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「脱出」 (Dasshutsu)
“Escape”
Nyanta joins the party, followed by a ferocious battle to make their escape.
Dangerous Friends List
It’s often said that information is power – and as a marketer I can tell you this is unequivocally true – but this episode threw the matter into stark relief with a function of MMOs that we all take for granted: the friends list. It’s no stretch of the imagination to say knowing where your friends are and instantly being able to communicate with them is a powerful ability, but I never considered what mischief could be wrought with it because, well, you can usually just un-friend people, or at least those aiming to PK you are on the other side, in modern MMOs at least. This is based on older MMOs though, so it’s very realistic now that the cost-benefit analysis of PKing has been flipped on its head. I appreciate that they’re re-imagining how MMO functions would truly effect a world like this.
Chief Nyanta is a Badass
Chivalrous, paternal, responsible, insists on RPing a were-cat’s nyan~s even when he doesn’t have to…I didn’t expect the furry character to be as awesome as this, nor did I expect Shiroe to call him “Chief”. What’s that about, I wonder? It probably comes from Nyanta being a sempai in the Debauchery Tea Party, though I’m sure the reason will be revealed shortly. I must say though, my favorite characteristic of Nyanta’s (other than his cat-speak) has to be his quiet, adult confidence. He was confident in Shiroe, confident for Serara, and confident he could beat Demikas without a doubt…I just can’t help but like a guy like that. That and his style. The guy has style for days.
Explaining the Mechanics
Explaining things during combat is tricky because it risks arresting the action with too much talking – the combat version of explaining the joke, basically. I think it works relatively well in this show though, since all the character’s abilities are based on an artificially created system that we wouldn’t necessarily be able to intuit on our own. Maybe we could guess that Monks attack quickly (though not necessarily the low cooldown), and the green aura did a good job of conveying that Serara’s Druid heals are HoTs (heal over time), but it would have been hard to easily portrayed the debuffing aspects of Nyanta’s attacks without putting debuff markers over Demikas’ head…and then they would have had to explain what those meant anyway. The path they took worked well.
Related: Swashbuckler is the perfect class for Nyanta. Not only does it have all that style, but being fast and having those team-helping debuffs on his attacks fits him perfectly nyaa~.
Team Shiroe vs Team Demi-glace
It’s one of the oldest tricks in the book, goading the power-mad antagonist into a 1v1 by pissing him off, but I enjoyed Shiroe’s rendition. Getting his name wrong was an especially nice touch, if only because it’s a favored tactic of mine. There was also a really nice moment when Shiroe finally started to act, not to mention a cool “Aha!” moment when Akatsuki realized that Nyanta and Shiroe rode the Thorn Bind Hostage recast time to get a crippling 9K+ attack flurry that took out Demikas before his healers could react.
What I don’t understand is why it took so long for Shiroe to act. He let Naotsugu and Nyanta get beat the hell up and encouraged Serara to repeatedly heal them (despite being over 70 levels lower) when there was no visible reason why he couldn’t have acted sooner. It raised the tension, but I prefer tension flow naturally, and this wasn’t as natural as previous battles. The only reason I can really think of was that Akatsuki wasn’t in position to assassinate all the casters, but if so then some indication would have been appreciated, such as a cutaway to her dashing out of the city or something. Either that or – and this is far more likely – the battle was intended to be a lot faster but they wanted to end the episode on the most natural high point, and there just wasn’t enough material to stretch it out without pacing problems arising. If that’s the case I would have preferred a little anime original material to flesh out the battle by a minute or two, like showing Shiroe cast more than just the one spell. Just an idea.
Akatsuki’s Worries
Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Nyanta’s teamwork borders on the prescient. I’m all for really good teamwork not requiring a great deal of coordination – I’ve been a part of that when I’ve gamed with some of my friends in the past – but combined with the oddly strung out pacing of the battle it ended up edging into unrealistic.
Which is why I’m conflicted over Akatsuki’s own conflicted feelings about never being able to coordinate like those three can. First of all, bullshit – if they can do it, you’ll be able to do it after fighting with them more, Akatsuki. Past that though, their level of coordination was so high that I’d be surprised if anyone could ever reach that, including them. What I really liked was that Akatsuki is so concerned about being a good member of the team. She once said that Assassins traveled alone, but she’s really invested in this team now. She’s not going anywhere.
Looking Ahead – A Shocking Secret
It’s the food, isn’t it? I’m almost certain that’s what the shocking secret is, that Nyanta knows how to make food taste like actual food, but I got a laugh out of realizing that, and I’m sure the character’s reactions will be fun to see. A slower-paced episode…it’ll be interesting to see how they make good plot use of that. There’s a lot that still needs mulling over, so I’m sure they will.
tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – Demikas goes down, Serara escapes, and Nyanta joins the party. Back to Akiba we go! #loghorizon 04
Random thoughts:
- I just realized…with the Half Gaia Project, does that mean each player only gets to visit a small part of the game world? That’s lame! There are probably some good dungeons over in Elder Tales Europa or Britannia or whatever they call the other continents.
- I’m surprised that such powerful skills like Sneak and Silent Move are found in a secondary class rather than Assassin proper. Either way, Akatsuki was smart to take them. I’d think they’re practically required for an Assassin to get in those clutch opener backstabs.
- Too much roleplaying, Nyanta. Also, back off, Shiroe is Akatsuki’s.
- Technically, I’m pretty sure a rapier would snap like a twig on Demikas’ armor, but hey, fantasy RPG logic, amirite?
- Even Serara’s healing abilities are adorable.
- Naotsugu’s tank abilities have such a wonderfully visceral feeling. Anchor Howl, Castle of Stone, boo-yah! Chills every time.
- Boo yah, Serara got the killing blow! That oughta be worth a level or two, right? Which would make her 21 in a party of 90’s. So still useless, for now.
- Obligatory Akatsuki being kawaii moment. D’aaawww!
Check out my blog about storytelling and the fantasy novel I’m writing at stiltsoutloud.com. The last four posts: I’ve never regretted any of them, Great stories make you stop…and just feel, The subtle sexism of not killing female characters, and It’s all about the characters.
Preview
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that was a great KS from…….Serara! she’s so cute, no wonder everyone was looking for her.
So…. Demikas is a lolicon?
He’s more of a Mafia boss that wants everything.
He wishes to be served by a loli meido. Nothing wrong with that.
There is nothing wrong with a girl volunteering to be your meido, everything wrong with forcing girl to be your meido (and/or anything else).
I seriously love this show.
That said, I did not need to hear a third explanation of Thorn Bind Hostage and the Monk classes should have been explained before the battle.
Yeah, this was easily the weakest episode so far for me. That isn’t much of a complaint, as I still love this show, but the pacing was a bit weird. The strategy didn’t seem quite as logical and the explanations were a little too on the nose.
I’m going to be glad when we’ve gotten all the class explanations so that hopefully we can leave that behind. I love the little game-nods, but they can be obtrusive.
And yeah, let’s finish explaining Thorn Bind Hostage. It’s Shiroe’s main spell, we’ve all seen it a bunch of times already in only 4 episodes. It’s a cool spell, but we’ve got it now, thank you.
Thorn bind hostage seems to be a really OP skill. A 15 second root that also does heavy damage? And I thought 10 second no damage roots were already super OP in Aion.
Also 15 second CD for a root skill is super OP. IMO Shiroe needs to throw in more debuffs than simply thorn bind hostage. Slow, stun, blind, fear anything.
This is something the author clarified. Thorn Bind Hostage isn’t a root effect despite what you see in the anime. Shiroe actually combines it with Astral Bind.
That makes more sense. Either way I love the spell. And i’m fine with a fictional game I’ll never play having not perfect balance for the sake of the story.
I’m loving this anime and it’s making me see support classes totally differently, but I still think I get Thorn Bind Hostage pretty well now, start explaining Chaos Sphere or something.
