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I'm sure there's some photoshop of Zelenskyy as the God Emperor, somewhere.

Nice whataboutism.

Ideological wars have tendency to go on even when it would have been reasonable to end them years earlier. Like for example Vietnam war, Soviet-Afghanistan war. Super powers continue losing wars for decades even though they have little to nothing to gain.

That is a bit of a patchwork set of weapons. But credit to them for getting so much good out of what they have. One disadvantage though is a number of their infantry rifles use different ammunition. I saw at least one guy carrying a M-249 SAW which is an absolute man-killer of a weapon. But it uses 5.56mm while the rest uses 7.63mm. One guy had what looked like a Kreiss Vector 9mm full auto. The video guy didn't point it out but that is what it looked like. As for the anti-armor weapons you are outside of my wheelhouse on that one. The only one I am even vaguely familiar with is the AT-4 and it's long obsolete. And even then it was more used against buildings and fortification rather than vehicles. In my experience you didn't attack armor using infantry. A rifle company when confronted by tanks would set a hasty defense and call for air or artillery support. Or get the hell out of there. The folks fighting in Ukraine don't have that luxury.

It is, of course, impossible to predict stuff like this, but I also think that Putin's removal is the only way to end this quickly and without a terrible death toll.

That's actually a fair point. We have to keep in mind that Putin is almost certainly surrounded by a group of yes-men and nothing else, which means that for years, he has been told what he wants to hear. Thus, his initial grasp of the situtation may have been extremely poor, and who knows, maybe it still is. As for what the future holds, no idea. This is such a terrible waste, because Russia has all the resources to be an extremely strong and wortwhile country, but it chooses not to be. It has chosen this throughout its history: there has never been a time when Russia has been a trustworthy player on the international stage. For example, in the early 2000s, there were some projects near Moscow that aimed at improving enterpreneurship in Russia, but they were ditched rather quickly. The "Russian mentality" was so strongly opposed to it: the reliance on the use of force was so strong that once anything got going, Russians just declined to co-operate because they were so certain that the other side was out to exploit them in some way. The idea that co-operation would be the best way for mutual benefits just couldn't take hold. There is a really good way to measure a country's attraction. See who lives outside that country and check whether they want to get there to pursue a better life than is available in their homeland. Here, Russia fails miserably. People don't want to go there or invest there. There is a flood of people getting away from Russia right now: they are the young and well-educated Russians who'd be best equipped to build a much better country than they have now. And so many of them are leaving. Trains and buses going out from Russia are full of Russians.

This is currently the problem and what worries me the most. I don't think Putin is willing to lose face, and it seems like he is increasingly placing himself in a situation where every outcome will look badly on him. Be it a war loss(unlikely), an eternal war of attrition(likely), or Russian economic collapse (maybe?). So he is painting himself into a corner, and I have to wonder how much of a raving idiot/lunatic he can be? Is scorched earth an option for him?

Because Putin would lose his face, he was considered for a decade one of the most fearsome leaders in the world, and now they are bleeding money on the battle field. The conflict was underestimated from his side, especially on the logistic and security side, food rations were in the convoys for max three days. There are even allegedly pictures of destroyed tanks which carried ceremonial equipment for planned parade after seizing Kyiv... Putin does not agree to anything than what looks like a victory for him. Or he drives his country to implosion. Winners of war are not always countries with bigger armies, but the armies, whose economy can survive the conflict longer. And West can supply defensive armaments to Ukraine for much longer time than Russia can supply their troops with current situation in the world. But at the moment no one knows how long can Ukraine defend. The current peace offer from Russia is akin on complete surrender, and that is an absolute no go for Ukraine.

And that was exactly my point No oil, no need for intervention

It is more or less how big losses can Russia still stomach, yesterday Ukraine sunk Vasily Bykov in Black sea worth 50 millions, they have captured at least 4 Pantsir AAA vehicles each 11-20 millions pop, each SU and Mig downed is 2-5 millions, that 30 destroyed helicopters near Kherson was also at least 50 - 100 million loss... each Iskander fired is more than million and so on... Russia might besiege Kyiv in the end, but the cost will be for Russia impossible to cope with even if they sell everything they have for one simple reason. They will be unable to resupply their army with fresh equipment, due to lack of microchips... So they might end up in very ****ty situation and hopping that Xi would not start to think, that he should acquire some parts of Russia, which historically belonged to Chinese empire... The cost of this war on Russian side might be already close to 10 billions, not counting the Special Economic Operations imposed by the west.

