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Based on some reports, he may have infected several other congress folks before he got the results. Would be hilarious if this turns out to be the most effective way Paul reduced the government.

Fauci gets frank about Trump: ‘I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down’ is another covid-19 story which appears to nevertheless be paywall protected. looks like it is at msn as well https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fauci-gets-frank-about-trump-i-cant-jump-in-front-of-the-microphone-and-push-him-down/ar-BB11yEAg “We sit down for an hour and a half, go over all the issues on the agenda,” Fauci said, adding that the group also discusses what they want to emphasize to the public that day before meeting with Trump. “Then we go in to see the president, we present [our consensus] to him and somebody writes a speech,” he explained. “Then he gets up and ad-libs on his speech. And then we’re up there to try and answer questions.” am thinking for the moment fauci is not gonna be fired as even trump needs know how bad that would look. however, fauci is scaling up his overt resistance to some o' the President's more egregious misrepresentations. is only a matter o' time before an immovable object must give way to the p00p hurling orangutan with impulse control issues in an ill fitting suit who is current the chief executive o' the USA. HA! Good Fun!

quarantine in nutshell

So after week or so of quarantine we have 17K tested, around 1K positive and first dead (95 years old grandpa who had like 10 other health problems apart from corona) and around 10 people cured. I must say I am quite proud how our government is handling this situation and I don't say this lightly as before this I was really not a big fan. I was also shopping today and was pleasantly surprised. All people wear protective gear and shops are full of supplies. I was tempted to take pic of shelf full of toilet paper overall quite positive outlook. I hope we can handle zombie apocalypse same way

My first day of remote work starts in a few hours, while we left one person behind in case of a catastrophic hardware error who will be rotated out bi-weekly, they've closed up our office and wont go out aside from an emergency at the hospital or heat/power plant or the like that has to be fixed immediately, I suspect that I wont be back there for at least two-three months. Aside from that I've been stocking up on food and other supplies and plan to not leave the apartment for the duration aside from a daily hike when the weather allows it.

@Gromnir IIRC that song is included in a mod for FONV that expands the radio stations playlists. More Where That Came From is the title I think. It's been a long time since I played it. Maybe too long. It also added Hank Williams "Lost Highway" which fit the mood brilliantly IMO.

Sages can be pretty fun with Spirit Lance. Mostly because Forge of Anguish lets every enemy in the AoE fly away and get interrupted and because Stunning Surge nearly always refunds if you manage to hit several enemies at once with the Lance. The Forbidden Fist ability is not a weapon ability. That means it wouldn't use the Lance. It has its own base damage and will profit from Transcendent Suffering. So basically it's like using your fist (but it doesn't work with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming because it isn't considered a weapon attack). Lance's AoE does not work with Swift Flurry. If you don't take Shattered Pillar (quite weak subclass to be honest) or Forbidden Fist you can generate wounds with Alacrity which will not end Enduring Dance. Combined with Nalpazca (not that much micro with the drugs) you will have a constant stream of wounds all the time. Helwalker's MIG will help with spell damage of course. Arcane Knights can be sturdy as hell while dishing out good damage because the Paladin's defensive passives stack with the wizard buffs and Flames of Devotion works with Spirit Lance. You can wear the Ring of Focused Flames and get +10 Accuracy not only for your fire spells but also FoD. Bleak Walkers can even take Scion of Flame and Spirit of Decay and get +1+1=2 PEN for their FoD attacks (also the AoE with Lance). Another nice aspect of an Arcane Knight is that Eternal Devotion also applies its lash to your spells. You can also use Blightheart at the start of combat (before summoning Lance): it gives you a Corrosive lash for all your spells. Combined with Eternal Devotion this boosts your spell damage considerably. Then after casting and summoning Lance you can waltz in. You don't even have to switch weapons for that (because summoning). Of course Lay in Hands (and also Exalted Endurance) is great for a Bloodmage. Also Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon is great in that case (+1 PEN from Spirit of Decay, great healing for Blood Sacrifice). Conjurer + Chanter summons is not a great synergy. General rule is: you can only have one summoned creature at all times. This includes the Conjurer's Familiar. So you can't have the Familiar and the Phantom or Chanter summons at the same time. Only exception: Many Lives Pass By (Chanter phrase) will automatically summon skeletons every few secs that don't count towards this limit. So I wouldn't pick Conjurer. In general I don't think Chanter/Wizard lancer is a particularly awesome combo, but maybe others have different experiences. Skald doesn't get phrases from Lance's AoE crits. Only intitial hit rolls that crit do count. Another nice combo is Fighter/Wizard because Vigorous Defense stacks with the Wizard's buffs and Mule Kick with Lance is fun as well as Clear Out with Lance is like an explosion: every AoE hit of Clear Out will produce a Lance-AoE. Rogue/Wizard can apply stuff like Crippling Strike and Deep Wounds in an AoE with the Lance. I personally like Arcane Knight best. It's a no-stress mix of good defense and offense and has some nice synergies. Helwalker and Nalpasca Sage is also nice but a bit more tricky.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2020-doom-eternal-tech-review Hmmm, I like the tech aspect, too bad I couldn't be bothered to play Doom Eternal. Competitors take note! EDIT: Doom Eternal is one of the few triple-A PC titles to deliver consistent enough performance to full exploit ultra high refresh rate monitors.

