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Famitsu (a popular Japanese video game magazine) has released the results of its Genshin Impact fan survey for its January 2021 issue.
Famitsu Magazine's January 2021 issue had released the results of its Genshin Impact Fan Survey that they run on their 3 platforms: Famitsu website, Famitsu mobile app, and Dengeki Online. The survey ran between Nov. 6 to Nov. 15, 2020. There were (less or more than) 1850 people who responded to the survey. Survey Demographics: 82% Male, 18% Female. Most responses are in their 20's, followed by 30's and 10's. Take note that this survey is mostly influenced before the Patch 1.1 update. Original article here: 『原神』ユーザー1850人が回答したファンアンケートの結果を公開！ 好きなキャラクターやいちばん苦戦した魔物は？ - ファミ通.com (famitsu.com) Note: Take note that I use machine translations here, so these translations are kinda bumpy. Feel free to comment if you spot any mistakes or correct some translations.
Who's your favorite character?
There are some who liked them because of their cuteness or coolness, but more than that, they like them because of their strength and utility. There are also people who like them because of their mobile Elemental Skills, which can be useful for exploration. 10.) Jean (85 responses) 9.) Barbara (89 responses) 8.) Noelle (101 responses) 7.) Fischl (107 responses) 6.) Mona (121 responses) 5.) Lumine/Hotaru/Traveler (Female) (131 responses)
Her idle animations are so cute! (30's / Male)
She can conveniently change elements and at the top of that, she's cute! (40's / Female)
Excellent elemental skills for both combat and exploration. It's very convenient and can be incorporated into any kind of team formation! (10's / Female)
4.) Qiqi/Nana (139 responses)
I like the feeling of 'breaking the seal' on her compelling voice when I raise her friendship level. (20's / male) (Thanks Tsumaranchan)
I like her cute appearance, her cute personality, Yukari Tamura's pretty voice, and her ability to use both as an attacker and as a healer. All in all, I love it. (30's / female)
3.) Diluc (156 responses)
He's so cool and has a lot of firepower. (30's / female)
I'm attracted to a "dark knight" who protects Mondstadt behind the scenes while running a winery. (10's / male)
His elemental skills are easy to use, and can deal a lot of damage within its reach. (10's / female)
2.) FBI baitJean bait Klee (207 responses)
She's so powerful you'd want to pursue (her damage) to its limit! (40's / male)
Lolis are the best! (10's / male)
Cute is justice! (20's / male)
Because she's both cute and strong! (20's / male)
I like the piquant character and because she is cute. I thought the "Fleeing Sunlight" would appropriately describe her. (30's / male)
1.) Keqing/Kokusei (238 responses)
Consistent DPS and good for exploration due to her mobility. No other character can replace her. (30's / male)
She's strong; doesn't have any problems dealing in melee or ranged combat. ()20's / male)
She's easy to cause Elemental Reactions and works well with other characters. Also, she's cute! (20's / male)
Because she's my first 5-star I pulled (10's / male)
The fact that I can move in any direction with her Elemental Skill, I can do plunging attacks to the ground. (20's / male)
She's cute and strong! (10's / male)
While her Elemental Skills are useful for exploration, her powerful Charged Attack is really appealing. (10's / male)
Which female character would you like to have as your girlfriend?
Jean, the Acting Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius/the West Wind (Zephyrus), takes the first place. Rather than citing her attractiveness, many people praised her perseverance. 1.) Jean (238 responses)
I like the fact that she is rational and calm. (20's / female)
She seems to care for the family and she would cook for me. (10's / male)
She's sincere and honest. I would like to support on her side. (30's / male)
She usually gives the impression of being serious, but when she "switch off," she seems to be surprisingly soft. (20's / male)
2.) Keqing/Kokusei (224 responses)
I like the fact that she's very serious and works harder than anyone else. (20's / male)
She seems to be able to point out on what's wrong. (30's / male)
I want to see her embarrassed face! (10's / male)
I like her dignified appearance (20's / male)
3.) Barbara (192 responses)
Her looks and personality are just right (20's / male)
She's kind and cute; and can cook too. (20's / male)
She can heal me mentally as well. (20's / male)
White pantyhose/tights are the best! (50's / male)
I want to listen to her singing all the time (30's / male)
Which male character would you like to have as your boyfriend?
Cool, strong, and wealthy, Diluc is an overwhelming favorite! Regardless of gender, many players like him. 1.) Diluc (612 responses)
Tall, rich, strong, and handsome! (30's / male)
After reading the official manga, I found out of his kindness, and I liked him even more! (20's / female)
An ideal hero. I can trust him. (40's / male)
I'd like to shoulder some justice that he bears. (20's / female)
2.) Kaeya/Gaia (173 responses)
I'd like to be his drinking buddy and have a quiet conversation with him. (30's / female)
I'll be having a good time with him. (30's / female)
I would like to talk to him, because he seems to know a lot of things. (10's / male)
3.) Venti (150 responses)
Whenever I feed sad, he'll cheer me up with his songs and ballads. It doesn't matter what troubles I have whenever I see his flippant attitude. (10's / female)
While the top three remained the same as in the favorite character ranking (but not in the same slots, sans the other one,) the fourth and fifth places are different. Ones who made it in are Venti, with his powerful Elemental Burst, and Fischl, with Oz as her excellent support. 1.) Klee (225 responses) 2.) Keqing/Kokusei (217 responses) 3.) Diluc (202 responses) 4.) Venti (147 responses) 5.) Fischl (134 responses) 6.) Lumine/Hotaru/Traveler (Female) (110 responses) 7.) Noelle (107 responses) 8.) Qiqi/Nana (99 responses) 9.) Jean (87 responses) 10.) Razor (86 responses)
What's your favorite weapon type?
1.) Swords (One-handed sword) (692 responses) 2.) Claymores (Two-handed sword) (622 responses) 3.) Catalyst (TL note: Original Japanese word for catalysts are hurting my brain) (277 responses) 4.) Bow (173 responses) 5.) Polearms (86 responses)
Tell us which relic set you like the most in terms of design!
Gladiator's Finale, a relic with a gladiator motif, received more responses than second place's responses. This relic is relatively easy to obtain with its excellent +18% Attack stat two-set effect. It's possible that many players voted not only by its aesthetics, but also the power it gives. 1.) Gladiator's Finale (407 responses) 2.) Berserker (176 responses) 3.) Crimson Witch of Flames (Witch of the Blazing Flames) (175 responses) 4.) Wanderer's Troupe (Wandering Troupe of the Earth) (173 responses) 5.) Maiden Beloved (155 responses) 6.) Bloodstained Chivalry (96 responses) 7.) The Exile (84 responses) 8.) Martial Artist (77 responses) 9.) Retracting Bolide (65 responses) 10.) Noblesse Oblige (56 responses)
Which enemies do you have the hardest time to deal with?
Oceanid (Pure Water Spirit) took the top, beating out Stormterror Dvalin and the Lupus Boreas! It seems that many players had a hard time to deal with Oceanid with disappearing platforms and monsters of various forms. 1.) Oceanid (Pure Water Spirit) (497 responses)
The disappearing platforms were hard to deal with (40's / male)
Enemies are gradually becoming stronger and more troublesome. (10's / male)
Simple yet fierce. The type of attack, range, and moveset are all far better than most elite monsters. (20's / male)
It's hard to deal with those flying monsters. (40's / male)
2.) Lupus Boreas (King of the North Wind, Dominator of Wolves) (250 responses)
Even if you're getting used to it, if you're not careful, you'll easily lose this fight because of its unpredictable attacks. (40's / male)
Its attacks on its second phase are difficult to avoid (30's / male)
3.) Stormterror Dvalin (231 responses)
Because its ranged attacks are so strong. (10's / male)
I couldn't figure out the gimmick on moving between platforms. (20's / male)
With a limited movement range, the battle's hard. (10's / male)
When they asked about Spiral Abyss clears, the most common answer was that they had already cleared up to the 3rd Floor. As it is the end-game content, preparation is required to conquer the Abyss. For this reason, it seems not that many players have taken the challenge seriously yet.
Abyssal Corridor Floors:
Uncleared 1st Floor : 174 responses
1st Floor: 80 responses
2nd Floor: 151 responses
3rd Floor: 448 responses
4th Floor: 274 responses
5th Floor: 192 responses
6th Floor: 206 responses
7th Floor: 91 responses
8th Floor: 106 responses
Abyssal Moon Spire Floors:
9th Floor: 43 responses
10th Floor: 32 responses
11th Floor: 25 responses
12th Floor: 28 responses
What are some of the dishes in Genshin Impact that you would actually like to try?
There are so many delicious-looking dishes in this game that you can almost drool over them. One of the most popular dish is the Sticky Honey Roast (Honey Sautéed Carrots and Meat,) which can be created with beast meat, carrots, and sugar. The thick meat of the beast and the generous amount of sweet sauce stimulated the appetite and won the hearts of many players. 1.) Sticky Honey Roast (Honey Sautéed Carrots and Meat): 204 responses 2.) Sweet Madame (Baked Chicken with Sweet Flower): 196 responses 3.) Jade Parcels (Jade Lucky Bag): 159 responses 4.) Mondstadt Hash Brown (Mondo-style hashed potatoes): 155 responses 5.) Adeptus' Temptation (Calypso Orchid/Fairy Slipper): 144 responses
How many characters did you train as your main?
Most of the players answered that they train 4 characters as their main characters. In this game, there are a lot of materials required for training, and in some cases, you need to use Resin to obtain them, so it takes a lot of time to train them. This result reflects the reality of the scenario.
1: 3%
2: 12%
3: 14%
4: 28%
5: 18%
6: 14%
7: 4%
8: 4%
More than 8: 3%
Do you do Co-op/Multiplayer on a daily basis?
Yes: 31%, No: 69% What do you think of their survey? Do you agree or not? What do you think of their choices as well? I left out some questions and results as I'm getting lazy. Happy Holidays everyone! EDIT: Formatting and minor edits. EDIT 2: Edited one of Qiqi's comments with translation provided by Tsumaranchan.
Moving into High-Level PvE: Guide for Beginners (Part 1, Season 12 update)
Season 12 Update: What’s New
· Updated mods section to reflect new mod structure · A few updated thoughts on Stasis classes · Significant update to Warmind Cell section, including information on Seventh Seraph weapons · New recommendations for defensive and offensive mod loadouts · Recommendations updated for Season 12 mods · Weapons recommendations Part 2 of this guide is here: https://www.reddit.com/DestinyTheGame/comments/k5fzne/moving_into_highlevel_pve_guide_for_beginners/
Before We Get Started
Why you should trust me
I’ve got a few hundred raid completions, including flawless completions of the post-year 1 raids, and I’ve soloed each of the dungeons flawlessly as well. But also: I’m not an amazing player; I’d say I’m above average but I am nowhere near as talented as some of the people whose videos you can watch online, or indeed who are in my clan. I am someone who has to work hard to get good and who makes up for a lack of talent with stubbornness and a willingness to learn from my mistakes. So this advice is not for the amazing D2 player. It’s for someone who’s just starting to move into raiding or is thinking about working on raid triumphs, or soloing a dungeon for the first time, or maybe dreaming of earning the Conqueror title. My main goal is to help you become a better teammate—to know what weapons, mods, and armor you need in different situations, and to learn how to use them. Hopefully I’ll answer your basic questions and give you a starting point from which you can learn more.
What do I mean by high-level PvE content?
Raids: multi-encounter structures that require team coordination and adaptation to/knowledge of various raid-specific mechanics (ball throwing, buff swapping, tethering, cranium charging, etc.)
Sublight challenges: master and grandmaster nightfalls, master nightmare hunts, solo 1280 lost sectors, 1280 empire hunts, or any new content where players are likely to be 0-25 light levels below the enemies they face. This content includes raids and dungeons in their initial season of being offered.
Solo challenges: attempts to accomplish 1 and 2 by yourself or with a suboptimal team (like doing a raid with three people instead of six).
