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I guess it depends on your definition of backwards...there have been a number of advanced for their time civilizations in Africa. Egypt/Kemet in North Africa which had grown from the Tasian, Badari, Amaranti, Gerza lands, plus trade partner/occasional subject/occasional ruler Nubia/Kush are examples of advanced civilizations in Africa. North Africa was also home of Carthage that managed to hold off the Roman empire for awhile and was a pretty remarkable country. While the land of Punt is still speculative, I believe the general current consensus puts it in east Africa (Ethiopia/Eritrea area). That same area held Aksum, a major country in trade. The Mali and Songhai empires were centered in west Africa. When the Mali empire was at its height, only the Mongol empire held more territory, from what I understand (although the Mongol Empire was still 9 times larger, so there was a big gap between #1 and #2). The Ghana empire predated and was eventually absorbed into the Mali empire. Great Zimbabwe - in the area of Botswana, modern Zimbabwe and Mozambique - was another wealthy trade empire, with an impressive (now ruined) stone capitol city. You also get the Kongo Kingdom which was born of two earlier kingdoms, the Mbata kingdom and Mpemba Kasi. So in general, while there were strong and advanced civilizations, they were laid waste by the things that lay waste to all countries: time, changes in circumstance (invasion, internal strife, loss of trade goods, environmental changes). Egypt, Nubia/Kush and Carthage were conquered by Rome (I believe, Nubia briefly conquered Egypt, and then Egypt and the Assyrians regained it, but the end seems to lie in Rome). The fate of Punt, like its location, is speculative, but by the later Kingdoms of Egypt was treated as an almost mythological land of plenty, so its decline so early in what we have records of probably leads to its mysterious fate. Aksum & Zimbabwe seem to have suffered drops in trade that ultimately led to their collapse. Aksum splintered into other countries/kingdoms and part was taken control of by other countries. As mentioned the Ghana empire collapsed, speculatively due to collapsing from Islamic invaders. Mali was greatly decreased by the rise of the Songhai empire. The Songhai empire had a succession crisis involving the king and his sons that weakened the nation. Morocco (founded from areas conquered from the Byzantine Empire by the Umayyad Caliphate) was able to conquered both empires. The Kongo Kingdom was slowly converted after a Portuguese explorer found the kingdom and started spreading Christianity; it was subsequently destroyed in a series of wars with Portugal and the Dutch. Modern Africa primarily doesn't really take shape until the colonial lands begin to gain independence (the last one in 1977!), and some areas have faired better post-colonialism than others, and their success or lack of happens for a variety of reasons. So there's not a single answer really as there is not a single reason or source for the development of the continent, but a tapestry of reasons woven through time and through various lands and peoples with differing desires and goals.

Is this that old joke? "Why is the US similar to a loaf of bread? After 300 years both will develop some form of culture..."

Thank you for your answer! And indeed kudos to @Elric Galad and CP team for their great work!

4 important changes for the upcoming next version of Balance Polishing Mod : - Brilliant unerfed to some extant, will restore up to Tier 3/6/9 within 18s cycles. Each tick of Brilliant is basically worth 1 cast of Blood Sacrifice (except it's not random but cycled) - Added Potion of Enlightenment new item (developped by Noqn) as a mean of making Brilliant less necessary. It is a very expensive consumable that restore 1 ressource every 30s for the duration of the fight. It is meant to make Megaboss battle more manageable without Brilliant. 1 ressource /30s isn't much, starts to matter more with a full party taking it (which is equivalent to a single party member under Brilliant effect). - Removed Dorudugan nerf. (I will create an archive package for such discarded changes, in case some people still want to use them) - Big rework on specialist wiz bar Evoker. My opinion is that Bloodmage is still be very good, but is meant to rely on an insane versatility. Need to spam Thrust of Tattered Veil ? You can. Need to rely on a specific summoned weapon ? You will never run out. Etc... I'm still hunting various cheese (Strand of Favor is on my list) which might have an impact on Solo play. BPM isn't mean to be balanced for Solo play. Its intention is to help making more or less every party viable. There are probably new combination because of the buffed abilities though. Just be warned that I hadn't Solo in mind.

