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Speaking of games that matter, Encased reviews are starting to pop up: https://techraptor.net/gaming/reviews/encased-review https://pledgetimes.com/encased-review/ https://thekoalition.com/2021/encased-review-under-the-dome-and-in-my-heart I'm probably picking it up tomorrow. I'll post some thoughts if I do.

Thank you everyone. You guys are awesome. Going out of town for a little while. Just need to get away.

I enjoyed Reloaded the surprise at the end was good. As for Revolutions, only good part was

"lash" means any weapon that says something like "+10% damage as frost" or something. it's a very particular type of enchantment that's handled very specifically by the game, for one it's a rare example of a multiplicative multiplier. as a result ppl tend to prize them. for what we're talking about here, lashes are also peculiar in that they undergo their own immunity/armor check separate from the normal weapon damage. so you can definitely be in a situation where the weapon itself is doing 0 damage but the lash will do some damage.

There's nothing more badass than a masked luchador in a suit. Even Texano (the guy without the mask) looks pretty great, but Drago (center), holy ****, that's like some final boss in Tekken type ****.

Well, you can always just hire the people with the best qualification for the job you offer. If it ends up all female or all male, it's most likely just an coincidence

As a Memory Beta wiki editor.

I think you'll be hardpressed to do triple crown solo without some form of cheese, or at least something that someone would consider cheese. For example, SC Monk is eminently do-able, but afaict pretty much relies on ajamuut's stalking cloak's cheesy synergy with whispers of the wind. As another example, ironically the strong inherent sustain and summons of a herald I don't consider cheese. There's no exacting metagame or itemization to exploit, just a very strongly complementary set of classes in one package. To me, I think pretty much anything is fair game in terms of "gamer bushido" with the exception of outright cheating via console commands. Personally, I would not find the strand of favor exploit rewarding. But even the latter, triple crown solo is hard enough [and you still have to find the strand of favor!] that really I would say "if it felt rewarding to you, then do it and bask in your glory." if you do something and someone says "hey that doesn't count, you used something cheesy" your response should just be "ok, then, you try it."

I soo want an IWD2 EE, real shame they lost the source

Damned if one does and damned if one doesn't. I take my chances with discrimination rather than sexual misconduct accusations

Quote for the Day: "Breaking: Texas renames Labor Day “Forced Labor Day” in honor of its new abortion law."

Since it's a Berserker and the weapon to go is Amra I would go max MIG. Mediocre CON should suffice (get a heal-on-kill pet and maybe wear Amulat of (Greater) Health and mybe take Tough if it's not enough). Good PER. DEX can be mediocre I guess because the action speed buffs and Cleaving Stance + Armored Grace and later Blood Thirst will counter that. INT needs to pretty high because confusion will take away 5 points of INT - but you want to reach your bystanding skeletons with Carnage as much as possible so its AoE should still be big. Stuff like Ring of Overseeing can help, too. RES can be dumped IMO. Do NOT take Unflinching! I did that and it clears confusion at some point (dropping below 50% health because of Frenzy but healing up from killing skeletons -> resistances kick in). Removing confusion also means you won't kill skeletons anymore which also means you don't get the heal on kill from the pet and all the other on-kill effects. I died several times from Berserker Frenzy and wondered why for some minutes... So maybe something like this (ignoring racial/cultural maximums for the moment) MIG: 18 CON: 12 DEX: 11 PER: 16 INT: 18 RES: 03 Points can shift quite a bit depending on what items/consumables with attribute bonuses you like. For example I used two Rings of Overseeing and Aloth's Armor, Charm of Bones and Heaven's Cacophony - so I could def. get away with lower INT and invested a bit more in MIG and CON instead during my tests. By the way: high PER is nice with any player character because official companions have quite low PER which makes detecting some traps and secrets more difficult. If you have hired an adventurer with high PER you obv. don't need to think about that point.

If you have a Chanter in the party who can summon Ancient Brittle Bones and later use Many Lives I would suggest Berserker/Devoted with Amra+Riven Gore (after testing this combo yesterday more thoroughly). Confusion, Cleaving Stance + Blood Thirst make this Brute extremely devastating in combination with skeletons + Riven Gore. Cleaving Stance will lead to a situation where it will hit and kill a skeleton, procs again, kill the next skeleton and so on. Every time Carnage + Riven Gore will get triggered, damaging the "real" enemies as well. Attention: extremely deadly (like: final death as in "removed from party") for party members with <50 health who come too close (Riven Gore will destroy them). So either stay away or keep Modwyr in the second weapon setup for emergency "oh no" moments to unconfuse your Berserker right away. I also tried Berserker/Skald vs. Berserker/Troub. and Berserker/Beckoner so you wouldn't need another chanter in the party. It all works well but I'm still in favor of Troub. Skald can get lots of phrases from the fast hitting. Thus I tend to use invocations with him more often than with the other two (like Her Revenge) since they are so cheap and will also trigger Blood Thirst (especially if you hit your skeletons with it). A Beckoner can summon Wurms instead of skeletons and make good use of the Changeling's Mantle later on (Primal Carnage works on your own Wurms). Its action speed buff will reach the full stack quickly because of 6 Wurms in Carnage AoE and it stacks with Tempered Fury (Amra Frenzy) and Frenzy (and Bloodlust of course).

