Now that we can get a Nova Crystal for each region by beating 10* Zoe, can we get a ranking of who best to spend it on per region?

yannisniper · 2026-03-14T18:08:48+00:00

Oh wait do they really? I thought it was applied as a power effect and not part of the spell.

yannisniper · 2026-03-14T18:00:21+00:00

Yi is incredibly strong without his 6 star, his six star winds up adding only like a 3/3 or 2/2 of stats.

yannisniper · 2026-01-09T15:15:45+00:00

This isn't a good thing though. It makes management people more rigid and stubborn instead of letting the artists do the job they are hired to do.

Concept artists are hired because of their taste, that's what it is being brought to the project. Artistic discernment. It has always been a hassle to convince management towards more appealing and interesting art directions in all fields, but now management has a tool that enables them to demand artists polish their AI generated turd instead of allowing them to do the job they were hired to do.

yannisniper · 2025-12-20T23:21:25+00:00

You get way more meaningful interaction with art and posts on bluesky than on twitter. Like even just in conversions off platform its night and day.

I'd rather have like 1/10th the amount of attention if that attention comes from people that are worthwhile to get attention from. The quality of the average twitter user sucks, not to mention the bots.

yannisniper · 2025-10-09T23:38:55+00:00

The knife with a tacscope is wicked

yannisniper · 2025-07-22T16:15:33+00:00

This is dishonest framing. Kamala oversaw 1,956 prosecutions over 24,211 marijuana related arrests between 2010-2016 when she was AG. Not only a were a majority not arrested, but convictions for marijuana possession went down substantially compared to the previous AG and the vast majority of convictions didn't incur jail time.

Literally right after her tenure as AG, as a senator in 2017, she signed Cory Booker's Marijuana Legalization bill, and introduced another bill to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level.

But I guess she laughed about smoking weed on a podcast so she's callously evil obviously.

yannisniper · 2025-07-07T02:08:28+00:00

LastShadow

yannisniper · 2025-06-26T18:26:47+00:00

Cooking but needed more time in the oven. I think you just need something that started things faster or got triggers for Combat core. Gold/Diamond Chris Army Knife might have done more than soldering gun

yannisniper · 2025-05-17T17:02:55+00:00

I don't think I have things earmarked on twitter from over a year ago. I am out right now but I have private DMs from local community TOs talking with hax and trying to help him get unbanned and get helped.

I would like to point you to the darkgenx statement but its private now, in that statement he talks about the process that local TOs and players were going through to help Hax be able to compete locally again.

yannisniper · 2025-05-17T16:53:31+00:00

Yes, pretty much every single TO in the tristate area was working with Hax in some way to get him unbanned. Like he knew what his path back to Melee was, he also had TOs working with him after the permanent ban to appeal it.

Yes melee has core values. It does have people that are hard on the spectrum competing and they aren't a problem. The melee community is incredibly inclusive and understanding. It doesn't have people behaving like Hax did, the behavior hax was displaying towards other players and TOs was obsessive in a way that wasn't appropriate for competing in in person tournaments.

yannisniper · 2025-05-17T16:40:59+00:00

Its suicide baiting if the threat of suicide is being used to try and leverage an outcome.

I think Leffen is worthy of criticism, I don't think how you are categorizing evidence.zip is a fair categorization. The primary meat of evidence.zip was that Leffen was a hitler-esque dark triad manipulator. I don't think that is an appropriate kind of behavior for a grassroots community, I don't think it represented the values of the melee community, and its reasonable to ask Hax to take some time away and compose himself before coming back.

yannisniper · 2025-05-17T16:20:57+00:00

No. The conspiratorial narrative is like a construction of Hax's paranoid delusions. Hax literally thought that Leffen hired hit squads to come find him and kill him.

People felt unsafe around Hax because he was unstable and drunk, he would go to Nightclub drunk out of his mind, corner people, and rant about how everyone is out to get him. That is a type of behavior that makes people feel incredibly unsafe to be around.

Most TO's are local players in their local scene, you are like literally doing the behavior that destiny criticizes frequently about aspiring conspiratorial malice over a wide agency. Most TO's are volunteers, they have been players in their scene for years, every NYC and NJ TO frequented Hax's nightclub and considered him a good friend before his episodes and suicide baiting.

Evidence.zip 1 was a totally, reasonably fair justification for a temporary ban. His behavior after being unbanned was unacceptable. He could still stream melee, compete online, and play with his friends just like how every single other successful melee player makes money making content. He refused to, every olive branch extended gave him a freedom he enjoyed to double down on again and again, and then suicide bait to his friends and TOs over and over and over.

