warhammer 40,000: rogue trader

[twin anchor]

For Sword of Faith nonsense

That or Biomancer, just for Iron Arm + Warp Speed

Is Pyro really a step above?

[dapper condor]

iot's verry fun especially with executioner

you can spec in biomancy early and get iron arm and warp speed

[twin anchor]

iot?

[dapper condor]

*it's

[civic musk]

Absolutely, yeah. Fire is just way more DoT procs, at a starting point

[twin anchor]

nods
Fair

[civic musk]

And even when you’re not stabbing things with a flaming sword, you are still a psyker who can burn things with your mind

[elder iron]

Final started playing and got to the planet in the starting system ||with the uprising, interesting to see the Arbites DLC introduced, curious to know what it was like before or was it always laid out like that?||

[split ether]

Personally what I did was tag a bunch of weaker mobs and blow them up with AOE, and then cash in the buffs until the BH regains its prey charges, to do it again and cash in more buffs.

It does rely on there being weak guys standing around, but usually there are because this game is designed to give you AOE dopamine and personally screw over All Eldar equipment (it is largely single target)

[young sundial]

Wait

is this a bug or did/can I just actually forget to do this

[civic musk]

I don't think you can forget to do that, some quests do display like that

Did you ... did you not do the navigator's sanctum?

[young sundial]

TBH I don't remember I ASSUME I did, but I was kinda trying to speedrun through the early game

[civic musk]

Like, did you meet the navigator and fight some cultists in a room?

And then he closes the place off and says he'll do one last warp jump?

You would only have Idira and Abelard at this point

[young sundial]

I really dunno, I've been going through the early game with different groups of people and I would have been going through the navigators room on this save several days ago at this point

[safe surge]

I definitely never skipped it. I don't remember if it is listed as "failed" because the guy is clearly going to die

[young sundial]

I just booted the save up today and completed the warp jump and was like ... huh, that seems off

[split ether]

You... cannot actually skip this encounter afaik

I have no Idea how this could have happened

[young sundial]

I think I'm too lazy to wait for my bounty hunter to point at everyone

[split ether]

I played a 3 Officer team I'm pretty used to pointing at people being like 80% of playtime.

:v

You can also hold down T to skip animations.

I wish there was a way to skip the intro quest thoo

[civic musk]

Bounty Hunter Pasqal is real solid

Bounty Hunter Idira can buff everyone forever

[young sundial]

I tolerate about one point per a turn, tbh I didn't know about the T thing. I've been holding spacebar

and accidentally skipping my turns about 20% of the time

[wary topaz]

You can turn off non attack animations now, iirc

[young sundial]

I have it on, but it doesn't feel like they are being skipped

[wary topaz]

Huh, weird

Also had a weird bug that thr old toy box mod was causing informtext not to appear

[young sundial]

It's entirely possible that it's one of the mods.

[wary topaz]

Yeah, as I said, toybox

[split ether]

It's basically a necessity when using a lot of buffs or setup heavy archetypes. I just have a macro to toggle T, since I couldn't find an option to make it a toggle and not hold.

[young sundial]

I'm not familiar with toybox specifically, but on a whim I did an experiment with all our mods disabled, as best I can tell nothing changed. T didn't speed things up which makes me think either I'm getting really hardcore skill difference'd or I need to do a hard reinstall.

Anyone know what determines the number of stack of bleeding an axe inflicts>?

[split ether]

Check the settings? Maybe for some reason tlyour setup is different?

[young sundial]

What is the keybind called, I must be blind cause I cannot find it

[split ether]

Oh, my bad. It apparently only speeds up enemies.

(skip enemies turn [hold])

[split ether]

It still saves a ton of time tho

[young sundial]

ohhh gotcha no worries

[young sundial]

Using the advanced technology beyond human comprehension I have gotten this option to work

[dapper condor]

should i go pyro dancer or pyro warrior ?

[bitter pollen]

I've heard great things about pyrodancer DPS but pyrowarrior had a fun feeling of 'YES, YES, EVERYONE GATHER AND ATTACK ME', at least if you go Tankmode

[dapper condor]

I did try pyrodan,cer it was nutty

but warrior is better for heavy armor

also it's for a heretic run...

[bitter pollen]

Adding fire damage to every attack is great for both, maybe warrior more earlier on with the Momentum ability thing

there is a good bit of heretic heavy armor and melee business

ended up vaguely invulnerable in my run

[dapper condor]

"I swear Heinrix i'm not an heretic"

[austere otter]

God, I spent most of act 2 with a cloak with an eight pointed star on it, told Aurora I was chosen over her and yet he had no idea I was a heretic until I shot him in the head

I had recruited two different daemon engines by the time Argenta had a clue 😄

[wary topaz]

Bladedancer seems pretty nuts tbh

Just started again since launch and kibella is shredding

[austere otter]

it's so good

like it's not just powerful, it's fun as hell too

[civic musk]

Having played both, dancer is stronger and in some ways more compelling with its comically long turns, but I think warrior feels a little more satisfying in that you have to work harder to get its shorter long turns rolling

[dapper condor]

(Also power armor work better on warrior)

[austere otter]

I've been looking forward to this DLC and yet I haven't managed to get past Act 1 without going back to character creation

I regret doing a Dogmatic run just before the DLC came out, that would have been better saved for the Arbites character

I think I need to come up with a goal or narrative to pull me through, that usually helps in big games like this

[dapper condor]

Maybe i should have a more long range option at least for the begining

[cosmic thunder]

"it's just my aesthetics"

[dapper condor]

I mean look at Kibbelah

[cosmic thunder]

ngl knowing nothing about death cults I just assumed she was heretic-flavoured from the previews

[civic musk]

I would personally prioritize the psionic breastplate unless there’s some specific power armor that’s fitting

[civic musk]

Death cults are specifically death cults of the Emperor

Imperium is already big on skulls and grim necessity and mass-murder, so I think it tracks

[safe surge]

Classic confusion about death cults

[cosmic thunder]

I mean they won't shut up about blood

[dapper condor]

the fit

[civic musk]

Aha

[dapper condor]

it good a reason as any

(i want a game where you actually play chaos. give grandpa or give me death)

[dapper condor]

okay here my soldier build

[dapper condor]

maybe take the +2MP atb some point

[civic musk]

I'd give priority to Agility over Perception, since Agility contributes to Demolition

[dapper condor]

Also to help me with the lack of far range option of the shotgun (even with double slug) I will resort to yeet an heretical amout of grenade

[austere otter]

with the grenade perk and the new arbites grenade perk you can throw two grenades without spending AP

(as long as one of them isn't a direct attack, like a krak grenade. Fire/Poison grenades are A-OK)

[civic musk]

There's a lot of good grenade-buffing items too

[dapper condor]

perception reduce enemy doge chances

[civic musk]

I'm aware, I'd just personally prioritize the little extra damage over the little extra dodge reduction for shotguns in particular

[young sundial]

Omnissiah preserve us

[cosmic thunder]

this statement is true

[jovial anvil]

Is that imperium speak for ‘smart enough not to screw with’

[dapper condor]

double slug is a biu,derwhelming

so i will switch to the bleed shot

[austere otter]

might wanna edit that, mods don't like warcrime jokes

[hardy tinsel]

no warcrimes jokes, please.

[split ether]

Double slug is great if you are mopping up after an AOE wiped out the chaff, or are targeting exclusively one enemy from the start.
Soldier double slug is very pleasant, you get to unload 4 times into one guy, or two times + some AOE

(This only gets more ridiculous if you grab arch militant)

It's a nice alternative to hauling more ranged weapons around.

[dapper condor]

on the other hand i really lmike DOT mechanics so my heart says bleed stacks 😔

[cosmic thunder]

okay is something wrong with my headphones or is some of Kibellahs voiceacting a bit warbled?

[brittle matrix]

I love that the game gives you a fanastic early game pistol if you go heretic. Really nailing that evil is easy theme. Can't wait to see what horrible consequences my heresy will wrought tho.

[safe surge]

I'm sure you're built different

[brittle matrix]

You're right! CONSEQUENCES ARE FOR THE POORS!

[cosmic thunder]

you're allowed a little heresy

[brittle matrix]

Pyromancer Pysker Warrior fun. I like lighting myself on fire and charging the enemy.

[tight flare]

Started up my old save file again to maybe actually beat this bad boy and-
(Final Act spoilers)
ITS PEAK

||Love to cause shipwide tremors by getting the entire city-crew stomping their feet||

[civic musk]

Yeah that’s a good moment

[dapper condor]

this is kinda sweet

[split ether]

Heinrix has a few moments. It's pretty Clear he'dve been a chill guy if not for the inquisition

[cosmic thunder]

I've kinda grown to like Heinrix. he's a good foil to your rogue trader if you go iconoclast.

also the occasional little cracks in his professionality and edginess are fun.

but anyway, I came to mention how much fun the bridge characters that aren't in your party can be.

