The Pros and Cons of a Level Squish

When World of Warcraft launched fifteen years ago (dear lord,) the level cap was 60. At the time, this was seen as a massive climb for your character. You didn't even get your slow, 160% speed mount until level 40 (and that was only if you had the gold - I had to bankrupt my Horde characters to get my Rogue his and was immensely grateful that my Paladin Alliance-side got to summon his class mount only for doing a brief quest.)

In Battle for Azeroth, the level cap has climbed to 120 - fully twice its original amount.

When you start a new character today, that means you have twice the levels to go through than you originally did.

For I believe the first time, Game Director Ion Hazzikostas has talked about the possibility of doing a level squish - much like the stat squishes we've gotten in Warlords and BFA, this would keep us functionally just as powerful, but lower the numbers, possibly making our level 120 characters now level 60.

I see positive and negative consequences of such a change, but it also depends greatly on implementation and intention. Is, for example, the intention to make leveling a faster process? Would one have to do less content in order to hit the level cap? In other words, is the hope that you'll be able to hit the cap, or at least the current expansion's level range, faster that you do now?

In the past, they've lowered the amount of experience required to level up with the intention of allowing you to hit the cap from level 1 in roughly the same amount of time. The original negative consequence of this was that you would outlevel zones in the old world practically right after you started them. Level scaling has, for the most part, solved this problem, at least until you hit a zone's scaling cap, though as a result I think you can sometimes outlevel a continent before you might be ready for it.

Having places like Outland scale to 80 or Cataclysm's zones scale to 90 gives you a little more time to do those quests (likewise allowing you to start Northrend and Pandaria at 58/80 respectively,) so perhaps one could expand on this "parallel expansion" idea by allowing greater overlap in level scaling.

Anyway, let's talk Pros and Cons:

Pro: Leveling goes faster. While I think level scaling has made the process of leveling a character more fun than it used to be, I also think that most players (especially those who have done even the Cataclysm-revamped zones many times - they are nine years old at this point) are eager to get their characters into newer content, both to participate in the "current" stuff and also enjoy the polish that questing has received over time (though to be honest I liked Legion's questing content better than BFA's - it's still an upward trend though.)

Con: The feeling of loss. With the item squishes, we've seen our health and damage plummet, and even if it's proportional to the content we're doing, it can be sad to go from doing millions of damage every second to only a couple thousand. Psychologically that's not great. And it might feel even more intense when you have something like level - a far less fluid measure of character power than DPS - reset to where it was in 2004.

Pro: Each level becomes more meaningful. In the original game, you would get a talent point to invest in your trees every level starting at 10, and that meant that even if you didn't get a new ability (or rank of an ability - which used to be a thing) you still saw your player power get slightly higher. Now, especially with level scaling (which I still think is a good feature,) you actually get slightly less powerful when you level up as your secondary stats depreciate, and while they have (wisely) shifted most important abilities to earlier in the leveling process, it means that those later levels feel rather empty. By reducing the number of levels you climb through, you might start getting something - or even multiple things - every time you ding.

Con: The danger of squishing things together. With the item squish, we've had times when there's no meaningful upgrade even when leveling to another expansion's content. I remember still using stuff from Northrend that was better than stuff I was getting out of Pandaria, and that was before level scaling applied to those zones, so there had been all of Cataclysm's content between them. If we divide levels in half, it means that one could go from Outland to Draenor in only five levels - it would be pretty strange, I think, to replace gear from one Shadowmoon Valley with stuff from the other.

Pro: Numbers don't get as ridiculous. Given the sort of "rule of twelve" thing with numbers, 120 feels like a decent number to strive toward. But 130, 140, 150... at some point the ratio of levels gained to levels you end up with feels weirdly small. If WoW survives for an absurdly long time (which it has already,) would you find the difference between 260 and 270 all that compelling?

Con: This just pushes the problem down the road. The Warlords item squish was good for a whole two expansions before they had to implement another. I imagine we can expect the next one to come after whatever expansion follows BFA, because the ultimate truth is that we've got potentially 15-year-old characters who have had to get more powerful over that stretch of time because that's the way the game works. Now, WoW is certainly nowhere as popular as it was in say, Wrath of the Lich King, but given that even some of its predecessors like Everquest are still around - and that never reached anywhere near the popularity of WoW - we can probably assume that even with a fraction of its current playerbase, they'll keep it running. So what happens if, twelve years and six expansions from now, they hit 120 again? I guess that's future-Blizzard's problem.

Modify Memory and My Dimir Character

So I have yet to play in a Ravnica campaign, though I'm planning a 1-shot for level 18 characters that will be set there (one of my friends has a level 18 character she never gets to play, so I volunteered to dive deep.)

Anyway: I realized something horrible. I had, for a long time, been thinking about a House Dimir Half Elf Shadow Sorcerer (infiltrating the Izzet League) but I just realized something terrible:

Sorcerers don't get Modify Memory.

OH WAIT! YES THEY DO!

I literally started writing this post feeling crestfallen before I remembered the Guild Spell Lists! Yes, given that it's one of the most House Dimir-like spells, it should not come as a shock that Dimir Operatives who can cast 5th-level spells get access to Modify Memory.

So disregard that earlier sadness!

Now:

I had an idea for a way to use Modify Memory in an unconventional way: Generally, I think most people would use it to act as something like a neuralizer from Men in Black - you erase the memory they had of seeing you do something you didn't want them to and replace it with something mundane and unremarkable.

But I realized that it might solve a problem I made for myself earlier in my campaign.

First off: I think DMs have a ton of license to break the rules if it means a better story. If you need to force your players into a situation for the story to work, that's ok as long as you make sure the players don't feel railroaded. Make sure that there are big choices for them to make. Matt Mercer has been remarkably adaptable in Critical Role's campaign 2, which is amazing, but you don't need to hold yourself to such a standard (like, spoiler alert, totally upending one of the main plots of your campaign based on what the players do.)

But still, if there's a way to do what you want to do within the rules as written, you should try to do it that way and thus give your players a chance to mess with it.

So:

In my campaign, there is a shady, clandestine organization that seeks to manipulate events behind the scenes for their own purposes (they see themselves as lawful neutral, but veer into lawful evil a bunch,) called the Khorem (they were the magocracy of a long-fallen empire that have supposedly not existed for thousands of years.) The Khorem has some strange plans involving gold dragons and the Shadowlands (my world's Shadowfell equivalent) and has thus been keeping a close eye on the paladin in the group, who is a Gold Dragonborn.

In initially introduced them by having the paladin spot two "men in black cloaks" (get it, men in black?) who seemed to be watching him at a pub, yet when he went to confront them, they were nowhere to be seen and no one else at the pub seemed to have seen them there.

Now, to be fair, I kind of threw that in as spooky flavor. I didn't really have a mechanic other than some kind of selective invisibility or something in mind.

But now I've figured it out: Modify Memory.

See, yes, it's usually there to remove remarkable memories. But you could also use it to have an entire briefing that no one who can't extract the thoughts directly from the subject's mind could overhear. Rather than approaching someone and making sure you're in a spot where you can't be heard, you instead just add a memory to their mind of having had the meeting - the memory doesn't seem to have a hard cap on how complex or long it is, so all you need is a few moments to cast the spell on them.

