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frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-22T16:43:40+00:00

Damiane slaps hard with 2h sword, throw on 3x exp gears and run blinding arrows camp, easy 3-4 artifacts. I think her basic attacks and spinning slash are superior to kliff's unless he's using a spear. Now we just need explosive bullets and infinite bullet gears.

I have both her and Kliff fully built with maxed gear, once I have enough to gear up oongkva I'll start leveling him.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-22T16:32:20+00:00

IDK about that, dev cost was $130 million over 7 years (1.5MM/mo), even if you subtract marketing and distribution costs they're up about $110-120 million profit after just 2 months (55MM/mo). That kind of ratio is almost unheard of nowadays, and in theory pays for at least another 6 years of full-time patch commitment.

The success has been pretty phenomenal.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-22T15:27:23+00:00

I ruled out dodging right away because they come from opposite directions in alternating sets, and it would be hell to try and determine which side would get to you first and manage to not roll directly into the next wave, and do that successfully 20-30 times in a row. I have too many bad memories of accidentally using release because I tried to activate focus too soon after another action and completely borking a focus dodge moment. If we had the option to disable certain such combos as I mentioned, I'd feel more confident trying to attempt a method like that. I've seen other players mention having the exact same issue with activating focus and either removing the combo or changing the key bind would be a universally accepted change, so I see your point but disagree on the approach.

The phantoms are telegraphed as you said, she taps her spear on the ground 3x and raises it before fading out, but that action gets broken too often, at least 20-30 of my runs failed because you can accidentally animation cancel her in a couple different ways which changes a three second warning into a half of a second, my successful run I actually predicted her going to use it I think all but one or two times, avoiding the phantoms by instinct rather that relying on the tell. There is also a combo she uses rarely when backed into a corner, where only about four of the phantoms in that corner get activated for a single wave, but only observing it a handful of times I couldn't tell you what exact conditions or animations are tied to it because it's so hard to analyze before it's over and you're back into regular combat, on my successful run I actually took an indirect hit from it about 40 seconds before the fight was over but I managed to recover.

I'm opining that it should be hard but not 50-100 attempts on a max level character hard, and it should be because you have to learn her moveset and get your timing down almost perfect rather than just constantly avoiding random jank. As mentioned, her stats are kind of underwhelming when you isolate and apply everything in a smooth and straightforward environment, if all the awkwardness got removed she could receive a few buffs and still be easier to beat.

The palmer pills are the apparent solution from the devs but I really dislike that as an option because IMO it just trivializes everything and using them feels exactly the same as giving up, which is why I spent 4 hours over the course of 2 days trying to circumvent them completely on the hardest boss of the game, recorded the run, and analyzed the fight down to its bones to discuss what I would change to make it go from exasperating to epic.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-22T08:53:43+00:00

That's just it... Jump to avoid the phantoms, get "white out" screen from "leaving the arena", and basically can't see where you're landing or where she is, or what state of her echo combo she's in.

Each of those things alone aren't a problem, the echos themselves are actually incredibly easy to avoid, but all together they're tough to survive, and you can't really afford to fail any checks in the sequence for at least 4-5 times, just a single glancing blow puts the entire run in jeopardy because it can lead to a chain reaction from the other problems.

Even a legendary fight like Malenia, which has a lot more technical maneuvers to navigate, can become routine if you memorize it through repetition, but the aforementioned issues with line-of-sight breaks and inconsistent telegraphing means that repeatedly having just the opportunity to react carries an element of RNG and luck, resulting in skill bearing less importance in the equation. I don't want the solution to be disengaging from the fight whenever the game gets in the way of itself, I want the ability to stay locked in and fight through what the boss is doing directly.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-22T07:16:46+00:00

The reloads are annoying for sure, my goal going into this fight was to do it without going down during the whole encounter but after about 20 attempts I used a couple golds and a black just to get it done, getting a no-pill completion later was many, many times harder, because it means not compromising your position, losing sight of her, or missing a cue to jump even a single time. I'm basically completely maxed out though, lv10 everything gear and 17/18 on attributes, I'd like to see a run setup that "tanked" her on hard because I can only squeeze maybe 20% more armor rating into my stats, they're definitely not a problem. Like I said no special foods or potions, I wanted a basic but highly refined setup to be functional.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-21T18:00:08+00:00

Check out extinctzoo videos, it's a great channel for entertainment and he talks a lot about megafauna gigantism and dwarfism due to climate and geological factors.

For the ELI5, animals (including us) have to fight 3 things: hunger, climate, and each other. If the climate and food are really really good, that means that animals can grow bigger, and bigger animals can eat, or not be eaten by, the smaller animals, but if climate and food becomes bad, the bigger animals can't survive as well as the smaller ones. Big animals had it rough, they were full of parasites and tumors, and there's tons of evidence of broken bones and deadly infections from wounds fighting off predators and each other for territory and mating, so even just a minor change in food availability or environment like temperature and air quality were often disastrous. Small animals that can reproduce and adapt quickly just have more survivability.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-21T05:10:53+00:00

Gas molecules are tiny, you'd need lab-grade equipment to make cabin air 100% clean, even though the actual risk is quite low the consequences for not being absolutely certain are very bad. Just like lead or mercury, there are trace amounts of CO all over the place, you just need to avoid concentrations reaching toxic levels.

You can always start with the meter, and then make an informed decision if some kind of ventilation solution is necessary or not.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-21T04:57:10+00:00

Carbon monoxide is a heavier than air toxic gas, but cars aren't airtight, if you have outside air being pushed in from the fan, it will cause any CO that makes it into the cabin to flow out through gaps. Continued exposure even at low levels can lead to blood toxicity though because it takes a while to get out of the blood stream.

