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My wife told me she thought we'd have less arguments if I wasn't so pedantic. I told her 'I think you mean fewer'.

Ultimate Is more about perseverance imho. Even if somebody would copy some run 1:1 it's still a ****load of work/realods etc. Especially on stupid, simple errors(smth like 3/4 of my runs of my first attempt died because of simple ****ups or bugs). Besides there is no "ultimate" ultimate run, any of them could be improved.

People might be overstating the backlash a bit, though. It still sold like gangbusters and is likely going to turn a massive profit. I'm just not sure what the long term effect of this is going to be for them. Will they struggle to recover in the console market? Maybe. The PC market is still going to be a strength for them. If it takes another 5-6 years to release the next game, I'd say there is a decent chance that this will all be water under the bridge. Particularly if they can address the major issues.

So I got the 3080 today, took out the Vega 64, left the anti-sag support bracket because the cheapskates at ASUS didn't send along... well, anything in the box. I feel a bit like a heathen, but it's all AMDs own fault by now! So the computer is now as follows, Case; Corsair 900D PSU; EVGA 750W Supernova Motherboard; ASUS Prime X370 Pro CPU; Ryzen 1800X Cooler; Fractal Design Celsius S36 RAM; 16GB G-Skill 3200 Flare-X CL 14 Soundcard; Creative Soundblaster Z GPU; ASUS TUF 3080 OC Storage; Seagate BarraCuda 3TB 7200rpm An age old 750GB Western Digital Black 7200rpm Kingston 120GB Sata SSD Samsung 1TB 970 Evo m2 Optiarc DVD-RW burner

1) & 2). Yes, because the decision making that affects you as an individual is now one (or more) step further removed from the parliament where your vote actually *matters*. You don't like party xyz in your country for example, vote them out. You don't like xyz in Brussels, sucks to be you, you better be prepared to ask how high should I jump? You're screwed. Apart from taking up torches and pitch forks, storm your local parliament and demand independence (or vote yes to Brexit as the UK did). Funny thing, if you had asked my even 10 years ago, I would have bet a six pack that Denmark would be the first country to leave the EU, followed by the UK. 3) You have it the wrong way around. It is NOT Brussels place to grant any independence to member countries in the first place. They already had it. Brussels took it away and that is the core of the problem. 4) I have changed my views (even radically) over the years. I used to be a "right winger", proud of my little country and its history until I started learning more and more about how the world works and now I don't give a flying **** about nation states, churches, corporations (and yes, banks). So my younger self had some very different views from my grown up (anarchist leaning) self who would rather see aforementioned crash and burn. Edit: If you're looking for what I would suggest... I would say an "acceptable compromise" would've been leaving it at being the EC (which was what people signed up for originally) and scrapping the EU part.

Inet Edit; My colleagues at work outdid themselves, and got the card to me today instead. I changded the delivery from door to pickup aswell to save more time, so here is the RTX 3080 in my ****-compensating case. Sorry about the dust, my back is killing me enough that I didn't bother to properly clean the inside of the case for now. That's for a time when I can actually bend and lift. Not pictured is the extra sag support curtesy of my Vega 64 Nitro that was there before. Surprisingly, it's a smidge bigger than the 3080, and I'm glad to only have 2x4 pin powercables! And worried at the same time. The Sapphire did have the same power draw, but over three rails, so we'll see if the EVGA 750 Supernove can keep up with it, or if it'll go supernova and poof on me. IT'S SO TINY!!

PSA: Letting your savefile grow to over 8MB (there seems to be a limit to save file size) will corrupt/bug out save file (likely never recoverable). eg, don't be a mega hoarder of items or crafting materials, or duplicate-glitch a lot, or whatever. They'll probably try to fix it later but who knows. CD forum thread on topic w/people's testing: https://forums.cdprojektred.com/index.php?threads/save-files-are-corrupted.11052596/ Short article for ppl who don't want to sift through a forum thread: https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/hoarding-items-can-corrupt-cyberpunk-2077-save-data

