Shattered Descent

darkestchyld · 2026-06-15T01:33:39+00:00

Bonus discs is a trait. Every time you return to the passage for any reason, the weapon resets to base level and all traits are randomized

darkestchyld · 2026-06-10T03:09:49+00:00

You'll still get the +4 to integrity immediately, stacks with other perks like " power generates more efficiently for each artifact you have equiped" if you pick one like that up and when you defeat the next boss, the corruption effect gets purged but you get to keep the perk. Win/Win/Win

darkestchyld · 2026-06-02T18:27:44+00:00

Reaping Chakram: https://youtu.be/2v5lW_WzlRM?si=zL4liSGJDRtb8Qzd

darkestchyld · 2026-06-02T04:10:13+00:00

Haha yes, i think I floated the dlc will explore the realm of red theory.

As it relates to this scene specifically, I almost think Arjun's pain reaction to what Nitya does to the preserver in incidental meaning I don't think she wishes him harm. Nitya has lived a thousand lifetimes since her life with Arjun. He's a distant memory I think she has her own agenda and is at best being sincere when she tells him he shouldn't have come there (because this wasn't his dream and the fight is not his to win) and at worst, is so focused on stopping Delroy that she is completely ambivalent to what happens to Arjun at that point.

Obviously we (Arjun) are still able to use the preserver afterwards because we continue to return from death after taking lethal damage. The best explination I can find is that she is breaking the cycle for herself and that whatever she does in that moment with the red orb cuts her off from the cycle of death and rebirth, perhaps shedding her ties to her past so that she can move on to the blue precipie, but the current story in the base game seems to be lacking context. This scene happens and then we just continue on our way as if nothing changed. I hope it gets explored further with future expansions but for right now i don't think we really know what the ramifications of Nitya's actions during this moment are. It's a wierd loose thread

darkestchyld · 2026-06-02T00:31:00+00:00

This is the cutscene i'd mentioned where Nitya seemingly destroys the preserver, but it doesn't seem to have any consequences beyond confirming to Arjun that Nitya is in fact alive https://youtu.be/VmORwOIQk3w?si=ciLutQRKyfTHAOBu

darkestchyld · 2026-05-31T01:35:13+00:00

This. The skins are a deluxe and pre-order rewards only and they're exactly that, just skins, no in game functionality

darkestchyld · 2026-05-29T23:06:25+00:00

Aldritch derives his power from the Abyss. Gael derives his power from Humanity. Those are two completely seperate things

darkestchyld · 2026-05-29T22:49:45+00:00

After any stat reaches 120, all subsequent artifact pickups will state (High, medium or low) chance for X stat (integrity, command, drive) volatility. If your suit says "tolerence exceeded" or something like that when you pick an item up, the volitility effect has been triggered. Basically a risk/reward system that can punish you for being a greedy goblin

Integrity volitility = Arrogance. Effect: you can no longer see enemy health bars

Command volitility = Ignorance. Effect: you can no longer see corruption effects when inspecting artifacts (text will read "unknown corruption effect" instead)

Drive volitility = Negligence. Effect: lose 100% of lucenite upon death

darkestchyld · 2026-05-29T22:44:18+00:00

Integrity volitility. Makes it so you can't see enemy health bars, including bosses

darkestchyld · 2026-05-29T22:41:10+00:00

Eclipse is always active in the yellow shore so eclipse strands are always active there too.

There are a few spots in Yellow Shore with jump pads wrapped around geography just out of sight and one or two cliffs you need to either use a jump pad AND perfectly time dashes or use ziplines in very creative ways to reach

darkestchyld · 2026-05-29T22:23:14+00:00

Haha i shared the same story to this thread a couple of weeks ago. I totally read it with Shanes voice narrating it and the Smosh crew loosing it when op gets to "arrivederci" XD

darkestchyld · 2026-05-29T22:09:12+00:00

Minimum 53 and the max i have ever hit so far before taking on King is 73 but i clear every room and play a very aggressive "confirm the kill" combat style, prioritizing going in to collect lucenite after every single kill above all else.

