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You do realize those are all actors who played Lex Luthor...?

I am now 34... I feel old

I love Tennessee in spring. The weather is clear and cool, not a cloud in the sky. Everything is bright green. The coyotes are back in the Hatchee river bottom. During the winter you never hear from them. I think they move north into the upper part of Anderson Tully. Well, wherever they go they are back now. They can be a pest. Sometimes you have to do something about them. But I really love just listening to them. I've got a conference call at 9. About two hours of work to do, and then the rest of the day I'm going to spend playing Stellaris.

These people still benefited, regardless of the reasons why you helped them. It is fine to feel good knowing that they might feel somehow better because of you. I can't say anything about depression.

Nalpazca monk has to be high, but not necessarily tall. He has to be wasted to lay waste to his enemies. Must be smashed to smash someone's face in. When wrecked he wrecks everybody else. And when stoned his fists turn to stone. Ok, that's it for "drugged" slang synonym puns unless you ask for more in comments. ^^ =============================================== Flying Focused Flurry (flying on coral snuff or sth ofc) =============================================== Difficulty: PotD v5.0.0.0040 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Solo: Untested but not recomended (two glass cannon classes make suprisingly a bit less glassy one but stil not enough for solo I'd say) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Berath's blessings: +50K Gold/Start at level 4/Bonus attributes(!)/Fine equipment/Pet for Eder(cause you know he really deserves it)/Unique item vendor/Infamous Past/Mythical discovery (I picked level four cause i just jumped ship from battlemage build and did not have the patience for the fight at digsite again at low level, but it is not absolutely necessary) ------------------------------------------------------------------ Class: Transcendent (Cipher+Monk) ------------------------------------------------------------------ Subclass: Soul Blade/Nalpazca (Soul Blade can be changed to Ascendant but loosing all focus after some time seemed overly tedious to me. Nalpazca can be substitued with no subclass if you want to cut on the micromanagement or Helwalker if you want a stronger more glassy cannon) [not tested with Helwalker, but the synergies are still there] ------------------------------------------------------------------ Race: Human (The Fighting spirit can be of great help, but other than that any will do) ------------------------------------------------------------------ Background: Any will do, for RP purposes I chose deadfire and explorer (when I list attributes, they are all base, meaning that deadfire background bonus (+1DEX) is added later. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Attributes: MIG:13 CON:11 DEX:14 PER:16 INT:11 RES:10 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Proficiencies: Rapier(!) (+20 Acc modal with -50% Recovery penalty, works great with full attacks and rapier's low 3.0 sec recovery time) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Alchemy/None other than for RP (or History if you want to go Giftbearer's Cloak way) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities: Legend: essential-(!), sugessted-(s) otherwise situational and can be changed Monk PL1: Swift Strikes(!), Lesser Wounds(!) PL2: Clarity of Agony, Weapon and Shield Style(!), Two Weapon Style(!) PL3: Swift Flurry(!), Torment's Reach(!), Stunning Blow, Soul Mirror(s) PL4: Duality of Mortal Presence(!), Thunderous Blows(!), Rooting Pain(s) PL5: Raised Torment(!), Stunning Surge(s), Tough(s), Enervating Blows(s) PL6: Turning Wheel(!) PL7: Heartbeat Drumming(!), Skyward Kick (or Cipher's Echoing Horror, i just like kicking Engwithan Titans in the air. [although it looked like a kick in the sock drawer, reading Prattchet's "Monstrous Regiment" explains this bit.]) Cipher PL1: Whispers of Treason(s) (helps in the digsite damned fight), Iron Will PL2: Draining Whip(!), Weapon and Shield Style(!), Two Weapon Style(!) PL3: Hammering Thoughts(!) PL4: Body Attunement(s) PL:5 Borrowed Instinct (Finally!)