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Great news, its our first sunny day since the 21st at our beach cottage so I thought I would take some pictures of the beautiful scenery. The beach photos are taken from the deck outside and its about 6 meters to the beach, its at high tide so you cant see the real beauty of the rock pools. The entire beach is known as a private beach which means no shark nets or lifeguards and this area is now deemed a Conservancy by the SA National Parks which means no fishing or catching of any sea creatures like lobster, crayfish, muscles or sea urchins. Then one of brothers and his wife are at a game reserve about an hour from the beach cottage and they took these animals pics from game drive vehicle, the one photo has a Buffalo hiding in the bushes

-50 All Defenses against intellect affliction attacks to allies and self in 5m radius It is not as easy than confuse a Squid's Grasped character to turn this unconditional debuff aura to ennemies : even dominated, party members stay Allies, and the curse touch only the party. This is the difference with Friendly. But it is possible with Wizard's Phantom, or Druid'Watery double, to bypass this impossibility. They are Team member, and not Party member, and while equipped with Squid's Grasp, the party isnt affected by the curse. And if an ennemy flip his alliance, with Charm or Dominate, the curse is applied to them. That doesnt work with "friendly" charm. (the Essential Phantom is just behind the Vithrack, who have dominated him) The problem is that seem impossible to do without the "ennemies's help", except if someone find a way to do that

Hey, just in case - you can also just press the W key which by default switches weapon sets. Much faster than clicking IMO. I'm guessing you know, but since we all keep discovering things that are obvious to others even now, especially myself....

Ah it is more clear, I knew these rules and it is right all abilities doesnt follow them in the same place. Maybe the developpers would have nerfed WotW with the changes of somes keywords in gamedata, but I dont think for Riposte or Swift Flurry : they are Abilities using Weapon(s) characteristics, then Weapon Attack Abilities, in other case the attack used should have an action time from the weapon. I dont know about Riposte (passive) why that scale but not Driving Flight's bounces. Maybe this last scaled in the first version of the game, and it was unbalanced, I dont know.

Ok I will try to explain the problem in a nutshell (I will be simplifying A BIT). I think this would require its own thread anyway. "Basically", there are 4 kinds of scaling : A - Scaling from weapon quality (Unarmed Scaling is close enough to belong here, even if it has a couple differences). +1 PEN, +15% additive damages and about +4 Acc per quality level. B - PL scaling from Weapon Attack Abilities such as Rogue Strikes. 5% multiplicative damages and duration for each PL above Ability Tier. C - Intrinsic non Weapon Attack Ability Scaling, purely based on Ability Tier. For Each Tier above 1, the ability gets +2 Acc and +0.5 PEN. D - PL scaling from non Weapon Attack Abilities. 5% multiplicative damages and duration, +1 Acc, +0.25 PEN for each PL above Ability Tier. Also +1 bounce and +1 projectile for each 2 PL above ability Tier. So : - An Auto attack will get A so it keeps up with enemy defences. - A Weapon Attack Ability will get A and B so it keeps up with enemy defences and get benefits from PL. - A non Weapon Attack Ability will get C and D so it keeps up with enemy defences and gets benefits from PL. The A, B, C, D values are balanced so that all abilities scale about the same. The benefits from A+B are roughly equivalent to C+D. (It doesn't mean A is equivalent to C and B to D ; D provides strictly more benefits than C). All the above would be great design (and for most part is) if not for some exceptions. The issue is that some "non-weapon attack abilities" are still weapon based. Riposte is a "Weapon ability" but not a "Weapon Attack Ability". In the very case we are speaking about, WotW gets A+C and maybe also B and/or D. I think that FF gets A and D (it's level 1, so no C anyway). I have other worries. Passive Abilities for example usually don't get bonus from PL. But I moded them so they at least get the Acc and PEN PL bonus. I'm also concerned about Unique Weapon activable abilities that could get bonuses from both A and D type (hence big Acc and PEN !). Thunderous Report has always seemed more efficient than it should...

