Princess Of Rage (Competitive Sbrub Player)

MDNI!!! I've been playing Sburb competitively since 2014. My personal classpect is Prince(ss) of Rage with a subclass of Knight. I've made this blog as a way to share my insight into Sburb and the best ways to win. (Read: I share classpect analysis and come up with fun crazy headcanons.) Please ask me questions!!

[raging-princess]

Not to double dip on asks, but I am curious to hear your thoughts on a session I designed to be intentionally kind of a disaster?! I intentionally picked classpects that are pretty obtuse for first time players, with the sole exception being the Heir, so that this team has a Chance, LMAO! If you have the time, i'd love to hear your thoughts on just how exhausting this session would be.

Total Players - 6 Knight of Space - Prospit Prince of Light - Prospit Heir of Hope - Prospit Bard of Time - Derse Thief of Heart - Derse Page of Mind - Derse

Okay like I probably shouldn't have done this but my asks are light so whatever. My next one is gonna be my QRD of post endgame scenarios, then the ask going over the Page of Void in the endgame (I promise you I like them a lot more than I usually like pages), and then the Heir of Time Write Up. I promise you I have not forgotten any asks. Just very busy with real life. Either way I hope you enjoy all of this!

tl;dr: Not as bad as you would think. Knight of Space means early game is wrecked Use Bard of Time to logjam the time of the early game to get done what you need done. Use your Prince of Light to help clean up timelines once finished. Heir of Hope is Superman. Thief of Heart is a great stopgap roleplayer for whatever you need. I really hate Pages.

Alright so let's break this down one by one doing some surface level analysis because given my current rate I'm sure I'm going to write like 2k words just touching the basest of surface levels analysis. (Future Princess: Lol going back and reading this is a funny called shot) Getting right into it. I feel like your three key roles are your Page of Mind, Prince of Light, and Heir of Hope. Then your secondary roles undergirding and providing the support of the key roles are your Bard of Time, Knight of Space, and Thief of Heart.

PAGE OF MIND

Let's start with the Page of Mind. A Page is the passive inverse of a Knight, and if a Knight is someone who primarily exploits their aspect for their benefit of the team, then the Page is someone who invites/allows the exploitation of the mind. Mind is all about intelligence, awareness, logic, and the collective. It stands in opposition to Heart which is about emotions, the subconscious, instinct, and the individual.

Usually, but not always, the Page has a mentor. Normally, this is an active player in the session. While not always a definitive thing, we can see this in the MSPA Homestuck Guided Playthrough. Vriska, the active Thief of Light, was the mentor for Tavros, the page of breath. Meanwhile in the Jake, the Page of Hope, it was Dirk the active Prince of Heart. In case it wasn't evident from these examples, just because you are a mentor doesn't necessarily mean you'll be successful!!

So in terms of mentors we have the Knight of Space, the Prince of Light, and…. the Thief of Heart with Heart being the inverse of Mind and the inverse being one point off from inverting Page to Knight and then going up to one. Then you factor in that the Thief is on Derse like the Page and the Vriska and Tavros factor and…….😬

Let me be explicit!!! This is not a doomsday scenario, and if anything, I feel like this is going to work in your favor. Keep in mind barring any sort of Post End Game Scenario (Which I Swear I Will Get Too Sooner Rather Than Later), Sburb is not a difficult game and the deck is stacked in your favor.

Final thoughts on the Page: I hate this class lmao. I'm sorry to say it, but I'm the kind of player that loves to snowball the early game, and Pages are antithetical to that. Don't get me wrong this is still an easy session, but don't expect your Page to contribute much outside of 'jedi mind trick' shenanigans (which don't get me wrong are super good but not gamebreaking) and being a sounding board via his inviting via the mind aspect (where I feel like you're going to get the most use out of this classpect), and you should be good. Just don't expect to much of them and foster them to make sure they don't just crash and burn.

PRINCE OF LIGHT

Next up: The Prince of Light. The Prince is someone who destroys through their aspect or destroys their aspect. Light represents not just illumination and light, but also book smart knowledge and lucky fortune. The Prince is the most active class in your session, and combined with Knowledge, it's a prime leader for your session. Like if there's anyone stumbling across the Ectobiology lab, it's gonna be this person.

So what does it mean to destroy via Light. In a simple aspect, you simply got lucky and managed to hit the weakspot via dumb, blind chance. In the more advanced, you use your knowledge to strike a smiting blow. Maybe you're destroying via a blast of light, the power of illumination evaporating anything that isn't true to itself.

Alternatively if you wanted to put your Prince with your Page, you got a really powerful duo. The Prince destroys through their aspect of pure book smart knowledge, but the Page lets them bounce ideas off them to eliminate the paths that lead to obvious blunders. Laser focused light is incredibly deadly, with the Page being the magnifying glass to the Light's Sun to create a metaphorical death ray.

A Prince of Light can also destroy luck, turning everything into a 50/50 coin flip. It either happens or it doesn't. This is going to be really, really nice when we later get into the Bard of Time and how they operate, but let's just say being able to cut through the nonsense of what could possibly happen and turning that into what will happen is a really powerful ability.

HEIR OF HOPE

Last but not least for our first trifecta, we have the Heir of Hope. Brb hold on let me put on Starman by David Bowie, because that is the Heir of Hope. Like we're talking DC Comics Superman levels of absurdity. I hate to sound like a broken record, but Heirs are just inherently a broken class. Embodying your aspect is inherently powerful, even if at the expense of direct control. But honestly if you wanted more control just go play a Maid which is basically just the active version of the Heir. There's also a reason why Maids are super powerful and broken, but at least they feel a bit more fair than Heirs.

Anyway.

So if your Prince of Light is the one most likely to take charge and be the team leader, the Heir of Hope is the backdrop helping undergrid it all. Never give up never surrender type shit, leading from the front alongside the prince as they tag team to lay the smack down. Lots of different ways to build your Heir. Obvious the natural way is to lean into the passive enabling and make them a buff dispensing machine. Attack up. Defense up. Alternatively make them into a DPS machine slamming Holy spells all over the place and smiting their foes.

You want something really fun though? Host of the Archangels build. Basically Heir of Hope spawns in with a Land of X and Angels. As the Heir helps the Angels sing their choral songs, they resonate with the Heir of Hope and empowers them. Eventually towards the end they're allowed to start summoning the Angels themselves into battle. Angels are nothing to sneeze at, and unlike your usual consorts deal serious damage and are almost impossible to kill. Really cool design space.

Also worth noting and we're still in the process of doing the datamining, but heirs of hope are what we're testing as one of the premiere classes during horror terror incursions during the post end game,

KNIGHT OF SPACE.

Alright so the KNIGHT OF SPACE. A knight usually indicates, but once again not always, that indicates their session's lack of of their aspect but the class having an abundance of it. We see this with Dave, the knight of time, and their session being drastically cut short due to Jack calling the reckoning early (among a million other reasons but you get the point) but Dave himself lived weeks more than his fellow peers via time loops and 4 months with the case of his future self coming back to make Davesprite. See also Karkat, the knight of blood, and how getting everyone on the same page was almost impossible with several members trying to if not outright murdering each other, to say nothing of the orgy of violence kicked off by Megalovania, but Karkat himself was the lynchpin of the session and friends with every member of his group.

Knights also tend to be kind of a wreck. Consider Karkat being an anxious mess and Dave being a maladjusted, neurotic disaster under his cool kid fascade. Not saying all knights are like this, but something worth noting.

Space is not just physical space, but an item's attributes, as well as growth and creation.

So if your session is lacking in space but the knight has it in abundance what does that mean? Well taken in a more literal sense, every planet is much smaller than usual while the Knight's is absolutely massive. This can create this weird dynamic where your planet is jam packed full of consorts and quests and not much to fight, but the Knight's planet is like dozens of huge massive open world maps in a seemingly unending sprawl where you'll be doing most of your grinding for levels. Just be aware you'll go long stretches of nothing but fighting followed by massive lore drops explaining what's going on before it's back to the grind and exploration.

There's an unfortunate implication here, and the savvy among you are immediately asking "Well what does that mean for Skaia?" Well just like the other planets, Skaia is also smaller. This means that the battle between the white and black forces are going to be shorter, which means a much more condensed game which, as you might gather, increases the importance of doing well in the beginning and the early game. Fortunately for you, you have a Bard of Time.

Question: Fortunately? Answer: You really have no idea how incredible your luck is.

BARD OF TIME

So you Bard of time. The Bard of time is a destruction class and the passive version of the Prince class. If a Prince actively destroys his aspect and through his aspect, the bard invites destruction through their aspect. So how do you invite destruction through time? That's the secret. You don't actually destroy anything.

