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Arena Guide - Countering Classes - Skill Capped Summary

Being totally new to arena, I had absolutely no idea where to start on learning other class abilities and how to play against different comps. I saw another post mentioning Skill Capped's YouTube series from BFA 8.3 as a good starting point, so I watched them and took notes for myself and my arena partner. Just thought I'd share in case it helped somebody else who also has no idea what they're doing. I realize some points might be out of date (I updated tooltips) and Shadowlands elements (like leggos) aren't included, but I feel a lot of the core gameplay is reasonably the same. If you disagree, feel free to comment with corrections. Also didn't include a couple of classes because they either weren't in the vids, have changed drastically for SL, or are heavily underrepresented. Happy hunting.
**None of this content is mine. The advice and tactics outlined are not mine. It is from freely available YouTube videos produced by Skill Capped in a series called "Knowing Your Enemy". I'm simply paraphrasing so I (and now you) have a quick cheat sheet.
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Disc Priest
- Two schools of magic - holy(damage)/shadow(burst heals/cc).
- Kicking smite/penance will negate some dam and some low mana cost healing.
- Kick shadowmend to nuke burst heals.
- Avoid allowing for freecasting smite. Try to LOS when possible.
- Mind Blast has more healing/damage/absorb than smite. 1.5 sec cast. 15 sec CD.
- Kicking Shadow if they recently used Penance, don’t have any instant radiances or if they are on CD will shut down a ton of healing. Kicking Penance when you know Radiance is up and they have plenty of mana is good too. Shadow Mend is good but forces a class that wants to be aggressive into a defensive heal spam, not able to purge and runs them out of mana.
- Defensive:
o Rapture – Buffs shields by 200% and makes them spammable. Purge, purge, purge.
o Power Word Barrier – Stronger when pvp talented. Dome.
o Pain Suppression – Can use while stunned.
- Mindgames is extremely strong for both disc and shadow. Kick or dispel is almost always the play.
- Immobile healer. Use slows whenever possible.
Holy Priest
- Focus on Greater Heal – Main heal (65% of target’s hp pool) but has 3 sec cast. Outside of Greater Heal they have very little sustained healing. Wait until end of cast to interrupt. Do not spend interrupts on anything else.
- Greater Fade – 45 sec cooldown and 4 sec duration damage immune with 50% movement speed increase. Interrupts and knock backs punch through.
- Holy Ward – Immunes target from next CC. 30 sec cooldown and uptime. Self or target cast. Purge it. If you can’t, use worst CC to remove it. Repentance/rake stun/clone.
- Holy Word Chastise – Ranged, 4 sec stun on 1 min cooldown. Smite reduced cooldown 4 sec per. LOS Smite when possible.
- Train the Priest – Outside of Greater Heal and cooldowns, they have very low healing and no passive heals. Sit on DPS until they blow big offensives then switch to Holy and delete.
Holy Paladin
- Play around Avenging Wrath (Wings) - Call upon the Light to become an avatar of retribution, increasing your damage, healing, and critical strike chance by 20% for 20 sec. 3 min CD. Big heals in this window and lower cooldown on Holy Shock (their instant heal). During this CD, there is little chance of creating pressure or scoring a kill. Save offensive cooldowns for when it drops (either it runs out, you CC it, or you interrupt it).
- Look to Crowd Control – Very vulnerable to CC. Rather than punch through heals, CC them to score your kills.
- Purge Important Buffs – Blessing of Protection, Light’s Grace, Blessing of Freedom
- Clever Interrupts – Expect lots of fakes. Pay attention to Infusion of Life buff. If the buff is up, expect a Holy Light cast (not Flash of Light which is weaker). If the buff is up, be ready to interrupt.
- Look for Swaps – The below can create opportunities to swap and punish Paly.
o Blessing of Sacrifice - Blesses a party or raid member, reducing their damage taken by 30%, but you suffer 100% of damage prevented. Last 12 sec, or until transferred damage would cause you to fall below 20% health. 2 min CD.
o Light of the Martyr - Sacrifice a portion of your own health to instantly heal an ally for (210% of Spell power). You take damage equal to 50% of the healing done.
Resto Druid
- Guardian/Resto/Balance affinities
o Guardian – Ironfur (dam reduction), Frenzied regen (1/3 hp self-healing dot), passive 6% dam reduction. Less desirable as a target.
o Feral – Aggressive. Can move in to DPS. Passive movement speed. Will pop cat form. Look for rake/stuns from stealth. Desirable target. Prevent restealth.
o Balance – Rarely seen. Taken for mages. Poly immune. Desirable target.
- HoTs – single target healing based on HoTs. Purge, purge, purge.
- Soul of the Forest talent – Swiftmind buffs main single target heal regrowth.
- With No Purge – Swap target if full HoTs are up.
- Punish Aggression – Cat is very squishy and can’t cast. Destroy it. Cyclone requires 20 yd range which will most likely require sacrificing position and opens to interrupts. Cyclone is same school as heals, if you kick cyclone, you’re kicking heals.
- Thorns – 12 sec, slows targets by 50%, 2k per melee hit when active. Swap target or pause damage.
Mistweaver Monk
- Play offensive – They have strong passive healing. Make offensive setups focusing on the MW or their partner. Alternatively, heavy CC chain the healer while killing their DPS.
- Play around Life Cocoon - Encases the target in a cocoon of Chi energy for 12 sec, absorbing [Total health * 60 / 100 * (1 + Versatility)] damage. | Burst of Life – Cooldown reduced by 20 sec. On expiring, releases burst of mist that heals for ridiculous amount split among target and nearby allies | AND| Chrysalis – Reduces cooldown by 45 sec),
o The play – Heavy CC Monk during DPS kill attempts. Reduce/negate the healing done by Burst of Life at the end of Life Cocoon with cyclone.
- Play around Counteract Magic – Counteract Magic - Renewing Mist heals for 135% more when the target is affected by a magical damage over time effect. Pressure MW Monk in Melee Cleave Matchups – They’re squishy to stuns.
Windwalker Monks
- Stop Fists of Fury – 4 second channel on 24 sec CD. Use instant CC. Avoid channel to kite away as they are running at reduced speed.
- Watch Offensive CDs –
o Storm, Earth, and Fire (1.5 min CD) Split into 3 elemental spirits for 15 sec, each spirit dealing 45% of normal damage and healing. You directly control the Storm spirit, while Earth and Fire spirits mimic your attacks on nearby enemies. Heavily CC or have defensive CDs ready.
o Touch of Death (Instant cast, 2 min CD) - You exploit the enemy target's weakest point. Deals damage equal to 35% of your maximum health against players and stronger creatures under 15% health. Heavily CC or have defensive CDs ready. Can be removed with Blessing of Protection, Ice Block, and Divine Shield.
- Force them to kite – Setups and big dam forces defensive CDs and stops them from doing dam.
- Squishy by nature – If they don’t kite, they have to use defensive CDs to live. Four major include:
o Touch of Karma - Absorbs all damage taken for 10 sec, up to 50% of your maximum health, and redirects 70% of that amount to the enemy target as Nature damage over 6 sec. 1.5 min CD.
o Diffuse Magic - Reduces magic damage you take by 60% for 6 sec, and transfers all currently active harmful magical effects on you back to their original caster if possible. 1.5 min CD.
o Fortifying Brew - Turns your skin to stone for 15 sec, increasing your current and maximum health by 15%. Brewmaster (Level 48) increasing the effectiveness of Stagger by 10% and reducing all damage you take by 15%. 6 min CD
o Dampen Harm – Reduces all dam you take by 20% to 50% for 10 sec with larger attacks being reduced by more.
- Make heavy swaps to force defensive cooldowns when healer in CC
- Be careful with your trink – Storm, earth and Fire/Touch of Death can delete you if you don’t have a counter.
- You can use their Invoke Xuen to break on-dam CC of your teammate as it does aoe dam around the ability. Bait it over.
Ret Paladin
- Play around Avenging Wrath (Wings) - Call upon the Light to become an avatar of retribution, increasing your damage, healing, and critical strike chance by 20% for 20 sec. 3 min CD. CC, use defensive cooldowns if needed to survive. Kite.
- Cross CC to avoid Blessing of Sanctuary - Instantly removes all stun, silence, fear and horror effects from the friendly target and reduces the duration of future such effects by 60% for 5 sec. 45 sec CD.
- Kite them – Saving CC for Blessing of Freedom and Devine Steed
- Kill them – Burst down if you’re caster. Melee has to deal with Blessing of Protection (6 sec physical dam immune) and Eye for an Eye (10 sec 35% reduced physical dam taken).
- Careful of Shield of Vengeance - Creates a barrier of holy light that absorbs [30 / 100 * Total health * (1 + Versatility)] damage for 15 sec. When the shield expires, it bursts to inflict Holy damage equal to the total amount absorbed, divided among all nearby enemies.
o Avoid by kiting
o Soak damage with partner (damage is spread between targets)
o Use defensive CDs to absorb
- Watch the off-heals – Offheals comes mostly with huge Word of Glory dumps.
- Divine Toll is a huge CD to watch out for as it can one-shot if they get a triple Judge proc after Final Reckoning from it.
Elemental Shaman
- Dispel Flame Shock – Sears the target with fire, causing (19.5% of Spell power) Fire damage and then an additional (104.4% of Spell power) Fire damage over 18 sec. Dot. Key to their big dam (lava burst). Get rid of it.
- Stop Lightning Lasso – Grips the target in lightning, stunning the target and dealing $O2% of the target's maximum health in Nature damage over 5 sec. Can move while channelling. Worth saving an interrupt/stun for. Worth setting up a tracker for.
- Watch for Totems – 4 big ones to kill on sight – Sky Fury (20% inc healing and dam for team on crits), Grounding (lasts 3 seconds - all spells go to totem instead of target), Counterstrike (lasts 15 seconds - reflects all dam back at you), Capacitor Totem (8 yard radius, 2 second delay, stuns for 3 seconds).
- Pay attention to burst
o Earth Shock - Instantly shocks the target with concussive force, causing (210% of Spell power) Nature damage.
o Stormkeeper - Charge yourself with lightning, causing your next 2 Lightning Bolts to deal 150% more damage, and also causes your next 2 Lightning Bolts or Chain Lightnings to be instant cast and trigger an Elemental Overload on every target.1 min CD.
- Talents to be on the lookout for.
o Primal Elementalist - Your Earth, Fire, and Storm Elementals are drawn from primal elementals 80% more powerful than regular elementals, with additional abilities, and you gain direct control over them.
§ Fire Elemental – Calls forth a Greater Fire Elemental to rain destruction on your enemies for 30 sec. While the Fire Elemental is active, Flame Shock deals damage 25% faster Elemental (Level 58) and newly applied Flame Shocks last 100% longer. 2.5 min CD. Respect the cooldown. Try not to let it freecast.
Shadow Priest
- Dispel when viable. Priority Shadow Word Pain and (conditionally) Vamp Touch as they make up 90% of dam. Note that dispelling Vamp Touch causes 3 second fear and can be especially problematic with talents like Shaman's Cleansing Waters.
- Voidform – 10% dam buff, stacking increase to haste, and void bolt. LOS so he can’t build insanity. CC.
- Shadow Word Death - A word of dark binding that inflicts (85% of Spell power) Shadow damage to the target. If the target is not killed by Shadow Word: Death, the caster takes damage equal to the damage inflicted upon the target. Damage increased by 150% to targets below 20% health.
- Mindgames is extremely strong for both disc and shadow. Kick or dispel is almost always the play.
- Interrupts – All dam and defensives are in Shadow school. First priority is kicking Vamp Touch but there are limited windows for it since the meta right now is Damnation plus Unfurling Darkness (instant vamp touch after a vamp touch is cast but works with Damnation).
- Keep slowed. Very immobile. Roots are great for this.
- Defensive
o Dispersion - Disperse into pure shadow energy, reducing all damage taken by 75% for 6 sec, but you are unable to attack or cast spells.
o Greater Fade - Fade out, removing all threat, increasing your movement speed by 50% and causing most melee, ranged and spells to miss you. Lasts 4 sec or until you take a hostile action.
o Psychic Scream – 8 yd range. If they’re running towards you, it’s to do this.
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Unholy Death Knight
- Dealing with the Abomination – Instant cast. Pet has 25 sec duration. Applies Festering Wound that gives Virulent Plague to nearby friendlies. Kill it with pressure damage or kite it. You can also shackle undead but it breaks easily (void eruption will auto break it pretty much unless you're really far away).
- Pets stun which is unavoidable. They can also gain access to a ranged kick and more dam when it switches forms.
- Epidemic – Dot. Dispel it.
- Will be running one of the two below talents
o Spell Eater – Antimagic shell absorbs 30% more magic dam and lasts 5 sec longer
o Wraith Walk – Removes all root and increases movement speed by 70% for 4 seconds. Action cancels effect.
