Disclaimer: Views are of the blogger's own and does not (necessarily) reflect actual common-sense.

Saturday 27 October 2018

#yolo because #yodo Pt VI

So we have come to the penultimate episode of the Kuok Kah series and why he's such a stable genius. Unless something screws up, I should be able to wrap this up at Pt VII. Before I start, I decide to up a vid. Not for the sake of sending a message, but 4 teh lolz.

https://republicofotters.blogspot.com/2018/10/yolo-because-yodo-pt-v.html

Kuok Kah's Top Stable Genius Moments 4: Great minds think alike
No, Trump isn't involved in the title above. When I say great minds think alike, I'm referring to the boss and his employee. Never mind the likelihood of both Cao Cao and Kuok Kah being womanisers. After all, history never said whether Kuok Kah was a womaniser like his boss.

[太祖欲速征刘备,议者惧军出,袁绍击其后,进不得战而退失所据。
...太祖疑,以问嘉。嘉劝太祖曰:“绍性迟而多疑,来必不速。备新起,众心未附,急击之必败。此存亡之机,不可失也。”
太祖曰:“善。”
遂东征备。备败奔绍,绍果不出。]

Translate:
Taizu desired to swiftly attack Liu Bei, But the advisers feared that once their forces were deployed, Yuan Shao would attack from behind. Hence, losing their base of power.
...Taizu hesitated and asked Guo Jia for his opinion. Guo Jia advised Taizu: "Yuan Shao's character is full of indecisiveness and suspicions, thus he won't arrive as soon as possible. Liu Bei has just established his influence, therefore the people have yet to trust him fully. Once we launch a fast assault, he will be defeated. This is a moment of survival or defeat. We cannot pass up such a chance."
Taizu answered: "Agreed."
Upon launching an attack to the east, Liu Bei was defeated and forced to flee towards Yuan Shao. Indeed Yuan Shao didn't capitalise.

Above excerpt was from Fuzi. As I've said before, Fuzi's account on Kuok Kah was pro-Kuok. So did such an event happen? The answer is yes. The evidence lies in Cao Cao's account.

[公将自东征备,诸将皆曰:“与公争天下者,袁绍也。今绍方来而弃之东,绍乘人后,若何?”
公曰:“夫刘备,人杰也,今不击,必为后患。袁绍虽有大志,而见事遟,必不动也。”]

Translate:
The Duke (Cao Cao) was prepared to attack Liu Bei at the east, but his generals asked: "The one vying against you is Yuan Shao. Now that he's coming but yet m'lord is abandoning the battle for the east (i.e. where Liu Bei is), what if he attacks us from behind unprepared?"
The Duke replied: "Liu Bei is an exceptional hero. If we don't attack him now, he will become a major threat in the future. Although Yuan Shao has great ambition, he has a slow sense of perception. Therefore, he will not move."

Pei Songzhi pointed out the error in Fuzi's account by stating that the idea of attacking Liu Bei without fearing Yuan Shao would strike from behind came from Cao Cao. Hence, it's illogical for Kuok Kah to say the same thing. [臣松之案武纪,决计征备,量绍不出,皆出自太祖。此云用嘉计,则为不同。]

But there's a blind spot in Pei Songzhi's statement. It's like assuming Kuok Kah's prediction that Sun Ce would eventually be assassinated was a case of foresight rather than accurately predicting he wouldn't be able to reach Xuchang to grab the Emperor. That it's more of a freak coincidence than anything else.  [又本传称(自)嘉料孙策轻佻,必死于匹夫之手,诚为明于见事。然自非上智,无以知其死在何年也。今正以袭许年死,此盖事之偶合。]

Let's explain Pei Songzhi's view on Kuok Kah's prediction being a freak coincidence. How accurate should it be? Pei Songzhi was referring to the timing, not the inevitable. Therefore, any statement I've made rebutting Pei Songzhi is now officially a case of ownself rebutt ownself. Ownself as in myself. Of course, this is NOT to say Kuok Kah got lucky. He knew it's going to happen. Just that he didn't know when. This was why Pei Songzhi stated Kuok Kah's analysis was one of exceptional foresight. It's like saying something like this below instead of trying to guess who is going to win which half of the Congress.
Any assumption that swing voters=Sun Ce should be seen as an unfortunate case of 2+2=5.


As for Pei Songzhi's statement that there's a contradiction between Fuzi's account and Cao Cao's version of the story in terms of attacking Liu Bei, it's not that straightforward. In Fuzi's side of the story, it was only stated that Cao Cao hesitated. [...太祖疑] When you hesitate on something, it means you got a decent idea on what to expect or do. But do you have confidence that it would turn out fine? Hesitation is no hesitation if you got the confidence. Never mind the chances of failure when it comes to winning the heart of Emilia 404/GG Taeser/Gakui. A possible explanation to the apparent contradiction lies in how strong the opposition was when Cao Cao confidently said those words in his account: “夫刘备,人杰也,今不击,必为后患。袁绍虽有大志,而见事遟,必不动也。”

Any form of opposition doesn't necessarily come before or after. It can also come both before and after. Cao Cao was no Trump. If the likes of Xun You, Zhong Yao, and Jia Xu (not to mention Xun Yu as well) ended up asking whether such a statement should be reconsidered AFTER the likes of Yue Jin, Cao Hong, and Teo Boon Wan (not to be confused with a politician named Khaw Boon Wan) objected to it, who are we to assume Cao Cao wouldn't hesitate? Were there such moments where everybody else had his suspicion concerning the situation? The answer is yes. Prior to Cao Cao launching a daring raid resulting in a massive loss of supplies on Yuan Shao's end, who actually trusted Xu You's words that doing so would be a good idea? Apparently, no one believed the words of an unproven traitor. Except for Jia Xu and Xun You. So you see, there's already a precedent set in place. Not the daring attack on Wuchao which indirectly resulted in Cao Cao winning the Battle of Guandu, but Kuok Kah assuring his boss upon hesitation setting in. Hence, Cao Cao's account stating Guo Jia encouraging Cao Cao to go ahead. [郭嘉亦劝公,遂东击备,破之...] Effectively, you can see this as a coin with two sides instead of two tails or two heads.

We must understand what's truly at stake. Cao Cao's assumption was spot on, but the act of analysing is nonetheless a form of science. If Cao Cao could pull off a magic spell, there's no need for his words to be proven true afterwards. Instead, he could just hex Yuan Shao and victory would be his. That wouldn't be science. Rather, it'd be an anti-scientific approach in getting things done. Remember, Yuan Shao actually boasted a far superior army before Cao Cao bumped off the supplies together with Chunyu Qiong. So what makes us think this was just a Roy Moore or Pennsylvania moment for Cao Cao? Because it's not.

Note: Interestingly, it seemed that Yuan Shao was always the stingy man when it came to offering aid. During Cao Cao's campaign against Lu Bu, he actually did nothing to intervene. Apparently, my resources are NOT your resources.

Kuok Kah's Top Stable Genius Moments 4: Final glory=Endless glory
Despite the violence and anti-science cleavage done by Koei Tecmo (seriously, try playing any Dead Or Alive game and you'd have experienced a hormonal Fatal Rush. Team Ninja was actually part of Koei Tecmo), one thing they managed to do right was Kuok Kah's image song for Dynasty Warriors.


The final battle against the Yuan faction would be Kuok Kah's final battle as well. The timing couldn't be any more ironic. While Kuok Kah was to be fondly remembered by Cao Cao as the man capable of aiding him in the ultimate unification (not to be confused with the not-so-salty Koreans because actual violence was actually involved in an era where the Emperor was the nearest thing to a nuke), his death was to be at the same period as the ultimate demise of Cao Cao's greatest adversary. That's before the alliance of Sun Quan and Liu Bei together with Zhou Yu (Zhuge Liang wasn't involved because Luo Guanzhong was culpable for spreading #fakenews) caused him to tank like a Tankyrgios. Then again, history is the alpha bitch for a very good reason. Idiocy is the child of humanity while irony is the mother thereof. At the risk of sounding like a feminist, no human being can ever prevail against the alpha bitch. Period. No pun intended by the way.

Against Yuan Shang and Yuan Xi, it's very easy to take it... well, easy. The reason why was that the two losers actually escaped to the geographical gateway to the Korean Peninsula. There, they met up with a bunch of non-Chinese people. Not the Koreans, but the tribe of Wuhuan. Traditionally, nomadic tribesmen from the north were known to be aggressive. Unlike the Koreans, it's not due to a siege mentality caused by a history of getting invaded left, right, and centre. There were times where they got invaded by China, but there were also moments where Han Solo wasn't Chinese. More notable cases would involve both halves of the Song dynasty and the Ming dynasty. The former was a case of consecutive invasion where you got the Khitans and Jurchens (Chinese history buffs should be familiar with the Humiliation of Jingkang) during the northern half with the Mongols attacking during the southern half. As for the latter, we got the Manchurians. Ironically, the Qing dynasty was formed in the most heroic manner due to Li Zicheng's act of rebellion. Well, sort of since politics were involved.