The Bard of Time is the ultimate procrastinator, and as a result you'll start seeing you paradox space and timelines start to pile up. The Bard takes the everything, everywhere, all at once approach to timeline management. It won't just be dozens of Bards of times just gumming things up. You're gonna have paradox versions of yourself running around too. Multiple pages of mind stumbling through things. A council of Princes best determining the right way to proceed. A guild of Thieves stealing everything and amassing a treasure trove that would make a dragon blush. You get the picture.

A word of warning. Just because you want everything all at once, that doesn't mean you can let things run amuk. Let things spiral too out of control and eventually you'll have what we call negative disposition timeline abnormalities. In layman's terms you're going to have evil twins running around trying to murder the real you, all the paradox clones, and become the 'prime' timeline. Ironically enough if you have all your original selves supplanted by the timeline abnormalities you enter what's known as 'villain mode' but that's a discussion for another time and a super deep cut.

The good news is you have a Prince of Light who's gonna help your bard tear through the alternate timelines. When you delete the alternate timeline when you're layering paradox time like a Bard does and you start tidying up, your memories will start merging. Normally you Bard is gonna need some help figuring out how it works, what to keep, and what to toss out. If your Page spikes he's your best bet, but Pages rarely spike so let's be real you're relying on your Prince's know how to guide the Bard and to destroy their knowledge.

Oh one last thing before I forget. Do a quick YT search 'how to destroy scratch construct without scratching' and DESTROY YOUR SCRATCH CONSTRUCT. I cannot stress this enough. Yes this will remove a lot of options from the table and it means you must spike your session and cannot afford to mess up. It is worth it. Let me explain why.

A Bard of Time is legit one of my best friends in the world. I love her so much. I love playing with her. I once had a long group session with her go 6 months before we finally clutched out a victory. Shit lasted forever. Finally bred the genesis frog. Defeated a 12x prototype Black King and Queen. Reached the final platform and was about to cross into the new universe.

And our fucking Thief of Hope evil twin managed to figure out how to scratch without being a time player and scratched our session because they were jealous they weren't the prime universe. Six months down the drain and we had to start from scratch. I was piiiiiissssed lmaooooo.

Anyway. Just be aware of the risks, but you're gonna need them to succeed.

THIEF OF HEART

Last but not least we have the Thief of Heart, a classpect I have a big soft spot. A thief is one who steals an aspect for their own benefit. Heart meaning not just emotions but passion, individuality, and the very soul itself. It's really obvious how everyone is interconnected to everyone else with say your Bard of Time gumming up the early game and allowing you to properly explore the massive Knight of Space planet before the Prince of Light comes in and etc etc etc.

The Thief of Heart feels like they don't really have a set role for the team, but that's not always a bad thing. Sure they could work with the Page of Mind and whatnot, but honestly I really feel like they're best suited as something of a jack of all trades kind of slotting in where they need to fulfill whatever role they are. Thieves can steal the identity of others, so say they could steal part of the Bard's destruction abilities to help out with timeline maintenance. Or maybe they steal the ability of the Prince of Light to destroy via luck to go farm and critical hit everything, while the Prince of Light keeps his ability to destroy via knowledge to help guide the bard with timeline shenanigans. Slot them in where you need them.

Thieves of Hart are also unique because they gain access to the ultra rare Enemy Skill ability. Basically Enemies have access to special abilities and skills that usually the players have no way of using. For example the Courtyard Droll has an ability called the Skaian Shuffle which heals all of his allies but more importantly removes all negative status debuffs. It's legitimately one of the best abilities in the game, and it's regulated to a miniboss and you'll never get it. Unless you have a Thief/Rogue of Heart in your class and they see it, and then they'll be able to use it too. So when a DracoLich uses their Word of Power: Debuff Roulette that applies a bunch of randomdebuffs to your party you have the perfect answer.

Speaking of, guess who also gets access to Word of Power: Debuff Roulette? That's right it's the Thief of Heart. They can also gain access to the Ultima Flare Destroyer ability from DracoLiches too, but note it's probably worth making sure you have the Hier of Hope on standby because you actually have to survive getting hit by the attack to learn it and UFD is one of the best DPS spells in the game that deals massive amounts of unresistable true damage.

Even better if anything happens to one of your key players, post God Tier a Thief of Heart can steal the role of the dead player, allowing the Thief to carry on in their stead. Note that you cannot go back on this, so only use when its necessary like your Seer of Space bit the bucket early somehow. Also note that the Thief can do this when the original person is alive, but it's considered incredibly BM and griefing to do so.

So yeah. Overall I know you tried to make this a hard session, but it's not that bad but that could be my fondness for destruction classes lmao. Heir of Hope is huge too.

[raging-princess]

So, what’s the gameplay usually like for Maid and Sylph of Space? I’ve been thinking about running a session with some friends of mine and they’ve always been Classpects I gravitate towards.

Oh my god I typed 2k words. I hope this was worth the wait.

So the Maid of Space is generally viewed as someone having an excess of their element, being almost made of it. They also tend to create through and tidy up their aspect. Space is not just physical space, but an item's attributes, as well as growth and creation. Now this can sound kind of nebulous. How can you be made of creation and growth? Or X-Y-Z coordinates? It can be kind of nebulous, so let's explore just how they work.

First Maids of Space level up faster than the average class. Upon entering the medium, all Maids of Space automatically obtain the Fraymotif Progression Polyphonic. What this means is that they have a 1.25x multiplier to any EXP they get, so they level up 25% faster. Given the linear nature of EXP growth before God Tier, this is a busted ability. This plays into the nature of the Maid embodying the early growth and beginnings.

Progression Polyphonic is a huge part of the Maid's kit, which means it's great for when you're leveling up, but does nothing for you when you max out your level. It's not that you're weak or useless in the late game, but rather everyone catches back up to you and has a bigger kit so you're more middling than great. Essentially then as a Maid it's important you spike your early game and help the rest of your team snowball.

There are currently two majorly accepted schools of how to build your Maid. Essentially every class has some differentiation in how you can use their abilities. Usually only one is good and that's the one everyone uses and people will say you're griefing if you deviate from them. Those people are stupid and just be aware that you'll encounter them. Sburb actually isn't that hard of a game anyway unless you're doing something really dumb anyway.

Regardless: the two schools! The first is the Macro school. Basically you go all in on the ability to manipulate an objects spatial dimensions. You're super concentrated to shrinking objects and yourself down to miniscule proportions, or super sizing yourself or others to gargantuan heights. Think Ant-man from Marvel Comics, Gigamaxing from Pokémon, Mt. Lady from My Hero Acadamia. You don't need to get creative with it though, and enlarging your primary DPS player classpect to make bigger damage numbers vs Denizens and the Black King/Queen fights are perfectly acceptable. Alternatively supersize yourself and make the Black Queen fight a giant Space Player Kaiju rampaging through Derse. Lots of fun angles.

For a more creative use of this power, go check out the Jigen vs Naruto and Sasuke fight from Boruto and watch how Jigen uses those black rods and shrinking them and enlarging them for stealth attacks. For those of you not willing to watch a youtube anime fight clip that poorly explains the ability, imagine shrinking yourself to microscopic levels so that nothing can hit you, and then throw tiny throw handfuls of needles that you then size up to tree trunk sized spears that impale anything in their path with almost no time to react. Get cheesy with it, and use the game mechanics to your advantage.

The second school is the One With The World school. Time to take the class at its most literal. A Maid of Space is literally Made of Space, and by channeling their powers they are able to manifest a kaleidoscope of abilities depending on the nature of their planet. For example if you pulled Jade's Land of Frost and Frogs, your Maid of Space would have a wide variety of frost, snow, and cold abilities. For Kanaya's land of Rays and Frogs, you would gain a bunch of sun, light, and laser based abilities. In practice these are just a lot of the same abilities but with [Elemental Flavor Text] added on, but it's still an incredibly powerful, fluffy ability.

Also worth nothing that at max God Tier level with One With The World you gain the passive fraymotif Planet Pact Philarmonic. What this means is that any damage done to you is instead automatically passed onto your planet. So unless you're getting hit by something capable of shattering a planet (Reckoning Meteors, Red Miles, Another Planet Hitting You, Etc), you're practically invincible. Normally as a God Tier you can't really die due to the whole Heoric/Just thing, but there are still corner cases where you can have a true death (Denizen fights and Black King/Queen immediately spring to mind.) A max level God Tier Maid of Space following the One With The World path layers a second layer of immortality on top of the regular God Tier, making you literally functionally immortal.

