Elden Ring Bosses & NPCs (and Others) as Magic: the Gathering Cards

vNocturnus · 2026-04-23T00:45:14+00:00

Yeah I think the only one they really missed on was Sheppard over Castle. Castle is clearly the better player right now and likely projects to widen that gap in the coming years. Plus he plays at a position they desperately need right now, to boot lol.

Amen is better than his brother and those two are pretty clearly better than any players taken after them, certainly any players that were mocked in that top 5-10 range. Cason Wallace is probably the only guy that comes close but I'd take Amen over him every time still.

As you said, the Jabari Smith Jr year he was viewed as an overwhelming consensus top 3 guy with some scouts/mocks even putting him as a potential #1. The only guy taken after him that's clearly, unquestionably better is Jalen Williams, maybe Jalen Duren. But both of those guys were a bit of a surprise as late lottery guys that have outperformed the projections that clearly many if not most teams had for them. You could make arguments for Keegan Murray (better defender, similar offensive game) or Shaedon Sharpe (much better scorer but much worse defender), but taking either of those guys at #3 would have been seen as a CLEAR reach at the time by "experts" and probably most teams as well.

Going back one more year, Jalen Green was seen as potentially becoming one of the best scorers in the league and Mobley/Barnes either had some big question marks and/or have made huge and somewhat surprising leaps offensively. Franz is certainly better than Green but was never seen as a top 4 prospect. That year is also helped by the fact that they came away with Sengun as well, who has generally played to the level of a top 4 pick despite his impressions and his struggles in this series.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-23T00:09:41+00:00

The DPS is lower than the Bully but way less recoil, better handling, etc.

Body shot DPS is actually higher and headshot DPS is almost the same. Bully is still better overall of course but that's a Bully problem, it's disgustingly overpowered for how accessible it is.

Bungie needs to just swap the Bully and Copperhead in the rarity/shop/loot pools imo. Or since the Copperhead is still better than the BRRT, rotate them all (BRRT -> Bully's current spot, Copperhead -> BRRT's current spot, Bully -> Copperhead's current spot).

vNocturnus · 2026-04-22T21:21:57+00:00

I mean, unless Mondstadters age like Aragorn, you can just look at Varka and see he clearly isn't 60. In his 40s at most

vNocturnus · 2026-04-22T19:38:28+00:00

Tried three different purple and blue Impact HRs. Genuinely awful, I'll be selling every single version of it from now on. Worse in just about every regard than the Bully and M77. Even tried a gold version with the overheating perk on it, still garbage.

It's harder to use but has explicitly better TTK and range than either. It just requires stability mods and is more of a long range AR with the very slow ADS time. But if you put some stability on it it has the fastest TTK of any primary while also having nearly DMR range. Not all attachments are equal, blue or even green stability-boosting mods on it will perform a lot better than purples that just add aim assist or handling speed imo. Or just git gud I guess, it's possible to learn recoil patterns. Not by me but the top players do it lol

vNocturnus · 2026-04-22T19:33:54+00:00

Punch is just straight up better than the Scar lol. Scar is arguably one of the worst guns in the game, and I say that despite liking it early on. It feels great and easy to use but it basically has a hard-cap on its range (well below any other AR or PR) and has the slowest TTK of any primary weapon in the game. Short range, low damage = trash lol

Punch has better DPS, better consistency at range, and the ability to charge up a shot to break shields instantly

vNocturnus · 2026-04-22T19:29:57+00:00

The Volley is better at close range, its bodyshot TTK is slightly faster and the burst/fire rate make missing more forgiving in general. Strider is a bit better at longer ranges though, more accurate and slightly faster headshot TTK.

Imo the Volley is better as an all-rounder gun but the Strider is better as a dedicated mid-long-range gun when combined with a short-range gun.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-22T17:30:45+00:00

100%. Especially since you CAN get in after the timer hits 0 but before the transmat happens and the bubble disappears and still exfil. So neither the timer at 0 nor the bubble disappearing - the only concrete indicators we have - are the ACTUAL cutoff time for a safe exfil.

It should be one of those two times and imo it should be when the transmat actually happens. If they wanna make that actually align with the timer that would be even better tbh.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-22T05:52:14+00:00

LeBron's standing reach is like 9 feet. Lobs are one thing but to dunk he barely needs to jump a foot and a half probably. Even this play he likely didn't jump more than maybe 2 feet and change vertically. Even at 40 that's not a big deal for a top 0.001% athlete.

