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Slay the Spire (StS) has finally arrived to Android! For two years many of us dreamed for this legendary game to be accessible on their mobile devices, and finally the day has come. No need to talk about how awesome this game is, how it basically started a new genre of card-based dungeon crawlers (UPD: or roguelike deck-builders, if you prefer the term), and even about how well or poor it works on Android hardware in its current state (there will be lots of these posts during the days to come). What I wanted to talk about is the impact this game had on (specifically) mobile industry and how other developers were able to utilize this innovative formula in their own products.
Personally, I am somewhat glad that StS release was delayed that much. This allowed a lot of "clones" to be spawned, many of which I enjoyed playing. Some of them appear to be straight rip-offs, but others introduced many fresh ideas of their own, some even surpassing the predecessor's greatness. What the heck am I talking about and how is this even possible will be revealed to you, should you decide to stay on a bit and read through the article below.

General info

First and foremost, let's clarify the important thing: card based dungeon crawlers are not Collectible Card Games (CCGs). Even though they share the same ideas, and some of them (StS included) even have a feature to permanently improve starting cards, or a mode to play with pre-constructed decks, this is not the case for the genre in general. There is no place for multiplayer and PvP battles here: a turn-down for the most, but an undeniable advantage for the rest - only though-out puzzle-like single-player experience which we can pause at any moment and continue when the time is appropriate. Thus, there will never be troubles with downtime, matchmaking, ratings, overpowered builds and other PvP stuff, as there will never be a satisfaction of crushing your opponents with the power of your mighty intellect... The fun of discovering interesting synergies between various card combinations is still present, though.
With this being said, let's quickly look through the core features of the genre, which will be relevant for almost every game we review below: - we must explore a dungeon, which (usually, but not necessarily) consists of three floors with increasing difficulty; - we have limited control over the order in which to face the challenges; - there is a powerful boss in the end of each floor; - we battle using deck of cards, usually drawing new cards from deck to hand each turn; - there is a limitation on how many cards we can play during our turn; - we start with a weak basic deck, but get new cards as rewards for fighting enemies; - there is a possibility to permanently remove (weak) cards from the deck; - successful gameplay strategies revolve around utilizing the synergies between different cards; - there are several character classes, each with their own cards and tactics; - there are often additional items to acquire in the dungeon, providing bonuses and emphasizing specific types of play;
Before Slay the Spire (StS) came out, there was another card-based dungeon crawler called Dream Quest (DQ), which considered by many to be the first game of the genre (at least the first one to make a significant impact). Not sure if the former drew inspiration from the latter, but certain parallels can easily be drawn: in fact, all of the features mentioned in the list above are valid for DQ the same way as it is for StS. The rich plethora of card based dungeon crawlers (both PC/Console and mobile) originated from some combination of the two.
StS, however, can not be considered a clone of DQ, as it introduced a lot of original ideas and spawned its own line of descendants. It is always interesting to analyze each new title to see which of two games was the biggest inspiration, and to group them accordingly. For me the main criteria lies in the core difference in battle system: - in StS, enemies (usually multiple) show their intentions at the beginning of each turn, so we know what to expect and what to play against; - in DQ, the enemy (usually single) draws and plays cards the same way as we do, often using the same abilities and synergies we ourselves can use.
Introductions aside, let's finally get to the interesting part - the games! (Note: Games are listed in alphabetical order to not give any privileges to one over another. For my personal preferences see the comment section).

Dream Quest clones

Call of Lophis takes us on a grim journey through infested lands full of deadly monsters, dangerous traps, and one of the most ridiculous card art I have ever seen. It's surprising to see how dark fantasy elements combine with the humor and gags this game presents. From the gameplay point of view, there is enough card variety and interesting synergies, but it will take a long time to reach the interesting parts. Really: this game just does not know when to end, forcing new and new dungeon locations onto us with basically the same monsters and same approaches to dealing with them over and over. Its the boss battles which crank the difficulty up to over 9000, and if we don't have the right deck by the time we reach them, there is nothing we can do to pull it off. Plus there is some shady business going on with monetization schemes, where even paid version of the game makes us spend money to unlock additional classes and grind a lot to buy permanent improvements. Only truly dedicated players will be interested in dealing with all this nonsense. [...] UPD: Haven't checked on it for a long time - maybe the situation improved somehow.
Crimson Deep is still in early alpha and was not updated for a long time. But the development hasn't stopped, and there is a new major release approaching in the nearest future. It makes no sense to talk about the game till then: the version in the store is too raw to provide any significant gameplay experience, but it would be interesting to see where it goes in the end.
Dimension of Dream is probably the only game that has the same grid-based dungeon layout as DQ itself. This time with full 3D and a possibility to fight only limited set of enemies before facing the final boss (which allows to moderate difficulty as we go, either defeating tougher enemies with better rewards, or to save HP and fight only the easy ones). This game has one of the most interesting battle systems and 6 truly unique classes with deep complex strategies unlike anything we have ever seen (not only the cards themselves, but the order in which we play them greatly affects the outcome). Unfortunately, the English version was pulled from Google Play, leaving only Chinese version for Asian people to enjoy. UPD: Apparently, the game was re-released under different publisher with the title Dreaming Dimension, so there you have it. [...]
Meteorfall: Journeys offers the streamlined approach to dungeon crawling, where all our decisions boil down to Reigns-like "swipe left / swipe right" operation: picking the path, encounter resolutions, and even battles are simplified to utilize this binary choice mechanic. But don't worry: these specifics do not affect the gameplay, still providing enough strategic depth to appeal even to hardcore players. Add here a neat visual style, lots of character classes and their variations, cool card combos, and you get a true masterpiece, which is Meteorfall. [...]
Night of the Full Moon offers a fresh take on a fairy tale of Red Riding Hood, but adding darker elements to it (including werewolves, zombies, mad scientists and cursed cultists). It demonstrates an amazing production quality with top-tier art, beautiful audio support, and intriguing storytelling. Gameplay wise, we have the closest thing to DQ, safe for the grid-based dungeon maps, which were changed to just picking the encounter out of available three. Some people may argue that the game does not offer enough strategic variety, only suggesting a single best build for each class, but you will still get different runs due to the randomness of card and power-up drops. Another argument of it being too easy is completely nullified on higher difficulty levels. Wish the story would develop in a different direction, though. [...]
Spellsword Cards: Origins provides the gameplay similar to the Night of the Full moon, but focuses more on role-playing character development part. Aside from choosing a class, we also get to pick race with unique traits, and a school of magic, greatly affecting which cards will be available to us during the run. The problem here, though, is that monster encounters do not demonstrate a lot of variety, forcing us to fight the same enemies over and over, and the difficulty is rather high, with starting cards doing almost nothing and enemies quickly run out of hand with their devastating attacks, whereas good cards are hard to come by, and even then you will still be devastated on later stages. [...] UPD: Or maybe I am just bad at this game (welcome to comment section for valid strategy suggestions).

Slay the Spire clones

Blood Card offers a unique possibility to construct the dungeon ourselves, providing a pool of encounters of different types: regular monsters, elite monsters, events and shops. We pick a desired encounter from the pool, deal with it and then move on to the next one. Another interesting feature is that our health is defined by the number of cards in draw pile, which limits our tactical possibilities, but is compensated by the fact that we get multiple copies of cards as rewards for fighting enemies. There are a lot of interesting mechanics related to moving cards between various piles, as well as other neat features (like: the Death inevitably arrives in three turns and starts whacking everyone on the field with increasing persistence), but I'll leave them for you to discover on your own.
Card Crusade seemed like a cool idea of mixing classic "roguelike" dungeon crawling with its "deck-based" counterpart, where we explore the dungeon the same way as we do it in Hack, Angband, Pixel Dungeon and other similar games, but use cards to fight actual enemies. In reality though, this implementation just adds a useless abstraction, as the adventuring does not provide any tactical benefits and is only there to inter-connect battle sequences (heck, even breaking pots and chests does not give us any coin, of which developers themselves warn us at the very beginning!). The cards are not very interesting, with next to none cool synergies, and new classes (which should be unlocked by performing specific actions on previous runs) do not provide any major difference. [...]
Card Quest takes us on an epic journey through fantasy lands, where we will perform great deeds as one of the classic RPG hero classes (fighter, wizard, rogue, ranger), each with their own equipment and fighting disciplines. The interesting part is that the cards we use during runs are defined by said equipment, and if we find some new pieces during our adventure, we get to keep them for further runs. Also worth noting that defense cards are played not during our turn, but during enemy turn, which requires us to plan ahead a bit. This being said, the game is extremely hard - it will take a lot of unsuccessful tries to finally reach the end. But the variety of dungeons and possible builds will keep us occupied for long.
Dungeon Tales for a long time was the closest, yet simplified copy of StS mechanics (up to similar cards and gaming strategies), but without certain elaborate features, like upgrading cards or using potions. The basics are left intact though: we still build our deck along the way and face the powerful boss in the end. There are only two characters available yet, but each has a couple of viable builds, so it can keep us invested for quite some time. [...]
Endless Abyss is a close StS clone with very similar character classes (only two so far) and a lot of cards with exactly the same effects. Graphically the game looks very good, but angry monetization, lots of grinding, and forced ads make it almost impossible to fully enjoy. [...]
Heroes of Abyss is a predecessor to Endless Abyss with basically the same core gameplay, but very simplified dungeon crawling part. There is no floor map with choosing our path, nor there are elaborate adventure events: just a series of battles with the boss in the end. The spoils we get after each battle go into improving our starting deck and unlocking new difficulty modes with higher rewards. What makes the game unusual, is that we chose the preferred build right from the beginning with appropriate set of starting cards, without the need to rely on the randomness of card drops. It may be interesting to unlock and compare all the 6 available builds, but once the task is done, there is almost no reason to play the game further.
Heroes Journey provides a different setting for a change: this time we will play as space explorers, who crash landed on an alien planet. Thus, instead of familiar swords and bows, we will be wielding blasters and energy shields: the rest remains the same, up to the majority of cards straight up copied from StS. Unfortunately, this innovative idea was completely ruined by repetitive grinding and angry monetization, forcing player to make dozens of identical runs with the same small card pool, until something adequate is unlocked. Oh, and the game is long abandoned by the developers.
Pirates Outlaws is an amazing rework of original StS ideas in a pirate setting with some changes to gameplay mechanics, such as introducing persistent charges needed to play certain cards, and different buff/debuff statuses that replace each other. There are also some questionable features, such as ship stamina that deteriorates over the course of the journey and leads to game over if not repaired in time, or a quest system, where quests can not be completed in parallel, but instead picking the new quest resets your progress in the current one. Some may also argue that new classes take long to grind for, or expensive to pay for, but with permanent booster pack this should not be a problem. Anyway, the game is highly recommended for any StS fan. [...]
Rogue Adventure offers a twist to usual mechanic: our hand is limited by 4 cards, but each time we use one of them, a new card is immediately drawn to its place, thus we never run out of cards to play. Non-starting cards are common for all classes, but are grouped by type (or race), giving huge synergies depending on how many similar cards we have. Aside from this, the game offers diverse gameplay by providing a lot of different classes, each with its own unique strategies and dynamics, and some interesting items to work around. The developers constantly provide updates with bug fixes and new content, but be warned that new mechanics may break what you are already accustomed for.
Royal Booty Quest started as a straight rip-off from StS with the same classes and abilities, and even cards having the same names. And absolutely atrocious pixelated visuals, which were not possible to look at without eyes bleeding out. Over time, though, it developed its own unique mechanics and interesting card combinations, but the art style did not get any better. However, if this is not a problem, the game is enjoyable to an extent, but since it was not updated for a long time, I doubt it will keeps anyone's interest for long. [...]
Tavern Rumble adds an unusual strategic element - a 3x3 grid, on each units and enemies are placed. The core gameplay remains the same (we still see what opponents are planning to do each turn and adjust our own strategy accordingly), but the addition of the grid introduces another tactical layer: not only we should maximize the damage output, but also plan the layout for our troops to provide the effective delivery of said output, while at the same time establish enough defense to minimize the damage to ourselves. There are a lot of cards and classes to play around, different play modes and a lot of features that are still being constantly added to the game. Some may argue about simplistic pixel graphics or long repetitive grinding, but it is easy to unlock everything within reasonable amount of time, even without paying. [...]

Other Games

Of course, my criteria does not work 100% of the time, as some games are way too different from anything else to confidently enroll them into one of the categories. They either demonstrate traits of both, or implement entirely unique mechanics of their own (which I like the most), while still maintaining the basic dungeon crawling ideas (so a lot of the games you might think of will not end up in the list). What I have in mind is the following:
Dungeon Reels removes the cards from card-based dungeon crawler - why bother, right? Instead, it provides some kind of a slot machine, where each turn three rows spin independently to pick available actions based on what slots we have in our reel. Winning battles awards us with new, better slots to add, each with their own specifics and synergies. Enemies also randomize their moves with slots of their own, but the most satisfying mechanic is the possibility to spin a jackpot with three identical slots for some powerful effect. It is interesting to see this concept developed further, but the game has not been updated for a long time.
Iris and the Giant takes us on journey through imaginary world, inspired by Ancient Greek mythology. Each battle takes place on a grid, where various enemies advance in huge numbers. We play a card from our hand, usually dealing damage to nearest enemy, and then everyone who is still standing and can reach us deals damage in return. There are cards that target multiple enemies at once, as well as ways to play more than one card during our turn, so most of the time we will be deciding which card to play at which moment. The deck has limited size, and if it becomes empty we lose, so new cards should be constantly acquired. There are a lot of interesting mechanics to discover, but the game is very hard and luck based, requiring a lot of trial-and-error to finally reach the end. [...]
Phantom Rose Scarlet has the same basic core, but with completely innovative battle system, not seen in any other game. On each turn there are four positions for cards to be played in strict order, where two of them are randomly filled with opponent's cards, and the remaining two are left for us to fill. Instead of drawing the hand, we have our entire deck available right away, but playing cards puts them on a cooldown, which does not reset between battles, so we constantly face the strategic choice of playing our best cards right away or keep them for later. The game is in active development, providing new mechanics and further developing the story, which is quite captivating here. [...]
Void Tyrant is a bit of a stretch, but still a "card based dungeon crawler", in which we basically play BlackJack against our enemies by dealing card with numbers from 1 to 6 one-by-one from our deck until we stand or bust. Whoever has the highest value wins and deals damage to the loser. There are various supporting cards on top of this mechanic, allowing us to either jinx the outcome in our favor, or to perform various other metagame manipulations. The only downside of the game is the lack of content, as it quickly runs out of interesting things, and since it was not updated for a long time, it is unlikely that anything new will be added in the future. [...]

