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Taffer posted:Was Edgedancer edited post-release? I'm going through it as part of my re-read right now, and the narrators voice sounds slightly different, and there seem to be way fewer instances of "awesomeness" than I remember from last time. Overall the annoying factor seems way reduced, but I'm not sure if it's my imagination. I felt the same way with the Szeth Prologue from WoK. On my first read it felt over explainy like a video game tutorial on how lashings work as he goes through the level to the boss fight. This time I barely noticed that. Same with Edgedancer, did not feel awkward the same way I remember when I first read it.
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Mar 13, 2024 17:44
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Brandon is definitely not without words and phrases he overuses. In The Final Empire, count how many times he uses maladroitly. My wife is going through TWoK and, while I didn't notice this, she said he is constantly having people hesitate or do something hesitantly. In Words of Radiance, I felt like the thing that stood out to me was a constant "raises a hand/safehand to her breast"
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Mar 13, 2024 18:55
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Seems each of his books has some overuse of a specific motion or emotion. I lost count of the number of times he said something like "He started.." when it comes to movement, or how many times Dalinar puckered his lips into a thin line. Lots of people shrug across his books too.
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Mar 13, 2024 18:58
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Me when i'm in a sanderson book: 
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Mar 13, 2024 19:04
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Louisgod posted:Seems each of his books has some overuse of a specific motion or emotion. I lost count of the number of times he said something like "He started.." when it comes to movement, or how many times Dalinar puckered his lips into a thin line. Lots of people shrug across his books too. Yeah. And it's maybe not necessarily that he overuses certain phrases/words (though it can certainly be argued as such) but maybe it is just that when you personally notice it, it's easier to notice when it's happening again.
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Mar 13, 2024 19:07
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CapnAndy posted:This next stuff is full spoilers through the WaT prologue. I think "I'm terrified" means more than you're giving it credit for. I think she's identifying the terror that locked away much of her memories and splintered her personality. Even at the end of RoW she clearly hasn't recovered fully. Reader's report for Warbreaker, I'm just starting chapter 32. Spoilers for general cosmere concepts: Took a while to get into this one despite being spoiled on several characters I've already seen in other books (but just their names). My largely unorganized thoughts: The Siri relationship as it's developing with the God-King feels to me like it might be one of the options the priests use to do whatever they do. "She teaches him to read, they bond, they reproduce like we wanted" seems on-point for a group of people this manipulative. Brandon caught me off-guard with the tongue thing though I did perceive Susebron was clearly not what Siri had been told; he did plant enough clues, adroitly so. I did immediately pick up on the problem with "inherited Breaths" once that reveal happened and it was nice to see the characters register the problem not long after. The Returned are fascinating, and Lightsong's experimentation suggests to me that they might be the opposite of Cognitive Shadows. In other words, the Returned have everything registered in "the body" and parts not associated with what Cognitive Shadows inherit, which implies overlap or redundancy between things like personality traits and language. Given that Sanderson has language as a thing you can acquire magically, I presume Connection leaves its mark on both mind and body (and soul) and thus language registers with each. This may get proved wrong before the end of the book. I am spoiled about which Shard has influence over this world; that makes me wonder whether the Lifeless are too much different from the Returned, with the difference being that the Lifeless receive human Breath and the Returned "divine" Breath. Lightsong's personality felt fairly Hoid-like for much of the book, and while the "detective" line feels like it's ruling out that possibility, I am still dubious he was a cop. That flash he had of prison doesn't mean he wasn't being locked up. I did briefly wonder if he would turn out to be Arsteel Returned, but that would require a death in a very specific time-frame and that doesn't seem likely. Still uncertain whether Clod is Arsteel's body. Probably not. Denth and Tonk Fah feel a little too close to Wax and Wayne for comfort. I know they aren't the same characters, but if you're going to have a cosmere keeping your characterizations distinctive gets more important. (I realize this book preceded Mistborn Era 2.) The degree to which Denth isn't a local remains to be seen. Chekov's giant stone statues have been thoroughly established, haven't they? The big surprise is going to be if they don't end up animating/awaking at some stage. Sanderson's absolutely up to something with names again: lots of names where the first three letters are symmetrical. No idea what that means beyond a convention. I just finished rereading Bujold's Sharing Knife series before starting this book, and so was primed for the "giving away Breath on your deathbed" scene. But it seems strange that the book's established repeatedly that people can sell their Breath, and that sometimes people may be tortured or coerced to give over their Breath, but that the idea families would bequeath Breath doesn't seem to have been formulated. I'd expect the oldest established families to have lots of Breath coming from their generations before, set against the "new money" people who purchased their Breath instead of inheriting it. Additional Mistborn spoiler below (full Era 1) Edgli's Tears are the flower that provides multicolor dye? Besides the obvious linkage with the hair of the Royal family, that really feels like it's another way to store up Investiture. These flowers are the local Shard's equivalent to Atium, perhaps? That's also interesting considering the Art criticism as prophecy element in the story.