I started pathfinder kingmaker. Not convinced, but due to too many AD&D campaigns in my teens, I will soldier through it for now

Hey thanks! And to you as well @KP on top of ZA WARUDO! Managed to win a key for the DLC season pass, but on and off whenever the inspiration hits me I'll do a quick cartoon and occasionally will get responses that say they managed to brighten someone's day, and given that most of the creative stuff I do for a living is largely soulless those are the greatest rewards. Have an idea for a strip featuring Aivu, so stay tuned. @ChairchuckerSame here. Did a restart for a playthrough that was going wonderfully because I had sold some of the buff books to a vendor I no longer had access to before I learned their significance, and even re-speccing a bad character build feels a bit... dirty, with all the weird bugs with the current implementation and how it effectively functions as a free Scroll of Atonement.

No they don't. Try using Power Strike or something. You get exactly the penetration/accuracy/damage bonus that the tooltip states, whereas these give you additional bonuses just for being a certain level ability, just like Fireball and other spells. Also most martial abilities only get additional damage from power level, whereas Riposte, Mob Stance etc. get additional accuracy and penetration just as spells do. That makes sense for spells, since you can't upgrade them like weapons so you need to scale them one way or another. With these triggered attacks though you scale them twice, thus double dipping, since they take into account both power level scaling and weapon tier scaling. For monks this is particularly important. Additional PL makes their fists stronger, AND makes their triggered attacks stronger too. With community patch, try using Forbidden Fist while near death on a Death Godlike as a single class monk that picks Prestige and has an Acute inspiration. You will do simply stupid amounts of damage because your weapon (your fists) and the Forbidden Fist ability are both scaling at the same time. With the community patch the Forbidden Fist ability is also treated like a spell, by the way.

congrats to @Agiel HA! Good Fun!

For me Star Trek ended when Voyager got home. And that series was definitely running on creative fumes when it ended. DS9 was the high water mark for Star Trek IMO. Although Sisko's story ending left a sour taste in my mouth. But few TV series stick the landing on their final episode. So few they are remarkable when they do. This was just a masterpiece of an ending!

Veteran takes his service dog back to prison and immediately sprints toward female inmate who trained him Definitely worth reading!

I had a Devoted/Helwalker run that I quit early due to how busted it was, as Unbending is truly broken with high intellect. The hit to crit was also very nice for chaining Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming, and Mob Stance would also start crit chains, often annihilating enemies from full hp.

So OK, if I were to take a stab at a tier list, I think I would actually re-sort the multi-class one quite a bit. A big thing for me is that a multiclass really should give you something better than if you had two characters single-classing the respective classes or if you just remixed some of your existing MCs in your party; in other words something truly synergistic, and as a result some classes fall off pretty hard, with a few notable exceptions. I'll mostly ignore subclasses unless something is very notable. This isn't saying the lower-tier classes are bad for MC, just that you might just be better off not MC-ing or that the lower the class is on the tier you may have to work harder to get synergistic results (maybe by mixing with a higher-tier class). Within a given tier, classes are not in any particular order, though I may group classes that are in the tier for a similar reason. S tier: Fighter, Monk <- extremely useful passives and abilities/buffs that are useful for all sorts of mixins. Tactical Barrage or Duality (intellect) are both great for casters for example. ironically, i would find a fighter/monk multiclass not that exciting, but a fighter/anything-else or a monk/anything-else is pretty darn easy way to get a synergistic MC. Ranger <- a little more strictly limited to damage dealers and you have to work for it, but you can get a ton of generic accuracy and, later on, damage bonuses or defensive boosts. Stalker can get you unconditional bonus passive AR, which is really hard to come by (even a Barbarian's is limited to a few damage types). I was tempted to rank this down but to be honest it's only because you have to metagame and work for that max-ed out hunter's claw (and you can cheesily exceed the 20 max no problemo), not because it's weak in any way. Top tier (may be situationally S-tier in the right setup, but not as general as actual S-tier) Priest of Wael, Priest of Skaen, Trickster <- spam defensive spells for glass cannons Shifter <- some interesting synergies with extended shape shifting, but mostly only works with martial multiclass Psion <- the action economy benefits for a caster are wonderful, and multiclassing with a caster means unlike a SC psion you don't get completely shut out in fights with huge aoes or lots of annoying ranged enemies Wizard <- lots of useful buff spells mixed in that provide a great deal of utility for all sorts of classes, whether you're high-deflection (wizard's double, arcane veil, mirror image), melee-ing (summoning weapons, phantom), tanking (spirit shield, bulwark, corrosive siphon, repulsive visage, flame shield), ranged (different summoned weapons, eldritch aim), or just a caster mix (infuse with vital essence, deleterious alacrity of motion, picking up tons of passives while still getting a lot of extra spell casts due to grimoires). The payoff is a little bit worse for mixing in with other caster classes, hence why it's not S-tier. Pretty good tier (may be situationally top tier in the right setup, but not as general as actual Top tier) Barbarian <- frenzy can be pretty useful for various setups, bonus armor & blood thirst also pretty handy. bloodlust comes very late but on damage-dealers can be spam-city. mobility of leap or wild sprint can help out mixins that are a bit squishier. Rogue <- riposte and escape are great, but the opportunities for riposte are a little more limited. But martial damage dealers will love sneak attack. Cipher <- bonus weapon damage is nice and you get some effects that only benefit the cipher, which means multiclassing onto a decent body can get you more than if you're just a SC cipher Paladin -> extra defense can be nice and in certain situations can be godly, but it's pretty niche in terms of what other classes can offer and most of the stuff you really want someone else to be the paladin anyway, so that they can use exortations on you. Nothing special tier (may be situationally pretty good in the right setup, but otherwise nothing special) Druid, Priest -> really hard to come up with synergies outside of any subclasses mentioned above. you might still have a good time multiclassing them, but nothing special. Ancient and Priest of Magran/Berath have some edge interactions with their bonus PL/spells that can be slightly interesting. Fury unfortunately hurts itself by limiting its benefit to just druidic elements abilities. Chanter <- energized, skald crit-hit synergy (which chanter alone is kinda bad at), sometimes you have a build that needs to be up close and personal anyway and can advantageously position chant AoEs. but most of what a chanter can do can be done just as well or better as an SC chanter, you don't necessarily get anything special by MC-ing it.

