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(at least for me) New PC with SSD Hard drive : Maniacally modded the game for more than 1 year, to prevent any gamebreaking combos and encourage maximum party building diversity : Wife and daughters far away at grandparents' for vacatations while I'm working at home (at least during week daytime ) : New party built for the occasion : (expect a bit of Balance Polishing Mod self-promotion here, since some of the choice below are justified by it) - Main Character as a SC Enchanter - Beguiler / Helwalker - Kind Wayfarer / Mage Slayer - SC Stalker with bear - Priest of Wael / Psion The past year has been complicated on a personal level. Not really sad but often stressful. Now it's time to relax. Just reached Neketaka

Even then, they had a decent setup and potential (and in the case of Voyager, it stayed mostly unrealized). Discovery and Picard are utterly devoid of that. There is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do with these. The only time Discovery got any fun as a show was when they had mirror universe episodes, and that was mostly because they threw everything out and told the actors to have fun and chew the scenery in best Shatnarian tradition. It sure wasn't Star Trek, but it was fun to watch - unlike the DS9 mirror universe episodes that I generally found very annoying. Picard's entire premise is as dumb as Jar Jar Abram's opening narration of Star Trek 2009. No, the Romulan sun going supernova will not threaten the entire galaxy you hack, and no, Mr. Dreckzman, it will not cause a refugee crisis later that will threaten to undermine - or has undermined - the values of the Federation. It will cause a crisis for the Romulans, of course, but eh, other than that? Nobody's willing to take in refugees? And that's just the premise, never mind the presence of Mass Effect style mechanical reaper beings that look like Mecha-Cthulu and regularily cull organics when called upon by repressed AIs some 30 years after "The Measure of a Man". Man, how I wish I didn't make this up.

I want to learn a new instrument and, given my line of work, this seemed the ideal choice:

John de Lancie as Q is a great example of an actor spinning gold out of what should be a stupid idea. Same for Ian McDiarmid in the SW prequels playing Palpatine perfectly pantomime. You could get more or less the same stuff happening without the modern day shoehorning though, and it would likely be better with a more well thought out, organic and internally consistent explanation. I have to admit that I've blotted out most of Picard especially the final episodes (and despite not hating the lead episodes), but things like the hermit refugee Romulans turning up at a random planet with more ships than they ever seemed to have in any other ST would work a lot better if they weren't impoverished refugee hermits.

Pig (2021). To my great shame, this was actually a pretty good movie. I normally can't stand Nicholas Cage, but he did good here.

I’ve had a serious craving for Japanese food lately. There’s no good Japanese places within 500 miles of here. In fact the last place I got good food was actually in Japan. Sometimes I wish I was sitting on the wood picnic tables outside Mi House at the foot of Mt Futenma on Okinawa eating a big plate of Yaka Soba and sashimi and drinking a big steel can of Orion.

I should go.

You're one evil meanie zucchini, really.

Chibi-Usa and Pegasus in the sky.

It's something like $150, I'll pass.

You know a real Trekkie whrn they speak Tamarian. Darmok and Jalad on the ocean.

I've been goofing about in the StarCrawlers: Chimera alpha. Still really rough around the edges, and I'm hoping they won't keep the auto-heal button in the game. When you press space, turns fly by, and you have auto-healing, so when you're down on health, instead of using your consumables or anything you just stand there and wait for a spell. Well, and press space. I sure hope that won't end in a time limit. I could get behind patrols showing up eventually, or something though. Still an alpha, after all. Not liking the Force Psyker changes so far.

I faced Dorudugan this weekend, with a quite standard party, without any cheese involved (BDD + Brilliant + SoT doesn't work with my mod anyway). Without a Cipher, with ressource-limited casters, etc. Everybody glouped a Potion of Enlightenment. It was satisfying to have my SC Druid casting Pollen Patch every 30s or having my Rogue able to flee after magnetic overdrive without fearing ressource depletion. Really kept all party members relevant. Satisfying experience. Dorudugan is still a hard and technical fight. It still lasts arguably for too long. But overall, it was an epic fight. What Megabosses are intended to be (not some sort of party forcing conundrum or slow death by attrition).