Solasta official release is May 27th. I haven't bothered with the early access as I've been waiting for the full release

Maybe, but so far only Steven can eat like Usagi.

SU episode 7 American male Usagi finds his Mamo-chan and loses his funky flow.

I didn't say that it's strange. I said it is more powerful than Engoliero do Espirs' Blade Feast. The paralyzation is irresistible (meaning resistances won't make a noticable difference because resistant enemies still become paralyzed). No megaboss has immunity to dex or body afflictions iirc. What are the meanest foes with such an immunity (I can't really remember)? Yes, but it's a bit of a "win more" thing. It's fun of course but in fights where you have trouble killing stuff in the first place it doesn't really turn the tides. But still: one of the best caster items imo. Especially with a Warlock (Berserker/Bloodmage). Because Blood Thirst + Blade Feast you know. I like "win more"...

not everyone is confortable with mental health issues unfortunately, so many go unreported. there's still a stigma about it, that I'd wager is bigger among conservatives. It's also why women have higher percentages than men. The attitude still too often is "manly men don't talk or are affected by such inconsequential things as feelings."

A question which everyone has far too simple an answer for. I guess like everything in life.

Paralyze has nothing to do with mind afflictions because it's a body effect, it affects dex. There are various effects labeled stun/paralyze which are not afflictions and aren't affected by resistances/immunities to afflictions. Reforge the Flesh, the effect from Withdraw are some examples.

Yes, I guess it's unintentional. But it's also lots of fun and not too powerful imo. Not like Grave Calling for example where the Chillfog procs the irresistible paralyze.

A game where quite likely one dev asked: "What is our target audience?" and the other dev replied "Keyrock."

It's an open relationship

Yes, however (at least in my testing) the on-all-kill-effect only occurs when taking the "blade feast"-upgrade.. so I fear this is an oversight by the devs and I'm a bit reluctant to use it .. I think it still fits thematically and won't make for a completely broken weapon (and it's supposed to be a mighty weapon in the first place) .. but still

I think Multiclass characters work very well in a party as well - as long as you want to dabble in more complex character building/working on synergies. Depends on class, really. General rule of thumb: casters are great SC (not necessarily ciphers and chanters, although still work well as SC; anyway hybrids are still very possible for all casters), martials are usually better as MC (monk excels as either MC or SC). Regarding Assassin/Bloodmage, in general that'd feel like a solo inclined character. However if one wants to play in Turn Based mode, it also works great in a party in that mode at least. A lot more squishy in real-time. The trick is to dissapear (and be virtually untargettable/uninterruptible) and bombard enemies with +25 Accuracy, +4 PEN and +50% Crit damage spells.... or stay invisible with Brilliant Departure and torment enemies with +25 Accuracy CC. Well, it may not be quite as broken with the Balance Polishing Mod, I guess. But there is no real clash with party play, since you're not relying on kiting/breaking combat/DoTs ticking, etc.

Hah, right. But one more reason to have good alternative weapon sets, right? Dmg variety is much more important in Deadfire than it is in PoE. Underpenetration is a severe disadvantage that has to be avoided. So best not to roleplay a Devoted with something else than a Devoted.

As I wrote in another thread (where I told the stuff about Shared Nightmares/Soul Blade) the proc of Current's Rush (which does crush dmg) is an AoE which can proc itself(!) as Ondra's Wrath used to. If you have enough enemies in the AoE it can lead to a chain reaction that means instadeath (of enemies I mean). Since it only happens on crit this might mean it's not working so well on high defense enemies - but as I also wrote I had fabulous results with it on a SC ranger (bc. of Driving Flight + Twinned Shot maximizing proc chance) - with the normal AoE. So I reckoned it could be as good with a non-ranger but a huuuge AoE. It may take some time to proc on a single enemy, but when it does and there's enough enemies around it has the potential to go *boom-boom-boom* all the way. It was a killer on that SC Ranger (also with Whirling Strikes in combo with club+modal).