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Mar 13, 2024 19:59
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Loling because I went to go listen to Oathbringer at lunch and I was midchapter. First line I hear “He hesitated” Got this text from wife  She just finished an exciting chapter (The Lesson) and it whips straight into a Kaladin flashback - which is far less exciting. Mordiceius fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Mar 13, 2024 |
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Mar 13, 2024 20:28
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Narsham posted:I just finished rereading Bujold's Sharing Knife series before starting this book, and so was primed for the "giving away Breath on your deathbed" scene. But it seems strange that the book's established repeatedly that people can sell their Breath, and that sometimes people may be tortured or coerced to give over their Breath, but that the idea families would bequeath Breath doesn't seem to have been formulated. I'd expect the oldest established families to have lots of Breath coming from their generations before, set against the "new money" people who purchased their Breath instead of inheriting it.
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Mar 13, 2024 20:38
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Warbreaker up to Chapter 34 spoilers, as well as The Lost Metal: And Hoid just showed up. Typical. I now suspect that the burning of the God-King's sheets every morning has something to do with how they transfer his breath into his heir. Though it's hard to believe that Sanderson of all writers is going to have some sort of sperm-based Breath transfer system. Still, the "destroy all this stuff" aspect of life in the palace strikes me as an attempt to conceal the destruction of something vitally important to getting ahold of all that power. My other observation is from earlier but now modified a bit: Lightsong's colors are red and gold. That's the same colors as Autonomy's army in Lost Metal... or at least, the army she was using. And the Usurper supposedly had empowered Lifeless referred to as Phantoms who may still be around? That makes me wonder one thing about Lightsong--perhaps it's wrong to assume that all Returned return immediately after death?--and another about that army of red and gold. Or maybe Brandon just likes using red and gold to depict power/martial might/evil/corruption, which would say something else about Lightsong. Oh, and Hoid mentioned something about the person who taught him how to perform. I find myself wondering if that person isn't the driving motivation behind everything he's doing now. I even find myself wondering whether, if we treat Adonalsium as the Cosmere God, we should be thinking of Hoid as Satan? But is he a repentant Satan?
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Mar 13, 2024 20:40
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Narsham posted:Warbreaker up to Chapter 34 spoilers, as well as The Lost Metal: All these theories trigger the "Hmm, yes, I see, do go on" vibe in my brain, in the best possible way. 
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Mar 13, 2024 20:48
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Narsham posted:Warbreaker up to Chapter 34 spoilers, as well as The Lost Metal: This brought up an idea (Narsham do not read) I'd forgotten about the priests burning all the God-King's stuff every day since it was never narratively significant, but looking back I wonder if it was a way to prevent squirreling away Breath, Awakening some objects, or smuggling/embezzling his Investiture
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Mar 13, 2024 20:59
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Narsham posted:Warbreaker up to Chapter 34 spoilers, as well as The Lost Metal: My good friend is 40 pages away from finishing Warbreaker and is absolutely loving it, complaining to me all day at work today how he just wants to go home and read. His theories are just as interesting, it's always a blast to see people's guesses then go back to see how wrong they were.
