Semont

Risk 42 was significantly harder than risk 40. That no dodge criteria is no joke.

13 hours ago (edited) | [YT] | 2

Semont

Break the lemon.

Video coming soon. Edit: Video's up https://youtu.be/UkeQ5D4yrEk

16 hours ago (edited) | [YT] | 30

Semont

Wow we just passed 200 subs! Thank you so much, I'll keep doing my best!

2 days ago | [YT] | 35

Semont

Not a hint of indigo to be found. Is HG colorblind or something?

Anyways, video coming up soon. Edit: It's now up on my channel!

2 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 36

Semont

I had a look at Argent Flow's kit and I think he should be fine for soloing.

His Ult costs only 80, his combo cooldown is 18s, his BS1 is changed to BS2 for 20s after using combo, and it also deals electric damage. The numbers are looking pretty good in general and I have a decent idea of how he should be played solo.

Weak Basics (including finisher and dive attack) are a bit of a bummer though.

His skill animations are also pretty lengthy so that makes it does make it harder for him to land interrupts.

3 days ago | [YT] | 10

Semont

Thinking about Argent Flow's kit in a solo and somewhat general context, I think he might in a strange situation in term of his personal damage distribution. To me, it doesn't make sense that he can deal physical damage when so much of his gear leans towards electric damage and he doesn't have any other gear options other than the new Pulsar Labs pieces. It makes even less sense that he can't deal electric damage when he is buffing himself up for it.

Of course we don't have his multipliers, what his second passive does, and what other additional misc effects his skills have but we can do what CCs love to do and that is doompost new characters /s Please don't take this too seriously, I'm just bored and thinking to pass the time.

Starting off, his basics, battle skills, Lift from BS1 (and possibly BS2 unless it applies like Rossi's bonus vul), and Crush from Ult only deal physical damage.

So what boosts this damage?

Sig Weapon:
ATK% line 2
Infliction Coursing Stars: AI (likely 48 at rank 4 based on Grand Vision) boosts Lift and Crush, the ATK% buff when applying Electrification (follow-up battle skill)

Gear:
Pulsar Labs Set effect 30 AI boosting Lift and Crush
Lynx Slab (if not using a second UGE or Ult damage kit)

Kit:
Special Electrification
Sunderization which increases Crush damage

To me this means that while his Crush damage will be pretty decent, his basics and battle skills are not going to do very much damage unless their multipliers are cranked all the way up.

For electric damage, we have Combo, Electric Arts Burst, Ultimate, and Sunderization.

I don't expect Electric AB to constitute any significant part of his damage because his combo has a ~20s cooldown (infliction dropoff and opportunity cost of consuming it instead to activate Pulsar Labs) and you want to use his follow-up Battle Skill to convert the infliction stack to Special Electrification. The only time I can reasonably assume Electric AB to occur is when you start from 0 stacks prior to Ult, Ult, and then use combo after that. The level 2 Special Electrification probably won't amount to much because you probably don't have the Ult to take advantage of it (maybe unless you run double UGE kits, we'll talk about this later).



Anyways, what boosts electric damage?

Sig Weapon:
ATK% line 2
Infliction Coursing Stars: AI boosting Electrification damage and effect, ATK% buff when applying Electrification, Electric dmg% buff when consuming Arts Infliction (same as applying Electrification)

Gear:
Pulsar Labs Set effect: 30 AI boosting Electrification, 50 Electric% for 10s when applying Electrification
Pulser Labs Light Armor: 14.9% Electric%
Pulser Labs Light Gauntlets: 24.9% Electric%
Lynx Slab (if not using a second UGE or Ult damage kit)

Kit:
Special Electrification

Ok that's a lot of yapping so what's my point?

Imagine playing Argent Flow SOLO.

You use Battle Skill > Combo > Battle Skill.

Boom, you just activated Special Electrification, all the buffs on the sig, the Pulsar Labs buff, Sunderization is applied to the target. You can now deal hella electric damage as long as you do it within 10 seconds.

Now what? How do you deal electric damage after this? Your basics are physical. Your Battle Skill 1 deals physical. Combo? It's electric but you just used it and it has a 20s cooldown. Sunderization doesn't do anything unless you use Crush.

Your only option is Ultimate. You are entirely at the mercy of energy generation. This is why the new Pulsar Labs kit has UGE.

Every BS > Combo > BS generates a base 23 energy and you'll want to do this twice to get 4 Vul stacks for Crush so that's 46 energy.

With one kit, that's 60.72 energy gain, with two kits, that's 75.44 energy. The cheapest Ultimates cost 80 and I doubt that AF will have an 80 cost Ult.

During all this time when you're unable to Ult, all you can do is physical damage. You're just sitting on a mountain of buffs and damage modifiers that don't do anything. What also gets me is that his Finishing Strike is also physical so all its good for is SP so you might get enough energy to build Ultimate during stun.

Anyways TLDNR: His damage is completely backloaded in his Ult.

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5 days ago | [YT] | 11

Semont

Holy moly this took me roughly 10 hours.

This is probably one of the hardest no-hit solo challenges I've done. The reason being I kept the 3 YSTF Elites alive to keep Blitzcrash in phase 1 for an entire stun meter.

Dodging attacks from 2-4 enemies at once without taking damage for the first minute was mentally taxing and some of these attacks are incredibly annoying to avoid (I'm looking at you YSTF Elite sword waves). Blitzcrash also starts near the edge of the arena so if uses its 3 hit combo that fires electric orbs at the end, those orbs can hit the sides of the arena sooner than they would normally reach the ground which also changes its AoE behavior.

1 week ago | [YT] | 20

Semont

Oh boy another day, another Arcane solo. I can't believe HG really just looked at their crisis fragment bosses and went "what if we made a sequel to that?"

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 2

Semont

*Arcane posts in your Chen content creator's channel*

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 3

Semont

Just finished the new Umbral runs for Murmurs of the Deep Forest.

In terms of hardest to easiest with solo/duo I would say: Stage 2 > Stage 4 > Stage 3 > Stage 1 The reason Stage 2 is at the top is because of how chaotic the attacks from the YSTF Elite Blightshades can get and Blitzcrash's 2nd phase.

I don't have the patience to get a no-hit run on stage 2 but I was however able to get no-hit runs on stage 3 and 4 for what it's worth. Those ones were also the most fun stages to figure out.

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2 weeks ago | [YT] | 9