Plus in two months there's May 9, Russia's most sacrosanct holiday of victory over former best friend Nazi Germany. Its celebration is already as pompous as it was during Soviet era, and jingoism was getting through the roof lately too, so botoxic agent will absolutely want to have something to show off. Add White House's warning about possible chemical or bio weapon attack plus Russian propaganda's current spin about "bioweapon labs", add them talking about officially ditching European Council along with its pesky Convention on Human Rights (not that Russia ever paid heed to it, but official denouncement is another thing), so...yeah. I'm afraid we did not see the worst of him yet. P.S.: "According to Konashenkov, according to the documents, the American side planned to study pathogens in birds, bats and reptiles and the possibility of these animals carrying African swine fever and anthrax": https://ria.ru/20220310/biolaboratorii-1777416748.html (Official state news channel, can recommend for science fiction fans because it gives this bizarre feeling of peeking into parallel world)

Playing Control on the PS5. It's pretty sweet. Man, I want a Max Payne remaster so bad.

I almost never use the vanilla Devastating Blow because it's a waste of Guile when you can have 2 Crippling Strikes for the same amount of Guile. In an AoE - like with mortars - Arterial Strike is fantastic. Interrupts, has high PEN, bleeds out moving enemies. I wouldn't even think about using vanilla Devastating Blow with mortars. Adding a prone effect feels weird somehow, but it wouldn't make it too powerful imo. Edit: 2 ideas instead of prone: refund on kill (see Barbaric Smash for reference). Rogue suffers from having no refund mechanic besides Gambit. Would make the high initial cost bearable if you use it as true finisher and would make overkilling less costly (or even free). short-lived but hefty bleeding that's higher the less health the enemy has (see Infestation of Maggots for reference). Would help to truly "finish" an enemy if the initial direct damage couldn't do it. This would encourage to use it on enemies with lowish but not superlow health (where it most often leads to overkilling). Just because I don't picture Devastating Blow as a brute-force attack that would topple even healthy enemies over - but an attack that's aimed at the most vulnerable spots of an already struggling target.

