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NB made a great piece, but Bishop used two E.G.O. that fight.  
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Sep 21, 2022 10:53
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BisbyWorl posted:Also keep in mind that TQ is deliberately holding back in this fight. If he brought in a full set of Haulers attrition simply wouldn't matter as he'd be at full HP/SP on everyone constantly. The Haulers trivializing the challenge is a different issue, since it's too undercosted for its effect. What I meant overall is that attrition is kind of an interesting angle to approach challenge from a game design perspective, but it kind of runs into the problem that attrition is, well, long. By its nature, it means locking the player in for longer, which can come with its own problems. We had this poster's problem. Winterdragon2004 posted:When I got to this fight in my own playthrough I made it all the way to the third combined phase before the drain on my resources finally got me killed. I've read that sentiment in some steam reviews too. It's a pity since I think resource management is an interesting mechanic that can come up, but sometimes its easy to misstep like this. I'm just glad that they apparently cut the fight length down from their original idea.
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Sep 21, 2022 12:17
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MetaMeme posted:Ahrt Brilliant 
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Sep 21, 2022 12:23
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BisbyWorl posted:Also keep in mind that TQ is deliberately holding back in this fight. If he brought in a full set of Haulers attrition simply wouldn't matter as he'd be at full HP/SP on everyone constantly. One of the balance problems with haulers in general is that the fights of UN are not built around them, so having that level of regen available renders most of the fights trivial. This might seem like a good thing since it allows players who haven’t mastered the game to get through difficult content so they can get their hands on EGO and the other tools that can equalize things in the next chapter. The problem with that, ultimately, is that this can lead to consistently sloppy play later on—and the next chapter will definitely be tossing out more damage than haulers can make up for if we aren’t playing smart. This is why there’s usually a sort of wall when starting out there. But mostly I stopped using haulers because the healing pop ups got in the way of the character sprites.  MetaMeme posted:NB made a great piece, but Bishop used two E.G.O. that fight. 
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Sep 21, 2022 14:08
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Netzach's floor doesn't need haulers or EGO, it's immortal on its own merits.
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Sep 21, 2022 18:17
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Well, that art is amazing. And now I'm really sympathizing with Philip, hearing that song. I know how it feels when you try to do something and just seem to fail at every level. The only reason I was fine is I had something to fall back to.
KobunFan fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Sep 21, 2022 |
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Sep 21, 2022 18:38
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Do you suppose therapists exist in the City? Feels like it would solve a lot of problems. (I am assuming of course, given that the closest thing to therapy we've seen is Library beatings, that the answer is no.) I was looking forward to the E.G.O. cards as much for the game-breaking as I was for TeeQueue's writing. I was not disappointed in either respect. Though now I dread what might happen if Tenebrais resonates with Red... but that's not gonna be possible for a while. Also, I see the update took as long as the unnerfed fight did. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, given that the dialogue has been grand. (TeeQueue, who had to come up with all of that dialogue, might feel differently.)
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Sep 21, 2022 19:25
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SL the Pyro posted:Do you suppose therapists exist in the City? Feels like it would solve a lot of problems. (I am assuming of course, given that the closest thing to therapy we've seen is Library beatings, that the answer is no.) Therapists rarely exist even in non-dystopian fiction, I think it's safe to say there aren't in the City. At the very least, not in the Backstreets. The Wings might have some in their nests, for less-expendable employees; but for Fixers, who might be dead tomorrow?
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Sep 21, 2022 19:44
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there's a much more pressing issue in that you can't positive mentality out of poo poo material conditions; and the material conditions do in fact, Suck Mega-rear end
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Sep 21, 2022 20:26
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I'd assume therapists do exist; it's more of a matter of whether you can afford them and if you have time for that instead of more pressing concerns like putting food on your table or making sure you have somewhere to sleep where you won't get eaten by Sweepers. And are in a line of work where being a broken deranged psycho isn't more of an asset than a hindrance.
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Sep 21, 2022 20:47
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Deep Dish Fuckfest posted:I'd assume therapists do exist; it's more of a matter of whether you can afford them and if you have time for that instead of more pressing concerns like putting food on your table or making sure you have somewhere to sleep where you won't get eaten by Sweepers. And are in a line of work where being a broken deranged psycho isn't more of an asset than a hindrance. And also if your therapy is actually a way for a Wing to harvest your soul or something in order to make a cup of coffee 5% faster.