I like Pitch Meeting. It's the only thing Screen Rant puts out that I like, the rest is Collider-level hot garbage.

It's not all bad, thanks to it we get gems like this;

Dude what the Hell. I don't have lots of money and he made all that money because there's a fishing surplus in my area and he jumped right on it. Back breaking work that's not even worth all that cash imo considering the long term damage it does to your body.

Also if you're playing an Uber defence build, ENEMY fighters are going to be slightly more threatening with this new Confident Aim People often forget BPM buffs also affects (Kith) foes

Indeed. I just recently learned that you need to press on the demon head in the opening screen to access the Magran's Fires screen.

Finally Whispers of the Wind allow to SC monks to solo the game with every inspirations, they maybe are not so weak, like everybody think!

Aha! Uff, yes, I have totally misremembered the current attack resolution values. I was still thinking that they are 31+ for graze, 51+ for hit, 101+ for crit. Both wikis still mention these values btw ---- Have checked the the globals.gamedatabundle now: "MinimumRollToGraze": 25, "MinimumRollToHit": 50, "MinimumRollToCrit": 100, And have remembered now, that the values were shifted left by 1, to allow crit on 100. So the resolution is: 25+ for grazes, 50+ for hits, 100+ for crits ------------------------- Let's compute again: v1. Without Aware scenario0: character has no buffs/talents, and has 25/50/100+ attack resolution scenario1: 30% Graze-to-Hit (Confident Aim), shifts the attack resolution from 25/50/100+ to 25/42.5/100+ scenario2: 50% Graze-to-Hit (Confident Aim), shifts the attack resolution from 25/50/100+ to 25/37.5/100+ v2. With Aware : scenario3: just aware buff shifts the attack resolution from 25/50/100+ to 25/37.5/100+ scenario4: 30% Graze-to-Hit (Confident Aim), shifts the attack resolution from 25/37.5/100+ to 25/33.75/100+ scenario5: 50% Graze-to-Hit (Confident Aim), shifts the attack resolution from 25/37,5/100+ to 25/31.25/100+ Now let's imagine a very raw and approximate estimation, where a character keeps auto-attacking and deals: 5 damage on graze, 10 damage on hit and 15 damage on crit and he has the exact same attack as enemy defense So, out of 100 perfectly spread attacks he deals: scenario0: 25 grazes (for 5 dmg) + 50 hits (for 10 dmg), + 1 crit (for 15 dmg) = 640; so each swing deals 6.4 dmg on average scenario1: 17.5 * 5 + 57.5 * 10 + 15 = 677.5; or 6.775 dmg on average (that's 5.8% over scenario0) scenario2: 12.5 * 5 + 62.5 * 10 + 15 = 702.5; or 7.025 dmg on average (that's +9.7% over scenario0; or +3.69% buff over scenario1) scenario3: same as scenario2 scenario4: 8.75 * 5 + 66.25 * 10 + 15 = 721.25; or 7.2125 dmg on average (that's +12.69% over scenario0; or +2.67% over scenario3) scenario5: 6.25 * 5 + 68.75 * 10 + 15 = 733.75; or 7.3375 dmg on average (that's +14.64% over scenario0; or +4.44% over scenario3) ----= That's basically what you were pointing out. If the character is affected by Aware or Intuitive inspirations, the benefit from Confident Aim is really small. ----- I think it becomes a problem/cheese, when a player figures out how to make his character unable to be die. Now he can just put his character on auto-attack and go with his day I haven't played Shattered Pillar since beta