In terms of breeding the Genesis Frog, Maids are often touted as one of the easier Space classes to breed Bilious Slick and recommended to newbies as such. I think this is a trap. The main reason Maids get recommended is because in the early stages the frogs literally throw themselves at you. Like you can just stand there and watch these dumbass frogs hop and practically beg to get slimed. This frees you up to focus on other things like snowballing your teammates. However this tapers off when you get to the more advanced levels to the point where you get no added bonus, and then you're an inexperienced frog breeder knee deep in the paradoxical muck trying to get this stupid frog over the finish line. Great if you know what you're doing, but you're not going to really improve as a Space player and get better at breeding the Genesis Frog.

Keep in mind that no matter what else happens in your session, if you get to the end and you don't have a properly bred Bilious Slick that's it. Game over. You're done. All the hard work setting up your session, prototyping your sprites, leveling up your echeladder, potentially dying, doing your denizen quests, and fighting the final bosses of the black king and queen mean absolutely jack didley squat. Get bent, kid. Hope you have a time player so you can at least scratch and go next.

[Sighs in the realization she's already at 1k words and hasn't even touched the Sylph.]

Alright. So Sylphs of space. Where to start. In their essence Sylphs heal through their aspect and heal their aspect. Space is not just physical space, but an item's attributes, as well as growth and creation. This is another one of those 'well what the hell how do you heal through beginnings and how do you heal geometric coordinates? Much like the Maid this is all kind of nebulous theoretical bullshit, so if you wanna take your Sylph in a completely different by all means pick and choose what you like from this and toss the rest out.

So an easy way to see how the Sylph heals via beginnings is during the Genesis Frog breeding. Sylphs are actually really good at breeding the Genesis Frog, and that's because they can actually heal damaged paradox sequences. So rather than needing a perfect sequence to unlock the next stage of the sequence, you just need to get 80% of the way there and then use your Sylph powers to heal the damaged 20%. These may feel like you're cheating just like the Maid, but it's a different kind of cheating.

Like. You gotta realize that this game rewards cheating and is heavily tilted in the player's favor believe it or not. If you weren't a Sylph healing the final sequence, you would be a Witch modifying the sequence to be the correct one, a Seer using your powers to easily locate the actual paradox sequence, a Rogue is stitching together the sequence from different frogs. Every classpect brings their own advantage to this, but Maids don't really teach you any cheats. It's just freebies that eventually evaporate.

Question: If the Sylph is so good at breeding the Genesis Frog, then why did Kanaya fail to successfully breed her frog and give the Kid's session cancer? Answer: Well let's get one thing very, very clear. The MSPA guided playthrough is not what you should expect from a typical session. To be explicit, Kanaya's session was undergoing an active invasion from a Lord of Time. If you are undergoing a Lord/Muse invasion then all the rules immediately go out and you're playing ball on an elite level. Post endgame content like Lords and Muses are something I plan on going on in depth sometime soon, but for now all you gotta know is that Kanaya had the entire deck stacked against her and she managed to clutch out a functional universe.

And let that be an important note. A functional universe. The push is for a complete 100% sequence for a perfect Bilious Slick, but the reality is if you get 90% of the way there the game will count it as good enough and let you move forward to your new universe. There will be some post endgame cleanup you'll need to do to get the remaining 10%, but it's not immediately game over. Once again barring obscene end game scenarios like Lord/Muse invasions, Sburb is heavily tilted in favor of the creation of a new universe.

Another way that a Sylph can heal via a beginning is their max level God Tier fraymotif Rebirth Refrain. Sylphs of Space are one of the few Classpects outside the Life Aspect capable of reviving a dead player. However there's a catch. The Sylph grants the player a new beginning literally. They start all the back at the bottom of the echeladder, lose all fraymotifs they had previously, and lose God Tier if they had it. They do keep all of their sylladex, weapons, grist hoarde, etc. So basically a New Game +. Note they can only do this once per player so no infinite continues. This can be kind of rough because it doesn't do much for you in the late game because a level 1 player is going to be struggling to pull their weight and catch back up, but it is an option available to them.

Their other healing abilities sound awkward in theory, but they are powerful in practice. In theory, any Space class is capable of modifying XYZ coordinates. They can shrink anything. They can enlarge anything. In practice it's a lot more complicated. It's easy to shrink or enlarge an inanimate boulder. It's a lot harder to do that to a living, breathing person. Sylphs of Space are especially attuned to modifying the spatial coordinates of others, but she specifically targets wounds. Consider all of the following.

After a particularly brutal battle with an Ogre and a horde of imps, you have several deep cuts, dozens of smaller gashes, and you're pretty sure that last clubbing blow from the Ogre shattered your arm and broke it in three places. You need a healer, so you go to your Sylph of Space. Those deep cuts and smaller gashes? A wave of a hand and they all shrink down to barely noticeable papercuts. Your badly broken arm? The fractures shrink down to barely noticeable hairline fractures. After a few hours the soreness is completely gone and you're back up to 100%

That's a bit of a more extreme example of a high leveled Sylph of Space, but that should give you an idea of how powerful a Sylph can be. So long as you're not actually dead, the Sylph is going to have answers to decrease the healing time inbetween fights so you can get back to grinding out levels and grist.

[zerozerozio]

bring back tumblr ask culture let me. bother you with questions and statements

[boimann]

reblog to let people know it's ok to bother you with questions and statements

[raging-princess]

I apologize for the lateness in getting to the asks. I work 65+ hours a week, and I do not have all the time I would like to dedicate to this as I do. I promise you if you have an ask in my inbox I will get to you eventually. It just might take me awhile.

In the meantime please ask me more. I love analyzing homestuck and classpects!!

[raging-princess]

Ok so how about a page of void, Heir of space, witch of time, and rogue of heart, with a lord of mind looming over things a little early?

Page of Void

Okay. Not a huge fan of Pages in small sessions where you kind of need every player to do well, but it's not a death sentence.

Heir of Space

A very powerful classpect. Heirs are great at breeding the genesis frog, and God Tiers have premiere damage with their black hole abilities.

Witch of Time

Another powerful classpect and a great support one. Excellent with timeline maintenance, and a multitude of buff spells to help the party get stuff done.

Rogue of Heart

A middling classpect, but I don't hate it. Enemy Skill is huge game and a great font of damage and support abilities.

Overall I think your biggest weakness is how passive this session is and your lack of true DPS. Because of that--

With a lord of mind looming over things early

…

Sweetie. Who did you piss off to deserve this??? Holy shit let's break down just what a Lord indicates.

Lords, and their passive counterparts Muses, are the most powerful classes in the entire game. I'll joke about Heirs and Thieves being inherently broken classes, but they can't even begin to hold a candle to the absolute absurdity of Lords and Muses. Lords encompass the abilities of all active classes, and are reserved for Dead sessions. Dead sessions are solo sessions and represent the pinnacle of difficulty when it comes to Homestuck. Even more than the threats they spawn, dead sessions represent the ultimate no win scenario.

You might be asking why this matters, and the truth is a Lord indicates that somewhere out there is a session in your universe that has somehow managed to trigger the conditions to activate the Post-End Game. If the end game is the Black King/Queen fights and finally breeding Bilious Slick, post end game is content beyond that. Extremely rare, usually activating the post end game is something you have to consciously do, although this has been known to happen accidentally as seen in the most famous guided playthrough of Sburb, Homestuck with Lord English.

A Lord utterly dominates their aspect, and mind is logic, the mental realm, brain, and the collective as opposed to the individual. Another way to think of it is that Mind is the Law, cold and analytical in dispensing justice and deals with society. It's opposite aspect heart deals with the individual and can be thought of more as moral and ethics.

A Lord Muddling around in your session indicates to me that this is an early Lord starting to gain an understanding of their abilities. At their peak they can go full Darkside with the Anti-Life equation, brainwashing the entire universe into becoming their braindead slaves. For now though we're Farenheit 451ing it and mind controlling individual players to commit terrible crimes. Lords of Mind are excellent predictors of everything that will happen, so they've probably sussed out all the possibilities, understand it all, and have grown bored and are moving on to the next session of helpless victims to terrorize.

So your session is going to be wrecked. Your best option is to scratch at that point, and usually you can't travel to your following rebooted session. However you are lucky in that the class I was ragging on earlier, your Page of Void, is the perfect class to let you escape into the new rebooted session. You're in an post endgame scenario now, so you need to be in for the fight of your life. Lord sessions go incredibly long, and it'll be rough assuming there's even a timeline where you win. There legit might not be one.

Best of luck!

Also god at some point I need to write out my thoughts on the post endgame and how all those mechanics work. That's an entire lecture.