The Han dynasty was no stranger to invasions from the north. Diplomatic relationship with the Xiongnu ethnicity was seen as a dicey affair. Dicier than the current relationship between the U.S and China/Russia/both. There were moments of peace. Then there were moments where history rolled a one for the sake of trolling. This was how a fellow warlord of Cao Cao and Yuan Shao earned his fame. More famously known as General Loong's ex-boss, Gongsun Zan was a much-feared adversary in the eyes of the northern tribes. But not Yuan Shao. Read what Kuok Kah had to say concerning the Yuans and the Wuhuan tribe.

[公虽威震天下,胡恃其远,必不设备。因其无备,卒然击之,可破灭也。且袁绍有恩于民夷,而尚兄弟生存。今四州之民,徒以威附,德施未加,舍而南征,尚因乌丸之资,招其死主之臣,胡人一动,民夷俱应,以生蹋顿之心,成觊觎之计,恐青、冀非己之有也。]

Translate:
Your military might may be very well known now, but the Wuhuan will definitely not set up defences because they are deluded by a false sense of security since they are far away from you. As such, if you seize this opportunity to launch a surprise attack on them, you can eliminate them. Besides, Yuan Shao treated the ethnic minorities well and the Yuan brothers are still alive. Now, the people of the four provinces (i.e. Ji, Qing, You, and Bing) submit to you because they fear your military might, and you've yet to pacify them through benevolent governance. If you abandon the campaign and head south (against Liu Biao) instead, Yuan Shang will be aided by the Wuhuan and rally those previously under their deceased master (i.e. Yuan Shao and possibly Yuan Tan as well). Once the Hu people make their move, both the civilians and other ethnic minorities will answer the call. The ambition of Tadun will be aroused. By then, the region of Qing and Yi will not be ours any longer.

At this point in time, Cao Cao was in a comfortable situation. So comfortable, he's actually planning to attack Liu Biao in order to annex the Jing Province. The Jing Province was known for two things:

1. The fact that the Hokkiens, Teochews, and Cantonese of every Singaporean Chinese came from there.
Correction: The map you'll see below proved me wrong. Apologies for jumping the gun. Fujian isn't part of the Jing Province. It used to be part of Jiangdong.

2. The Jing Province was always a region of strategic value. It's not just Cao Cao. When the Mongols invaded southern Song, guess which was their number one target? Definitely not Lin'an because the capital was not at the Jing Province. But close enough for the likes of Kublai Khan who were quite obviously unrelated to the likes of Sajid Khan or Amir Khan due to ethnicity differences.

Cao Cao's decision to ride all the way to the gateway of Korea wasn't a popular one. The details are written in Pt V, so I'm not gonna copy and paste here.

Ultimately, Kuok Kah's insistence that his boss must pull off the greatest risk pass ever had two reasons.

1. The Wuhuan tribesmen believed Cao Cao wouldn't be coming up that fast. In fact, it's very likely they're assuming Cao Cao would attack the Jing Province first. To be fair, they were nearly correct if that's the case.

2. If Cao Cao decided to annex the Jing Province, he'd most likely take with him a massive army. After all, they're needed to cow Liu Biao into submission. The moment Cao Cao's troops marched south, things would go south for him as a unified army of the Yuans and Wuhuan could easily destabilise the four northern provinces. Most likely this would begin from the You Province and spill over to the provinces of Ji and Qing afterwards, hence Kuok Kah placing more emphasis on these two places. The map is shown below.
I don't own this image. I really don't.

It was a hard battle Cao Cao had to fight. So how hard was it? In order to get the Yuan brothers and their allies, Cao Cao had to move asap across the Ji/Qing and You provinces. Afterwards, the army had to progress beyond the You Province to engage the enemy. This was effectively a race against time. Despite Kuok Kah's accurate analysis concerning the enemy's psychology, it's only a matter of time before they started destabilising the north. Kuok Kah knew this very well. Hence, those words he said below.

[“兵贵神速。今千里袭人,辎重多,难以趣利,且彼闻之,必为备;不如留辎重,轻兵兼道以出,掩其不意。”]

Translate:
Fighting a battle is a matter of speed. Although we are out to attack the enemy from afar, we are carrying too many supplies. Hence, it's hard for us to benefit. At the same time, the enemy will prepare themselves once they hear of our advance. Why not leave behind the supplies and let the light troops move faster in order to catch them off-guard?

It must be stated that at this point in time, Cao Cao had already covered a certain distance. After some web searching, I found out that the region of Yi where Cao Cao took a breather was part of the Ji Province. This meant Cao Cao's progress was quite slow, if not very slow. And there's still the You Province waiting ahead. Which now comes to the interesting question of why Kuok Kah never advocated for a light cavalry approach right from the beginning. The reason could be due to the need for supplies to sustain the entire army. Which means Kuok Kah's strategy was to split the light troops away from the main force rather than one whole army of such units. In warfare, light troops, be they infantry or cavalry, were not meant to fight pitched battles. Their role was to scout, raid, and disrupt the enemy's advance. Therefore, such soldiers were much better suited for terrain warfare where cover, high ground, and rocky paths were meant to protect and hinder. That's why they're called skirmishers. And using a unit of skirmishers to deal with a numerically superior opposition was nothing less than throwing a die hoping to get a six or twenty. But was there any other choice? Kuok Kah's advice could be seen as something done in the name of necessity. In this kind of damned either way scenario, pragmatism would be the intuitive approach causing great/greater/greatest harm. That's why Kuok Kah decided to be counter-intuitive.

As a military man (let alone a stable genius), Cao Cao didn't need people to tell him light cavalry units should never fight a battle on the open field unless horsemanship was part of the ethnic identity. Which in this case would apply to the Wuhuan (or just about any northern tribe). Now it must be stated that Cao Cao still held command over the four northern provinces. What this means was that by passing through the Ji and You provinces to bump off the Yuans and their Wuhuan allies, Cao Cao didn't have to worry much about the enemy so long they didn't move first. At the same time, any flat terrain is never 100% flat. There would be hills here and there providing cover and high ground. And that's where the part on catching the enemy off-guard came. Ideally, the surprise element should come from the high ground since it's arguably way easier for enemies to look straight than to look up. At the same time, a lack of defensive preparations meant the enemy couldn't be bothered to look up anyway. Even if they're to look up (or ahead depending on the situation), a lack of preparation would result in the inability to react.

Also, light troops would always operate in smaller numbers per squad in order to maximise the usage of mobility. In other words, facing a numerically inferior opposition actually threw the numerically superior Wuhuan off-guard. If they decided to scramble and organise, they'd risk getting attacked straightaway because no sane enemy would ever give the opposition breathing space. On the other hand, they were unable to predict who should make the first move and when if they kept staring at the enemy even though there's no Khaleesi there. It's damned if you do and equally damned if you don't. Arsenic or cyanide, pick your poison and kill yourself.

Moral of the story?

It's not so bad getting stuck in a tactical limbo if your soldiers are already well-prepared. For the Wuhuan, they're stuck in a limbo of their own making. To put it in a nutshell, they got no one to blame if their stupidity did them in. Which was exactly what happened. And Kuok Kah predicted they're not the Game and they're that damn dumb.

Friday 26 October 2018

(Not) Taking a break...

Okay, John is NOT taking a break from finishing the last 1-2 posts of his Kuok Kah series. Rather, John decides to continue from where he last left off involving the HR. In other news, difficulty level for raiding instances has been upped. Yes, it's old news. But in case you forgot about it, Valindra Shadowmantle now doesn't do her second round of roulette wheeling that easily. Currently given the ability to do two sequences of necromancy by the devs, you have to navigate the first sequence in order to get her to do the second roulette wheeling. As for the second sequence, it's the same thing as the standard format where the coffins popped up when she's (really) dying last time around. Ironically, navigating the first sequence of the current challenge level means you should have a good chance of dealing with the second sequence if your party happened to be down to 2-3 members so long the tank doesn't die. John isn't joking. He ran Valindra's Tower with his half-orc OP tank (i.e. Oath of Protection+Justice) last week. 3 members went down, only 1 SW and Bhaasmond Taran were left standing (seemed like her claw swipe has greater one-shot potential now. Either that or John hasn't been playing VT that often lately). It took a moment of rez from the SW and plenty of lag (apparently, double refinement stones event does cause some moments of instance server overload), but the party pulled through. Tough fight for some, but more of a prolonged attrition plus a few moments of either getting grabbed or saving the SW from getting grabbed to death. If there's anything truly annoying about fighting Valindra currently. it'd be her instant AP drain. John is pretty sure she was capable of doing that all along, just that she's now doing more frequently. Something like opening cans of spam instead of just one or two of those. Ultimately, it's the job of the tank to get AP drained while the ranged members (especially the DC) should be spamming either mass-buff or single-target damage dailies non-stop.

