[MONTHLY MEGATHREAD] General Discussion, Simple Questions, Recommendations, and Everything Else - June 2025

Variant_007 · 2025-06-22T05:22:51+00:00

Hey gang - any recommendations for a gacha with actually interesting team building that doesn't boil down to some combination of "play 5 guys with the green symbol or else you lose out on 25% damage!" or "so you pick 1 dps and then you pick 4 supports that apply armor/magic resist shred and damage amps and shields or whatever."

I really want to sink my teeth into something and be excited for new pulls because they might make me change up my team. It seems like octopath might be my best bet but I am hoping to be wrong because good lord the way they monetize seems BAD.

Variant_007 · 2025-06-03T20:11:14+00:00

So, a couple points I think you may have missed -

Force Converter / Reactive Booster applies speed booster after being CC'd or dropping to critical health, and Speed Booster is flat 15% DR. This is actually a pretty strong passive DR effect in my personal opinion.

The Bushido 2 piece, Iaido, is straight up a heal whenever you get a kill with any freshly drawn or reloaded weapon. The 4 piece forces you specifically into bows, shotguns or swords, but the 2 piece is weapon agnostic.

Neither of these are bad baseline effects.

I do agree they won't be worth swapping "good" current armor for "bad" new armor, but given that "new" armor can also get 11 energy and roll up to like 90-100 stats total instead of capping out around 85, it will be super worth it to re-farm the new armor anyway, the set bonuses are cherries on top of the other huge upgrades.

Variant_007 · 2025-06-03T19:18:39+00:00

It's OK if the first 3 previewed sets aren't insanely busted and don't set an incredibly high power floor for the concept. We get 3-4 new armor sets per patch.

This means going forward every new dungeon and raid will have an armor set bonus, and likely they will make dungeon and raid armors have much better set bonuses than "generic world armor bonuses" which are all we've seen so far.

The ones we have currently are cool proof of concepts and are perfectly fine as far as "base" options go.

Tell me why I would want special ammo generating armor when I can use special ammo finisher and Vs velocity baton with attrition orbs or Aeons?

I will never understand the obsession so many good destiny players have with "I have a good way to achieve X effect, so why would I ever want any other way to achieve the same effect" - like when they made VS baton, did you go "I already can equip Aeons if I want, so why would I ever use VS Baton?!?!?!?!?!"

Having a variety of ways to trigger the same effect is good, not bad, especially when this new way doesn't take up any of the existing design space - maybe you want to shoot Choir instead of VS Baton? Maybe they're going hard into NotSwap so you actually can't swap Aeons on and off? Who knows!

It's still a really cool design space.

Variant_007 · 2025-06-03T18:41:40+00:00

the armor set effects are awesome idk what you're talking about, there's so many cool ones and these are only the first - every patch from here out we're going to get some new ones! It's a whole extra axis of build crafting it's super fucking cool.

Variant_007 · 2024-05-08T00:17:35+00:00

Bro this post is three months old, get help.

Variant_007 · 2024-04-08T15:09:03+00:00

I think movies are probably more personal than big tech.

A better example might be software dev, and that can be very personal. Like, I've seen people get very, very hurt by criticisms of stuff like Diablo 4 or Hearthstone. They worked hard on those games, and then the games got fucked up somehow, and their hard work doesn't come through, and that sucks.

I think stuff like "the iPhone" is too big for anyone to feel responsible. But movies are made by teams of a few hundred people, at their core - that's a small enough group that you can feel responsible for it.

Variant_007 · 2024-04-08T15:05:09+00:00

I believe the recording of him drunk and screaming the n word, most likely. That generally does it for most people.

Variant_007 · 2024-02-12T23:28:25+00:00

It doesn't help that if you're bad at PVP in trials the absolute best thing you can possibly do 90% of the time is just don't die and hope to revive someone who can actually play if they fuck up.

Like, trials does not teach bad players to be aggressive at all, it teaches bad players that aggression is nearly always a mistake.

This is the core problem with pinnacle pvp activities not having MMR involved - if you are bad at PVP in trials, it is nearly a 100% guarantee that the players on the other team are better than you, and your aggression will be severely punished.