This could be done in a benign way, or it could be a way to threaten someone. Naturally, you could also seed paranoia by having a trusted NPC or even a fellow party member be the one giving the message - and then the subject might think that the other character has been charmed or mind-controlled.

So while the exact goals of freaking the paladin out by adding a memory of seeing these dudes in black coats remains... elusive, I think this could be a really interesting way for people like the Khorem (or House Dimir, who largely inspired the Khorem) to communicate.

EDIT:

For fun I decided to just roll my Sorcerer character for hypothetical future use. I managed to get some insane stats: at level 1 he's got 19 Charisma and 17 Constitution. No minuses (which oddly seems to be a thing with characters I roll.) So that means that at level 4 he maxes out Charisma and gets a +4 Con modifier, potentially maxing out Constitution as well at level 8. Oh, and +2 to Dex, so while he's always going to be a little squishy as a Sorcerer, it's not that bad. Plus, given that he's embedded in the Izzet League, as long as he doesn't get found out he might be able to earn himself a Mizzium Apparatus (or steal one!)

Ludwig the Accursed/the Holy Blade: Still Hard

Ludwig is the first boss of Bloodborne's Old Hunters DLC. As perhaps one of the most hideously monstrous creatures in all of video games, Ludwig is also a tragic figure - a Hunter who genuinely thought he was doing the right thing, enlisting the people of Yharnam in defeating the Scourge of Beasts, only to become the most grotesquely malformed beast (and seemingly fused with his horse) and damned to the Hunter's Nightmare.

Anyway, I've gotten to that fight on my Bloodtinge-based character, who now sports a +10 Chikage. And while I haven't slammed my head against a wall exactly when fighting him (only three attempts in,) I am definitely reminded that this guy's a bit of a wake-up call.

I've been through most of the DLC on three characters - the first one had every fight (except perhaps the Living Failures) an exercise in gradual progress and multiple "let's step away from this for now" breaks when I got frustrated. Astonishingly, I beat the Orphan of Kos (and possibly Lady Maria) in a single attempt on my Arcane character - a fluke, I'm sure.

But Ludwig is definitely tricky - his strikes are fast and hard to dodge, and some require a bit of luck, like when he leaps up to the ceiling and drops down on you. Then, when he hits 50% and the second phase begins, the moveset changes entirely. I think he's less unpredictable in this phase, but his attacks are devastating. In my best attempt on this character, I got him down to about 15 or 20%, but hadn't realized that he was about to use his most devastating forward blast attack, which one-shot me.

Anyway, the Bloodtinge build is still proving itself exciting in the amount of damage you can put out - especially after I picked up some very effective gems from Winter Lanterns (seriously, fuck those things) in the Nightmare of Mensis. I'm tempted to put a Bloodtinge-scaling gem in place of one of my physical attack gems and just dedicate myself to using the Chikage's transformed mode for the whole fight.

In particular I've found the hunter-vs-hunter fights sprinkled through the game (like the two Yahar'gul guys on the path to the right of the Grand Cathedral) much easier with the damage I can put out. I'll need to see how I deal with the Bloody Crow of Cainhurst, which I generally think of as the toughest of these fights.

Chikage and Learning How a Bloodtinge Build Works

I've played Bloodborne on a few different characters, typically picking a primary damage attribute and focusing on that. My first character was Strength based, then I did a Skill-based one and an Arcane-based one.

Strength and Skill are two pretty straightforward stats - your weapons just deal more damage as you build the stat. Arcane is weird, but ultimately very satisfying, as your weapons don't scale with it until you get elemental gems for them, but then they become very powerful (and allow you to take advantage of weaknesses the bosses have) while also giving you access to the Hunter Tools to effectively cast Bloodborne's equivalent of spells.

Bloodtinge is one that I avoided for a while, but I'm finding my new character has become quite powerful with it. That's due to the fact that I have gotten the Chikage, which you need to defeat Martyr Logarius to attain.

Logarius is of course one of the harder bosses in the game if you're at the appropriate level range. Sequestered off as the boss of Castle Cainhurst (an ironically easy dungeon for such a tough boss) I think one of the biggest challenges is the long run back to fight him. But on top of that, he avoid you during the early stages of the fight, making it hard to just get in and hit him. Then, as he gets lower on health, he starts attacking more in melee while casting spells that force you to hide. The good news is that, like Pontiff Suleyvahn in Dark Souls III, if you get really good at parrying, the last phase becomes surprisingly easy - assuming you time it right.

Anyway, once you join the Vilebloods, you get the Cainhurst badge and can pick up this blood-katana.

The way it works is that it typically scales with Skill (maybe a bit with Strength as well,) but when you transform it, it starts to scale with Bloodtinge (at a better rate,) though it now starts to drain your health at a gradual rate.

Thus the way I've been using it - quite effectively - is to only transform it briefly when I have a window for big attacks. The damage it puts out is profound - this was I think the first time I solo'd Shadows of Yharnam (I couldn't remember where the summon spot was... or maybe it's Henryk you summon, so if he's already dead you can't summon him?) While I did see my health drop to scary levels now and again, I was able to carve through those snake-infested Ringwraiths with remarkable speed.

Darkbeast Paarl went down very easily too - especially given that you can extinguish his electrical aura if you damage him quickly enough, so having a high-damage-at-a-cost weapon worked well.

I'm now thinking of either doing Nightmare Frontier, continuing into Byrgenwerth, or possibly trying my luck at some early Hunter's Nightmare to see if I can pick up Simon's Bowblade or some other cool weapons.

Catching Up on Allied Races

In the midst of the post-Antorus lull at the end of Legion, it was a fantastic time to release the first wave of Allied Races. My Lightforged Draenei Paladin, Void Elf Rogue, and Nightborne Hunter rose through the ranks and were geared enough to start Antorus by the time BFA came about (I waited for the 8.0 changes to Survival before working my Nightborne up.)

Once you have Heritage armor unlocked on one character, any other toon you have of that race can use it for transmog, so if you want to level up a second one or race-change an existing toon you can do so and get the cool item set.

The other races have been a bit slower for me to level up. My Highmountain Tauren Warrior is 55. My Dark Iron Dwarf Warlock just hit 58 and can go to Outland/Northrend. My Zandalari Troll Shaman and Kul Tiran Druid are bout around 35 (but they're pretty new.) Finally, my Mag'har Orc Monk is only level 28.

I know it's an odd time to focus on low-level alts, given that I still haven't run the Battle for Dazar'alor (even on Raid Finder) and there's still some war campaign stuff I need to do Horde-side (though I have the Alliance Wolf and Horde Horse mounts thanks to being caught up by the time 8.1.5 came out.)

Still, there's something fun about running a dungeon and getting a whole level (or two) for doing so. And with five characters to work on, I can leave plenty of them resting to build up the experience bonus.

Of these characters, I think only the Druid is likely to take over as "main of his class," over from my Night Elf who, when I started in Vanilla, was my secondary Alliance character. But having the heritage sets unlocked will be useful if there's a new class and I want to take an Allied Race option.

I'll also need to get my Blood Elf and Dwarf to 120 (they're both next-in-queue for main characters) so I can pick up the 8.1 heritage sets for them. My Tauren is my Horde co-main (he trades off with the Undead Rogue) so he's been at 120 since early in the expansion, and my Gnome warlock was I think character number 4 to hit 120 Alliance-side, so they're both primed and ready when 8.2 drops to get their heritage sets.