Agreed. Mostly I just want Shiroe to use more than one or two spells. Supports aren’t the most exciting classes around, which is probably why they’re focusing so much attention on one of his spells that directly influences damage (as opposed to debuffs and slows, which are more circumspect), but I’d hate for him to be a one-note combatant. More variety imo!
Well, Scoundrel/Operative in SWTOR has NO CD 8 seconds sleep, that can be used from stealth without breaking it, another 8 second sleep with AOE for up to 5 targets, and 4 seconds stun melee attack. On top of that they can recloak after delivering all those sleeps/stuns. I’ve held a PVP warzone “capture” node for almost minute solo against 5 republic players more than once with my operative.
BTW almost feel compelled to create Jedi Guardian Naotsugu, and Scoundrel Akatsuki – complete with dirty kick (said melee 4 second stun, animated as kick in… where it pains) from Akatsuki to Naotsugu! Nyanta would be perfect as Cathar (resident cat-people of the SW) Jedi sentinel (dual wielding lightsaber melee class).
At first I thought maybe the cat would end up being the secret leader of the PK guild (guess I have been watching too much anime). Was very pleased to find out he was a good guy!
He was pretty clearly shown in the OP to be one of the Tea Party Members so I would have been pretty shocked if he ended up being bad.
What Spike said. They haven’t been subtle about his role, either in the OP, the ED, or in the show proper. He’s pure protagonists through and through.
Am I the only one thinking of Baron from The Cat Returns? Composed, cool and total badass in a fight!
In the previous episode, during the DTP flashback you can see all the previous members, including one whose head is out of frame, but the clothes match Nyanta’s.
Every time that shiroe face darkens it means BAD ASS TIME.
once the rape face is out, prepare your anus
I hope Jouji Nakata is having a ball mixing in all those Nya’s.
Nothing like being a lowbie healer frantically trying to keep up with what would be an easy task for a high level healer. Supposedly Show Spoiler ▼
So it was to make Team Shiroe look desperate while Akatsuki assassinated the squishies? Makes sense!
Show Spoiler ▼
I thought so too at first, but I think that “everyone” was meant only for team Shiroe. Serara’s question about “everyone” indicated her confusion about who else to heal since it was only Nyanta that was fighting – Naotsugu had not yet shown up. Shiroe had anticipated that when Nyanta started to gain the upper hand, Demikas would call for help, thus signaling the right time for Naotsugu to show up and Anchor Howl the enemy melee group.
When Serara cast her first healing spell, the green aura effect was only indicated on Nyanta and Naotsugu. The players attacking Naotsugu had no healing aura indicated and Demikas had a definite blue color aura.
Serara only healing Nyanta and Naotsugu is further supported by the dialogue in which she indicates her level is not enough, Shiroe specifically instructs her to not worry about Naotsugu and focus on Nyanta.
With regards as to why Shiroe did not cast anything until the first Thorn Bind Hostage, I think it had to do with achieving shock and awe. It seemed to me that he was deliberately hiding his class until the key moment which was after all the enemy melee were under the effect of Anchor Howl, and the enemy healing team had cast their foremost healing spells (triggering their cooldowns) in support of Demikas.
Then with Demikas just recently healed, Nyanta and Shiroe coordinate their attack – seemingly wiping out Demikas’ hp in an instant – leaving all of team Demikas in shock, subsequently perfect timing for Akatsuki to eliminate all mages and healers. This still left up to 8 (that I counted) left to fight but by that point their morale was crushed.
I think Shiroe was trying to mitigate the risk of having to fight through all of team Demikas by going with this tactic. Kill off the guild leader, second in command, and the entire healing team in quick succession – the rest of the opposing force will lose the will to fight. I suspect that had Londark actually knew the Shiroe was specifically an enchanter, he would have ordered a direct attack on Shiroe the moment it was no longer a simple duel.
Show Spoiler ▼
@ RifuloftheWest
I think the reason Shiroe didn’t attack for so long was partially what you said, partially not wanting to draw attention to himself until he could help Nyanta combo Demikas down, and mainly because the studio was trying to stretch out a quick battle. Primarily that last thing, lol
@ Xacual
I wish they would have put all that in :X Would have made the battle flow better. Less “cinematic”, but more messy and real.
@xacual
That’s what I had a feeling was going on. It’s unfortunate that the anime studio dropped the ball a bit depicting that. At least the correct healing auras.
Because that was my immediate thought at Shiroe’s order, but then the aura’s didn’t back that up and it came off as nothing happening for no real reason. It’s unfortunate because like I’ve said, I love this anime, easily my favorite this season, but that was a clear case of the studio dropping the ball.
@ Xacual:
Thanks for the insight. It does make more sense that way and I totally agree with Stilts – I wish the anime had depicted what you described. Definitely would have made the battle flow much better.
@ KaleRylan:
Completely agree about the studio dropping the ball with not properly depicting the healing auras. That was my main evidence too lol.
Manga (and presumably LN) depiction of the fight:
http://i.imgur.com/Yo37G3f.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/GFC0Uc8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/s2mg1VW.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rAC0Ezz.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZjkSmH6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/cDaguM3.jpg
I thought that maybe if there’s an AoE heal going on, you can’t stack other heals on top of it. As in you can’t have 3 people healing the same person at the same time. 3 people healing on a rotation sure, but not instantly together.
So he effectively freezes everyone’s health, and removes stronger healers from the fight. Assuming Chief could fight off his opponent and win without needing a heal of his own.
This would be so embarassing: being a Lv.90 warrior monk and then being clubbed to death by a Lv.19 druid.
did he drop some of his Gear? then he has a Problem… or not, perhaps he collectet so many Top Loot, that his Gear Pain is not that big
Although in alot of cases, when a lvl.19 tries to hit a lvl.90, you’d get a “Miss!” emote instead XD
Well even with level difference you can get a hit once in while. Add that Nyanta already landed a ton of debuffs with his attacks including evasion and defense down.
On a normal MMORPG that is true. But on Elder Tale, you need to manually avoid in order for the enemy to “miss”.
If Serara killed off Demikas then she should get a ton of experience, right?.
That depends on whether or not you actually get XP for PKing.
Yeah. Getting XP for PVP is something that’s not always done. I think WoW added it in one or two expansions back because battlegrounds PVP’ers wanted a way to level that wasn’t PvE focused. Before that, the primary reason to PvP was to earn currency to buy PvP specific gear.
Also, most MMO’s now normalize experience gained as a percentage of the experience you need to get to the next level unlike, say, Shin Megami Tensei where you get a huge chunk of XP for killing something level 70 so all the low level stuff you have in your pool jumps 5 levels . This way you don’t really get much more for killing something much higher level than you to prevent people from just partying up with a 90 and speed levelling off it hauling you to an upper zone and killing everything for you. In some cases, even if partied your share of the the XP is also decreased based on your share of the damage to the target. “Spash” XP generally now works best in dungeon runs where you get much more because the XP awarded/monster is split fewer ways when you pair up duo than if you go in with 5 people or if you can find someplace with a stupid fast spawn rate that allows you to “tag” and kill things non-stop.
Interestingly, given current trends, Log Horizon also doesn’t appear to incorporate a level scaling/sidekick system either.
@ Dave
Remember, Elder Tales is NOT a modern MMO, it’s a late 90’s / early 2000’s one, ala Dark Age of Camelot and Everquest 1. From that era it’s entirely reasonable to expect Serara’s exp to jump up a few levels from killing a Lv 90 mob, and for there to be no experience gain whatsoever from PvP. I was mainly just joking that, even if she did jump a few levels, she’d still be useless in combat for the foreseeable future, lol
They could still totally power level Serara though. Mind you, it would be easier if she (the Druid) was power leveling someone else…that’s what I played in EQ1, and I could power level characters 10+ levels of more in an hour, most of which was pulling or travel time, lol
I hope we do get to see some of that with Serara. It’s neat that everyone is a badass level cap character, and it’s fun to have a low-level character along for the ride, but this also opens up some fun story possibilities of getting to see her develop into a top-notch healer (which will also help their party a lot if she stays around or meets up later or whatever).