Mask and Leira (i.e. 23rd Oct to 6th Nov)
It's been quite a mayhem leading up to 6th Nov. Beyond the border, fears of Trump doing a Priebus block on Putin remains very real. At home, it truly sucks to be a swing voter right now. Evidence here. Or maybe not depending on how cynical the average swing voter currently is (i.e. the whole "We're screwed by the far left-alt right political divide anyway" logic). No matter where and how you see it, Mask and Leira are pulling the strings with Cyric watching the show. As for Kelemvor and Mystra, it's a case of 404.

Let's not dwell on the bad things. After all, there's still tomorrow if we really want to worry about the sanity of reality ever since the rise of the Akkadian Empire. But if you really want to be reminded why the world is so screwed up today, just click this.

Back to Faerûn minus the likes of Erevis Cale and Elaith Craulnober. For two weeks, the Liars event would be back. Actually, it's already back. So how does John rate this version of political festival? The stuff you can get from the event store got upped quality wise. By now, everybody should know the active comp bonus for that wandering strawman got upped. Originally a crappy +105 for armour penetration and recovery, it's now +400. So yes, it's definitely worth two weeks of grinding. Then you have the empowered version of Leira's fave headgear. But that'd be expensive. Very expensive. If there's a space in your character bank slot, you may want to save it for your current Leira's mask so that you can try farming 1K Masquerade Tokens next year. The stats are quite good if you want to gear up your fave alt. BiS for many TR builds if you're to ask John.

As for the witch stick comp, it's definitely a far better buy than the green Skeletor himself. 600 Masquerade Tokens should be nothing to you if you want to get a good green companion for a crit-based toon. In fact, John already bought one for his SW alt. Which means Kariss Locras' comp list looks like this below:

Bear Cub (Rare)
Dancing Blade (Epic)
Wandering Scarecrow (Rare)
Splinters (Uncommon)
Fire Archon (Uncommon)

Summoned comp: Bear Cub
SW paragon tree: Hellbringer damnlock (for solo); Hellbringer templock (for raiding)

All that's left is the epic broom mount. John's half-orc OP needs more power. The 2K mount bonus would do nicely. Thankfully, the crit has gotten way above 50%. Like around 60% due to a maxed out Force of Will feat. Hopefully, John's TR can get the job done by tomorrow or the day after.

A word of apology
It was an honest mistake, John swears. For this year, you got a contest. Choose your team out of the three available. You have Johnny Blaze hiding his flaming head with Jack O'Lantern's helmet after pwning him big time. Then you have Groot from Yishun who recently outed himself as an admirer of Zechs Merquise. Because John never read the guild MotD, he chose the nearest thing to Tallgeese Mk III.
Okay, Groot has yet to become 100% Tallgeese Mk III.

So what about John's guild? Apparently, Vrae (i.e. his guild boss) decided that Lilibet Olsen should be the team boss.

To be honest, John doesn't mind Tallgeese Mk III losing to Lilibet Olsen this year. Not because of her looks or this, but because the prizes on display are effectively a case of cosmetic bonus. But it'd be nice to see a Tallgeese Mk III army. After all, we already got Warhammer 40K.

Fun fact: The guy voicing Dude Wonder Kershner in Sirius the Jaeger was the same guy voicing Zechs Merquise. His name? Emperor Yasuhito.

Combat HR and Emiya Kiritsugu
Emiya Kiritsugu was the main character of Fate/Zero. What this means is:
1. He didn't die at the end unless you want to count in his last words to Shirou.

2. The reason why being that Urobutcher Gen couldn't do a thing due to his BFF (i.e. Magic Kinoko) already setting the story for Fate/stay night below.
Seriously, do you believe Urobutcher Gen would let Kiritsugu live if he has the absolute say?

3. He is what the combat HR should be in the first place. More specifically the strategist of the party. This is due to the tactician spot taken up by the GF.

John believes he's said this before. If not, allow him to repeat his view again: Come next mod, HR will have a much better buffing game. Instead of the crappy 50% post-first rank system invented by Kotomine Kirei, Nov 6 will see a buffer class across all three paragon trees. This is NOT to say every HR would be an Emiya Kiritsugu. If you're going with archery, chances are that you can actually opt for a more dps'y choice. If it's trapper, damage bonus at max rank+max stacks means it's more viable to do a dps'y build. That'd shaft the buffing/debuffing aspect unless you're going with Aspect of the Serpent and Crushing Roots (very likely the favoured choice come next mod).

The equation for playing a combat HR for any given raid is very simple so far: If you want to play dps, go with Marauder's Rush. It's a high risk-high reward approach, something which Jeff Hardy would always do especially if it's TLC, Dudley Boyz or no Dudley Boyz. However, you'd need Oak Skin to prevent yourself from dying. And therein lies the problem: Apparently, it seemed that Oak Skin won't give you damage resistance buff when November arrives and every adventurer must win the heart of Khaleesi herself. Okay, that's a lie. As if it's really so easy to change the relationship status of Emilia 404.

But Oak Skin getting brutally shafted should be for real. If there's any substitute, that'd be the Calydonian Boar Hide. That's the most brutal nerf job John has ever seen as a HR gamer. While it should still be theoretically possible to use Oak Skin as a melee HR for next mod, John wouldn't be surprised if that'd be more of a trapper move (unless you want to waste two encounter slots on Oak Skin and Boar Hide. Which tbh would be a dumb move unless you want to do the melee version of a templock).

Now it must be stated that the paragon mechanics for the HR can be very different from each other. Stormwarden is more towards the dps (which might explain why the person inventing Stormstep Action for this game was 120% out of the loop) while Pathfinder is more towards the debuff (hence, explaining why this paragon class is more defensive and utility-based). For now, pathfinders are harder to use since you can easily spam Clear the Ground if you're a stormwarden. For the next mod, John suspects pathfinders will make a comeback due to Primal Instincts. Because pathfinder combat HR tend to have very little options on the dps end, it's a no-brainer that many combat HR prefer stormwarden. Including John, but that's because being a dual-wielding ranger commanding the destructive force of nature sounded cool.

With Primal Instincts and the devs deciding to set right the buffing aspect of the HR gameplay, pathfinder combat HR should be much easier to use. Just slot Primal Instincts and use Hawkeye/Boar Hide. If you're running with Hawkeye, then using Pathfinder's Action as the other class feature should help a lot due to the run speed bonus (and that's not taking into account 5 points into Fleet Stance). So should you throw in 5 more points into Slasher's Speed? Unless you're not running on rank 3 Vampiric Grace boon, John would say save it. But if you want to play it risky, then it's worth a shot at the expense of Wilds Med. Whatever you do, don't trade away Skirmisher's Gambit unless you want to screw up your dps (either that or you're going for an arpen-power build). At the end of the day, you'd still want to strike balance between buffing and proc'ing Flurry.

If you're running with Boar Hide, then you can either go all out with Pathfinder's Action and Aspect of the Pack (just remember to switch on the off-hand artifact weapon power for the latter due to the 8% max damage bonus) or the aforementioned Primal Instincts and Pathfinder's Action combination.

So does this mean the stormwarden is no longer the Han Solo of Feywild? After all, the dps got nerfed. At least sort of. Now it must be pointed out that Bladestorm dps got upped. At max rank, you get 20% chance to proc. This is 5% less, but the nuking got buffed. From the current 20%, The Heart of Fire and Blood will give you a whopping 40% nuke damage instead of the current 20%. But there's a trade-off. After all, nerfing is effectively the art of balance. In stock market speak, economists call it a correction rather than a collapse. John is not saying Bladestorm got nerfed. Rather, the off-hand artifact weapon power got nerfed. Originally done at 45% damage bonus on proc, it's now only 10%. Once you do the maths, you realised that the next mod will give you 50% damage bonus in total (40%+10%=50%). Compare this to the current one and you get 65% damage bonus in total (20%+45%=65%). So yes, it's really a nerf. But unless you get really lucky (or unlucky depending on how you see it), chances are that you won't get to score that 50% damage bonus. In other words, it's more practical to opt for either Aspect of the Pack or Twin-Blade Storm when it comes to the off-hand artifact weapon power. That is if you're out to max the dps. Which means overall wise, the stormwarden got nerfed in terms of the dps cap. This is to balance the gameplay as the buffing aspect will be hitting top gear (minus J.Clark and his Jaguar XKR-S).