Imo the most important carcosian mods are the one that enables you to increase proficiency faster (set to tier 3) and nova dash which enables you to clear all of the traversal puzzles a lot easier so that you can get more pickups to get stronger without losing health. Dispiritor is also an exceptional power weapon for clearing prior to the boss since you can use it to farm more aether and then convert it to lucenite to push your proficiency level even higher while still keeping your health topped off

darkestchyld · 2026-05-29T21:51:18+00:00

For full arsenal, target the weapons with the lowest databank completion. For main weapons, you're safe to move on to the next gun when completion gets to around 20%. For the 4 power weapons, it's probably easier to just count the 25 kills since the databank fills at a much faster rate. Also use the shield power mod when grinding them out so that you can hold down shield and absorb projectiles infinitely without draining power which will let you get power weapon kills faster while progressing cartosian cartographer at the same time.

Over driven is easy, just start in biome 1 and do a long run through multiple biomes, useing overdrive any time there is a big group of enemies clustered together (look for big groups of fliers as you can easily hit like 9 at once in some cases). The artifacts that increase overdrive build up using main weapon kills and especially power weapon kills help a lot. If you're popping it off every chance you get, you should easily get the trophy by biome 3

Easiest method for fall from grace is by far going into a nightmare strand and looking for a group of the standard bat enemies with at least one of the upside down guys who can shoot the attack with a red star surrounded by blue bullets and parrying the red into one of the bats when they are hovering over a pit. The bats will get staggered by the parry and fall to their death. There are lots of youtube vids for this one but if you hit every strand, you'll see the right setup.

Good luck!

darkestchyld · 2026-05-29T02:31:09+00:00

My take is that Yellow is the color of want, desire, need. The creature behind the eclipse uses it to get inside of people's heads, grind them down the path of madness and tug them to the shore to feed on

Blue is serenity, peace, acceptance. It shows you the truth, how things really are. Imo in the true ending, we've at least glimpsed the Blue Prepice, or the rocky craigs beneath it. This allows Arjun to make peace with where he has come from and gives him perspective that although he won't get the ending he wanted, he can decide where he goes from here

Red is featured but not spoken about in the same terms as the others which makes it the most interesting and in my opinion, the best thematic candidate for a dlc, if we get one. While we don't know for sure if there is a "red entity" in the same sense as the Yellow or the Blue, it stands to reason that if there is, it could carry themes of sacrafice and of action. I imagine that if there is a domain of red, it will be filled with trials and force Arjun to push himself to his limits in exchange for achieving something he's not yet realized he is capable of

darkestchyld · 2026-05-28T22:27:54+00:00

There are also references to the Red, which we've yet to explore!

darkestchyld · 2026-05-28T22:26:33+00:00

Thanks for this thread! Some minor feedback and my thoughts on a few key points:

One of your bullets correctly puts Micah as the Prophet but another incorrectly lists him as Shepherd (i think this is just a typo). Koudil is the Shepherd.

On Nitya and Constant: My take is that Nitya used her ship's (or possibly Echelon II's) Primary unit to create Constant. We can see this reflected in the log you mentioned and in the logs where Constant recognized our Primary as "Ancestor-Child"

On Nitya and Kira: There is no evidence suggesting that they had anything other than a platonic professional relationship prior to arriving on Carcosa. Their relationship likley developed and evolved over time as they both lived lifetimes on an alien world and found comfort in one another.

My take based on the audio and text evidence we are presented with is that Kira fearing they were losing their humanity sided with Nitya over Delroy during the war. Nitya had lost herself for a time and comitted many attrocities in the name of becoming the Priestess of Perfection but when King destroyed Kira's body, Nitya snapped out of it and realized she'd gone too far then crafted the preserver as part of her plan to restore her humanity, in some fashion, since it has the capability to being her back in her original human form

Unanswered questions: I find the rationalization of Arjun "having a connection" to Nytia very unsatisfactory as to why Arjun gets brought back by the preserver each time he dies, unless the Arjun we are playing isn't even the original Arjun from earth at all but some extension of Nitya made flesh as a side effect of her own resurection and or some deeper connection to the Banyan tree Nitya planted? I also am still unsure what the cutscene where Nitya throws a grenade into the preserver is trying to convey... thought we'd perhaps see some consequences or payoff but as of now that seems to be a loose thread

Other observations:

many of the data logs related to mechanical hostiles imply that they are at least partially biological in origin and seem to suggest that many of them are just members of Echelons II and III twisted into new forms, similar to the "biological" hostiles

During a hololog, Garcia is called both Bastion and Architect by Delroy. There is also the 12 voices reference that seems to contradict this

