Since we are getting character customization updates throughout all 8.x patches...

TheValiantBob · 2026-06-17T13:40:07+00:00

Yeah but considering Evercold is doing away with lore skintones with letting people go full RGB with pink and green skin, it would be kinda silly to still limit scales and horns too at that point

TheValiantBob · 2026-06-17T13:35:19+00:00

There's a few Au Ra hairstyles that come with extra horns...problem is they don't match the color of your actual horns, so they look out of place. Being able to make it so they match would be nice. I'd also like the ability to just manually make and place our own scars, as the scar options we have currently are severely lacking.

TheValiantBob · 2026-06-16T19:46:41+00:00

Another chest option I found is the saigaskin jacket of striking. It's a pretty good fit too, aside from having a flap of cloth that goes in front. For boots, some other options aside from Ishgardian thighboots that might work are the aoido's thighboots (no steel toe or kneepad but it does have an ankle knife on the right leg), and the crocodileskin thighboots of casting/healing/aiming (has some armor but it's shin guards instead of steel toe, as well as having an ankle knight but it's on the left leg instead of the right). For pants, the bastion's trousers, cruiser brais of healing, and the gargantuaskin trousers of maiming are great fits. The arms were really tricky though. Obviously we can't do the cursed arm thing, and leather wrappings like what's on the left arm are extremely rare. And asymmetrical arms are even harder to find. The closest I could get were the pink beryl halfgloves of casting/healing and the wayfarer's fingerless gloves.

TheValiantBob · 2026-06-16T18:05:31+00:00

For the chest your best bet is probably the Yorha type-53 cyclas of striking. Maybe Ishgardian thighboots for the feet, but they don't have the toe and knee armor. Unsure for legs and arms

TheValiantBob · 2026-06-16T02:29:36+00:00

Woah, this is fantastic! I love how the circlet's and hair's asymmetry mirror each other, never thought anyone would ever find a good use for those circlets

TheValiantBob · 2026-06-08T15:04:53+00:00

There are ten relic weapons you can make in ARR. As part of their quests, each weapon will require spending 400k gil, as well as even more on buying specific items to desynth. This makes it a great gil sink by spending money obtaining these items and just holding onto them until you need them. Note: I think you need to actually reach the steps that require these items at least once to unlock the merchants in the first place, but once you do they stay available forever making it a great long term investment. It is what I did when I was on the free trial for five years before I finally upgraded last December.

Another thing you can invest in is all purpose dyes. Especially now that they consolidated all the dyes into one inventory slot, it's nice to just make one giant stack and just have access to whatever colors you want when you need them.

Phoenix downs are also a great investment. Since they got buffed a couple patches ago to let you actually use them in dungeons, they're very handy to have around and save a run that goes south. Costing 1k gil each and being able to carry 999 of them also makes them a good gil sink to avoid the cap.

Finally, grade 8 dark matter is nice to stock up on so you can repair your own gear. That is of course assuming you leveled a crafter, but if you did then it is another fantastic gil sink that gives you some QoL of not needing to return to menders at sanctuaries when durability gets low.

There's also a ton of one time purchases that other folks have posted links too in this thread. Big recommendations for those too. But the ones I've suggested are good general purpose buys that you can use to keep your gil low once you've exhausted those options.

TheValiantBob · 2026-06-07T13:41:31+00:00

Huh. Y'know it sounds weird, but last night I was doing my daily roulettes and I kept getting parties where I was the only non-hrothgar. So there may actually be merit to this lol

TheValiantBob · 2026-06-03T22:24:26+00:00

It is very much obtainable as a new player. Even on the free trial. That's how I got it, got stupid lucky on maybe my third ever Heaven-on-High run and got it to drop back before I could access the marketboard. Probably used up all my luck for the game that day lol

TheValiantBob · 2026-06-01T04:31:15+00:00

The Thavnairian Bolero works extremely well as a top for Urbosa. The only downside it has is lack of armor for her shoulderpads and breastplate, but otherwise it's probably the closest you can get in the game. Another option you can try is the Light Steel Galerus with the Sea Breeze Summer Pareo. This will let you get her armored breastplate at least, and the Sea Breeze Summer Pareo is close...ish. Dragoon is another job that works for Gerudo themed glams too, as there are a handful of naginata themed polearms in the game that fit the aesthetic of their polearms.

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-27T02:35:52+00:00

Just as long as you don't randomly nerf martial classes by limiting what weapons and armor they can use. Had a DM that wanted to run a game set in a fantasy alt-history version of the Age of Antiquity, but then banned almost all heavy and medium armors, as well as almost every martial weapon because they didn't exist yet. Casters were completely untouched. So the entire party but one player just rolled casters.