[raging-princess]

Thanks for the previous help.

i did sum tests and 2 said im a Time player, and Skaian Survey read me as a Prince of Space.

So it's kinda accurate to Say im most likely a Prince of Time?

if so, what's My deal then?, what / how a Prince of Time works?

Woop! I actually managed to nail this in under 1500 words. I hope you enjoy this classpect analysis on the PRINCE OF TIME.

Princes actively destroy their aspect by 'ghosting' it's opposite. What this means is a little bit nebulous, but basically they use the opposite of their aspect to destroy their aspect. Think of Eridan, the Prince of Hope. Not a very happy go lucky guy and incredibly grim and morose. What little hope he did manifest was little more than frantic desperation, pretty much Rage's answer to hope. Desperation in his quadrants. Desperation that Jack Noir might not kill him and take him as an understudy if he murdered his friends. Ultimately he destroyed the hope of his entire race, the matriorb, finally succeeding in his genocidal urges. Suffice to say Eridan is an example of a Prince gone terribly, terribly wrong.

So in order to figure out how to succeed as a Prince, you need a pretty good understanding of how Time, and it's opposite Space, work. Every aspect has a yin and yang thing going on with its opposite, and having a balance is key. Space represents creation, growth, beginning, dimensions in the x-y-z coordinates, and the physical nature of the world around us. Time represents destruction, finality, ending, the passage of time itself, and possibility. So it's easy to say 'Oh well a Prince of Time destroys Time through the act of creation and growth', but like what the hell does that even mean?

First the bullshit armchair psychology analysis and then some rough gameplay ideas. Skip ahead to the GAMEPLAY ANALYSIS if that's what you're mainly here for. Always remember classpecting is bullshit, and what little Hussie has said on the matter is literally in the two paragraphs above. Everything beyond that is little more than speculation and headcanon.

With that said, let's begin.

You said that you wanted to bring in some Mage of Doom traits, and I think an easy way to do this is to just go literal with it. A Mage is someone who suffers and grows because of their aspect, and Doom has some more subtle meaning but let's go with death. The Prince had someone close to them die in their early life, giving them a fascination with finality and destiny, reflecting part of the possibility aspect of Time. They never want anything to ever end, and the creation of new things and endeavors is what they do. They're the kind of person I imagine would pick up a new hobby every other month, fliting from one to the next never really mastering any of them and instead always trying to do new things.

Alternatively maybe it's the other way around. Rather than going wide, they go deep. Think of the art of creation and shows going well past their expiration deep. How many seasons of Survivor and the Simpsons do we need? Think of the old Star Wars Expanded Universe before Disney acquired it where there were literally dozens upon dozens of novels and comics and tie ins that just went on for forever and forever, slowly baring less and less resemblance to the original space opera George Lucas envisioned.

Thus then is the art of balance. Allowing the mighty oak to grow big and tall, but understanding that one day it too must pass.

Another possible way to view the art of creation and destruction using forestry metaphors is the concept of a 'controlled burn.' Essentially a controlled burn is something where the underbrush of a forest or area is set on fire and allowed to burn away. This is done regularly to clear 'ladder fuels' which help really bad wildfires to spiral out of control. Essentially pruning a forest via fire which sounds crazy but so it goes! Just another way of demonstrating how destruction doesn't have to be a scary word. Every ending is a new beginning etc etc etc.

Something worth keeping in mind, you could very well be a Prince of Space player and the whole ghosting thing could be throwing off the analysis. If so the inverse applies, and what I've written should give you an idea of what to do for the Space by inverting my ideas. The Prince class is one of the hardest to work with, and don't be afraid to embrace uncomfortable truths about yourself.

Anyway enough of that time for some GAMEPLAY ANALYSIS!

So usually Denizen quests are something of a keystone moment in every player's playthrough. Everyone remembers the first time they successfully completed their Denizen Quest. Likewise everyone remembers the first time they chose strife instead, and Denizen boss fights are so, so much fun. A difficult challenge, but the EXP and loot rewards are more than worth it, plus sometimes the denizen quest is just a massive timesink or you're running low on time and need to keep things moving.

Usually the quests are randomized with some classpects having higher rates of pulling certain quests (e.g. Rogues and Thieves of heart have a 25% chance of pulling the 'Steal the Enemy Agents' Denizen Quest.) Princes are unique in that their Denizen Quests are not pulled from a randomized pool but are guaranteed to always get the 'Does Cronus Dream Of Redshifted Sheep?' Denizen Quest. Some people dislike it, but the few times I've shifted over to Prince of Time I've had a total blast with it.

So as you go through your land and up your gates, you'll notice a lot of interactable grandfather clocks scattered across the landscape. You'll get some cryptic message about how they have an ominous aura that weirds you out, but you can't do anything about it at the moment. Upon crossing the 7th gate and meeting your Denizen Cronos, Cronos complains about how he can't sleep because of these infernal clocks! Your mission should you choose to accept it is destroy all the clocks, and if you accept he gives you the legendary artifact the Crowbar that will allow you to break the clocks. Accept and the objective 'Destroy Clocks: 0/1000' gets added to your quest log and Cronus teleports you back to the start of your land. Alternatively you can fight him then and there for the Crowbar.

Now two big questions I'm sure you have. Question 1: Holy cow you mean the Prince of Time has access to a legit juju? Answer: Not quite! Like all legendary artifact weapons, enhanced versions of them are available in solo Lord/Muse sessions to help balance things out. The Crowbar the Prince receives is nowhere near as effective as Caliborns, and even when upgraded after completing Cronus' request it's still a pale imitation. Other examples include Calliope's Runic Etched Echidna's Quill. See also: the legendary 9th die of the Fluorite Octet, Hi-Powered Ahab's Crosshair, Trickster EX Rank Zilly weapons, etc.

Question 2: Why not just bail on the quest once I get the crowbar. That's the reward for the quest, right? Answer: Because Cronus being awake is bad news for breeding the Genesis Frog. While Cronus is awake all tasks related to breeding the Genesis Frog take twice as long, and the final breeding of Bilious Slick has an infinite timer as long as Cronus is awake. Obviously killing him means that he's not awake, so either fight him or destroy the clocks so he can sleep.

And oh just fyi if you try to wiggle out of this by accepting the quest and then going back and trying to strife Cronus, Cronus immediately gets an exponential ^3 rage bonus for you being an indecisive backstabbing little bitch. Pick one or the other, but don't try to flip.

Now then let's talk some early strategy. The current Prince of Time meta is to use whatever exploits you can (think: John's rocket jetpack/Dave using the shitty skateboard) to blitz all your gates and get to Cronus as early as possible. This is because destroying the clocks can be time consuming and it's easiest to do this as soon as possible. The fact that Cronus teleports you back to the start of your world if you accept makes this strategy relatively safe compared to other Denizen Quest Rush strats. So basically you get access to one of the best artifact weapons in the game that will legit hard carry you vs most enemies up to your 4th gate. Legit one of the best Denizen Quests. Just don't slack off and make sure you clear every area of all clocks before moving onto the next one and you should be good.

If you're reaching your 7th gate by the midgame, then it's probably for the best that you just fight Cronus and team up with a few other players to reliably take him down. 1000 is a very big number, and even with controlled burn style you're going to be blowing up clocks well into the endgame and you just don't have the time for that really. Either do it early or not at all.

So yeah. Hope this helps!!

[raging-princess]

Alright then, how about more specifically the Mage, Thief and Heir classes with the Hope, Doom and Time aspects?

CLASSPECT GAMEPLAY ANALYSIS

MAGE OF HOPE - THIEF OF DOOM - HEIR OF TIME

Limiting this down to three because I've written nearly 1900 words about these classes covering literally only gameplay advice and how these classes play. I also appreciate your patience. I work 65+ hours a week and finding the time to write all this out can be difficult. I hope you enjoy it though under the cut!

Mage of Hope. Mages are the active counterpart to the Seer, and more towards the center ranking a 2 on the active scale.  What this means is that Mages tend towards being more of a DPS class than a support class, but still have a lot of support aspects involved in their kits.  All enemies in Sburb usually have an aspect assigned to them, even if it’s something they never utilize.  Hope as an aspect isn’t resisted by anything which is good for the Mage of Hope because they’ll always be putting out reasonable damage numbers and don’t have to worry about being aspect blocked or their damage getting cut in half.

Of course the flip side of this is that Mages of Hope are never really super effective against anything either (other than Rage obviously).  In the early game this isn’t so much of an issue, but once you start going up against big walls of HP starting with Ogres, the damage starts falling off fast.  The Mage of Hope is really going to struggle handling things 1v1 for the most part in terms of raw damage, but it’s not all that bad.  The nice thing about Hope as an aspect as opposed to the raw DPS of Rage, is that Hope has a bunch of fun status effects that they get to stack on top of their damage.

