Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

[Cotigo]

FYI, All recruited characters come with some equipment so the easiest way to equip your party at the start is to make a bunch and sell their crap, then delete.  May be too late for that now but there you have it.

[Fudozukushi]

WoW: Hit 30k HP in my tank set, and I'll have enough Frost for T10 piece Sunday.  Then I get to worry about regemming, yay!

[Rozalia]

The king also tells her not to mention the fact that the demonking is alive to anyone in order to avoid panic and finally gives her 50 gold to get some equipment. That's almost enough for two clubs!

You sure you're not dealing with some tramp looklike of the king instead. I mean he has a whole country/town at his command and all he can afford is 50 gold?

SMY DS - Started this today and it looks really good already. Got the dreaded Naming screen of death which caused me to think for a while. Eventually I just used one of those translaters to make my name sound less wrong for a game like this. Nickname on the other hand was easy.

MC shall now be known as Rozzer and his merry crew as the Peelers.

Cross Edge - Got far but keeping saves all over he place due to retarded conditions for true end.

[Lance]

Started playing Spelunky. It's hard. Really hard. I won't give up, though!

[Captain K.]

PWI:  My faction beat the strongest faction on the server in Territory War tonight.  Hells yeah.

[Hunter Sopko]

Nice. What'd you take over?

[Luther Lansfeld]

SPOILERS FOR WILD ARMS XF WITHIN!

XF: COMPLETED! Part 4 and the Final Act were both pretty fun. The final boss was really a great strategy RPG boss – difficult enough to be noteworthy (basically the hardest battle in the game besides 2-4? In different ways of course. I just thought it was really well-executed – it feels like a battle that revolves around her that is still tough.

Hmmm. I don’t like the fact that Weisheit returns to the plot after his/her death in Part 3. I kind of enjoy the creepiness of the character for what it is. The Felius fixation is hilarious. She’s really hard to take seriously for me – I laughed at a lot of Kressen’s scenes.

Other characters:

Clarissa- A less irritating version of Virginia. I am pretty surprised that Alexia and her aren’t sisters. She’s pretty bright and optimistic without it being really grating. I like her a bit but not too much, she doesn’t have as much depth as she feels like she could have.

Felius- No real opinion, but the game is pretty good at leading you to believe that he might be a villain/henchman, between the mysteriousness and the wearing black and being SCARY when he’s angry, as well as the fact that bad things seem to happen when he wanders off for a battle.

Labby- I think she’s done pretty well. Arrogant and, well, a capable woman. But she’s still believable. I understand why Sopko avatared her.

Levin- I like him a lot. I think he is well-developed, he’s believably kid-like, and he’s cute.

Ragnar- Because a combination between Alonso and Zidane was too irresistible. Apparently. One of the worst characters I’ve ever seen in a game, a completely hypocritical, stupid, blathering sack of shit. He wants to DESTROY ELESIUS except he wants to ignore the fact that the people who he wants to destroy are in direct opposition to those who oppressed him. And just when you think he’s broken through and became less of a dumbass, Chelle converts him back to being a total tool. The Levin mentor thing is so forced and makes him feel like a piggy womanizer anyway, so bleh.

Tony- Awesome.

Alexia- Pretty neutral opinion on her.

Edna- A completely unredeemable, repulsive, unsympathetic bitch. Which is basically what she was supposed to be. Her ending was a little dissatisfying though. I really like her shear terribleness. 

Charlton- Extremely awesome. He has a backstory that is pretty sad and then he kicks all the suckers who sympathized with it in the balls and talks about rising from the ashes. It’s really great – I like how they don’t try the sympathy angle. He’s a bit like a mix between Gizel and Marscal Godwin – does very bad things in order to achieve his goal of uniting Elesius under one flag.

Rupert- Less awesome than the other two, but still pretty sweet.

Chelle- Somehow less awesome than Ragnar. Oh my god did the writers drop the ball here.

Hrathnir- Owns the FUCK out of His Wankiness. He’s pretty cool otherwise, a really good guy.

Katrina- I really like Katrina and what they did with her. You feel so bad for her when she interacts with Edna and you cheer when she frightens the shit out of the stone cold bitch. I really liked all the stuff surrounding her, including the ending.

EDIT: Eisen- Needs to be kicked in the balls. I ATTACKED THE PRINCESS I CAN'T GET OVER THE SHAME. So I will cure this shame by ATTACKING THE PRINCESS AGAIN!  Worst logic ever. Also gets owned by Levin.
END SPOILERS

Gameplay is fun. I think XF really drops the ball on about 6 maps and the rest are varying from too easy (Part 3 suffered from this) to really great (final boss, Final Weisheit, golem battle, 2-1, prison etc.). The swamp? 1-6 I hate, as well as all puzzle maps. Puzzles are the worst. I’m not a huge fan of 2-4 either because of me having to reset due to counterattacks. I dislike the second Royal Knights battle as well, although I like the first. I also like the Clarissa/Alexia battles.

I used three people with Widespread, lots of Emulators, and I abused Sacrifice.

I think it’s a really great game that is hampered by a few poor design choices (puzzle maps, the clunky menu system that always goes to Clarissa, unequiping all items when you change class). I really like the music and the graphics, and I think that the class system is a lot better balanced than FFT’s. The villain cast is really good, second maybe to only BOF4. I like the hex-based system better than the square system as well. Without the frustrating maps and a better PC cast I think it could have been a 10 but I am debating whether to give it an 8 or a 9 right now.