Dergano Ploi was born in Aedyr - his parents are elven Aedyrean Ambassador Laxon Ploi and deceased human Aerdyrean fleet officer Lt. Leanna Andra Ploi. Although Dergano Ploi had little exposure to the military world of his mother, he attended the fleet academy as well as university and earned an advanced degree in "philosophy of mind". He then served as the captain's counselor aboard the Aedyrian flagship "Venture" before joining the Shieldbearers of St. Elcga and leaving active military service. He is also trained in diplomacy, beguiling, languages and linguistics, often making him a valued first contact team member. Again, it's his skills in interpersonal contact which can help to turn the tides in difficult encounters. He's also able to give valuabe advices which will protect his team members as well as using tactical positioning, confusing and marking the enemy so that his fellow team members can deliver the killing blow. Dessert is his favorite part of a meal, and one of his greatest favorites and weaknesses is cookies and cakes. Paraphrasing famous Aedyrian philosopher-humorist Wirt Hogas, he always says "I never met a pastry I didn't like" - Rauatai Sweet Pie is his very favorite. He also likes to trow the dices and once beat some cretin smug in a celler in Stalwart at "Dozens". "If you're looking for my professional opinion as counselor: he's nuts." - Dergan Troi to his comrades when meeting Lord Raedric - =================================== Counselor Ploi =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 3.03 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Paladin (Shieldbearer) -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Wood Elf (alternative: Island Aumaua) -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Aedyr - Colonist -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats (char creation): MIG: 15 CON: 08 DEX: 08 PER: 15 INT: 17 RES: 15 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Stealth 0, Athl. 2, Lore 6, Mech. 0, Surv. 14 -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Intense Flames ® Shielding Flames (!) Scion of Flame ® Shielding Touch ® Weapon Focus: Soldier Weapon & Shield Style Deep Faith Arms Bearer (!) Abilities Flames of Devotion Coordinated Attacks(!) Distant Advantage (a) Faith and Conviction (a) Inspiring Triumph ® Lay on Hands ® Sacred Immolation ® Reinforcing Exhortation (or Aegis of Loyality if no priest) Sworn Enemy (!) Zealous Focus ® --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional echantments by me; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: Cladhaliath (*durgan refined, *marking, *coordinating, *burning lash) & Outworn Buckler (*legendary, *durgan reinforced) Weapon set 2: arquebus Weapon set 3: arquebus Boots: Boot of Zealous Command Head: Munacra Arret Armor: Osric's Family Breastplate, then Ryona's Breastplate Neck: Cloak of Protection Belt: Coil of Resourcefulness Rings: Ring of Changing Heart, Ring of Deflection Hands: Spirit Spiral Quick slots: scrolls & figurines ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hi! Another colaboration of Jojobobo and me. This time I evolved a char concept around Jojobobo's idea of having a Shieldbearer who is kind of a diplomat and using Sworn Enemy + Zealous Focus + charm to generate a lot of charm-crits (because Sworn Enemy's ACC bonus works with everything). With this a paladin could somewhat substitute a cipher (when it comes to mind control) and add even more usefulness to his class. Since it only takes two abilities (that you can always make use of with a paladin) I tried to spin this idea of a diplomat/supporter/mind controller further and make this paladin a jack of all trades when it comes to support besides the usual Lay on Hands and stuff. So I threw together some of the nice build ideas that are already out, namely the Darcozzi Forward Obrserver (buff ACC) by Torm51, Sh!t's on Fire (high FoD damage) by limaxophobiacq and the Rauatai Captain (buff deflection) by SImpleEnigma - kudos to the authors of those builds. Check out their stuff, too. Then I shook the whole thing and out came this whizkid: 1. Boosting party's deflection (and other defenses): 1.a. Shielding Touch (+12 single ally) The Shieldbearer can use several abilites and items to raise his comrades' deflection. First of all there's Shielding Touch. To my surprise, despit being a passive addition to Lay on Hands, it works like Reinforcing Exhortation - this means it doesn't stack with other non-passive deflection buffs like Cautious Attack, Shields for the Faithful and also not with Reinf. Exhortation. But it's still good because team members that need healing from Lay on Hands usually are under attack - and that deflection comes in handy then. It's also good that it works on yourself (Reinf. Exh. doesn't). 1.b. Shielding Flames (+10 AoE): This is even better. When using FoD you will provide +10 deflection for nearly all party members (with high INT the AoE is realy big). +10 doesn't sound like too much - but it stacks with everything, and that's great. 1.c. Outworn Buckler (+5 to all defenses AoE) Everybody knows it's one of the best shields in the game. The herald bonus stucks with everything - with high INT you'll cover the whole party - awesome 1.d. Inspiring Triumph (+7 to all defenses AoE) Another AoE deflection buff. On kill you will raise deflection by +7 in the same AoE as Shielding Flames and it also stacks with everything! So when you shoot somebody with intense FoD + Scion of Flame + Sworn Enemy and he dies the whole party will instantly get +17 deflection - nice. Later, with Sacred Immolation, it will be triggeres all the time. It's an awesome synergy. 