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Sep 21, 2022 22:01
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Yeah, I can imagine that therapy's helpfulness is a bit limited when "I could be murdered by my neighbors and/or be fed into the employee-squashing device at literally any minute" is an undeniable reality.
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Sep 21, 2022 22:20
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I mean, therapists are confirmed from Wonderlab. Some of the clerks in at least that branch facility provide counseling for at least some of the agents. I'd comment further on its effectiveness, but that'd just get into plot summaries, so let's not do that. Doobeedoo fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Sep 22, 2022 |
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Sep 22, 2022 00:00
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Yeah, I had a vague impression that at least some of the Clerks from one of the departments were canonically therapists and counselors and such.
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Sep 22, 2022 00:05
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Theantero posted:Yeah, I had a vague impression that at least some of the Clerks from one of the departments were canonically therapists and counselors and such. Has everyone already forgotten about Tiffamy?
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Sep 22, 2022 00:29
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MetaMeme posted:there's a much more pressing issue in that you can't positive mentality out of poo poo material conditions; and the material conditions do in fact, Suck Mega-rear end this is, in fact, the crux of most of the arguments in this thread
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Sep 22, 2022 02:40
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Rogue AI Goddess posted:Netzach's floor doesn't need haulers or EGO, it's immortal on its own merits. And now you know why I was a Netzach main in my first playthrough. 
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Sep 22, 2022 02:41
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Then why does Netzach keep dying whenever you use his floor?
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Sep 22, 2022 02:54
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Index targeting is a bitch and a half.
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Sep 22, 2022 02:55
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I mean, feels like you all are ignoring the elephant in the room - knowing the City and the Head, any sort of therapy is probably less designed for mental health and more towards forcing people to accept their lot in (what's likely to be a short) life and how nothing can ever improve.
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Sep 22, 2022 03:13
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Verant posted:I mean, feels like you all are ignoring the elephant in the room - knowing the City and the Head, any sort of therapy is probably less designed for mental health and more towards forcing people to accept their lot in (what's likely to be a short) life and how nothing can ever improve. To be fair, is that not the best approach to mental health in a location where virtually impossible to improve your situation without running afoul of the dozen different forces from every level of comprehension that show up to either kill you, scar you physically and mentally as you claw whatever life you can maintain from them, or just slap you back into place the moment you leave whatever little space is safe for you to inhabit?
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Sep 22, 2022 05:19
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Junpei posted:Then why does Netzach keep dying whenever you use his floor? 
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Sep 22, 2022 10:54
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 I see you there, 11037. TeeQueue fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Sep 22, 2022 |
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Sep 22, 2022 11:01
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Praise
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Sep 22, 2022 13:34
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Sep 22, 2022 15:27
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who let netzach wear hot pants again
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Sep 22, 2022 16:38
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NullBlack posted:To paraphrase Code Ment: Glad I'm not the only one who thought about it. As an aside, it's kind of a shame the Wolf didn't have much to say. At least Tenebrais's odd affinity to Abnormalities meant that the Wolf's nemesis got to at least say SOMETHING about the whole fight.
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Sep 22, 2022 20:16
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And my God I was motherlicking adorable.
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DimiPZC posted:Jesus christ, poor Gebura. I know, right? If you listen to the story well, you'll notice that it ends the same way it began: With her in tears and surrounded by blood and guts 
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Sep 22, 2022 20:17
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Theantero posted:Roland's known to drop references to the Colors, though? Could also mean the Red Gaze, though.
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Sep 22, 2022 20:21
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Red glaze
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Sep 24, 2022 15:58
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Viola the Mad posted:Since no one has posted it: Oooh, good point. Let me get on this. From A Place Of Love posted:Yes I have been so afraid I would also do String Theocracy's lyrics, but I'd like to quickly ask if I should limit myself to the "Opening Size" version or if it would be okay to do the full song.