[Grefter]

WoW: Hit 30k HP in my tank set, and I'll have enough Frost for T10 piece Sunday.  Then I get to worry about regemming, yay!

Make sure you check what is changing on the T10 tank pieces next minor patch when picking what to get since that will probably be this week.

[Crystalgate]

FYI, All recruited characters come with some equipment so the easiest way to equip your party at the start is to make a bunch and sell their crap, then delete.  May be too late for that now but there you have it.

Thanks, but I think I refrain. If money grinding turns out to take way to long time it's for the best if I find out as early as possible.

You sure you're not dealing with some tramp looklike of the king instead. I mean he has a whole country/town at his command and all he can afford is 50 gold?

Well, as it turns out, it's one town and one village. It should still be enough for more than 5/3 clubs, but I'm getting the feeling the kings aren't very good at their job in this game.

Dragon Warrior III: The Heroine Lia begins her journey for real. The first goal seems to be to get out of her country. This turns out to be more complicated than expected since there's neither a ship in the whole kingdom nor a way via land to go to another country. By talking to her fellow countrymen, she eventually figures out what she has to do.

There's an underground path leading out of the country, but it's blocked by a wall. Since the wall was most likely erected by the king to prevent people from fleeing to greener pastures, asking him to send a few miners is out of the question. There's a magic bomb which could blow the wall to rubble, but the man who owns it has his door locked both daily and nightly. Fortunately, the door is red and there's a key which can open red doors on the top of a tower. Unfortunately, the tower is on an island and the lack of ships has already been mentioned. The solution lies in a secondary underground path, one that leads to the island.

While gathering the necessary information Lia also builds some levels and acquires better equipment. The fighter starts to disappoint, he hes both less strength than the heroine and cannot use any weapon properly. He is actually doing the least amount of damage of all party members. I nevertheless decide to stick with him since sooner or later a fighter friendly weapon has to show up.

Anyway, travel underground to the tower. Climb the tower to get the thieves key (if you have problem with burglary, make sure your door isn't painted red) and then get the magic bomb. Use the bomb to blow up the wall and get the heck outa the country.

Lia emerges on another country far away. The first town she spots happens to be the capital (there seems to be about a 50% chance that a randomly selected town is a capital though) and she decides to speak to the king. The king recognizes her as a heroine and has a request. The request has to wait though, because it's time for a rest so Lia quits after the king records her journey.

Eventually she resumes her adventure, but the king isn't programmed to make his request doing his opening dialog. Lia has to talk to him again to hear his request. Turns out that a thief named Kandary or something has stolen the kings crown and the king wants Lia to get it back.

Just like with Lia's home country, this kingdom has one castletown and one village. Since nobody in the castletown knows where the thief is, it's time to go to the village. Sure enough, the villagers manages to both tell her that the thief is holed up in something tower and that something tower is to the west. Other than that, a villager stands on a grave which he claims belongs to a fighter who defeated a bear with his bare hands. Chance is the fighter was using one of the few fighter friendly weapons so Lia decides to return nighttime for some grave robbing in case the fighter toke the weapon with him to the grave.

Unfortunately, that's not the case. The fanboy is still one the grave, sleeping however. The ghost of the fighter is also there, probably to watch so that the creepy fanboy doesn't do anything horrible to his corpse while everyone is asleep. The ghost confirms that he indeed used a weapon, an iron claw. The iron claw is sold in the village weapon shop meaning Lia has to buy it. Oh well, buying is not as good as finding, but still not too bad. She does buy the claw and a fighter armor as well. The new equipment coupled with the fact that Harl the fighter is lately getting better stat gains upon level ups means he stopped sucking. His strength is even starting to catch up with Lia's, although he's not quite there yet.

First some exploring. Other than something tower, there's some sort of gambling installation where you pay a token to walk some gauntlet. You roll a dice and walk the corresponding number of squares and depending on where you stop something will happen. Lia only gets gold and a herb which is good enough since there's still plenty of equipment upgrades left to get. For clearing the course she also gets even more gold and a sword stronger than the currently strongest available weapon in stores. Score!

Eventually she tackles the tower. That takes her two retreats before she makes it trough, one retreat because Lia suddenly needs anti paralysis herbs and has few of them and one retreat because the enemies decided to gang up on the wizard. After that and a a quick equipment upgrade (it's actually here Harl gets his fighter friendly armor) she makes it to Kandary.

Kandary is standing close to two treasure chests and Lia intends to get them as well as the crown. However, Kandary pulls a lever or something and Lia and her party is sent a floor down via a pitfall. They quickly climbs back up, but Kandary is gone and so is the content of the two treasure chests! Well, there's only one way he could have gone and the party quickly catches up with him. Battle time.

The wizard stacks Increase and Kandary and his goons becomes less and less efficient for every turn. Speaking of increase, i realize that if I'm going to class change the wizard it should be to a thief so that I can get an Increase of before the enemies attack instead of after. Surely if the thief has a decent attack he won't need as much MP since he can save some by attacking instead of casting offensive spells. Anyway, Kandary loses and yields.

He offers to return the crown if Lia lets him go. She says no since she wants whatever was in the chests too, but Kandary pulls a "but thou must". Grudgingly she allows the content of the treasure chests walk away and settles for the crown. She returns it to the king.

The king offers her the throne as a reward. At this point it should be clear that's not a reward at all, but the king insists. So Lia becomes a queen despite there already being one.