Conclusion

As you see, there is a lot to play besides StS, so even if you are not hyped by its long-awaited Android release, but appreciate a good intellectual dungeon crawler, you will find something to suit your needs. I hope, even with StS release, new games of the genre will continue appearing on mobile phones, and I will gladly review them and add to the list. If you know any hidden gems (or even trash) that was not highlighted in this article, please share the names and/or links in the comments. I am also open to any discussions on the topic, as I am obviously able to talk a lot about my favorite genre.
Good luck to everyone in all your endeavors.
P.S. I am well aware of games like Dungeon Cards, Card Adventure, Dungeon Faster, Meteorfall: Krumitz Tale, Card Thief, Maze Machina, Cube Card, Card Hog, Fisherman, Relics of the Fallen and other "grid-based puzzles", but do not consider them to be a part of the "family".

Welcome back to my Rookie Mock series!
The college football season has concluded and draft season is officially upon us. As an NFL Draft fanatic, this is my favorite time of year, and we are going to be absolutely spoiled here in 2021 with one of the better draft classes in recent memory.
This will be a five-round 2021 rookie mock for a 12-team, superflex, PPR league. Individual player analysis is provided for the first two rounds. The final three rounds will have summaries that highlight a few of the players within the tier.
Keep in mind that seniors have the option of an extra year of eligibility available to them. The deadline for them to decide if they’re declaring or staying in school is March 1.
Let's get it.
Round 1:
Note that in parentheses, it is the player’s ranking within his position group, followed by how much that ranking has changed since the last mock. A link to my first mock will be provided at the bottom to compare how draft position has changed.
1.01 - Trevor Lawrence, QB, Clemson (QB1, --)
Lawrence is almost certainly going to a dysfunctional Jaguars franchise with a head coach I don’t believe in. While I have my doubts that he will live up to the borderline insane expectations fans and the media (myself included) have placed on him over the years, even approaching 90% of that image still easily makes him the top quarterback in this class.
1.02 - Zach Wilson, QB, BYU (QB2, +4)
My tune has changed toward Wilson greatly since the last mock. I finally got a chance to research a little more and catch up on his film. I like what I see. A lot. Wilson has a really high floor and is as close to bust-proof as a QB can be. Strong arm, accurate, generally makes good decisions. I have a great feeling about this kid becoming a top 12 dynasty QB in time.
1.03 - Trey Lance, QB, North Dakota State (QB3, +2)
Got your attention? Good. Lance is in possession of the highest fantasy upside of any QB in this class. He’s also the biggest wildcard. Incredibly talented, but incredibly raw, similar to Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. Based on talent, I want Lance over Fields. The beautiful thing is that you will not have to pay up 1.03 to get him. Realistically, you could wait until 1.06 or later.
1.04 - Justin Fields, QB, Ohio State (QB4, -2)
Fading Fields a little here in favor of Wilson and Lance. Fields is not ready. Point blank. Neither is Lance, to be fair. The fact he is still here at 1.04 is a testament to how talented he is. If he booms, Fields has Deshaun Watson-like upside. There’s also a solid chance he never lives up to expectations. Beware of organizations with a poor track record of developing QBs.
1.05 - Najee Harris, RB, Alabama (RB1, --)
As far as pure runners are concerned, I honestly prefer Travis Etienne and Javonte Williams. But it is what Harris brings in the passing game as well as on the goal line that separates him. If used correctly, Harris could be a 50 reception kind of running back who totals 1500 yards and 15 scores consistently. He also feels like the least landing spot-dependent RB in this class.
1.06 - Travis Etienne, RB, Clemson (RB2, --)
Etienne, to me, is at about the halfway mark between Ronald Jones and Chris Johnson. He’s a 1500 yard rusher in the right situation. The total yardage Etienne can put up might exceed Harris. The main separator between them concerning fantasy production will be touchdowns and PPR points. Both look the part of backs who will produce top 12 RB seasons though.
1.07 - DeVonta Smith, WR, Alabama (WR1, --)
Heisman Trophy. Biletnikoff Award. 1st Team All-American. Virtually every receiving record in Alabama history. Smith broke the SEC receiving records set by Ja’Marr Chase last year in fewer games. Despite his slender build, Smith will be the #1 receiver for whoever drafts him. The shades of Marvin Harrison are strong with this one.
1.08 - Ja’Marr Chase, WR, LSU (WR2, --)
Chase opted out of the 2020 season to prepare for the NFL Draft. Considering how LSU’s season panned out, that opt out actually helped Chase in the end. If this is your guy at WR1, you aren’t wrong. Neither he nor Smith is the wrong answer. They can both be good. That outcome is entirely possible, and it doesn’t get said enough in this conversation.
1.09 - Javonte Williams, RB, North Carolina (RB3, +1)
The cat is out of the bag on Williams now. A relative unknown at the beginning of the season, Williams has risen his stock to be mentioned among the top running backs in this class. If you want to land this angry-running, tackle breaking machine who will receive all the goalline work, you will be paying at least a late 1st. Worth it.
1.10 - Mac Jones, QB, Alabama (QB5, -2)
Jones is a better quarterback prospect than Tua Tagovailoa. This slight fade is less about anything he did and more about the “Konami Code” upside and overall potential of the QBs ahead of him. Jones is going to come into the NFL with a decently high floor and I like his chances to fetch 1st round draft capital this April. That should get him at least a two-year audition as a starter.
1.11 - Jaylen Waddle, WR, Alabama (WR3, --)
Remember when Henry Ruggs was the first receiver drafted in 2020 and people thought he was going to be good? Waddle is what people were hoping Ruggs would be. He’s a do-it-all receiving threat with legit 4.3 speed who can always get open vertically, as well as do some of the dirty work over the middle. After the catch, few are as dangerous. A steal at 1.11.
1.12 - Rondale Moore, WR, Purdue (WR4, +2)
You ever go so long without seeing a guy play that you forget how good he is? Moore is that guy for me. This dude is the prototype for what the modern NFL slot receiver should be. He can be that rare slot receiver who is also the team’s #1 target. This is one of those late 1st round picks that will easily outperform the invested draft capital.
Round 2:
2.01 - Kyle Pitts, TE, Florida (TE1, --)
If any tight end is worthy of this type of selection in a non-TE premium league, it’s Pitts. Tight ends tend to take a few years to really pop but Pitts is capable of making an impact immediately as a mismatch nightmare from day one. This will likely be the cheapest you’ll ever acquire him.
2.02 - Terrace Marshall Jr., WR, LSU (WR5, +2)
Priority 2nd round target. In almost any other class, Marshall is easily a top 3 receiver. He just happens to be in a class with a Heisman winner, that Heisman winner’s teammate some suggest is actually better, 2019’s Biletnikoff winner, and a dude who caught 114 passes as a freshman.
2.03 - Rashod Bateman, WR, Minnesota (WR6, -2)
Slight fade of Bateman, still a very good prospect. This is a receiver I have been on about for a while now. He is a really good athlete and has a well-rounded skill set. This will contribute to Bateman being a solid producer early on. He will develop into a team’s #1 receiver in time.
2.04 - Kenny Gainwell, RB, Memphis (RB4, -1)
Gainwell gives me Austin Ekeler vibes. He will see the majority of receiving work among running backs on his team, and his fair share of carries, but he will never be the three-down featured back. If Gainwell is 80% of Ekeler, you aren’t disappointed with this pick.
2.05 - Pat Freiermuth, TE, Penn State (TE2, --)
As great as Kyle Pitts is, the most well-rounded tight end prospect in this class is Freiermuth. The Penn State product is a good blocker and is also no slouch in the receiving game. They don't call him "Baby Gronk" for nothing. He looks every bit the part of a good 10 year starter.
2.06 - Kadarius Toney, WR, Florida (WR7, oversight)
Toney was a pretty egregious oversight in my last mock. This guy is at least a 2nd round talent, and I’ve been hearing some potential 1st round chatter. He’s quick and explosive and is a dangerous deep threat. I like the upside here a lot. Could be a steal at this draft position.
2.07 - Amon-Ra St. Brown, WR, USC (WR8, -3)
St. Brown feels like a strong PPR option from the slot with his crisp route running and great hands. He won’t be a consistent 1000 yard receiver, but looks the part of one who’ll regularly get you 800 yards on 70 receptions. Throw in 5-6 touchdowns, that’s a solid fantasy option.
2.08 - Kyle Trask, QB, Florida (QB6, -2)
Of the big name quarterbacks in this class, Trask is the least desirable as a dynasty asset. While I can still see a world where he is drafted at the tail end of the 1st round this coming April, and he can be a starter in the right system, his chances are the lowest. Alas, this is a superflex mock...
2.09 - Tylan Wallace, WR, Oklahoma State (WR9, +2)
Don’t sleep on Wallace. He came back after a torn ACL in 2019 only to ball out again in 2020. While he probably won’t ever emerge as a #1 receiver, I love his prospects as an eventual high-end #2 target who should produce at around a 700 yard level as a rookie.
2.10 - Michael Carter, RB, North Carolina (RB5, +2)
Much like Gainwell, Carter doesn’t profile as a three-down back in the NFL. But that’s not to say he won’t have fantasy value. This is an explosive runner with some decent receiving chops. He will likely be heavily involved in a committee and provide RB3 or flex production.
2.11 - Trey Sermon, RB, Ohio State (RB6, unranked)
It’s disappointing he got hurt against Alabama, but what Sermon did against Northwestern and Clemson in the games previously really shook things up for this class of running backs. He was JAG status before that Northwestern game, but definitely has people’s attention now.
2.12 - Chuba Hubbard, RB, Oklahoma State (RB7, +1)
Full disclosure, I’m not a big fan of Hubbard. Maybe I’m missing something, but he feels one-dimensional to me. He’s fast though, and will break off big runs. His college production can’t be ignored either. Might be great for bestball, but I’m not expecting a lot of consistency.
Round 3:
3.01 - Dyami Brown, WR, North Carolina (WR10, -1)
3.02 - Seth Williams, WR, Auburn (WR11, -1)
3.03 - Brevin Jordan, TE, Miami (TE3, --)
3.04 - Jermar Jefferson, RB, Oregon State (RB8, -2)
3.05 - Demetric Felton, RB, UCLA (RB9, unranked)
3.06 - James Patterson, RB, Buffalo (RB10, -5)
3.07 - Rhamondre Stevenson, RB, Oklahoma (RB11, unranked)
3.08 - CJ Verdell, RB, Oregon (RB12, -2)
3.09 - Elijah Moore, WR, Ole Miss (WR12, +5)
3.10 - Sage Surratt, WR, Wake Forest (WR13, --)
3.11 - Tamorrion Terry, WR, Florida State (WR14, -2)
3.12 - Khalil Herbert, RB, Virginia Tech (RB13, --)
Jordan is an interesting option in the 3rd. He’s a freaky athlete and is one of those receiver-like tight ends who can be moved all over the formation to create athletic mismatches. He will also receive day 2 draft capital. Felton gives me Antonio Gibson vibes, just 30 pounds lighter. Like Gibson, Felton is a converted receiver who had relatively few touches in college. Will lightning strike again? And finally, keep Moore in mind around this range. He’s going to be a solid slot receiver and outplay this 3rd round status.
Round 4:
4.01 - Zamir White, RB, Georgia (RB14, --)
4.02 - Elijah Mitchell, RB, Louisiana-Lafayette (RB15, +5)
4.03 - Kylin Hill, RB, Mississippi State (RB16, -7)
4.04 - Marlon Williams, WR, UCF (WR15, +6)
4.05 - Anthony Schwartz, WR, Auburn (WR16, unranked)
4.06 - Trevon Grimes, WR, Florida (WR17, unranked)
4.07 - Amari Rodgers, WR, Clemson (WR18, --)
4.08 - Malik Willis, QB, Liberty (QB7, +2)
4.09 - Javian Hawkins, RB, Louisville (RB17, -6)
4.10 - Rakeem Boyd, RB, Arkansas (RB18, -3)
4.11 - Dax Milne, WR, BYU (WR19, unranked)
4.12 - Hunter Long, TE, Boston College (TE4, +2)
Williams is built like a running back and is very strong after the catch. He looks like the kind of guy who can emerge as a starter and I’m targeting him in the 4th round everywhere in rookie drafts this offseason. Also keep an eye on Schwartz and Grimes, a couple of talented SEC receivers who were overshadowed by bigger-name prospects. White might be the most recognizable running back in this group, but Mitchell might be the one most likely to become a starter. Smaller school, lesser known guy. He’ll fly under the radar, just keep that name stashed away in your mind.
Round 5:
5.01 - Tutu Atwell, WR, Lousiville (WR20, -5)
5.02 - Jamie Newman, QB, Georgia (QB8, --)
5.03 - Matt Bushman, TE, BYU (TE5, unranked)
5.04 - Kenny Yeboah, TE, Ole Miss (TE6, -2)
5.05 - Kellen Mond, QB, Texas A&M (QB9, unranked)
5.06 - Dazz Newsome, WR, North Carolina (WR21, -5)
5.07 - Jonathan Adams, WR, Arkansas State (WR22, unranked)
5.08 - Nico Collins, WR, Michigan (WR23, -3)
5.09 - Spencer Brown, RB, UAB (RB19, unranked)
5.10 - Chris Evans, RB, Michigan (RB20, unranked)
5.11 - Racey McMath, WR, LSU (WR24, unranked)
5.12 - Shi Smith, WR, South Carolina (WR25, unranked)
Atwell is a notable faller for me. I acknowledge that he is getting some 1st round draft buzz, and while he's a fun player to watch, I just don't see it. He strikes me as a KJ Hamler type, but smaller. He will be better for an NFL team than a dynasty squad. Unless Newman gets 1st or 2nd round draft capital, this is where to expect to draft him. Adams is another name to keep an eye on, too. At 6-3, 220, he has that prototypical “X” receiver build, and he really stands out on film, even if he is just beating up on lower level competition. It’s hard to tell where to rank him but he could be a sneaky late-round jackpot.
As there are only 60 slots, a number of guys had to be omitted. If I missed anyone glaring, let me know.
Edit (1/24/21, 3:08 pm): A commenter pointed out that Zamir White went back to school. I should have checked a couple extra sources. Everyone just shifts up one spot and 5.12 becomes Kylen Granson, TE, SMU.
Edit (1/24/21, 6:47 pm): It turns out CJ Verdell has also returned to school. This one was much more recent (2 days ago) and fell under my radar. Again, everyone shifts up one spot and the new 5.12 is Jaelon Darden, WR, North Texas.
You can find me on Twitter @thedevydirtbag and here on Reddit u/thedevydirtbag.
Another mock will be on its way closer to the draft. The plan is for that one to be in the form of a YouTube video. If you want to compare this mock to the one from early December, you can find that here: https://www.reddit.com/DynastyFF/comments/k97ltz/2021_rookie_mock_draft/
Thanks for reading!