@ KaleRylan:
I’m so with you on having Serara along for the ride. Some of my favorite experiences in mmos involved partying with a lower level player. Helping them with quests, teaching them the ins and outs of the game, and reliving the thrill of leveling up through them.
Which brings up an interesting way to utilize Serara – since she is relatively new to the game, she can act as a proxy for the audience when it comes to further explaining how things work in the world of Elder Tales. Plus Serara is just too cute. She can be the Debauchery Tea Party mascot type character.
EQ1 had a “power level EXP” Cap. So if some High Level Group would beat a High Mob down to 1 HP, and the Low Level would kill it, He receive just a “capped” Amount of Exp… I myself had experience it. when i was Power leveling my Cleric at that time
I’m thinking the same thing. She should’ve leveled up on more than one level.
If there is XP to gain from killing Demikas, it would have been little because of Level difference. Games prevent XP from PK so people won’t go abusing this by just PKing a bot or their Alts or their friends.
Also Serara only did 1 out of 15k hp worth of damage. If exp was spread among the group for damage done, then Shiroe and Nyanta would have monopolized all of the exp.
Well, at last She was not Crying on her Knees, and “whine” about losing her Special Attack, even if there was many normal Attacks to finish the Enemy off…
*Accel World and the Ripped Wings*
I guess technically she didn’t kill him, but rather Shiroe did due to his Bind Thorn Hostage.
Does the party get anything from essentially PKing Demikas? Can’t they just camp him and get all his gear? o.0
But then, he’d refuse to go outside the town.
He’s a totally different class and role than all of them, so presumably his gear serves no real purpose for them. They also don’t seem to care much for taking items off of killed players.
Plus it’s heavily implied their stuff is really good. Or at least some of it, and it wouldn’t make a ton of sense for them to be using crap gear and legendary trinkets.
There is usualy some items that are useable by everyone, like rings, necklace etc. But it should be some limit of what can be looted as if you can loot everything from someone you kill, then that makes it rather difficult to accumulate gear. In EQ so could you either loot money or money plus 1 item on the pvp servers.
@TheMoondoggie:
That’s part of the point, though. Keep the mad dog caged or get him to fear the party since it’s clear that reason won’t work with him.
@KaleRyan:
He’d become a level 90 with zero gear; much less of a threat both to our OP party and everyone else.
You’re right, doing this wouldn’t have been a bad idea. But in the long run I don’t think it would have made much of a difference.
Gear can be replaced. And he actually ISN’T all that much of a threat to them. Plus, as far as Susukino goes, Shiroe threatened that if they didn’t stop, Akihabara would send forces to deal with them. Which I love, it’s so political. And it establishes Akihabara as a bit of a super-power. Which is just neat and real-world-y.
I’m honestly curious how the anime is going to address players like Demikas. There is no fear of death so, technically, anyone can do anything they want. Until there is a fate worse than death (in this case, maybe losing gear or levels), then PKers can just keep respawning and attacking other players. And even if war did come between Akihabara and Susukino, both sides can just respawn and fight each other indefinitely– or at least, until one side’s will crumbles.
They cant Camp his Corpse, because there is no one. He is gone with a “Puff” in Money and Jewels Animation. Perhaps they get some Random Gear Drop into their Inventory, like i saw it at the Mid Dungeon Boss
i just dont know it sooner either, because we saw only Mobs or NPC explosions. No PK Corpses. But Demikas said, “Get sure to take his gear!”, when he kills one of his Guild… Wonder how they make it then.. Perhaps a Flaw
Very intense fight, love every moment of it and just like in episode 2, I was impressed by how the technical expositions were inserted without hindering the flow of the battle. It was satisfying seeing someone like Demikas getting his ass kicked.
After this episode, I think I began to understand what makes Debauchery Tea Party a legendary raid party. Compare to larger guilds, they are smaller in number, but they are tight knit group of friends who trust one another deeply. It’s not only their individual skills and top tier equipments that makes them formidable, but their strong sense of teamwork and coordination is what makes them able to surpass many larger guilds such as the likes of Brigandia. Brigandia guild OTOH, may have the advantage of overwhelming manpower compared to Shiroe’s party, but lack of teamwork and the moment after their leader and second in command were taken out, the guild fail apart. Seriously, to think that the guild of that size only runs by two men? Not only that, their leader is such an arrogant d*** their defeat is bound to happen. They need to have a more organized army with sub leaders in charge of sub units to be able to function properly in large scale army.
Another thing that I find most people overlook from this battle is the intricate psychological warfare. I personally find this the most interesting aspect of this battle. Shiroe seems to be very good at it. First, he and Nyanta provoked Demikas into fighting one-on-one. Their initial objective is to reduce the guild members’ morel by taking out their commander, and latter to separate him from his main party, preventing their timely reinforcement. After Demikas started playing dirty, Shiroe improvised his plan by telling Serara to start healing and Naotsugu using his Castle of Stone. The purpose of these two actions is for creating a false sense of security and overconfidence in the minds of Demikas and Londark, tricking them into thinking their enemies were desperate. Because of this, they won’t bother targeting Shiroe and Serara which is what they should do in the first place. The final step of Shiroe’s plan is finishing off both Demikas and Londark in the twinkling of an eye. It is essential for him to execute this part of his plan in an instant so to not giving any chance for Brigandia healers to start getting their acts together and began healing their injured commanders. Naturally, with both Demikas and Londark sent off to the Cathedral, the whole army was thrown into the state of panic and disarray, giving Shiroe and co. time they need to flee via their griffins.
You see now why I said it’s better for Brigandia to have sub leaders and units to take charge in case of emergency like this where both two commanders were put out of commission.
Writing wise, I had few issues but nothing major, and I’m willing to let it slide.
Although Shiroe’s plan may have worked out this time, I still think it’s quite a reckless decision to directly engage and challenge the guild master head on. Not only it’s risky and creates unnecessary commotion, but without Nyanta, they can’t execute their plan, and more importantly, Demikas now adds Shiroe to his “Send off to the Cathedral Painfully as Possible” list. I don’t think Shiroe is the type who would want to create an enemy out of anyone especially someone like Demikas unless it can’t be helped.
Looking ahead, with how Marie is assembling the smaller guilds, maybe we’re in for some guild politics in Akiba. I can’t wait.
P.S. As a gentleman feline he probably wouldn’t mind it all that much, but still, it will be interesting to see how Nyanta takes on Marie’s Glomp of Mass Destruction. Seriously, that isn’t one of her offensive skill?
As someone who used to lead a raiding guild (back in my school days…like I have time for that anymore, lol), having two leaders is entirely reasonable, especially since there’s no indication that Brigandia is especially large. Yes they had Susukino locked down, but they could probably do that with 40 people + a lot of fear, which compared to that era of MMOs isn’t even a full raid party (I was in 80-120+ people raids in EQ1). And if they only had 40-50 people, two people could easily control them. Officers can be more trouble than they’re worth.
As for the psychological warfare, I did indeed enjoy that, but I think you overstate the value of their leaders and understate the value of their most powerful combatants + all their healers. Sure the other eight could have gone hard and tried to take down Team Shiroe, but without healers and with Akatsuki just backstabbing five in one go, it would have been very brave indeed. A smart officer would have called them off, though any officer in Demikas’ guild probably wouldn’t be smart, lol. In which case they’d be Akatsuki’s next target.
I agree with this, but I also think it’s important to remember that for all the game mechanics presented here, there are also real-world factors at play now.
Shock and awe would be a hard factor to use in a monitor-based MMO. No matter how epic the battle, it’s still small and the camera is pulled back and characters are just sort of running at each other.
Once you’re dealing with the ‘real’ world though, things change. Seeing someone who clearly ruled his guild through force and force of personality taken out so quickly would have a devastating effect on morale. I’m going to be interested to see how far they take that. Shiroe is clearly a brilliant strategist in the game, but are we now seeing that he is able to alter his strategies to the new real-world situation they find themselves in?
Because that’s really cool.
