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Spent my birthday (apr20) back in California with the family. Otherwise been working and doing my model kits (Gunpla). Hardcore therapy is almost over, and I'll move to a different track which will be helpful.

All things considered, the prequels look better with the hindsight of the sequels. I mean, they're not great by any means and Lucas' best is probably American Graffiti, but they did have a consistent idea behind them while the sequels were made with no overarching idea besides making Mickey money. And it shows, we can laugh at Darth Edgelord or podracing but all of that was better than the remake of IV. If there is a brightside to the sequels, it's that aspiring writers can take solace in that "somehow Palpatine has come back to life" was good enough for one of the biggest movie studios to go with a tentpole film.

A Shopper’s Guide to Neketaka: This was originally written in response to a question on reddit about where you should spend your first gold on Neketaka and then expanded on over time. https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/u53ede/where_to_spend_my_first_20k/ Whitewitch Mask: Sold by Spindle Man in Delver's Row for 2.3k. Head item, gives +1 illusions power level (nichely useful) and casts Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage when bloodied (very very useful) Repulsive Visage causes nearby enemies to run away in terror, causing attacks of opportunity as well as letting your guy in melee disengage or reposition. Really good on your offtank or a squishy melee dps. Super good value for money. Extremely fun with Barbarian cleave / Unbroken prones / WotEP. Rekvu's Fractured Casque: Sold by Imuani in Delver's Row for 6.2k. Head item, makes you immune to interrupts when you have an injury. Doesn't really do much by itself but has some amazing metagame stuff that'll become apparent with the next item. Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry: Sold by Fassina in Arkemyr's shop for 8.5k. Has a pretty mediocre spell list with no unique spells. Here's the kicker; it allows your wizard to cast one (1) extra spell from every spell level every combat. Such power does come with a small (well, not that small) downside of all sources of damage interrupting the wielder. If only there was a way to become immune to interrupts... (See Rekvu’s Fractured Casque) Sasha's Singing Scimitar: Sold by Fassina in Arkemyr's Shop for 15k. Scimitar, gives the wielder +2% action speed for each held chanter phrase and using an empower point on an invocation instantly refunds 3 phrases. This is the best weapon in the game for your melee chanters. Even if it's too pricy to get right at the start you should always get it eventually if you plan on having a chanter in the party. Has amazing enchantments too, granting you either a free (no empower point spent, still only one per fight) empowered invocation or instantly fills your phrases back to the maximum. The other enchantment either gives the wielder +2% shock damage per phrase or makes the inherent 2% AS bonus an AoE. The bonuses to empower make this very good for swapping into, empowering an invocation and swapping back to a ranged weapon too. Ring of Focused Flame: Sold by Fassina in Arkemyr's shop for 1.8k. Gives +10 accuracy for all fire-keyworded attacks. +10 accuracy is amazing: it makes you miss and graze less and lets you land more crits. There are a surprising number of abilities this helps too, probably the most notable ones being the Wizard's Fireball and Paladin's Sacred Flames. Gwyn’s Bridal Garter: A belt, sold by Fassina in the Dark Cupboard for 2.5k. Grants +1 CON as well as resistance to DEX afflictions. DEX afflictions are notable for being both common as well as extremely dangerous, so the resistance is more useful than it might look like at first glance. Burglar's Gloves: Sold by Iolfr in Iolfr's Raiments, Periki's Overlook for 4.7k. Grant +1 dex, +2 mechanics ,and +2 athletics. A "free" way of boosting mechanics for difficult chests or doors. There is some really good loot that you can access early by stacking mechanics and this helps you do that. Even if/when you find better gloves for combat these will still be useful all the way to the end of the game. (hint: Delver's Row) Animancy Cat: Sold by Tiabo in the Sacred Stair for 10k. Pet that gives all summons in your party +2 might and +1 pen. Low penetration is the biggest reason why summons struggle to deal damage, and this lil’ guy as a great step towards fixing that problem. Amazing if you plan on relying on summoning-related strategies. The Magnificent Escape Cape: Sold by Temple Vendor in the Sacred Stair for 2.5k. Gives +10 all defenses against disengagement attacks (niche) as well as the ability to use a teleport (similar to the rogue PL 1 ability) once per fight when dropping below 50% health. The teleport gives 3 seconds of +50 deflection and immunity to engagement afterwards. A great "oh ****" item on any squishies. Extra funny on anybody who likes to stack intelligence, as the +50 deflection bonus can be extended. Scordeo's Trophy: Sold by Uto in the Brass Citadel Smithy for 14k. A pistol that grants a stacking -5% recovery bonus on melee weapons whenever it hits. Does full damage on crits instead of most firearms -15%. Honestly, not that great before upgrades. Has an enchant that gives a stacking -5% recovery to all actions instead of just melee weapons, and as such is one of the better guns to give any of your casters. (or Maia. Her ability to interrupt enemies with this and the pistol modal turned on is astonishing) Probably can leave this one for later. Heaven's Cacophony: Sold by Wanika in Queen's Berth for 10k. Head item, gives +2 INT and +1 religion. Also grants two skills: a cone AoE stun and Avenging Storm, both usable once per rest. Avenging Storm is a druid PL 8 spell. A single class druid gets access to it at level 15. A multiclass druid will never reach high enough PL to cast this spell. You can get it the instant you land it at Neketaka. Needless to say, it's super overpowered well into the endgame, especially if you really plan around exploiting it (which would probably warrant a whole thread of its own) I hope this servers as a useful resource for any new players, as well as an useful starting point for discussion on what items could/should be added here.

