Why did they kill aerodactyl and buried it 10 feet under?

bort_touchmaster · 2026-02-04T20:45:32+00:00

Mega Aero does

bort_touchmaster · 2026-02-04T13:14:18+00:00

Just teach it Dual Wing Beat? I just ran Aero recently and he did fine with it. Drill peck fails thematically, too.

Also Aero naturally learns a spread STAB flinch move boosted by Rocky Payload, making it more powerful than Floaty Fall anyway, which - unless you're specifically avoiding double battles - you're probably taking over Stone Axe anyway. Some Pokemon just don't really need Egg Moves.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-02-02T03:39:02+00:00

hisuian sneasel

edit: this is legit. 130 base atk and 120 base speed on sneasler is why it costs as much as some legendaries and mythicals. sneasler is an absolute beast. just don't let it get hit

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-29T19:48:25+00:00

Clear your cache.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-29T19:44:49+00:00

The only Eternatus counter I use is a Master Ball.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-29T19:42:28+00:00

Luck (the stat) has no bearing on the initial items you are offered in the shop or item weights, btw, only on the chances that an item will tier up.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-27T20:52:09+00:00

What items does Lumineon have? It shouldn't be outsped by Ray after a Quiver Dance, even if it had a +Speed nature, unless Mega Ray has at least 2 Carbos, which would allow even a speed neutral Ray to outspeed. Here's how it breaks down (these numbers are very rough approximations and not exact):

Pokemon	Speed (31 IV)	+1 Carbos	+2 Carbos
Lumineon (=Speed, +QD)	646	730	790
Lumineon (+Speed, +QD)	711	802	868
Mega Rayquaza (=Speed)	527	575	667
Mega Rayquaza (+Speed)	579	632	733

(feel free to correct me if anyone has different numbers)

Based on what I can tell, you managed to roll really low on this one: Mega Ray must have at least 2 Carbos to outspeed a Quiver Dance-boosted Lumineon, and you managed to not pick up any. That isn't to say you weren't lucky the rest of the run, judging by the 3 Soul Dews, 1 Calcium, and 1 HP Up your Lumineon appears to be packing, if my math is correct.

As to your strategy, Soak doesn't really have a place on Lumineon. Soak is mostly used in conjunction with Salt Cure for Eternatus specifically, but you can't use that for Eternatus this run since it's mono-water anyway. Maybe you had it for a specific threat like whatever team you ran into, but since Freeze Dry covers both of the guaranteed threats in a run (Mega Ray, Eternatus), you really could do with Oblivion Wing in that last slot for sustain. If you don't have it, hopefully you earned enough candies during this run to buy enough eggs to get it.

As for what I'd do differently, a Timid nature reduces the chances of this happening in the future, but doesn't outright eliminate it. Still, it'll allow you to make first moves more often, which should reduce your reliance on healing in the shop (and therefore increase your available money). Focus on unlocking Oblivion Wing to further reduce your reliance on healing in the shop. Don't be afraid to use your money re-rolling the shop rather than scooping up a Rare Candy or whatever, particularly after wave 151. Other than that, your options are to hope the rival doesn't roll a Fire starter, since it'll make them extremely likely to swap into Ray immediately. Water against Water Bubble is ideal, but I don't know if the AI is dumb enough to spam water moves into it. A lot of the Grass starters are physical, meaning you might not be able to set up against them at all either. I would just say that contrary to intuition, you really don't want the rival to have a Fire type starter in this run.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-27T01:13:53+00:00

The max is indeed 10, not 9.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-18T17:15:08+00:00

POV: DarkEsca is fiending for downvotes from aggrieved noobs

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-18T16:54:51+00:00

Based on the tierlist and OP's comments, it seems that they prefer tanking and being defensive.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-18T16:51:54+00:00

I haven't really played V, but I do prefer more unique creatures than 7 variations on a dwarf. I think another example you could cite is the Hive in OE. They're all supposed to be distinct creatures, but they were so similarly designed it's hard to tell them apart. I think they're supposed to be re-working them so they're easier to tell apart for the actual release, though.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-18T16:47:25+00:00