1.e. Reinforcing Exhortation It seems to be better than Shielding Touch since both don't stack, but seriously you can't have enough deflections boosts because they don't last forever. Once a shielding touch expires or if you want to give deflection only without healing, this is good. If you feel it's too much redundance with Shielding Toch, use Aegis of Loyality instead - it beautifully fits the theme and is very useful if you don't have a priest (which I had). All in all you can pile up +47 deflection on a single target, +22 in a big AoE and +12 to all other defenses in the same AoE. This guy turns even squishy party members into (tiny) tanks. 2. Providing ACC for an ally 2.a. Coordinated Attacks (+10 single ally) It's like marking - if you attack an enemy and one of your party members does this as well, he will get +10 ACC which will stack with everything else. 2.b. Marking Weapon (+10 single ally) Like above. It's like Coordinated Attacks on a weapon. Stacks with everything 2.c. Zealous Focus (+6 AoE) What can I say - you know it. You will boost the ACC of a single ally by 26 points if you attack thge same target. If you flank, you will provide the equivalent of 36 points of ACC. This is extremely helpful against tough enemies which are difficult ot hit or to disable. With this guy, annoying dragons and such with affliction like prone, stun etc. is easy. 3.: Crit-charming or -dominating 3.a. Whisper of Treason With Munacra Arret you can get an early item with 3 uses per rest which has fast cast. It also has +10 ACC which is nice. I took Enigma's Charm first but retrained because it has this annoying 5 sec delay and is an average cast. I seldomly used it, so I took something else instead. Later you can buy Spirit SPiral which will give you 3 more per rest. 3.b. Sworn Enemy +15 ACC for your charms, fast cast, no hit roll, lasts for the whole encounter, has an awesome range and also will give you +20% damage when the time comes that your charms wear off - nice! 3.c. Zealous Focus: +6 ACC for your charms 3.d. Ring of Changing Heart: the dominate effect has no ACC bonus and it's only 2/rest, BUT it can be cast outside of combat, and that can be a big plus. 3.e. Distant Advantage: the main reason (besides the background) I took Wood Elf. +5 ACC for your charms. SInce Sworn Enemy has such a long range, most of the time the enemy you want to charm is far away so this works. And what most people forget: it also works with the edges of your Sacred Immolation if the AoE is big enough and also gives you +5 deflection and reflex against distant enemies. This is good against spells and arrows as well as wing slams or breath attacks. You can pile up +36 ACC for your Whispers and +26 for your Dominations. It nearly always crits. A crit with Whisper oT with high INT leads to a charm that lasts longer than 20 sec. By the way I insta-crit-charmed all dragons (which were not immune) right at the start of the encounter which makes those fights a lot easier. 4.: Killing Stuff 4.a. Distant Advantage: with your arquebus shots you will have +5 ACC as well as for enemies which are at the edges of your Sacred Immolation. 4.b. Zealous Focus +6 ACC for everything, including FoD and Sacred Immolation. 4.c. FoD +50% burning lash and +20 ACC with that two arquebuseses. 4.d. Intense Flames +25% lash for your FoD arquebuses 4.e. Burning lashes on all your weapons 4.f. Scion of Flame Boosts the cumulated burning lashes from 100% to 120% - most of the time your additional burn damage will be higher than the original damage from the arquebus. With this, killing a weak foe and triggering Shielding Flames as well as Inp. Triumph is easy. It also boosts yout Immolation of course. 4.g. Coordinating on your Cladhaliath Since you always want to attack a foes that another team member attacks in order to trigger marking and stuff (see above), coordinating is one of the best enchantaments for you. Sure, your spear is not a dps tool and you are fairly slow without any big dmg mods, but the high ACC and the +25% bonus damage are nice nonetheless. 4.h. Mob Justice or The Mercyless Hand or Second Skin (optional) Mob Justice not only adds to the ACC of spear and coordinating, but also lets you get Cladhaliath a lot earlier. Tkis also counts if the paladin is not the MC. The Merciless Hand can balance out the lower crit damage of arquebuses. Since your high ACC with FoD often leads to crits, this talent would be a good pick. Second Skin is not so superuseful here, but if you don't want to use Cladhaliath (or want if for a different char) then Shame & Glory is your only single handed melee alternative. This also works of course if the paladin is not the MC, like with Mob Justice/Dozens. 4.i. Runner's Wounding Shot (optional) When using an Island Aumua, you can take Runner's Wounding Shot and an additional arquebus. Skip Deep Faith then. This will deal similar damage than an FoD shot - instead of 90% burniung lash you will have 80% raw DoT. With the Coil of Resourcefulness your switching works well without any talent. 5.: Tanking Defenses are great (as always with paladins). With Ryona's Breastplate and Outworn Buckler as well as Weapon & Shield Style you can take over the role of the main tank or a second tank or play an offtank role, it doesn't matter much. Your defenses are good enough to tank dragons for a short time (until the charms or the disabling works). Alltogether you will have a very sturdy frontliner who can - boost deflection/all defenses up to +47(single), +27/+12 (AoE) - raise the ACC up to 36 (flank+single) and +16 (flank+AoE) - charm up to 6 times per rest and dominate 2 times rest - most of them crits - tank & kill Enjoy!