I grew up in a small mountain town named Eureka. It was founded in the late 1800s during the gold rush, but after the mines dried up the town began its slow descent into decay. Half the houses are empty or abandoned now.
You can see a picture of the kind of houses here in Eureka:
First house
Second house
When a massive construction project began nearby, it was the talk of the town for weeks. Why would they build something in a sleepy dying town like Eureka? It wasn’t until my sister Selene talked to a few construction workers that we discovered they were building a casino.
A casino up in the mountains, over two hours away from Denver. None of us could understand why they’d chosen here of all places. After a few months of work, the casino was done.
I took a picture of the town with the completed casino in the background to the right. The ten-story-structure sticks out like a sore thumb off in the distance.
Town+Casino
After the casino opened, they hired a few dozen members of the town, offering high paying jobs to work as dealers or cleaning staff. I was already employed as a firefighter, but my sister Selene got a job as a blackjack dealer. She’s a widow with two young kids, so the paycheck was a real lifesaver.
Still, something about the situation seemed too good to be true. The jobs over there paid far too well, and the management was far too accommodating. The fire station where I work is located high on a hill overlooking the town, so I began watching the casino from a distance each day.
I had initially thought that the casino was located in a terrible location, but I was apparently wrong. True, Eureka was hours from any major city, but despite that, a bus full of people arrived every morning and left every evening.
One night I was over at my parent’s house and had dinner with Selene and her kids. I asked her about her experience as a dealer.
“It’s Ok,” she said. “Just a little boring I guess.”
“Boring?” I asked. “I’m surprised you don’t have your hands full.”
“Why’s that?” she asked. “It’s like you said, Eureka’s too small. I never have people playing cards. The casino is almost always completely empty.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. If the place was always empty, what happened to the people who I’d seen arriving on buses? “I’ve been keeping an eye on the building,” I said. “A bus full of people typically arrives around 9 AM every day.”
“Really?” she asked, looking confused. “If that’s true, I’ve never seen them.
“I can see it from the fire station,” I said. “If you head out for a smoke break at 9 AM, you’ll probably see them arriving.”
“Interesting,” she said. “I’ll do that. If they’re being processed for their organs or something, I’ll let you know.” She laughed.
“Har har,” I said sarcastically.
The next night she sent me a text calling me over. When I arrived, she was nearly breathless with excitement.
“Orin, You were right,” she said. “A big group of people did arrive, but they didn’t walk into my part of the casino. Instead, they all walked into an elevator at the back of the building. I’m not sure where that goes.” She looked thoughtful. “It was weird. They looked… How can I say it? Desperate? Something about the whole situation was very off. I’m gonna check out the elevator tomorrow.”
I told her to be careful, though, to be honest, I was excited to hear about what she discovered. When I visited my parent’s house the next night, I found her two kids there alone. They told me that Selene had never returned from work.
I called all her friends, then all our neighbors, but no one had seen her since she left for work that morning. Our conversations regarding the casino flooded my mind, then a plan began to form.
Early the next morning I walked across town in my nicest pair of jeans and a button-up shirt. I pushed through the door to the casino and saw that Selene wasn’t lying. The place was all but deserted. Three dozen slot machines crowded the walls surrounding a few tables interspersed throughout the floor of the casino. The only players in the whole building were Bob and Donald, two locals.
I walked up to a nearby table where Bridget, a girl I’d gone to high school with, was shuffling cards. She broke into a grin when she saw me. “Hey Orin, you here for a few rounds of blackjack?”
“I wish,” I said. “No, I’m here to ask about Selene. She never made it home last night.”
Bridget’s expression darkened. “Really? Have you asked around?”
“I already called around. Have you seen her?”
She shook her head. “No, our schedules rarely line up. I’ll be sure to let you know if I--” Her eyes focused on something behind me, and she cut herself off.
I turned around to see the casino’s pit boss watching us both. He was a tall thin man in an impeccably clean black suit. When I turned back towards Bridget, she was looking down at the table and shuffling cards absent-mindedly.
“Well, if you hear anything, let me know,” I said.
She nodded, so I turned around and headed for the pit boss. I stuck out my hand. The temperature of his hand was so hot that I had to pull my hand away after a few seconds.
“Have… have you seen my sister Selene?” I asked. “She hasn’t been seen since her shift here yesterday.”
He smiled. “Sir, this floor is for players. You’re more than welcome to head to the tellers for chips, but barring that I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
I stared at him for a long second before stalking towards the door. When I looked back, he was talking with Bridget.
I checked my watch. 8:55 AM, just as I’d planned. I walked around the back of the building and waited as the morning bus pulled around the building. I waited for the telltale hiss of the opening doors and the sound of people descending before I rounded the corner and joined the crowd. None of them paid any particular attention to me as I walked with them into the casino.
The crowd walked through a side door down a hallway to an elevator. Small groups of people entered the elevator as the rest of us waited for our turn. I shot a glance at the casino patrons, surprised at their diversity. There seemed to be people from all different countries and ethnicities. I heard one speaking Japanese and another speaking what sounded like an African language.
My turn came along with a few other patrons in the elevator. A sickly woman hobbled into the elevator beside me carrying an IV that was still connected to one of her veins. We piled in and rode up to the top.
The elevator rose for a few long seconds. I wasn’t sure what I would find, but I steeled myself for something horrible. The elevator’s speaker let out a TING, then the doors opened.
We all walked out onto what looked like a standard casino. Another few dozen slot machines ringed the walls, but on this floor, they were almost all occupied by customers. I took in the scene, confused at why they’d have a ground floor that was almost completely empty when this place was almost--
Selene was dealing cards at a nearby table.
I jogged over and sat down at an open seat. None of the players around me paid me much attention.
“Selene!” I said. “Are you OK? Did you spend the night here last night?”
Her eyes were glassy and confused. She looked up at me with a dumb expression and didn’t respond to my question.
“Selene?” I asked.
“What’s your bet?” she asked me. “This table is for blackjack players only.”
“I…” I trailed off, looking at the players around me. None of them were betting with chips of any kind. “What’s the minimum bet?” I asked.
“Three years,” she responded.
“Three years then,” I said, not knowing what that referred to.
Selene nodded, then began dealing cards. I shot a look down at my hand. King and a 9. Selene dealt out cards for herself, showing a 9. I stood, then leaned forward again. “Should I call the police? Are you--”
“Congratulations,” she said tonelessly.
An almost impossibly warm hand grabbed my shoulder. I spun to see the pit boss I’d spoken to earlier. He gave an impressed smile. “Orin, was it? I’m impressed, truly. Would you mind if I had a word with you?”
I shot a look back at Selene who was dealing the next round of cards. Then I got to my feet, balling my hands into fists. “What did you do to her?”
The pit boss clasped his hands behind his back. “Nothing more, and nothing less than what I’m going to do to you. That is, offer you the chance to play.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
The pit boss nodded his head towards a nearby slot machine. A woman in a wheelchair pulled a lever and watched the flashing numbers spin. They exploded in a cacophony of sirens and flashing lights. “WINNER WINNER WINNER!” The machine screeched.
The woman in the wheelchair put her feet on the ground and stood up on a pair of wobbly legs that had clearly never been used before.
“As in any other casino,” the pit boss said, “you must wager for the chance to win.”
“She... won the use of her legs?” I asked, feeling light-headed. “Wait,” I said. “I played blackjack just now. ‘Three years,’ Selene told me. What does ‘three years’ mean?” I asked.
“Three years of life, of course. Did you win?”
My mouth felt dry. “I-- Yes, I won.”
He smiled warmly. “Congratulations. I hope you enjoy them. I can tell you from personal experience that watching the decades pass is a bore. Give it some time and you’ll be back to spend them.”
I watched the pit boss’s face. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me, and I was in my early thirties. I looked around at the casino. No one was playing with chips of any kind. “So what?” I asked. “I won years of life. That woman won the use of her legs. What else can a person win here?”
“Oh, almost anything. They can win almost anything you can imagine.”
A cold feeling settled in my stomach. “And what do they wager?”
His eyes flashed with greed. “Almost anything. They can wager almost anything you can possibly imagine. Anything equal in value to the item they want in return.” He nodded towards a nearby roulette table.
A man stood by the table, cradling his hands. “Another finger,” he called out. He only had three fingers remaining on his left hand. As I watched, the ball came to a stop, and another finger disappeared from his left hand.
The pit boss extended his hands. “Feel free to try any of our games. Bet and win whatever you’d like.” He reached out and snatched my hand. A feeling of intense warmth passed up my arm to my chest. “There,” he said. “I’ve even given you some house money to get you started. An extra decade of life, on me.”
I ripped my hand away, staring at him in horror. Then I looked back at Selene. Something clicked in my mind. “You offered her the chance to play. What did she want?” I asked.
“Her husband,” the pit boss said. “Quite the sad story. He died two years ago. She wanted him brought back to her.”
“What did she wager?” I asked.
“She wanted the chance to win a soul, the most valuable object in existence. I’m sure you can imagine what she needed to wager for the chance to win it. What she wagered is unimportant. The important question is: What do you want, Orin?”
I stared at Selene with a flat expression. “I’m sure you can imagine.”
His eyes flashed with greed again. “How wonderful. The casino could always make use of another dealer. Feel free to make your wager at any one of our games; I’ll be eagerly awaiting the results of your night. Oh, and do take advantage of our waitresses. We always supply food and drink for ‘high rollers’.” He walked away.
I spent the next few hours trying to decide which game to play. I was going to be wagering my soul, so I wanted the highest chance possible. Slots and roulette were out. I’d done some reading online about counting cards, so I figured that blackjack gave me the best odds.
I walked up to Selene’s table and sat down. “Bet?” she asked with that same toneless voice. “Three years,” I said.
I spent the next hour or so doing my best to remember how to count cards. I knew that low cards added one to my count and high cards decreased it by one, but the casino used three decks. I had read something about how that was supposed to change my calculation, but I couldn’t quite remember how.
Every time I won a hand, I cursed myself for not putting everything on the line. Every time I lost, I breathed a prayer of thanks that I’d waited. And all the while, I kept track of the count.
I had lost fifteen years of life when the count finally reached +5.
“Bet?” Selene asked.
“I wager my soul so you can be free,” I said.
The table around me fell silent. Selene’s eyes flickered, but she showed no other emotion as she dealt the cards. I watched my first card, punching the air in excitement when I saw a Jack. My excitement turned to ash when my second card was a four. Fourteen.
I looked at her hand. One card was facedown, but the faceup card was a King. I swore loudly, staring down at my hands.
“Hit?” she asked. The entire table was silently watching me.
“Hit,” I said, not looking down. The table erupted in cheers. I looked down to see a 7 atop my two other cards. 21. Blackjack.
I looked at Selene who flipped over her facedown card to reveal a 9. 19. I won.
The glassy look left her eyes immediately. She looked around in surprise, then her eyes locked on mine. “Orin?” she asked, then almost immediately began to cry. The entire casino broke out in cheers.
I grabbed her hand and headed for the elevator. The doors had begun to close when the pit boss reached out with a hand to stop them.
“Congratulations,” he said, beaming. He seemed to be honestly excited.
“Shouldn’t you be upset?” I asked.
“Not at all. Casinos love it when we have big winners. It inspires the other players to make larger bets. I imagine I’ll gain two or three dealers before the night is through from your performance.”
“Great,” I said flatly. “Now let us go.”
“Not yet,” he said. “You didn’t just win, Orin. You got a blackjack. And blackjack pays out 1.5 times your bet. You won your sister’s soul and more.”
I stared, not sure what to say. “What are you saying? I won half a soul extra?”
The pit boss grinned wildly. “Just remember what I said. You’ll find living for decades and decades to be a boring experience. After a few centuries, you’ll be back to gamble that half a soul away. Congratulations!”
He removed his hand, and the elevator doors slammed shut.
I helped Selene back to her house. Her children were relieved. I watched them cry, then moved into the kitchen to start making dinner.
It’s been a few days since that experience. The casino is still out there, and buses full of people still arrive. I… I cut my hand pretty bad a few days later. When I checked it an hour later, it had already healed, no scar or anything. I’m not sure exactly what I won at that casino, but there’s no way I’m ever going back.
X

