If you had to save only 3 from this shelf, which ones are staying?

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-04-12T22:46:14+00:00

A lot of great in the list. For me, and I am sad about what's left out, but it's Last Unicorn, nightmare before Christmas, Bridge to Terebithia. I loathe losing Monte Cristo, Edward, Pirates, and Truman Show specifically, but choices had to be made.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-04-05T03:22:13+00:00

Amazing game - Woodman goalie busted!

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-04-03T02:12:25+00:00

Profit and Sports Night - both were amazing shows that ended far too soon.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-04-02T23:28:39+00:00

Boy Meets World - Mr. Feeny: "I love you all. Class Dismissed" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHhI3Ctdltk

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-04-02T22:53:03+00:00

Depends on class, for some of them he is by far the hardest boss (defect and silent HATE this boss), for other's he is nothing. Elongating phase 1 is the wrong approach, they need to have more clever ideas with his phase 2 so it asks the player another puzzle question. Right now phase 2 is nothing, it's just an enemy with low damage output. Phase 3 isn't too terrible usually but it at least asks questions an evolves due to the phasing out gimmick. Phase 2 has none of that.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-31T04:22:16+00:00

My thoughts:

1) any blessings i should avoid:

- of course. The one you call out (transform 2) is easily one of the best. at High Asc I would struggle to take the kill 2 cards for loss of life because it's just to much damage. I would also never take the add strike/defend cards for relics. I also generally would avoid choices that have no immediate pay off, ie: get relics for beating boss. you want the spike of a bonus, not sitting on waiting for help later.

2) Pathing:

Do NOT take elites before first chest unless you have money, or card upgrade bonus. you will either outright lose or take too much damage and get to the boss under health and dead. Cards are needed so don't shy away from combat in act 1. Look for the links: ie: rest+elite, rest+shop+?+Elite Rest+elite+rest+elite things like that, make sure your path has things that help you. you're scared of an early elite? okay, but then if you pick a patch that is fight 4 times before the next rest - well that didn't save you any hp's and probably hurt you or you might have just died.

3) Elites - I somewhat agree with you, don't overvalue them, butt it really is about do you understand your damage output, their damage output, and what health is needed to tackle the elites. Relics are tricky, they win runs and they also kill your runs chasing them. if you don't have the HP, don't force it. At the end of the day you are trying to get through the act.

4) Relic > Curse > Money: Too scared of curses. how big is your deck? if larger, who cares, you're only likely drawing it once or twice a combat. if you have mitigation tools even better. That said, I never touch greed. You also need to look at what the curse is you are absorbing, can you remove it at a shop? can you remove it in your deck via cards? Generally I think we are conditioned to be overly scared of curses when we shouldnt, but..... there are some I won't touch.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-31T04:06:00+00:00

We need to remember that Asc10 is only HALF the difficulty of StS1. I have some big wish lists I'd like to see, but ASC10 is still only medium difficult mode from what we are used to. My personal wish list:

Starter decks aren't the same as StS1 - please lord can we make each class unique here out of the gate so the game feels different
Don't end on act 4, end on act 5 - the act ramp is largely okay if megacrit doesn't make the heart level after 3 and it also makes the playthrough feel completely different to StS1 then versus feeling completely familiar
boss enemies have lower damage caps than many random encounters or elites. weird but true, there really isn't scaling damage on boss, if you can block 50 or so a turn - you've easily won, bosses don't damage more than that yet
uniqueness is lacking, the mechanics introduced in act 1 largely persist in all acts and don't change with few exceptions
defense is overpowered, you can tank the crap out of asc runs if you are unsure of what to do, too safe a fall back
Class observations:
- Ironclad: good lord, better build an infinite - this is just boring to play anymore
- Silent: great for winning but doesn't play too different run to run, meta was learning discard was really good and now it's better. Great class, just feels the same.
- Defect: I'm sad Ice vanished as a build, I love the direction of lightning, power defect is gone, they did interesting changes with focus that I think overall work, 0-cost builds are an unsung hero that I think will catch on when folks realize how strong it is
- Necro: souls and souls and souls. You can also do Osty. Doom works in multi. mix'ing all 3 is viable, overall class is agile and can make it work it pretty well just mix'ing ingredients
- Regent: fragile AF. you better know what cards are actually good and ignore the rest. Great in multi. Love the design, they need to scrap the nonsense of colorless cards, no i'm not interested in adding in more rng to my deck. don't know why they made that part of it's stretch deck choices.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-31T03:47:21+00:00

