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Which reminds me, it's been a while since I last saw 'Event Horizon' (awesome movie, like an adaptation of the WH40K universe set in the near future)

I was letting the dogs in from the backyard and my wife asked me why I never say anything when I bring them inside. I told her I have to be careful in case it's really some supernatural critter pretending to be our dogs that needs to be invited in. She thinks I might be crazy, I'm still on the fence.

I generaly rarely use the monk's fists because uniques weapons are most of time really effectives and fists suffers from the lack of enchantments. Also never use Death Godlikes because they require BDD management, and excepted for Wizards or Priests, they need a part-time baby-sitting character to keep them alive. But because fists are the only weapons wich stack with PL, I hired a SC monk to see the potential of Transcendant Suffering. And by the way, the Forbidden fist ability. For Monk, stacking rules prevent to reach higher than +10PL in my tests. In first, my monk is level 20 ... PL9 He pick Prestige ... PL10 Bonus from food (+1), potion (+2), Stone of power (+1) and Acute (+1) are overrided by the Ooze Trinket * (+4) ... PL14 He empower an ability while the Weyc Wand equipped (+3) ... PL 17 And use Mortification of the Soul to be Near Death (+3) ... PL 20 Whereas a legendary Weapon scale to +60% damages, +15acc and +4pen, my monk's fists have +155% damages, +42 acc and +11pen. The Forbidden fist ability profit on top of that from +95% damages (PL monk) and +19 acc. That was without some Forbidden curses. Abilities also profit from PL, and Swift Flurry gain +4acc from capacity level and 19 acc from PL. For Whisper of the Wind, +16acc from capacity level and +11 from PL. Both profit to a Pen bonus too. My 19 perception Monk with Tuotilo's Palm, with 6 wounds (the razor edge and enduring dance) and with Tenacious (+2pen) on a Whisper of the wind give in the combat log : 178 acc and 26,8 pen on hit, 174 acc and 25,8 pen on swift flurry proc hit. I didnt take the damages rolls in my notes, but considering the lash from Turning Wheel did more damages than some weapons. The base damage for monk's fists is 14-19 crush with 7pen for 0,5-3,0s, at the beginning. It is possible, using the same followed steps, to get a sneak attack at 130% ( and with CP, a devastating Backstab) or a Carnage near to 100% of base weapon. The AoE is not affected through. It is achievable to reach more with SC casters, for exemple, in my try, my SC Bellower +7PL from Classe passive was stacking with everythink. The Stag lance seems stacking as well. I'm actually trying to refind how I had a Eld Nary with 24 Bounces ( with these followed steps, PL 27, eld Nary bounce (27-8)/2 rounded up at the sup, 22 times — I got 5 more PL once but cant remember how. I just made a screenshot ; so maybe 3 more PL for Monk (without counting the lance)). Edit : using Hellfire Ironclad Trinket (+2), and get Brilliant from item (least unstable coil but maybe also Shroud of phantasm and acute from Whispers from the Dephts) give another stackable PL. Switching for the Lance of the Midwood Stag after empowored with the Weyc' Wand give 2 another PL. With the +7 PL from Bellower, 32PL. However, with the Hellfire trinket + acute from Whispers of the Dephts, my Monk stay at PL20 (or 21, doesnt change Transcendant Suffering) with these fists. I have no explanation. * : about this trinket, it is not like usual "draining effect" abilities : the duration is depending effectively to the caster int and this one will be turned "off" for the same duration, but contrarly to other similars spells, the effect can be extended for the target and, then, stay after the caster' return as long prolonged. Like I said, it is possible I missed some items or sources for another stacking PL for my monk.

Disco Elysium. I ran across a guy obsessed with his head shape, a cool guy telling scabs to **** off, and a scab who was obviously a plant. Then I pawned some wheels, got some ammonia, and talked to a corpse. While I'm not finished with it yet, it feels like Planescape Torment done right. No horrible combat that gets in the way of actually playing the game and a deep integration the actual gameplay into the dialogue is *chef's kiss*.

DARPA Funded Researchers Accidentally Discover The World’s First Warp Bubble.