- Death Strike - Focuses dark power into a strike that deals (46.4256% of Attack power) and heals you for 25% of all damage taken in the last 5 sec, minimum 5.0% of maximum health.
Frost Death Knight
- Play Around Chill Streak - Deals up to X% of the target's total health in Frost damage and reduces their movement speed by 70% for 4 sec. Chill Streak bounces up to 9 times between closest targets within 6 yards.
o Typical offensive setup: Death Grip (if needed) > Double/Triple Blinding Sleet>AoE Stun (Chaos Nova/Leg Sweep). Typically want to trink out, get away from partner and negate big dam. Can also bounce off pets so keep that in mind. Grounding totem can also negate.
- Avoid Cleave Pressure – Chill Streak/Remorseless WinteHowling Blast. Grouping up will get you both killed. Their single target pressure isn’t that great. If melee cleave, it’s best to target/tunnel partner.
- Dispel Delirium when possible
- Capitalise on Killing Frost DKs – Most comps can kill them. If they use their defensive cooldowns to peel for their partners (trinket or antimagic shell) you can make big swaps and take them down.
- Disarm = No Death Strike.
o Death Strike - Focuses dark power into a strike that deals (46.4256% of Attack power) and heals you for 25% of all damage taken in the last 5 sec, minimum 5.0% of maximum health.
o Deny Death Strike with Evasion, Die by the Sword, Blessing of Protection or avoid melee range
Arms Warrior
- Kiting – Play around Charge (20 sec CD) 11% attack power plus 1 sec root. And Heroic Leap (45 sec CD) 10.2% attack power within 8 yards. Try to pull them out of LoS if with healer.
- Force Defensive Stance – Reduces all damage taken by 20% and damage done by 20%. Pressure if in battle stance. Stun swap if in battle stance.
- Avoid Cleave pressure – Deep Wounds, Rend, Sweeping Strike, Warbreaker, Bladestorm all do big dam when opponents are stacked. Split team to avoid especially during offensive cooldowns (Sweeping Strikes, Warbreaker, Bladestorm).
- Play around War Banner – Offensive cooldown. 1.5 min. You throw down a war banner at your feet, rallying your allies. Increases movement speed by 30% and reduces the duration of all incoming crowd control effects by 50% to all allies within 30 yards of the war banner. Lasts 15 sec. Killable and should be gone before using CC.
- Watch for Avatar - Transform into a colossus for 20 sec, causing you to deal 20% increased damage and removing all roots and snares. Generates 20 Rage. 1.5 min CD.
Fire Mage
- Play Around Combustion – Engulfs you in flames for 10 sec, increasing your spell’ crit strike chance by 100% and granting you Mastery equal to 50% of your Crit Strike state. Castable while casting other spells. 2 min CD.
o Trade defensives/trinkets.
o Standard combustion rotation = Meteor>combust>rotate fireblast/pyroblast. Majority of damage comes from stacked Ignite afterwards. A portion of rotation damage turns into ticking debuff called Ignite. It needs to be instantly dispelled/purged.
- Abuse Meteor – 45 sec cd and hits like a truck. Damage is shared w/in 8 yards. It also leaves low dam AOE that will keep you from getting CC’d by abilities that break on dam.
- Dragon’s Breath – Enemies in a cone in front of you take 58.25% of Spell Power Fire dam and you are disoriented for 4 sec. Dam cancels effect. 20 sec cd. Often used to setup CC like Poly so be looking for it and stop it.
- PvP Talents
o Greater Pyroblast – 4.5 sec cast. Immense fiery boulder that deals up to 35% of target total health in fire dam. LoS or interrupt. Mages can blink while casting with Shimmer so be aware you might keep your LoS break.
o Flamecannon – After standing still in combat for 2 sec, max HP is increased by 3%, dam increased by 3%, range of fire spells increased by 3 yards. Stacks up to 5x and last 5 sec.
o Firestarter – Fireball reduces cooldown of next Combustion by 5 sec.
- Train the Mage – No slows as fire and 1 root on a 30 sec cooldown.
Assassination Rogue
- Keep your distance – Close/stacked targets leads to multiple dotted targets. Shadowstep (Appear behind your target and gain 70% inc movement speed) has 25yd range. Keeping apart makes it harder for them to swap.
- Respect Vendetta – Marks an enemy for death for 20 sec, increasing the damage your abilities and auto attacks deal to the target by 30%, and making the target visible to you even through concealments such as stealth and invisibility. Generates 60 Energy over 3 sec. 2 min CD. Counter by trading defensive CDs. Paly pops BoP which removes.
- Don’t Waste Trink
- Keep dots up, even if just magic. Bleeds preferred.
o Smoke Bomb - Creates a cloud of thick smoke in an 8 yard radius around the Rogue for 5 sec. Enemies are unable to target into or out of the smoke cloud. Allies take 10% less damage while within the cloud. Often waits for trinket and then pops smoke bomb to secure the kill.
o Blind - Blinds the target, causing it to wander disoriented. Damage will interrupt the effect. Limit 1. Mainly focused around healers. The play is it allows them to drop you out of combat, vanish, and sap. Can also be used to bait trink.
- When they pop evasion, you can still attack from behind. Rogue is a good counter with shadowstep/kidney shot and having rupture.
- Stop the re-stealth – Garrotte, Cheap Shot and Sap can only be used or benefit heavily when used from stealth. Keep them in combat. Taunt can be used for this.
- Reply heavily on bleed pressure and energy regen from Rupture and Garrotte.
- Cleanse poisons to gut the energy regen.
Demon Hunters
- Play around Mana Rift when used (less often in 3s) - You manifest a 6 yard wide mana rift under the feet of the target. After 2.5 sec, it erupts dealing up to 8% of each enemy's maximum health in Chaos damage and destroys 8% of each enemy's total mana if present. 10 sec cooldown.
- Watch for metamorphosis - Leap into the air and land with explosive force, dealing (36.036% of Attack power) Chaos damage to enemies within 8 yds, and stunning them for 3 sec. Players are Dazed for 3 sec instead. Upon landing, you are transformed into a hellish demon for 30 sec. Havoc (Level 54) immediately resetting the cooldown of your Eye Beam and Blade Dance abilities greatly empowering your Chaos Strike and Blade Dance abilities. Havoc (Level 20) and gaining 25% Haste. 5 min CD. Not to be confused with Demon Form which is automatic after eyebeam.
o CC them. Pressure during metamorph can force defensive CDs/kiting which can be beneficial for negating their big burst window.
- Rain from Above - You fly into the air out of harm's way. While floating, you gain access to Fel Lance allowing you to deal damage to enemies below. 1 min CD.
o LoS if needed. Less impactful than in previous seasons.
- Watch for The Hunt - (1 sec cast) Charge to your target, striking them for (455% of Attack power) Nature damage, rooting them in place for 1.5 sec and inflicting (227.7% of Attack power) Nature damage over 6 sec to up to 5 enemies in your path. The pursuit invigorates your soul, healing you for (Havok 25%) (Vengeance Initial 50%) of the damage you deal to your Hunt target for 30 sec. 1.5 min CD.
- Abuse lack of slow – Vengeful Retreat - Remove all snares and vault away. Nearby enemies take (13.1274% of Attack power) Physical damage Havoc (Level 41) and have their movement speed reduced by 70% for 3 sec. 25 sec CD. Only real slow. Kiting (around pillars especially) and using speed buffs can be useful.
- Aim to kill inside stuns when possible but with recent nerfs, they're not as bulletproof as previous seasons.
Feral Druids
- Make Feral Debuffs Fall Off – Don’t stack with your partners. In this way, it’s harder for the feral to apply all their dots (ferocious wound, rake, rip, thrash).
- Kill Feral in stuns – Squishy in cat form stuns. Outside of stuns, high mobility. Low amount of defensive cooldowns. Stun with CC on heals and burst down. Stun outside of bear form.
- Stop offheals – Lots of passive and on demand heals. Interrupt regrowths.
- Play around Thorns - Sprout thorns for 12 sec on the friendly target. When victim to melee attacks, thorns deals up to 5% of the attackers total health in Nature damage. Attackers also have their movement speed reduced by 50% for 4 sec. 45 sec CD. Don’t hit into it unless you are sure you can get a kill. Alternatively, pop defensive cooldown of your own to negate dam. Spell reflect abilities can also push the pressure back on the feral. Safer bet is just to target swap.
- Watch for convoke.
Balance Druids
- Play Around Incarnation - An improved Moonkin Form that grants the benefits of Celestial Alignment, and 10% critical strike chance. Lasts 30 sec. You may shapeshift in and out of this improved Moonkin Form for its duration. 3 min CD.
o LoS, trade defensive CDs, lock down with CC
- Play around Root Beam – Mass Entanglement (30 sec CD) + Solar Beam (1 min CD) = You in Solar Beam unable to cast for 8 seconds.
o Druids shift roots, Holy Pal pre-freedom, Monks pre zin focused tea, Shamans ground the root, Shadow priests can mass dispel.. If you have a “freedom” mechanic, save it for your healer.
- Prevent Cyclones – Interrupt them. One of strongest CCs in the game.
- Play around Thorns - Sprout thorns for 12 sec on the friendly target. When victim to melee attacks, thorns deals up to 5% of the attackers total health in Nature damage. Attackers also have their movement speed reduced by 50% for 4 sec. 45 sec CD. Don’t hit into it unless you are sure you can get a kill. Alternatively, pop defensive cooldown of your own to negate dam. Spell reflect abilities can also push the pressure back on the feral. Safer bet is just to target swap.
- Watch for convoke.
BM Hunter (comment addition - user rsn1990 paraphrased)
- Most dam comes from pet. Tier 1 talent allows for 2 pets but 2nd does reduced dam. Main pet will be the one using abilities, not auto attacking. Incap or kill when possible. Without it, hunter cannot use two big offensive cooldowns, Kill Command and Bestial Wrath. Revive Pet is 4 sec hard cast. Mend Pet is 50% hp 10 sec HoT. 10 sec CD.
- CC Immunes - The Beast Within - Bestial Wrath causes you and your pet to become immune to all Fear and Horror effects while active. Pet glows red when active.
- High Mobility - Main rotation is instant casts. Roots and snares are less impactful as pet is still DPSing. More vulnerable to stuns.
- Defensives - Aspect of the Turtle - Deflects all attacks and reduces all damage you take by 30% for 8 sec, but you cannot attack. 3 min CD. Big gree/yellow shell over character. | Exhilaration - Heals you for 30% and your pet for 100%. Instant. 2 min CD. Talents may lower CD.
- Traps - always have access to two: Freezing Trap - Hurls a frost trap to the target location that incapacitates the first enemy that approaches for 1 min. Damage will break the effect. Limit 1. Trap will exist for 1 min. 30 second CD. | Tar Trap - Hurls a tar trap to the target location that creates a 8 yd radius pool of tar around itself for 30 sec when the first enemy approaches. All enemies have 50% reduced movement speed while in the area of effect. Trap will exist for 1 min. 30 sec CD. Often opens with Freezing, especially on healer.
- Disengage - Leap backwards Posthaste clearing movement impairing effects, and increasing your movement speed by 50% for 4 sec. 20 sec CD. Often paired with traps to gain distance so watch for them and don't get baited into them.
MM Hunter (comment addition - user rsn1990 paraphrased)
- 10% damage buff for not using a pet so you won't often see one.
- More abilities with cast times but very high burst. Should not be allowed to freecast.
- Aimed Shot - 2 Charges. 12 sec recharge. A powerful aimed shot that deals (236% of Attack power) Physical damage. Some will Talent Double Tap firing a second instant cast Aimed Shot after the first for 50% dam.
- Rapid Fire - Shoot a stream of 7 shots at your target over 2 sec, dealing a total of [7 * (34.58% of Attack power)%] Physical damage. Each shot generates 1 Focus. Usable while moving. Double Tap can be spent on Rapid Fire and will deal 100% more dam.
- Sniper Shot - PvP Talent - Take a sniper's stance, firing a well-aimed shot dealing 20% of the target's maximum health in Physical damage and increases the range of all shots by 40% for 6 sec. 3 sec cast. 10 sec CD. 60(!) yd range. Interrupt or LoS it.
- Vulnerable to melee - Get behind them when possible. Stuns are very effective.
- Defensives - Aspect of the Turtle - Deflects all attacks and reduces all damage you take by 30% for 8 sec, but you cannot attack. 3 min CD. Big gree/yellow shell over character. | Exhilaration - Heals you for 30% and your pet for 100%. Instant. 2 min CD. Talents may lower CD.
- Traps - always have access to two: Freezing Trap - Hurls a frost trap to the target location that incapacitates the first enemy that approaches for 1 min. Damage will break the effect. Limit 1. Trap will exist for 1 min. 30 second CD. | Tar Trap - Hurls a tar trap to the target location that creates a 8 yd radius pool of tar around itself for 30 sec when the first enemy approaches. All enemies have 50% reduced movement speed while in the area of effect. Trap will exist for 1 min. 30 sec CD. Often opens with Freezing, especially on healer.
- Disengage - Leap backwards Posthaste clearing movement impairing effects, and increasing your movement speed by 50% for 4 sec. 20 sec CD. Often paired with traps to gain distance so watch for them and don't get baited into them.
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A Comprehensive List of Every Issue in Destiny 2, and How to Fix Them