The first thing Lia does as a queen is to chat with queen 2. She thinks it's a good idea to put a woman on the throne. If she wants a female ruler and the king doesn't want to rule, why don't they just have her do the ruling? Anyway, Lia doesn't want to find out and seeks out the king. He's busy gambling away the royal treasury which he apparently didn't see fit to leave behind. Fortunately he complies when Lia demands he resumes his duties as a king and the madness ends. It's pointed out that at her short time as a queen she already built a reputation of being a good ruler which doesn't bode well since she did absolutely nothing.

Quest complete and I have no idea why I had to do any of it. Next time, I head east? Going there wasn't a good idea earlier, but now the party is stronger. The game is definitely an improvement over the NES version. This version is less "spellcasters should use their spells wisely" and more "spellcasters will want to cast spells every battle."

[Fudozukushi]

WoW: Hit 30k HP in my tank set, and I'll have enough Frost for T10 piece Sunday.  Then I get to worry about regemming, yay!

Make sure you check what is changing on the T10 tank pieces next minor patch when picking what to get since that will probably be this week.

Ugh, seriously?  *checks* Oh, just armor boosts.  I was hoping they'd fix how worthless DK T10 set bonuses were.

[Clear Tranquil]

Wild Arms XF-Going home to pick this back up from where I left it which was after unlocking the final set of classes. Ragnar is a beast, Labby is love <3 Felius is too quiet and doesn't do enough which means he's just getting boring for me now, Clarissa and Alexia are just ok (though "I don't care if the winds in my face!" gets a bit what after a while! >.>) Levin is cute and adorable (he wouldn't thank me for saying so <.<)  fine for what he is but needs more strong manly man plot like Ragnar (maybe in a few years or hopefully he'll get more strong plot as I play further like he had in the beginning of the game) and yes the dog is awesme. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with Ragnar and Chelle because I personally am finding this interesting and Ragnar's character focus/development entertaining, I want to see if he gets over his "ghosts" 'n stuff and if Chelle gets rescued/more humanity comes into it or w/e. Plus Patrick, the other Patrick just cracks me up >.> I'm probably just odd but I'm actually finding Labby and Ragnar more interesting/involving than Felius X Weisheit/UoM/he/she/whatever the hell is going on/did the plot just do what I think it did plot <.< The stuff Soppy told me about princess plot is pretty far out there as well which ties into did the game just do want I think it did and yeah *spins*~

[Grefter]

Errrr the 2 piece to make one of the stronger AoE threat talents in the game 20% stronger or 4 piece the 12% damage reduction for 10 seconds once per minute on a free an ability that gives you 10 runic power off the GCD?

Sure I would rather a cooldown reduction on D&D, but that is just because I run heroics.  Given much more damage and you could almost push D&D into a single target tanking rotation as unholy.

[Captain K.]

Nice. What'd you take over?

The Great Lake.  We now control everything from The Mines west of Archo to Silver Pool.

[Fudozukushi]

Errrr the 2 piece to make one of the stronger AoE threat talents in the game 20% stronger or 4 piece the 12% damage reduction for 10 seconds once per minute on a free an ability that gives you 10 runic power off the GCD?

Sure I would rather a cooldown reduction on D&D, but that is just because I run heroics.  Given much more damage and you could almost push D&D into a single target tanking rotation as unholy.

Eh, my mistake.  I meant the DPS set bonuses.

As DW Frost though, AoE threat really isn't a problem due to HB.  Well, granted all I ever get are ass DPS so there might be a problem I just haven't seen.  Blood Tap gives runic power?  Huh, well I've never had a use for it so I didn't know.

Actually all this talk of set bonuses is kinda pointless.  I'm only getting th T10 piece from random and weekly raid badges.  Guild still can't get enough to do Marrowgar or even trash consistently.

[Taishyr]

TO: Beaten, doing aftergame, thought I'd finally set up my tier lists. Characters in () are aftergame people, being placed relative to where they're at now; however, this is mostly maingame commentary.

Tier 1: Reimu, Marisa, Chen, Yuugi, Ran, Kaguya, Rinnosuke, (Mystia, DEAR GOD Mystia, Sikieiki)
Tier 2: Alice, Komachi, China, Suwako, Orin, Aya, (Renko, Kanako)
Tier 3: Iku, Yukari, Tenshi, Sanae, Yuyuko, Patchy, Flandre, (Maribel, Yuka)
Tier 4: Sakuya, Remilia, Mokou, Suika, Eirin, Nitori, Youmu, (Keine)
Tier THE STRONGEST: Cirno, Wriggle, Rumia, Reisen, Minoriko

Tier What The Goddamn Hell Is Wrong With You: Flandre, Renko

Commentary (this could take a bit):

Reimu: Solid all around without excelling in anything. Early on, uses her SPI damage to help clear, but Marisa quickly picks up and does it better with MYS - the two work well in taking stuff out. The damage starts slowly sucking, though... and that's about when buffing her MAG for MT healing OR buffing defenses for tanking forever comes into play. Vital for later bosses, MT (row) Paralyze helps a lot on the final and multiple randoms... Yeah.

Marisa: Randoms? Asteroid Belt, or maybe Earthlight Ray. Bosses? Buff her up and toss out a Master Spark, then get back to regen'ing SP in the back row. Works so very well.

Remilia: Jeigan. Great early! But usage fades badly after floor 8 or so.

