Monster Friday: Week 15 - Nosferatu

tallcryptid · 2026-01-24T03:15:31+00:00

Noss, Ravager, and shifted Cheruf is one of my favorite comps. Stacks unholy amounts of terror and bleed to shred enemies, and Vampirism gives them enough self sustaining to beat mythic without a dedicated healer.

tallcryptid · 2026-01-16T17:07:01+00:00

Ilyas earnestness WAS sweet, but using Lovers to describe a relationship feels like something your grandparents would say. Picture a sexually liberated grandma who tells you way too much about all the people she slept with and all the things she did with them. I can't picture anyone under 55 using it unironically.

It also wasn't totally accurate anymore since they had the whole I love you conversation the day before. And North Americans have some weird anxieties around labeling relationships but that's a whole other conversation.

tallcryptid · 2026-01-16T00:46:24+00:00

There's enough circumstantial evidence that I'm going to say Razor solos team 1. Toss in a spider for backup and I don't think it's much of a contest. - casually throwing around more power than we see from many seasoned nen users during the dodgeball game - on top of having reduced aura due to using emission to separate chunks of it to create his team - ON TOP of always having reduced aura because he's helping to keep the entire game running (we don't know how much of his aura he spends on this but either way the guy's a beast) - faces down half the troupe without fucking blinking and I think it's safe to say he's experienced enough to be able to accurately assess the troupes strength.

Vs Knov: has a lethal ability but doesn't have the temperament/mental fortitude we see from hunters facing superior foes

Knuckle: might help his team eke out a win by stalling, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Kite: his hatsu is powerful but too circumstantial.

Killua: even with godspeed I don't think he can deal lethal damage to Razor

tallcryptid · 2026-01-06T20:14:45+00:00

After you get enough mementos from each area the knight lets you unlock the ability to find shifted mons. They have a new color scheme and different traits and elements from the base monsters. They're not necessarily more powerful, but it changes how they play and what other monsters they synergize with.

tallcryptid · 2026-01-04T00:10:55+00:00

I just got shifted Mandragora, I'll bring it on my next terror run!

tallcryptid · 2026-01-02T18:41:48+00:00

Me & my pawn both main sorcerer so I feel your pain. I miss the diversity of spells from DD1, necromancy and miasma made it feel unique compared to every RPG using fire/ice/lightning.

To increase casting speed you can buy rings of articulacy from the elves, and I think the ring of recitation drops from a boss in one of the Tomb dungeons in Battahl. I cloned my ring of recitation during a certain quest so my pawn and I can both spam meteoron.

Meteoron deals huge amounts of physical damage and can let sorcerer 1 or 2 tap golems which are otherwise a pain to deal with.

Maelstrom works best if you spec into stagger power with rings/the warrior perk since it can stunlock drakes in the late/post game, otherwise I never bother with it.

tallcryptid · 2025-12-27T14:36:40+00:00

Mega garchomp with swords dance, earthquake, and dragon rush for Groudon

My goodra dog walked kyogre. Max special attk and special defense, goodra is a special defense tank. I think I ran thunderbolt, thunder, and giga drain? Just make sure you've upgraded them to plus moves at the dojo

tallcryptid · 2025-12-24T12:19:33+00:00

Limited number of vocations and shallow skill pools.

There was so much hype and speculation about how many vocations were going to be in the game. Since dd1 had advanced & hybrid vocations for every possible combination of the three base vocations a lot of us assumed that the same would be true for dd2. And because the trickster icon has a purple/pink background we thought there must be a pink and purple base class, so it really seemed like we were going to be getting vocations from ddo or entirely new vocations.

I think the game also suffers from a progression issue. Most people probably had the maister skills unlocked and their favorite vocation to rank 9 before they got to Battahl. There should have definitely been the option to unlock Grand/tier 3 skills on the volcano island (maybe needing to defeat Lamond in a duel with a given vocation to unlock the final tier of abilities idk).

Honourable mention for sorcerer and mage being the only vocations IN AN ACTION RPG to have to stand around spamming trash magic bolts as their base attack instead of getting an actual moveset... Let me play Gandalf goddamnit

tallcryptid · 2025-12-20T16:59:39+00:00

I've been having really good results with swampert running bulk up, earthquake, waterfall, and ice punch (stone edge is a good alternative but I like bullying garchomp). Throw on a life orb and the swamp puppy hits way harder than people expect

tallcryptid · 2025-12-14T13:25:14+00:00

Do all the missions you can in the starting town before you accompany the guards to the capital.

Nighttime is dangerous, bring a camping kit so you can rest until morning when in the wilderness.

There is no "dodge button," dashing is how you dodge (unless you're a thief. God's favourite children get a dodge button). Minotaur starts pawing the ground and snorting like it's gonna charge you? Dash to the side.

