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[BUILD GUIDE] - The Soul Devourer (5.0) Class - Blood Mage / Soul Blade (Hierophant) Concept - Mass drain focus with Citzal's Spirit Lance and use soul annihilation for mass slaughter. This build has extremely high defenses thanks to equipment, various wizard defense spells, and the amazing cipher spell Borrowed Instinct. We also have spectacular accuracy and crit nearly every hit. Use Pull of Eora to group enemies so we can maximally build focus and annihilate souls. Slaughter kith, wilders, monsters, and...destructibles, to drain their souls and build max focus. This build works with any alignment but is particularly suited for EVIL playthroughs as you're rewarded for slaughtering everything for their souls and their spells. I even killed a temple full of Dawnstars. But not the younglings... POTD - YES SOLO - YES, in fact this build can handle the Ultimate challenge (link below). Companions - Not necessary but would work well in any party as a striker / off-tank. ----------- Why play this class? I was inspired towards soul blade builds after watching Sarcastic Sarcophagae's ultimate run using a soul blade / ranger, and I started thinking about whether we really needed the ranger part, and no, you don't, though ranger makes it easier to proc focus gain since you can kill the pet over and over. I wanted to create a god-like character that felt like a kensai/mage from Baldur's Gate 2. Capable of single-handedly blitzkrieging large groups of enemies. Despite being a blood mage multiclass, we use very few offensive spells. This is very much a melee build and ideal for a no-rest run. ----------- RACE: Coastal Aumaua for might resistance. Wild Orlan, wood elf, mountain dwarf, and human are also decent choices, but really you can use any race besides maybe godlikes, since the helmet we use is important. BACKGROUND: Old Vailia - Artist (mechanics/history/insight) Effigy's Resentment: Maneha (+1 MIG is not quite as good as +1 INT, but we get +5 resistance to might afflictions which is great) STATS MIG - 13 base, 19 final (+2 Auamaua, +1 Gift from Machine, +1 Maneha, +2 Alchemic Brawn, + items and +5 from tenacious/energized) CON - 9 base, 13 final (+2 Alchemic Brawn, +2 Konstanten's Boon, plus items and +5 from Infuse or Robust) DEX - 14 base, 18 final (+2 Alchemic Guile, +2 Amira's Blessing, plus items and +5 from Deleterious) PER - 18 base, 22 final (+2 Alchemic Guile, +1 Konstanten's Boon, +1 Savage Cunning, plus items and +5 from Eldritch Aim) INT - 18 base, 22 final (+1 Old Vailia, +2 Alchemic Wits, +1 Konstanten's Boon, +1 Cauldron's Shard, plus items and +5 from Infuse or Brilliant) RES - 3 base, 9 final (+2 Alchemic Wits, +2 Nature's Resolve, +2 Rikuhu's Blessing, plus items and +5 from Pyschovampiric Shield) It is easy for us to proc inspirations for everything but might (but that can be done too). In battle the stats are typically something like 26/20/24/28/29/14 --------------- To cheese or not to cheese? This build will work fine in parties and likely solo on lower difficulties without using "cheese" strategies. But the cheese is so good. Don't you want to ascend to godhood? Cabalist's Gambeson and Strand of Favor are used to extend many buffs, most important of which is the soul blade's max focus buff. For every melee kill you get +10 max focus for IDK, something like 60 seconds, but we can extend that and end up with 15000+ focus by late game, which translates to starting battles with something like 3500 focus! This lets us zerg dangerous enemies when needed, or whenever we feel like it. In addition, blood mage's minor grimoire imprint can STEAL SPELLS, permanently. This is super useful in general but especially for solo, trial of iron runs, and ESPECIALLY ultimate runs. We can steal spells like Escape, Withdraw, Nature's Balm (Robust!), Halt, and even watershaper spells like Ondra's Whip and a party friendly Chill Fog! Any spell that's level 3 or lower, and an enemy has it, we can steal it. It works like this. DO NOT memorize Minor Grimoire Imprint. Carry a grimoire with Minor Grimoire Imprint. Easiest to get is Aloth's grimoire. Cast minor grimoire imprint on the enemy. If it hits (vs fortitude), a random level 1 to 3 spell the caster knows is stolen and shows up in your quick bar. Most enemies know 2 spells per level, but a few like Eamund the Fox know more (has ten L1 to L3 spells). We can make the theft PERMANENT by swapping to another grimoire and back after we steal it. In this way you can get every level 1 to 3 wizard spell for free (wizard spells don't show up in the quick bar), provided it isn't learned already, plus any level 1 to 3 priest or druid spells you'd want, such as Barbs of Condemnation, Divine Mark, Pillar of Faith, Nature's Mark, etc. etc. But don't steal TOO MANY, not sure what happens when the quick bar extends to the edge of the