[cosmic thunder]

particularly fond of grumpy ravor and the occasional human slip-ups of vox master vigdis

[cosmic thunder]

so I'm at the point where I meet the other rogue traders for the first time.

fun bunch.

wonderfully tense writing. you really get the sense that one wrong word might blow up the room, but also everyone is testing how far they can go.

[stray hinge]

those traders sure are rogue

[cosmic thunder]

absolute den of wolves. Calligos seems like a fun guy until he suddenly tries to chop your head off. and incendia is really really fun to trade barbs with.

what a lovely bunch. I'm sure we'll get along wonderfully

[dapper condor]

should i take Bite ! or Run ! for my dog ?

[cosmic thunder]

currently being grilled by xavier

so many new friends

[dapper condor]

instead i choose advanced tarcking

[civic musk]

Heinrix is an interesting character in that he's sort of the exemplary ideal of the inquisition, who understands and genuinely believes in the purpose of the rules he follows

Whereas just about every other Inquisitor is corrupt, a hardass, or a corrupt hardass

[brittle matrix]

I am so romancing him in my iconoclast lady run.

[cosmic thunder]

seneschal adorable grampy

[civic musk]

If you pass the checks to get her to talk about her special interest without getting embarrassed by assholes, you can get something like +3 to all stats for all colonies

[cosmic thunder]

oh yeah, I did that

that whole quest was a lot of fun. I do love me some ballroom intrigue, although I don't know a lot of RPGs outside tabletop that do those well.

[cosmic thunder]

you kinda get the sense with him that he's less into the shouting and more into the spying side of his whole inquisition gig. I'm not sure if that's just due to the specific ordo he's in though.

wait I mixed up inquisitors and commissars again.

it's the jackets

[civic musk]

He is an interrogator by skill set, so he’s not exactly lacking in ruthlessness and prizes information

But in general Heinrix is strikingly willing to make decisions that will benefit people

[cosmic thunder]

frankly after having met his superior I must say he comes off as quite moderate

[civic musk]

Most people in his position either refuse to make their own decisions, or refuse to make ones for anyone’s good

[cosmic thunder]

(I'm so sad that steam didn't save the screenshot, but he did, indeed, say the line during the interrogation)

[civic musk]

Say the line, Bart Calcazar

[cosmic thunder]

innocence proves nothing

[civic musk]

That’s why the legal term is Not Guilty >_>

[cosmic thunder]

oh no
not the ICP

[civic musk]

I like him

I love that an Iconoclast rogue trader can immediately parse his poems

“My superpower is actually paying attention”

[cosmic thunder]

oh no
forced stealth section in a game with no proper stealth mechanics

oh no, it saved before the big long cutscene

[safe surge]

Yeah, that bit was annoying

[civic musk]

It’s very easy with a psyker XD

You just kill the guys, gear or no gear

[split ether]

I really like how Heinrix obviously feels for Idira and often ends up trying to help her despite the whole "unsanctioned" thing. Like you can see the human try to claw his way through the shell of dogma

[civic musk]

Yep

I think, again, Heinrix is a true believer in the best sense: he believes the dogma has a purpose and that when it fails to serve that purpose it should be momentarily set aside

[civic musk]

The dogmatic companions in general are really interesting in an Iconoclast run

[dapper condor]

Idira and Heinrix have big sibling energy

[civic musk]

Or at least fellow travelers

In spite of everything, they have a lot of shared experiences

They wouldn't admit it but they understand each other pretty well

[cosmic thunder]

I won't lie

this lad would make for a sick mini

probably nightmare to paint tho

[cosmic thunder]

also first meeting with ulfar.

that's a space wolf alright

[civic musk]

Ulfar’s pretty cool

[cosmic thunder]

I like how they accentuate the weirdness and not-quite-humanness of space marines.

[safe surge]

It's too bad he shows up so late. And when I played the maps really didn't appreciate how big he was lol

[civic musk]

I enjoyed his mixing of melee and ranged quite a lot

Built for heavy bolster + flamer + so many kicks

[cosmic thunder]

I look forward to learn more about what his deal is, although I already have a good idea what it could be.

[safe surge]

The free kicks are hilarious. And made it hard for me to pick other melee weapons (I think it was tied to his "dagger"?)

[cosmic thunder]

the kicks are hilarious. in my squad it's argenta who's the kickwoman

[civic musk]

His knife is insanely good

Arguably better than any other melee weapon for him

[cosmic thunder]

still contemplating on whether or not I should recruit or betray marazhai.
On one hand I like making new fwends, but on the other it feels almost rude not to betray him at some point.

I'll have to see how things develop

[civic musk]

I always recruit him, I enjoy his quest line

Also some companions get truly sick burns on him

He is kinda hard to build because his preset choices are bad

[cosmic thunder]

I kinda wish the game had a reroll option

[civic musk]

Yeah, his build for me is very similar to argenta’s build

You can build Marazhai for high mobility and damage auras though

And he wrecks pretty nicely

[cosmic thunder]

I mean my builds are already very wonky

took me a while to figure out how some classes work

[civic musk]

#1182019271237308527 message

I enjoy him as the Token Evil Teammate

And he has a lot of difficulty adjusting to the human world, of a type Yrliet only hints at

[bitter pollen]

/gently pushes marazhai through a paper shredder yeah he's an interesting fella

[cosmic thunder]

he's very fun to hate

again it feels almost like bad manners not to betray him.

although not betraying him might be the bigger betrayal

[bitter pollen]

my main issue is he seems to be the Only Character to 90% of fanartists

anytime RT stuff pops up it's that dingus looking saucy

[cosmic thunder]

RT?

[bitter pollen]

rogue trader stuff

just like across the internet etc

[cosmic thunder]

uh huh.

I can only speak from glimpses at the steam community pages and there it's mostly pictures of OCs, unrelated space marines or AI slop

[bitter pollen]

mine's random blueskys and tumblrstuff so probably a biased setbase

[cosmic thunder]

look, people love their pasty goth elfboys

[bitter pollen]

they also draw Yrliet with features sharp enough to cut glass so all is forgiven

also love how any image of Pasqal is either just kind of adorable or He Looks Like Messiah

[cosmic thunder]

I mean he is adorable

[bitter pollen]

can't name off-hand a lotta other techpriests i'd call nice even, Pas is a lovely anomaly

[cosmic thunder]

especially now that he has taken custody over ||totally not an AI||

[cosmic thunder]

there's vaguely sympathetic characters in mechanicus (the RTS game I mean)

[dim forge]

Classic Owlcat moment

[dim forge]

Most of the Mechanicus cast is fairly sympathetic, except Scaevola and Videx

(Scaevola is very funny though)

[cosmic thunder]

was about to say

I like scaevola

even if she's horrible

[cosmic thunder]

I do wonder how much is the bizarre ASMR voicework tho

it does add a lot of personality while making the admech sufficiently alien

[dim forge]

oh yeah she sucks, but in a very entertaining way

it's extremely funny to see her drop sick burns on everyone else in her weird machine speak

[cosmic thunder]

also her portrait is peak tech gremlin

[dim forge]

it gives a funny contrast of all your Techpriests only speaking binaric, and you just get used to it after a while
but the Necron lords are the ones who are voiced and speaking normal English

[austere otter]

It's funny calling Marazhai the token evil teammate because yes, he is notably more evil than everyone else

but wow, that's a high bar to clear

one of the romances is a religiously motivated serial killer

another is essentially an ends-justify-the-means secret policeman

I was gonna keep listing them, but most of the companions are bad people

[safe surge]

Drukhari are the most (cartoonishly) evil because they don't even pretend anything they are doing is good. I assume they don't have mustaches because they twirled them off when thinking about how they could be even more evil

[civic musk]

Which is funny because it's repeatedly stated that he looks deeply unhealthy and unnerving

He is not a tumblr sexyman

[austere otter]

there must be a mod somewhere to give Tervantius a villain moustache

[civic musk]

They are, although I think the game does a good job of contextualizing them as people trying to do what seems right at the moment in a very bad, mad, sad world

They're all absolutely horrid by our standards, but I think RT in general manages to convey that despite the horror and misery of WH40k's universe, the people there are still fundamentally people

(They can also all decide to be at least slightly better than they were)

[austere otter]

yeah, it's a good adaptation of the 40k universe because it's completely aware of the horrors of the setting and the Imperium in particular

it's hard to be a good person in 40k

[civic musk]

And yet they are people, not just caricatures

They have interests and personal history and people they care about and rationalizations for why they do the things that they do to survive

[cosmic thunder]

it's okay, kibellah is allowed a little murder now and then. as a treat.