General Advice
As you begin to push into more challenging content, one lesson is key: dying is not good. That’s kind of a strange lesson to have to learn, but the reality is that Destiny does not punish you much for dying in ordinary content. That makes it easy to develop habits that will serve you poorly in raids and other situations, where dying can lead to a cascading series of mishaps that will cause a wipe or an extinguish mechanic. So one of your main goals as you start playing in these situations is to try to get better at not dying. The other thing to begin to learn—and which the game does not really force you to learn—is how to make weapons, armor, and ability builds that synergize both internally, in relation to your own character, and externally, in relation to your teammates and the environment. Understanding, for instance, not only your role in a given raid encounter but the roles of your teammates, and knowing what classes or weapons they’re running so that you can communicate with them about what to do next, are both critical to becoming a stronger team player. And understanding how your armor and weapons, your mods and class abilities, all interact is critical to your being able to maximize your impact as a solo player. All this advice is focused on building up the basic sets of gear that will help you through difficult PvE content. I have probably forgotten many things, and of course you can always do things with an off-meta or weird loadout, either because you’re a masochist or because you want to challenge yourself. What’s below focuses on the basics.
Part 1: Armor and Armor Mods
In general a good PvE build will be a fully masterworked set of armor with high recovery and discipline or intellect. (Resilience sounds good but has only a very small impact on PvE combat.) For raids you might end up using melee abilities, but for sublight content you will mostly be fighting at range, and meleeing only in a panic. Grenades have a wide variety of important uses (hence discipline), and supers (and super energy) are also always useful (hence intellect), so spec into one of those if you can. In general armor stats matter much less in PvE than PvP; your armor mods will almost certainly not be focused on other things, which we’ll discuss in a second. For now it’s worth noting that high-end PvE content tends to feature a pretty limited set of class and subclass options, along with a certain number of key exotic armor pieces. Hunters: (1) Top or bottom tree void, with Orpheus Rigs (especially top tree) or Sixth Coyote or Wormhusk Crown (the last two for solo especially). (2) Bottom tree solar with Celestial Nighthawk for one-shot boss damage, mainly in raids. (3) Middle tree solar with Assassin’s Cowl for heal on knife melee, for solo content. (4) Stasis, especially for solo content where the grenades and debuffs help with champions. Titans: (1) Top tree void, for the bubble, along with the Helm of Saint-14 (in some circumstances), or (2) middle tree void, for the barrier, with Ursa Furiosas for orb generation. In some situations, particularly when using Xenophage, Titans will run with Actium War Rigs for the reload benefit. Warlocks: (1) Top tree void with Contraverse Hold gauntlets for frequent charged grenade use, or (2) Bottom tree void with Nezarec’s Sin, for a devour-focused build especially useful for soloing content (in which case you would want to be running a void energy weapon). (3) Much more often, middle tree solar with either Phoenix Protocol for super regen or Lunafaction Boots for reload benefit, for almost any content involving groups. (4) Middle tree arc with Geomag Stabilizers for some high-end content like grandmaster nightfalls. Season 12 has added stasis subclasses to all three groups. One of the huge advantages of all stasis supers is that they allow for significant crowd control—for slowing and stunning enemies to take them temporarily or permanently out of the fight. This is true for supers, melees, and grenades. Of the three stasis classes I find the Warlock and Titans supers a bit weak for high-end content, but the grenades and melees to be very strong (especially when paired with the correct seasonal mods). Note that the most common subclasses for group content are the ones that boost the entire team (Titan bubble, Warlock well), protect the entire team (Titan barrier), make allies invisible (Hunter smoke grenade on bottom tree), or control/manage and debuff enemies (Hunter tether, the stasis classes). Solo players tend to focus intensely on survival abilities—the Warlock devour, the Hunter invis, or the healing melees of top tree void Titan, bottom tree arc Titan, or top tree Arc hunter. The other thing to say is that roaming supers—arc Hunter, solar or arc Titan, top and bottom arc Warlock, middle void Warlock—are generally not good in high-end PvE, especially if you’re sublight. They simply don’t deal enough damage quickly enough to be viable. This kind of content emphasizes one-shot supers like Celestial/Golden Gun or Nova Bomb for damage, and supers like the well or Titan barriebubbles, for protection. Must-have exotic armor: Hunter: Orpheus Rigs and Celestial Nighthawk (for group play), Sixth Coyote (solo). Titan: Helm of Saint-14, Ursa Furiosa, Actium War Rig (group), Synthoceps (solo). Warlock: Phoenix Protocol, Lunfaction Boots, and Contraverse Hold (group or solo), Nezarec’s Sin (solo). Of the new Season 12 armor exotics, three have some utility here: Icefall Mantle, which can allow a Titan to tank a single champion (at 10-15 light levels below, at 25 this becomes quite hard); Necrotic Grips, good for Warlocks doing low-level add clear in raids, and Precious Scars, the Titan helmet that gives an overshield when rezzing—very useful in grandmaster nightfalls where a rez can often be a deathtrap. In season 12, changes to the seasonal artifact mean that only solar and stasis subclasses have the ability to stun Overload champions with their grenades; this means that those classes have suddenly become more viable (and void less dominant) for high-end PvE work. More on that later.
Armor Mods
The key difference between high-level PvE content and ordinary content or PvP content is the importance of armor mods. Where PvP builds tend to focus on statistics like Recovery or Mobility, PvE armor tends to focus on damage resistance. The Destiny mod system is unfortunately pretty bewildering. There are many many choices and it’s not clear how much any of them matters. So let me cover a few things—all of these now updated for Season 12.
The first mod slot
This mod slot allows you to boost your character’s basic stats. For group PvE content, you’ll want to focus on Recovery (which affects how quickly your health begins to regen when you’re not being hit), Intellect (which increases super regen speed), and Discipline (for grenades). For solo content that relies heavily on a single ability to survive—like the Hunter’s dodge, which regens faster with high Mobility, or the Titan’s healing void melee, which regens faster with high Strength—you will want to focus on those things specifically. In the previous seasons this mod slot could be used for resistance mods, which are central to many PvE builds. But that has all gone away with Season 12, which means that this slot is less interesting, and less important, than it used to be.
Legacy, Combat, and Raid mod slots
These should be focused on one or more of the following goals, in order of importance:
Resistance mods (on chest armor) that reduce incoming damage
Mods that stun or disrupt or otherwise affect champions (arms or class item)
Raid-specific mods (final mod slot only, and only on raid armor)
Charged with Light and Warmind Cell mods (fourth slot)
Ammo Finder (helmet) and Ammo Scavenger (boots) mods.
For grandmaster nightfalls in particular, finisher mods (mainly Special Finisher) that go on your class item and allow you to trade super energy for special ammo drops.
Resistance Mods
Resistance mods come in four types: energy, melee, sniper, and concussive dampener. They all go on your chest armor. Melee reduces any damage done within 5m (does not have to be melee damage) by 25%. Sniper does the same for damage done from 29m or farther. Concussive reduces splash damage from grenades/boomers. These mods stack, with the second mod getting you to 40% damage resistance. The same goes for the energy resist mods. Since you only have two slots, you will probably want to change them depending on the activity. For Gambit or really any content where you’re at or above the appropriate power level, melee/concussive or melee/melee is quite strong, since you’ll probably be mixing it up with mobs on the regular. For grandmaster nightfalls and other sublight content, snipeconcussive is a good place to start.
Anti-Champion Mods
These mods come in two types: weapon-specific mods, which go on your arms, and grenade or melee mods, which go on your class item. These mods come from the seasonal artifact and therefore change each season (which is why I have to update this guide). Most high-end content will have two kinds of champions, so you’ll want to go into encounters making sure that you or your fireteam can stun, disrupt, or stagger the appropriate champions with the appropriate weapons. For season 12 these mods are: Unstoppable Schwarzschild Condenser (2-Cost, Class Item), which allows Void melees to stagger Unstoppables, and Thermal Overload (2-Cost, Class Item), which allows solar and stasis grenades to disrupt Overload champions. Another very useful champion mod in season 12 is Surge Eater, which restores your grenade whenever you stagger or disrupt a champion. You can combine this with Thermal Overload to stun Overload champions and immediately get your grenade back, allowing you to stun them again as soon as that’s possible. In general I would say that the most obvious/basic combo this season is Surge EateThermal Overload… the melee mods are going to be hard to use because it’s going to be hard to get close enough to champions (in sublight content) to actually land a melee hit. The same is true for the Unstoppable Shotgun mod, which is also very highly priced at 7 energy.
The CwL system works as follows: certain mods (colored in green) give you stacks of CwL, up to a maximum of two stacks. Other mods (yellow) spend those stacks. And a third set of mods (white) changes the number of stacks you get or can have (increases your stack maximum, up to five, or gives you two stacks instead of one each time you get a stack). The basic system is this: (1) Get CwL (2) Spend CwL. The easiest way to get CwL is to use the Taking Charge mod, which gives you charges for picking up a light orb. Combined with a masterworked weapon that drops orbs on fast kills, you can pretty much guarantee that you’ll spend most of the time CwL. You can also get charges from mods that give charges on weapon damage (kills with a certain weapon give you charges) or action triggers (breaking a shield, doing a finisher). For Season 12, Abyssal Charge, in the sixth row of the artifact, will give you CwL for void melee final blows. So now you have charges. How should you spend them? One option is to look for damage resistance or damage buffs. The best damage resist mod is Protective Light, an absolutely crucial choice that gives you 50% damage resistance when an enemy breaks your shield. I use it almost all the time. Useful damage boost mods include High-Energy Fire (generic 20% damage buff till you kill an enemy), Lucent Blade (for swords), and Surprise Attack (for sidearms). Other CwL mods will give you chances to drop special ammo, return grenade or melee energy, heal you on grenade kills, and more. For lower-level PvE content I tend to use damage mods like Lucent Blade or Surprise Attack. For scarier content I’m almost always on Protective Light. If you have room for mods that increase your stacks, Stacks on Stacks (gives two stacks for each one you earn), Charged Up (increases total stacks by one), and Superpowered (increases total stacks by two) are all useful here. TL:DR: if you do nothing else use Taking Charge (green) and Protective Light (yellow), and get more fancy once you understand more.
Warmind Cell mods
Like Charged with Light, this system involves creating an opportunity to affect the gameworld (by making a Warmind Cell), and then using that opportunity (the Cell) in a certain way. You create a cell by getting a kill using a Seraph weapon (which now are world drops; Ikelos 1.2 weapons also count as Seraph Weapons). Once the cell exists you can either pick it up or shoot it. Shooting it causes it to explode, and a number of WC mods increase the range of that explosion or add effects to it. Picking up the cell will allow you to throw or, or will (with a Warmind’s Light mod) Charge you with Light, or have some other effect. Here are the Seraph weapons currently available. Names include “Seventh Seraph” except where noted: Kinetic: auto rifle, hand cannon Energy: smg (Seraph and Ikelos), sniper (Ikelos), sidearm, shotgun (Seraph and Ikelos) Heavy: machine gun When I’m playing I’ll tend to run an auto/shotgun/Xenophage loadout for max solar explosion damage, unless I’m running a void Warlock, in which case I use the sidearm (void) with Nezarec’s sin. For some explosion-oriented content I’ll run the hand cannon, Jotunn, and the machine gun. The most basic way to use these cells is to create them and then shoot them. A mod like Global Reach will then give your cell explosions far greater range and effect. But you can also combine numbers of mods to create some pretty cool synergistic builds, as you see here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2020/03/27/a-destiny-2-solar-inferno-warlock-warmind-cell-build-for-more-room-clearing-fun/#5ec7d0c01c30 You can find a guide to all the Warmind Cell mods here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Kqaf2MdmUm1Ll6jCh-Rt0k6j2-nYCwf5lbbRLtXyr7M/edit# But here are the basics: Solar mods generally affect cell explosion damage; Void mods create buff and debuff effects that do not rely on exploding the cells; and Arc mods create effects upon mod pickup. The key to Warmind Cell is to understand that cells, once created, belong to everyone. Effects from shooting or picking up the cells are pegged to the person who picks them up or shoots them. So if Person A has Rage of the Warmind on and shoots a cell created by Person B, who does not have it on, then the explosion will be affected by Rage of the Warmind. And if Person B has Warmind’s Protection on, they will get 50% damage protection from mobs standing near a cell created by Person A—even if Person A does not have that mod on. What this means that an entire fireteam of 6 people can coordinate Warmind Cell mods to create synergistic effects. I describe some of those below.