If anything so is the entire point behind having a leader that you have ONE person in charge and thus avoid squables about what to do. Thus while you may have more then one guild officer, so will they have distinct roles or take turns to lead raids etc.
EQ was a bit diffrent and there you could actually have people in charge of groups of people during a raid, ie one person in charge of the heal rotation another of the tanks etc. But as there was no max number of people for EQ raids so could there be lots of people there.
Yes, just like what KaleRylan said. @Stilts, you also seem to overstate the importance of gaming concept without taking into account of real life factors now present in the game. Likewise, Brigandia still see this world as just a game and only think in terms of gaming concepts without factor in real life battle tactics and strategies. First off, managing a large guild army in real world POV is much more difficult compared to simply doing it through computer screens with how the range of vision is limited as seen in episode 1 where Shiroe got caught by Trified. Shiroe OTOH, learns to adapt and combine both gaming and real life concept into his plan. For instance, using Akatsuki’s tracker skill to exploit blindspots of opponents’ mages/healers and there is the psychological warfare I mentioned earlier. These tactics wouldn’t be as effective in regular non-VR MMO.
In Elder Tale post-apocalypse world, I think it is important for one to think of battles in terms of both a gamer and a real life soldier to ensure their victory. I think those who watch Log Horizon should also keep this in mind as well.
Oh, I don’t discount the effects of morale and other things, I just don’t have as much faith in officers as you guys. Like I said, I was a raiding guild leader, and I had nearly all of them crap out on me at one point or another. Just not a lot of faith there, lol
Besides, while taking down Demikas with overwhelming force served that purpose, it also served the purpose of making sure he couldn’t get away (because he wouldn’t run until he was low…maybe) and couldn’t be healed in case Akatsuki didn’t take out all the healers.
Basically, it’s both.
Our “Raidleader” learning School Guild, was a bit Different build
let me Explain:
Of course, we had a real Guild leader, but many Veterans Raid leader or Channel Commanders (in Military you could say, many Class Captains)
But, in our Guild, experienced Players, that wanted to lead a Raid, need 1st to collect Data and tactics. Of course we were proud to help out. But he had done the Work.
If in some case, he dont know, or some infos was not correct. Our Veterans Raid leader, corrected him. But mostly the “Newbie” lead the Raid
If the Raid seems like to go Wrong aka WIPE INC!.. And if the Raid leader could not handle it, then many “Channel commanders” (Class Leaders, aka Cleric, Chanters, Tanks and so on) overtake the command, and fight the threat, until all is save again. If all is set, the Raid get lick his Wounds, and the “Newbie” Raid leader was again in command
in short, the veterans was always there for backup, and Emergency action. And the best thing was, only for Raids this Status was active, in free time the veterans Raid leader and Channel Commanders, was just a Member like you and me (of course they where Senpai)
Ah yes, this Wonderful times. At that time my wisdom of lead a Raid was born. Later on, i learn to lead a PK Raid…
Tip: Just have faith in the Experience of the veterans, they know their “thing”
My mostly said word in TS “Attack enemy, an do your thing!”
If you are about to Enage a PK Battlefield…
Targets are..
1) Healers (1.Clerics, 2.Druids, 3.others)
2) Enchanters (cause of Sleep, Manaregen)
3) Mages or Wizards with Wide range Damage (because Arty on 2 feets, with Large Dmg circles= Many Deaths)
4) all other Class that can Attack more then 1 Enemy at Time
5) Tanks and so on, because they could only Attack 1 Enemy at time
They left this out of the anime but the main reason Shiroe and Co. had been stalling was so that Akatsuki could take out all the magic users hiding in the woods.
They also left out the part where it Akatsuki cut off the elf mage’s hand and dragged him over to Shiroe so he could decapitate him. I know that has nothing to do with the stalling but it was such a badass moment I had to mention it.
So while we bask into the stereotypical dumb bandits group(I say dumb because they would have won had Demikas just ignored Kitty and sent Serara into the cathedral.) We get to learn more about the game and some skills.
>Demikas being dumb and start spamming skills
>Kitty being bait
>Shiroe spamming skills
>guild mooks being stupid(they could have ignored Stone Castle, Anchor Howl would have lost effect by then)
>Serara being moe
Anyway it was a good fight. It’s just that the opponents were noobs.
Also remember that pic with the classes and we saw a subclass called “Prostitute”, well it’s a mistranslation: I could also translate as “Courtesan”.
Yeah the author clarified that while it could be Prostitute the idea of the subclass is much closer to a high class courtesan, like one you’d see at a royal court or something.
Doesn’t matter how you translate it, both jobs still involve sucking dick. The only difference is how much you get paid to do it.
@Taiyo
That’s really not true. The traditional idea of a courtesan/geisha in Japanese culture was quite separate from a prostitute. They weren’t really supposed to have sex with their customers most of the time. They were primarily entertainers. Modern Hostess bars are a descendant of this.
Whether or not they actually DID have sex depends on what you read. Some certainly did, but I’ve seen many different reports on how common that was. And honestly, the reality of it doesn’t matter. If the author (don’t know his name) considers the subclass to be based on the Japanese IDEA of the geisha as entertainer not prostitute(whether that was true or not) then that’s what it is.
You’re misunderstanding courtesan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesan
It’s also worth noting that traditional western entertainment “classes” like, singers, actors, bards etc were often also doubling as prostitutes as there wasn’t the same stigma about that as now days. So separating Geisha from prostitute is a good idea as the main job is at least far diffrent.
Demikas wasn’t being dumb by spamming skills. They make very clear the entire class strategy of the monk is to spam skills. They have next to no cool-downs. That’s what sets them apart.
And if Demikas had just tried attacking Serara, presumably either Naotsugu would’ve defended her, Nyanta would have defended her, or Shiroe would’ve just rooted him. He was dumb for allowing himself to be pulled into a duel when he had clear numerical superiority, not because he didn’t bum-rush Serara. That would never have worked.
Even if he had succeeded, if she died before the others, they would just go to the cathedral and get her and take her out again. No, he needed to defeat her defenders or nothing else would have mattered.
Do we have any idea how long Anchor Howl lasts? YOu’re making a fairly big assumption here. Beyond that, do we know if he can just re-cast it?
And yeah, having what amounts to a ‘geisha’ as a subclass isn’t that surprising in a game with a lot of japanese vibes.
No, he wasn’t being dumb by spamming skills: he’s being dumb by biting Troll-Kitty’s bait.
Fair, but that’s just his personality. If he was an intelligent, reasonably person then this whole arc wouldn’t have happened.
Presumably there will be smart villains at some point, but Demikas is not one of them.
Skills like Anchor Howl cannot last very long because that would have been very OP. Just think: If there were two Guardians(?) there and one cast AH, if AH last very long the other one could just cast AH before the first one lose effect, and have the first guy regen HP and wait for the second AH to almost lose effect to cast his again. If ET have been played for so long it should have noticed that AH would have been OP.
I think its safe to assume that AH has less effect time than it’s cooldown. It’s much more balanced like that.
No offense, but we literally have no idea how Anchor Howl works until they tell us. I’m not assuming, and I’m not entertaining an assumption about it.
This isn’t a game. It’s a story about people trapped in a fantasy world based on a game they played. It’s presumably somewhat balanced for story purposes, but it’s not like there was a beta or something to double-check all the author’s ideas. And anyway, it doesn’t matter, we just don’t know. Any assumption you or I make about Anchor Howl is a complete assumption based on no evidence from the story itself.
Ragnarok Online’s Swordsman skill Provoke was an absolute taunt. It cannot change target no matter how much damage other players do to the one being provoked. Though, that was true until the monsters learned to use skills and the world raid bosses were at most 4 – 5 digits of hit points(somewhere around 2003). The Orc Hero and Orc Lord bosses were around 9k hp and they don’t even have mobs following them… I killed 1 using a Knight around level 65, only doing a loop of Counter Attack followed by a normal attack.