(!), Tough(s) PL6: The Empty Soul(!) PL7: Ancestor's Memory(s) (or Echoing Horror and AM can be respec back in for Mega Boss fights if needed) ------------------------------------------------------------------- Items: Weapons - Rannig's Wrath(Later highly recomended to change to Seeker's Fang)/Tuotilo's Palm(Enchants: Precision Striker, Balanced Shield), before getting stunning surge Head - Death's Maw (Later can be changed to Champion's Helm or Heaven's Cacophony if you can spare the tankness) Neck - Protective Eothasian Charm (I made a tiny mod that changes it to use par encounter because it was a bit tedious for me, I'll upload the mod and add the link here when I find some extra time today) Torso - Devil od Caroc Breastplate Ring - Power of Money Feet - Rakhan Field Boots (available a bit late, before that, all resistance boots, leap boots or boots of speed are a good alternative) Cape - Shroud of the Phantasm (or Giftbearer's Cloak) Trinket - Muatu's Aid Gloves - Mortification Bindings Ring - Entonia Signet Ring Belt - The Undying Burden Pet - Abraham (Cutthroat Cosmo before getting to Neketaka, and Abraham can be changed to Dude the Six-Toes Cat for double the healing if you give Eder the Nalvi. But let's be honest, giving him Concelhaut's skull is much funnier given their convo in Bekarna's Observatory) ------------------------------------------------------------------- So there you have it, now for the more in-depth part. The monk is a primary melee class and even though cipher isn's, the Soul Anihilition ability gives us something to start with. This build revolves around two things 1.As much accuracy as we can get, and we have some nice tools for that. And 2. lowering recovery as much we can (the rapier modal might seem couterintuitive but we'll get to that). This build has some crowd control with torment's reach (and proper positioning) and very good single targer dps. It can tank surprisingly well given it's gear, and extremely well with nemnok's cloak, but then again, with it, anything can. Most of the equipment is available early on but this build is still a mid-late bloomer. Basically, when fully kitted out, we want to have rapier modal active at the start of combat, gain some focus, cast borrowed instinct, and crit enemy to death. As long as we have borrowed instinct we turn modal off, the bonus does not stack, it will give the same acc bonus but also +20 to all defences which is huge (best to cast with full wounds for +10 INT). If the chance-to-hit gets below 95% it is better to use tormen't reach to gain focus and spike the damage with soul anihilation, unfortunatelly, we lack acces to Intuitive. Remember also that hit-to-crit chance does not stack, they have a chance to proc independently (no suppresion either). Now about weapons, Rannig's Wrath gives us +10% Action Speed with +4 Acc bonus from Thrusting (that goes on top of rapier native +5 Accurate bonus). This makes it a grat way to start the surging striking. Tuotilo's Palm gets transcendant suffering scaling bonuses so it will end up with more penetration at PL7 then legendary rapier which is kind of funny if you ask me. It has lower base damage than fists so it will be a bit weaker but the "mythic" accuracy bonus (and one of it's upgrades gives it +5 accuracy with unarmed attacks, which it itself also uses, making it great for crits). Honestly it's almost a reverse shield, made for hiting, gives bonus to accuracy instead of a penalty, while still giving bonuses to def and ref. But most importantly, it allowes us to take advantage of two diffrent Fighting Styles (two weapons and weapon and shield) at the same time. To say nothing about increasing wound gain. When does it stop? Well, here, but you get it. Closer to the endgame you get acces to Seeker's Fang. It is cipher boundable and well, guess what. Does damage over time on crits that scales with current focus (that stacks) AND another raw DoT when hitting enemy with any affliction. If only we had acces to stun or sth. ^^ It's Spider's Flurry ability also works great to gain early focus (being per encounter) and immobilize enemies for raised torment positioning. Important thing is to keep your AR as high as possible because well, we're a bit glassy. This makes a fairly versatile character that can even further increase his AR (+2) while debuffing one enemy (-2AR) with body attunement and supply allies with brilliant for long fights. High penetration, high crit chance and good to great speed with a high chance at peak to chain attacks with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. And it's not very complicated to play with, only a bit of positionig gimmicks. That would be for it. My first build. <yay!> I'm writing this after not sleeping through the night so if I missed something or you feel something is unclear, please let me know in the comments. Allllriht, ya scalywags, get yer hands to the rigging and hoist those sails! Hard to larboard! And all that. Keep deadfire safe from green man lads! PS. I copied Ascaloth's template for describing build, I hope You/He don't/doesn't mind but it was just very clear and transparent so I couldn't resist. Also quite tired.