Which now comes to the wild card of every dps stormwarden, combat spec included: Stormstep Action. Will it be the accidental Special One or every stormwarden's Ferrari F430 Speciale (not in John's own words, but J.Clark's)? The cooldown system got reworked, but only time will tell whether this would be a Real Madrid or the current Manchester Utd (sans the Ferrari F430 Speciale). If you're out to use Stormstep Action with Bladestorm, next mod will be the perfect moment to prove whether you're just another archer or Archer himself. In other words, John is referring to Forest Ghost and the Caladbolg Mk II also known as Seismic Shot. Going by the maths, Forest Ghost give you a 2.5 sec cooldown reduction while Disruptive Shot should give 1.25 sec instead. Again, only time will tell whether the maths would end up at the same place as communism (i.e. nice in theory, but worth the square root of sod all in reality as proven by China's rise in power and Kim Jong-un's desire to emulate Deng Xiaoping). Either way, go for every AP gain and recovery boon if you want to have a go at a Stormstep Action-Bladestorm combination. Unless it's the third boon for Elemental Evil where it's a choice between critical and recovery.

P.S: This is NOT to say Oak Skin will be 100% useless for the next mod. You still can make it work, but strictly for solo loadouts due to an effective synergy with Wilds Med, Planar Vitality, and Rousing Warmth. It's just that John doesn't see it as raid-friendly as there are better options. Not the least Boar Hide.

Add P.S: The debuff dept should be quite okay. So far, it's doing fine. Even though Thorn Ward now gives away damage to other party members instead of benefitting the HR's dps.

Final P.S: Just use Hawkeye if your combat HR wants to be more useful for the next mod. No one ever said Emiya Kiritsugu was the typical Rambo or Wonder Woman you see so often in Hollywood. So long you can chuck out either a Thorn Ward or Split the Sky, it shouldn't be a problem. Just make sure you opt for two damaging encounter powers in order to balance things out. Be smart, be like Batman.

Friday 19 October 2018

#yolo because #yodo Pt V

Okay, I believe I've gone too #yolo on the f-word memes of late. 2-3 posts in a row pulling it off means I need to cut down on the steam. Yes, my blog isn't safe for kids (if you still don't know it by now, please don't blame me if your son and/or daughter goes to jail without passing Go 10 years from now). But it doesn't mean I should make a cup of hot coffee out of it. At the same time, for some funny reason, the hashtag symbol has become a £ whenever I press Shift-3. Something's not right. In other news, I'm planning to throw the die. After all, I've got nothing to lose, unlike my fellow Singaporeans.


Kuok Kah's Top Stable Genius Moments 3: Analysis is a form of science.
Let me be blunt here: Magic is anti-science. Simply put, you can't use science to explain how magic works. At the same time, usage of magic means using a method that goes against science. Analysis, on the other hand, is a form of science.

Long story short, Yuan Shao was finally defeated at the Battle of Guandu. However, there's a problem: Yuan Shao's three sons. Namely, Yuan Tan, Yuan Xi, and Yuan Shang in the proper traditional order.

This isn't magic. This is analysis, a form of science. When you analyse a situation, you can't do it as if you're Harry Potter or Hermoine Granger. Yes, you can afford to control birds and beasts to be your eyes. I've read stuff from R.A Salvatore and that's what he did for Pikel Bouldershoulder. But when it comes to seeing and knowing, you have to understand the structure of the situation. This is not something magic can give you. You need a scientific approach to know which parts of the structure are moving and which parts are not in order to predict the next step. In other words, any situation is a structure waiting to be understood and utilised. If you think magic is everything, then those without talent should just die. Like what Jiraiya said below.

Seriously, magic without brains is like brawn without brains.


Lyrics


Seriously, I don't spend 100% of my time on stuff like Berserk, Attack of the Titans, and Akame ga Kill! where people are jerks, magic or no magic.

When we talk about karma being a bitch, you don't have to believe in it. But when I say history is the alpha bitch, you better believe me. History isn't so much a case of his story, but rather a real-life story involving humanity. It doesn't matter whether we're liberals or conservatives, Wiccans or Christians. We're often too dumb to learn from lessons of the past.

The same went for Yuan Shao. Now it must be stated that shortly after the Battle of Guandu, Yuan Shao died. However, he left behind a problem. In ancient China, favouring the younger son was a taboo. We're talking about a dumb mistake done by more than just one person in the 24 history textbooks of China.

During the Han dynasty, Liu Bang pulled off this dumb move. As the result, it created political chaos through Empress Dowager Lu's ruthlessness. When Sun Quan decided to do the same thing, history became the alpha bitch. Even Cao Cao's family wasn't spared from this nonsense due to Cao Pi's ruthless streak (to be fair, the son was worse than the father when it came to being an iron-fisted jerk). Most notably against his youngest brother Cao Zhi which resulted in the most famous poem involving beans, a cooking pot, and why schadenfreude shouldn't exist among brothers. Not to mention every Christian's favourite number as well. As for the current era, we have Oxleygate in our backyard. In the backyard of our ex-boss, we have the feud between the prince from somewhere down south and the prince from somewhere up north.

Yuan Shao favoured his third son Yuan Shang. While Yuan Xi most likely had no issues with it, Yuan Tan was understandably incensed. And this was when Cao Cao's generals decided to call for a follow-up attack on the Super Yuan Bros. After all, the friend of my enemy is my enemy and the enemy of my enemy is my friend (note: This statement is intended to inform all of us how murky politics can be most of the time).

Kuok Kah advised against this move for a good reason.
[“袁绍爱此二子,莫适立也。有郭图、逢纪为之谋臣,必交斗其间,还相离也。急之则相持,缓之而后争心生。不如南向荆州若征刘表者,以待其变;变成而后击之,可一举定也。”]

Translate:
["Yuan Shao loved these two sons of his (i.e. Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang) while never deciding who should be his heir. With Guo Tu and Pang Ji as their advisers, they will surely fight and scheme against each other. If we decide to up the offensive, they will be forced to unite. If we slow ourselves down, one will turn on the other. Why not we turn south towards the Jing Province as if we're preparing to attack Liu Biao in order to observe the situation? Once the opportunity presents itself, we can strike and success will be ours."]

Now it must be stated that when Kuok Kah made this advice, a few things must be noted.

1. In his Thesis of Ten Victories and Defeats, Kuok Kah pointed out the kind of advisers Yuan Shao was comfortable with. When you have talented people talking cock and slandering their betters, it doesn't matter where they get their degrees from. So no, it's not karma's fault. Either blame Yuan Shao for being stupid or Kuok Kah for being a stable genius.

2. Prior to Kuok Kah's statement of foresight, Cao Cao actually carried on from where he last left off. Namely, pressing home the offensive against the remnants of the Yuan faction. More specifically at Liyang. And yes, Cao Cao was ever full of win.
[从破袁绍,绍死,又从讨谭、尚于黎阳,连战数克。]

3. What this means was that Yuan Tan and Yuan Shang didn't even have the time to stage their own battle royal. Which was why Kuok Kah told his boss to cool it so that implosion would be possible. In fact, the victory at Liyang most likely resulted in the enemy's retreat more than a kanzen shouri.

No magic was involved in the process of analysis. Kuok Kah saw the situation as a structure comprising of different parts. By joining the dots and connecting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, he knew which parts were moving and which ones were not.

The moving parts were Yuan Tan, Yuan Shang, Guo Tu, and Pang Ji. The reason why being that whatever movement coming from the feuding factions would push them into either an implosion or a weakened state waiting to be picked off.

When it came to the parts not moving, we got the Jing Province and Liu Biao. The reason why being Liu Biao's indecisive nature and the fact that Kuok Kah was calling for a decoy approach (i.e. any show of trying to invade the Jing Province was meant to bluff the Yuan faction into complacency and implosion).