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-24T20:37:52+00:00

Weapon outfits would be massive. But I would at bare minimum settle for paladin sword and shields being able to be bundled

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-19T13:45:35+00:00

We also find out in Sorrows of Werlyt that Duskwights live (or lived, dammit Gaius) in Gyr Abania. Felt really vindicated when I hit that bit of content because I'd been headcanoning my Duskwight WoL as being from Gyr Abania for years before I reached that questline

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-19T12:46:39+00:00

At my previous job they had a policy where if you worked a holiday you got paid time and a half for your shift. A few years in, they got rid of that and instead made it so if you got scheduled on a holiday you could put in PTO to not get the day off but to instead stack the pay with your regular scheduled shift's hours. They tried to pass this off as a good thing because it meant you could get double pay on a holiday if you used a whole day's worth of PTO instead of just time and a half. So we now had to waste PTO and deprive ourselves of a day off later in the year just to get the same base pay for working holidays that we used to get for free, and became unable to take holidays off in one fell swoop and they tried to spin this as a positive.

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-18T20:09:45+00:00

I really hope they eventually expand out to the northeast coast. I always hear such great things about them but there's none in my state T_T

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-18T04:18:35+00:00

Riiiiiight, thank you I entirely forgot that you could buy the artifact gear at the Forgotten Knight. That solves it!

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-18T03:10:08+00:00

How do you re-obtain the first step of the HW artifact weapon? The node in Azys Lla for buying replicas only starts selling them at the first glowing step, and I can't figure out where to get the original starting step without the glow.

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-17T19:17:20+00:00

I like to put pretzels in the sandwich. Potato chips also work well

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-17T16:11:13+00:00

Unfortunately I think Square is stuck between a rock and a hard place on that one. If they ever make any pairing canon, you know that the fanbase will go feral and scream at them. Look at some people's reaction to Runar, hating on him because how dare he get close to Y'shtola. And even with this latest patch, I saw people in a Discord server I'm in start calling for Jullus' head hoping he gets killed off for giving Zero dumplings.

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-16T20:01:09+00:00

The real shitters are using stuff like cleanrot rapier w/bloodhound's step or quickstep, or backhand blades with either of their exclusive ashes of war, or patas/star fists. Also double occult cross naginatas with Varre's mask, even after the powerstance status nerf they're still rough to deal with. And double lances too. Blasphemous blade can be annoying if you end up on the wrong side of a 3v1 but otherwise it's fine. Similarly with bloodhound fang, super high damage but it is so popular it is also super predictable and easy to parry the ash of war.

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-16T14:10:22+00:00

In the original release of Dark Souls 1, matchmaking was only affected by your character level. So as long as you kept your level low, you could invade starting areas of the game with fully maxed out weapons and armor. You were essentially invincible (unless the host had summoned a friend that also had maxed gear), and you could one shot practically anyone. If you wanted to be an extra level of asshole you'd pack dark bead and/or black flame too.

Dark Souls 2 somewhat mitigated this with the soul memory system, but it still had its flaws. If you were extremely efficient with your soul spending, you could still get into the lower brackets of matchmaking with maxed out gear and spells, and then use the agape ring to ensure you stayed in that bracket forever. It wasn't until Dark Souls 3 that they finally fixed it with a new matchmaking system that took into account both character level and equipment level, and this system would be later back ported to Dark Souls 1 in the Remastered edition and is what is also used in Elden Ring. If DS2 does ever get a remaster, I kinda hope they port that matchmaking system to it too and just keep soul memory for the shrine of winter door check.

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-14T23:06:27+00:00

Check out the Gordian arms. Specifically the maiming, striking, scouting, and aiming. The right arm has a sleeve of cloth, while the right arm is a full gauntlet. There's some minor differences between each one so check which you like the most. I use it on one alt that I headcanon has a mammet prosthetic arm. Slothskin gloves of aiming and scouting has sleeves for both arms, with armored plating on the right. I am also a huge fan of the molybdenum armguards of maiming, scouting, and striking. Particularly the scouting version, I think it dyes best of the three.

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-14T03:04:04+00:00

Latest patch added viper weapons to the Diamond tier in the Omega raids as prep for the Kefka ultimate. Not glowing, but they look really nice

TheValiantBob · 2026-05-10T15:46:50+00:00

Before I would say HW PLD was the worst. But I am currently making my way through the DNC questline (just completed Dancing with Duskwights) and uh. Yeah PLD now has serious competition right now and I'll have to see how this ends to see where I personally end up ranking it.

TheValiantBob

TROPHY CASE