This is a list by classes with abilities and spells wich trigger potentially every inspirations when empowered with the least unstable coil. If anyone found something else, I can edit the post. In blue, until PL7 ; in yellow, restricted to SC ; in green, Spell is beneficial effect (extendable) —Paladin— Minor flame Shield (Darcozzi Paladin) (on self or other, reliatation cause inspiration to the Paladin) (ext.) —Cipher— Detonate (when target Near Death ennemy , depending of how many ennemies are hit by the explosion) Screaming Soul (for every screams ; with BPM (this spell dont work in vanilla game) —Wizard— Flame Shield (on reliatation) (ext.) Minoletta's Concussive Missiles (depending of PL and ho many ennemies are touched) Zandethus' Draconic Fury (when attackers are terrified by the reliatation enchantement ) (ext.) Concelhaut's Crushing Doom (on each hit) Minoletta's Missiles Salvo (dependent of PL, on hit) Meteor Swarm (on pulse) Arkemyr's Mercurial Madness (every 6s, when the unpredictable effect is refrehed on the target) Minoletta's Piercing Sigil (on reliatation) (ext.) Cloak of Death (on reliatation) (ext.) —Chanter— Her revenge ... (depending of PL and how many ennemies are touched) Her Tears ... (on explosions) Boil their Flesh (and upgrade) (when Near Death ennemy (ies) trigger an explosion) —Druid— Venombloom (on pulse) Cleansing Wind (on ennemies and allies touch, like other Healing-and-Damaging spells in the list) Garden of life (dependent of corpses) Avenging Storm (on hit) (ext) Pollen Patch (as long the spell stay, each step? work also as stationnary) (ext.) Giant Maelstrom (on pulse) —Priest— Flame Shield (Magran Priest) (Same as wizard) (ext.) Iconic Projection (Like other Healing-and-Damaging spells in the list) Rain of Holy Fire (on pulse) Spark the souls of the Righteous ( on self or allies, no dependent of ennemies, for the caster) (ext.) Symbols (on pulse) Hand of Weal and Woe ( per 1s, like other Healing-and-Damaging spells in the list) Magran's Might (on pulse) Call of Rymrgand (on pulse) Blessing of Wael (on blind reliatation ; careful to not use the BPM when empowering, see in comments) —Monk — Whispers of the Wind ( Each hit) * Miscellaneous : Bouncing weapon proc another roll for martials abilities AoE melee weapon proccing swift-flurry on Empowered ability (2-4 inspirations) Sun and Moon hit twice, then dualwield and empowering a Full attack, 4 Inspirations, even more with swift flurry. Tekehu get a version of Cleansing Wind and Avenging Storm in their Stormcaller subclass. The complementarity with some resting bonus is significant : the Captain cabin (Dunnage) give +1 empower point, like Adratic Glow (Luminous Bathhouse), and especially the Ocean's Song (Tikawara), "attacks interrupt with empowered attacks". Meaning on each pulse, each reliatation, on each screams... even when they not crit.

Hi folks, I pushed this playthrough a little further and the Solo Fury really takes off with Least Unstable Coil, Great Maelstrom (GM), all the Empower abilities, all the PL/Acc etc. bonus items to GM, and Deltro's Helm. You can stack as much as 7 Empower points per rest on this toon (3 base + 1 great soul + 1 Captain Cabin + 1 Luminous bathhouse + 1 Nemnok). When you Empower Great Maelstrom on an enemy group, you will have all Tier3 Inspirations, with in my case an 18s Brilliant. In the most devious scenario you can cast 2 Empowered GM in a single fight and 4-20 regular ones: 1) Cast GM away from enemies, on you, to get a 100%+ Shock lash (don't die doing it). 2) Empower a GM "trap" close to enemies so they come investigate 3) By the time they're hit and initiate combat, you can throw another (!) Empowered GM on them, still with the lash 4) This will trigger all tier3 inspirations if you hit enough enemies, then you're brilliant for another 3-4 GMs. 5) If all else fails, Wit of Death Herald and another 90s Brilliant. I never did Nemnok so fast, and Concelhaut didn't last long too. It will get boring pretty fast and it's not fool proof at all. But this solo Fury got much further than I thought!

That happens because you used it against someone with the wizard's spell reflection ability. Never use it against wizards unless you want to wipe your own team.

