SPOILER fruma thoughts

I completed most of fruma the previous friday (4/17), and would like to ramble about the entirety of my thoughts on fruma/have a little bit of an informal review on each quest.
this thread is more like a really long profile post than a proper thread so it's a bit of a messy text wall.

Only major things I haven't done are the secret discoveries, world events, and the raid; I was planning to make this post after I complete the raid, but I was really not feeling it given the rune prices + my drained emeralds.
(ps dont be lazy and trust xenforos draft system when going away from your pc D:)


(spoilers for every quest ofc)

thoughts on fruma before the update:
old recover the past and the fruma gate gave the vibe that fruma would be pretty much 5x worse north korea, with a stone cold military aesthetic, citizens of fruma would never catch a break from being forced to serve the queen etc

I think my guess as to why fruma sent soldiers over to wynn was something like they wanted to use wynn soldiers as an example of how scary and terrible it is outside of fruma so they can keep controlling their citizens

apparently the escapee group that founded corkus just magically lost their memory after passing through the mountain, but before writing this thread my interpretation was whatever happened in fruma was too traumatizing for the corkian refugees to even write down

my idea of the introductory fruma quest was illegally breaking into fruma with tasim in order to smuggle something, not sure why smuggling was what i had in mind but yeah, i think i had also briefly considered tasim turning evil and sending the fruman military after us


during the buildup:

when the update was announced I locked in on lootruns and fairly quickly got my first mythic build (mid lament & stardew manasteal) which ended up being kinda anticlimactic; I thought lightbender would logically be the easiest as I don't have to run back to towns to get potions, though spoilers I end up *greatly* regretting choosing a mana steal build way later on.

i think i didnt look at any of the pre-2026 fruma trailers
the new gate completely shifted the idea of it being only a dark concrete hell and showed it to be a much more magical place with the suffering being much more subtle.

the se already took up the role of "the true 100% suffering region" so this increased my excitement

the fruma mystery was pretty cool, i wasnt sold on any theory but the theory that intrigued me the most was the theory that was something along the lines of "fruma is intentionally keeping all wars even"

the queens silhouette was exciting as it implied she isn't just the queen due to politics but clearly has some special abilities going on (browsing the wiki, i see that this was already confirmed in llevigars library way before the update, neat)

the trailer had me pretty hyped, the character portraits looked really well executed, i didnt watch any more than a quick skim to keep the update as fresh as possible


ps if i had a nickel for every 7-year-long-wait update 2.2 that was announced to come out on a month with no specific day, but got delayed past that month, i would have 2 nickels



fruma main quest part 1/queen's recruit:

seeing the ragni elite soldiers & their portraits was pretty neat, helps break up the feeling that the player is the only hero out and about doing random quests, shame they just seemingly disappear after this part of the quest

took me a second to realize who dr picard was but i was glad to see him acknowledged since I feared he could've just been ignored

my internet trolled me by going out for 2 mins seconds before the gate was about to open, so I sadly missed the live reaction but there was still some crowd left over
cue the cutscene, and you can immediately notice the increased quality of the update overall

the queens 3d model was a bit uncanny valley at the time but I like it now, the soveregns models looked just fine, and that one dialogue side-sprite of the queen was and may still be my favorite dialogue portrait.

I don't think I had any particular thoughts about zhiraok though I had one opinion regarding majin after seeing that :3 face sprite

the tell tasim about aledar bit was pretty funny, realistically you would have time to tell him but i understand the plot <- after writing this previously i double checked the wiki and panicked for a second seeing that you could actually tell him, because i did choose "don't" once but thankfully;



i got a bit overexcited and forgot to check my ability tree, took 6 failed attempts in the first boss to remember to check, then the quest was easy sailing

storyline quest 2/a journey home:

revisiting the very first area in a game during the late game is always awesome

tnt puzzle was well-balanced
before, i thought the caravan driver was just an ordinary unaware guy and the boulder was placed there by the fruman military, so it was trippy in a good way to see him act out of character


auburn/leaves arc:
auburn forest is a very strong contender for best looking wynncraft area