The easiest way to see this is with their first Fraymotif BeliefBeat which deals middling holy damage to a target and also increases all subsequent damage dealt to the target for a set time, representing the hope they  give others increasing their own potential.  Lazarus’ Lament is your mid tier fraymotif and is the only pure DPS spell you have and will see use well into the late game if for lackc of nothing else.  Your ultimate fraymotif Buff Rondo deals medium damage to all enemies and applies random debuffs while healing your friends and applying random buffs.

Overall the Mage of Hope is a classpect I’m never unhappy to see in terms of gameplay, but I’m not too happy to see it.  It’s a middle of the road class, which is honestly how I would describe most mage’s jack of all trades approach to their aspects.

Thief of Doom.  Say hello to one of the premiere tank classes in Sburb, and a wonderful example of how just because you play a Thief doesn’t mean you have to play like a selfish dickbag at every turn constantly screwing over your teammates.  Don’t let griefers like Vriska and Meenah convince you that this class is full of team killing asshats.  A Thief steals their aspect for themselves, and Doom is all about futility, rules, restrictions, fate, and destiny.

What this means in practice is that Thieves of Doom are capable of stealing the ‘fate’ of attacks.  Instead of striking their allies, instead the foes are drawn to attack the Thief instead.  Other Doom aspects dabble in this concept with redirecting aggro, but the Thief of Doom is the classical MMO tank drawing it all to themselves.  For the thief the only good publicity is bad publicity, and I could see them reveling in their bad reputation whether it’s well deserved or not.

However Thieves can be fragile, which sounds counter intuitive for a tank that’s supposed to be soaking up damage.  One way to counteract this is using another class’s ability to buff the Thief increasing their defense or by decreasing the attack, but the Theif isn’t without tricks of their own.  Not only can they can they redirect the fate of who the attack lands on for themselves, they can also steal the doom and destruction that comes with it for their own.

For example during the late game when the Black King inevitably calls the reckoning and the final battle takes place, there will be meteors raining down around you destroying the battlefield and adding a timer to the fight. Timer reaches 0 and its game over. Important to note that because this is technically an attack, there is gameplay doom associated with it along with the narrative doom. A high level Thief can put themselves in front of the meteor, steal the doom for themselves, and then proceed to use the meteor as their own attack and launch it at the black king. This is huge because not only does this buy you more time to fight, it can inflict huge damage on the black king.

Thieves don’t just steal doom though.  They can also steal through the rules.  If a thief ever offers you a contract, immediately decline no matter how favorable.  The devil is always in the details, and they were screw you over based on the fine print.  Instead what your Thief needs to do is contract with the Back Queen.  This sounds dangerous, but usually they can get some assurances out of her in exchange for several other things.  God Tier Thieves of Doom being actively removed from the board is leverage enough, but if not you’ll have to offer up more.

Now you say what possible assurance could be worth removing one of your players from the game entirely?  Because usually it also removes the black queen from the board, and when Derse inevitably violates the contract, the fine print states that the Black Queen must give up her ring to Prospit, and then boom you’ve just rules lawyered your way into a useless Black Queen and a second White Queen for Prospit.

And as a final note, max Echeladder level God Tier thieves unlock the ability to steal the fate of another player.  This means that they can steal another player’s role.  This is a one way street with the Thief permanently giving up the Doom aspect to take on the aspect of another player.  Please note that if you do this to another alive player without their permission it is considered incredibly BM and if you do it you run the risk of getting blacklisted.  However where this does come in handy is if say your Space Player got super unlucky and got murdered by by a Draco Lich and then for some reason they had died early on against an Ogre while underleveled.  So dead Space player with no dreamself.  Dead session, right?  Nope.  At that point it’s appropriate to steal the dead space player’s aspect, allowing you to continue with the Genesis Frog quest and win the game. 

So that’s the basics on the Thief of Doom in a nutshell.  A deceptively straightforward class with a lot of play and wriggle room.  Never forget the devil is always in the details when dealing with a Thief of Doom.

The Heir or Time continues to be the premiere best in slot time class even after five straight years and countless number of patch notes trying to nerf it into the ground. It is literally absurd how good this class is and is a testament to how absolutely busted they are that they're still this strong after the nerfs. I'm not sure if anyone remembers how busted Heirs of Time were back in their heyday, but they were capable of just soloing most of the game. Go search up 'Max level heir of time vs 12x Prototype King [Patch 1.07.54.719 Gamma]', Absolutely broken and I'm low-key glad for the nerfs.

Part of the reason why they're so busted is that Heirs are literally made by and protected by their element. What this means in practice is that Heirs have all the time to do whatever they need to do. You will always have enough time to do whatever you want, and it's not unusual to have a future, max level doomed Heir player to pull a to Dave Sprite come back and 2nd prototype themselves to spike the session. It needs not be said how absurd this is in terms of gameplay and is reason enough to pick the heir.

However Heirs also have access to the best Fraymotif in the entire game in Redshift Rondo.  Now you may say, Princess of Rage, I’ve never played a Time player before and have no idea how their iconic ability works.  No worries!  It is good to read up on how a class works before playing it.  Good for you.

Everyone, from the players to the enemies, have an innate speed stat.  Normally for almost everyone it’s set to 1.0.  That means that you do things at normal speed.  Now let’s say your someone casts a spell that makes your speed stat to 1.5.  That might not sound like much, but it’s a 50% increase.  What that means that you immediately become 50% better at everything you do.  You move faster.  You attack more.  You cast more spells.  Etc etc. This is called stretching the time or Redshifting it.

Redshift is a one of the few passive frraymotifs that all Time players get access to at the middle point of their echeladder as an automatic unlock.  Redshift is a passive 10% bonus to your speed, and that’s a multiplicative effect not an additive.  So if your Time player has an ability that increases their speed by 50% for a few turns, Redshift boosts it by an extra 10% to an effectiveness to 1.65.  It should hopefully be obvious how effective this is.

Two time classes take this a step further.  The Maid of Time upon god tiering immediately upgrades their Redshift to Redshift Beta. This adds an activated ability on top of the passive that when activated boosts the flat increase to 50% for a limited time.  So if you layer on a second 50%ability on top of the activation of Redshift Beta your temporary speed increases to 2.25 which means your literally twice as good at everything.  It’s what makes the Maid of Time so good.

Heirs of Time meanwhile start the game with Redshift unlocked, gain access to Redshift Beta as their midpoint on the Echeladder, and when they reach the final level they Redshift Gamma which makes that 10% passive and turns it to 50%.  Then the activation becomes a 2x multiplier.  Heirs get all of this without God Tiering. 

Now keep in mind that’s after all the nerfs.  If all of that math talk makes no sense to you, just know that Heirs are generally 50-200% more effective than other classes at everything.  No dedicated healer on your team?  No worries the Heir of Time is going to run around spamming Elixers and Ethers keeping everyone in top shape.  No dedicated DPS?  Let the Heir dual wield relic weapons and watch him spam attacks.  Have it all already?  Did I mention all the party buff fraymotifs the Heir has as well?

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Heir of Time Classpect gets a rework at some point soon.  Legitimately one of the few actually  broken classes in the game and I do mean broken.  It was broken on the rework, and given years of nerfs not being able to bring it line it just needs to be redone at this point.  Love seeing it in my sessions, but god if it doesn’t lead to the most boring, easy sessions imaginable. 

That being said you lowkey want one if you’re trying to spawn in post endgame content like Lord/Muse Invasions, Grist Nanite Replicators, the Horror Terror Reality Breaches, White Rabbit, or The Omicron Factor.  That’s all for another post though. 

[raging-princess]

How would you define all of the classes and aspects in RPG terms?

I can appreciate this ask, but I literally just spent 1700 words breaking down just the Knight of Heart. Doing them all is a crazy task, but I do like the more RPG and videogamey things. If you want to resubmit with three classes and three aspect combos, I'll write something up for that

[raging-princess]

I have difficulties to choose what my classpect is, im between Knight of Rage, Heir of Doom, Prince of Heart, or really any active Mind / Time class, but i can't tell which one i'am, could you enlighten me please?

That is quite the spread of classpects, all very different and all representing and doing various different things. I find classpecting quizes to be really helpful when it comes to figuring out that sort of stuff. I had no idea myself at first, and I did a few different quizes to narrow down my classpect.

https://thankshrew.itch.io/skaian-survey

Skaian Survey is probably the most robust and polished quiz. It's a lot of questions with a fun theme and background music with a fun little bit at the end presenting your classpect. It is very long and there's no real way to go back and change answers you were iffy on, so make sure you're certain of your answers!

https://homestuck.net/tools/classpect-quiz/

A shorter classpect quiz.

https://homestuck.net/tools/stardustrider-classpect-quiz/?d=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAFAAAAAAAA

Another more bare bones quiz.

