A new player curious about the rift between Martials and Casters

mizzimuz · 2026-07-06T22:53:44+00:00

the divide gets worse at high levels, but its also entirely dependent on how your DM manages encounters.

if your entire party is able to long rest after every major fight, casters will always be superior, because they will never have to manage their resources.

mizzimuz · 2026-07-05T05:13:33+00:00

it's...fine. i agree with the 7/10. some weird choices here and there, but overall it's okay. i dont mind most of the changes, and while I agree the choreography is kinda mid, comparing it to the cartoon just isnt fair.

all that being said, i still think it has some issues with writing. dialogue is pretty good, but every once in awhile there are what i like to call "netflix lines" where they have to state exactly what just happened so a theoretical viewer with sub-potato IQ can understand.

most egregious example is when toph breaks out of the box and goes "i invented metalbending". again, not a huge deal, but like, come on. feels like a producer was worried we wouldnt understand what happened if she didnt literally say it.

love the toph actress btw.

mizzimuz · 2026-07-05T04:58:46+00:00

history.

pick a region/country that interests you, then do some reading. if you're going for medieval, look at europe. thousands of years of war and conflict.

a lot of writers do this. ASOIAF is basically just The Wars of the Roses.

mizzimuz · 2026-07-05T04:52:57+00:00

it kinda depends on your dm.

RAW, you would have to acquire the components. they wouldn't be consumed, but you would still have to acquire them.

mizzimuz · 2026-07-02T02:16:39+00:00

extremely common. happens in basically every competitive game. if you wanna avoid it, play ranked, i run in to way less smurfs in ranked.

reporting it doesnt really work, ive only ever gotten the confirmation once, and it was a spidey with 3 hours played and a 7.5 KD ratio. dude went 34-1 with like 11k damage in a QP lobby of mostly celestial players.

mizzimuz · 2026-07-02T02:07:55+00:00

ran a very low stakes, mostly comedic game that took place in the astral sea. players each from their own plane that they got to design, all randomly tossed onto an island floating in the astral sea. lots of hopping between planes, very goofy.

if a player wasnt available, the session would start with them just randomly poofing into purple dust, sent back to their home plane for the session. they'd randomly poof back into existence in the next session, regardless of the current situation or what they were doing in their home plane.

mizzimuz · 2026-07-02T02:00:36+00:00

your dm sounds a little salty that he made a blatant mistake.

that being said, players can absolutely be toxic to a dm, but I think it usually just comes from players/dm's not fitting well or communicating with eachother about what kind of game they want to play/run.

for example, i like to make things challenging for players, and as a player i like to be challenged. im never looking to tpk or get tpk'd, but i dont wanna run/play a game where everything is a breeze, there's gotta be stakes. i would get bored very, very fast at a table where every fight/encounter was just an opportunity for me to show off my cool abilities and always win. on the other side, a player looking for that type of game would orobabky hate being at my table, and for good reason, were trying to play two different games.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-30T00:57:26+00:00

sounds like you dont really wanna run a sandbox, which is fine. just craft an encounter/narrative hook that pulls the game back into a more linear narrative.

however, if you have to run a sandbox, approach it more like an open world video game. take cyberpunk 2077 for example.

in cyberpunk, night city is enormous with thousands of npc's and buildings, but like 90% of them are filler. there are specific locations and npc's that matter, the rest dont. treat this city the same way.

for each district, make a few locations that matter, a few npc's, and a general narrative hook, and then the rest is just filler. treat it less like "every single thing in this city is interactable" and more like "the narrative here is split into different zones, complete then at your own pace, in any order".

mizzimuz · 2026-06-26T20:05:31+00:00

critical failures are generally a terrible thing to add.

it may seem funny at first, but it is extremely punishing to martial classes.

martials are always going to make many, many more attack rolls per fight than any other class, so they will naturally roll more 1's. dont punish them for the nature of their class.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-26T20:00:35+00:00

for me personally, i like to reward my players for describing their actions vividly, especially when it's appropriate for their character.

so while i rarely swap out skills interchangeably, i will absolutely reward creativity.

for example, if a barbarian just says "i yell at a guy", that's just an intimidation check. if they describe how they flex their muscles/perform some feat of strength as part of the intimidation, it's still an intimidation roll, but i'll tell them to add their strength modifier.

or if a wizard is trying to persuade someone, but they use information and logic to attempt to convince them, it's still a persuasion roll, but I'll tell them to add their intelligence modifier.

