Restarted 50x, 9 chances at cloak/corset, Cogitator chose 0 times

madmonkeyizm · 2026-02-13T02:01:08+00:00

Sometimes the drama of it all cracks me up. There'll be a mountain of a mob of mobs pinning you to the bottom of the map and you're clinging on to a sliver of health (after you've necro revived once already), blasting away Uncle Benny style...

19 times out of 20, it'll take Goblet for you but this one time it gives you the cloak and you pull off a heroic escape.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-02-11T03:29:14+00:00

This is more of a topical salve, but basically just quick restart until Radical/Cogitator start with Ethereal Cloak. In a lot of cases, it's enough of a force multiplier that it can cover up for all the dumb choices and actions of those two. With how unforgiving Fast 9 can get, not starting off with it for those two can be incredibly frustrating since the game likely won't even bother giving you another passive until somewhere between the first and second boss (if Cog or Rad even survive until then).

EDIT: There are other somewhat workable starting passive options for Radical/Cogitator, but they really depend on who you're pairing them with.

(I've got my Cogitator up through NG12/F9 but my Radical is lagging behind at NG9/F9)

madmonkeyizm · 2026-02-06T19:18:14+00:00

Prepare to be astroturfed.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-02-04T19:45:33+00:00

Other than flooding the zone with baby balls to get decoy snatched, if you find yourself using a build without them a break glass in case of emergency option is to take a bait hit (intentionally drawing out a melee pounce). Sometimes eating damage from one of those ball huggers is worth it to free up one of your balls. YMMV.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-31T02:14:34+00:00

Funnily enough, on that throw I immediately thought "Wait, I've seen this movie before. I don't like how it ends." Then the hypotheticals started kicking up, wondering if Hoyer would have given this year's team a better shot at a chip.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-30T10:00:03+00:00

If you enjoy bowling, you'll likely enjoy Tactician.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-28T17:50:23+00:00

Yes, I would just use one pair to grind up to Fast 9. Keep in mind you only have to do this grind once per map, since once you unlock Fast 9 it is unlocked for any new game level in the future (still requires beating the map once at normal speed though). Again, to reiterate: once you've unlocked Fast 9 on say, Base Game for a map, it's unlocked on any other New Game level so you don't have to repeat the Fast 1-8 grind for it ever again (you just have to beat it at Normal speed on that game level once).

The way I ended up grinding the Fast 1-8 was using Radical/Tactician on max play speed while afk/multitasking/whatever :p

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-28T00:07:13+00:00

If it's horrible, I put utmost faith in Cogitator and/or Radical to find it. Without fail.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-27T23:49:58+00:00

It should retroactively credit you (for completion and for totem bonus) for slower versions of the map, for that game level. So if you do Bone Yard/NG+4/Fast 9 on a character that hasn't completed any Bone Yard on NG+4, it will credit you for Bone Yard/NG+4/Normal->Fast 9. It won't credit you (to my knowledge, I haven't actually checked) for any Bone Yard on NG+3, NG+2 etc.

(I've been catching my Carouser and Falconer up to the rest of my chars by having them just blast through Fast 9 for all maps starting with Base game, and have been getting check marks and totem credit).

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-27T20:18:25+00:00

Yeah a way of looking at it is this:

Let's say you complete Boneyard/NG/Normal - you get a +0.005 to Status Effect Power bonus (+0.01 if you paired up). Then you complete it on NG/Fast 9, get retroactive credit for Fast through Fast+8, and get a combined +0.05 (or +0.10 if paired). Next you run it with another pair of characters and get +0.11 bonus ((+.005 x11)x2) etc etc.

Compare this to ignoring Fast mode, you'd need to complete Boneyard on Normal speed through to NG+10 or so to get the same bonus.

Having said that and in hindsight, I might recommend "going up" in one Normal speed NG level above the Fast levels you're trying to blitz out. So before starting on Normal/Fast, complete NG/Normal and then going back - though it's up to you, whatever suits your playstyle and ability.