Okay, so here we go for a new update : Reminder : the changes in red are in the optional additional package. E) Barbarian Mage Slayer : Removed the Spell Resistance entirely. Added -25% Hostile and Beneficial effect duration. The purpose was to make Mage Slayer a bit less useless vs non-caster, and avoid the Random Factor from friendly spells (especially this critical healing you don't want to miss Corpse Eater : Greatly buffed special food (and also replaced bonus MIG and malus INT by more varied effects) : Kith Meat : -5 Diplomacy, -15% Damages received, +3 Corpse Eater PL Corpse Loaf : -3 Diplomacy, +3 Health per 6s, +10 Fortitude, +4 Corpse Eater PL Forbidden Pie : -3 Diplomacy, +4 Resolve, Mind Affliction Resistance, +5 Corpse Eater PL In addition, Kith Meat and Vessel Flesh can be bought from Vithrack and Imp vendors (Kith Meat price set to 100 gold) The purpose was to change Corpse Eater to more powerful effects for increased cost. Their food is very powerful but not that much more than high quality food, which balance the effect IMO. Instruments of Boundless Rage : 3 Rage -> 2 Rage Added Fire Keyword Heart of Fury : 4 Rage -> 3 Rage (aligned with whirling Strikes) Savage Defiance & Upgrades : 15s -> 25s Stalwart Defiance : changed to Gain Concentration every 6s Leap & Panther's Leap : 6s Dazed -> 4s Stun Dragon Leap : 6s Dazed -> 6s Stun (because panther's leap does more damages) Panther's and Dragon Leap are now correctly tagged as Leap upgrades (which basically makes them scale as PL5 abilities -> efefctive +3PL) Carnage : Can now Crit (so can apply Blood Frenzy ) Accurate Carnage : +5 Accuracy -> +10 Accuracy Blood Surge : 25% Chance -> 50% Chance, but only apply to Hostile Targets (same change as Community Patch did for its Paladin equivalent) Blood Thirst : Cleaned the mess that causes it to proc twice on the same target and prevented it from being stackable with Crushing Blow. Now proc only once except sometimes when 2 targets are killed in a row (it applies twice then, cause Recovery is cleared before second target is killed, so you keep one charge) Barbaric Blow & upgrades : Removed the PR and Damages bonus to make the ability more focused. Now Barbaric Blow & Upgrades do : - 75% Hit to Crit chances - +75% Crit damages bonus (note : Crushing Blow do get this bonus, even if it does not get Crit Damages Bonus in the base game due to a bug) - +200% Carnage AoE (so roughly 2.5m radius instead of 1.5m) - Barbaric Smash : no refund, but cost reduced to 1 Rage - Crushing Blow : no recovery (not conditional anymore) Other Changes from previous versions : (Based on feedback from @Heukalyptus ) Pet Abilities : Added Beast Keyword to all pet abilities cast by the Ranger so they benefit from equipment with bonus to Beast abilities. Applied to Heal Companion, Revive Companion, Bonded Fury, Master's Call, Shadowed Hunters & their upgrades. Not applied to Takedown and Play Dead cause they are cast by pet themselves (and PL can be detrimental to Play Dead cause it rise its duration) Bonded Fury : Range 6m -> 10m (aligned with other Pet abilities) Power Stike & Inspired Strike : Stun & Staggered effects set to 10s Removed the additional Duration of Inspired Strike buff. Inspired Strike bonus damages : 200% -> 300% (So Inspired Strike is more focused on Single Target damages) BalancePolishingModBuffs.zip BalancePolishingModNerfs.zip

