The First Rule of DKTF is...

What If We Had More Time?

2021-08-19T13:22:00.005-04:00

I recently talked about how terrifying my impending end is to me, and I said it's because of how little time I have compared to how much I'll miss.

I'm not sure that's the whole story, though, so I asked myself, "What if I had more time?"

The answers I found were enlightening, but it did take me through a rabbit hole to get there. I'll invite you to come along for the explanation, but again, the existential dread warning applies.

Let's start with something reasonable, like a medical breakthrough that doubles my life expectancy. Say by the time I'm 60 they can add 40 more years to my life. Then, by the time those years are up, they've figured a way to add another 25, and so on. We could almost believe that's possible. And for sake of simplicity, they're all healthy years, not just living on a machine years. I imagine the same medical breakthroughs are helping everybody, so I don't have to worry about outliving my kids or anything depressing like that. Everyone gets to live like the average 60 year old for an extra hundred years. How much would that change?

If You're Reading This, I'm Already Dead

2021-07-07T13:04:00.001-04:00

Statistically speaking, that is. But more on that later.

Before we really get started, a warning: This is going to get heavy, so if you're prone to anxiety or existential dread, maybe now's the time to turn back.

Death has really been on my mind lately. Some days it's all I can think about, but that's kind of hard to avoid when you've lost as many family members recently as you can count on your right hand. Within about a year, I lost two grandparents to just time, two uncles prematurely to cancer, and a third uncle in a freak accident decades before his time should have come. That's not even the scary part. The scary part is looking at the fingers on my left hand that I know I'm about to count with. Likewise, of course, is the realization that at some point I'm the one that will be counted.

Grand Prix Legacy Report

2013-04-11T17:09:00.000-04:00

Well, I took my Mono-Black Clerics deck out again, this time to the Magic Grand Prix. I avoided the main event as I'm not one for sealed, but I entered into two Legacy side events. Each event was an 8 man, single elimination tournament. The winner would claim a box of gatecrash; the runner up would earn himself free entry to another event. It sounded like a great deal, so I signed up. I expected the competition to be even harder than what I faced in my last event, because the Grand Prix could draw people from all over.

In the first event, my first opponent was a deck with red sleeves. My turn one play was Cabal Therapy and firing from the hip I called Lightning Bolt. He turned up his hand to reveal Combo Elves (ooh, that sly devil!). He played a forest and Fyndhorn Elves. I returned with a Dark Ritual and double Hymn to Tourach. That play ripped out his good stuff: a Green Sun's Zenith, Wirewood Symbiote, Deathrite Shaman, and another Fyndhorn Elves. He was basically left with mana producers, lands, and no cards in hand, but I wasn't drawing much either. He played Crop Rotation for Gaea's Cradle and I laid my Graveborn Muse down. He looked like he was going to come back with a Green Sun's Zenith for a Craterhoof Behemoth, but he had to tap out to play it so that was the only thing that could attack. I took its damage that turn, but was able to chump it for the rest of the game. For sideboard, I brought in Pithing Needle. In the early turns I made him discard Green Sun's Zenith and I dropped a Pithing Needle on Wirewood Symbiote. I looked to be in a dominant position, so when I played Umezawa's Jitte he just sighed "that's enough."
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Homebrew vs Legacy

2012-11-19T22:04:00.002-05:00

This past Sunday I went to my first actual competitive Legacy event, and I brought my cheap ass homebrew deck. Honestly, the entire deck cost less than a pair of dual lands. I went in expecting to get stomped and was pleasantly surprised with the results. Thirteen people showed up that night; I came out in sixth place. Arguably, I should have had fifth or higher, but I will get to that in a few minutes. First, this is the actual decklist I ran:

Dechs Mono-Black Clerics
2 Cavern of Souls
16 Swamp
2 Cabal Pit
4 Cabal Archon
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Rotlung Reanimator
3 Shepherd of Rot
4 Priest of Gix
4 Skirsdag High Priest
4 Dark Ritual
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Graveborn Muse
2 Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 3 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Surgical Extraction
SB: 4 Pithing Needle
SB: 4 Unearth

You will see a lot of synergies here, but the basic plan is to turn sideways enough to bring the opponent into range of an Archon kill. I have the Skirsdag High Priest to create flying creatures if that becomes relevant, but honestly he is often just a sacrificial creature. Rotlungs enable overrun with a bunch of smaller tokens too. "Turn sideways" also includes the ability on Shepherd of Rot, with the Jitte and Archon to keep me ahead of the death clock. I've received criticism that the deck has too many win conditions, but I think that's what I like about it the most. The idea is that I should not get hosed by any one deck out there.
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The Secret World

2012-11-06T10:58:00.001-05:00

Remember when I asked myself "What now?" Well, now I have a solid answer.

I will be making a new home in The Secret World, which I've been playing for about a week now. The game is extremely new as MMOs go. Hell, they're still offering a lifetime subscription (which could be a good or bad thing). So far, I'm really enjoying myself, I just haven't had much time to get really immersed.

My favorite thing about this game is that it is skill based, as opposed to class or level based. In The Secret World (TSW), as you gain experience, you get ability and skill points. You can learn any ability/skill you want so long as you have the prerequisites. That is to say, there's no reason a "wizard" can't learn how to swing a sword. There's also no limit to the amount of ability and skill points you can obtain, so eventually, your character can learn to do everything. Right now, in game Dechs wields a sword, a pair of pistols, and a fedora. I expect to add elemental magic next.

There are typically two downsides to such a free form character building set of rules. The first is that it becomes incredibly easy to gimp a character. TSW doesn't allow you to refund spent ability points, but because there's no ceiling to the points you can learn, your character is never permanently gimped. It takes more effort to fix a gimp than to start out right from the beginning, but there's no reason to reroll a character. The other common problem is the "tankmage" build. If there is one optimized build that just outperforms all the others, then every character will be the same. As long as the game developers balance the abilities well, this won't be a problem at all. The game might end up with very powerful characters, but as long as there are difficulty levels to accommodate, again, it's not a problem. I haven't been playing long enough to know how well this was handled.

My least favorite thing about the game is the "limited" character appearance options. I use quotes because I'm used to City of Heroes where you could make just about any bipedal thing you wanted, but it's really not so bad. In TSW, I can't have wings and I can't have spikes coming out of my head. I have to be a human, but I can still dress him up just about any way I want. Aside from weapons, gear doesn't have any affect on appearance, so there's no wearing a trash can just because it has good stats.

Overall I really like the game and I can see myself staying a long time, so much that I'm even considering that expensive lifetime subscription. If any of you are looking for a new game after the City has shut down, TSW gets all my recommendations. If you're interested, just try the game out. There's a free trial on the first page that's apparently longer than the refer a friend version.

As always, thanks for reading. I hope to see you around.
-Dechs

My Magic: the Gathering History

2012-10-18T16:30:00.001-04:00

I realize that before I start telling anyone about what Magic: the Gathering I'm doing now, I need to talk a little about what I've done.

My first games of Magic were in middle school and it all started with a pile of boosters from Portal 2nd Age and some from Fifth Edition that we found in a Goodwill. Back then, my friends knew me as the "best player" just because I ran Counterspell. We didn't know what dual lands were; we hardly understood the stack. Those days were ignorant, innocent, and blissfully fun. I put my cards down for four years, though, while I went to college.

At my first job I met a guy who had been collecting cards for as long as I'd known about Magic. When I told the old glory stories of my awesome deck, he coaxed me into dragging the cards out of storage for a game over lunch. The problem was, my new friend actually knew how to play Magic and build a good deck. This guy wiped the floor with me using a mono white cleric based control deck. Parallax Wave and Monk Idealist became the bane of my existence. I felt like total crap after the first couple games and I almost gave up on Magic altogether, but my friend saved me from making a terrible decision. Instead of gloating over a win, he started to teach me and explain his card choices. This is where I first started thinking about Magic on a technical level and set my mind to creating decks that had a plan.
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What now?