Huh. Is this how I find the hivestuck aspect quizes are down/gone? Sad

https://www.quotev.com/quizzes/Homestuck+Aspect

Many many more quizes of dubious quality that should help you narrow it down.

That should be enough to get you started and hopefully should narrow it down and give you a better idea. Once you have it more narrow down I would be more than happy to help you analyze.

[cghsanalysis]

hypothetical question: what is “the perfect sburb session” for example what are the classpects and prototyping and other such things needed to have a basically flawless run ? thank you, i thoroughly enjoy the concept of this blog!!!

Alright first ask!! and this is one I feel I can pretty confidently answer. So to start, i need to clarify that when it comes to Sburb there's no such thing as a "Bad" classpect. There are more *volatile* titles (Thief of Life, for example) but none of them are explicitly Bad. it's all about circumstance and the people using them THAT SAID there are definitely some classpects that are better than others, for a variety of reasons, really. A Class' presence in a session always signifies something about their Aspect, and while we don't always know what that is thanks to the comic not explaining too much of it, we know some of them. Princes always have an Abundance of their aspect in the session that they need to trim down, where as Knights always have a Lack of their aspect in a session that they need to serve and protect from being reduced even further. As for prototyping, that's a little more tricky. The way i see it, as long as you don't prototype something really REALLY strong or something so weak/inherently unhelpful you can't possibly get any help from it, you should be fine. Like, I have a starscream figure right? and if I played sburb, my initial thought would be "Oh let me prototype this starscream figure". However starscream is notably a rat bastard who constantly tries to overthrow his superiors, so that would suck ass for me All that yapping aside, here's the best answer I can give you: a 4-6 player session is Ideal, since then you won't have too difficult of a time with the Final boss and you can manage your stuff a lot easier. For the sake of having fun, we'll say 6 players. The classpects I would say compose the most ideal session are: Prince of Time - an Abundance of time (though also doomed timelines) that need to be trimmed and expidited, meaning the session will be able to go at it's own pace Witch of Space - Witches are the Nurturing half of the "Evolution" class, so they're predisposed to taking care of their aspect, so a Witch of Space is going to already be in a position to carefully grow and create this new universe. Furthermore, they're going to have to manage and take care of "Space" so it doesn't grow too powerful and demanding, which out of all the other aspects, I'd say is the easiest to manage Heir of Hope - Heirs naturally influence and inspire others, and pairing this with arguably the strongest Aspect in the comic, you get someone that's endlessly optimistic needing to come into their own as an influential figure with phenomenal power. Knight of Doom - Counteracting the abundance of Time and therefore doomed timelines, a Knight of Doom will mean that this session has very few rules and restrictions, as well as literal "Doom", making not only the prince's job easier, but meaning that our Knight can determine and serve the rules and restrictions this session does have to the benefit of our players Seer of Breath - I'll admit, I was debating whether or not a Seer of Breath, Mind, or Light would be best, but Ultimately, i think a seer of breath (Someone who can see the flow of the story and it's direction) is the best choice out of the three. a Seer of Mind would also be very useful. In fact Any seer would. Seer's are the BEST support class besides maybe Bard Rogue of Rage - Admittedly this one was difficult, but working together with the Heir of Hope, a Rogue of Rage would be someone rebelling against the status quo to the utmost extent, helping to reallocate and steal the lies, passion, and literal "Rage" of their foes and allies alike. They'd be an excellent mediator, and as mentioned before, would work amazingly with the Heir, as the Rogue can reallocate Rage to make room for Hope. Hope this answers your question!! Sorry i got all lengthy with it. you're going to be seeing that a lot on this blog.

[cghsanalysis]

Thoughts on Prince of Light ?

Prince of Light eh? Alright let's talk about it Prince - The external half of the "Destroyer" class. Unlike it's counterpart the Bard, the Prince class works outside of their aspect. Basically, the way I look at the different class pairs is they either act as an extension of their aspect or they affect/interact with their aspect externally. With Princes, they fall into the latter category. They're usually a bit pessimistic, but definitely self assured and competent. Princes often take a leader role, or at least attempt to. Destructive classes also mirror their opposite aspect, as we can see with Dirk mirroring Mind and Eridan mirroring Doom. Basically they exhibit the traits of their counter-aspect Light - The aspect of Fortune, Knowledge, literal "Light" and narrative relevance. Light players are Knowledge seekers first and foremost, who constantly seek out whatever information they can. They specialize in taking existing information and "alchemizing" as it were new knowledge. Basically using what they have to extract new possibilities. Their aspect's relation to fortune doesn't necessarily mean that they're fortunate people, as we see with Rose whose time in Sburb is lightly haunted by Misfortune. Rather, their relation to fortune comes in their ability to seek it out and control it. They're adventurous people with a determination to leave their mark on the world SO we can ascertain that a Prince of Light would be someone who Destroys/Irrevocably Changes, Fortune, Knowledge, and Narrative Relevance (as well as literal light). Naturally, they would Mirror void players, as by changing and destroying Light, they make room for and propagate the growth of Void. I can see a Prince of Light being someone who's really hung up on things like Conspiracy Theories. They're constantly seeking out knowledge that's supposed to be hidden from them, but in their pursuit of it, they end up obscuring the truth for others and complicated the whole matter. Furthermore they'd likely view themselves as "Unlucky" but really they just keep setting themselves up for failure. Despite how toxic this person may seem, They'd probably be a very genuine, earnest person who wants to help others. Their quest would likely revolve around them learning to accept the basic facts of the world. That they're making things harder for themselves and they need to redirect that self-destructive energy towards changing things rather than tarnishing them When it comes to other players, they're going to be rather fickle. They could be an amazing asset: Working to take charge of Information and to "Break" the spotlight being shone on the wrong people, but they could just as easily sabotage their group and end up putting themselves and their friends in a worse position that when they started. It's honestly up to how willing to change the Prince is. Finally, to note, Despite how challenging the Prince themselves might be for other players, the presence of a Prince of Light indicates that the session has an Abundance of Knowledge, Fortune, and Narrative Relevance. That sounds good, initially, but this would also mean that our player's foes have a substantial amount of luck in obtaining what they need. If the prince isn't able to learn their role properly, it's likely that some events that normally wouldn't occur could create serious problems for the session. I'm likely to explore certain titles I've analyzed before in other posts, so while that's about all I can say for the Prince of Light right now, rest assured I've got some ideas brewing. Hope you enjoyed!

[raging-princess]

Hey! So, I was curious to hear your thoughts on the Knight of Heart title. It's one I've identified with for a long time, though these days I swing between Knight and Seer lol. Good to see another HS analysis blog that's still somewhat active

KNIGHT (and Seer!) OF HEART ANALYSIS

Oh my god I typed all this up in a seperate word document and am now just realizing how long this goes on I apologize for yapping. If you want 1700 words of classpect analysis do I have the post for you!!

Sure thing. I know I'm late to the game, but this is a fun little project that activates my neurons. I hope you appreciate it.

If you'd rather skip the armchair psychology 101 bullshit, just scroll down to when I start the Gameplay Analysis section in bold. (You might have to scroll a bit I did yap)

So to be straight up with you there's a lot of stuff we still don't know about sburb and are continuing to datamine to this day. Some people swear a knight indicates a lack of their aspect in their session and have an abundance of their aspect. While their seems to be a trend in that direction, that's not always the case and there have been instances of the contrary.

All we can say is that the Knight is an active class ranking a 3 under the Thief but above the Mage. We also know based off a conversation from Aradia, that a Knight is one who exploits their aspect for both their own benefit but more importantly to protect others. A knight generally has a troubled relationship with their aspect, but that's not always guaranteed. See Karkat struggling to become a leader that everyone could look up to as a knight of blood. Dave struggling with Time is a bit more nebulous. The only other knight we have is Latula which just come up with whatever headcanon you like for her given how little we see of her. What little can be gleamed is that you can make the argument that she exploited her mind aspect and logic to be an excellent legislacerator, but beyond that not much else.

So that's a vague idea on what a knight is. What about the aspect of Heart? In short, Heart is not just the aspect of emotions, but individuality, desires, how we interact with one another, and the very soul itself. Dirk the Prince of Heart, shattered his individuality and at various points has like 5 different versions of himself running around between his autoresponders and dreamselves and etc. Nepeta, the rogue of heart, played shipper to the extreme, creating an entire quadrant wall prospecting out all the different combinations of ships as she saw how each individual would compliment the other (or not!) The last we have is Meulin the Mage of Heart, and I guess she suffered because of her relationship and going deaf? She still retains Nepeta's interest in shipping, so there is also that. Dancestors are weird.

