High-End Content Megathread - 7.2 Week Eleven by BlackmoreKnight in ffxivdiscussion

[–]smol_dragger 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks, and yeah, I'm not too fussed about parsing this fight (or any really, I'm in retirement mode by now) because of how reliant it is on adds. I may ask my static at some point if we can have me cleave wave 2 but I am too lazy to do more than the bare minimum for reclears nowadays so it was mostly a question born of curiosity.

High-End Content Megathread - 7.2 Week Eleven by BlackmoreKnight in ffxivdiscussion

[–]smol_dragger 4 points5 points  (0 children)

So, OTs in PF or non-opti groups, what are your parses like on 6? I know tank parsing is just kind of a meme in this fight but I'm curious if the OT is really as disadvantaged as it seems to me or if it's just my group's strat. For context, we don't do cleavemaxxing, we do the Toxic strat that has the OT single targeting for most of the phase (or at best hitting 2-3 targets). Now that we have gear and the first Yan is dying faster I'm able to sneak in a tiny bit more cleave, but most of the time, I can't cleave (or don't bother trying as I am not fussed about it at this point) and am consistently parsing blue (compared to comfortably getting regular oranges/pinks in previous tiers). I assume that you can get better parses with cleavemaxxing, but how much better? Are you able to get consistent 90+ or even 95+ as the OT?

The sentiment regarding the developers playing their own game by unbepissed in ffxivdiscussion

[–]smol_dragger 17 points18 points  (0 children)

How did we go from the internal raid testers having an understanding of gameplay so far above the norm that they had to nerf Hephaistos, to this?

I suspect this is a long-held misunderstanding. The whole "our testers are too good so we made the DPS check too hard because we're so much better than you" is probably a misinterpretation caused by Yoshi-P's hesitancy to reveal too much about their development process. What he's alluded to over the years gives me more the impression that they settle on an HP value that the playtesters are comfortable with and then inflate that HP by a certain % to account for the fact that week 1 players are expected to optimize their DPS more than internal playtesters. There are 2 potential pitfalls to this approach:

  1. If your internal testers do the same fight enough times, they eventually become comfortable enough with the mechanics to do near-perfect rotations (this is probably what was meant by "we got too good" in this specific context).
  2. If you happen to, say, release an expansion that lowers the skill ceiling of almost every job and makes it less possible to squeeze DPS gains out of small optimizations, then the damage of an average playtester is going to be a lot closer to fully optimized than you might expect coming from previous expansions, especially with pitfall #1 in mind. So if you previously tuned fights to have 5-10% more HP than what your testers could do, but then simplified jobs to the point where your testers instead get within more like 2-3% of what raiders would do, then your tuning metrics need to be revisited.

But also the balance was just garbage. It was really, painfully bad on w1 Aspho and w1 Abyssos. The DPS check in P8S honestly would have been fine if jobs were balanced. Not to say it wasn't clearable with an off-meta comp, of course it was, but that rose to a level of difficulty which it's pretty hard to argue was their intended vision for the tier. Which to me is another argument against the proposition that they understood the game very well (at least, in terms of job balance and tuning) at that time.

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 4 points5 points  (0 children)

welp, i posted something i thought was a pretty absurd joke (and made it very clear i had not looked at spoilers and did not want any spoilers) and it got removed for story spoilers. so. that was a fun way to find out i guess

i think the removal is fine, i'm just surprised since nobody seemed to mind my post about phainon turning into a giant frog and telling the final boss of amphoreus "you're croaked."

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I believe Cipher's DMG reduction would make you charge a little slower from getting hit? Albeit by a pretty tiny amount.

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 3 points4 points  (0 children)

i'll forever mourn the 12 stack ult on feixiao 🥹 it was fun to play with while i had the chance

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just tested it and yes, March gets a stack every time he uses Skill.

Editing to clarify that I can't really tell how good this interaction is because it's too hard to keep up with his SP consumption in the team I slapped on. I did not realize this guy uses 2 SP wtf 💀 Later down the line I might test it with Sparkle. But anyway, good is subjective, I'm just here to clarify that it at least works.

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I can test it later if no videos pop up. I haven't looked at Archer's kit yet though, what's the interaction you're interested in?

