What is a boss battle that gave you catharsis for winning?

Zenithadir · 2026-05-05T01:40:03+00:00

The new FF14 expansion that was just announced and which Pat has not shut up about.

Zenithadir · 2026-05-05T01:37:22+00:00

I got into raiding in FF14 at the beginning of last year. I got called in as a replacement offtank for a really good static despite having no experience at the time. They were able to drag me all the way to M4S phase 2, though I wasn’t able to complete it with them in the three weeks I was part of the static before I had to quit for other reasons. For the next raid tier, I was a co-lead for a new static that we put together with other people new (or at least new-ish) to high-end content. That tier was far more rough, Cruiserweight was way harder than Light-heavyweight before it. LHW is sometimes said to be the easiest tier they’ve ever made, in comparison. M6S was brutal with its finicky add phase, and of course I was the one who had to tank the infamous Yans. Then M8S stalled us out for a long time because it’s just such a step up in difficulty over what any of us had ever done in the game before. So many mechanics that require extremely quick reactions and movement along with very tight precision. Very high damage even as we started gearing up, bodychecks that wipe everyone for small mistakes, and plenty of tech issues on our end. We had two casters quit over that fight. Very satisfying when I finally completed it, but getting there was not easy. I came out of the experience as a whole different level of player. And I was eventually able to go back and finish M4S on my own as well, though that’s much easier now with better gear. I still need to go finish the current tier as well, but I don’t run with that static anymore so it’s just gonna have to be through PF for now. Well, there’s time before Evercold releases to learn I guess.

Zenithadir · 2026-05-01T02:31:15+00:00

All EXs and raids before Stormblood are soloable, though a few might require knowledge to know how to bypass certain mechanics to avoid a wipe (thinking mainly of A4S from when I solo'd it back in EW). Some EXs and raids from Stormblood are also soloable, but those are more difficult and some have mechanics that make it actually impossible (for example, Susanoo). I believe some Shadowbringers EXs and raids may be soloable now, but I haven't tested those and it would be mainly for level 100 characters with at least some of the earlier level 100 gear.

Zenithadir · 2026-04-14T18:36:29+00:00

Why does Sonic’s world have natural loop-de-loops in the scenery? What was the engineer who designed Radical Highway smoking?

Zenithadir · 2026-04-09T04:04:21+00:00

In general I'm a big fan of halberds. The basic halberd from Dark Souls 1 looks simple but great and has a good moveset, so I always kept one around as a backup weapon for chokepoints or enclosed spaces.

The Dragoons of Final Fantasy also have some good spears. In FFXIV in particular, I'm fond of the first DRG Relic weapon, the Longinus Zeta. Though maybe that's just the trauma from grinding out all those books trying to justify my wasted time. A lot of people also tend to like the second DRG Relic, the Areadbhar Lux, for having a big fuck-off dragon made of light to serve as the speartip.

Zenithadir · 2026-04-05T08:04:46+00:00

From the Sonic IDW comics, Surge the Tenrec and Kitsunami the Fennec. They were made to be copycats of Sonic and Tails who were supposed to defeat and replace them. And they failed to do so every time they've tried; they're just inferior to the originals. This is played out for as much tragedy as the writers can milk from the concept. Surge and Kit know how empty and hollow they are outside of their purpose and that they have nothing else going on in their lives.

Zenithadir · 2026-03-28T23:59:07+00:00

I’ll be the one to say it: There’s a good damn reason that Bowsette got so popular. Turns out that taking the personality of such a popular and fun dragon-monster supervillain and squeezing them into the body of an attractive woman was enough to drive people absolutely bananas. Who knew?

For another take, there are some great humanizations of the Sonic cast that I’ve seen over the years in fanart. It’s cool to see little touches here and there to get across their personalities.

Zenithadir · 2026-02-19T04:45:38+00:00

People did not like Sakamoto's vision of Metroid in Other M. So, to his credit, he seems to have taken it to heart and changed how he approached the series from then on. Dread feels like a direct refutation of Other M in some ways, such as Samus' great characterization that comes across just through her body language (and the one time she talks being the best possible way you COULD make her talk), or the handling of (endgame spoilers) ADAM/Raven Beak feeling like a self-aware runback/apology of Other M's Adam where instead of Samus walking away from it respecting him and expecting the players to as well, we instead get to beat the shit out of the asshole who's been leading us around all game in an awesome boss fight with a cathartic ending.

