It's been only a short while since I last posted something. While I won't call it surreal, it's still surprising. In the past, I was more focused on blogging even though the only thing of actual value would be (and still is) A Requiem From Winter Past. With video gaming, the focus went (and still goes) the other way. Is gaming dangerous? I have to say the answeris yes. Thankfully, I have:
1. The determination of Guts against addiction.
2. The genius of Minamoto no Yoshitsune against using the money for the gacha.
Granted above statements are hyperbolic in nature, but it's true I can live instead of just surviving without gaming for at least 14 working days. At the same time, it's equally true I never spent money on gacha and still could make things work.
So what will this post be about since the last part of the title looks like a crying emoji?
ToT=Tales of Tribute
Recently, I had a hand in testing out things on the PTS for High Isle. There's only one reason why I did that. And that's to have a hand in playing Tales of Tribute. Otherwise known as ToT.
Before entering the PTS, I did have a bit of knowledge about how this mini-game works. But it's one thing to know the rough outline of things and quite another to know the vital details. That's where I decided to go to ESO Hub and see whether there's any information beyond what the likes of Kotaku and Massively OP had offered.
Long story short, I was floored by what I saw. The reason wasn't that I was dealing with a Gwent styled artwork featuring a random dryad's bosom (i.e. how Gwent could get a T rating from ESRB is beyond me if I want to be objective here). In fact, the closest thing in Tales of Tribute to something rated M was probably a bowl of dead mice. Rather, it's the massive amount of details I had to process from Treasury and Saint Pelin to the Duke of Crows. If there's anything I can't do, it'd be processing an info dump. Unlike Max "Imperial Maximus" Zeng, my brain doesn't function like Aozaki Touko. Instead, it functions like Aozaki Aoko.
Or maybe more specifically Aldo.
Needless to say, the apparent info dump didn't deter me from trying out the new mini-game. The Antiquities mini-game is a decent time-passer so long you know how to use the scrying tool, but not engaging enough. Tales of Tribute? That's where I'm currently having fun on PTS right now.
The ToT process
When I first dropped feet at Gonfalon Bay, my only intention was to find a way to play Tales of Tribute. The city was a Mediterranean beauty to behold. At the risk of sounding culturally ignorant, it felt very Italian. More specifically, it's a combination of French and Italian.
Thankfully, there were only two side-quest markers. I did some subtraction math and ended up at the correct place. The tutorial was easy. After that, the same went for the practice match. It was only after the practice match that things got interesting. You have two cats giving two different dailies. The smart one gives you the easier daily where you duel NPCs across three places in Tamriel. The not-so-smart one? PvP aka the hard one.
At the first glance, taking the smart one's offer would be the easy way out. After all, one must learn before playing. For me, I decided to do both as a form of testing. I first tried PvP and the outcome was... quite frankly terrible. My fellow human being deserved to win. As for me, I was left floundering and wondering which card to take. The learning curve was rough, but it taught me one important lesson about myself: Any attempt to process excessive info would result in my brain registering a blank.
It was then that I moved on to the not-so-smart daily given by the smart one. That's where the interesting part came from. Before that, allow me to point out that for whatever reason, PTS seemed to be overloaded. This resulted in me being forced to abort a match every now and then despite leading the AI by a score of 30+ to less than 10 (Note: I'm utterly convinced anyone could have done that, so it's not as if I'm the Second Kongming or Yoshitsune Incarnate).
Initially, I was still fumbling around with the cards on the table. In this sense, nothing changed. Then I realised I should have focused on two decks. It's actually quite easy for now. There are only four to choose from at the moment: Duke of Crows, Saint Pelin, Loremaster Celarus, and Grandmaster Delmene Hlaalu. Out of the four, I settled on Duke of Crows and Saint Pelin. The reason was that both boasted a direct approach. It's like playing Gwent where the logical path for a new player is to first choose the Northern Realms faction instead of Nilfgaard. If you choose the latter, you're either crazy like me or a genius like Yoshitsune.
You know something is going to happen when a Nilfgaard player gives you this kind of face.
Right now, I can't tell you how the four other decks work because I've yet to progress that far. However, it's interesting to see the Hlaalu and Psijic Order decks functioning somewhat like Nilfgaard where dictating the momentum is the name of their game.
To put things in proper context, using Crystal Weapon did serve me well more often than not. During my most recent veteran Elden Hollow I run, however, my DPS was abysmally low since my aim has always been to reach post-40% despite not having to move much (i.e. not Volenfell last boss). This prompted me to try changing certain things. Yes, I'm a fickle scoundrel either at times or most of the time.
