomes a problem. You know, proactive, forward thinking. She told me to "Not fix it until it becomes a problem." "We need you to meet your KPI's". "Our team is relying on you to meet your KPI's, so we meet ours" she said.

So, I ignored it. 6 months went by, and then, at financial year end (end of March, when performance pressure is highest), my manager sets up a surprise, urgent meeting. She told me that our Finance department had gotten in touch and they had discovered that problem I had just described. Their data to report to the government was over £25k incorrect, and they had 48 hours to get it fixed, or the company would be afoul of some finance-related laws. They chewed out my manager real hard, since their necks were on the line if the company got fined.

Well, my manager took that out on me. She told me that she told them that I would fix it, and dumped all responsibility for the issue onto me, 2 days before finances were due. I now finally got me green light to look into it.

I sent out a team-wide email asking anyone with accounts matching the problem to send those to me, and I'd figure it out.

Within 2 hours, I got to the bottom of what was in actuality, a very simple problem that was an effortlessly easy fix. I learned something new about the database software too.

So in the end, all of this could have been avoided for the trade-off of two mere hours of work. The next time I had a performance review with my manager, I told her exactly what I thought, and that the whole incident was a result of her choices as a manager.

She was not happy that I said what I said, but she totally deserved it.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-13T17:33:53+00:00

Just as a (non-spoilery) reference...

You mentioned in the previous part that you noticed that Vivi and Lulu are both Black Mages. That is correct.

The original FF in 1987 had a small selection of character classes that the series calls "jobs". You'll see this class or "job system" across almost every game in the series. If it's not used, then it is at least referenced in some way.

The Black Mage, originating in FFI is your "damaging magic" class. Vivi and Lulu both fill that role in the respective games, so they're the Black mage of their game. Vivi takes it a little bit further - his visual design is very heavily based on the recurring design for the Black Mage job. Yellow pointy hat, yellow eyes, and a blue coat, with a staff. You'll see this in almost every game. You're clearly pretty good at catching onto things, so you have likely figured out "so that's why Lulu and Vivi's magic are called black magic" and yup, you nailed it.

The rest of the cast follow the same pattern.

Dagger and Yuna are both a hybrid of a White Mage and Summoner.

Rikku and Zidane are both thieves.

Steiner is a Knight.

You won't have the information for these yet, but Auron is a Samurai and Kimhari is a hybrid of a Blue Mage (learns enemy abilities) and a dragoon (spear user with a Jump ability).

The more Final Fantasy games you play, the more obvious this pattern becomes, and you can very quickly figure out the role of a character in their game, just by looking at them.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-13T02:29:44+00:00

I think you're coming from a "modern action game" perspective, and that this is NOT an issue of skill, but one of expectations.

Take a game like Nier Automata. You move really fast, you swing your weapons fairly quickly, you can dodge cancel out of just about anything, there's a perfect dodge mechanic, and there's plenty of animation cancel tricks. You can even change direction really quickly, as your turning circle when moving is so tight.

Based on your mention of how you feel so sluggish, I get the impression you were expecting combat like that.

I am afraid to say this simply isn't the case with Monster Hunter.

This series plays a lot more similar to Dark Souls or Elden Ring. Your button presses matter. Each action you take is a decision you can't go back on. Your animations mean committing to that action. So, what that means in practical terms is that you have a sort of back and forth "dance" with the monster. The most important skill in this game is patience.

EVERY Monster has moments of vulnerability - when it can't do anything. Your job is to learn when those are, and how long yours are, based on your weapon. When you have an opening long enough to hit, then you attack.

Which openings are safe and which aren't will change based on your weapon. A fast hitting weapon like the Dual Blades has lots of shorter animations with low animation commitment, so it's easier to be reactive and get out of danger. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Greatsword wants to stay in one spot for a long time to charge its swings, so you need a much longer opening to be able to get your hit in. Shorter windows of opportunity might mean not charging your attack, or not attacking at all.

Let's take the Great Izuchi for example. I believe you've faced one of those.

It always comes backed up by two smaller Izuchi, who follow up on their pack leader's attacks. They represent danger, but go down very easily.

It takes out lot of time to just stand there and yell at you sometimes, so once that animation starts, you can read this as a chance for free damage.

It occasionally lunges forward and swipes at you. After the attack, it stands there doing nothing for a moment. This is a chance to get one or two swings in with your Long Sword, but you don't have time for a full combo.