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Sep 24, 2022 22:22
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Book 34: The Crying Children—Chapter 3 Music: And Then is Heard No More   Hff… hff… hff… It's definitely gotten smaller compared to the last time. This might be it. He's grown completely unstable. Now's our chance!In phase 6, The Crying Children unleashes its final trump card, Inconsolable Grief.  It's a powerful Individual Mass Attack, which Staggers The Crying Children on its next turn. Blocking all three dice is a tall order even for Overcharge, so we have to settle for blocking one or two and eating the rest of the attack.  Our HP/SR are all high enough that we're in no real danger from this attack, though we're going to take hits. His other four dice are two of the ranged Wound of Sorrow, a Bygone Illusion, and a Restrain. He's definitely swinging much harder than before. This must be the extinction burst phenomenon in action.  Extinction burst? This is more a philosophy thing than my area of expertise, but… Basically, when an action's reinforcement is removed, the action becomes much more frequent and intense. He's not getting the reaction he wants, so his grief and his outbursts are becoming much more powerful in the moment. I don't follow. A candle burns brightest before it goes out. It's a temporary, if violent, phenomenon. Once you weather it, you should be all clear. I can't… I can't… sniff…  I am just! I've always been just! I didn't really think… never thought… any of those terrible things! Hold steady! I've done nothing wrong! If I hadn't run, nothing would have changed! I was prepared to die, and someone else forced me to run! I've done nothing wrong!  It's too much power! Everything everything everything, all of it is your fault! Burn away! Burn away and leave me alone! Two max rolls in a row decimate our SR, and take a good chunk out of our HP as well. But we're still standing.  How is everyone?!  Never… using Overcharge… again. I think we're all fine. His rage couldn't amount to that much, in the end. You think it's funny to laugh at me, do you?!  I liked you better when you didn't talk. Shut up shut up! You evil bastards… I'm not listening! It's all your fault! He's not even responding to what we're saying… Is he still deaf? Probably. He's made up of all those children, after all… Then why's he talking? Shut up! Die! Stay focused, everyone! Only a little further! Yes, ma'am! Stop getting in my way! Stop getting in my way!! Ah, crap! This is bad! This isn't my fault. None of this is my fault… you shouldn't have been there! You shouldn't be here! This isn't… My… fault…  He's all worn out! Now's your chance! Right! Dimi, Joshua, finish him! Make way for Dimi! Acknowledged.Again, I'm thinking about Emotion Levels. Not much point in putting more kills on a Librarian whose emotions are maxed.  Hwa-cha! One more good tap and I'll— Threat eliminated. Hey! Killstealer! No… no..!  He's been booked. Good job, team. Now the world should go back to… normal? What's wrong, boss? This can't be right…  … Aha. So that's why he could speak this time. Guess we didn't quite book this one. The final phase of Phillip after his Mass Attack phase is a single Unspeaking Child. It still locks down one member, which means that we need to hit the final phase with at least two Librarians alive. Get here with just one? Sucks to be you! Try again from the start.  His only attack, Victimize, is a set of relatively decent dice tied to status effects that make fighting back harder. Still, this phase is almost always easy so long as we have two or more Librarians left alive.  She's calling again. Let's finish this off, shall we? A princess, huh? I can do that. E.G.O aside, this is a P-space situation; there's no point in using any real strategy.  When using two or more E.G.O at once, only one of the backgrounds is used, and it persists for the entire turn. I have no idea what determines which background is chosen. Take this! !!! Huh?!The Unspeaking Child's 4-die page can actually pump out relatively high Summation rolls, but it was ultimately Bishop rolling poorly that led to this dodge.   Flaming sword fell flat, huh? Happens. Don't worry about it. I'll pick up the slack for you, Bishop~ I am a princess, child! Bow down before my powers! … … I said BOW!! @!#?@! Good job. I'll take it from here! And that's that! Im, Joshua, pick up the books and let's get going. … … … It's not turning..? He's on the run! What, again?! What is with this guy?! After him! It's no good… the forest is too thick. Hey, don't blame me! I kicked its butt!  