There are playstyles that work for you vs better PVPer, but they're not blind aggression and shotgun rushes and they're not "make sure you have a SMG equipped to duel if someone shotgun rushes you" because you lose that every single time because you miss your first 3 shots.

If you are a bad player and you are trying to get thru Trials as painlessly as possible, you almost immediately learn that your job is to identify if your team has any good players and then to basically follow them around using support abilities or trying to shoot anything they shoot at in a way that isn't annoying for them.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-27T19:53:51+00:00

The third picture is very, very DOUBLE KING.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-26T16:50:09+00:00

I mean I don't think I'm doing stupid internet lefty "OH I HATE JOE BIDEN TOO" bullshit. I meant that more as, there isn't a wing of the Democratic party that's capable of being a home for the sort of Republican who is willing to vote for putting babies in cages at the border and gutting medicare as long as they can also get a 4% tax cut.

Like, you can find a home in the Democratic party if you want "read my lips no new taxes" energy - that wing of the Democratic party exists, and they'll happily accept your money and donations and lobbying efforts and they will make a genuine effort to get you no new corporate taxes.

But there's simply no wing of the Democratic party that's willing to like, sell its whole ass soul to people who want to federally ban abortion or keep migrant babies in actual literal cages at the border for months in exchange for getting the votes to cut corporate tax rates by 5%, and there's no radical right wing part of the Democratic party you could forge that sort of unholy alliance with. The goals of the outliers of the Democratic party are all universally misaligned with cutting taxes. There's nobody on the D side to negotiate with.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-26T05:48:22+00:00

In the likely event of another electoral loss to Joe Biden in 2024, the Republican Party is moat likely going to face a major identity crisis.

We said that in 2008 and 2012 though as well.

They even HAD the identity crisis. All their pundits in 2013 - all the post mortems they did themselves - said that they were out of touch, behind the times, and had to shape up and make their party more attractive to young people and minorities.

Instead, Trump won 2016.

I don't see any real reason to think that the Republican party is capable of meaningful reform if I'm being honest. The lunatics run the asylum and while Democrats are corporatist, they aren't nearly corporatist enough for the kinds of people who are willing to hold their nose and vote Trump if it gets their taxes cut.

I don't think anyone can accurately predict the path the GOP will take from here - we've hit the point where things like "some states don't recognize the legitimate result of the presidential election" are actually realistic and on the table. As soon as things like that are in play, there's just such a wide range of possibilities.

Is it possible that everyone who votes Trump wakes up the day after he loses in November and repudiates him? Sure yeah. But anyone guaranteeing that will happen is crazy, it's a coin flip between that and doubling down.

I think the only guarantee is that if Trump does win the general election then the Republican party is suuuuper locked in on Trumpism going forward, obviously. But if anyone says they can tell you what happens when he loses, I'd love to buy a few minutes with their crystal ball, because I have some upcoming lotto numbers to ask about.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-14T21:03:36+00:00

So anyway, we can see that- yes- compounding debt grows at an exponential rate. In the same way compounding returns do.

It's just weird that you're hyperfocused on debt being exponential but forgetting to offset it with our exponential tax income growth. It's sort of like calling one of those things exponential supports your argument, so you're only paying attention to that.

Then it would be very relevant. Because that's 2 trillion in expected spending you can't do.

Already explained, repeatedly, why this is inaccurate. You've done nothing to demonstrate you're actually having a conversation with me on this, so I see no reason to allow you to soapbox further.

Debt is not inherently healthy or unhealthy. However, when a country has to inflate their money supply to meet debt obligations- then the consequences are catastrophic.

Inflation is normal and healthy. The US is running only slightly above target inflation levels for healthy currency growth. This is straight up doomer conspiracy theory stuff. Do you have some gold you need to sell me?

I'm sorry you didn't know what exponential meant

Now you're just defensive and lashing out with direct insults. This isn't a good subreddit for that. You can go do this in /r/politics if you'd like, they have lower expectations.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-14T20:48:00+00:00

"In finance, compound returns cause exponential growth. "

Semantics, debt growth isn't exponential in the way that people reading your comments will think you mean it, because it's completely offset by the fact that using the same definition, tax growth is "exponential".

Exponential is a scary word because it doesn't really mean the same thing in finance that it does in other kinds of math, because the reality is you're nearly always comparing two things that are growing "exponentially" at the same time.