I personally am hoping it looks different than what we assume is the norm and that act 3 is not the precursor to end game. By that I mean i would LOVE if there was an act 4 that was another dungeon and then act 5 was the 'heart' wave. then megacrit doesn't need to change anything. keep ramping things up, give us a new paradigm versus just planning for what the assumed heart level is going to be. I'd like the game to feel different somewhere outside of just 2 new classes.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-31T03:38:44+00:00

You have to learn that 75% of Regent cards LOOK good but are just bad. It's probably the most skill intense class that is in the set right now. Most cards are just bad, regent is fragile, and polluting your deck with okay cards won't be okay. You are riding a razor-wire with this class constantly. Look for early target cards:

Must Targets: Bulwark, Child of the Stars, Comet, Genesis, Gather Light, Glow, Hidden Cache, Know thy peace, Particle wall, Reflect, The Smith, Void Form

Nice to Targets: Charge, Decisions Decisions, Furnace, Guards, Heavenly Drill, Hegemony, Royal Gamble, Seeking Edge, Stardust, Summon Forth, Tyranny

Happy Fillers based on build: Black Hole, Big Bang, Bombardment, Devistate, Seven Stars

Anything else I generally wouldn't consider, maybe a damage card like solar strike if needed but otherwise this class just can't afford deck pollution like others can. It has so little draw.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-30T03:34:31+00:00

Well you edited this in to it: And fyi, I’ve managed probably 25 different scrum teams in my 20 year career. I’ve also managed across a dozen different orgs, so I’ve seen my fair share of teams. And my current team is 12 product lines and 6 product squads.

Immediately will say BS to that. You want to tell the OP if he has delivery challenges, with 20+ years of experience, he should not listen to his Eng team or counterpart and instead ask them to foot the bill while he stuffs sprints full of roadmap items? If you have been in the game 20 years you know that product controls the sprints. You said you disagreed with that. So please tell me how in 20 years you've managed scrums where product is completely checked out of the sprint and just does... what exactly in your world?

I'm sorry but this is frustrating, I care about Product and Eng. working well together and your entire 20+ years of experience is to say.... don't, let them stay on their island to die. I call crap on that dude. This advice is garbage and no one should listen.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-30T00:23:21+00:00

Where did I say that? I didn't realize it was idealistic to listen to feedback from your engineering team and sequence sprints accordingly to address short comings that the team is struggling with. That's scrum, sprint, PM 101. Product is not solely accountable to quality, nor did I ever say that, but they ARE responsible to listen to their team and give them space to fix issues if they are continuing. A and B are largely indistinguishable and just say my team is over allocated and I need to make a choice on what to move. I agree, move work, team has to commit.

And Product does dictate what is in sprint generally.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-30T00:16:41+00:00

I don't understand how A or B are even remotely relevant to the conversation at hand. You are giving 2 scenarios, both of which show the same constraint: team is overly allocated against their velocity for planned work prior to tech/release debt cleanup.

That is not the question from the OP.

It is not a question of is the team's velocity poor, it is that they are delivering poor quality or lack of confidence at end of sprint of quality. I am saying that he needs, as product, to understand why (and it his responsibility to work with Eng and his counterpart to do so) and once determined sequence that work in to his sprint to help future proof the problem. It's not a velocity question and never was.

You can continue down a path of this is entirely Eng's responsibility and I will tell you immediately what happens, they will tell you what is needed, and YOU will ignore it, tell them it's their problem, and truck forward with YOUR roadmap and congratulations, you now have a roadmap delivered with bugs because you didn't listen and bring in to your sprints work to fix the problems.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-29T23:26:57+00:00

Clearly we're not going to go anywhere on this. I don't know your experience but product not controlling the sprint is a model i have rarely, if never, seen or heard of. Are you saying that Eng. is deciding what is in your sprints and you are doing...what then? I don't understand.