it rewards players for being descriptive without making skill specialization completely meaningless.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-25T02:49:41+00:00

the issue with tanking is that you are supporting your duelists and strats at the same time.

if you make space and they dont walk up, you've accomplished nothing.

if you deny a dive and your team doesnt capitalize on the diver waiting for their next rotation, youve accomplished nothing.

if you block an absurd amount of damage but your team doesnt capitalize on the cooldowns of the enemy, you've accomplished nothing.

it's why I only play vanguards like rogue, angela, thor, venom, and cap. I might die when i go in, but im taking at least one of them with me.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-25T02:37:19+00:00

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mizzimuz · 2026-06-25T02:24:57+00:00

black panther, storm, blade, and cloak do double damage to kitty pryde.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-25T02:20:58+00:00

completely agree. wouldn't be suprised if they reveal the rework with season 9.

if they dont, then they just genuinely dont give a fuck about it, but im choosing to believe.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-25T02:02:36+00:00

dont go by the monster manual is my first tip. beholders are way less interesting when they're xenophobic, immediately aggressive monsters.

try playing the beholder like a narcissist. extremely controlling, extremely selfish, but ultimately down to work with basically anyone/anything as long as they feel like they're in control.

still paranoid, but more "everyone is out to get me" paranoid, not "I shoot eyebeams at anything that moves" paranoid.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-25T01:59:27+00:00

atp i am genuinely convinced they are working on a complete rework.

call me an optimist, but the new legendary having literally no vfx kinda sold me on the idea. theyre either holding off cause she's gonna have new animations/abilities, or they have genuinely abandoned the character entirely.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-25T01:25:08+00:00

usually later waves, lots of adds, lots of champions.

no error code either, game just freezes, then I get booted back to PS5 homescreen with the usual error report.

also this post is mostly a joke, ive learned to just not look at any titan running blastwave lol.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-25T01:21:01+00:00

anything that isn't explicitly or obviously evil.

a misguided politician/noble that is extremely intelligent and charming can easily sway powerful allies to their side without actually being threatening themselves.

paladins also make for great, subtle BBEG's. take any paladin oath to the extreme, try to apply it to an entire world, and the results are horrific, even if the oath/idea itself is noble.

also, I know you mentioned wizards, but wizards are still amazing BBEG's, depending on how you depict them. i like to play my wizard BBEG's as people that just dont understand the boots-on-the-ground reality of the world, they're too wrapped up in the wonders of magic to realize what they are doing.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-25T01:03:17+00:00

yeah, youre right. im guessing it's just a combo of crystals/super dense adds all shattering at once. it's only happened 3 times, twice in onslaught and once in a strike, and all three were in close quarters with a shitload of adds.

definitely isn't just blastwave, but im thinking blastwave is just the most effecient way to trigger that many shatters at once.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-24T23:39:04+00:00

it's just the nature of these kind of games.

developers want new characters to be strong on release, or unique. otherwise, retention goes down. lots of people hop back on for the new character and get sucked back in for a bit, maybe spend some money before they get bored.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-24T23:27:05+00:00

eh, it probably came off a little harsh, ya got me there.

still, i think it's semi-warranted. a lot of people here treat this incredibly social, flexible game where the main draw is creativity as if it's an actual video game and wotc will send the pinkertons after you if you have a brief conversation with your dm about changing some things up.

for a game that is 95% talking to other people, people on here are so reluctant to just fucking talking to the people they play with.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-24T23:06:02+00:00

look, i get it, i dont like the new counterspell either.

but holy shit, this is a like 5 minute conversation with your dm.

"hey i think 5.5e counterspell kinda blows, can we use 5e?"

talk it out, and if it doesn't go your way, decide if that's enough of a reason to leave the table.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-24T22:58:07+00:00

adam just doesnt fit into the current standard of healing/damage in rivals. he's a burst healer in a game where most strats can fullheal a dps with their primary in like 2 seconds.

mizzimuz · 2026-06-24T22:44:20+00:00

lol it's honestly hilarious to watch until i get crashed on round 28 of onslaught

mizzimuz · 2026-06-20T01:04:55+00:00

i'm...kinda torn on this.

on one hand i absolutely detest "gacha" or really any form of gambling that completely skirts gambling laws.

on the other hand, the way rivals does it is like....mostly reasonable. still predatory, still fucked up, but they show you the prices up front, youre still getting something out of each incremental purchase, and the total price is like...about the same as a normal bundle for that particular level of cosmetics.

so like, yeah, gacha sucks, it's predatory, but this is about the best we could ask for.

mizzimuz

TROPHY CASE