[EMS] Fifth Legendary Potential GET! / Amaterasu's Belt - Finished scrolling

Sup guys! As I've been a bit well installed here in Norway since a couple of days, I finally managed some time to write about two recent (but still, pretty major) achievements that happened.

First things first: my Amaterasu's Belt is now finished with scrolling! The anniversary updates have been quite generous with Incredible Chaos Scroll of Goodness, and there is still a lot left to be purchased from the coin shop (so hopefully my Amaterasu's Shoes will also be done soon!). The stats on the Amaterasu's Belt has been pretty good, having that "safe zone" of 2 attack per scroll. It's no Amaterasu's Cape/Epaulet, but fortunately it isn't my Amaterasu's Armor either. Let's say, I was already happy enough that it hit the 10 mark in the first place. Getting a lot of attack with not many slots is kinda difficult to achieve with ICOGs.

I've also managed to get my Sengoku Hakase Badge to Legendary! This is my fifth Legendary equipment that I own. As with any of my just-hit Legendary equipment, I shall wait to recube as I would like to have everything to Legendary first.

Anyway, given the amount of time that needs to be poured into my graduation assignment here in Norway, I won't really get to find space to write about blogposts often during the week. However, like with today, I shall most likely find a spot in the weekend to keep you guys up to date.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS] Level 222!

Honestly - the speed of leveling has surely decreased since I've obtained my Level 15 Chew Chew Symbol, but still it is one level a month! I shall definitely not complain. Much better than the "once every three months" that was before the migration, in my opinion.

I'm tired now, it's time for a nap. I'll see you guys again next post!

[Lego] MOC - Some mecha's just want to dress up as a reptile, y'know

Is it a reptile? Is it a T-Rex? Are those teeth railguns? Is this even a practical weapon for a mecha to have? No, no, no, aaaaand no.

This little fellow knows going into combat as a reptile is probably unpractical. But he does it anyway because he thinks it's cool. A small MOC that only took a few hours to build, because I had not much else to do.

Partially inspired by the use of the old gear racks as teeth for the T-Rex from the #8485 Control Center II TECHNIC set from 1995, and a little bit of influence from Bifrost from MegaMan ZX Advent - I've been doodling in the past few months a bit with trying to use those new gear racks in a similar fashion. This guy is one of them.

The neck of this figure has two points of articulation - this is to enable the head to fold all the way down so you can have the mouth clear of obstructions to "chomp" into things. It kinda brings the feel that this isn't a humanoid mecha anymore, but some two-legged reptile (probably from Kong: Skull Island) with one heck of a bite. I'm guess going "reptile" mode kinda makes him a bit shielded from attacks too.

Both jaws are constructed through the use of CCBS joints to get those angles - when these four individual gear racks meet, they are semi-connected with a click hinge that goes through one of the pin holes with an axle. The bottom jaw is raised up and down through the arms of the figure (as he is "holding onto the jaw"), while the upper half is part of a "backpack" that can rotate all the way back.

Because all of those four gear racks can be separated from each other, you can get some cool poses. In some poses they kinda look like this guy has railguns or wings, but they're not. They are kinda like swords with teeth. The upper jaw has a few smaller guns mounted to make them useful in regular combat when this guy doesn't feel like going for a bite - those "wings" don't have any hands or arms, after all. They are kinda like shoulder mounted weapons, if you will.

Especially when you turn around those jaw halves, trying to see the "reptile" in this mecha becomes a lot harder, and it kinda gets an insect feel to me, by virtue of the head. Speaking of which, if you take a closer look, the face is asymmetrical. The main reason for that is because I didn't really have enough pieces in the right colours and quantities - but I like to imagine that during combat, this guy might have had some scrap flung in his face after he took a bite. Going into combat like that would definitely have some occupational hazards, but at least this guy plays with style.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!

[EMS] So, another Mega Burning Event happened...

Gotta love how broken some of these Maple events tend to be.

[EMS] Fourth Legendary Potential GET!

Hi guys! In a more positive light for this week, one heck of a significant milestone has been achieved - my Ribgol is now Legendary! This has definitely been something I have been greatly looking forward to for a couple of years now.

Most of you recurring readers might know already that this little fellow has been my trusted sword for five years already. Yes, it's been already five whopping years since I've obtained my Ribgol! To be more precise: 5 years, 3 months and 11 days.

Originally the Potential on my Ribgol was 6% Attack, 3% Total Damage and 3% Total Damage, Epic ranked. It was my intention to keep the Potential like that until I would have plenty of opportunities to manage something better, given it takes quite a number of cubes to "perfect" an equipment (obviously the term "perfect" may vary between players and thus really is a subjective thing). With all of the recent additions to Maple, especially the (relatively speaking) ease of obtaining cubes with a little bit of effort, it helped a lot to kick-start a lot of my (recent) progress. Unfortunately the amount of cubes required to get to a point of "perfection" at the moment, is better invested in getting everything to Legendary first. It can easily take a few hundred cubes before you get something as close as "perfect", so you might understand my choice of getting my other equipment to Legendary first.