So anyway! What does that all mean? A knight of heart could very well be someone who struggles with their aspect. Maybe they just get all the feels, and those feels are so strong that they're overwhelming! Maybe they struggle with a true sense of individuality, trying to live up to what other people expect of them rather than who they are deep down inside. Or maybe they're such an individual and march to the beat of their own drum that they have issues working in groups. Main character syndrome types who dye their hair blue to stick out in the crowd without putting much more thought into what makes them them types.

Or maybe it's something else entirely or nothing at all! Classpecting! It's bullshit! If I had to sum it all up though, I think of that scene from Avatar with Uncle Iroh and Zuko where Uncle Iroh says "It is time you look inward and start asking yourself the big questions. Who are you? And what do you want?" If we also wanted to mix metaphors, look to the hedgehog problem from Evangelion. I feel like the Knight that is able to answer that question and center themselves is one who will succeed and be unstoppable. Once again though, complete bullshit so feel free to toss out and fill in the blanks yourself.

I do think that you've already hit that equilibrium for what it's worth, or at the very least have the tools to succeed. I say that because you sideload into the Seer aspect. The Seer ranks a 2 on the passive scale, close to be the exact inverse of the Knight. It's interesting to me because I also double class, but for me I'm a Princess which is 5 on the active scale but go down to a Knight which is a 2. You go from the Knight to the Seer, actually flipping from active to passive. So whereas I slowdown to the Knight class, you speed up to the Knight class For what it's worth I think that flexibility is great and puts you in a great spot.

For Seers, they are one who see through their aspect and have a sort of 'future sight' about them, using their knowledge of their aspect to predict the future. Our seers are Rose of Light, Terezi of Mind, and Kankri of blood. So the kind of person that will immediately know whether or not a couple will work out just from the start, accurately predicting with an almost uncanny precision. They make great matchmakers. Even if they're not crazy shippers, they do have a few pairings, rarepairings usually, that they feverently see the vision of even if nobody else does ( and they're usually onto something for what it's worth.)

Anyway nevermind all that garbage. Let's talk about GAMEPLAY ANALYSIS!!!

First things first as a knight and as a primary DPS class you have to understand how Heart players deal damage. Rather than dealing traditional damage, your attacks to damage to a secondary 'Soul HP' pool. This leads to accusations of Heart players being lousy DPS classes, but significant enough soul damage will lead to status debuffs (less DPS, lowered defense, less magic power) for the enemy. But yeah no its awkward as hell and learning how to contribute in your own unique way in team fights is always a struggle for heart players when it comes to the big team fights like 2v1ing denizens or the final black king/queen fights.

The good news is as a knight you have the raw strength and dex required to put out enough damage that the soul aspect starts working in your advantage again. Knights of Heart are one of the premiere denizen and Arch Deaconstructor killers of their aspect, to say nothing of being able to chop down ogres in one blow and cut down rooks and bishops in short order. I once saw a Knight of Heart get juiced by a rogue of light one time to take down the Black King in 3x lucky crits back to back to back. Granted it was a 4x prototype session, but it's nothing to sneeze at.

If somebody is griefing you about your DPS or whatever as a Seer of Heart tell them to go suck an egg and learn how to play a support themselves (don't do that you should find a more seer of heart answer that is my inner rage acting up)

As for strife specibi, the knight is always a traditional sword user, along with axes, clubs, maces, flails, and other such implements. However what I feel like best fits a Knight of Heart is the Spear, being able to keep distance and attack from a far. For the Seer, you won't see as many wands as you will staves, quarter staves, and other such magical implements.

If the knight has the mission to take the frontline and be the more active class, the seer of heart is your support. Your friends should listen to you when you say 'x should work with y and not z.' You wanna up your Seer game to the next level? What separates the good seers from the great ones is the good ones will know 'x shouldn't work with z.' A great seer knows this but will find a way to get X to work with Z and have them get along and succeed, even if it is begrudgingly.

Last but not least breeding the genesis frog. People claim that a Knight must always be the one to assist the space player to breed the genesis frog, and the data mining hasn't shown that to be exactly the case. The knight player always has a natural inclination towards helping with this, and the datamining shows that the backend does favor them when it comes to breeding the genesis frog. We see this with Karkat and Dave being the ones to help breed the genesis frog, with even Karkat's classpect not being a knockout for being a stellar class to help out.

I say that to say that as a Knight of Heart you're not bad at helping breed the genesis frog, but your embodiment of your aspect isn't really going to help you out all that much as being a knight will. What I feel like you'll need to do if you wanna be a stellar knight of heart breeding the genesis frog, you start channeling that inner seer of yours. Note that because you're a knight and not a seer that level of foresight will not come naturally or easy to you, but it'll be another step to turning you from a good Heart player and into an amazing Heart player.

The Seer of Heart is specialized when it comes to breeding the genesis frog. They don't have the innate boost that the Knight has, but the Seer of Heart's ability to see identity is amazing for identifying what the next sequence you need to unlock for the genesis frog. Given that the sequence is RNG every time, being able to identify unique identities is really helpful. I'd pair this with something like a witch, mage, or maid of space to breed the genesis frog with a seer of heart, but honestly as the seer I'd find a better pairing for your space player and focus your energy on making that work.

I could probably go on and keep blabbing on and on and on, but I feel like I've yapped enough. Hopefully this gives you a basic primer on your classpect and some further insight on what you need to do to succeed. Thank you for the ask, and if you have any further followup questions I am more than happy to answer!

[raging-princess]

Ask me anything about Homestuck or Sburb

I've been into this series since 2012 when livejournal was still around and have always been a huge fan

[raging-princess]

The ideal 12 player session with no overlap between classes and aspects. Full breakdown here.

I have a philosophy that I would rather trust a dangerous classpect to do well than rather to try to hobble or kneecap a certain class or aspect just because they tend to attract a certain kind of player (princes, thieves, bards, rage, etc.)  At the end of the day this is a team game, and I want every member of my team to succeed regardless of whether I like them as a person or not. 

First let’s discuss the two most important aspects in the game.  Time and Space.  Time players need to manage the timelines, and Space players need to breed the genesis frog.  It is the bare minimum for any normal, successful session.  It is for this reason I like to have my Time and Space players be more passive, backline roles.  Anything they manage to accomplish beyond timeline management and breeding the genesis frog is just pure gravy.

Rogue of Time is considered the meta choice for a reason.  The nice thing I’ve found about timeline management is that even at worst you can still end up tripping ass backwards into a winning timeline.  Turns out that when you have almost infinite possibilities and all you have to do is win once, it’s really easy to get lucky.  Add in that the Rogue can steal time from Derse and redirect it to the team, and she’s a top tier support class.  You can always use more time, and the Rogue is the best class to provide it. 

Seer of Space. I've done a lot of thought on this class and this is the basic breakdown. If you have any questions on it please feel free to ask. Seers of Space are one of my favorite classpects. "Legitimately the best class in the game at breeding the genesis frog, and the one best equipped to do it solo. It's honestly my recommended class for newb space players just because of how easy it is.  Seers have knowledge of their aspect and future sight, which makes selecting the correct genetic sequence for the Genesis Frog much, much easier. Later on they still have great late game utility. They make for great battle commanders, especially if your endgame vs the Black King involves all of Skaia which is like 90% of sessions. Really good Seers of Space will gain limited omniscience via being able to 'see all of space' which allows them to really get the big picture of the fight and direct units to where they need to go."

Mages of Light.  Mages are knowledgeable about their aspect because they have experience or as the kids call it nowadays ‘suffering.’  Light in Sburb represents not just illumination, but also book smart knowledge and lucky fortune.  It’s no exaggeration that Mages of Light have the worst luck stat of any any class.  Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Ironically because of this they’re not good canidates for helping with the genesis frog because of this whereas usually Light is good for that task.  They’re still a great support class with all of their spells being suited to that function with some light AOE crowd control damage from their laser light spells. A good Mage of Light will always make sure that when something inevitably does go wrong, they have a back up contingency already in place to handle it.

Knights of Rage are the best DPS class in the game barring Prince/Bard shenanigans but that doesn’t really count.  This is a 12x prototype session, and Ogres are going to be literal blocks of HP that you need serious DPS to take down.  To say nothing of the Black King and the end game.  Knights of Rage are the answer to that problem.  There’s also the added effect of usually a Knight indicating a lack of something in a session, and lack of rage, hostility, and strife between the party members is just an added bonus that helps make the KoR the meta pick. 