You socialists have lots of money, nice to see the Capitalist system has been good to you Comrade

No more NieR. Maybe. Probably not.

Congrats! =D

2nd and 3rd should be switched tbh. Regill as an exasperated middle manager knight forced into having a party should be in the game. Anyways I think I'm somewhere in the middle of my 1st run (Azata) and by god I wish I had picked Wendaug instead of Lann. This guy has complained non-stop after leaving the cave and his advice has been bad to the point I wish I could go back and ask the cat girl to come with me instead. Between this and the psychotic lawful dialogue options I think at least one writer really hates the lawful axis. Regill, who should be the exact opposite of my CG Azata, has been more fun so far than the lizard-goat half-elf man.

Rebel Galaxy is fun enough, feels a lot like EV Nova. The UI is a pain to deal with, surely swapping turrets around could be less clunky than they've done it here.

No it just seems to be triggered attacks that you don't directly command. Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming also have bonus accuracy and penetration due to their base level. I should also mention that they benefit from power level too, including accuracy and power level and penetration. Basically they're attacks in the form of spells.

Didn't know that. It sounds like it require some cleaning. Honnestly for all of them, it doesn't make senses. Do you know by chance if HoF and Whirling Strikes get similar bonus ? Clear Out and its upgrades ? It deserves testing. If possible, yes, I agree. It could be the contrary, it could cause failed attacks because you move too fast.

I think WotW would be slightly less OP if all your attacks didn't gain extra penetration and accuracy as if it was a spell. Riposte, Mob Stance and Retaliation all do something similar but they are much more passive in nature and you can't force them to trigger. Or remove the invisibility so that you can't use it with the cape that lets you stun on hit. I wonder if it would also mean that you could get hit while you use WotW.

Multiple reloading happens all the time in this game. That's not the main issue here IMHO. However, I think it is right to think about a WotW nerf as a whole. The first question to ask is : do we find Whirling Strikes and Heart of Fury OP ? I think these abilities are powerful, but IMHO not broken. They require some setup to work perfectly and costs a lot of ressources. They aren't more broken than, let's say missile salvo. So nothing too wrong for a Nuking SC endgame IMHO. Then what are the differences between WotW and these abilities ? 1) It can repeat targets (you can have 7 strikes - diablo 3, get out of here ! - without too much difficulty, with prestige and a random non stackable +1) 2) It even bounces from far (10m). I know that's not the case we are speaking about, but it contributes making WotW a bit too easy to use in all cases. 3) It cost a renewable ressource. But the list can be expended 1) repeat target can be removed. The number of max targets can be reduced (keep in mind it should have +1 bounce per 2 bonus PL... Empower matters there.) 2) bounce range can be reduced if needed 3) Wound cost should stay BUT the cost can be upped. I think It costs 5 wounds because Shattered Pillar has 5 max wounds. But CP puts the limit to 10. So a monk ability could cost up to 9 wounds now (not 10 because Xoti ). I would even think about some other Monk ability that could cost a little more than they do (the clones, resonant touch). All this won't kill the fun.

were never complete clear o' ray lewis involvement other than his undisputed role in covering up a murder, which by itself shoulda' been more than enough to destroy any kinda rep or legacy. add Big Game then need add roethlisberger, but is way too many names for us to track with nba, nhl, nfl and mlb championship mvps added to the list. that said, am gonna suggest kobe bryant deserves consideration as well. ... (edit) crikey. can't hardly believe we forgot oj. HA! Good Fun!