Now that the season's wrapping up and the story of each player's season is about done, I thought it'd be fun to do an All-Pro team of all the most underrated players that shined in the 2020 season. I'll try to do players that are underrated in both the national spotlight, as well as this subreddit so it doesn't turn into a "Reddit's favorite underrated players" thread, but please post your own suggestions on who should make the team as I'm going to inevitably end up underrating players on the underrated team.
NOTE: A player being 2nd team behind another one in 1st team doesn't mean that I think the 1st team is player is better, but just more underrated.
QB: Derek Carr, Raiders
QB is generally the hardest to make an underrated pick for since all QBs get such a large amount of attention, but in a year where Carr came into the season with some people thinking he should be replaced, or Mariota should take over, or that he would never be good, he has responded with a return to form to his 2016 career year.
Let's get the stats out of the way to start this off. 8th in passer rating. 9th in ANY/A. 8th in DVOA. 9th in PFF grade. I would argue these are the 4 best "stat"-based indicators of good QBs, and Carr places top 10 in all of them. Mentioning Carr as a top 10 QB this season would get you a lot of weird looks, yet he's put up a top 10 passing offense with a supporting cast that is decidedly not top 10.
Carr is also top 10 in completion %, INT %, and Y/A. PFF tracks adjusted completion % which adjusts completion % for throwaways, spikes, drops, batted passes, and interfered passing attempts. Carr ranks as the 6th best QB here. People may also be familiar with expected points added per touch (EPA/play) and completion percentage over expectation (CPOE), Carr is top 10 in both of those as well. PFF also tracks deep ball stats for balls targeted more than 20 yards downfield. Here Carr is an excellent 4th in passer rating on deep balls, and an even better 2nd on deep ball accuracy (adjusted completion %) behind only Mayfield. His 14th overall deep ball attempts (55 attempts) show that this isn't just the result of never throwing it deep either.
Let's also talk a bit about Carr's supporting cast. The biggest names here are Josh Jacobs and Darren Waller. Jacobs, despite earning a Pro Bowl nod, has had a notable down year (along with the Raiders run blocking), and overall has led the team rushing offense to be the 25th rushing defense via DVOA. Waller is very obviously excellent and the 3rd best TE in the league behind only Kelce/Kittle, but as a top receiving option compared to other WRs, he's "merely good not great". But behind them he has an overperforming, yet mundane group of receivers. His entire WR corps is made up of Nelson Agholor, Hunter Renfrow, and rookie Henry Ruggs, after last year's leading WR Tyrell Williams went out for the season. A league average receiving corps at best, with depth the only standout factor. The offensive line isn't what it used to be with injuries to Trent Brown and Hudson coming down to earth a little bit. PFF's pass blocking stats and grades both place the Raiders' line in the 17-18 range in the league. With mediocrity all around him, Carr stands as the defining reason the pass offense has been as good as it is.
Carr's EPA/play doesn't drop (actually raises) compared to other QBs when not looking at plays when the game is between 20-80% win probability, so it's not like he's stat padding in garbage time. Carr's intended air yards per pass is 17th in the league, he's not just checking down the whole time. The more you look into it, the harder it gets to deny Carr's case as a top 10 QB this season, however ridiculous it may seem.
2nd Team: Kirk Cousins, Vikings
RB: Antonio Gibson, Football Team
As the season started, the presumed starting RB for fans who weren't paying too much attention to the WFT situation was still Adrian Peterson after coming off an impressive year for an elderly back, and reminding some people who he still was. However, after a surprise cut, Antonio Gibson was given the reins of the WFT run game, and he's taken it in stride beautifully.
This season, Gibson has been PFF's 8th best RB and 4th purely as a rusher. He's also been FO's 4th RB via DVOA, and 7th by it's volume equivalent, DYAR. He's averaging a very healthy 4.8 YPC, and has a solid 15th ranked success rate as a rusher (with 54% of his runs judged as a "success" given the down and distance of the play).
Gibson has been a tackle breaking machine when he runs, showing that he can run past what the line gives him. Among RBs with at least 100 runs, Gibson is 5th in forced miss tackles rate on runs (via both PFR's and PFF's independent tracking of broken/missed tackles).
He's also been good as a receiver, Gibson has the 5th highest PFF receiving grade, and is the 11th most efficient receiving RB (per yards/route run) right behind WFT receiving back JD McKissic. DVOA isn't the kindest to Gibson, suggesting that given the opposition/down/distance, Gibson isn't overperforming RB expectations or anything, but still being a reliable receiver with solid hands and good YAC ability is always a good thing to have as a RB.
And to top it all off, Gibson has done this with one of the worst QB situations in the entire league, and a receiving corps that has one great receiving threat and no one else. There's not really much for the defense to respect playing against Washington besides Gibson and Terry, and he's still having this type of success. His OL has some nice run blockers on it, but it's not like the line as a whole is a great unit either. He probably has the best argument for #2 rookie RB, and has also very arguably been a top 10 RB overall this season
2nd Team: Darrell Henderson, Rams
WR: Corey Davis, Titans/Nelson Agholor, Raiders
Both these players are known to be having strong bounce back years, but is it really known how strong of a bounce back year they're having? Let's start with Corey Davis, who has been the 2nd most efficient WR this season (2nd in yards/route run, 2nd in yards/target, 2nd in passer rating when targeted, and 2nd in receiving DVOA). He's also the 6th ranked WR by PFF grade, and 8th even in DVOA's volume equivalent, DYAR. With only one drop this entire season, and a respectable 5 TDs, Davis has been flying under the radar this season. Only Ridley, Davante, Hopkins, Kelce, Diggs, and Jefferson have more 100 yard games (FulleMetcalf/Beasley are tied). Granted he's had a top 5 QB with Tannehill, and having AJ Brown to share the field with and Henry to instill fear in the run game is a very ideal situation. But when you're putting up the 2nd best numbers for receiving efficiency, you deserve that top ~10ish WR level of respect.
Switching it up to Nelson Agholor now, the former joke of a WR has taken a situation that gave him another chance to shine and turned it to his full advantage. Finally blessed with a top 10 QB after catching passes from a QB that has since been benched (don't take this too seriously), Agholor has started to come alive going further into the season. He has so far been 5th in receiving DVOA and 15th in yards/route run. Agholor has a tendency of making his catches count, his 76.6% rate of getting a 1st down on each catch is 7th among 99 qualifying receivers. Add that onto a very impressive 8 TDs on 47 catches, and his catches tend to be bigger plays. Considering this is Agholor's first season with the Raiders, and COVID prevented normal offseason workouts, Agholor already being Carr's #1 WR and having such a strong start is promising for next season. If you look at Agholor's last 8 weeks of the season, he's been 7th in yards/route run among all WRs, so he seems to have gotten even better when given the proper time to adjust to Gruden's system and get chemistry with Carr. The "but" for Agholor has always been drops, and that is no exception with 8 drops this season via PFF. But he's been a good WR1 despite that, and if he can lessen that number as he gets more comfortable on the Raiders offense, he's due to be a good WR1 for them.
2nd Team: Brandon Aiyuk, 49ers/Tee Higgins, Bengals
SLOT: Cole Beasley, Bills
Beasley has been a fan favorite on the Cowboys and now the Bills, but it's not just that now that Beasley is having his best season ever at the prime age of 31. With 89% of his receiving snaps in the slot (3rd in the whole NFL), Beasley is the definition of a pure slot receiver. And he has dominated that role like no other. Among the 31 qualifying receivers that spend at least 50% of their time in the slot, Beasley's 2.31 yards per route run while in the slot leads the NFL. The next best mark is Landry with 2.07, more than 10% lower. On 78 catches in the slot, he has 0 drops. He's tied with Keenan Allen for the best PFF grade among slot receivers (84.9), and Allen only plays 51.9% of his snaps in the slot. The next "pure slot receiver" by PFF grade would be Tyler Boyd (77.5 at 85.5% of snaps in the slot).
2nd Team: Curtis Samuel, Panthers
TE: Dallas Goedert, Eagles
If the Eagles are a factory, they are a TE factory. It's not common for a franchise to get back to back top 5 TEs, but the Eagles have managed with Ertz before this, and now Goedert. Goedert is looked upon well by people who know him, though the common "ism" for TEs is that there's Kelce/Kittle at the top, than Waller, than the rest. I would say that along with Andrews, Goedert is solidly in that 5th spot. Let's start out with his blocking because he leads the NFL in PFF run blocking grade this year, and was 2nd last year (1st among receiving TEs). Goedert makes an impact in the run game with plays like this where he immediately is able to push his man back 5 yards clearing a lane for a big almost to the goal line. Combine this with him being 9th in yards per route run, 10th in receiving DVOA, and 10th in PFF receiving grade (all with garbage QB play), he establishes himself as a rare combination of prowess in the receiving and blocking game that cements him as a top 5 TE in this league.
2nd Team: Robert Tonyan, Packers
LT: Garrett Bolles, Broncos
Having finally moved past the issue that was holding him back, Bolles has launched himself straight into the elite tier of LTs in the league, an extremely impressive accomplishment given the quality of LT play this year as opposed to previous years (from Bakhtiari and the NFCW LTs of Trent, Duane, Whitworth, and Humphries). He is 3rd in PFF grade among all OTs (Trent/Bakh). He and Bakh are also the only two tackles that are top 5 in run blocking and pass pro grades. He has the best pass blocking efficiency in the entire league (sacks and other hurries allowed per snap), with no sacks allowed this season among 537 pass pro snaps, absolute absurdity. I mean just watch Bolles almost single handedly take care of both players on a stunt here to give Lock the time to throw a beautiful pass to Xavien Howard. Or better, watch him place Noah Fant on his correct blocking assignment while making sure his man is blocked here. The plays here also underline how Garrett Bolles has had a terrible cast around here, and still has managed to look so good, getting those pass protection numbers while trying to protect for Lock is rough. Talk of the magic Munchak has been able to do with Bolles has already started circling fans, but this is a dude that should be talked about in the All-Pro conversation.
2nd Team: D.J. Humphries, Cardinals
LG: Justin Pugh, Cardinals
At left guard, we'll put up a pass protecting specialist with Justin Pugh. Pugh really hasn't been anything special in the run game, but in the pass game, he has been great to elite. 6th best PFF pass pro grade, 4th best pass blocking efficiency, 3rd best ESPN PBWR, 3 completely separate metrics, all point to him being at the highest level of pass protection ability among guards in the league. Add in the context that he is tasked with protecting Kyler Murray, whose constant scrambling makes it harder for an O-lineman to ensure that their QB isn't being pressured, and it's clear that Pugh has done something special as a pass protector this season. It's harder to find pass pro highlights, but after going through film of Pugh against the Niners week 1, he's just a stone wall for pass rushers. His play isn't particularly flashy, but great length and arm placement ensure that pass rushers never get close enough with good position to utilize their full arsenal of pass rushing moves.
2nd Team: Laken Tomlinson, 49ers
C: Corey Linsley, Packers
If you coordinated a poll where you asked who the best player at each position was, center would probably have the largest variety of answers among the offense/defense positions. The reason Linsley is here though, is he is doing his best this season to change that. League best 90.3 PFF grade at center, the next best is 80.3 (Frank Ragnow). That grade consists of a top 3 pass protection grade, the best run blocking grade, and a very low 2 penalties on the season. ESPN, through their completely independent pass block win rate/rush block win rate, has Linsley 5th and 1st respectively, no one else is top 5 in both. Football Outsider's on their independent adjusted line yards formula (how much the line contributes to the rushing yards, as opposed to the rusher), has Packers' runs towards the middle of their line ranked 4th in the league. That's 3 extremely different sources, with completely independent methods of evaluation, all coming together with this good of an opinion unanimously on just one center: Corey Linsley. The type of center that can one arm run block Danny Shelton while on the run so his other arm can prepare to lock up Jamie Collins while he passes Shelton to Elgton Jenkins
2nd Team: Chase Roullier, Football Team
RG: Shaq Mason, Patriots
If I'm being honest, there aren't a lot of options here, RG is pretty fairly evaluated with the best players here being stars among the guard world (Wyatt Teller, Zack Martin, Brandon Scherff). But Shaq Mason gets a shout out here after coming back from a terrible start to last season in 2019. That start got him to a point where he was known for being bad for awhile, and has had to put in work to get rid of that conception. His 3rd highest PFF run blocking grade sees him have a return to his dominance in the run game. That and only having 2 penalties on the year pushes him up to the 4th highest overall PFF grade among all guards, and 3rd among RGs. Football Outsider's also recognizes the Patriots IOL as the 3rd best one to run behind via their adjusted line yards metric. Mason and the rest of that Patriots OL are a big reason why the Patriots run game headed by Damien Harris can be so potent.
2nd Team: Chris Lindstrom, Falcons
RT: Michael Onwenu, Patriots
The way to my heart for an O-lineman is positional flexibility. Onwenu has played 1 game at LG, 1 game at RG, 1 game at LG/RT, 2 games at RG/RT, 1 game at LG/RG/RT, and the remaining 9 games at RT, and has looked like a stud doing it while being a 6th round rookie. It's actually absurd watching Onwenu start building a case to be the best Patriots 6th rounder in their rich history. He's a perfect fit for the Patriots offense, with his 6th best run blocking grade (2nd among RTs) bumping him up to a 7th based overall grade (1st among RTs). His 33rd ranked pass blocking grade (11th among RTs) among RTs is just good not great, but his pass blocking efficiency is an amazing 6th among all OTs (4th among RTs) and it's important to keep in mind that he achieved all this while playing 3 different OL positions throughout the year. Just enjoy him wiping out 2 linebackers with one hand each, or wiping out Nnadi here with a surprise block. However, it doesn't get much better than Onwenu absolutely clearing a lane for Cam Newton.
2nd Team: Taylor Moton, Panthers

See part 1 of the guide here: https://www.reddit.com/DestinyTheGame/comments/k5fxg5/moving_into_highlevel_pve_guide_for_beginners/

Part 2: Weapons and Weapons Mods

Though the weapons meta changes season by season, depending on buffs, nerfs, and other changes made by the Bungie gods, you can expect a few things to stay consistently true.

1. For both raids and nightfalls/nightmare hunts, you will want to fill out your seasonal artifact to make sure that you have access to any important mods that it makes available. For Season 12 the champion weapon mods are in the first row (except for the shotgun mod, in the last row). Thermal Overload (fourth row) is important, and Surge Eater is also quite good for grenade refresh on champion disruption.
2. Exotic weapons that affect champions matter a lot: Eriana’s Vow (affects Barrier champions), Lament (Barrier), and Divinity (Overload) and Leviathan’s Breath (Unstoppable). Of these three Eriana’s and Divinity are really important; Lament does great single-burst damage, but requires you to be awfully close to champions to use it.
3. High burst damage (single-shot) weapons will be important. Right now these include, among exotics, Izanagi’s Burden, Eyes of Tomorrow, and Wardcliff Coil, as well as the swords Fallen Guillotine and Lament.
4. Sustained DPS weapons will be important. These are weapons that do significant damge per shot and have a large magazine or reload perks that allow them to maximize the DPS they do. Given the current reload meta, Xenophage is crucial to have; Whisper of the Worm fits in this category as well. Prospector is a slightly off-meta weapon that also does good sustained DPS. Many slug shotguns are also very good—Bonechiller (void), Heritage (kinetic) are both new in Season 12 and do excellent damage. And snipers, especially snipers with large magazines and perks like Triple Tap, can also be viable in certain situations.
5. If an important weapon has a catalyst, you need to have it and complete it.
6. Certain perks are far more useful in PvE than PvP. These include auto-reloading holsters, especially for special and heavy weapons, Overflow, and Disruption Break, again useful for Barrier champions. Recuperation is a great perk on slug shotguns like Heritage as it can give you up to 12 in the magazine.
7. High-end content will usually include the Match Game modifier, which means that enemy shields must be broken by weapons of the same type (void, arc, or solar). Having a reasonable range of weapons in these types—especially in the weapons that help you deal with champions (autos, hand cannons, scouts, and pulses in Season 12)—is part of being a flexible and good teammate. Only being able to run one loadout is … suboptimal.

