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Back to Disco Elysium. I helped some kids start a club and discovered a sound so powerful it almost took down a building. Hardcore.

So Portuguese politics time! Portugal is a small European country right next by to Spain. We like to call ourselves the third world country of western Europe. We are your standard western Europe economy but with really, really low wages. We have a social safety net of sorts, a national health service that is terrible but still saves a lot of people that would otherwise die. We are permanently in debt and in some economic crisis. We were a fascist dictatorship until 1974, and since then we've been a fairly stable democracy with more or less always the same parties with seats in our parliament. There used to be four parties. The center left PS (Socialist Party), the center right PSD (Social Democratic Party), the left PCP (Portuguese Communist Party, more for workers' rights, especially manual laborers), and the right CDS (Democratic and Social Center, more Catholic). Anyway, as a reference for Americans all the parties to the left of CDS, are leftie pinko parties to you. Now those two more moderate parties, PS and PSD, have always been the parties of power with much larger voter bases, but they have slowly been losing their majorities, as the spectrum has become more fragmented. Now this fragmentation has been the story in the 21st Century. The first new party to show up was BE( the Left Bloc), a party about as left as PCP but more tailored for middle class office workers, and more focused on social issues(abortion, drug legalization, euthanasia, LGBTQ+ rights) than worker rights. They were a big success in the 00s, and overtook PCP as the more left force of note in parliament. There are now more left parties in contention(like PAN, the Animals and Nature Party, or Livre (Free, like a new upstart BE). However, in more recent years it was the right that got more fragmented. The more important party of that change was Chega(Enough), a party( actually essentially a single confidence man, playing the con of his life) trying and succeeding to leverage "economic" concerns, where "economic" means taking away the social safety net, complaining about the Roma,and stealthily longing for the Fascist days. It's the Portuguese version of the extreme right party that now exists in about every Western country. You know, Neo-Nazis pretending they are not because they have better haircuts and suits. One other right party that has now become of note is IL (Liberal Initiative). Basically upper middle class twits of the year. They studiously avoid the more terrible topics of Chega, but still have idiotic proposals that screw over the poor like a flat income tax(15% for everyone). I'm not sure if they earnestly believe in it or if they are just using it as talking point for the gullible. Now for the current situation. So the last Legislative elections had given a limp minority mandate to PS, as seemed increasingly inevitable. In order to have a proper majority in parliament and the ability to govern, PS struck an unwieldy left leaning deal with PCP, BE and PAN. This generally meant that, for the government not to lose its mandate, PS has to convince the 3 smaller parties to go along with their budget, which is approved in parliament. if not the government would consider to have lost its mandate, and the President would have to call new elections. This is exactly what happened in December. Specifically PCP and BE felt betrayed by PS's budget proposal, and voted against it. So we got these elections yesterday. PS said they wanted an absolute majority(very low likelihood), PSD just wanted to beat PS(very low likelihood), Chega and BE wanted to beat each other, while CDS and PCP were simply trying to survive. Every other party just wanted to take as many seats as they could, however few. So, what happened yesterday, exactly? Well, going into election day yesterday, polling predicted a small minority for PS, and a dead heat between BE, Chega, IL, and PCP(maybe). Small margins meant anything could happen! Well, not quite, it turns out. PS got their wished for absolute majority, PSD was pummeled across the country, Chega won handily against their rivals, becoming the third political force in Portugal(xenophobes gonna xenophobe, of course), IL became the fourth political force(huge surprise), BE came fifth in votes, sixth in actual seats (enormous defeat( lost like half of their seats), PCP got 6 seats. PAN and Livre got single seats. CDS lost every single seat so they are deader than a door nail(someone literally left a wreath at their HQ last night, lol). So the real winner was PS of course. They were the only ones who got everything they wanted, and got like the first absolute majority of the past 15 years. António Costa, their leader and PM is very competent and a leader who leads, but also a snake oil salesman, who still abides corruption as is standard in Portugal. But at least we don't have an also rampantly corrupt, "fascist delusions" PSD/Chega/IL government. Chega won the battle of the also rans. It just caters really well to terrible people. IL really knew how to target their niche too, apparently. TLDR: Moderate left PS won the election, retaining their mandate but now with a juicy absolute majority. Everything else is going to the dogs.

