Getting better, Friday I was in bed by 7pm, last night I made it until 9 lol. (I usually go to bed at 1-2 am). Wednesday to Thursday I was down for 18 hours with the worst headache and all over muscle / joint pain.

My wife thinks I have the Mumps since it's going around here in schools, kids just went back to school few weeks ago. I don't know, I'm pretty sure I was vaccinated as a child for "De Bof" in the Netherlands. However all the symptoms fit so who knows.

Anyway, now I'm getting better, good to rest up with video games :)

I played some on PC a couple years ago but now playing on Xbox. Furthest I got. It's fun for sure. I know it was originally going to be a True Crime sequel.

Finished the DLC and NG+ playthrough for HZDR quicker than I thought, rounding off the 100% at 35hrs. Took me 77hrs to 100% HFW in comparison. Given the recent news that Bluepoint won’t be releasing another game this gen/decade figured I’d do a replay of Demon Souls R.

Had a full weekend session while unwell, 12+ hours days from friday right up til last night and made good progress on FF16 and gained all stars on every level in Army of Ruin. 7/10 with 22 hours this year and 8 last year. The platinum looks grindy as hell but doable with most of the work already done.

The game copies Vampire survivors very closely but does not nearly reach the heights of it but it's one of the better ones in what has become one of my favourite genres. It's a fun, solid anf strong 7/10. I was surprised how fun it actually is, I'd probably rate this higher if it was my first bullet heaven game it does many things really well including having an insanely diverse and varied weapon and power ups list but this is a double edged sword as it makes RNG a bit of a pain in the ass but all in all it keeps things fresh and it was harder to beat than VS even though VS was longer. It falls in a few places, generic visuals, I'm not a fan of the star system, the price of perma upgrades is too steep causing a grind mid game, because of RNG it would be better to lower the price of favourites weapons and power ups or just add more gold organically without having to do specialised runs and a few other minor gripes, it lacks a bit of soul but makes up for it in pure fun. I'm gonna replace this with NERD Survivors which is thee most difficult game I've played yet in the genre but is also seemingly very solid. 

This year is off to a great start, I should be able to best my 2024 gaming and up things to 30 hours per week and definetly focus on beating games more instead of wasting time on poor games that might turn around or get good., even though I'll have less free time.

I rolled a new Warrior and went Titan with Hulking Form. I found some decent gear for one while leveling my other characters. Just got to Act III Cruel and around level 60 now. I use a two-handed hammer, still can't stack enough strength to go two-hander and shield (need about 330, got 280-ish). I use Ancestral Totem, I got most of the Totem damage nodes, and they scale with Attack Damage and AoE Damage nodes. These things tear holes in mobs; they're really insane! I'm not following a build, just freestyling for now, I'd say it's going pretty well. The Armor changes helped for sure, but I'm trying to stack enough Dex to get Wind Dancer as an extra layer of defense, it's a really good ability for any character to have.

I'm trying to get to wind dancer as well but my Monk is held together by sticky tape. Dex requirement still out of reach. I seem to have the worst luck when it comes to upgrading/finding/buying random gear lol. I spend another million gold buying/rolling random boots hoping to get something useful, as well as 30+ exalted orbs used to buff and hope for something useful. At least exalted orbs drop consistently in the end game. Also no luck with Chaos orbs to get the useless extras off for something needed. Broke a staff with great potential as well as chest piece doh. RNG hates me!

It's always, replace one thing, fix the passive tree because stuff doesn't work anymore losing the stat boost on that item. Or lose too many resistances or life modifiers. Getting tired of one hit deaths and losing xp. I'm having more luck upgrading my wife's warrior, better resistances, life and defenses now. As long as she is safe it's fine :) (I'm starting to drag behind in xp though)

I finally managed to clear the first Sekhema trial, 2nd part with the two titans was impossible. But then did the Chaos trial which was piss easy and have the 4 ascendency points to have evasion rating count for armor as well. So instead of 7% armor 59% evasion, it's now 51% armor and 53% evasion. Got my hp up to 1801 (486 energy shield) so maybe I can survive those one hit kills now... (We're trying tier 4 maps, no modifiers, easy until sudden death) lvl 75 Invoker.