2012-10-18T11:08:00.000-04:00

It's old news by now, but for those of you who haven't heard: City of Heroes is being shut down. I'm told the lights go out November 30th. It's no secret that the majority of my blog content has been about City of Heroes, so that leaves me with a very important question to answer for anyone still reading this. What now?

Before I get to that, I need to say this to all my friends in game that haven't seen me in a while: I'm sorry. When the news hit us over a month ago, it took something away from the game for me. I logged in once and tried to have a bit of fun, but that knowledge of the impending end just wouldn't go away. I simply haven't had the heart to log in since. I had always claimed I'd be there until the bitter end, but I had no idea how bitter this could taste.

That said, I'm still here. My writing is still important to me. The stories I started are incomplete, and I won't stop until they're done. More than that, I won't stop sharing my knowledge of the games I play. Since City of Heroes has closed, I've been able to focus much more time into an old past time of mine, Magic: The Gathering. Right now I'm very much into Draft and EDH, I've been getting into Legacy again, and we'll see where it goes from there.

I have found a new MMO that I really enjoy: The Secret World. If you care to meet up with me in game, the name is Dechs, and I'm on the Arcadia dimension. More of my thoughts on the game can be found here.

Thanks for reading,
-Dechs

New DA Tank Builds

2012-08-03T09:35:00.000-04:00

My Dark Armor Tank has seen some heavy revision since the last I posted his build. In fact, I even rerolled him with a different powerset for a while. I'm going to talk about all those revisions, what changed and why, and then give you the Mids exports.

Before I get to all that, though, I want to make it clear that the old build is by no means outdated. It still performs every bit as well as it ever has. For any of you who have used it or taken ideas from it, none of them have magically become invalid.

The first revision I went through was when Martial Arts was ported to Tankers. I jumped all over that, giddy as all hell with the idea that I could get a huge defense bonus to everything and start stunning bosses and knocking down everything else. I set to work on a build that really took advantage of everything Martial Arts had to offer. What I created was glorious. I only had to build for 35% defense to S/L/E/N because Storm Kick would cover the difference (and I made sure Storm Kick had over 95% chance to hit +4 enemies). This let me pursue more recharge and max HP bonuses, resulting in an extremely sturdy tank. Further, my F/C/AoE defense was now above 30%, so my only possible weakness from before was fading fast. Then, since the attacks had the control I wanted, I dropped the Earth Mastery for Conserve Energy. A good thing too, because my new attack chain, while much stronger than with Fire Melee, was burning about 40% more endurance per second. Finally, I exchanged Teleport for Super Leap and Spring Attack. This is what it looked like:

The Highlights (With Storm Kick Active):
45.9% S/L defense
45.3% E/N

22.5% Max HP (2670 total with accolades)
22.2 HP/sec all the time
70% S/L resistance
2.2 Net endurance recovery per second with everything running
Dark Regeneration up every 13.3 seconds or less.

The Assassin's Prison

2012-07-11T11:09:00.004-04:00

Awake.

To my feet. Set stance. Observe.

Dark. Quiet. Stone floor. Still air. Nothing nearby.

Reach and draw knives. They are gone. Reset stance. Shake arm to loose the spike. It is gone. Reset stance. Observe closely.