Recommended Builds
Add-clear Explosion Fun Build Global Reach (1 neutral), Wrath of Rasputin (1 solar), Rage of the Warmind (5 solar), Incinerating Light (3 Solar), Reactive Pulse (CwL, 3 Arc). Ideally paired with a weapon that causes solar splash damage (Ace of Spaces, Sunshot, Jotunn, Xenophage, Martyr’s Retribution; the Warlock exotic chest Chromatic Fire also causes explosions on kinetic precision kills) and/or a solar subclass. This build involves creating cells and then using the explosions from the cells to create more cells, killing everything within 30m (that’s the range of the explosion, Rage of the Warmind doubles that). Wrath of Rasputin creates more cells from solar splash so you’ll be making cells from your non-Seraph weapons and your class abilities (if you’re running a solar class). Incinerating Light charges you with light when you kill three or more things with a cell explosion, and the Reactive Pulse mod creates a 30m Arc explosion when you take damage while surrounded—essentially destroying red-bar enemies all around you. This is a build for content where you’re higher or even in power level with your enemies; it’s super fun. In a perfect world it turns your character into the walking center of a series of explosions, and feels awesome. Defensive Build Global Reach (1 neutral), Wrath of Rasputin (1 solar), Taking Charge (CwL, 3 neutral), Protective Light (CwL, 2 void), Warmind’s Protection (2 void). This build has a number of variations depending on whether you’re running a solar class and/or coordinating with a team. A maximum defensive build swaps out Wrath of Rasputin for Cellular Suppression (2 void); you generate fewer cells but the cells you make help more, since shooting cells when you have CS on will send out a stunning pulse that will stun red-bar enemies for 10 seconds. Warmind’s Protection gives you a 50% damage buff against enemies near a cell. If you have a full fireteam with multiple people using Warmind builds you can coordinate some of these buffs (making sure a couple people have Cellular Suppression on, for instance, or having someone else run Grasp of the Warmind (3 void), which allows you to pick cells up and move them to better places. Here's a list of some fun builds for you: Neutral, good for anything
Taking Charge, Protective Light, Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin, Fireteam Medic
Taking Charge, Protective Light, Stacks on Stacks, Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin
Taking Charge, Protective Light, Reactive Pulse, Supercharged, Stacks on Stacks
Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin, Fireteam Medic, Warmind’s Protection, Cellular Suppression (this is the build I use most often in non-challenging content)
Aggressive
Global Reach, Wrath of Rasputin, Rage of the Warmind, Fireteam Medic, Power of Rasputin
Taking Charge, High-Energy Fire, Reactive Pulse, Supercharged, Lucent Blade (sword) or Argent Ordnance (Rockets) or Surprise Attack (sidearms)
Fusion Rifle or Shotgun-focused build: Supercharged, Quick Charge, Heavy Handed, High-Energy Fire, Charged Up
I think I drove myself into a wall not doing things efficiently. Do I have to restart my account to progress better?
Nah. You'll be just fine continuing. Just do things better from now on.
How do I level my girls? And I heard about corpse dragging, What is it?
First is grinding them on leveling maps. Corpse dragging is a resource efficient way to grind XP. The where and how.Dragging 0-2. Second is using Combat Reports. You can get them in the Forward Basecamp or through the Data Room. You can give them by going to the Dorm>Warehouse>Gift tab or going to your owned doll profile and tapping the + button by the EXP bar. Note that they are not affected by dummy link EXP multiplier. They give 3000 fixed EXP per report. Last one is the EXP mode combat sim. Total EXP per run is divided equally between all dolls present.
Is GFL being phased out/abandoned?
NO.
Not anytime soon, at the very least.
When do I do night campaigns?
Best metric would be when career quests send you there. Unlock them by completing the next chapter's emergency map (i.e. 11-4e unlocks 10-1n). Remember to equip PEQs to negate the accuracy penalty and bring HGs for map vision.
Is it worth to reroll in this game?
Depends on what you value more. If you want a pretty easy time until endgame, no need. Game gives you free strong dolls. Endgame? Mostly not, since this is a game of accumulation instead of meta characters.
What teams should I build?
ARSMG first, then whichever second ARSMG or RFHG you need more, then the other one you haven't made yet, then MGSG if you want.
How do I change my commander's gender so I can change their dirty clothes?
Change gender in the commander's wardrobe, which can be visited by tapping the arrow below then tapping WARDROBE, or tapping your commander name then tapping on the avatar.
What does Infinite Surprise Dyes do?
Changes the appearance of your commander's clothes, IF they can be changed, that is.
What commander costume sets do the older servers have right now?
So far, nothing that the EN version doesn't have.
I saw that commander costumes have skills. How do I level it up?
Can I deploy two or three of the same pets in expedition?
Actually, that is the method used by min-maxers regarding advantaged pets.
Can the basecamp not give expedition loots?
Only if you didn't do one. If you did and no visible loot, restart app.
Which pet corresponds to which exploration material?
Cat - Bricks/City; Dog - Buttstock/Snowfield; Bird - Acorn/Forest; Misc - Fluid/Wasteland Then use the corresponding food that gives higher chance to visit a locale for a near 100% visit.
If advantaged dolls change mid-expedition, which one determined your rewards, the advantaged on the start of exploration or at the end?
The start of the expedition.
What are T-doll effects available in the older servers?
I can't beat the current stage. Is this it for me?
Nope. Just fall back to the last boss node you can handle. These nodes can mitigate the "beaten stage" penalty so it's worth more than non-boss higher node.
I wasn't able to place high enough to 5★ the reward HOC. Is there another way to get their central data?
Wait for the next theater and they'll join the HOC gacha.
I'm thinking of using Landmine Fairy. Will they work?
Well yes... as a stat stick. Can't use a Strategy Fairy skill in theater mostly because you can't tap a node to activate it in the first place. Stick to Combat Fairies if you want to use skills.
I can't do auto-battle even though I met the required CE. What happened?
Is it a night map? If it is, refer to night CE. If it still doesn't let you, increase CE, some required CE are listed wrong.
Can I get SPEQs/Limited dolls from auto-battles?
Yes, you can.
Support Echelons
Do support echelons use equipments?
Equipments, formation, and apparently costumes too are saved instances. Doll levels, equipment levels, skill levels, and chibi aren't.
I can't deploy a friend echelon. What do I do?
"Unable to deploy Support Echelon before the mission starts!". Maybe it's possible to set support echelon after starting the mission". If it's still a no, restart or check how many are allowed.
What does "Event" mean on the left side of the mission select screen?
Combat Missions: If there is a new night map, SPEQ rate up for X-4n. Combat/Campaign: 1.5x EXP Logistics: Great Success Rate Up Combat sim: All simulations unlocked.
Which should I prioritizein the Data Room, Combat Reports or Special Combat Reports?
SCRs primarily because you can just EXP sim, corpse drag, and auto-battle the dolls, and also because basecamp sells far more CR than SCR. Note that you'd need 5000 SCRs to fully level a fresh HOC.
How do I maximize the efficiency of my RFHG echelon's ROF?
Money Diary: I am 25 years old, make $125,000 a year, live in NYC, and work as a Management Consultant
This is a follow-up to a diary that I posted a little under a year ago. Since then, I’ve started a new job and moved into a new apartment! I began this position fairly recently (back in October) and I am still in the process of figuring out my new budget and how much I would like to save on a monthly basis. Link to old diary here! Section One: Assets and Debt Retirement Balance: I have ~$17,000 in a 401k from my previous job. I had to rollover money from my old plan to my new one this week, so I’m glad I got that done with! I’m not eligible to contribute to my new job’s plan until 90 days in, which will be in January. After that, I think I will likely contribute 8-10% per paycheck, still deciding! Equity: Haha, I wish. Unfortunately, no :( it is a goal of mine to buy in the next few years though! Savings account balance: ~$11,880 in my account as of today - I typically don’t keep much in my savings account, about 3-4 months worth of rent + expenses as an emergency fund. Once the number goes above $10,000 or so, I’ll move money to my investment accounts (this happens every 3-4 months; although this time, I waited a bit longer because I didn’t want to put too much in around election time). I’ll probably transfer a few thousand into my investment accounts at the end of this year. Checking account balance: ~$3,290 in my account as of today - I only keep my paychecks in here and typically don’t withdraw any money unless I need cash, which is rare. At the end of each month, I’ll transfer any money I have leftover to savings so I can start each month with a clean slate. Credit card debt: None, I consistently use 1-2 credit cards and everything is always paid off in full at the end of every month. Since I was a teenager, my mom has taught me never to spend more than I can afford and always pay off the statement balance of my credit cards. Student loan debt: None, and I’m so thankful. Not going to college was not an option in my family and my parents were very determined to put me through college successfully without any debt at the end. I helped out by getting multiple scholarships that covered about 40% of all my expenses but it was still a lot of money. My parents had to work very hard throughout their lives to do this, after coming to America with nothing, but I’m so happy that they did. Section Two: Income Income Progression: I’ve held multiple jobs throughout my life and I’ve always been extremely work-oriented, I get pretty bored and restless when I’m not busy so I made sure to use any extra time I had in high school productively! 2010-2013: I worked as a tutor for little kids a few days after school, taught them math/reading and helped my boss with random admin work. Also had a brief stint at a music store for a few months during the summefall of my junior year just to get some extra money. 2013-2017: Had multiple jobs throughout college, all were pretty chill and paid minimum wage. I had work-study positions in my school’s psychology department planning events and was an office assistant in various dorms on campus helping with packages, mail, administrative work, etc. 2017-2020: I was very lucky to receive a job offer in spring of my senior year as a software consultant. I loved this position and my salary rose ~$11,000 through the 3.5 years I was there, from $64,000-$75,000. I received a 10% performance raise in April 2020, but never actually received it as all salary changes were postponed until Jan 2021 due to COVID-19. 2020-present: Switched jobs last month (Oct 2020) and made the jump to management consulting. I won’t say too much about my job since it’s a small company but I appreciate the change in industry and that I’m gaining more project management skills that can be used in the future. They offered me $125,000 as a starting salary and, after three days of debating whether it was too risky to jump ship during a pandemic, I decided to take it. I have heard that our bonuses are $10,000-$20,000 per year but, since I’m not 100% sure on the amount, I’m not including it. I typically put all of my bonus money into investment/savings accounts and don’t touch it. Main Job Monthly Take Home: $6580.00 after taxes, health insurance, etc. Once I’m eligible for 401k contributions in Jan, this amount will go down significantly. Side Gig Monthly Take Home: No consistent side gig; I sell clothes on Poshmark here and there, but only when I need to. Section Three: Expenses Rent: $1,500.00 a month for my room in an apartment with three other girls; my room is the smallest and hopefully, I can move into a bigger room in the place once my lease is up! Retirement Contribution: $500 a month to my Roth IRA, I always contribute the max of $6000 every year, I currently have about $23,000 in here as of now Savings Contribution: Stated above, move all money leftover at the end of the month to savings. Investment Contribution: Stated above, all extra money (that isn’t meant for my emergency fund) to my investment accounts. I don’t really see a point in keeping a ton of money in my savings account. I currently have about ~$55,000 in my investment and Roth IRA accounts combined. Debt Payments: Currently none. Donations: No monthly set donations, although I do send money to different organizations frequently when I see causes that I would like to support. ConEd: $17-$25 per month, I Venmo my roommate for this and she pays for us Wifi/Cable: $45 per month; again, I Venmo my roommate for this and she pays the actual bill Cellphone: I’m still on my parents’ plan but my company reimburses us about $35 every month, which covers my share of the charges. Subscriptions: Netflix: $0 - my parents cover this, they pay for some services and my sister and I pay for others. It all evens out in the end! Hulu: $12.39 - my parents and sister all have access to this Spotify: $0 - my sister pays for our family plan HBOMax: I pay for this, my roommates and I all share a login - the cost is covered in our cable bill FabFitFun: $200 per year, this is definitely my guilty pleasure - I definitely don’t need it, but it’s so fun to get this box every few months Gym Membership: None at the moment, since I’m pretty iffy about working out with so many other people around mid-pandemic and it doesn’t look like the situation in NYC is going to improve anytime soon. Thinking about getting an Equinox membership though since there’s one pretty close to me - NYC people without a corporate discount to Equinox, is it worth it? Section 4: Money Attitudes Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If so, how did you pay for it?: Yes, I think there was always the expectation that I would attend college, my parents both immigrated to the U.S. in their early 20s and told me that they would support me in any kind of career I chose, but that I had to go to college prior to doing so. My mom and dad made sure I was very involved in the process and we used to talk about all my college expenses together as a family. They also had to pay for my sister’s education too so I understand that it was a huge burden but they never complained about it. My parents are also very supportive of me getting my MBA, but I don’t think they would have the means to financially back me for this, since they’re getting close to retirement age and need to build as large of a financial cushion as possible. Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have around money? Did your parents educate you on finances?: My parents have become more and more transparent about money as my sister and I have grown older. Both my parents are very frugal and taught me important lessons about debt and financial risk when I was growing up. My mom, since she handles most of the finances, was very truthful about how much we had and what we could/couldn’t afford. What was your first job and why did you get it?: I got my first real job when I was 15, working as a tutor. I didn’t need the money because my parents supported me with anything I needed, but it was helpful to have some savings when I got to college. My parents didn’t pressure me to get one but I figured that it would also look good on college applications. Did you worry about money growing up?: My parents didn’t really let me worry about money growing up, but I’ve always been more of a saver, rather than a spender. My parents have definitely told me that we couldn’t afford things at times, but if anything really needed to be bought, they found a way. They are now very truthful, since they’re getting older, about what their financial situation is and how much money they have set aside for retirement. Do you worry about money now?: Constantly, I don’t know if there will ever be a point at which I won’t worry; you always need money for something. I do think that my parents have prepared me to be practical about money instead of wasting it on silly things. At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?: I would say that I became financially responsible for myself once I graduated college, since I started paying my own rent and expenses at that point (minus my cellphone bill). I have a comfortable safety net of savings at the moment, but if I ever really found myself in a bind and couldn’t afford to get by, I would likely turn to my sister for help. Section Five: Money Diary! Friday 11/13: 8:00 am - Wake up! It’s finally Friday and I’m so thankful. This week has felt incredibly long for some reason. I have a bit of a later start to my meetings today so I want to get in a workout before. Brush my teeth, change into some work out clothes, and get going on a Sydney Cummings arm/upper body workout video. 8:45 am - Done! I recently discovered her videos from an Instagram influencer I follow; I can actually keep up with them without dying on the floor in pain! 10:00 am - Calls begin and basically do not stop the entire morning. I get a few administrative tasks done here and there but ultimately am not super productive. 1:30 pm - Towards the end of my last call of the day (finally!), I make a quick egg scramble with veggies, lots of hot sauce and some avocado and toast on the side. Pair that with some OJ and get back to work! 4:30 pm - My sister and I text throughout the afternoon about things we want to do while she’s in NYC during Christmastime! I’m so excited to see her; look up times for The Greens in Chelsea but of course, they’re all sold out. Bookmark it on my computer to keep checking for the next few weeks. 6:15 pm - Log off for the week after sending in my timesheet, it’s the weekend!!! I hang out with my roommate before she goes to work and she convinces me to order Thai food for dinner (mainly because I’ve been bringing it up every day). Order Pad Kee Mao from UpThai (best Thai food on the UES) and watch The Parent Trap to distract myself while I wait, classic. - $19.16 7:45 pm - Spend the rest of the night flipping between random movies on TV and talking to Verizon since our Wi-Fi randomly shuts off. I finally fix it and am exhausted by the end of the night. 12:30 am - Fall asleep while watching an episode of The Crown - can’t believe I haven’t watched this show until now, love Queen E! Daily Total: $19.16 Saturday 11/14: 8:30 am - Wake up and stay in bed for a bit scrolling through texts/TikTok/Instagram. Try not to do this on weekdays but it’s inevitable on weekends. 9:45 am - Make coffee, put clean dishes away, and chill on the couch. Eat a Kind bar and some Cheerios while watching a bit more of The Crown. 12:30 pm - I’ve spent too much time on the couch at this point, oops. Put my workout clothes on and head to the East Side Running Path, it’s such a nice day for a run! 1:45 pm - 4.5 miles done! I head home and pick up some veggies from the fruit stand on my way: tomatoes, green pepper, mini cucumbers, and an avocado. The stuff here is so much cheaper than grocery stores. - $8.00 2:00 pm - Heat up some of the leftover Thai food from last night and spend the afternoon hanging out on the couch with my roommate. 5:30 pm - Going out to dinner with a few friends tonight so I take a shower and put on some makeup. I honestly forget how to put on makeup sometimes because I do it so rarely, anyone else? 7:00 pm - Head down to Little Italy on the subway (using money already on my MetroCard) and meet my friends, S and K, at Aunt Jake’s! This place has the most AMAZING pasta. I get the rigatoni with spicy arrabiatta sauce and we split a bottle of red wine between the three of us. Sit outside in the cold and eat with my huge coat on but it’s better than being inside the restaurant with way too many people. Plus, the wine helps a lot. - $46.30 9:45 pm - We part ways and I subway back up to the UES, the Q makes it so quick. Spend the rest of the night on the couch watching Schitt’s Creek with my roommate. Daily Total: $54.30 Sunday 11/15: 9:00 am - Wake up and the scrolling happens again, albeit for a shorter time than yesterday. It’s the little wins! I quickly go to the grocery store across the street to grab milk because I can’t have my coffee black, no matter how hard I try. - $2.39 10:30 am - Spend the rest of the morning talking to my mom and then my best friend, L. L and I have been fighting a bit lately so it feels good to get things cleared up. It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders once we’re done! 12:30 pm - Heat up the pasta from last night (with some sautéed veggies added in) and watch a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory. I’m the queen of leftovers. 3:30 pm - Scour the internet for a place to buy paper towels and finally end up scoring some at Staples. Looks like COVID Round #2 is coming in hot. Wear your masks, please! - $21.55 5:00 pm - Between freaking out over COVID infection rates and episodes of Schitt’s Creek on in the background, I raid my fridge and realize I’m out of a few things. Wish I had known this before I went to the grocery store this morning, damn. This doesn’t really help in limiting my exposure.... 5:45 pm - Run to Staples to pick up my order of paper towels and then head to the grocery store to get romaine, waffles, onions, and olives. Also see some apple cinnamon donuts while I’m in line and can’t resist.... - $16.40 7:00 pm - Veggie sandwich and tomato soup for dinner while watching The Crown. Clean up the kitchen after I eat and FaceTime my parents for a bit. Spend a majority of the call trying to convince them to get a new laundry machine since theirs keeps breaking. Maybe my sister and I will surprise them for Christmas... 10:00 pm - Walk around my apartment to get my steps in for the day and take a quick shower. Watch a bit more of The Crown while ordering a gift for my old boss. She’s the best and I felt so much guilt leaving my last job mainly because I loved working with her. Ship her a gift basket full of wine (obviously), cheese, cookies, crackers, almonds, and other good stuff. Write her a quick thank you note (110 characters is not enough) and send it off! - $91.00 12:30 am - I call my brother-in-law to wish him a happy birthday and fall asleep immediately after; work is going to be rough tomorrow. Daily Total: $131.34 Monday 11/16: 8:15 am - Snooze multiple times and finally manage to get out of bed. I have a heated mattress pad inside my bed so it’s especially hard to get up on mornings when it’s 35 degrees outside. I stretch, brush my teeth, and change into work clothes (lol leggings and a tank) before dialing into my first call of the day. 10:45 am - Quick break time! I heat up my coffee while I make a waffle with peanut butter and maple syrup on top. Banana on the side. Back to Excel! 12:20 pm - Morning calls are almost at an end so I head to the kitchen to make lunch. Put some quinoa to cook on the stove (ever since I learned how to correctly make quinoa, I’ve become obsessed and put it in everything) and quickly assemble a harvest bowl a la Sweetgreen. Add in spinach, apples, quinoa, sweet potato, broccoli and carrots. Topped with a pesto vinaigrette, it’s probably a weird combination, but I like it and it fills me up. 3:30 pm - I recently started a new job about a month ago and am finally getting around to rolling over my 401k into my new plan. I requested a check from the old company last week and spend some time going through the rollover process. It’s relatively easy, thankfully, and all I need to do now is get HR to sign a form! 4:45 pm - Tortilla chip snack break because I always get hungry around this time. 6:15 pm - Work is finally over and I’m about to start a workout when my roommate complains that she hasn’t done one in a while. I convince her to do a Sydney Cummings boxing workout with me and we’re both dripping with sweat by the end. Our downstairs neighbors probably hate us though since there was a lot of jumping, whoops! 7:20 pm - Heat up the last portion of TJ’s Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup and eat while watching an episode of The Crown. I wonder how much of this stuff is true and Google random things about Prince Philip while I watch. 10:45 pm - After talking with my mom and sister for almost an hour, I run the dishwasher and finally take a shower. It feels so good to get into bed! 12:00 am - Scroll through random TikTok videos and send a few funny ones to my sister. Pass out while watching old episodes of The Big Bang Theory. Daily Total: $0.00 Tuesday 11/17: 8:20 am - I wake up too late and scramble around quickly to get ready before my 8:30 call begins. Manage to brush my teeth and make coffee, still in PJs though. Luckily, it’s a conference call with our team in Spain so I don’t have to turn my video on and can sip my coffee while listening. 9:10 am - I have some time before my next call at 9:30 so I change into leggings and a tank, throw a sweatshirt on, and fix my bed. I hate late start days but the time I get to spend under my covers almost seems worth it every time. 10:30 am - Same breakfast as yesterday: waffle with peanut butter and maple syrup with a banana on the side. Can you tell I’m a creature of habit? 12:30 pm - I’m STARVING. I quickly make a small plate of nachos because I have calls until 2:00 and can’t eat until after. 2:00 pm - Yes, calls are over! I swear, half of these could be summed up into an email. Make a harvest bowl like yesterday with broccoli, apples, sweet potato, etc. Make a quick honey mustard vinaigrette with my almost empty mustard bottle - I love hacks like these! 4:15 pm - My paycheck dates have changed so I call to ask Chase if they can modify my credit card statement closing date to be right before I get my first paycheck so I can start each month fresh after rent gets paid. Also get the rollover form back from HR and upload my check to my new 401k! 6:00 pm - Go downstairs to the CVS on my block to get a quick flu shot. I’m in and out within 15 minutes, thankfully! 6:45 pm - Hang out with my roommate before she goes to work and spend the rest of the night watching The Bachelorette and talking to my parents. My sister and I are trying to visit our cousin in California for NYE and we’re not sure if it’s going to be okay getting on an airplane in a month. I tell my mom to book the tickets now, since they’re relatively cheap, and we can always cancel and get our miles back since refund policies are lenient at the moment. Walk around my apartment while talking on the phone to get some steps in. At some point, I make a sandwich with broccoli cheddar soup from TJ’s on the side. 10:30 pm - I spend some time just laying on my couch, my back and shoulders completely kill from boxing yesterday. 