<will insert backstory and picture here > <or maybe not...> =================================== The Cauterizer =================================== Difficulty: PotD -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Barbarian -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Fire Godlike (optional) -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: The Living Lands - Colonist -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 19 CON: 10 DEX: 09 PER: 18 INT: 19 RES: 03 -------------------------------------------------------------- Skills: Survival 12 (+2 from Sanguine Plate) We can't use Second Wind from Athletics because you will hit yourself with Battle-Forged's burn retaliation when using Second Wind (bug). -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) 2: Veteran's Recovery ® 4: Weapon Focus Soldier® 6: Accurate Carnage® 8: Rhymer's Summons 10: Scion of Flame 12: Two Handed Style 14: Apprentice's Sneak Attack 16: Savage Attack Abilities 0: Carnage(a) 1: Frenzy(!) 3: Savage Defiance 5: One Stands Alone® 7: Blood Thirst 9: Bloodlust 11: Heart of Fury 13: Dragon Leap 15: Blooded Story Talents: - The Merciless Hand - Gift from the Machine - Dungeon Delver - Song of the Heavens - Hylea's or Galawain's Boon --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (!=important, r=recommended): Weapon Set 1: Firebrand (!) / some backup Great Sword (Justice for example) Weapon Set 2: some arquebus or arbalest Boots: Shod in Faith ® Head: none (Fire Godlike) Armor: Sanguine Plate ® Neck: Lost Periapt of the Winding Path Belt: Belt of the Ryoal Deadfire Cannoneer (!) Rings: Iron Circle, Band of Union Hands: Forgemaster's Gloves (!) --------------------------------------------------------------- Hi! A late build for PoE since recently the traffic in this forum rose again and I never posted my favorite Barb build since the Deafire Pack came out. The Cauterizer combines two very strong things: Firebrand and Blood Thirst. Firebrand has immense base damage and thus works very well with all sorts of dmg bonuses, including crits. Unfortunately you can't enchant it and so - most of the time - other weapons become better options when reaching the late(ish) game, mainly because of Durgan Steel and its speed bonus. But Blood Thirst helps: it can completely remove the need for attack speed bonuses IF you can manage to kill quickly enough. And nothing kills stuff more quickly (and triggers Blood Thirst with the kill) than Firebrand + Carnage. Add as many dmg bonuses as you can because you want to max out the damage per attack (not dps - dps comes from the removal of recovery through Blood Thirst). So the stuff I picked (Scion of Flame and so on) is there to increase damage per hit. You also want to crit as much as possible because Firebrand has Annihilation. In combo with Merciles Hand and Dungeon Delver you'll do +90% crit damage which is so powerful combined with the high base dmg of Firebrand. Good thing about Carnage: it may start off quite underwhelming because of its reduced damage and more importantly reduced accuracy - BUT: Carnage gains +1 ACC per char level. Combined with Accurate Carnage you will surpass the ACC of your initial hits at lvl 6 already. The more levels you gain the more likely you crit with Carnage. After lvl 6 it's better to attack a low deflection target in order to better hit a high deflection target with Carnage. The best way to use this is to gather the enemies and then hack away at them. Best to not jumo into their midst since this build has low RES (unless you have Heart of Fury). Better jump to the edge of a cluster. Squishy enemies may get one-shotted and immediately trigger Blood Thirst (and Bloodlust) which leads to a cascade of burning death strokes with no recovery. Kills with Battle Forgedalso trigger Blood Thirst - I found that to be a nice addition - also because it works with Blooded and Scion of Flame. Even more speed if you get hit. In game pre lvl 7 you have Frenzy to speed you up and balance out the lowish DEX a bit. With Sanguine Plate you can even get several Frenzies per encounter. Also great for your fortitude, healing and health loss. "But Boeroer: sometimes there are not that many squishy enemies and then I will be left with that very slow burning attacks!" True - that's where Rhymer's Summons come into play. The fun part is that Blood Thirst and Bloodlust also trigger if you kill your own skeletons. Carnage still applies to enemy bystanders. So... only one or two tough enemy left at the end of a fight and you need more speed? Good you summoned those incredibly squishy skeletons and can now kill them for insane attack speed! If you don't like that part of the build (because it feels like cheese or something) just pick Barbaric Blow. At the same time we don't want to go down all the time while we swing around. Because of that we maxed outr self healing potential. 14 Survival leads to a +60% healing bonus which applies to Savage Defiance and Consecrated Ground and Veteran's Recovery: tons of virtual endurance. Health is usually no issue with Barbs, even at 10 CON. But you need some levels to feel the effect. So play it safe in the early levels (like always with barbs). Your biggest friend in the party is somebody who debuffs enemies' deflection and your ACC - for example a druid with Nature's Mark or a Wizard with Eyestrike and a Priest with Blessing + Devotions and so on. You want crits! You also want Holy Meditation because your concentration is pretty bad. This combo is so devastating that my jaw literally (not figuratively) dropped the first time I used Blood Thirst and Firebrand together. He cauterizes enemies in half so quickly that other party members sometimes even don't get them chance to finish a spell. *whoosh-whoosh-whoosh* done. You may not want to use Tidefall as backup because wounding kills don't trigger Blood Thirst. It's too good to use it as backup anyway. You'll have 6 uses of Firebrand per rest (gloves + belt uses do stack!). Usually that's more than enough from camp to camp. That's also a reason why I don't use Runner's Wounding Shot. Enjoy!