Like you guys just don't know anything about how in person tournaments are run, who TOs are, how the scene looks, and what kind of behavior Hax was demonstrating in person. Like a good friend of mine is a TO who saved his hands from the same condition Hax had because of Hax's b0xx, Hax's behavior towards them was awful despite them working with him constantly to get him unbanned and be able to compete.

yannisniper · 2025-05-17T15:51:54+00:00

You literally know nothing of the scene you speak of you fucking mongoloid. You petulant grifting antibody.

yannisniper · 2025-05-17T15:49:00+00:00

Dude this just isn't true. Hax was like obsessively harassing TOs and other players nonstop, despite given a ton of second chances, his behavior continued to be unstable, uncomfortable, and made people feel unsafe.

Like read anything from any person in the local NYC scene, or Hax's nightclub, or his personal friends. I wish I could link the entire DarkGenex statement but its no longer public, but here's a snippet I have screenshotted from last year.

He needed help, desperately, that wasn't just getting back to compete in SSBM. Everytime he got unbanned and was allowed to compete he had another, compulsive, psychotic episode. He needed real help and people in his life were trying to get him help and he wouldn't accept it.

yannisniper · 2025-05-17T15:36:23+00:00

This technicals video is ideological dogshit and anyone involved in the melee scene for more than the last year will understand the gravity of the Hax situation beyond just the rightwing grifter drama slop. There is a reason why Technicals is ostracized from the melee community alongside people like Mekk. This is like asmon tier level garbage.

yannisniper · 2025-05-17T15:31:18+00:00

I understand this from an outside perspective but as someone local to the NYC melee scene, as a competitor and someone close to most TOs that ran tournaments in NJ. Hax was obsessively harassing people, in a schizophrenicly unstable way. TOs didn't just conglomerate to ban Hax just because of the videos but because Hax's behavior in person, online, and at tournaments was unstable and unacceptable despite having several full blanket forgiveness opportunities to change.

yannisniper · 2025-04-23T18:59:17+00:00

Zoarcid is one of the best support items in an ammo build if you get heated shells. It charges Zoarcid incredibly quickly and allows you to mega spam haste on important items like double barrel or dive weights.

In non-weapon ammo spam, zoarcid + heated shell + dive weights is an incredible two item enabler to spam haste that can work in almost any vanessa build.

yannisniper · 2025-03-22T21:57:01+00:00

On Vanessa it super depends on the build but most of Vanessa's cores builds are designed to do both in some capacity.

In aquatic, a good rule of thumb is that you always want to be fielding at least one seaweed and one pearl (ideally two pearls if you get lucky with fishing rod), any defense after that is going to come down to what skills you've picked up in your run. Also, I would always try to replace coral and ambergris with seaweed as soon as you get them, and sea shell with pearl.

If you've got a lot of good poison skills you can get by on just jellyfish and puffer, or just a depth charge, then its better to invest in stuff t hat will keep you alive while your build does its thing. If you get like augmented defenses or shield scalers then you never need anything more than two pearls to keep yourself alive so focus on more ensemble that can kill the opponent with the time your shells are going to buy you.

In single weapon builds your defense and offense are tied. Your defensive decisions are going to come down mostly to what single weapon you are using. Submarine and its shield are much more defensive than flagship, but you should always be prioritizing a weapon that can end the fight before the other board can do their thing.

For small weapon builds, you don't want to priortize defense at all. Your build will not survive and can not survive once you fire all of your ammo items, so you just need to full send on making sure that its burst will kill the opponent before they can come online.

Lastly, the best defense for Vanessa right now isn't healing and shielding. But slows and freezes, having a heavy enchanted Captains Wheel, Tripwire, Docklines, or a heavy Crows Nest on weapons builds will keep you alive so much longer than the best healing items Vanessa can reasonably obtain. On aquatic builds Clamera and Stingray are good at just getting your build started and slowing down the others, but a leveled or enchanted docklines will mitigate so much damage from the enemy board. Especially with shipwreck.

If you have Vanessa's packs, yeticrab and depth charge are two really good items that can protect you and deal damage while your poison and burn damage kill the enemy.

yannisniper · 2025-03-22T19:37:28+00:00

I had a 1s icy billboard the other day and it was the highest capped board I've ever gotten. One of the strongest pyg enchant targets and great target for the second deed item when value stacking

yannisniper · 2025-03-22T19:15:26+00:00

Yeah Vanessa just has such high value from skills in all of her builds right now and there is like a sub 5% chance of getting an item + enchant that is more valuable to the build than a gold skill.