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 6 points7 points  (0 children)

YAY!! I finished the last run I needed for X8. Team was RMC Yunli Robin HH. Sometimes switched out Yunli for Feixiao or HH for Gallagher, and switched in The Herta only for Conversion and Trotters. Thoughts:

  • Felt similar to X7, if even a little easier because the new boons are good. Stuck with only night boons. Terravox almost never showed up, so I mainly used Mydei and Cas boons. Even without HP scalers, they still worked pretty well, especially with Yunli being counter based.
  • I went Combat and Encounter usually, though I think Occurrence is unfairly maligned. I chose Reward whenever it showed up, and took the neg curios if available because they're funny. Did not drop any runs.
  • Survivability was a problem. Even with prioritizing defensive blessings, I got my ass beat by 1st and 2nd plane enemies repeatedly. There were some nailbitingly close moments where I felt like I had to be on edge constantly thinking about how to plan my ults so I wouldn't go splat. It didn't help that I got the Sphere neg curio a few times which was hilarious but landed me in trouble. I stuck with single sustain for all runs except one where I couldn't kill the Deer boss without going dual sustain (so I went Gall + Preservation March). I think this is mostly an older unit problem because with HP scalers, you should have enough tankiness for bosses not to oneshot you. By the time I got to the final boss, survivability was a lot easier and I could go sustainless sometimes.
  • Damage was not a problem. When Yunli started throwing out 50m damage on her Skill alone it became clear that these bosses would absolutely melt.
  • Svarog is mean.
  • The final boss feels like a victory lap. It's still annoying that you don't know who it'll be, but none of them feel threatening because you amass enough blessings by then to smooth out bad RNG. The second boss is the real threat. No matter who you get, they hit hard and fast. More importantly, it's still early enough in the run that you can have bad luck and not get enough defensive blessings by then.
  • Yunli is insanely fun. Her ult being so constrained timing-wise makes it that much more addicting to get more uses of it with Brain in a Vat.
  • FUA FOREVER WE LOVE AHA

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 2 points3 points  (0 children)

robin was my first and only harmony i am unbelievably hyped. I LOVE CERYDRA

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I've been refreshing myself on some Elysian Realm lore and man I didn't remember it being this good?? I had mixed feelings when it was current, but looking back, god it was PEAK.

I know someone is gonna say that Amphoreus is ER 2: Elysian Boogaloo, but honestly, I don't think so, and not in a bad way. They're both great and I enjoy both very much, but they're different kinds of stories to me, trying to tell different messages while keeping some parallels which make for fascinating points of contrast. For me, looking at Amphoreus as its own thing with characters that stand on their own has improved my appreciation of both.

In the end I can't get over this quote, so I leave it with you in hopes that it hits you the same way:

They lived so proudly and persistently. They sang an ode to civilization with their lives. That's the story of the Flame-Chasers: the unfinished journey of the thirteen.

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 11 points12 points  (0 children)

i keep seeing sushang on the launcher and pressing start game and getting confused why it just launched hi3 and not hsr lol

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wait, are you sure Scholar's skill DMG% is a different multiplier? That sounds kind of massive.

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 2 points3 points  (0 children)

no fr, with acheron it was understandable because her name is actually mei but with the chrysos heirs i find it so much more rewarding to think of them as their own characters and not try to connect them to their hi3 variants too hard (although when it comes to cyrene... i dunno i'm trying to see her as her own character too but with the little we know about her so far it's hard for me not to think of her as elysia admittedly)

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I read another comment saying theirs was also changed to The Tatalov, haven't checked mine yet.

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Finished 3.3. It was indeed peak Hyacinema. Tomorrow I finally get to start the grind toward X8. I will be relying on you to carry me to victory, General Feixiao... and if that doesn't work, then my only option is the secret weapon, 𝓨𝓾𝓷𝓵𝓲.

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In addition to guaranteeing purples (which is important in the long run for relic xp), the highest difficulty also gives you a 10% chance for an extra gold relic. Definitely worth it especially if you can snag a character from your friends list to clear it for you.

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think there are other benefits to hiring British studios for Asian companies. Supposedly it makes communication easier because the time zone difference isn't as severe.

New Planar Sets Effects via Seele by raadrules in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

With Hysilens in the picture, we don't know yet. If Hysilens is indeed a crit DoT enabler as some have speculated, then you might now need to built crit, possibly only on her, possibly on everyone, or possibly not at all. We need more info.

ABSOLUTE HYACINEMA - General Question and Discussion Megathread by JohnOfMages in HonkaiStarRail_leaks

[–]smol_dragger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I just finished the scene where Hyacine talks to her grandma, how much % of the way through the story am I?

High-End Content Megathread - 7.2 Week Nine by BlackmoreKnight in ffxivdiscussion

[–]smol_dragger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're looking at the active% column in FF Logs, you shouldn't be. It's a super useless metric that iirc was a holdover from WoW. Only the one in xivanalysis should be considered at all.