But it is amusing to watch.

i mean, @Waskialready has one under their belt, right, so why not? Blow some OBS minds because I don't think it's a well-known cheese.

Physical media? Did you have to defeat a lich to uncover that artifact of a bygone era? Were you able to decipher the long forgotten language contained within? What mysteries does it hold?

I figure they won't even bother to change their passwords. A tweet or two perhaps is the most you can expect. Remember that time when the NSA was caught tapping Merkel's phone? That was fun.

Until now they always made a game using someone else's setting. With this backlash, maybe it will be harder for them to piggyback on another established setting. Maybe it'd be good for them to come up with their own setting.

Correct me if I'm wrong... isn't espionage an act of war? Doesn't anyone thing the President, either of them... should say something about this? I'm not suggesting we expel all ambassadors and go to DEFCON 2 but surely there is SOMETHING they should be doing?

Conan Exiles is getting some big changed to their expansion: https://www.conanexiles.com/blog/isle-of-siptah-producer-letter/ I'm impressed. Funcom is pretty hit or miss on some stuff, but they definitely have shown a ton of commitment to Conan Exiles and really seem to take player feedback into account. The addition of NPC factions and camps makes me very happy. The Isle of Siptah is beautiful and I've enjoyed exploring it lately. The weather effects are extremely well done. It will really improve the experience to have some more NPC's around to tangle with. Regardless, it is pretty crazy how this game has gone from one I was pretty meh about at release to possibly my favorite game of all time. It is definitely ahead of all of the RPG's and MMO's I've played.

The Ampere owners: Me:

I think it's adorable that people think when a digit on the calendar changes everything's just magically going to be better.

Solid, balanced build. If you have some things to think about: - The case doesn't have a USB-C port. If that would be something useful to you, look to (looking at other mesh type cases) the Corsair 4000D, Phanteks P500A, Fractal Design Meshify S2 (or the newer Meshify 2, but expensive), or be quiet! Pure Base 500DX. - I think the Cooler Master 212 line, while long having been the budget king, is starting to show its age. Of other products in this price range, consider the Arctic Freezer 34 (cheapest), be quiet! Pure Rock 2 (quietest) or Arctic Freezer 34 eSports Duo (best performance). - The Corsair RMx is slightly better than the plain RM and it looks like it can be had cheaper, or at least same price.