For those of us who played the MMORPGs that Elder Tales is patterned after, I think it’s safe to make assumptions on familiar mechanics up to the point where they’re explained, or at least just going by straight u logic. Yes if Anchor Howl lasted a long time it would be horribly overpowered. The weird thing is that going by the late 90’s / early 2000’s MMOs like Elder Tales, I don’t think Anchor Howl would have existed – skills like that (at least for PvP purposes) appeared much later in my own MMO gaming career. It’s a very good skill to put in for story purposes, but it doesn’t fit into the era as far as I experience it.
So I guess I invalidated my point, lol. But Anchor Howl probably lasted like 10-15 seconds when Elder Tales was a game. Now that it isn’t…well, I would assume that, but it may not be the case anymore. It lasting forever was probably more an offshoot of the pacing problem this episode more than anything else.
I think you have a right to make general assumptions. I don’t think you have a right to base analysis of the episode and tactics on the assumptions, especially down to specific cool-downs. Because they’re assumptions. You (or others who make those assumptions, which was where my first response came from) are saying the skill works this way, and then saying the opponent should’ve responded this way.
Except you don’t know if the skill works this way, you’re just assuming. Beyond that, it may have nothing to do with the fight here. Maybe Anchor Howl wasn’t even still on. Castle of Stone only lasts ten seconds. The other players may have figured they could wait the ten seconds, kill the guardian, then go help Demikas.
Remember, at this point they had the upper hand. It wasn’t until it was revealed that Akatsuki had taken out the healers and the caster (apparently more in the manga/novel) that they were in any real danger.
Anchor Howl may not have even been a factor once he got them focused on him.
You know Kyle, we assume because there is no explanation. What? So you’d like us to call Anchor Howl a plot hole instead?
We have the right to assume and decide based on our assumptions because that’s our decision to make. The show didn’t provide anything. Either it’s a plot hole or since ET may have been based on games around 2008-2010, we’ll use the mechanics of MMO skills similar to AH to give an explanation.
Frankly, I don’t even get how this is a fight. You act like I’m weird for pointing out that you’re assuming. It’s generally pretty accepted by ALL OF HUMANITY that an assumption is just an assumption.
You said that “guild mooks being stupid(they could have ignored Stone Castle, Anchor Howl would have lost effect by then).”
I pointed out that you have no idea how long Anchor Howl lasts. Because… you don’t. It doesn’t matter what you think you know. You don’t know how long Anchor Howl lasts.
My entire point was you have no idea if they’re being stupid because you don’t know how the skill works. Which is true. Done. You can assume, but you’re just assuming.
Also, one other thing. Anchor Howl IS OP. The only time we’ve seen the counter go off (in EP2), it let him, a class with low dps, one shot another player.
That’s really strong.
@Kyle
And I don’t get why you’d like to point out I was assuming. Are you THAT offended by a mere assumption?
Face it: either AH works just how I described it, or it’s an OP move that last forever or there will be no explanation for it and it’s a plot hole. Frankly I’m more convinced it works like how I describe it would because that’s the lesser of the three evils.
I case anyone was confused on what happened with Demiklas.
– Shiro applies his first Thorn Bind Hostage and waits for the cooldown to finish.
– Nyanta executes a Swashbuckler skill that is 10-hit combo each hit would proc one TBH effect.
– Shiro reapplies TBH at the EXACT moment that the fifth hit and finishes the previous TBH, thus allowing Nyanta to finish his combo with even more TBH debuff damage.
– Combined with the debuffs applied by Nyanta, this results and HUGE burst damage that not even Demiklas’ healers could keep up
Any MMO player knows that is very difficult to do. That requires ridiculous timing trying to cast a spell with a 0.22 second window. Also, Thorn Bind Hostage is broken. If Elder Tale was real, their forums would be crying for nerf of it now.
That does say one thing about Shiroe though. He’s not just a raider he’s also hardcore PVP. Burst DPS isn’t useful for raid bosses because of their large HP pools but huge burst damage is a godsend for disabling enemies in PVP. Shiroe had to at one point had to come up with strategies that make his low-dps caster viable for PVP and he certainly came up with some great ones.
He must not be a Hardcore PVPler. Perhaps he just know his Spells, and know how to use it to their Max. Of course Timing has a great Importance, and perhaps Critical Hits..
They where smart enough to weaken the Targets Def and HP. To top the Dmg, i would cast an Attack Buff on the Rapiers for more DMG. But looks like that would have been found out quickly
Perhaps the Heal over Time Glow, was there to hide this Debuffs. Nice move
And yes, this Key Scene, where the Druid dont know or has to make a “Life and Death” decision, where to heal. i experience it many time, too. But mostly the Best Aggro holding Tank would Survive. it is a split second choice after all
I just realized…with the Half Gaia Project, does that mean each player only gets to visit a small part of the game world?..
someone said that the teleporters were disabled ..
Yeah it looks like there are ways to travel between the various server areas but it’s also true that unless you travel you will be confined to just the area of the world that your server is based on.
Also it seems like you can play on whatever server you want since Show Spoiler ▼
Few things:
1. I think this would be great. Can you imagine the sense of adventure you would have? It makes a lot more sense why everyone is shocked about the things shiroe and the debauchery tea party have done. In a normal MMO, half the population of the game has done pretty much everything, so nothing is surprising. In this that proportion is MUCH smaller for any given content.
2. SInce the teleporters only turned off now, not when it was still a game, presumably the size wasn’t as big of an issue before the apocalypse. Sheer amount of content would still mean that most of them had only seen a fraction of the world, but presumably that could be a fraction of just about anywhere when there were still teleporters.
I wonder if they’ll be able to teleport to areas they’ve been to before? Perhaps no one has actually tried/succeeded in travelling from one major city to another since the “Apocalypse”, so the the option to teleport just didn’t appear?
They’ve got a return to home point teleport, which no one has said doesn’t work, it’s just useless because Serara’s home point was Susukino. They also mentioned rings, but apparently you need some kind of online table to figure out how to teleport accurately.
The gates appear to be in the cities, and are off. They’re not related to where your character has been, because they’re not related to your character. They’re like a train system, and the power is off. At least that’s how I understand it.
Good episode, not as large scale as a guild battle, but pretty close and it was awesome.
I made an analysis on how the 【combo execution】 was done. I’m not sure if this is correct. I based this on what I think just happened base on Akatsuki’s reasoning.
Ops
Revision on analysis -> 【combo execution】
Thorn Bind Hostage(TBH) is pretty OP. With an Agi-Enchanter you can get in lots of damage with just TBH and normal attacks.
In short, everyone in DTP (Debauchery Tea Party) is totally broken.
Enchanters don’t have melee and offensive magic to their disposal. They only have their overpowered offensive support skills Show Spoiler ▼
But for me who likes playing support class(not putting an ounce of STR, AGI, VIT and concentrating on all INT and not needing any MP potions) is actually fun. You can observe your party as they kill the enemy fast with your support skills is just awesome.
In flyff, I only put INT because it extends the time of the status buff. Normally buffs would give 10-20mins in that game. But with my INT at above average I would give 30mins-1hr buffs and at the same time give my part some double damage and area healing + not giving a damn of my MP dropping at all as they recover quickly because of my MAX status buffs.
I would sometimes go lazy and just leave them alone as I leech with EXP. “ψ(｀∇´)ψ
tl;dr: I just give them long lasting buff and sometimes support(heal or double damage) them while I leech some EXP in the party while I am away as they kill the enemy fast enough than the normal.
TEAM….Ahem…WORK IS THE BEST.
It is, but the conceit of this story seems to be that most players in the MMO don’t do teamwork all that well, whereas the Debauchery Tea Party, and Shiroe in particular, specialized in it.
It’s mentioned in a number of places that Enchanter isn’t a popular class because when soloing it’s mostly useless, but in normal MMOs supports are usually fairly popular because when used well, they do what Shiroe is doing in the show.
@KaleRylan
d(^_^d)
Yup! Yup!
Rather than being an overpowered solo, I would rather have an overpowered team created by my support. That way we would level up ASAP in no time and go to crazy adventure Show Spoiler ▼
.
