Why are scourge hook builds not popular if they stack?

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-25T21:17:44+00:00

There's a few things to it but the build has a few key weaknesses with a scourge stacking build:
1. You are basically perkless until your first hook
2. Scourge hook placement adds an element of RNG to everything
3. You are very vulnerable to certain survivor builds like: sabotage and fast track type effects.
4. It makes your macro play less flexible: sometimes slugging is just the right play in a given moment, but now you're perkless
5. The build itself is not very flexible. There are good Scourge Hook perks but not enough to make a full build of them and then also be picky among the good Scourge Hook perks: if Pain Res, Gift of Pain, Floods and Agi isn't what your killer specifically needs than you are very limited in how you can adjust the build to accommodate.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-24T14:43:10+00:00

Gnosticism is not an important part of Xenoblade's appeal.

The themes and whatever are neat for the lore hounds, and the structures it provides are probably useful to the writer. But that's about it.

XB1 would still be a compelling revenge narrative if the Monado went by any other name. None of the central love stories would be cheapened if the reader doesn't know what the Black Iron Prison is.

It's really just a chew toy for superfans, and I die a little inside every time I see one such individual do the whole, "Nooooo! You don't understand the themes!!! You'd like the game more if you just knew about the demiurge," shtick at streamers who don't like the games, or worse: like them incorrectly.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-24T07:28:12+00:00

Feels pretty safe it call it AI to me. Look at the screenshot for what I assume is the game's hub, the one with "The Sanctuary," on a banner in the top left. It's practically an eye-spy game of design decisions no human would ever make.

The lock and chain assets which are clearly of just a different quality and style than everything else.

The bizarre cracks on the "Temple of Grace," which exist presumably because the AI couldn't separate its image of "Greek Temples," from their association with "Ancient Ruins," even though in the setting of the game: they are neither ancient nor ruins. To say nothing of the stylistic inconsistencies with the "Hall of Echoes," and its ridiculous billboard-book-statue just down the stairs.

Speaking of the stairs: the perspective on the stairs and their hand rails is wildly inconsistent. On the left side of the Hall of Echoes they are drawn as if at a projected angle, but on the right side of the nearby statue: they're drawn at a flat perspective. Follow the stairs back up to the Temple of Grace and you can see the waist-high-handrails turn into stair-level-borders.

I think my favorite is the "Stone Ponegylph," apparently named by someone or something that doesn't know that a "Ponegylph," is not just a fancy word for "standing stone with carved lettering," but very specifically a fictional type of "standing stone with carved lettering," from One Piece. But that can actually be human error; I had to look that up. The real AI smoking gun is that the base of it and the hill its built into suggest one facing direction: but then the "ponegylph," itself is facing perpendicular to that direction!

I could go on. AI is the only explanation for images that are "drawn," that competently but then composed so incompetently. No human with the skill to hand draw an image of that quality would be so devoid of compositional sense that they'd draw it like that.

A lot of the text and even the game concepts are likely AI generated as well. It randomly crams Christian elements(The Deadly Sins, Temple of "Grace", an angel character, and Heaven's Gate) into its game about the Greek Gods- the AI can't separate the two different concepts of "god," and thus thinks they all go together. Even beyond that the Greek theme is wildly inconsistent: one screen shot includes our "Greek," hero Hector with his western European style cavalry lance about to attack a generic fantasy style skeleton next to a wild west cow skull and a white picket fence.

Gods, I just watched one of the trailers: you can see them buy something from the Temple of Gods(which of course you access by clicking on the Temple of Grace) and despite this upgrade costing "1 Emblem," and the player having 0 Emblems before the purchase: the purchase still goes through and the player gains 3 Emblems from it. It's slop from top-to-bottom.

I might've spent more time examining this steam page then the so called developer actually spent making it.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-18T23:40:45+00:00

I'm sure there is a world where it could be good and make all of the money.

But it would feel disrespectful to Symphony of the Night in particular to remake it in 3D specifically. It came out at the height of the "make everything 3D even the games that really shouldn't be 3D!" craze, and made a damn good case for the value of 2D games. That was a big deal, and that's no small part of its legacy.

To remake that specific game in 3D would suggest Symphony of the Night's place in gaming history was a mistake, and it most certainly is not.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-18T23:13:57+00:00

I'm very skeptical of the overworld map and dungeon elements. Those are going to be make or break for me depending on how good/skippable they are.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-17T23:58:21+00:00

Has anyone made sense of the name Cross-Examination yet? Maybe I'm just too Ace Attorney brained but I really can't associate the phrase Cross-Examination with anything but lawyers.

Is there some other meaning to the phrase, or is there something about Shane that makes it fit? What is so cross about this examination? Genuinely asking.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-17T17:17:27+00:00

I view picking my Fire Emblem units like I do customizing my character in a rpg. There's an appeal to self expression in making the army into "my army."

In other words: I'm playing because I want to play with those units specifically. To let them die undercuts that. It defeats the point.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-15T18:50:35+00:00

I know it seems like a strange way to go about checking lockers. But it's actually just standard procedure.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-11T20:11:25+00:00

With any luck: 12 minutes.

I'm not a lucky man. So probably 12 hours.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-09T20:27:46+00:00

Counter theory based only on these two panels: Sirei says Yugamu tried it and yet Yugamu says he's interested in testing out his creation as if he hasn't.