Yeah that is why it is against Rule of Law mechanism, which puts sanctions to countries that follow principals in article 2 of the treaty of the European Union But I know that other EU member states are conspiring against Poland and Hungary with their unfounded beliefs that democracy and human rights are something that EU member states should respect, just like how president Trump was cheated from having second term by tyrannical opposition that conspired with media to take power from poor and defenseless government.

News out of Korea suggests nVidia will be sticking with Samsung for Ampere rather than moving to TSMC mid 2021 as rumoured a while ago. May or may not be related but TSMC is also ending bulk purchase discounts for their big customers, of whom nVidia would have been a pretty big one had they switched back.

Shorthand for overclock.

I'd say Wild Orlan because Defiant Resolve is great in all dragon fights (Dragon's fear aura constantly triggers it and keeps it up even if it doesn't hit).

"I've always lit it in many places so it would burn in many places" -NPC

Got a text with an update on my 3080, it's being picked and sent today. So I expect something early next week.

Did anyone else notice the Alpha Protocol cameo in that announcement?

Caught Tenet. It feels very much like Nolan going for an artistic turn of a spy film. It's got fairly good performances, some very nice visuals and interesting sequences, but then it's wrapped around one of those "We're using time travel as an excuse to do things" plots. The time inversion again, is an interesting idea, but the very nature of the story leaves all sorts of things hanging and unexplained. Which I guess adds to the whole sense of secrecy, misdirection, and temporal inversion loops. Robert Pattinson definitely seems to be clearing the bad taste of Twilight away, while the main character literally refers to himself as "I'm the protagonist" a few times, and doesn't have any other name.

I guess as soon as they either don't want free money anymore, or if they want to go back under russian leadership.

I finished Yakuza: Like a Dragon, fantastic game. It's essentially Dragon Quest in the Yakuza universe and as weird as that may sound it works really well. The ending... *deep breath* You want to talk about emotional, holy **** it was intense. Ryu Ga Gotoku sure know how to end a game.

That moment when you see a character with a backer name in the game and they are called Catherine Jones, call sign "Zeta"... And it is one of the better names.