Sakuya: MT Speed buff! And and uh uhm. ...uh. ... yeah. Not unusable, even now, but still kinda "eh". The damage fails forever, which is sad.

Patchy: Jeigan! Except she's still so incredibly useful endgame... if she gets a turn. There's enough people to buff speed/enough free turn people that it's not a fatal flaw, but it's still saddening enough that she drops as soon as enemies consistently outspeed her and tend to have MT physicals. Some floors, though, she's a lifesaver.

Chen: Okay. I am probably the biggest hyper of Chen thus far. This being said? CHEN IS FUCKING AWESOME. Switch in->hi Kimontokou->FOIFOIFOIFOIFOI->see ya. PSW deals with a lot of high-DEF opponents that'd frustrate Chen otherwise, and the speed can allow her to get in a turn before some seriously scary randoms later and, often enough, take them out.

Meiling: TANK. HP, defense, adequate Mind, good resistances, cheap skillset. Tanking in her vein kinda becomes more difficult later but she still does fine at it which is impressive.

Cirno: Wishes she didn't have her entire skillset obsoleted really damn fast outside of the CLD element which is also kinda obsoleted fast. Meh.

Minoriko: Chibi-Sanae.

Youmu: One of a set of three (Youmu, Yuugi, Suika) who I'd call high-impact sluggers. Youmu's the best of the three at MT! And she does it dam well! ...that speed. It doesn't like life. It's bad enough to relegate her to mop-up duty.

Alice: Reasonably fast MT NE damage, both phys and mag: a powerful ST Fire phys; a... decent MT MYS attack. Great at weakening or clearing crowds, and the attached statdowns help even more there.

Rumia: Solid ST MYS damage! ...NOTHING ELSE. Holy crap the stat/skills are horrible. Demarcation has very theoretical use but I never got anything out of it.

Wriggle: Do you care about POIZN n/n

Yuugi: Okay. K3S? Her attack score? She -murders- things. Buffed by Kaguya or Rhino, it just gets bloody stupid levels of damage outdone only by buffed Marisa. Marisa is one shot. Yuugi is not. Really bad magic durability and being slightly sluggish can hold her back, but... not enough to lose her slot in tier 1.

Aya: I've been too hard on her - she's a Chen variant. Lacks Kimontokou, but there are others with MT buffs later so she's definitely usable - and her MT and ST damage are both solid and -fast-. Takes thought to use but is worth it.

Iku: More WND damage! Hers is magic, and good at bypassing high MND to boot. Also has an okay buff. Tanky, especially to magic, and only slightly sluggish helps.

Komachi: HP. Narrow Confines of Avici. That's it. That's all she needs. MT omnistatus+multistatdown? Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Suwako: No durability! Kinda poor speed! If she hits you, she either goes for competent ST damage + awesome paralysis, competent MT magic, or... a NTR ST nuke that probably would rival K3S if she had the stats.

Sanae: ST healer, okay backup damage, has a decent omnibuff if she's bored.

Nitori: Situational use busting high-DEF randoms. No other practical application, but she's good at that!

Ran: Okay. Ran. Quick-hit composite NE damage. Two solid magic attacks, opposing elements. Two full-team buffs, weak but stackable on the back row. Yeah, awesome stats, awesome skills... definitely top tier.

Eirin: Meanwhile, overestimated her. Hourai Elixir is awesome utility! The damage is crap. Durability's nice but doesn't save her from being low-impact.

Tenshi: If you rely on non-ITD, you do not kill Tenshi. Period. She will laugh a siege to scorn. Makes a great frontliner for that reason.

Mokou: Needed more attacks that weren't reliant on hitting low Mind.

Flandre: I gave my rant on her before. Bizarre little character.

Orin: Dropped her one; Blazing Wheel compositeness creates some issues later and her NE phys backup's kinda weak. Still great clearing.

Kaguya: TWINK BAIT ALERT. Awesome damage if you take the time to buff up that MAG and SPD. Will -not- impress otherwise. Gets very, very good in aftergame, where the whole "hi I ignore defensive stats" really kicks in as an advantage.

Suika: Mrrrrgh Iunno. Should be good, but the damage never really impresses even post-buff.

Yuyuko: MT 100% ID + SPI damage. Yeah.

Yukari: Another Iunno. The damage really fails if Chen/Ran aren't out - and while Ran/Yukari out makes sense, Chen and Yukari don't really work together well as Yukari's support games fail to help Chen. Still solid.

Rhinosuke: MANnosuke has crappy damage! He has MT 100% ATK/DEF/MAG/MIND buff (World-Shaking Military Rule. Awesome name. Has the downside of being OPB and he leaves the team after the fight due to 0 TP afterward. Oh, and he can't switch in/out due to TP->0. But that's why the latter parts are important.). He has awesome defenses. He can actually manage decent ST damage, and Traumerei is useful on a rare few opponents (PC SoHD sucks). Fast. Durable. Buff is shiny. the ST damage ignores defense decently well. Yeah.

Maribel: Ran remix for the worse, but that's more saying something about Ran. Hits three elements (SPI/MYS/WND), has both magic and composite damage (composite this time is the MYS), gets a self-omnibuff... but the stats are lower enough that she can't sell the package as well. Still brutal.