rare instance of the players crimes being acknowledged

syndra and the leaves are neat

zeph being introduced by risking himself to a stranger and him immediately becoming our "fruma best friend" really badly gave me the gut feeling that he was going to die

the conversation with syndra and zhiraok pretty clearly display zhiraok as likely the least evil sovereign who has a bit of an actual heart

the cursed one was a very standard wynncraft quest but it serves as a good calm before the storm quest

wynncrafts wiki on revelation on fall is empty, so i may be forgetting something, but seeing zhiraok "die" just like that was definitely unexpected, and furthered the thought in the back of my head that the fruma quests wouldn't hesitate about killing a main character

oh yeah and when i made it to the bossfight arena there was 1 other lightbender chipping away at dummy mannequin zhiraok and I wasn't sure how he reached that state so I took the opportunity to cheese the fight

sidequest undersupply:
we get to finally see some of the direct corruption of the fruma government, decent quest

roughworks/steel feather arc:

the "*DONT* JOIN THE FIGHT" grafitti is one of the first things you see in the city, and is it just me who's not sure if its the resistance saying "join the fight" or the fruma army advertising itself, the resistance advertising itself doesn't make sense because they'd want to be hidden, but why would the fruma army advertise itself using grafitti? idk
oh yeah and the grafitti tunnels are one of the nicest builds of this section


sidequest the scarred springs:
probably the least interesting fruma quest but its chill and relaxed
also speaking of springs, that one "wellspring of eternity" building caught my eye immediately as i made it past fort torann but i couldn't figure out the secret discovery or whatever for it

solidarity of steel:
the brothers weren't as immediately interesting as the leaves but that's fine
also the scene with zeph and yuman quietly erased the "zeph dies" thought from my mind since he started to seem much less like a deuteragonist

off the rails:
the access fast travel quests are always good, and I like the focus on npc interaction in this quest; though the puzzles in this quest were lowkey too hard for me lmao, the tetromino puzzle was too laggy for me to brute force it so I looked up a solution, I got stuck on the crossword, etc. at least i guessed the suspect correctly.

through the pipes:
the raft mechanic is very enjoyable before the actually hard parts kick in, i got lucky and somehow bypassed the 2nd part of the last stage

the price of ingenuity:
don't have too much to say but soosu's diary entries were quite well done
syndra's "let's kill the queen :D!" plan immediately made me think R.I.P syndra, i've played these games before
i had no guesses on what the resonance weaver could be


the missing piece:
the quest starts off as a classic wynncraft "do someone elses job" quest, easing you into a false sense of security, your first conversation with elise doesn't make you think too much and it's back to a regular wynncraft heist section with a subway surfers section to make you lower your guard even more.
then things start getting serious
I don't think any wynncraft line will ever pass "Syndra" in terms of how much it made my jaw drop, and the next quest step just silently being "collect flowers" & "bury elise" was chilling, whoever wrote the quest should be proud.



echoes of change:
typing those words send a shiver down me spine

the first section of this quest is quite good, no complaints.
my guess for what the tournament prize was is "become an elite royal soldier of the queen", which is probably a common guess, but it was still something seeing the words "sovereign tasim"
i took like 8 attempts on syndras fight which should've already been a red flag that i'm undergeared but i brushed past that.
as expected, her plan completely flops, though I wasn't expecting it to fail due to a snitch, I was envisioning the queen just tanking syndras hit.

then comes the zhiraok fight, I couldn't figure out wtf was going on with the lag and why I got randomly killed after spending 20 something minutes bringing him to 0hp so I took a week-long break; afterwards I was able to fight normal zhiraok but I was getting *shredded*, I could learn the attack pattern but I had no clue how to dodge him whilst also getting close enough to hit him for mana steal, and I'm not sure if I could beat normal him even now.