Hey there, my name is Nick, but I go by Rampage on Steam. I’m an avid Destiny 2 PC player who has logged 2000+ hours into the game, and am making this post to outline all the feedback I feel the community wants heard by Bungie. In saying that, I also acknowledge I do not necessarily represent the entire community, but I have looked at what common complaints are, watched several youtube videos, looked at twitter pages, read TWABs, etc. and do think I have a general idea of improvements waiting to be made. These are my opinions, I’m not trying to tell anybody how to do their job or anything, I’m just giving feedback.
Other prefaces: These criticisms are primarily for PC, but many can be applied to the game as a whole, I am not currently aware of Bungie’s financial situation, I know Covid is going on and is restricting development, and I am aware Bungie is a small company. I am also not a genius, so please correct me if something I say is incorrect. Even if these criticisms are seemingly out of reach, I feel at the very least they deserve to be addressed. I am also a lore god;), so if you want an in-game change explained lorewise feel free to reach out to me, and I’ll explain how it could make sense. Also, please ignore spelling and grammatical errors, I’ve been writing this around midnight every day for nearly three weeks after my day is finished.
With that being said, I’d also like to introduce you to the structure of this post. I’ll be delving into different topics throughout, so naturally it’ll be a long one. The post will be structured into six different sections: crucible, gambit, strikes, planetary activities/vendors, raids/dungeons, and a miscellaneous section - covering all sorts of topics not directly tied to the core activities of the game. The aforementioned sections are not going to be all criticisms, as I do still enjoy the game and simply want improvements to be made; it will also include what I like about the game, and what I see as potential solutions. Again this is gonna be a long one, so grab your popcorn. Let’s begin.
  1. The Crucible
The first section I’ll be covering in this post is going to be the crucible. I spend most of my time here playing with my clan, doing help with trials, playing comp and iron banner, etc. and basically my entire friends list does the same. As a PvP oriented player, and admin of a clan that plays PvP more than any other gamemode, I have a thorough understanding of the activity. Below is an outline of each issue I see with the activity, as well as potential solutions, followed by an individual sub-section of what I enjoy about the crucible. This will be the only section formatted this way, as it is the longest.
Now for the big ones.
Everything Bungie has done right
Now, onto gambit.
  1. Gambit
Gambit has been a touchy subject for a long time. When it first released in Forsaken, I and many other players were having a lot of fun with it. However, over time gambit’s appeal started to dissipate and many players lost interest. This can be attributed to the common conclusion that after the appeal wore off, people began to realize how frustrating the gamemode really is, and that same sentiment has lasted all the way to this expansion. The common reasoning for people saying the gamemode is too frustrating is primarily because of the invasions. The meta for invaders is as stale as it gets. Xenophage, Eyes of Tomorrow, Truth, and Izanagi’s Burden are essentially the only options you have if you want to be an effective invader. Tone down these specific weapons in gambit and let other weapons shine. Another issue many players have found with gambit is the lack of maps. Like every core activity in Beyond Light, we had two maps taken away with not a single one given back. While two maps may not seem like a lot, keep in mind there are only three maps now. Gambit has desperately needed maps for a long time, and Bungie took some away. The only solution to this problem would be to make more maps.
Other (smaller) issues with Gambit:
With that being said, Bungie has not completely neglected the gamemode, especially not this season. I think the morphing of gambit and gambit prime into one gamemode was an excellent idea, and made gambit somewhat more bearable. I’d also like to acknowledge that the devs are taking a look at the issue where when motes are dropped it’s difficult to pick them up, and some get stuck in the ground.
  1. Strikes
Strikes have been as big a staple of Destiny as its raids. Strikes are arguably the primary core playlist, but have still been neglected. As of now, the main issues with strikes are how boring they are, how repetitive they are, how easy they are, and how pointless they are. Here are my solutions.
A revitalization of strikes
In order for strikes to be revitalized, there needs to be a reason to run them in the first place. As of now, the only motivation I have for strikes is to get the bright dust from the two weekly bounties, and sometimes even those are difficult to get done. Strikes give little to no rewards, and therefore don’t have a point in playing them. They’re a prime example of a system of artificial power grind, and make players lose motivation. Strikes need to return to the system they had in Destiny 1, where heroic strikes were added and provided an extra layer of difficulty. As of now, strikes are so easy to run through I could do them with my eyes closed. Make the modifiers matter, make the ads hit harder, make the bosses more difficult to kill, and add more mechanics like the orb mechanic in The Corrupted strike. And I bet you didn’t see this one coming - bring back strike specific loot. Now, I understand there is technically is strike specific loot in Destiny 2, but it’s all sunset weapons with static rolls, a sparrow, or a ghost shell. There needs to be unique weapons and armor added to make the playlist feel fresh again. Nearly the entire reason I ran strikes back in Destiny 1 was in order to get a god roll Grasp of Malok. Now, I don’t run strikes because they’re annoying and tedious as the game gets. If strike specific loot gets added into Destiny 2, there also needs to be certain mechanics along with it in order for the loot to be dropped. For example, in the shield brothers strike in order to get the gauntlets you had to kill one of the shield brothers before the other, or the Dust Palace strike where depending on which psion you killed last, you’d get a specific cloak. Along with this, in general exotic drops need to be heavily reduced to incentivize nightfalls. I appreciate that nightfalls are a good way to get upgrade materials, but it’s just not enough. Everything about strikes needs to be made more difficult, and they need to have a reward that feels rare. In order to do this, add more modifiers that actually make the playlist harder, and reduce world drops at the final chest, and instead add other items like small amounts of bright dust, upgrade modules, etc.
Several strikes were also taken away this season, with two being added. There needs to be many more strikes added. The playlist is as stale as it can get, and the removal of strikes did it no favors. In addition to this, stop adding strikes as parts of the campaign. I understand the reasoning for doing this, as there were complaints that the strikes didn’t feel very important and didn’t pertain to the story. However, this is just forcing the player to repeat content and makes the strikes and campaigns more monotonous. Make strikes have meaning in the story by connecting them to the world post campaign completion. For example, after we defeat Eramis, make a strike where a rogue group of say, Cabal, get their hands on stasis technology on Europa and we need to stop them before it’s too late. Small stories like this that are separate from the campaign but make us feel more apart of the world are exactly what we meant when we said we want strikes to feel important to the story.
The nightfall rotation also needs to be completely removed. Allow all players to play any nightfall they want at any given time, and bring that nightfall’s loot, like The Mindbender’s Ambition (which was a perfect example of strike specific loot), up to the current power cap of any given season. Keep nightfalls at an exceptional difficulty in the weekly rotation as they are now, but allow other nightfalls to still be accessible. Locking this activities behind a timegate makes the time of the player feel less valuable, and reduces incentives to go complete nightfalls/strikes in general.
An extremely good video I’d recommend watching on strikes and what other potential fixes could be made can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfRmBkZBpxc (all credit to Kujay)
As I said in the beginning of the post, I am including everything I enjoy about each core playlist. However, with strikes, there quite honestly isn’t anything I particularly enjoy about them. Bungie really dropped the ball with strikes, and desperately needs to take a second look at what they can do for the playlist, or else strikes might as well be removed as a whole.
Now, onto planetary activities/vendors.
  1. Planetary Activities, and their respective vendors
With the release of Destiny 2 came a roster of unique and fun characters for each new planet introduced. From failsafe, a character with two personalities that has fun dialogue and has a tragic, yet cool backstory, to Asher Mir; a scientist on Io that can be a bit of a dick sometimes. These characters felt fresh and original, and made me feel more connected to the world of destiny, but over time they began to lose their purpose. The only reason I go to Nessus, or the EDZ in beyond light is for Xur. I don’t have any motivation to go see the vendors, as they serve no purpose in the game. Beyond Light also came with Variks and the Exo Stranger, but once you complete their original set of objectives they essentially become pointless beyond the powerful gear. Each planetary vendor should serve a purpose in the game, like how spider does with his black market commerce. Every planetary vendor could be given their own loot system similar to that of the umbral decoder with their own unique weapons and armor sets, things like this would allow the average player to get a sleepless roll they like from Petra without having to do tedious activities. In addition to that, vendors should not be giving sunset items out with their reputation rank ups, I ranked up my rep with Devrim the other day, and got a year one sunset fusion rifle. With that being said, the reputation systems also need to be reworked to drop more unique items. Emblems, shaders, and even auras (I’ll get to those more later) could drop from reputation rank ups, in addition to the aforementioned armor sets and weapons. These could also come with minor upgrade materials, and could also reward planetary materials to use as well. Said planetary materials should also not be the source of ranking up reputation. It should be done through planetary missions, adventures, lost sectors, patrols, and public events. This change would provide an incentive to do the activities currently pointless in the game, and would not force players to give their planetary materials to vendors that they could be spending on purchasing a weapon bounty from Banshee. Unique aspects of each planet, like the eclipsed zone on Europa, should also be added to the other planets. Small features like this make the game feel more connected to the story, and make the planets more fun to play on.
Currently, I’m really enjoying vendors selling differently rolled armor each week. It’s actually somewhat exciting checking Devrim each week to see what he’s selling, for me it gives the same magic that Xur does. I also enjoy the aesthetics of each planet. Destiny 2 has done an amazing job with the location's looks. I also enjoy specific public events unique to their respective destination, like the brig event on Europa and the escapee even on the Tangled Shore.
Next up we have raids and dungeons.
  1. Raids and Dungeons
For many players, raids are what make Destiny. Since the beginning, raids have been meant to be a challenging endgame activities with unique and extremely special rewards that make the player feel accomplished after the final boss is defeated. I remember in Destiny 1 seeing a guardian with a full vault of glass set on meant you were the boss of the tower. Unfortunately, raids are now just too easy.
The objectively best raid to ever grace Destiny 2 was the Last Wish raid. It was connected to the story, difficult to beat, had mechanics extremely unique to the raid, and had some of the most amazing lore in the game. The amount of boss encounters in comparison to non-boss encounters was perfect, and the queen's walk encounter at the end of the raid was done perfectly. The challenges were done exceptionally well, and the title seal is fun, and difficult to achieve. A long, unique, and difficult raid is exactly what Destiny 2 should have. Bungie also hit the nail on the head with the chase for the 1000 Voices exotic. I’ve done several clears where a player got the exotic on their 20th or so run, and the excitement in their voices made my heart swell. The chase for powerful exotics that were so rare some players would cry was another thing done just right. The cherry on top for Last Wish was the addition of the wish wall. The wish wall is an immaculate addition to the raid, and makes it feel more special to run through. Last Wish is the perfect raid, and set the standard for me in Destiny 2. Unfortunately, no other raid has matched it.
Raids as of now lack the magic that Last Wish had, yet Destiny 1 raids stood up to the test. King’s Fall, Vault of Glass, Crota’s End, and Wrath of the Machine, were all incredibly unique and important story-wise. The loot they dropped, and the mechanics and special features of each raid made them so fun I ran them over and over again along with Last Wish in a heartbeat whenever I had the chance. Part of what made these raids so special was how difficult they were. It wasn’t because of the strength of the ads, or the boss’s health, but actually how hard the mechanics were. Mechanics feel too easy in Destiny 2, and the raids just aren’t as satisfying to finish. Unfortunately, little can be done about this because retroactively changing the mechanics of the raids is not a good idea. What can be done is this: add hard mode raids with extra mechanics that don’t necessarily change the way the encounters work, but add another layer of difficulty. Like the age of triumph, put every raid on a weekly rotation with their own unique raid modifiers, armor ornaments, auras, etc. In order to make the exotics feel as special as they used to, remove the mechanic where the more clears you have raises the % chance you get at getting the exotic. Make the drop rate static, and fall somewhere between a 5-8% chance. In addition to this, add a random drop exotic such as 1k voices and eyes of tomorrow, but also a quest exotic in each raid like divinity. It’s not too late to go back and add quest exotics to the Deep Stone Crypt and Last Wish, and would actually be another motivator for people to do hard mode raids. It’s also not too late to add a random drop exotic to the garden of salvation raid either.
With all these criticisms, it may not seem like I like raiding, but I actually do. I love the scenery in every raid currently in-game. They feel unique, amazing, and make the world seem alive. Each raid has an area that made me say “woah…” and get shivers down my spine the first time I saw it (especially the jumping puzzle in the Deep Stone Crypt raid, but I won’t spoil it for people who haven’t run it yet). The mechanics of each raid are unique and make them feel special. I also like the loot system in the final chest of the Deep Stone Crypt raid, and is a perfect example of how targeted loot systems should be done in endgame activities from now on. The lore of the raids are all excellent, and the exotics for each raid feel special.
Now, onto dungeons. Dungeons are a special activity in Destiny 2. I think they’re on par as being the most unique activities in the game, and yet like other activities they’ve been somewhat neglected by Bungie. Shattered Throne has sat in the game for years now with no incentive to play, and The Pit of Heresy no longer has an incentive to play it other than enhancement prisms. In the most recent TWAB Bungie said they’re making changes to the dungeons, you can find them here: https://www.bungie.net/en/Explore/Detail/News/50006
I actually like these changes. It makes the upgrade materials from the Pit of Heresy more attainable, while in exchange providing gear with high stat rolls and new perk pools. However, Bungie never said that they will be dropping at a pinnacle, or even powerful reward level. In order to get players to complete these dungeons, they need to be relevant in the leveling system.
Dungeons are in a pretty good place right now respectively, they just need to drop gear at higher power levels so players can have the motivation to complete them. I also think that in about two seasons, they should be given new fresh armor and weapon sets to drop along with the old ones. A weekly pinnacle rotation for the dungeons each week would also be a fun idea. In order to avoid issues with the Prophecy dungeon and free to play, on the weeks it’s not a pinnacle drop, make it a powerful drop.
I like the exotic quests for wishender and xenophage in their respective dungeons. I really enjoy the special xenophage encounter in the Pit of Heresy, and I think it is a perfect model for Bungie to use in future exotic quests in dungeons. I also like the changes being made to dungeons next season, and am excited to see how it turns out.
Well, this brings us to our last section. The miscellaneous issues of Destiny 2.
  1. Miscellaneous Issues
Destiny 2 is an extremely unique game. The gunplay feels better than any other FPS I’ve ever played, the lore is incredibly amazing, and the franchise will go down as a staple in raids and looter shooters for the rest of video game history. Unfortunately, it’s plagued by so many small changes that players have been begging to be made, and it’s driving people away. This is a list of miscellaneous changes that should be made to improve Destiny 2 and the players experience, and make the game more bearable on a day to day basis, you’d like me to add more reach out to me through DMs and I’ll add it.
Edit: Fix RNG pellet spread on shotguns
I’m enjoying the character screen being darker, the launch screen being darker, and general UI changes like the lore book section updates this season. I’m a big fan of season of arrivals weapons being added into the world pool, and I like the removal of token systems. I think small things like raid entrances being in planetary environments we’ve hidden is a smart idea, and I’m loving the lore every single season so far.
Well, that's about it for this post. It was a long one, and one that I’m very passionate about. I hope Bungie listens and takes a close look at what the community is saying. Again, these are my opinions but I do think they’ll all be really nice improvements to the game. Feel free to reach out to me about anything concerning this post. Thanks for reading :)
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The Ambling Sapient PART 4 (Penultimate)