This is not the dark of night; sun, moon, star and torch are all absent. I cannot see my feet, hands, or even as near as my shoulders. I must be indoors, the night sky is never this dark. I hear as little as I see; If I am not alone, then my company breathes more quietly than I can. Maintaining my stance, I make a slow, silent step forward to find nothing. I make another, my knuckles coming into contact with polished, flat stone. I take steps to the left, hand tracing the wall, and in three paces I touch smooth lumber. Breaking stance, I search with my hands, finding the thin wooden frame of shelves and several sealed jars stacked upon them. Behind the shelves is only a second wall, which I follow four paces to a third stone wall. This bare wall is four paces in length as well. My fourth stone wall is broken by the rough wood of a heavy door. A gentle push tells me it is barred on the other side.

I lean my back against the first wall while I think. What was I last doing? Searching my memory causes my body to shudder; I see within my mind a flash of blue flame and am beset by the echo of a searing pain. I can recall only burning. No, it was no simple burn. I have withstood the desert, passed my hand through flames, even grasped at hot coals, but this was like no heat I have felt before. What burned was not my skin, but something else ... something deeper.
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Interview with OnRPG

2012-04-11T17:50:00.002-04:00

So I was recently interviewed by Meticulous Meta, a journalist over at OnRPG.com.

Anyway, check it out here!

The Violet Pursuit

2012-03-28T15:06:00.000-04:00

No. No no no! That man lied to me. Rashidi did not lose. He cannot lose! That man must have lied. The way he laughed at me almost made me cry. I do not believe him, not at all. I wish I could have seen it myself, then I could be laughing at him for being a liar.

I will find Rashidi and ask him what happened. I know where his house is and how he will go from here to there. If I run, I will catch up to him on the way. Down the stairs, around behind the palace, then take the third left. These streets are well treated and do not hurt my feet when I run. I move so quickly that I almost knock over some rich old man. He shouts and shakes his fist at me while I turn away, down a side alley and over a small wall I know he cannot climb. I turn back towards the palace in case he has guards. They will not expect me to go this way. I laugh and make another turn to take me even farther from the old man's street. I will have to take the long way to Rashidi's house and meet him there.

Wait. Father allowed me to go to the tournament, but only if I could be home before the sun sets. If I am not, he will surely have me sanding beams for a whole moon. I will never make it home in time this way because I cannot run as quickly down these streets. There are rocks that may trip or cut me if I am not careful. I hate sanding, but I have to know what happened. Maybe I can think of a good story by then so father will forgive me. Something about that angry old man might do.
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WSPDR Notes

2012-03-22T16:11:00.002-04:00

Over time, my imaginings of the character Dechs Kaison have changed pretty drastically. Because of this, I've redone the initial WSPDR notes. This is a much more current view of Dechs as he is in game.

January, two thousand eleven, Catherine Ives recording...

As a blooming new company here in the Etoile Islands, Kaison Corporation has received loads of press time lately, and with good reason. It's the first of its kind, a hospital and medical research facility specializing in the meta-human population. Despite the attention the company is getting, the man behind it has remained all but anonymous. Dechs Kaison, we know his name but damn little else. Since he's turned down numerous chances to interview, it's fallen to the undercover girls like me to get the scoop. I'm not sure whether he's camera shy or hiding a few skeletons in his closet, but this could be the story to make my career.

MFing Warshade - Duct Tape Tactics

2012-03-11T00:37:00.006-05:00

Within the period of about a week, three seemingly unrelated events occurred that, when compounded, would spur me to create a new video.

The first piece of the trifecta was a fellow game forum goer posting a music video about his Warshade in action. The video was very well done in terms of choreography. The performance of the character was also quite impressive. There was some discussion around it and someone voiced that it would be nice to see some other people making videos about their Warshades. I wanted to fire up Fraps that day, but I didn't want to make just another Warshade video. I needed something unique.

Later in that week, I jumped on a "for the hell of it" Sister Psyche task force with my Warshade, but it certainly wasn't going quite as planned. I kept trying to run off and solo groups of enemies, particularly ones on the way to hostages or guarding sonic devices. I was getting my ass handed to me! These even con Freaks were giving me more trouble than the Imperial Defense Force in the incarnate trials ever had. By the end of the TF I was doing fine, though, so I just chalked it up to being rusty.