[cosmic thunder]

they should have moustaches

just little john waters pencil moustaches

[dapper condor]

still working out the kink of the options

[civic musk]

Dorg

[dapper condor]

yess

if you give me the option to have a pet i will take

[cosmic thunder]

got to the point today where I'm about to finish chapter 3, or at least the stint in ||commoragh||.

it's been a genuinely fantastic ride so far.

I love how that place confronts your party members with their inner demons, and even coerces you the player to grovel and doubt a bit.

it's been a little shocking to see self-assured people like abelard, jae or argenta at their absolute worst

[civic musk]

I love Act 3

A lot of people don't but

I adore it

[cosmic thunder]

I didn't at first either

[civic musk]

Yrliet's arc in particular is one of my favorites

[cosmic thunder]

also I'll say the place itself is kind of meh.
it kinda solidifies my opinion that drukhari are morons.

[civic musk]

They're kinda damn fools, yeah

[cosmic thunder]

but it's been fascinating to see what that place does to your crew

[civic musk]

But that's the whole thing, they're the cross-section of the eldar whose reaction to "we created a demon god through our reckless hedonism and cruelty" was to double-down

The asuryani are jerks but they are at least making an effort

The drukhari have covered their ears with their hands and are yelling "lalalallalalla"

[cosmic thunder]

"surely we can get away with all the murderfucking if we hide in our little infinite corner"

[bitter pollen]

And they're so weirdly smug compared to the other cults

[cosmic thunder]

and yeah Yrliets arc in all that is fascinating and made me almost regret a bit that I didn't romance her.
I kinda get the sense that the writers are nudging you a bit in that direction

[civic musk]

I really enjoy her romance

It is notably a chaste romance, Yrliet is not going to get over her aversion to a physical relationship with a human any time soon

[cosmic thunder]

Went for cassia and did regret it a little at first, but I really liked the payoff for that here in the pit. maybe a little sappy for some but I thought it was sweet.

[civic musk]

Yeah, Cassia's return in Act 3 is great

I will say, one problem with Act 3 reveals is that ||if you don't bring Argenta, you never learn what she did||

[cosmic thunder]

that was one hell of a reveal

[civic musk]

Yeah!

It's a little important

[cosmic thunder]

I do wonder if it's true for Jae as well, because she too has one hell of a reveal

[civic musk]

You learn hers

The ship staff learns about it

[cosmic thunder]

ahokay.

[civic musk]

You can definitely do worse than bringing all of the ladies though

[cosmic thunder]

I personally don't think that's a problem. I don't mind discovering more crucial lore in subsequent playthroughs

[civic musk]

They all have really good Act 3 stories

Fair!

[cosmic thunder]

I left Idira, Heinrix and Pasqal on board

oh and kibellah

[civic musk]

Idira ||gets an anti-psychic machine implanted in her head by Teravantias and loves it, but it's killing her||

Kibellah ||is forced to kill a bunch of her clones and does not have a good time||

Pasqal ||gets implanted with a piece of xenotech||

[cosmic thunder]

now should I hit those spoilers

[civic musk]

Heinrix I dunno

[cosmic thunder]

probably not

[civic musk]

Dunno

None of them are big story reveals

FWIW

[cosmic thunder]

it's still neat characterization

[civic musk]

Ye

[cosmic thunder]

also I'll say Argenta thus far has been kind of a rock in comparison to the other characters, so having her here at the darkest hour gaining complexity is quite nice.

a very sturdy, compassionate and slightly unhinged rock, but a rock nonetheless.

[bitter pollen]

I struggle with the Dark Eldar stuff

'what if Drow Were Worse'

other cults/groups seem to have like

goals

[cosmic thunder]

meanwhile everything about Ulvar is bloody brilliant. dig how he consciously leans into the theatrics that come with being a space wolf to test you a little.

Despite his wild manners he can be quite sophisticated and shrewd.

[cosmic thunder]

mentioned it above. love the chapter but the drukhari are ironically the weakest part to me about it.

[civic musk]

Aye, the drukhari are explicitly kinda treading water

[cosmic thunder]

they're just self centered jerks and their society is a giant pyramid scheme.

[civic musk]

Vect has plans and whatever but

[bitter pollen]

idk how the fuck they still exist

like by every margin they should be hemorrhaging

[cosmic thunder]

a lil infinite loophole

[civic musk]

Incredible technology

[cosmic thunder]

also they don't die

well they do

[civic musk]

Nonetheless they are hemmorhaging

[bitter pollen]

well go faster

y'boring

[civic musk]

They've been hemmorhaging for a long time

They have a lot to lose

[bitter pollen]

lose faster

[cosmic thunder]

but they can be brought back

[cosmic thunder]

as are a lot of pyramid schemes thst go on for long enough

[bitter pollen]

why do they want to be brought back

[cosmic thunder]

to do more kinky murderfucking

[civic musk]

Same reason as anyone else: they're afraid to die

[bitter pollen]

but the murderfucking is so outlandishly stupid

idk they're just my least favorite of the Chaos Crew

soul vampires fuck right off zzz

[civic musk]

Oh they're not chaos

[bitter pollen]

they so are

Slaanesh is thriving

[civic musk]

The murderfucking is in part how they keep She Who Thirsts away

[bitter pollen]

they are utterly fooling themselves

[civic musk]

Specifically, it prolongs their lives

But yeah, unlike the asuryani who have actually formulated a theory of defying She Who Thirsts and of protecting themselves like

The drukhari are absolutely fooling themselves

[cosmic thunder]

I did chortle when Malakai revealed how his armor is attached.

such a weirdo.

[bitter pollen]

i feel like it should have been like

earlier in the game

[civic musk]

I get that

[cosmic thunder]

nah I think the point in time is well chosen

[civic musk]

And many people dislike Act 3

Just in general

[cosmic thunder]

it's disempowering

[civic musk]

I feel it's a good All Is Lost Moment

[bitter pollen]

eh

all is lost in a very stupid manner

[civic musk]

But ymmv

[cosmic thunder]

people usually don't like darkest hour sections in an RPG

[bitter pollen]

to very stupid people

on a very boring planet

with a completely tedious villain

[cosmic thunder]

I did like the ICP member who helps you

[bitter pollen]

i'm a dangdarn pyromancer and would not have put up with any of the conversations

and yet

[cosmic thunder]

every time he appeared I was like WOOP WOOP

[safe surge]

I can't imagine not bringing Argenta to Act III because she is the most straightforward to make overpowered

[cosmic thunder]

she has the power of kick

kick kick kick

[safe surge]

The reason act III happens is very dumb

[cosmic thunder]

kick all the stupid goth elves away, sister

[safe surge]

So you start with a bad taste in your mouth

I also feel like it goes a bit long

[cosmic thunder]

I hated it at first
because as mentioned
mechanical disempowerment

[bitter pollen]

it was barely disempowerment if you have goddamn magic powers

[cosmic thunder]

also those stupid mini cutscenes

[bitter pollen]

like it's just

it's tedious

i get it

they like pain

a whole lot

[cosmic thunder]

that sounds like a you problem

[bitter pollen]

yes exactly, it tracked things along thoughtlessly and didn't care at all about my character choices

anytime a conversation doesn't have 'kill this guy' is a crime

[cosmic thunder]

okay I can see that being a bit frustrating if your character can melt brains with his mind

[safe surge]

It would be really funny if there is a fight that if you won you just skip all of Act III

[bitter pollen]

'okay, i melt him'

interrupt the fifth prolonged brag-speech

[cosmic thunder]

yeah no

I enjoyed act 3 for the character stuff

[bitter pollen]

it just feels the most like

[cosmic thunder]

also it's fun to have to grovel a little and fight a beggar for some shoes

[bitter pollen]

'the DM had a bunch of stuff planned and doesn't want it to go to waste, so we have to go on a parade'

[cosmic thunder]

I bought fully into the narrative and decided to play this fun game of backstab politics for a bit

especially with mr. haemogoblin

[bitter pollen]

i just wanted it to end

the whole time

it was painful in a real life manner

'stop to cough and feel bad every ten steps'

hoo

ray

[cosmic thunder]

okay THAT shit was annoying

[bitter pollen]

'you have no idea what's missable, and some of these checks can LOSE COMPANIONS'

[cosmic thunder]

in hindsight the game makes it kinda hard to lose companions

it does dangle them in front of you tho.