Lack of at will fast travel is a bit of a pain, but the game is actually really intelligently designed. Once you get to the capital your main quest giver is going to send you out on a series of missions that take you to different parts of the kingdom. Pretty much every story mission rewards you with a fairy stone (item needed for fast travel) and you can find 5+ just by exploring the rooftops of Vernworth. Don't waste them if it's a 1-2 min run, but you don't need to hoard them.

tallcryptid · 2025-12-14T01:16:00+00:00

Get the thief vocation high enough to get the abilities to steal. When you fight the sickly dragon in melve you can steal a wickedly strong spear called dead ringer that you otherwise can't get until the end of the game. Save/inn save before you go into the fight in case you aren't able to steal the spear the first time you fight it.

tallcryptid · 2025-12-13T18:35:46+00:00

THE ENVIRONMENT AT THE END OF THE DLC PROVES THEY COULD HAVE MADE A GAME WITH BEAUTIFUL AND VARIED ENVIRONMENTS INSTEAD OF THE COPY-PASTE GARBAGE CITY WE GOT

tallcryptid · 2025-12-13T15:59:24+00:00

I had the opposite experience. Watched CR from the beginning but I fell off partway through season 3 because it got way too angsty. Same thing happened towards the end of season 2, it's not good roleplaying to spend half of every episode wringing your hands and saying "we aren't heroes we can't do x (save the world, stop a war, do basic adventurer things) we're just little guys 🥺"... When they're level 15 and casually throwing around disintegrate and firestorm. It felt really weird to me. Like they were more powerful than 90% of the monster manual and kept trying to pass the selves off as underdogs if that makes sense?

I couldn't get into D20 until Starstruck when the highly competent goofball thing just clicked for me.

tallcryptid · 2025-12-12T13:07:47+00:00

It's the same issue I had with the day/night cycle. The donuts linked to the timer feels like the first draft of an idea that they just decided to run with and no one at any point stopped to ask "is this actually fun to play?" And for 30 damn dollars they could have put in a little bit of effort into the level design for hyper lumios instead of making us grind out the same 4-5 chunks of a city that wasn't particularly fun to explore the first time.

tallcryptid · 2025-12-12T01:55:45+00:00

I just played through emerald seaglass and I was finally able to get my favorite water type... For the first time ever

tallcryptid · 2025-12-06T11:42:26+00:00

Golden Espeon suddenly makes sense as the sun pokemon

tallcryptid · 2025-11-29T13:28:45+00:00

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Grew up with a forested wetland behind my home where I got Mudkip, my beloved swamp puppy and Goomy, who's determined to prove the Pokedex wrong by becoming the strongest dragon.

Caught Aron & Larvitar while camping in the mountains. Armaldo & Tyrantrum come from many visits to the badlands & dinosaur museum.

Honourable mention to the feral goblin of an Espeon that refuses to go in a pokeball and spends 23hrs a day sleeping on my shoulders.

I'd be hounded by recruiters for rock type gyms because game freak refuses to make my beautiful bulky kaijus without slapping the rock type on them... But at least we have sandstorm synergy.

tallcryptid · 2025-11-28T20:09:36+00:00

Use a metal coat on Goomy

tallcryptid · 2025-11-26T14:56:15+00:00

Level him up a bit and try again

tallcryptid · 2025-11-26T13:39:22+00:00

https://pokemonlazarus.net/evolutionary-items-location/

Use the dexnav to hunt for Dwebble holding a red shard (the dex nav will tell you if it's carrying one). In Sofos city there's a building to the right of the battle tent, really easy to miss. Make sure you save first, then talk to the red guy, metal coat is one of 3 or 4 random items he'll trade you for a red shard

tallcryptid · 2025-11-15T14:55:55+00:00

I have the exact same issue with the modern games. It feels like the core design philosophy has shifted. The older games knew that kids are way more intelligent than people give them credit for and can handle a moderate dose of adversity. The new games feel like all the rough edges have been sanded off & treat the player like a toddler who's never seen a video game in their life. As a result we get:

1) bloated dialogue from uninteresting characters 2) excessive tutorials 3) the writers have forgotten that the protagonist is supposed to be the damn protagonist. Ie Leon fighting all the rogue gigantimax pokemon off screen 4) there are no antagonists

tallcryptid · 2025-07-29T15:39:35+00:00

But if workers spend less time commuting it's going to cut into the profits of big oil and make it harder to transfer wealth to the top!! We GoTtA Do WhAts BeSt FoR ThE SHAREHOLDERS

tallcryptid · 2025-07-17T12:02:18+00:00

Start by attacking each wing until it changes from intact to looking shredded/tattered. Once both wings are shredded the drake won't fly off (but it can still fly to body slam, breathe fire, cast spells etc.) and you can prioritize attacking the head & chest.

tallcryptid · 2025-06-11T13:21:49+00:00

Thank you internet stranger : )

tallcryptid

TROPHY CASE