[EMS] Hyper Burning #7!

Another Level 260 character done; this be my eighth mule past Level 250. It'll be my second Union Champion, once that's out. Next up is Marksman, and moving forward we should have Hyper Burning Max to make this process easier.

Usually I would maximize the event's duration and reach 260 towards the end, but due to recent circumstances I opted to sacrifice some of the EXP rewards that would've gone on my main. Quite frankly, I haven't been doing well lately as setbacks keep piling up faster than I'm able to manage them. Things continue to get worse, and this leads me to be less harsh on myself by softening the grind. I have to preserve myself for the long and arduous road ahead, y'know.

That said, with all of these Hyper Burnings in the past couple of years, I'm now two burnings away from reaching 9500 Union. Level 288 guaranteed within two weeks; I'm still on schedule for Level 290 this year. I now have time to work on that 6th Job blogpost again, as I've wrapped up the building session for Ouroboros. Conclusion? None worked; going back to the build developed by James Bruton. Unfortunately, translating this into LEGO requires* up to 48 of the new clutch joints, which aren't available from LEGO's store until later this year. I aint paying those current Bricklink prices.

*To give you an idea: I've built several prototype legs this year (without clutch joints) to determine the viability of James Bruton's build in LEGO. Leg frames (without decoration) can easily weigh 1 kg, and they're going to have to carry a tremendous amount of weight. Technic turntables can work, but they necessitate a large amount of connectors and pins, all of which adds weak points to the frame. These become a liability with the speed and weight of the model. The new joints simplifies the build process and requires less parts. In doing so, it provides a much sturdier and compact frame.

Anyway, next month is the Summer update reveal for KMS; I'm looking forward to that. Also, by then I should have my copy of Cyber Shadow so I can finally play that one. It can't be worse than last year's ninja game, right? Right!?

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

[EMS/LEGO] The busy month of April...

It's been a jam-packed month. Let's unpack what we got.

EMS had its 18th anniversary this month; that also means in September I'll be playing for 18 years daily as well. Of course I haven't forgotten my plans for that blogpost; but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

With the essential weekly bosses now on the menu, I've achieved my short-term goal in preparation for the NEXT update. Upgraded all of the low-hanging fruit, so back to saving up mesos for the remaining Eternal equipment I go. As I've paid off the symbol fees, I'm now done with them until the next one unlocks at Level 290. Combo Instinct's 6th Job enhancement is maxed out, so until the new 6th Job skills arrive I'll be working on enhancing Sword of Burning Soul.

Earlier today I've wrapped up the grind for the Tanjiro class. Do I even want to open the can of worms and start writing about anime and literature on this blog? No, I don't think I will. That said, I've played my cards right so the Level 260 grind was without much effort. Maple has always been about resource management. I've been frugal with my stuff so I had the perfect use for this month's Chains of Resentment. You'd be surprised how many people called me a madman for "wasting" it on Tanjiro. I'll remind you that none of these guys got theirs to Level 260. The event provided more than you need as it was trivial to reach the one-shot ceiling with 1764% bonus EXP - a hard cap of about 68% every hour between 250 and 260. The only thing that would've made it faster was to add Holy Symbol, but I was too lazy to use my Bishop laptop next to me. Anyway, off to become a Paladin you go, and it even managed to recuperate some cost.

The Hyper Burning coupon from the Tanjiro event is currently used on my first Union Champion mule; a Wild Hunter. Just the plain ol' daily quest to Level 260 approach, so I'll get there by the end of next month. I now have the time to resume writing the 6th Job blogpost, which had to give because of this month's busywork. I've reserved 31 chapters (Destiny blogpost-style), and I've just start writing about the first skill in chapter 5. I'll try to get as much work done as possible in the next months, and the current plan does include adding in the upcoming skills once we have them.

But more importantly, at the end of March I was given the opportunity of a lifetime. About ten years ago I've started to write about Mokarr: an unreleased LEGO set that you could consider my white whale. During my hunt, I've become somewhat of a Galidor journalist within the community. I've had plans to write about the other parts that I got my hands on years ago, but I never really found time for that due to the four years lost to the production hell of ill-fated projects. 

The silver lining of having delayed the Galidor blogposts meant that I was able to get far better information during that period, and I stumbled upon a group effort with other LEGO fans as I've helped theqelement website with cataloging Mokarr and other unreleased Galidor sets. One thing led to another, and by coincidence we now have a complete list of all cancelled Galidor sets for the first time in 23 years after its cancellation. To make up for keeping you all waiting, I'm planning to write a proper blogpost going through everything I know and (now) have once I have the time for it.

That said, my blog is always a low priority. I will always give priority to more important matters. Right now, my portfolio for LEGO will always be first as it's my life's work. At the end of last year I've talked about the plans for Ouroboros and I have been looking into ways to get this bipedal robot to walk. Next month I will spend several weeks in research and development to determine how feasible a particular solution is. It might not sound much, but if this works... I might've accidentally solved everything. And by everything I really mean everything... Even the dreadful projects MK. 7 and 11.

So uhm, what are my thoughts about the DEX? What could I possibly add to the conversation that hasn't already been said at length? Perhaps that, whatever was originally planned is thrown out of the window. They reprinted the artbook for the occasion but any of the grand plans it reveals means little now. It feels like they just rushed this port because the Switch 2 was around the corner and they made sure to kill off any prospects for a sequel. And even if there's going to be one - it's going to need to be something truly special to make up for it. Caveat emptor; just stick to the original.