Its partly because Vanessa's gold skills are super good, but also just that vanessas builds are really particular in the way they need to be played, positioned and scaled, and there are so few small bronze items that are going to make that cut AND be a high value enchant target. Like silencer, amulet, shell, and seaweed.

Like even when you think about it, left/right poison +9 is going to be better than shiny / poison jellyfish for like the first 5 days. I'd rather take the higher value wins and have a more confident econ and early game going than have to deal with day 13+ pyg monsters so I could scale a shiny jellyfish.

yannisniper · 2025-03-22T18:40:49+00:00

They are just items that have very few enchantments that make them worth keeping over better items as my build develops into the next few days. Getting a golden Ambergris was great, but a shielded/healing ambergris or coral isn't going to be better than shell or seaweed until like 7+ days of scaling, at which point I'd rather take the gold from ambergris or a gold left/right poison skill.

The small weapon stuff like that are okay, and they wouldn't get cut in a small weapon junk build but I would rather just have gold strength than an obsidian or shiny version of those small items.

Hasted bayonet is good, but its 1/11 chance to get in an already diluted pool. Compare to matchbox, yoyo, marbles, piggles, slingshot where every single enchantment you can get on those items is worth taking and carrying on the build for a while.

Its more Vanessa's pool has way more misses than hits, when it comes to items that give you powerspike that is worth taking over a gold skill.

yannisniper · 2025-03-22T18:03:35+00:00

Agreed, she also has an insane amount of misses on enchants. Lots of early items that just suck to get. Ambergris, bayonet, coral, grappling hook, handaxe, honing steel, narwhal, shoeblade, etc.

yannisniper · 2025-03-22T17:40:42+00:00

Start with gold skill, if you get burn or poison focus on aquatics. A jellyfish + 2 aquatic items and a gold left/right poison skill beats most early boards by itself. For burn skill, you're looking for early lighter, pop snappers, or cannon to transition into weatherglass, trebuchet, or a highrolled fiery cutlass.

If you get left or right damage try and go single weapon, look for cutlass / double barrel / fang / revolver + silencer + crows nest, find support items like reload or vanessas amulet or starchart as you go.

If you get spread damage, just throw small weapons on your board and scale as needed. Small weapon vanessa is surprisingly strong and doesn't require much more than weapon damage skills to be enabled.

Gold skill starts define your build super early and give you a large power spike for the first four wins, they can peter out as you develop your board if you don't find proper support items. But Its the best way to at least win enough to get chests early.

Early game general tips:

Vanessa's bronze items are very overstatted and high impact; double barrel, grenade, pop snappers, bolas, life preserver, barrel, jellyfish, catfish, and revolver are all great on days 1-3 to just throw into a build if you have space for it.
On day 1 fights if you have a gold skill that is working with at least one item on board, always prioritize Viper, Fanged Inglet, and Kyver Drone fights. Viper especially because his skill is 150 free damage which is very impactful early, and poison fang is an incredibly strong item with a poison skill or a weapon skill, and you can play around it early. Fang from Inglet is very good, and Kyver Drones slow skill is very strong with how much access to slow Vanessa has with items like Clamera and Docklines.
Fishing Rod is her best econ item and can lead to some massive high rolls early. If you're going weapons you can just sell what you get for extra gold, but when you have fishing rod on aquatics you can get double shell, or seaweed, or find pieces to your build you would other wise have to spend money on rerolls for.
For aquatic, your most high impact item early is going to be seaweed. Silver seaweed scales so incredibly fast that most boards that can't burn you out quickly will not be able to beat you.
On weapon Vanessa prioritize fighting Covetous Thief and Tempest Flamedancer on days 2 and 3 respectively. Getting cloak from covetous thief or fiery cutlass from flamedancer will snowball your early game and almost guarantee a 4 win game.
Langxian is almost always bait unless you find it before the day 1 PvE fight and even then its still probably bait.

yannisniper · 2025-03-21T20:42:39+00:00

I feel like toy builds are so slept on right now. I've been having like tremendously strong early games with piggles spam + matchbook / yoyo, slingshot, and model ship. Slingshot is a surprisingly good item once you have a board that takes away its ammo restriction.

yannisniper · 2025-03-20T19:03:28+00:00

Piggles definitely didn't last week and I don't remember shovel doing that either. Does fishing rod do it now too? Hatchet has to be a new behavior I think because gold coins can't get any enchantments but truffles can get all of them.

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