The Mourning of Vicar Amelia

While I haven't finished Dark Souls 3 (I still have Nameless King, Halflight, Midir, Gael, and Soul of Cinder left) I found myself drawn back to Bloodborne, the game in this greater series that I've actually beaten in its entirety (actually, technically not, as I haven't done a ton of the chalice dungeons and never beat Queen Yharnam, but can you blame me for getting bored with those?)

Anyway, I've started a new character with the intention of seeing how I feel about a Bloodtinge-build (I've done a Strength, Skill, and two Arcane characters - Arcane's my favorite so far.) I've been diligent about doing everything I could before fighting Amelia and setting the world state from evening to night (except Hypogean Gaol, because I remember Paarl being a pain and want to be a little beefier before I face him.)

Anyway, during the Evening stage of the game, the Cathedral Ward has a number of Church Giants who are the type of enemy you're really meant to avoid rather than fight, as they have a ton of HP and hit like trucks. There are four that I can think of in the big path that leads from the plaza overlooking the bridge where you fight the Cleric Beast up to the Grand Cathedral.

What's interesting about these guys is that when Amelia dies, they become non-aggressive, sitting in place and seeming to mourn her.

It got me thinking: what exactly makes this night (to borrow a phrase from Passover) unlike other nights? We know that the Hunt is something that happens regularly (I'd guess every full moon) but probably most of them don't involve the Vicar of the entire church turning into a massive beast.

My interpretation is that the reason this particular Hunt is so nasty is because of the Mensis Ritual, in which the School of Mensis are trying to create their own Great One - with the One Reborn being perhaps the horrible product of this failed attempt. Their ritual is trying to draw the power of the Moon to Yharnam, and thus is exacerbating the werewolf-like Curse of Beasts.

So where is Amelia in all of this? What is her purpose?

In the Hunter's Nightmare, we find and eventually fight Laurence, the First Vicar. Laurence is of course a huge part of the story, and founded the Healing Church. Given that, it would seem logical that the Vicar is the leader of the Healing Church - essentially its Pope (but presumably in the world of Bloodborne, despite its quasi-Victorian setting, there's more gender equality than the modern Catholic Church. So score one for the Healing Church?)

It is a little odd, then, that she's all alone in the Cathedral when we find her. Granted, there are tons of Church ministers guarding the cathedral, so this might simply be video game mechanics demanding that there be an open boss arena in which you can fight her and not worry about "trash mobs."

We know that there are two big organizations affiliated with the Church that seem to be its upper echelons - the Choir and the School of Mensis. The School of Mensis (presumably led by Micolash) is clearly fundamentally evil - in a series where "villains" are often a matter of interpretation, it's not hard to think that a group that kidnaps people and fuses them into horrifying Lovecraftian monstrosities is pretty bad. The Choir, in my mind, seems more likely to be misguided. As Vicar, is Amelia a member of the Choir?

Given their spies within the areas controlled by the School of Mensis (including the Nightmare of Mensis,) it seems that there is a schism. The Choir I would guess is more affiliated with the actual operation of the Church whereas I imagine the School of Mensis is more of an off-shoot cult.

So while the Choir certainly has plenty of sins to answer for - like controlling everyone with alien blood that gradually turns them into monsters - my sense is that the Church itself is kind of falling apart in the light of what the School of Mensis has done. Amelia is probably unaware of the Mensis Ritual and desperately trying to cling to her own humanity when we enter - and ultimately fails to do so.

So when the Church Giants go into mourning, perhaps that is to mean that the Church is utterly screwed at this point - there's no successor to Amelia and the entire grasp of control they have over Yharnam has slipped.

Indeed, consider that when we go to Upper Cathedral Ward - which is meant to be the headquarters of the Choir, I assume - we only find a handful of white-suited Church hunters, and the actual building that should be their headquarters is overrun by beasts and mind-suckers.

Which is to say that I think the most likely interpretation of what, exactly, has happened is that the School of Mensis has basically destroyed the existing order of Yharnam and killed themselves in the process (hence the hall of skeletons in head cages.) Assuming that the madness ends at the end of the night, the people of Yharnam are going to have very little left standing that they can rebuild.

Citadel, Warforged Cleric

D&D is becoming a bit of a thing around here.

Two days ago, my roommate decided he was frustrated that we weren't having a D&D game that week, so he decided to run one of the Tales of the Yawning Portal dungeons.

Only three of us responded on such short notice, so we rolled slightly higher level characters than the dungeon is for - going to level 7 instead of 5. We just got to our second combat encounter (though we figured out how to trigger another but are saving it for later) when we ended for the night, but might pick it up again at some point.

Anyway, I managed to a roll a character using three different books - he's a Warforged Order domain Cleric with a Far Traveler background. (So that's Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron, Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, and Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide - hey, it's the three "setting" sourcebooks!)

Anyway, first off, Warforged are awesome in general, with their integrated armor, their lack of a need for food, sleep, or air. And it turns out that that's a really great trait in this dungeon, which is filled with gas that gradually causes poison damage to those who breathe it.

While we haven't done much of an extensive backstory, this being a spur of the moment game, we're a somewhat evil-leaning party, between my Cleric of a Lawful Evil god (though my sense is he thinks the god is Lawful Neutral,) a Goblin Druid of Spores, and a Tiefling Oath of Vengeance Paladin (if she had gone Conquest, I was thinking that my character had converted her.)

Anyway, as someone who historically has shied away from priest-like characters, I've got to say that Clerics get some fun toys. Plus, it's fun to be a full spellcaster decked in full heavy armor (or the Warforged equivalent armor setting.) I actually have higher AC than my Eldritch Knight fighter (though he's only level 4.)

Anyway, if this character goes beyond this one dungeon, I might have him eventually convert to some Lawful Good or Lawful Neutral deity (hey, is Primus a god?)

What if: The Garrosh We Saw in Stonetalon Mountain

Garrosh Hellscream was maybe the first WoW-original character to be a major player in the game. Introduced first in Burning Crusade, we watched as he took all the wrong lessons from the story of his father's redemption, became the very brutal Warchief he had feared he would become, fell from power after the Horde could no longer bear his tyranny, and finally died in an alternate version of Draenor after he had turned traitor not only to the Horde but even his own universe.

Garrosh's story is over, and his popularity or infamy among players is more or less settled - I seriously doubt we'll ever see more of him, as his story is basically told.

Leveling up my new Zandalari Shaman, I did the quests in Stonetalon Mountains and was struck by the very different characterization of Garrosh we get there.

Cataclysm marked the middle expansion of Garrosh's existence as a character, and it was as this one launched that the Horde saw Thrall step down as Warchief and give Garrosh his seat. Despite his early reluctance to do even enough to defend Garadar during Burning Crusade, Wrath saw Garrosh lead Horde forces there with impetuousness and encouraged far more reckless and brutal tactics, such as assaulting Alliance forces during a push against Icecrown that led to a slaughter of both Alliance and Horde forces that the Scourge put to use by raising the dead.

Garrosh's effect on the culture of the Horde was evident in Northrend, where players were forced to deal with warmongering officers who had clearly taken Garrosh's attitude toward the campaign.