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

[EMS] Levels 286 and 287!

Hi guys! With the DEX releasing in twelve days, I'm clearing this month's stuff early so my schedule is free. While I'm looking forward to do a second playthrough, the tonal shift with the revised user interface, brighter colors, particles and sound hurt my soul. Not to mention the worse performance; let's hope it can handle them diskbombs. Despite these changes, I'm sure it retains the fun experience as it's still Xenoblade X, after all... That's all that matters, doesn't it?

But back to the main subject matter. Two days ago, I hit Level 287! It took seventy days, which is pretty good. To stay on schedule, there has to be one level every three months. With each level up requiring an additional 20%, I'm curious to see how it'll go. The event rewards will determine if Level 290 is either happening this year or early 2026.

Though Level 287 isn't the only major milestone that happened this week. After four months of upgrading, I've gone from being unable to clear Hard Lucid to soloing Hard Tenebris for the first time! Events weighed in a lot, as with the many rewards it was trivial to get double Legendary and proper ICOG results. The damage boost from 6th Job carried the rest; skipping Abso, Arcane, Gollux and potable rings entirely with only a single 22 SF item. The extra mesos is going to replace the five remaining Amaterasu sooner with what's left from the Eternal set. There's still a lot left to do.

Work on the 6th Job blogpost has begun. There's not much on paper yet (only the foreword), but give it some time.

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

[EMS] Carcion Symbol MAX, Hyper Burning #5!

Hi guys! Time for this month's news roundup.

I've maxed out Carcion's symbol, which was faster than I expected. Because symbol selectors are readily available from events all year round, it only took five months. It could've been faster but I opted for rewards of a higher priority because I'm going to continue daily quests for their EXP, anyway. That said, I have yet to pay the required meso fees to unlock the final levels as the mesos are better spent elsewhere - it'll make more sense as I'll explain later this year.

The fifth season of Hyper Burning (and the Milestone update) wrapped up about two weeks ago and it was slightly more challenging than the previous two. You see, what sets apart the fifth season from the others is that you could Hyper Burn up to two characters - one being either Aran or Eunwol, as part of their class revamp during this update.

Seasons three and four of Hyper Burning were rather trivial as the combination of daily EXP and event support meant you could easily reach Level 260 within the event period. However, daily EXP is only for one character and Milestone's event support was not as generous as last season, as the change in events into the second month reduced the overall EXP yield. I also wanted to maximize the EXP yield for my main as Level 290 is currently the most important goal in the game right now, so I did not waste any EXP voucher or growth potion on the two Hyper Burning characters.

Manual grind on the second character was simply unavoidable, though it wasn't as bad as the original two Level 250 Hyper Burning seasons because New Age reduced the EXP to Level 260 significantly. That and Eunwol has access to Loaded Dice and Soul Splitter. Furthermore, 3x EXP coupons are now standard and we ended up with so many VIP Boosters that I couldn't even use all of them on my main with that daily limit. The surplus went to both burnings and by the time they hit Level 260, I still had dozens left that expired as these boosters were only usable during the event.

For this season, I picked Mercedes and Eunwol specifically for their on-grid Union effects. It was my plan to select future Hyper Burnings the same way, but as the NEXT update (pun not intended) introduces Union Champions, I will now select Hyper Burnings based on which classes I want as Union Champions. You might be surprised to hear I'm almost going exclusively bowman for this, however if you've been an avid reader of my blog it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm selecting characters based on my knowledge and experience with this game. Though the selection process is an entire blogpost on its own, the succinct explanation is that all pre-2011 bowman have the easiest time bossing because they attack from a distance, hold-down attacks allow for the best response time and they all have either heal on-hit or an aggro puppet. For Union Champions I'm not going to be messing around and there's no reason not to pick the best classes to take full advantage of one's proficiency. Better be caught well-prepared for this one.

Anyway, I should be Level 287 next month, so I'm still on schedule to 290 at the end of this year. I'm expecting to work on the 6th Job blogpost soon as I've done enough research and development on Ouroboros until the March parts (i.e. this and that) are available, though with the DEX releasing next month, some more medical status quo limbo, Cyber Shadow finally having a physical release soon and the Switch 2 around the corner, I'm not sure how much work I'll be able to get done before NEXT arrives. Oof. I've been doubting for a while if I should combine the two blogposts. As I've alluded before, the upcoming skill wave is so intertwined with the first two that it's difficult to examine any of these on their own. So the plan is to just write as much as possible and see where we go from there. I'll keep y'all posted.

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

[EMS] Milestone - 5th Job's ninth wave!

Finally, a weapon to surpass Metal Gear.

Before delving into the 6th Job territory, there is one 5th Job skill left to discuss. Released after the Milestone update, Holy Fountain is the latest 5th Job skill after a three year hiatus. As alluded in my coverage of Crest of the Solar, Holy Fountain proves that there's still a place for new 5th Job skills in the current 6th Job environment.

Even though Holy Fountain is a 5th Job skill available to everyone, I would go so far as saying it's one of the better 5th Job skills, period. In today's blogpost we'll take a look at Holy Fountain, alongside a quick coverage of changes made to Hero's skills and examine how much any of this update addresses the Destiny revamp.

Reminder that this blogpost will act as a prelude to future 6th Job blogposts, but as with the COTS blogpost, it is not mandatory to have read either in advance. Where necessary, I will refer back to this blogpost in the same way I have referred back to certain chapters of the Destiny blogpost in the past.