After hearing that he has a proper desperation phase I decided to just roll with the laggy zhiraok fight, and succeeded in a few attempts, I'd have liked to done it legitimately but the proper fight seemed straight unfair unlike every other wynncraft fight I've struggled on.


mistwoods/the canopy arc:

the fog effect is cool
i immediately trusted rurie even if he could still be evil without working for the crown

around this time i saw the wastelands gates thinking i was on track to finding something cool but it's directly mentioned in the fruma website page as "coming soon" lol

true colours:
sovereign gikyo's introduction had some aura
we get a good ol prison break section

mora dying alone without even getting to say his final words made his death sadder

the gikyo fight is very well done both in theming and gameplay, and him being like 4x easier than unbugged zhiraok reaffirms that it's just his fight thats messed up, after 8 or so i got to the end of the 5th phase and on my next attempt there was a shaman player who was also fighting them giving me the win, felt a bit cheap to use a 2nd player but im pretty sure i would've won in a few atts regardless

celebrations in smoke:
i accidentally ended up doing the aldwell library secret discovery while doing the quest
probably my 3rd least favorite fruma quest because we already did detective stuff with off the rails

hyloch arc:

i think most people had the same assumption as me that "The Blossom of Blades" would be like ninjas/samurais or something given the cherry blossoms in the highlands (though i suppose we already have that place near the qira hive)

overture to despair:
having just sui instead of an entire group was a nice change of pace
was kinda surprising that the inquisitors could just waltz into the silent expanse to get info and get back alive
the player hyping themselves up for killing the parasite even if you didnt complete NoL is pretty funny
two's explanation completely went over my head for a whole day, the queen being the embodiment of corruption/the war just didn't make sense at all to me lol

from the start i was certain that tasim would die in the storyline either killed by an enemy or by us, so him turning against us felt like an unstoppable canon event; perhaps setting up for a later tragedy where we watch him die as soon as he turns against the queen again & we've weakened him
the cutscene also shows the queen isn't 100% evil and is just an evil dictator because shes overprotective and fears freedom would cause the province to collapse or something

the strong survive:
it's an ok quest, to me arnol stabbing the commander felt quite sudden for his character


ensemble of hope:
very dialogue focused quest (positive)
two may be the goat sovereign?
mirror realm section is pretty cool, and it alongside the queens dialogue about invading "the darks claim" further lines up dern possibly being next after fruma in the far future


apotheosis:
The final boss of singleplayer* wynncraft, by far the hardest quest.


it was still uncertain if zhiraok would stay 100% loyal to the queen and then boom auburn is gonna get nuked if the queen isnt stopped


getting hit with the domain expansion was really funny
even without rurie's warning i could feel that this fight was going to be a huge difficulty jump, and from my first attempt i could immediately notice this was the highest quality fight

my build was falling behind heavily but the best attempt i got was 7.1m health with mana potion abuse, as i was really struggling to maintain mana (this'll come up again later), but learning the fight was very fun, every attack being telegraphed made it so much better

he's definitely the best fight in wynn since the eye and contender for best fight overall

*not singleplayer since other players can still enter the arena
some archer trapper player came in and the dps saved the day, this is the last time i get a get out of jail free card.
I'd like to say I could've done it with some more time but I was kinda reaching my limit with that build, and I just wanted to be done with the questline so I could gobble up spoiler discussion


Now we face off against tasim on the bridge where he turned away for good, I was sure this would be his final moments, so his fight wouldn't hold back.

as for the fight, i'm mixed, but i will say i love the herobrine eyes, feels very appropriate

I was completely stuck here, I couldn't get near him to mana steal and his teleport attack was a ****ing instant kill. Now it was 100% clear that my build was holding me back since seemingly the only way to dodge that attack is to teleport spam which needs mana, so I made a gambit and replaced my chestplate and leggings with 2 bs mana regen items that seemed suitable enough.

and I actually started making progress!


paraphrased note from my screenshots after that attempt: "**** is gonna give me carpal tunnel but switching WORKED, genuinely need to take a good break for my hand though, I'll need a LOOOT of endurance to get a winning attempt"
*Also worth nothing that I *really* wanted to complete the questline that week because i was going to get extremely busy the following days, and failing would heavily disrupt the flow; I viewed this fight as surely the last obstacle.