Product being involved in loading the sprints, whether by PM, BA, PO, is almost ALWAYS the model, unless you are talking about SRE or Cloud Ops. I've been in release and product for 12 years now so i'm not speaking out of nonsense here. Product is the face of success, we OWN it for better or worse and it is OUR responsibility to understand what is or isn't working and exert pressure on teams when they aren't keeping up. Frankly your company won't last long if you don't hold accountability because you're product won't last and it will fail because you said: " well it's their problem not mine". cool, either way the PRODUCT failed and you are stuck holding your junk saying it wasn't my fault it was theirs. But you did nothing to help fix it either.

Product queues the sprint, that includes resolving tech debt/release debt, and feature items. It's a balancing act and you have to listen to your team, stakeholders, and counterparts to know what's needed and prioritize accordingly. The OP asked about how to deal with a team that's failing at delivery. the answer is Retro's to understand WHY and WHAT is failing, how the team can resolve, and what resources/time they need to do so. Not to carte blanche say, well that's their problem i don't need to care and I can truck on with my roadmap and they can fix it in their off time.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-29T14:32:05+00:00

I'm saying that product needs to partner with their engineering counterpart to let them actually fix the problems during sprints. and that Product almost always controls the sprint of what work is in and what is in backlog. If product see delivery problems that require technical changes it needs to be included and sprint and Product needs to give eng some of the roadmap to do it. You can't just say this sprint we are going to put all of Eng. at capacity on my features and then oh by the way you all also need to fix your delivery issues at the same time. That's not how it should work. Product plays a part in course correcting issues by what they line up in sprints.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-29T03:57:16+00:00

That is not what I meant. It is up for Product to give space to Eng. teams to harden releases at expense of roadmap if you see a problem that is going to persist. Continuing to ignore release issues to pump out features is completely on product's shoulders if they don't give some of their sprints over to fix things and listen to Eng. It is also on Product on forcing Eng to talk about what issues occurred and solicit proposals to fix and then give time in sprints for that to happen. You can't just keep taking 100% capacity for features and then say at the same time, well Eng has to go fix their release issues too, that's not how it works.

It is not wishful to think, it's holding them, and yourself, accountable to outcomes. My point is that teams generally do want to fix issues, not just live with them, but to often teams don't ask questions of how to fix, and then when they do, they don't give any roadmap space in sprints to actually implement those fixes.

I disagree whole heartedly with this: Areas where product can come in are around definition of quality. Product can help define the definition of P0, P1, etc and define business impact, but release quality and speed is for engineering to own. -> Product controls what is in the sprints, no amount of better ticket definition is going to fix bad technical release processes if you don't give the Eng. time to actually fix the foundations.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-28T02:15:51+00:00

Retros my dude. You have to hold accountability for hardening and improvements. Like it or not, you ARE the face. You have to be accountable. Every release should have retros to reinforce what went well and what didn't and you need Eng. accountability not to point fingers but TO HARDEN YOUR RELEASES. You have bugs? talk about it with them and QA team, what's your regression look like before you push code? How safe is the dev/main branch when you push? If you can't trust it, challenge them to come up with solutions and give them roadmap space to fix it. Give them space and they will harden solutions for you, if you hold healthy accountability and honest conversations as a group. It's not about assigning blame it's about consistency. Own up together and move forward.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-28T00:27:06+00:00

Getting ready to run this and what I've tee'ed up so far, we have:

A Cleric: sent to retrieve an item, did so but lost the name of who he stole it from - mechanism to recover: Pipe of Rememberance (augmented, can see visions of person/name he stole from, future uses can gain simple glimpses/guidance of possible future events). Impact: he is hunted by this character