Garrosh's ascent to Warchief saw the Horde mechanize and push their war against the Alliance into overdrive. Cataclysm saw Garrosh's influence on the culture spread globally, and this came to a head in Stonetalon Mountains, where Overlord Krom'gar ultimately decides to bomb a Night Elf grove full of what appear to be teenagers training to be druids. The grove is Cenarion Circle, not Alliance, but Krom'gar decides to have it destroyed, even killing a Tauren boy studying there.

When Krom'gar has the grove bombed, Garrosh ports in with a number of Kor'kron bodyguards and immediately condemns Krom'gar, throwing him off a cliff as punishment for this massacre, claiming that Krom'gar had failed to uphold the Horde's honor.

Now, there is a lot to be said about whether this act is hypocritical (short version: it is,) but it's striking given that Garrosh had, in most other appearances, embodied a "win at all costs and make them suffer for defying us" attitude when it comes to the prosecution of the war with the Alliance. Here, however, he has principles - lines that one cannot cross.

What would have happened if we'd gotten more of that Garrosh?

One could have imagined, for example, that Garrosh would evolve over the course of the game. Knowing little other than stories of the Old Horde, he began his career in the modern one with a sense that brutality is just how things are done. But after spending some time with Varok Saurfang, who remembers how horrible the "good old days" are, he might have started to develop a more nuanced worldview.

Still, he's a solider, and not a shaman like Thrall. He's there to win the fight. But maybe he would have dedicated his thoughts not to his literally-fascistic system of racial superiority but instead thinking tactically and strategically. Maybe this Garrosh could have learned to appreciate the Alliance - not befriend them, but understand them better and thus be a far bigger threat.

The Horde seems to vacillate between monstrously evil Warchiefs and utopian idealists. I would have loved to see Garrosh hone his warrior instincts and broaden his abilities to political manipulation. The moment he was Warchief, he already made an enemy of Vol'jin and Cairne - two of the Horde's most popular leaders. Now, you could chalk that up as rookie mistakes. Maybe killing Cairne by accidental means could have shaken him out of that mindset. It could have taught him something about the ability for a tightly bound regime like the Horde to fracture - and that could have inspired him to see how he might create fractures within the Alliance.

See, Sylvanas' gambit at Teldrassil was to divide the Alliance, and while there has been some of that - with Tyrande and Malfurion focusing their efforts of Darkshore while the rest of the Alliance is concerned with Zandalar, one never gets the sense that there is anything near the deadly game of cloak and daggers that is happening with the Horde.

Wouldn't it be more interesting if a Horde leader was willing to flash a smile of false friendship while subtly encouraging elements in the Alliance to start questioning the direction they were going?

To put it simply: what if Garrosh hadn't been some dumb roid-rager, but was instead a brilliant tactician?

The Sickness in the Horde and the Cohesion of the Alliance

One of the biggest questions I have with the story of the Horde in Battle for Azeroth is just how exactly Sylvanas' story is not going to mirror Garrosh's.

Very recently - only two expansions have passed through since - the Horde rose up against its own Warchief and toppled his regime. Garrosh had pushed war against the Alliance into overdrive, and he had transformed the Horde into an authoritarian regime in which certain races were privileged over others. On top of that, his pursuit of greater and greater power and weapons to use against his foes (external and internal) pushed the Horde into rebellion. Vol'jin, one of their most respected leaders, was nearly assassinated, but his survival allowed him to organize the other leaders against Garrosh, and between the Alliance and the Darkspear Rebellion, Garrosh could not hold onto his seat.

Yet in many ways, Garrosh was a more traditional Warchief. If you were willing to live the brutal, fascistic way that he idealized, that Horde was the one for you.

Sylvanas seems to be far less ideological, but she is even more ruthless than Garrosh was. While he lost it near the end, Garrosh did show some restraint, or at least try to. The story of Stonetalon Mountains shows that while he wanted global conquest, he was primarily interested in attacking military targets. Sylvanas seems not to consider anyone a civilian, or perhaps instead considers civilians to be targets for acts of terror and demoralization.

Burning Teldrassil was either a rash decision she made in the moment after Delaryn got under her skin, or it was a calculated attempt to use the deaths of thousands of innocent people to scare the Alliance into submission (or at least over-extension.)

While many Horde members seemed to feel like they were standing up to a domineering Alliance, it's clear that as this war has been waged, confidence in the Horde's honor has been faltering. First Saurfang refused to follow Sylvanas from Undercity, and now...

SPOILERS AHOY

Midir, Nameless King, and Probably Halflight?

I'm at one of those points in Dark Souls 3 where I have three bosses to face, and I'm not sure which order to do them in.

I've got a full Ringed Knight set, which looks awesome (even if, as I'm generally going two-handed, the hood/cape kind of clips with my shield on my back.)

Midir is actually kind of two fights - he's on the side of a cliff when you first see him, and you need to knock him off while dodging his swipes and breaths (he has a fire and a laser/dark effect.) Anyway, this fight is somewhat tough but thankfully the run back is nearly instantaneous.

What's funny is that actually getting to the fight itself is a little tricky, involving false walls and jumping off elevators mid-transit. And once you get to Midir, you'll find that he's an absolute beast. Midir's hits do massive damage, and on top of that he's one of these big guys who mess with your camera if you lock on. I believe his head takes extra damage, but it might be safer to go for his legs. Not safe, of course, because of his many very nasty attacks.

So of course I'm also working on Nameless King - the last pre-DLC boss other than the Soul of Cinder I have left. Oddly I'm finding it harder to get to phase 2 than when I first started working on the fight. With my Dexterity and Strength pumped up as high as mine are (I started this character as a primarily Dex-based one, but once I hit 40 I figured I'd go for the 40/40 builds people seem to recommend) the damage I do to the King of Storms is pretty huge, but I feel like I very rarely have an opportunity to hit his head/neck (I guess I could go for the legs, but I think he has greater resistance there. Anyway, it's hard enough for me to get to phase 2 that I get little chance to learn that part.

The King of Storms phase of the fight is another camera-screwy one, which makes it hard to see the Nameless King's telegraphs while you're trying to also watch the dragon's moves.

Finally, I'm nearly certain that I've gotten to Halflight, Spear of the Church. Assuming Midir is optional (a funny term for a DLC boss) I think Halflight is the only boss standing between me and Slave Knight Gael, and thus the Blood of the Dark Soul. But I haven't even tried that one yet.

Unlocking the Kul Tirans and the Zandalari

If you got exalted with the Proudmoore Admiralty and/or the Zandalari Empire and got all your pre-8.1.5 war campaign stuff taken care of, you are, as of Tuesday, able to unlock the locals on BFA's two continents as playable races.

Let's start with the Kul Tirans, which I got first. (Went Druid, because Kul Tiran Druid forms are so amazingly awesome and creepy.)

The premise here is that the Kul Tirans have already technically returned to the Alliance - a lot like the Dark Iron Dwarves, actually. So rather than have them officially join, which would be redundant, Jaina sends you to find the legendary shipwright who built her father's ship (which she raised from the ocean's floor to serve as her own.) She wants to give Anduin the gift of a fully-fledged Kul Tiran vessel as a gesture of good will and friendship.