Here you go: https://www.gog.com/news/preorder_desperados_iii_digital_deluxe_edition

No, this year requires narration by :

Happy Birthday Calax!!!! I think this, and receiving kudos, is the driving motivation of most braggarts (not referring to you). Did it even happen if it wasnt posted about? But its not a binary thing. Do what you can, love and support those in your life like your family and friends...you dont have to go work the soup kitchen.

Too funny:

Noclip is to release 5 videos long documentary series on The Outer Words. I shall update as they become available.

That makes no sense on either side. The US gvo't isn't an 'invisible entity'. It is real, it exists, and it doesn't give a **** about you. Both sides trying to compare the US gov't to the Christian 'god' are idiots. Afterall, if one doesn't believe in god than one can't blame him for awful happenings but the US gov['t is surely real and is responsible for some evil ****. Problem is both sides are two faced. They are only pro (or anti gvo't) when it suits their purposes. Lefties: US gov't is evil, and commits mass murders and is bad for supporting dictatorships. and intervering in others lives in other countries. Also lefties: Want gvo't to ban all sorts of things, they hate mass imprisonment but are also pro mass imprisonment and murder. Claim to be pro freedom of speech but also want to ban music, tv, books, and movies. Rights: Anti gov't when it comes to defending their guns, and religious rights, and freedom of speech and pure freedom. Also Righties: Want to ban music, tv, books, and movies. Don't like vaccinations b/c of gov't conspiracies. Scum. ALL OF THEM.

That's why I suggested the Whale of a Wand to you. The rest of the post was an answer to @AeonsLegend. Another stat stick for casters can be Griffin's Blade. It's only 10% additive spell dmg but better than nothing (and one handed so there's room for something else in the offhand - like Whale of a Wand).

Yeah, I tried the Debonaire/Beguiler and I felt like I was cheating. Pretty much kept charmed up on everything. And the Rogue + Debonaire bonuses made damage pretty good despite only having 10 might. I am thinking that this may be a better combo than pure beguiler if I intend to take on the Megabosses. I am going to give Monk combo a run to see how that does.

Meh, thanks mate. Add 3 years in New Zealand to that Sound like more than it is really, as they are all "western" type countries. I still wish I had a chance to try out something really different, like Vietnam, Argentina or maybe even South Africa to experience something that was off the beaten path for a west European.

Some time ago I tested this and no matter how many enemies I crit with a spell: Obfuscation never went off. But with Driving Flight, Accurate Wounding Shot and the ACC of a Ranger it procs pretty often on the scepter's attack. So I guess it's safe to say it's only working with the attacks from the scepter. It may be that "Illusive Spells" (which get triggered from scepter crits as well) would proc Obfuscation. Because spells that proc off of weapons often count as weapon attacks themselves. Since you can never know if it was the scepter attack itself that triggered Obfuscation or the Illusive Spell that followed it's hard to tell. But anyway: you can't trigger Obfuscation via usual spellcasting, sorry. But did you know that "Illusive Spell" applies that random illusion spell effect not only on that one enemy - but it actually indeed casts a proper spell with AoE and all? Like you hit one enemy with the scepter, it procs Gaze of the Adragan and all enemies around your target become petrified as well? With Driving Flight I sometimes have two procs of Illusive Spell at once (for example all enemies in range were blinded and also dazed from Curse of the Blackened Sight + Dazzling Lights).

Quote for the day to go with the protests against "tyranny" in the US : "I love hearing conservative Christians talk about how they're not going to let something invisible control their lives."