[bitter pollen]

in a very forced

and videogamey

and blah way

just

idk

[cosmic thunder]

yeah we won't agree on this

outside of drukhari just kinda sucking

[bitter pollen]

i don't want to be kidnapped to the Character Development Station

[cosmic thunder]

I get the temptation to play with character disempowerment

but that's always a difficult road

I think they stuck the landing by the halfway point but I can see how it drives people up the wall

[bitter pollen]

Disempowerment can work! I loved Dead Money!

[civic musk]

I think it makes a lot more sense if your character is heavily invested in Yrliet

[cosmic thunder]

I fucking hated dead money

[civic musk]

Which I was

[bitter pollen]

and isn't a Vanguard Pyromancer

[civic musk]

And would never not be

[cosmic thunder]

Yrliet's great

[civic musk]

RT suffers a bit from kinda having a path that feels like it's canon

[bitter pollen]

i'ma be honest i kind of got lost in the amount of Eldar Backstabbing

[civic musk]

And putting you on the rails for that path

[safe surge]

Oh yeah. It was extra silly on a dogma run. But "knockout gas even though your flagship is right there" is pretty silly

[cosmic thunder]

the only character I don't like taking with me at this point (aside from goth elf) is idira, but that's more because I completely borked her build

[bitter pollen]

Idira's build is borked for all time

her whole setup is tuff

[cosmic thunder]

she's
just
so
slow

[bitter pollen]

and the RNG on her psyker abilities just hates me

[civic musk]

I was very happy to be on those particular rails so it worked for me

[safe surge]

She perils'd the very first psychic power I used with her. Which was pretty funny

The unsanctioned psyker meaning you always have a chance to perils is bad I think?

[cosmic thunder]

my issue with Idira is that between my melee characters zip-zoppin all over the place and my long range snipers cleaning house, she's just playing catchup with everyone, especially on big maps

[bitter pollen]

my whole problem with Act 3 is that it works with the fact my Rogue Trader wouldn't have killed Marazhai the moment we met

I don't know why we give this motherfucker the time of day

[cosmic thunder]

I guess cassia has similar issues but she also has the room clearing eye

[civic musk]

It's possible to make Idira an extremely strong mixed buffer and psychic attacker

[safe surge]

Though because of the Navigator, the push-your-luck mechanic was barely existed because either she made it zero or the enemies had so many psykers it was basically maxed out

[bitter pollen]

idk how to play a Psyker without Cass, really

her interactions with the warp are so important

[cosmic thunder]

you do have a bit of a grudge with that mall goth, don'tcha

I get you tho

he so smug

but that makes it fun to bully him

[bitter pollen]

it's so On Rails

he just gets to make his blah speeches

that mean nothing

because his moral core is a gaping hole

[cosmic thunder]

I love how if you recruit him and he asks why you did so, you can say "because I pitied you".
and it drives him up the fucking wall.
so delicious.

[bitter pollen]

no

fire

[cosmic thunder]

I love to hate this greasy haired weirdo

absolutely skeletor-coded

[bitter pollen]

so not

so boring

so ugly

Absolutely Nothing Villain

[cosmic thunder]

look, there's always calcazar if you want a good one.

or the other rogue traders

[civic musk]

I think RT does not do a good job of being a branching storyline with many paths

I think it does a great job with its core path

And that's really all I personally wanted

[cosmic thunder]

I can see how picking a psyker messes with certain conventions

[bitter pollen]

I don't think I'd have loved it if I was defenseless either

[cosmic thunder]

like "why am I not just melting everyones face at the administratum"

[bitter pollen]

other than the Companion Story

Dark Eldar are so

fucking boring

[cosmic thunder]

they are

[bitter pollen]

and none of them shut up

not once

[cosmic thunder]

but that's why I like to kick them

[bitter pollen]

they don't let you kick them

[cosmic thunder]

never stop kickin

[bitter pollen]

they put you on a collar and drag you around for an act

for y'know, reasons

couldn't think of other ways to get backstories into the game

'we gotta get through a lotta these fast'

[civic musk]

You get to kick them a ton

[cosmic thunder]

delayed kick gratification

everyone slicin and cover shootin, meanwhile argenta and ulvar are just playing FEAR

[civic musk]

About half of the kicking happens in act 3 and a bunch of the rest happens in act 4 but I'm not sure there's a single drukhari antagonist you don't get to personally disembowel

[cosmic thunder]

or I guess dark messiah

or other kick game

[bitter pollen]

I'm just saying, if we'd started with this notion in Act 2, nobody would've gone Ouch Ogh Oogh My Bones

[cosmic thunder]

honestly given that a lot of factions in 40k do have some complexity to their evil it's refreshing to have a faction that's just made of relentlessly ideologically, morally and personally shitty guys to blow up.

[bitter pollen]

like nothing that they do in act 3 other than the companion backstory

amounts to more than like

[cosmic thunder]

no, the orks are the good guys

[bitter pollen]

two Paragraphs of 'Dark Elven Bullshittery'

it's always this and only this

and then Fate helps

[cosmic thunder]

dontchu shittalk juggalo friend

[bitter pollen]

i shall always

[cosmic thunder]

(ngl I would have expected more pushback against my opinion that the orks are the good guys)

(they're the only ones having any fun at least)

[bitter pollen]

well those are my friends, you see

[cosmic thunder]

it's the truth, die mad, haters

anyway
I don't think this kinda thing would have worked as well with any other villain faction

Tyranids? they'd just snack you

Necrons?
you're green sludge now

[bitter pollen]

there's a thousand ways to disempower a person

[cosmic thunder]

nonono

that's not what I mean

[bitter pollen]

if you're saying this was a glorious view of a xeno culture i have a solid '????' in response

[cosmic thunder]

they kinda needed villains vain enough to fall for your bullshit

and again, the orks aren't villains

they're perfectly normal well adjusted

I guess they could just have picked some chaos cult

but you already spend most of your time blowing up chaos cultists

it gets a lil' stale

[civic musk]

Narratively Act 3 gets you out of town for long enough for things to get Very Worse

[bitter pollen]

i guess nobody had tried knockout gas before

[civic musk]

While also introducing the Helpful ICP Member

[bitter pollen]

and our whole ship and the rest of our crew decided to just

not help

[civic musk]

We were gone by the time any movement happened

[cosmic thunder]

AGAIN
I agree that Drukhari suck. just in general. but it's kinda the point.

[civic musk]

The Drukhari have an enormous tech advantage over everybody

[bitter pollen]

oh no i mean like the maps and whatnot

it wasn't like

[civic musk]

Anyway, like

[bitter pollen]

nothing new or cool happened

outside of learning about our friends

everything else

was

tedium

[civic musk]

You don't like Act 3

[bitter pollen]

( also a clown )

[civic musk]

We do

[cosmic thunder]

the dark carnival will come for you

[civic musk]

I <3 harlequins

[cosmic thunder]

I get where the hatred comes from tho

it's okay I understand

also I was kinda surprised that I actually recruited goth elf

but he's so much fun to bully that I just don't care

absolute wet cat in denial

[bitter pollen]

he is but cinders now

and everyone everywhere is better for it

[cosmic thunder]

I'm sure my decision will not randomly backfire on me

[cosmic thunder]

honestly bit sad for her. that lady really needs a hug

[bitter pollen]

i think generally eldar are just sort of 'maybe living for eons is bad, actually'

none of them seem to be doing

great

[civic musk]

What's interesting is that the mental and emotional connection feels much more important than any physical action could ever be to her

[cosmic thunder]

eldar can be quite assholeish as well. I think the game undersells a bit just how mean they can get

[civic musk]

She gets a hug in the sense that it would matter to her

[bitter pollen]

and she makes it so goddamn hard to connect emotionally what with the Not Telling People Things

or setting Conversational Traps for you

[cosmic thunder]

I mean can you blame her

thousands of people on one ship

and almost everybody hates her on principle

[civic musk]

She's chosen the hard road and uh

The hard road is hard

[bitter pollen]

but have you considered

she's quite tall

[cosmic thunder]

yes?

following you so far

[bitter pollen]

that's all, tall women can do anything

[civic musk]

I think that was a joke

Indeed

That's true

[bitter pollen]

like narrative stuff sometimes gets messy but gahd the character writing in RT is so solid

[cosmic thunder]

yes

[bitter pollen]

especially for folks with such different perspectives n whatall

[civic musk]

Yrliet is, fascinatingly, the most ... contemporary human? Of all the characters, in attitude and ethics. Even an Iconoclast RT is sort of In Response To The Imperium

Putting aside the particular nature of her misanthropy, Yrliet sounds like someone I might meet

And ends up providing that sort of outsider perspective

[cosmic thunder]

she never quite loses her biases though, which I think is important to point out

[civic musk]

Yeah!