You go across Kul Tiras, gathering supplies and crew, and meet the shipwright, who, hilariously, is very clearly a Shaman but does not seem to know that terminology (she has animated a bunch of elementals around her house to do all her work - it's how she builds ships so quickly.)

Anyway, once the Drust-cursed wood you get is cleansed by Ulfar in a druidic ritual, the ship gets blessed by Brother Pike and you get to pick a name from a list of four: Dawnsailor, Anduin's Wrath, The Lionheart, and Tiffin's Melody. On my Paladin I was tempted to go with Dawnsailor, though The Lionheart seemed the most "on-brand" for Anduin (Anduin's Wrath seemed wrong for such a measured and diplomatic king and Tiffin's Melody... actually in retrospect, my Paladin would have probably preferred that name. He's a super chill dude.)

With that, you get a Kul Tiran stallion which I believe is a palette-swap for the Seabraid Stallion you get with the collector's edition.

The whole thing takes about an hour, given the travel time across KT.

Now, Zandalari (I went Shaman here, just because it seemed right and I like Shaman.)

This is actually probably a shorter quest chain - it all takes place on the Zanchuli temple north of the main pyramid. But it seems more eventful. In the wake of the Battle of Dazar'alor (which I still haven't run... except one Normal mode night of failed attempts on the first boss) Talanji is awaiting her coronation. She also needs to assemble a new Zanchuli council.

As preparations are made, it appears there are riots in the Zocalo, and you are sent to investigate. Turns out that there is some figure named the White Widow who is riling people up - though it doesn't seem as if there's much she needed to do. Bwonsamdi's ascension within the pantheon of Loa is basically causing a religious crisis in Zandalar, which is a place pretty defined by its religious practices. Many dissenters decry Rastakhan's decision to give Bwonsamdi the place of honor in the pantheon, and they believe that Talanji is going to perpetuate that drastic change.

Talanji of course shows herself to be a merciful leader, trying to get you to kill as few people as possible while subduing the riots, even as her main prelate is really focusing on the Retribution side of her paladin-ness (I was tempted to make a Zandalari Paladin, though between my human, Lightforged Draenei, and Tauren, I figured that might be one too many. Then again, how many shaman do I have...?)

Once the riots are settled and the White Widow is slain - loyal to Shadra, but seemingly not corrupted, only angry at this religious upheaval - you then go and help Talanji as she is tested by the Loa - meeting Krag'wa, Gonk, Paku, and finally Bwonsamdi at the top of the temple, who playfully (or maybe not) tells Talanji that he'll let her out of her father's bargain if she gives him the head of the Warchief. (Something tells me this is more than just a test of her loyalty - Bwonsamdi is definitely not a fan of Sylvanas.) She of course refuses to betray her new allies, and accepts the bargain he had initially made.

With that, Talanji addresses her people and is made Queen. Then, she summons Sylvanas to her throne so that she may officially have the Zandalari Empire join the Horde.

What is interesting about this scene is that there is no lengthy loyalty oath in which she swears herself to the Warchief. Instead, she agrees to join the Horde as an equal, which Sylvanas, rather amused by this notion, accepts.

I think it's important we don't gloss over this moment - the Horde, despite theoretically opposing the "tyranny" of the Alliance, is a far more autocratic regime than their rivals. The Warchief is an absolute ruler, and Sylvanas has made use of those powers in myriad ways. If the Zandalari are truly securing a place that is not subservient to the Warchief but instead of equal stature, that seriously upends the notion of what it means to be in the Horde.

Now, Sylvanas might just be acting pragmatically - given how ancient the Zandalari Empire is, they would lose face in the world if they were to submit themselves to anyone else's rule, even if that is effectively the nature of the alliance they've entered. But it strikes me that if Talanji maintains control over her own territory without the Warchief's agents and enforcers looking over her shoulder, it could be Zandalar where the dissenting voices of the Horde find a safe harbor to oppose Sylvanas.

Trust, and Reunions in WoW

As you can probably tell by how many D&D and Dark Souls posts I've been making lately, I haven't been super into WoW lately - though I did unlock Kul Tirans and Zandalari the other day.

But I'm happy to read spoilers, and there's a big development in the war campaign story that needs addressing, even though technically I haven't gotten to those parts of the quests.

But spoilers ahoy here. Spoilers ahoy.

Past the Demon Prince and Into the Ringed City

The Ringed City seems to be set at the very end of time itself. We see civilization from Dark Souls 3 itself in the same state of ancient ruin that we found Anor Londo - or indeed, even worse, as they are being crushed together in the Dreg Heap.

While Lothric and its transitory lands appear to be quite post-post-post-apocalyptic already throughout the game, the Ringed City appears as if it may take place long past whatever ending we secure in the main game.

Now, time is of course very funky in Dark Souls - it's even implied in the original game that we might be traveling to different eras depending on where in Lordran we go. Sen's Fortress, for example, which in-game seems to serve primarily as a middle-dungeon that just blocks the way to Anor Londo, is referred to at one point as a "plane," which in fantasy RPG stuff usually refers to a separate but connected universe.

Indeed, in DS3's main game, the Untended Graves area, hidden behind Oceiros' room in Lothric Castle, is baffling - implied to either be a past version of the Cemetery of Ash, or possibly a future one, or maybe an alternate universe, which of course is extra-confusing because while you can physically access it from Lothric Castle, your own primary version of Firelink Shrine is in a separate area - though the Untended Graves' darkness seems not to match what the world looks like in the rest of the game.

Anyway, time is weird.

I'm intending to go with the Usurp the Flame ending, because in a game that seems to be about the futility of endlessly repeated cycles, at least the folks of Londor are trying to do something different.

The game examines some of the irony of the notion that "the only constant is change." We find that the tradition of linking the fire - which in the first game was only done by Gwyn and potentially the player character - became a tradition, and while this cycle of reigniting the fire meant constant renewal of the world, by the time of Dark Souls 3, it seems to have hit diminishing returns, such that Prince Lothric, who was basically born and raised specifically to sacrifice himself to prolong the fire, has decided it's not worth it.

The Ringed City is meant to be a kind of gilded cage that Gwyn created for the pygmies. Basically, using the Dark Soul - which seems to have been the origin of the Abyss (Manus, who the general consensus holds to be the Furtive Pygmy from the creation myth, is also called "Father of the Abyss.") The story goes that Gwyn feared the dark power of the pygmies (as he was sort of a giant/god, the "pygmies" seem to be just ordinary humans) but also had to do something to thank them for their aid in defeating the Dragons, and so he created this "reward" that was really a way to isolate them.

This raises some questions, such as how humans became a part of this world's overall populace if they were all stuck there. Also, I don't exactly know what characters like Havel count as - he seems to have been a friend of Gwyn's? But he's definitely human sized.

Anyway, the Ringed City seems to be set at the farthest point in the future that Dark Souls gets to - presumably the only thing that outlives it is the Painted World that the unnamed painter girl makes using the Blood of the Dark Soul as pigment. It's left, I think very much intentionally vague, but my sense is that the world of Lordran/Lothric/whatever is more or less left to die - though I also don't know what that really entails and whether there's a chance at rebirth for it - maybe through a different means than the flame.