screen. The spells I stole on my ultimate run were these: every wizard spell I could (because no renewable resources, and just because), withdraw, restore, nature's balm, the moon's light, chill fog (watershaper version), Ondra's whip, Escape, Barbs of Condemnation, and Halt. You can get most of these (minus the wizard spells) from two encounters: Beina, who is a priest of skaen and has other priests in her party, and the watershaper Biakara. These encounters are relatively easy even for solo, and you can watch me do them in Video 13. ------------------- FOOD: Hylea's Bounty! You can get it at the start of the game if you pledged to Hylea in POE1 (everything good import has it). So we can immediately have +2 to all skills which is SUPER helpful in the early game, and the entire game really. It's also GREAT for combat. We get +25% max health, which allows us to dump CON a bit, and even better, +10 to ALL defenses. This is by far the best food in the game for this build. If you have to rest later, I guess I'd go with Captain's Banquet or Shark's Soup for the immunities mainly, but the combat buffs are also excellent. You'll be squishier without Hylea's Bounty buffs though, and skill checks are tougher, and more important you lose your per-rest buffs like Dawnstar's Blessing, so try to avoid resting! ------------------- SKILLS: In the early game, stealth is most important active, then mechanics. Later we want some athletics. With a luminous Adra potion, Hylea's bounty, and the various unguents, plus training, your BASE for every skill should be 7 with no points in it. For passives, early we want lots of diplomacy and a little survival. Once you get the GiftBearer's Cloth, pump history as much as you can. For a solo run I wouldn't take it past 12 points invested (which with other bonuses gave me 20 history and +15 to defenses). My late-game skill investment was something like Arcana 3, Athletics 7, mechanics 9, diplomacy 5, history 12, survival 3. Diplomacy and survival can be boosted with items to around 15 which is enough to pass most checks. ------------------- ABILITIES I went through most of the game without taking a single wizard spell, because you can get almost everything you need from Llengrath's Martial Mysteries and Aloth's Grimoire, but eventually I took Pull of Eora because it is really good and I have one or two ability choices that are somewhat free. Here is my suggestion for what to take leveling up as you go. Grab pull of eora at L10 to L12 or do what I did and cast from grimoire and take it late. 1 - Eldritch Aim and Tenuous Grasp (EA is hard to find as stealable spell plus it is just great, TG is a .5s cast but take whatever cipher side) 2 - Iron Will (!)- +15 to will. Will is probably the most important defense on a solo run and iron will STACKS with bull's will! 3 - Lingering Echoes - your cipher spells lasting longer is pretty nice, but mostly we take this because there's nothing better to take 4 - Psychovampiric Shield (!) and TwoHanded - PVS effectively gives +10 accuracy vs the enemy and gives us Steadfast, and a .5s cast! 5 - Draining Whip (!) - Once you build tons of focus you might want to switch to Biting Whip, but I stuck with draining whole game. 6 - Mental Binding - this one is a bit free, Phantom Foes also a good choice but doesn't stack other flank debuffs like Chill Fog 7 - Hammering Thoughts (!) and Bear's Fortitude (!) - HT +1 weapon penetration is amazing, and our fortitude is a bit low 8 - Secret Horrors - really good debuff over huge area, especially for minor grimoire imprint, and a .5s cast 9 - Weapon and Shield Style - before summoning weapons we want a shield for the bonus deflection, so why not get reflex and more deflection? 10 - Body Attunement and Bull's Will - nothing great on cipher side, but BA is situationally useful vs enemies with high AR 11 - Secrets of Rime - for chill fog 12 - Heart of the Storm - becomes relevant when we proc Lord Darryn's Voulge and Conduit (or take pull of eora and this at 19) 13 - Borrowed Instinct (!!) and Tough - the build starts to become very powerful now we have Borrowed Instinct and Citzal's Spirit Lance 14 - Uncanny Luck - hit to crit always welcome, could also take Rapid Casting or Farcasting, we eventually take all 15 - Rapid Casting - get the buffs up faster 16 - The Empty Soul (!) and Improved Critical (!) - TES +10 ACC vs will with the cipher spells we really need to hit (PVS and BI) 17 - Martial Caster - Summon that weapon a little faster 18 - Farcasting - moderately useful, +20% range on most spells (doesn't apply to escape sadly) 19 - Echoing Horror (!) and Pull of Eora - EH is like a perma-frighten and POE means no more grimoire swapping 20 - Psychic Backlash - Kind of free, could sub Recall Agony, Phantom Foes, Ringleader, Arms Bearer, or a wizard spell MODALS Club (!), Quarterstaff (!), Medium Shield (!), Small Shield (!), Pike, Rapier, Morningstar (last two don't really matter, and pike modal not that great) None of these are super important besides maybe quarterstaff since we use summoned weapons, but the small shield and medium shield especially are nice to reduce damage before we summon the weapon. Club kinda useful early to reduce will. GOD POWER Mien of Death's Herald or Ire of Death's Herald (give Intuitive and Energized respectively). For Mien be diplomatic in god conversations and for ire be aggressive. Intuitive is the only Tier 3 we can't otherwise get, but it isn't *that* much better than aware. Energized is much better than Tenacious for the interrupts which hit your primary and secondary lance targets. But...we can get Energized through other means. In a no rest run these abilities can be used once, so you want to extend them and not lose them. Can wear Effigy's Husk to keep Energized, though you sacrifice some armor and reflex/will compared to Magnera's Chain. It is better vs enemies that use lots of might afflctions though. I took Ire of Death's Herald, and...I forgot to use it. --------------- EQUIPMENT WE WEAR Head - Cap of the Laughingstock - effectively +10 accuracy, and if we use mirror's image or essential phantom we get immunity to resolve (and -10 deflection) Neck - Protective Eothasian Charm - mostly for the proc, but if worn the healing is doubled from might and dawnstar's blessing Body - Magnera's Chain, Effigy's Husk - MC has +10 fort/will/ref, and Effigy's Husk immunity to might. Early game wear Devil of Caroc BP. Rings - Ring of Minor Protection + Entonia Signet Ring pre-escape, then ROMP + Prosperity's Fortune, then ROMPx2 (they stack!) Feet - Boots of Stealth early, then Bounding Boots or Boots of Stability (with two copies of Bounding Boots, you can use Leap 2x per ENCOUNTER, then put it back in stash between battles and swap back to get Leap back) Cape - Cloak of Greater Protection early, then Cape of the Falling Star, then The GiftBearer's Cloth. Hands - Killer's Gloves early, then Gatecrashers, then Firethrower's Gloves, then Left Hand of the Obscured or Onepahau's Strength (or Killer's Gloves again) Waist - Undying Burden then Upright Captain's Belt so we're unaffected by Pull of Eora Pet - Pes early (+10%dmg, 5% hit to crit), Bear Cub later (+8 fort, 5% hit to crit), Ooblit even later (+3s duration beneficial effects) Weapons - You don't actually use the weapons much, but their passive buffs can be useful before summoning. Squid's Grasp in slot 1 and 3 (copy), Lethandria's Devotion in slot 1, Outworn Buckler and some other weapon in Slot 2, Xoti's Lantern in slot 3 (if Skaen challenge) The important thing with the shields is if you get hit by something nasty (not likely with all the inspirations but happens occasionally), you can clear it by rapidly swapping slots 1 and 2. Can clear even faster with 2x outworn buckler, but I like Lethandria / Outworn for healing passive and because Lethandria is a better fighting shield. Every switch you're healed 2 points and clear 6% off the duration. This can be scripted so you clear an arcane dampener in a couple seconds (or no time if you can pause). On Squid's Grasp you want Broken Curse and Attempted Parley, this provides a huge action speed buff when you're threatended by 3+ enemies which happens a lot solo, and it applies to spells! On Lethandria take Sheltering Light and Captivating Crystal. On Outworn Buckler take Timeless Perseverence and Symbol of Courage. Grimoires - LLengrath's Martial Mysteries (or Katrenn's), Aloth's. These are the main two. Jernaugh's Careful Calamities is useful for the spell Jernaugh's Equalizing Burst which is a good opener, also Ninagauth's Shadowflame from Ninagauth's Teachings, but normally we open with Pull of Eora. Might want to hold onto Arkemyr's Illuminating Discoveries or Celestial Grimoire for Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure, but I never needed to use it. Escape is not quite as good but a much faster cast. ----------------- EQUIPMENT FOR PROCS - this is stuff we equip only if we want to proc some effect, either temporarily or to extend indefinitely, we extend with first Cabalist's Gambeson, then Cabalist's Gambeson plus Strand of Favor. Takes 10 to 20 seconds to extend something to near infinity, depending where you are it affects how fast you can cycle armor and necklace. The sea is usually the fastest place. Thief's Putty / Ungent of Animalism / Blessed Incense / Oil of Allure / Arcanist's Balm (!!!!) - proc these right after getting Cabalist's Gambeson for +2 to all skills Antidote - permanent immunity to poison attacks Amra (!!!!) - Tempered Fury gives FRENZY without the deflection penalty! Incredible. Protective Eothasian Charm's Darkest Before Dawn (!!!!) - gives +10 health per 3s, -25% damage taken (decreases conduit effect unfortunately) Deltro's Cage Helm (!!!!) - can TRIPLE