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->>>-
Red King, I hate garrison duty, Zm'var'Gaawk thought resignedly as he watched the wind stir whirling devils across the dusty tarmac.
He picked idly at a scrap of meat caught in his teeth with a curved claw, and then checked his chronometer.
My shift hasn't even properly started and I'm already bored to death. I should have waited a bit before relieving those lucky sods.
He leaned across his desk and keyed the gunmetal puck of its in-built communicator.
"Where the Hell is Krag'vro'Wargh? Our watch has nearly begun."
The shift's lead comissionaire took a moment to reply, his voice tinny thanks to the communicator's low-quality speaker.
"Didn't you hear? He commed in sick this morning."
We've subjugated the stars for the Skryrn. Ground up whole civilizations and shoveled them like hydrocarbon to stoke the furnace of their Empire's glory, and we can't build a decent speaker that is cheap enough for the spendthrifts at Imperial Procurement to issue to its guards?
The wiry Vraaawk swallowed the urge to speak such seditious thoughts over an open channel.
"He comms in sick every time he takes more than a single day off. When is his substance problem going to become a dischargeable offense?"
"I suspect not until there are no positions in high command filled by soldiers with substance problems of their own, which will be never. Deal with it. It's not like anything ever happens this deep inside the Empire anyway."
Zm'var growled before depressing the 'send' stud again.
"I dislike being undermanned in the middle of the Contest, you know how agitated the revs get when it is running."
"So let them bomb another civilian market or hijack a tithe-carrier. They haven't the gonads to hit hardened targets. Certainly not in the inner sphere."
"That is easy for you to say at your padded couch, behind walls of steel and batteries of surveillance equipment."
"Quit whining you big whelpling. You have a communicator, if you see something you don't like just use it. That's your entire job."
"That's your entire job, blehh," the Vraaawk repeated sarcastically before pressing 'send' again.
"Fine. Don't be too heavy-handed with your reprimands should I request the attention of one of the roving sentries."
"So long as that means the end of this conversation."
He rolled his eyes.
"I shall try my best not to burden you any further."
Zm'var leaned back in his seat, finshed with the communicator puck.
"Bah, go back to watching that stupid contest on your mobile, you old fart."
->>>-
Boom
Pain. Good Lord the pain. I thought it was bad when I got casually slapped 15 feet through the air by a hand the size and consistency of a barbell plate, but being snatched by a living skyscraper and impaled on its tonguelike web of hooks is much worse. Every time this Godforsaken monster takes a step is a new lesson on how completely my train of thought can be obliterated by agony and panic signals.
On the plus side, this thing is so Goddamned massive that I have about 45 seconds of comparative relief in between strides.
Celebrate the small victories, as my therapist would tell me.
The aforementioned slappy alien died a little while ago. I don't know if it was a sign of admirably brave defiance, or just plain stupidity, but after we were grabbed from that rooftop and deposited on the fall-safety net from Hell it tried to fight Cthulhu's pet dog. I thought it might have been doing OK at first, too, until a tentacle the size of a tree trunk punched a gaping hole in its torso. Tough bastard didn't give up, either. It just kept on tearing at the net, until a different monstrous appendage came and scrambled its insides at high speed.
Boom
... Let me just reiterate that the ancestral environment didn't really allow for a context where we experience this sort of pain for this long. I know primitive Homo sapiens died in all sorts of harrowing ways, but being dragged away from your family in the middle of the night by a hungry cat implies a sort of sudden onset of trauma and pain that soon ends in a sharp crescendo of fanged savagery. This cyclical sawtooth-wave of agony is more like being subjected to a Dark Ages torture chamber that eventually wants to eat me rather than simply make an example of me.
Sorry, where was I?
Ah yes, the tripod alien mercenary. It now dangled limply a few metres above my head. Tantalizingly, there was a little device clipped to what I would call its waist that clinked against its body armour with each of the giant creature's steps. It looked very much like the - presumed - gun that its partner was beginning to point in my direction before I hit it with the beam-shotgun.
I was very thoroughly pinned in place. Next time I meet a lepidopterist (technically also the first time I'll have met one) I'm punching them in the face on principle. Without the absurd pain tolerance of a grizzly-sized alien bounty hunter there was no way I was dragging myself up to steal its gun. I was left watching it clink, clink, clink away above me and hoping that one of these strides dislodged it without also hurting me so badly that I'm unable to try and catch it.
Low probability, I'll admit, but giving up and waiting to die looked mechanically identical to holding on and waiting for the gun to fall. I'm not brave or stupid enough to try and convince this thing to kill me, and for that matter not strong enough to rip off any part of its food-storage net.
Boom
I miss Skleex. I was starting to get used to the idea of not dying alone. If I see her again I'm going to kiss her right on her horrifying little mouth for trying to warn me about going into that building.
->>>-
Gur'kra'Mzoff lounged contentedly in his crash-couch.
The skies were mostly clear, the sun was shining overhead, and he was the best damn pilot stationed in New Vraaawk City. Not that it wasn't great to be any pilot in the home guard. The food was orders of magnitude better than the slop they served the muck-loving infantry, and - unlike the puffed-up self-tuggers in the space navy - air force personnel didn't have to pay for their tail. It's just that, when you were as good as he was, the tail was top quality. He was practically a celebrity, and his roster of dates mostly were celebrities. Or at least datamesh social site influencers.
Whatever the gloryhounds might tell you about the joys of wasting pre-FTL primitives and revolutionaries out on the frontiers, flying for the home guard was easy too.
Case in point, some office-building-sized bag of guts was giving the poor incompetents that comprised the Arena's so-called army of bounty hunters a tough time. He got to waltz in, copulatory appendage swinging, and blast the thing back to whatever disgusting backwater they plucked it off of. He couldn't have gotten it any easier if he was devising his own assignments. Just set the engines to 'hover' and let the ACs chew it up. Get some.
His wingmate's smug voice crackled over his helmet-comm.
"Race you there, you coolblood slug."
Gur'kra scoffed.
"It would only be a race if you had a chance of winning, you chubby whelp. Last one to put a round on target is buying the drinks back at mess."
"Hah! I'll drink you so broke you'll have to sign up for the contest next cycle."
He cranked the throttle and the acceleration threw him back into his couch, hard. Relaxing was nice, but winning was everything.
->>>-
This was interesting.
Not in the good way. It was interesting in that it demanded immediate and serious consideration.
[18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] had encountered several circumstances without precedent over the course of the current lightspan, but generally they had been more along the lines of trivial curiousities and annoyances rather than genuine causes for concern.
Far off, barely visible even to its vision discs, but approaching faster than soundwaves - unless some strange phenomenon was stilling the noise they made - was a pair of metal hunks. They'd been smoothed and shaped, as though some force had started with molten metal and aspired to mock the artificial beauty of organic systems.
It was starting to think it was the preythings' doing.
A lot of this curious, mildly-stressful lightspan seemed to be attributable to the little dirtscratchers. It certainly hadn't moved itself here, and it doubted one of its competitors would have either. If they'd caught it napping they'd have simply killed it and consumed the impossibly nutrient-rich selfseed gestating deep within its armoured recesses. Not that it was possible for something as vast as another competitor to ever sneak up on it.
At any rate the shining hunks were peculiar for more reasons than simply existing, though it did consider that the root from which the rest of the hunks' mystique proceeded. The myriad beams and fields the speeding metal shells emitted were practically evidence enough to consider them alive. It would certainly be odd for them to so thoroughly taste their environment if there wasn't at least some spark of intelligence behind their odd, glistening faceplates.
[18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] was not very comfortable with the interest they seemed to be showing it, either. It thought of the little metal box that had accompanied the herd it had ambushed earlier, grumbling internally about the annoying dark spot on one of its flank vision discs. If the stings these newcomers carried were proportional to that they'd be able to inflict more than just surface damage.
It was growing more sure by the saccade-cycle that this hunch was correct. It had awoken this antezenith within some sort of preything hive, and as it crushed and consumed the hive's chaff-caste drones it was beginning to draw the attention of more fearsome and important caste-morphs.
Not an ideal situation. It would have preferred at *least* a few thousand lightspan-darkspans to observe the prey, to devise strategies and tactics for the thorough annihilation of the hive and the consumption of its progenitor-caste. It was rare to get out of such a destruction what one put into it, and thus hive-smashing was rarely its first choice when presented with one. For some of the larger hives it knew of it would be preferable to do battle with a competitor than weather the mindless, suicidal ferocity of legions of assault-caste drones.
It hoped dearly that this hive was not so mighty.
[18Hz:2.5s-31Hz:1.7s-24Hz:2s] made up its mind. As the course of thought diffused among the practically-independent subnetworks of its neural complex it began to turn its thick anterior armour plates in the direction of the approaching curiousities. Eyestalks devoured its nearby surroundings and whiplimbs sought appropriately-sized hunks of ground and bits of metal.
It is time I demonstrated, it thought with a sort of contented malevolence, why we call ourselves the Apex.
->>>-
Saviour Mark, must you seek to eternally outdo yourself with each new maw you fall prey to? she thought miserably as she bounded along yet another debris-strewn rooftop.
She wasn't sure why she yet followed. It was a near-certainty that the fool being was dead, and anyway there was no way she could could kill a living God to free him. Nonetheless, she felt compelled not to lose track of her unlucky companion. Perhaps she felt that he would do the same, in her position, and felt too guilty to give up on him until she was sure he had perished.
Her Kinmother would have called it soft sentimentality, with that special tone of derision she reserved for things that were not the old way and therefore obviously inferior.
I'd like to see old Kinmother slay a sky-monster, she thought with just a hint of scandal to tinge the self-vindication.
The wound to her hindbody pained her with each bounding step, but she had taken precious time to pluck the spine-fragments and irritating hairs from her injuries after the battle with the alien hunter. As far as she could tell the tender flesh was not getting any worse for the wear she was putting on it.
Such a blessing, she mused wryly.
She was too injured to glide properly, her fletch-membranes too ravaged by combat to hold her weight without tearing further. That meant climbing each of the great stone edifices that rose peglike out of the alien Arena. It was as though some unfathomably large herbivore had died when the world was new and the sky-monsters' lackeys had used its fossilized mandible for the foundation.
She wondered what her intentions were when she did catch up with saviour Mark. Perhaps she would just slay him to save him the trouble of finding some new danger to put them both in.
She laughed briefly to herself, but her mood was dampened when she realized that the mercy of death might be all she could offer him.
With renewed determination she leapt from a wrought stone corner onto a long, tall building and began another arduous climb to the top. Not far off, another of the vast Godbeing's steps boomed across the Arena grounds.
->>>-
Boom
I'm not going to play broken record here. It hurts, a lot, but I'm sure we're all getting sick of the 'woe is me I'm stabbed in half a dozen places and slowly bleeding out' pity party.
Once I got over horror of being trapped in a living abattoir-cum-charnel-house things got sort of boring. I didn't want to bask in the horror for too long though, as my sanity is starting to fray enough as it is.
It offends the sensibilities that I'm surrounded by dead and dying aliens of every shape and size, yes, but this is no worse than what lots of insects and other small critters end up living on a daily basis in the wild. I'll just thank my lucky stars that this thing hasn't tried to lay any eggs in my torso yet.
Where I'm situated I don't have much of a view. I'm high up enough on the web that my view of the ground is half obstructed by more of the monster, and if I look up most of the sky is blocked by a vast armoured ridge and a dangling jungle of raveled tentacles and other limbs. It is technically nice and protected from the rest of the world, but it's hard to take comfort when I'm pinned here.
Boom
The big bastard started to change direction, and then a deafening bellow split the air.
Over the ringing in my ears I heard the growing roar of aircraft engines.
They're sending fighters after this thing?
Damn, I don't feel quite so bad about getting snatched now. If the military is willing to bust out the expensive hardware I bet little ol' me never had a chance.
The furious drone of an autocannon spinning up was drowned out by my massive captor growling, a sound I would be quite glad to never experience again. I heard a noise not unlike a car crash, if car crashes occurred at or around the sound barrier, followed by a weighty secondary impact.