Not for MC but maybe still relevant: Aloth, while not optimized stat-wise can get an (imo) awesome ability via his quest which is named "Adaptive". It lowers his grimoire switching time by 1 second which makes switching grimoires pretty fast. You can complete his quest quite early without any combat so you don't have to wait forever for this. It is kind of tricky to get the right dialogue options in oder to gain Adaptive and not the alternative ability Persistent (which is very lame in comparison imo). I got this in my current playthrough with Aloth as SC Wizard. After I ot it I retrained to mostly passives and gave him the Fleshmender armor (+2 Quickslots for grimoires) because now he could switch grimoires so quickly that I don't need to learn any spell (I did learn a few anyway of course, but only when I had to). It makes him very versatile. Also Fleshmender can give you +1 weapon slots which I used in combination with Arms Bearer so that he can have 4 weapon slots. In each slot there's a weapon set that boosts certain kinds of spells: Eye of Wael, Magran's Favor + Sun & Moon, Blightheart etc. I also thought about giving him the Giftbearer's Cloth and max history instad of Fleshmender (also +2 Quick slots) because the added non-deflection defenses would stack nicely with all the passives like Bear's Fortitude etc. - and he can buff his deflection via spells anyway. But the cape is used by sombody else in the party currently and I can't bring myself to retrain her, too (yet). Since you can turn Aloth into a Spellblade or Battlemage this might fit your demands as well? Especially with multiclass Wizards it pays off to not invest in spells but passives and Rogue- oder Fighter actives - with Aloth's "quickswitching" grimoires even more so I think. Edit: eh sorry, this was for solo. I misread a sentence. Anyway - I will keep this here. Maybe it's something not everybody already knew. One could also make the ability available via mod so that it's accessible for all wizards. Then it could be used for a main character Wizard, too. As for solo Wizard multiclass: the easiest with the best synergies for solo is Wizard/Paladin imo. I would also pick vanilla Wizard if Bloodmage isn't what you want. Paladin subclass doesn't matter that much but I liked Steel Garrote best.

I second the suggestion for a vanilla wizard. Not on your list, but a class that would add A LOT of survivability AND potential for resource regeneration would be the Tactician Fighter. At higher levels with Unbending and Wall of Draining he's virtually indestructible.

If you don't wanna go BM, then I would pick a vanilla Wizard over the other kits, especially if you solo. Losing schools of magic is too high a price to pay for 2PL. From your list the 2 combos that come to mind are: Paladin + Wizard = top survivability. You can raise your defenses very (very) high, regenerate HP, raise your spell damage with Eternal Flames. For Solo, optimal choice is probably as many have said before Steel Garrote for the life steal on weapon attacks vs. afflicted enemies. One note that might not be that useful without Bloodmage: you can reliably use Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry without using the Rekvu's Fractured Casque trick if you pick Hands of Light and prolong the Courageous Effect with WoD. Then you can pick another useful hat like Acina's Tricorn which +ACC also applies to spells. Assassin + Wizard = also very solid choice but if you like stealth playstyle. Nuke from stealth/invisibility. Or if you like hybrid you can try fun combos: e.g. gather enemies with Dazzling Light from Stealth, Terrify the pack with Enervating Terror, apply Vital Essence + Deleterious Alacrity + Zandethu's Draconic Fury and then bum-rush all those terrified enemies with devastating melee attacks while reapplying Enervating Terror / Repulsive Visage from the occasional Smoke Veil invisibility. Finish the stragglers with Precisely Piercing Burst or add a friend with Essential Phantom. Very fun! EDIT: actually for both builds Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardy is probably very helpful to get more spells/encounter otherwise as Solo you will run out very fast if not Bloodmage. For Paladin as mentioned you can use Fractured Casque or Hands of Light at higher level. For Assassin it doesn't matter as you won't really be in harm's way. Troubadour, Scion/Ascendant and Stalker could also be interesting multi but a step behind those two IMHO.

Florida Man thinks he’s a badass, shoots himself accidently

There we go, some internal padding (foam and windowseal ), veil mesh across the eyeholes. In fact, when wearing the basic black balaclava and neck seal under it, with the padding installed the rear half pretty much sticks to my head anyway so I probably won't bother giving it a forehead strap.

They need to put that quote on a card.