Quote for the Day: "I've learned that you should never google without thinking about the consequences first... Sometimes, googling is a good idea... The Mindanao Islamic Liberation Front found this to their cost..."

James Webb Space Telescope begins unfolding delicate, massive sunshield.

I am looking forward to games released this year being on sale.

And, its curtains.

That's r00fles. /counternitpick.

genuine crazy is not something we lose much sleep over, 'cause is kinda impossible to predict what you might say or do to set off the person who takes advice from the 6' lobster living in their garage. angry and stoopid people is more plentiful than crazy. is all too many folks who bring guns with them to situations they know is gonna be volatile. irl we were threatened with murder many times and usual we didn't take serious. were never receiving death threats from a current or past client, but we did get threats from people offended by our choice o' clients. how many such people woulda' been angry enough to bring a gun with them when confronting us, y'know, just to protect themselves? dunno. too many if even one. regardless, not crazy, but predictable stoopid and angry. post university we lived in cities as were more convenient for us... right up until one day our sister, who had health problems and were living with us at the time, were confronted by one o' those angry people threatening Gromnir with murder. the thing is, once our sister were gone, we went back to same blasé attitude 'bout personal safety. if we ever need sell our house am gonna need hire a locksmith 'cause we have no idea where is the keys for our front door. haven't locked the front door for years save when going outta town. 'course our pov would change drastic if we had a family to protect. have embarrassed a few folks here and on other boards. have had to deal with their bruised egos-- typical for a week or two after some particular emasculating conflict we see such folks impotent rage post in our general direction. tedious. angry and stoopid. am s'posing we could face real life consequences from those needing convince themselves o' their manhood, or whatever. is reasonable and responsible to assume there is many people who is angry and stoopid enough to do violence. incontrovertible. gonna make more use o' ignore 'cause chances are the next time we see somebody post something monumental asinine, am gonna comment. yeah, chances are we face some kinda sisyphean trial as we attempt to explain something which should be self evident, and no doubt we will need endure the comically retributive squeaks o' rage from those who feel wronged, but am petty enough to not be overconcerned, even if am agreeing with the general sentiment that is we should be more wary o' stoopid and angry. as such, where is possible, ignore is probable our best option. HA! Good Fun!

Volourn was frustrating, because...he didn't used to be quite as off the walls unhinged and unpleasant as he was towards the end, and he seemed like an actual person with relatively consistent opinions but with no clue how (or at least no desire) to state them in a way that didn't have endless flaming and false equivalencies. He was a guy that was frequently getting added to and removed from my ignore list up until his last year or so of being here. That's more than I can say for a few others, whose propensity for utterly lacking any intellectual honesty or consistency from one post to the next makes a permanent ignore a relatively simple decision - there is no value to be gained for anyone in discussing matters with those who have no interest in honest discussion.

The only poster I have ever ignored was Volourn. But it was more because I had to be in a certain mood to really appreciate his posts. Eventually hitting the reveal button felt like opening a present. What did that krazy kid say now?

B5 had one that I always view as a classic. But then they usually managed to tie in music that hit the right tones for the majority of the scenes.

LOL good advice. I have three other "he-who-shall-not-be-named" posters beyond those two. One of them promised to come to the US and kick my ass. I PMed him my address!

That is, at least, the best season of Discovery. Anyway, I've finally finished Witcher S2. It was... good. Far more along the expected lines of an adaptation than WoT, albeit I'd read Blood of Elves ages ago and can't really remember much (see below), and played the games. And absolutely night and day in terms of apparent quality, scripting, CGI, sets, choreography, consistency and indeed pretty much everything else. End of the day, while I'm not familiar enough with the source material to say that it's a good adaptation it's good or better on the more objective fronts, as well as the subjective one of actually being entertaining- and it hasn't introduced any glaring internal inconsistencies that look like they'll come back to bite them either.

you have clear never watched a horror film. make a statement such as the above is almost as likely as teens having sex to resurrect the moldering corpse o' a fell and tormented creature impossible lingering on the borders 'tween our world and hell. if oby and skarpen_one sudden once again contribute to these boards, we will be blaming you... or perhaps a pair o' sex starved interns doing qa at 2am at obsidian. HA! Good Fun!

It took three sittings by we made it through Matrix 4. Overly long fight sequences and I dont have any idea what happened at the end. NPH is great as usual.