Hey, I just did a playthrough of POE1 and would like to recreate my character in POE2, but with a twist. The basic concept I did was in the first game was a Lovecraftian-inspired Dwarf Wizard with a Scientist background. I liked summoning tentacles, dropping huge AoE spells damage and/or CC spells, and then Spirit Shield myself, and wade into the fray with my faithful Spirit Lance. Although I wasn't the primary tank (that was Éder), I was pretty hard to kill in combat thanks to heavy armor, Spirit Shield and Arcane Veil. I also loved spells like Tayn's Chaotic Orb, and Wall of Many Colors (which btw made the Adra Dragon fight a piece of cake). Now, as I said, I'd like a twist, and that comes in the form of Multiclassing. I looked at plenty of builds and related stuff here and on Reddit, but a lot of stuff gets outdated quickly, as patches and expansions change so much. So, I'd like build advice on building a Sage, an Arcane Knight or a Loremaster (TB Mode, Veteran difficulty, companions as RP dictates, but either a full party or close to it probably). For Sage I was looking at the synergies with my beloved Spirit Lance, and it seems that Shattered Pillar works very well with this. However, I've seen very few comments on the synergies between Forbidden Fist, Blood Mage and the plethora of bizarre AoE debuffs the Wizard has. That last concept interests me greatly, if it's viable. I like the concept behind the Nalpazca as well and greatly enjoyed Zahua as a companion, but the drugs thing maybe involves a little more crafting and bookkeeping than I'd like. For Arcane Knight I thought about Bleakwalker. I like their fluff, and my run-in with then in a quest in the first game ended with a lot of mutual respect (they killed Cevestin for me, let the kid go and lauded my behavior). Plus, it would be an interesting RP twist as well, but I'm not sure about the mechanics. FoD would synergize well with conjured weapons? I assume it doesn't work if I summon a Phantom? Steel Garotte also seems mechanically awesome, but I hate Woedica and her minions. Not gonna make the same mistake as my past self. For Loremaster, I thought about going more heavily into the "otherworldy summons" aspect, and going for Conjurer + Beckoner, thus having a Familiar, a conjured weapon-armed Phantom and some minions plus Chanter bonuses. Not too sold on the RP aspect though. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated

Sang & Froyd (or how they are spelled) and Cayne both for free on Gog right now. As well as some spring sale goodies (Greefall artbook, Styx artbook etc)

CP makes Forbidden Fist ability tagged as weapon atk, so it can proc Swift Flurry and Hearthbeat Drumming. Instruments of Pain just increase melee reach, so you can swing your weapon at grater distance. Like ranged atk, but it's still melee. FF ability always uses its own base dmg which is equal to monk fists scaled with transcended suffering, even if you have equipped other weapon (works kind of like close range spell). So if you use Community Patch and add weapon tag to FF, the magic happens. Crits that you make with FF may proc SF and HBD, but those abilities always use your equipped weapon e.g. Lance and even bow or arquebus

I didn't said it's too strong, I just consider possibilities. +5PL that stacks with everything, sounds like quite decent bonus

fact it is so complete misunderstood by so many makes it our favorite. song 'bout vietnam veterans screwed over by their government becomes a patriotic anthem? other notables HA! Good Fun!

