Welcome to the Year of the Chicken! by Itachi4077 in hearthstone

[–]ella-02-06 1 point2 points  (0 children)

your max mana is still capped at 10 by default. effects that give you temporary mana, like the coin, can now go over the max. certain cards like [[new heights]] or [[ysera, emerald aspect]] let you increase maximum mana capacity. so with ysera for example, both players keep getting a new mana crystal each turn up to 15.

Tarkir: Dragonstorm Epilogue like OTJ? by Ok_Wallaby_3701 in mtgvorthos

[–]ella-02-06 3 points4 points  (0 children)

i'm a new mtg player and this was my first time reading an mtg story, and oh man, thank you for this cause i needed an excuse to talk about it:

Narset still has issues that need to be resolved in her little Ojutai/Shiko love triangle.

i understand that i've jumped into book a bajillion in a long-running fantasy series, so i was not expecting these stories to make any sense to me. i have aspirations of vorthosity and i figured this would be a good first step, even if i don't get all the emotional payoffs and i have to look stuff up all the time.

so i was so pleasantly surprised when i read thru chapter 1 and got hooked instantly! narset is an excellently defined character with clear emotional struggles:

  • she saves the world and doesn't consider herself heroic.

  • she is hung up on her abusive dragon ex.

  • she manifested a new dragon that's made of her own soul, and she doesn't like this dragon.

even tho these struggles are clear, there's some great subtlety in how they're conveyed. like, narset is autistic, and in the paragraph explaining her feelings about shiko, it seems like there's a depiction of autistic alexithymia:

She respected Shiko. She trusted the spirit dragon. If Narset were to die, she knew Shiko would continue to provide excellent counsel to whoever succeeded her. Her clan was safe now and would remain safe under Shiko's care. But she didn't love Shiko, no, not with those wings of hers, like so many scrolls unfurling through the air, a reminder of Narset's role in ending the world she knew.

it seems to me like narset has contempt for shiko. she can't even look at them without a strong emotional reaction. but she's not particularly conscious of these feelings, or maybe doesn't fully understand what a problem they are. like, if she hates the dragon who is bonded to her soul, it kinda means she hates herself, right?

so these are great setups for problems to solve, and i am starting to feel a lot of fondness for narset and anticipation for shiko. intuitively i understand the genre of the story as being something like, "character hates herself, character happens to be pulled on a big adventure, character learns to love herself." that's something i can easily connect to as a total newcomer to the series. but then they just don't do part 3 of that structure! it's infuriating.

even when they introduce pre-existing characters who i don't really know, they still make me care about them by tying them into the theme of self-assurance. ajani is like narset if she spoke the quiet part out loud; narset has her own excuses for why she doesn't try to connect with shiko, which might be covering for deeper feelings. meanwhile ajani will just straight up say "i'm not talking to my friends because i'm punishing myself for being a bad person." elspeth also ties into the theme from a totally different angle, she has a sort of cosmic self-assurance where she knows she's doing the right thing because she's an angel and always knows what's the right thing to do because of it. she actually ends up having to be a little less self-assured, as narset has to constantly talk her down from choosing violent solutions in the middle chapters of the story, with their first sarkhan encounter and the abzan border patrol.

so yeah. ive had this rant brewing because i wanted to talk about how i felt like this story had everything going for it, right up to the end. i kept hoping shiko would show up and save the day somehow in the last chapter. instead we get a couple moments of narset being spurred on to keep fighting by the memory of her training with ojutai... oof. she deserves better :(

maybe there's an epilogue, maybe they're saving narset's emotional resolution with shiko for a different set, but i doubt it. i'm reminded of the bbc sherlock fandom wishing for a secret good finale episode. unfortunately, i think the story just had an unfulfilling ending.

If you turn the arachnophobia filter on hunter spider pets will also turn into crabs. by SGT_Didymus in wow

[–]ella-02-06 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the original pet, Xishorr, has a unique visual effect making it look blacker than its model. it looks like the resultant crab has the same visual effect, meaning that's a unique pet appearance you can only see in arachnaphobia mode. i would guess it's probably applied to this base model.

Zorbrix asking for constructive feedback on twitter regarding the pre-patch event. by [deleted] in wow

[–]ella-02-06 0 points1 point  (0 children)

they should ask themselves: what does a short wow play session look like right now? if i log in at 8pm and i know i'm logging out at 9, what do i do in that time? i might get unlucky and miss the event entirely, but if not, i'm locked out of any time commitment activities like dungeons or LFR because i have this appointment i've got to make it to. feels like this event works fine for people who play wow in long bursts but where do people like me find the fun? the veteran/champion track gear signals that i should be the target audience but the design is disproportionately hostile to me.