She's not The Best Person on the team

[cosmic thunder]

and while aeldari culture has a lot that speaks for it, a lot of their insight stems from the fact that they fucked up so hard that it created a new chaos god

Yrliet is somewhat unique even within her culture in that she got a perspective on just how hard her people fucked up

part of her frustrations with humankind come from seeing that they're on a similar path

and yet she still can't quite let go of how great the aeldari were at their peak

[safe surge]

I admitted bailed at the part of the romance where she explicitly asks you if you want to continue, but it was kind of funny to me that the arc up to at least that part was "humans can have rich inner lives too" or to put it more sillily: "the PC isn't a NPC"

[civic musk]

I think to some degree she always knew that, really

Which is why it's possible to persuade her

She's frequently aghast at how the Imperium treats its people

And while she files it away in her drawer of evidence for why humans are awful, it keeps happening

[dapper condor]

Okay so since in my dogmaticcplaythrough heinrix is my warrior executioner for my heretical playthrough i'll play a pyrodancer

[cosmic thunder]

I've decided to put the game down for a bit after finishing act 3. Act 4 throws A LOT at you all at once. In some ways I like it because a lot of it payoff for the decisions you made before, but it's also kind of irritating since everyone comes to you with their own companion quests and rogue trader decisions all at once, pulling you in hundred different directions.

it's narratively fitting, but it's the kind of information overload that can pull me off some RPGs. it's the main reason why I stopped playing Divinity: OS2 early on.

hits particularly hard after a relatively linear and straightforward chapter.

[civic musk]

_> I feel kinda vaguely inclined to come back to the game in a year when all of the planned new companions and whatnot are out

[cosmic thunder]

Also I started straining against the rail of the railroad at the very last dialogue choice of act 3.
shortly before entering the webway when those skrunkly guys come along to collect marazhai.
one of your companions even says "we'll get nothing but trouble in the long run if we don't let these guys have him.".

and you don't even get the option to betray him then and there.
I was so looking forward to that 😦
Now I'm stuck with this nerd.

[hardy tinsel]

No you are not

If you stick it out a bit longer you have multiple opportunities to get rid of him

[cosmic thunder]

yeah but that would have been the most satisfying one

I feel robbed

also of course as soon as I take him in he starts pissing on the rug, murdering my crew and getting claimed by thirsty prince

[wary topaz]

I mean let's be real, some of the old bridge staff hunt the crew

[civic musk]

Marazhai at least isn’t doing it on purpose

Marazhai on board the ship is probably no worse than any other Imperium officer XD

And possibly better

[bitter pollen]

Yeah but you have to then suffer through both looking at and speaking to him

[civic musk]

I think he’s funny :P

Especially when he’s suffering

Idira: “you need to eat something, stick insect”
Marazhai: “leave. Me. Alone.”

[cosmic thunder]

he's not funny. he's a very naughty boy!

[civic musk]

Yrliet is pretty weird by Asuryani standards and so does okay out of her element, which is interesting. Marazhai is extremely typical as Drukhari go, which means he does terribly out of his element, which is funny.

[bitter pollen]

The game has plenty of funny, keep that space for characters with more depth than a crepe

[civic musk]

Re: Drukhari, there’s an Act 4 colony event where ||a Drukhari takes over leadership of one of your worlds and while yes, she’s doing most-dangerous-game stuff she’s still a fair sight better than the previous planetary governor||

[cosmic thunder]

I'm not sayi g we're necessarily the good guys

I mean my rt tries.

and mostly fails.

I do worry a little about losing my crews trust. they weren't too happy that I let Yrlieth more or less get away from her betrayal without consequence

granted that was a mistake of me as a player.

I got a bit tired of the game after returning to the bridge and clicked the first response without properly reading it

argenta n abelard weren't pleased

heinrix neither, but that man is never pleased

[civic musk]

For me, she already suffered a pretty hefty karmic backlash, so I was more okay with it

[brittle matrix]

||To be fair I don't think most Imperial Nobles would be above doing a Most Dangerous Game anyways.||

[civic musk]

Aye, that’s the point, ||she’s a step up from most Imperium nobility simply on account of how she’s being extremely evil (which is normal) and actually attempting to govern (which is not)||

[wary topaz]

Okay, executioner Heinrix is nuts

And also, so is vigilant arbitrator

Thought not as much

Running heinrix as biophysical distort+pyromancer executioner is just "i put 3 dots on you and then 9 procs"

And the vigilator arbitrator has the funny "if I parry or block your attack I'm going to punch or kick you, then shotgun you"

[civic musk]

Yeah, Pyromancer Executioner is capable of absolutely wild output.

Blade Dancer makes it even crazier, as it can frequently cover the entire map in death on the first round of combat without much trouble.

[tidal parcel]

starting a new rogue trader playthrough

time to finish it this time

hopefully

[wary topaz]

I just finished my daring heretical playthrough!

Executioner is busted good

[civic musk]

Ye

RT letting basically everything in the universe stack, including DOT, means things get pretty crazy.

[austere otter]

the devs have talked about doing a big rebalance of the classes at some point

I'm looking forward to that, but that could be more than a year from now

[civic musk]

I have pondered going back to the game after the inevitable enhanced edition release.

[wary topaz]

Biophysical distortion hitting on each proc of where it hurts is so absurd

[split ether]

I keep forgetting Kibellah is romanceable cause she's like... This is gonna sound weird but she's "excited pet gremlin" coded.

[civic musk]

Her romance is pretty alright.

#2 of the female companion romances imo.

None remotely compete with Yrliet’s, but.

[bitter pollen]

If only Argenta had room for love other than the Emperor's

[civic musk]

My female romance tier list is Yrliet >>>>> Kibellah > Cassia >> Jaye.

[dapper condor]

i choose my romance based oin the dynamic with the Lord Captain. if they're a abitrator they go with Jay

dem the rules

[cosmic thunder]

I picked cassia on my first time around and it had a great payoff in chapter 3

I do like how romancing her requires a little effort

[cosmic thunder]

obligatory reminder that even if you could romance her, you'd always be number 3 or 4 on her affection list

[cosmic thunder]

I like Yrliet but I kinda felt nudged by the script to romance her, and the contrarian in me just couldn't let that happen.

dontchu tell me who to smooch, game!

[tidal parcel]

thats how I felt with cassia

but I ended up romancing her bcs she's cute

[split ether]

Jae is the best woman to grace any kind of media NGL.
I don't know why so many people hate her. She's got immaculate vibes.

She's got Girlboss energy, but not the cop-out kind.

[cosmic thunder]

Jae's great (and usually an archetype I'm a sucker for) but idunno, being a friend (in whatever capacity you can be as an RT) to her was enough for me.

more of a cool pal to party with than a close partner

[bitter pollen]

She feels a bit more high fantasy than 40k

[stone hawk]

I think most Jae hate is more like gameplay sided. If I remember right the build she starts with is kind of iffy.

[bitter pollen]

And she steals the actual 'good at dual wielding' perk

[twin anchor]

Yeah, my issue with her is that she's full of unique perks to be good at her job that I wish I could have 😛

[wary topaz]

Jae is actually mechanically fine

If you want her to be fighty, go master tactician, ir you want her to support, vox overseer is actually amazing

As is raven overseer on idira

To the point your offensive builds stop mattering as much

[austere otter]

I tend to respec her as a soldier, but you need mods to do that

[wary topaz]

Imo is better to have more supports then strikers in rt

But I have done similar

Also with yrliet, made her a soldier arch mill, dial wielding blast and shutiken pistols and the rune cannon

[civic musk]

Jae is great, I just find her romance to be less interesting.

[cosmic thunder]

Jae's insofar interesting in that she doesn't really represent any 40k faction. she's just really crafty.

maybe faction is the wrong word but I hopd it's clear what I mean

although I guess she's a bit of an ambassador for 40ks imperial underworld

[bitter pollen]

I'm kind of surprised a person like Jae can exist in 40k

[wary topaz]

I'm not, the imperium is hilariously bureaucratic and incompetent

And the cold trade has been a thing since the very early dark heresy lore

Bureaucratic inflexibility and incompetence almost necessitate black markets

[cosmic thunder]

funnily enough I've seen one or two negative steam reviews where people complained about the administratum quest being boring. I do wonder if that was a factor for some people who didn't like Jae.

I enjoyed that quest though.

[wary topaz]

It was entertaining

[cosmic thunder]

I do enjoy the glimpses the game gives into ordinary life within the imperium of man

and I guess the dark eldar

[civic musk]

One of my favorite things about RT's writing is that it goes out of its way to gesture towards how the people of the Imperium are, for all that they live under the heel of an unbelievably awful regime in a galaxy of darkness and cruelty, still fundamentally people trying to navigate a world gone mad.

