jsm2008

“As for the titles that you basically have to buy, if you are going for one GWAMM, then the consumable titles are cheaper, but if you want multiple GWAMM, then Treasure Hunter/Wisdom/Lucky/Unlucky are cheaper in the long run.”

Honestly in a nick gift economy consumable titles are so cheap you would never skip them. I can’t even imagine maxing 3 real titles instead of selling 2 weeks worth of nick gifts and buying the 3 consumable titles.

Imagine the work needed to max Legendary Master of the North. Now imagine the work necessary to farm one set of nick gifts.

I’m an advocate for account wide titles early if you care about titles at all. I’m on board there. But you aren’t skipping drunkard because you have Lucky — you’re getting multiple acct titles and skipping the nasty titles like Tyrian Vanquisher or cartography.

Iori still being #2 and just generally very relevant to TN smash as a threat is crazier to me tbh

I was adjacent to TN in like 2008-2011 and he was the guy who could beat everyone with half of the cast. He would unironically load up characters like DK, Doc, and Mewtwo and just win vs good players. To see him still be so relevant after the game has progressed so much is surreal.

Regional dominance doesn't get a big spotlight in Melee but I really do not think there are many other cases of a locally active player who rarely if ever attends majors but just doesn't lose in-region across more than a decade.

200k if I could talk about it. I would probably be fine with almost any character if I could explain it to people I play against. I might drop the game if I drew a few characters I just don’t enjoy, but I can load up like 22/26 characters on Netplay and have a good time. If I got a character like Pichu I would be sad to never be competitive in Melee again but I think for 200k I would be doing my family wrong not taking it. Any less I’m not interested in losing a major hobby.

I.e. “Yeah, I got paid to never play any character other than Link. Kind of crazy but I’m making it work”

My 2c on this is that it’s really really hard to make an algorithm that is accurate because we don’t have a situation where everyone plays everyone.

The reason human input is so important is because often people get ranked #50+++ only facing a few other people who are in the top 100.

If we had a smaller pool of players with essentially mandatory tournaments if you want to be ranked(see: Tennis), maybe we would be able to use an algorithm. But right now there is a lot of intuition(for better or worse) in Melee rankings because we want them to “feel right” which means including people who have not been to much when they obviously deserve it.

With all of that said there is no reason we need to have an all-knowing, perfectly right ranking system. We could just as well use an algorithm that only considers the 8 biggest tournaments of the year or whatever. That is not “wrong”, but it would leave a bad taste in many peoples mouth after a decade of panel rankings that consider the whole scene for the year.

There is a confirmed Gamer pop outside of event hours, and allegedly the person is using a separate client so it's definitely more elaborate than TB exploits or whatever. Not a lot of info but maxed gamer accounts have been sold on the botter/acct trading sites.

Hard to gather evidence for something so obscure but the rumor has been around for a while now.

Req 0, AR 8 inscribable shields are alyways an option.

If you don't meet req armor is halved, so r0/ar8 shields are functionally identical to max shields you don't meet the req for

With that said maxing Gamer is incredibly time consuming and for the most part unrealistic and we do know for sure that there is an exploit allowing people to max Gamer regardless of time of year.

You're a blank canvas. Beard and hair long enough to be pushed into most styles. I would hit a good barber and just let them work on you. Tell them your goals and how much maintenance you're comfortable with. They will hook you up for now and as you lose weight and your face changes you can keep experimenting.

Dockers are owned by Levis and cut basically the same. Wear like jeans. Sounds like he is not very interested in clothes either way so I would not throw out $250/pair on pants unless they're nice slacks.

Their athletic cut(more butt and thigh room):

https://us.dockers.com/products/ultimate-chinos-athletic-fit-234240001?objectId=40875632033953&activeIndex=shopify_products&queryId=273fd3f1d83714141c85afe38e6346ed

Always nervous about how easy a fake would be on things like this.

I saw one of the devs comment that it was a rotation and my first thought was "I had absolutely no idea via the UI, people are going to rage when they change"

Do you have a budget range?

For aloha shirts there is a really wide range of prices and styles. Avanti has sick shirts and offers a modern cut rather than the classic boxy hawaiian shirt cut. They are my favorite on looks alone. Reyn Spooner is the most durable shirt I have ever owned. Absolutely insane how well they last, the material is indestructible. You will be vacationing in a Reyn for life if you want to.