Abilities Predator's Sense: it's very good because the base dmg of the Animal Companion scales with level and +50% then leads to attacks that hit like trucks, ripping through DR with ease - if I use my AC for damage it's a must-have imo. Very convenient if you use a wounding weapon such as Tidefall or Drawn in Spring - or if you have party members who deal DoT constantly anyway (Rogue with Deep Wounds for example or a Druid etc.). Stunning Shots! It's named "shots" for some reason - but it works with melee weapons nontheless and is very good with fast melee weapons such as daggers, rapiers, hatchets and so on, stunlocking enemies completely. Talents I personally wouldn't pick Vulnerable Attack as long as I'm not able to reach 0 recovery. Because most of times it would be detrimental for dps then. An Animal Companion and a wounding weapon will take care of high DR enemies well enough most of times. But as soon as you can reach 0 recovery despite using Vulnerable Attack - for example with the help of dual wielding + two weapopn style, durgan steel etc. - then of course it's a nice pick. Savage Attack: it's a bit counterproductive with Stunning Shots, especially if you also pick Swift Aim. IIRC the AC maluses of both will stack. Maybe Swift and Steady would be a better pick if one has to choose. If they don't stack their ACC maluses (not 100% sure anymore, maybe Swift Aim supresses Savage Attack's ACC malus) then it's a good pick imo. Bloody Slaughter is really bad in PoE since it only applies to enemies with 10% health left. Most enemies will die with the next strike anyway, Bloody Slaughter or not. And Bloody Slaughter doesn't even guarantee anything - it's just an added chance to deal a bit more crit damage. It's a little bit better with fast, light weapons which don't do very high dmg per hit - but still bad imo. Apprentice's Sneak Attack: you will flank a lot with your AC so this is a reliable way to gain additional dmg without any drawback. I would pick it. Veteran's Recovery: can help with the sturdyness, I like it in the early(ish) game. Later it doesn't make a lot of difference because it doesn't scale so well. Maybe retrain out of it at higher levels. When using Bittercut one wants Spirit of Decay, if using Firebrand then Scion of Flame. Pretty niche, but then the effect is good enough to pick them over something else. Attributes When using Wounding Shot and/or a wounding weapon then low INT raises dps because the amount of wounding dmg doesn't increase with longer duration but is only stretched thin over time. In that case maxed MIG is also benefical because wounding scales with MIG. Because of Stunning Shots I would want high DEX. Because of Swift Aim (and eventually Savage Attack) I woud want high PER. Both are also very benefical if you use a weapon that has prone or stun on crit until you get Stunning Shots. Items I guess my personal dual wielding melee Ranger would use durganized Ravenwing + Drawn in Spring, durganized Wayfarer's Hide and Gauntlets of Swift Action. And stuff that raises MIG bc of wounding. Then I could achieve 0 recovery even with Vulnerable Attack on and always have Predator's Sense unlocked, too. Drawn in Spring with good MIG is the best dps weapon in the game anyway so this is a nice synergy. Comes rather late though, but maybe one could make a beeline for it (never tried)? This weapon setup is fast enough to stunlock enemies - and the crush+slash+wounding setup will have no problems with DR, also because Rending (mace) and Vulnerable Attack stack to 8 DR bypass and woundign bypasses DR completely anyway. "Coordinated" is a nice enchantment on a weapon for a Ranger because he will flank with his AC most of times anyway and the +4 ACC and +25% dmg are nice bonuses then. Cladhaliath with Marking + Coordinated would be even cooler imo, especially for a Ranger - but it's in a different weapon focus group than Drawn in Spring and I wouldn't want to give that one up. Addendum: Thorny Roots is a cool ability/talent combo imo. It's not melee of course, but 5/rest and fast cast means that you can spam it in tight encounters in a very short amount of time, killing weak/low health enemies on the spot and immobilize the rest for a long time. In addition the dmg is fixed (15 pierce + 15 slash): fixed dmg in PoE only has to overcome 1/4 of enemies' DR (same with Priest's Iconic Projection and Ranger's AC's own Brutal Takedown) which helps against high DR targets, too. Aspirant's Mark is pretty good on an okay-INT Ranger if you don't have a Druid. Rangers have naturally high ACC so using this to debuff deflection and reflex even further is benefical. It's a like a mini spell mastery because it's 1/encouter.

That's just going to be the best film ever. It has to be. It cannot be anything else.

Funny, I just got myself the Carian Knight Set as well. Only took me ~35 hours to finally switch my Vagabond Knight starting armor.

This was a frequent Russian tactic in Syria.

Yes, exactly. Anyone who rates an episode where a pedophile horse rescues three rapists from their well deserved punishment, fulfills their every wish and takes them to watch what he does at his lake where he brings his little girl(s)... even as much as an honorable mention... I don't even... that's just vile, man. Vile. edit: In all fairness (and that is REALLY hard to do when it comes to SuperS), the episode did do a good job at showing how little agency these three SOBs had over their own "life" and sparked a modicum of understanding for their position and made their sacrifice somewhat meaningful, in the end. Then comes Pegasus and everything falls hard apart. Because, really, even without agency, these three were just terrible people all in all. Could have been a really nice episode if they just stayed dead after giving up their "life" as pseudo-humans to save Usagi.

To give myself as an example, as a Portuguese dude living in Sweden, I will defend Portugal if a Swede criticizes it, while I will defend Sweden if the converse happens. I can and will criticize both myself though. In other contexts.