[civic musk]

While at the same time it's very clear that even factions like the Inquisition find the Cold Trade useful in spots.

[wary topaz]

Yeah and like

Xenosgun runners are not that ontological dangerous

Even if the mechanicus pretends otherwise

Order xenos has bigger fish to fry, like drukhari raids, genestealer cults, supporting crusades

[cosmic thunder]

one thing I appreciate about the writing on the flipside tho is that the characters have all a degree of cruelty and closed-mindedness to them. Even someone like Jae who's into xenos weaponry has no kind words for Yrliet.
And even someone as overall kind-natured as Cassia is to some degree blind to the cruelty she inflicts on people like her manservant.

[twin anchor]

Yeah. You can genuinely say that Sister Argenta is a compassionate, caring person who is remarkably willing to bend imperial rules when she doesn't think the meet the spirit of the emperor.

...but she's also someone who talks gleefully of burning heretics.

She's very human and kind but human and kind within the mindset of someone in the imperium.

[cosmic thunder]

they're all decent-ish people in a fundamentally fucked world.

Except Dork elf

he's a jerk

[twin anchor]

I do find it very funny how Argenta and Yrliet agree so often but both feel the need to do the friendship version of 'No homo' constantly over the fact that they're actually people who's personal morality lines up very naturally.

'We can't allow this corruptive influence to stand'
'...okay so the xenos has a point but that doesn't mean I like her'

Both of them can't stand the corruptive influence of the archenemy and both have a lot of compassion while also caring not very much about the actual law part of the imperial law and being very 'Oh and I'll just kill it' over problems and ||Both are deeply ashamed of betraying their own moral code|| (Spoilers with that last part)

[cosmic thunder]

It's hard to hate her for that because she's just so darn passionate about it. adorable.

[cosmic thunder]

WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLF

that said I really like Ulfar.

[civic musk]

He's fun.

[cosmic thunder]

This.
This right here nails why I love the AdMech as a faction. that friction inbetween desiring and fearing knowledge. That's the good stuff.

[lavish lagoon]

Found the very funny psyker helmet

I just have Jae unload pistols into him and then he rips

[wary topaz]

PR stacking is so dumb

It's so powerful and so easy.

Be heretical, get psyker breastplate, start killing people, get free FR, keep killing

[lavish lagoon]

Ghost helm is just like

1. Have Jae shoot a shitty pistol at me for her whole turn
2. Kill god

[wary topaz]

Or just like, Argentina controlled shot with improved hb

[lavish lagoon]

I dont run argenta but yeah that works too

[cosmic thunder]

lost it at option 1

"abelard! hand me the squeaky toy!"

[twin anchor]

The idea of just calling an inquisitor in while you laze about in your bathtub amuses the hell out of me.

[cosmic thunder]

I didn't even notice you could invite your crew to hang out while you bathe

on one hand it's kinda sketchy
on the other it's just the kind of thing I can see a rogue trader do

the game gives you surprisingly many options to be an unhinged aristocrat

"you know who I want to have next to a bathtub? the guy with barely isolated electronics worth fifty thousand toaster ovens implanted in his body"

[cosmic thunder]

oh btw I shot marazhai.

[safe surge]

This guy (the Rogue Trader) doesn't know the Emperor is the Omnissiah

[cosmic thunder]

||While I don't doubt he could have been useful and I had some sympathy for him losing his mind in the warp, the way he just immediately snapped into his old smug behaviour and demanding that next time he should just be provided some crew to hunt just pushed it too far.

The game provided me with the option to imprison him during warp travel but given the setting I knew that wouldn't last for long.||

so I vaporized the saucy bdsm stickbug and I don't feel bad about it

[civic musk]

||IIRC. locking him up during warp travel (and I thiiiiink telling him he has to Yrliet is also an option? or at least she expresses that this is something he has to learn) does work||

||I really enjoy the implication, too, that drukhari can learn to be more like the asuryani, it's just that Change Hurts.||

[lavish lagoon]

I shot him before I even had the option to bring him on board lol

[cosmic thunder]

okay I feel a little bad about it

[civic musk]

||Marazhai is a very bad man, tbc, but he doesn't really willingly do anything unusually terrible by Imperium standards as a member of your crew, so he ends up mostly being a source of comedy imo.||

[stone hawk]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/2186680/announcements/detail/533239065676349754?snr=2___

[dapper condor]

Had a dumb idea with the new heretic pet. Shotgun executioner

[civic musk]

Oh shit, cool

I think I'm still going to wait for the final DLC but

Man, good shit

Aw, they nerfed Death From Above chaining

Executioner got nerfs but still looks very strong

Unfortunately Carnival of Misery can no longer instantly kill every enemy on the field >_>

[dapper condor]

Heretic flaming doggo

[civic musk]

Oh, and they bumped up EXP requirements a bunch due to all of the DLC

[barren nacelle]

https://youtu.be/WZOMCEvElHk

@stone hawk ....HEY OWLCAT WHAT WAS THIS LIZARD YOU SNUCK IN HERE?! HEY GET BACK HERE! EXPLAIN!!!!

[stone hawk]

Apparently it's for an NPC already in the game just now getting a portrait.

I should probably replay RT soon. Only ever played it once before and that was before the DLC came out.

[wary topaz]

Yeah it's ||Malice||, from act 3

[lavish lagoon]

Wow there's a lot of rebalance

Arc rifles might actually do stuff now

Will I do a new playthrough to find out? Maybe someday

[civic musk]

Man I didn’t realize they had 2 more DLC planned

Glarp

[weary dawn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvhmC4eHiCQ

Dec 16th.

[weary dawn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKpMoweRcUs

[civic musk]

Oh cool

[dapper condor]

Going for an operative/executioner build. Wich homworlrd should i choose

[civic musk]

Death, Forge, and the one that starts with N are all really good picks

Just in general

[dapper condor]

the issue i have with death wolrd is the minus in Int

[civic musk]

Forge is really nice in allowing you to use Int for some other stuff, and it’s great for getting obscenely high dodge with the leg mod.

[dapper condor]

since i'm want to play with shotgun (ie aoe weapons) INT is more likely going to be my main damaging stat, not sure the leg would be the best

[wary topaz]

I mean if you're going shooty executioner I would highly recommend the tyrant, or just splinter rifles

The tyrant is a very funni gun

It's a needle pistol that applies 10 stacks each of burn, toxin and bleed

[dapper condor]

yes but xoounter offer arbitor has a shotgun and a doggy and i like both of those thing

i may go with forteress world cause of actionb economy

spare magazine gives you a free reload

one of my question would be does the DOT crit of Does it Hurt? can benefit of the Bloody Mess origin talent ?

[civic musk]

Remember that you can also build AoEs with agility by taking the demolition talent

[wary topaz]

Yeah but that is soldier not operative

[dapper condor]

i'll probably pump Int for aoe and medicae, i've settled into forge world for the INT% crit chance and int for coercion for Arbiter skills

[wary topaz]

Appel just exploit scaling

[dapper condor]

i don't understand

[wary topaz]

...man autocorrect tucked that up

Also applies to exploit scaling*

[civic musk]

Oh is it a soldier talent? I thought it was general for some reason

[wary topaz]

Yeah its a soldier specific

[civic musk]

Forge world main character seems like it's as close as you're going to get to a Jaye-level skill monkey.

[rare pagoda]

I just went with the crime lord pre-made character because I get so indecisive about crpg character creation.

[civic musk]

I basically always play a psyker

[rare pagoda]

Btw, Rogue Trader is easier to play on a larger pc screen

[split ether]

I really think Pasqual and Idira are only operatives in an attempt to balance their actual utility (ten billion plasma damage/psyker rating go brr)

[civic musk]

I would argue that it's more that no other classes really fit

One could maybe argue Pasqal as a warrior

Or a soldier

Maaaaaybe

But the operative stuff can be pretty useful for him and plays to him being The Schmott Guy

For Idira it's almost completely useless but what else would one stick her in?

[cosmic thunder]

honestly with pasqal I mostly invested in his unique skills and only occasionally dipped into his class ones

And he turned out quite decent

[civic musk]

He does well with Bounty Hunter, too

[lavish lagoon]

Yeah I did bounty hunter plasma pasqual and he was pretty good

[rare pagoda]

I was thinking of going Bounty Hunter with Sister Argenta

[lavish lagoon]

Arch Militant is probably the best for argent to make her a proper blender

[safe surge]

It's very disgusting. Bounty Hunter might be more interesting from a "makes the game a bit harder" perspective lol

[civic musk]

Flamer/Bolter Arch Militant Argenta is extremely powerful and probably her default build

[civic musk]

It’ll work, but Bounty Hunter amusingly works best on someone with lots of non-attack support abilities

So it works well for Pasqal and Idira, for instance

[rare pagoda]

What would you say works best with Argenta?