So what I did was a setup I used to do until I changed it. Again, I'm a fickle scoundrel either at times or most of the time. Unlike above, I actually forgot why I changed it. In fact, I didn't even remember whether it was pre-Update 29 or afterwards. Apart from a minor change due to how Update 33 endorsed a hybrid approach to a certain Fighters Guild passive, nothing changed.
In that same previous post dealing with Crystal Fragments, I mentioned prioritising my Khajiit alt in gearing with Order's Wrath. However, Hack "he doesn't hack your HTML because it's illegal" the Minotaur made me think more than twice.
The reason why he changed my mind was because of the reduction of critical chance being only 2.7%. Believe it or not, that means I should really switch down Mother's Sorrow instead of Gryphon's Ferocity. At the same time, running on Ilambris means I have to prioritise damage over critical chance. After doing the math instead of meth (not that I'd do the latter), my Dunmer Sorcerer's critical chance only went down to 54.6%. Going by Alcast's math, it means I still hit the passing mark of 47%. Just don't ask me whether 54.6% is a 2:1 pass or a 2:2 pass. I prefer to see it the British way.
P.S: Really need to thank Wagakki Band for this song giving me that adrenaline rush to finish this post. Now if only I can start doing Part 2 of Minamoto mina-san and finish it by next Tuesday.
Now I'm sure some of you may be wondering whether I've gone full Joseph Joestar where the post title is concerned. After all, I do have some sort of a criminal record in terms of doing and saying things either dumb or outright wrong. There are moments where I asked myself whether I could have done better had my childhood been normal instead of someone constantly bullied just because I might have resembled half Japanese, one-quarter Ainu, and one-quarter Slav instead of a Singaporean. Then again, the hypothesis may not be true given the fact university students are capable of breaking the law in Singapore.
What will this post be about
My personal thoughts on what many ESO playerswould call the 3-trait craftable BiS set. Currently, the game got three craftable BiS sets for DPS: Hunding's Rage (6 traits), Law of Julianos (6 traits), and Diamond's Victory (5 traits). At the first glance, Order's Wrath looks like a ridiculously cheap BiS craftable, something like Armor of the Seducer plus the roids. But are things really that straightforward?
DISCLAIMER!
What you read here are my views. Depending on the way you build things and how you see things, chances are that you'd disagree with me. I don't profess to have the knowledge of streamers, let alone one like Asmongold. You've been warned.
Order's Wrath... now this set's bonuses look terribly crazy. It's going to supplant Gryphon's Ferocity and Gryphon's Reprisal due to similar statsbonuses and being a critical DPS set. That's until ZOS set us up a CP bomb.
TLDR: Fighting Finesse will give you only 6% additional critical damage while Backstabber should give only 10% additional critical damage from the flank. So what does the math mean?
Under the current patch, you should have 10% critical damage assuming you're running a non-medium armour setup without being either a Templar or Nightblade with 25% critical damage when factoring in Backstabber. Once the next patch arrives, the math should look like this:
Base critical damage: 6%
Critical damage with Backstabber: 16%
In solo running, a 4% critical damage drop is something. Translated into running as a group and this would mean a whopping 9% drop. If you're to run with either Medusa, Tzogvin's Warband or Gryphon's Ferocity where Minor Force is available, the numbers should look like this:
Base critical damage: 16%
Critical damage with Backstabber: 26%
Otherwise, it should look like this with Order's Wrath:
Base critical damage: 14%
Critical damage with Backstabber: 24%
Because the changes affect every critical build, it's going to be a matter of which abilities you're going to use. Either that or pairing it with Medusa. For Magicka DPS builds, it may be harder if you're running a ranged build. The reason is that you only have two abilities giving Minor Force: Either morph of Accelerate or Lightweight Beast Trap.
Personally, I'm quite wary of the delayed casting time for Channeled Acceleration despite its 36-second duration while Race Against Time only lasts 12 seconds. As for Lightweight Beast Trap, I'm not confident about the Stamina sustain unless you're running with a full Well-Fitted trait gear. Yes, you have a reduced cost. But with only a 10-second duration plus the need to sustain the Minor Force as much as possible, Stamina sustain is probably going to be an issue. Interestingly, that may actually make the Well-Fitted trait useful in conjunction with the Tumbling and Expert Evasion CP boons.
