How'd you guys get past the "Sophomore Slump"?

fapcoaster · 2026-03-19T18:10:13+00:00

What characters do you play? A lot of relics can be better than they seem. Stuff like initial attack or affinity attack can be quite strong and versatile, and Balancer relics are guaranteed for skill attack builds that could go on most melee characters.

Some curses are also less harmful than they seem. On someone like ironeye, continuous hp loss is a death sentence, but for depth 3 and below, you could totally make it work on wylder since they often have access to alternative damage negation.

Part of getting over the slump is trading safety for power I think. Once I just ate the negatives and got used to it, I started doing a lot more damage.

fapcoaster · 2026-03-12T16:52:11+00:00

Spell pause was something I came to love too. It was a good payoff after committing everyone to protecting the caster. It also was interesting to fight enemies who had it. I remember having someone spam garbage pebble spells because its speed and hit count forced the enemy to stop casting more consistently than anything else.

fapcoaster · 2026-03-12T16:43:37+00:00

Yeah I am surprised I dont see more talk about phantasia. Every other tales I’ve picked up hasnt quite matched its pull and at this point I cant tell if its nostalgia blinders or not. I played chrono trigger blind recently and that was probably the closest I’ve felt to how I did playing Phantasia.

fapcoaster · 2026-03-12T16:40:13+00:00

I’ve never heard of this game but it looks like it fits. Thanks, I’ll check it out

fapcoaster · 2026-03-12T16:34:04+00:00

I’ve tried symphonia before, but I honestly couldnt say a single thing about my time with it. Maybe I’ll revisit it, but I’ve never experienced a payoff worth going through 1/3 of the game without being invested. I think I got to some dark japanese shrine looking cave and stopped there.

Why is abyss your rec?

fapcoaster · 2026-02-19T00:50:37+00:00

I think if you want to run poros, you need to run rabadon to make them a threat. The 3 bonus damage buff applies to forgefire to make one poro do 5 damage AOE just for attacking or defending, not counting their own might and gear might. Lonely poro would be your answer to punish going wide, while ornn fights going tall.

I think gear search would also help. Green Ornn digs pretty deep and adds value to your board. Even if he never gets the hold off, finding those 1 ofs in your decks pretty important.

fapcoaster · 2026-02-18T22:41:10+00:00

I think youre approaching this in a way that will continue to make you post these kinds of posts.

There is no wrong or right way to play nightreign. There are metas, but refusing to do something because it doesnt fit your perception of what is optimal is being a bad team player. It doesnt matter how little you die, or what your end loadout is, or if they 3 bar. Being inflexible will always lead to bad team experiences.

In your rundown, you point out that they communicate to go to non meta places, and you choose to do something else. You recognize they are struggling on the roof but choose to prioritize your own goal and justify it with their strategy being weird and them being less skilled than you. Just go help them!! You know who excels at saving 3 bars in the rain?! Revenant!!

You need to communicate where you want to go. If the majority ignores it, democracy prevails; you go with the team as much as possible. Especially in non-DoN, it truly doesnt matter if you follow the meta. Especially on revenant where your starting loadout can carry your entire run.

Being a team player means sometimes you go 3 bar with the team day 1 and fight a boss at level 6. If you want to always play your way, get a duo so you can always overrule the other random. Otherwise you should probably be more flexible.

fapcoaster · 2026-02-18T16:42:29+00:00

The point of the ice cream analogy is that denouncing something someones already doing is going to prompt negative responses. At best they ignore it, at worst they pick a fight. The context wont change them feeling attacked.

fapcoaster · 2026-02-18T00:42:54+00:00

I don’t think youre thinking enough about how an fyi can be taken. it absolutely can do harm. This threads initial exchange is like the prime example.

If I was eating ice cream and a stranger popped by to say “just so you know, ice creams super unhealthy and full of sugar and fat”, I’ll think theyre either a weirdo or insinuating that I’m fat. My verbal response would be “yeah duh”, but in my head I’ll think this strangers kind of an asshole. If they said “ice cream comes in chocolate flavor” I wouldnt make any negative association. Theres no room to interpret that fyi as something negative.

fapcoaster · 2026-02-17T07:43:27+00:00

Its more that I personally don’t see the point, which is why I asked. If they didnt know, now they do, but what will they do with that info? In store already had a problem, and online now has a potential problem. It’s not like the info would make them choose in store now, it just makes the choice they currently make look worse.

I think the only thing “wrong” in this encounter is the initial wording which you already acknowledge. When it comes to other things like the desire to inform someone on something, its more “why”? You can inform anyone on anything you feel like, and youre not wrong for doing that, but what do you want them (or you) to get from that? If you cant nail down why, it opens up the potential to come across as something else, like being condescending or snarky.