Renko: Welcome to the "What the goddamn fuck is wrong with you" tier, Renko! The stats, they suck outside of excellent HP and passable speed. The skillset, though. Good grief the skillset. GALAXY STOP! Speed Down + Paralyze + MT ITD damage (that sucks due to Renko stats being -horrible-). CHARGE! MT stat buffer! Doesn't have Rhino's disadvantages... but it has FLAN'S. Damages her entire team and delays their next turn. The damage is not insignificant, but it is kinda "eh"; still, could kill if you aren't paying attention. The turn delay is the frustrating part, making her timing important to figure out. DEBILITATE! MT stat down! Awesome character, but very quirky.

Kanako: Quick-hit SPI damage that uses her ATK and MAG but pretty much only hits MND. Sadly, her stats aren't good enough to make this very shiny, but it's still good. Solid MT WND, incredible MT CLD. Durable-ish, speedy-ish. Overall competent.

Mystia: MT. PARALYSIS. OFF THIRD-BEST SPEED. AND SOLID DAMAGE. Oh and she gets a quick hit physical. Yeah.

Keine: No downside buffing, okay but not great offense, decent all-around stats, but the package fails to impress under scrutiny.

[Meeplelard]

TvC: Zero and Tekkaman Blade unlocked!

Beat the game with Viewtiful Joe and Frank West (FW was used in both, MM Volnutt was used alongside Frank West on the 2nd attempt) just to get 2 more Capcom wins, and then went with PTX-40A. cause hey, why not try the Giant Robot for my 6th Capcom Win and Zero unlock?

...PTX-40A may be the best FIghting Game Character ever.  Just playing as a giant Robot in a Vs. Game who nukes stuff, whips out buzz saws, and...uh, yeah, it was hilarious to play as him.  Its especially funny against Lightan, cause the two can actually flinch each other, so its like a regular 1v1 except much bigger and only one round.  It was hilarious and well executed, good show Capcom!

After that, used Zero to test him out, alongside Ken the Eagle, in hopes for another T Win (which I succeeded at!), and then went with my first dual T team with Polimar and Ippatsuman.

Zero is really fun to play as.  Technical, but very user friendly, and gotta love how most of his moves are from MMX4, and...yeah, he actually feels like Zero, not just "hey, he looks like Zero and uses some of his attacks!" Though, Capcom is good at avoiding the former in general, though god knows they've had plenty of practice with Marvel (dating all the way back with X-men Children of the Atom...which was good enough at capturing character specific fighting styles into a fighting game.)  So yeah, that's to be expected!  May end up maining him, but not sure; at least its nice to have several options on the table.

Ken the Eagle feels...kind of bland?  Not bad, just...I dunno, he didn't seem to particularly stand out in anyway.   Probably just not gonna bother with him.

Polimar I can safely say I don't like; too quirky, he can't move worth shit unless its through a dash and...ugh, yeah, definitely not my style.  I'm sure he has potential, I just don't feel like getting it, good thing I finished off Yami with him so now I really don't have to care about him.

Ippatsuman, meanwhile, I had a good deal of fun using.  His max super is hilariously awesome (Summon Giant Robot in the background to smite things!  Seriously, how can you argue against that?)  and he seems pretty easy to understand otherwise...barring that one anti-air Throw super move...which I kept accidentally pulling off on Yami...which didn't really work.

Oh, and Frank West's Alternate Max Super which he uses on Giants is made of win, but then, everything Frank West does is awesome.

[superaielman]

XF: Done with act 3! Game goes by much faster once you get Alexia and the game stops throwing weird mission requirements at you. A special burn in hell DOES go to the second to last fight in the Weisheit chain (A monster that resets your game? Dick move alert), otherwise yeah. The slime battle was incredibly annoying, but Labby can mostly solo that.

[Grefter]

Errrr the 2 piece to make one of the stronger AoE threat talents in the game 20% stronger or 4 piece the 12% damage reduction for 10 seconds once per minute on a free an ability that gives you 10 runic power off the GCD?

Sure I would rather a cooldown reduction on D&D, but that is just because I run heroics.  Given much more damage and you could almost push D&D into a single target tanking rotation as unholy.

Eh, my mistake.  I meant the DPS set bonuses.

As DW Frost though, AoE threat really isn't a problem due to HB.  Well, granted all I ever get are ass DPS so there might be a problem I just haven't seen.  Blood Tap gives runic power?  Huh, well I've never had a use for it so I didn't know.

Actually all this talk of set bonuses is kinda pointless.  I'm only getting th T10 piece from random and weekly raid badges.  Guild still can't get enough to do Marrowgar or even trash consistently.

See now I am even more confused.  7%/10% boost to your most damaging attacks or what should be effectively a flat 3% damage boost after the first cycle of your runes are both pretty rocking set bonuses >_> (admittedly harder to get as Frost running on Priority system, but Frost DPS is in the shitter at the moment and you should only go it for Improved Icey Talons really).  They both beat the shit out of DK T7 and 8 (Both T9 and T10 are pretty freaking sweet though).

Certainly beats the pants off the healing Priest tier bonus.  33% chance to make Flash Heal heal 33% of the amount healed over 9 seconds (It seems to be kind a rolling hot sort of like the Deep Wounds or Ignite dots are) which is alright, 4 piece is 20% chance to make your Penance or Circle of heal make the next Flash heal cast within 6 seconds to reset the CD on Penance and Circle of Healing.  Such a huge mouth full to get out and spikey all over the place proc.  Just yuck.  Rogue 2 piece is great, but the 4 piece is entirely missable, I am better getting some more Armor Penetration off set pieces than the 4 piece.