If I remember well it's because the status is tagged Poison, but not the ability / attack. And the Immunity works somehow based on the status, but not the KW based bonuses.

I bought both Witch Queen Deluxe + 30th anniversary and Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. Why am I wasting money on games I'll likely not play for several months? Because there was a discount, of course. I am a weak man.

My brain just filters anything remotely remoted to dating. It reminds me how empty and meaningless my life is.

is worth noting that the fact we are having a discussion 'bout cheesey and/or well developed crpg characters requires the recognition o' multiple improbabilities. consider your favorite all-time crpg companions. any o' them pre-ps:t? possible dogmeat, and is not 'cause he were well written. ps:t were the first game where companion development were a focus o' the title, and ps:t did not sell. chris avellone, for all our criticism, deserves a whole lotta credit for changing the fundamental crpg paradigm. chris took a chance and complete altered the way crpgs were made and he did so with a sales failure for black isle and interplay. 'course is questionable if the change(s) mr. avellone brought about woulda' stuck if not for the success o' bg2. bioware also deserves more credit than many is willing to offer. bg1 sold and sold well with a multitude o' companions who had little to offer beyond the four corners o' their character record sheet and a handful o' vo catch phrases. ps:t is released and does not sell well. so in spite o' folks such as Gromnir and others pushing for better character development o' the bg2 companions, what motivation were there for bio to do so save for fact that the biowarians were also fans o' ps:t regardless o' underwhelming sales? bio looked with envy 'pon what chris avellone achieved and wondered how to make such crpg storytelling marketable. sneer if you will, but game developers is in the business o' selling games. too many ps:t players were unable to enjoy the wall o' text dialogues from a few ps:t companions. solution: bioware implemented a loose three-line guideline for bg2 dialogues. just one example o' bio changes. primarily as a cost and time saving approach, black isle, the developer who made ps:t, released iwd before bg2 and they cut companions complete from their title. iwd ended up saving black isle's arse 'cause it sold well and were cheap. so what happens if bg2 has companions same old same old as bg1? diablo 2 is released during same time as bg2 and iwd and is worth recalling that the diablo clones were the most popular crpgs o' the day. does ps:t style companion development become a functional one off? regardless, an aspect o' crpg development most take for granted were hardly obvious back in early 2000. the fact we all assume companions should be developed beyond a cheesy catchphrase is the result o' improbabilities. just sayin' HA! Good Fun!