those same pillars of life work against playful darkness, and eight o' 'em will knock playful down to 'bout half hp. pillars offer no saves and no sr. can stack pillars on top of each other, and as the tunnel area ain't particular wide, chances are you are gonna hit playful with all your pillars in one go as soon as he moves to attack your party. is a good chance we lose one animal companion or a summons when fighting playful, but am seeming to recollect we mentioned something 'bout the disproportionate value o' intimidation on higher difficulty levels? on unfair is only slight more difficult to fear lock playful darkness with a companion who took a level o' thug than is to do so core or unfair. arm your heaviest hitter with finnean (ideally as a reach weapon so you may position behind a summons or animal companion... jic) while taking advantage o' mark of justice and guarded hearth and chances are you ain't gonna need rely on crits to hit playful even on unfair. sosiel is your best intimidation option, but is others who is good enough to get the job done. the 96 ac drops precipitous when you bypass armour with finnean and rob playful of it's dexterity modifier. got a bunch o' dogs in your party and chances are one 'o 'em renders playful prone. an azata mc or nenio with enchantment focus (or others) should also have dc kinda high by this point. when coupled with madness domain + fear working to reduce will saves, you have a better than fair shot o' landing a heightened hideous laughter or something similar on playful. am never using the creeping doom approach. is not 'cause is cheese (it is, but unfair kinda demands some level o' exploit/cheese) but we refuse to have camellia in a party after act 1 and we rare have daeran 'round to summon the swarms needed, so we had to find other options... and am not a fan o' the cave fangs exploit. heck, am quite willing to use ember to cackle protective luck and fortune for unfair boss battles, so am obvious not moral opposed to exploits and cheese. HA! Good Fun! ps am in full agreement regarding the lack o' fun o' unfair. we do the boss battles on unfair, just 'cause, but you couldn't pay us to slog through wotr on unfair... well, you would need pay us a whole helluva a bunch o' money. is a handful o' uber abilities and exploits you need indulge to get through unfair battles. doesn't require clever use o' tactics to do unfair. sometimes the rng gods is displeased and you will need reload, but unfair success is 'bout understanding the margin gameplay made possible by pathfinder and wotr loopholes and such necessary sh!te is the kinda thing no real dm/gm would ever allow in pnp. am current playing on hard. core would probable be our difficulty option but for the fact our last couple parties were a bit too strong and prebuffing 'fore battles (again, we don't use mods) were taking more o' our gameplay time than just 'bout anything else.

MLB Lockout Ends As Owners & Players Agree To Tentative Deal; Opening Day Set – Update

I know they say that if you have only experience with airsoft you should not join the legions but those guys looks exactly like we did when I played airsoft In other news, Shojgu stated that Russia will again open humanitarian corridors.... to Russia. Its like if 3rd Reich opened corridors for jews to concentration camps...

Some interesting vid on the UA squads Possibly some more knowledgable people on military could chime in, like @Guard Dog etc.

Also looks like Ukraine is slowly doing counter offensive attacks around Kyiv. Especialy to the east, very close to the area of the Video Latest news: Near Mokrets village on the border of Kyiv and Chernihiv regions Ukrainian army destroyed Russian unit, SAM, several tanks. Several tanks also seized

Commander/Commandant nr. 10 will not get back home from Ukraine...

They are still drafting conscripts in Donesk, etc. and send them to fight.

Btw, Russia has now admitted that it has used conscripts in the invasion. Again, that is cynical and cruel beyond belief. Putin has denied this, of course, but a Russian ministry has admitted that it's true. Must be great when you start your military service, have no experience whatsoever, get driven somewhere in what you're quite possibly told is a drill and then find yourself against people fiercely willing to protect their country from your invasion. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-acknowledges-conscripts-were-part-ukraine-operation-some-taken-prisoner-2022-03-09/

Let's hope that it is credible, and some of the FSB will prepare some coup... IMHO that would be the fastest outcome with lowest count of casualties out of this ****ty situation

I can actually believe this. We have had several sources report that all of Russia's intel agencies were taken by surprise when Putin went ahead with an invasion. And apparently all the heads of those services were and still are opposed to the invasion. Furthermore, even many top generals in the military were of the belief this was all yet another one of Putin's mind-games with the West and were shocked when Putin gave the order to invade. The rank and file troops also appear to have been convinced they were not actually going into combat. Even after they were told to go into Ukraine, many believed they were going into a peaceful peacekeeping situation and not one where they were going to get shot at. There are credible reports FSB agents have been tipping off both Ukraine and Western intel agencies with inside info on Russian plans. I would not be surprised if Russian military sources were/are also in contact with the Ukrainians and the West in secret. We know Putin's circle of people he talks with has been getting smaller, if that is possible. I would bet right now the only person he listens to is Sergei Lavrov, because Lavrov, like Putin, is also delusional and a true believer in Putin's crazy fantasies. And this is the source of great danger many Western intel analysts are raising the alarm about, that Putin could make a rash decision, not because he's crazy per se but because he is so very isolated and has lost touch with reality. Even setting aside Western/NATO countries, there is a very grave danger that out of frustrationn for the was not going well, anger with the Ukrainians for resistingn him and not giving him what he wants, and to save face, he may actually give the order to use weapons of mass destruction against Ukrainian strongholds of resistence, which of course would be the big cities.