I love the warrior one though.  You have a 20% chance for your Bloodsurge and Sudden Death talents to grant 2 charges of their effect instead of 1, reduce the global cooldown on Execute or Slam by 0.5 sec, and for the duration of the effect to be increased by 100%.  Cause you know what Arms needed?  More spikey out of control burst threat.  Good bonus overall, but damn makes that proc watching even more key.

Edit - Oh and never had to use Blood Tap while tanking?  I use a one disease rotation when I am tanking heroics, but not sure if this is optimal for you or should even be done anymore, but anyway prefer it off the pull anyway, Tap and you can get 2 Obliterates in your first set of abilities which is more snap threat than Plague Strike and 2 Blood Strikes.  Bonus points for more Rime Proc chances.  It is a DPS loss, but not sure if it is a TPS loss to do it, but it certainly gives you more threat to work with in the opening few seconds.

[Captain K.]

Oh, and Frank West's Alternate Max Super which he uses on Giants is made of win, but then, everything Frank West does is awesome.

Did you try Frank's giant swing vs. G. Lightan?  Hilarity ensues.

Myself, concentrated on the T side first, and have now unlocked Joe the Condor, who follows the Rule of Rob (everything is better with guns).  Favorite characters on the T side are Yatterman-1 and Jun the Swan (weapons with string theme).  Both version of Tekkaman are broken as hell.

[Meeplelard]

Oh, and Frank West's Alternate Max Super which he uses on Giants is made of win, but then, everything Frank West does is awesome.

Did you try Frank's giant swing vs. G. Lightan?  Hilarity ensues.

Yes, yes I did.  It was one of the best things ever.  All Hail Frank West!

[Anthony Edward Stark]

NMH2- Finished. Masterpiece as expected. Now on to my next mission, finding a No More Heroes 2 soundtrack.

[superaielman]

XF: Finished. I got through half of the game this weekend thanks to the snow.

Final rating? 7/10. Game is a mix of brilliance and failure. The job system is wonderful, but the game handcuffs you with really silly mission requirements for the first half of the game. I got after VC for the same problems in the opposite direction; the missions reqs in XF often require very specific setups to win and blatantly punish you if you don't use them. Game picks up notably once you get Alexia, as that is the last of the puzzle maps and missions get much more straight forward after that. I also don't like how little CSP you get without flatwoods; it's a shame they devise such a wonderful system and then don't really let you use it much as you should be able to use it! Oh well. The game's really bad start and clunky equip interface largely hold it back from a 9 or a 10 score, which says how much the aforementioned items bother me.


Classes!

Secutor- Meh. You want attack 25% and the equips, but the class itself has range woes and the skillset isn't much. It's still your only option for fighters till Berserkers/Striders though.
Gageteer- Excellent on paper, didn't like in practice. It blew through items pretty fast in battle and required another skillset to give you enough items for long fights.
Elementalist- Books+mag up. You spend way too much time in this class with Clarissa and Levin. The skillset's okay, but man those skills are invaluable. Low movement+no skillset after moving hampers their effectiveness in a void, but you'll still be using them for the first half of the game.
Fantastica- LVP of the set, the skillset is strictly used for weird twinking setups (Hi six shooter) and forced MP bust maps. Rush is the only part of it I used normally.

Sentinal- Never used. Not terrible, just not a class I bother with. Don't like the mobility+range issues.
Excavator-Skillset is useless outside of finding the odd item scope and twiking Gadgeteers, but it's still useful thanks to the good speed and movement. Levin used this quite often, and Clarissa even shfited to this when I needed a high mobility mage.
Geomancer- It's either this or High Cavalier for game LVP. Shut out is massively nerfed from WA4 thanks to movement issues and the rest of the skillset is blah. There aren't enough leypoints on maps to make it worthwhile, and said laypoints don't show up on the preview screen.
Sacred Slayer- Best OC in the game, hands down. Heal is excellent in combination with Widespread, fragile has use for boss smashing and santify gives the skillset some magical damage to pick off foes at a distance with. Turn Shift is the new intrude; it lets you control the flow of the fight with turn manipulation and has the added bonus of being usable after you move. There are very few moves I consider few good if you have to move to use them in XF. The class itself is terrible at anything related to offense, but so worth it for widespread. Charms are good armors too.


Berserker- Ask me about having 8 movement and great stats. Valiant is also awesome if you get that far. The movement makes it useful for mages, let alone fighters, and the skillset has uses as well if you bother with spears. By far the best fighting class in the game till the final tier.
Strider- DROP KICK! Probably the best fighting skill in the game, as it takes advantage of Alexia and Felius's high weight scores and is ranged. Trail has tons of use as well, since it lets slow/immoble PC's follow someone like Levin and lets you move faster than a snail's pace. The class itself has good stats too. I used Strider OC to beat the final boss, which says it all there.
Grappler- Stats aren't good. Skillset does have some use, as there are enough cliffs to make it worthwhile. You can also use the throws to get your foe closer to your mages and for positoning fun, which is neat; plus killing Weisheit with a piledriver is hilarious. Nothing else worth getting besides Accelerator and OC in the class though. Accelerator goes well with speed twinks and is very low effort to get- which is weird, XF almost always makes you work for a class's good skills.
Engimancer- IFF is good and Devestate has uses in a pinch, but otherwise meh. This isn't worth using for your mages unless you have mastered elementalist/Sacred slayer already. Protect suffers from the usual XF buff nerfing.  Probably the LVP of this set, just since the other three fighting classes have important skills to pick up.