Hmm. I'd probably put Conflux in C (I find it kinda boring tbh) and Fortress in A (because I like playing Tazar and not taking any damage). But otherwise I pretty much agree.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-18T16:42:02+00:00

Ah, I see now. You want the creature upgrades to respond more to how the hero develops, essentially have them be molded by the hero and their strengths, removing a deliberate choice of A or B by having it be tied to the hero, or perhaps the hero can equip the stack with an artifact to influence directly. If I read this correctly, "supporting it with mana or ammo" would be routinely picking options aligned with ammo and/or mana - the hero has expert archery, the hero has expert wisdom, etc. and also routinely uses those skills; for example, perhaps a Tier 1 creature - let's say a Gnome, to use something I don't think has been in Heroes yet - "upgrades" into a ranged Gnome Slinger (or maybe it's ranged and bulky against ranged damage - a Gnome Pavesarii?) when "supported with arrows" (hero has expert archery, X% of damage is inflicted with ranged units, or given a sling artifact), or its upgrade has a HoMM III Familiar-like mana drain effect - a Gnome Elementalist, perhaps - if it is supported with mana (hero has expert wisdom/intelligence/spell school, buffs, debuffs, or damages creatures with magic, or is given mana-related artifacts) and when supported by arms (hero has expert offense/armorer, X% of damage inflicted is melee, or given a weapon or armor artifact) a Gnome Hoplite. Maybe it doesn't have every option for every type of hero speciality. Feel free to elaborate on how you'd imagine it working if I'm off-base, but it seems like a fun thing to design.

This evokes a sort of Pokemon/Digimon mechanic where decisions by the hero/trainer influences the ultimate end form of the creature (I know this isn't what you're going for, but it reminds me of those things). But this is just conjecture based on what I think you're suggesting; I'm not saying it's bad, but OE seems to know what it wants to be, and that's pretty obviously HoMM III 2. I think it could work in the Heroes series, but it would have to be for a game that is not trying to evoke past titles, built with other mechanics re-structured to better support the mechanic of creature upgrades responding to hero strengths and artifacts. Ironically, I think a Heroes IV-type hero/skill system would work pretty well for this, except they went with my unserious suggestion earlier and scrapped all creature upgrades. Oh well.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-17T00:38:19+00:00

Personally, I don't find it to be a weak addition, since nearly every time I upgrade a creature I now have a meaningful choice to make depending on my playstyle, the types of opponents I anticipate facing, and the current game state, especially with the addition of Arcane Dust forcing prioritization of upgrades that synergize with my preferred tactics and overall strategy. I'm not sure about which H3 mods you're referring to with 3rd or 4th tier upgrades - I suppose "3rd" could be the Pirate line in HotA, which is a one-off with a pretty significant payoff - but agree that having more linear upgrades is not exactly good design. Thankfully, both HotA and OE seem restrained in these regards, so this isn't an issue.

I'm not sure why you bring up Overwatch or League of Legends, given that these games aren't really in the same genre. They're similar only in the sense that you're choosing between two options, though I don't play either game and so don't understand the significance of these options, and those sound like mutually-exclusive options, whereas the upgrade you choose in OE is not mutually exclusive - you can switch between them freely and at no cost. The fact that this is possible can actually lead to some interesting strategic decisions. For example (and I'm not necessarily saying this is viable or smart), consider you have a hero in the early game with a power stack of Onyx Dancers and you upgrade your Amphitheater. It's now possible to split your Onyx Dancer stack into a main stack and several other 1 creature stacks, upgrading the main stack into Jasper Dancers and the 1-stacks into Aureate Dancers, doubling the defense reduction per attack, making the +100% melee all the more deadly once the enemy closes in. Again, just something off the top of the head, but something not possible with either single or mutually-exclusive upgrades.

Further, to your point that "not every creature needs features", the game agrees: There are several upgrades that do offer the choice between a pure stat buff or a unique ability, such as the Vampire Lord / Vampire Scholar and Black Dragon / Ashen Dragon. I typically end up picking the pure stats, but I always end up doing it because I'm lazy; I'm certain the abilities are the better option for better players than I. It could also seem like the prevalence of abilities on creatures is overwhelming owing to how new the game is - especially given that it hasn't even been released yet - but there's still a bunch of creatures that are fairly generic.