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Mar 13, 2024 21:30
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I'm listening to hero of ages and realized something- in Era 1, do the Scadrians ever call it Scadrial? So far everyone only ever refers to things as 'in the whole final empire" and I don't recall hearing any "on all of Scadrial."
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Mar 13, 2024 22:53
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road potato posted:I'm listening to hero of ages and realized something- in Era 1, do the Scadrians ever call it Scadrial? So far everyone only ever refers to things as 'in the whole final empire" and I don't recall hearing any "on all of Scadrial." Nah doesn't appear in a Mistborn book until Alloy of Law in the Arcanum, not sure if a character mentions it there at any point.
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Mar 13, 2024 23:01
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Rereading some stormlight and it's so funny in early Oathbringet when (all stormlight) Dalinar is trying to Unite Them kingdoms via spanreed and nobody is biting until the end where a perfect message comes in about having a Radiant to open their oathgate and being so glad someone has come forth to join everyone together and it's loving Taravangian and I know the next book and a half is dalinar being so happy to have him around, lmao
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Mar 14, 2024 01:14
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Mordiceius posted:Loling because I went to go listen to Oathbringer at lunch and I was midchapter. First line I hear “He hesitated” Yes Yes repeated motifs yes how quaint... 
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Mar 14, 2024 04:36
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M_Gargantua posted:Yes Yes repeated motifs yes how quaint... Sadly, this falls flat for Mordiceius because he hasn't read Wheel of Time. I'm curious, for those of you who like give up on a book or chapter and come back later when you've mustered up some more motivation: Skipping or skimming a boring part does not work for you? I do this all the time, even in Sanderson books, but I know I will definitely reread the books anyway. And I have much more patience for more boring sections on a reread, where there might be hidden clues or easter eggs I wouldn't have gotten on a first read anyway. But a lot of you are listening to the audiobooks, and I guess skipping parts is much more difficult in that medium, and skimming nearly impossible?
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Mar 14, 2024 05:31
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Raimondo posted:I felt the same way with the Szeth Prologue from WoK. On my first read it felt over explainy like a video game tutorial on how lashings work as he goes through the level to the boss fight. This time I barely noticed that. I think if either of these books have received any revisions since original release they have been minor and resulted in the same narrative purpose/outcome. Brandon has made a bunch of comments to the effect of “we figured out with readers help that thing X wasn’t strictly playing by the rules so we nudged it to fit the broader mechanics of the cosmere”. But the plot thread still resolved the same way for the characters in world. That said, I think WoK more than most cosmere books is best on a second read, or at the very least after reading a lot more of the broader cosmere. I’m working through my third re-read of Stormlight and I agree with some other posters that the mopey/goofy/drawn out sections aren’t actually that long and are just stuffed full of inferences and foreshadowing. You picked up on some big beats the first time through because of Capital Letter Nouns but on further reads there’s just a poo poo load of nuance that is almost invisible unless you know later it turns into something important. If anything, the multi-viewpoint prologues are the prime example of this. The inciting event not only exposes readers to the fact that there’s secrets everywhere in the text, it also sets up the idea that character texts are 100% just from that characters understanding in world and not narrator level truth.