I've been in a pretty dark place the past few days. The morning after Sunny's vet visit I woke up and just knew something was wrong. She never slept in the bed with me. She was allowed but preferred Tommy's orthopedic doggie bed in the living room by the bay window. That was where I found her. She passed away in her sleep. She was my best friend. I'll never forget her. I'm having a really hard time with this one. I know the realities of dogs and she has had health problems all her life. She was an adult when my ex-wife Stephanie and I found her snooping around the campground in Sugarloaf Key down in Florida. We were on our honeymoon. We were supposed to go scuba diving that day. But that morning Sunny befriended Tommy and we fed her. She was so skinny and desperately friendly. We took her to a local vet and had blood work, shots and exam. She was dehydrated and malnourished but otherwise in decent health. He thought she was around four years old but could have been as old as six. An hour later she had a bath, flea treatment, a collar, a name tag, and a whole new life. That was 2014. I never told you guys how my second marriage ended. I'll sum it up in one word: badly. My first marriage was like a bonfire. My fist wife... God I loved her. I would have done anything, said anything, paid any price to get past our problems. But like a bonfire as hot was it was it burned out slowly until there was just nothing left. I haven't spoken to my fist wife in thirteen years. She remarried a little while back. I truly hope she found the happiness she never did with me. But with Stephanie things were different. It felt more real. Not a bonfire but a hearthfire. Warm and sustainable and enduring. So I thought. It didn't burn out. A giant bucket of water was dumped on it. I woke up one morning thinking life was great. By sunset I knew it wasn't and never was. I cut off almost all contact with her. She tried to reach out to me so many times. In the weeks before the divorce I was polite but cold and curt to her. Since then I've said nothing at all and never responded when she tried to reach out to me. She has tried. as late as a year and a half ago. I have always been one to compartmentalize grief. I stack it all in a little room in my mind. Then lock the door and seal it off. Sometimes I anesthetized myself with bourbon to keep this little legion of sorrows from escaping their locked rooms. I told myself to focus all my energies on the positive things in life. My job. My business when I had one. My dogs always. I have none of those things now and I feel lost. Friday night in a moment of extreme weakness I sent Stephanie an e-mail telling her about Sunny. I rationalized it by telling myself Sunny was her dog too for a time and she deserved to know. But, I know I was just looking for someone to talk to. Someone who would understand. That was probably the worst thing I would have done. Five minutes later I never wanted to un-send an e-mail so much in my life. She has not responded which is, undoubtedly, for the best. With Sunny's passing all the little griefs and sorrows have broken out of their little rooms and I'm finding I can't deal with them all at once. I am missing Sunny, Tommy, Bela, Stephanie (not the real person, the person I thought she was), the business I didn't want to sell, even the job I disliked but it gave me something to focus on. I am having trouble falling asleep. Then I have trouble staying asleep. But I also have trouble staying awake. I'm a grown man. I should be DOING something not sitting here in an empty house crying about what can't be changed. The script is written. The ink is dry. But I don't know WHAT to do. Nothing feels right. I have been sorely tempted to just kill the brain cells where all this negativity is stored with whiskey. But I know that would be the wrong thing to do. I finally admitted to myself two years ago that my self control when it comes to booze is not all it could be (to put it mildly) and swore off of it shortly after. My vet's office invited me to a "pet loss support group" that meets there semi-regularly. I don't think that's for me. I don't think speaking to a therapist is something I'd want to do either. I know what's bothering me. And there is nothing anyone can do about it. I wish I could just switch off all emotions. I wish I had the mental discipline not to dwell on how life might have been different. Or the mistakes I've made. The sun came up this morning. It will come up again tomorrow no matter what. The world will keep turning no matter what I end up doing so all a man can do is turn with it. There is a great old quote from Eupridies I've always liked: "This is courage in a man: to bear unflinchingly what heaven sends.” I've found my courage in the past, I'll find it again. This got kind of long and rambling I guess. I almost deleted it twice. I'm sorry I'm letting my inner demons loose here like this but it was a little cathartic to write it all out. And I really don't have anyone else to talk to right now. Hurlshot, Gfted1, LC, I love you guys but more than that I have always been a little envious of your happy marriages and happy families. You guys are all very lucky.

Hi! So... why not summon Llengrath's Warding Staff as a Warlock, right? Just because nobody else does. And also because every hit with it pushes the enemy into their own Carnage area. That means you are not only doing the normal weapon damage to the initial target but also the Carnage dmg (which ususally only hits enemy bystanders and not the initial target). I think that's not overly powerful but a pretty good use for that staff - and most of all: it's fun.

Your world building guess regarding the Book of Storms is the same as mine. You can't join the Circle.

Characters with more than 3 injuries will die there.

Aloth got as many as 3 in that scripted interaction. Made me wonder if it's possible to perma-die there just by making the wrong choices. (Even if you go in there without injuries, I mean. And yes, it's the survivor path in SSS. )

They turned it up to 11 for sure...

Besides "instadeath by script" you should also watch out if you have injuries and then walk into a scripted scene where you might aquire more injuries. I remember at least one scripted scene where you can get more than one injury (iirc something with the Survivor's route in SSS?). Too bad if you started into that with two injuries...

Forum ate my post again...but I had a copy. Very cool, forums...very cool. Me checking out this movie right now: ...Not because it looks bad, but because my eyes feel like they're melting due to the brightness and vibrancy. Holy cow is that intense. So...I'm just thinking out-loud here, but you probably shouldn't be a social media "influencer" if the sight of your own face terrifies you. Just a thought, . Anyways, perfectly decent film. It was fine, . Even liked the art style well enough (...though the action scene near the beginning was a little...over the top style-wise and feels a little out of place with the rest of the film, but whatever, it's fine).

Whenura Cleft: high Athletics skill check that can kill you.

Yes, I was wondering how you use Shifting Storm to deaggro and reset fights. Is the idea that you attack with a spell from the farthest possible range, then shift and translocate far enough away to end combat? If so, I can see why it wouldn't work on Gorecci Street, since there's not enough room there, while it would, presumably, at the dig site.

how does this work? you hit them, combat starts, and then by the time the get to you they de-aggro?