For right now, season 12, here are the top five must-have exotic weapons:
Divinity
Why it’s good: Divinity stuns Overload champions and produces a 30% damage debuff on any mob it hits. It combines very well with snipers since the damage field it creates means that you do not have to hit critical spots on mobs to get critical damage (especially nice on console). In six-person content having a Divinity effectively adds about 0.7 people’s worth of damage to the fireteam (5 people x 30% = 150%, plus the damage Divinity does which is worth another little bit). In three-person content Divinity allows hard-hitting weapons like Izanagi’s to quickly bring down Barrier, Overload, and Unstoppable champions.
How to get it: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-10-08-destiny-2-divinity-quest-divine-fragmentation-6007
What replaces it: the debuff function of Divnity can be replaced with a hunter tether or a top-tree solar Titan shoulder charge. The overload stunning function can be replaced with Overload grenades or a seasonal weapon mod. Debuffs caused by stasis do not benefit the entire fireteam, only the caster, and so replace it only partially.
Izanagi’s Burden
Why it’s good: with the catalyst, an Izanagi’s Honed Edge shot does the damage of six single shots instantly. Paired with Divinity this makes Izanagi’s the fastest/best burst damage weapon in the game. Unfortunately a major nerf in season 10 means that the weapon’s reload speed is not fast enough to make it ideal for sustained DPS damage. But it’s still good. Two Izanagi’s shots plus Divinity is enough to kill a champion in a master nightfall, and to bring one down to about 20% health in a grandmaster.
How to get it: from the exotic vendor in the tower.
What replaces it: nothing, though on PC, where controlling weapons is easier, you can get off six or seven shots on a Vorpal sniper fast enough to come close. Whisper of the Worm if you hit all your crits (to trigger auto reload) does very good damage but nothing like the instant burst of the Izanagi’s. Izanagi’s was for a while the meta for many raid boss fights but has been replaced by other weapons on this list, though it’s still pretty good.
Note that without the catalyst Izanagi’s only does 5x damage on Honed Edge shots, making it less good.
Eriana’s Vow
Why it’s good: it breaks barriers on Barrier champions at range; the buff it gets from hitting crits on your first and subsequent shots makes it a pretty decent damage-dealer as well. In seasons where anti-barrier mods are associated only with short-range weapons (as in Season 10, when they were on sidearms and SMGs) Eriana’s is a must for dealing with Barrier champions.
How to get it: from the exotic vendor in the tower.
What replaces it: anything with anti-barrier rounds. For season 12, that’s pulse rifles or SMGs (but the latter are hampered by having to be used close-range, especially on console), or you can use the heavy attack of the Lament exotic sword.
Without the catalyst Eriana’s does not autoreload and only has 6 (instead of 9) in the mag, making it much worse.
Xenophage
Why it’s good: it’s basically a grenade launcher combined with a machine gun. It does very good sustained DPS over the magazine, but suffers from two drawbacks: incredibly slow reload speed and a lack of critical damage. That means that Xeno combines well with the Titan exotic Actium War Rig (which reloads it as it fires) or the Hunter dodge reload, and also with Divinity, which gives it a nice damage boost. Xenophage is sustained boss DPS king right now, not because it does the absolute best damage but because it does great damage and is very easy to use.
How to get it: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-10-29-destiny-2-xenophage-quest-6007
What replaces it: Whisper of the Worm, in situations requiring sustained boss damage (final boss of Garden of Salvation, e.g.). Also fast-firing grenade launchers with autoreloading holsters.
Anarchy
Why it’s good: Set it and forget it! Anarchy is the best damage-over-time (DoT) weapon in the game. Put two grenades on a boss, walk around a corner, and emote as the health goes down. More generally Anarchy allows you to do boss damage while paying attention to your surroundings and dealing with adds. It’s especially useful in solo content as a result, where you can lay two Anarchy shots on a boss and then hide behind cover or deal with other adds. Anarchy also allows you to control space and quickly deal with low-level mobs by tracing patterns on the floor for them to walk into.
How to get it: exotic vendor in the Tower.
What replaces it: Witherhoard can do similar DoT and low-level add control work, though it’s much less powerful.
Some other weapons are important to have and very useful in limited situations. These include:
Lament
Why it’s good: Lament is a very fun exotic sword-slash-chainsaw that does the highest burst damage in the game. Over time the need to wait for the heavy attack to recharge brings its overall damage down, but if you need to do max damage in a second or two, then this is a great weapon for you. It’s useful, for instance, in the Atraks encounter of the Deep Stone Crypt raid that reason.
The downside of Lament is that it takes up an exotic slot that might better be used on something else. At reasonable light levels (1250 or so, relative to the 1230 Atraks encounter) Fallen Guillotine does enough damage in similar situations so that Lament can feel more like a luxury than a necessity.
Where to get it: https://www.fanbyte.com/guides/destiny-2-lost-lament-quest-guide-all-the-lament-exotic-quest-steps/
What replaces it: Fallen Guillotine or possibly another slightly less good sword with Whirlwind Blade perk.
Whisper of the Worm
Why it’s good: it’s a hard-hitting, three-round sniper that reloads automatically from reserves if you hit all three crit shots. That makes it very useful for sustained boss DPS in situations where you can be pretty sure of hitting your crits: Morgeth encounter in Last Wish (or, in season 11, the boss in Scourge, or the tanks in the Zero Hour mission). It also comes from doing one of the most fun missions in the game, which has now sadly been moved to the content vault.
How to get it: the exotic vendor in the Tower (actually not? Sadly.)
What replaces it: any number of things in the list above.
Without the catalyst Whisper is less good; with the catalyst you get a significant damage bonus after aiming down sights for a few seconds before firing.
Wardcliff Coil
Why it’s good: it’s basically a shotgun rocket launcher that does great close-range damage. It’s very useful when you can tackle a boss at short range, and when you don’t blow yourself up with it.
How to get it: world drop
What replaces it: a grenade launcher with auto-loading holster, kind of.
Eye of Tomorrow
What about this weapon? It sounds amazing but early data seems to show that it will not be great for boss damage. It might however turn out to be really good for killing champions. More research is needed.
How to get it: chance to drop from final encounter in DSC
What replaces it: ???
Useful Legendary Weapons
Having a good slug shotgun for damage in the Deep Stone Crypt raid is very nice. Options include Bonechiller and Heritage, as well as First In Last Out. Look for reload perks or perks that increase magazine size.
Likewise, a good sniper with Vorpal Weapon and Triple Tap can come in handy for certain boss damage situations. Against barrier champions, weapons with Disruption Break are useful; the Ikelos SMG can drop with this, as can the Jian-7 pulse rifle.
The other absolutely critical weapon to own is the sword Fallen Guillotine, ideally with Whirlwind and Relentless Strikes.
Exotic Primary Weapons that Heal
For raid encounters where you don’t need boss damage (Gauntlet in Leviathan, first and second encounters in Garden of Salvation, many others), you can also run exotic primary weapons that help keep you alive: Crimson (heal on kill), Rat King (heal/invis on kill, with catalyst), Suros Regime (occasional heal on kill, especially with catalyst), or Vigilance Wing (heals when a teammate dies). In general you don’t want to waste an exotic slot on a primary weapon but if you’re not doing boss damage that’s fine. These can all be useful for the first three encounters of Deep Stone Crypt, if you’re having trouble staying alive. In sublight content (1280 lost sectors, grandmaster nightfalls) you won’t kill things fast enough to make these kinds of weapons worth it, but they can be very useful when soloing dungeons (Rat King is great for the Totem encounter in the Pit of Heresy, for example).

Weapons Mods

The only enemy-specific weapons mod is Taken Spec, which comes in handy in all sorts of high-end content involving Taken enemies (it does 10% more damage). Other than that a good selection of Boss, Major, and Minor spec (each does 7.5% more damage) will tend to be the most useful.
Remember also (and see above) that your weapons are very much affected by your armor mods, and that you will need to set up your armor mods with reload, reserves, and/or dexterity perks that affect your current loadout.
Also, an important note: champions, though they are yellow-bar enemies, count as majors. So Major Spec is the way to go here.

The Current Metas (Season 12)

These are the dominant strategies, not the only strategies. But they’re what you can expect when joining an LFG group.
Last Wish: right now Fallen Guillotine or Lament work for essentially every encounter. With Shuro Chi it’s nice to have one person running Thunderlord for low-level add clear. Having at least one well is useful. For Morgeth encounter you can also use Whisper, especially if you are on a Petra’s Run and don’t want things to be as risky as they are behind the back. For the final encounter (not legit, but cheesed) having a debuff of some kind (Divinity, or a hunter tether) is very important.
Garden of Salvation: For the first two encounters anything goes, with swords doing some good work. For third encounter use Xenophage or Whisper plus a Divinity; for final encounter same thing, except that you can just tether the boss and skip the Divinity. Warlocks are better off using 1000 Voices for final encounter instead as the Xenophage reload is too slow.
Deep Stone Crypt: This raid is nice because it accepts a wide variety of loadouts. For the first encounter, fuses can be broken by one Celestial Nighthawk shot, by Xenophage, or by any slug or pellet shotgun (especially one with autofire). In the second, swords like Lament or Fallen Guillotine are the way to go for quick replicant damage; Jotunn is an easy way to kill servitors from afar. For the final stand encounter (upstairs in space) one Celestial Nighthawk shot is almost enough to end the encounter on the first replicant, saving you lots of panicked running around. For the third encounter anything goes; for the final encounter someone needs to be running Divinity, and then damage can be done with Xenophage, slug or pellet shotguns, and snipers. It’s nice to save a Celestial for the final stand mechanic.
Shattered Throne (solo): Sniper rifles for first encounter and second. Be patient! Vorgeth is the difficult piece here. Part of soloing dungeons is recognizing that Bungie puts in sections with trash mobs that are specifically designed for you to fill your special and heavy ammo reserves; use them accordingly. My warlock guide is here: https://www.reddit.com/DestinyTheGame/comments/cohz2w/solo_shattered_throne_flawless_onephase_vorgeth/. The guide is out of date as the mods have all changed; I would make sure you’re running Concussive Dampener and Sniper for the first couple encounters.
Pit of Heresy (solo): The difficult encounter is the third one. Having a way to heal (devour Warlock, punchy Titan) or be invis (Hunter) or both (use Rat King with catalyst) is crucial. Xenophage makes short work of boomers, as does Izanagi. For boss damage in final encounter groups use a well or bubble and swords; for solo I prefer Anarchy and Loaded Question. Hive mods a must. My guide for Hunters is here: https://www.reddit.com/DestinyTheGame/comments/f5lo0p/solo_flawless_pit_of_heresy_hunter_guide_fo The guide is out of date as the mods have all changed; I would make sure you’re running Concussive Dampener and Arc Resist for the first couple encounters, as the loss of Hive Armaments and Hive Barrier are going to make life a bit more difficult.
Prophecy (solo): The easiest loadout used to involve Mountaintop and Anarchy. Since Mountaintop has been sunset you will have to try other things, like Xenophage, Witherhoard, Riskrunner, Fallen Guillotine, and even Trinity Ghoul for certain sections. Jotunn can also work especially in groups. One thing we don’t know about Prophecy (which is expected to return sometime this year) is how it will be affected by the loss of several key mods, including Taken Barrier and Taken Armaments. Will Bungie adjust the difficulty to reflect the change in the ability to resist damage? We’ll have to see. For now begin with a plan to use Solar and Concussive resist mods, and work from there.
GM NFs: The key here is to adjust loadout and mods to mob type. Depending on the nightfall boss damage can involve Fallen Guillotine (Lake of Shadows) or Wardcliff Coil (Strange Terrain) or Izanagi’s Burden (Festering Core) or Xenophage (The Corrupted) … or something else. Plan accordingly. The loss of Mountaintop and Loaded Question mean that new metas will emerge this season, but it is not yet clear what they are. I will post a more detailed GM NF guide after we’ve had a chance to try things out.
For now: much of your loadout consideration here will depend on the type of champions. For Overload Champions, Divinity is incredibly useful. It combines well with Izanagi’s Burden so you’ll often see a two Izanagi’s, one Divinity loadout. Having a second person run a scout with Overload rounds can be a godsend here. For Unstoppable champions you’ll want a pulse r hand cannon (and probably two people with this). Since they don’t heal they are in some respects the easiest champion to deal with. As for Barriers, the Divinity/Izanagi combo works well as long as you have Pulse Rifles (season 12) to break the bubbles, unless it turns out that Eriana’s Vow works better than pulses for some champions. We’ll see.
The other thing to remember is that since Match Game is on you will have to be able to break whatever shields there are.
In terms of subclasses: it is very rare to see anything other than void Hunters, void Titans, and void and solar Warlocks. In season 11 that’s especially true because of the presence of the Oppressive Darkness buff, but even in season 10 you didn’t see much else. Remember that in season 12 stasis grenades stun Overload champions and also stop Barrier champions from putting up their shields, so those classes may turn out to be very useful.
Last note: one of the weird things about these nightfalls is that the strategy tends to be split into two very different experiences: getting to the boss fight, which involves dealing with lots of champions, and then the boss fight itself. So for example in Strange Terrain Wardcliff Coil allows you to three-phase the boss, which makes things much easier, but it’s more or less useless against champions, so you have to figure out a loadout that works for the champions (auto rifles for barriers, e..g), which occupy the first twenty minutes of the strike.
Nightmare Hunts (time-trial): Most of these don’t have void shields, so you can spec into arc and solar. If you commit to a full invisibility strategy (which probably requires two bottom-tree void Hunters) you can skip all the champions, but I always find it easier just to figure out how to kill them and move forward. Many of the hunts have a safe area in the final boss fight where you can hide or at least control the flow of enemies toward you. Having a well and a tether is very useful here, and the Nightmare Breaker mod is incredibly useful for getting rid of those pesky solar shields.
Solo Lost Sectors: Here Anarchy really is your best friend. There are other options but making sure you can break all the shields you need to break (usually arc and solar) and that you can get champions stunned or barriers broken before they heal (which often means making sure you won’t have to reload at a stupid time) will really help. I have found that stasis classes, because of the grenade mods and the fact that the duskfield grenade keeps barrier champions from popping their barriers, are easier than others. Most of these are doable, with some practice, once you’re 20 power levels below them (so, 1260 for the 1280), and become much easier as you level up.
Master Empire Hunts: With an organized fireteam of three people 20 levels below the activity you should be able to handle things. I’ve found Eriana’s Vow surprisingly useful in these; Anarchy also is great for putting damage on stuff and getting into cover. The auto rifle Overload rounds often put you too close to the action, and seem kind of finicky; I prefer Scout, at least for now, as it more reliably stuns Overloads and keeps them overloaded and not healing. Without Anarchy I think you want to look at Witherhoard as a useful damage over time weapon, or consider having someone run Lament as an invis Hunter so that you can get close to Barriers without dying. I do think that the Barrier champions are by far the most difficult to deal with. The fact that you can bait Overload champions towards you and around a corner, where they can be stunned and then quickly killed with swords, makes them much easier to handle.

Q&A

What’s one thing I should do differently in PvE?

Throw more grenades! Most people underuse their grenades because normal-level PvE content means that grenades kill most stuff too slowly relative to SMGs, sidearms, shotguns, fusions, and so on. But they’re really useful in high-level/sublight content, where you’re almost always going to be at auto-rifle range, or farther.

What’s the one thing I can do to improve in raids?

Stop dying. Especially in the more recent raids, from Scourge of the Past forward (including Crown of Sorrow and Garden of Salvation) one player death during the third or fourth encounters can lead to a cascading series of disasters from which it is very difficult to recover. Likewise in DSC an Operator death at the wrong time in the fourth encounter, or a Suppressor death at the wrong time in the third or fourth encounters, can quickly produce a wipe.
Learn the map so you can use cover as you move; learn the spawns so you know when an Ogre will appear and are ready to kill it (rather than get melted because you were not aware it was going to be there); learn to avoid Taken blights and phalanxes and boss stomps that will slam you into a wall and kill you.
Stop being surprised when you die… so often that I hear someone complaining that they don’t know how they died, or that it’s unfair that the stomp or the phalanx one-shot them by bumping them into a corner. First of all you need to know what killed you or you can’t improve. Second of all it should really not take too many times of being booped into a corner to realize that this kind of thing is part of the game… and it means that you need to know where the boss stomp radius is (as in the final encounter of the Pit of Heresy) and where the phalanxes are, so that you can avoid them.