High Cavalier- How do you make a class with balanced (high) stats, quicken, and intrude *suck ass?* You make them inferior to the competition. High Cavalier has nothing worth getting in it's skillset besides for the OC, even the mastery skill is crap. Quicken and Intrude aren't worth setting the skills for either, as Quicken's duration is terrible/has the usual XF buff problems and Intrude is both MP intensive and has the usual can't move/use the same round shit. I got this for Alexia for style purposes but otherwise ran screaming. Just not worth using at any point except for the OC; even Geomancer has 3-1 in which it can utterly destroy the universe if you so choose to go that route. The only way in fact I figured out how to get use from the skillset is Intrude+Quicken+Widespread for Alexia, but that requires mastering scared slayer, which has no other use for her and requires tying her down in a bad class for way too long, on top of costing a bunch of SP/MP/CP to do. Fail!
Emulator- Didn't find this too useful. It required lucking into the right skills- status is useless and the elemental spells only felt worth using for Labby. I'd rather have my mages spamming Sacred Slayer OC skills. Just feels overshadowed by extremist's godly non speed stats and Nightstalker's uber speed.
Nightstalker- Best class in the game. This+Turn shift+accelerator, and you can wave goodbye to speed concerns. Every PC besides for Alexia and maybe Felius should be in this class, as the turn split you get from it is unreal. Six Shooter's a really good skill as well, even if I didn't use it as much as I should've.
Extremist- God stats and Debilitator. What's not to love? Oh yeah, it has brutal offense and command critical as well. I used this for Alexia and man was I not let down. Bosses just explode when you get command critical to work, let alone randoms.

PCs:

Clarissa- Grab her OC/equips and run straight to elementalist. Sacrifice is extremely nasty if properly twinked and she's got really nice speed to go with it. Character wise? Suppose she's good enough. I find it very hard to take her seriously, considering how much of their physical mannerisms were used by Sailor Moon.
Felius- Probably the LVP? It's a well balanced cast though. Upper Hand is very useful early on, and his high weight gear means he can get a lot of milage out of drop kick and heavy strike. Character wise? I like the archetype, but he really didn't have enough development or deviation away from his protect theme to strike home.
Labby- Annoyed the living hell out of me with 'my 34 year old heart' and her babbling about getting old. Otherwise, worked as a mentor character and sometimes comic relief character.
Ragnar- Get the fuck out, with extra fire for his incredibly high handed grilling of Alexia right after you spring her from prison. Hey asshole, her father just died, maybe telling her that is more important than your usual self involved bullshit? See Ciato's rant otherwise. Hyper was useful for lategame twinking and he had evasion as a PC.
Alexia- Had style as a character. Specifically, her line about the martial guard's inability made me laugh. She didn't have a ton of depth, but she worked for what she was. As a PC? You run to Strider, get her the OC, and then run to Secutor/Extremist. Trail is broked+5 on her; it lets her get into the thick of battle without having to waste turns on movement. Drop kick takes adavantage of her weight and STR and gives her awesome offense as well.
Tony- About as good as a character/PC as you'd expect from a random dog named Tony.

Charlton- He grows on you. He is remarkably consistent with his ideals. He really believes the King's disarmament is bad for the country and fights it as hard as he can. The game even gives you some proof (The ecomonic impact of it) that Charlton wasn't all wrong. He's a brutal man who just knows his way of life and fights to defend it. Also has insane style!
Edna- Female Gorudo. She revels in her corruption and scumminess and plays the role of the perfect dirtbag to the hilt. She creates a monster in more than one sense of the word, which...yeah. She also is the only one of the villians who the game doesn't attempt to depict with any sort of positive light. even Weisheit has his goals and morals, Edna clearly has none.
Rupert- Perfect foil for Clarissa, as a drifter who will do absolutely anything for power. His weird sense of professionalism is neat to see and the game even does a very good job explaining his point of view and ideas with his random monolouges. He is befuddled by the loyality his minions in the martial guard show, since he clearly has none. He can't even fight and die on his own terms, since a group of deserters follow him to his escape route.
Weisheit- Fails, has creepy overtones to his already bad plot. Does get points for a consistent inner monolouge and early style.
Chelle- Fails, makes Ragnar speak and generally gets owned by him. NEXT.
Triad- Felt like a random addition to give you more foes to fight after you had finished slaughtering the Kinship and the guard. Aside: You pretty much single handily destroy the marshal guard, the kinship, not to mention a small army of drifters, not to mention the beatings handed out to the royal knights. Clarissa's a bit of a butcher.
Final- Was there? I didn't feel any rapport with the character, though the setup was pretty good.

[Twilkitri]

SDGGGW

Pilot profile gallery is now 100% complete, so the entire gallery is now completed aside from the hidden units.

I discovered that Phoenix Gundam Unleashed was able to be combined with any unit I could lay my hands on to result in plans for the next-most powerful unit in the game. However starting from Ground Gundam and running all the way up and off the end and back up to Zaku I, they didn't show up. Presumably the hidden units are excluded from the loop and I wasted my time gratuitously. Or they rank between Zaku I and Ground Gundam in worth and it's completely pointless hiding them like they are >_>

There are still roughly 70 items left to unlock. Since the only way of unlocking items that I'm aware of is the one you get automatically whenever you finish a map, I'm not entirely sure what sort of position the game was expecting me to be in at this point? The only objective I have aside from unlocking items currently is grinding for the final. And as I am currently sortieing just my two lowest-levelled main pilots in Psycolo & Devil each map (thoroughly ruining Psycolo and Devil's stats while I'm at it, since unit level stat gains are based on the pilot's level) I am not exactly doing a terrific job of that.