There goes who knows how many taxpayers' dollars, I thought wryly.
Another autocannon roared, and I could see writhing limbs being torn loose from the creature's bulk and tumbling to the ground.
The monster bellowed again, and this time it was a primal, sustained phrase. It passed in and out of audible range for me, but the buzzing feeling in my chest never went away. I couldn't help but feel like it was cursing whatever aircraft was still trying to tussle with it.
I do not envy the poor bastard in the cockpit.
->>>-
Gur'kra'Mzoff took it all back. This thing was not a gimme assignment. It had nearly put him down with a barrage of debris while he and his now-deceased wingmate were on the approach. It had connected, while he was just getting into autocannon range, and by some cruel twist of fate the projectile had torn free the incredibly expensive sensor suite that told his missiles and free-aiming weapons where to point.
Angrily-shouted orders had crackled over his headset not to try his weapons unguided when an errant warhead had punched through the apparently-thin skin of the Arena's retaining wall and killed a command centre's worth of administrative staff.
Now his bird was constantly fighting him to fly directly into the ground, and only through sheer bad-pater skill and the Vraaawk Prime Heavy Industries mk12 gunship's extremely generous distribution of thrusters was he able to stay aloft at all.
The nose AC was still performing admirably, but he could only ever keep it on-target for long enough to drive a quick burst of hi-pen rounds into the beast. Then it was back to wrangling an obstinate flying tank and dodging hurled stones and signposts.
He stamped one of the rudder pedals and it slapped rhythmically back against his foot as though in protest. The whole flaming rig of the gunship slid sideways through the air and he cleared a building. The display's crosshair raked across the monster's bulging, lumpen upper dome and he squeezed the AC's trigger savagely. An unfortunate amount of the computerized aim assist features had been damged or destroyed, but from this close he didn't need a glowing line on his HUD to show the cannon's trajectory. Flakes of broken carapace and gouts of dark fluid sprayed out from the creature's vast bulk.
"Come on, you gutterfuck ugly bastard, die for me."
Dead set on finally causing some appreciable damage to the giant demon-being, he held the gun on-target for longer than was safe or prudent. It did finally chew a satisfying hole in the damn thing, and he was rewarded with a howl of pain that was audible even within the roaring confines of his dying aircraft's cockpit.
Gur'kra immediately realized the cost, and fought desperately to peel himself away from the collision course he was set upon. He sent so much power to the thrusters that he could feel one of them blow out as it struggled to keep pace with its siblings. The nose of the stricken gunship finally cleared the titanic shape in front of him, and he whooped as he prepared to shoot straight over the monstrosity's head.
Then he lurched forward in his seat as scores of muscled tendrils and sturdy claws seized the limping craft. The wind was driven from his respiratory tract with a grunt when his restraints punched him in the torso. Flecks of spittle dotted the inside of his visor. The pilot closed his eyes reflexively as the impact rippled through his frame, and his blood froze in his veins when he opened them again.
"Oh shit."
A bulbous, yellowed eye at the end of a spiny tendril peered through the canopy at him, pupil dilating with predatory interest. Yet more hideous tentacles groped blindly across the transparent surface, and he knew that most of the gunship would be covered in the slithering, seeking appendages. He froze, signals in his brain from long before the Vraaawk had vanquished the last of their natural predators shooting across his nervous system in a biochemical fireworks of terror. His flightsuit darkened around his cloaca as he involuntarily prepared to flee on a biological level.
Paralyzed with fear, Gur'kra noticed too late the sturdy horned claw rearing back above the rest. He fumbled for his sidearm, and as his digits tightened around its grip the vicious spike punched through the hardened composite of the canopy with contemptuous ease. The fearsome appendage flexed once, twice, and then with a shriek the pilot's protective covering was torn away, tossed to the ground like unwanted fruit rind.
He made to draw his weapon and fire into the slitted pupil of the monster's searching eyestalk, and not until he noticed numbing cold in his shoulder and the spurt of blood decorating his instrument panel did he realize the vast being's claw had sheared his arm off.
That was when the screaming began. Before long it had stopped again.
->>>-
"What do you want, you effete windbag?"
"I want you to check up on your gunships so you know what I already do."
"What, did they take too long to kill the big, scary monster, and it ate some more of your precious bounty hunters in the interim?"
"It fucking killed them, you arrogant, minimizing fool. It knocked one down with a bloody rock, and it plucked the other out of the sky and ate the fucking pilot!."
It was unseemly of him to allow the panic to seep into his voice, but this was getting entirely out of control. The announcer hadn't survived and thrived for this long as a subjugate species in the Empire by leaving things to chance.
He luxuriated in the sound of the Baron choking on his surprise for a moment before recovering.
"Well, erm, so it did. I... didn't expect it to prove so resilient."
"I guess you fucking didn't!"
"Calm down, you puffed up little serfstock weakling."
"I'll pretend you didn't just insinuate that your token puppet nobility supercedes my actual status to remind you what an unrestrained debacle this could all devolve into. This thing taught itself ballistics, Satrap. Our glorious Emperor, long and bloody be his reign, is currently floating gently overtop the Arena in a gold-leafed zeppelin."
The Baron snarled in his earpiece.
"How dare you insult the Satrap of Vraaawk! Who do you think you are?"
"A loyal and beloved servant of the Skryrn Empire who, unlike you, is not liable to be deposed by his own court or assassinated by revolutionaries at the first sign of weakness. Can we please stop pretending it matters and focus on keeping this Gouadforsaken monster from killing the Emperor and earning both of us the Royal Interrogators' most exquisite tortures?"
"What do you propose then, oh glorified flesh-balloon of vastly inflated self-importance?"
Oh, and you could just tell he thought that one was brilliant.
"Open your line to the Imperial Guard and warn them of the danger. Tell them the Royal Academy witheld crucial information about the beast, and that the Emperor's life is now at risk. We'll pay for our failure after all this is over, but the Guard take their job deadly serious. They will task the pair of strike-fighters accompanying the Airship of Imperial Entertainments with ending the beast's life before it makes things even worse. Then we will graciously offer the bounty reward for the megabiota to the two Imperial heroes who brought it down and protected the irreplaceable Lord Pha'Gouad, so that the people will not clamour quite so loudly for our heads when this makes the news."
"This is nonsense! I will simply scramble a larger wing from the home guard!"
"Do you really want to spend an instant more than is necessary with the Emperor's life in danger? I've heard that death by chemicals, the torture of choice for seditionists and those who would seek to endanger our Lord, is many dozens of times worse than neural scouring. The inquisitors have drugs that slow the perception of time such that you can feel individual neurons dying, Baron. I know you have fewer than I, but neither of us want that fate."
"Red King I hate you."
"Well, the Empire hates your silly little religion too, Vraaawk. It's a star, not a God. Now call the Guard before you sentence the both of us to the worst death imaginable."
"Fine. We know it's a star."
"I don't care, don't make me call you again or I will not hesitate to toss you under the keel in the post-disaster inquisition."
With a shaking tentacle the announcer closed the comm-channel. He took a deep, deep breath, ballooning to twice his average size for a moment, before settling back into his grav-couch.
unmute
"Welcome back, Ambling fans! I hope we didn't shed too many viewers during that advertising break but to the ones we did, your loss! We're still marshalling fighters for phase two of the megabiota hunt, and while we wait we're going to go into the weeds with a thrilling best-of-cycle recap to see a selection of the team's favourite kills so far! But first, let's jump live to the fate of Grah'Dounakh, notorious white-collar criminal, as a pair of our hunters close in. This is why we don't try to defraud the Empire, folks!"
->>>-
"Acknowledged, wing lead. Beginning my descent."
Features set in grim determination, Gho'Louan angled the nose of her craft down towards the textured grey of the Arena. The Emperor was going to be incredibly disappointed in the premature end of the hunt, but if this megabiota could threaten Vraaawk HG craft it was more than dangerous enough to pop Lord Pha'Gouad's party blimp.
A series of indicators on her fighter's display tracked the warming plasma and charging mag-capacitors in its array of ordnance chambers, and underslung missiles across the length of the aerofoil unlatched their safety clamps.
It was guaranteed to be overkill, but then, that was the only variety of kill the Imperial Guard dealt in.
Threats to the Emperor more than warranted as much.
A warning beeped over her helmet's earpiece as the altimetre registered the potentially-dangerous loss of height, and with a flick of one of her auxiliary manipulators she dismissed it. She knew what she was doing.
A secondary display tracked her and her lead's progress across the landscape isometrically, and she noted with satisfaction that both of them were perfectly tracing the flight computer's recommended course. It was almost worth pitying the poor beast. It would have no idea what hit it.
Atmospherics were generally less advanced than starfighters, but between the two craft of her wing they carried enough firepower to punch through the bridge plating of a Vraaawk battlecruiser.
They didn't have the shielding or built-in redundancies that a space-navy interceptor might, but then it wasn't as though their target had point defences or anti-air batteries growing out of its hide.
The first of her ordnance chambers registered as primed, and a predatory look graced Gho's features. Another microcycle and she'd be within firing range, half a microcycle after that her wing lead would be unleashing his load of primal destruction upon the bastard thing too.
She realized she was holding her breath in anticipation, and forced herself to exhale.
Everything happened as though in slow motion.
She flipped the secondary safety off on her flight stick, and then depressed the 'full salvo' stud it had been covering. She could feel the craft rock around her as the full fury of a Skryrn Imperial strike fighter surged ahead of the speeding machine. She was already hauling back on the stick, but the rocking only grew more intense. She immediately noticed her fighter's sluggish response to the command.
What the-
"Eject, wing second. I repeat, eject NOW-"
The urgency in her lead's voice was not lost on her, and reflexively she reached for the safety lever.
Bolts blew, the canopy shot away, and the roar of open air greeted her aural membranes, only slightly muffled by her helmet. Then a deafening bellow washed out the rest of the clamor.
Well, at least I hit the damn thing, she thought vengefully.
She felt her couch's primary chute deploy, the sound of it still utterly drowned out by the pained roar of the megabiote.
Then finally something cut through the frightful noise, the sharp roar of another large explosion.
My fighter. How good with ballistics is this thing?
She shuddered despite herself.
I wonder what it hit.
She craned about to get a look at the ground. Then she wished she hadn't.
Though obviously very badly wounded, the monster below her was still alive.
The finest of all the Emperor's troops, the Imperial Guard are trained from the moment of their recruitment to show steel in the face of pain, defiance in the face of fear.
As she drifted into the vengeful press of wounded tentacles and many-jointed claw-limbs, she forgot her training very quickly indeed.
->>>-
"G-Gro'magh? I mean, Sir?"
sigh
"Don't worry about military discpline, we're rebels. "
"Uh, right. You're going to want to see this."
The grizzled Vraaawk left his perch to approach the console of the worst soldier - and best systems cracker - he'd ever worked with.
"So I um, I noticed they were losing an absurd number of camera drones this broadcast. For the uh, the contest."
The veteran general nodded impatiently.
"...Right. You knew what I meant. Well I uh, I finally found a way into the mesh server that all their feeds pass through, and well... You're going to want to see this."
"What, does this give us a vector to get at other networks? Can we hijack a broadcast?"
The pasty little subjugate looked like he'd caught it off-guard.
"Uh, probably. I just, look."
His console screen switched from dozens of incomprehensible text readouts to playback from a camera drone.
It was circling a smoking crash site, of what looked like but couldn't possibly be an Imperial Guard strike fighter.
"What did this?"
"That's not even the crazy part. See that hole in the retaining wall? That's the command centre."
"Did some administrative staff die?"
"No, the Command Centre, where the Baron manages the Arena's forces. That's the Arena terminus for their mesh connection to New Vraaawk's Home Guard base."
"Fuck me, are you sure?"
"Absolutely. Unless they've started decorating the rank-and-file CCs with gold and marble."
"Did the Baron die?"
"I uh, I don't think so. You can... see the guards inside begin setting up a defensive perimeter around the hole right about... now."
"Red King. I've got to find a way to exploit this! Get a readiness signal out to every cell in New Vraaawk City, prep level 3."
"Are... are you sure? That might mean exposing some of them if we don't uh, don't follow up on it."
"Yes I'm sure. We couldn't engineer an opportunity like this with twenty orbits of lead time! They know what to do if we have to call off the preparations. It will cost us a lot of built up base here, but we can't risk missing our chance to use this."
"Of course, Sir. I mean uh, Gro'magh."
->>>-
CONTINUED IN COMMENTS
submitted by Cognomifex to HFY [link] [comments]