What’s the second thing I can to improve in raids?

Learn all the roles. It’s very easy to get comfortable with whatever role you have the first time you run the raid, and never do anything else. But it makes it harder for everyone else if they have to adjust to you. Some roles are more mechanical or combat difficult than others (for instance holding down the fourth corner in the second encounter of Garden, or running upstairs Scanner during the Atraks encounter of DSC); you can work your way up to them. Knowing how to do everything means that it’s easier for you to cover for your teammates when something goes wrong (and it will go wrong). If you’ve never gathered motes in the GoS boss encounter, for instance, and all of a sudden someone needs to jump through the portal to get another 10 motes because you had a sacrifice, you want to be ready to do that job. And likewise if you’ve never built ground, you can’t help if one of the defenders goes down and the other one needs you. Being a good teammate means understanding other people’s jobs as well as your own.

What are the important weapons/damage synergies?

The most important one is the Divinity/Izanagi’s combo. Three people who can put a Divinity bubble on a champion and then hit it with two Izanagi’s crit shots within a second of each other will really be able to do well in high-end nightfall content. Less important but useful is knowing how and when to take advantage of debuffs like champion stuns or Titan Melting Points—making sure you’re in a position to use as much of the debuff time as possible as efficiently as possible.

What are some important class synergies?

Beyond the obvious super-based ones (wells, bubbles and tethers), many of these belong to Warlocks, who tend (in my experience) to underuse healing grenades and ought generally to throw them at their teammates more often. Similarly Warlocks tend to cast their healing rifts when they need them. Cast them when your teammates might need them! As for Titans, they heal their fireteam on melee kills (top tree void) or grenade damage (middle tree void); be aware that you can use these skills strategically to help your teammates survive. Likewise with barricades, which can be critical in securing a rez or keeping someone alive after they’re rezzed. As for Hunters, beyond the obvious invisibility perks, I would say that they tend really to underuse smoke bombs in PvE—they can be critical in add control by giving your group time to breathe and pick off adds one by one.
Part of the reason to get better at this game is to get good enough so that you’re not playing just for yourself, but for others—to master your class so that it not only keeps you alive and doing good damage but helps your fireteam do those things too.

Above-light raids and sublight nightfalls/nightmare hunts: which is harder?

Raids when you are higher light level than the enemies are mainly a matter of experience, teamwork, and communication. You will engage ordinary mobs at short ranges and can use a much wider range of weapons. Sublight and/or solo content requires you absolutely to prioritize your health, which means using cover and abilities to stay alive as much as possible, engaging enemies at range and using movement to avoid fire. The latter is definitely harder and requires a real focus on gear and mods to make sure you’re giving yourself every advantage you can.
That said, part of building up good PvE gear is to give you the bonuses and boosts you need to help you stay alive in raids so that you can focus on learning the mechanics and doing boss damage. So you want a good set, even if you’re above light, because that will help you focus on the important stuff you need to learn, instead of worrying about dying.

How do I get the materials I need to upgrade all my armor?

The easiest thing to do is to farm the final encounter of the Pit of Heresy three times a week. Dismantling the crappy armor you get there will give you 18 enhancement prisms, the equivalent of 1.8 ascendant shards (10 prisms + 50k glimmer + planetary mats gets you one shard from the Gunsmith). Since masterworking one piece of armor costs 1.5 shards (1 shard plus 5 prisms) that will allow you to masterwork six pieces of armor every five weeks. (Thanks to bundleman for this info.)
Otherwise, the best way to get Ascendant Shards is to do grandmaster nightfalls, or to farm master (1280) nightfalls once you’re close enough in light to that number to make those easy. The other way is go flawless in Trials. So you’re probably best off farming the 1280 nightfalls.

This guide didn’t talk about something I’d like to hear more about. Or you didn’t tell people about some weapon/class/ability situation I think is important!

Well, yes. It’s already 8,000 words long. But if you post in the comments people will read them, and if I edit the document to reflect your suggestion, I’ll make sure to credit you! So please give me feedback.
Ciborium616 / Journeyers clan / https://www.bungie.net/en/ClanV2/Chat?groupId=4442617

I have read dozens of these threads for dozens of games over the years but never bothered to write one myself. Nothing especially exciting is coming up on Google for Cyberpunk yet, so I figured I might as well give back to the community, so to speak. So, here are a list of tips and tricks for new players. Many of these may not stay true as CDPR patches the game but they're up to date as of 1.06.
If you have stuff I missed, throw it in the comments and I'll try to edit it in. And if I'm wrong, correct me! I'm not an expert, just a fan. Some of this stuff is a matter of opinion, playing "optimally" is a bias of mine that not everyone may share. You may want to beat the whole game hacking everything in sight with 5 intelligence (good luck lol). This is just as valid a playstyle as being a min-maxing degenerate like me, the point is to have fun :)
Attributes:
- The game files tell you that you get an attribute point every three levels. This is a damn lie. You get one every level. By level 50, which you can attain well before beating the game, you can raise three stats to 20 with 4 points left over.
- You can have an attribute up to 20 by level 15. Game's level cap is 50.
-Body and Technical Ability both let you open doors. DIFFERENT doors. It's rare that they'll both work on the same door. If you wanna open every door, you should max 'em both out. That said, this is mostly just for bonus loot, so it's not mandatory.
- Every attribute has perks enough for a viable build, though technical ability can be rough going. You should consider leveling one skill to 20 before you start leveling another because the high level perks in many of these trees are bonkers. The two exceptions to this are "Breach Protocol" under intelligence and "Crafting" under technical ability. Good, but not necessarily your best first priority.
For example, at the end of the blades tree is a perk that makes you do double damage to enemies with full health (at rank 3) and another perk that increases the damage you do by 3% per 1% health the enemy is missing. So assuming it works as described (big if, lol) if you take 50% of an enemy's health off with your opening strike, you'll do 150% bonus damage. Throw in the bleeding effects and you'll be ginsu knifing your way to victory in no time.
- Attribute pairings: Some attributes have a bunch of synergies. For example, Cool synergizes well with Reflex for blades, sniper or silent pistol builds. Cool also synergizes relatively well with Quickhacking. Technical Ability pairs well with Reflex because the engineering tree buffs smart weapons and tech weapons - though there are some tech shotguns, which pair with Body, most guns are buffed by the Reflex trees.
Comparatively, Technical Ability has less to offer a melee build - stealth melee should be Reflex and Cool, while 'charge TF in' melee benefits from Body and Reflex.
- If you want to craft, you need to raise technical ability to 18 for best effect. If you want to use tech weapons, take it to 20. Quickhacks are crafted in their own tree, and are not a part of normal crafting.
- Not much advice here overall because it's mostly a matter of playstyle. You wanna have a dude with 13 in every attribute? They'll be a great all-rounder. Wanna specialize? You'll get some outrageous power perks.
Skills + Perks:
- Skills level as you use them although Athletics is currently really hard to level apart from some buggy stuff. The other slightly counter-intuitive skill to level is engineering which levels when you deactivate cameras manually, need to be standing very close to them. You can also level it by firing tech weapons through walls and by using grenades.
- Perks level as you put points into them. You get one perk point whenever you level up. You get perk points as you level skills (7 per skill tree, if you get it high enough). edit: Crafting, Breach & Quickhacking have 6 for some reason.
There are also a number of 'perk shards' that give you free perks.
- To buy a perk, you need to have a high enough level in the associated attribute. All skill trees have at least one perk that requires 20 in the associated attribute (Body, Reflex, etc). Sometimes that perk is just ok, but sometimes it's bonkers powerful. Take the time to read the trees. Basically all builds are viable right now so I don't have any "best" build tips, just level one attribute to 20 and then figure out which one you wanna do next.
- Skills cannot level past their associated attribute. For example, Blades is in the Reflex tree. If you have Reflex 4, it doesn't matter if you vivisect every enemy in the game, you will level to blades 4 and stop there until you raise Reflex to 5. This is one of the reasons it makes sense to level an attribute to 20 ASAP. Keep an eye on the skills you wanna use all game - if they stop gaining experience, you need to bump the attribute.
-Leveling skills will reward you with bonuses. Sometimes the bonus makes you better at the skill (for example, reducing recoil on a kind of gun). But each skill tree has (afaik) 7 "bonus" perks in it. This means that there are more total perks available to characters who level Body and Reflex (which each have three associated skills) as opposed to other attributes (which only have 2).
- Every tree has some ridiculous skills that are must-have, and some that are useless. One or two are even actively harmful, like the one that automatically disassembles junk. Some junk sells for 750 ED, so scrapping it automatically robs you. Avoid that perk (it's in Crafting).
edit: Matter of opinion. There's a lot of junk in this game and if you're speccing into crafting, you can easily make money, so taking the 'scrap all junk' perk can save some time. Ultimately the only junk you need to scrap is the cans you buy from vending machines, which (with the current UI) is the fastest way apart from using the perk. Your mileage may vary.
-If you read through the skills it's pretty obvious which ones are awesome; usually it's a huge buff to damage or crit chance. They give out crit chance like candy in this game.
- It's worth making sure that your primary combat skill (pistols, blades, etc) is always capped - so if you have 10 reflex, you should have 10 in blades. This way you'll get the most from the perk system, but also have 'best' fighting style at your disposal. The game gives you all these great playstyles but in my experience, if you don't level them, they become progressively less useful.
- You can respec perks for 100,000 ED. This will not reset your attributes. 100,000 ED will always be a stupid amount of money. You're better off just farming up some more perk points and spending them.
- There is always an ultimate perk unlocked when you reach 20 in the skill (need 20 in the attribute first). These are enigmatic and poorly worded. To be clear, they give you an up front buff of varying quality. Then you can keep putting points in them generally for a 1% buff. I haven't doubled checked all of them, but after that first rank, it's highly unlikely you'd ever want to put another point into them.
- Cold blood makes you good at everything, a little bit. It's in Cool, so it's most efficient to pair it with pistol sneak or blade sneak, but really you can go hog wild. It has some preposterous bonuses.
- You will never need to swim underwater AFAIK so ignore that perk.
Weapons
- All builds are viable and so are all weapons. Still, I think they put shotguns and lmgs in the same tree because the range on shotguns isn't optimal and they are not sneaky weapons. I'd carry one of both, and I also carried a pistol, a sniper rifle and an assault rifle on my Reflex build, though this spread me a little thin.
- Weapons come in a tiered system: common (grey) uncommon (green), rare (blue), epic (purple) and legendary (orange.) Wonder if they'll pay Blizzard royalties. If anyone will, really.
- There are also iconic weapons. They can usually be upgraded to legendary, but not always (RIP Lizzie pistol). This costs a lot of mats. But not as much as upgrading a level 40 gun to a level 41 gun.
- Using crafting to upgrade weapons is so expensive / tedious that you should just craft new weapons instead. You should also keep your Iconic weapons at the rarity you find them, and upgrade them to level 50 at the lowest possible rarity, to save on mats.
- You can have three weapons (plus unarmed / gorilla arms) equipped at once.
- Power weapons can ricochet and are most common. Tech weapons can charge and shoot through walls. They discharge automatically at full charge until you get an engineering perk to fix that. This makes them WAY more useful.
- Smart weapons paint dots on a target and then they'll hit the target. The dots (little and red) need to appear before you start firing. If they do, the bullets may even hit around corners or cover. If you don't, the bullets are wasted.
- You can craft ammo. The carry limit is high, 400 pistol, 700 rifle, 100 snipeshotgun on PS4 according to u/Eggtastic_Taco, I thought I'd had 500 pistol ammo on PC before but IDK.
- Weapons can be modded. Replacing a mod destroys it. Scrapping a weapon destroys the mod unless you have a perk (from crafting.) The perk is worth it. Modding weapons is generally worth it. I wouldn't bother putting a silencer on a pistol.
edit: As withoutapaddle points out, silencers are awesome if you are speccing into them, generally with a Reflex / Cool build focused around pistols. You can easily overcome the damage debuff, especially with the rare silencer, where the debuff is only 15%.
Armor
- There's no transmog so you're gonna look ridiculous until endgame, and maybe then too.
- Armor seemed to me like it made little difference til I passed 4000 armor, at which point I became an unkillable tank. Main appeal of crafting, IMO.
- But mods can make a big difference by buffing critical damage, critical chance, etc. Also plenty of useless mods (breathe underwater longer).
- You can pick up resistance to damage types, and even immunity, from item mods - but also from certain perks and cyberware.
- Armor can be iconic too, though far less often. Same advice from iconic weapons applies.
Hacking
- Not much to say here - use breach protocol to debuff enemies and make quickhacks cheaper. Many quickhacks are non lethal.
- Quickhacking costs RAM. It recharges out of combat, and in combat with the right perk.
- The game teaches you this in an optional tutorial but it is VERY important: you can quickhack people while seeing them through cameras. And when you do, they can't do a damn thing about it. They can't detect you unless they see you IRL. So hack a camera from across the street, cycle through their camera network killin' em all. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Crafting
- When you craft an item, it randomly has mods (or maybe none) and randomly has mod slots. Far as I can tell, 4 is the maximum number of mod slots. Mods are fairly easy to come by, and some of them are ludicrously OP (Can find 6 15% crit chance mods and have 100% effective crit, I think).
- But they're random! So you may need to craft and recraft those legendary pants until you get one with 4 mod slots. edit: max 4 for torso slots, max 3 for everything else
- Crafting in general is broken in good ways and bad. The main tip is that you can scrap drinks, but not food, for some reason. So go to every drink machine you see and buy them out of drinks (10 ED a drink). Then scrap all the drinks for common and uncommon components. Craft a bunch of uncommon sniper rifles, sell them to a merchant, repeat til you're at 20 crafting. Good way to make money too.
- As mentioned above, upgrading things is expensive as hell, though at higher levels it also gives you huge chunks of crafting XP all at once.
edit: When you upgrade an iconic item, it seems to reset the cost of components to upgrade it again, and as a bonus, raises it to one level below yours. So if you don't want to farm mats forever, consider waiting til you're level 50 before raising your Iconic gear to Legendary status. Then you'll only need to upgrade it once.
- Items can only be crafted one at a time but you can edit a config file to make that happen instantly. This'll get patched, I hope.
- There are crafting specs scattered through the world. The best ones are usually free from drops but you might buy one for a niche build.
Here's a mod table, h/t to u/theherrhuml
​

Work and Stack	Armadillo, Backpacker, Osmosis, Plume
Work but Don't Stack	Fortuna, Bully
Work	Coolit, Antivenom, Superinsulator - not for EMP, Panacea
Don't Work	Deadeye, Predator, Resist, Zero Drag