Well… we've finally gotten a book out of him, at any rate. Do you think it'll be okay? It'll be fine, boss. That guy couldn't be a rival anymore if he fell here. He'll be back, and the books we got will let us stay on par with his newfound power. Uh-huh, sure. Such a shame he got away, though. I guess the fight is a no-contest until we see him again, huh~? Only if I get to keep the 10 point lead. Fine. That one's worth a hundred points anyways. And so, it is finally done. The Crying Children is a slog of a fight without any real difficult surprises, with the possible exception of the Mass Attack right at the very end. To a player using haulers, the fight is basically free. To a player without them, it's still not exactly difficult. As a result, how well this fight lands is entirely up to the boss's music. Unfortunately, And Then is Heard No More is a song that doesn't work well as a boss theme. Because of this, the fight winds up being easy, long, and repetitive… everything a climactic encounter shouldn't be. And yet… honestly, there's nothing I could really say that should be changed about it. Phillip's mindset is absolutely the sort that would invoke the funeral dirge-esque song that comes with it, and it has the feeling of slowly tearing a broken man apart as he tries his best to block out everything that could possibly harm him. Each form does have an incremental powerup, and by the end the fight has successfully told the story it wants to tell. I can respect this fight, as a whole. It is still the low point of this game's combat. I am also incredibly thankful that we never got the original 11-phase version of this fight. Music: Result  Sorry I couldn't catch the angel, boss… It's fine, you couldn't move. Bishop! You were awesome out there, calling on a new power to deal with such a badass rival! It felt more like putting down a broken mess than fighting a rival… But I'm glad you guys had fun. … You okay? The workday is over. There's nothing to do but wait for the next. Ohhh no you don't. I've got gaming to do, so you're doing my share of the cleanup! About that, Dimi… Let's go have a talk, okay? Waah! Someone, save me~ Have fun, you two. …Brutal. VIDEO Music: Lobby   He was still his cowardly self deep inside. Nothing about him really changed. It must have been the Library’s will to let this happen. The Library’s will, huh… It sure does work in mysterious ways. I know how ugly the human mind can be, but that was just nastily explicit. Perhaps everyone has such vulgarity deep inside their minds, covered up in layers of facade. And the Distortion unwraps all that to expose their true feelings? I cannot say for sure if it’s the pure expression of their unadulterated feelings. I’m still uncertain whether it’s the Distortion unveiling the emotions or the emotions being distorted as they are revealed. It should reveal their most honest side nonetheless, having all their facades taken off. That ought to feel like being naked, huh. Nothing’s as awkward and embarrassing as the moments right after letting out all your honest feelings. … Well, if that's all… I'm going to go now. Is something going on? Aaaah… I just have to make sure we're all on form. Things are about to pick up again. How do you mean? You've taken information about the Singularity of one of the Wings, remember? The moment that book winds up on an invitation… no, possibly even before that… The Wing will seek to secure it, yes? Bingo. And that means a lot of money being paid out to pick fights with us. Congratulations, ma'am! The library's become a— Next time, on Library of Ruina: An update made up entirely of tiny story vignettes and new mechanics. Videos The Crying Children 2 The Crying Children (Unedited combat footage; may cause distortions. Watch at own risk.) New Key Pages  New Combat Pages   Crying Children Exclusive:  And finally… yes.  I did have to do this fight twice. 
TeeQueue fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Sep 26, 2022 |
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Sep 25, 2022 07:20
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Even as the life is draining from his body, Philip still manages to find a way to run away to darken our doorstep at a later date. At this point, it's just impressive. He also would be the guy to introduce us to cards just giving us an emotion coin for the hell of it, and the sad/depressed/angry version at that, and a card he can only use if he's crying enough.
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Sep 25, 2022 07:56
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The keypage is very, very good, and stigmatize has certain uses.
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Sep 25, 2022 07:58
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New Key Pages The new gold standard for Burn. At the very least, those unique passives are going to be seeing use on your Burn pointman for the rest of the game - with Flaming Bat and Stigma Workshop you're inflicting +2-4 stacks of burn per hit with burn infliction pages, which'll add up very quickly, and that untyped +power (that'll almost always be active thanks to those passives) is excellent. Very nice to have around, even if he'll ultimately be reduced to Attribute fodder by better keypages coming from next tier. New Combat Pages Ey, it's Opportunity Spotted's big brother! Not quite as good for mass coin farming, but since you can only have three copies of OS you may as well use three copies of this too for even more coin farming goodness. If you want to actually use this to kill things, Searing Sword is objectively better. Pretty good if you want to, say, put Kim into a burn team somehow. Otherwise, Burn prefers multi-hit pages. Crying Children Exclusive: WOW that is a very big number. I've never actually used it though - I'd rather use an EGO page for something like this. This basically is an EGO page that takes up space in your deck even, considering that Emotion level requirement.