First of all you missed your third companion: besides Aloth who's standing in front of the tavern there's also Edér, appr. 20 meters north of Aloth, standing at the tree with the hanged people. In order to get im to join your party you talk to the soul of the animacer dwarven lady that was hanged. After that he will say "seventeen and a half" when you pass by him and that opens up a dialogue where you can invite him to your party. He's a fighter. Then you don't need to do the Temple of Eothas right away since it's quite hard. First do some other quest in town. Some of those will lead you out of town (and back). On the way you will cross Magran's Fork where you can pick up Durance, a priest. He's hard to miss. Priests are the most impactful class in PoE if you play with a party because their buffs are extremely good. Give him Inspiring Radiance as talent since it stacks with everything and +10 accuracy in the early game is a lot and it's usable 1/encounter. You can combine this with Blessing (+5 ACC) - they stack but Blessing is a normal priest spell which means it's a per-rest spell. Then - while it's counterintuitive but still very helpful - you can also pick up Kana Rua (Chanter) at the entrance of Caed Nua. You don't need to go in (it's tough!) but just talk to him and return to town with him. You can go back later. Temple of Eothas isn't easy in general, especially the Shades which you will encounter on the second level are very strong. Besides getting Edér, Durance and Kana I would highly recommend to also hire an adventurer (custom party member) in the tavern for a few bucks - even if he/she's just filling a gap until you find more "official" companions later. Pick what you like. Rogues (high ACC, high DMG), Monks (high ACC, high defenses, lots of resources), Fighters (high ACC, high defenses, auto-heal) and Paladins (high defenses, great healing ability) and Priests (Inspiring Radiance) are quite good at the early levels. What early stuff you want to pick/use: Wizard/Aloth: - Arcane Assault: it's 2/encounter and really not bad. - Chillfog: this spell is the best 1-level spell. It applies blinded which is very strong and does freeze dmg periodically. Even if the enemies are resistant to frost dmg they still get blinded which helps a LOT in the early game. You can cast multiple Chillfogs - they stack. - Combusting Wounds: it will get triggered by every pulse of Chillfog which makes for an awesome combo - especially if you have two wizards who can stack up several Chillfogs. - Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff: it comes with exceptional quality which is very good in the early game and it has enormous base damage. It also heals per hit which is a neat bonus oon top. It's def. the best dmg output you can have for a single spell use in the early game. Durance: - Inspring Radiance as I said. If you have two Priests (Durance + custom) you can haven them both cast this - it stacks with itself. - Consecrated Ground: good healing. You can cast it right before you calsh and don't need to wait for a party member to get injured (because of then it's too late to react). Edér: - Disciplined Barrage: +20 ACC is insane in the early game. Stacks with Inspiring Randiance (+10) but not Blessing (+5) of the priest. - Knockdown: Edér has it anyway iirc. - Weapon Focus <Edér's favorite weapon>: +6 ACC is very good in the early game. Kana: - But Reny Daret's Ghost, He would not Rest: while the Phantom is not that great later in the game it's extremely powerful in the early game. If you manage to stall the fight long enough to bring this out it's often winning the fight for you. - White Worms: this invocation is very impactful if there are a lot of corpses lying around. Every corpse in the area of effect will explode and deal damage. The more corspes the more ridiculous the damage. Corpses don't get cosumed by this - they can explode over and over again. They also don't get removed unless you reload the map (like load a savegame or leave/re-enter the map). So you can imagine if you manage to lure a lot of enemies to a certain narrow spot (for example a doorway) over and over again the pile becomes quite big and often you can one-shot whole groups of enemies with the corpses of their fellows . It's best to let Edér scout forward and then pull enmies towards Kana who's already starting to sing his song so when Edér arrives Kana can directly unleash the invocation. For this invocation you should decativate the "gib" option in the game menu. Gibbed enemies explode on crit-death and will leave no corpse. No corpse = bad. Also certain enemies like spirits and oozes don't leave corpses. This invocation is very, very useful in Raedric's castle which is also in the early game. In the Temple of Eothas it's good on the 1. floor (spiders and stuff leave corpses) but not so much on the second floor because most enemies leave no corpse there. Here the Phantom is def. better. The best general tactic is to use Edér as tank and place him at a chokepoint like a doorway, blocking the way to the rest of the group. Heal him if necessary and do stuff like Chillfog + Combusting Wounds + ranged or reach attacks from behind him. Make shure Chillfogs don't hit him but only the enemy. In gerenal you might find some places that feel extremely hard to deal with. Nearly always those are places you can come back to later. Don't force it. The only encounter which is really hard and mandatory is the fight in Caed Nua (the castle) against some Phantoms. The rest is always optional and you can come back after gaining another level. Often that's all the improvement you need to win then.

Forbidden Fist is my preferred Monk class. To me it's absolutely awesome. However, it kind of forces you to play with high RES (if you want to be effective). The higher the better. Combined with items/food etc. that shorten hostile effects. Because besides Dance of Death, Mortification of the Soul and the late passives like Parting Sorrow and Imagined Pain you only gain wounds when hostile effects expire. And the shorter those effects the better. Hence high RES etc. With high RES and stacked buffs that reduce hostile effect duration your Forbidden Fist curse usually lasts < 3 secs no matter your INT. Also you can use Clarity of Agony to end hostile effects and shorten incoming ones tremendously. The Forbidden Fist ability is just great because of the Enfeeblement it causes and the damage it does. I usually don't use any other offensive stuff until Whispers of the Wind. Since it's implemented like a spell (it still uses your unarmed stats and scaling) you can even use it when you are using another weapon. So you alsways have a crush damage backup without using a second weapon slot. Everything that puts an hostile effect on you can be turned into a wound generator. Look at Hylea's Talons. The duration of the DoT it applies to you becomes extremely short and when it expires you get a wound. The mechanic enables you to play a very tanky monk without starving for wounds. There are even tricks like stepping into Tanglefoot to get wounds. One guy made a Berserker/Forbidden Fist and wore the Footsteps of the Beast so he could hobble himself all the time with lots and lots of short-lived drop traps of frost --> tons of wounds. For focus on the early game you shouldn't raise MIG too high because the self damage of the curse can be very punishing without the right gear. So better keep the self damage down a little by not adding too much MIG. High PER (helps best in the early game) and max RES, normal DEX (don't be too fast with the cursed punches or else you kill yourself) and INT. Not too low CON because of the curse. I would pick a small shield in the early game. Later Tuotilo's Palm is great. Also pick Mortification of the Soul because in the early game you can experience a shortage of wounds. Good combos are anything where you can exploit the Enfeeblement of the Forbidden Fist: for example Cipher/Forbidden Fist with a Morning Star (note that Forbidden Fist ability doesn't generate focus without the Community Patch mod): apply enfeebled and Body Blows and then cast Disintegrate --> Disintegrate is most likely to hit or even crit and lasts 50% longer (100% on crit). Also Charm and Dominate will last a lot longer. It pairs very well with Trickster as Shadowdancer. Use Mirrored Images + Riposte and also Repulsive Visage etc. 50% longer Toxic Strikes are devastating - same as 50% longer Arterial Strikes. Forbidden Fist/Bloodmage can also be very good, but maybe only after a few levels. I think for the early game a Forbidden Fist/Trickster, a Forbidden Fist/Beguiler (no need to cause dmg to gain focus) or Forbidden Fist/Steel Garotte (superprolonged Garotte ability) may be most fun. Everything that's front loaded with good abilities right from the start.