Then I did the Sekhema trial with my wife's warrior and only lost 2 honor the whole thing and there was no continuation.... This game doesn't explain itself at all ffs. Turns out these trials have levels on them (yeah fine print, can't read from the couch). My wife still had the original token which I lost when the game crashed in the first attempt. And since I stack the trial tokens in order we found them I took the highest lvl ones we had lol. Plus we have some better honor resistance items now. Anyway my wife's warrior now sits at 2534 hp, 66% armor, 57% evasion, lvl 75 Titan.

Did they fix Ancestral totem? We threw it out since it never did anything. Sometimes an arm came out to swing at something, very ineffective. She has no totem nodes in the tree through, concentrated on damage and attack speed. It goes so fast in the end game maps there's no time to place them anyway. It's kill before you get killed. Hammer of the gods 80% of the time arrives after the mini boss is already dead... (Or totally misses or doesn't show up at all for whatever reason) Thus we're basically down to two attacks each that are fast enough to keep up. Blitzkrieg style.


Next, grinding for distilled emotions to boost the amulet. Looked simple on paper until you realize you need to reforge them and one distilled isolation equals 19,683 distilled ire lol. At least the elevated ones drop as well, up to paranoia so far.

You have to give the Ancestral Totem a "weapon" in the form of an offensive skill. I use Sunder, the totems get more and more AoE and damage as I level the nodes. The three totems can decimate boss packs all alone in mere seconds now, and then I can Leap Slam into them and kill the rest. I took Giant's Blood and found a weapon that fits well with shield use, my tankiness far surpasses any of the other characters I've gotten into the 70s. I jumped straight into a Tier 3 map for the first one, and then managed a Tier 5 (at level 67). Blocking is incredibly powerful, as it also blocks missile-based spell effects of many kinds.

Found myself this earlier today:

I crafted a weapon with good damage, but it lacks +4 to Melee skills (which also affects my totems). It would increase my damage output though, especially with Fire damage on top:

My resistances are pretty good, but my armor needs more work, and I want 50% block soon. About 2k life, mana isn't an issue since I have about 7% of damage dealt leeched as mana, and most of my damage is pure physical. I also have life-steal 4% for every enemy killed, so jumping into a bunch and slamming their brains out is a good way of healing, as well as dealing great AoE damage.
Anyway; here's the layout right now:

Wow, we suck lol. We never see anything better than 80-120 dmg weapons drop in tier 3 maps. How the heck do you craft a 386-520 mace :o I'm happy to see double digit stats on things that drop, so often it's +6, +2, +8, insulting lol.

My resistances are in the 30s :/, my wife in the 40s with fire at 75. Chaos in the 20s.

We do have life on kill as well from the passives. With Herald of Ice and Herald of Ash the packs are healing potions basically. I freeze them, my wife leap slams into them, pack gone. What saves us is the near instant freeze my monk can do on just about anything, freeze and jump to the next.

We put boneshatter in the ancestral totem, but she only has one totem and it just takes too long to set up. Freeze + leap slam or fire balls is our way to clear zones. Trow a hammer on a mini boss if there is enough time before they melt lol. We could easily do higher lvl maps (instead of fighting 67 at 75) but any lucky shot by the rng and one of us is dead. Especially poison and those purple things that chase you. Chaos resistance needed, hard to find.

Maybe it will go better now with a few ascendancy points.

I pick up good base items and slam them with Orb of Alchemy, it's a bit of a gamble, but I got lucky. Then you add Blacksmith's Whetstone to the mix, upping the quality of the item, and significantly increasing the damage along the way. Lastly, add two sockets and put in two runes with 20% Physical Damage. You can often more or less double the base damage this route alone. I traded one Divine Orb for over 300 Orb of Alchemy (at the Currency Exchange available from Cruel difficulty on) and I've tried with a lot of items, some turned out pretty good. It's a game of both time and chance. 

The balance of resistances is always tough in ARPGs, they almost always follow a linear system where increased difficulty incurs penalties on flat resistance. I try to get high values on a few items rather than medium/low values on many, that way, I'm not as dependent single pieces of gear.