Firstly thank you for sharing, I dont think your post is long-winded at all. Its honest, sensitive and makes perfect sense. I think many people share your experience and feelings especially at the moment I also believe people are fundamentally good and most people really try to right thing in these difficult circumstances and various life experiences This virus has made all us reflect on many things which include our choices and things we have done in the past. Sometimes we will ruminate on how these past choices have shaped our current lives. My view is you cannot change the past and all of us can continue to regret things but end of the day only one question really matters... " what are we going to do going forward " So my advice is try hard to not worry at the moment about past mistakes because realistically the virus gives us limited options but continue to do things that are altruistic as they do matter and there are always people we can help in this dark times, like the elderly Once the virus is over then make those choices that can change your personal life

Let's just call it "sushi".

I was too busy moving interstate and living in hotels for all of March to really notice the corona virus thing. When I suddenly did get time to notice, it was mostly just enjoying the empty city and the lack of people. Switching bed every few days was somewhat disruptive to sleep patterns though

You know that embarrassing feeling you get when a joke is funny after you get it explained

The Surge 2. I've successfully infiltrated the Cathedral of the Spark (power plant) and reached the boss, Matriarch Celeste. At the beginning of the story I might have accidentally killed her sons, then one of them respawned and I had to kill him again. Unfortunately, Eli got resurrected again just as I was closing on the target (the "Spark" itself). He escaped the arena with it, leaving me with the matriarch. Celeste used an electrified staff or a spear, flew (literally) and had quite impressive reach in combat. The arena itself became electrified as well during the second stage. I have not defeated her yet.

The night club is now in progress. Hopefully can make it stronger during night time. Will post a s/s here when I have something put together. I think the night club will also function as a torch with burning lash and the FX. Have a decent back story in mind already.

But flying pigs already exist. Duke Nukem Forever came out. Therefore, pigs can fly. On the other hand, that does not imply that flying pigs have wings. They could levitate via anti-gravity or have jet engine anuses.

When you decide to go steampunk with the filters on your mask?

I wish they'd post more about the number of smokers who are heavily affected by the virus. They are quick to mention pre-existing health conditions, but it would be interesting to see what percentages of people that encountered serious problems were also vaping and smoking. I mean, lung health is a pretty big part of this whole thing. I hope those who do regularly breathe bad crap into their lungs are at least thinking twice about it now.

Nah, she's just Maduro on a period.

Today, I wanted to feel less useless, so I volunteered to help with some grocery shopping for the elderly. So I did. But now I feel useless *and* not very altruistic to boot. Can't have it all, I guess. On an unrelated note, I did my shopping in a large supermarket at a major street in Warsaw and despite certain countrywide restrictions (like staying 1,5 meters apart from each other and hard limits on the number of people inside), it was pretty much a chaotic free-for-all for everyone involved. At least everyone wore masks, so there's that.

Part 2: Writing the Characters & Companions of The Outer Worlds

Part 1: From Concept to Creation

Hmm, that made me think about what possible IP's Microsoft could give them access to. I found this fairly outdated list: I'm hoping for High Heat Baseball or RC Pro-Am.

Reading your post I genuinely wondered: was buying PoE on Switch really the worst decision of your life?

Nothing's really overpowered in PoE over the course of a playthrough. The game's balanced too well and all the really gamebreaking stuff was patched. But there are some builds that are better for certain roles than others. It also depends if solo or party play. For party play Priest is the most powerful class there is - and I think most "experts" here would agree with this. Not only because of their awesome support abilities (prayers alone) but also because they can become superb nukers after some levels and are good healers. They only lack CC - but that's easy to come by in a party. It's even so that more than one Priest isn't redundant like one might think. Because Inspiring Radiance stacks with itself you can go with 6 Priests, cast 6 Inspiring Radiances (and 1 Devotions) and then nuke everything with +60 (+80) accuracy. In solo runs survivability trumps damage dealing. There are only few exceptions (like Heart of Fury which theoretically is capable to one-shot even the toughest bounties) but even then it's not reliable. While you can annihilate trash mobs just fine with a very good damage dealer you can't do the same against dragons or enemies with nasty CC (Adragans, Lagufaeth etc). You will just die before you can win. I mean if you don't want to rely on cheese, massive use of consumables or kiting. That's why Paladins are pretty good solo characters because their passive defense boosts mean you can prolong a fight for a very long time without really getting hurt while they whittle down enemy after enemy. Boring, but very effective. Works against everything. But whatever build you choose you can never steamroll a solo playthrough on PotD difficulty.