Finally, over the weekend, I started watching the TV show Burn Notice. I have to say, this is one hilarious show. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend this show. It's all kinds of serious business and awesome action. Michael Westen, the main character, gets ousted from the CIA and thrown to the winds, trying to get by however he can while also figuring out who burned him in the first place. It's the narration that really makes the show funny, though. These monologues that get you inside his head are just timed so well. So, how the hell could this tie into City of Heroes?

I remember one of those monologues above all, while Westen is trying to scare off a drug dealer from his apartment. "Fighting with guns makes you stupid. Better to fight your wars with duct tape. Duct tape makes you smart." The point was that by relying on a powerful tool, you throw your wits away. When a situation really gets out of hand, when your tool is no longer enough to win on its own, you forget how to make the most of everything else. By fighting with duct tape, you force yourself to fight intelligently. That's when the idea came to me.

Fighting with Eclipse makes you stupid. This is my Warshade, fighting with Duct Tape.
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The Supermassive Black Hole

2012-02-28T15:34:00.006-05:00

Introduction

A long time ago, I posted my first Dark Armor Sucks video. Within a few months, I noticed that people would occasionally refer to my Dark Armor guide. At the time, my response was always "Can you give me a link to that guide?" as I had not actually written this yet. I didn't even plan to write one. My guides are typically more broad in scope, taking into account an entire archetype or more. Further, at the time I had only played Dark Armor as a Tank. I still had a lot more to learn about the set before I could claim enough proficiency to write a guide on how to play Dark Armor.

Today I'm finally sitting down to write the guide that so many people have claimed to exist (I'm still trying to figure that one out). By now I've played Dark Armor through two Tanks, two Stalkers, one Brute and one Scrapper, each with a different melee powerset. I feel comfortable giving advice that applies across the board.

I can teach you how to turn a simple Dark Armor character into a Supermassive Black Hole.

But Why a Supermassive Black Hole?

For you non-science types out there, a black hole is essentially a spot in the universe with such a strong gravity that nothing can escape from it. Anything you throw at it, or anything that even passes by close enough, gets sucked in and condensed, never to be seen again. Not even light can get through a black hole.

Good Dark Armor characters have quite a few things in common with black holes. They are awesome and alluring. Their existence is typically an anomaly. There's been a good deal of study done on them. There are people out there who still believe they just don't exist.

A supermassive black hole is like the next level of black hole. It's what a black hole would be if it had enough stuff thrown at it. You find them at the center of galaxies. They're the biggest and the nastiest of black holes.

And you can be the biggest and nastiest of the Dark Armor characters out there.
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CoH Build Requests

2012-02-06T14:05:00.002-05:00

If you know anything about me, you know that I don't hesitate to give out build advice. In fact, all of my guides encourage readers to send me builds they would like some help optimizing. Lately though, since I started posting some of my own builds, I've been getting a few more flat out build requests. I'm not saying that I will not make a build to order, but it is starting to bug me, and I'd like to take a moment to explain why.

Let's say you send me a build that you want reviewed. Generally, I can look at it and tell what kind of budget you plan and what things are important to you. I'll see a few places that could get a bit better, make those changes and send it right back. If the build doesn't have a clear focus, I simply suggest that you determine what your focus really is and try again with that in mind from the start. Either way, I can clearly see that you've put some effort and thought into the character, and I am more than happy to match that effort if it helps you enjoy the character that much more. All said and done, it does not take a lot of effort on my end, but you get a lot of benefit. Everybody's happy.