You forgot about SPACE RIPPER STINGY EYES?????? But yeah, I can see how the Pillar Men would erase ol Straizo. There have been no Star Trek shows since Voyager.

I myself don't see anything wrong with repeating old successes, so long as they are not literal carbon-copies. The push to come up with something new or never done before is good in the abstract, but often results in things that are silly/ridiculous/asinine/over the top. This is so not only in video games but also in movies and TV shows these days, and I daresay sadly even in doctoral dissertations. In short, you cannot force a new idea.

The chanter have 10 might and he's not energized. You can deduct from the Pen the Power Level : 20.5 - ( 10 (base) +3.5 (Ability level (8-1)/2 ) + 1 (The Arrow Sing) ) = 6 ; 6/0.25 = 24 ; 24+8 = 32 Because 7PL are restricted to the classe, that mean 25 PL "generic" scaling with scrolls, potions, poisons, bombs, but especially abilities and spells from items (seven bolts etc), armor (Retentless storm etc) and weapons (thunderous report, spider's flurry, wind calling etc). Weapons triggering effects are not concerned by PL. PS this spell at this level is dangerous : the twister is very slow and bounce on your party when the combat is over. My fives characters, originally full healthies, take a least 2 injuries (all of them) after the combat end.

I don't know. Maybe it's that your taste interacts in such a way that makes JoJo's hilarious antics don't work for you. Or more likely, you're actually a machine from the future trying to warn the world of an apocalyptic event but got your circuits scrambled and are trying to communicate through 90's anime on an obscure video game forum.

Hubby's left for the other house and I'm not going (nothing for me to do up there now, atm, since I'm not a handyman type, so I'd just be sitting around bored). So that means I'll be alone for a few days. PARTY! ...or more likely, just fluffing around like usual and feeling a little lonely at night. Days are fine but nights w/out hubby's snores are weird. Maybe I'll order some fave comfort foods that hubby doesn't like.

Some preliminary data concering Omicron. Vaccination efficacy drops to 25% after three months with a booster shot and is a nice flat 0% after six without booster. Existing monoclonal antibodies are completely ineffective. Time to note that this doesn't say anything about severity, but it all but rules out stopping infections with the existing vaccines. Testing was done in vitro with live omicron strain viruses. In other words, Omicron necessitates an adapted vaccine. Sucks for the people who have been waiting for a spike protein or inactivated virus vaccine because they don't want no new-fangled gene therapy nonsense, because by the time Novavax et al are ready and available, Omicron might just emerge as the dominant variant.

https://www.windowscentral.com/new-upcoming-xbox-exclusives-project-midnight-compulsion-and-pentiment-obsidian

In Disco Elysium, I blew my head off as a negotiation tactic. To be fair, it was also my bedtime, but I did enjoy that it was an option. I also did some actual decent police work and was very impressed at myself for pulling it together for a few moments. Good job **** Mullen!

Oh cool, I was about to buy Cyberpunk, but the 60 bucks price made me say nay. Though I'd rather buy it on GOG, I think. /Edit: It's 50% off on GOG as well. Should I buy now or rather wait for christmas... I'm sure there will be another sale.

Disco Elysium is 50% off on Steam this week (as is CP2077).

Union contract that my company uses, has clause that salaries need to be checked yearly and there needs to be 1.2% increase in purchasing power. So yearly salary increase is estimated inflation plus 1.2%. Inflation estimate is done by economists from worker union and employer union together.

BPM provides Incarnate summons with Legendary weapons. Pallid Knight is a fighter, and having only normal weapons mean she was useless. The other summon is a SC fully scaled priest so it helps less. BPM reduces the duration of Incarnate of Berath because 2 for price of 1 was too good. With BPM, the PL penalty is lesser but lasts longer. The usher should appear too. It was tested and worked. By the way, Symbols are basically the best Tier 8 damages spell of the game. Period. Only tier 9 Maelstrom ans Minoletta can compare. But you get only one cast of them without support. Symbols being no friendly fire is also very cool.