Clippers to get fuzz from bugs without killing them. Centipedes and/or caterpillars Crickets and craftable insect instruments Moths around the yard lights at night. Fuzzy jumping spiders. A vegetable garden (with garden spider boss) Dragonflies buzzing around the pond. Their larvae underwater would add a new threat while swimming around.

isnt Gunner a ranger only talent?

if no BM, then stay no subclass for solo. you lose too much. I would go with one of pala, troubadour, cipher.

Love the idea of crickets and music (altho', they would be really scary in size!) I think moths may have already been mentioned as an add-on eventually. In addition to a veggie garden for getting food, it would be nice to be able to plant veggies & even flowers for your base balconies or yards. Not sure how they could be sized properly, since the flowers in the world are so huge. Maybe something similar to the small mushroom sprouts that grow around the big mushrooms? Would LOVE dragonflies, but I don't think I could ever kill them. (I don't kill aphids, except accidentally - I turn down the quest to kill 10 whenever it pops up)

I am torn between watching this show or not.

Right, I forgot the part where he's actually bare chested: Yay. No, it's not. It's also really different from the weird that weirds in JoJo's. DIO gives Utena a pair of earrings and suddenly has a GIANT CARROT in his hand. I don't even WANT to know if that is supposed to mean what it maybe is supposed to mean. Now he holds the carrot to his head, like Chibi-Usa did with the horse. And there's an actual horse galloping around. Sure show!

The two are currently engaged in a photo shooting where DIO takes pictures of an almost gym god like Akio sprawled out with a bare chest on a tower of cars. Edit: Now he's eating a Rose. Presumably that Rose is Utena. Sure... really, why not. Want to take a guess? It's as good as mine, it is.

There's something I forgot to mention. It's not just DIO that is in Utena, but Mr. Screws-His-Sister is JoJo Junior from Stardust Crusaders. It's a bit weird when the two are talking to each other during their car rides.

One Blue Heeler vs two coyotes. Just reading their body language the dog is having the time of his life. It’s all a game to him. The two coyotes are genuinely afraid.

lmao USA Basketball lost to France because our players insist on bricking 3s over and over and as opposed to driving into the paint and making easy layups There was literally a situation at the end of the game where USA was down by 2 and it was 4 vs 5 with a clear lane to drive for an open 2 and instead we shot a 3, missed it and got the rebound, shot another 3 and missed it and got the rebound, and then shot another 3 and missed it. Embarrassing.

Mod updated wto Version 1.4.5 with the companions & sidekicks slight attribute buff, constitution changed to +6% health (once again, couldn't do much better) and a couple of other minor changes : Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

Wrapping up some of those final details (with some minor smears left over...) Have to admit, since the hood of the Sith robe will be up most of the time, I haven't been quite as serious as smoothing out the print of the rear half of the helmet. Put in some magnets on the inside to clip both parts together. Planning to fold some black veil mesh across the eye areas, some interior padding, and then a strap for the rear half. Hopefully it means I'll put the rear half on, and then just be able to pull the front half off whenever I want to drink/eat. Plus the magnets help guide it back to the proper place when re-attaching.

I found a similar conclusion, but a bit too tedious for my own modding taste. Let me know in case you want to do something, I know you're quite capable in such situation.

Carnage can't crit and it doesn't get converted from hit to crit. That might have messed with your impression. I went with dual Sun&Moon + Swift Flurry/HBD on a Berserker/Fighter/Monk (lvl 20) because the log mostly lists relevant attack rolls then (and you can generate dozens of attack rolls with just one strike). And it's best to not have too high ACC against test dummies - else you'll see so many natural crits that you really have to search for hits and hit-crit conversions. I don't know if this approach has any other hidden problems that might mess with the outcome though. I was just too lazy and too impatient to really wait for a lot of normal auto-attacks to happen.

Okay I did some attacks first and now saw both Frenzy and Intuitive convert hits to crits in the combat log. Can't say anything about actual percentages though. Maybe the log just displays whatever - but if Intutitive would get supressed by Frenzy I would assume it wouldn't get mentioned in the combat log. But as I said: I don't trust the log with conversions. When I have more time I will do more attacks so that there are statistically somewhat relevant numbers - to see if the percentage comes near 30% or more. So far it seems they do stack though. I always assumed all conversions stack because of their "roll one after the other" mechanic.