OK got it then per @Elric Galad comment you should still have a lot of ways around those long and tough fights with Blood Mage and others with the polishing mod. And to your last question, in a party I would recommend SC for versatility and power because you can fulfill other key roles with your coterie. But of course all the aforementioned Multiclasses will still work well - not so much the Assassin Blood Mage though, his inherent deal is more Solo. And by the way to the great people behind the Community Patch, Polishing mod etc thanks for all the awesome work!

Steven Universe Together Breakfast. Wtf who puts popcorn on waffles, throw some chicken on instead if you're doing anything. Steven's taste is dubious lmao. Right now I'm starting to like Garnet's deadpan delivery a bit over Pearl's potentiall madcap antics, Amethyst is my least favorite in a way where I don't hate her but I'm not excited when she's on screen like I am for the other two. Episode 5: Frybo's revenge. Funny and a spotlight on Pearl, which is nice. Episode 6: Cat Fingers. ..... ..... .... OH MY GOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!!

Nah, I am not into solo (purely for plot reason, you can't hear your companions' interesting comments in a solo run). (Also no Triple Crown because I sometimes will regret my plot decisions.) However, I want to be as little dependent on one particular party composition as possible, so that I can bring any party member I like, if that makes sense. The 'viable' part means contribute meaningfully to the long-winding boss/megaboss fights and all these tough mob fights scattered acrosss the Deadfire Archipelago.

I think the thing I most dislike about dropping from 6 to 5 party members is that there are so many more cool weapons than there are hands to use them!

@Not So Clever Houndbecause of bot/spam/flood control new forum posters need to have their first posts approved by a mod to get them published. Those posts will appear as soon as they get approved with the original timestamp (when the poster hit the save button basically). That can be confusing because it indeed means that they get sorted before the actual end of the thread and forum users might winder how they could miss it before (they didn't, it wasn't there). This ends after 5 (? I believe) approved posts.

I promise this will be THE one. I am tired of start over and over, and this looks like what I want. Of course, I can pass by to ask some advice about itens and stuffs

See you tomorrow with some other build suggestions.

Just rechecked: Mask of the Weyc stacks with everything except Arcane Veil - and Magnificient Escape also stacks with everything except Escape (even with the Mask). I got my SC Bloodmage up to 230 deflection without any consumables and resting bonuses easily (with the help of Wall of Draining).

So at some point the valid question becomes: do you want to play a mod that nerfs certain abilities and then potentially compels you to use more side-cheese to be able to Solo well, or rather play the vanilla game with all the class' well-documented cheese? I'm not partial to one or the other - just saying that a lot of Solo viability relies upon some form of cheese anyway. Which makes sense for a party-focused game without a "lone wolf" built-in feature, yet that allows and even promote Solo experience.

SC can also use Potion of final stand. Keep in mind that if you used only a level 7 spell WoD will restore that spell guaranteed, so 3 sec CD is not a problem. Against Dorudugan you'd have to swallow the bitter apple of having to presummon 3 hostile fire blights with a combo of wearing Magran's chosen belt and hitting yourself with Concelhauts Draining missiles (which is only a level 2 spell so brilliant from SOF has you covered. It would potentially be possible even without SOF, but you are already limiting yourself by playing a mod that heavily nerfs the class you want to play.

Mask of the Weyc has an Arcane-Veil-like deflection buff that stacks with other deflection buffs (don't remember if it stacks with Arcane Veil, too - since it seems to be a copy of that ability). Magnificent Escape Cape has an Escape with the +50 deflection which also stacks with other deflection buffs but not Escape itself (because direct copy I guess but who knows). At least it used to be so. Cool if you can prolong those with whatever trick (WoD, SoT, SoF etc.) Bardatto's Luxury has some inspiration stuff that used to stack with other inspirations of the same kind iirc. I don't use it much (actually only once) so maybe this isn't the case anymore.