If you're running a melee Magicka DPS, that's where the fun part comes if you're doing a Nightblade. The reason is that Nightblades are meant to be tactically versatile where you can experiment with plenty of theoretical stuff. Not easy but that's what makes running a Nightblade interesting. Order's Wrath with Kinra's Wrath and a full Kjalnar's Nightmare plus the Thief Mundus stone effect? That'd be a very fun build. If you're worried about another DPS group member having a full Kjalnar (i.e. an awkward situation involving a Kjalnar arms race), you can opt for the Stormfist set. An alternative to Kinra would be Arms of Relequen, but I'm not sure how it'd pan out since Relequen can't critically hit (rightfully so since that'd break the game). Merciless Resolve? That's another matter altogether.
Initially, I intended to try and see whether Order's Wrath is better than Gryphon's Ferocity. So I'm going to list down how I now view the relevance of Holy Order's Wrath for each of my characters. Note that all my characters are DPS because I'm not confident enough to roll a tank and/or healer. Maybe in the future. After all, my sticker book is 100% complete for the Knightmare set, Engine Guardian, and Earthgore. Maybe Knightmare+Torug's Pact+Mighty Chudan x2 for tanking and Armour of Seducer+Magnus' Gift (have to check whether I can afford to use Olorime instead)+Earthgore for a healer.
[Note: Right now, the worry is ZOS nerfing the set somewhere down the road.
They did that for Diamond's Victory and if they could do it for a
5-trait set, what are the chances of that happening to a 3-trait Order's
Wrath? Your guess is as good as mine. Ultimately, it's probably either
the critical chance or the critical damage. Of course, there's still a chance Order's Wrath wouldn't be nerfed since the critical damage CP boons are already nerfed.]
Dark Elf Magicka Sorcerer:
This is my main and I may replace Gryphon's Fury with Order's Wrath. The reason isn't that I intend to use Lightweight Beast Trap. Rather, it's because I'd only end up with 2% less critical damage with a critical chance of 943 in exchange. A good trade-off if you're to ask me since I don't mind missing out on the Minor Expedition and Minor Force. At the same time, I decided to ditch Ring of the Wild Hunt and replaced it with a full Slimcraw. After that, I traded Slimcraw for a full Ilambris. The best thing about Ilambris is that it makes either morph of Force Shock go nuclear with a Flame Staff. Either 33% to proc or effectively 66% to proc? Tell me that's not nuclear. At the same time, Elemental Weapon still feels clunky. Great damage if I'm not running Ilambris, but I'm still more of a katana wielder than a claymore user.
As for why I won't use Lightweight Beast Trap, it's because I intend to stick with Crystal Weapon. Sure, it's going to get roided with the only question being the fine-tuning. But even without the roiding, I still intend to stick with it since I can freely use it as and when instead of a more restrictive Crystal Fragments proc game. On one hand, it's due to the risk of high latency knackering my DPS momentum (i.e. my brain feeds off adrenaline and ESO isn't exactly an Asian game if you get what I mean). On the other, I tend to thrive unfettered instead of needlessly chained. In all honesty, Crystal Fragments would amount to better DPS while Crystal Weapon would be more tactical but deal less damage.
High Elf Magicka Templar:
I don't think I'll consider Order's Wrath. The reason is that I'm currently running with a full Slimcraw, Mother's Sorrow, and Dreugh King Slayer. The third set is the reason why I say this. I'm not comfortable trading a free Major Sorcery for a higher critical chance and critical damage. I guess it's down to that personal feel, but so far this combination is functioning well for me. As a DoT-centric build relying on the Aedric Spear tree, I decided to focus on the penetration more than the critical damage. As a result, the base critical damage stands at 20% (16% come the next patch). So how did I pull it off? Just go for Lover instead of Thief. The result went much better than I expected due to a combination of 9K+ penetration, Major Sorcery, and Minor Berserk.
At this point, the only complication would be the what-if scenario where either the group healer has Combat Prayer or a fellow DPS running with a Kinra's Wrath.
Orc Stamina Nightblade:
It's a bit of an odd journey trying to spec this guy. Conventional logic dictates I should do something about upping the critical damage and running a dual-wield build with two knives. But Oblivion no, I decided to throw conventional logic out of the window. I ran with a two-handed sword with a normal Maelstrom Bow for the back bar. I ran full Kra'gh, Leviathan, and Dreugh King Slayer. And I ended up with a whopping 5K+ weapon damage. Or is that 4K+? Either way, the number is insanely unreal.