Good question and yes inflation is caused by several factors but SA inflation has been more or less consistent for the last 10 years between 4-5 %. I consider high inflation to be one of the worst economic realities for any country which is why most Central Banks\Reserve Banks\Federal Reserve have " inflation targeting " as one of their primary mandates. We dont negotiate our increases as they set on inflation and you work towards your end of year bonus or commission target as your main incentive. But lets say you want to negotiate a better raise than inflation then you need to justify your revenue stream with your boss and what you bring in which is hard to do in certain jobs where you cant calculate your personal contribution like someone working in a factory, these types of workers dont have a target for example But as a consultant I can calculate my hourly billing and I know exactly what I contribute and what customers I work on and how we benefit from yearly software renewals and projects because of the work I do. And this matters because back in the day in JHB, 2 years ago, where I was well paid I worked at several banks and because I specialize in financial software the companies I worked for recognised these important customers and kept people like me happy So to answer your questions, yes its done yearly in listed companies and you right you cant predict inflation exactly so your increase is normally 4-5% depending on current SA inflation because the core objective with most salary increases is your salary increase should be enough to assume you dont lose money due to inflation But everyone works towards a bonus assuming the company makes its yearly target. I hope this makes sense?

Thats interesting. I was just reading What Causes Inflation and Who Profits From It? and it seems inflation is variable due to several reasons (the Federal Reserve tries to keep it around 2%). So using you as an example, how do you negotiate a raise? Is it performed annually? Otherwise it would be impossible to predict the inflation in SA over a 5 year contract?

I hear you and I think their is some validity to the view " their is very little innovation " but on the other hand you know the old adage " if its not broken, why fix it " In other words we have had so many excellent and varied games over the last 10-15 years its hard to think of something truly revolutionary that we have not seen before so you could argue " very few things can be innovative under the current circumstances of technological advancement " I know the article mentions Disco as revolutionary but I found it fun with excellent writing but I didn't even finish it because the non-fantasy setting bored me

I didnt check all four states, but in Michigan its the law to pay overtime after 40 hours. Basically they are rejecting the 3% raise.

Oh no! I am dying to know what you will think of the finale, without context of Bioshock1. You should play Bioshock1 BTW. Definitely play Bioshock1 before Infinite's DLCs.

Berath Incarnate summons the Pallid Knight AND the Usher at the same time. They count as one summon. Such as a Chanter can summon three skeletons at once or a Druid can summon multiple oozes at once. Other priests' Incarnate also have multiple creatures, for example Priest of Eothas summons three Dawnstars. Wael only summons one giant eye that shoots lightnings iirc. Skaen summons one freaking Effigy and so on. I think Woedica is the only Priest subclass has no incarnate summon.

I think you don't need +2 PEN for Hunting Bows because you get Essence Interrupter (shock/pierce) and Aamiina's Legacy (pierce/slash) which helps enormously to overcome almost all PEN issues. I played SC Wizard, Streetfighter/Bloodmage and Streetfighter/Berserker with Hunting Bow + modal and the bonus PEN from Berserker didn't really lift it up. Streetfighter/Bloodmage was pretty cool because you buff up and call a Phantom, then trigger the right amount of Blood Sacrifice until bloodied and start shooting at incredible speed (50% & 50% recovery + Alacrity). Also pretty nice with one-handed pistol once you get Eccea's to circumvent the pierce-only limitation. The SC Wizard was Aloth and was meant to use Caedebald's BB eventually (which he did and which is awesome) - but I wanted to stay true to the bow theme for the whole run. Worked well, too. When you give him all the relevant gear a Wizard isn't that bad of a bow user - also because with a phantom + Essence Interrupter you will put additional summons on the field quite frequently. A SC human Bloodmage with Caedebald's and Helm of the White Void has pretty great accuracy with the Blackbow (+7 Fighting Spirit,+10 Rymrgand's Influence,+20 from Citzal's MP). The Helm eve works for the Phantom (which has good base ACC, too). So plenty of teffified enemies at all times. Streetfighter/Berserker has insane attack speed once bloodied (and even before quite great bc. of Frenzy + modal) but getting to bloodied takes more time and then you don't want to trigger Frenzy anymore - or the balancing between healing/heating up becomes a tedium. But when it works it really works. Barbaric Smash finishing enemies with 140+ crits, followed by 0-recovery shots and then shooting further with insane speed is fun. But it's also quite one-dimensional. Good AI-toon though. Easy to setup, fire and forget. In all cases the lowish ACC because of the modal is countered by the awesome attack speed. It's not hat bad to miss a shot if you're putting out 3 while others put out 1. For crits galore with Frostseeker I think Monk/Ranger or Cipher/Ranger are best. Both also get some bonus PEN (+2/+1) but they alse get bonus ACC (+12/+20) as well as speed, bonus dmg and even bigger AoE in case of Monk (as well als Stunning Surge which is awesome with three projectiles + Driving Flight). And the Cipher version also is a lot more versatile than a "dumb" pew-pew character imo.