Nope. No mention of suppression on the char sheet in combat nor in the tooltips when one hovers over the portrait (or the list of active effects right of the portrait which opens another sort of tooltip). Will do some attacks later, must get groceries first.

You can even skip Tactical Barrage (or one of the two other PL buffs) and get two Stones of Power. If you stack them in the stash after the fight you can use the Power Surge (+1 PL, stacks with every other PL bonus) in every fight. It's very convenient because it has no duration (lasts till the end of the fight). Lord Darryn's Voulge is indeed nice on any Barb-combo. The Brute also gives you Clear Out which is cool with any AoE effect (like Static Thunder). Amra with Riven Gore is nice on a Brute, too. Dual Carnage on crit and even more importantly Clear Out pushes the initial enemy into the two Carnages it procs which means it not only gets the two attack rolls from Clear Out but 4 Carnage rolls on top. Riven Gore triggers quite often and then it's Blood Thirst + Cleaving Stance time. By the way: a Brute whom I also liked (but who was a bit specialized) was Fury/Unbroken with Disengagement goodies. Fear Ward terrifies your enemies and should they disengage they eat massive disengagement attacks (nice in combination with Brute Force and Mob Stance - Barbaric Shout already gives you +3 engagement so you can go with Mob Stance instead).

Finally deciding to watch Cowboy Bebop.