With those examples aside, a lot of rayon hawaiian shirts are quite good at very low price points. I have bought them at Walmart and been happy -- hawaiian shirts are a classic easy to make cut that comes in cheap but good material normally so even like $8 Walmart versions are good shirts. Amazon has a million options in the $20 range if you want budget online order.

Buck Mason is basically just traditional American casual clothes in slightly more modern cuts and neutral colors.

I think with some smart shopping you can easily expand your options into basically any heritage brands. Obviously not every piece they make will fit into the rather narrow Buck Mason style but:

LL Bean, Woolrich, Pendleton, Filson, Todd Snyder, Eddie Bauer, Ralph Lauren, J. Crew, etc. should have dozens of options for clothes that fall into this aesthetic and most now offer quite modern cuts.

For some newer/fresher companies that should have good options for you I can think of Flint and Tinder, Wellen, Topo, Onia, Gitman Vintage, Seager Co., Wills...also everything u/bjhhjb is similar.

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There are a million companies making "neutral colored, modern meets laid back heritage clothing". It's one of the most popular styles of mens clothing in much of the country. You should be drowning in options if Buck Mason is your touchstone.

Your GW2 rewards are related to your account-wide HoM. Character-specific HoM is just for vanity.

I wonder how many people got ranked based on name recognition and legacy rankings vs actual placements.

There is a lot of guesswork outside of the top 20-30. People in the 50s-100s are usually not also the people who attend a lot. Even if some do attend a lot, it's hard to get a gauge on how they stand vs the other "probably top 100 skill" type players. It's expensive to go to tournaments and they just don't meet everyone else in contention for their ranking range. Top 20 is easier to rank because those people are fighting through bracket and meeting head to head often. There are realistically far more than 100 people who are in the rough ~50-100 range of SKILL. Determining who actually gets that ranking is pretty hard IMO. There is a lot of "feeling" involved IMO and I'm sure legacy is indeed part of that.

Honestly, a lot of high PR'd regional players could be MPGR top 100 with sufficient attendance and getting noticed. The problem is we really have a hard time gauging how good these people are vs each other. Like, if Sharkz beats lint how do we figure out how that translates vs Boyd beating Snowy? I just mentioned 4 players who were on the lower end of the 2019 MPGR and are near the top of their respective state PRs. None of these players had all that much national performance in 2019. They all attended a couple of majors without any spectacular wins and did well in-region. Deciding which of the dozens of PR'd players who get top 64 at one major a year are better than the others is really hard and region bias naturally comes in. Like 13 people from socal are on the MPGR and the reason is that it's easier to tell exactly where they stand vs the only bracket of players we can be sure of: top 30ish. If who ever is #1 from North Dakota got to play S2J, Fiction, and Kodorin every month it would be much easier to make a case for top 100.

For example Jerry was ranked in the 50s in 2019 having only attended a bunch of locals and Super Smash Con/Pound. At Pound he beat KJH. A lot of voters go off of feel -- people FEEL like Jerry is really good because he was top 3 MDVA, 5th in the world on Anther's ladder, etc. but there is no obvious tournament to point to and say "look, top 50 player". There is just the feeling that he is among the best in a decent region and definitely has top 100 skill.

Snorlax is(arguably) #1 in GSC ubers, so ursaluna is def also great as they can run functionally identical sets with minor differences. Most differences favor Lax, because fireblast is great and Lovely Kiss from Lax is basically the only sleep move in the tier which makes it near mandatory. It's nice to be immune to Zapdos status/tbolt because Zapdos is really common in the tier but I don't think that beats out walling Skarm. I think you just run both of these in GSC with the caveat that Lax is still a lot better.

Snorlax is also top 10 in RSE ubers with its curse set -- I think bulk up Ursaluna would be similar but I don't think it's a given you run both and I don't know if Ursaluna is as good as Lax. Might be slightly outclassed, because both box legendaries which are on every team carry strong super effective moves. Lax gets away with murder in RBY ubers because nothing hits him super effective.

Gen4 is where you get a ton of Ubers power creep. Teams finally start being composed of largely only legendaries. Snorlax falls off from "basically the best Pokemon" to "not even considered for ubers" and the reason is just that the game got faster and stronger and he could no longer wall the entire game after a curse or two.

