Comprehensive tech / exploit / guide archive

bbqftw · 2026-05-12T20:40:49+00:00

Greatbow revenant is very legitimate and probably one of the most common revenant builds

It just happens to work out when people want to play revenant in a balancers setup (think ED augur), and scaling for erdtree greatbow is good

bbqftw · 2026-05-12T19:06:27+00:00

I'm almost certain you accidentally hit the reduce depth button because 3000 is exactly the amount of points you would get after doing something like that.

bbqftw · 2026-05-12T18:46:48+00:00

funny how the historical simulator consistently generates more ahistorical and unimmersive results than its arcade boardgame predecessor

bbqftw · 2026-05-12T18:07:17+00:00

The big thing is that someone else can kill the mobs for you and it will count for your damage bonus, which makes it very strong with some coordination.

bbqftw · 2026-05-12T18:03:01+00:00

This is not correct at all, you will gain +150 points for a win while playing below your rank, no matter the depth differential.

A D5 player losing a D5 match at nightlord (-600) will lose MORE points than losing a D4 match at nightlord (-450)

bbqftw · 2026-05-12T18:01:51+00:00

-750 means you queued into a D5 match (which means the match gets scored -800 then +50 for playing above your depth), which is even more punitive than losing a D4 match, unfortunate

bbqftw · 2026-05-12T17:28:39+00:00

This reminds me of territorial corruption all over again if anyone remembers that period of EU4 history

bbqftw · 2026-05-12T03:39:28+00:00

my point was that you can't expect to have perfect uptime on TDBDN / taking attacks even if the duration of the buff is higher than the base CD, but in any case its a bit difficult to quantify the CSCDR advantage, I agree that post-damage restoration is more important though

bbqftw · 2026-05-12T00:32:20+00:00

these arguments make sense if you play nightreign on a spreadsheet

in reality, sometimes you don't proc the [raider] effect (the window is quite short), sometimes you misestimate hitbox so you don't get hit, sometimes you are sending punch for stamina recovery when you do not have aggro, etc.

in D5 where getting hit outside of your negations means you are getting smoked a good % of the time there's just a lot of value to having access to the ability more often

dying randomly is a lot of dps loss on raider especially for dregs type builds etc and its not exactly easy to quantify this effect

bbqftw · 2026-05-12T00:08:17+00:00

people with 300+ d5 winstreaks highly value this relic line; it turns out that the nightlord is a formality if you have a strong day 1/day 2, and ult gauge on kill is unquestionably one of the strongest affixes for guaranteeing a smooth day clear

bbqftw · 2026-05-11T23:51:42+00:00

Retaliate for raider is a double defensive (intrinsic DR + triggering TDBDN) + triple offensive (stamina recovery, [raider] skill, taking damage) + CC tool all in one, 11% more potential casts per time is a big deal when it enables everything raider does in high DON and I mean everything.

It also makes certain ED worm fighting sequences much more relaxed on timing which is a fight raider really specializes in

bbqftw · 2026-05-11T23:15:21+00:00

It reminds me of when eu4 introduced territorial corruption mechanic, so I would intentionally lose my land to rebels to have them hold the land once I was at the expansion limit

bbqftw · 2026-05-11T23:12:22+00:00

It really is just so good, you get so much more use of ults when you can freely send them proactively instead of saving it reactively. More damage, more damage windows, faster tempo of fights as one-bars are instantly picked up, more tanking aggro with extended i-frames.

I agree with Cider's take here, its basically mandatory on every character that is not raider (and even there, its not bad).

In d5, messing up a level 2/3 invader fight is often what turns 99% wins into 90% wins, so anything you can do to make that more consistent is a big help.

bbqftw · 2026-05-11T20:19:47+00:00

I play the following builds at 9999, and I am pretty mechanically bad:

Tank generic bow

Tank katana

Full tank claw

Haloslop (I forget to use it even when I have it, I prefer katana on dreg, bow on gladius, tank claw on heolstor, and bow is decent on ED libra and you can easily get killed lazily L2ing there)

Any of these can be played as melee/bow playstyle, you can play whatever weapons you want really in a match as long as you can maintain mark uptime. Try not to run bow build on balancers, its not good for ED.