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Mar 14, 2024 06:15
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More Shallanchat, WoR events but spoilers through RoW: When she gives the Blade to Kaladin in the chasms, it's described as glowing, and while he has it and she makes the illusion to save him, she has a thought that this would be easier if she could send the illusion with Pattern, but -- and then her mental block kicks in and she can't complete the thought, but the rest of it is quite obviously "but Kaladin is currently holding him". So that's definitely Pattern and she's got a living Blade already. Fun speculation, still full spoilers: How much do you guys think a Shardblade is worth these days? In TWoK especially, but even somewhat in WoR, it gets hammered in again and again that these things are valuable beyond compare, worth more than a kingdom, having one means you're set for life. But we see that by RoW, the prevailing wisdom has shifted to "you need to drop that thing, the spren won't take a second look at anyone bonded to one". What do you think going from "that is the ultimate weapon and they're not making any more" to "yes they are actually and that's a vastly inferior version" has done to the market value? Not everyone's suited to be Radiant, of course, so I'm sure they're still desirable, but I can also see a lot of lighteyes just frantically casting around for any relatives to pawn their Blade off on. (And of course, who knows how that changes in the future, if/when Adolin gets his nascent "reawakening the Deadeyes" program off the ground.)
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Mar 14, 2024 18:26
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Redundant phrasing is a big reason why I can't just power through a series like this. Braid tugging may not have been written even 100 times in WoT, but it felt like 1000.
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Mar 14, 2024 21:20
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The progression of Oathbringer is all over the place. Definitely lesser of a read than Words of Radiance, but it's still very good.
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Mar 14, 2024 21:28
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A Sneaker Broker posted:The progression of Oathbringer is all over the place. Definitely lesser of a read than Words of Radiance, but it's still very good. Nah he doesn't have Progression, he has Adhesion and Tension.
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Mar 14, 2024 21:36
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A Sneaker Broker posted:The progression of Oathbringer is all over the place. Definitely lesser of a read than Words of Radiance, but it's still very good. Mods?? Ojjeorago posted:Nah he doesn't have Progression, he has Adhesion and Tension. lol
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Mar 14, 2024 21:37
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Louisgod posted:Mods?? Ban this mofo I've upset the Sando Bros. Uh oh
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Mar 14, 2024 21:38
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I mean, on the one hand, Words of Radiance is probably the most consistently awesome Stormlight book. Everything just flows. It's probably my favorite of the Stormlight books, even if most of my favorite scenes are in Oathbringer.
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Mar 14, 2024 21:43
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ConfusedUs posted:I mean, on the one hand, Words of Radiance is probably the most consistently awesome Stormlight book. Everything just flows. It's probably my favorite of the Stormlight books, even if most of my favorite scenes are in Oathbringer. The flow of WoR is so good with so many good scenes. I'm about 46% done with Oathbringer, hoping to finish by next friday.
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Mar 14, 2024 21:44
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I'm mostly joking though Oathbringer definitely is a big buildup with lots of background leading up to the end. I think my mind has blocked out everything leading up to the end.
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Mar 14, 2024 21:47
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Narsham posted:Warbreaker spoilers: One issue with this sort of usage of breath (at least at the time of the story) is most people don't know how to do anything to give away all of their Breath at once, which makes the economics of it weird. Obviously this isn't a true limitation, and you've already seen that in the story, but presumably very few people experiment with awakening because they don't have the breath to do so. Now it's possible there are other commands that might make this easier (honestly I forget if Brandon has said anything about that), but the common knowledge at this point in the timeline is only how to give away your Breath. So even if you have a hoard of Breath, you'd also have to be an Awakener to have some knowledge of how to safely subdivide it. Money is only useful if you can spend it!