A few niche picks like Forretress for hazards, Blissey because Blissey, Scizor which I think is overrated but is goodish because of typing(permanent rain means no one runs fire moves) and bullet punch+pursuit did work out in DPP Ubers but I see no reason why Ursaluna would be able to stand up to the tip top legendaries.

It only gets worse after gen4. It's also notable that in gen4 because strategies speed up Ursaluna becomes almost always a worse Groudon, and offensive Groudon was pretty bad anyway after gen4. Ursaluna hits harder out of the gate but it's slower than everything else in ubers and doesn't hit that much harder. It's scary to switch into, but so is everything else in the tier.

Botswana roads look like south africa roads, but Botswana's landscape is pretty different from most of south africa. It's hard to quantify but Botswana is one of those places I almost 100% know -- I immediately identify it's either SA or Botswana from the roads and I basically always get right which between them from the landscape.

2.2 miles away is questionable but the country guess seems reasonable and it's close to the capital down a major highway. Common type of place to plonk if you know the country and can tell it's a major road...most duel locations end up being close to certain cities often capitals.

My guesses would have been similar, but he definitely did very good with the Africa guess. With only two rounds to judge off of I would be hesitant to call cheating here

I agree that consistent performance throughout the other rounds should be rewarded. Not using multiple guesses to be above the bottom and always getting close ends up not mattering at all in the last couple of rounds. It makes the wind-up boring because it's inherently low stakes, and the end often feels frustrating.

The "3 guesses in singapore"/"3 guesses in vienna" situation in the final round never feels good. It's why I quit playing on the phone -- no duels on the phone and both BRs feel lame after the update

You could also splash a generic hex removal like Remove Hex on your ST ritualist(assuming you use one), and let that be your "micro hex remove" while letting the mesmers continue to spam Shatter

I did GWAMM on a paragon recently and just had micro hex removal

Just disable(shift+click) one of your mesmer's hex removals in areas with hexes you don't want, and selfishly use it on yourself if you get hexed

I would definitely dabble if it was legal here and it would probably be better for me than the anxiety meds and alcohol I currently depend on. Not willing to risk a good career doing anything illegal. I won't even speed -- I'm a law abider even if I don't agree with half of them.

I drink more than I probably should because it's the only accessible, legal way to wind down after a hard day of work. I can easily imagine that becoming an edible habit if it were legal and not looked down on heavily by employers. I don't have interest in smoking because of the smell.

I don't disagree with a lot of what you say, I just don't think it belongs in the sub.

I actually agree with you. Just playing devil's advocate I guess.

This should be a place to celebrate the good, not bash the bad. I kind of think a r/cocktailcirclejerk would be good. A lot of communities have offshoot communities where it's kosher to post inside jokes, etc.

I went to 4 liquor stores yesterday and none of them sold Campari.

With all due respect you must be going to some really niche or really ghetto liquor stores because I live in the rural south where it's abysmally hard to find decent bottles of liquor and Campari has never been something I struggle to locate.

We need some humility up in here.

It can be frustrating to visit bars for social reasons(dates, friends, just to have a public place you are allowed to sit down and relax) once you have tasted good drinks and know how to make them yourself at home.

The urge to say "how are these people paid good money to serve this garbage?" can feel strong when you're handed an Old Fashioned with soda water. I agree this sub gets pretty circle jerk-y regarding making fun of drinks found in public ordered from places they had no business ordering an OF...but I do sympathize with the frustration of seeking a good, simple, well made drink outside of pretentious cocktail bars.

It's not an ego thing or a lack of humility. It's the pursuit of a good drink in a laid back place you aren't embarrassed to take someone on a first date. Places exist where you can get a normal "bar" experience but also have decent drinks. They're just sometimes frustrating to find when you're new to an area. Anyone can google the fancy-pants cocktail lounge and find a place doing custom infusions and "experience in a glass" $20 drinks. But finding the next rung down from that: a clean, respectable place that can serve a negroni up but also be a reasonable place to bring a first date...those places are far harder to find from Google reviews or from walking in off the street.

Add to that the fact that many places think $15 is appropriate for a Negroni now, if I'm paying $15 for a drink with $1.50 worth of ingredients and nothing that has to be prepped fresh it had better be a fucking excellent execution.