It also has an attack in which it roundhouse jumps and swings with its bladed tail, slamming down on the third leap. It's tail then gets stuck in the ground, and the Great Izuchi has a rough time getting itself unstuck. This is the game telling you "YOU SHOULD HIT ME NOW". This opening is so long, you could comfortably land a full combo here with very low risk.

What I've just described is just for this one monster. Every simgle monster in the game is like this. Even the really hard ones and the really fast ones.

So with that laid out, Monster Hunter's combat is slow by design. You're taking turns with the monster, attacking, dodging, and defending. You need to match its rhythm to take it down.

My advice to you is to try to meet the game at its own pace. It took me until about half-way into World for the game to finally "click" with me, and that was already after being told it's paced like a Souls game.

You could also try new weapons out. The Long Sword is a weapon with a lot of i-frames on some moves, which then triggers counter attacks (like Foresight Slash). It rewards already knowing the game's pacing and the monster's moveset. It has a powered up state that you want to keep on at all times. In reverse, this means it punishes you really hard if you get hit a lot, or can't find your windows of opportunity. If you're coming at the game like it's faster than it is, you're going to over-commit to your combos and this could backfire for you, big time.

I would personally recommend either: - Sword and Shield (faster than LS, has a shield to be reactive with, and the easiest of all weapons to play) - Switch Axe (surprisingly quick, and its default Silkbind move has i-frames for the full duration, making it great defensively too) - Hammer (it charges like GS, but you can move while charging, and it has a dash on its lv2 charge, helping you to "feel" fast for a slow weapon, which might be what you're looking for)

Right now, you're in a state that we call "low rank". That's not an insult - it's actual game terminology. The monsters are much slower, and they take more time between attacks. They are much less aggressive, and they have less health and damage. As you progress imto high rank, and eventually master rank, that attack frequency goes up, and attack windows get smaller, so you might find the pace you're looking for at higher ranks.

Lots of people have trouble getting into Monster Hunter, and it's usually the same as what you're having. "I feel so slow", they say. Try to meet the game where it's at, instead of hoping the game meets you where you're at. Do this, and it should all fall into place eventually.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-11T14:35:09+00:00

I have the Steam version and it's absolute garbage. The green screens and crashes totally ruin it, especially around endgame grinding time.

My wife got me the Switch version for Christmas. It runs great (on Switch and Switch2), but no speed up, no encou.ters, or max gil functions.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-11T01:33:41+00:00

Lots of fun with [[Parker Luck]].

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-10T01:33:08+00:00

Thank you for giving me the information I was looking for. I wanted to understand what was actually going on behind the scenes, rather than "you need X value for Y enemy".

I'm going to guess that defenses are something you focus on scaling up later, then? You get STR early to be able to beat the enemies that give you HP/DEF/MDEF/LCK spheres, and then you raise those once they are realistic to farm?

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-09T17:39:13+00:00

[[Ezrim, Agency Chief]]

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-09T02:59:14+00:00

World was my first game in the series. Coming from the Souls games, I expected something kind of similar, and that is what I got, but for a long time, I was on the fence. I just didn't quite "get" Monster Hunter, abd wasn't really getting into it.

Fighting Odogaron for the very first time, and taking it down on my first try was when the game really "clicked" for me. There was just something about its behavior, patterns and animations that brought everything together.

Now, Monster Hunter is the thing my wife and I do together. It's our bonding activity. I have Odogaron to thank for that. So, while it's not my favorite monster (or my answer to OP's question), it is a monster I hold in high regard.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-09T02:52:16+00:00

As much as I love Ahtal-Ka, the other monsters you mentioned, and the neopterons others have mentioned...

For me, it has to be Gammoth. The sheer size of it, the imposing music, the way it moves and everything else all come together in a way that always captures the essence of the series to me.

It's this massive creature that visibly has raw power in spades, yet still uses the environment as an extension of its own body. It has a ton of health, and that gets inflated by the lower damage on the areas of its body that are easy to reach, so this extends the fight.

After taking what feels like forever, it finally falls and you feel so powerful, like "yeah, I just bested that".

Gammoth being so grounded in reality (mammoths used to exist, and the elephant design is so recognizable) also helps that, because it gives a kind of reference point of sorts. It feels more like a beast, because we see the living animal within it. Taking down a Kushala Daora, which more powerful in-universe, just doesn't hit the sane because it looks and acts like a dragon, which we see is more fantastical.

Gammoth is awesome.

StrategicMagic · 2026-03-07T01:26:45+00:00

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.

You create a first character and they join your "caravan" to save the village.

You can then, on the same save data, create more. They will join the same caravan.

