The VA for Laezel (Devora Wilde) has actually seen this meme and read it in-character. :P You can find it on YouTube.
Never mind the nudity toggle, we need a "hairless cats" toggle at the beginning of the game too I guess, if we want everyone to be happy. :P
The rarities do somewhat correlate with power in a vacuum, but synergy>raw stats, generally.
Eh. I haven't seen his dialogue since they apparently tweaked it, but I didn't find it that bad to begin with. There was a bit of a vibe in act 2 like "sorry you're hurt, didn't mean to lead you on, was just being nice" but thats life sometimes. /shurg
The RPGHorrorstory element... eh. I somewhat agree, mostly just in exactly how far along/established in his journey of magic he was. A young prodigy attracting Mystra's attention, and then ruining himself (and endangering others) in pursuit of more, is an interesting twist on the traditional exploration of a Wizard's hubris, the issue comes more from like "yeah, I didn't just attract Mystra's attention, I was a peer of Elminster and one of Mystra's Chosen" (conspicuous failure to mention the magical institutions of his home, EG, the Blackstaff, Vajra, Larael, etc., aside). TBH, just changing his interactions with Elminster to either double down on the implicit arrogance of assuming himself Elminster's peer, or have him be more of a fanboy, a la Karlach to Minsc and Jaheira, would've gone a long way.
Short answer; no.
Long answer: If you're really struggling and still quite early, swapping to Samurai isn't a terrible idea, it has a good stat spread and good starting gear. Elden Ring though, like all Soulsborne games, doesn't really put much empthasis on your class. All it is is your starting stats and gear. A couple bosses in, your starting stats won't matter near as much as how you've been leveling, and you can find the gear Samurai starts with in the starting area, if you really want to use a katana. So feel free to do whatever you want/is fun for you, but I wouldn't bother, personally.
They're all over Youtube. Especially the shorts. I've given up on trying to report them, at this point, it doesn't seem to make a difference. Started noticing them a month or two ago.
Well... it is a Baldur's Gate game (as much as I've seen claimed otherwise), so the story is centered around the usurper gods of death, their legacy and their attempts to gain power and influence in the world.
The first act is reasonably light (with exception of mindflayers and some light occular body horror :P), just normal dnd stuff, goblins, druids, etc.
The second... well, to avoid spoiling too much, let's just say it goes dark. :P Haven't seen the third yet, personally.
/shurg Can't say I've found it this way, but I'm pretty used both to DnD mechanics generally, and Larian's approach to encounter design in specific. (I've so far had exactly one combat game over, because I was dumb and let Ragzlin get into the rafters and chuck javelins at me for like 20 damage a pop.)
Positioning matters, your environment is something to be used to your advantage, abilities that boost your accuracy are very powerful, and different enemies have different strengths and weaknesses. /shurg Hard to give much specific advice, because different encounters and party compositions demand different tactics and threat assessment.
Some specific quests have time limits (long rest based ones) but those that do are pretty explicit about it and make a point of warning you before you can unintentionally progress them.
Always a little annoyed at articles like this; "strength" doesn't tell me anything. If this is 5x more resistant than steel to deformation, but then shatters catastrophically, that limits its use cases substantially. Likewise, compressive, tensile and shear strength are all different properties, only one of which is referenced at all. Still very cool, and I look forward to seeing how it develops and learning more details about its capabilities (when I have more time I'll read the paper), but vague terminology like this has a bad habit of making stuff sound way more revolutionary than it actually is. /shurg
Eh... it tracks well enough I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. Right wing talking heads push so hard at young men, it's fucking exhausting. And the slightest attempt to engage with or learn about current events and politics tends to lead to social media algorithms jamming alt-right nonsense down your throat, because that reactionary, provocative/offensive content generates more engagement. And so much of it is trying to frame the normal struggles of growing up (sex and sexuality, responsibility and expectation, growing independence (fiscal and otherwise) etc, etc) as things being inflicted on them by others, things thay can be simply solved by stripping power from these groups. (Immigrants, women, people of colour, LGBTQIA+, etc.)
Yeah, post-shaving alopecia is a thing, especially in double coated breeds. (Which is part of the reason you're supposed to avoid shaving them.)