When I sit down and make a build from scratch, it's a completely different process. I think about the inherent wants of the archetype as well as the synergies of the powerset combination. I determine goals for the build, whether to cover for weaknesses in the sets or to ignore them and maximize performance for a specific set of conditions. I consider what pool and epic powers will bring the most benefit in pursuit of those goals. I analyze survivability, attack chains, and endurance sustainability, both for single target and area chains. I maximize the build's performance across all levels of play. This process takes a great deal of time. When it's for my own build, I don't mind spending that much time because I am going to reap the rewards for the high performance build I end up with. I'm not against doing all that work for someone else, but the bottom line is that I'm not going to do it for free. The good news is I only expect to be paid with in game currency.

Really what I'm trying to do here is encourage people to come up with their own builds. I'll continue to offer optimization advice for any build people send my way, free of charge. But if you'd rather generate a few million influence than to do some math on a build, by all means, send the cash my way and I'll give you build worthy of its own videos. Get in touch and we'll work something out.

The Pharaoh's Bargain

2012-01-18T14:07:00.004-05:00

The loud crack of wood on stone where a wheel is missing a piece of its rounded edge and the following slosh made by four pails of water repeat in a frustrating rhythm, reminding me how much easier life was as a priest of Set in Upper Egypt. With followers and offerings aplenty, I could no doubt pay to have my cart fixed; perhaps a skilled carpenter would do the work only for the glory of Set. I may even be the priest over priests and acolytes, delegating to them the task of dousing torches and the brazier at the end of the day. Instead, I preside over a lonely temple built to a very modest standard and maintained poorly, fighting for followers in a land that loves Horus. This near the sea, I find Set contends even with the gods of foreigners.

At last my cart is near enough the brazier, but as I bend down for a pail, I hear a small commotion drawing nearer from the street. Forgetting the pail and stepping outside, I see a helpless drunk carried towards my temple by two men and a wailing boy. A brief glance down the other direction of the street reveals that there are no fires alight at Horus' temple. How can they keep such a following with priests that clearly lack dedication? As the group draws nearer, the stench of death surprises me; I had expected a wine soaked man, not a blood soaked one. I usher them inside, saying, "Place him on the stone table."

"This man is dying of his wound," The boy looks up at me from beside the table, fear and grief stream as tears down his cheeks, skewing his makeup, and between his sobs he speaks, "Call upon your power and heal him."

Firelight mingled with starlight does little to define his features, but it is plain to see from all his makeup and jewelry that this is our so very precious boy pharaoh. He is a child of Lower Egypt, thus predictably favoring Horus; how humble he must feel with no resort save Set. I wonder how it sounds to hear a pharaoh beg. Whatever feelings I have for the Pharaoh and his wretched god, I must tread lightly, lest he lose his temper. I bow egregiously low before I offer reply, "I am but a priest; for all my will to aid you, Pharaoh, I can do naught but last rites. If miracles come, they will be from Set."

"Then I command that Set save him." Oh ho, the boy is as bold as he is young.

"Indeed, it is within Set's power to rescue him from his fate," I slowly rise from my insufferable bow before I continue, "but please understand, young pharaoh, that even though you may be a god among men, gods cannot simply command one another. A bargain must be made and only life can pay for life."
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The Goddamn Mastermind

2012-01-09T17:57:00.023-05:00

Introduction

The Mastermind is a truly unique archetype within City of Heroes. On his own, a Mastermind has less hitpoints than anyone else, deals a pitiful amount of damage, and has little to no self defense. All of his powers cost more endurance, and often for less effect, than they would for anyone else. A Mastermind, on his own, is the least effective and least efficient character you can create. The strength of a Mastermind, however, lies in the fact that he never has to be on his own.

The Mastermind is the City of Heroes take on the ever popular "pet class" in other MMORPGs, except here we call them henchmen. Every Mastermind is able to summon up to three tiers of permanent henchmen with two levels of upgrades. As if the veritable army itself was not enough, the Mastermind also chooses a secondary powerset that is dedicated to supporting his army. There are a lot of gears trying to work together here, and it is not easy to get the most out of this grand machine.