11:20 pm - Shower, hot cocoa, a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory, bed. Daily Total: $0.00 Wednesday 11/18: 7:30 am - Wake up earlier than I want ta so I can get in line early at CityMD to get a COVID test. Quickly brush my teeth and slip on leggings and sneakers and run across the street. The line is already around the block to the next street...great. 8:30 am - Contemplate leaving as I dial into a Zoom meeting, decide wait it out some more. 9:00 am - Okay...pretty sure I have pneumonia by now. IT’S FREEZING and we’ve only moved by half a block. I did not prepare enough for this. Complain/vent to my mom a little on the phone and decide to cut my losses before I freeze to death. Run back home, immediately change into comfy sweats, and spend over an hour trying to get warm again while in meetings. 12:30 pm - Text with my sister while I’m in a meeting about the testing situation in NYC. She wants me to get tested before I go home for Thanksgiving so we don’t have to worry about our grandparents. I search around for other testing sites in the city while I’m in calls. 1:30 pm - I throw together a bunch of vegetables with some spinach and brown rice I had in the fridge and make a quick salad. Use up the last of the honey mustard vinaigrette as dressing. 4:00 pm - Research face masks while I’m on my last call of the day. I like the ones from Rothy’s (recommended by another money diary) but I hold off on buying them for now until I can decide on a color I like. 6:15 pm - Finish up work after sending out a few emails and turn on a Sydney Cummings workout. My butt and legs are on fire after I finish...I take longer than I should to get up off my yoga mat. 7:15 pm - Heat up the rest of the broccoli cheddar soup from TJ’s - it’s actually much better than I thought it would be! 9:00 pm - Head down to CVS quickly because I have a coupon for a free item and my mom would be disappointed in me if I let it go to waste. I can’t really think of anything I need so I grab a muscle relaxant cream to give to my grandma, she has arthritis so I think it would be helpful. 10:00 pm - I get an email that a dresser I’ve been looking at is back in stock. We remodeled my room at my parent’s house last year and it’s basically empty at the moment, so I think it could be a nice addition to the space. I call my mom to ask if she likes it - luckily the color matches perfectly with the rest of the furniture so I go ahead and make the purchase. Open up a Wayfair credit card to get $40 off; I get approved quicker than I thought! - $383.84 11:15 pm - I take a shower, try on the items I got in my latest Stitch Fix box, and get into bed. Exchange random funny TikToks with my sister and fall asleep while watching an episode of The Crown. Daily Total: $383.84 Thursday 11/19: 7:30 am - I have a call at 8:30 so I wake up early to check if the urgent care near me has time slots. It already says that no walk-in appointments are available for the next hour so I make a note to check throughout the day. Lay in bed and am in and out of sleep for the next half hour. 8:30 am - I get on my first call of the morning after cleaning up my room and brushing my teeth. I listen to our project lead talk about doing business with Asian countries while making my coffee. 10:30 am - Still on calls, ugh. Take a quick break from the Excel file I’ve been working on in the background to make a multigrain waffle with peanut butter and some maple syrup on top. No banana to add on the side today, unfortunately. 11:45 am - I’ve been talking to a guy I met on Bumble for a few weeks now and we were supposed to meet tonight for the first time. I text him to postpone since we’re both seeing our families in the next few days and it would be too risky to meet tonight for the first time. Luckily, he’s really nice about it and totally understands. This pandemic has definitely pushed back my potential wedding by 2 years, ha. 1:30 pm - I finally have a break from meetings to make lunch! I quickly heat up some parmesan arugula ravioli from TJ’s with a salad on the side to use up all of the random produce I have left. Get back to my desk and work while I eat. 4:30 pm - I read a funny article about the little owl that was found in the Rockefeller Center tree and I text my old coworker about it. They call him Rockefeller and he’s so cute! My coworker says he gives her Baby Yoda vibes. I agree. 6:45 pm - Finally finish up work, it’s almost Friday! I check the urgent care site again and it still says that no appointments are available for the next hour. My roommate and I complain about how it shouldn’t be this difficult to get tested in the city. I walk down to the center anyway and the receptionist tells me that she might be able to fit me in if I come back tomorrow around lunchtime. Semi-success! 7:30 pm - I eat a few soft/hard tacos for dinner while talking to my roommate and watching an episode of The Crown - I just want to get to the Princess Diana-era already! 10:00 pm - I spend the rest of the night cleaning up the kitchen, running the dishwasher, showering, etc. I decide on one item to keep from my Stitch Fix box and check out the app. I think I might cancel my subscription, especially since we’re probably not going anywhere for the next few months. - $59.00 11:30 pm - Get in bed, pull up old episodes of Friends on my iPad, and fall asleep at some point. Daily Total: $59.00 WEEKLY TOTALS Food + Drink: $92.25 Fun / Entertainment: $0.00 Home + Health: $21.55 Clothes + Beauty: $59.00 Transport: $0.00 Other: $474.84 GRAND TOTAL: $647.64 REFLECTIONS: Aside from the furniture purchase and gift for my boss, I would say that this is a standard week. I honestly don’t think I spend too much but sometimes my credit card bill is way higher than I thought it would be. I thought it would be fun to do a follow-up, especially with my job/apartment change! Still trying to figure out how to live with this salary since it’s a big change for me, has anyone struggled with this? Would love some advice, I realize that it’s a great problem to have but I still feel uncomfortable since I don’t really know how much is right to spend/save.
Three <10L builds (gaming, development, & streaming optimized) and an international move
Happy New Year! My pandemic hobby for 2020 was building SFFpcs. I started the year pre-pandemic with one big box 750W ATX build, and ended it with three modern, specialized builds tailored to my needs that draw in total the same 750W peak power budget and take the same 20L total of space. The utility of having my builds be as small as possible was unbeatable, as I moved from the US to Canada in September, and was able to fit all three of my devices in one suitcase safely cushioned with clothing. This easily saved hundreds of dollars of shipment fees. This post describes my journey into the SFFpc world, and the boxes I built along the way! I'm also, somewhat uniquely for this community, a fairly hardcore Linux user -- I haven't installed Windows on any computer I've owned in over 15 years. Always happy to talk SFF & Linux driver support for specialized components. I'm also providing full detail on my build specs.
Build 1: petunia, the lightweight streaming/meeting box
When the pandemic hit in March, I went from spending 50% of my life on the road meeting clients to being locked down at home. I lived with 4 housemates, and at any given time, at least one of us would be joining meetings from our group office in the living room, or use the living room TV at the exact same time. After just two weeks, my housemates and I were at each others' throats. As the person who had the most meetings, podcasts, and livestream hosting duties, I needed to move those tasks out of the common area into a corner of my bedroom. I still wanted to game together with the rest of the household, so moving the ATX machine downstairs permanently wasn't an option. And whatever I moved into my bedroom needed to be extremely small/compact, power-efficient, and low noise. Thanks to the excellent guides pinned here on /sffpc, I quickly settled on the Ryzen 5 3400G APU in the Chopin InWin case (3.3L), given that the kit included a PSU, had a tiny volume, and wouldn't need a separate GPU. It was a good starter experience with the SFF world. The setup worked flawlessly for running Chrome, Zoom, and OBS, and even could play lightweight games like WoW or League of Legends on low settings. Op success!
Build 2: daisy, the arm64 developer workstation
In May, I received the SolidRun HoneyComb ITX developer SoC board I'd ordered in March. The reason I ordered this board was to have a local testbench for day to day development on the arm64 architecture. At my job, we had switched production workloads from Intel to Amazon Graviton2/ARM Neoverse N1 in March, but didn't yet have a way for developers to validate platform compatibility before merging code. So I ordered the best arm64 developer board I could find, and a case that matched the modest power (CPU TDP: 35W) and cooling needs of that board: the Lone Industries L5. The build took some time to get right given the firmware was still being stabilized and OS support was maturing, but eventually I got a bootable system that neatly fit in the 4.6L case. And over time, the firmware and OS support has improved, with contributions to the Ubuntu story in particular backported/prebuilt by me for the community once I had my own board bootstrapped. I was able to fairly quickly shift my day to day computing for my job onto the arm64 workstation, and even run Baker Lab's Rosetta@Home to contribute to COVID research in a power-efficient manner with the spare cycles!
Build 3: lily, the few-compromises amd64 gaming machine
With my move to Canada impending, I realized that if I transplanted my M.2 SSD and existing GTX 1070 from the ATX machine into a SFF build, I could get away with taking all my devices with me on the airplane and not needing to worry about shipping them. Coincidentally, the Ryzen 7 4750G had just come out and I wanted to upgrade petunia. So my housemates and I gathered around and cooked up a plan similar to hermit crab shell exchanges: we'd hand off my ATX case, board, and installed i7-6700K (2016) Intel CPU to the housemate with the oldest computer, plug in their graphics card/SSD/ram, and ewaste their 5+ year old computer. We'd then take my ram/SSD/1070 and plug them into a X470 motherboard with the 3400G from daisy, and install into a Salvo Studios S402 (9.5L). And finally, I'd get the upgrade I wanted to petunia, of the 4750G in B550 motherboard to enable it to play games at higher than minimum settings, drop fewer frames while streaming, etc. Some fiddling later, we had three bootable upgraded systems, and one clunker sent to ewaste. It was time to pack the bags and head to Canada.
Future-proofing everything, no compromises
With the launch of the Ryzen 5xxx and Radeon RX 6xxx series (both PCIe 4), and support for the 4750G (PCIe 3 only) finally released for the X470 motherboard (PCIe 3 only), it was time to rejigger everything around to ensure that my builds would be future-proofed for the next 4 year replacement cycle. I found somewhat reputable retailers (scalpers?) who had stock of the 5600x and RX 6800 and charged markup of <10% over Canadian MSRP (thank you AeroMalls & Infonec Computers!). I set out to work transplanting the B550 into the Salvo Studios case and X470 into the Inwin, re-slotting processors, installing the new GPU and can happily report that I have the Ryzen 5600x, B550, and Radeon RX 6800 all working happily together at PCIe 4.0 speeds with the LINKUP Ultra riser. The only wasted parts here were one outdated 3400G, one half-decade old GTX 1070, a few Wraith stock coolers, and the B550 board I had to RMA. lily is now a beauty to look at, especially with the RGB from the RX 6800 card. and performs like an absolute beast. yes, on 450 watts. yes, in a 9.8L case. it all does barely fit both in terms of space and power budget.
Gotchas/troubleshooting/tips
A couple of weird incompatibilities turned up along the way that I had to nail down:
read the QVL. the Ryzen 3400G really really does not like XMP ram clocked above 3200, so I had to manually downclock while it was lily's CPU. before I downclocked, I was getting random segfaults, and yeah, bitflips in RAM are baaaaad.
firmware support for newer processors is tricky. the original plan was to install the 4750G directly into petunia's existing X470 motherboard. That did not work, because X470 firmware supporting 4xxx APUs wasn't out at the time.
volting can need adjustment even at stock speeds. the iGPU in the Ryzen 4750G over-stresses the VSoC power delivery of the B550M/itx mobo and needs to be overvolted by 50mV to not crash under texture rendering load. I had tried everything kernel & driver but didn't think to over-volt given I hadn't touched overclock.
it's not always the drivers, but sometimes it is. My RX 6800 initially refused to light under Linux after BIOS handoff. It turned out that the 5.10 kernel was panicking due to missing firmware files, and the 5.8 kernel didn't know about the 6800 at all but could get me in via UEFI GOP mode for long enough to install the drivers to make it light properly under 5.10.
even without visible damage, travel can stress things. My B550M/itx motherboard suddenly went dead during the transplant, possibly due to the travel exposing a latent bad solder joint. And, worse yet, the SolidRun board also developed a loose carrier board spacer and loose USB port assembly two months after travel >.< Both ASRock and SolidRun have been gracious about RMAs, thankfully.
redundancy saved my bacon. Always make sure you have at least one, preferably two, backup systems for looking up directions, searching error messages, or if worst comes to worst, working/gaming/streaming for a week or two without the machine specialized for the role while waiting for troubleshooting or RMA exchange to happen.