Support classes are pretty infamous… It’s always the supports fault.
DPS being over-confident and pulling too many aggro and causing them to die. Always the support’s fault.
Tank mismanaging the mobs and letting mobs do damage to everyone and causing support’s mp to dry like an acetone, resulting to party deaths… Always the support’s fault.
Everyone not avoiding the fire!!! Still the support’s fault, GODDAMIT!!!
In the end, it’s still the support’s fault… Why the heck did I take this class anyway?
@Ungas123
Y_Y
I understand how you feel.
Enchanters are unpopular, but then again the three healer classes are supports, and there’s been no indication that they’re unpopular. I think it comes down to the difference between largely passive support (i.e. the Enchanter in Elder Tales) and active support (healers in every RPG ever). When a healer saves your life as a tank or DPS, you know, while it’s sometimes hard to know what those passive support classes are really giving you. Yes if your buffs or debuffs are super nuts it becomes obvious – like Croos’ buff example above, or Shaman slows in EQ, where we would just auto-wipe raid bosses if the Shaman couldn’t stick the slow quickly enough – but most of the time that’s not the case.
Humans will always notice the tangible and undervalue the intangible. That’s just how we are.
@Stilts:
This still just seems to be a conceit of this show. Because I think people would notice if enchanters brought along a spell as powerful as Thorn Bind Hostage. Plus the various roots we’ve seen.
I think your point about passive versus active is on the nose. People in this game want to do direct things, whether healing or hurting. secondary support, even as incredibly powerful as shiroe’s appears to be, was just not popular for whatever reason.
You have to remember, Shiroe make skill build cater solely toward Thorn Bind Hostage at the cost of a lot of other buff/debuff. Not all Enchanter have the Thorn Bind Hostage build, some of them are purely crowd-controller(debuffer), or purely buffer. There’s also one other built called Sprinkler. It’s a crazy build taking advantage of (former) limited item that have good synergy with an Enchanter attacking spell that have very fast casting speed, but very low damage. By taking advantage of the item synergy, the enchanter manage to cast that attacking skill 42 times in a minute lol. The crazy idea make even the dev teams goes 「What’s this? CRAAAAAAAZYYYYYYYYY Enchanter!!」lol
@Stilts:
I thought the same thing about sneak and silent move. They seem really powerful. But more than making me question the game’s sense of balance, they make me really want to know what skills you get from the other sub-classes.
If they’re half as awesome as those two I could see them leading to some pretty crazy build choices. Which, since for us this is a show not a game, could mean some fun character possibilities.
To be fair, Elder Tales era MMOs had a lot more…finicky balance than modern ones, to put it kindly. Some of them did a good job, but classes seemed to be more frequently broken (in a good or bad way) than in modern games…which gave them soul I think, even if it sucked when you were on the wrong end of the balance spectrum, lol
Plus Sneak and Silent Move probably weren’t nearly as useful before the game became real. They still seem like they ought to be Assassin class skills to me.
I agree on everything here.
Again though, it really just makes me wonder what the others do. If you look at that list floating around there’s stuff like ‘knight’ on there. What possible skills could knight give you? And whatever they are, it seems like they’re probably stuff that a tank/warrior would want.
This, with Akatsuki’s skills, make me think that maybe the sub-class operates more like a specialization, or a talent build, than just a crafting profession (whether the author intended it this way or not). Maybe the right sub-class really depends on how you play your class. Tracker fits akatsuki because she’s a straight back-stab ninja. But if you do a ranged assassin (as that list mentions) maybe there’s other stuff that would be better. Though tracker still just seems really powerful. Like so powerful that everyone would want it.
There’s a reason stealth is usually a class skill in games. If everyone could have it it would be pretty broken.
a week feels like a long time
It really does. I’ve already watched this episode twice, and some time around mid-week I’ll likely rewatch all four. Did I mention I really like this show? Also I recently moved countries and I’ve got wait a couple of weeks for paperwork before I can really do anything here in Japan.
We really need to count how many times Shiroe adjust his glasses!
I’m really enjoying this show. It totally brings me back to the good old days of mmos (I was an Ultima Online and FFXI vet.).
The rescue of Serara and escape from Susukino was a blast. And my god Serara is adorable. Whenever she says “Nyanta-san”…I nearly die from cuteness overload. For making Serara cry, I’m so glad that Demikas got his comeuppance!
Looking forward to see what Nyanta has to reveal. I’m with Stilts…I think it’ll be about food.
Just a note about Akatsuki’s reaction to the teamwork of the former DTP members. She doesn’t at all say “I could never do that”. What she says is more literally “That’s not possible for me as I am now”, which I would translate as “I can’t do that yet”. In other words, she knows perfectly well that she is seeing teamwork developed over long experience, but these are the people she will be working with from now on so logically she’ll have the chance to gain that same experience. And anyhow she pulled off her part in the current plan just fine, and it wasn’t so different from her role in the 2nd episode PvP battle. From an anime-viewer’s point of view it might get a little stale seeing the same battle strategy every time, but from the point of view of learning what you can expect from your party members it’s spot on.
Shiroe reminds me of Frankenstein from Soul Eater…
https://randomc.net/image/Log%20Horizon/Log%20Horizon%20-%2004%20-%20Large%2020.jpg
https://randomc.net/image/Log%20Horizon/Log%20Horizon%20-%2004%20-%20Large%2030.jpg
https://randomc.net/image/Log%20Horizon/Log%20Horizon%20-%2004%20-%20Large%2036.jpg
They both are intellectual types, have round glasses, and are scary when their glasses are shinning.
@Stilts
I’m guess how they make food taste like real food.
1.) cut veggies/fruits
2.) mix different kind veggies/fruits
3.) Marinate on meat/fish/and etc
4.) add salt to taste if needed..
Show Spoiler ▼
What Moondoggie said. I theorized as much in (I believe) last week’s post as well.
I like the show, and I certainly like the group of experienced raiders approach better than the single inexplicably game-breaking overpoweredness from SAO, but this episode fell a bit flat for me.
The combat, as mentioned, was just paced so oddly as to seem illogical. Why did Shiroe wait so long to intervene? Why bother waiting on Serara’s heals, since they were incredibly slow anyway? Why is Akatsuki able to take out 5 people in an open field without anyone calling out or realizing it?
There also seemed to be no reason for Shiroe’s confidence going in – the whole ‘plan’ seemed to be a series of more and more unlikely gambles. If Brigandia had either not agreed to an initial 1v1, attacked Serara or Shiroe (presumably Naotsugu doesn’t have enough abilities to force that many foes to attack him for such an extended period of time), gotten their mages involved before the last second, etc. the fight would have gone poorly for Shiroe and company.
I’m all for a clever main character rather than an overpowered one like Kirito, but I feel this fight seemed to be stretching that a bit, and tried to make the characters look coolly confident in a situation that was rather precarious.
Also, not really a complaint, but I’m surprised Nyanta didn’t simply try to escape earlier on with Serara, given that if he gets, say, 10 seconds to summon a gryphon they would be well out of Brigandia’s range. It wouldn’t seem hard for him to either keep a lookout for when they are occupied and make a break for it then, or to arrange a diversion himself and go the opposite direction. I suppose it could be that with news that others were coming for Serara he chose to wait, but it seems he could have saved everyone quite a bit of trouble.
This was mentioned in some above posts, but the weirdness of the battle was apparently largely due to the anime dropping the ball.
1. Shiroe was buying time for Akatsuki to take out spell-casters that were hiding in the forest, beyond the healers. This was not shown.
2. When he says heal everyone, he does mean everyone. The anime didn’t show this. He wanted her to heal the enemies so they wouldn’t notice immediately when their healers were taken out.
3. As for Anchor Howl, I don’t believe we’ve been given a unit limit on it, it seems to just be a radius, and really the ten or so we saw there isn’t that high of a number. Also, the game only seems to have one tank, so presumably that’s a REALLY good tank.