I do. Fury Road is amazing.

Half-Life Alyx unlocks in less than an hour! edit: this game is cool, next evolution for Half Life and VR! Environments are like real in terms of physics interactions Currently playing on my oculus quest with pc link cable. I also have a pimax 8k /w index controllers, but that’s currently at work and needs disinfecting Also playing Doom Eternal. Feels good to be playing Half-Life and Doom again!

will need to check it out as we always thought it were an almost criminal oversight to not include any version o' the song which inspired the name o' the game title. another curious absent song from the fo catalog HA! Good Fun!

Still Life 2 is....not very good. Not very impressed with some technical issues such as wanton clipping and also hearing voice of the other protagonist, Paloma, when I am controlling Victoria. Not to mention Paloma's actress must have been free with her performance. Strange decision to make the player play inventory tetris in an adventure game of all things - I can pick up a mattress and put it in my pockets but a mattress and antenna is just silly ? Glad I got this one for free.

When I think of anti-war songs I usually think of Bob Dylan. Well, this might be the most effective one I've ever heard.

Yup, been stretching my last pack. Finally scared enough to stop I think.

I don't like -25% beneficial effect duration, but forbidden fist/mage slayer looks tempting now. Forbidden pie +5PL = 25% more multiplicative dmg to skills. That's a lot, so basically use HoF -> eat remains -> profit. If you kill many targets with one skill (Hof), did every of them gives you Blood Thirst effect, so you can eat multiple corpses in a row without recovery? There is some mysterious calculations 1.5m +200% x 1.5m = 4.5m 1.5 x 200% = 3m

Underpenetration (-25/50/75% dmg) is a severe damage malus. If you also can't reliably hit but only graze (-50% dmg) then you will be having a really hard time. Also because those numbers turn out to be much more severe because there is some special doulbe-inversion-shenanigans going on under the hood when your dmg is calculated (check out the combat log to see how devastating underpenetration and grazing is for your dmg output). So avoid it at all cost. As soon as your PEN equals enemies AR you're good. Overpenetration is nothing you shoul strife for. It's only 30% additive dmg and most of times nothing worth investing into. Just make sure you have lots of ACC and PEN to overcome defenses and AR. In case of Huani: here you could use a one-handed club (targets deflection) to lower Will, then use Misma (targets Will) to lower Will further (with club and Miasma it should be quite low now) and then use Shining Beacon with Ring of Focused Flame (targets Will with +10 ACC and is doing good enough penetrating burn damage) - just an example. Look at the Megabosses like they were puzzles how to crack them open. Brute force (I don't mean the Barbarian ability ) will not be very successful...

The ooze has 8 burn armor. When you see it in game, it will probably say it has 14 armor. This is because 14 armor answers MOST questions about what its armor is. Then it also lists the exceptions, in this case being that it has 8 armor against burn/corrode/shock. Edit: So to be super clear, 8 burn armor, not 22. 130% means the damage type your attack will use is so strong against the enemy that it will overpenetrate and do 30% bonus damage. This happens when you have twice the penetration of your target's armor. I... don't remember what the colors mean.

recommended apocalypse playlist. say what you will 'bout the game(s), the song list(s) is strong. following is a noticeable absent track from an obsidian addition to the ip: @Azdeus you mentioned the alcohol shortage? perhaps your body doesn't know how to handle such a consistent low blood-alcohol. drink more and see if things improve. ... not serious advice btw. feel better. HA! Good Fun!

Nightly Met Opera Streams tonight is a good offering, even if you ain't russian. this coming week will be all wagner. HA! Good Fun!