When you do take all those tools and manage them properly, you create a truly game breaking good character. You create The Goddamn Mastermind. This guide will be dedicated to helping you maximize that potential and get the most out of your Mastermind, but I will not start the guide at the level cap with the top end gear. I understand that you have to crawl before you walk (et cetera), and with that in mind, I will be providing the tactical advice to succeed as a Mastermind at all levels and regardless of budget.
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The Violet Flame

2011-12-29T16:01:00.015-05:00

I was told that death would feel this way. First to come is the darkness, like a cloud approaching from all sides, choking the light as I see my Pharaoh run to me. He cries out, but even now the silence drowns him out as if mud clogs my ears. Shouts become less than whispers. Last to come is the pressure, a steady, surrounding sort of comfort which replaces the pain in my side. My Pharaoh is safe; I will pass without shame or regret. I can feel myself being carried away already, the many hands of those since passed lifting me.

Sight and sound return to me, but these cannot be real. I am standing in the presence of the pharaoh, yet he appears even younger than he is now. Is this scene beset by fog just a dream? The pharaoh and I speak in turn; I have no control of my actions and the world itself looks a blur, as if through water. The young pharaoh becomes angry and at once I recognize this distant memory. The words we speak sound foreign and echo but I recall the conversation clearly. It seems I am to relive one of my shames before I pass from this world.
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Claws/Dark Brute Build

2011-12-27T23:03:00.003-05:00

So, in keeping with my tradition of posting the build long after the video, here is the build from my recent Dark Armor Sucks on a Brute video.

The priorities for this build diverge greatly from that of my Dark/Fire tank build. With the tank, I focused on attaining the softcap at all costs. If this build focused on one thing, it would have to be "potential." I put enough defense in to be within a small purple inspiration of the soft cap to S/L/E/N defense. I only gave the build 4 points of KB protection, but have Acrobatics for those edge cases. I found a place for the slow resist IO. I have about half of Hasten in recharge bonus in addition to Hasten. After that is a ton of extra hit points to increase the amount Dark Regeneration can heal as well as ample regeneration to delay the need to use it.

This build of course follows my personal exemplar rules, which means that the build will maintain all of its bonuses until level 37, and as much functionality as possible for the entire level spectrum. Spin is brutal at any level, especially so at level 1. Critical powers like Dark Regeneration and Obsidian Shield are never delayed, while Murky Cloud waits for the first few attacks to fill out.
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Dark Armor Sucks on a Brute

2011-11-17T16:23:00.002-05:00

Here I am, a year later, finally putting together another video.

You know, I've actually received a great deal of criticism on that first video. I admit, there were a few problems. First, I set the difficulty to downgrade bosses to lieutenants, though it wasn't because I couldn't survive them. I only did that so I could finish the fight in a somewhat reasonable time. The character was a Tank, after all, not a real damage dealer. Second issue was the jumping between scenes which I mistook for artful. It just made the video choppy and feel like it could have been doctored.

The real reason for this video, however, is the third criticism I received; that my video was only possible because of Tanker mitigation levels. I was told that nothing similar could have been done with a Brute. I've only got one thing to say to that: Clearly, Dark Armor Sucks. On a Brute.

Ye Old Dark Armor Sucks Build

2011-11-08T00:05:00.002-05:00

So, you remember this video? Of course you do.

To give you the bad news first, I have no intentions of sharing that build. The tank build in that video is terribly obsolete, since the video was recorded before incarnate powers and even before inherent fitness. That build wouldn't be worth anything to anyone.

Now for the good news. I do plan to share the current build for that tank. Before I get to that, though, I'm going to give you a quick overview of the build's major philosophy and some of the highlights.
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My Bots/Traps Build

2011-09-27T10:25:00.001-04:00

So I'm finally getting around to posting this build like I promised in a few threads.

The build I'm posting today is for my namesake in game, Dechs Kaison, the Bots/Traps mastermind. Before I get to the build I'd like to go over a bit of its history, as I'm in a nostalgic mood.