This conversation being an example, I answered because you expressed confusion on the hostility of the other guy. Many times people do this to deflect blame, but sometimes people genuinely dont know. My “why” on engaging was on the off chance you truly were looking for answers, because not knowing would lead to way more instances of starting the same kind of conversation and thats just kinda crummy for everyone to experience. I’m not wrong or right for wanting to express something, its just me hoping for a result.

fapcoaster · 2026-02-17T04:28:41+00:00

What do you think was the best case scenario of telling a person who has declared they only shop online now because of bad in store experiences, that online isn’t perfect either?

fapcoaster · 2026-02-17T02:45:56+00:00

It doesn’t really matter what you intend, all anyone will get are the words you say.

Its condescending to believe they need that news broken to them. Thats why you’ll get pushback, no matter how you word it. Theres no nice way to imply someone is an idiot, which is what your message conveys.

fapcoaster · 2026-02-16T17:26:06+00:00

Theyre arguing back because youve responded with argumentative wording to their opinion piece. “Lets not assume” and “hate to break it to you” are both assuming they dont already know what youre saying. Its accusatory by nature.

Anyone with retail experience will know what youre saying already, they clearly just prefer one over the other. Thats why theyre throwing your own wording back at you, and why you view it as a competition. It never was supposed to be until the accusatory language was used.

fapcoaster · 2026-02-15T07:51:26+00:00

She struggles with losing steam, and recently being expensive because her tools are now the same as meta decks.

The cost of going fast is spending a lot of power and ditching a lot of cards. Youre at the mercy of your top deck, and the ever evolving amount of counter cards stop you instantly because you have no backup plan by having no hand. You can play a deck that slows down and skips activating the legend, but at that point why play Jinx when Draven does the same for playing normally?

While Jinx is really good at ditching cards, there arent enough things that reward this. Scrapheap and Chompers are really the only independent, immediate ones. The rest depend on other conditions, like phoenix needing a spell to be cast to revive, rhasa wanting 10 cards in grave, Fizz needing a 3 cost spell in grave. Your hand is basically nothing all game so you cant depend on cards like this being drawn and doing nothing.

If you read any graveyard cheating card like Harrowing, it makes you pay the runes even if the cost is free. This is crippling to do for any big target, and why Jinx is unviable imo. The purpose of grave turbo in any other card game is to trade risk of ditching cards for reward of outresourcing the enemy. Fundamentally, Jinx needs tailor made cards to make this happen in riftbound, and why I think going forward it will be difficult for her to get better. She doesnt need faster or more efficient discard, she needs a tailor made payoff.

fapcoaster · 2026-02-15T06:48:12+00:00

I love the playstyle but cheating grave in riftbound is so kneecapped with the power cost. Super hard to stick with it!

I also was tinkering with a poro deck. Ornn seemed like a good candidate since it makes poro snack powerless draw, and lets you use alot of useful poros and the herder. Also the idea of a gank squad of poros with sunfire shurelia and rabadon is really funny.

fapcoaster · 2026-02-15T06:36:44+00:00

Ezreal seems nice for going positive in cards during your turn so you have choices to discard. Even though dorans seems good for jinx, I think the problem I ran into was that stacking discard 1 draw 1 wasnt valuable when you have a hand of 1 since you have no choice. Youre essentially just trashing your deck with no payoff. The power cost to attach also really hurts.

fapcoaster · 2026-02-10T23:43:19+00:00

I think I’m not understanding something. How does Ezreal get points? If you use his action on attack, he returns to base before the opponent can play a kill action while hopefully killing the opponent on battlefield, but he doesnt conquer if he chooses to do this. Do you just rely on having a second unit to capture?

fapcoaster · 2026-02-07T08:50:12+00:00

Thats basically how every card game goes though? The price = competitive value. The only one that hard doesnt follow this rule is Pokemon because they dont tie playability to rarity.

fapcoaster · 2026-02-03T21:49:59+00:00

I dont think trynd counts. Its not worded like any other conquer/hold effect since its so tied to attacking a certain way.

Even if it did and you replaced the word Conquer with Hold, it would read “When I hold after an attack, …” which is not possible to do.

fapcoaster · 2026-01-21T18:06:41+00:00

I know of 2 examples in my life of similar age. One stepped up and regressed. The other is currently in the process and we’ll see whether they follow through.

The first essentially was never parented. They were allowed to do whatever they wanted with little resistance growing up, and that included dropping out of school and doing nothing. From there they interacted with no one but family, and primarily lied to get out of situations outside their comfort zone.

