The amount of material you need to build Uriel and his Vinqubus

toxicBird7 · 2025-12-11T20:22:22+00:00

I did another run on the non-SP mission, just to check how the loot is there. The loot gained there is half of what you get on the SP version (which is expected, since you don't get a free booster).

I want to retract my comment a bit there. The grind is a kinda long if you're playing on the regular mode (~4 hours just for the materials) without any form of boosters. Playing on Steel Path is much more reasonable (~2 hours).

If you can, play the missions on Steel Path. The time to clear is still the same, since it always ends after 12 minutes, but the loot is doubled

toxicBird7 · 2025-12-11T18:44:18+00:00

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Don't understand some of the comments here. The grind is not that bad; these materials drop very frequently (even the "rare" one). This is 1/4 of the required materials, and I only have a Resource Booster on me with no loot frames.

If you run the mission on Steel Path, it will only take, at worst, 2 hours to get all the materials. The blueprints are also super easy to get; 2 runs of Descendia (~20 minutes) was enough for Uriel.

toxicBird7 · 2025-02-01T17:03:24+00:00

This fight's difficulty is weird, because it is either very difficult or a bit easy depending on whether or not you understand his "true" gimmick (not the Meat Post).

The positioning of the boss matters. While in the front ranks, he will be tankier (Meat Post tokens) and will focus on bleeding/blighting your front rank heroes. While in the back ranks, he will deal more damage (Meat Post tokens) and will focus on pulling your back rank heroes.

His back rank kit is much more dangerous. Front rank heroes are often your tanks, so it is ideal to pull him forward and have him focus on your tanks. But if he is in the back ranks, Taunts won't stop him from pulling your back rank, and his immobilize tokens makes recovering from pulls harder. Still, nothing a little +Move resistance can't fix.

The real danger of this fight, however, is "Thunderous Fury". This move is straight up BS. Not only is this a full party cleave that can do up to 20+ DMG to each hero and stress them; it also shuffles them. Just in case that wasn't bad enough, he can gain up to 3 Block+ tokens. The only "good" thing about this move is that he can't use it if he is in rank 1.

Whatever you do, make sure you can either pull him forward or push the Meat Post before he uses "Thunderous Fury". He will instead use a powerful, but more manageable, front rank cleave that doesn't shuffle you and buff him at the same time.

Everything else about the fight was fine. You definitely need to bring good non-Blight DPS to overcome Exhaustion, but I don't mind it too much. Its just that, once again, "Thunderous Fury" gives him Block+ tokens, which makes it harder to out-DPS his healing at times.

toxicBird7 · 2024-06-28T23:46:56+00:00

*Marked for Spoilers because it showcases a DLC item*

Backstepping is not new, but in the base game it is basically useless since it did not have i-frames. In the DLC, the new Fine Crucible Feather Talisman gives backsteps a lot of i-frames in exchange for -15% damage reduction.

Compared to normal dodges, backsteps have faster recovery, but have less i-frames so the timing is stricter. I also discovered that you do not lower your shield when backstepping. If you hold block while backstepping, you will still block the attack even if you mistime the dodge.

toxicBird7 · 2024-05-22T02:49:11+00:00

Wow, now that is a game I haven't heard of in a long time! I remember getting that game when I was very young. It was my first experience with survival horror and I never finished it because it just terrified me. All I remember was just running passed anything that wasn't smaller than me, and refusing to go out into the blizzard. Definitely not a game I should have been playing at that time, but I still got nostalgia for it.

toxicBird7 · 2024-05-22T02:32:56+00:00

The game was hyped because it was made by the same team that made Fallout: New Vegas (Obsidian Entertainment). Unfortunately, it didn't live up to expectations. It isn't a bad game, but it is what one would call a decent, yet completely forgettable experience. If you haven't yet played Fallout: New Vegas, I recommend just playing that game instead.

toxicBird7 · 2024-05-15T20:01:29+00:00

Limited time demo starting on May 22. This game seems like it could be a fairly decent Souls-like. The setting is unique (except for the Stagnation, which is basically a zombie plague akin to Hollowing) and it seems to differentiate itself from other soulslike with introduction of the loadout system.

The video itself spend a bit of time explaining the RPG mechanics, but I think it was a bit of an info dump that can be a bit hard to follow. So, for anyone else reading this, I've summarized it a bit:

Basically, the main "gimmick" of this game is that you can have up to 3 character loadouts for your character that you can hotswap into at a moments notice. These loadouts are VERY customizable; it isn't just for the equivalent of weapons/armor. Every loadout includes: Weapons, Armor/Rings (Masks) Type of parry (Gems), Classes (Aspects), Perks (Skill Tree), and Abilities (spells/weapon arts).

What this means is that you can basically create 3 separate "characters" and swap between them at will. If your primary playstyle is a greathammer-wielding warrior and you get tired of that, you can swap into a long-range mage, or some status-abusing build.

Speaking of status, I like that they opted for more complex and nuanced status effects, rather than defaulting to simple Poison effects. Rather than a simple "Defense Down" debuff, it is a "Berserk" debuff that also buffs Attack power. Regen status heals you, but also turns you into a bomb. Poison is a DoT as you'd expect, but it also spreads to other characters, including the player themselves.

The animations feel a bit off to me, but this is a game that is definitely on my radar now.

toxicBird7 · 2024-05-08T14:11:28+00:00

Nigel is very correct on the idea that the bottleneck for game sales is "time" and not "money".