[civic musk]

Arch Militant

No question

Heavy Flamer/Heavy Bolter is a hell of a drug

That said, depending on difficulty, it can feel like too much

[civic musk]

Notably, multiple bounty hunters in the group can trigger certain things off of each others’ abilities

It’s very easy to run out of unbuffed party members to use your AP on >_>

[wary topaz]

Master tactician can also be very good, but AM synergizes more with officer action economy abuse

[cosmic thunder]

my best choice was giving her the kick

my god can that woman kick

meanwhile I'm still somewhat stuck at the final encounters second phase of Kibellahs DLC. Not really sure what the game expects from me there. The first phase was tense but a lot of fun.

writing wise I really liked this DLC, even if the last bit felt a little rushed. and that second phase feels a little bullshit

[wary topaz]

Against the ||emperor||?

[cosmic thunder]

yup

[wary topaz]

I just dumped damage on it

[cosmic thunder]

It just melted two of my guys in its first two turns

[wary topaz]

I mean I was doing it on normal with some pretty good builds. And un-nerfed executioner

[cosmic thunder]

granted my builds are a bit shoddy. I wasn't super careful early on with reading the descriptions

[wary topaz]

Ahh

I highly recommend the toy box mod for free respecs

[cosmic thunder]

I'm still not exactly sure how bounty hunters work

[wary topaz]

Bounty hunter is one of the weaker classes imo

You can make it work, but

The main thing for bh is that you can force crits

Like I think only Vanguard is worse than bh

[bitter pollen]

Hey I had a good time on Pyromancer Vanguard but was probably just carried by Psyker

[wary topaz]

I mean, yeah

[bitter pollen]

Just not bad to add 'essentially unkillable' to that

[cosmic thunder]

I've had a relatively good time with my warrior assassin.

[wary topaz]

Especially if you have pr stacking

Warrior assassin pretty good

[bitter pollen]

Self damage is inclined, it was fun

Break yourselves upon my body etc etc

[cosmic thunder]

My Abelard as warrior vanguard is quite a spectacle. you can just drop him somewhere and he leaves a crater

[wary topaz]

Anyway, the easy mode builds imo are grand strategist Cassia and overseer biomancer idira

[cosmic thunder]

I made her a master tactician and honestly am a bit underwhelmed

[bitter pollen]

Cassia is so strong I think I have to bench her if i play again

[wary topaz]

Yeah navigator should be its own class and its 'balanced' by the face you can only have one

Navigator is bustedgood

[bitter pollen]

In like every way too

[cosmic thunder]

like her base movement she gets from being a navigator is pretty strong but I barely noticed her class skills

[bitter pollen]

It's not even niche or whatever

[cosmic thunder]

Like she can just melt a whole flank

[wary topaz]

Grand strategist Cassie always goes first and gives a free turn to idira, who drops warp speed, iron arm, and whatever else you can only her raven, and by extention, the entire party

[cosmic thunder]

I love my warp facemelting wife

[bitter pollen]

'Oh so she'll be like a mobility support thing, neat' /first ability Cone of Face Melting 'oh'

[wary topaz]

Cassia is kinda wasted doing damage imo

[bitter pollen]

And god yeah the psyker support

Just eats warp troubles

[wary topaz]

She's a monstrous buffer

Also master tactician is really good imo, as a buffer, but its kind of win more

[bitter pollen]

I get lost on which turn or bonus turn i end up with warrior + cass

[cosmic thunder]

I feel like the characters who have suffered most in my playthrough are heinrix and idira

idunno about psykers

[bitter pollen]

Heinrix just kind of wanted to do the same things as me so ended up more a sideline buffboy

[wary topaz]

So, for Heinrich, my last build was executioner, grabbed biophysical distortion and pyromancy

And he shreds things

[cosmic thunder]

Idiras issue with the early to midgame was that she ended up more often than not far behind the party with no good way to catch up

[bitter pollen]

My idira blew herself up turn one or two

Every time

[cosmic thunder]

yes, that too

[wary topaz]

Yeah idira unfortunately has thr unsanctioned thing

[bitter pollen]

'It's such a low chance' i tell myself

[cosmic thunder]

psykers, amirite
laughtrack

[bitter pollen]

Foolish

[wary topaz]

I turned off the major perils in toybox

Because it just means I'd reset the fight

[bitter pollen]

Tried to use your class ability? What if a midgame boss arrived

[wary topaz]

Origin ability, technically

[bitter pollen]

Tru

[cosmic thunder]

bummer because she's a genuinely fun take on a psyker writing wise

I liked having her around

[wary topaz]

Again, I recommend toybox to turn off major perils

[bitter pollen]

Honestly Heinrix is an interesting inquisitor

No real misses on the squad

[cosmic thunder]

honestly I can't think of a character I hated

not one

definitely not the one I killed after he started snacking on my crew

[wary topaz]

I have to be in the correct mindset to tolerate marazhai

[bitter pollen]

Abelard so easily could have been so annoying

But they nailed it

[cosmic thunder]

I love seneschal adorable

[bitter pollen]

Ff9 Steiner.. even named Adelbert

[cosmic thunder]

He's fun to bully

[bitter pollen]

Killing him unceremoniously is bullying for his melodramatic ass

[cosmic thunder]

meanwhile Ulfar keeps selling me on the space wolves

just an all around swell dude

and swole dude

[civic musk]

Kick is solid, but I love Heavy Bolter/Heavy Flamer

[cosmic thunder]

kick is love
kick is life

I made Ulfar kick the ||undying emperor|| and that'll never be not funny

[civic musk]

The thing I love re: Marazhai is how for all his bravado he is not having a good time once he joins your retinue

[cosmic thunder]

sounds like not my problem

[civic musk]

Arguably he is having the worst time he has ever had, and everyone mocks him for it

And you know what?

Good

[cosmic thunder]

I was about to say

good

[civic musk]

The cruelest thing you can do to Marazhai is hire him

[cosmic thunder]

fuck him

that saucy dingus should suffer, and not in the hot way

he killed a lot of people

HE SAT ON MY CHAIR

[cosmic thunder]

I feel like it's his genuine compassion that makes the difference. sure, due to his position he's a stickler for rules but you can tell he really cares for the people under him.

[lavish lagoon]

I gave heinrix the item that gives you psy rating for one turn on dodge then had Jae just spend all her underwhelming shooting on taking pot shots at him with high RoF weapons.

If I needed to get goofy if use controlled shot to have my arch Militant RT spray him with a heavy bolter for like 50 psy rating then he'd just pop the entire map

[lavish lagoon]

Cassia is insane even if you ignored every grand Strategist ability besides going first

On hard difficulty I was able to one round most nonboss fights with militant RT/executioner heinrix/cassia/jae/pasqual/yriliet and the first 3 did 99% of the effort

[cosmic thunder]

aight so the second try on the final bloodspun web encounter didn't go well

half the party wiped in turn 1

some really bad rolls to be fair

[lavish lagoon]

The main thing for me on that one was just staying spread out since he does a lot of aoe

[wary topaz]

Yeah part of the problem with the navigator origin is that it totalizes your build decisions

[cosmic thunder]

...so death waltz is just kibellahs autoplay button, huh

[wary topaz]

Yeah death waltz can be pretty great

[cosmic thunder]

I was about to write "wow, my abelard build is pretty sturdy and plays itself"

-gets two-shot by phase two

my god, I did it

it really is just wailing at the guy

[young sundial]

NGL when I first read that I thought you were still talking about marazhai

[cosmic thunder]

HA!

funny
he'd hate that.
but unfortunately he's a paperweight in my current playthrough

[split ether]

I was sleeping on the shotguns, but ever since playing an Arbiter made me the obligatory shotgun lady, they do get disgusting

[lavish lagoon]

Did you get the double barrel with like 99% armor pen

[split ether]

Not yet!