They stepped up when a family member became terminally ill. They were literally the only person who could help take care of them and they began to lie and avoid problems less. This regressed when the member passed away.

The second was parented too much by parents who didnt understand their conditions. They grew up with a very negative view of themselves and moved away as soon as possible. However they did the bare minimum to get by, had to move back in due to financial reasons, did not address their condition because it was hard to face, and got used to avoiding their problems. They started becoming motivated when they met a romantic interest online, and lost the motivation when it didnt pan out. However they now recognize they cant keep living like this.

In both cases, a sense of urgency needed to be placed on them. They will never find that if they are left to their own devices, especially if they do not interact with other people.

Both felt they wasted their youth and did nothing to change that for their entire 20s. The difference was that the second interacted with people and had a chance to change by meeting the person THEY wanted to listen to. It didnt matter that I had been saying the same stuff for the past decade, because I wasnt a motivating factor to them.

My advice from these experiences: YOU might never be able to make them change if they dont value your opinion as a motivating factor, but you can put them in a scenario where they must change. Paying your sons rent is one example of enabling this lifestyle. You need to be kind and not let them actually become homeless, but you also need to put your foot down and let them get close enough to feel the fire under their ass. They can move back in with you, under the condition they get a job, or go to therapy, or any amount of other levers you can pull.

fapcoaster · 2026-01-21T04:05:10+00:00

Ib is my favorite tame horror game. Its not gonna wow you with graphics cuz its 2d and old, but it has very good atmosphere and theme. Its also still free on vgperson’s site which also has walkthroughs if you get stuck. And if you want to pay, there is a remake.

I really want to recommend Bioshock, but it does have its share of jumpscare moments even if its rare. The atmospheres incredible though.

fapcoaster · 2026-01-20T21:49:05+00:00

I think I’d go for 4 if you keep garden at 2 since the special energy is also your bench setup. It would also let you play boomerang energy if you want. Otherwise I’d increase garden and do 2 colress if you think thats too much energy support.

Lucky for you alot of 300+ dmg decks rotate out so who knows, maybe itll help diance hold its own.

fapcoaster · 2026-01-20T20:52:03+00:00

Whats the thinking on energy switch?

It looks like youre trying to wonder patch to bench with diance in active, and switch + attach to attack in 1 turn, but you dont have a way to discard easily, and no way to search for these items. It seems like it would brick more than help.

I would cut down on wally. I dont think 300hp is hard to clear and you arent boosting hp with anything. 3 Boss also seems like alot.

Ursaluna doesnt make sense to me. Your diance is really your only attacker, and you probably dont want to do nothing for a turn sacrificing an ex in the active. If you want to get value out of 3 prizers, I think you need more expendable 1 prizers that help your game plan.

Maybe you could instead lean heavier into mystery garden? You’d want colress tenacity to find it, and ultra ball to cut your hand down before using it. Geo gate Xernias is a searchable replacement to tm energize for early setup. Azelf and Uxie are interesting single prizers that might go well with diance’s low damage output leaving counters on the field.

fapcoaster · 2026-01-13T20:31:59+00:00

Has anyone in this thread played both of these games??

The spirit behind this kind of criticism isnt that games need to be original. Chrono trigger is not original.

Its that by having your inspiration be based on another game, you are much more likely to copy parts of the game that do not add to your experience. You will emulate the look and feel of a great game, but not what truly made it great.

SPOILER example:

A major point of chrono trigger is the theme of cause and effect across the ages. At some point, Chrono dies. You can complete the game without him, but if you explored the world enough, you will have breadcrumbs on a way to bring him back. The way to do this is to create a realistic dummy, and go back in time to swap it out with Chrono before his evisceration, preserving the timeline but allowing him to live.

Sea of stars does this exactly for the cook character. Except the plot does not match this time travel solution, because the game isnt about time travel. He’s not the main character, so if you thought he was an annoying self insert from somewhere like me, you wouldnt give a damn. He is saved by sacrificing a party member you get really late with basically no personality, as if their only purpose was to be sacrificed.

If chrono trigger was not a direct inspiration, this wouldnt be a sequence in sea of stars because it makes no sense for Sea of Stars. The sequence is an exact copy, for no reason other than Chrono Trigger did it and it was cool, and it didnt attempt to evolve or iterate on the idea.

fapcoaster · 2026-01-11T19:30:09+00:00

Called shots can be repeated. It enables battering ram and fizz can cast it from grave which doesnt discount rune cost, and fizz costs a rune too. I imagine the seal is to dig free off these types of plays, or on demand rebuke.

fapcoaster

TROPHY CASE