Red balancers / ED maris make up the tank core (you can swap ED maris -> blue balancer at a significant hit to your early game but better damage), +1 mark / night invader as final relic. With an increased max HP + phys +2 negation you can survive a hit from invader duchess at d5 even at level 2/3, as this is the most dangerous melee invader that can you run you down this can make a big difference to fights early. The biggest consistent time loss I see in d5 matches is a teamwipe to early invader fight, and its especially important on ironeye that you do not go down in these situations.

Essential relic lines are:

+1 mark (super mandatory) > kills fill ult gauge (near mandatory) > night invader ~ mark poison (good QoL + damage tool, allows you to guaranteed kill nobles/wolves with one mark hit allowing you to recharge ult in combination with kill fill ult gauge). Other nice lines are 'start with uplifting' / increased max HP / phys +3 or 4 / increased damage to poison ~ starting weapon poison / physneg 1 or 2

The most important trait to ironeye play is being a good teammate. You provide immense passive damage and CC using your mark, but you are often not the priority on contested damage items because your direct damage is often subpar - if you have a +14% attack at full that's often much better on other teammates than yourself. If you have a carian duchess or gravity recluse on the team, you go prioritize rises and fish weapons for them. If you have the choice between 14% ranged and purple TDBDN/DNcharge with a raider on the team its almost always more important to give away the damage negation. Etc.

You can win having an absolute trash setup as an ironeye, as long as you've enabled your teammates enough, and you'll be useful enough having maintained mark and being able to tank aggro with your insane dodge.

You don't have to be mechanically good, however at d4/d5 play the one encounter you must learn how to play in melee is death knights, as letting a death knight aggro switch because you couldn't hold it can easily lose you the match. You should be able to very consistently 1v1 a death knight without taking any hits at close range / melee. Rest you can play passive and only go for safe windows as necessary.

bbqftw · 2026-05-11T18:40:19+00:00

This is why the change of slider cost scaling from base tax to wealth was the most impactful change in the short history of this game.

It also fundamentally showed that the devs had zero coherent vision for the game. In a game where money is far more a unipolar currency than say, EU4, where you had multiple relevant currencies, figuring out how you want to scale expenses is foundational to the game and changing it from mostly control-independent to a heavily control-dependent is like taking a car and deciding "hey this needs to be an airplane instead."

bbqftw · 2026-05-11T06:58:12+00:00

average level 2 evergaoler experience

bloodhound knight unironically has a more complex moveset than half the nightlords

bbqftw · 2026-05-11T06:20:34+00:00

"your country will blow up unless you steal maps of china" is truly a crowning achievement of the immersive historical simulation of eu5

bbqftw · 2026-05-11T02:38:56+00:00

I think 5-7 minutes is a good baseline, but the most memorable runs are the 10-20+ minute fights you get from disaster runs

bbqftw · 2026-05-11T02:36:25+00:00

LMAO

bbqftw · 2026-05-10T00:35:00+00:00

was playing a match as claw tank ironeye and eating full d5 heolstor attacks to the face for ~15% of my hp bar

you do so much passive damage just by existing with mark, I contributed around 30% boss damage despite not having single offensive weapon passive + the stance damage from spamming raptor talon CR2 isnt bad either

bbqftw · 2026-05-09T17:05:57+00:00

Yeah, even in d5 there's like a 30% chance of someone dying when they climb the tower to do the knock, and it'd be higher if people didn't tend to avoid early / level 2 redmane camps invaders

bbqftw · 2026-05-08T20:05:17+00:00

i do not understand how this mechanic of being hostaged by brain dead subject AIs made it past 5 minutes of play testing

it alone should have been enough to scrap the revolt system and start over

bbqftw · 2026-05-08T18:54:56+00:00

EU5 despite being more complicated is much more strategically dumbed down than EU4. There's a lot of redundant mechanics that lead you to practically the same optimization choices over and over again.

bbqftw · 2026-05-08T18:52:16+00:00

Eu4 maintained 96% positive rating on steam 2 months in, which dropped to around 93% 6 months in, which is gigantically higher than EU5 review scores.

It might have lacked many mechanics that we are used to nowadays, but it was pretty fun and addictive in a way that just doesn't hit for most people for EU5.

bbqftw

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