4. As for Nyanta, I don’t think he really had any intention of leaving Susukino until Shiroe came. He seemed fine with protecting Serara, and he seems to like her, but he left because his friend asked him to.
I think Nyanta’s concern was that while he could have presumably run out of town and summoned a griffon (I’m assuming they can only be summoned out of town, otherwise he really did just waste everyone’s time) then he would have needed Serara to come outside the gates to him, and there’s no way she would have survived that when 1-2 blows could KO her. That plan requires at least one other person to help.
Mind you, I guess they still could have done that here, so maybe there was a reason they couldn’t that I don’t know. This is the problem with thinking about these things too much, lol
@ KaleRylan
Elder Tales has three warrior classes (Guardian, Samurai, and Monk), all of which can tank, and probably a few other classes can do it to a degree as well (evasion tanking Swashbuckler, anyone?). Guardians are the hard tanks though, and they look to be good at it.
I’m sorry. I really don’t think he was intent on going to akihabara. Nowhere in the show until Shiroe asked him was it implied he had any intention of taking her.
Protecting someone you don’t know for a while is just being a nice person. Travelling a week across uncharted territory for someone you don’t know who has friends coming to get her anyway is just weird. He had no reason to take her to Akihabara, she had people coming. This doesn’t make him selfish or anything. Letting a stranger stay in his home for weeks to keep her safe while her friends come is already proof that he’s a really nice guy.
I think he went with because Shiroe asked him.
As for the tank thing, sure. As you say though, Guardians are the ‘hard’ tank. And that’s about as much as we know. This anime is doing a good job of reflecting MMO tropes, but I think MMO players are getting a little too assumption happy thinking they know fairly intimate details about how this game has to work.
Evasion/Parry tanking, normally Duelist class from DnD does that but is only normally limited to few(one) enemy at a time.
I got the feeling Chief can easily PK Demon-Glass without having to rely on Shiroe & Naotsugu. The real problem was Londark and the mage/healer group.
He can acutally. Given the description of their classes, dps + stats effect can do wonders. Even in real life dps + status effect builds aren’t something to sneeze at.
Well, yeah. He was winning until Demikas started to cheat.
I know Serara is level 19 but her heal sucks
Blame the anime staff for tension changes like that. In the novel it was a pretty normal heal, no amazing because she’s only level 19 but better than 1hp/sec.
This seems to have been pretty extreme case of them misunderstanding how tension works, which is a little concerning for the story going forward.
It seems like they wanted the whole battle to seem like Shiroe and friends were on the ropes. But because most of the characters weren’t really doing anything and were just waiting, it came off more as them just twiddling their thumbs for no reason.
They did it in episode 1 too with the low level monsters. In the novel they weren’t getting hurt much at all, and it was more frustration because they were trying to use their skills by the menu and it just wasn’t working out. Nothing like how the anime showed with all of them losing lots of health.
See, that didn’t bother me in the slightest though. Because it was just a minute or so scene before the title credits actually started. We had very little idea what was going on at that point, so I thought it worked fine. And, you know, people were actually fighting the whole time so it was semi-believable.
This one was different, because it was actually confusing. You spend a fair chunk of the fight wondering why the various characters are doing what they are doing. They act like they’re having a problem, but then they’re just sitting there. It was weird.
If tracker get’s sneak and silent move I wonder if Housekeeper gets any bad-ass battle moves like maybe ‘sweep-the-floor’ for a knockback attack 😛
I’m curious what Naotsugu’s secondary class is, we know everyone else’s – well technically we don’t know Nyanyata’s, but going off the OP I’m going to guess he’s a cook. I’m also curious about their secondary class levels if they are maxed out or not, the only secondary level we know of is Serara’s.
Me too. Honestly the secondary class system is one of the most interesting parts of this for me, since it seems to be where a lot of the build diversity and play variety comes from in elder tale.
I’m gonna guess that Akatsuki’s is maxed just due to her intent on roleplaying a super-ninja. I’m guessing that the others are too just because they’re supposed to be legendary players, but her I’m sure on just based on her personality.
I want to know more about what they all do. Does Scribe just make documents? And yeah, what is Naotsugu’s?
So any LN readers here know what Nyanta really looks like? With that voice I have this image of a guy who could pass as a beautiful woman. Kinda like one of the brothers in Brother’s Conflict.
Nope. Nothing yet.
Probably a 30 to 40 years old guy that likes teas and used to be a butler and plays Elder Tale in free time. LOL
I was expecting Serra to level up like to lv50 after killing Demikas LOL
Possibly true that is if PK Kills has exp, and there’s no limit bracket to exp party sharing. At least 2 90s were killed + 4 healers?(mages?) and the other “hidden” players killed by Akatsuki.
If there was no limit bracket, then the five of them shared exp, causing Serara to very at least level ONCE.
If there was, at least the last hit from The-No-Class (some older games only mattered who last hitted the “victim” to gain the full exp).
Do we know exactly who was partied with who in this battle? Maybe she wasn’t even really in the party with all of them? It’s hard to say what was happening here.
I love the little game nods in this series, but I think people are trying a little too hard to determine every detail on how this game works.
I’ll say one thing though. Just based on people’s in-depth reactions to the anime, this game would probably sell if someone developed it.
Games from that era didn’t always give exp for PvP. I would bet that’s the case here.
Counteraction rising
Yeah we are ready for the punch line
There’s no use with all your gimmicks
SO CHECK THIS OUT!
Now if only we knew what the rest of the song was saying.
Not truly related to the episode and it might count as a spoiler, but I’ve found on Danbooru a pic that gives an overview of the main classes in Log horizon. Here’s the link :
http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1526931?tags=log_horizon
Yeah I posted that version two weeks ago now? There’s actually a newer version of it but it’s still functionally the same info.
What’s different about the newer version? I’m a sucker for this stuff.
Except “Prostitute” is now “Courtesan” which is actually loads better.
I think the author could have also gone for “Geisha” but then I remembered ET was an international game.
http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1519713?tags=nyanta_%28log_horizon%29
This looks to be a nod towards them making food enjoyable.
If it is, then that world is finally perfect:
>Farm meat and cash from monsters outside
>Lern2cook
>Eat good food all day every day
Nyanta is super slick, but I can’t help but think this episode was a bit clumsy.
I was a bit disappointed in the battle, mostly because Shiroe did not do anything until the very last moment. He could of acted much earlier if he was just going to use Thorn Bind Hostage again. Not that I dislike the skill, but I was hoping he would use a different skill from his arsenal, especially since he waited so long to act. I was expecting a long cooldown, high impact skill, or maybe he was already casting a passive buff or debuff that isn’t very noticeable. But no…he just didn’t really do anything.
I did think of one positive interpretation of the fight. Perhaps Shiroe intentionally chose not to do anything for Serara. He wanted her to be more confident and to realize she shouldn’t worry about doing everything, but doing what she was capable of doing. I think if they made that more clear in the episode, It would of made more sense.
Still, loving the show, and the action and the strategic reasoning is a nice change of pace compared to just straight up adrenaline and willpower like most other action scenes in other anime.
As for Akatsuki’s doubts, I feel like it’s pretty common for players to be a bit jealous or feeling left out when you see how well others perform together, especially in an MMO. Especially if you are a solo player in a MMO, but as you said, she will be able to coordinate with them eventually 🙂
Shiroe didnt act sooner because (in coming poor grammar)
1.he need Nyanta to debuff Delicious-San stat to lowest as possible to burst damage
2.Akatsuki cant assassinate those healer at beginning because at start there was few sword guys at back line so she have wait until they move out(and tanked by Naotsugu)
3.in novel version Shiroe tell Serara to “Heal All” mean heal everyone include Demikus, it’s over-time healing(heal aura still show after use spell) so when Akatsuki take out healer Demikus will not notice that his healer is down(he is pretty fast so he can rush to Akatsuki after noticed)
They kinda changed to fight in anime, not by much originally, idea behind Serara heal was to cast it on EVERYONE even one from delicious team, to make them think their healers were still healing them. And they apparently removed one gore part which is understandable for show airing in NHK-E
The Blu-Ray copies for volume 1 will save the day… I hope.