I wouldn't say switching weapons to match enemies' AR isn't recommended. In fact I would def. recommend it. Bleeding Cuts is great against certain enemies but against the common mob it's counterproductive because the damage needed to kill a rel. weak enemy is applied faster without the modal AND you'll get more focus from the overall dmg you applied (because the dmg of Bleeding Cuts doesn't generate focus). Against slash resistent enemies I'd argue it's nearly always better to switch to a dmg type you can fully penetrate with instead of insisting to use Battle Axes' underpenetrating slash dmg + Bleeding Cuts. Because the raw dmg Bleeding Cuts does is based on the slash dmg you did and that can be pathetic when severely underpenetrating. What I said there is with the assumption that you don't use recovery-skipping effects and prolong them indefinitely with certain item effects (see Strad of Favor trick). Instead of switching dmg types (e.g. from quarterstaff to pike or whatever) you can also try to stack PEN and/or use weapons with two dmg types. This avoids switching in many cases. But dual dmg weapons usually have lower base PEN so it's not a no-brainer. Some weapon types who normally only have single dmg and decent base PEN have uniques who have dual dmg types. I found that the Morning Star is one of the weapon types which have a great mix of PEN and dual dmg. Also the modal can be very helpful for certain spells (e.g. Disintegrate, Killing Bolt and whatever targets fortitude). Willbreaker + Make them Flinch + Gauntlets of Greater Reliability is one of my current go-to setups because it lets you apply the modal to anybody eventually (miss-to-graze conversion), it has good PEN, crush/pierce dmg AND also lowers Will on hit which is kind of cool for a Wizard/Cipher. But I wouldn't advocate for making this your one and only weapon choice - at least not for a solo run... Soul Annihilation is great - but if you miss all your focus will be gone for nothing. So if you want to make SA you main source of melee dmg you should make sure you don't miss. There's one-handed weapons with high accuracy (e.g. Rapier + modal, esp. Rännig's Wrath or Kapana Taga with some enemies engaged or whatever). If you use them with nothing in the offhand it's a lot harder to screw up Soul Annihilation. At least in the early game where I find misses are very common and are very frustrating. Another way can be to use the modal of the small shield. You can switch it on for a shirt while to get the +15 ACC for your next attack (also works if you evade a melee attack by stepping to the side if not engaged) and then use that +15 ACC for Soul Annihilation. You can of course combine stuff like an accurate weapon with the small shield modal. This is only for the early game imo - or if you meet foes which are really hard to hit. Later on you have several sources of ACC buffs so often you can just use whatever (I mean if we talk about not missing Soul Annihilation). One exception is Sun & Moon - this is so good with Soul Annihilation that it's a viable weapon for the whole game imo. You get two chances to not miss SA - and if the first flail head hits, then the second one will generate focus already which is great, too. Citzal's Spirit Lance is pretty cool with Soul Annihilation because the AoE of the Lance applies different portions of raw damage to all enemies. The initial target gets the normal raw dmg of SA and then there's some internal workings at play that give different amounts of raw dmg to the enemies in the AoE. I suspect that those hits generate focus which will get dumped into raw dmg immediately (but you can't see that). Draining Touch is very good on a Wiz/Ciph because not only has it very high base dmg and does corrode dmg - it also targets Will instead of deflection. A Wizard/Cipher has so many tools to lower Will in enemies. For example you can use Kapana Taga in the offhand + modal and Draining Touch in the main hand. Modal lowers enemies' Will by 25. Miasma lowers enemies Will by another -40 (!) and then drop Secret Horrors and Ringleader... what isn't charmed will get annihilated by your (and your Phantom's) Draining Touch (+SA if you want). And even the charmed/dominated ones you can kill quickly. An insanely good weapon against all forms of vessels is Grave Calling. It can create a foe-only Chillfog that counts as weapon attack. That means the Chillfog will generate focus for you (fuel for Soul Annihilation all the time). It also has an enchantment that applies paralyze+ to an enemy if the sabre has done some hits. This also works with the Chillfog! So the Chillfog will generate focus for you AND freeze enemies in place as well. And the best part is that if a vessel is killed by the Chillfog it counts as weapon kill so that will proc another Chillfog. It can snowball into a cascade of death for all vessels on the screen (which are not immune to freeze dmg). Never forget your Phantom which carries the same items as you. Citzal's Spirit Lance * 2 is cool. With the example above (Kapana Taga + Draining Touch) you can also let your Phantom engage enemies (Kapana Taga can give +2 engagement, if you wear Reckless Brigandine it can get another engagement etc.). You can send it in to "tank" some enemies and then drop some terrify effect on them once the Phantom has engaged 2 or 3. They will disengage eventually and get hit by the Phantom's truck-like disengagement attacks. Not bad for a summon I think. You can also give it very protective gear and really use it for taking aggro for you for a long time - or even give it "suicide" gear so you can send it to enemies while you are invisible/stealthed/away - and when it dies it will explode with several AoE bursts (for items see Great Swords Effort, Mantle of the Seven Bolts or Cape of the Falling Star, Effigy's Husky...). This can be very helpful to thin out groups of enemies before you feel confident enough to face them head-on. It can also be useful to let that happen while you two are in the thick of it all since those AoEs are foe-only. There's the Shroud of Phantasm (cape) that summons 6 copies of you which have very low health. If you are in a pinch you can have 6 death explosions that might kill enemies around you and save you). Those copies also can cast all your spells (unlike Essential Phantom). Also - even as a Soulblade - never forget Mind Control. Stuff like Ring Leader is impacting the outcome of an encounter so much. It's like summoning a bunch of creatures who fight for you while taking out the same number of enemies. I can't emphasize enough how powerful that is. Combine with Phantom and you'll have a small temporary army fighting for you. Also here stuff like Miasma and club+modal can help a lot. Especially when using Brilliant Departure first and cast Mind Control on a bunch of enemies in calm. Then finish of the non-controlled with melee + SA or whatever. Tl;dr Wiz/Cipher is an incredibly versatile class combo. I personally would prefer Psion or Beguiler for solo (using Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure to stay hidden and cast CC like there's no tomorrow while my Phantom does the DMG) but that would be a totally different playstyle than what you are looking for I guess.

I think @Manu22 is looking at Blood Mage / Soul Blade. Though of course WoD is outstanding for an Ascendant. Among other items I would also add Duskfall (Drawing Parry) and Furrante's Breastplate (First to the Fight) which together net you a +25 Deflection and +10 All other defenses that stack with everything. Do Hammering Thoughts and Biting Whip synergize with the Spirit Lance? I would test to answer my question but I can't fire up the game. I know it's counter-intuitive, but with this kind of build STR is not going to make or break your offensive potential either way... in the beginning, your ability to cast Combusting Wounds + Pulsing/Ticking AoE spells several times will help a lot. Late game, I only assume that Spirit Lance + Soul Annihilation is brutal no matter your STR. Depending on the difficulty you're playing on, PEN also significantly impacts your DMG but you can work around that as a BM/SB. Finally maybe you've run into ridiculously tanky enemies? Some of those health pools are just ridiculous on PotD, thinking about certain Vessels, Beasts, Wilders...