Which now comes to the most problematic part of Kuok Kah's advice; What if nothing happened? The answer is very simple. Just attack the Jing Province. In this case, what was originally intended as the decoy would become the real deal. To understand the importance of the Jing Province, one only needs to understand why the U.S and China have been so obsessed with South East Asia. In fact, it's the same reason why Moon Jae-in has been putting in more diplomatic efforts in the region as well. If you control South East Asia, you can control more than just one-third of a continent. Australia will be forced to be your friend while India will have to make certain decisions. If you control the Jing Province, you can make further inroads either to the west into the Yi Province or the east into Jiangdong. In fact, the number one priority during the Mongol invasion against the Southern Song dynasty was none other than the Jing Province. Incidentally, this was also where the early Chinese migrants hailed from if we're talking about our very own Singapore itself.

So did Kuok Kah's brand of science work? Definitely, Scarily enough, the Yuan brothers soon started devouring each other over the control of the Ji Province. Yuan Tan was defeated by Yuan Shang, hence justifying Yuan Shao's decision to favour his number 3 instead of the firstborn son. Yuan Tan had no choice but to send his adviser Xing Pi to seek protection from Cao Cao (i.e. waving the white flag). Cao Cao responded by bailing out Yuan Tan's backside and moved to the region of Ye where it'd be easier for him to supervise the situation up north. Yuan Tan apparently couldn't be trusted, thus Cao Cao whooped his backside at Nanpi after saving it in the first place. The Ji Province was finally Cao Cao's and Kuok Kah was made the Marquis of Weiyang which was a big deal. It's like getting knighted by the royal granny herself.
[军至西平,谭、尚果争冀州。谭为尚军所败,走保平原,遣辛毗乞降。太祖还救之,遂从定邺。又从攻谭于南皮,冀州平。封嘉洧阳亭侯。]

At the same time, Kuok Kah didn't just stop at there. In an era of turmoil, getting capable people to work for you is a must. It doesn't matter whether you're Lincoln or Jefferson so long you can get a Robert E. Lee or William Sherman. Like every great leader, Cao Cao knew this logic. Like every stable genius, Kuok Kah advised Cao Cao to hire capable people of repute from the provinces of Qing, Ji, You, and Bing. Regions previously under the Yuan faction. Not for military purposes but for running the daily affairs serving the people. This was recorded in Fuzi.
[河北既平,太祖多辟召青、冀、幽、并知名之士,渐臣使之,以为省事掾属。皆嘉之谋也。]

Kuok Kah's Top Stable Genius Moments 3.5: Seriously, is my boss a ****ing moron?
Of course not! Did Cao Cao look like a ****ing moron to you? But there's a hiccup as recorded the Book of Wei.
[刘备来奔,以为豫州牧。或谓太祖曰:“备有英雄志,今不早图,后必为患。”
太祖以问嘉,嘉曰:“有是。然公提剑起义兵,为百姓除暴,推诚仗信以招俊杰,犹惧其未也。今备有英雄名,以穷归己而害之,是以害贤为名,则智士将自疑,回心择主,公谁与定天下?夫除一人之患,以沮四海之望,安危之机,不可不察!”
太祖笑曰:“君得之矣。”]

Translate:
When Liu Bei arrived to pledge his cause to Cao Cao, he was made the governor of Yu Province. Taizu (i,e. Cao Cao) was advised: "Liu Bei has the ambition of a hero. If you don't eliminate him now, he'll become a threat to you in the future."

Taize sought Guo Jia's counsel and Guo Jia answered: "That's true. However, when you raised an army in the name of righteousness and pledged to help the common people eliminate tyrants, you attracted talented and capable people to serve under you based on your sincerity and integrity. Liu Bei is known to be a hero, so if you kill him when he comes to serve you, you will be viewed as someone who harms men of virtue. Other talented persons will start to doubt you and may even change their minds about serving you. If that happens, who will help you achieve your goals? Therefore, it's imperative that you carefully consider the consequences of ruining your good reputation for the sake of eliminating one man who poses a threat to you."
Taizu laughed and said: "I understand."

But Fuzi had a seemingly different account.
[初,刘备来降,太祖以客礼待之,使为豫州牧。嘉言于太祖曰:“备有雄才而甚得众心。张飞、关羽者,皆万人之敌也,为之死用。嘉观之,备终不为人下,其谋未可测也。古人有言:'一日纵敌,数世之患。'宜早为之所。”
是时,太祖奉天子以号令天下,方招怀英雄以明大信,未得从嘉谋。会太祖使备要击袁术,嘉与程昱俱驾而谏太祖曰:“放备,变作矣!”
时备已去,遂举兵以叛。太祖恨不用嘉之言。]

Translate:
In the beginning, when Liu Bei surrendered, Taizu treated him as a guest and made him the governor of Yu Province. Guo Jia said to Taizu: "Liu Bei has great ambitions and has won the hearts of many people. Zhang Fei and Guan Yu are formidable fighters and they have pledged to serve him with their lives. From what I observe, Liu Bei will never truly submit to anyone, and his intentions are unclear. The people in the past once said, 'If you let the enemy off today, they will become a threat to you for a long time.' You should settle (Liu Bei) soon."

At the time, Cao Cao was using Emperor Xian as a figurehead to command respect and had attracted many heroes to serve under him so he did not heed Guo Jia's advice. When Cao Cao later sent Liu Bei with an army to attack Yuan Shu, Guo Jia and Cheng Yu warned Cao, "Liu Bei will rebel if you let him go!"
By then, Liu Bei had already left and he really did rebel against Cao Cao as he later seized control of Xu Province from Che Zhou, the provincial governor appointed by Cao Cao. Cao Cao regretted not following Guo Jia's advice.

Pei Songzhi never stated which version read like something done by The Christian Science Monitor and which version read like something done by InfoWars. But what if both were the two sides of the same coin? Credit goes to Prof Yi Zhongtian even though he's known to be overly dramatic and prideful at times.

Although to be fair and honest, his view actually came from Zhou Zexiong. Prof Yi said so himself as well.

Interestingly, the account of Fuzi was pro-Guo Jia once you read closer. Therefore, it's very easy to believe in the Book of Wei while dismissing Fuzi's version of this event. Yet, Cheng Yu's account actually supported Fuzi.
[后又遣备至徐州要击袁术,昱与郭嘉说太祖曰:“公前日不图备,昱等诚不及也。今借之以兵,必有异心。”]

Translate:
When sending Liu Bei to the Xu Province to attack Yuan Shu, Cheng Yu and Guo Jia told Taizu: "It's arguable you turned down our suggestion to kill Liu Bei earlier, but it's a certainty that he will betray you if lent a force."

While Cheng Yu's account said "our suggestion", the original text was pointing at those who agree with Cheng Yu's suggestion to bump off Liu Bei. [...昱等诚不及也。] At the same time, Cheng Yu was known to be an abrasive person capable of starting a fight with just about anyone from those with a Higher Nitec to Li Shengwu who happened to have a Harvard university degree. But did he start a fight with Kuok Kah?

Zhou Zexiong's interpretation of the event hinges on the phrase "You should settle (Liu Bei) soon". [...宜早为之所。] This would corroborate perfectly with what was written in Cheng Yu's account. While Cao Cao was no ****ing moron, it's clear that he misinterpreted Kuok Kah's advise to keep Liu Bei under 24/7 surveillance as something more merciful. Ever wondered whether there's anything in common between Abraham Lincoln and ethnic minorities in the U.S?

To be cont'd...

Next up: Seriously, this is dragging on for too long. Hopefully, I only need two more posts to end it. The whole thing is getting ridiculous.

Monday 15 October 2018

Taking a break...

No, not from this blog. John L'Otter has no intention to sing MJ's Beat It and really beat it. Rather, he's taking a break from breaking his character. If there's any reason Kuok Kah is taking a break (?!?), it's because John decided to do a post on Neverwinter Online here. So yeah, you'll see Kuok Kah coming back. Very soon. After all, there are still two more parts. Namely, Cao Cao's campaign against the Yuan-Wuhuan alliance and Kuok Kah's relevance to Cao Cao's cause despite the number of talented people surrounding Cao Cao being too damn high. [“军祭酒郭嘉,自从征伐,十有一年。每有大议,临敌制变。臣策未决,嘉辄成之。平定天下,谋功为高。不幸短命,事业未终。追思嘉勋,实不可忘。可增邑八百户,并前千户。”]

At the same time, John hoped to include a moment of hiccup from that stable genius. Not Kuok Kah, but Cao Cao. Letting go of Liu Bei was the dumbest moment of Cao Cao's life as a stable genius. It's like the Republicans legally selling the Senate despite retaining the Reps. Don't laugh, the GOP actually legally sold their property before. Don't believe John, go ask the folks at Alabama and Pennsylvania. Just don't ask John whether someone will be playing golf with Trump and chugging Steveweiser after November 6th. After all, many people like beer. Not just Brett Kavanaugh. Just ask the patrons of the Butter Factory before its 99-year lease status expired. Oh, and speaking of Steveweiser...