I work in a hospital, and I got the Pfizer vaccine today as part of the "Phase 1a" rollout of the vaccine in Texas. I wanted to share my experience to answer some of the questions that might be out there about the vaccine. First, a bit of background - I work at a fairly large but rural hospital in Texas. We received our first supply of the Pfizer vaccine (currently inconveniently named "BNT162b2") on Monday and began vaccinating our healthcare employees on Tuesday, December 15. The vaccine is considered voluntary, and employees are not forced to get the vaccine to continue working. Previously, employees filled out a survey where we could opt in for the vaccine. Even after opting in, employees had the option to change their mind up until they received their shot. Suffice to say, I decided to go all the way. I've been cautiously optimistic about the vaccine for a while, and aside from seasonal allergies, I have a fairly unremarkable medical history. Also, when the nursing department said that there would be free lollipops... well, that sealed the deal for me. Our hospital set up pre-planned COVID vaccination times to keep things organized, and I showed up to my 3:15PM slot a few minutes early since I half-expected to see a cluster-F. I was a little disappointed to see that things were actually pretty mellow. There was a check-in process that involved filling out a one-page consent form with a 6-page easy-to-read primer on the vaccine, COVID-19, and potential side effects; TLDR = You're getting two 30 mcg shots 21-days apart. They also introduced a CDC app, V-Safe, that would send us a weekly survey to ask for side-effects. They encouraged us to report any side effect of any intensity on the survey, whether it was severe or just minor arm pain. V-Safe is completely optional and voluntary, and they said we could get the vaccine without worrying about V-Safe. The check-in process took about 5 minutes total; faster than I expected. They asked me which arm should receive the vaccine, and I picked left since I've never liked that arm. When they pulled out the vaccine syringe, I realized that I was suddenly a tad nervous. When I get nervous, I talk a lot. I talked about how small the needle looked; I compared it to a flu shot needle. I talked about how the vaccine syringe had a translucent semi-clear off-white look to it. The syringe itself looked really narrow and innocuous. After talking about the syringe, I talked about how I talk a lot when I get nervous. While talking, I spotted the bowl of lollipops and talked about those too. At some point in my monologue, the nurse saw her window, nodded at me for permission, and I frowned and nodded back. The actual injection was extremely unremarkable. I expected a stinging sharpness, but instead it felt more like a dull, numbing sort of discomfort. I was worried that the actual liquid would be extra viscous or acidic, and as the nurse was injecting me I was fearful that it would be like that one year where the flu shot with the H1N1 strain really sucked and caused a sore arm right after. But, instead, I felt more surprised by how much the injection itself didn't hurt. I wasn't even sure that I had gotten the vaccine until later when I saw a small dot of dried blood on my bandaid. After the shot, they hand you a small vaccination card that shows the date and location of your 1st shot, and it reminds you that you still have to get a 2nd shot after 21 days. I noticed that the day of the vaccination is being counted as Day 0 and so tomorrow is Day 1. After the shot, they had me sit in a waiting room for 15 minutes to watch for an allergic reaction. They even handed me a placard that read "You must wait until 3:35PM" before I could leave observation. I took this time to sign up for V-Safe (which took about 2 minutes), text some friends, and then stare out the window before I was free to go back to work. As I'm typing this post, it's been about 6.5 hours since I've gotten the vaccine, and I haven't noticed any unusual pain or side-effects yet. From the NEJM article about the vaccine (https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577), I'm preparing myself for some combination of a headache and/or fatigue, and I wouldn't be surprised if my arm hurts more in the morning As of right now, though, I haven't noticed anything out of place in my body unless I stop to focus on my arm and ask, "Does my arm hurt at all?" and, I guess the answer to that is, "Yeah, I guess it qualifies as a 1 out of 10 on the discomfort scale." It hasn't limited any of my activities at this point, and I've been able to jog, do some pull-ups and light exercise without any problems. It's been extremely mundane so far, and my only real angst right now is that I forgot to pick up a lollipop on my way out of observation. But, I'm also trying to stay cautious and remind myself that stuff can still happen either in the next few days or with the 2nd dose in 3 weeks. Still, I'm a bit relieved with how things have gone so far. I hope my experience has provided a data point for you guys about the literal vaccination process. If you guys have any questions about my experience, feel free to ask and I'll see if I can provide something useful. Update 1 - Post-Vaccine Day 1, Dec 17 TLDR - Pretty boring so far. Arm is slightly more painful, and I had a fake headache. The left arm pain is a bit more noticeable today. I'm bumping the pain scale on my left deltoid from 1 to 2, and when I raise arm over my head (sorta like I'm flapping my wings), the pain increases to a 3. It's still not enough to limit any functionality. For comparison, I asked for "spicy" chicken biriyani from a local Indian place, and I would rate that as a 5 on the pain scale. Feel free to ask me to rate other stuff on the pain scale, and I'll try my best calibrate for perspective. I half-expected to have a headache this morning, and so when I woke up, I focused on the idea for a few minutes, and it felt like I had a dull sort-of-there-but-not-quite headache sitting somewhere in the back of my head. But, when I thought about it some more, I realized that I only got 5 hours of sleep (work-related reasons), and being short on sleep usually gives me a slight-minor-headache that fades over time. By the time I got to work, I had plowed a cup of coffee down my throat, and I didn't notice a headache for the rest of the day. Looking back on that, I think I had convinced myself that I was going to have a headache based on the NEJM study and what some coworkers had warned. I'm going to say that my headache was really more due to sleep deprivation and coffee dependency as opposed to being from the vaccine. Also, in my original post, I said the V-Safe vaccine survey was a weekly surveillance program. Well, apparently I misunderstood and it's actually a daily survey for 5 weeks. I know this because I got a text message reminding me to fill out my daily survey at 2PM. Fortunately, all of the questions are multiple choice, and it takes about 1-2 minutes to get through the entire thing. I rated the arm pain as an injection-site pain, and I did the whole thing while walking from the restroom back to my desk. In all, aside from the arm pain, I haven't noticed anything unusual so far. It's still early, though, so I'm reminding myself that something could still happen in the next few days. And, if not that, then maybe something will happen with Shot #2 in ~21 days. We'll see, and I'll try to update this post even if nothing happens in the interim. Update 2 - Post-Vaccine Day 2, December 18 The left arm pain is just about gone. I would say it's back to a 1 out of 10, and I don't even notice it unless I have the arm raised. I'm still doing pull-ups, and I think I'm going to stop mentioning them because 1.) They haven't been a problem, and 2.) I'm starting to sound like a bro. Still no headache. And, I haven't really noticed any fatigue from the vaccine, but that might be obfuscated by the fact that it's my 12-day stretch at work, and I'm on autopilot at this point. I'm leaning hard on the caffeine as part of my usual long-stretch routine, and you know what? It works. No stomach upset, diarrhea, or problems peeing yet. I do have a craving for sushi right now, but that happens monthly for me. I did want to add that I've been wearing a Fitbit and Garmin, and my heart rate has stayed at its normal range post-vaccine which is like 60'ish at rest. Also, my O2 saturation hasn't changed either; it's been in the 96+% range so far. And, yes, I actually wear both a Fitbit and a Garmin at the same time. I'm going to keep posting updates up until Day 7 for the sake of record keeping, but if nothing happens by then, I'll stop updating this post. I'm sure I'm jinxing something by writing that. Update 3 - Post-Vaccine Day 3 - December 19 My left arm pain at the site of injection is gone now. I'd say it's back to 100%. Still no issues with headaches, fatigue, or a fever. But, I did have two small developments today that I'm keeping an eye on. 1.) While picking up some acne cream from the pharmacy this afternoon, the screening lady at the door told me I had a temp of 99.6. I was caught a little off-guard since I didn't feel off ( subjective fever, headache, or body aches). On the way out, I used the automated scanner that reads facial/eye temperature, and it gave me a 97.6. I'm not sure what to think about that yet. It's bedtime now, and I don't feel feverish still, but I'm going to reserve judgment and keep an eye on my temp for the next few days. 2.) Remember how I mentioned I was getting the sushi shakes? Well, after running 11 miles this evening (a long distance for me), I decided to reward myself with all-you-can-eat sushi for dinner. Right after sitting down at the restaurant and salivating for a minute, I felt this lightheadedness creep into the back of my head and then into my forehead. I feel sweat beading up on my forehead, and then I got all tingly on my hands, and my vision tunneled in. I tried to rally my sushi appetite, but it was gone. I got up, wobbled to my car, and laid down. After a few minutes, I felt good again, and I drove to Chipotle with a swell of sushiless shame in the pit of my stomach. I'm still deliberating if any of that was related to the vaccine. After everything happened, I thought about what could have caused those symptoms. Somehow, the first thought I had was whether or not I was pregnant (I'm a guy). Then, I thought about how the vaccine was the only recent new thing in my life. But, the delayed timeline and the sudden and temporary nature seem out of place. Thinking strictly about the symptoms, this feels more like dehydration and malnourishment. I hadn't eaten anything all day in preparation for the sushi buffet (which I missed out on altogether). And, it occurred to me that I was drinking lots of water at Chipotle without needing to pee. I also felt 100% better after I obliterated my burrito bowl. Still, a part of me wonders if the vaccine played a role. Maybe it was a constellation of things adding up, and I need to just take it a little more easy for the next week. Update 4 - Post-Vaccine Day 4 - Dec. 20 Nothing exciting to report today. I didn't notice any dizziness or lightheaded today, so I'm going to say last night's event was probably due to dehydration and no food intake. I haven't noticed any body pains or body pains, and I haven't felt limited in any way today. Hopefully it stays this way. Update 5 - Post-Vaccine Day 5 - Dec. 21 Originally, I thought the 2nd vaccine shot had to come exactly 21 days after the first. Apparently, though, we can schedule our second shot to happen anywhere between 17-21 days after the first. I have my second vaccine shot scheduled for January 3, which will be Day 18 for me. The general consensus is that side effects will be more likely with the second shot. And, using the NEJM article that I linked in my first post, the top three side effects will be fatigue, headache, and fever (though, fever is a distant 3rd in probability). My boss offered to give me a day off after my 2nd vaccine shot, but I told him that I was okay plowing my face into work the next day. I intend on drinking a ton of coffee that day... As for how I'm feeling today, I can't say that I have any complaints. I haven't noticed anything new for today, and really I'm just feeling tired because I've been sleeping late (working on some stuff for work). I'm not suffering from insomnia, though. I sleep like a brick once my head hits the pillow. Speaking of which... Update 6 - Post-Vaccine Day 6 - Dec. 22 I went to my physical therapy appointment today (related to a pelvic fracture from earlier in the year). It's usually a pretty hefty workout. I didn't have any problems with arm pain cropping up, and I didn't notice any fatigue that inhibited my PT. It's a bit reassuring that there isn't some sort of latent side effect or residual pain from the shot that's holding me back. On all, nothing fancy today. I really haven't felt anything related to the vaccine since maybe Day 2. Update 7 - Post-Vaccine Days 7-17 - Dec. 23, 2020 - Jan. 2, 2021 I haven't updated this post in a while because, well, I haven't had anything exciting or out-of-place to mention. But, I did want to make a quick update to codify that I haven't had any problems since my last update. My second vaccine shot is tomorrow afternoon at 2PM, and I am a little pensive about it since side-effects are supposed to be more common and prominent with the 2nd shot. I'll be sure to update this post tomorrow once I've had my shot. Update 8 - Post-Vaccine Day 18, or Dose #2, Day 0 - Jan. 3, 2021 At our hospital, people have been receiving their second dose of the Pfizer vaccine in a 17-21 day window after their first shot. Today was Day 18 for me, and so I received my second vaccine shot around 2PM today. I would say that went down almost exactly like the first shot. The check-in process was the same. The post-injection 15-minute observation period was the same. And, the injection itself felt the same. If you swapped it out with the flu shot instead, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. As I'm typing this post, it's been about 10 hours since the vaccine injection, and I would say my arm pain is at about a 2 out of 10 which is about how I expected. Like the first shot, it hurts a little more when I flex my arm upwards, but at rest I don't notice the arm pain. I haven't noticed any arm weakness, and I've been able to do pull-ups and push-ups without restriction. Really, the only difference so far is that I had them shoot me in my right arm as opposed to my left arm this time. That being said, I am reminding myself that side-effects (muscle aches, headache, chills, and fever) were more common in patients after their second dose. I haven't noticed ay of those side-effects yet, but I am trying to be mindful of the likelihood that things could feel quite different tomorrow morning and in the next few days. I'll update this post tomorrow regardless of whether or not I feel anything new. One last thing - I haven't been getting the daily V-Safe text surveys lately. Originally, I received a handout that said that the V-Safe surveys would come daily over the 5 weeks following my vaccination. However, they stopped abruptly around Christmas time. I received one or two more text surveys after Christmas, but then the surveys stopped again. I'm guessing either the survey machine took a few days off for the holidays, or the survey hamster died. In either case, I'm sort of bummed that I haven't received any surveys recently. I liked the idea of contributing to survey research, but I guess I'll have to revise my life-goals for 2021... Update 9 - Shot #1 Day 19, Shot #2 Day 1 - January 4, 2021 Oof, this morning started a bit rough. I woke up with a mild headache. My arm pain was a bit more noticeable. And, despite getting a pretty good 7 hours of sleep, I felt a bit tired when I woke up. I'd characterize the arm pain as maybe a 4 out of 10, and the headache was about a 3 out of 10. The pain and headache persisted throughout the day, but it didn't stop me from going to work, and it didn't kill my mood at work either. I haven't taken any meds for the pain because I haven't felt limited, but I do tend to be pretty stubborn about avoiding medications. I went jogging this morning, and it did feel like a small struggle to get going. My pace was slower, I had less spring to my step, and everything felt just felt slightly heavier than usual. I was particularly concerned about getting a fever after the second shot, but I took my temperature several times today, and I was consistently around 97-98F. Overall, I would say my symptoms have been pretty consistent throughout the day, but they've stayed mild in intensity. I'm hoping that it crests today and trends better tomorrow. Lastly, I'm craving sushi again, and I'm starting to wonder if it really is due to the vaccine. Update 10 - Post-Shot #1 Day 20, Post-Shot #2 Day 2 - January 5, 2021 Today was much better. The headache was gone by the time I woke up in the morning. My right arm is still a bit sore at the injection site, but it's not worse. I would put the arm pain at about a 2 or 3 out of 10. I haven't needed to take any medicine for the pain, but personally I wouldn't have any reservations about taking Tylenol or an NSAID if needed. My understanding is that they shouldn't interfere with the vaccine or cause any problems. The fatigue from yesterday seems to be gone now too. I went for a run this evening, and I didn't have any problems running a normal distance. Yesterday, I felt like I had some joint and body-wide muscle soreness after a much shorter jog. But, today I didn't notice either of those problems after a much longer run. In all, Day 2 was a big improvement from Day 1, and things seem to be trending up. Update 11 - Post-Shot #1 Day 21, Post-Shot #2 Day 3 - January 6, 2021 Today was really unremarkable. My left arm feels maybe slightly annoyed, but I would say it's mostly recovered. No other symptoms whatsoever today. I was able to go to work, do my normal daily stuff, and I didn't feel tired or anything by the end of the day. Really, the worst part of my day was watching the news, ugh.