From the WIKI: So, you can take this route, free him taking a bit of his soul, ignore all factions on the way to Ukaizo and battle the Guardian. All are happy (except maybe Huana and the Guardian himself...).

I think you got the wrong idea here. The study was done to see how well antibodies in the blood of people whose vaccination was three and six months ago are able to neutralize Omicron under laboratory conditions. Omicron doesn't need to be around for three months to check that, you need people with vaccinations three and six months back, and there are plenty of those around. That doesn't say anything about the severity of infections, or how people really react when exposed to Omicron, but it does show that current vaccines are not expected to be very effective in preventing infection after a month or so. Which isn't entirely surprising. Still needs to be reviewed and all, but nothing unexpected at least, given Omicron's spike protein changes.

Take the independent way. Put aside any faction and either buff your own ship with the Dragonwing Sails and the Blackwood Hull, or take a Floating Hangman. That's exactly what I always do - free the Dragon but keep a bit of his soul. And I don't actually 100% support any faction out there. So - move alone and fight the Guardian.

Well, killing members of a faction is a rather fast way to lower the rep. Never had issues with getting the Principi to hate me - even though I usually try to get Engoliero de Espirs ASAP (which is about the end of their questline), sometimes also Scordeo's Edge. Forcing your way into the Undercity trough the thug controlled elevator kinda helps...

Yes, forbidden curse does an average of 25 damages per 3s, for each, it is quickly than Mortification of the soul! I finally found how to become PL32 with Bellower, i edit the post.

Thanks. I wonder if you could forgo Mortification of the Soul and just stack FF curses to get yourself down to bloodied. A few stacks of the curse will bring your HP down very fast, while also magnifying the damage you do even more.

Yes, I write exactely the order I followed, but that was because I was trying on a FF monk : when I want to test something that require to stay Bloodied or Near death, I multiclasse with a drug-crashed Nazpalca monk (no heal). And, of course, SoT priest is mandatory, per-rest limited abilities (empowering is also limited) mean you want a return to investissement in the just mesure.

Future Boy Conan is next, likely to be started this week or maybe early next, depending. The new English dub version is out, although no decision has been concretely made on what to go with yet. By the way, does anyone know why the hell buying the series to stream on Amazon is more expensive than buying the actual BDs? 52 freaking dollars to stream it, $35 to buy the 4-disc BluRay set. HUH?! To be honest, I'm not...super into the idea of getting into a classic adventure story like this right now after having seen Nadia not all that long ago, but... Well, hopefully I'll enjoy it more consistently than Nadia. I will continue finishing Samurai Hairdo on the side. After that's finished, I have...I have a lot of different choices, to be honest, but the ones at the top right now are: Princess Tutu Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer Kimagure Orange Road Kazemakase Tsukikage Ran Maison Ikkoku Mahou no Star Magical Emi More Devil Lady Serial Experiments Lain Yes, I know a few of these are questionable - they're the ones I'll probably try first simply to get them out of my hair ASAP, . ...Of course, I've tried that strategy a few times before and then found myself juggling three or four different shows at once before because I found that I liked them more than I expected, so not always necessarily the wisest idea.

Surprised it's even on there at all. Speaking of the list, are you going to finish Samurai Hokkaido now? Any plans moving forward with Princess Tutu? Ruin a perfectly good series by trying Clear Card? After this movie I'm going to need a break from Nanoha, as much as I liked StrikerS, these films are, uhm, yeah. Finishing Dropkick on my Devil! is probably next. That one at least is pure fun, as long as it's not a Pekola focus episode, then that other really short anime with the terrible name just to get some more items off the list. Plus mental preparation for tomorrow's double whammy of Komi and Star Dreck. Yikes.