Russian soldiers are barbarians. Period. Nothing has changed in the mentality of their military leaders since 1700.

Wife's family is more split than ever now. The ones that support Russia don't want to hear anything contrary to their beliefs and get really angry when you ask them to explain their position after complaining that no one is taking their view into account. The only bright spot is my wife's aunt in St Petersburg, she says there's nothing she can do about so why discuss it. That's not great but better than the indignation you get from everyone else. Cousin in Ukraine was nearly killed the other day when Russia struck Kiev during the UN visit.

Yes he did he won the Lott-er-ry! The rest of his friends were not so lucky!

is not what you wanted, but is relevant even so. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/table-29/table-29.xls in excess o' 10 million reported police arrests made in the US in 2019. ~500k o' those were suspects of violent crimes. is not shown in the chart, but according to other sources such as wapo which attempts to track, the number of lethal police shootings o' unarmed suspects is a relative consistent ~300 per year over the past pre-covid decade. is not a statistic to be proud of, but considering the number o' armed cops making arrests every year, the number o' lethal shootings is in fact representing an extreme rarity. have also not watched the show in question, but whatever dissonance lexx and others suffer is in part 'cause o' largely misleading portrayals in other tv shows and 'cause o' media distortions. an inability o' many to separate fact from fiction is a problem. also, speaking more direct to your query: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/02/08/a-closer-look-at-police-officers-who-have-fired-their-weapon-on-duty/ "In fact, only about a quarter (27%) of all officers say they have ever fired their service weapon while on the job, according to a separate Pew Research Center survey conducted by the National Police Research Platform." am admitted surprised the urban v. rural aspect were less less dramatic skewed towards urban police weapon discharges. HA! Good Fun! ps please note the fbi stats need be taken with a potential heart stopping quantity of salt. state and local law enforcement report at their discretion and 'ccording to their own standards. the numbers the fbi releases regarding national crime stats and the like is valuable and is a decent starting point but it is always important to keep in mind the voluntary and inconsistent quality o' the reporting by state and local authorities. @Lexxthinking justified is more in line with his expectations is part o' the real disconnect. the entire marshal service averages 22 lethal shooting per year, which is actual quite high for law enforcement given marshal service numbers and as such has been the subject o' fed review on multiple occasions. raylen givens, in season one, killed eight people. am gonna guess givens averaged +4 lethal shootings per year, but is only a guess.

The Magnificient Escape Cape is a true gem for every Wizard who has access to Wall of Draining (or a brilliant Priest with Salvation of Time - I like Priest of Wael for that). Its Escape ability also grants +50 deflection which stacks with all other deflection bonuses. It does only NOT stack with Escape of the Rogue (so a Wiz/Rogue or Priest/Rogue doesn't really need it unless he wants to spare Guile). Its duration gets prolonged by Wall of Draining/Salvation of Time... That way you can get an additional +50 deflection on top of let's say Arcane Veil (or Mirrored Images etc.) and Llengrath's Safeguard which makes you virtually untouchable for anything that targets deflection. If you later (like... a LOT later) also get The Mask of the Weyc - which gives a quasi-Arcane Veil - you can stack cape + mask a whopping +100 deflection.