Aside from my Warshade, no other build of mine has been through so many revisions. This character was my first to hit the level cap, back when SOs were the only enhancements I used. That's before I knew about all the finer details of the game. The first build had the Mu Patron Pool because I did Scirocco's arc, and I had fun shooting lightning at people. By the time they unlocked the other patron pools to everybody, I had learned a bit about attack mechanics and realized that the Scorpion Shield would softcap me to the most common types of damage. It was at that point I started to solo AVs.
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EVE Offline

2011-09-20T14:44:00.001-04:00

As the title alludes, I have decided against keeping my EVE subscription. I'd like to take a quick moment to explain why.

My decision has nothing to do with the game itself. That's the most important thing I want to get out there, because I'd hate to see someone not try this game because I say it wasn't fun. I continue to be amazed by the absolute breadth and depth of this game. Everything can be found in abundance, especially competition. If you like to play political games, salvage things, harvest things, kill things, find things, hide from things, steal things, destroy things, sell things or buy things, you'll enjoy EVE. None of these activities are simple, either. This game is no "progress quest" by any stretch. Honestly, I could go on for pages talking about what you can do and how you can get it done in EVE.

My decision has nothing to do with the people I've met either. Helpful bunch of folks if ever there was. I've met some rather dastardly and evil people as well, intent solely on the deprivation of fun for other people, but that's not scaring me off either. Those people simply add to the fun and challenge of the game (are almost entirely avoidable if you choose to stay in the right regions).

I wanted to participate in the game's PvP, which generally does not happen solo. To that end, I joined a corporation which I knew a member personally. I soon learned that the corporation belongs to an alliance, and that alliance further belongs to a larger coalition. With that many layers of organization, the only way to get people together is to schedule events (raids, gangs, and the like). The real problem is that I am not in a position where I can reliably log on to the game at scheduled periods of time for fleet operations. Even if I could, I often get pulled away from the computer during game time.

It's been a fun time trying, though at the end of the day, EVE is simply not made for players like me.

The Assassin's Contract

2011-09-09T22:34:00.010-04:00

The master's strong men release me to the merchant city with a purse of gold, though I am not to bring back any goods today. I walk my normal path, careful not to draw attention, as I casually browse fruit, meat, and cloth with no intent to purchase. This must be my hundredth journey here, but only the third time I have entered the exotic animal shop. Discreetly, I ask the purveyor for a sand speckled scarab eater. He nods to acknowledge the code and leads me to a hidden back room where sits the Envoy of Anubis' Hand, a guild of assassins. A courier of bloody contracts is not the job I would have chosen, though a man like me has little choice. I am slave to a household of greater men and I can do no other than what I am told; I suppose I am better off than those digging the tombs farther up the Nile or carving stone in sunlight all day.

The envoy is a withered old man, obscuring his face under a hood pulled too far over his eyes. His unsettling smile is all that greets me, deep wrinkles surrounding a mouth mostly full of gold teeth. Those few not crowned are cracked by age and stained dark by wine. Worse yet is his voice, coarse and dry, but ever cheerful and eager to please such that it is shamelessly dishonest. I lay the purse on his table as I place the contract in his chill and trembling hand. He unrolls the parchment to read.

"You know who this target is, do you?" The old man no longer smiles, rather his lips press together as though a terribly sour wine were on his tongue.
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A Tour of Kaison Corporation (Part 2)

2011-09-01T23:50:00.002-04:00

Since the first half of my remodel turned out so well, I decided it was worth doing again. Problem is, when I went to hire the same guy for the next half, he was busy doing something less lucrative than working for me. So I paid someone else another billion to finish the place off.

That said, he's finished and I have a few more pictures to show off. First thing I did was have him build a garage for the new ambulance. Hey, not everyone schedules their life threatening accidents, so I have to be prepared.

The thing even came fully loaded.
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