Also, I wouldn't discount the possibility of Putin being overthrown. Putin would bear the whole burden for everything that goes wrong in a lengthy occupation of Ukraine. They made the entire country hate them, well aside from the breakaway republics, which means they can't hold it long term anyway. Not without casualties, and people with families in Russia will start to talk, the official lies won't hold.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60689699 Yay for preservation of ancient documents!

Yep, it's definately a good buy.

I'm 100% pure melee and a group of these people are a real threat to me. Just one needs to hit me, then all the missiles will stunlock me in place and eat my hp. It's really demotivating. Luckily I'm done with the academy now...

I do think Putin is neurotic and paranoid but I dont think he is politically or economically suicidal He is still a survivalist. For example he is paranoid about getting the virus, remember how Macron was treated and had to sit at the end of that huge table. A suicidal person wouldnt care about the virus in such an extreme way ? But he is committed to this invasion and he needs to save face and needs to win something from the negotiations

core i 5 12500k Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 TUF GAMING B660M-PLUS D4 64 gb Crucial DDR 4 3600 mhz Asus RTX 3070 ti Fujitsu 4TB SATA 3200 RPM 2 x 1 TB Samsung 960 evo SSD The cooler is total overkill, the crappy intel stock would have been fine, thought i was getting a core i9, but they kept putting off delivery. It's sitting at 24 degreecs celcius under full load.

US really made a mess of that whole situation, from starting with the Cobra attack that killed 50+ because Cobras are great assassination tools, to the operation where they underestimated their opposition. Trump would have probably done something even more stupid and realize Oakley's threat about levelling half of Mogadishu, heh. It's funny looking back on Black Hawk Down to realize what a propaganda movie it is.

There is little reality in the whole camp, it appears. According to Sergei Lavrov, Russia "did not attack Ukraine". So there doesn't seem to be a whole lot than can be achieved through diplomacy.

That was partly the reason, Clinton was horrified at the way those two dead Delta Force soldiers were dragged naked through the streets of Mogadishu by militant groups and paraded in some sort of grotesque theater Trump would never have tolerated that, thats one of the things I liked about Trump

US got too scared from a little blood in Somalia 😛

Your conclusion does not follow. There was a general lack of international intervention in Rwanda.

@kanisatha can you give us some theorycrafting if this tweet is legit?

There are lots of reports of how Russian troops are communicating on open unencrypted channels and that this is how NATO intel, Ukrainian intel, NGOs, and even amateur radio sleuths are able to know so much about what's going on within the ranks of the Russian invasion forces. Here are some interesting articles on this: https://news.yahoo.com/cover-town-artillery-fire-online-224642107.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAc94xs22ood4h-qkQzcCk6ZTXPi1yYou_uX0qbtOznG8CkHZyHFtarZbwuSMABCCfddzEc8IDf3HuJgGN9qKTWMllHTtV13mJCHgjQgrlhji2cAltwP1HO9PyB3XkA9VJJ0Eq8cP18LgpAV1atOmJByq6liHzHDAJY50SZo0jqC https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10567135/Mutinous-Russian-troops-overheard-complaining-Ukraine-invasion.html https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/08/vitaly-gerasimov-second-russian-general-killed-ukraine-defence-ministry-claims

yesterday was on liveaumap in the surrounding of Brovary like 10 icons of russian convoys getting destroyed. So it seems legit to me. But you never know...

Well put. And that's the problem with every single diplomatic initiative thus far, whether bilateral between Russia and Ukraine, or third-party such as Turkey, Israel or France: Putin puts forth an absolutely ridiculous set of demands on Ukraine, demands that are effectively complete surrender, something he has not been able to achieve militarily and yet he expects he can get it diplomatically, where he offers nothing to the Ukrainian side, not even a meaningful guarantee that they can expect to live in peace in the future free of the spectre of another Russian invasion, and then insists Ukraine must accept all his demands and that those demands are non-negotiable. The guy is truly delusional and has lost touch with reality. This is why I have consistently expressed my skepticism about the value of any diplomacy with this guy.

Do all these shows take place in the same desert town set? 😄

At first I didn't know why you posted the best line from the greatest Star Wars movie of all time. Then I noticed none of the top 10 were from Super S and scrolled down. Yeah, Super S manages to be both mediocre and vile, what a piece of trash.

Well, not every single thing, but more on that later...