What this post will be all about?
In John's final lap in Barovia, he pointed out certain things about the Hunter Ranger concerning the next mod. Among other things, he will be elaborating on what to expect where every HR is concerned. At the same time, John may be touching on the tweaks involving some other classes (note that John doesn't have an empty slot for a Guardian Fighter). Come to think of it, should John start creating his own video game design apart from A Requiem From Winter Past? After all, no one should ever accuse a talking/typing otter of corrupting others if people can/can't be bothered with the ESRB.

Actually, John believes we're already corrupted enough. Psycho-Pass has never been more real, all that's left is Kogami Shinya. Thankfully, we don't need Makishima Shogo to prove a point. one Kogami is more than enough.






Come to think of it, Psycho-Pass might have (accidentally) endorsed the theology of original sin. Maybe that's why Kogami and Makishima were similar individuals. Wonder if John can pull this off on Edeaux de Serpentwine.



A block of text before John starts it...
"Many have tried and failed. The previous group was more fortunate. Alas, they only succeeded in repelling the devil with their lives intact."

Before dry words uttered by Madame Eva, Arylos chose to maintain the gridlock between his amber eyes and her aged gaze.

"You forgot they rescued Ireena," said Myrreas, his quip earning incredulous looks from Cyrea and Sheallyn while Kariss chuckled in return.

"Myrreas, we need her to..."

"I won't be the one causing his downfall," said Madame Eva, her composure interrupting Sheallyn's worried tone. "Neither will it be anyone in Barovia."

"Not even that most beautiful Ezmerelda?"

"Stop it, Myrreas. Or I'll shut your mouth for you."

Shrugging in Bhaasmond's face, the human rogue drew the portrait of a snickering man. The half-orc felt like strangling him, half of himself cursing the Night Terror for not claiming this impudent knave. Tymora must be out of her mind, concluded the Tormite paladin.

"The cards played a trick on me," Madame Eva said in a grave tone, her visage equally sombre. "It wasn't the previous party. Someone was instigating this, an entity totally different from those at work above Barovia."

"Who is that entity?"

Entertaining Cyrea's question, the wisest of Vistani pointed to Arylos.

"His god. The card Madame Eva drew was The Tempter, that which symbolises the monster Strahd."

"Oh, hello there. Here to share any information?"

Ignoring Myrreas' greeting, Ezmerelda d'Avenir gave a slight bow. Not to Madame Eva but Arylos. Jealousy surged within Cyrea despite the sun elf understanding that there's nothing going on between them. As for the wood elf whom others hailed as the Left Hand of Kelemvor, the Barovian's show of respect wasn't enough of a distraction.

"There was a rogue in the only party surviving Castle Ravenloft. We assumed it's her," said the monster hunter of highest renown, the sight of Arylos ever reminding the Vistani of her mentor. He and Rudolph van Richten were two sides of the same coin. Not just any coin but one minted in true Barovian fashion.

"The Tempter... you may not be one yourself, brave ranger of Kelemvor. But fate has decreed for you and Barovia two things. The first was your arrival. The second was to be you and Strahd being similar souls in different worlds."

Madame Eva's revelation shocked everyone apart from Ezmerelda and Arylos. Vikov Ulrich was right. Here there's a person whom Strahd was wary of. Before every Barovian, man and woman, child and the elderly, Arylos was given the offer to be his seneschal. If Strahd was merely toying with everybody who cared to listen, he wouldn't have erected the facade of a serious lord. Unless it was no mask at all.

Some notes on why the HR has a history of losing it like the UKIP
Okay, it's very likely that the devs will give one free respec token for the powers. Wait, make that two since we're talking about two loadouts instead of just one. If you're playing a HR now, should you be ditching it in favour of other alternatives? It's like someone asking whether he/she should ditch The Christian Science Monitor in favour of BBC, auto-resolve or no auto-resolve.

Now it must be stated that before the day of mid-term elections and Deepavali (hopefully, Kali doesn't come out killing vandals 4 teh lolz), the HR is viewed as one kind of player: Those who are either dumb enough or crazy enough.

When it comes to melee dps, the GWF bosses it with the signature ドラゴンころし. That plus the fact that combat HR sucks in closing in. Compared to the other two melee dps classes, the other being thr TR.

When it comes to ranged dps, the insanely long distance needed to maintain the 25% critical hit bonus for Stillness of the Forest means you're forever alone outside the buffing zone unless it's Terrifying Insight.

If you're a trapper, you'll need to be technical. But because dps is all about striking a balance between pace and amount, the only way to deal decently high damage would be Aspect of the Serpent+Marauder's Rush and Plant Growth. More specifically, you're most likely stuck with Marauder's Escape/Rush, Constricting Arrow/Steel Breeze, and Cordon of Arrows/Plant Growth. With the snake aspect ofc.

Debuff wise, only two moves work the best beyond Crushing Roots. Either Thorn Ward or Split the Sky. In fact, you really have to use either if you're doing a combat HR. Thorn Ward does give out damage to the rest of the party, though. Talk about an effective welfare system...

Buffing wise, that's the worst part. Originally intended as an effective way to make the HR as a tactically versatile class (especially the combat ones), it went terribly flat.
This shouldn't be what the HR buffing game looks like.

So how many mods did it take?
Too much has been said about the HR's lack of offensive firepower and too little has been said about how badly the buffing game slipped and failed.

John won't say next mod will give the HR more dps firepower. But the buffing game will surely give this much-discriminated class some major justice. In fact, the reason why players are complaining over the changes was that they saw the HR is primarily dps. Once you start seeing things from the support POV, then you may not want to switch classes that fast. At least not until the devs screw it up.

If you're going archery, you may want to consider Boar Hide. However, there's a problem. Going by the changes converting deflection to damage resistance, it's very likely that when the tooltip says "taking damage", it means those being buffed. Previously, the stacks will only be removed by X where X is the number of times you get hit. Let's be real here: If all it takes for the damage resistance stack to be removed is for yourself ONLY to get hit, then anyone can be Gakui's boyfriend (in case you don't know who is Gakui...). Now it must be stated that the term nearby can be very misleading so all John can tell you is that the range should be around 15-20 feet within eyeshot. Tank buffing wise, it's worth the value of Merseyside housing in J.Clark's own words. But for the ranged dps, it can be a lifesaver. For every and any Devoted Cleric, this is the best third party insurance available. Hopefully, this doesn't result in a screw up involving Prophetic Action.

Beyond gearing the party with the Calydonian Boar hide, the dps seemed to be upped. Not directly, but rather it seemed that using archery for next mod requires more tactical awareness and less brawn. If this works, it means there will be fewer players mocking dps players as dumb and button clickers. The mainstay for dps (for raiding, that is) should be Stillness of the Forest and Predator. If my interpretation is right, Predator should give you a 40% damage bonus for the entire 10 seconds' worth of duration while the 20% only applies to non-Prey targets on the first strike basis. Stillness of the Forest is the tactical part that will either tank like a Tankyrgios or come out on top of any dps argument. The crit got nerfed to 15%, but you got a damage buff at 15% as a tradeoff. Only time will tell whether the devs messed this up, but this guarantees the archery HR one thing: Whenever someone does an offensive party buff, your toon will no longer be forever alone. This is very important if we're talking about Hallowed Ground (i.e. the number one reason why archery HRs get screwed so far). The tricky part lies in the positioning. You'll need to stay put as long as possible, so try standing within the same firing zone as the rest. If possible, stand behind 2 party members with the DC being the last person behind.

You'll need Hasty Retreat for next mod. The reason why being that it's now very useful both in open-world and raiding. The former can be a lifesaver (especially in Barovia and Chult+Omu where the number of mobile mooks is too damn high) while the latter will play a large part in readjusting your positioning in case things don't look good.

Bottomless Quiver is also a must, no matter whether you're gunning for pure hdps or buff-dps hybrid. 

If you're running as a pathfinder, use Ambush to max out the damage. If you're running as a buff-dps hybrid, use the Calydonian Boar buff.

Stance switching will be less advisable than right now. The reason why being that you'll need to maintain the dps momentum and attempting something like Agile Combatant isn't the best way to display how much a stable genius you are. Forget about Fox's Cunning. That one is for trappers.

Changes to Stillness of the Forest means you can afford to point-blank fire from behind so long you stay put as long as possible. What this means is that Scoundrel's Training should be more feasible. As a form of insurance, use the Calydonian Boar. You'll need it. Especially in epic Temple of the Spider where that once and future mutant is concerned.