If you never remove shroud after reequipping it, it SHOULD stack, I will test in a little bit. Most unique effects stack like this see Gipon Prudensco where the unique wording of the duration even makes it stack infinitely. On most items you can "only" restack once, like Scordeos will end up giving you max 40 accuracy to all weapons etc. For shroud you might not be able to stack int, because Int buff still says "brilliant" (also doesn't disappear when you are confused tho), but you definitely should be able to stack resource regen, its just kinda overkill, brilliant in itself is already op enough. On another note I tested if Ondra's Wave generates focus and it does indeed SEEM like it does. There just doesn't seem to be a good way to test it, what I did look at my focus before and after a "normal" sceptre hit and one where wave procs and with a decent amount of enemies my normal sceptre gives me 200-300 focus per hit while wave seems to proc 500-600.

Shared Nightmare works like INT (and other stuff like Overseeing etc). It may feel like it's not because it comes on top of a big INT bonus often. Area has the quadratic function π * radius². You won't see that much increase in radius the bigger the area. AoE increase/decrease in Deadfire is different from what it was in PoE. In PoE the INT modifier was directly multiplied with the radius - which lead to ridiculous AoE growth as soon as your INT reached certain numbers (because of quadratic growth): AoE = π * (mod_INT * radius)² Let's do an example for PoE: base radius of 5m with 30 INT --> +100% modifier; AoE = 3.142 * (2*5m)² = 314m² Let's assume Shared Nightmare was a thing in PoE and add +200% from focus: 3.142 * (4*5m)² = 1,257m² (quadrupled) In Deadfire INT and stuff like Overseeing and Shared Nightmares directly affects the area, not the radius: AoE = (π * radius²) * mod_INT Same exemplary numbers in Deadfire (5 base radius, 30 INT): AoE = 3.142 * 5² * 2 = 157m² With Shared Nightmare at +200%: AoE = 3.142 * 5² * 4 = 314m² (doubled) So naturally when you already have an AoE bonus of +100% then another +100% will not be that visible because the radius won't grow much (because a tiny increase in radius will already have a bif effect on the size of the area). Still: the area the circle will cover is doubled. In PoE the returns were increasing. Now looking at the circles in Deadfire one could think that the returns are diminishing - but mathematically they are linear. It's debateable though if they are kind of diminishing in the scope of the game - because enemies have a rel. fixed space they occupy. Even if the the area is growing in a linear fashion and you'll double it... it's the growth of the radius that's more "obviously important" to reach new enemies and not how much m² you actually cover. But radius will only crawl forward with already big AoEs - even with huge additional gains of area. You'll see a bigger increase in radius with cone-shaped AoEs (which are actually cicular sectors and not cones, because a cone is a 3D body - but whatever) because they use the formula for cicular sectors: AoE = radius²/2 * (α - sin α), where α is the angle of the "cone" which is usually listed in the tooltip. Therefore cone AoEs will grow more visible with high INT and also Shared Nightmare. Also here the radius will increase less and less with more stacked bonuses - but the "decline" of radous-growth isn't that steep as with circular AoEs. Also AoE effects with already big base radiuses will feel a lot better with high INT and Shared Nightmare than AoEs which start with small base radiuses. Check out Amplified Wave (5m base) with 30 INT and Shared Nightmare vs. Soul Shock (2.5m base) for example. If you want to have Shared Nightmare to have a big visual an practical effect you should use it with a Cipher who has 3 or even 1 INT. Not kidding, I played one quite some time ago. Only picked abilites that don't care about INT (beams, Mind Blades, Mind Lance etc.) or even were better with low INT (Disintegrate back then) and then after PL9 retrained and got the ones with AoEs, too.

NASA's Mars helicopter Ingenuity touches down on the Red Planet.