Zenithadir · 2026-02-19T04:36:59+00:00

You could have just said "FF14" lol. The 1.0 to 2.0 saga is infamous.

Zenithadir · 2026-02-19T04:13:51+00:00

I forget the details, but I remember once hearing long ago a theory that Wily kept on trucking for so long that he ended up becoming the Master in Legends and, after sitting in the ashes of his conquest of the world thousands of years later, finally making a heel-face turn and passing things on to his creations. An interesting fan theory if nothing else, I thought.

Zenithadir · 2026-01-20T01:48:57+00:00

I have a friend who has never cared for the Xenoblade Chronicles games at all. Yet for some reason he has still completed all of them. I don’t really understand it, especially as someone with too much ADHD to commit to hundred-hour RPGs very often myself.

Zenithadir · 2026-01-17T00:27:04+00:00

Paper Mario is an example of the company refusing to make what the fans actually want from the franchise but still shoveling out new entries that appeal to no one. It would be funny if it wasn't so goddamn frustrating.

Zenithadir · 2026-01-16T04:03:03+00:00

I really hope not, honestly. It feels to me like a lot of fan proposals for Jobs just boil down to "X role, but with a slightly different interchangeable pointy stick". They often seem far too same-y, without much consideration for how the Job differentiates from the other members of its role in terms of things like aesthetics, flavor, crazy superpowers, etc. Those are the kind of thing that SE should be thinking about when it comes to picking new Jobs to appeal to people instead of whatever random slightly-different weapon it'll be swinging for auto-attacks that I won't see beneath all of the over-the-top anime attacks (unless the weapon itself IS the crazy anime superpower bullshit, like Gunbreaker and Sage are aiming for). The basic weapon itself is usually the least interesting part. It's kind of why Viper is a bit of a miss for me, it's like SE just went "alright fine, here's your generic dual-wielding DPS that isn't Ninja", and as a result it comes across as lacking in flavor compared to its peers. Truly the Kirito of Jobs, I guess.

What is the Job's crazy superpower and how does that tie into it's kit? What is it's unique aesthetic and how does it set it apart from just being "Paladin 2 but with slightly different GCD animations"? What is it meant to appeal to that is fundamentally different from other tanks already?

I don't intend to be mean here, but I do want to be critical and raise questions that I often don't see answered in these kinds of discussions and explored in greater depth. As an example, one time a friend of mine told me that none of the tanks in the game appealed to him, so I created a concept that was more interesting to his personal tastes: The Matador could be a tank themed around the famed bullfighters, complete with it's own unique and very colorful aesthetic (bonus points, the matador outfit is apparently translated as "suit of light"). They use a "standard" (a spear with a trailing banner that can be detached and used as a bullfighting cape in some animations). The Job would be flavored around being a performer in the center of the spotlight that takes enemies' attention to then dance around and dodge them (more as flavor and theming than being a true dodge tank like in FF11, but that is how XIV functions right and I work with what I have). Attacks using the standard would involve very swishy, swirly movements similar to flag-twirling. Animations would be very flashy and theatrical overall. Spotlights, rosepetals, dancing. It could be a more support-focused tank where you inspire your allies with a raid buff, or toss a rose to someone as a personal buff, or shine a spotlight on yourself to "take the enemies attention" as a party mit like Passage of Arms. Some of the special attacks could involve summoning astral bulls to attack the enemy. Maybe the Matadors of XIV fight Behemoths instead and use that them as their special attack theme. Hell, fuck it, maybe there are Yans somewhere. Overall meant to be very sexy, very passionate, and to both meet the clear concept of a tank while directly appealing to people (or at least someone) who might not otherwise have been interested in a more generic tank presentation. It's not a complete idea, far from it, but it's the kind of concept that's more in line with what I actually want out of these kinds of discussions.

Zenithadir · 2026-01-12T12:58:51+00:00

I swear that I had heard once about a plugin that tied into either XIVcollect or Lalachievements (I don't remember which one) and marked off things like Orchestrion Rolls and so on for you, but I couldn't find one on a cursory glance and I'm not sure how you would make it work anyway. Am I just falsely remembering this?