I got my Bengals/Rams Big Game.

No, that depend of the enemies's debuff, like for Borrowed Instinct. You cant stack some Time Parasite effects on enemy, only the duration can be adjusted by another cast of the spell. But while ascended, it is not a problem to recast the spell before the buff expire. Anyway, the spell is not very good against solo enemy, since effect dont stack.

HARD CORE TO THE MEGA

Check the last page for some elaboration.

HARDCORE

i've rolled Tekehu as a main tank as a SC chanter. hatchet modal + shield + that bonus deflection/engagement chant + ancient memory chant + heavy armor. actually worked out pretty decently on potd + upscaled + challenges. unfortunately most of his invocations are useless because his perception and accuracy suck in this setup, but i mostly just used the bonus AR invocation, the "Weather the storm"-esque invocation in elemental fights [very useful in beast of winter], and when i had time, the +5 might/con/res invocation (extra res helps survivability and when upgraded it lasts a super long time in big fights). in very very high level fights, he wouldn't even need to tank; i'd have my casters empower-cast their tier 9 spells and tekehu would then immediately use the invocation that restores a class resource to get another round of tier 9 spells, that would end most big fights on its own. chanter as main tank is probably very odd setup, but worked quite well; an optimized custom chanter would do even better than tekehu. though long after i did that run, someone discovered that sasha's singing scimitar would work great with tekehu's avenging storm invocation, so if i ever did that setup again i would do that. add in to the list: xoti as SC monk. whispers of the wound + her unique subclass => tons of wound generation as you clear out enemy fights. she basically carried my entire party in the endgame. aloth as fighter/rogue was a lot of fun - real evasive and had powerful summoned weapons + sneak attack. i did this really early in my potd playing, if i were to do it again with all the metagame knowledge i have now, i would make a sick riposte build probably. konstanten - not really unique to konstanten, but i made a high AR very slow 2h axe build centered around barbaric retaliation (his high constitution helps). spam dazing shout for tons of damage and to lower enemy PEN, frenzy for lowered deflection, and all the crits enemies were getting off on me caused a lot of instant stalking bleeding wounds debuffs. it was actually wild how rapidly his damage contribution to my party before hitting tier 9 abilities (like 4th) and after tier 9 abilities (i think ended up leaping to 2nd, possibly got to 1st by the end). against Dorudugan, i had him use scordeo's edge until he triggered blade cascade, then i used salvation of time while konstanten sswitched back to his massive axe and watched him add like 80 bleeding modal stack onto dorudugan and cause death within a few tens of seconds; i don't even think brilliant was necessary for extra salvations of time, just a self-empower. (though the huge number of debuffs crashed my game the first time i tried it)

So there are some cases where the current parts do not work for a build, and these are ideas that I have thought of that could help with building. Vertical Half Walls - These are just half of a wall. Instead of using 4 of the resource, it would use only 2. Half Roofs - Roofs cut in half with both vertical and horizontal options. Would use 2 resources. Quarter Walls/Roofs/Floors - These are basically half of a half wall/floor/roof. Probably would only use 1 resource. Small Triangle Walls - These would be diagonal half of a quarter wall, similar to how a triangle wall is a diagonal half of a wall. Curved Variations of Vertical Half Walls/Roofs & Quarter Walls/Roofs/Floors - These would be fun for decoration. Hope you enjoyed this! Edit: Had no idea that curved walls already existed.

If it's a single-class Ascendant (don't recommend multiclassing) you can just spam Time Parasite and get incredible action speed -- the buff stacks, and I believe you can also drain the same enemy multiple times.