Maid of Blood. This is the best classpect for facilitating teamplay and making sure everyone gets along, and I've seen a lone Maid of Blood handle an entire 12 player session on their own before. A Maid is someone literally 'made' of their aspect as well as one who tidies up and fixes it. Blood isn't just a form of life but rather friendships and the connections we have. They are the ultimate fascilitator for when it comes to helping friends make up and get along. The heart and soul of the group, they won't have much to offer in terms of offense or defense, but that's not why you're picking this classpect.

Page of Life.  The page is something of an odd class that you really don’t want to see in smaller sessions, but in larger, longer sessions where they have the time to grow and shine they really come into their own.  Still a good 90% of your time you Page is going to do literally nothing, and the last thing you want to do is hitch them to something like Time, Space, or in larger sessions like this Heart.  If a Page of Life does nothing then the team can still succeed here.  If a Page pops off then your session is a cakewalk.

Protip: Stick your Page of Life with your Space player if at all possible.  They won’t really be able to help all that much, but the latent life XP from breeding so many frog variations will spike the Page’s growth easy.

Heir of Doom is a weird classpect as a whole and doesn't really play like a lot of other classes. I know this might sound controversial, but your Heir of Doom is literally the embodiment of fate, destiny, rules, and sacrifice. You really wanna stand a chance of winning? Make your Heir your black sheep. Have them suck up and absorb every single last bad thing that would happen in the session. It's their fated lot in life to be a martyr, so make the most of them and wring them out for all they're worth! It's literally what they're made for, and if they can learn to accept their lot in life then you could very easily spike the session and get an easy W.

Bards of Void are my counter to anyone who says a Bard player is always some clown prince of mischief who only exists to turn winning sessions into failed ones.  A Bard is someone who allows the destruction of their aspect or one who destroys through their aspect.  Void is zero, literal nothing, secrecy, shadows, and obscurity.  So one who destroys nothing?  No.  One who destroys secrets.  One who destroys the shadows.  This can lowkey play like a secondary light class easily, and it’s easy to think of Void as just the inverse of light. 

Witch of Breath.  The Witch is someone who actively manipulates their aspect, and Breath represents wind, freedom, movement, inspiration and flexibility. They are the glue that holds the team together, inspiring them and freeing them to do what needs to be done. At the end of the day Sburb is a team game, and the Witch of Breath is the one who facilitates the team dynamic and brings them all together. Others might be the team captain or claim to be the 'leader', but all of them know that the Witch is the real soul of the operation. As an added aspect you remember what June was capable of as just a passive Heir wielding the windy thing offensively? Now imagine what the inverse of the Heir, the active Witch, can do with it.

Prince of Mind. A prince is another destroyer class, this time destroying their aspect by utilizing their aspect. Mind is all about intelligence, awareness, and decision making.  The Prince of Mind is a concession to just how absolutely brutal Liches, Master Liches, Draco Liches, and all those other nasty spellcasters can be in a 12x prototype session.  By deleting their intelligence and MP pool, they basically become damage sponge loot pinatas filled with top tier merch.  Some may say this is overkill, but I’ve lost so many late game players who weren’t god tier by getting ganked in an unluck ambush by a bunch of Liches.  I hate liches. 

Thief of Heart.  A thief is one who steals an aspect for their own benefit. Heart meaning not just emotions but passion, individuality, and the very soul itself.  Thieves of Hart are unique because they gain access to the ultra rare Enemy Skill ability.  Remember those annoying Draco Liches with LVL ?? Flare?  Guess who can cast that now.  The court jesters with their heal all status debuff ability?  Yoink!  Even better if anything happens to one of your key players, post God Tier a Thief of Heart can steal the role of the dead player, allowing the Thief to carry on in their stead.  Note that you cannot go back on this, so only use when its necessary like your Seer of Space bit the bucket early somehow.

Sylph of Hope. Surprise!  It’s another really strong support class.  A Sylph is one who makes their aspect or makes through their aspect for others.  A pseudo healing class.  Hope is positive emotions, imagination, belief, or possibility.  If the Maid of Blood is the one making sure everyone gets along, then the Sylph of Hope is opening their minds to new possibilities and encouraging them to be all they can be.  They might not be the best at figuring out just what that best might be, but they’re natural helpers eager to contribute however they can.

Phew.  I think that’s it.

The only other thing I can think to mention is that Zeta Berzerk Level Knight of Rage + Haste from Rogue of Time + Movement boosted from Witch of Breath + Extra Action Points from Sylph of Hope = Ez Dead 12x Prototype Black King.  Enjoy your easy win. 

If anyone has any questions I'm more than happy to expound

[raging-princess]

This is the ideal 4 player Sburb setup. Here's the breakdown.

Going over the individual classes and why I think they're powerful before going into my strategy. Basically the assumptions are: Four friends in their teen years who get along together well play a new game called Sburb that they have no prior knowledge of. They do not even know what a class or an aspect is let alone what a genesis frog could possibly be. Furthermore there is no outside interference from any other session whether it be a different universe altogether or a pre or post scratch. The goal is to beat the game without scratching.

Seer of Space. Legitimately the best class in the game at breeding the genesis frog, and the one best equipped to do it solo. It's honestly my recommended class for newb space players just because of how easy it is.  Seers have knowledge of their aspect and future sight, which makes selecting the correct genetic sequence for the Genesis Frog much, much easier. Later on they still have great late game utility. They make for great battle commanders, especially if your endgame vs the Black King involves all of Skaia which is like 90% of sessions. Really good Seers of Space will gain limited omniscience via being able to 'see all of space' which allows them to really get the big picture of the fight and direct units to where they need to go.

Heir of Time is one of my favorite classpects and arguably one of the most powerful when it comes to time. First an Heir becomes their aspect, and then they enact change based on their aspect. They're also characterized by having an abundance of their aspect. So Heirs of Time are gonna have all the time in the world to get up and running before becoming incredibly powerful with their aspect. Some heirs can fall in on themselves, and you do not want your Heir focused entirely on themselves and pruning their timeline and focus on making sure their teammates timelines work out. However I think it's almost impossible to critically fail as a Heir, which means that even in your worst case your timelines are going to be ok and usable.

So there are your two essential aspects taken care of. The next two aspects should be focused on suporting both the Time and Space players as the most important players and ensuring that they succeed. It's really, really hard to lose if you have good timeline management and almost guaranteed genesis frog.

The Maid of Light is arguably the best support class in the game when it comes to figuring out just what you need to do next. Maids are in so many ways 'made' of their element, and Light represents not just illumination, but also book smart knowledge and lucky fortune. Beyond that they are active in their element, working to tidy up and clean up their aspect. Since the group has no prior knowledge, the Maid of Light is going to be vital in figuring out just what the heck is going on and how to win. One of the best partners for the Seer to breed the Genesis Frog outside of your Time player with both knowledge and fortune coming to the aid. Late game also if you God Tier them, they get access to laser beams which are really, really good DPS. They fall off hard once you get into 5x+ prototype sessions where ogres and the black king just become damage sponges, but here where it's only 4x the Maid puts in serious work.

The Witch of Breath is the final classpect, and arguably the lynchpin of the group. The Witch is someone who actively manipulates their aspect, and Breath represents wind, freedom, movement, inspiration and flexibility. They are the glue that holds the team together, inspiring them and freeing them to do what needs to be done. At the end of the day Sburb is a team game, and the Witch of Breath is the one who fascilitates the team dynamic and brings them all together. Others might be the team captain or claim to be the 'leader', but all of them know that the Witch is the real soul of the operation. As an added aspect you remember what June was capable of as just a passive Heir wielding the windy thing offensively? Now imagine what the inverse of the Heir, the active Witch, can do with it.

So the basic strategy is that I want every player to be inherently powerful without needing to rely on others to succeed, but also capable of helping others. All four of these classes are inherently powerful on their own. The Seer of Space can breed the Genesis Frog by themselves. The Heir of Time can figure out their timelines solo. The Maid of Light is going to figure out the game on their own. The Witch of Breath can focus on making sure everything flows properly on their own. However maybe the Maid of Light can't figure something out, and maybe the Seer of Space points them in the directions of the ruins to solve the riddle of this 'genesis frog'. Maybe the Witch of Breath can help inspire the Heir of Time to leg go of that doomed timeline they can never save and give them the freedom to move on. Each player inherently powerful, capable of thriving, and capable of helping. I just don't understand how this team loses.

There's more I could go into like God Tier Priority and alternate classpects (rogue of time!), but I've already yapped a lot. hope this breakdown was helpful!