If you're going with option one, I'd recommend skald, which synergies nicely with berserker. Focus mainly on martial invocations, but get one or two non-martial ones, since doing so will boost your phrase cap. For option two, I'd recommend Berserker in combo with Helwalker or Nalpazca, wielding Amra. Boeroer discusses the rationale for this here. And you can use fists as a backup weapon of course. You'll have so many wounds you can spam efficient anguish, forcing the victim into the carnage and wanton gore zones. Although I love the FF subclass, I wouldn't recommend it for a berserker ravager MC. As for Powerotti's Rumbling Boar build, it's one of my favorites, and it's actually not as squishy as you'd think, mainly because it can kill so quickly, spamming Her Revenge, which fries mobs. It's not a tank build, but can hold its own nicely as an offtank. Rather that single wielding Sun and Moon, however, I prefer dual wielding Sasha's Singing Scimitar and Sungrazer. You won't crit quite as often, but these weapons are more impactful and powerful IMO. You could use FF instead of Helwalker, but you wouldn't be able to dump RES if you do. This is viable if you do a no rest run, stacking the various stat bonii, preferably using one of the mods to make these permanent or to avoid the forced rest encounters.

Here!

you really could just play like a normal chanter. you only have to worry about chant synergies with the brisk modal on, because then things can get a little funky (in your favor). for self-buffing chants, i think this is impossible. you would need to get an additional +9s out of your linger, and every +50% duration increase (+10 intellect or troubadour benefit) only gives you 1.5s. Last time I checked, unlike a bunch of other stuff, you don't benefit from many duration-extending effects due to how linger is implemented as something that "overrides" normal spell duration effects (though you can use Wall of Draining or Salvation of Time after a chant has been applied). You also don't get power level bonuses to chants, at least in terms of duration (probably for similar reasons as above, "linger" overrides how most normal spell effects work). So given all that, after including troubadour bonus, you still need 4.5s worth of duration, which is +30 intellect, and since stats are capped out at 35, that seems impossible (e.g. you'd need 40 intellect). So you can get partial uptime on 3 chants, but I don't see a way to get 100% uptime on 3 chants persistently. there is one chant where you could effectively get 3 or more chants uptime. the skeleton summoning chant is kinda broken in terms of duration, so with modest intellect you could already get 3+ skeletons. (the skellies have a duration of 10s adjusted by your intellect; the linger mechanic is broken with them).

Sounds like a fun build! I'd love to learn which spells you selected at each PL. I imagine that you took many but not all of the elements spells and some summoning spells as you mentioned. Did you take Taste of the Hunt for emergency healing?

I just tried a variant: Berserker/Devoted with Mob Stance and Amra. It's... really wild. Mob Stance gets triggered from every skeleton-kill as well it seems. Edit: ah - it's more that a direct kill of an enemy triggers Mob Stance which then targets a skeleton (bc confused) which gets instakilled which triggers another Mob Stance attack and so on... all those doing Carnage and Riven Gore (if they crit).

The NPCs don't have the Tab key.

am s'posing you could consider the following spoilery, but the following is the link to the pnp adventure path at paizo: https://paizo.com/wrathOfTheRighteous am not defending owlcat writing efforts. the thing is, with even cursory knowledge o' the pnp ap 'pon which the wrath pc game is based, would you expect the owlcat writers to focus on the human elements o' the story and growth of characters as people as 'posed to leaning into the archetypes? serious? is not as if owlcat imagined wrath into being. in its pnp incarnation, wrath is a munchkin's fantasy adventure showcasing the then new mythic rules from paizo. other than the second adventure installment, wrath is designed to be a rather linear and transparent excuse to throw epic cheese at a player. what woulda' made anybody believe owlcat writing efforts were gonna be transformative? we got favorite pathfinder ap, and wrath doesn't make the top ten list. in retrospect, am ok with owlcat's choice to do wrath 'cause am expecting we woulda' been mighty disappointed if they blundered their way through carrion crown, skull and shackles, hell's rebels, etc. @Vaeliorin am kinda feeling a disconnect as you observe you are not finding the game particular challenging, but there isn't enough stat boosting 1007? more such goodies would effective make the game even easier, yes? dunno. in the beta, by the time we were in the abyss, the stat boosting items were not rare, but it still made sense to diversify our party 'cause chances are the best stuff were limited. post drezen world map exploration also provides considerable treasure. be aware, if you are skipping the crusade/army management, you are making a mistake. there is significant loot to be found by conquering opposing armies and if nothing has changed, the best strength boosting item pre drezen is available via an army conflict. am personal just having reached level seven so the relevant battle for the strength belt is not appearing yet on our map, but as everything else is the same thus far, am assuming it will reveal itself in due time. should have multiple +2 items pre drezen and a few +4 including dex and strength. am a big fan o' animal companions and am typical having 'tween two or three in a given party configuration, and that is not including aivu. animal companions, 'cause they ain't as op as in kingmaker, is perhaps a bit underrated in wrath. am seeing folks bragging 'bout the extra attacks they get with some mutagenic warrior build but they ignore how a dog or leopard gets multiple attacks, trip and the critter may attack designated opponents distant from the player and act as a mobile meat shield if necessary. have teamwork feats to provide 'em outflank, seize the moment and tandem trip, as well as potential other options, makes multiple animal companions a serious power boost for a party. as such, if we were able to fully kit animal companions and our entire party with top tier stat boosting items it might be just a smidge unbalancing. aside: worst bug we has had to endure so far is cosmetic. our pc has a darker complexion. so too does sosiel. if you save your game under specific lighting conditions (or so am beginning to suspect) and then reload, sosiel and those with similar complexions become... chalky. if you do not have an earlier reload, you is stuck with your pc or sosiel looking like one o' the undead. sounds like a minor thing, and am supposing in the case o' sosiel we will deal with it, but we need to maintain a few save points just in case this happens again with our pc. am not wanting to spend +100 hours enduring self directed michael jackson jokes 'bout our character appearance. HA! Good Fun!