There's a test release on Discord if you're interested

I was asking because my initial thoughts on her voice were something like: "Oh boy, a nails on chalkboard main character for 26 episodes, what joy." By the end of the anime I thought Nanae Katō did an outstanding job. Actually, from what I've read, Ikuko Itō wanted her and no one else for the job, and I understand why. She absolutely nails the character in a way that one doesn't see - uhm, hear - all too often. The scratchiness remains, but hey... Ahiru is a duck, after all. Other than that, I have no idea what to make of the series as a whole, like you mentioned the ballet teacher is really weird. The moralizing antopomorphic animal stuff gets a bit of a cut down the line. At first I thought the series is going to have more of that, a concept to explore every episode, like in the case of Anteaterina accepting herself the way she is. I mean, in a way, there is a slight possibility that it references... (spoilers, sort of) edit: I also really liked the atmosphere and the looks of the anime. The pastel colors, the character designs, pretty much everything. It's just really... hard to explain what it was about or why I liked it. In that particular way it's one of the most baffling things I've seen. I mean sure, much of the things it is based on are stories I grew up with, and every time something foreign (not meant negatively) has a take on it it's really strange for me. The SuperS film also barely worked for me mostly because it's too much of a fairy tale. Princess Tutu was something else too, but yeah, maybe the actual point really was telling a story? Beats me. I don't regret watching it though.

Her voice is very strange...and kind of scratchy, which isn't something I hear in Japanese voice-acting a lot. I didn't much like it at first (in fact, it made me try out the English dub where I initially thought "hm, maybe I actually prefer the English this time"...until I heard the other characters that were not Ahiru, and went "nope"), but I was getting used to it by the end of the second episode.

Yeah, it's nice to do with leftover kimchi if you want something different.

*has flashbacks to USENET and the "Who would win, Goku from DBZ or Silver-Age Superman" fights* (besides, the obvious winner between Star Wars and Star Trek ships is obviously some third universe where they can create an electrical panel that doesn't explode when there is a power surge and can develop a ship without needing a vent that allows a straight shot to a ship's reactor).

Similar in most European countries I think. Power split and re-split continuously, no party or bloc of parties staying in power indefinitely. The head of state being either a president or a monarch. The alternative would be either single party state (China) or two party state (USA) which I just can't imagine being on any Europeans wishlist.

It is a very standard parliamentary democracy so I do not know what you are on about. People vote for parties, depending on demographics and geography those votes are translated into seats in parliament, whichever party/coalition gets the most votes gets to form a government with a bunch of ministers, lead by a prime minister. There is also a president, a head of state with limited executive power elected by popular vote, and a local election system where people are elected to county and parish office.

I'm not sure what is so hard.... The (now ex) centre-right government lost the snap election which they called themselves and the socialist party won an outright majority in the election? A bit confused about what could be confusing Edit: Ah, I get it. The word "ruling" Edit2: What do you expect from a news organisation that puts this under art and entertainment Edit3: It means they went from being a minority government ruling with the help of other parties to have absolute majority. I get it now. Edit4: Not the worlds best written article, I would agree on that.

Essentially my feelings on the entire anime. It sure is... something. What do you think of Ahiru's voice acting? Well, her voice actor's voice acting, but eh...

First two episodes of Princess Tutu. What in the world is this show? I thought the second episode would be less weird than the first, but no, it's more. The main character's two friends are basically Tomoyo-fied verisons of the shadow puppet girls from Utena, there's a giant creepy anteater girl licking boys' faces, the ballet is...uh really something, the dollmaster and whatever the hell he's doing is really weird and feels kind of unnecessary, we got a cat teacher that insists they must all marry him every time they mess up...I just don't really know what to make of it.