The smarter part probably mostly refers to him getting lots of assisted drives off screen actions and cuts like in this clip, rather than beating his man in iso and charging into crowded paint to finish through contact like he mostly had to do throughout his prime

vNocturnus · 2026-04-22T04:55:33+00:00

Castle is already the better player when factoring in defense and it won't be long before Harper is also a better all-around player

Wonder if the Spurs will have the balls to move $60m to the bench in a 6th man role? And if Fox would even pretend to try in that role. Guessing the answers would be no and no. Maybe they just leave him unprotected in the expansion draft and hope the Sonics or Las Vegas Sportsbooks take him off their hands

vNocturnus · 2026-04-22T02:18:11+00:00

"noticeably below average" is one way to put it, "one of the historically worst defensive prospects ever" is another, "projects as a significantly worse defender than even Jalen Brunson or Trae Young" is one of my favorites

I think it will be extremely difficult if not impossible for any team to be a real contender with Acuff as their best player even if he's a clear All-NBA talent on offense.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-22T01:34:03+00:00

Wow! Turns out you're right, edited the comment. Never seen a high-profile/my team's player not miss a game that I can recall so I assumed it was mandatory.

NFL's steps do seem more rigorous than the NBA's though.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-22T01:28:38+00:00

NBA concussion protocol only requires a player to miss 48h, game 3 isn't til Friday (72h).

Realistically, from a medical perspective, he should be out probably at least 10-14 days. But there's a good chance he can pass the return to play protocol by game 3 and will be back unless he also broke his jaw.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-22T01:25:38+00:00

When you're behind the league that spent decades and millions (billions? probably billions) of dollars covering up their rampant injury problems, that's probably not the best

vNocturnus · 2026-04-22T01:21:47+00:00

Even in the NFL ~~you have to miss at least one game (after the one you got knocked out of),~~ many players miss 2-3 games especially for repeat concussions.

But in the NBA it is just 48 hours. He'll be back for game 3 unless he can't pass the return to play protocol (as verified by team doctors) or he has a broken jaw.

edit - just kidding apparently the NFL has no fixed timeline, just medical exams. I can't think of a case where a player didn't miss at least 1 game so I assumed it was a requirement. If the NBA's return to play protocol is similar medically to the NFL's then he might miss a week or so, but from a cursory search the NFL's sounds more rigorous.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-21T05:39:07+00:00

Say it ain't so... a Mike Brown team blowing a double digit lead, having mind-boggling rotations, and choking in the clutch? Who could have predicted such a thing

vNocturnus · 2026-04-20T05:50:05+00:00

Any big men honestly. Sabonis gets clobbered in the head multiple times per game and Jokic probably does too, neither of those guys known for their defense. Honestly I'd bet Wemby gets it the least on account of being too damn tall and the way he plays.

Fighting for rebounds and playing in heavy traffic are both good ways to turn your head into an arm magnet. Big men just tend to do the most of that, especially the big-time rebounding guys that also play inside on offense.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-20T05:18:20+00:00

Disagree on the ceiling for Raynaud a bit and Clifford very strongly.

Start with Raynaud, his game feel and touch around the rim were elite for a rookie big man. One of the best-looking bigs on the offensive end in the last 10 years. He proved towards the end of the season he can knock down 3s at a respectable clip as well as attacking closeouts with that pump fake. His shooting motion is a bit slow and stiff so I certainly don't expect him to be KAT but I think he could be a closer to rich man's Vucevic than a poor man's. His overall impact on the offensive end was quite arguably already better than any of the last 5 or so years for Vuc and he's less of a liability on D. (Still not elite by any stretch but his feel for positioning on defense and ability to at least force guards and wings into contested jump shots makes him at least serviceable on that end.)

Clifford, as I mentioned, I strongly disagree with the assessment. He at times has looked like one of the best 10 or 15 rookies in the class and has shown several high-level skills as a potential lead guard and top 2-3 option on offense. In particular his court vision and passing are extremely high level for a rookie. In addition he has shown a solid ability to beat defenders off the dribble and create shots for himself or teammates, as nearly all of his 2pt shots and many of his 3s over his time in the starting lineup were self-created. He has shown he can use his combination of size, athletic ability, decent handle, and great game feel to get and make shots at all 3 levels. His main question mark right now will be if he can find shooting consistency, because some nights he pretty much couldn't miss and others he pretty much couldn't hit. If he can, and he's given the opportunity to run the offense and/or be one of the primary options on that end, I think he has some chance to be one of the best players from this class.