Well, after thinking a lot, what to buy and what not, I have skipped ATOM RPG, and purchased Operencia: The Stolen Sun, grid based dungeon crawler, also made in eastern Europe

To cleanse my palate of Chernobylite for a bit (I love the game, but it's very tense and I'm a wuss so I need to take breaks from it and play it in spurts) I decided to revisit Nier: Automata. Right off the bat I will say that the game looks better than I remember. It's been a few years, did they do a big update or something? I mean, there are still some really gnarly low res textures mixed in with the nice looking textures, but I remember the game having this really drab washed out look and it looks a lot better and more vibrant now. I'm not using any texture injectors or anything. Anyway, it had been long enough that I forgot how much I hate the prologue. I mean, it's a solidly designed prologue/tutorial, it shows off all the different camera shifts, both on foot and in shmup fights (I suck at the twin stick parts, always have, but I love the regular scrolling shmup parts), and there's a big flashy boss fight at the end. All that is well and good, the problem lies in the fact that it's nearly an hour long and there are zero save points in a game that doesn't autosave. I'm past that now and there are plenty of save points everywhere, but why would you do that to new players? Why would you make the very first thing you do in the game a nearly hour long slog with no place to save? It's such a bizarre design decision in an otherwise awesome game.

Soft winds of death is one of the best level 1/not changeable aggressive chants that any build can use all the game Ancient memory is always good too, I choose it as my not-aggressive chant (you need one not aggressive chant to more easily stay in stealth when needed) and this one can heal Vela a little too Stumbling words: great against any enemy not immune to interrupts, there is nothing as good to clear enemy concentration automatically. Apart "Their Champion Braved the Horde Alone" invocation, it shines if you have any way to get energized (e.g. from Least Unstable Coil). But it is not bad even just using it with the ancient weapons special attacks (so they can have +10 accuracy and interrupt more easily) Many lives IMO is what makes ultimate challenge builds not based on being not detectable/unkillable possible, a troubadour can control the battlefield with it + other summons especially if you couple it with the grave calling sabre paralyzing chillfog These are the 4 chants I always get