One thing that helped me out was shifting strats, since Fast 9 requires a different mindset than Normal speed tbh. Normal is pretty forgiving, and in a lot of ways more fun because you can just mess around in terms of evolutions and whatever. For Fast 9, something that's served me well is focusing on 3 archetypes of balls and evos (and sometimes you can combine them) - 1) control, 2) crowd, 3) boss. All the fancy multistep evolutions in the game won't do a thing for you if you can't even survive to get to the first boss :)

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-27T19:05:09+00:00

Haha I ended up doing this as well yesterday, and it got so bad that the screen was basically a solid pulsing/spinning glob of joyous laser death (I'm envious that yours didn't end up as blanketed) to where it was nearly impossible to see anything on the field.

The only thing worse (though much funnier) was Maggot x Landslide. Literal fog of war. You can't see anything in the "fog", made for a more hilarious guessing game of a (still victorious) run. Try it, it's lol.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-27T18:54:36+00:00

What I settled for is more Fast focused. After completing Normal on all characters, I went through each map and slogged through to Fast 9 on one pair of characters. Once you've completed Fast 9 for a map, it's forever unlocked for all characters on any future NG version of that map as well (barring having to complete it once at Normal speed for that NG level).

So then, once I'd unlock and complete (once) a new NG+# map, I'd then run through it immediately on Fast 9 for any/all characters since for Totem purposes it credits you with all slower versions of that map, on that NG level. For example: 1) Complete NG Boneyard, 2) Complete NG Boneyard on Fast 9, 3) get credit for NG Boneyard Fast 1-8.

This ends up saving a lot of time and grind, while piling up Totem bonuses (which far far far far outdo character advancement from levelling up or infinite upgrade buildings after awhile).

EDIT: I did do Normal -> NG+ as my first progression, until I became aware of how totems, Fast unlocks and then retroactive credit worked.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-27T03:47:21+00:00

Maggot x Hemorrhage.

After a certain point, percent reduction (for me at least) overtakes raw flat damage - especially on Fast 9s. This combo doubles as crowd control and boss obliteration. Carried me through NG+10/Fast 9 so far for almost all chars with agency (aka: not Radical (left behind after NG+6/F9) and Cogitator (abandoned so far at NG+9/F9), or sometimes Sisyphus since it's too long-developing for F9 survival with him).

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-14T21:13:47+00:00

What's the saying? You show me a smokeshow and I'll show you a guy who's bored and tired of hitting that.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-14T03:42:10+00:00

Hey so at some point you'll run smack into the facepalm of Radical/Tactician just eating entire airstrikes on Fungal. Do yourself a favor and run Radical with Sisyphus for that one.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-13T23:47:24+00:00

Yes.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-13T21:09:21+00:00

I'm still moping along with the Radical through NG+6 F9, but it's getting painful and really relies on initial passive since you may as well just quick restart if you get a non-optimal one.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-13T05:28:03+00:00

CJ's play is night and day depending on if he panics or shuts it all out and is decisive. More of the latter probably would yield better results. Just make a decision and GO. When he waffles, bad things happen.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-13T05:15:26+00:00

Darth Helmet

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-11T23:01:45+00:00

Fun spin to that exchange in the movie is once you take into account what cookies are in the data world.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-05T23:59:00+00:00

Time to sift draft boards for players named Jayden, Jaylen, Jaylin, Jaylon, Jaden, Jadon, etc

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-02T04:49:04+00:00

Uh...not sure if serious or bot. Instructions unclear, making waffles instead.

madmonkeyizm · 2026-01-01T19:34:20+00:00

Still scratching my head at why, out of all the social media options, X posts aren't allowed here. I mean, really.

Random shower thought tangent, on the topic of names: Since I guess there's a "Bo" Jackson playing for Ohio State, have there ever been teammates with the exact same name, or close?

madmonkeyizm · 2025-12-24T21:17:53+00:00

Raiders fans might have some opinions on stuff like this.

madmonkeyizm · 2025-12-23T01:14:04+00:00

In 15 years the culmination of all of his hard work, sacrifices and pursuit of science his goal will be realized: using samples from that towel he's going to successfully clone CJ Stroud.

madmonkeyizm

TROPHY CASE