Monk and swashbucker are not the most tanky you can get but I dont think your frontline will be too soft with your composition : your main Cipher with Puppetmaster or Ringleader can transform some ennemies on "tanky distractions" that deal damages on top, and your Lifegiver-Chanter just behind the frontline could be really interesting with your party. As a lifegiver, the druid become tanky-by-healing, so he dont need to be hide, and as a chanter, he can turn a lot of ennemies into your side with the chant The lovers... for the same reasons that the cipher's Ringleader. Both sides of this multiclasse give acces to hard CC spells that stun or paralyse ennemies, but at the condition to stay at range of the ennemies (for most of those spells). Both sides have acces to summons on top, and some are tanky. A Lifegiver-Chanter is polyvalent and very nice to play. For Cipher, I dont know if during the story progression he will stay your higher DPS source, but he can be. At end level, Death of 1.000 cuts on an ennemy catch into the Antipathetic Field beam become really martyred. While ascended, Time Parasite can eventually turn the ascension to a Super Goku one, and if Xoti is also a priest, she can extend the duration of the ascension. It is fun to water ennemies with a succesion of MAJ-key Mind Blades, and most of your spells get an incredible AoE with Shared Nightmare. This last talent is the reason why investing in Arcana is good for SC Ciphers, since instant healing Scrolls have a small area at the base for exemple. I suggest to you to recrut Aloth, even if you dont want to use him : his robe can be very useful, +15% AoE is more than nice, and with the Ring of Overseeing, Loki cat, and good int, your main cipher will keep his central place because each spells will affect a lot of ennemies. AoE weapons like Mortar from Seraphen or Rod (especially Tekehu's one) with modal should make your cipher ascended very fast with all this stuff, + Shared Nightmare at end level. Abraham as a pet for Eder is great, and I think Eder is a man who like dogs. By the way, I'm asking myself about the Abraham's healing power if you kill your own skeletons..

Gee, haven't thought about him in like ten years. Boy, the meta on making silly YouTube videos has changed a lot since his heyday.

With that weak pose game? No. I'm only one episode in, but so far he's managed to drain the savings of a mid-20s office worker. When you factor in that it's on a mass scale, he has probably done more damage than Pegasus overall.

You are right about that one. The Grand Canyon & Vermillion Cliffs are definitely on my to do list. But I have been to Tucson, Saguaro National Park (which is amazing) and Kitts Peak. New Mexico is a state I'd love to visit more. All I have seen of it was along I-10.

I'll try to answer a few of your questions, leaving it to others to address some of of the others. I have never played a Black jacket, so I can't answer the questions specific to that class. But have you considered an unbroken/trickster? That combo is well-known and can enable a much tankier approach. As for terrify proccing disengagement attacks, the answer is "yes, but." That it, it will, but unfortunately not consistently. Sometimes the foes will just cower and do nothing, and sometimes they will attempt to flee, in which case you may get a disengagement attack. But in my experience this only happens some of the time. The key thing is that they need to be engaged by you for this to happen. So the more engagement slots you have, the more likely it is to happen. Hence going with unbroken with a shield would probably be advantageous. However, regardless of what build you chose, terrify is great CC, and makes trickster a great complement to this build. As for armor, I recommend that you not use Fleshmender, as its AR is just too low for a front line DPS/tank build. DoC would be great for a melee MC like this, and Reckless Brigandine would also be good if you have a lot of engagement slots, i.e., particularly if you go with Unbroken. Lastly, yes, the AOE of the mortars increases with INT. You can also increase them with food, pets and items that increase AOE size.

Ive never met an Australian that I didnt like. And theyre super fun to party with.