Sure-Handed Ila is better (for all reloading weapons) as one might guess because BOTH bonuses - the 20% recovery AND the 20% reload - get applied to reloading weapons. It's most likely an oversight, but as is all reloading weapons profit twice from Sure-Handed Ila which makes Chanter and esp. Troubadour (bc. 100% uptime of Sure-Handed Ila + Mith Fyr) an excellent choice for a firearm user. And as I posted in another thread yesterday or the day before: A Troubadour/Streetfigher can make even better use of the Chanter side by summoning upgraded Whisps and let them shoot at you (they do very little shock dmg - you can use Deltro's Cage helmet to profit from that a bit - but also distract you, unlocking the Streetfighter's passive 50% recovery/reloading bonus) you will become the fastest shooter with one of the highest dmg per hit and the highest sustained (firearm) dps. Best weapon pick imo is the Red Hand then. The Whisps can also be useful to unlock Deathblows on enemies - because Distracted counts as two afflictions (bc. contains flanked). So you don't need to pick Debilitating or Blinding Strike if you don't want to. The only downside is the act of targeting yourself with your own summons. It can't be scripted with AI and I understand that for some players it feels too weird to be fun. However, it is very effective without breaking the game. The combination of high dmg per shot and insane reloading speed is a lot of fun imo. And if you can somehow rationalize why your own summons attack you then that becomes a non-issue, too. For example for me my shooter also was some sort of animancer or tinkerer who uses the whisps as his own "essence batteries" to power up some tech that lets him shoot a lot faster and with more dmg - and the price is getting fried a little bit in the process by electricity. Eccea's Arcane Blaster would be an even better fit than Red Hand - I mean thematically - but unfortunatly Rushed Reload (-50% reloading time, pistol modal) doesn't stack with the 20% reloading bonus of Sure-Handed Ila which is a bit meh. But you can simply not use Rushed Reload and for example get a second pistol (like Scordeo's Trophy with its additional recovery bonus stacking like crazy on top). At some point you will hit the floor of reloading time though. There is some limit due to the reloading animation which you can't get under. For the same reason there is no use to pick Eccea's AB's enchantment which skips reloading - because it doesn't work. If you feel your shooting doesn't get any faster you can balance out with thicker armor for example. But the best weapon in terms of pure dps would be Red Hand I think. Even leaving on the the arquebus modal (+20 ACC) is barely noticable once you stacked all your speed bonuses (including gear like Maia's Armor + Cutthroat Cosmo, Acina's Tricorn, Necklace of the Harvest Moon and so on).

I recently started watching The Rookie with Nathan Fillion. At first I thought it's actually pretty nice and even binged a couple episodes. But at around half of season 1, I suddenly started to realize that ... it is kinda meh. First there is always something big going on in every episode. Even when a woman cop goes to the hospital for a blood test, because she got accidentally stung with a heroin needle (of course), she goes to the bathroom and right away stumbles over a visitor trying to kill a patient. Like, there was no reason at all for this scene to exist, but here we are. It's like there can't be 10 minutes in the show without a police officer preventing some crime. However, what's the most wild about all of this is that ... they shoot so few people. Instead of just gunning criminals down, they run & tackle even criminals with a knife. This is probably what kills the show the most for me, especially since we have stories like this coming out of america pretty much every week. tl;dr - feels like a weakly written propaganda piece. No idea if I can keep watching that.

For a rogue using fire arms as main attack I consider the troubadour to be the best choice as second class. You can have all the time Sure-Handed Ila... (for increased attack speed) and Aefyllath... (for increased damage), while buffing yourself with Their Companion... (for increased penetration and interrupts). You have also at your disposal other chants for self healing, draining, removing afflictions, etc... The next option would be the monk - less speed, but more accuracy. The third would be the ranger for his increased speed, accuracy and Driving Flight. In fourth I would place the barbarian for his great speed bonuses, might inspiration (which can be upgraded later) and the ability to stagger on hit (with Spirit Frenzy) for easy sneak attacks.

You're exactly right. That's the dilemma of the Bleeding (and Vaporous) Arcanist. Of note, if at some point you want to play with Arcane Knight or Battlemage, both would give you access to a great Heal + Courageous which, if prolonged, removes the need to have Rekvu's casque and an injury. Really cool - also gives you insane healing in particular on Battlemage. Then you can use Acina's Tricorn or the White Void Helm or something else you fancy. PS: I like the idea of Ningrath, i.e. the secret child of Ninagauth and Llengrath. Surely an arcane force to be reckoned with .