October 2020 Noteworthy Releases on Switch

I occasionally see people respond to my weekly Upcoming Releases posts with comments like “it's just a buncha' shovelware”, and I don't think people realize the potential in some of the games they're dismissing. And especially with Nintendo stepping back from their regular Nintendo Directs, I think there's likely to be a fair number of Switch players asking themselves, “so now what?”
Because of this, before we jump into the next month, I'm going through the list of upcoming games for that month that we know about, and highlighting the ones that have a strong chance of being worth paying attention to, as well as a brief snippet about the game explaining why it's worth watching.
I will specifically only be highlighting games that have a reasonably strong pedigree, or that are otherwise particularly noteworthy in some way beyond “this looks good, it could be interesting...”. This means that I'll likely be mentioning a lot of ports, as it's easier to know a game will likely be good if it was already good on another platform (I'm including games that scored 75 or higher on Metacritic on other platforms, 80% positive or higher on Steam, and/or 4 or higher rating on Google Play store). I'll also mention games whose developer has a decent track record for producing quality.
Oh, and before getting into the games, I should note that this is just the list we have available right now – there are likely to be new games announced after this list comes out, as well as games on this list that get delayed. Also, I should note that this is not a list of the only games worth getting on the Switch this month – just the ones that I feel can be backed up with more than just “feels” given what we know now. And of course, since these games aren't released yet, I obviously can't know they're good, they just look promising.
Two more things – Firstly, last month saw me missing a bunch of games that ended up getting good Metacritic scores (this after I listed nearly 30 games in my predictions!). While some of these, like Hades and Ori and the Will of the Wisps, had not been previously announced to release in that month, others like Hotshot Racing were games I dismissed because their developer didn't have an established history behind them. With this being the case, I'm going to test-drive something new I'll call “Buzz Picks”. This is not a prediction that the game will be good (because I still don't have anything to go on), but if a game has gained a lot of attention and doesn't have anything going against it (developer with a poor track record, low review scores in other versions, etc.), or a muddled track record, I'll list it with this tag to note that it's definitely a game to keep your eye on. And when I tally results, these “Buzz picks” will be counted as neutral toward my prediction score – I won't count it as a correct prediction if they turn out being great, but won't deduct points if they turn out terrible. That's fair, right?
Secondly, I'm going to stop checking every release that gets announced after I post this list to look for games to add to this list as the month goes on. It's exhausting to keep doing this, and I'm honestly not sure how many people even see it. If a game gets announced that's clearly a good bet, I'll add it, but I'm not going to count any late-announced games that fall through the cracks in my end-of-month tally.
Anyway, on to the list!
10/1 – Hot Shot Burn (Trailer) (No Metacritic score as of 11/2) – This game went overlooked by critics when it released on PC earlier this year, but it has a fantastic 97% positive rating from its 75 user reviews on Steam. This is a top-down arena combat party game.
10/1 – Super Mario Bros. 35 (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 74) – This free-to-play Nintendo Switch Online-exclusive will only be available until the end of this upcoming March, but for the time it's available, it promises to be fantastic, mixing the gameplay of the legendary NES classic Super Mario Bros. with the “battle royale”-style concept we saw implemented in Tetris 99.
10/1 – Ys Origin (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 82) – This Action-RPG originally released on PC in 2012 and has subsequently been ported to multiple other platforms, each time seeing its Metacritic score improve, ranging from 76 to 81. This is a prequel to the long-running Ys series that critics have praised for its retro style, great story, and wonderful soundtrack, and there's little reason to think it'll fare any worse on the Nintendo Switch, especially with top-notch publisher Dotemu handling the port.
10/3 – Quell (Trailer) (No Metacritic score as of 11/2) – This simple, unassuming Puzzle game with a placid theme may not seem like much, but its 2010 release on iOS got it a Metacritic score of 84, and it has a very positive steam rating of 98% with nearly 200 reviews. Those who enjoy chill Puzzle games may want to keep their eyes out for it.
10/5 – Space Grunts (Trailer) (No Metacritic score as of 11/2) – Mobile developer Orange Pixel's one game to get rated on Metacritic, Gunslugs 2, got a Metacritic score of 78. Meanwhile, this game currently has a 4.6 star rating on Google Play Store, with over 1300 user reviews. This is an Action-Heavy Roguelike Dungeon Crawler, and you can try the free version on your mobile device now if you want to get a feel for it (After trying it myself, I can definitely see potential here, but this game desperately needs a traditional controller).
10/8 – Filament (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 87) – This challenging Puzzle game was released on PC just a few months ago, getting a Metacritic score of 81. Critics praised it for its puzzle design and story, which has you connecting cables to equipment on a space station.
10/8 – Game Dev Tycoon (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 81) – This management sim made a name for itself when it was released on PC in 2013 for its humorous anti-piracy measures, although the game itself got a lukewarm reaction on Metacritic, scoring a low 68. Subsequently, the game's release on iOS in 2017 got a much better 89 on Metacritic, and the current user review score on Steam puts the game a massive 95% approval rating with nearly 30,000 reviews. The Nintendo Switch version touts some nice features too, like touchscreen support, as well as cross-platform saves.
10/8 – I Am Dead (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 81) – I didn't list this in my predictions but I list it here for the sake of those looking at this article after the fact. This is a narrative puzzle game critics have praised for its distinctly British charm.
10/8 – Piofore: Fated Memoriesd (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 77) – I didn't list this in my predictions but I list it here for the sake of those looking at this article after the fact. This is a visual novel critics praised for is good art and music and unique game structure.
10/8 – Puddle Knights (Trailer) (No Metacritic score as of 11/2) – While it went largely overlooked when it released on PC earlier this year, Puddle Knights got a 100% positive rating from the 40+ users who reviewed the game on Steam. This is a character-based Puzzle game where you maneuver around knights with long capes to try to create a path so a noblewoman doesn't have to step in mud.
Announced on 10/2 - 10/9 – Ghost of a Tale (Trailer) (No Metacritic score as of 11/2) - Originally released on Xbox One in 2017 and subsequently released to other platforms, Ghost of a Tale has scored between 75-82 on Metacritic. This game is a stealth-focused action-RPG that has you playing as a mouse in a world inspired partly by the Nimh books.
10/13 – Robotics;Notes Double Pack (Trailer) (No Metacritic score as of 11/2) – This is a pair of Digital Novel games in the same series as the highly-acclaimed Steins;Gate, with these stories following a young robotics designer who's inspired to work on a new project. For fans of the genre this is sure to be a game to keep your eyes out for.
Announced on 10/2 - 10/14 – Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3!? (Trailer) (No Metacritic score as of 11/2) - The prior game in this series earned a Metacritic score of 85 on the Nintendo Switch, and there's little reason to think the sequel should fare any differently. As the name suggests, this is a game where players manage their own restaurants, right down to preparing all of the food themselves, all while customers are waiting and putting in their own unique orders. However, this sequel adds a tongue-in-cheek post-apocalyptic twist as you drive a food truck across war-town America a few decades in the future... and yet the game still seems more cheerful than 2020.
10/15 – Hardcore Mecha (Trailer) (No Metacritic score as of 11/2) – This 2D Action game game first came out on the PC in 2019, but at the moment the PlayStation 4 version is the only version of the game to get a Metacritic score, getting 77. Critics praised its campaign and multiplayer modes, as well as how it pays homage to the Super Robot Wars series.
10/15 – Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 72) – This remaster of the second game in WayForward's acclaimed Metroidvania series is finally coming to the Nintendo Switch. Review scores ranged from 74 to 85 on other platforms, so odds are good it'll be great on the Switch as well!
10/15 – Space Crew (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 62) – After a delay from last month, this game is back on my list. This game is the successor to Bomber Crew, which got a Metacritic score of 75. Based on how Bomber Crew played, I'm guessing this one will have you controlling a spaceship by having you direct each member of the crew to control their own individual responsibility within the ship.
10/15 – Roki (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 80) – I didn't list this in my predictions but I list it here for the sake of those looking at this article after the fact. Critics praised this game for its great story and fun game mechanics.
10/15 – The Jackbox Party Pack 7 (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 73) – The Jackbox Party Pack series are all collections of party games that connect to a server online and have you log in with your phones as your controllers, using the touchscreen to input answers (and perhaps doodle) privately. Every game in the series on Switch has had a Metacritic score over 75 save for Party Pack 6, and hopefully that was just a fluke. With any luck this game will be a return to form for the series!
10/16 – Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 75) – The hordes of fans screaming for another Mario Kart game on the Nintendo Switch may not have meant this, but regardless this promises to be a unique spin on the highly-acclaimed series of cartoony racing games, letting you race using a real-life remote controlled car that interacts with the game, and drawing custom course layouts in your own home, yard, or driveway. Clear some space on the floor, lock away the pets, and get ready for Mario Kart like you've certainly never played it before...
10/21 – Crown Trick (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 79) – I didn't list this in my predictions but I list it here for the sake of those looking at this article after the fact. This is a dungeon crawler critics praised for its art style and sense of humor.
10/21 – Horace (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 83) – I didn't list this in my predictions but I list it here for the sake of those looking at this article after the fact. This is a platform adventure game that critics are praising for its inventiveness and charm.
10/21 – Scourgebringer (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 82) – I didn't list this in my predictions but I list it here for the sake of those looking at this article after the fact. Critics praised this game's fun Roguelike-style gameplay.
10/22 – Disc Room (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 82) – I didn't list this in my predictions but I list it here for the sake of those looking at this article after the fact. Critics praised this game's intense, fast-paced action.
10/22 – Supraland (Trailer) (No Metacritic score as of 11/2) – This first-person puzzle adventure game doesn't look like much, but it won over critics on the PC, where it got a Metacritic score of 85.
10/23 – Pumpkin Jack (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 76) – I didn't list this in my predictions but I list it here for the sake of those looking at this article after the fact. Critics praised this game as a spiritual successor of sorts to the PlayStation classic MediEvil.
10/23 – Supermarket Shriek (Trailer) (No Metacritic score as of 11/2) – This silly racing game came out on Xbox One in 2019, where it got a Metacritic score of 76. Critics praised the game's silly sense of humor, fun level design, and good multiplayer.
10/23 – Transformers Battlegrounds (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 68) – I'm usually a bit wary of licensed games (they can really go either way), but developer Coatsink has a good track record, with its game Shu getting excellent reviews (albeit on other platforms, not so much the Switch version) and none of their games having a Metacritic score below 72. What's more, this game does something I don't think we've seen with the Transformers property – it uses it for a turn-based Strategy-RPG. With any luck, they'll do justice both to the genre and the license.
10/27 – Dungreed (Trailer) (No Metacritic score as of 11/2) – Another game delayed from last month. Critics largely overlooked this game but users thoroughly enjoyed, Dungreed's 2018 PC release has a 90% approval rating on Steam with 4575 reviews. This one looks to be a fast-paced action-platformer with RPG and Roguelike elements.
10/27 – Ghostrunner (Trailer) – “Buzz Pick” This game has multiple developers working on it, so it's hard to know which one to look at when trying to judge the record behind this game. One More Level worked on God's Trigger, which got solid reviews when it was released in 2019. Slipgate Ironworks' only game to get a Metacritic score was Rad Rogers (which got a 67 on Xbox One), and then of course there's 3D Realms, which made a name for itself with the Duke Nukem series and most recently did the well-received Ion Fury, but in between had a fair number of flops. However, while the combined history of these developers may be mixed, there's no denying that the trailer for this first-person action-platformer looks phenomenal, like a dark, violent, cyberpunk-y take on Mirror's Edge. We'll see how it turns out when the game releases! (Update: Delayed to November)
10/27 – Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee New & Tasty (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 78) – This remake of the first game in the Oddworld series of Puzzle-Platformers got scores ranging from 81 to 87 on Metacritic when it was first released in 2014, and there's little reason to expect any less from it when it hits the Nintendo Switch.
Announced on 10/28: 10/28 – Part Time UFO (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 78) – I didn't list this in my predictions as it was shadow dropped, but I list it here for the sake of those looking at this article after the fact. Critics praised this Physics-based Puzzle game for its charming presentation and fun gameplay.
10/30 – Mad Rat Dead (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 76) – I didn't list this in my predictions but I list it here for the sake of those looking at this article after the fact. Critics praised this rhythm-based Platformer for its great music and fun and challenging gameplay.
10/30 – Pikmin 3 Deluxe (Trailer) (Metacritic Score: 84) – When this game about exploring a giant garden with tiny ant/plant creatures as your horde of minions was released on the Wii U, it got a Metacritic score of 87. Finally brought to the Nintendo Switch, this version adds new content featuring the characters from the first two games, Olimar and Louie. This game is probably the closest thing to a sure bet this month.
Halloween 2020 – Dusk (Trailer) – When this fast-paced retro-style first-person shooter screamed onto PCs in 2018, it got a Metacritic score of 88. If you're the sort of person who longs for the days of games like Quake, this game is likely to be a dream come true (or I suppose nightmare, given the theme).
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Anyway, that's what I could find for October 2020 on the Switch, but no doubt some of you have specific games you've got your eye on this next month. Please feel free to give a shout out to any game you feel deserves attention! :-)
submitted by CaspianX2 to NintendoSwitch [link] [comments]

Bayer Leverkusen vs Borussia Dortmund

The home side entered a very poor streak as they picked up just a point from the last four rounds. Bayer Leverkusen topped the table before that run, but now, they slipped to third place. The hosts are seven points behind Bayern Munich, but it’s not too late for them to get back in the title race. It seems that a stoppage-time defeat against Bayern had a great negative impact on the team, which remained undefeated only once since then. Peter Bosz’s side has been very disciplined in the back, and Leverkusen is the second-best defensive team in Bundesliga with 16 goals conceded. However, Lucas Alario and the lads haven’t been so confident at BayArena lately, as they booked only two wins in the last five home games. Nevertheless, Bayer fans are encouraged by their team’s convincing 4:1 victory in German Cup against Eintracht Frankfurt and want to see another good display against big rivals. However, this game will be very challenging for the hosts as they will face some injury troubles.
Borussia Dortmund is leveled up with their upcoming rivals, but the away side snatched seven points from the last three rounds. However, when everybody expected their third victory in a row, they played 1:1 against struggling Mainz at the home ground. The visitors have been very inconsistent this season and haven’t been around the very top for a while. Although Erling Haaland and the lads are the second most productive team, their defense needs to be much tighter. Interestingly, Dortmund has been more comfortable on the road, rather than on Westfalenstadion. They suffered only two defeats in eight away matches, and have been very good at the away grounds. The visitors will try to celebrate another away victory without Axel Witsel, who will be sidelined due to an injury. If they eventually manage to get back home with all three points, Dortmund can get back in the title race.

