Fynn
is an EoFF Hero and/or Heroine
Radical Dreamer

Part of me just feels like it's a wasted investment if I don't use it. I hate being wasteful.

Part of my jump back into my other media is to mine it for future ideas. I'm kind of stuck in that element where I'm only thinking about two to three story ideas at the moment despite having plenty of other projects I could work on. I like keeping new ideas flowing cause even if I can't give it any real love at the moment, a lot of my story ideas are born from an idea I wrote down once upon a time.

The other issue is that it's been pretty stressful and I'm pulling out all of my comedies to get my mood back into shape. Just marathon Morel Orel's first season and forgot how deliciously dark humored it was.

Not quite, other project ideas for the moment. That and I have a movie/tv series backlog that's gotten out of control.

C'est la vie for the story contest.

We'll see how I feel. Part of me is also thinking of just stepping away from gaming for awhile as well.

Sorry to hear that, it's been a hectic couple of weeks for me and I've been dealing with family so I haven't even had time to look at the thread or even think of a story idea.

Outside of a Quantity over Quality issue, DS2 surprisingly doesn't feel that different from DS1 actually. I think fans are just trying to come up with reasons to bitch cause lord knows the DS community is filled to the brim with "only the first one was good" mentality. Not everyone of course. Looking at DS3 in action on youtube, I would almost say it's safe to say the game is primarily made up of unused areas from Blooborne. The art direction and enemy types feel eerily similar and the combat seems way flashier than the more traditional games. We'll see.

I can see the appeal of playing something short. My top choices besides DS3 are The Last Guardian and Fallout 4, and frankly a shorter experience is nudging TLG towards my playlist more at the moment. Maybe a different genre will do you good.

Yeah, but XII is like the ideal console "open world" in which it doesn't bog you down as much with dumb quests and the zones are reasonable in size. Helping is the fact the game lets you speed up the time which actually makes the game go by faster.

The really bad thing about my choice is that I kind of want to play Bloodborne or Demon's Souls again...

Yes and no. No, because we're not burnt out because the games are too long, yes because we're older now and can afford more games so we have to budget our times better.

To be fair to DS2, I'm like 98% done with everything in the game, and the few pieces of loot and gear I would still like to have either involve jumping into NG+ or using an item to make the levels act like NG+, but that also means that when I get into NG+ the areas I used the item in will be NG++. As it stands, I only need to finish the final DLC, beat two optional bosses I'm likely way overleveled for since their part of the vanilla game and not the harder DLC, and beat the two final bosses. One of which I've actually beaten multiple times now due to how co-op works in these games. So yeah, there isn't a whole lot left to do outside of completing covenant stuff and at this point it will be easier to do so in NG+.

My real debate at the moment is whether I want to jump straight in Dark Souls 3 after this or go back to an older PS4/3 game I've been putting off. Hell, I still need to finish Tactics Ogre.

Yeah, I'm getting to the burnout point in DS2 right now as well.

Before I start, I honestly don't think there is a real bad combo in this game for the classes. Most of them are very well balanced so any combination should cover most bases.

I'd honestly give White Mage to Knight if you're looking for great damage. Excalibur is ridiculously powerful in this game and getting access to White Robes is not a bad idea. It's the main reason why I don't like the idea of Bushi and Knight together cause both the Excalibur and Masemune are overpowered weapons in this game and giving them to the same character means they'll only ever be using one over the other when it's more advantageous to have both on the field when needed. The only concern I have with a Knight/White Mage combo is that you'll essentially give all the high end buff spells like Protectga and Shellga to one class, but considering I rarely used those abilities until the very end of the game, it's not as bad as you would think, but I might change my mind with Trial Mode.

Honestly, Bushi is Ashe's best class cause unlike Basch, she has naturally good strength and magic stats, meaning she will get more out of the weapona than Basch will since he'll have to rely heavily on magic boosting gear to get the same effect, whereas Ashe can gain enough strength/magic boosting options with the Bushi/Time Battlemage combo. Ashe was kind of my MVP in my file.

I don't really recommend Vaan's class choices since that's what I gave him. Largely cause getting weapons for both Foebreaker and Shikari in the early game is rough. Going back to my issues with Foebreaker, while the class is great in mid-game and grants a long range option with the Bombs, the weapons eventually become unreliable and having a shield doesn't matter as much by end game so the Ninja blades do compliment this class really well at that point. Shikari is great for Vaan due to his great speed stat though. Vaan ended up being the character I was the least satisfied with but also the necessary evil as well cause both Shikari and Foebreaker lack any real synergy with the other classes.

As for Machinist, I should warn you that the class primarily uses guns as it's weapons (Measures are the other weapons it uses and they're useless) and Skills, though it is possible to open up Black Mage spells with the class using Espers and Quickenings which will go well with the magic boosting licenses offered by the mage class, yet you'll still be making Balthier a primarily long range fighter, and he may wind up being more fragile and less versatile than you think. Due to the low difficulty, White Mage really doesn't start to pull its own weight in the party until you reach Archades and even then it's primarily with the Mark Hunts and Espers. Not helping is how stupidly well-balanced Red Battlemage is and can easily carry a team as the primary healer for most of the game.

I feel the Knight/Bushi combos is a poor choice actually since both classes perform a similar function of being heavy hitting classes. Not to mention that Katanas use Magic with their damage formula and it's the Knight s lone weakness. Yeah, you get the highest strength build and you can make the class a one man army if you're willing to give them a majority of the espers but i feel it;s a disservice to the rest of the party. Making Penleo a Black/White Mage combo was probably not ideal either since it drops variety for her. My biggest suggestion is to make sure you don't make a class double dip. Having three melee gods (Knight, Ulhan, Bushi) you can play all at once is pretty powerful, similarly, three mage classes you can play at once is also nice for certain Mark Hunts.

For the most part, all of the classes are nice with the exception of Foebreaker which is just an awkward class. I will say that White Mage doesn't shine until the second half of the game, so don't be afraid to make it a secondary class choice instead of a starter class, the Ninja/Thief class is also better as a secondary class since the weapons for the class don't start becoming available until Ashe joins the party. Also, the characters stats have been altered with Vaan getting nerfed and Ashe and Fran getting beefed up, so there is also that to consider.