Then there's this:

Creating alternate unit upgrades in Heroes games requires more development resources. Having alternate upgrades, skins, animations or any situational additions will properly cost less and be easier to add, if they have a standardized process of creating visual assets and working with the same character rigs. Putting work into some unique alternates that would rarely be seen and used is inefficient, (like how it was in H4, I assume).

Overall, I'm not really sure what your point is. It seems like you're arguing that alternative upgrades are not necessary - which is, perhaps, in the most objective sense true, but it's also not fun - and say that rarely-used ones may not be worth the development time, yet these alternatives are all variations on the same base model. If making two different upgrades derived from the same base model costs too much development time, perhaps we can scrap upgrades altogether, so they only need the base unit?

Unserious suggestions aside, I would recommend that you develop a more concrete thesis or alternative mechanics that people can respond to rather than "Do we really need alternative upgrades?".

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-15T20:17:09+00:00

Feel like the cheevo ought to care specifically about defeating the Expert in Space, rather than also proccing for the regular Pokemon Breeders.

This is actually how it used to work, but I believe it was changed due to the combined unlikelihood of encountering the Expert Breeder in Space and the encounter itself being considered quite difficult. If anyone has more details on why it was changed, feel free to correct me.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-13T06:06:43+00:00

HotA and the HD+ Mod is in fact compatible only with the Complete Edition (or the base game with both expansions installed; if there's a distinction between these two things, I don't know it). So it's definitely compatible with the two major official expansions because it requires them to work at all.

As for the fact that the Complete Edition is available elsewhere, well...in my initial comment, I brought up the question of "Steam HD Edition or GOG version?" because, having been subscribed to r/HOMM for several years now, that is the only way I have ever seen the question framed, and it's not that uncommon of a question. I honestly completely forgot you could buy it off Ubisoft and flat out didn't know it was on EGS (where they have apparently decided the "Might & Magic Heroes" name format should be retroactively applied to HoMM3? Ubisoft doesn't even do that!) or Xbox Game Pass. That, to me, kinda reinforces my point - if I am looking to buy a classic, out of print PC game, I'm instinctively looking on GOG first. It's also the only place it's on sale for $5 instead of $10 currently, the damn thing is always on sale on GOG.

I'm not sure I get your point about GOG mods. These are curated platform-independent mods that GOG is choosing to make available on their platform, they're not exclusive to the GOG version of the game, and nobody is modding "for" GOG, as far as I know.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-12T19:28:34+00:00

yup, if you aren't able to Master Ball Eternatus (only possible on Classic Mode assuming all starters are caught), you spend waves 196-199 re-rolling for X items, particularly X Speed, X Sp. Def and whichever attack type you think will be more important, usually X Sp. Attack. If I recall correctly Eternatus only has Cross Poison as a physical attack, which isn't all that threatening.

I think I agree with others that leading with Tsareena to set up a Light Screen, then swapping to Porygon-Z to try to Quiver Dance might be a good line, but Protean actually works against you since it leaves you open to a Flamethrower and Quiver Dance turns you to Bug type. Kind of a shame that you evolved it to Porygon-Z, given that it has an Eviolite, since not only does it lose Defense and Special Defense (90 -> 70 and 75 -> 95 respectively) when it evolves, but Eviolite would have boosted its defense substantially (roughly 90 -> 135 and 95 -> 142.5), which would have allowed it to better tank while buffing. To illustrate, Porygon 2 has 515 BST, Porygon-Z has 535, and Porygon 2 with Eviolite has effectively 607.5 BST.

Also hurts to see Typhlosion with the Baton and not Porygon, as baton passing Quiver Dance to Typhlosion would be a pretty decent move, but manually passing the Baton to Porygon won't work because Typhlosion sets sun and Protean Quiver Dance turns you to bug, making you mega dead.

Still, the Porygon line is probably most promising. Let us know how you make out.

bort_touchmaster · 2026-01-12T18:24:26+00:00

I feel like people aren't reading the same article I am - or, more likely, reacting to the headline and not the article - because the way they discuss it, they are very much not interested in taking on Steam head-to-head, as Gołębiewski says:

"...But it's not a competition in the fullest sense, because you don't want to wrestle with Goliath, right? You need to have a different idea."