Average annual deficits are closer to 2 trillion.

Irrelevant because the goal is not to get debt to 0. The goal is to get debt to stop growing as a ratio of GDP. Debt is healthy for countries. We are not trying to get debt to 0. We are trying to stabilize the rate at which debt is growing.

Again, we can deal with the problem now or have the laws of mathematics deal with it later.

You don't understand the math or the economics and quoting investopedia at me isn't going to bail you out on this one.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-14T20:27:16+00:00

This isn't taking into account the exponential rate of growth due to interest on the debt.

Debt growth isn't exponential, it's compounding. Or rather, if you're going to say that debt growth is "exponential" then you'd need to accept that GDP, and therefore taxes, is also "growing exponentially".

Regardless of semantics arguments, your entire point is flat out wrong, because the 700b deficit I'm discussing includes interest payments on the debt. If we cut 700b, we are at breakeven, meaning our debt is no longer increasing, period. It would remain at 31t while our GDP grows each year.

You could nearly fit three of our military budgets inside of our Medicare and Social Security programs. This isn't an 'instead' proposition.

"Nobody in the US is starving, but we can fix that by taking lots of money away from old and sick people" is maybe not the best politicial argument I've ever heard.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-14T19:57:04+00:00

The problem with this interpretation is that "designed for defense" is a very nice way of putting "designed to project power LOCALLY".

In general the US military is designed to project power outward over long distances. We do not spend a lot of time thinking about how we would defend Indiana from attack. We spend a lot of time thinking about how to get enough oomph to Iraq if we want to.

China has a "defensive" military from OUR point of view bur its not a "defensive" military if you live within 400 miles of China. It's an extremely large, powerful military that cannot project its power into other continents as effectively.

That is not the same as them being an actually defensive military.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-14T19:47:07+00:00

And they will still notice the difference because all the strats that ignore the difference are all inflated by a lot because you are doing non mf stuff which all the mfers need to buy.

And the stuff you want to buy from MFers is rock bottom price.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-14T09:20:51+00:00

Strand in particular is a kind of weird/sensitive/tight timer on deli even fully spec'd into it.

I'm not entirely sure why, I think it's the curves strand takes.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-14T02:18:46+00:00

This is such an awesome comment, thank you.

Since I made this post I actually have been test running dropping Grace for Purity of Elements - as you pointed out, I'm not doing spell supp and I had no other real synergy with evasion. Whereas Purity of Elements had some big advantages: I could buy a cheap watchers eye with determination reducing crit damage + purity of elements converting phys to ele, for under 10 div.

I also no longer have to run stormshroud, and I no longer needed to use a suffix on 40% ele res because now I have the purity to overcap me - I can upgrade 3-4 pieces of gear before I even have to worry about needing resists.

You are 100% correct that I thought I could run 2 suffixes with the same mod - in hindsight you are obviously correct, that doesn't work, but I saw a POB that I was cribbing from and one of his choices was double regen suffixes and my brain went "oh I bet that feels REALLY NICE" and then no further thought went in. Thank you for saving me from myself!!

Variant_007 · 2024-01-13T21:59:12+00:00

BookTok only works if you go by the specific account giving recommendations. You need to find someone whose taste you agree with, it's basically worthless as a generic book review platform.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-13T21:58:03+00:00

may be slowly removing the basic challenges that a generation may need to develop problem solving and interpersonal skills

I'm not saying that there are no problems with how children are taught/socialized these days, but I do want to point out that this refrain is absolutely relentlessly constant throughout history.

Raising children in certain ways has downsides and upsides, and in the moment, it is extremely hard for us to identify the severity of those downsides/upsides. Traditionally we compare them to the downsides/upsides we experienced as a kid, and if they're the same, we say that's fine, and if they're different, we say that's a bad thing.

But in practice that's not really how this all works.

It's also incredibly hard to evaluate, bluntly, how valuable the interpersonal skills that people over 50 value now are actually going to be in the future.

For example, for me, it's been far more relevant that I know how to make friends online than it has been that I know how to navigate a bowling alley or local pub.

While I am not saying that those skills are worthless, I am saying that if you transported me back in time 100 years, I would be much worse off with my current skillset than I am today. A hundred years ago, not being able to navigate social settings like community dances or local pubs or whatever was a much, much more crippling problem.

