must resist

must

resist

I have never, ever played an Ogre game, and am vaguely interested in picking this up, simply by the fact that despite being totally outside the franchise I can still understand vaguely what you're talking about more than I will ever understand a conversation of HoN/LoL/DotA/WLA

If you've played Final Fantasy Tactics and enjoyed it, you would probably enjoy Tactics Ogre. The story will feel familiar, though the supernatural element is de-emphasised until the tail end of the game in favor of a heavier political/racial focus. The combat is less about mixing and matching abilities (which you generally can't do in TO) and more about having a properly diverse class loadout (or a lot of archers) due to the character limit (TO's 12 vs. FFT's 5 (which may be closer to 10 due to the skill system)).

I don't know, I'm not very good at recommending games, since I can't assess what someone else will or won't like. I bought a PSP solely for this game, and 140 hours in and still going, it's been worth every penny. There are two really boneheaded design decisions, but everything else is pretty sublime, from the incredibly fast combat, to the savestate-like system of CHARIOT, to the ability to cherry-pick characters from other story paths in the same game, to the as-god-intended translation from Alexander O. Smith...

If you are curious but hesitant to pull the trigger, you can goof around with the SNES rom (AGTP has a patch that inserts Atlus' PSX script into the SNES version) for a while and then watch some youtube videos to see how the pace of combat has changed.

Also, the remastered soundtrack is absolutely glorious. Bring headphones.

Norondor you and norn are the same person right

you're thinking of yyler and norondor

Who knows if this will be useful to anyone, since I guess only a handful of people are playing the game and you can find it all out for yourself in about 5 minutes of saving and loading, but I wanted to see how they handled the Lord/Princess balance in this version.

In the original it wasn't much of a choice—Lord was a good class but taking advantage of its absurd stat growth was tough, as you'd be at about level 30 by the time it was made available and class-changing didn't retroactively boost your stats. Furthermore, most of the content after that point in the game was Hell's Gate, where you did not gain exp. Dual-wielding was nice and being able to use area healing was supernice, but it couldn't really compare to Princess. Massive int and the ability to use every spell, incl. Dragon magic, made for an incredibly versatile caster you could switch spell loadouts on between Hell's Gate floors.

But now...

Lord can use every spell (unsure on Apocrypha or summons, but assuming he can) except for Ninjutsu/War Dances/Necromancy. Literally everything—healing, exorcism, missile spells, indirect spells, of all elements. Draconic magic too.

Skill-wise it has a single skill available: Add Skill Slot. Everything else has to be imported from another class. However, the tradeoff, if you can even call it that, is that it has access to every ability at level 1—there are no level restrictions on what it can and cannot equip. If he knows it, he can use it. It can use all magic skills (save Nin/Dance/Necro), all weapon skills (and thus all weapons (save gimmicks like the female-only fanhammer)), the usual spate of +atk/def/eva/acc skills, and it can import 3 (that I've found) active TP skills: Mighty Impact, Tremendous Shot, and Phalanx. It can also use Double Attack. It has 4 movement, Agile movetype, and cannot go in water.

I've toyed with Lord a little already and it's absurd—with Tactician, Phalanx and Double Attack, you can generate enough TP to keep Phalanx up permanently once you start killing things. I don't think I care to use it in serious fights, but the option is there, and it's something interesting that only Lord can do.


Princess, meanwhile, is now a highly confused hybrid class—the scrolling help text refers to it as a 'mage-knight on the front lines'. It can use basic daggers, 1h swords, axes, cudgels and whips. It can use the shields that all casters can use (buckler/baldur shield so far) but its armor restrictions are strange: caster helms (circlet/wizard's hat) are okay, but caster robes are not. Armor so far is okay (leather/chain/baldur/brigandine) and leather gloves/baldur, but not normal gauntlets. All pants but baldur pants so far.

The real blow is its magic availablity: from what I have available, it can use indirect offensive elemental spells ONLY (Tornado, Cragfall, Avalanche, etc.) and no Dark magic at all. Its Divine magic selection is only a little better: indirect offense spells (Judgement), all the status cures, and the single-target heals. No exorcism, no area healing, no Resurrection, no Boon of Swiftness or Instill Light. It can learn Draconic Magic.

Its skill selection mirrors its patchy equipment selection: Parry and Deflect are available, Knockback only to level 1, Counterattack up to level 2, Wade 1 but not 2, every other stat boost is learnable to 2 at least. No active TP skills are importable that I've found so far (no Mother's Blessing or Mighty Impact), nor is Double Attack. No Rampart Aura. The only interesting skill it gets that I can see yet is Meditate. It has 4 move and Slow movetype, and cannot go in water.


With WORLD, you only have to choose between them for about 8 story battles + the last dungeon, but I'm not sure there's any compelling gameplay reason to bother with Princess even in the postgame. Priest seems like a superior choice—it can use every Divine spell but Instill Light/Lightguard, and it has 4 movement from the Cleric's 3. Dark Priest's restrictions I'm not sure on, probably an inverted Priest (all elemental/dark magic but instill/guard?)

It's possible that summons/Apocrypha/Draconic magic tilt the scales here, or some unique skills that open up when I've levelled her classes more, but I'm pretty disappointed at the moment in Catiua's treatment. Oh well, makes it easier to kill her the three times necessary to unlock all the titles/story scenes surrounding her death!

I'm at the start of Chapter 4 and my largest gripe is the absence of 'Fight It Out!', though it is very nearly nullified by the incredibly good decision to add Ogre Battle music for certain fights.

I can't find a good unit frames thing that is simple, includes portraits for self and target, and is configurable but does not require a goddamn degree in rocket science to set up

i'm not sure if 'simple' refers to the frames themselves or the method of configuring, but if the former, stuf and shadowed both qualify. shadowed is easier to configure, stuf allows a little more customisation. steer clear of pitbull, as you probably know. if neither of those float your boat, but you are willing to spend a lot of time checking different setups, download oUF and any one of the million layouts on curse/wowi. it's fairly likely that one of them will be close to what you're looking for.

as for curse/wowi, i just use wowi out of long-running habit.

finally, yes, the most important part of your UI is Opie.

most of what is visible is listed in his LDB mod in the bottom-center: omen, xperl, dominos. also visible: recount

unless you were talking to niku, in which case i can only hazard guesses: EBB for buffs, dominos or bartender for bars, some ancient addon like titan for LDB monitoring, recount. no idea on the raid frame in the center, possibly healbot

Just so no one goes through the worry I did, Kaja, the Tauren NPC that most Horde players have been selling their items to for [length of subscription] is still intact in the Valley of Wisdom. She survived the Cataclysm due to being taller than your average Tauren or Minotaur.

Incidentally, the Valley of Wisdom brings the convenience of Thunder Bluff to Orgrimmar, with an inn, the game's best repair NPC, a forge/anvil, a banker, an auctioneer, and a mailbox all in closer proximity to each other than not only any other section of Orgrimmar, but any town, period, at least those available to the Horde (that I am aware of).

It's a little further from the Flight Master than the Valley of Strength (I think) but in a week that won't matter. Kaja will matter forever.


Also, Tauren Paladin and the accompanying mounts make Cataclysm hands down the best expansion of WoW's career. The feeling of not being a Blood Elf is the greatest thing.

troll druids may have amazing flight and cat forms, but there's one thing they'll never have: shoes.

supposedly you can get the FoS by killing the elementals that attack cities in a few weeks, so there appears to be no reason to bother with doing it now, unless you miss camping for mobs.

tell me everything you know about deeps druids

Cataclysm Beta - New Wild Mushroom Animation September 18, 2010 (HD 1080p)
exciting new mechanics