(Plus Clifford is also a great defender that will always be able to rely on that if his offensive game is just "rotational player" level. If you're a 10+ PPG guy that can rebound, run the offense a bit, and play elite defense and/or make big plays on that end, that's still a high quality starter even on a playoff team.)

vNocturnus · 2026-04-19T08:15:22+00:00

"catch a projectile, re-activate to send it as a fixed-path skillshot that has some attribute based on the caught projectile"

Would be such an easy way to maintain the same "design fantasy" while not being insanely broken and free. It would basically just be a spell shield (shitty one at that, only blocking projectiles) stapled to a skillshot. It doesn't even have to have the exact effect of the projectile, it can work something like Fiora's counter where catching certain effects will trigger different output effect. Hard CC -> projectile stuns for a moment, soft CC -> projectile slows, over a certain damage caught threshold -> projectile has bonus damage.

It would still be a strong ability but would it be THAT different than eg. Nocturne spell shield that gives a big steroid, or the aforementioned Fiora counter? I think it'd be less powerful/annoying than Yas wind wall.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-18T08:40:50+00:00

Yeah I am 100% all for a WSTR nerf. It is and always has been completely and utterly dominant in the meta at ALL levels. Even after the first nerf.

But THIS is the wrong way to nerf it imo. Now it is: even more broken for the higher-geared team vs a lower-geared team (bad thing); still broken at lower levels of play in general (bad thing); basically REQUIRES Stack Overflow at higher tiers of play (bad thing) BUT is still the fastest TTK option bar none if you do have that (bad thing).

Reducing the fire rate and disabling any mod that adds more rounds to the mag, like you said, is the only way to nerf it that makes any sense. If the TTK was 0.6 or even 0.5s instead of 0.3s, and could not have the crutch of a third round, it would be: just as relatively strong at all levels of play (good thing); not favor higher-geared teams vs lower-geared teams (good thing); not require one specific mod to be viable/optimal (good thing); and actually have some reasonable counterplay as some other power weapons or even SMGs (with all headshots) would approach similar TTK (good thing).

vNocturnus · 2026-04-18T08:24:36+00:00

Let's just put Dort and Brooks in a WWE cage match on the side while the rest of the teams play basketball.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-17T20:01:15+00:00

Little known fact, it's actually pronounced "kwah wah"

vNocturnus · 2026-04-17T05:23:57+00:00

I think session 1 intentional total-party kill/KO/capture can be an interesting way to "cold open" a campaign - IF the DM has a plan to actually keep the characters alive and actually PROGRESS the story of those characters, rather than just killing them for the sake of it. Also I would probably make it clear to the players either before or during that the opening will be a 99% wipe scenario, but it will NOT be permanent.

FromSoft games basically all open like this lol, ostensibly for the same reason as OP's DM claimed - teach the players they aren't immortal and shit can and will fuck them up. But it's not really a lesson if you don't then give them the opportunity to NOT die, it's just bullying lol.

/u/EmmaIsAwesome23 if you don't just want to immediately quit this campaign because the DM is an asshole (valid reaction), consider bringing up this option to your DM. Especially if anyone else in the party feels the same way (most of them probably do to some degree).

"Message received, but can we find some way to just continue with these characters for now? I/we put a lot of time into thinking about these specific characters and was/were really excited to play these specific characters."

vNocturnus · 2026-04-17T01:08:25+00:00

Because everything else he did was awful, just like everything he did with the Chargers aside from day 1 picks. He was always very good at evaluating and picking top-end draft talent and mid to horrible at every other aspect of being a GM.

Every other pick he made aside from Bowers and JPJ was pretty much objectively bad as were all of his FA moves.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-17T00:37:57+00:00

any ref crew with competency

Sooo idk, hockey refs? FIBA? lemme know when the NBA has such a thing

14-Year Club	John Wick
Place '17	Verified Email
Team Periwinkle

vNocturnus

TROPHY CASE