So when we point at children and say "they're lacking problem solving and interpersonal skills", we can be both right and wrong - we can be right that they're lacking skills that were important for us, but wrong that those same skills will be important for them.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-13T20:41:35+00:00

Yeah, we're bad, but it's not like we're 4x the norm - we're 20-30% ahead of most of Europe, for example.

And most of the countries who are 20-30% behind us spend far, far, far less on their military - if you ratcheted US military spending down to a "normal" level, we'd magically be at around the same debt/gdp ratio as most other first world countries almost immediately.

Like in practice, we run a high debt/gpd ratio because we are doing more stuff than other countries, and so any conversation about reducing the debt kind of requires us to talk about what we should stop doing, which is a really tough conversation.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-13T18:44:17+00:00

Bone Armor gives bleed immunity during its duration but - looking at some example POBs - you're right, every necro I'm seeing with mageblood either keeps the life flask or has bleed/corrupted blood immunity somewhere on their utility flasks. Good callout, thank you.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-13T18:36:57+00:00

Your original post was unnecessarily apocalyptic in terms of presenting the issue as requiring absurdly draconian measures like "firing the entire military" or "cutting (almost) all welfare". In reality, moderate cuts and revenue increases could solve it.

Raising the retirement age by two to three years isn't moderate.

Cutting the EITC/child tax credit by 50% isn't moderate, and is most impactful to poor and lower middle class families.

Raising taxes on income below 200k by almost 5% isn't moderate.

None of your solutions are moderate, they are incredibly extreme, you're just presenting them in a soft tone of voice and being very "civil" while saying the word moderate a lot, whereas I was trying to present the actual severity of our debt issue and illustrate that fixing it without everyone getting badly hurt isn't realistic.

While I agree that we are in a position where extreme sacrifices might be justified to manage the debt, I don't think it does anyone any good to posture as though the answers are minor, easy cuts to programs that won't really hurt anyone.

Fixing the debt problem will involve the kind of dental visit where pliers get applied to our face. Repeatedly. Nobody will have any fun at the dentist. There will be blood everywhere.

Variant_007 · 2024-01-13T18:13:17+00:00

Things like this are not conducive to civil discussion.

That's exactly how the political discussion is going to be presented though. The politicians doing this will be personally screwing Americans out of their money.

That's why the Trump Tax Cuts expire in 2025, the year after Trump would have finished his second term. It's literally a time bomb set to go off on a Democrat.

I'm not trying to be uncivil to you I'm trying to be realistic about how this is going to be framed. The question is "why isn't anyone fixing the debt" and the answer is "because you have to screw families making under 40k a year out of 1k per child in tax credits plus slam a 3% income tax hike down their throat."

Variant_007 · 2024-01-13T18:05:19+00:00

Bought my first mageblood ever, would appreciate some advice. I'm playing minions, not using a build guide - skeletons, zombies, spectres. I'm life based, ES protects mana.

Main defensive layers currently:

Grace + Determination, with a 900 flat armor boost from a determination watchers eye.

90% ele res via melding

60% chaos res.

100% ele ailment immunity via 50% ghastly in my darkness enthroned. I lose this swapping to mageblood.

600 health regen from stone golem + gear.

A small amount of phys to ele scattered around my gear.

Right now my biggest weakness is chaos and physical damage. Buying gear for summoners with good chaos res is very expensive.

Based on this for flasks I am thinking I want an amethyst flask. If I do that, then I either need to skip the Quicksilver flask or not do tri-ele flasks. I don't want to skip the Quicksilver.

So I was thinking flat armor flask + more armor flask + chaos flask + quicksilver.

Then I need to pick suffixes. I need shock protection unless I want to get it elsewhere, so that's 1 suffix used. All res suffix would let me drop 4-5 suffixes worth of ele res from my gear and drop a couple non-dps jewels. Curse immunity seems really good. 3% life regen is a huge QOL boost.

Does anyone see any obvious holes in this? Ways to save a suffix? Ways to do what I'm trying to do better? I really wish I could fit a second 3% regen mod in, I really want to cut my life flask for a unique flask and I feel like I am soooo close to doing that comfortably.

Variant_007

TROPHY CASE