The Ancestral Totems work best with semi-ranged AoE attacks. If you place them at choke-points as well, they can tear up packs in no time. As they scale with Melee Skill level and Melee damage, they can get pretty strong even without lots of nodes in them.

My main issue now is lack of Strength; if I want to progress to the next couple of tiers of weapons to increase DPS, I need over 600 Strength due to triple demands from Giant's Blood. That is, if I want to keep the shield and not become squishy again. Having some left over Spirit on my current setup, I also added a Skeleton Warrior minion. He's just there to draw enemies while I slap them across their heads though, he does no damage to speak of.

Along with Hammer of the Gods, my Titan is surprisingly efficient for bossing as well. The infamous Viper boss (asshole surrounded by soldiers, using them to poke you full of holes in one phase) fell in the first phase under an explosion of physical damage from the Totems, Hammer of the Gods, and my Hammer of the Smack at once. Not even my Monk was as fast in taking her down on my first play-through. I'm a bit stuck right now though; upping the Tier of maps will increase difficulty by quite a bit, especially with modifiers, Breach etc. I can only get incremental upgrades that don't do all that much. Looking to score higher Block first and foremost, and increase Strength for availability of weapons, as well as more Health.

Yeah got all that. I posted this in the wrong thread last night:

Our main weapons, my wife still playing with a Mace from lvl 35, not found nor able to craft anything better since.
(I do a quick check for dmg stats on things that drops adding 40% extra still under, and when it's close the speed stat makes the difference)


So from lvl 35, selling over 2 million in loot since, nothing better lol.

I got 'lucky' with my staff from scouring the shops. It never dropped but was available in the shop one day and an exalted orb added the speed modifier. Yet that was an exception. The ranges on stuff from the shops we get in the end game are never any good doh.

We got one divine orb, I tried it on a potential item and nothing changed lol. But good tip trying orbs of alchemy on white items, just got to find a good base item first! It's a long and boring process, not fun when you're waiting to play together. Same as buying random items over and over. It has worked to get my wife some better stats, spending millions of useless gold buying random items in end game shelter.
Anyway when we finally find something, got stacks of armor scraps, wetstones and exalted orbs to improve them further!

This is where our characters are

I guess we can sacrifice some life for gear with better resistances. But it has to be at least 2 high resistances per piece now to make a difference. I also kinda handicapped myself with a orange hat. The stats aren't all that good but it has 100% ignite on anything in range that we have built our strategy on. Stacking extra damage on mobs affected with ailments and those on fire since everything always is.

This is me wandering around the tree

Left turn to the Sorcerer's abilities.

I had to turn off Glacial Cascade again as my str is only high enough for 9 quarterstaff skills.

My main attack is Ice Strike, I always use that while leeching mana to keep it going or upping it with the mana flasks. Then shattering palm for stuns. When a mini boss lasts for more than a 2 seconds I can place Tempest Bell but most melt too fast to bother. Much less useful now as in the main game where tempest bell became the main dmg dealer in most fights. (Still looks call when we're both hitting it lol)

I have a lvl 16 chaos dmg wand as backup, rarely use it, does so little dmg. My wife simply chucks molten blast at them, it was at over 3100 dps before the patch removed that info. My wands are all in the hundreds of dps :/

And of course charged staff which is pretty much always available with combat frenzy. So easy to freeze mobs, just takes 2 seconds to get 3 power charges. I removed whirling Assault as it just got me killed. Was useful in the main game to quickly blind a group of mobs but it now leaves me too vulnerable to dmg and it's faster to kill them now. Same for Hand of Chayula, removed as paying attention to the counter got me killed more than I ever saw it contribute much to the dmg. Just hit the bell when a mini boss takes longer than 1-2 seconds.

I added Ice Nova and Frost Strike from the sorceror's tab to fill up my buttons. More priming for freezing and just something to have to pull mobs towards us instead of jumping in. Not any real dmg nor life savers. More ice on screen!

And last Ghost Dance and Herald of Ice. Ghost Dance just added now I have more spirit from the ascendency, dunno yet if it's effective. Not enough dex for the better version!