Currently it looks like I will be playing the first map without triggering any breaks over and over for a while, since it can be finished in one or two turns that way...

[DomaDragoon]

WAXF -
-Poison Swamp Level, In Which We Don't Drink The Water. Solved by keeping Labrynthina reviving everyone as they fall and throwing a wave of characters with the Elemental skillset at the enemies.

-Guardian Shrine, In Which You Take The High Road, And I'll Take... Went center path, had Felius weaponbreak the center guy and just ignored everything else.

-Path To The Shrine, In Which Levin Is An Idiot. Levin goes in as Gadgeteer, filled up with Heal Berries, and casts Blast whenever he isn't healing. I have two Elementalists who pick off the other's on Levin's side, while Clarissa heads to the corridor and Howling Shots everyone on that end.

-1.8, In Which You're Not So Tough Without Your Fancy Sword, Are Ya? A Fantastica clears the path, Felius disarms the boss, Tony draws fire and Clarissa Sacrifices. Easy peasy, no resets at all.

-Intermission, In Which There Is A Meeting Of The Harry Potter Cosplayers. We meet Percy, to go along with Umbridge, Hagrid, Not!Janus, and Trotsky. I also get new classes, and with new classes comes new generics! The high defense Sentinel Dekar, the magic tanking Sacred Slayer Chansey, the move+find Excavator Rafa, and the couldn't think of a better name Geomancer Malak. I get prepared to rescue a hostage, and everyone's desire for Clarissa continues with Labrynthia very interested in undressing her.

[TranceHime]

Touhou Labyrinth

92/100, Lv9300

I am nearing the end of my challenge, and therefore nearing the end of playing this wonderfully fun game. I will miss this very much, as I doubt I will come back to another run through of this game in an extremely long time. Over the times I've beaten up the FRUE FINAL, I've learned to love almost every single one of the 40 characters. Here are some of the characters that I've learned to appreciate during this massive trial of masochism that I failed to really realize the potential of in the main game:

Kaguya
It's already been picked up by Tai, and I've been beaten over the head with it by a bunch of people, but damn, that MND piercing property of her magic really really kicks ass on that insanely high (albeit twinked) MAG stat. She's easily now my top damage dealer against the FRUE FINAL, who seemed to love spamming Absolute Defense in his final phase, and earlier attempts found me struggling when I was only using one or two characters with ITD and did not really invest many skill points into Kaguya. Indeed, she is massive twink bait and is a very worthwhile investment. Even using her for Buddabowl, it's extremely convenient at a pinch. In other words, I had to really work hard into making Kaguya the magical destroyer that she turned out to be, oh, 'round the 70th time I started to beat the guy up. At Lv9300 and with Lv7000+ in MAG, she's a destructive force to be reckoned with. Not Flandre-tier destructive, of course, but well there, due to the ignoring MND and all.

Renko
Renko's only here because she has the most wacked skill-set I have ever seen. Debilitate is nothing short of a free "hurrr no buffs for you!" and is far more effective in dispelling the final's own buffs than it is to try using Tenshi's Sword of Rapture, which I'm confidently sure doesn't work often enough for it to be worth using. I took great care to boost Renko's defensive stats and her mediocre speed, with some levels into her decent-ish HP. I ended up ignoring her offensive stats as that's what you're NOT supposed to be using her for. She has an MT IMMA CHARGIN MAH LASER skill that instead gimps your delay and damages you slightly. The timing, is, therefore, required in order to work out the kinks of using the skill. But once you get the trick, it's very useful for quick bursts of damage. Galaxy Stop is also completely imbalanced in almost any situation, costing a measly 60 SP for something so damned good. Right, it does jack shit for damage despite it being ITD because I didn't raise her horrendous offensive stats, but the MT 120 Count PAR and the AGI down is just really useful. In other words, in the previous times I used her to fight the FRUE FINAL, I only used her for Debilitate and not much else, but she's now a dedicated mainstay.

Youmumu
Slow, but that was easily fixed-ish, at the short-term cost of increasing her power up even more (Lv9000-ish in SPD, but Lv6500-ish in ATK). She became an effective random-clearer alongside random-clearing greats as Chen, Orin, Alice, and others. Her ST attacks are relatively strong, though still comparatively same-y when you put her alongside Miss Yuugi and Suicamelon, I really didn't appreciate the power that Youmu had until I dragged her along. Not quite a mainstay in my boss-slaying team as Yuugi is, but still, a worthy character. If you can get over her woeful speed of suck and shit.

Swacko
Dual-type damage. Kinda like Yuugi, except intrinsically worse in stats. I tried to fix them as best I could, going for an even Lv7000 in all stats. Aaaand, well, Swacko's not entirely bad! Snake Eating forever remains a solid ST nuke that deals significant damage against the FRUE FINAL's ever increasing defense. Perhaps it is not as good as, say, Silent Selene or some shit, but it is still reliable.

It's getting late so I'll probably be editing this later but here's some fun mathsy data!

The FRUE FINAL at 100th time is:
HP 1742500000 (1b 742m 500k)
ATK 1703130
DEF 891020
MAG 2121965
MND 891020
AGI is... well, don't bother. He's almost always faster than you.