Full-Time Winner Odds & Prediction

Clashes between Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia Dortmund have been very exciting lately. Although both sides have an equal chance of winning the game, the visitors have been a bit better lately, and their squad is not impacted by injuries that much. Therefore, we think Dortmund can pick the important three points from this game.

Goals Market Prediction

When these two teams face each other, we can see a lot of goals. Their last five clashes went over a 3.5 margin. This one shouldn’t be much different as we expect to see at least three goals in total.
Borussia Dortmund to win @ 2.10
Over 2.5 FT @ 1.55
Correct score 2:3 @ 21.00
Read the analysis here and share your opinion with us!
submitted by bat-bet to sportsbetting [link] [comments]

Ajax vs Feyenoord

Ajax managed to break their two-match winless run with a 3:1 victory away to Twente on Thursday. Erik Ten Hag’s side spilled two points in a 1:1 draw against Willem II, while they played 2:2 in another derby against PSV at home. Nevertheless, they are still the top placed team in Eredivisie, although Vitesse has the same number of points. On the other hand, Ajax has one game in hand. Dusan Tadic and the lads have been lethal for the oppositions’ goalkeepers this season, as they scored 57 goals in 16 rounds. The hosts are doing very well in the back also, and they conceded only 13 goals. However, Ajax booked just one win in their last three games at Johan Cruijff Arena, and they need to get back on the winning track when playing at the home ground. A victory in De Klassieker would provide a big boost of confidence ahead of the second half of the campaign.
Feyenoord had a slow start into the season, but they managed to improve and get back in the title race. The visitors lost just once this season but also spilled some important points in draw matches. However, Dick Advocaat’s side celebrated three times in a row and climbed to fourth place, being only three points behind Ajax. Marcos Senesi and the lads are very hard to crack in the back, and Feyenoord is the best defensive team in the competition. The visitors conceded only once in the past six rounds, and that record helped them a lot to enter a winning streak. On the other hand, they have been decent in the final third, but they needed better finishing in some games. Feyenoord is, along with Ajax, the best away team in Eredivisie, as they allowed only four points to their hosts in eight outings. If their defense keeps a high standard in the upcoming derby, Feyenoord will have a good chance of getting at least a point.

Full-Time Winner Odds & Prediction

Although they haven’t been brilliant lately, Ajax has been pretty convincing in De Klassieker derbies in the past couple of seasons. Ajax hasn’t lost to Feyenoord at Johan Cruijff Arena since 2005, and during that period, they failed to win just twice. We believe the hosts will book an important victory and remain the top-placed team in Eredivisie.

Goals Market Prediction

Feyenoord’s defense has been rock-solid lately, but De Klassieker derbies are always very efficient. We expect to see another high-scoring game that should go over a 2.5 margin.
Ajax to win @ 1.45
Over 2.5 FT @ 1.40
Correct score 3:1 @ 11.00
Read the analysis here and share your opinion with us!
submitted by bat-bet to sportsbetting [link] [comments]

A whole bunch of Bannerlord tips and tricks you may not know (as of version e.1.5.1)

Bannerlord is a great game that is currently plagued by some serious issues, from glitches and bugs to simply not bothering to explain its own mechanics. Without any mitigation or forewarning, these little problems can really snowball and ruin your experience. I've compiled this list of tips and tricks to help other players get around some of these problems and also to maximise your fun while the game remains in early access.
 
I've separated everything up into categories so that you don't have to dig through too much to get to the stuff you're interested in. Also, stuff that's relevant to new players only is marked with a [NP] in front of it, so you can skip that if you already know the basics.
 
Edit: Wow, I hit the 40000 character limit so now I have to add more tips as comments instead!
 

How Stats, Skills and Perks work

[NP] Your character's progression consists of increasing stats, skills, focus, perks and levels. Stats govern your base aptitude in a set of three skills. For example, the Vigor stat affects your aptitude with one-handed, two-handed and polearm skills. Skills represent your ability with that particular skill. For example, the Bow skill affects your aim with the bow and the Steward skill directly affects how many members you can have in your party. Perks are essentially special abilities that are awarded at specific skill levels, e.g. 25, 50, 75 and 100. Sometimes you will get to choose between two perk options. Make sure you check whether a perk is implemented before you choose that perk! (See paragraph below) Lastly, focus points allow you to increase your max skill level with a skill and also provide an exp multiplier, making you gain skill points faster. Note that if you try to train a skill that's reached its limit, it will grow very slowly and eventually stop growing altogether. Thus, you need a constant investment of both stats and focus points to max out a skill. Since your stat and focus points are limited, I suggest you prioritize only a few skills to max out, and accept that the rest will never be fully completed.
 
[NP] In the character creation screen, the various skills are grouped by stats (in bold, above the individual skills) and each specific skill can have up to 5 focus points assigned (the vertical bars). Each skill you can learn is limited to a max number which is determined by the combination of stat and focus points you have for that skill. With full focus (5 bars), you will need about 6-8 stat points in a skill to allow you to completely max it out. Furthermore, the perks available for each skill are only partially implemented. This means that investing points into some skills is currently useless. To see which perks are implemented, I recommend using a site like https://www.bannerlordperks.com. At the time of writing this post, the entire "Cunning" stat has zero perks implemented, making it virtually useless to you. If you're new, I highly recommend getting points in Social, Vigor and Endurance. Social (specifically the charm skill) allows you to convince nobles to marry/join you more easily and improves your troops' morale (leadership skill). Vigor is your basic melee combat stat, which you will use a lot in the early game and especially in the arena. Lastly, endurance allows you to improve your movement speed (riding/athletics) and is necessary for smithing (skill), which is a really useful mechanic that I highly recommend you try. Another good choice is Control, if you wish to be a ranged character.
 
So how does leveling work in Bannerlord? Well here's what the Skills screen looks like using the character (C) menu Using skills with slowly increase your ability with them. The more focus points you have in a skill, the faster it's skill points will go up. Furthermore, your character will gain "exp" every time he/she gains skill points. Or more accurately, exp in this game IS skill points. That is to say, training the various skills is the only way to level up. NOT killing enemies, as you might have first thought. This means you can level up just by trading, smithing, running around, or leading armies. You don't even need to fight simulated battles mostly, though doing so will award you with tactics points and some combat skill points. Every level you gain will award you with either a stat point, a focus point, or both. You can spend these points to increase the relevant stat or skill focus bar. When you have points to assign, they will show up on your character screen. In the earlier screenshot is your NPC brother who you always start with, though his name and appearance is randomized. Because I chose the "assign perks myself" option, I can choose his perks right away (represented by little numbered shield icons next to his skills that tell you how many perks are available to choose). You'll note that to the left and right of the "Skills" table there are weird icons with the number 0 next to them. The left number represents stat points to assign, and the right number is focus points. Your new character will start with 1 free focus point to assign. To assign a focus point, select the desired skill and click the "+" sign. REMEMBER: No choices will be saved unless you click "Done", and you can revert all changes made so far by clicking the curved arrow between "Done" and "Cancel". To assign perks, click on the shield icons in the banner in the middle of the skill page and a popup will appear. Click on the perk you wish to choose - again making sure it's actually implemented first - and then when finished click "Done" to finalize your choices. Don't forget that you can use the left/right arrows to assign skills and perks for your NPCs too!
 
One more thing about perks. The "Governor" perks DO NOT APPLY to your character, because you can't be the governor of any of your cities/castles. Thus, don't pick governor perks for your main hero unless they also come with side-abilities that you want.
 

Starting the Game and the Main Storyline

[NP] The various factions each come with a special ability. You can use all troops from all factions, so don't worry about being shoehorned into any particular troop type by your choices. Instead, focus on the ability you'll get. Not all abilities are made equal and not all factions are equal either. Currently, the Khuzait faction is kind of OP due to the AI being too dumb to figure out how to handle horse archers, so select them for an easier early-game. Vlandia gets bonus troop exp, which means you can promote veteran troops faster than others. Empire skills are building-focused, which means you need to own fiefs to really gain any benefit from using them. Sturgia are... faster in snow. Also their troops are supposedly weaker than normal (this will eventually change), so pick Sturgia if you're a masochist. Battania are kind of situational with their forest boost (so maybe don't pick them either), and Aserai get trading bonuses, so pick them if you want to be a merchant or just like money.
 
[NP] Clicking the various family options will show you the potential change in stat points and focus points that you will gain for that choice. You will have about 7 different choices to make before your character is ready to play. Try to pick choices which focus on your ideal stats and skills while minimizing the other ones. Here's a sample character I generated using the stats I recommended earlier. Don't worry too much about making perfect choices here, since you will gain many more stat and focus points throughout your game too. Plus, you'll use most of the stats/skills at one point or another. After this, your brother will ask if you want to do the tutorial. The tutorial only teaches you how to fight, so if you already know that you can skip it.
 
If you follow the story you will play through a storyline quest for a while until you've rescued your siblings and experienced the execution mechanic in action. Then you will have to chase down a bunch of clan leaders and lie to two special characters who will never interact with you again once you've made your final choice. However, and this is something I want to emphasize heavily: You do NOT need to make a choice about what to do with the dragon banner immediately. In fact, I strongly recommend you do NOT make a decision until you're very well situated in the game. Why? Because it starts a doomsday timer that you cannot slow down or affect in any way, and when it runs out 3 factions will declare war on you all at once and try to grind your entire faction into the dust. Instead, forget about the story quest and just enjoy the game at that point until you are extra powerful and ready to take on the world. Once you succeed at that quest I'm pretty sure you win the game, and if you start it before you're ready you'll be in for a world of hurt.
 

The Campaign Map

The game has a really useful feature called the "Encyclopedia". Press 'N' to open it when in the campaign screen. If you want to track down a notable figure, you can search their name or clan in the search bar and it will tell you where they were last seen. Anytime you speak to another noble or visit a settlement, town or castle, it will update the rumours of where that noble was seen most recently. This will allow you to track down anyone with ease. You can also see if they were taken prisoner, got pregnant, or switched allegiances recently. Furthermore, you can use the Encyclopedia to check nobles' relations with you or each other, allowing you to single out the nobles who hate their liege and are ripe for conversion to your kingdom. You can also use the encyclopedia to check troop upgrade paths, details about cities/settlements, and info on minor factions, who are like secret clans that you can recruit if you choose to be your own kingdom. All in all, it's incredibly useful for planning your next move.
 
There's a circle next to city/settlement names in the overworld and the encyclopedia. Clicking that circle "bookmarks" the city/settlement, which means you can easily find it on the map. Clicking it again removes the bookmark.
 
[NP] If you hover over any of the symbols at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, you can get detailed info on how the values are calculated. The symbols are, from left to right, money, influence, HP, troops, food and morale. The money icon will show you your daily income vs daily expenses. Influence will show your influence gain/loss over time. HP is your own health and recovery rate. Troops shows what troops you have in your army. Food shows how much food you have and morale shows what's affecting the mood of your soldiers. Using these icons helps you figure out what you need to do to make their values go up instead of down.
 

Fighting Battles

Against minor enemies like looters, it's usually relatively safe to use "Send Troops" instead of going in there yourself. You won't gain tactics skill from this, but your troops will gain all the exp instantly instead of spending 5 minutes fighting first.
 
[NP] You can issue commands to your troops by using the F keys. F1 is the movement menu, F2 is the direction menu, F3 is the formation menu, F4 is whether or not to use ranged weapons, F5 is mount/dismount for cavalry, F6 enables AI control, and F7 allows you to split your groups up and assign the split members to other groups. (e.g. split infantry and assign half to "heavy infantry"). You can also use the number keys (i.e. 1,2,3 etc) to select specific groups of troops to give orders to. 1 is infantry, 2 is archers, 3 is melee cavalry etc. Any non-mapped number selects all troops. This allows you to have fine-grained control during combat. HOWEVER for the most part the numbers and relative experience of the two armies is the deciding factor in how a battle goes. Sometimes you can use the terrain to your advantage, but mostly your tactics will do very little to actually affect the battle's outcome, especially in sieges where taking control of the AI will completely break their ability to use siege equipment and attack or defend properly.
 
Some basic strategies for manually commanding troops during simulated battles are as follows:
 
You can cheese simulated battles by abusing the "Retreat" command. Hold "Tab" to bring up the stats menu, and press middle mouse button to get your cursor back. Then you can click "Retreat" to teleport your entire army safely out of the battle. Then you can restart the battle with the number of troops remaining from before, but both armies are placed far away from each other again. Combine this with a lot of archers, and you can whittle the enemy numbers down before they reach your army and then simply retreat and start over again until the odds are solidly in your favour. This lets you overcome basically any odds so long as you ensure your opponent takes more losses than you do each time.
 