AoE attack wise, it's still advisable for you to slot either Split the Sky (if you're a stormwarden) or Thorn Ward (if you're a pathfinder). This leaves one more slot provided the first one belongs to the Calydonian Boar. John strongly advises against Longstrider's Shot. That one is bound to screw Stillness of the Forest unless you can gauge accurately the distance so that Hallowed Ground won't leave you forever alone. Best bet, no matter how you see it, should be Commanding Shot. John suspects this will be the number one dps encounter for 99% of the archery HRs.

Note: If you don't want to use Thorn Ward due to a preference for Ambush, then at least use Split Shot as your staple at-will.

Conclusion for archery HRs:
This tree is definitely easier for players to choose between pure dps and buff-dps. For the former, John recommends Aspect of the Pack and Aspect of the Lone Wolf with the off-hand artifact power set at the former. 8% damage bonus+combat advantage+Stillness of the Forest=massive dps on a lower budget.

If you're a pathfinder, you may want to consider Aspect of the Pack with Primal Instincts if you want to opt for a buff-dps hybrid. Remember the Calydonian Boar. It can be your BFF when used with Bottomless Quiver and Primal Instincts.

If you want to use a stormwarden class feature, use either Twin-Blade Storm or Stormstep Action. The latter has undergone an effective Korean modification (not that every Korean has been modded). If J.Clark is a Neverwinter gamer, he'd have assumed whoever coming up with the idea of how Stormstep Action should work must have been from Liverpool. In reality, Stormstep Action is a cool power to have. Imagine stabbing that dumb ogre and teleporting away afterwards. Sounds like Nightcrawler, but definitely way cooler than a puff of brimstone smoke. Right now, the cooldown reduction has been fixed. At least on paper, that is.

Next up under this label: John will be elaborating more on the combat HR and details on why this build may be more raid friendly. Appreciating the quality of any end-game build is like understanding the beauty of a lady is never about whether her figure mirrors that of Narita Airport (John learnt that via a comment in the Hardwarezone forums).

Apparently, the future of HR buffing game looks as beautiful as Gakui. Wait, is that even an appropriate comparison?

Saturday 13 October 2018

#yolo because #yodo Pt IV

Okay, I've got a good idea on how to end the Kuok Kah series. It's gonna run till Pt V for a reason. This part will focus on Kuok Kah's Top Stable Genius moments. Actually, it's every moment of awesome stable genius written by the man himself. Now before I continue...

Romance of Three Kingdoms was meant to be #fakenews
When I say the man himself, I'm referring to Chen Shou instead of Luo Guanzhong. To understand the difference between the two, let me show you all this chart below.

I'll be brutally honest here. Comparing Chen Shou's Record of Three Kingdoms with Luo Guanzhong's Romance of Three Kingdoms is like comparing any of the names in the green box with those in the orange box, if not the red one. It doesn't matter whether it's InfoWars or Occupy Democrats in the crate of apples, neither does it matter whether it's Daily Kos or Drudge Report in the box of oranges. Just go for the likes of BBC, The Christian Science Monitor, Bloomberg, and Wall Street Journal.

Why I say this is very simple: The difference between one RoTK and the other lies in how much being written was real. This is the reason why people are still stupid enough to call Liu Bei the good guy while at the same time too dumb to understand Cao Cao's contributions to his era.

Oh, and speaking of BBC, someone forgot to disable auto-resolve.




Kuok Kah's Top Stable Genius Moments 1: How to defeat terrorists
Like how the number one target for this year's Nov 6th is the Senate, Cao Cao's number one target was to be Lu Bu. At that time, Gongsun Zan was already annihilated by Yuan Shao. Therefore, the intuitive view should be "Lu Bu, you're next and I'm gonna take your Diao Chan!" It's like assuming Al-Qaeda would come and save ISIS when the Shia brigade attacked Mosul. But so did Hamza send aid? Apparently, nothing came out from Hamza bin Laden's mouth. ISIS (most likely) left hanging dry could be seen as a moment of counter-intuitive truth, but so was the possibility of Lu Bu allying himself with Yuan Shao instead of Yuan Shao attacking the baddest turncoat of his time. To elaborate on this statement, let's take a look at the people whom he turned against.

1. Ding Yuan. This guy was his foster father. Didn't prevent Lu Bu from accepting Dong Zhuo's bribes.
Outcome: Dong Zhuo bribed Lu Bu, Ding Yuan died.

2. Dong Zhuo. This guy became his second foster father. Or something like that. The fact that he's cruel, perverted, and a rapist didn't repulse Lu Bu.
Outcome: Wang Yun manipulated the situation because the two never trusted each other. At least not fully. Dong Zhuo died.

3. Liu Bei. This guy didn't die. In fact, he's way smarter than the two Ds if you're to ask me. This was also why Cao Cao stated that Liu Bei and himself were the two greatest heroes alive. ["天下英雄,唯使君与操耳。"]
Outcome: Liu Bei didn't die.

Special mention: Wang Yun was the only person whom Lu Bu didn't betray. It didn't prevent him from dying, though.

Now it must be stated that Lu Bu not only had a flip-flop reputation (arguably) worse than Donald Trump, he was also a real badass fighter. Two most notable sayings are as below.

1. Like Lu Bu amongst men and the Red Hare amongst horses [人中吕布,马中赤兔]

2. Lu the First, Zhao (Yun) the Second, and Dian Wei the Third [一吕,二赵,三典韦]

The former was definitely historically accurate, but the latter was #fakenews invented by people from Occupy Democrats and InfoWars.

Due to his fearsome repute as a military man (contrary to what you see in Hollywood, an exceptional military man is more of a fighter and tactician rather than a dumb soldier high on bravado), Yuan Shao couldn't afford to attack him first. Yes, Lu Bu was definitely Greedo, but it didn't mean anyone could be Han Solo. In other words, Yuan Shao could only accept Lu Bu's offer of aid while maintaining his guard. Of course, the likes of Ju Shou and Tian Feng would advise against this move. But we all should know Yuan Shao's character by now.

Lu Bu couldn't be trusted, but he could be a valuable asset. That's why and how he could get away with his acts of betrayal (apparently, he's so depraved that he actually abandoned his own wife in order to womanise with his men's wives and girlfriends). Kuok Kah's proposed strategy of attacking Lu Bu first had four important points:

1. If Cao Cao was to attack Yuan Shao first, Lu Bu would pledge his aid to Yuan Shao instead of Cao Cao. That's how much reputation and being a high SES could give Yuan Shao. Note that the Yuan clan was known to produce members assuming the positions of Three Dukes for four generations. [四世三公]

2. While Yuan Shao wouldn't want to anger Lu Bu, attacking Lu Bu first would ensure Yuan Shao staying his hand unless the former decided to plead the latter for help. But even then, Yuan Shao wouldn't want to entertain the idea of wasting too much of his resources due to the threat posed by Cao Cao and Lu Bu.

3. The battle must be swiftly conducted and swiftly ended. Prolonged attrition would weaken Cao Cao, hence encouraging Yuan Shao to pull off his own moves.

4. Staying put without doing anything would just result in Lu Bu offering his aid to Yuan Shao nevertheless. Like how there's no point in controlling the Reps without bossing the Senate, there's no point fighting Yuan Shao if Lu Bu wasn't bumped off first.

Did the battle commence smoothly? Hollywood movies enjoy extolling the virtues of the white dude. Namely, brawns before brains. If you got brains, you must have the appropriate brawn to back it up. Lu Bu would have been that white dude poster boy. However, real life is never Hollywood's BFF (hence, the infamous R-rated scene in Tropic Thunder). Cao Cao was no match for Lu Bu in terms of the Hollywood factor, but the fact that he's a military genius (seriously, this is 100% #realnews) means Lu Bu was doomed. The battle went very well for Cao Cao. That was until the battle arrived at the gates of Xiapi where the troops entered fatigue mode. Cao Cao was sorely tempted to sing Beat It and really say "beat it". Kuok Kah advised against it.

[“昔项籍七十馀战,未尝败北,一朝失势而身死国亡者,恃勇无谋故也。今布每战辄破,气衰力尽,内外失守。布之威力不及项籍,而困败过之,若乘胜攻之,此成禽也。”]

Translate:
"Xiang Ji was undefeated for more than seventy battles, yet he lost the momentum, thereby resulting in his death and the demise of his country. All this was because of overconfidence in his bravery while lacking foreplanning. Now that Lu Bu is being defeated at every battle, his strength is now sapped with the defence lacking in both outside and within. Lu Bu's ability is never on the par with Xiang Ji and he is now overwhelmed by defeat and fatigue. If we continue to press forth, he will be captured."