Gael, who first sought us out to go to Ariandel's painted world, has left us signs to lead us to the Ringed City, and it seems to me that he got there long before we did. We see various hollows that are dressed in similar slave-knight red hoods (granted, these could also just be fellow slave-knights) and there are also the Ringed Knights with the big Darksign-like hole in their chests - which the transformed Gael also has (I have not gotten to that fight, to be clear, but I've seen videos.)

We also see creatures who seem to be wearing blue cleric clothing, complete with the big back-shell, but have devolved into bizarre quadrupeds and yet still cast miracles.

We also find these odd locust-people, who preach about the merits of the Abyss.

Hell, we even see the Dragonslayer Armor just randomly in a corner of the bog in the city who comes at us for a rematch (having kind of cheated to 1-shot it with a summoned NPC, this time I one-shot it just by having apparently "gitten gud," (though the pre-bog section with all the Harald Knights took me many attempts to get through.)

Anyway, while overrun with horrifying men-turned-monster, the city itself is actually weirdly lively, with greenery growing and not quite as much rubble and decay as we've seen in places like Lothric.

In any Dark Souls game (and Bloodborne,) I often find myself wondering what these places looked like when things were actually functioning properly. But if the Ringed City was specifically hidden away in the future, was there ever a point in which it was a normal, livable place?

Dark Souls lore. Never any clear answers.

Friede Down, Onto the Ringed City... Oh No!

Well, I did a bit of a grind to get my stats up, and once I was consistently getting well into phase 2 on my own, I used an ember, got my buddy Gael (friends to the end... literally!) and we took Elfriede and Ariandel down.

It's a three-phase fight. Phase one you don't get any help from Gael, whose most crucially important ability is that he can see Elfriede even when she's invisible. The big risk of using an ember on this fight is that if you slip up and die on the first phase, summoning Gael is wasted as he doesn't show up until phase 2.

So you need to play defensively. I used Magic Shield and a Black Knight Shield to just absorb her attacks (though if she does the dragging hook attack, which I think she does any time she goes invisible and you don't interrupt her, it'll get past your shield. Friede has Bloodborne-level dodging abilities, so you need to pick your time to strike quickly. If she goes invisible, there are some hints, both in sound and little footfalls where she jumps to that can help you spot her and interrupt her big attack, but if you don't have enough time, just roll around like an idiot and you might not get hit. I got through this phase pretty consistently, but the trick was to do so while conserving resources like Estus.

Phase 2 is a bit Ornstein & Smough like, which makes having Gael make it a ton easier. Ariandel is actually pretty easy to dodge and if you wail on him you can get him to stagger, score crits, and the like. The key is that when you're going two-handed and slamming him, be sure to watch out for Friede's attacks. Still, especially with Gael on distraction duty, this phase is not too bad.

Now: Phase 3 is the nasty one.

Friede is if anything faster here than she was in the first phase and her darkflame abilities hit like trucks. Part of the reason you want to get through phase 2 as quick as possible is that if you've summoned Gael, you'll want him to survive as long into this phase as you can manage. Having him drawing fire from Friede will make it massively easier to get hits in on her and not constantly be playing defense. While in phase one she'll allow you to dodge backward and heal pretty frequently, here she's pretty relentless. Gael died on my successful run when she was about one hit from death, but it took me another few attack cycles to safely strike her.

Anyway, downing Friede will create not just her standard boss bonfire, but also another bonfire at the end of the chamber where you can go to the Dreg Heap, where the Ringed City DLC begins.

My first impressions: Ok, so Dark Souls takes place in a fairly post-apocalyptic environment already. It's all about ruin and undead that have hollowed and... it's not a good world to exist within. The Dreg Heap makes Lothric seem like a thriving paradise. Most enemies I encounter are crumpled up or hollowed out in a more literal sense. One massive creature that could stagger me while I was blocking with a single hit seemed to be grown over in roots and had just a hole in reality where its head should have been.

And things hit HARD. I've fought Lothric and Friede, leveled up to the point where I could manage to survive a couple hits from them. I've done a bit of a level grind. I'm SL 100. These guys are not messing around.

So we'll see how this goes.

Blackflame Friede and Ariandel - Still Working On Them

I haven't hit the frustration barrier that kept me from taking down Lothric/Lorian for a year (not playing constantly, I should specify - more that it made me stop playing for a long while) and in fact my last attempt got Friede down to about 15% on her final phase. But it's still not a "couple of attempts" boss like some of the earlier ones when I was breezing through the first part of the game.

One thing I've done is switch back to my +5 Hollowslayer Greatsword (boss weapons are maxed at +5) from my +10 Estoc - the stabbing attacks from the Estoc are easy for Friede to block, and I'm finding the wide swing of the Hollowslayer (is it ironic or perfect that I, the Lord of Hollows, have a Hollowslayer Greatsword as my main weapon?) to both hit Friede more frequently and also for more damage per hit.

The real challenge for me I think is that dodging Friede's attacks seems practically impossible. Instead, I've been casting Magic Shield before the fight (and at the start of each phase) so I can block her attacks and then have some stamina left over to hit her when she's done with her attacks.

Having discovered the powerful Lothric Castle single-knight soul-farming technique (slap on your covetous serpent rings, a Shield of Want, and Symbol of Avarice helmet - the one that looks like a Mimic - and you can get I think 4950 souls from every kill. Just rest at the bonfire right there to reset that one knight very nearby and heal up from the damage you took in the fight or just from having the box-head on and repeat until you very quickly have several tens of thousands of souls) I can level up relatively easily and also have been getting a decent number of Embers.

As such, when I'm feeling confident, I Ember up and summon Slave Knight Gael. Gael doesn't actually show up until phase 2 - so don't waste embers if you're struggling on getting to that phase - but man does it help to have someone drawing fire from Ariandel and potentially Friede. This last attempt Gael survived to phase 3, and we got to go ham on Friede for a while - until Gael died and things got a lot harder.

This is a fight where I often find myself out of Estus not long into phase 3. There are plenty of times to heal (though far fewer in phase 3) but it's easy to take a big chunk of damage from Friede's combos and basically any hit from Ariandel.

I believe Ariandel's left arm is weak, and if you hit it enough you can stagger him for a critical hit (either that or if you just put in a lot of damage.) Friede can be back-stabbed (which is easier if Gael is distracting her) but as far as I can tell, you really can't parry her (shame, as it made Pontiff Sulyvahn, a fight I had been dreading, practically a cakewalk.)

Man, I can only imagine how insane Gael will be if I ever get to him.

Critical Role Kickstarter Gets 5x Funding In Less Than a Day

Critical Role, the streamed D&D show starring a bunch of voice actors, has been a phenomenon. While there are plenty of streaming shows and live games (it was Penny Arcade's Acquisitions Incorporated that got me interested in playing D&D,) Critical Role seems to stand atop them as the most popular.

Thanks in large part to how seriously the cast takes its characters (not that they don't have silly fun,) the show has been a great showcase of improvisational storytelling. I definitely run my game more in that mode than dungeon-crawling "let's try to maximize the gold and XP we earn" style gameplay.

Anyway, given their background in voice over for animation, it's not so crazy that they would try to make a cartoon thanks to the popularity of the show. Taking the characters from their first campaign, collectively known as Vox Machina, they launched a kickstarter campaign to create a 22-minute animated special taking place before the livestream began.