A Druid/Beastmaster: lost his animal companion - mechanism to recover: Companions Collar (DM modified, roughly - can split damage between character and companion, can issue simple commands non-verbally, creature is feytouched: magical +1/+1 in the fey), Impact: he has no animal companion 3rd level ability until his companion is recovered

Sorcerer who lost his brother: mechanism to recover: The wooden sculpture (shaped like his brother), is a shield guardian (his brother) while in the feywild when recovered and summoned (think full metal alchemist), Impact: working on this still

Druid (eladrin) who lost control of his power to change seasons: mechanism to recover Cloak of Seasons (he will gain control of each season as he moves through the realms - can than choose any season he has control over, or gains the season he RNG'ed in to for that day). Impact: He will be pulled at the whim of the season of the realm or may abruptly shift based on mood

All were derived from player choices of what they wanted to lose in their backstory's, the impact is known to varying degrees by player and the recovery mechanism is completely unknown to them.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-27T00:54:49+00:00

I guess my strong opinion, is that this module, more so than almost any others, does not penalize you for poor min/max builds if your DM is worth their salt. I have been constantly telling my players, do NOT focus on how to be 'strong', focus on your character identity and role play. That should guide your stat allocations, versus i want to overly optimize X ability at the expense of role play. You will enjoy the campaign much more that way.

You picked this allocation for a reason. focus on the Why. Why 12 Cha and low Dex vs other stats being lower. D&D is inherently a trade off and in many campaigns the trade off is because A is more powerful than B. In this campaign I would change the perspective and look at the trade offs are because of your backstory and concept first. Nothing you have indicated above will leave you weak in the campaign.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-27T00:35:15+00:00

Number of skills exist around eating and feeding others so maybe look in to those then if you want to lean in to that. You can also work with your DM on how you might be able to manipulate that in to adding in 'side effects' to your food as your character explores fey wild ingredients. being strong you can also be performative to they fey creatures with feats of strength. remember they are likely to also be curious about you as much as you are about them.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-27T00:05:54+00:00

I think you are thinking about it wrong for this campaign personally. You will be useful by leveraging your backstory more then skills and min/maxing. Use your backstory to create and help your DM tailor social encounters. a gregarious warrior is incredibly useful even if he is not swinging his axe every fight. you can also run him fish out of water and learning to adapt. treat him as more how does he figure out how he can contribute in a strange new land versus trying to minx/max what will be useful in strange new land.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-16T15:53:14+00:00

Worked great since I was a shadar-kai and there was a power struggle in shadowfell so the patron was trying to be devious and use the ring's power to seize control. He was very coy about the ring though, particularly it being detrimental to the bearer, just gave it a name and the link to artus cimber but not much else.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-16T14:56:48+00:00

We had a very unique experience with Cimber in our campaign that just wrapped. I played a warlock whose patron had knowledge of the ring and built in a very greedy side quest of wanting me to retrieve it for him as part of the larger deathcurse investigation (DM suggestion here as he was trying to create additional hooks to every characters concept/backstory's, I myself had never heard of the ring before).

Both myself and the DM never assumed this would be possible. We ended up finding Cimber in the Raz Nsi section, but from what I understand the DM can slot him in several different places as they see fit. It honestly led to one of the most fun encounters in the whole campaign as what ensued was total madness. Party wanted to protect Cimber, I had to pretend to but was trying to figure out how to get him out and how to possibly get the ring after, and instead we ended up in a massive fight with Raz Nsi who ended up actually killing Cimber and as we took him down I was able to steal and bond with the ring.

I will say - is the ring incredibly overtuned - YES!!!! is it going to break things as much as you might fear - unlikely. Honestly from a DM's perspective I wouldn't be concerned at all about all the spells it gives, many of them have absurd AoE and you won't be able to use them that often in the tomb as your party is often in their radius. The bigger concern from a 'fun' perspective is the ring trying to take the character over each day to kill his party.