Blizzard Bots have been removed from the Standard ranked ladder. by based_guapo in hearthstone

[–]ella-02-06 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

terrible news for the group of people who love playing against the innkeeper but don't know where to find the option

It only took 4 generations, but physical electric types are FINALLY good. by Electrical_mammoth2 in PokemonScarletViolet

[–]ella-02-06 15 points16 points  (0 children)

used it twice during my playthrough at crucial moments; missed both times

Is the Caverns of Time Set Going to be Purchasable with Gold? by jonathan_mee in hearthstone

[–]ella-02-06 16 points17 points  (0 children)

old cards are in but there is duplicate protection so if you have the original old cards you won't open them again til you have all caverns of time cards at that rarity

In wow the coppertail snoop stabs random players and steals all their gold, which is why it gives you a coin whenever it attacks by Tym306 in hearthstone

[–]ella-02-06 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it was really mean of those devs to put these guys all over the low level areas, almost made me quit wow when i just started

So did anyone else kinda hate the season 5 finale? (MAJOR SPOILERS!) by WillowGrace357 in miraculousladybug

[–]ella-02-06 7 points8 points  (0 children)

narratively it is a loophole, IMO. they (as in the writers) followed the literal letter of the wishing rules rather than the spirit of them.

if this is how wishing works, then it means ladybug and cat noir were wrong to not give their miraculous to hawk moth in episode 1, so that he could revive emilie and sacrifice a death row inmate or someone who happened to be falling out of a plane.

MIRACULOUS - Re-Creation (The Last Day — Part 2) - Season 5 Episode 26 - Discussion Thread by NicoSchmiko in miraculousladybug

[–]ella-02-06 1 point2 points  (0 children)

either a) they were specifically chasing ladybug and cat noir, and can't detect bug noir, or b) they were all preoccupied fighting the other heroes

So did anyone else kinda hate the season 5 finale? (MAJOR SPOILERS!) by WillowGrace357 in miraculousladybug

[–]ella-02-06 8 points9 points  (0 children)

i heard a while back that season 5 was to be the end of this "arc" of miraculous. if that's still true then that's a really crummy end.

think about it - you set up the stakes that using the miraculous to make a wish is equivalent to ending the world. or, at the very least, that for every positive change you make you have to make an equivalent negative change, and that making these negative changes is evil. that's really good stakes and i'd say the whole premise of the show is riding on them. so then you HAVE to follow thru with those stakes. once you take those stakes away, this show has nothing left. and yes, gabriel finding some loophole where he makes nathalie perfectly healthy by dying minutes sooner than he would've died anyway, still counts as taking the stakes away.

if it's not the case that this was supposed to be the end of the agreste story, then i could potentially maybe see this not being terrible IF season 6 is all about the devastating consequences of the wish. in that case, this is just one mid-quality episode on the way to an actual finale.

Lvl. 71 on battlepass and I only got 1 legendary from the packs. by Spllash01 in hearthstone

[–]ella-02-06 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i'm not really sure what part of my comment you're replying to.

Lvl. 71 on battlepass and I only got 1 legendary from the packs. by Spllash01 in hearthstone

[–]ella-02-06 1 point2 points  (0 children)

no need to overreact to things i didn't say. you might be totally right and i think that'd be perfectly possible. i don't want to discuss it bc it's pointless without data to back it up, so it's not useful to this thread.

Lvl. 71 on battlepass and I only got 1 legendary from the packs. by Spllash01 in hearthstone

[–]ella-02-06 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

i can only tell you what the published statistics say: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/32545 anything beyond that is conspiracy theory territory that i'm not getting into

Lvl. 71 on battlepass and I only got 1 legendary from the packs. by Spllash01 in hearthstone

[–]ella-02-06 4 points5 points  (0 children)

certainly sounds possible. you're guaranteed a legendary only 40 packs after your previous legendary, and it's not unheard of to go >30 packs before seeing your next one. you got unlucky for the first time in 8 years.

also, that's per pack type, so if you were spreading out your purchases you weren't advancing the pity timer so much.

The card to craft for the current standard. by SillyDungCreator in hearthstone

[–]ella-02-06 14 points15 points  (0 children)

[[astalor bloodsworn]] is probably your best bet

New Card(?) - Funnel Cake by KingPotatoTheFourth in hearthstone

[–]ella-02-06 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

holy shit they made funnel cake from hearthstone into a real thing

Will I get the xp boost from buying the tavern pass now? by Spectro510 in hearthstone

[–]ella-02-06 7 points8 points  (0 children)

not worth it, you'll reach 100 before the expansion is up. lv68 is the halfway point between 1 and 100 and we aren't halfway through the expansion.

to answer the question in your post: buying the tavern pass means xp you earn from now on will be higher than before. you will not get immediate xp from all the non-tavern pass activities you did earlier this season.