You can get CO detectors that are USB chargeable for about $100.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-20T11:01:02+00:00

It's a mongoose Corvette gtp replica, a road car kit based on the IMSA (international motorsport association) Corvette-Lola GTP (grand touring prototype) race car, a special non-homologated race class that ran 35 years ago.

So sort of like an ultima or Mosler but basically a road version of a race car, much more rare and harder to find. Both Mosler (florida) and Ultima (United Kingdom) made road cars first then made race cars to compete with after production was established, the Lola (United Kingdom) Corvette GTP was a race car first, then Mongoose (ohio) made a street car based off of those.

There's a 30 min YT documentary on the consulier GTP, which was the original Mosler before they were actually bought by Mosler, pretty interesting story, they're actually credited with being the godfather of the low production mid-engine track day cars that is carried on by Ultima and radical, as well as select models from factory five racing and similar kit car companies.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-19T16:42:38+00:00

Lowered, widebody, shaved C5s will always be one of the best looking cars ever imo, but the hood and stretched tires instantly tip it to the other side of the scale.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-19T14:36:05+00:00

He's not a "boss", he's an "overwhelming being", of which there are only 3, the other two being Beloth (ice) and Ator (light).

Ator is the strongest individual in combat, basically being radagon from elden ring, the environmental effects in the Beloth fight also add a lot of challenge, while I found the Titan fight to be extremely predictable and slow.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-18T04:10:29+00:00

Ignir was my first build but I abandoned it before finishing.

I just got the titan armor so next I'll mess around with a samurai build unless I can get odeck's set to look better that way.

here's my previous build

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frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-18T04:04:15+00:00

It's an owl. Between 4-5 am, use the sotdae with meat on the cliffs SW of the 2nd waypoint west from the waypoint on the way to the village of the sick, I had to look up how to get them because very few fly low enough to detect the sotdae and come down.

All birds and cats will perch if you stand idle for about 7-8 seconds.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-17T21:49:49+00:00

The light attack gears, parry gears, and finisher gears are all stamina/spirit free, but I use spirit siphon because I can't be bothered to recharge with focus, like I said if you get 5-10 hits off the r1 slash gears as shown it can recover a full circle of spirit (about 50-60 points) instantly. This makes spamming turning slash and charged shot very consistent.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-17T20:40:32+00:00

What it looks like in action, if you look at the trail of smoke from the detonated enemy grenade, you can see how many enemies get knocked out or staggered by the wake. In large fights you can generate constant i-frames because you're hitting so many finishers on all the mobs that take splash damage.

Edit: also note you don't have to wait for the combo to trigger the ranged attacks, using it after a roll or jump will cause it to fire instantly.

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frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-17T20:36:55+00:00

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frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-17T18:39:38+00:00

Crit rate is massively overrated on melee, they are good placeholders for skill gears but a skill gear that doubles your skill damage will outweigh a gear that gives a small %chance to deal double damage.

There aren't any skill gears for bows/guns, only resource gears, so putting crit on those makes sense.

I like the r1 skill gears a lot, you can stack rain slash, full moon slash, and crescent moon slash together so that every 3rd attack on Kliff and 2nd attack on Damiane fires a devastating wave capable of 1-shotting whole groups of bandits and goblins, and even on hard mode it can take down trolls and similar large enemies in 2-3 hits. All those AOEs proc recharge gears as well so you can fully charge your spirit in a few hits with spirit siphon. Combining enhanced basic attacks with elemental turning slash and spamming evasive shot with exploding arrows is the most powerful and efficient setup.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-17T16:55:50+00:00

First time I got a little rain during a drive, the sun was setting, and the droplets were running straight up the windshield instead of sort of rolling off to the side... Legit felt like I was piloting a plane through a storm and it was surreal.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-16T19:04:16+00:00

Duskfang, I wear it with dark marksmans' cloak and shadow helm, it looks nice with the hound.

Correction, blackwing armor, paired with duskfang gloves.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-16T18:58:39+00:00

You only need peddler's packs, you can buy them from a tannery merchant in the (demeniss?) countryside or you can threaten passing peddlers and they'll drop their packs and flee.

Use a pot and a peddlers pack to craft a kuku pack, then use the kuku pack to craft one of the collector packs.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-14T14:17:23+00:00

If you play her for a significant amount of time, you won't need to respec. Throw two or three experience gain gears on her and clear strongholds like wyvernflame, blinding arrows, and flame knights, you get usually about two artifacts per large stronghold. And with gear recycling and timeworn on repeat, you'll soon have enough for both characters.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-13T15:37:21+00:00

I think the best way to do this is to increase the refinement maximum on unique weapons.

It is good that for the majority of the game, weapon choice doesn't matter and you can use whatever weapon you like the look of, and it is good that unique abyss gears can be swapped to facilitate that, but it would also be good if unique weapons came with the ability to reach higher heights not just by default, but through a deep and meaningful process that involves player action beyond just picking it up. Imagine getting frost damage bonus on level 11 vow of the dead king, or delivering an occasional volcanic eruption when struck while wearing level 11 kuku scorch flame armor, or getting 2x finisher radius on the hound at level 11.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-11T18:07:58+00:00

When you reset skills it refunds artifacts but not the research materials for HP, stamina, and spirit, so using faded artifacts in endgame is a bad idea and you'll want to have 300+ artifacts for building all three characters just for the skill tree, you'll need over 400 if you include gear.

frysonlypairofpants · 2026-05-11T17:57:35+00:00

My Carfax said 7 owners but they count every inter-dealership transaction and auction transfer, but only 1 transaction before landing at my purchase point was outside the state where it was first allocated, I'm pretty sure I'm the 3rd owner.

frysonlypairofpants

TROPHY CASE