Juice

The other day a mod on Hexbear told me that "now is the time for monsters" referred to "what we must become during the revolution." I was like no, its about old people

300+ hours in Nightreign, prob 200+ on one character: Executor. Generally, the worst character in the game. Low HP, low damage resistance, low damage except for status procs. If you go in unga bunga you will die, you will suck. Has a special ability called suncatcher that looks very flashy but itself does almost little damage.

So let's focus on his most important feature, arguably the most important gameplay mechanic in any soulsborne:

looks very flashy

Suncatcher is basically Sekiro playstyle. He has a cursed sword that can deflect all damage, with a satisfying clang and bright sparks, if timed near-perfectly. After 5 deflections, it lights up, and lets you do a golden sweep attack. Deflecting with Suncatcher builds up some stance damage, but the weapon itself did minimal damage on its own, even the flashy golden sweep.

His ultimate was a free heal that does a little damage but ever dark bosses and Deep of Night games would kill you easily despite being a giant horned beast. His ult has some utility, like healing other players when roaring with a certain relic. Synergies were found when using the seppuku skill with his special ability, but sacrificing a huge chunk of your health pool for a brief damage buff took a lot of situational awareness to make sure I didn't get ganked mid-buff, and it still happened frequently.

A lot of players use his high Arcane stat to proc statuses but dont really even use suncatcher. I myself became obsessed with it. Eventually I developed a "stance/status/tank" playstyle: after practicing with suncatcher for a long time I got pretty good at deflecting enemy attacks, and could hold off most bosses by myself while teammates did damage, or if one team member needed to go revive another. I learned that Executor's charge attacks are best after ive procced status a couple times. I could carry teams through the base bosses as long as both players weren't completely worthless.

But ultimately, the character had a high skill floor in order to become like a medium value character. It could be argued that his sekiro-deflect is too powerful, it has a generous "perfect" window, more than we got from Sekiro, but other characters were straight easy-mode. Raider has great damage resistance, a huge health pool, incredible DPS, and the ability to nullify attacks with his special poise-counter.

But last week, they buffed Executor. They buffed suncatcher immensely. It does more stance damage, it does significantly more damage, blocking uses less stamina, can't be stance broken with perfect deflects, and many atack up relics now apply to suncatcher. This character gained immense value. I was absolutely stuck in the new Deep of Night hard mode, I struggled to make any progress in depth 2, and while ive only played a single DoN match since the buff, we easily cleared it.

With a few relics, suncatcher can be made to be significantly stronger than even a legendary Katana, available at level 1. His HP and damage negation are still low, but he can't be stance broken on perfect deflects anymore, making him much more reliable and dependent on skillful deflecting rather than the enemy's attack spam.

I have become so powerful, it is intoxicating. Absolute incredible week for Executor mains

Part of a response I received in a thread on .ml

https://midwest.social/post/41018287

I was invited here to participate in discussion. But when I visit, all I see is a bunch of anti-tankie posts from a prolific anti-tankie, an Atlantic smear article about DSA from months ago, and a few genuinely good discussions. Let's get those numbers up, and start drowning out the "based" memes.

As of today, the most divisive and urgent issue du jour, is about the government shutdown, and the legislative drama surrounding it. People are angry.

There are a lot of people directly affected by the shut down. I know someone who is basically working for free at her govt job because she's scared she will lose her job completely. A department of 20 workers, reduced to a staff of 4 temporary slaves. She doubts she will get back pay, but hopes she will. Many of her coworkers will not. My friend doesnt think about it like that, but that is def one major pain point in the middle class.

I'm willing to bet the dem house legislature is just gonna fold with no healthcare demand, which is a seriously pressing issue for workers who rely on ACA.

Back of the napkin, about 45% of ACA recipients are at or below the poverty line. ACA subsidies cut off below 65k indiv/130k fam.

That bracket would include many government workers, except govt workers receive healthcare. 65k is like barely middle class in the US, with housing costs, soaring energy bills, etc.,

Interesting and tragic how the shut down is just a way to divide the working class over material issues, especially the working poor vs the middle class.

I’ve been playing this game off and on, starting over since it came out. I was a hardcore Bloodborne player, but also played a lot of elden ring and ds3. Sekiro never clicked, I thought it was slick and the action felt incredible but I just couldn’t get past the beginning. Finally I’ve broken through and am having a blast, and its all thanks to Armored Core 6. Thanks Armored Core 6 (I will not elaborate).