Sounds awful. That's a pass. Majestic within a week:

Mwahahaha, got to posting new Rammstein video before Gorth did

Prepare to cry with the UsaMamo's wedding scene in this final arc, just like the wedding of Nobita & Shizuka in "Doraemon: Stand By Me 2".

I'm sure as hell not clicking on that trailer.

The Only Lottery that matters... MMMMM SMell that air.

@BruceVC, the goal here is just understanding. I'm not trying to convince them of anything and I doubt I'll be swayed by their arguments but I don't think there should be no dialogue just because neither side can "win." Because as I just said, that's not the goal here.

Armageddon cannot come soon enough.

Except Reno 911. That is a documentary.

am gonna suggest J. Roberts were not wrong in the way you believe him to be... maybe. he were still wrong. many people, particular the lawyers, get overinvested in the value o' laws. china and russia both have Constitutions and their Constitutions provide more enumerated protections o' speech and assembly than does the Constitution of the United States of America. is a specific provision in the russian Constitution that gathering for peaceful protests is protected. am wondering if you has checked the news regarding protests in russia, eh? what do you think o' the protections o' peaceful assembly granted by the russian constitution? J. Roberts recognized there were a flaw in the VRA 'cause it provided inequitable treatment based on the past misdeeds o' people many o' whom were long dead. at the same time, he believed discrimination in 1965 were not the same as it were in 2013 and he also understood the positive changes were less 'bout the civil rights and voting laws and more 'bout american's evolving notions o' acceptable social norms. Congress passing the Civil Rights Acts and the VRA were more important than the laws themselves 'cause pass such laws in a democratic republic represents changing attitudes regarding how human beings should be treated. ... am not gonna suggest J. Roberts were in 2013 some kinda naïve utopian, but am thinking he saw societal changes post 1965 as making the specific provisions o' the VRA unnecessary, particular given the arguable flawed implementation aspect o' the law. horrible mistake. citizens united v. fec exacerbated a problem which already existed: self interested politicians had a pecuniary motive for staying in office. gerrymandering were an effective tool for politicians to solidify power, particular with access to 21st century tools unavailable to the founders. so, even if J. Roberts were correct and the US south and voting districts across the nation were less bigoted than in 1965, the practical interest o' politicians in exploiting racial divisions had actual increased during the same period o' time. also, as Gromnir has observed more than once, evolution o' societal views regarding race is not unidirectional. regression and degeneration o' nation and community norms regarding race and gender is possible and the past decade o' polarization on issues o' race should make axiomatic that is just as possible for society to rot as to grow. laws is not near as important as most o' us believe 'em to be, a point we keep trying to make. J. Roberts understands that truth. unfortunately, in 2013, J. Roberts saw the evolution o' US society as inarguable and so he ignored the possibility self-interested politicians in the south and elsewhere would magnify old hatreds and grudges once the protections o' the VRA were eliminated. Roberts and the other Conservative Justices saw the VRA as flawed 'cause o' how the provisions o' the law were applied inequitable. as important, J. Roberts saw the VRA as no longer necessary 'cause americans were better than they were in 1965, which were just a horribly myopic pov. HA! Good Fun!

The point from Lexx about Raylan was that he liked the show because it shows Raylan shooting other people actually causes others around him to react to it and not just calling it a thuesday. The Rookie is a tv show in which the same 6 police officers heroically prevent crime every 5 minutes, which makes it feel like propaganda.

That was you and I talking and Im still waiting for you to PM me the numbers. For real though, Calax won a forum contest and as reward a character of him was modeled into FO:NV.

I have a guilty pleasure, Magnum P.I., and my wife and I laugh at the body count on that show. Just last night three people died and Thomas Magnum (P.I.) himself could easily be considered a serial killer. Its all good though because he only kills bad guys so he never has to answer to the law.

https://gizmodo.com/vr-researches-simulate-kisses-with-ultrasonic-transduce-1848849489 Guys great news, clever scientists have found a way to replicate VR kisses through sound. Thats means our Bioware Romance arcs and Elder Scroll adult mods can become even more compelling and realistic in the future