Something weird is up with injuries now and I really don't understand how it made it into the game, since it wasn't there at 5.0 release. Whenever you have 1 injury minimum there seems to be a really high chance to die while under the influence of bdd. It's almost impossible to figure out whats happening because of stupid instant you died screen and no way to pause in time or read log after. If this persists I guess I'll record me play to see whats happening...

EU should return Poland and Hungary to Russia.

No. It's not a small price. Ask the board members from the US how much friction you always end up with when the federal government overrules state decisions and legislation. Here we're not talking about states that are only a couple of centuries old at best, but countries, many of which have been self governing for a millennia or more. But that is sort of besides the point. Back when it was still the EC (the predecessor of the EU). Brussels was something too far away, with a commission that worked more like a board of directors, all of it's members being appointed, not elected. The European parliament has always been a joke. Back when I was still living there, it was a meme, that politicians who fell from grace in their home countries for this and that scandal would get the "golden handshake". Which was sending them to the European Parliament where they would spend all their time lining their pockets with unbelievable salaries and tax benefits. Out of sight, out of mind, not doing too much damage anymore in their country of origin. Which means, the real power is the commission. EU was the move to centralize legislative power in Brussels, gradually turning national parliaments into something that is just a token gesture while all decision making should be done in Brussels, overriding any national legislation the member countries. I.e. effectively turning member countries into vassals of a powerful Brussels, which as mentioned before is not ruled by an elected body. It makes it too easy for large and powerful corporations, banks, other interest groups etc. to assert themselves, because there is only one point they need to convince if they want local laws changed to suit their needs. Don't like the minimum wages in country x, y and z? No worries, tell your lobbyists in Brussels to "get it fixed" and local law making bodies can do nothing. So no, I don't think the EU is beneficial to Europeans. It's predecessor organization was, because it was a trade block, benefitting the member countries. The current project is just a power grab by the eurocrats in Brussels, wanting a strong, centralized power in a new "super state", doing away with the member countries sovereignty. So yeah, as far as I'm concerned, the EU can rot and burn and I'll happily watch the flames while sipping aforementioned Cognac, pondering the folly of man who just can't seem to learn anything from history. The bigger they become, the harder they fall. I would like to invite you to the anarchists club, but there is no organization you can join, too disorganized

While I didn't run solo wizard, moon godlike would be safe bet. Probably strongest racial bonus in game - three healing waves which will be both useful source of healing and "panic" effect

The biggest effect Cyberpunk had: It allowed LadyCrimson to pass Guard Dog on the Obsidian forum Leaderboard by a margin of 6 points. Brought to you by Melkathi - News That Matter

EU lost its way when they decided they wanted to be a giant nation state rather than a trade block. (proud "no!" voter to the Maastricht treaty 1992) Not living there anymore, I'm slightly indifferent to the whole thing (unlike in 1992 when the referendum was taking place in Denmark), but if Poland decides to pack up and leave some day, I'm going to laugh my ass off at the British. As mentioned previously, the lack of a mechanism for stopping the Polish immigrants moving to the UK was constantly repeated argument for the 'leave' side. Take control of our border, we are a sovereign nation... all the usual nationalist rhetoric. If it in 5-10 years turns out they could have saved the whole referendum thing and uncountable billions of British Pounds... then yeah, I'll sit and chuckle while sipping on my Cognac (made in France) The Fish and Chips were Ok though.