I switched out my chestplate to aquarius for survivability, which worked but made the endurance test even worse.

After a fight that legitimately lasted 20-29 minutes, I finally got a winning attempt, without outside help!
(I urgently had to answer the doorbell in the last minute of the fight, and if you've been in similar situations before you know how that ****ing rockets your hearts bpm lmao)
though i feel like i remember getting a higher heartrate from my first winning fight vs the eye this was very close

Cue cutscene, "tasims still not dead, maybe he's not going to die?! alright lets get to the end of this quest" or something like that was probably going through my head


While searching for tips in the wynncraft discord (failingly) I saw a message that had some "queen fight" lumped in with majin and tasim, I still chose to believe that we would only fight her in the raid.
it would just be ridiculous to fight her in a quest! story-wise we couldn't just win or get out alive like that right after fighting a difficult battle!


I got stomped on like an ant lol, I couldn't even survive 10 seconds, here I finally stopped clinging onto builds that are technically 15 levels behind at this point.

Quickly got to level 120 and while I could've tried an up-to-par lament build, there was a devil on my shoulder suggesting an idea I've had the entire time I'd been desperately teleporting around to avoid majin and tasims attacks.
Warp with the new teleport-favoring riftwalker. Miraculously there was one build that fit my budget, so I got it, though I pay the price for buying literally the 3rd cheapest warp.

with -400 or something health regen, this strategy fails spectacularly and I look like a clown to myself, I briefly gave up hope but decided to see what happens if I raggedly patch up the negative hpr.


once again it was a movie length fight but the strategy had a little bit of hope, however i still was extremely doubtful i could do it within my limited time

riftwalkers abilities started to click, i only skim-read them the first time because they were confusing and i decided id learn better through experience, i realized i could do crazy damage with time vortex whilst maintaining a teleport spam strategy, warps walkspeed also helped me dodge the attacks normally whilst regening mana through offhand bonder.

after another ~25 minute fight, i succeed!
(cue f2 spam of excitement)
after i figured riftwalker this fight was *insanely fun* despite its stressfulness, possibly the most fun fight i've had in wynn; and i will certainly be using warp riftwalker some more, great archetype revamp by the team.

cuz the wiki i accidentally knew a bit of the cutscene that would play after the fight is over, and man have i never been more excited to see myself bleed on the ground

(i accidentally wrote this in the tasim section before checking my screenshots, my memory is already going lol)

the sprite of rex's dead body felt very gruesome for minecraft, but the nerves of the fight made it sorta feel "relieving"? i cant think of the right word, but its kinda like that phenomenon of 'usually emotional' undertale letsplayers being unfazed or even satisfied by the meant-to-be-horrifying cutscenes after you kill undyne/sans in the genocides route because of how many attempts they took.

the rest of the cutscene that plays is awesome as hell, not much to say

ps the sky cuts my fps into 1/3, it would be nice to have a toggle after youve done the quest (ik youre supposed to do the raid but still)




i didnt get this "to be continued" on my playthrough but its definitely got me hyped



thoughts on the raid so far:
room 1 is ok
room 2 is fun
room 3: the spire is pretty awesome but all my successful runs got stuck here cuz of some tps issue
room 4: from what ive seen on the wiki, i love the nuclear bombs both in terms of the interesting serious theme and how silly it is



overall opinion of the update:
great! especially knowing there's more to come in fruma


misc:
the new mount system looks neat but seems like a huge drag to get properly started on

why is the talking mushroom so quiet? my immersion isnt getting ruined enough :(

it was noticeable seeing all the npcs skins faces consistently be in the "minecraft default skin style" for lack of a better description, dont have anything to say about it but its an interesting difference

ultimate abilities seem to be getting ignored by meta classbuilds but theyre still neat

 

words to make anyone who played the beta scream cry have a crashout of all time
aka me
it was such a relief that I didn't have to do THAT again (thank god for model borders)

very fascinating, it seems like we have opposite opinions of which fight was easier. I think build may be a really big factor in which bosses are easy/hard.

Fruma is so good