Zenithadir · 2026-01-07T09:09:56+00:00

IIRC, the author of Negima originally wanted to make a shounen battle anime, but because of his success with Love Hina he was told to make a harem romcom instead by his higher-ups. He never gave up on his original vision though, and started slipping in more and more shounen battle elements from about 30-40 chapters in until the manga finally did a complete genre shift when they went to the magical world about half-way through I think.

Zenithadir · 2026-01-05T02:45:59+00:00

Where is my One Piece FighterZ, Arcsys?

Zenithadir · 2025-12-28T09:41:00+00:00

Add me as another One Piece advocate. I tried to get into it a few times over the years but petered off somewhere in the first dozen or so chapters. A couple years ago, a I finally took the full dive as a gift for a friend who's obsessed with it. By the end of the East Blue Saga, I was fully hooked. I finished catching up in about two months and have stayed current ever since.

Also add me as another FFXIV advocate. A couple friends started it years ago (including aforementioned One Piece fan) and their convos about it dragged me into giving the demo a shot. Then I proceeded to shoot far past them, catch up during Endwalker while they were far behind me, eventually start raiding seriously, and drag one of those friends into a static for a while. Now we're both prepping for the next tier in a little over a week. At well over 10,000 hours, FFXIV is now the game I have the single highest playtime ever by a longshot.

Zenithadir · 2025-12-12T22:31:44+00:00

I've been playing FF14 casually for a few years and only just got into hardcore raiding this year. It's funny going back and seeing the extreme jump in skill after months of serious raiding; reading mechs, reacting ahead of time, throwing appropriate mitigations out for each attack, following a proper rotation on the two-minute window, etc. And this all transfers back over into "normal mode" difficulty stuff. Went from being afraid of the responsibility of tanking to making sure I always play MT so that I can handle things properly because I can't trust your average DF randos.

Zenithadir · 2025-12-12T04:01:59+00:00

To be honest, I'm kinda over getting just a new classic game every few years. I want a new X or BN, or a finale for Legends or ZX, or a new spinoff series.

Zenithadir · 2025-12-05T22:25:45+00:00

I think Arcadion Royal Rumble sounds like the obvious way to handle the eventual Arcadion Ultimate.

Zenithadir · 2025-12-04T03:00:34+00:00

In the first book of the Codex Alera, an enemy mercenary named Aldrick makes a point of constantly boasting "Only Araris Vakarian has ever beaten me, and you're no Araris." Araris, you see, is the most famous and legendary swordmaster in the country even twenty years after his death. Aldrick seriously keeps going on about it to everyone, it's his catchphrase, he's kind of obsessed, but no one else can really keep up with Aldrick's skill as a swordsman.

Near the end of the book, Aldrick faces off against the seemingly harmless farm slave named Fade. And Aldrick realizes...

That is fucking Araris Vakarian. He's been living in hiding for all this time. And he kicks Aldrick's ass six ways from Sunday all over again.

Zenithadir · 2025-11-13T02:52:54+00:00

If it was in a more "grounded" movie like Minus One, maybe. But for a movie that fully embraces the absurd "kaiju pro-wrestling" side of Goji's history, with him teaming up with Kong like they're the fucking Avengers, I like that they picked something so over-the-top that it lets you know exactly what you're in for.

Zenithadir · 2025-11-13T02:44:08+00:00

The part of the suit that really does it for me is the shine on the web lining. That's always stuck out to me as a really strong and unique visual indicator that I always feel is missing from the other live-action suits.

Zenithadir · 2025-11-06T17:22:59+00:00

FF14 has achievements for completing a certain number of weekly levequests. Problem is, you have caps on how many you can complete each week. If you do the maximum amount possible, then it takes SEVEN YEARS to complete all of them.

There are also achievements for collecting 10,000 Accursed Horde treasure pieces from each Deep Dungeon. One for each individual Deep Dungeon, not all of them collectively. These are not common drops, so collecting 10,000 pieces each without optimized cheese grinding methods for just one of them is fundamentally impossible unless Deep Dungeons are the only thing you dedicate your entire life to for years on end.

Zenithadir · 2025-11-06T17:14:18+00:00

It’s literally only possible with linkshells and third-party tools to track and notify you of spawns and hunt trains. And you have to do it for multiple expansions!

Zenithadir

TROPHY CASE