[lavish lagoon]

It gets silly with the shields that let you reload faster

[wary topaz]

I love the act 4 one handed shotty that let's you shoot when you parry or block

Gets really funny with the arby talents that let you a) reaction shot at foes that fail wis saves and b) force a wis save when you shoot someone and its not your turn

[stone hawk]

Stuff from endgame spoilers
||https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/179058525828284427/1447756037712117891/image.png?ex=693ac1a1&is=69397021&hm=6ffa46d718259ea3c972cb198bf3d8b8ef7bd9dc744cff0146dfcc310e115434&||

||"Abelard, shoot the bitch."||

[bitter pollen]

That's the most they've ever agreed with eachother

[civic musk]

Most of the retinue actually get along with each other pretty well

Like Heinrix seems to respect and sympathize with Idira

[robust flume]

finally getting around to the dlc content this playthrough

i like how all the Iconoclast options in the ||genestealer|| questline come across as the RT genuinely being a moron

||nooo we gotta let this genestealer cultist go so we can prove how nice we are|| bro stfu

[tight flare]

I guess part of it is also ||that in universe exactly how hopeless trying to sway a genestealer off the course is not clear compared to out of universe||
An iconoclast RT, for example, can also ||successfully sway people away from Chaos, so it makes sense one might try with another sort of seeming cult indoctrination||

[twin anchor]

The Iconoclast ones feel very ||They don't get that this isn't just a Psychological Choice thing. This is actual biological and psychic manipulation of the mind||

[tight flare]

Mmmm
Which like
DOES make sense as a misunderstanding to have, especially compared to chaos

[stone hawk]

Doing a Dogmatic run and it's kind of funny that during all the ||Genestealer|| quests Heinrix is just piping up every other line to lore dump.

||Like he finally gets to do Ordo Xenos things.||

[twin anchor]

||His special interest||

[tight flare]

Inquisitor Enrichment 😌
Like giving a dog a squeaky toy

[robust flume]

yeah it does rely a bit on the player not being familiar with ||genestealers|| in the lore i guess

the kibellah stuff has all been 10/10 so far honestly

the whole part where she sees a parallel between herself and the ||kelermorph|| - very good

[robust flume]

https://youtu.be/0jVgn0R_5Pg?si=mQ8oEZRKt5fr3fJR okay this dlc rules too

[robust flume]

so thassera's nobility is obviously a ||tzeentch cult|| right

[robust flume]

got it in one lol

[civic musk]

Hm, really? I don’t remember much in the way of iconoclast options during the plotline. The big thing for me was that ||I the player could tell pretty early on that the Infernus Master was a genestealer, which is not something the RT can intuit||, but that’s a general storytelling conceit

[robust flume]

there's a few iconoclast-coded options that don't specifically give you points, but are still 'nice'

one specific one i remember is ||if you send supplies to the plasma tenders decks to try and win them over, Nemesite basically says 'thanks for giving us free shit idiot'||

and ||after the nemesite fight, you can choose to say 'this man deserves a fair trial'||

[civic musk]

I guess I’d hesitate to call those iconoclast options instead of idiot options

[lavish lagoon]

The entire arc is kinda like ||you can be a nice guy but lol get fucked if you aren't careful who you're being nice to||

[tight flare]

I do honestly like that
||Iconoclast isn't necessarily 'the philosophy that makes every correct decision'||
||just most of them||

[jovial anvil]

I think I’ll wait for the next wave of dlc to go back to rogue trader

I wonder how dark heresy character creation will work in constraint

To rogue traders

[stone hawk]

Sadly character creation isn't part of the alpha. You're stuck with Noble Officer for your Acolyte.

[jovial anvil]

there's an alpha?

[stone hawk]

Yeah just started today, you needed to have pre-ordered one of two editions.

[robust flume]

It doesn't sound like you'll be able to pick your Ordos in the full game, which is the main thing I was curious about

[jovial anvil]

That would’ve been neat but that tends to determine the direction of the game so I get it, are we hereticus?

Any footage/vid on the demo yet?

[stone hawk]

https://youtu.be/Pk1z-CAAPG0?si=CNVJpwDD2wIaKudi

[jovial anvil]

When’s the release date?

[jovial anvil]

I like psyker being class not background

[wary topaz]

Yeah it was parasitic in rt

[cosmic thunder]

I started my first RT character as a psyker but quickly pivoted. Got the sense that it's a very different playthrough, maybe one suited for a second go.

was that wrong?

[jovial anvil]

Whether or not it was is up to you

Pc psyker is the only way to get pyromancer

[wary topaz]

Psykere are really good, but it overshadows a lot of other build aspects

[jovial anvil]

Yeah it’s kinda it’s whole own thing

The others are certainly not bad but psykers come with wholly unique spells ans ans mechanics tgat also dont interact with class things smoothly

[safe surge]

I thought you could pick up other disciplines with NPCs? But it doesn't seem worth it

[stone hawk]

You can

[safe surge]

Is there a particularly good class to go with a psyker background? At some point I want to do a heretic run and Psyker makes the most sense for that to me, ha

[robust flume]

i always made idira a pyromancer

[robust flume]

i'm not sure about initial archetype, but overseer with the psyber raven is pretty crazy on a buff/debuff psyker. heinrix can use the abilities that give everyone an extra ap and 20 toughness on turn 1 with an officer

[safe surge]

Hmm, I was thinking for a pyromancer PC in particular. Noted about overseer otherwise

[robust flume]

the problem with the way classes work in this game is that there's no initial archetype that seems to mesh well with a classic blaster psyker. i guess operative but operative is definitely the weakest of the starting classes

and the raven specifically doesn't channel attack powers unless you use the heroic act for it

anyway my first playthrough was heretic officer but i hear that the heretic playthrough got some touch ups since release (it needed them) so a heretic psyker actually sounds like a good time tbh

[bitter pollen]

I enjoyed Vanguard Pyromancer, it has a lot of spells/effects that enjoy adjacency so why not ensure that won't be a problem for the fragile meatform

[dapper condor]

Wich portrait should i use for a heretic LC ?

[lavish lagoon]

Warrior gives you a heroic act that just refills your AP and lets you make as many attacks as your heart desires

[austere otter]

the iconic psyker build is pyromancer/bladedancer/executioner

it has been nerfed, but it's still extremely good

previously it could solo pretty much any fight turn one on the highest difficulty

[inland talon]

interesting

[dapper condor]

I remember soloing the last in the first dlc with this compo

But the lex imperiamis introduces cool shotgun trick

And dogos

[robust flume]

can confirm that shotgun arch-mil goes kinda nuts

[robust flume]

oh, i just realised you fail a bunch of personal quests if you start act 3 too early

there goes jae and cassia's. kind of annoying since i completed every step of jae's except 'talk to her afterwards'

[robust flume]

polygamy confirmed lex-compliant, go figure

[tight flare]

I do find it amusing how so many companions are like
'Polygamy is entirely fine'
'i will not do it, though,'

[stone hawk]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/179058525828284427/1452730438299684994/image.png?ex=694cda66&is=694b88e6&hm=6a5708a25d66e6a89e407877679bfc3877e4657efc333ca2eafc98579166b224&

[dim forge]

Lmao

[inland talon]

Damn i didn't expect anyone to be racist to the navigator

CONSIDERING THEY CAN KILL YOU BY LOOKING PARTICLUARLY HARD AT YOU

[robust flume]

i never did ulfar's quest my first time around, but i fully believe and accept that inside him, there are two wolves

[stone hawk]

sigh That's twice now an attempt at doing a Grim Darkness run ended at the hands of an early space battle. Ah well, maybe someday I'll actually be able to do a whole run with it on.

Both times to space fights I wasn't even worried about.

[safe surge]

My experience was that the early space battles were the hardest thing in the game

[bitter pollen]

yeaah the RNG is real swingy, lot of chance for damn-near oneshots that I imagine only get rougher on GD

[robust flume]

if you have lex imperialis you can get a permanent ally ship relatively early that makes space combat a lot easier ime

although i was playing this time around on normal, which is a joke tbh

[cosmic thunder]

WOLF WOLF WOLF WOLFYWOLF

even he likes to poke fun at the wolf saturation of his chapter

[robust flume]

ok, i do see why some people seem to have a problem with lex imperialis compared to void shadows tbh

||the whole leethus arc felt very rushed and short-changed, especially after thassera. The gimmick in the final fight was super easy as well||

although that being said, i don't think i agree with the criticisms of solomorne as a character

it helped that void shadows, by necessity, revolved around a very tight location and set of characters though

[dapper condor]

doing an heretic run should i go for fish wife or Goth tsundere gf ?

[safe surge]

Dating the Navigator who, though an adult, is young and called "the Child" feels unseemly

(it doesn't help that the options to hit on her are super cringe, even if most of them don't work)

[robust flume]

assuming you mean kibellah, her personality and romance have something unique where you can adjust her outlook through your experiences together, which most of the others don't have in any significant capacity

[robust flume]

solomorne: ||We just got off this hyper-lethal boarding op, let's fuck and then wash the gore off our bodies||
kibellah: ||please join me for a date in your family crypt so i can sew your eyelids shut||
cassia:

[young sundial]

Nooooooo Cass, you'll catch cooties

[cosmic thunder]

Cass is adorable

Cass: "do not look at me, I'm a hideous mutant with abnormal features and I could melt your brain"

not unsignificant part of the playerbase: "I see no downsides so far"

[dim forge]

she is very cute