Unlike my High Elf Templar, I may switch Dreugh King Slayer for Order's Wrath due to already having insanely high base damage. Even if Order's Wrath is going to be nerfed, it doesn't take anything away from the fact I'd be changing the DPS focus from high base damage to striking a balance between base damage and critical damage. The fact I'm running the angry Orsimer with a Barbed Trap means I can up the critical damage by 10% on a prolonged basis. The only pity is that I can't replace Thief with Shadow without breaking things up. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
Breton Magicka Warden:
This guy is low-critical DPS. Since I've got nothing relevant to say, I might as well point out I did a terribly dumb thing. Namely, gearing him with a 4-piece Stygian via the trader instead of crafting a 4-piece Stuhn's Favour. Yes, it's that dumb. There's a reason why and I'm not going to say it out. Because people are just going to call me an experimental moron.
One thing about Wardens is that they don't have good base sustain even for Bretons. Nightblades don't have good sustain as well, but at least they have great damage. Templars? Well, you got either morph of Restoring Aura. Without Atronach, my Warden's Magicka recovery would be locked at a 3-figure sum. With a combination of Atronach, full Stormfist, 2 Divines traits, 5 Invigorating traits, and Blue Betty? Effectively infinite Magicka plus casting Subterranean Assault with relative impunity. Don't ask me how I got this because it's due to an accidental discovery caused by my dumb mistake of buying two Stygian armour and two pieces of Stygian jewellery. More specifically the former since the Invigorating trait is a major reason why you'd sell an armour cheap. So no, accidental discovery shouldn't be an excuse for my stupidity since I had to burn 100 Transmute Crystals to change the jewellery trait to Bloodthirsty.
Note that Stormfist does work well for Magicka DPS Wardens depending on how you stack with Winter's Revenge. For me, the Update 34 changes to Arctic Blast may have less impact on me due to using area DoT stacking to maximise the Stormfist proc frequency. For group running, however, I go with Winter's Revenge and Subterranean Assault since I don't have to worry about the range. And one more thing: Wardens can be surprisingly good at nuking things depending on how you set one up.
Khajiit Magicka Nightblade:
Again, this is a probable candidate for Order's Wrath. The reason lies in the racial passive and the fact I'm now running the cat on Shadow. In other words, I don't mind a reduction of 2% critical damage in exchange for 943 critical chance (i.e. I'm now gearing him with Gryphon's Ferocity with Mother's Sorrow and full Slimcraw). In fact, I have two options: Switch Gryphon's Ferocity for Order's Wrath or do the same with Mother's Sorrow.
The reason is the change made to Ambush for the next patch. With Minor Berserk given upon execution, it means I won't have to rely on full Slimcraw. More specifically, full Slimcraw would be redundant when the 6th day of Oda Nobunaga's birth and death anniversary month says hi. Even for a Magicka Nightblade, I wouldn't mind going with Slimcraw x1 and Iceheart x1. In this way, I don't have to break things by switching Shadow for Thief (i.e. that'd be a massive critical ouch if I'm to replace Mother's Sorrow instead of Gryphon's Ferocity). In the worst-case scenario where Order's Wrath would be nerfed via the critical chance, I'll just switch Siphoning Attacks for Mirage due to the front bar weapon trait being Sharpened. If I'm to prioritise between which toon to gear Order's Wrath first, it'd be this cat.
Okay, it's been a long time since I've blogged something. One thing I realised about doing stupid things throughout the last 10 years and beyond is the fact that I shouldn't be doing them at all. Another thing I noticed? If there's anything worse than doing stupid things, it'd be the refusal to learn from your stupidity.
Recently, part of my curiosity was aroused in understanding myself better. Namely, what are the scars left behind by schoolyard democracy? If I want to stay true to my conscience, I cannot say my bullies did something stupid. Bullying is wrong, not stupid. Doing stupid things may land you in the hospital, but doing wrong things can lead to others getting hurt or worse. I can be "kind" to them, but I have to be the same type of person to justify that. You know, the Roy Mustanglogic.
This comes to some self-testing. Now before I go on, let me point out that self-testing does not amount to a professional diagnosis. However, I did have bad experiences dealing with professionals. There was this one time when a counsellor adopted brute-force positivity where in fact I was seeking answers. I gave up. Then I visited a psychiatrist. The intern counsellor did a very good job. Sadly, she's only an intern. In short, no calls for a follow-up. I didn't know whether it was an honest slip from the radar or something worse. I chose not to pursue it because I didn't want actual confrontation.
Here were my own self-testing results.