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Sep 25, 2022 08:06
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Buckle up, kids. Star of the City is when Ruina gets real, in all areas. We will be getting strong Combat Pages. Fun builds. Crazy Key Pages. Plot twists, revelations, character development, and more Realizations. The overarching plot will kick into overdrive. We haven't yet reached the climax of this story, yet, but we're reaching the final levels of the rising action. The heat's turning up, and we're charging forward into some of the single most interesting, cool, and weird parts of the story. Most of this game's best lines, cutscenes, CGs, ideas, moments, and characters, at least in my opinion, are in Star of the City.
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Sep 25, 2022 08:23
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Unstable Page of the Crying Children. Finally, a burn-themed current page. Flaring Brand and Plumed Escutcheon ignite everything in range, while Volatile Passion give +1 Power to offencive dice against everything that is burning, i.e. everything. And Power is good. I see a problem with it though: it doesn't support burn pages. I literally do not see, why taking burn-related pages with it is a good idea. Volatile Passion is easily triggered by other passives, and otherwise this page doesn't have anything which improves burn pages. You can attribute Salvator's Page and get bonuses for burn... which still don't interact with any passives on Crying Children Page. There is nothing scaling with burn, nothing improving burn... It still really powerful, but I want something promoting other styles of play than power stacking (not that it realistically possible in this stage of the game: power > no power). We already saw Searing Sword and Feather Shield after Wedge fight. They are nor exactly worth using with new keypage, unless you build for them. Feather Shield might be used with more defensive build to not rely on enemies hitting you for inflicting burn. Sword is not as bad, because you get bonus for all dice types. Other than that nothing new: we already have better cards. Stigmatize, an Urban Plague card given as a reward in Urban Nightmare... We saw Phillip using it before. non-current rolls, but a very interesting on use effect: a guaranteed negative coin. In theory, it can be used to rise in emotion levels quickly, in my opinion, it should have been on 0- or 1-cost. Fierce Charge. Meh. Might grab it if you are trying to run Singular Strike build, otherwise it falls in the same bin as Extreme Edge, Fleche, En Garde and similar cards. Blazing Strike Finally, something usable. High damage and a lot of Burn. Damage-per-light is not good, but if you add Burn into equation, it becomes attractive. Locked at EL3 which is 1 higher than you were to able to use it normally, and exclusive to Crying Children page. If you want high damage page that will HURT for several Scenes, or are fighting ranged opponents, take it. There is nothing much to talk about fight itself. The biggest thing were 4- and 2- children cut phases, with corresponding statue phases (which were exactly like 5- and 3- angel statues, but with slightly lower HP). The other things work exactly as they say on the tin, there are no changes in behavior from normal enemies, patterns and used cards are obvious (except that in 1st and last statue phase there is a 50/50 roll for one of the card to be either Distorted or Bygone illusion). And do you know what is the most annoying thing? It does not drop books, you are given them by the game. Which means it is useless to raise Phillip EL, it is useless to try to Request him... Nothing improving book drop rates will work on him. And with annoyingly low odds of getting golden pages from books, you all but guaranteed to have to fight this battle twice if you want to get his keypage. TeeQueue posted:When using two or more E.G.O at once, only one of the backgrounds is used, and it persists for the entire turn. I have no idea what determines which background is chosen. TeeQueue posted:
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Sep 25, 2022 08:38
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Man, he really booked it again, even as we booked him. Honestly, I ain’t even mad
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Sep 25, 2022 09:15
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Stop the Phillip! Stop the Phillip! Stop the Phillip... Yes I know its actually called Evil Kit and Dimi in their flying machines, thank you very much.
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Sep 25, 2022 09:21
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MiiNiPaa posted:Unstable Page of the Crying Children. Finally, a burn-themed current page. Flaring Brand and Plumed Escutcheon ignite everything in range, while Volatile Passion give +1 Power to offencive dice against everything that is burning, i.e. everything. And Power is good. ...But I'm getting ahead of myself. This isn't really something we can use to any reasonable degree at the moment - not with Urban Nightmare pages, at least.
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Sep 25, 2022 09:24
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