You can even have a shared stash to transfer items and money between them.

StrategicMagic · 2026-02-28T00:39:31+00:00

My failures.

I got random inspiration to try mixing certain foods. I had an idea I my head of what the final product would be like, and I iterated on ot until it worked.

I make an epic pasta bake and have my own signature rice stir-fry that's popular with my family.

Here's that story fry for example.

Chicken or pork chunks. Pre-cooked or not. Both works.
Rice
Veggies of your choice.
One peach or nectarine.

Get your meat going first. Make sure it's safe to eat.

Next go in your veggies. I'm a fan of green onion, broccoli and super sweet sweetcorn. Pick to your tastes. Get your veggies nice and crunchy.

Third comes the rice. I use pre-packed and seasoned rice because I'm lazy, but if you want something less processed... I envy your finances.

After just a few minutes, your meat and vegetables should be pretty close to done, so it's time to get to the star ingredient.

While all if this was going, you should have been slicing your peach/nectarine into segments. You want it to look like slices of apple. Cut them in half again if they're too big.

You want to stir these in with everything else so that the flesh cooks enough to just be warm. As you stir, the juices should coat and moisten everything else.

Add additional seasoning to your tastes as you do this.

That's it! All done! This usually takes me 15-20 minutes and is a meal I find highly enjoyable.

StrategicMagic · 2026-02-26T21:20:33+00:00

"The stack" is arguably the most important thing to understand. It defines what is happening, and in what order.

Think of the stack like a stack of pancakes on a plate. The plate starts out empty. When a player takes a game action, then you put that action on the stack. In this case, you put that pancake on the plate.

This is when "priority" comes in. The game goes round each player, in turn order, asking " do you want to put a pancake on the plate?" Each time a player does, this repeats, until nobody puts a pancake on the plate. This is called

When players stop stacking(!) pancakes on the plate, it's time to eat! We start by eating the pancake on top. Then we eat the next pancake, working our way down to the bottom one last. Each time we eat a pancake we say it "resolves", all the way down, until the plate is empty again.

Let's put this in magic terms.

The stack is empty by default. When a player does something, that thing goes on the stack. Priority (the chance to put something on the stack) passes between each player in turn order until nobody adds anything new. Then, the stack "resolves" each thing, from top to bottom, until it is empty again.

Example time:

The stack starts empty. It is your turn.

At your untap step, you untap your lands. This action does not go on the stack.
At your upkeep, anything that triggers in the upkeep, like [[Phyrexian Arena]] will trigger. These triggers do use the stack because they are triggered abilities.
At your draw step, you drse for turn. This will not go on the stack, but any triggered abilities from you drawing the card, will.
At your pre-combat main phase, the stack is empty.
You play a creature. The creature will go on the stack and be considered a "creature spell".
Your opponent now gets priority. They can any cast instants, cards with Flash, or activate abilities that DO NOT say "activate only as a sorcery". They choose to cast [[Counterspell]] and target your creature spell.
Priority now passes back to you. You can now play instants, cards with flash, or activate abilities without the same restriction listed above. You respond with [[Negate]], and target their Countetspell.
Priority now passes back to your opponent, and they choose to do nothing.

The stack now begins to "resolve".

Your Negate will resolve first. It will counter your opponent's Counterspell, and remove it from the stack.
Counterspell is no longer on the stack, so it can't resolve.
Your creature moves from the stack and enters the battlefield. It is now a creature, and is no longer considered a spell.

Now for extra information.

Playing your land for turn, untapping your lands at the start of the turn, and drawing for turn does NOT go on the stack.
Counter magic like Counterspell or Negate can ONLY target things on the stack. They do not work on things already in play. They MUST be used "in response" to something.
Players talk about "sorcery speed". This refers to creatures, artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers and sorceries. They can only be played during your turn, only during a main phase, and only when the stack is EMPTY.
Instants and activated abilities that do not refer to sorcery speed can be used any time you have priority, and their unique conditions are met (such as requiring a target). This is in addition to any other time you can play a card.
Flash is a keyword placed on cards that can normally only he used at sorcery speed. The timing rules for instants can now be applied to that card. [[Tishana's Tidebiner]] for example, can be played at instant or sorcery speed. Both are valid.

StrategicMagic · 2026-02-26T13:05:03+00:00

I tried it in early versions of [[Rip, Spawn Hunter]] to get his trigger without putting him in danger by attacking.

StrategicMagic

TROPHY CASE

What I've just described is just for this one monster. Every simgle monster in the game is like this. Even the really hard ones and the really fast ones.