I think Log Horizon is struggling from needing to explain too many things. It probably isn’t a problem in the novel, but the genius at stake here is reliant on the characters knowing how to game the system. Because of that we too need to know how to game the system. This conflicts with the short episode nature of anime.
Personally I think the biggest problem this anime could have going forward isn’t using thorn bind hostage too much, but too many abilitys being introduced. How long will it be before we need 3 episodes of nothing but exposition before a single 10 minute fight scene makes sense?
Except for the parts where Show Spoiler ▼
this episode remained largely faithful to the novel.
Serara healing the Brigandia healers seems to be manga-only content. The novel didn’t mention her doing this, or capable of doing this; makes sense in a gaming way. I don’t remember any game, MMO or single-player, that allows healers to heal enemies (defeats the purpose ^^;;;), unless it’s used as an offensive spell against the undead.
Using a single Phoenix Down on the very first undead boss (Undead Dragon?) you encounter on Final Fantasy V (SNES ver., never played other ver.) skips the entire boss fight cause you insta-kill it.
I have to use a risky Monk with a Berserk skill setup on it to kill. Then, after the intense fight and a few restarts, my brother suddenly told me I can finish it faster by simply doing it. Dammit! That was infuriating. Oh, Berserk makes your character unable to be controlled but deals significant damage.
—–
But games these days, for you to “support” them, you need mostly them in your active group/party.
You guys got it wrong. Anchor Howl isn’t a taunt. It “makes enemies unable to ignore the guardian or else they will get hit by a powerful counterattack” as they explained in episode 2. Think of it as a free sneak attack by the guardian, and the guardian can choose whether or not he attacks. They aren’t forced to attack him.
As for thorn bind hostage and enchanter being unpopular, the enchanter has a skill set that makes it impossible for him solo. Thorn bind hostage doesn’t root, and the enchanter can’t set them off himself. And finally, 1000 damage per thorn sounds like a lot, but sorcerers and assassins can deal even more damage with their magic and physical skills.
So basically, enchanters have no skills that lets them fight by themselves, and in terms of damage output, an assassin or sorcerer would do more damage. They only shine when someone skilled like Shiroe uses them within an experienced party.
The main point to Anchor Howl is to discourage those under the effect to attack anyone else except for the guardian. In that regard it almost acts like a “taunt” where those who are under its effects are essentially forced to target the guardian lest they get hit with the “powerful counterattack”. Under normal circumstances the guardian is not the most powerful offensive class thus, it makes little sense for those under its effects to attack anything else and give the guardian free burst damage. The guardian could not trigger the counterattack unless the opposing force attack someone else.
I suspect Anchor Howl is mainly intended for pvp since up to this point in the anime, it has only been used in pvp situations. Using an ability that simply spikes hate like a traditional taunt would be virtually useless in pvp. In lieu of a taunt mechanic, Anchor Howl achieves a similar effect with pvp applications – to ensure that the enemy is focused on the guardian and not the squishy mage.
Yes it acts like it taunt but my point was to clarify how AH works because it doesn’t force people to attack the guardian like taunt skills we see our games as people seemed to be getting confused. And a traditional taunt mechanism that forces attacks could still work, even when ET became real, seeing as a sleep spell still works, making other “mental state” spells work wouldn’t be unexpected. Anyways, I wanted to draw attention to the fact that AH doesn’t work like that as doesn’t force players or monsters to attack the guardian, so players and smart monsters can and do choose to ignore AH in the future.
Ah, I get it.
But now it raises more questions:
>How/can you negate the counter?
>Can you dodge it?
>Would multiple people get hit by it simultaneously if they choose to ignore AH at the same time?
>Does the “taunt” effect persist or vanish if you get countered/backstabbed?
Err, I don’t know how you define a taunt, but the purpose of Anchor Howl is to force the target(s) to re-direct their Hatred/attention towards the taunt-user. In the novel, it’s mentioned that Tanks won’t play their role well if they are just characters with lots of HP and high defence. Mobs will target whichever the top damage-dealer, which unfortunately is usually a Sorc or Summoner, both classes with comparatively low HP and paper-thin defence. They need Taunt skills to make sure that they are the one to get all the unfriendly attention, allowing them to truly play the role of the Parties’ Shield. In the Guardians’ case, they have Anchor Howl, which can be described as a “Taunt that allows a counter-attack if one ignores it”.
Unlike Riful, I feel that AH is mainly used in PvE. It might have started out as a simple Taunt, but might have the counter-attack feature added on as ET grew more popular and mass PvP becoming more and more common.
It’s functionally a taunt, but the clarification is appreciated. I’ll have to try to stipulate the difference if it becomes important later on.
Thorn Binding Hostage is a GAY move, it do 5k regardless of victim’s defence and it still owning the victim by cutting one at a time.
And Anchor Howl is also a GAY MOVE.
Not sure if it was mentioned, but the reason Shiroe took his time and asked for HoT from the 19th level druid is….to exactly bring Demi-glace to 1 hp and still have one hostage-vine on him.
The fact that her HoT is low level, only helped him and Nyanta to attack. It was never meant to heal themselves, but to get the hitpoints of Demiglace to the proper level for their special combo.
i’m amazed by how many times the enemies Naotsugu is fighting changed the color of their clothes in different shots of their fights. oh well. hope they fixed this in BDs
Why does everyone expect Nyanta to solve the food crysis?
That’s clearly a job for the lvl 44
MaidHousekeeper.1.) If he is a Debauchery Tea Party member Show Spoiler ▼
2.) His behavior is kinda like a butler/hostess. If he really is one of those in the real world then he must know how to experiment food.
3.) His subclass must be a chef or something. He might have choose it because on the said #2 that I mentioned.
Question for everyone:
If you guys play this game, what class would you be?
I would be either the Swashbuckler, Samurai or the Summoner. They are kinda my usual play styles.
Class…..: Druid
Race……: Elf
Subclass.: Pharmacist
Class: Assassin – but not melee sneak up like Akatsuki, rather ranged sniper style (heard it is posible build)
Race: Elf, for race bonuses to ranged attack
Crafting class: Chef! obvious really since everything tastes so horrible… gotta craft something tasty!
RP class: Hitman.
Class: Cleric
Race: Fox Tail
Gender: Female (coz nekomimi girls are hot)
Subclass: War Priest
Gotta love those excessively tough healers
or
Class: Bard
Race: Fox Tail
Gender: Female (NEKOMIMI FTW!)
Subclass: Dancer
Yup… im a sucker for the support class
It’s not nekomimi anymore. That would be Kitsune-mimi or should i abbreviate that to Kitsumimi.
Class: Guardian
Race: Dwarf
Sub-Class: Blacksmith
Weapon: One-handed axes
you guys even thought of race and subclasses XD, so to elaborate more.
1
Race: human
Class: Swashbuckler
subclass: swordsmith
2
Race: elf
Class: Summoner
subclass: animal trainer(?) might be useful for the summoned stuff?
Race: Race of Ritual – *Accidentally clicked on Race of Ritual instead of the nearby race
Class: Bard
Sub-Class: Carpenter – *IRL Architect that does Woodcrafting as hobby
When I accidentally learned that I can apply real world things here in Elder Tale, I succesfully crafted for fun a ballista normally used in castle sieges, I was chased by “evil guilds” and almost got killed because of it.
Too bad I’m not a real architect nor I do woodworking as a hobby.Btw, anon has began translating volume two, aka what happens from after this episode, in /a/
Baka-Tsuki will also be translating LH
http://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=6001
http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Log_Horizon
Race: Elf
Class: Bard
Sub-Class: Artisan
1.
Race: Elf
Class: Bard / Long Bow Build / Back row Sniper
Sub-Class: Artisan
2.
Race: Human
Class: Swashbuckler / Twin Blade Build / Guerilla
Sub-Class: Merchant