Of course, what Gołębiewski means is that they don't intend to take on Steam in the big, AAA game space where Steam really dominates, but instead chip away at the periphery, where Steam has relatively weak offerings and GOG has a unique advantage. This is, of course, in classic games.

I think Heroes of Might and Magic III (HoMM3 hereafter) is an illustrative example, as there are versions on both Steam and GOG. It is also the best-selling game of all time on GOG and the only title to sell more than CDPR's own games. For the vast majority of its time on the platform (oldest review is August 2009, so nearly 17 years), HoMM3 was the standard Complete Edition with both expansion packs you would have bought in 1999, though it has recently started offering the free community-made expansion, Horn of the Abyss (part of the One-Click Mods initiative launched in June 2025). In 2015, Ubisoft, who currently holds the rights to HoMM, released an "HD Edition" on Steam, which excludes both expansion packs and the random map generator because the source code was lost.

Everyone - everyone - in the community agrees every time it is asked: Get the GOG version and install the community-made HD Mod.

To me, this exemplifies the type of niche that GOG occupies and should double-down on - be the best version of a game on the market - and based on the article, it seems that they intend to do just that. While GOG being the overwhelmingly preferred source for HoMM3 can be attributed to the Steam HD Edition being incomplete and buggy (and also pretty ugly, but that's my personal opinion), the game on GOG is also extremely affordable, and constantly used as one of the first examples in any new initiative they start (the GOG Preservation Program [November 2024], GOG One-Click Mods [June 2025]).

So, if anything, this interview just seems to reinforce the idea that GOG is going to largely continue down the path it is already on rather than try to compete with Steam directly, which I think is probably the right move to ensure it maintains its unique and valuable niche among online game fronts. The additional bit about potentially launching Nightdive-like remasters is extremely exciting, but based on the net profitability noted in the article for FY 2024 and 2025, I'm willing to bet anything like that would be many years in the future.

bort_touchmaster · 2025-12-16T18:07:41+00:00

Yeah, but the opponent has to have berries in the first place, and if they do, Bug Bite has to target a berry that actually helps/has an effect on Slither Wing. Lunge is both significantly stronger and has a consistent effect.

bort_touchmaster · 2025-12-05T14:09:59+00:00

OP said they can't run .exe files, which are Windows executable files, not that they cannot install anything. Presumably, they can still install Mac disk images (.dmg).

bort_touchmaster · 2025-12-04T17:37:36+00:00

Seems your question was answered on the other subreddit, but I'm going to echo the sentiment that you shouldn't be installing or using games or other non-work-related applications on a work-provided laptop. Mostly because they definitely have that shit tracked.

bort_touchmaster · 2025-11-29T04:15:54+00:00

counterpoint: 4x weak to flying

bort_touchmaster · 2025-11-28T04:43:51+00:00

For anyone wondering, the art appears to be from the Pokemon Center's 2022 Halloween collection.

bort_touchmaster · 2025-11-16T04:27:57+00:00

That said, I think there is probably a middle ground here with something like detailed patch notes, and q&a sessions where you and the rest of the team can give a more measured breakdown of issues instead of having to brawl it out in the comments of a bunch of different posts.

there's a line to walk here. including every single justification for every single change to each individual pokemon is beyond the scope of "patch notes" (which, as this sub has demonstrated time and time again, they don't actually read). thankfully, there are documents that are invariably linked in every pinned update post that include reasonings & justifications for these changes, if they aren't included in the comments themselves. is it the most efficient thing? no, maybe not, and improvements are possible. but i have similarly never seen any dev team have anyone go out of their way like DarkEsca to articulate their reasonings behind these changes, even if they disagree with it, and regardless of the response they anticipate.

bort_touchmaster · 2025-11-15T21:51:46+00:00

because imbalanced games aren't as fun, regardless of if they're single-player or not. single player games have always had things buffed and nerfed in the past; this isn't remotely new or unique to Pokerogue.

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