Just as a small note for some readers who missed out on how my Ribgol is upgraded, given it has gained 36 STR, 27 DEX, 36 INT, 27 LUK and 97 Attack in 9 slots - my Ribgol has been partially upgraded with Additional Options (AO's for short). Unfortunately the display of Additional Options are bugged, and not every stat on a piece of equip with AO's is shown until for some reason Enhancements are applied to that item. Anyway, to further explain this display issue, look at the image below:



Notice the absence of the "Damage: 3% (0% +3%)" in green under Weapon Attack.

This display issue "debuted" with the 5th Job update, because this update changes the way how Additional Options are shown to make it easier to understand what you're getting as AO's... At least, not for EMS apparently. Not sure why Nexon decided to not implement this feature though, but it makes it a tad harder to communicate what AO's your equipment has in-game without sharing screenshots outside the game. If you have screenshots, that is.

 

So yeah, my Ribgol also has 3% Total Damage. Which is now, considered unlisted. The stat is still there, it just doesn't show up until you Enhance your equipment. Which I won't do yet with my Ribgol, because one Star Force would immediately disable me to use any other Enhancements and thus would ruin this item for good. You cannot use an Innocence Scroll without removing the Additional Options permanently, as those stats cannot be re-obtained. And as far as we know, Nexon has no plans to re-introduce AO's at the moment. Thus I'd rather keep that window open for a better end result, even if that requires me to wait and not take the most cost efficient path...

 

Anyway, I am not entirely sure what to cube to Legendary next, but I'm considering to cube my Sengoku Hakase Badge because it is the only 4th tier Potential equipment that I currently wear. But man, seeing that Ribgol with those green borders really fills me a much needed joy that has been absent here for a while.

 

That's it for now - I'll see you guys again next post!

[YT] Partial blogging hiatus until October 2017

*Takes a deep breath* Where to start?

In two weeks, I'm going abroad to Norway until the end of September, 2017. It's probably not my first call to go all the way there for almost half a year, but unfortunately I don't have much choice. Why? It's for my graduation assignment to finish my study.

Subjectively, it's a bit of a mixed bag, as for several personal reasons I'm not entirely looking forward to it, but I'd rather just get it over with as soon as possible so I can finish my study. And yes, I am aware that LEGO® is currently looking for students, but unfortunately I missed that opportunity because that application was published two days after I just got to a point of no return with my current assignment. Sucks (which is a sore understatement for how I truly feel about it), but there is nothing I can do about that.

Anyway, that brings me to the following point: during that time, I'll have no access to any of my LEGO® collection, which means there will be no progress on my MK Projects, any other projects and no blacklight posts. It's just too much to take with me, as my entire room is chock full with it, and I won't have much time to order at Bricklink at all in case I'll need something to progress my Hailfire Droid or Constructor. There will be moments during this upcoming semester where I'll go back and forth between Norway and home, but those moments will be brief and thus unlikely for me to work on anything LEGO® related.

However, I fortunately have enough space (just barely though) to bring all of my hardware gear, which includes my standard PC, laptop, TV, consoles and recording devices, as a survival kit throughout these months. I'm not expecting to have much time to work on any Youtube videos, but at least, if I want to work on them, I could. Just don't expect anything big and time consuming as a Single-Part-Video anytime soon. I'll probably end up playing EMS during most of my spare time however, if I'd be honest. This graduation assignment will require quite a lot of me, so resting up after each day is very important to me.

So, that does mean that there will be less blogposts than usual to read here in the next upcoming months. The EMS blogposts will just come as they've always been, but just don't expect anything for the LEGO® department until I'm back home.

[EMS] Amaterasu's Armor - Finished scrolling

Oh man. This Amaterasu's Armor has given me quite a conundrum, but the scrolling process is now finally over.
For 14 slots, the Attack boost on this Amaterasu's Armor has been rather unfortunate; I had two painful Incredible Chaos Scroll of Goodness (ICOG) resulting in +0 Attack. In addition, for quite a while, this overall seemed "doomed" to not get past 20 Attack until the second last slot.

In early stages, this overall had some pretty good boosts - but that promising "feel" was short lived. The stat increases were halfway through in favor of STR and DEX - at the 12th slot, the total Attack was only 17.

Fortunately, on the bright side, I did really get past the "20 Attack", which is kind of my expected standard for every Amaterasu equip other than the Belt and Shoulder. On average luck, you should get at least twice the Attack for the amount of slots you have, with "one Attack per slot" being the bare minimum. If you really get below that bottom line (like I have with my Lionheart Cape in the past), you might as well should consider yourself lucky enough to even to hit that RNG or just feel like garbage that you managed to get almost none for your investment. That is one risk you take with these scrolls, y'know...

Anyway, thankfully because the STR and DEX boost has been that generous, I should get to 100+ STR/DEX on my overall when the Star Force is finished. And that is something that is in my opinion, definitely worth looking forward to.

So the current result is a bit of a mixed bag to me. It could have been way worse, but 25+ Attack on an Amaterasu's Armor is not too difficult to achieve through ICOGs, nor asked too much. But, for the stats it has and eventually will get to, there are some redeeming qualities worth to mention. Some of which, wouldn't be possible if the ICOGs were too biased towards Attack.

That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!