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Mar 14, 2024 21:54
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I finished Warbreaker. Warbreaker spoilers follow.DarkHorse posted:This brought up an idea (Narsham do not read) I suspect so, as the priests would have known about "mental commands" and couldn't be 100% certain that Siri didn't have some secret knowledge to share. But more likely, they're just worried in general that the God-King might try something and get lucky. (The "mental commands" thing was a not-deducible development, but fair dues for both how Vasher won his duels and for the identity of the lead plotter/sort-of-villain.) I did wonder as well whether this level of Heightening implies some degree of leakage into objects exposed to the aura for an extended period of time. I'm thinking more of leaking Biochroma than Breaths: I am very curious whether white clothing made to shimmer in colors while in the God-King's aura can have those colors drained. Is it a mirage, or does it count? For the eventual sequel, it occurs to me that Viv doesn't know about the heritage of her family. She may be falling for a distant ancestor. The real question is how Vasher feels about that. I am reading through the annotations now and I am inordinately proud of intuiting that Clod is Arsteel's corpse. Nightblood implies that sentient objects/people who are Awakened need a constant supply of Breaths to keep going, but it isn't clear whether it eats everyone's Breaths or tears them apart and sends them back to the Spiritual Realm in tatters. I suppose it might be both. I do wonder whether Awakening steel has implications beyond the world of this story (and I'm thinking Mistborn-type implications). Edit: I had one other thought about SA based on something about Warbreaker: Vasher appearing in the prologue and turning out to be the title character knocked something loose in my brain and made me consider Szeth again. His father sounds like he might have been either a leader or high priest or a king, and I expect that will be revealed in Book 5. Narsham fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Mar 16, 2024 |
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Mar 16, 2024 00:45
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Narsham posted:I do wonder whether Awakening steel has implications beyond the world of this story (and I'm thinking Mistborn-type implications).
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Mar 16, 2024 00:50
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I should probably read Warbreaker again, that book was great Also, Brandon is about to do a livestream to sell his plushies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEKItjN7FQk Edit: They want to have the plushies at Dragonsteel Con, but they aren't sure how things will work out Not all the plushies shown were finalized, the some are even the wrong color right now Next Thursday is a reading of a few chapters of the next Secret Project pik_d fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Mar 16, 2024 |
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Mar 16, 2024 00:55
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Narsham posted:
On Nightblood: based on Sanderson's more Mormon sourced concept of the soul, and WoB's, as I like to phase it it is more a "Go straight to the Spiritual Realm. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200". Severing all connections to cognitive shadows and backup plans and cosmic forces
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Mar 16, 2024 02:57
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M_Gargantua posted:On Nightblood: based on Sanderson's more Mormon sourced concept of the soul, and WoB's, as I like to phase it it is more a "Go straight to the Spiritual Realm. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200". Severing all connections to cognitive shadows and backup plans and cosmic forces Don't forget the key part that Nightblood drains the investiture when severing those connections. Thus in some cases quite literally ripping the soul apart again. Kelsier would not have a good day with Nightblood.
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Mar 17, 2024 16:46
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Rofl. Oathbringer is the most “video game in book form”
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Mar 18, 2024 21:58
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I would like to know more!
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Mar 18, 2024 22:00
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I'm still early (mid-part 1) of Oathbringer, but the whole setup right now feels like something ripped right out of an open-world RPG. - We have our base of operations. - There is the potential for 10 fast travel points linked to our base of operations. - The only fast travel point we have unlocked so far is the one we used to enter. - We can unlock more fast travel points by manually traveling to each destination and completing a questline in each location to earn the favor of the people and unlock permanent fast travel there. - We can't face the big bad until we deal with his sub-boss "Champion" first. - The sub-boss also has 9 lieutenants that we should hunt down and eliminate in hopes to weaken him. That's just a video game!
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Mar 18, 2024 22:51
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Don't forget the character classes that cover the MMORPG holy trinity
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Mar 18, 2024 23:00
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acumen posted:Don't forget the character classes that cover the MMORPG holy trinity Rofl. Yeah. Don't even get me started on the Radiants and "leveling up" Also - I'm not talking about this stuff as a negative. I loving love this poo poo.
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Mar 18, 2024 23:02
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acumen posted:Don't forget the character classes that cover the MMORPG holy trinity nice guys and all but I gotta keep up with the double Windrunner/Edgedancer meta, we're trying to world-first Odium
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Mar 18, 2024 23:20
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I heard they're nerfing Bondsmiths for being too OP in 5.0.
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Mar 18, 2024 23:29
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