Practically, overhead isn't that important since it gets defrayed over potentially thousands of products. Vendor cut (eg Walmart/ Amazon for dvds; or movie theatres) is the big factor that download distribution avoids, assuming you have your own service. The cost to do download/ streaming distribution is almost zero, fabrication and distribtion cost of a dvd is higher but still very close to zero. The closest parallel is Spotify vs CD sales. Pretty much all the big names prefer the old model, and now make the vast majority of their money from live performance rather than sales. If you're getting in the region of 2c per track played you need a track to be played 1000 times to make the same as a $20 CD sale's gross. Maybe halve that for vendor cut (and distribution), but it's still 500 plays required. For most albums that would requires it to be played 50 times to make back the money. I've probably listened to a decent number of albums more than 50 times, but over the course of 30 years. As a corp once you've got the money from a CD (or DVD) it doesn't matter if it's never played once. Disney would love to cut out the middleman and stream everything, but they also want to retain the premium pricing. If you're got 5 people in a family watching a PPV movie they need to charge you maybe $30* to break even compared to 5 people going to the movies- but most people would consider that unreasonable when it's multiple months worth of subscription streaming and they know they'll get it bundled if they wait 6 months. *no idea what it costs in the US, but that would be roughly NZ pricing in USD assuming half to the theatre, half to the movie maker.

it's also a bit weird because you can actually get a bit of a lore dump from the guardian. i think there's also another way to avoid the guardian fight - i think if you just sacrifice your faction allies, the guardian never shows up (presumably busy with your allies). i know i've stumbled into ukaizo without a fight, and it struck me as a bit weird that it's that easy (and that easily for the player to overlook) to avoid what is supposed to be the last fight. (if you clear all the megabosses, it can even still be a bit of a rough fight due to all the scaling bonuses it gets as part of its "the last megaboss" buff.) at least in a game like F:NV you needed lots of skill checks and correct dialogue tree navigation regardless to do that.

Nope - funny you mention it because that's one of my very very few RP issues with Deadfire. Freeing him but keeping a bit of his soul in there is the obvious optimal choice, but it robs you of 2 epic fights. The latter you might even never know you missed unless you paid attention or read the wiki lol.

Okay, tried again with a phantom and got it to work. It's indeed Avenging Storm. And it will loop as long as it doesn't miss (which obviously breaks the cycle). As soon as it's going you should use Clear Out or even better Clean Sweep (or use a Brute to have Carnage going for you) to trigger shocking loops on all enemies in AoE range. As expected Avenging Storm not only procs itself which is already hefty enough but also Static Charge gets applied with Avenging Storm and as soon as AS crits the resulting procs of shock damage will also proc Avenging Storm again which lets this stuff snoball like crazy if you're lucky and no miss is interrupting it. Pretty cool. But as I said there seem to be other spells that are more commonly triggered. Some pretty lame (Blizzard or Returning Storm for example) - but all of them apply Static Charge. If you're patient Fighter Bloodmage with decent regeneration gear you can use Blood Sacrifice to stay hidden and send one Gathering Storm Phantom after the other. As slong as you personally don't proc Gathering Storm your fresh phantoms will always be able to proc it anew. Edit: by the way Ball Lightning is only 1/rest but it's very good (especially on Fighter/Rogue due to the Sneak Attack/Deathblows bonus). Another reason for going Fighter with LDV imo. I combined it with the Mantle of the Seven Bolts and you'll have 2 really impactful abilities per rest that can help you turn the tides real quick.

Stardust Crusaders 38-39 Pet Shop Shut up! Don't ask me! I'm a dog! Well that was something else.

So another Bioshock is in works? We will see how it will go without Ken Levine.

It's a good thing they helped Rex out when he got cold, he'd never got the sweater over his head with those arms...!

Jotaro laughing is scarier than any stand.

My booster shot was the worst of all three, like a day and a night of seriously unpleasant flu, and it only started something like 14 hours after, so everything is not lost yet for you. ....er...heh. Heh heh. Oh, have a video!