I'll put it like this. The game is amazing. Stunning in every way. Both real time and turn-based combat modes play exceptionally well, and the choices based off of reputation, skill, attributes, as well as abilities make you feel like your choices matter; from your race and general disposition, to the abilities you take on the perk tree. Now, this being said, I have a bone to pick with the game. This game at it's core has been about Fantasy, Adventure, Power, and Choices. The first and second game (for the most part) do a very good job of giving scratching all 4 of those itches. In the second game, you become THE HERALD OF BERATH (now that's a title right?). The scene on the docks where you can show the harbor master "what you are" is a scene that I will never forget. Now, tell me why, in a game that does such a good job with power scaling, and making you feel like you're the next best thing to a god, makes your power utterly insignificant in the end. You're the Watcher, with the Gods at your back, and you can't stop Eothas. No matter what you do. No matter your choices. You can only influence how he goes about it. In a game about choices, I felt betrayed by how little my choices mattered in the end. And by the fact, that in the end, I don't even get to see the product of those choices in anything but ending slides. This was not how this game should have ended. And I must admit, when all the characters in the game were telling me, to my face, that there was no way to stop Eothas, I didn't believe them. I thought there must be something. So at the end of the game, my Passionate/Benevolent character decided to fight against the inevitable, to save the wheel, to protect the world and the experiment the gods created. To give MY world a chance to beat the gods at their own game. And through my efforts, and carefully planned decisions, and character building, I..... Was immediately destroyed and absorbed by Eothas and nothing I did mattered, and I may as well have never made this character to begin with because it left me with a pointless, and futile ending. The journey was amazing. The destination made my journey insignificant. Made who my character was, insignificant. Made his aspirations, insignificant. In embracing the fact that I could never stop Eothas, it killed what this game was about. The Fantasy, was cut down by the harsh reality that a mortal cannot challenge a god. The adventure, was made utterly pointless. I may as well of listened to Eothas and waited for the end. The Power I felt I had in this world, was nothing in comparison to Eothas. And The Choices? The never mattered to begin with. That's why, for as much as I love these 2 games, I really wouldn't recommend them to someone I know would be as invested in them as I was. Because it was heartbreaking. To the casual player? Amazing games, 9/10, they should absolutely buy and play both of the games. But man. This game burned me.

I have made a mod for all of the consumable stronghold quest items. It simply raises the number of uses from the default to 99 for the following: Ifen's Cradle Mossy Rocks Night Mirror Fragment Rememberance Ashes Rememberance of Life's Warmth The Blind Monk's Venom The Looking-Inward Chime I raised the uses to 99 for heavy spell users. That's more than enough uses, but they can be easily changed. The included instructions explain how to edit and save .unity3d files if one wishes to edit them further. Simply copy+paste the .unity3d files into your PillarsOfEternity_Data/assetbundles/prefabs/objectbundle directory. *For Mossy Rocks the MaxStackSize = 1 and UsageCount = 20 *By default you get 5, which, when broken into 5 stacks of 1 instead of 1 stack of 5 allows each equipped party member 20 uses. *For all others the UsageCount was increased to 99. *All edited .unity3d files and .txt dump files are included as well as the original unedited .unity3d files in their own seperate folders. *I used UABE (UnityAssetsBundleExtractor) for all edits. To edit the values: Step 1 - Open the .txt dump and edit the MaxStackSize and UsageCount lines to what you want. Save. Step 2 - Open the .unity3d file with the "3" added to its name, for example ifens_cradle3.unity3d and click "Info". Step 3 - Scroll down to the corresponding "Path ID" that matches the .txt dump file you just edited and click "Import Dump". You will see a star * next to that edited Path ID. Step 4 - Click "OK" and save the file. Step 5 - Under "File" select save and overwrite the. unity3d file without the "3" in its name. For example ifens_cradle.unity3d. Take that new edit and place it in the proper directory. I'm still working on Amaia's Codex. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Same for Helwax Mold. Mirror: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity/mods/201 Consumable Stronghold Quest Items Mod.zip

This does the trick. Instead of just: Time.timeScale = this.TimeScale; I now have: if (GameState.InCombat) { Time.timeScale = 0.1f; return; } Time.timeScale = this.TimeScale; Works beautifully. As soon as the battle starts, everything becomes much slower than the usual slow speed. The difference between 0.2f (the standard slow speed) and 0.1f is very large. I have time to observe all of the action and I now realize that I have never seen most of the battle animations.