your damage output if you crit yourself wearing the right equipment at high level with Chain Lightning or even better, Scrolls of Great Maelstrom. Note the scrolls are very dangerous to Vela and yourself so not recommended for iron run, but with max Arcana they do insane damage and you can get +220% lightning damage, which applies not only to melee but spells. Ideally you'll have all of these when you proc Conduit - Chromoprismatic QS's Elemental Induction buff, Improved Critical, Heart of the Storm (make sure you overpen, kill yourself for System Shock if needed), Griffin's Blade (Hound's Courage), +2MIG gloves or Left Hand of the Obscured (arcana for scroll, strength for spells), Kuaru's Ring, Chameleon's Touch, Sash of Judgment, High Harbinger's Robes or Furrante's Breastplate or Deltro's Cage, Sandals of the Water Lily (make it easier to crit yourself). Milx for hit to crit conversion with spells. I crit myself with Chain Lightning in video 28, right before I fight Dorudugan and Huani o Whe. Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff (!!!) - Elemental Induction gives +15% damage which applies to everything including SA, Entropy Shield reduces damage by about 8% Devil of Caroc's BP (!) - 2 health per 3 seconds is okay, but it adds up. If worn this increases to 4. Grove's Kin from Nature's Embrace (!!) - gives Woodskin. We could just steal woodskin and cast it, but perma-woodskin is cool too. Less / Least Unstable Coil (!!) - +15% Action Speed. I proc this during the Maerwald fight because that's when I get it usually and he's a spirit. Lord Darryn's Voulge (!!!) - gives Lightning Strikes - quick, +15% action speed, +15% damage as shock with weapons Outworn Buckler (!!) - would have more ! as this can proc Courageous, but we are already immune to interrupts from insanely high concentration Rannig's Wrath (!!) - Redoublement gives +10 deflection, which is part of why we can dump resolve Resounding Call (!!) - Call to Arms procs Tenacious when destroying a destructible. Slayer's Claw can upgrade this to Energized by swapping weapons. Robes of the Weyc - +1 AR against your chosen type Sanguine Great Sword (!!!) - Proc Blood Gift, then Greater Blood Gift. They STACK for +20 health per 6 seconds, much more if you have the item equipped Scordeo's Trophy (!!!) - can be used early game to greatly reduce recovery with Opening Barrage Scordeo's Edge (!!!!) - can ELIMINATE recovery with Blade Cascade. Can stack accuracy +20 every time you save. Insane. Not necessary to stack accuracy this much but makes things easier. Serpent Crown (!!!) - +10 accuracy that applies to spells not just weapons! Shadow Form (!!!!) (Slipper of the Assassin) - use to steal things with ease, and to start nearly every encounter from stealth (invisible). You don't need to actually wear the boots in combat, after the first proc, switch to the boots you want to wear then extend it and you'll still be invisible. Shea's War Staff (!) - 15% hit to crit with weapons is nice, though by the time you get this you have Scordeo's Edge Slayer's Claw (!!!!) - can bump up any might inspiration to Energized simply by cycling weapons Shroud of the Phantasm (!!!!!) - proc brilliant. It is easy to proc if you have stolen something like Minoletta's Minor Missiles and Restore. Just alternate Missiles and restore. They're .2s casts with speed bonuses, so you can fire off 100 missiles in no time. Wall of Flame also good, but we can't steal it. Make sure to remove clothes when proccing this if you have Abydon's Challenge on. Unstable Soul Essence - an explosive that heals you roughly 6 health per 6 seconds. Okay. Heals much more if you have high explosives. Wahai Poroga (!!!) - At Blade's Reach reduces melee damage by 20% and counterattack returns damage as raw DOT. Combined with Blood Mage healing, we have passive healing around 10(BM) + 20(DBD) + 20(SGS) + 6(USE) + 4(DOCBP) = 60 health per 6 seconds. Add robust for 40 more, add the moon's light for 32 more. Normally my script doesn't proc The Moon's Light but Robust is usually up, so that's 100 or 132 health per 6 seconds, about 16 or 22 health per second. Plus we are hard to hit, so basically unkillable. -------- OTHER BUFFS Nature's Resolve - +10 accuracy, +2 resolve, best per-rest buff in the game Dawnstar's Blessing - +50% healing, +2 religion - I know I just said NR was the best, but THIS is the best per-rest one time buff. Or 2nd best IDK. Alchemist's Wits/Brawn/Guile - +2 to all stats, per rest Cauldon Shard - +1 to chosen stat, I took INT, permanent I think Konstanten's Boon - best prostitute boon IMO, gives +2 CON, +1 PER, +1INT Savage Cunning - +1 PER, +2 survival, permanent Rikuhu's Blessing - +2 RES, get from the shrine on Crookspur Island, takes religion 15, choose to rest you get interrupted, with high diplomacy you get the boon Amira's Blessing - +2 DEX, this is a random proc while traveling