They set a goal of $750,000, with a deadline of April 14th. They reached that goal in less than an hour. Now, only about 24 hours after the kickstarter launched, they have over $4 million pledged, and are scrambling to create new stretch goals. At this point, they're looking to make 4 times as much content, likely being four separate episodes, as well as doing a number of one-shot games including "The Search for Bob," surrounding the random Githzerai guy they met during the Search for Grog game, as well as a Vox Machina x Mighty Nein game, which will be a kind of mash-up one-shot involving characters from both campaigns.

Anyway, they likely broke some records for day-one funding, and while the pace has certainly slowed, they could be on track to be the biggest kickstarter campaign ever (I believe the previous record was like 6.7 million, and they're already 2/3 of the way there after a day.)

Undying Warlock Patrons That Aren't Just Liches

It's sometimes easy to forget that the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide has a ton of sub-class options. Indeed, I think that there might only be exceptions for Wizards and maybe Druids. But I tend not to see a ton of people playing them.

In a newer (three sessions in) campaign I'm playing in (playing a Dragonborn Eldrtich Knight fighter,) one of my friends is playing a Tiefling Warlock with an Undying patron. While she has a good feel for the basic personality of her character, she's been trying to figure out exactly who her patron should be.

The Undead in general are in sort of a weird place in D&D lore. On one hand, the "Negative Plane" that sits below the lower planes and is a sort of undifferentiated expanse of the very essence of evil manifests typically as necromantic, undead magic. Few beings, I think even fiends, can survive going to the Negative plane, but the few entities that can, like Atropals and Nightwalkers, have the Undead creature type. The latter is particularly interesting to me in that Nightwalkers are not, if I recall correctly, actually formerly living things - they're just manifestations of darkness.

Along with the Beholder, the Lich is one of the most iconic and famous monsters to come out of D&D. Granted, Liches have precedence in legends like Koschei the Immortal or the quintessential "dark lord" of fantasy fiction, Sauron (though, as essentially a fallen angel I'd make Sauron's creature type fiend.) Indeed, the fact that the One Ring both keeps Sauron present on the material plane (Middle Earth) and can only be destroyed in a special way makes him the prototypical Lich (I'm sure he was in mind when they first came up with the idea.) Of course, more recently (younger than D&D) you had Voldemort from the Harry Potter series, whose Horcruxes are just a phylactery in seven parts.

One question that you often have to think about with Warlocks is exactly how powerful one's patron is. Generally, when a being is godlike enough to grant divine power to a Cleric or Paladin, we tend to think of them as being outside of the "killable" range. Asmodeus is theoretically an archdevil, but we don't see his stats in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (though there are actually a lot of missing archdevils.) Given that my Warlock has a Great Old One patron, I tend to think of his patron as being in a similar tier of beings - the Great Old Ones might be fundamentally distinct from Gods, but if they aren't as powerful, they're probably more so.

But does that hold true for other patrons? 5E has six officially sanctioned patron types - the Archfey, Fiend, Great Old One, Undying, Celestial, and Hexblade.

Hexblade's a bit odd, as it sort of implies that it's all the Raven Queen ultimately, though it's vague enough to let you decide with your DM (Fjord's patron in Critical Role is clearly a Great Old One working through a Hexblade.)

In Xanathar's Guide to Everything, Solars, Ki-rin, and Empyreans are all explicitly suggested as potential Celestial patrons, and these all, notably do have stat blocks.

So the fact that a Lich is killable does not exclude them from the potential to be a patron. And given that the very most powerful demons, like Demogorgon and Orcus, also have stat blocks, it doesn't really rule much out.

That being said, while Liches are certainly cool, what other options are there?

Technically, Undying patrons are anyone who has cheated death. That usually means necromancy, but you could come up with beings who have manipulated time or life magic in order to preserve themselves in a different way.

Still, I think the general vibe of this patron is that you're looking for something undead.

First thing I'd look at is the Death Knight. While not a legendary creature, Death Knights have some interesting lore to them. While you'll probably run into Death Knights working for Liches (they're pretty choice elite minions for them, in fact,) a Death Knight doesn't need a Lich to be what they are. Indeed, as Chris Perkins pointed out in an episode of Know Your Lore, while a Lich needs their phylactery to come back from the dead, a Death Knight sort of just can, regardless of what the party does. As a bit of inspiration, look up the lore to just about every humanoid Dark Souls boss.

One Undying Patron I think is screaming to be represented came out with Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. The Obzedat Ghost Council, leaders of the Orzhov Syndicate, is an oligarchy of greedy rich specters. You might consider just one of them as your patron (they could be using you to get a leg up on the others) but A: each ghost is only CR 8, which feels a bit low for a patron and B: I think it's way more interesting if the entire council is your patron - all squabbling over whose turn it is to use you and what cross-purposes they can set you upon.

Incorporeal undead are often portrayed as less powerful - or at least less aware of their situation. But this idea of ghosts who make fine use of their state (at least until some ghost-hunting assassin shows up) and actually wind up as powerful as Liches is a pretty cool idea.

You could also go for more cosmic-level powers. In my homebrew setting, the Lawful Evil plane was, many ages ago, conquered by the Angel of Death, turning burning hells into the frozen Necropolis. A being like the Angel of Death could make for a very powerful Undying Patron. Likewise, if you wanted to give your Undying patron a bit of the Great Old One-style inscrutable horror, you could go with something like an Atropal - which is technically an undead failed god-fetus, really straddling the line between GOO and Undying - or take the aforementioned Nightwalker - a being of pure negative energy, which means it's technically undead, even if it never lived.

As I've said before, I adore the lore surrounding Warlocks in D&D, even if their power level in-game is heavily dependent on the style of campaign you run (they seem built for dungeon crawls with multiple short rests per day, whereas my games tend to be much more story-driven and thus the "get all your very small number of spell slots back on a short rest" bonus is often devalued when we tend to only have one or maybe two combats between long rests.) Warlocks automatically come with an extra bond and the potential for some really interesting moral conundrums or challenges if the patron is still demanding something of you or if the consequences of the thing you did for your patron are coming for you.

The Prince Brothers Down and now Blackflame Friede

After what felt like a hundred attempts (but was probably in the teens) I finally took down Princes Lothric and Lorian. I leveled up a bit (I think I'm SL 83 or so) and got the Estoc, which I fully upgraded to Sharp and +10. The main thing was dodging the strikes. Lorian seems to have a near-limitless reserve of stamina, so you need to be pretty active on dodging (I had a Dragon Crest shield that could block his strikes, but it would take about 3/4 of my stamina each time I did.)

Anyway, I traveled to Archdragon peak and progressed a little further. I think I can do the Nameless King fight but I figure I should hold off on that.

I went a bit further in the Painted World of Ariandel and actually got to the point where I can do the big boss fight. I know that there aren't many bosses, but I figured I'd have to do the Champion's Gravetender before Ariandel and Friede - apparently not, though. I don't even know where the former is.

I've also of course got the Soul of Cinder waiting for me. I wonder if, like in Bloodborne, by the time I level up enough that I can beat the DLC final bosses like Friede and Gael, I might be so powerful that the game's actual final boss is a cakewalk. I took down Gehrman and the Moon Presence with very little difficulty after it took me about 20 attempts on Orphan of Kos.