Your examples are not correct. Damage reduction (and other percentage based mali) in Deadfire works mostly multiplicative in contrast to damage bonuses that are most often additive. Check out this link to know why: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/inversions Still not a great chant because of the slash/pierce restriction. Would be a great chant if it was a universal 10% dmg reduction. It removes Concentration from enemies and does a hit roll vs. Will for that. It can be very useful against enemies that you want to interrupt (casters, bosses) but who have Concentration which would normally require you to remove the layers of Concentration (some enemies have more than 10 layers!) with a lot of interrupts. It is very good in combination with "Their Champion Braved the Horde Alone". Because also chants with hit rolls will interrupt enemies if they crit. This one does a hit roll, too - so you are removing Concentration and doing a hit roll with this at the same time. A Troubadour chanting with Brisk Recitation has a chance to interrupt every enemy in chanting range every 3 secs... The hidden awesomeness of this phrase is that it will apply both the 20% recovery bonus AND the 20% reload bonus to all reloading weapons which leads to a pretty phenomenal speedup for all who use an arbalest, crossbow or firearm. That's why Streetfighter/Troubadour (with Sure Handed Ila + Mith Fyr with blunderbusses or with the help of upgraded Wisps that distract you) may reach the highest DPS with reloading weapons. Red Hand + Heating Up + Sure Handed Ila... ouf). Besides that it works for your whole party... --- All resistance phrases are very good because they can make the party nearly immune to all addressed afflictions: - got paralyzed -> chant resistance reduces it to immobilized -> other chant -> again resistance chant, reduces immob. to hobbled -> next time chant hits it reduces it to nothing... But in order to do that the resistance has to go away in between - so it's best to alternate between those chants every 3 secs. That way you can make your whole party quasi-immune to all afflictions that are covered by those chants. Instead of chaining different resistance chants you can also remove the resistance shortly by simply using an invocation (invocations stop chanting briefly). --- Thick as Steel is very good for slow tanky chars who only suffer very little damage normaly and woukd only die from a thousand little cuts. Combined with Ancient Memory it can make you immortal because the little damage that comes through from underpenetrating grazes will get further reduced by this and what comes through can be healed by Ancient Memory. For other chars it's not that useful. --- Many Lived Pass By is extremely good with Brisk Recitation. Every 3 secs there will be a weak skeleton that automatically stops enemies, dies quickly (good with some class abilities and items) and doesn't count towards the summoning limit). If you have a SC Paladin in the party it's kind of mandatory because it provides unlimited Zeal for that Paladin via Divine Retribution. Also a confused Berserker in the party loves those weak skeletons (Blood Storm, Blood Thirst, healing on kills via pet or weapon etc.). In general I consider this phrase to me the most potent one. It has the most universal impact on the battlefield in all situations imo. Never useless. --- Old Siec works with spells. But the draining is limited to the first hit roll of an action iirc. So you will not gain massive amounts of health from the AoE of a fireball. Better used with high dmg single target stuff. Still good though. If you want an ability that drains life from ALL damage that is done (except Wall spells) you need to use the Furyshaper's Blood Ward. It is Old Siec on massive steroid overdose. --- The Long Night's Drink is excellent. It's my go-to chant for Howlers because of Brute Force (Spirit Frenzy + this phrase applies both weakened and staggered with one hit roll - add a Morning Star with Body Blows and you'll attack a very low fortitude defense most of times). -14 fortitude debuff on the fly from CON and MIG loss besides the weakening effects themselves (-health, reduced healing). There are some shady things going on if you apply weakened, deal damage, lift weakened, deal damage, apply weakened and on. Basically it causes more health loss than you actually did deal damage. I did a quick test & analysis two years ago or so but can't find it now. Anyway it's a great phrase. --- Dragon Thrashed is just a shadow of its PoE1 glory. It's pretty bad unless you have a highly defensive and slow playstyle. If you then combine it with Soft Winds of Death and Blackened Plate it becomes quite useful. Best if somebody gives you bonus PEN though and/or lowers enemies' DR because it doesn't have that much PEN (e.g. a Cipher casts Driving Echoes on you). --- My most used phrases are: Mith Fyr, Sure Handed Ila, The Long Night's Drink, Many Lives Pass By

Thematically speaking, Conquest should be ranged and ideally use a bow. Death - could be IMO either SC Priest of Berath or a Berserker/Beckoner kind of Necromancer - summoning and maybe killing dozens of Skeletons. Famine - is definitely a Decay-focused druid (Ancient probably), I'd say multi with Helwalker. War - I'd actually do a Shifter/Devoted or Priest of Berath/Devoted - for Firebrand or Berath's 2Hander. Conquest - I can see a ranged Blood Mage (Caedbald Blackbow!). PS: I should know, I live 10mn away from the Tapestry of the Apocalypse!

So it was your fault.

Playing that game made me say, "Man they should make a Wing Commander movie!". Then they made one.

Crazy that No Man's Sky was able to get out of the crap it started in. Usually games with such a release are dead in the water and will never recover.

https://www.nomanssky.com/frontiers-update/?cli_action=1630685513.384 Settlements are finally a thing in No Man's Sky. I'll give it another go. There is so much I like about the game, but it does feel like it lacks life. Hopefully this will help. They still need a personality system for NPC's I think. Something like the Nemesis system in Middle Earth: Shaodw of War would be interesting. edit: Reading deeper, it does look like they are implementing more personality. They have disputes and thought bubbles.