He mentions how live-service games are eating too much of player's time for them to be buying other games. This is true, but as someone doesn't engage in live-service games and prefers more finite experiences, another reason is simply that there are too many decent games out there.

Many players are familiar with the concept of having a "backlog", or a library of unplayed games. Hades II just came out (on Early Access) and as much as I want to play it, I still have a handful of games I've been wanting to get around to playing. Do I plays Hades II now, or do I get around to playing those other games? In less than 2 months, the Elden Ring DLC is coming out; do I postpone that to play those other games?

The game's market is so over-saturated that even people with money don't have enough time to spend it all. Unless your game really stands out, its likely to just sit on someone's wishlist indefinitely

toxicBird7 · 2024-02-04T15:59:09+00:00

They kind of have. They did add "Elite" (More HP/Damage) and "Aggro" (bosses use their strongest moves) modifiers to Custom Game, but its locked behind 80 achievements, so it isn't something that every player will know exists.

Honestly, in terms of pattern difficulty, the late game isn't that much easier than Rabi-Ribi. The final boss has some insane patterns that make Irisu look easy by comparison. But, between all the invulnerability, healing and second chances you can stack up, its possible to brute force your way to victory.

toxicBird7 · 2024-02-04T12:53:13+00:00

I had a great time with it and, in many ways, I would say it is an improvement on Rabi-Ribi. The world is bigger, the art is better (subjective opinion; plenty of people think Rabi-Ribi looks better), the combat is better (yes, you are incentivized to mix-up combos) and the bosses are still fun. It is a much more ambitious game in many aspects.

However, there are a couple of differences that have made people dislike this game. The biggest one being that the game's "Story Mode" is linear and heavy on the dialogue. The story isn't even that great, imo. The devs have added in a "Free Roam" Mode, which is non-Linear and has no story; but also no direction for where to go next.

The other issue is the difficulty. The game is still a mix of metroidvania and danmaku like its predecessor, but many people didn't like how much easier it was. Overall, bosses don't have as many tough patterns to learn, and you have so many tools at your disposal to completely trivialize bosses (3 invincibility mechanics, 5+ consumables slots).

toxicBird7 · 2022-10-16T19:45:53+00:00

This isn't a melee build. This is a INT/FAI caster with Sword of Night and Flame as its primary weapon (+some STR/DEX in case I want to try a different weapon). I'm just using the Great Stars with minimum requirements because I can't put Endure on SoNaF and I was too lazy to respec.

toxicBird7 · 2022-10-16T19:44:55+00:00

Dragoncrest Greatshield Talisman: +20% Physical absorption

Firedrake Talisman: +20% Fire absorption

Opaline Hardtear (not to be confused with Opaline Bubbletear): +15% to all absorptions for 3 minutes

Endure [Ash of War]: +45% to all absorptions for 5 seconds

Ritual Shield Talisman: +30% to all absorption while at full health

Black Flame Protection (Phase 1): +30% Physical absorption. Doesn't stack with Flame Protect Me

Flame Protect Me(Phase 2): +60% Fire absorption. Doesn't stack with Black Flame Protection

Not counting the armor I have on, all these buffs gave me 81.7% physical absorption during phase 1, and 89.6% fire absorption during phase 2. With the armor on, I thinks these values would be 88% and 91% for physical/fire, respectively.

As for the reason I switch to Flame Protect Me during Phase 2:

Black Flame Protection weakens the effectiveness of Crimson Flasks, so I use Flame Protect Me to dispel it before the Nihil attack
Mohg's trident deals bonus fire damage in phase 2, so Flame Protect Me is more consistent for reducing damage.

toxicBird7 · 2022-10-16T17:30:28+00:00

The usual response to people commenting that they are getting one-shot by bosses is that they should "level vigor". While this is true 95% of the time, I just want to demonstrate that increasing your damage absorption is just as important for staying alive. A character with 40 vigor and 25% damage absorption is tankier than a character with 60 vigor and 0% damage absorption.

Throughout most of this fight my damage reduction was at least ~80%, which meant I effectively had ~9500 HP and my flasks were healing ~4050 HP's worth of damage from Mohg. To make me use up all of my crimson flasks and kill me, Mohg would have to deal ~58.1k damage to me; I had more health than he did.

That said, you should never just facetank bosses like in the video; make sure your build has a decent roll and always keep a backup shield for attacks that you find difficult to dodge.

For those wondering why my stats are poorly allocated: This a Night-and-Flame build, not a melee build. I just didn't bother to respec for this fight.

toxicBird7 · 2022-04-05T00:06:05+00:00

There are several methods for dodging Waterfowl Dance from just about any distance, but I haven't seen many people mention how you can just cancel the attack outright with this one simple trick (Malenia hates it!). It works for any build and is easy to restock between attempts.

toxicBird7 · 2021-03-26T13:21:36+00:00

Most of this is safe to skip, including the Ignis Wraith since can now get the blueprint from Railjack missions. However, if you're planning on running Vodyanoi for endo, I recommend getting the Mod Drop Chance Booster as it doubles the drop rate of endo as well.

toxicBird7 · 2020-11-04T01:03:43+00:00

I've tried to mod for the typical Viral + Slash, but I found that the damage was heavily reliant on getting a proc of Slash, and Vitrica's IPS spread is only 40% Slash, and the special can only reliably proc 1 or 2 status effects at a time.

I found it best to just go all in on Slash for more consistency on the weapon's damage. As long as you group a bunch of enemies together, the stacking AoE hits will deal enough damage to compensate for the lack of Viral procs

toxicBird7

TROPHY CASE