By reading the tooltips I would expect Reaping Knives generating: - dealt_dmg * 0.35 (base focus gain) * 1.33 (draining whip) * 1.25 (Talisman of the Unconquerable) = dealt_dmg * 0.58 + - dealt_dmg * 0.30 (reaping knives) * 1.25 (Talisman of the Unconquerable) = dealt_dmg * 0.375 = dealt_dmg * 0.955 (or a 64% increase) But we know how inexact tooltips can be. Regarding Defensive Mindweb: depending on how it is coded (i.e. if it does affect all friendly targets and not only party members), you could dominate/confuse a dragon, and then via Mindweb get the same defenses. But then again, with 80 focus, you could just cast WoT + Disintegrate. P.S. Imho, the most important power (in easy-medium encounters) that should be castable on yourself (for a solo cipher, who economizes scrolls) is Amplified Wave, as you could just keep majority disabled and slowly wear them down via auto-attacks.

Reaping Knives only gives a set of summoned knives to the target, not the cipher. But the cipher gets focus from the knives' damage. If you cast Reaping Knives on a second cipher and vice versa they both will get focus from their own attacks as well as the other's. So I guess if you can cast it on yourself your focus generation might get doubled. Depends on the implementation of course. Maybe this is a spell which shouldn't be castable on oneself...?

It's not hard, but may take 2-5 minutes per power. 1. Check this partially-related guide 2. Do the same with cipher's .unity3d powers you want to modify, but instead of attributes look for ValidTargets field. You will want to change it from 10 (TargetAlliesExceptSelf) to 9 (TargetAllies).

I'll tell you what. We were promised modding ability during Kickstarter for PoE, and "modding ability" is what we got. It sucks so hard nobody ever made much more than portrait packs or the now deceased IEMod but hey, be happy... Yes Obsidian, it's you I'm flaming here. You better not duck up Modding in PoE2 or we're gonna have a problem. Edit: let's use the word Duck instead, seeing my original one won't be accepted.

Sorry for the delayed response. I just had this happen again, and I need to clarify a few things: A. Unlike in my original post, it's not just the slot in question. I just had this happen to my PC, who is a Paladin. I tried quaffing a potion of minor regeneration (slot 3), didn't do anything. I tried quaffing a diferent potion, a potion of wizard' double (slot 1), didn't do anything. Just for fun, I tried quaffing the potion in slot 2 (don't remember what it was), didn't do anything. So it's not a specific slot, nor is it a specific potion. I can't tell if it's on every character or just a specific character since in this party in question, it's mainly my paladin who is quaffing a lot of potions and using a lot of quick items. B. When the bug occurs, my character does *not* wait for recovery to finish before entering a potion-quaffing animation. Normally when I click on a potion in my quick item slot, I see the icon appear in my combat tooltip, and then when the recovery is finished, my character goes through the drinking animation. When the bug is triggered however, my character *immediately* begins the potion animation, regardless of where they are at in the recovery. I also don't see the potion icon appear in the combat tooltip. So something is screwed up here. C. Right before the last instance happened, my character was using a scroll of defense, which got interrupted and then caused my character to try again. I don't know if it's anything related, but it is the only thing that I can recall happening before the bug triggered. Since it happened just now, I'll attach the output log. I'll also attach a saved game, though I don't know how reproducible it is so I don't know how useful it is. I will say that if you just walk a bit to the east and south and engage the beetles and just try to win the fight (which will involve drinking several potions), you may trigger the issue. Dropbox folder with output log and save: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gsgqusoy09ezdwh/AACAAJQMfNWlRU8jULU-8M82a?dl=0