(TL;DR provided but it is a lengthy rant) So I just finished Pillars of Eternity for the first time. Had the game a long time just never really got around to playing it all the way through until now. And well… I have some thoughts about it. Specifically about the whole deal at the end of the game. Now, my big issue might be a bit on the semantics side but after finishing the game I just can’t stop thinking and being somewhat bugged by the whole “The god’s aren’t real!” thing. Because… they are? The gods are man made, but they are very much real, so the insistence on this point and the characters' shock and gasp at it falls extremely flat since it seems to fly on the face of the entire game and world it takes place in. The gods are real… Give boons and blessings real. Consistently speak with their followers and the player real. Possess a farmer and conquer a nation real. Apocalypse level army of devastator golems real. PLUCK A MOON OUT OF THE SKY REAL. You walk on the bones of one! You wield his hammer, you can piss them off, you can do quests and receive blessings from them, one of them revives one of your enemies as a vengeful revenant! One of them orchestrates the entirety of the game's conflict!!! In the world of Eora where the gods are verifiable, measurable and tangible Iovara’s rants come across like a sovereign citizen claiming to not recognize the authority of the government over her as a cop drags her out of her car. She can point at her binder full of common law photocopies and blog posts but that really doesn’t stop the taser and handcuffs… You can say the law sucks and you don’t agree with it, but, denying its existence doesn't really make you immune to its consequences on the real world outside of your beliefs, feel me? The fact you think the founding fathers were all slavers and **** and you hate the cops doesn’t stop the IRS from tossing your ass in jail if you don’t file your paperwork in time. There are more than a few things I feel don’t mesh well with this at all, and it feels like the game stops to “make a point” which works in a vacuum without taking into account the rest of the world it has spent time building. Hell, does Eora even have a creation myth? I didn’t read every single one of the in game books but I read a lot and I don’t remember one with a creation myth or a mention of one in them. If there were one then you have something to disprove, a clear lie, but, at best the idea is that the “lie” of the gods is that they were created by kith… but does that change much? The Leaden Key is hellbound on keeping the nature of the gods secret… and yet the endgame requires that the actual plot of them you have to stop is the Hollowborn. Even to the actual plot of the actual game the nature of the gods being made by the engwithan seems tangential, inconsequential, so, the characters “OH MY NO WAAAY IT’S ALL A LIE!” response seems… very odd. Follow me on this: Imagine you are a common citizen of the world of Eora, a smith, not the best but serviceable. Everyday before going to work you say a prayer to Abydon and when stuck or frustrated think of his teachings to continue your work. One day, a very convincing elf comes by your village telling you the gods were created by the Engwithen. You might be shocked, you might feel tricked… but what does that change? Would you stop praying to him? Dedicating your work to him? He has blessed your crafts before, he still does. You weren’t a cleric, you didn’t even have a shrine to him… Would you stop? What really changes? You don’t need to follow his dogma, or obey his instructions, did you follow Abydon because you were consequences if you didn’t or because he aligned with what the path you had already taken in life and stands for what you believe in? And does his origin really change his presence in your life and work? In monotheistic and rather dogmatic religions like the abrahamic religions most people follow on the real world (more on this later) the rules and beliefs and law the world must follow are clearly established and dictated by scripture in a rigid single line… in the world of Eora, much like most polytheistic pagan religion, every god has a different sphere and if anything lack that structure, each god has different values they stand for, even more so than in some pagan religions in real life since in the game the gods have their verifiable different viewpoints and seem to not mind too much you waiting on the council of other gods other than them! The arguments near the end of the game seem to go along the lines of “you don’t need the gods to guide you, they aren’t real, people can create their own beliefs and structure without their oversight” and Thaos argues back “People need the gods to not be savages!” The thing is, none of these arguments make sense IN THE WORLD OF THE GAME. They seem to be arguments made IRL in response to real life religion and it’s arguments but Eora isn’t earth and Eothas isn’t Allah. 1- You don’t need the gods to guide you even if you believe they’re real. Several of the characters in the game don’t even debate religion at all or admit they just act along with life without asking the bigger questions. Eder said his parents said “you get one god” but this is straight up a lie, Hiravias was a follower and blessed by Galawain and he changed to Wael as he fit more his views on the world without a single consequence. Verifiable in actual game evidence that characters follow gods due to them aligning to their own views rather than dogma or obligation, Galawain even blessed Hiravias and didn’t part the sky and smite him when he abandoned him for another god. 2- The gods are very much extremely real. 3- People do follow their own beliefs without the gods' involvement despite knowing they exist. Zahua, Grieving Mother, Kana Rua and Pallegina all argue good and bad, philosophy and belief without bringing up the gods in any of their discussions on their views on the world. 