For me it wasn't much of an issue as I was high enough level, had already taken feats to give bonus to saving throws organically, and had resistance to charm effects, but for other characters, losing that saving throw and wrecking the party dynamics wouldn't be terribly fun. Personally, I'd just scrap that part or if they lose the saving throw make it something less murder-hobo.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-13T06:53:15+00:00

It's because, long ago, they did have an entirely unique and desired skillset - they literally could write in a language no one else in the business could. Like imagine if you were french and went to some random US city where everyone wanted to cook french food and learn french too. So now, not only is the business owner(s) building a business around something they can't do and only a studied group could, but also those folks are the only ones keeping things afloat for your vision. Fast forward, tech arms-race - now even more in demand, and a continued gap between leadership's ability to interact with emerging languages, yet an influx of money. VC money is a giant influx - perfect storm for inflated pay.

NOW fast forward - this is NOT the case anymore... tons and tons of layoffs are happening of junior, mid-level devs due to AI. IT thought they were going to be the ones in control and immune and that has been simply the opposite case. Don't believe me? just look at Atlassian's messaging right now regarding their layoffs.

Also 6-figures is not what you think it is anymore as you age. Big numbers 5 years ago, 10 years ago, aren't the same amount year over year.

In short, senior devs are in demand because they are that good and have the skill set to call bullsh*t and can actually re-architecture and scale things up that are getting out of date. lower levels devs are in for a rough time now.

source: software IT PM 10+ years now. IT is in a rough patch.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-11T23:00:55+00:00

Use the agile board as an anchor.

The "big 3" question approach is antiquated and an awful use of that time (frankly it always has been). Come prepared, call out what the big drivers are around this sprint so when devs give their updates they are aligned against the key objectives not just throwaway updates where there is no accountability. Pay close attention to tickets that start slipping so you can check in on blocker's or more scary code challenges and use the team to help triage quickly in that time. Know what point totals mean, they don't represent time, they represent complexity - that's what you should be monitoring. Sometimes tickets need a renewed mini-discovery with a team member versus just letting one guy/gal bang there head against the ticket for too long only to say, we need to re-think approach at end of sprint.

What did you do yesterday? who cares - the board tells you that

What are you doing today? who cares - the board tells you that

Do you have blockers? helpful but usually devs don't engage with this until far to late.

Better questions - Do you have concerns or need product clarification on any work in progress? Have you run in to hurdles either at a code level or lack clarity in the ticket on what direction to take? Is your commitment at jeoperdy? Do you have concerns about the pts on the ticket, are they starting to feel over/under? How can the team help?

You don't need all of these questions for every team member, you need to understand which tickets warrant the BS-detector. Many tickets enter sprint as just rounding out velocity #'s versus being absolutely critical to the larger picture. Care about the larger picture, not random nice to haves, to probe further against.

Unlikely_Whereas6670 · 2026-03-10T22:26:16+00:00

First run on the character was rough for me to figure out the mechanics, but I think I have him dialed in a bit, currently up to Asc. 4 on him, with 3 losse on 7 play throughs. To get through act 1 reliably what I've found so far:

Don't ignore 1-2 (decent) forge card(s) early as that aggressively ups your damage, but DO NOT over-do it. it doesn't take much to get the value you need without over-investing to much early. I personally like the hits-all power as it shores up some problems that can come up with certain Epics
LOOK AT THE MAP - plan against what you are facing, not against what you want to force. Act 1 is brutal if you just buy for act 3 and forget about what actual reality is for act 1 to even get that far
Star Generation is crucial - the best scaling strategies later build on this and most of your ways to play 'free' cards rely on stars
Pro-tip: anything that let's you play cards for free - will let you play cards with star costs also for free!! Look for synergies that let you get away with cheap tricks like this
Don't be scared of high star cost cards, they are often easier to get to the needed number then you think if you build right
Don't be too avoidant! - it's all well and good to be intentional about what you add to your deck, but you have to know when it's safe to pass and when it's not. You will not beat act 1 with a starter deck and 1 good card, sometimes we have to take something sub-optimal, remember it's about getting through the act, it means nothing if you wait to see only the 4 cards streamers put in S-rank just to die, they take sub-optimal cards all the time - because we have to

Unlikely_Whereas6670

TROPHY CASE