Cyberware
- It'll make you a beast. It's the main use for 'street cred', too, a system that barely needs explaining. Kill dudes, get street cred, unlock new Cyberware. Other stuff too but mostly pretty pointless by comparison. The best cyberware requires 49 street cred; the cap is 50.
- The wrist mounted missile launcher is sick but it also seems to disable the use of grenades (mapped to the same hotkey on my controller anyway). The missiles, however, are bottomless.
edit: Probably my biggest error here. I thought my grenade option had disappeared, but you can switch grenades into the slot if you want. If I'm understanding u/theherrhuml correctly, this means you can't use both at once? IDK.
- Slowing time is very handy. The synaptic accelerator does it when you are spotted by an enemy. A must for sneak builds. Sandevistan slows time when activated. Mostly useful for combat but you can also rush right past enemies (but be aware that slow time means doors open slow too). There's also Kereznikov, which slows time when you dodge, slide or do some other stuff idk man, I forget. Obvious combat applications.
- Your initial cyberware lets you hack. The cyberware in the OS slot, to be specific. If you replace it with a Sandevistan model, or a Berserk, you will lose the ability to hack. The game does a very poor job of warning you of this. It SUCKS to suddenly not be able to turn off cameras by hacking them.
- Cyberware has mod slots. Maybe this explain this at one point but it's easy to forget. You'll find lots of cyberware mods in any case.
- If you're using quickhacking, most quickhacks have to be equipped in your deck, which goes in the OS slot. They have their own parallel crafting system which is under Intelligence. They'll make you a cybergod among men.
- Overall cyberware is meant to compliment your build. Wanna do blades? Mantis blades go in the arm slot. Wanna hack? Buy the best OS. Don't care about hacking? Stick a Sandevistan or Berserk in there and shoot / chop your enemies to bits. The monowire, counter-intuitively, is a 'blunt' weapon and benefits from the associated perks, as well as being buffed by cool.
- Double jump, or charge jump, are mandatory. Why wouldn't you want the high ground, as Ben Kenobi taught us?
- Like I said, it compliments your playstyle, so it also gates the best cyberware behind attribute requirements. 20 body nets you an implant that gives +60% health, which is huge. You'll never be able to equip all the "best" cyberware, but you'll have what's best for your build.
- Every ripperdoc has a specialty, but they don't always have their legendary quality item. This is kinda annoying because it's one of a number of easter egg hunts they implement for buying stuff, real MMO tier game design. I have the money, gimme the damn thing. Anyway, check the internet for guides on where to buy legendary cyberware.
Questing + Side Content
- Personally I'd recommend finishing all the side content in Watson (the first area, in which you are trapped) before proceeding to Konpecki (you'll know when you know.) This gives you a lot of tools in your toolbox for a pretty challenging series of missions, and give you lots of practice playing the game .- Alternatively, there's little punishment for burning through all the story content up to the final mission, and in fact, no real punishment for beating the final mission as soon as it's available. The game just drops you right back before the final mission, so that you can unlock the other endings. Up to you.
edit: A certain Hollywood actor shows up to make commentary on your quests once you finish Act 1, including quests in Watson. So depending on how thirsty for Keanu you are, consider holding off on doing sidequests in Watson until after Act 1.
- Like the Witcher, the story quests are worth way more experience, so if you're in a hurry to level then get after it.
- If you bought this game because of the political dimensions of Cyberpunk then READ THE SHARDS. All of them. Great stuff in there. If you bought it for pew pew lasers, then only read the shards with smutty titles, they're funny.
- The level design's pretty good. Often I'll finish a dungeon only to notice that there was a sneaky back way in that I never even noticed because I didn't bother looking. Of course, with double jump, you can usually make your OWN way in.
- Overall, the level design combined with the shards made even clearing reported crimes fun for me all the way through to endgame. I highly recommend doing most of the sidequests ( hear racing sucks which checks out because driving sucks ). Also clear all the organized crime bosses because they drop awesome loot.
Cars
- You can get a free Caliburn, one of the game's fastest cars, in the Badlands, hard to explain so just google the video.- Fixers will text you about cars they have for sale. This sucks. The cars then show up as quest markers. This also sucks. You do not need to buy all the cars (could be fun to do so), any one car will suffice.
- Motorcycles are great. They can ride in the gutters or down the center line of roads, totally ignoring traffic.
- If you park your car in the road it creates a traffic jam.
- Look both ways before you cross the street.
- You can steal cars but there's not much reason to since you can call your own car to your location.
Misc
- Some missions require you not kill anyone. You can easily get an implant mod that makes all your weapon damage non-lethal. This allows you to never worry about this again. You very rarely get in trouble for bringing someone in alive; apart from some flavor commentary IDK if it's ever happened to me. Alternatively, you can use blunt weapons or certain quickhacks.
- Pay Vic back. Partially to upgrade your eyeballs but mostly because it's the right thing to do for a friend.
- In general, dialogue checks relating to your attributes are there for flavor so you can use them with impunity, but without material reward.
- Street cred: literally just kill criminals and do quests and it'll level faster than your character level. I hit 50 SC around level 30, as I recall. That unlocks the best cyberware and the highest level gigs, then there's no reason to think about it ever again.
- If you possibly can, wait 2 years for the finished version of this game with all the DLCs. I love it, but I think it'd be more fun to experience the finished product fresh. I only played Witcher 3 last year and it was amazing.
- There are free legendary mantis blades and a free legendary monowire kicking around in the game world.
- Don't let Cyberpsychos or other bosses hit you in melee, obvs.
- Those little icons over people's heads at the beginning of the game are telling you that you can fight them but also how difficult they are. I spent an hour trying to figure this out when I bought the game, lol.
- Cops will aggro if you get too close for too long. Gangs will aggro if you get too close usually.
That's it for now! Let me know what I missed.
Thanks for updates from: u/theherrhuml, Eggtastic_Taco, withoutapaddle

I would count series 9 as the heaviest one to watch with its abundance of two parters, ambiguous arc and massive three part finale. It's a great watch though and, for the most part, uses the increased two parter format really well. So here's my breakdown of the ninth series from Amazing to Frosties.
11. The Woman Who Lived (9x06)
A 1600s highwayman themed episode should be right up my alley. This really isn't though.
It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I don't particularly like the Ashildr / Me arc in series 9. I don't have a huge problem with the character in her first appearance and I think that having her as the ruthless mayor of a modern day alien refugee town is a pretty cool development, but I just find her vaguely irritating the rest of the time. Maisie Williams is great, but I can't help but think the material she's given is a little too overtly edgy for me to get behind it. So watching her mope around and having the Doctor traipsing behind her trying to convince her to be nice isn't hugely compelling to me.
Beyond that, as much as I love the setting and wish that more episodes were set in this time period, there really isn't much here I can point to and say I love, especially with the odd absence of Clara that you can kind of tell is because they couldn't think of anything for her to do here. The villainous Tony the Tiger is utterly laughable and one of the most one note monsters in the show, complete with campy dialogue, unclear motivations and some pretty rubbish prosthetics. Overall, this is a strong contender for the weakest episode in the Moffat era that not even a decent guest appearance from Rufus Hound can save for me.
10. The Girl Who Died (9x05)
The first story of the main Ashildr two parter is by far the more tolerable of the two, but it still suffers with a lot of the same issues its sequel does.
At the very least, there's a clear divide shown in Ashildr's character between the two episodes that makes it at least vaguely effective to watch her suddenly lose all of her anger and her love towards her village, but I can't help but feel there's a lot of telling and not showing around Ashildr's affections.
And while the Mire definitely look cooler and have much better presence to them than the lion thing, Odin still toes the line into confusingly laughable and their eventual defeat matches the unintentionally comic effect they seem to have. I also find there are some general pacing issues, but a huge redeeming factor in this episode is the link between Deep Breath and The Fires of Pompeii finally becoming concrete, which is a really great moment for this episode and for 12's arc. There are some aspects of this episode that I do like, I just think it gets a little bogged down in all its weirdness at times.
9. Sleep No More (9x09)
This probably doesn't mean all that much considering how low down it is but, unlike the majority of the fans, I actually really like this episode. Its middling placement is mostly down to how quickly it stopped being memorable.
I'm all in for more experimental formatting (but definitely not at the expense of the opening credits which I'm still shaking my fist about), so having Doctor Who take a good crack at found footage horror was excellent to see. The concept of Morpheus and the Sandmen was one I could fairly easily get behind and I really loved it, though I do think Rassmussen's ending monologue and the idea that every sleep particle is a camera strays ever so slightly into the realm of 'far too camp'. And while the characters here are pretty thin in the personality department, they get some really solidly scary and atmospheric deaths, alongside the fact that the station itself is suitably creepy enough to build the tension throughout the episode.
Something else that lets this down and drops it considerably on my ranking is how incomplete it feels, with the sequel that was very clearly needed to fill the gap being dropped from series 10, now probably never to see the light of day. Sleep No More has the air of a strange fanfiction you get through only to realise the author never actually posted the rest of the chapters, leaving you in a sort of narrative limbo, and I think that's why Sleep No More ends being fairly unimpactful.
8. Under the Lake / Before the Flood (9x03-04)
Under the Lake is definitely more of a mixed bag of a story, but for the most part I really enjoy it.
This seems to be a starting point for Clara's increasingly dangerous desire to become more like the Doctor and I really like the subtle beginning that change has with Clara suddenly asking to be thrown into trouble and explosions. The rest of the characters here are also a highlight, particularly Cass. Though unfortunately not the beginning of a trend of well-represented disabled characters, Cass was still excellently written and portrayed by (most importantly of all) a disabled actress.
The Drum is a great setting and the ghosts of the dead crew wandering around it killing people under certain conditions is an intriguing premise that is set up really well, though I will say that the first episode is significantly better than the second. Before the Flood isn't bad by any means, it's just that the unraveling of the mystery sometimes is a little less compelling than the mystery itself and that very much happens here. The time jumping, technobabble-y explanations to each and every aspect of the ghosts leads to a fairly loaded narrative that's very open to having holes poked in it, which isn't helped by the last minute appearance and almost immediate demise of the one behind it all, the Fisher King. It's a shame he kind of just stands around and then dies, because not only does he look awesome, he's also played by a completely wasted Peter Serafinowicz. This definitely isn't a bad story overall, it just has a much stronger first half in my eyes.
7. The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion (9x07-08)
This two-parter suffers from the exact opposite problem to my previous entry, albeit not quite so markedly: the second half is far, far better than the first.
The Zygons have always been an interesting and really well-designed monster, so their return here is definitely welcome and I think after the threads planted in The Day of the Doctor, a sequel was definitely needed. The result is a bit of an unusual one by Doctor Who's standards as they seem to lean really hard into the 'political thriller' genre, which is extremely rare. You could argue that Aliens of London attempted it before, but either way, this is the far more successful attempt.
This is also a rare instance of a modern day Earth episode taking place outside of the UK, as the machinations of the Zygons extend throughout the world. This, among other aspects such as Zygons 'radicalising' others of their species that want to live in peace and differing Zygon factions gives this an almost uncomfortably grounded lens to view an alien incursion. The most interesting part about this to me though is the fact that this isn't technically an invasion, as the aliens already live on Earth, which gives this a whole different angle to play with.
The only thing that really lets it down for me is the slightly languid pacing, particularly in the first episode. The pay off more than makes up for this though, with both Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi delivering landmark performances in some of their most memorable moments, particularly with Coleman playing the leader of the Zygons and Capaldi's iconic war speech. These moments elevate this story beyond the average status it could've had.
6. Face the Raven (9x10)
Face the Raven is a weird one, because I remember actively disliking it when it first aired. I thought it was really slow and uninteresting, which therefore slightly sullied Clara's exit for me, but I really turned around on this one when I rewatched it at the end of last year.
Trap Street acts as both a great concept and a great setting for this episode, as the idea of a hidden alien refugee town on Earth is one I really enjoy, and one that is executed just as well with its old world aesthetic style giving this episode a unique tone. And while a lot of the side characters are fairly unremarkable, Ashildr is at her best here as the town’s ruthless mayor. Watching her refusing to bend her rules only to realise the stakes after Clara has already sacrificed herself is the most interesting journey we see her go on in this series. And of course, Clara’s emotional departure completing her transition into someone recklessly throwing her life away to be as much like the Doctor as she can is a very satisfying exit for Clara, but is almost difficult to watch as you can see her death coming.
With how massively strong this is for a Doctor Who writer’s first episode, I’m really hoping Sarah Dollard gets to do at least a few more episodes in the future.
5. Hell Bent (9x12)
Considering how undeniably Marmite this episode seems to be on this subreddit and also in general, I’d say this is the most difficult episode to review for me. But it’s come in 5th place, so it’s pretty safe to say I’m in the ‘like it’ camp. Yes, I enjoy the return to Gallifrey and thought it was written in pretty solidly. Yes, I agree that Heaven Sent is a much stronger episode. No, I personally don’t think Clara’s exit is ruined by this, but I can totally understand that viewpoint.
I like Hell Bent because, when you peel back all the time bending, Time Lord laden layers, this is the crest of the Doctor and Clara’s relationship. It’s a realisation of how dangerous the two of them have become together, not just to each other but everyone else too. It’s an acknowledgment that the Doctor’s ruthless and uncharacteristic behaviour needs to be put to an end, and for that reason I think this builds really well off the groundwork of the previous two episodes. Unrelated to this, I think the Cloister Wraiths are really creepy and cool. Wasn’t sure where else to put that, but I thought it was worth a mention.
Onto what I enjoy less, I think the utter wasting of Rassilon is slightly abominable. After the knockout performance of Timothy Dalton in The End of Time, bringing him back in a new incarnation only to send him packing in a shuttle barely ten minutes in just to give the Doctor a (admittedly cool) moment doesn’t quite sit right with me. Plus, the fact that we still haven’t seen him again since he went into exile kind of makes this worse. I’m also going to put it out there that I still don’t fully comprehend the whole Hybrid thing and the revelation that it was probably just the Doctor and Clara kind of makes it all pointless to me.
So this definitely is not a perfect episode, but for what it’s worth, I think it’s a solidly climactic and explosive ending to one of the most complicated and drawn out Doctor-Companion relationships in the show. But when Moffat does episodes like this, I can fully understand why it isn’t to everyone’s tastes, I just personally think it’s good.
4. Last Christmas (Christmas 2014)
Last Christmas, being the first in Capaldi’s string of consistently great festive specials, is a standout episode for me purely because of how many clashing tones it juggles with near perfection.
Last Christmas is a festive cocktail of sci-fi, fantasy and horror taking cues as broad in variety as Alien and actual Santa. I love the blending of genres here, with the brilliantly creative, horrifying concept of the Dream Crabs. The idea of being placed into a dream state while you can feel a sharp pain in your head and your brain is being sucked out is one of Moffat’s most underrated monsters. The setting is clearly inspired in the best way possible by Alien, but is even consistent with the dream-like quality of the story with its twisting corridors and dark lighting.
But somehow amongst this base under siege story dripping with horror homages and tension, Nick Frost’s hilarious and endearing performance as Santa Claus slots right in perfectly. There’s this aura of wide-eyed wonder to his portrayal and the rest of the characters’ interactions with him that provides an interesting contrast to the otherwise murky and dark tinted episode and that is fascinating to me. Love this episode, love Clara’s return to the TARDIS and her dreamscape final goodbye to Danny and loved the seamless tone blending this episode pulls off without a hitch.
3. The Magician’s Apprentice / The Witch’s Familiar (9x01-02)
Easily the highest the Daleks have risen since Eccleston’s swansong, series 9’s opener is an explosive love letter to fans of the Daleks, of Davros and just of the show.
The proper return of Skaro is glorious to see, as is the surprisingly emotional return of Davros here. Peter Capaldi and Julian Bleach both deliver knockout performances, and I remember watching this for the first time almost genuinely believing that Davros had somehow mellowed. Luckily, Moffat balanced just the right level of malice and emotion to create a brilliant moment between the two. The Daleks themselves, while they don’t really leave the room they’re in, have a much more threatening presence here than they’ve had in the past. This is especially with the wonderfully disgusting revelation that the decaying sewer Daleks are still alive, which in turn makes for an extremely memorable climax.
The return of Missy as a sort of tentative ally in this episode is also an intriguing choice that really pays off, especially considering the undeniably villainous role she pretty much just played in the series 8 finale. Her chemistry with Clara is unexpectedly brilliant and the two bounce off each other really well, with Clara always seeming to be on the backfoot and attempting to predict what her tentative friend / captor is going to do next. Having Missy here alongside Davros AND the Daleks is written so well, it never feels crowded and it always feels like everyone has something important to do.
Most of all though, this feels like a new chapter in 12’s story. After a series deliberating on his morality, 12 seems to be more at home with himself and in his newest regeneration and as he comes rolling in on that tank shredding on his guitar, you know it’s a renewed Doctor you’ll be following around this series. And while the jury’s out on the debut of the sonic shades, I think that bringing the ‘rocker dad’ aspect to Capaldi’s Doctor helped keep him unique and personable, while retaining what made him so dark and mysterious in his first series. Plus, Capaldi just plays everything perfectly here so I have to love it.
2. Heaven Sent (9x11)
It says a lot about the acting, writing and directing talent involved here to create an episode that hinges entirely on one character. And not only does it speak to their caliber that they pulled it off, but they also went and made it one of the best episodes of Doctor Who ever made. So I’m going to try and break down what makes this so good.
First off, obviously, Capaldi. Everyone on this subreddit and this subreddit’s dog has talked to death about how brilliant an actor he is and how much sheer presence it takes to carry an episode of a show on your own apart from a cool monster. 12 had always been a monologuing, introspective type so if they were going to try and make a Doctor carry an episode by themself, it was always going to be him. Everything from his desperate sadness to directionless anger to his eventual determination to punch the hell out of that wall at the end, all backed by one of Murray Gold’s best tracks that thankfully returned for 12’s regeneration, is pretty much just perfect.
A lot of people also call this Moffat’s masterpiece, and I’m probably close to agreeing but then again I enjoy like 90% of his writing for the show. Heaven Sent rarely ever feels slow or padded out and not a word in this script is wasted. The directing work of Rachel Talalay in this episode (as well as in the other Capaldi finales) also definitely deserves a mention and the way she frames the hulking castle inside the confession dial makes this one of my favourite settings to appear in the show and she perfectly captures the constant feeling that the Veil is always right behind the Doctor.
So yeah, this is god tier. But why isn’t it number 1? No clue. Just something in my heart tells me I prefer my top pick…
1. The Husbands of River Song (Christmas 2015)
I suppose it’s a small stretch to call this part of series 9, but it appears on the boxset so here it goes. Husbands is a blisteringly fun romp with awesomely colourful settings, resonant character moments and a whole heap of fun, and so ends up being my personal favourite River Song episode.
Again, I’m about to drop another hot opinion that 90% of people have and isn’t at all a rare take, but I deeply miss having a new Christmas special to watch every year. This episode embodies exactly what I love about the festive specials as, aside from the regeneration episodes, each one commits itself to being as ridiculous and fun as possible. This one feels a bit like Indiana Jones in space as we watch a giddy 12 and River bound through creepy rich people cruise ships and snow drenched space market streets, all with the new and intriguing angle that River doesn’t know who the Doctor is for half of the episode. There is a smattering of endlessly memorable moments in here, most notably the Doctor finally getting to do his own spin on the ‘bigger on the inside’ spiel and the emotional farewell the two share on Darillium that gets me everytime.
I’m also going to throw it out there that I really, really love Harmony Shoal as a recurring villain, despite the fact their stint lasts only two episodes. I love how surreal and all-powerful they seemed to be and I was really clamouring for them to become a more iconic villain for 12, especially after their promise of revenge at the end of Doctor Mysterio. But even so, what we got from them is great and this episode only just trails behind A Christmas Carol as one of my all time favourite festive episodes.
~
And that was my attempt at series 9, which is honestly the most difficult and intimidating series to do a proper breakdown of. Drop back in hopefully a couple of weeks time (every week is getting a little difficult with my schedule) for my series 10 breakdown, where I’ll be lamenting alongside most of the rest of you about the fact Bill and Nardole only got one series. Thanks for reading!