Brits are (seen as) the worst. Predominantly due to the Thomas Cook groups that aren't just loud, but get so drunk and act in such ways, it is impossible not to judge them. It is so bad, they get that rep even in destinations where these groups never appear (for example Athens). On top of that they are the most likely to cause problems while they are sober: try to blackmail or con hotels or restaurants into giving them freebies. The UK is the only country where the government would send out email alerts to hotels in popular tourist destinations with warnings of what cons were popular the previous season. Chinese aren't liked mostly for the fact that on average nobody makes money of them; they usually have all travel planned out through whatever agency/site they use in China and don't stray into anything outside that package. They don't eat at local restaurants, they don't use taxis, having a Chinese private driver instead, they don't use random hotels. They even bring their own instant meals in their suitcases. Russians are still not used to traveling to the west freely, so can be awkward. They aren't sure if they should be entitled to something or not, so can come over as super-entitled and immediately re-adjust their attitude to super-apologetic. Unless of course they are filthy rich. But the filthy rich are a group that transcends nationality (see UAE below). UAE/Qatar etc are also two opposites packed into the same person. You'll only ever encounter really wealthy tourists, who are also well educated. Their vacation is also an escape from strict social norms, so they are happy to see you and be worldly. At the same time they grew up with servants on hand at any moment, so they are not used to not being waited on. For hotels that means the messiest rooms you'll ever step in. But often they are also to some extent aware that they do things "wrong" so try to make amends for that in being super-sweet and great tippers. I even had guests offer to tell a woman I was interested in how awesome I was and that they traveled all this way just to let her know she really should go out with me. US Americans are usually not as bad as people fear. I think they are well aware of the image of the entitled US American who in action movies walks up to the terrorist hostage taker and demands to be let go because they are American - and obviously end up the only dead hostage. Or the line "If it weren't for us you'd all be speaking German now," which can embarrassingly lead to the other person continuing the argument in German. On top of that, Europe, with the many countries so close to one another, seems to inspire a bit of awe in people from the huge countries, as it is far easier for people to have "abroad" experience. That said, US Americans are the second most likely group to try and con businesses out of money, including disputing credit card charges at hotels, and walking out of cafes and restaurants without paying. Still, in no way at a large scale as Brits. German men can be truly entitled. They are the same way at home as well, but abroad, especially in a poorer country, they can really let loose their entitlement. They also put a high emphasis on the educational aspect of a trip though, so instead of an entitled git you may encounter a walking encyclopedia or a sponge who will soak up every tale the locals tell them with genuine interest. Israelis depend on their age. Middle aged or older couples are great, as are families with adult children. Families with young children can be difficult, as the children seem to have a high risk of being spoiled, jumping up and down on furniture etc. Mind you, most parents seem to no longer feel compelled to be on the clock as parents during vacations. Teenagers and young adults can be hell, if they are male. Complete disregard for rules like "no smoking" etc, grinning at you while breaking them. They are the most likely to party like there was no tomorrow. I am still finding glitter all over the place two years later. If I had a choice, I'd probably work with Australian families exclusively, with Orthodox Jews over the weekends. The former are super friendly, while the later are so happy they find a property where the owner/staff understand their no-electricity on Shabbat requirements and are willing to work something out (I cover motion sensors with hats for example which is all that is necessary).