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Very thin, and can easily fit into a laptop bag as a secondary computer if you travel (I travel for work). Base m3/8 GB memory configuration seems very sudden and responsive. I cannot imagine needing an i5 or i7, which appear to be overkill to me for this device. The m3 version should be quite adequate for the overwhelming majority of users. Boot-up is extremely quick, just a couple of seconds. After initial setup, which was very easy and quick and completely guided, your Google password (same one you employ for your gmail) are going to be your log-on password. Screen is extremely clear and bright, and setting the slider several notches below highest brightness should be very satisfying for many people. The 1080p screen is extremely clear and sharp. i do not think you will need the high-res screen, but if you are doing , you'll only catch on with the expensive i7 version. 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With the 1.2 GHz Intel i3-1005g1 10th Gen processor the performance is sort of good and works well for basic tasks like surfing the online , streaming videos and using the standard Office applications. The Waves Maxx Audio Pro speakers have an honest quality and therefore the screen size of 14- inch, 1920 x 1080 resolution makes for a tolerably display. 4. Asus ExpertBook B9450 Specifications Operating System Windows 10 RAM 8 GB DDR4 SSD 512 GB Weight 1Kg Processor Intel Core i5-10210U Graphics card Intel UHD Graphics 620 Battery Up to 24 Hours Display 14-inch Full HD Anti-Glare LED PROS · Record-setting battery life · Incredibly lightweight yet durable · Attractive midnight-blue design CONS · Mixed performance Descriptions The Asus ExpertBook B9450 impressive us with its battery life score. If you would like a laptop with one among the simplest battery life many all time, the ExpertBook will keep you comfortable for an insane 16 hours and 42 minutes. you'll literally get through two workdays without having to charge this beast. On top of that, you get an incredibly lightweight yet durable design covered in a beautiful midnight-blue shade. You'll also get some useful security measures like an IR camera and a fingerprint sensor. Its 14-inch, 1080p display is fairly bright and colourful also, but its biggest asset is an anti-glare coating. Asus also equipped the ExpertBook B9450 with a quicky SSD -- Its 1TB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD duplicated 4.97GB in 6 seconds at a rate of 771.1 megabytes per second. 5.Acer Nitro 5 Specifications Operating System Windows 10 RAM 8 GB DDR4 SSD 256 GB Weight 2.3Kg Processor Intel Core i5-9300H Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Battery Up to 24 Hours Display 15.6-inch Full HD Acer ComfyView LED PROS · Good graphics and memory · Decent processor · High-Good battery backup CONS · Little bulky. · Low Audio quality Descriptions The primary and doubtless the most important con on behalf of me (which resulted in me returning the merchandise ) was that the display would flicker at intervals. Sometimes the flickering wouldn't persist for long and would occur just for a couple of seconds. At other times, it might just continue and on, making work impossible and having to re-install the display driver to form it stop. B. The speaker quality is extremely average. the very best volume doesn't produce sound audible enough. So for music, movies etc. , you'd need to use speakers or earphones/headphones. C. Acer support isn't upto the mark. After raising my complaint with them and despite the very fact that it had been a fresh product , they did little to assuage my concerns. They refused to send anyone to select up my product and said I'd need to get in-tuned with one among their service centres and personally go there to deliver it. D. The charger input slot is such you've got to insert the charger at a particular angle; otherwise it's difficult to insert. And to urge that angle right is sort of difficult. i might keep it plugged in and operate it by switching on and off the most switch (like a Desktop PC). E. Battery life isn't too good. I wasn't even doing any heavy work or gaming and therefore the battery would last for hardly 4-4.5 hours before reaching 20% from full charge.
Skip this if you're looking for game benchmarks because there's a lot of other stuff than just benchmarks. I bought this laptop on 9th August for 75k from Flipkart which I think is a very exciting deal(in India obviously) for something that sits in between a 1660ti and 2060 in terms of performance. After I bought the laptop I have to say that I was extremely disappointed with the frequent crashes (even after the BIOS update) when I ran a benchmark like Unigine Heaven. I was very aware of a lot of reviews mentioning the crash issue but I had good hopes for the sheer performance of this machine. I don't know why I, I really loved this machine. It was perfectly fine for normal use but whenever I play a game it crashes like after maybe an hour or so. Even worse are benchmarks, it crashes at the second run. Awful thermals (100c out of the box). The return policy of Flipkart is even messed up. You have to return the laptop to the manufacturer i.e. Dell only to get it replaced by the same device with the same exact problem. It's the messed up driver issues obviously. A solid 1/10 experience in the first month. Still I didn't let go of my hopes! So what's changed? AMD released the new version of Radeon software (20.9.1 version, 16/09/2020) fixing all of the mentioned issues. I had to manually download and install it from AMD site. It didn't show up in the Dell support assist app too( which runs some tests and looks for new driver updates). No more crashes under gaming/ benchmarks. Surprisingly the thermals are fixed too. Mid 80s CPU and 75ish GPU temps under full load . I had to get my SSD replaced for free because the laptop ran so hot under my previous benchmarks that it exceeded the SSD thermal threshold (This is just my unit. Nobody else faced this issue). Performance [10/10]: Just one word: excellent. I thought of not including any game benchmarks but here's a little run down on max settings. I played COD Warzone and it ran at 80+ fps, GTA V 85 fps, Valorant 150+ fps, Apex Legends 100+,R6 Siege 120+, Euro Truck Simulator 120+ fps..... Check Jarrod's Tech YT for benchmarks. Screen [6/10]: Very mediocre. Around 65% sRGB. There's screen backlight bleed when viewing pitch black stuff( I don't know if it's just my unit). And not to mention the 60hz, not a good experience for a gaming laptop. Since I'm someone who prefer visuals over high framerate it wasn't really an issue for me. NOT FOR COMPETITIVE GAMING. Battery [9/10]: I was really surprised about the battery life considering it's a gaming laptop at just 51Wh. It lasted me over 6 hours of casual usage at medium brightness, Backlight 5 sec timeout in balanced mode( YouTube, Reddit, Browsing). I don't play games on battery so yeah.. It won't last over an hour obviously. Expandability: 2 Ram slots are already occupied by 2x 4GB 3200 CL22 memory. So if you were to upgrade to something like 16GB, you'll need to get rid of factory ram. There are 2 M.2 slots of which one is occupied with a 512GB SK Hynix SSD. There's a 2.5" space but there are no brackets and connectors provided in the box. Adding 2.5" drive in G5 SE is wierd Keyboard [7/10]: Mushy membrane keyboard as every other laptop, not so much travel with red backlight. Since the letters are engraved in red colour, you're forced to use with the backlight on because they aren't really visible at normal lighting conditions. The backlight is alright, does the job. The WASD keys are highlighted but nothing fancy like the ASUS TUF A15. The trackpad is good with embedded left and right clicks. Speakers [6/10]: Ordinary budget gaming laptop speakers. Very little to no bass. Downward firing. Nothing to write home about. Does the job in a "meh" way. From what I've heard the TUF has better speakers. Use a headphone for gaming. Built Quality [8/10]: It's all plastic but it's good plastic. The colour might be a let down for many of you but I'm really liking the stealthy, professional looking gaming monster which this truly is. Feels solid in hands. And looks better in person than the images. I was surprised that it looked this good because this thing looks different in person. Here are some pics Conclusion: I wouldn't recommend this if it was a week ago. But now as things have changed I'll wholeheartedly recommend this as this is the best value for money gaming laptop under 75k. Edit: A lot of you have been asking for CS GO fps. It was above 180 fps consistent though I did saw some dips in framerates as low as 80s, rarely. Max temps were 92c CPU and 75ish GPU with the laptop a little bit raised. It stayed in the high 80s (CPU) consistently. There was no thermal throttling but the laptop was hot though. Edit2: I forgot to mention about ram upgrade. This device comes with 2x 4GB 3200Mhz, CL22 ram. Yes upgradability is kinda crippled. If you are looking to upgrade the ram, you will have to make hard decisions like selling factory ram. And do note that 3200Mhz ram ain't cheap like 2666Mhz ram. In India it's twice the price. On the flip side it's faster than any other laptop with single stick 8GB 2666Mhz memory. So there's that... Latest graphics drivers for G5 SE 60hz
After 5 months of study, I passed on my first attempt! As many before me have been prone to do, I decided to write down my thoughts and experiences in the hope that others can better their own pursuit. Fast Facts:
With all documentable exercises, extra mile exercises, course reading, and extra research, I spent 200.5 hours on the course material.
I did not use the videos except when something in the book was confusing and seeing someone do it was needed, like navigating Immunity Debugger. Unless you’re an auditory learner, the videos are verbatim from the book so skip them.
I spent a total of 154.25 hours over 73 calendar days (28 usable days due to work) and broke into 40 machines in the labs, including the “Big 4” (I actually found 3 of the 4 to be not so bad, and one that isn’t in the group to be much harder). That brings the total course expenditure of time to 354.75 hours.
I did another 22 machines from TJNull’s Hack the Box list while waiting for my exam date after labs ended. I found these less helpful but it helps keep up muscle memory. I didn't track this as closely, but I'd estimate another 75-80 hours here.
On exam day, I got the necessary points to pass in under 7 hours and stopped to write my report to ensure I had all screenshots necessary for the report before terminating access. Confirmation took only 36 hours.