Levelling up your troops can be tricky as the experience system isn't very clear as to what gives the best troop exp. However, the following things seem to work fairly well: * Some of the Leadership perks grant lots of free exp over time. In particular, Raise the Meek will rapidly turn all of your lowest-level troops into higher-level ones over time, and the level 225 one, Companions, basically gives you the Vlandian empire troop exp bonus, which stacks with actually being Vlandian * Steamrolling fat groups of looters using "Send Troops" is relatively safe and usually awards a handful of troop upgrades each time * Beating nobles' armies when you have about a 2:1 ratio of your troops to theirs is also usually pretty safe and the higher-level troops they have with them yield much more exp * Winning a siege will be extremely costly in terms of deaths, but the troops who survive will gain tons of experience. Defending a siege will be less costly due to having the home turf advantage, but it's harder to engineer those to occur * Doing hideout raids and taking along a group of only archers is a great way to level up those 9 archers, so long as you don't aggro the entire hideout at once. Just make sure you use F4 frequently to enable/disable "Fire at will" or they WILL try to shoot bandits at the other end of the map and summon the wrath of god down on you * Keep your troop morale high by buying lots of different varieties of food. I'm not sure if morale is fully implemented yet, but you won't have the awkward issue of your troops all running from a difficult battle at least
 

Building your Clan

[NP] Your clan has a ranking in the clan screen (press L), shown at the top right. Earning renown increases this ranking, and every new level adds more soldiers to your armies and other useful clan perks to your arsenal. Max clan rank is 6, but you won't get there for a very long time. The easiest way to gain renown is through winning large battles, so battling lots will quickly raise that renown score.
 
The game doesn't tell you this anywhere, but you can have your family join your party by visiting them in whatever city they are hiding in and talking to them (or left-clicking their portrait in that city). Your brother in particular is basically a veteran soldier right from the start of the game, so adding him to your party will give you a huge early-game boost. His high steward score also increases your party size by a lot, so having him around lets you field more soldiers until your own steward score catches up. Later on, set him up as governor of your best city/settlement to give it a huge boost.
 
You can recruit companions at taverns in major cities. Not all companions are created equally, so I recommend using a companion guide to figure out which ones have skills that you want. You can also manually check their skills by right clicking the character's portrait from the city screen or searching them in the encyclopedia. That way you'll know what they are good and bad at before you go through the long dialogue with them. I personally find the tacticians/stewards most valuable as you can make them lead armies for you (more on that in a bit), and the ones with high trade are helpful because you can create caravans with them for bonus income during peacetime. You can only recruit your clan level +1 companions at a time, (e.g. 2 at clan level 1). This means you should be very picky about who you hire.
 
If you have joined a kingdom (or started your own), you can persuade other factions' nobles to betray their current faction and join yours. For this you need three things: High charm, luck and money. Save your game. Speak to the noble and say you have something to discuss. Ask about their liege. This will lead to a skill challenge where you have to get 4 successes in 4 attempts (either 100% successes or at least 1 critical success). This is entirely RNG, so choose the highest % options and pray. Or load back a lot. If they hate their monarch you'll have a very high chance of succeeding in at least 1 of the 4 challenges. Once you've successfully convinced them, you then need to bribe them. The bribe usually is about 100k denars, but can go all the way to more than a million denars if they own lots of land (because your team gets the fiefs too when they convert). Unless you're insanely rich, use the encyclopedia to find the poorest, most disenfranchised nobles and you'll discover that you might be able to pay them even a single denar and they'll happily convert. Beware, others can convert YOUR allies too, so try to make sure you give every noble at least one castle to keep them happy and on your side. Also if you save a lot and see the message that a noble has left your kingdom, you can load back and often they won't leave the second time.
 
If you release a noble whom you beat in combat instead of taking them prisoner, you will get a 6-7 point relationship increase with everyone in that noble's clan. Doing this is an excellent way to butter them up for future conversion to your kingdom.
 
Convert the head of a clan to your kingdom and their entire clan will also convert along with them!
 
You can use your influence points to put policies in place that suit you before adding others to the clan. In the Kingdom menu (K), you can go to the policy tab and scroll through the various policies there. Basically, most policies either benefit only the ruler, benefit only the vassals, or adjust your kingdom's rates (e.g. tax rate and growth rate). If you're going to start your own kingdom, take this chance to vote in all the royalty-favouring policies before you add people who disagree with you. Conversely, if you're a vassal, you want to add more vassals to the clan and THEN vote in all the vassal-favouring policies. Both of these strategies will not only increase your influence gain rate, but also make it much harder for a rogue AI to steal powecities from you later on in the game. It will also prevent you from getting disliked by other nobles from voting against their wishes since they won't even be in your kingdom yet.
 
As a male character, you can marry a noble to have her join your clan. I'm not sure if it's the reverse situation for female heroes or not (i.e. you join their clan). This provides two main benefits. One, you gain another party member to bring along in battle, and two, you can make babies (heirs) who will inherit your stuff if/when your character dies. If you end up playing for enough time you can also eventually add those heirs to your party once they've grown up enough. To woo a noble, simply profess your love to them then return and visit them a few times. You'll have to pass charm checks to woo them properly, so as always, save beforehand! Eventually they'll tell you to talk to the clan leader, and then you'll barter for their hand in marriage. Usually it's pretty cheap.
 

Kingdom/Clan Management

Did you know that war declarations can be avoided (by sort of cheating)? If you save often and then suddenly get war declared on you (or by your kingdom on someone else), just load back to that save. It's a (low) random chance for war to be declared so there's a strong likelihood that the next time you get to that point in time literally nothing will happen. This allows you to avoid all wars that you don't want! Since the game AI is so bad right now, sometimes this is the only way to save your kingdom from utter annihilation.
 
You can equip the companions in your party with awesome gear too! This took me 40 hours to realize, but on the Inventory (I) or trade screens, there are arrows at the top that let you select a different character to equip. This works with the Character (C) screen too, allowing you to assign perks or stats/skills to your companions.
 
In your clan management screen (L), under the parties tab, you can assign your companions to various roles within your party. Generally, this causes the game to act as if your own skill with that particular role is the same level as the assigned companion. For example, if you assign a companion with 80 medicine skill as surgeon, the game will cause you and your troops to heal as if you had 80 medicine skill. Keep in mind that if you don't assign a party member to a role then you will gain the exp for doing that role. In other words, it's a trade-off between gaining free experience and having your party be more effective on the campaign map. The one role in your party you definitely don't want to assign a companion to is Quartermaster, because that trains the Steward skill which you want to raise as high as possible.
 
You can create separate parties under your clan management screen's "Parties" tab. This allows you to send companions off to raise armies and gain exp all on their own without your intervention. You can also assign them to their own personal role within that party (even the Quartermaster role!) for bonus exp and it won't affect your own exp. Parties have three major benefits that make them very useful. Firstly, they will recruit their own troops for you! The max party size is dependent on the companion's steward skill and your clan rank. This means that with enough time you can create an allied party that's virtually equal in size to your own army. Secondly, those parties can be summoned to your army on a whim (click the flag icon down the bottom right of the screen - you must be in a kingdom to do this) and it costs 0 influence! Thirdly, the parties automatically will go around fighting battles for you and increasing your own influence and reputation. I highly recommend creating at least a few parties. There's a few downsides to be aware of, however. Firstly, you pay all the troop wages for the other parties. This can get VERY expensive if you're not at war and constantly defeating armies for money. Secondly, like any roaming entity, your companions can get attacked and captured by enemy armies. If that happens, you have to wait for them to escape or be ransomed and then track them down in whichever city they end up in to reclaim your companion. This can be very annoying. Lastly, if you're a vassal, your liege can actually summon your companions to their army, thereby using your hard-earned troops for their own personal gain! That's the price of being a vassal though.
 
Sometimes you cannot assign roles to party members through the clan screen. This tends to happen if you assign a companion to a role and they die in battle. If this happens, instead select them in the party screen (P) and talk to them. You can assign them roles from the conversation menu instead.
 

Making Money

[NP] In the early-game you will find the tournaments in city arenas to be almost impossible to win. However, with the power of save/load and determination, you can win big in tournaments by betting on yourself every round. If you win the tournament, not only will you get a sweet prize but you will also be several thousand denars richer. At least until your reputation catches up to you and they start offering less and less money for your bets.
 
The best way to make money in Bannerlord is smithing (once you've unlocked enough recipes and have about 140 smithing skill). Early on, the stuff you produce is worthless, but as you start making tier 4 and higher weapons you will discover combinations that create weapons work up to 100k denars in value! Make a handful of these and you can go around from city to city, buying up all the expensive armor while still walking away with 20k+ more denars each time. There are many guides to smithing that can be found elsewhere, but here's a few minor tips:
 
The second-best way to make money is by thrashing other nobles in combat. If you're at war, target every enemy noble you see whom you can easily beat and trounce them. Not only do you get money and items for beating them, you can also ransom them at taverns for even more money. You also get money when you capture cities in sieges. Naturally, when you're at peace, you'll find it much harder to make money this way.
 
You can purchase workshops in cities and have them produce goods for a small profit (around 75-125 denars per day). It generally costs about 13k denars to buy a workshop, so it won't become profitable for approximately 140 days. Because of this, if you wish to use workshops you should select cities which you are unlikely to be at war with for a long time (e.g. your own faction's cities!). After all, if you end up at war with a faction, all of your workshops in that faction are stolen from you. To buy a workshop you must physically walk around town. If you hold alt you will see three semi-random workshops throughout the city (e.g. wine press, brewery, smithy). If you walk to one of these shops during the day you will find NPCs loitering around nearby called "Shop Worker". Talk to the shop worker and tell them you want to purchase the workshop.
 
To decide which workshops to build in which city, examine the fiefs which feed into that city. You can also use a workshop guide, but I find these aren't always correct due to frequent patches. The bottom line is this: Pick a city which has at least one source of workshop materials (e.g. grain, sheep, hardwood) in its settlements. More than one source is even better. Next, buy a workshop and select the type that uses that material. For example, grain is used by breweries, and wood is used by a wood workshop etc. Then, you wait. You can check the workshop's profitability from the clan tab (L), but remember, don't expect it to become super profitable anytime soon. These are long-term investments.
 
Another way to make money is caravans. Caravans are more profitable than workshops, but come with significant risk, especially if you're at war with anyone. Basically, you assign a companion to manage a caravan (which costs 15000-25000 denars to make depending on the troops you assign), and the caravan will travel from city to city buying and selling goods. Companions with high Trade skills are essential here. While travelling, the caravans can be attacked by looters, bandits, and worst, enemy armies. If the caravan is captured, you'll have to go rescue your companion or wait for them to be released. Then you'll have to spend another 15-25k to get the caravan going again. Basically, don't do this if you're a warmonger. Anyway, to form a caravan, talk to any merchant in a city and choose the "I want to form a caravan in this city" option. Caravans will net you varying amounts of money, and the income will not be every day, but in my experience they are more profitable than workshops and much more annoying to keep track of.
 
If you have a high trade skill, instead of making caravans you can be a caravan. Load up on sumpter horses which increase your max load, and then use trade rumours (talk to civilians hanging out in town markets) to determine the best places to buy and sell stuff. Buy low, travel, sell high. If you make 30 denars per sale and sell 100 trade items, that's 3k of profit. If you make 100 denars per sale, that's 30k profit! Again, keep in mind that cities generally only keep 20k-30k denars on them at a time, so if you take too many goods you will not be able to sell them all.
 

Siege Warfare

Holding the alt key highlights both important people and weapons that are lying around. You can use this during sieges to replenish ranged ammo and locate nearby interactible things.
 
You can use the siege weapons that your army/city has built. This will train your throwing skill and also open some neat opportunities. For example, you can use catapults to smash siege towers! It takes 4 hits to achieve but boy is it worth it!
 
Catapults and trebuchets can be aimed left and right but also have a red gauge on the side which affects the distance that your shots travel. You can change this bar using W/S to choose how close or far to shoot. Generally you want the distance to be less than half the red bar because your targets are a lot closer than the range on the siege engines.
 
When defending a city you will notice piles of rocks (called merlons) lying around upstairs in the gatehouse. You can take these rocks and drop them on enemy troops for massive damage (400+). You can also use them to smash the battering ram with a few good throws, thereby protecting your gates.
 
You can place your troops before a siege by pressing the numbers (e.g. 1 for infantry) and then clicking where you want them to go. However they just run back to where the AI would have put them anyway, so it's not worth it right now. But someday it might actually work as intended!
 
Is the castle you were staying in being beseiged by overwhelming numbers? You can sally forth to attack, use archers to pick some troops off, and then retreat from battle before their enormous army starts hacking your party apart. Repeat this about a dozen times and you'll have a much more manageable enemy to fight, with very few casualties on your side. For the love of god though save before you try this. Also note that, due to a bug, when you sally out of the castle you'll be plonked onto the overworld map when you retreat and won't be able to get back in without sacrificing troops.
 

Misc

THINGS NOT TO DO

 
And... that's it for now! I'm sure I forgot some tips but I'll edit them in as I remember. At the very least it should open up some new gameplay avenues for some people, and maybe make things a little less stupid for others. If you made it to the end of this very long post: well done!
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