Hey everyone, I wanted to make a more in-depth post about the newest 5 Star, Childe / Tartaglia, as it seems to be a very controversial topic whether he is good or not.
I will be working on a more in-depth version of this guide in Video format, but here is a highlight videos showcasing his power until then!
Find all my updated Character guides here: Reddit: Childe | Bennett | Fischl | Jean | Barbara Videos: Childe | Bennett | Fischl | Jean | Barbara
So my first impression is that he is an absolutely amazing Carry Character, probably on par with Diluc, Klee and Keqing. Another point about Tartaglia is that his scaling seems very exponential. He might seem underwhelming at first, but once you min/max his stats and get him to a nice Crit/Crit Damage Ratio with a lot of Hydro Damage (lvl 80 Weapon, lvl 20 5 Star Artifacts, Lvl 6+ Talents) he starts becoming an insane DPS machine, but I do think he will be more whale-friendly than F2P friendly, as a weapon like Skyward Harp really takes him over the edge.
Note that this is taking into account Childe as a main DPS. There are possible builds with more Energy Recharge and Elemental Mastery that would be using him more as a Ult Spam / Vaporize Secondary DPS that could also work very well.

Abilities

• His main strength is fast attacks as well as crazy burst and AoE damage. The way this character works is all based on him applying a debuff called Riptide on enemies, which will then cause that debuff to trigger AoE Hydro Damage in many ways.
• In ranged form, this applies only by doing aimed shots. Subsequent Aimed Shots will trigger Riptide:Flash which will do a few hydro damage hits in quick succession for a lot of burst damage.Enemies who die with the Riptide Effect on them will also explode for AoE Hydro Damage and Apply Riptide to all other monsters around. >> The Strategy in ranged form will be to full Aim Shot at monsters (and do huge dmg on weak points) and will do very well if you can snipe off weaker mobs in a pack 1 at a time, as they will keep spreading Riptide and Exploding. The damage is actually very impressive on these effects and makes waiting for the Melee Stance Cooldown a lot less painful than people think.
  
• His Elemental Skill turns Tartaglia into a melee god and simply activating the ability does a nice burst AOE Hydro Damage. All attacks are still considered "Normal Attacks" but do purely Hydro Damage. Hitting enemies affected by Riptide with Normal or Charged attacks will cause an AOE Hydro Burst Explosion that does very good damage (That damage is considered Elemental Skill DMG) and can only happen once every 1.5 seconds, per monster. >> The big concern here is the cooldown, which is not as bad as people think. If YOU are the one CANCELLING the skill, either by pressing E again, or switching to another character, the cooldown will be anywhere between 6 and 36 Seconds MAXIMUM. If you instead let it run out after 30 seconds, the cooldown will be 45 seconds. So PAY ATTENTION TO THIS. There will be flashing sword icon on top of your head once its about to expire. >> If you cancel the skill quickly, you will only have 6 seconds cooldown, and will be able to continuously go into melee form to trigger the burst damage of the stance. It is recommended to not stay in Melee form too much, and keep "Stance Shuffling" and alternate to other characters to keep triggering elemental combo. It seriously doesnt feel like the cooldown on E is a big deal once you get into a good flow.
  
• His Elemental Burst is one of the highest scaling ability in the game, even more-so in melee form.In Ranged Form, it shoots off an Arrow, similar to Venti, that does huge DMG to everything hit and applies Riptide. It also returns 20 (33%) of the energy cost. This is a very powerful ability not to be underestimated.In Melee Form, it will do a full 360 AOE Hydro Damage and Proc all riptide effects for enemies hit, consuming them and doing even more damage. This is considered Elemental Burst DMG and has gotten me crits close to 100K at Lvl 80 without crazy buffs.
  
• His Talents are pretty straightforward, Never Ending extends the duration of Riptide by 8 seconds, and Sword of Torrents makes it so Critical Hits in Melee Form apply Riptide. This is why Critical Strike is important on him.
  
• His Passive Talent is probably the best passive in the game, as it increases the Talent Level of Normal Attacks by 1 for every party member, Himself Included
  

Constellations

• The first Constellation reduces the cooldown of his Melee Stance by 20%, which is a very big buff to his biggest downside.
• The second Constellation gives him 4 energy every time he defeats a monster, and probably one of his most powerful one because of that, due to how powerful his Ult is.
• Constellation 4 is a huge DPS increase, triggering extra Riptide Effects on enemies consistently during combat and as a Damage over time.
• His 6th Constellation basically makes his melee stance have no cooldown at all and will make Whales stupidly powerful when using him

Stat Priority

• Crit Rate is very important to have on him, but you dont need to have 100% for it to work due to his insanely fast attack speed and the fact that his Riptide lasts a long time on enemies. Around 40% seems to be very sufficient to have all enemies instantly affected by the Debuff.
• Hydro Damage, Crit Damage and ATK will be the other priorities in terms of Stats while making sure to keep a good ratio close to 1:2 for Crit Rate/Crit Damage. Energy Recharge is also not bad at all, since his ult is insane especially if using 2-Piece Noblesse Oblige.
• You will want to make sure to have ATK on the Sands, Hydro Damage on the Goblet and Crit or Crit Damage on the Circlet

Weapons

1. Skyward Harp is by far his Best In Slot, providing him Crit Rate, Crit Damage and the passive works in both ranged and melee form. Its no wonder that it is available in the weapon Gacha right now.
2. Rust might be his second best weapon, due to the passive giving him Normal Attack damage which works with his Melee form, though, it also reduces Aimed Shot damage, which is actually a big part of Childe's kit as opposed to most other archers. Sadly, it gives ATK instead of Crit/Crit DMG but that is still a great stat for him. The passive on Rust is absolutely amazing, especially if you have refinement levels, but sadly this wont apply to his Ult nor his Aimed Shots so it has some drawbacks.
3. Amos Bow is very close to Rust for being second best, simply because its a 5 star, and will have much higher Base Damage late game which scales better than any other stat in the game. The passive is also amazing, and works very well with both his Melee and his Aimed Shot Ranged stances. It also has ATK which is, again, not the best, but still good.
4. The Viridescent Hunt, the BP weapon, is another incredible weapon for him. It seems like the passive effect also works in Melee, and as it gives Crit, it allows him to scale very well late game (and possibly run Crit Dmg on the headpiece)
5. Royal Bow and Blackcliff Bow are good options as well, can be bought from the Starglitter Shop and do provide with great Stats, Crit Chance and Crit Damage.
6. Most other bows don't seem to work super well with him, Compound Bow is quite bad as he doesnt do much Physical Damage at all, Stringless doesn't seem to apply to his melee attacks, Sacrificial bow doesn't work on his E cooldown, and most other just lack the damage bonuses, though some might build him more as a support and use them okay, it will definitely not be as good.

Artifacts

1. 2-Piece Noblesse Oblige and 2-Piece Gladiator seems to be the best combination, boosting both his Atk stat and his Ult damage which is a huge part of his damage. Until we get the Water Damage Set, this is probably going to be the best option for 5 Stars.
2. 4 Piece Gambler seems to be a very powerful option as it does reset his Skill cooldown, but the fact that there are no 5 star version will result in a big loss of dps
3. Wandering Troupe is another option that can be very good, but the 4-Piece doesn't work well in his Melee Stance and to get the max value from the 2-Piece, it requires him to have access to a lot of elemental combos, which is hard to manage with his Stance Shuffling.
4. There doesnt seem to be many other options for him sadly, as most items dont work well on him due to being a Bow User. Martial Artist and Berserker would be great, if they had 5 Star versions.

Team comps and Tips

• One of the best way to use and combo his abilities is as follow:

1. Starting the fight in Ranged Mode, Cast Aimed Shots at enemies and pick off the weak ones if possible to spread the Riptide.
2. Switch to other Characters and use their abilities
3. Cast his ult in Ranged form to trigger great damage (Especially Vaporize) and apply riptide to everyone
4. Can switch to other characters again to regen more Ult Energy and prepare more combos, or simply go right into Melee Stance (you will have a lot of your ult recharged already) and hit them until you can ult Again. With effects such as Xiangling's Goaba or Ult, you might be able to proc Vaporize here again with the ult which is going to be optimal.

• He is quite complicated and will require a lot of testing to figure out his best team comps and combo, but Vaporize is going to be his main source of big burst damage, so bringing a fire support character such as Xiangling or Bennett is going to be very important.
• Electric Support such as Fischl is obviously very powerful with him, enhancing his already crazy AOE even more with Electro Charge.
• Sadly, Chongyun does NOT work well with him at all.
• Anemo Supports such as Venti or Sucrose will be S+ with him as well, gathering mobs into a cluster will enable his maximum damage potential. I am not sure if the Veridiscent Venerer set not working with Hydro has been fixed yet, but once it is, that will be almost a requirement when playing with him. I think Sucrose is also going to be even better than Venti with him considering the fact that she keeps mobs on the ground and allows him to unleash his ult and melee abilities, though you can also use Childe's ranged Ult into Venti's ult for crazy burst too.
• So far in my testing, he is an absolute beast at clearing the Abyss. The more monster density, the better for him, and he seems to scale extremely well. At World Level 6, he melts almost everything with ease, and feels much stronger than my very powerful Diluc. I am excited to test him more and figure out even stronger combos and team comps!

Let me know what you think of Childe so far and what combos you think are best for him in the comments as I am eager to learn more! -Xoraz Youtube.com/NotCasuals