Background I actually have a liberal arts background, starting my career with a double major in Political Science and International Affairs and going into government work for 5 years. During that time, I found that, though I enjoyed many elements of it, there weren’t enough appealing career options to sustain the next 40 years of my life. I built my first computer during my first degree and loved it, so after weighing my options I went back to school while working to get a Computer Science degree. I was also fortunate to shift my analytic work to a cybersecurity focus, looking at systems from a ‘red team’ perspective and passing my analysis to the organization’s actual red team for exploitation. While I know everyone says it, red team is where I want to be. Not because it’s sexy and hyped up in movies, but because I love the mindset. I love taking something, be it an abstract political argument or a technical implementation, and finding the holes in it to then make it better or plan mitigations against. After finishing my degree, I leveraged that experience and degree into a System Security Engineer & Security Control Assessor position where I am now. My certifications were more on the management and policy side with CISSP and Sec+ to meet job requirements. I knew of attacks and things to do to mitigate against them, but I hadn’t actually done them, and because my background was in analysis I didn’t have the technical foundation of a system administrator beyond what I learned in school. The First Steps I’ve known for a few years I wanted to take on the OSCP. I love a challenge, I love learning, and while I have no intention of being a paper tiger flitting from certification to certification, the structure of a class that covered as much ground as the OSCP was appealing in a world where there almost infinite directions in which to take off. A big obstacle, though, was the amount of travel I do for my job. Enter COVID. I started building a home lab last year to get better at system administration and eventually turn it into a ‘purple team’ lab environment – experimenting with vulnerabilities and seeing what gets caught. I didn’t make it as far as I wanted, but when COVID hit and travel ceased, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to jump in and signed up for 90 days in the 2020 course. I worked through Over the Wire’s Bandit and Natas games to brush up on my Linux terminal and web app attacks while waiting for my time to start. April 26th arrived quickly and it was time to go. TheGrindCourse The 2020 material, if you haven’t heard, is much more robust than the previous iteration. Weighing in at over 850 pages, the PDF is a mammoth undertaking that is often high level and requires additional research. My COVID schedule at work dropped down to either 3 or 4 days in the office for 12 hour days, leaving me 3-4 day weekends to devote to the material. My plan was to get through the material and exercises by the end of May, leaving me 60 for the labs. I also planned to do the exercises and lab report, because who wants to pass up 5 points (see lesson learned...)? With that goal in mind, I generated a spreadsheet breaking down the chapters and sections into chunks of around 45 pages each, give or take a few to hit a natural break point. I also went a little overboard and started throwing metrics against it to estimate actual time to complete each chapter based on length, my familiarity with the topic, and how much of the section was reading vs. screenshots to offset the length. My estimate came out to almost 60 days which disappointed me. Thankfully, though, I was about 25% off in my estimates as some of the material was not as difficult as anticipated. 47 calendar days later (30 of which were spent studying), I was through the material and was ready to start the labs. I treated myself to a weekend off, first, because working 12 hour days in the office and about 8 hour days at home for a month and a half was brutal. Lessons Learned/Advice:
Read the syllabus and do as much as you can ahead of time. I planned to, but COVID changed those plans. If you can get comfortable in some of the low-hanging fruit like navigating Linux, web app attacks, etc., you can save yourself a lot of time here.
I do not recommend doing the lab report. OffSec really needs to re-evaluate what’s required to get the 5 bonus points given the sheer scope of the new material. Many of the exercises are not helpful in, or sometimes counterproductive to, completing course objectives. What benefit is there in taking 10 different screenshots of starting a netcat listener when you will do that several hundred times? How are you supposed to document TheHarvester output when the IPs are constantly getting blocked by search engines?
That said: do some of the exercises. I did reference the exercises I had done for things like Active Directory attacks and SSH tunneling. They aren’t all useless, just be judicious in what you spend your time on.
Also do write up some of the lab machines. I learned a lot how my report writing differed from what they were looking for by writing up a few test cases and adjusted for the exam. What they’re looking for is more of a step-by-step write-up and not what I would consider information to put in a professional report.
Be prepared to do a lot of individual research. Some of the sections are simply “Here’s this tool, it’s cool, you should read about it more.”
Find a good community to get help. I did not do this and thought I could rely on the forums and admins. The forums are OK for the course material, but there’s a time delay in getting help and when you get to the labs people start getting a little silly. The admins were only helpful a handful of times, they take the mantra of ‘Try Harder’ a little too far. It’s a course and people are trying to learn, but despite being the providers they aren’t there to teach apparently. There were several times I came in with a specific problem and demonstrated the research I had done to try to solve it myself, but got a very obtuse answer or, on at least one occasion, accused of just wanting answers and not trying.
The Labs Having sprinted through the material, I settled into a little more friendly pace for the labs; I aimed for a box per day for the first few weeks to ease into it and give myself a little more balance in life. If I did the box in 2 hours, great. If I did it in 8, great. Toward the end I started doing more in a day if I finished one quickly. I ended up extending another 30 days because I wasn’t feeling ready by the end of my initial 90 and lost a lot of time in June due to work. I started with the two boxes OffSec has write-ups for, doing them myself first and then reading the write-ups to see their methodology or find things I had missed. I’d highly recommend folks take that approach. The labs aren’t meant to be done sequentially. I found that I did better getting access through web applications, so I started by knocking down anything with port 80 or 443 open. I pivoted into another of the sub networks but decided to finish out the public network before diving further into those. I only took down one of the domains in the public network; it was interesting, but after doing it once it was not how I wanted to spend my limited time. I used CherryTree to document my exploits, taking notes on what caused me to stumble, what worked for the box in case I needed to come back, open ports, credentials, and installed software. You never know what might show up elsewhere. I also documented 12 boxes fully for my lab report so I could pick the 10 that were the clearest. I started my cheat sheet from the course material and added to it as I found myself using things over and over, again in Cherry Tree. If you undertake this journey, make sure you enumerate after rooting a box. You’ll often find things that lead to other machines. I do appreciate that aspect of the labs relative to HTB where you’re in and out and there isn’t much to it. Some folks have complained about not knowing if a box is dependent; that’s part of the game. If you’re in the real world, you’ll need to go with the flow, not just have one-off attacks against everything. That said, the lab is time limited and not free, so if you get a suspicion a box requires something else, you can always check the forums. Oh, the forums. Sometimes a source of aid, sometimes a source of drivel. If you plan to take the course, please do not become one of the people that posts “OS-ID – Rooted” and then nothing of substance. But more than that, don’t become one of the people who calls using an SMB exploit “the Brazilian dancer” or running an exploit file in Python “using the snake.” It’s silly, it’s not helpful, and it’s pointless. I think folks on the forum have internalized the attitude of the admins – figure it out on your own, but here’s an obtuse tip so I can feel like I tried to help. OffSec does not want, nor should takers of the course want, direct spoilers because the goal is to build a methodology of figuring problems out, but that does not mean people need to be anti-helpful in a learning environment. I felt like the labs were where the real money is made. The course was a pretty good foundation (augmented with external information, as mentioned earlier), but doing is how you’ll solidify what you read. Over the course of the lab, the number of times I needed hints went down as did my average time to root. Lessons Learned/Advice:
The times I needed the forum, I could usually find a post that gave me enough to get moving in the right direction. Some folks say to avoid the forums, but you need to know yourself. It should not become a crutch, but banging your head against a wall is equally unhelpful. This is a learning experience, so learn. Just make sure you take solid notes on why you got stuck, the hint that helped you, and the lesson from it to carry forward to the future. The lessons I learned from my rookie mistakes early on were crucial to my success on the exam.
There are enough boxes in the public network to fill up lab time. One of the subnets is not hard to get into, so it’s worth trying out your port tunneling skills to practice, but it can get frustrating when your hop point keeps getting reset by other students.
Don’t go on the forum to rage when someone resets your box, but also don’t be the guy (or gal) who resets a box that was reset an hour ago. Respect others and modify your plan.
Take notes. Take lots of notes. You’ll need to build your documentation methodology as much as your enumeration methodology. The last thing you want to do is get into a box but not remember the command that got you there, particularly when your whole grade rests upon reporting it.
I wouldn’t do this every time, but practice cleaning up after yourself instead of just nuking the box. Sometimes that was as insightful as getting in in the first place.
The In-Between At the end of the labs, I picked a date a few weeks out to allow me to take some privilege escalation courses and practice on Hack the Box (and because all the good times were taken… people aren’t kidding about slots filling up quickly). I went with The Cyber Mentor’s Linux and Windows privilege escalation courses, but I have heard Tib3rius is also useful. I thought it was a quick, but helpful, tour around options. He does rely heavily on scripts or executables to do the enumeration, so don’t expect to come out with a long list of manual commands to run, but it was good to level-set and helped build my enumeration checklist further. I signed up for Hack the Box VIP to follow along in the class and do some further practice. I had pretty good success with some of the early boxes I picked from the TJNull OSCP-like list, but as I got closer to my exam and toward the bottom of the list, the boxes became a lot more of a CTF than OSCP-like. This hurt my confidence a little bit, as privilege escalation turned into hunting for strange files rather than what I experienced in the labs. I did the same as I did in the labs: take notes on what caused me to stumble or look at a hint, what worked, what didn’t. All of that was crucial to my game plan for the exam. In all, I did 22 of the machines from Hack the Box. It was worth the month’s subscription fee, but don’t put too much stock in the boxes’ similarity to the OSCP. The Exam and Report This section will be vague for obvious reasons. I picked an 8 AM start time. That gave me enough time to wake up at my normal time (5:45), get breakfast, fire up my VM and set up my notes, play some drums and guitar to settle down, and start my check-in a little early. My webcam did not auto-focus, but they let me take a photo of my ID and display it on my computer with the screenshare. This took almost all of the 15 minutes and a few more minutes after getting my VPN. I set up a new tmux session for each machine I worked on to log my output appropriately. I recommend getting a good strategy down so it becomes automatic and you don’t miss anything bouncing around. My strategy, like many, was to fire off my AutoRecon scans while I worked on the buffer overflow. The buffer overflow took me an hour, mostly because I was paranoid about documenting each step. The course is sufficient to pass this. After the buffer overflow I took a break. In fact, I took breaks every 60 minutes, setting an alarm across the room that was annoying enough to make me get up to turn it off. I cannot stress enough how important it is to take regular breaks. Over the 7 hours I took 6 breaks ranging from 5 to 20 minutes. 3 of those 6 breaks led to an immediate breakthrough in either gaining access or escalating my privileges. This was something I was bad at in the labs, and it showed. I took a look at my scan results and went for a 20-point machine. About 1.5 hours later I had access and another 45 minutes later had root. I took on the second 20-point machine and had access after 10 minutes and root after another 50 minutes. The 10-pointer took about 1.5 hours to get access due to a rabbit hole, giving me a passing grade. A fist-pump and break later, I decided to hold off on the 25-point box to start writing my report and ensure I had all the screenshots and code snippets I needed. I gave the 25-point box a stab starting at about 6pm and identified a few possible entrance vectors, but after 2 hours of experimenting I couldn’t get anything to work and decided to end my exam rather than stay up late. My type-A personality wasn’t a huge fan of this, but it was the right decision. A good night’s sleep later, I spent another few hours formatting and cleaning up my report. As mentioned earlier, I put way more detail into it than I would ordinarily put for a report like that, but I did not want to fail for not providing a “copy-paste” approach to my exploits. After double checking I had all of the proof files included and that I appropriately archived the files, I posted them up and sent the email. A short 36 hours later I got the wonderful email saying I passed. Tips
Take breaks. Take them regularly, take them often. I felt a sinking feeling during my first 20-point box not seeing an access vector. I took 10 minutes, walked around, did a few pushups, sat back down and immediately saw what I needed.
Print a reminder and stick it to your screen telling yourself to keep it simple and take a deep breath when you’re feeling stuck.
Enumerate, try, enumerate harder, try harder. I always wondered why the OSCP was considered “entry level” when it’s so difficult, I think I understand now: it’s not entry level in terms of technical knowledge, it’s entry level in that you do not need to recreate any kind of wheel.
Have a cheat sheet, but don’t stress too much about it. Some folks are hunting for all the sheets. This is what Google is for. Have the things you use regularly close-by (for example, set up an easy transfer folder in your home directory so you don’t need to type /usshare/windows-resources/… when you just want to put netcat on the system). Have a checklist for enumeration. Beyond that, if you don’t have what you need you can easily find it online.
Final thoughts and resources To be perfectly honest, I was a little disappointed with the PWK itself. It’s nice to have a vast amount of data consolidated into a tight syllabus, but there’s zero teaching involved beyond reading the material. Some of this is good to foster research and problem-solving skills, but it hits a point where it’s not a great learning environment. That said, this past 5 months was a roller coaster of highs and lows and one that I enjoyed riding. The value of practical exams over multiple choice is huge and I feel much more accomplished than any paper test I have taken so far. Here’s to more, just maybe after a little break. Resources Enumeration: Auto Recon – I used the default scan and then augmented in any areas that required further looks (e.g. a more intensive dirbustegobuster list). linPEAS/winPEAS – far and away the best privilege escalation tool I used. winPEAS does require .NET 4.5 or greater so it won’t work everywhere. accesschk.exe – Get it from xor.cat which has an old version with the /accepteula flag
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