Eat em. The body can store fat, you are going to lose a lot if you get sick, and a high protein diet is important to withstand infection.

Confusion is even a little worse than that, because enemy caster AI is so moronic that they will happily hit their own party members with friendly fire attacks, regardless of being confused. So confusion has even less of an effect in caster fights than one might intuitively think - mostly against enemy healers. It also doesn't help that the main confusion effects target will and casters tend to have good will defense. I actually find confusion more practical for barbarians, paladins, chanters more than actual casters - though making caster aoe and durations shorter is pretty good.

I spent the day sitting on my porch, listening to SiriusXM and just watching the sun trace it's arc through the sky. It was time well spent.

Wait, did Rand Paul really just test positive for Covid-19? That's a frightening bit of karma for Ron.

Atlas Obscura - Paro Takstang, Tigers Nest Monastery

Pentagon successfully tests hypersonic missile.

https://www.gamesradar.com/square-enix-gives-away-2-free-tomb-raider-games-on-steam-and-asks-us-to-stay-home-and-play/ Seems it's SE who give away the games, steam had nothing done with it.

I was going to make an "locked down, unshowered and stir crazy" joke but nah - I'm simply always like this.

You should always shoot first. In the end, God will know His own.

PS5 is the new 'home-bruh' console and I hate to say this because I've had a great time with with Sony's consoles over the past 20 years.

That old thread lasted a very long time. Guess I'll add my current/newer one here as well. i9-9900k EVGA 2080ti ftw3 2x16(32), Corsair Vengeance LBX Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master LGA 1151 Samsung 970 Pro 1TB Two 4TB HDD Corsair RmX850 Corsair Obsidian Series 750D case (a lot of Corsair...) 43" (not expensive) 4k led LG TV, 27" 1440 IPS Dell monitor, 27" 1080 IPS LG monitor, so I can play games, do web or graphic stuff AND watch cat videos all at the same time.

Hello, I don't think I've seen any build designed around raw damage yet. Is there a reason for this? There are some interesting weapons that provide raw damage as well as some skills in the game. I feel like a Solo PoTD build could do well around these things. Examples of some weapons are (upgrades not applicable): Battleaxe - Oathbreaker's End - “Scales of Justice: Scoring a Critical Hit on an enemy causes them to take Raw Damage over time”. Pistol - Eccea's Arcane Blaster - “Runestone Flint: Basic attack deals lesser Raw Damage”. Blunderbuss - Xefa's Empirical Explication - “Transmogrified Shot: +15% Damage as Raw”. Club - Kapana Taga - “Razor Bladed Bludgeon: Deals best of Crush or Slash Damage +10% Damage as Raw”. Dagger - Lovers Embrace - “True Love's Kiss: 8 Raw Damage per 6s on Hits from Stealth”. Greatsword - Effort - “Lacerating: Hits with this weapon cause 10% Damage as Raw Damage over time”. Greatsword - Voidwheel - “Soul Breaker: Wielder takes 10% Damage dealt as Raw Damage to self +10% Damage as Raw”. Pike - Wicked Beast - “Hounding: Chance to inflict Hobbled, Knockdown, Raw Damage over time for 12s, or -25% Action Speed on target on scoring Crit”. Sabre - Animancer's Energy Blade - “Ethereal: Deals Raw Damage and attacks more quickly than a standard blade”. Spear - Mohorā Tanga - “Red Flag Flying: 5 Raw bleed Damage per 3s for 9s on scoring Crit”. Stiletto - Rust's Poignard - “Knife in the Back: 3 Raw Damage per 3s for 9s on scoring Hit on Flanked target”. Sword - Watcher's Blade - “Soul Severing: +10% Damage dealt as Raw”. War Bow - Veilpiercer - “Ethereal Arrows: +15 Accuracy against Spirits, Veil piercing attack +15% Damage as Raw”. Estoc - Engoliero de Espirs - “10% Raw lash”.