So the synergy of Assassin/Helwalker is that you can get bonus Might and Int and the shock lash and speed and accuracy while generating wounds from the safety of the backline (without taking damage) thanks to Dance of Death. Then you can mix between Rogue attacks and Stunning Surge which is amazing and can stun lock an opponent with enough INT etc. Assassin/Devoted is really good too as @dgray62 mentioned. If you take the Arquebus specialty, you can switch off the modal with Conquerer stance (the acc bonuses won't stack) to still be very accurate and reload faster. A Blackjacket could be great too: if you use one special Arquebus which has 2 shots + a big one shot arquebus opener + 2 other arquebus/firearms you have a total of 6 shots before even having to reload (cuz you get an extra one from stealth at opening which reloads instantly). You can also do this with Devoted of course but Blackjacket switch weapons faster, has one more weapon set and isn't limited to one weapon type. Check @Kaylon's Glimmer Man for extra flavor anyway (switch from Tactician to Devoted/Blackjacket for party play):

No Im still not convinced that the Russians are not responsible for widespread war crimes, rape and mass killings of civilians in Ukraine In fact this post has changed my mind even less than your last post on this topic

Like the Clouds, Like the Wind (1990). A cute and fun albeit pretty ridiculous film about the death of Japan's China's emperor and the women fated to become the new emperor's wives. Hmm. My only real complaint was that it was too short at about an hour fifteen - it could've easily been half an hour to an entire hour longer to really flesh out the story and more of the colorful characters (especially considering the final act, which just suddenly arrives and takes a...different turn from the rest of the film). Recommended well enough to @majestic, I enjoyed it. Episode 3 of stupid dumb Weiss Kreuz: the first six or seven minutes of this episode were a "masterclass" in storytelling. I've debated trying both Gundams and Macross, but every time I really start to consider it, I can't help but feel that it will be totally boring to me given that I need certain kinds of characters to be able to watch long shows that the 80s just don't typically have. @Sarex All the screenshots I see for this look like this: How obnoxious! That, or the people posting screenshots of it are obnoxious by trying to wow me with stupid particle spam. @majestic In the past, I have had cases of me thinking that I didn't like a singer because their instrumentals were so bad that I couldn't get a good feel for the singer by themselves. While I may forgive instrumentals I don't love, instrumentals that actually hurt my ears/brain make it so it doesn't really matter, sadly. Also, screw trumpets.

This episode was even worse:

You definitely put more thought into it than the writers do

Looks like scientists are learning from game dev companies, making announcements of announcements - whats next? Are they going to do trailers? xD

That would have been better writing than what they actually did with the Borg.

Can't wait for the RLM review.

I haven't watched the episode yet, but read the spoiler. I expected nothing, and yet, I was still disappointed. Unbelievable.

My great-grandmother used to tell tales of how it was being caught between the Wehrmacht, the Red Army and Tito's Partisans way back in World War 2. My grandmother and her brother (the latter who is still alive) also told tales of their wonderful childhood. Starvation, death camps, watching former neighbours shooting each other because they were the wrong ethnicity. People losing their livelihood and their life's work over being not German enough, or too German... fun stuff, all in all. Special military operations certainly bring out the best in people.

Also, if unnamed American official tells me that orc horde is murdering soldiers who try to surrender, you bet I'm gonna fully ****ing believe it, and it has nothing to do with anonymity of American or whatever other country's official, but because of previous behaviour of the horde.

Clearly MTG was thinking Meadows was a comic book fan, and thought they might like Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neil's MARSHALL LAW book. I'm not sure how anyone can disagree but...they apparently do? I can only hope she gets defeated. I always thought - and not being a lawyer it may be that I just don't get it - that was a weird argument from Roberts as clearly the reason the record couldn't show the 'pervasive,' 'flagrant,' 'widespread,' and 'rampant' discrimination like 1965 was the law was requiring preclearance and the states had learned that those things wouldn't pass preclearance. So apparently the law working was proof the law wasn't needed? I kinda get the idea of it continuing to apply to a limited states would be viewed as an issue, but...

What do i need it for exactly. Just turned down the upgrade because it would mean spending hours and days removing all the bloatware from search and what's her name, the Bing lady. Corona ?.. Cortana.

I've been using Windows 10 for a while now, and I still think the start menu on it is garbage compared to Windows 7. Feel free to take a bet on whether I'll "get used to it pretty quick" when/if I ever upgrade to Windows 11, .

Sig Sauer nabs Army's Next Generation Squad Weapon contract - Breaking Defense

Second video released from Rammsteins new album (Zeit)

HA! Good Fun!

Got this stuff on repeat at work so cheesy

Nanowar of Steel being Nanowar of Steel... those wacky Italians