One thing that the Lorian/Lothric fight made me think of is the way that, at least the way I've built my character, you actually don't have to hit the boss all that many times to take them down. I think each stab with my Estoc took Lorian's health down by like 5 or even 10%. It's just that the opportunities to strike are so rare and you risk getting caught out and vulnerable if you mistime tings. When Lorian's sword takes off like half your health in a single hit, you really need to play defensively.

EDIT:

Made my first run at Friede and Ariandel - I nearly got to phase 3. The first phase is just Friede, who is quick, but her only really deadly move is when she goes invisible and you need to try to hit her before she gets off her next move, as it'll hook you on her scythe and do massive damage.

Once Friede goes down, Ariandel will rip his chair from the floor and attack you with his massive bowl. The entire room catches fire and the flames revive Friede. This is a pretty Ornstein and Smough-style fight in phase 2 - you have Ariandel, who is massive and does tons of damage with each attack, and Friede, who you'll be lucky if you can even see as she blasts you with frost magic and the like.

I know this fight has a third phase, once Ariandel is dead Friede will unleash her dark sorceries - she is from Londor, after all. In fact, if you've been doing the Lord of Hollows quest chain, she even calls you out, telling you that you should be tending to your people rather than bothering her in the Painted World.

Given how far in I got on the first try, I hope that this won't take as long as the Twin Princes. From there I'll be heading into the Ringed City (and at some point trying to figure out where the Champion's Gravetender even is.) If I wind up getting through it all I might go back and do another playthrough of Bloodborne.

Looking Back at Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3

While Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is coming up, potentially adding to the Soulsborne roster (though it seems just different enough to look like it's better evaluated as a separate thing,) the current console generation has two native games of this meta-series, Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3.

Bloodborne is theoretically not a Dark Souls game, but it shares so much of the DNA that it might as well count as one. It has a stripped-down stat system and far less in the way of magic. Dark Souls, uniquely bleak world that it is, is still based on the classic western medieval fantasy genre. So you have knights in armor, swords, and magic. Bloodborne, of course, is a mix of Gothic and Cosmic horror. Its aesthetic is very 19th century (with a bit of 18th mixed in, like the ubiquitous tricornes) and focuses both on the use of firearms (something you don't tend to see in Dark Souls) and also the outlandish trick weapons the Hunters use.

So how do they compare?

Well, I will say that, having beaten every boss (not counting the Chalice Dungeons) in Bloodborne, I'm inclined to lean toward it. I'm also inclined to really like the way that Bloodborne shifts genres - starting out as an admittedly extreme gothic werewolf game and then going way down the rabbit hole of Lovecraftian terror.

That being said, Dark Souls is no Tokien-rip-off take on medieval fantasy. The lore of Dark Souls is vast and deep, and Bloodborne, while fascinating, has fewer things going on - largely due to the fact that it doesn't have two prior games to develop the lore around. Both games traffic in ambiguity, but there is a bit more clarity to what the stakes are in Dark Souls, even if the "right" decisions are very much up in the air.

I go back and forth a bit on the character stats. Leveling up in either game is subject to serious exponential growth, meaning that you need to pick your stats wisely. The fact that Bloodborne boils down to just six stats - one governing health, one governing stamina, and four kind of "throughput" stats - makes it a lot easier to say "ah yes, this is the build I've made." In Dark Souls, between Faith, Intelligence, Strength, and Dexterity and then also things like Vitality and even Luck... it's easy to feel like you've messed up your build.

I will say that Dark Souls probably has the better music. Don't get me wrong: Bloodborne has some amazing pieces, like the Cleric Beast theme (which you get to hear twice, thanks to Vicar Amelia,) or one of the most goosebump-raising musical moments in all of gaming when Ludwig the Accursed's theme transitions into Ludwig, the Holy Blade. But in terms of the sheer number of epic themes, I think Dark Souls has the edge here. The music is so intense that I'm actually hesitant to use it in my D&D games for combat music in case the fights aren't intense enough.

I think one of the interesting things about Bloodborne is that the fact that it's simpler than Dark Souls means you have a narrower path to walk. You can't build a shield-based character because there are only two shields in the game and one is basically a joke item that is there to remind you that you're not supposed to use shields. But because you have to play as a fast-dodging character, you adapt to that. In Dark Souls, there's always this question of what approach you should be taking to the latest boss, which is fun but also makes you feel like you need to totally change your equipment every time you die. I can't tell you how many different strategies I've tried to survive the Lothric boss fight and still haven't succeeded.

And I think that really shows you that both of these games are good - your preference will be based on personal taste. I love how Dark Souls 3 builds on the lore of the first game (and kind of the second) and would love to see Bloodborne get a sequel to see what exactly follows from the existing game.

Lorian and Lothric Kicking My Butt

After starting up a new character and playing through a bit of the early stages of Dark Souls 3, I decided to hop on my original character.

This guy was actually mostly through the main game. He only had three non-DLC bosses left - Lothric/Lorian, Nameless King, and Soul of Cinder.

Of those, I imagine Lothric/Lorian is probably considered the easiest, but man are they kicking my ass.

I have a fully-upgraded Hollowslayer Greatsword and a lot of Dexterity (I keep wanting to say Skill, which is the Bloodborne equivalent stat) so when I do actually land my hits, they hit hard. But Lorian is not messing around. His sword seems to take half my health each time he hits me, and he does not leave much time to heal up.

So I've been using Profuse Sweat to increase resistance to some of his damage and I've managed to get the fight phase two a couple times.

For those unfamiliar with this particular boss fight, Lothric is the younger prince and the last Lord of Cinder you've been sent to collect. In fact, unlike the other Lords of Cinder, Lothric never linked the fire. It's implied that the current crisis (no one linking the fire) is due to Lothric's refusal to do so - that this is the destiny he turned down, finding the whole cycle to be pointless. Which means that Lothric Castle, which you spend the beginning and later stages of the game fighting through is the most "modern" area, whereas presumably places like Irithyl had their glory days of significance and faded... maybe. I mean, Dark Souls lore is so open to interpretation that you could probably convince me of a dozen contradictory theories.

Anyway, Lothric was born sickly and frail, while his older brother Lorian was a great champion. Lorian was cursed - I think somehow taking on some of his brother's weakness - and so he kind of crawls around on his knees. This does not, in any way, make him less of a danger.

The real trick to this fight, other than Lorian's massive sword that deals a boatload of damage, is that Lorian frequently teleports around you, dodging your attack and then coming in with his own while you're off balance. Sometimes he teleports far away and prepares a big holy blast that deals even more damage and requires you to dodge at just the right moment.

When you take him down, Lothric teleports onto his brother's back and revives him. In addition to dealing with Lothric's spells and Lorian's continued assaults, any time you take down Lorian, Lothric will revive him again. So you need to position yourself around Lorian's back and strike at the younger brother - only killing him will end the fight, and I sure as hell haven't gotten there. I think my best attempt I got Lothric down to about 75%.

Now, to be fair I'm out of practice and also Dark Souls bosses tend to take some learning before you actually stand a chance.

Anyway, I think you need to get access to the final boss before you can do the Ringed City stuff, so that will be cool, though I think I should try to finish Ashes of Ariandel before working on Ringed City.