So, here are a few other changes I'm working on currently : Shifter Healing Adjustment : Due to 60s Shifting Cooldown Shifter just received, I though the amount of health they get after a shift was a tad to high. So I nerfed it from 15 + 5/PL -> 15 + 3/PL. Fighter Recovery : In a previous version, I tweaked it to Infinite duration, but halved regen to compensate. Now I'm realizing that it makes Fighters about on par with what a Pal or Chanter (not to mention Herald) do to a whole party. Early on, it's fine, but I decide to add a bit of scaling, in a similar fashion as Bloodmage (who starts below) : Constant Recovery : 5 health per 6s, +1 per 5 char level Rapid Recovery : 7 health per 6s, +1.5 per 5 char level Constant Recovery (Black Jacket) : 2 health per 6s, +0.5 per 5 char level Rapid Recovery (Black Jacket) : 3 health per 6s, +0.75 per 5 char level Monk Wound Cost nerf : I've come to the conclusion that 3 Wounds ~ 1 Martial ressource and decided to rebalance a couple of monk abilities that were really too cheap. Dichotomous Sould : 4 Wounds -> 6 Wounds Resonant Touch : 3 Wounds -> 6 Wounds Whispers of the Wind : 5 Wounds -> 9 Wounds (Note that Shattered Pillars max wound is set to 10 by both CP and BPM) This ends up making a lot of sense as all other Monk abilities seems to have reasonable cost. Why would you even use a Skyward Kick for 3 Wounds when WotW costs only 5 ?? This is not only a monk nerf, it also a way to encourage the use of more diverse abilities. This is the only WotW nerf I plan. The ability should remain porwerful, fun to use and a selling point of SC monk, but making it much less spammable is a way to tune down its brokenness. The other 2 nerfed abilities are meant to be used only periodically anyway. Shattered Pillar buff : My analysis is that 3 Wounds ~ 1 Martial ressource ~ 30 focus. So it makes sense that Shattered Pillar get the same base damages to ressource conversion as Cipher (Cipher gets Draining Whip, but SP get Lesser Wound and Mortifications) : Shattered Pillar : 1 Wound every 20 damages Shattered Pillar with Lesser Wound : 1 Wound every 16 damages This is more than enough to Skyward Kick/Torment Reach every couple of attacks, which is the way Shattered Pillar shall be Played. Those abilities that take foe level into account : Threatening Presence, Abjuration and Dismissal compare your level with foe's. Which isn't something I like to much, but is especially absurd with upscaling. That's why I plan to Adjust these abilities so they keep an effect vs foes of greater or equal level. Dismissal : Add an effect that Destroy Summon without checking level. Basically a dismissal. Abjuration : Also remove the level checking vs Summons. Rise damages (to 65-90, same as Killing bolt) vs higher level spirits so it works reasonably well vs them anyway. Add "Veil-Piercing" KW.(BPM previously set Abjuration to 3 Zeals). Threatening Presence : Change design completely. The idea is to make Barbarian Immune to Engagement when above 75% health. This is strong but it's not like Barbarian had tons of tools to avoid engagement anyway (Staggering, Dazing, Wild Sprint, Leap, etc...) I think this is fitting and is also intended as an indirect buff to Corpse Eater since it reduces reliance on rage. A bit more Barbarian Buff : Barbarian might be the only class that was better designed in PoE1 than in PoE2. Carnage used to be so great ! I totally get why they needed to tweak it, but now Carnage feels much less class defining, and Barbarian basically losts his original soul and often struggle to be defined otherwise than "just another martial class". Adding Crit to Carnage so it can benefit from Blood Frenzy was a first step to make Carnage matters more. Blood Storm is a meh upgrade though. Spending a Tier 7 ability point just to get situationaly more duration on 1 Rage self buff is bad. So I will change it to On Crit instead of On Kills. Carnage Crits matter too. This is also a Buff to Corpse Eater who will have a way to maintain Frenzy without having to use too much Rage. But my key idea was to Buff Interrupting Blows. The idea is to have Interrupting Blows also causes 50% chance of Interrupt on Carnage Crits. This is quite strong because with the right positionning, Barb will very often interrupt some target, performing the Crowd Control role it is supposed to have. Not that Interrupting BLows really need a buff on its own, but I see this as an opportunity to make Carnage and positioning with your Barbarian about as relevant as in PoE1 (esp. with builds such as Tall Grass ones). With this version of Interrupting Blows plus either Spirit or Blood Frenzy lines, Carnage will be relevant enough, while still "capping" the effect that it can have in best conditions (PoE1 Carnage + PoE2 equipment or Multiclasses would have been arguably broken...)

Started playing Subnautica. Really great game. Start was bit rough, got a suboptimal location for an absolute newbie (ironically, it's a pretty great location in general, and I relocated there on my 2nd go), but got a new location after I forgot to save before exiting the game. Yep, no autosaves on this one, not even when exiting to desktop... It ticks all the boxes: dumped in "bad situation", gotta figure out how to get out of "bad situation", gotta figure out the mystery of what even is "bad situation" and how you got into "bad situation" in the first place. To do that gotta survive "bad situation", and to survive "bad situation" gotta build stuff. Hearing some really mixed signs about the sequel, but thankfully I doubt I"m done with this one soon And well, "started" got quite a ways in already:

After some reflexions I assume that should work even on body resistant ennemies : when I wear the Footsep of the Beast while confused with Frostfall and a dex resistance, my character is hit by the hobbled affliction (auto-hit) that is downgraded to nothing, and the 25% chance to apply an affliction when afflicted work. Then, even if Dorudugan cant be hobbled or sickened by this way, this is however a weapon hit when Hemorrhaging proc.

For the other spiral of metal....

Out of Context DnD quote: “You could use the rest of your turn to feel existential terror at the weight of the atrocity you just committed.” “No, that’s a standard action.”

agree. i also think it needs to be more spiky to fit it's thorns damage set buff.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/sony-buys-bungie-for-3-6-billion/1100-6500122/ Sony buying Bungie.

Started my taxes.

Yeah, the real discussion is on who has the most style. Anyways Aggretsuko s3 ep1. There is now a unicorn. Instead of chasing underage girls, he promotes microtransactions in a dating videogame.