4- People are and aren’t savages with and without the gods' involvement. The Glanfathans are the most faithful and express both extremes actively. The arguments made in Sun in Shadow for and against the gods seem to consider a world of abrahamic dogma rather than a polytheistic world with fallible gods. In the Egyptian myth gods **** up, grow old, get dementia and die. Did that mean the Egyptians did not believe in them? No, and the Egyptians didn’t have tangible evidence of the gods' direct, measurable, factual involvement. Hell the game even goes “would the saint war happen without Eothas!?” like it’s a big gotcha of faith causing war… Would Readceras invade Dyrwood without religion involved? That’s a good argument that would probably hold a bit of water if Readceras didn’t actually do that in the game without the gods' instruction… Even if you think the Iron Flail only acted due to the Eyeless (gods involved, Ondra messing up) the credits make it clear other groups form Readceras still continued to try and invade the Dyrwood… at no god’s instruction. And if you point out “if you temper Abydon there’s peace!” At that point you are arguing the gods' involvement STOPS war! See what I mean? The game seems to be of two minds of this whole divine influence. If anything you can point out the brutality of the Inquisition, the horrors of the Leaden Key… and then just figure that’s Woedica’s doing. Hell the gods are capable of individual thinking, to the point they deposed Woedica, Abydon and Ondra opposed each other actively and despite the Leaden Keys posture on animancy three of the gods actively say “yeah animancy good, knock yourself out” knowing it might lead to uncovering their creation or even creating more of them or deposing them because those are their beliefs! It seems to me that the game near the end tries to paint the nature of the gods as this big consequential lie that changes everything, but, even after knowing the gods were man made Wael and Skaen pop up in front of you seeming to not care if you know… because hey… THEY STILL ARE GODS. Iovara makes a point of saying the gods were inspired by ideals and are dedicated, volatile and dangerous… yes? but that’s how many real life polytheistic religions work in Greek, Pre-hispanic, Egyptian, Pollinesian and all of these different religions the gods are fallible and often blind to things outside their own sphere. This again, seems to be the game taking a point that only works in the context of “gods as perfect infallible beings” that only exists in real life due to monetheistic modern religions, and seems to exist nowhere in the world of Eora. None of the followers of the gods seem to see the gods as perfect, jus tperfect for them. Moreover, there isn’t really a creation myth or structure around the origin of the worlds or the god’s creation of man in place. Death, re-incarnation, souls, are all verifiable elements of the world. Whoever made Berath the fact is she can revive you or guide your reincarnation whether you think she exists or not. If the information of the gods being made by the Engwithen became well known at worst I can see doubt and chaos, at best, the Glanfathan feel vindicated since they were right in the builders being some sort of holy people and their machines being sacred. But I can’t see the irreversible shaking up that the game implied Iovara was causing if the gods continue to not only be tangibly real but still care to their sphere of influence, if you know Hylea is real and answers prayers, even if she came out of a can, if your wife is going through a tough pregnancy would you refuse to pray for her because she's “fake” or would you take what help you can in a hard and possibly horrible time? Especially since, like is established, this help is very much REAL. If you want to get poetic about it, it could even be a thing of people seeing the Engwithen sacrificing themselves to BECOME the gods since that is pretty much what happened. Like just go: “The Engwithen, seeing a void in the heavens, the world and it’s people left adrift without gods to answer their prayers, united their souls in sacrifice, joining their hopes, their fears, their beliefs, their sorrows and joys to birth gods from the very essence to assure that henceforth no people would feel as lost as they did” that’s a baller creation myth, I’d pray to those dudes. TL;DR: Iovara is dumb as rocks should really have not had as a consecuential a movement as the game seems to tell us she did and everyone in the game acting like the revelations of the god’s birth is more than trivia seems to ring hollow…. lol hollow… birth… Do you get it!? (P.S.: Eothas should really be the god of recklessness and lack of foresight. If what he wanted was to stop Woedica’s plot, how hard is it to go “Hear me, Eothas, a god: I was made by an Engwithen machine, we all were. Woedica, who we all agree sucks, is plotting to steal souls in Dyrwood by using these machines, I can show you which one’s and where, you can debate it with me if you want, you can even ask the other gods, they wont like me saying this but like her and her bull**** less, trust me.” For the god of good and redemption Eothas seemed to act rashly and with little thought, if anything, Magran seems to realize she ****ed up getting involved, and Eothas granted Woedica more power by ignoring the god’s non-involvement and forcing the other’s hand. With how the other gods act during the council of the stars I can’t help but feel they would have rather help glow-head stop the machines than let Woedica get away with her bull****, at which point I just gotta guess Eothas acts without much foresight or care fo the other god’s opinion or kith’s wellbeing…the saint’s war seemed to have done more bad than good in general and I can’t help but see this as evidence of Eothas being reckless and kinda dumb in general. I mean, would Magran be forced to bomb him if he just went “Woedica is going to steal the souls of a ton of your followers, I just told them about it” rather than marching down there with an army?... not very forward thinking, you should have run that one by Abydon) ALSO: I have yet to play Deadfire, I want to, if any of this is elaborated on in that game just say so rather than spoil it. I imagine it’s possible some of this stuff is more elaborated on in that game.

Repeating myself from the last 15 years... I wish they could work out something with Games Workshop (and someone who wants to publish it) some day. The world needs more games featuring tentacle violence and ritual virgin sacrifice