And now onto the topic
There's something truly personal behind the term hogan-biki. Literally translated as Judge's Favour, this term was inspired by the post of Kuro Hogan conferred upon Minamoto no Yoshitsune by the Imperial Court. Due to the tragic nature of Yoshitsune's recorded death, hogan-biki refers to sympathy for the underdog. And that's who I was and still am: An underdog.
Depending on how much fuel I have, this post may or may not extend beyond Part 1.
Will the real Yoshitsune please stand up? (not literally FYI)
The legend of Minamoto no Yoshitsune has always been universal knowledge among the Japanese. When it comes to the sources of his legendary feats (no Dan-no-Ura pun intended), three titles come to mind: Azuma Kagami, Heike Monogatari, and Gikeiki.
Azuma Kagami was the official historical record of the Kamakura shogunate from Minamoto no Yoritomo's war against the Taira clan until the middle of the 13th century of Imperial Prince Munetaka's arrival at Kyoto on July 20, 1266, who was a retired shogun expelled from Kamakura. (Source: NOT Wikipedia).
As for Heike Monogatari, it's an epic account of the Genpei War. Split into three parts, each part has its own protagonist. Taira no Kiyomori in Part 1, Minamoto no Yoshinaka in Part 2, and Minamoto no Yoshitsune in Part 3.
Lastly, Gikeiki was where we got much of the romanticised Yoshistune from. This also means we can easily guess from where most embellishment and positive PR hailed from.
Before I continue, let me point out that much of Yoshitsune's life was unable to be verified. But there seemed to be two versions of him:
1. The heroic version we're all familiar with.
2. The anti-heroic version that was further roided by Hirano "Jigoku no Kouta" Kouta and more realistically portrayed by Suda "he's really Taisho" Masaki in Kamakura-dono no Jūsan-nin (don't ask me why it's written as 鎌倉殿の13人 instead of 鎌倉殿の十三人).
For point 2, at least that's how I interpreted his rage scene since I watched it off Youtube with no subtitles and zero understanding of spoken Japanese. Speaking of that show, it's quite surprising to see Evan "he answered NHK's call" Call being the second non-Japanese to compose the music for a Taiga drama due to his age of 33. The first person who did that was John "he's a composer, not a preacher" Graham for Kirin ga Kuru and the dude was already 89 back then. Credit to Saitama no Randy for telling me there's a seniority culture in Japan. I hope he and his waifu are currently fine in Saitama.
One interesting snippet of information that may (or may not) tell us whether the real Yoshitsune was more of an anti-hero came from this site. Further confirming this was Daily Mail. If you click the CIA link, however, you'll enter the Realm of 404. Nevertheless, I never expected a British tabloid to pull this off. Yes, the British tabloid culture is good at stuff like whether Prince William has truly fallen out with Prince Harry. But to tell the entire world that Minamoto no Yoshitsune was the OG of shinobi culture and said, "because the CIA said so"? That's baffling. I wonder what the likes of Lloyd "not from Texas" Austin and Ben "he decided not to bend for Trump" Sasse would say about this.
If (and that's a very big IF) the British tabloid wasn't bluffing us, Yoshitsune's identity as a proto-ninja would point towards the possibility of the anti-heroic image instead of the idealised Samurai Prince Charming we're used to seeing. The reason is that the code of bushido clearly forbade the usage of black ops. Any samurai who did so would have dishonoured his clan. Believe it or not, the idea of honour is still very real in Japan today where you don't have to be the PAP to sue another person for libel. In the olden days, there could only be one ending for those who dishonoured their clan: Seppuku.
But not so for commoners. After all, they didn't belong to the nobility. This meant two things:
1. They didn't have the privilege of the elite.
2. They could do things the elite can't. Like performing black ops.
If (again, that's a very big IF) Yoshitsune was a ninja, that'd mean he had to resort to some questionable tactics to get things done. At the same time, it's natural to assume a ninja would be more pragmatic than a samurai due to the no-rules logic. Interestingly, official records of ninja activities were only present starting from the Sengoku era. However, the wording made it very clear that the concept of shinobi had already evolved into organisations instead of the common rabble many members of the aristocracy would look down on. To have an idea of the situation, the Sengoku era was officially dated 1467-1615 while the history of black ops in Japan happened as early as the 6th century AD. To put things in (speculative) perspective, the Genpei War happened during the 12th century AD. Theoretically speaking, Yoshitsune might have a certain knowledge of the shinobi arts as we know them now. Whether that qualified him as the OG of shinobi culture remains another issue altogether.
.png)
.png)
.png)
.png)