At the same time, another adviser Xun You said the same thing. In fact, the historical text seemed to indicate the two pointing out the same logic at the same time.
[攸与郭嘉说曰:“吕布勇而无谋,今三战皆北,其锐气衰矣。三军以将为主,主衰则军无奋意。夫陈宫有智而迟,今及布气之未复,宫谋之未定,进急攻之,布可拔也。”]

Translate:
Xun You and Guo Jia advised: "Lu Bu is one with bravery, yet without foresight. Now that he's being defeated repeatedly, the enemy's morale is at its lowest. An army is always dependent on the general leading them. If the leader is weakened, the men below him would experience a severe lack of morale. His adviser Chen Gong is wise but hesitant. We should attack Lu Bu while he has yet to recover and before Chen Gong was able to decide on a plan. If we do that, Lu Bu can be defeated."
(From Xun You's account)

It's very likely that while Kuok Kah and Xun You said the same thing, what was recorded in his own account concerning Xiang Ji was bonus content. It doesn't make his advice any less real, but rather it's what we call a supporting statement. In fact, it's very likely that Kuok Kah spoke first before Xun You voiced his support. Hence, Fuzi's account of Kuok Kah's Xiang Ji logic.

So who was Xiang Ji? Xiang Ji refers to Xiang Yu, the guy who seemingly won it, only to lose it totally. The battle of Xiapi actually reflected the war against ISIS, believe it or not. When Anbar was finally liberated, it's only natural that Mosul would be next. I've read an article (can't exactly remember where I've read it) and it stated that there were those fleeing after defeat. Guess what happened next? No words of affirmation or encouragement, only death by torture. Now if this was really true, then it's pointing to the inevitable. Namely, the fall of Mosul and the downfall of Raqqa.

Fear without motivation can be fatal. There's clearly something unnatural about these armed (and dangerous) zealots tasting fear. Note that they didn't surrender. They just ran back! At that time, ISIS needed every man available due to a massive haemorrhage in manpower somewhere in 2015. That's like one year after they reached the peak of power. By killing those who were willing to die for their Islamic State if future chances were given, own goals aplenty were scored. This wasn't about sending forth the right message. It's called sending the wrong message. So what made ISIS believe that Mosul would remain under control? The writing was already on the wall, it's as clear as what Belshazzar saw before the Persians and Medes pulled this off.
All your base are belong to us, we don't care if you're worse than a muppet.

Of course, no one said fighting a war is easy. If someone can block you on Facebook, it means Lu Bu could block Cao Cao at the gates of Xiapi. If Cao Cao ordered a retreat, that'd be like allowing ISIS to keep Mosul without a fight. If ISIS shouldn't be keeping Mosul, then quite obviously Lu Bu shouldn't be keeping Xiapi.

Like ISIS losing momentum after losing Anbar, Lu Bu was already out of steam. Totally. Lu Bu's contempt shown to his men was like ISIS executing the wrong people in plain sight after losing Ramadi, Fallujah, and pretty much the whole of Anbar. Xiapi was besieged at every corner, all Cao Cao needed was a breakthrough. Like Isco doing a risk pass resulting in a goal scored by Rodrigol, Cao Cao created a literal Lake Life. Not Lake Life@Taman Jurong, but Lake Life@Xiapi.

Kuok Kah's Top Stable Genius Moments 2: It's not coming to our home.
There were two moments where Cao Cao was left sweating for the Emperor. Remember, His Majesty was to be more powerful than the nukes. Not as a person of authority, but rather the one pawn justifying Cao Cao's political authority. Everyone wants to rule the world and every party wants to boss the Senate. So what makes us think Cao Cao wanted to lose His Majesty?

Two moments of would-be crisis came to minds: Sun Ce out to seize His Majesty and Liu Bei persuading Liu Biao to do the same. Not at the same time, but at different intervals. For Sun Ce, that was during the Battle of Guandu where Cao Cao and Yuan Shao finally had a go at each other. Three Kingdoms fans should know how badass this Sun Ce was. Cao Cao once called him a young lion while someone named Xu Gong likened him to Xiang Yu. In fact, that's what got Xu Gong killed because the circumstances surrounding this moment of comparison was pointing to Sun Ce being identified as some enemy of the state (i.e. Xiang Yu was an ambitious warlord after all).

That's where Kuok Kah pointed out that Sun Ce wouldn't arrive at Xuchang (note that this was where His Majesty was kept). The reason why being that Sun Ce had killed many of those who offended him. Yes, there were many who became his vassals. Capable men of valour and wisdom, no doubt. But all of such people? Kuok Kah doubted so. At the same time, he concluded that...

1. Sun Ce was one who didn't understand the virtue of being wary of his surroundings. [然策轻而无备,虽有百万之众,无异于独行中原也。]

2. Sun Ce would be assassinated in the situation where it's one man versus ten. Ip Man is fictional, forget about taking on ten men all by yourself. [若刺客伏起,一人之敌耳。以吾观之,必死于匹夫之手。]

As for Liu Bei, it'd be when Cao Cao was busy dealing with the remnants of Yuan Shao's faction (note that Yuan Shao had died by then). I'll come to that in the next post. Long story short, Liu Bei attempted to convince Liu Biao to give him some men and horses. All in the name of saving His Majesty (which was pure political BS anyway). Again, everyone was worried whether this would happen. At that time, Liu Bei had yet to arrive. However, such fear was already buzzing around like a swarm of gnats. The midges were out in full force, but Kuok Kah called for calm. The reason why was due to three factors:

1. Liu Bei was a man of capability and ambition. Hence, Liu Biao had never trusted him in the first place. Remember, this was an era where East Asians were indulging in their favourite historical pastime of each man fighting against his neighbour.

2. Liu Biao only knew how to talk a good talk. When it came to doing things, he's like a muppet. Which means he's truly a muppet regardless of talking or doing.

3. Liu Biao was stuck in a damned-either-way scenario. If he agreed to Liu Bei's request, he'd risk losing it. After all, Liu Bei could command more than just a Jing Province once he got the Emperor. If he decided not to trust Liu Bei, quite obviously Liu Bei wouldn't want to serve him.

Note: I know point 3 sounds like the relationship between Donald Trump and Ben Sasse. I know it does.

Again, this comes back to the war against ISIS (again?!?!). Imagine the Iraqi forces stuck at Mosul fighting the terrorists. Imagine worries of reinforcement coming. After all, that's what one should expect in any battle of attrition, no?

Kuok Kah's analysis was down to how he saw the big picture. Sun Ce and Liu Bei merely belonged to part of the picture. Analysing a situation is like piecing together a picture. It's like doing a jigsaw puzzle. You have the pieces, now put them together. You have the dots, now connect them. It's like why any worry of reinforcements coming was to be no worry at all for the Iraqi forces. You have Mosul, but you have Aleppo as well. Aleppo was definitely Syria's Mosul. In fact, Aleppo is geographically closer to Raqqa. Much closer. Expecting ISIS to ditch Aleppo to defend Mosul was the dumbest decision possible and the powers-that-be weren't prepared to be that stupid. The terrorists defending Mosul got their hands tied. They had no choice but to fight a battle with limited resources. And I really mean limited resources.

ISIS was in a damned either way situation. Just like Liu Biao. As for Sun Ce, I agree with Pei Songzhi for a reason. In the past, I disagreed with him despite an infinite gap in personal status. Allow me to explain below.

To arrive at Xuchang, Sun Ce must enter the Jing Province first. In fact, the Jing Province was the bridge between Jiangdong and the rest of China, something which I pointed out in an attempt to explain why Zhuge Liang's Longzhong Strategy was actually doable. It's like saying ISIS had to seize control of Aleppo first before bringing relief to their besieged brethren in Mosul (and this was not to mention Aleppo is situated at one end with Mosul at the other). So now we got a question: What was Liu Biao's relationship status with Sun Ce? We all know the bad blood between the two. It's not your daily Taylor Swift drama. Liu Biao killed Sun Jian, who was Sun Ce's father. The Sun family never forgave Liu Biao since after. So do you think Liu Biao would allow Sun Ce to cross over to Xuchang by using his own territory as the bridge?

While it's possible for Liu Biao to have a hand in the assassination process, I erred in the sense that I assumed Sun Ce's death took place in the Jing Province. A closer look at the historical text, however, actually implied that the Mossad brigade did their job before Sun Ce set off since the attack took place during a hunting trip. Let's be real, you don't expect Donald Trump to go on a hunting trip while in China even though the Chinese enjoy eating anything with four legs that move about.

To be cont'd...

My focus isn't in a good state. Thankfully, I got this song to keep me going.