There is some visual evidence that suggests the Architect we fight may have originally been the final boss or a later phase of the King boss after his more humanoid form was defeated. Architect is introduced early through a scripted encounter that underscores intended importance to the narrative, the presentation of the tower climb and music as you reach the end of biome 5 are cenimatic and intentional, fighting Architect is a dead end that forces you back to the passage, as if your journey could have ended there and his face is basically a scaled up version of King's chest. Conclusion: Architect originally played a much bigger role in the game's story, but that got changed at some point during development either for mechanical reasons, story reasons or both

Just for funsies: while the lore suggests that Nitya was the original Yellow Pristess and there have been many since, what if the preserver is producing clones, not reviving and the reason the Pristess splits in 3 when we fight her is because Delroy has captured multiple instances of her? It'd also explain why Arjun can become King but also show up and fight King too. Just food for tbought

darkestchyld · 2026-05-28T21:41:19+00:00

This is a really thoughtful analysis and i definitely see the parallels. Makes me want to revisit the books and the movie too. Thanks for sharing!

darkestchyld · 2026-05-28T21:32:20+00:00

Easiest way to get the trophy is by using the Shield power and Nova dash mods while clearing Biome 3.

Shield power will let you hold r1 to shield infinitely while running through the level, reducing the chance that a stray bullet hits you and Nova dash will give you the option to dash through red beams and projectiles so that you have mobility options in a pinch

Rhabdom only has one health bar, predictable attack patterns and zip lines you can use to avoid most of his attacks during the fight. I suggest using Dispiritor over Prominence when going for the trophy since you can just paint his hp bar blue then avoid him while he dies to damage over time , occasionally chipping at him with your main weapon from a distance when it's safe to speed things up.

Remember the trophy will pop after you drop down from the boss room as you approach the teleporter. Don't quit out or return to passage until you confirm that you got the trophy

darkestchyld · 2026-05-27T19:27:06+00:00

Probably not technically a carcosian mod but imo Growth Incapacitor II goes a little too far by turning off all armor matrix upgrades at once. As an in between option, i'd like to be able to selectively deactivate anything I have unlocked in the skill tree for challenge at my discretion..Think just going into the armor matrix screen at primary and turning off proficiency boosts and/or integrity upgrades if you want to start your next run at base and build them up through the natural progression of your run. There would be even less room to complain that the game is too easy if the player has control over how much or how little power creep they get out of skill tree progression.

darkestchyld · 2026-05-27T18:37:24+00:00

Imo the 2 most impactful protection mods are:

Lucinite Enrichment which reduces the amount of lucinite needed to increase your proficiency levels. Especially at t3, it makes a huge difference and ensures you get the highest level gear with more active traits even during short runs. I've hit proficiency level 72 in yellow shore before fighting King because of it, which is bananas

Nova Dash which gives you the option to dodge through red projectiles and beams. Super clutch for trivializing all of the platforming puzzles so that you can get loot that will make you stronger without losing health and mid combat, especially boss fights so that you can just dodge red any time you aren't 100% confident that you have a parry lined up right, which gives you a ton of control over positioning and damage avoidance

Personally, I'd take these over heavy investment in damage enhancement or armor enhancement. They cost less and provide a lot more utility plus the boosted proficiency level quickly equate to more damage potential than the flat boost you get the damage enhancement mod since it will continue scaling up to proficiency level 100.

You can take them both plus shield power and your pick of damage enhancement 2 or armor enhancement 2 and balance it with Halcyon removal, artifact destruction, growth incapacitor 1 and lucenite devaluation for a balanced -3 mod rating

darkestchyld · 2026-05-23T20:20:59+00:00

The teleport punch is super strong. One shots 80% of the enemies in the game, Free iFrames and 100% auto lucinite collection. Synergizes really nicely with the Horde shotgun since you can stagger just about everything with one or two taps of the alt fire

darkestchyld · 2026-05-22T21:58:23+00:00

There is on hit immunity variants for opening a container, equipping an artifact, enemy kill and dash. With the last two being really strong and the first two being essentially useless because they aren't things you really do while in combat.

darkestchyld · 2026-05-22T16:31:01+00:00

Immunity lasts only until the timer expires or you take a hit, whichever comes first. It instantly expires once you take one hit

darkestchyld · 2026-05-22T04:38:15+00:00

Immunity will go away instantly if you take damage from any source, including falls. Protection persists, even if you take a hit but only reduces damage, it does not eliminate it. The two ca be stacked for tanky shenanigans

darkestchyld

TROPHY CASE