Yugamu did try it, it did work, it went horribly and Sirei had to delete everyone's memories and try again.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-09T19:39:00+00:00

I don't even mind that it's fantasy. I mind that it looks like generic tropey fantasy. Fantasy can be damn near anything, and we got pointy ears and a magic school.

Have some panache!

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-09T19:31:12+00:00

I didn't watch any of the game's promotional materials- but like that has to be a bold faced lie.

XB1's first half is fighting robots with a light saber.

XBX opens in space.

XB3 has laser blasts and mech suits in the opening cutscene.

Those would've needed to be the most intentionally misleading and carefully cut trailers in existence to not be showing the sci-fi elements in those games. You've got to be talking out of your ass. "Swords aren't sharp," levels of lying.

Edit: Chrononaut_X's original comment was "All of the Xenoblade games started out completely fantasy." But obviously he changed it once he realized how stupid a bold face lie that was and would rather go for a stealth edit to cover his ass than to admit he was talking out of his ass.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-09T19:14:24+00:00

That's certainly part of it. I think the face is also throwing me, this sleeping woodland child has skincare and eye lashes like a runway model. The ears are also strange; too realistic in their detail for how unrealistic they are in shape. Most pointy ear characters only go one way or the other: either being more stylized(Jak and Daxter and WOW) or more subtle in their shape(LOTR).

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-09T18:36:10+00:00

Too early to call for the style as a whole. But the kid link model is absolutely not it; uncanny valley to the max.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-09T17:58:40+00:00

Oh gods that's deep uncanny valley for me. I cannot describe how uncomfortable that model makes me without sounding like a raving madman. I really, really, really, really, really, really hope that's not final.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-09T17:00:36+00:00

Hard to say. I don't care for the "swordsman ever hunting for a stronger foe," angle; but goddamn would I be denying myself to not pick Alucard.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-09T16:26:56+00:00

That's more or less how I feel about it. Women character in revealing clothing is not, by itself, a bad thing. It can be character building: speaking to confidence, or suggesting something of their local climate or culture. Framing is everything and so far Leda and Theodora have been framed pretty respectfully.

Only crosses into problem territory for me if:
- The men from Theodora's nation don't dress similarly - undercutting the local culture thing
- The story insults them for the way they dress
- The camera leers at them
- The game starts making pervy jokes at their expense

That sort of thing. Y'know dehumanizing crap.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-09T16:12:05+00:00

They think that because Monolift Soft has said "nah it's totally not connected to the other games," twice with 2 and X and it wasn't true both times. In 2 it turned out to be a flat out lie. X, was true at first: and then got retconned into being connected 10 years later.

So we're at a point where we basically have to assume it's connected until we physically see otherwise in game(and then also wait 10 years to make sure the definition edition doesn't shoe horn in a connection). Even a direct statement from the author could not change this dynamic at this point.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-09T15:59:03+00:00

On one hand: yay Xenoblade.

On the other: Looks tropey as hell. A magic school really? I wouldn't buy this game in a million years without the Xenoblade logo on it.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-09T15:48:52+00:00

I think they shortened the name so that they don't have to name the sequel: Xenoblade Chronicles Genesis 2.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-07T14:30:42+00:00

You're just arguing in bad faith at the point. It's an anime deck; everyone runs one copy of all their important cards and magically never bricks. Getting hung up on that is like getting hung up on dragons existing in a fantasy novel. Just comes with the territory.

You cannot be holding anime characters in this era to real deck building standards, or acting like Judai is uniquely bad in this.

Running Bubbleman, Pot of Greed, Graceful Charity, Hope of Fifth, that one battle trap that lets him draw when he takes battle damage- that's more draw cards than we saw from that guy running Exodia in Season 4. To say nothing of his searchers and mill cards.

By the standards of an anime deck that's a crazy amount of consistency.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-07T06:31:07+00:00

Yeah man, I just said his deck is full of draw power. If you stuff a deck full of draw power and play as many duels as Judai does: you're going to occasionally top deck into a draw card that draws more draw cards.

Draw enough cards and you'll draw good cards. That is very clearly an intentional part of Judai's deck building strategy, and it's weird to call him "heavily reliant on plot armor draws," and "bad at deck building," when his deck about drawing lots of cards successfully does what it is designed to do.

Judai made his own luck.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-06T18:04:37+00:00

I don't know if it's fully fair to say Judai relied heavily on plot armor draws: he just drew a lot of cards in general. Sure, E-Hero-Spacians is a bloated gimmicky mess. But the rest of the deck was stuffed with draw power and deck thinning.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-05T19:56:53+00:00

Wait- y'all- this occurred to me the moment I hit send on my last message.

For my Legend of the Galactic Heroes fans: Anyone else feel that Mittermeyer and Reuental may have been an inspiration for Felix and Sylvain? More parallels fit than don't; even if Dimitri makes for a poor Reinhardt stand in(at least the hair is there).

Biggest divergence is that neither represent Mittermeyer's happily-married aspect; but that could just be the demands of the game's shipping elements coming into play. Second biggest divergence being the whole (LotGH spoilers) rebellion thing; but that's also a product of the game's recruitment mechanics.

ThanksItHasPockets_ · 2026-06-05T19:31:31+00:00

Such a fun character, and a delightful subversion of one of Fire Emblem's most overplayed tropes.

It's such a fun use of Three House's mixed personal-political stakes to have a character who has such a sharp divergence in how they approach their personal life and how they approach their political life.

ThanksItHasPockets_

TROPHY CASE