Neketaka. When you get the burning house, go in, flee the house, be nice to the old lady Ngati's Blessing - +2 CON, get from Teo Ramunga on Neketaka Island. I skipped this one since it is out of the way and it removes Rikuhu and vice versa. They also remove Amira so try to get that later (just don't do too much unnecessary map travelling in Neketaka and it should proc Amira later). Once I managed to get all three but I can't figure out how to reproduce it. ------- DRUGS SAY NO TO DRUGS But seriously, if you don't want to rest and you get hit by even one arcane dampener your drugs will cause a drug crash, even though when the dampener ends the drug effects return. You can actually stack every drug with saves and loads, and if you have every drug benefit plus the crashes, the benefits still slightly outweigh the crashes (except whiteleaf, don't take whiteleaf, the crash effects are awful). So it still may be worth it. BUT you lose mostly perception, and perception is one of the most important stats so I just didn't mess with drugs. I was only hit with one, maybe two arcane dampeners so it would have been fine if I'd used them but you don't need them and it eliminates worry about that risen mage getting lucky and rolling a 100 vs your insanely high will defense... ------- MY ULTIMATE RUN First 20 or so videos are very boring, please don't watch them. It's just me sneaking around, questing, and proccing things. Not a lot of combat. Gets more interesting after that. I tried to script as much of the fighting as possible, but the POE2 engine is pretty limited compared to say Baldur's Gate, where I once wrote a 3000+ line script capable of handling every battle solo on insane with all the mods (God I'm a nerd). This script has just 33 blocks, and basically we try to keep up inspirations at all time, start battles with defensive buffs, summon citzal's spirit lance or sometimes concelhaut's staff, then use psychovampiric shield, borrowed instinct, and secret horrors for buffs/debuffs, cast pull of eora and chill fog on groups, then move in for the slaughter, healing ourself with restore and the moon's light as necessary, and using escape to zip around the battlefield while exploding things. One relevant note about my pathing. It was not well planned. I should not have gone to Sandswept immediately for the slight XP boost, it cost me later and delayed acquistion of both Shroud of the Phantasm and Lord Darryn's Voulge. I had to get to the Sanguine Harvest island on the 16th (has to be the 16th) for several reasons. You can get the sword, which has really nice healing passives. And you can get the sword again. And again, and again. After a day of repeating that encounter I emerged quite possibly the richest adventurer in Eora, and I drained a few hundred souls for focus in the meantime, so as Korgan would say. "Sigh...a good day". https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkOCqAbkQHxwTJyCKvA_31wYyPWK_87VY

Played a game I bought years back: Project Warlock. Not much to say, it's a shooter made in Unity, designed to look and play like the games of yore. Doom, Blood, Duke3D. This is also reflected in some of the achievements that unlock when you find characters from other games. Blood, Shadow Warrior, Serious Sam, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D. The game time is probably a lot lower unless you're like me and obsessively look for secrets and other out of the way things in the levels, often checking, re-checking and re-re-checking the entire map to make sure I did not miss anything. Hardcore difficulty gives you a game over after you die once as well as doubles enemy damage and speed. That sounds worse than it is, outside of a few situatoins in the game where prior knowledge of the maps is essential, but the game assumes one played it at least once before attempting hardcore mode. The biggest issue with hardcore mode is one of the things that makes the game more interesting than other shooters, it has a stat and perk system. Finding secrets, treasures and killing enemies awards experience. Each level up gives one stat point, every five level up the character gains a perk. There are four stats, strength, life, spirit and capacity. Strength increases melee damage, life increases, well, you get a single guess, spirit increases mana and capacity increases the amount of ammo one can carry. Naturally, when you only have one life and enemies do double damage, the most important part is increasing your hit points. The biggest issue is that there is a degree of randomness involved. Some perks can only be unlocked with certain stat requirements, and the most important of all is one to take as the very first one: Student. Student gives you a random stat in addition to the one you can spend when you get a level up. The earliest you can pick that perk up is level 8, but most likely it will be level 9 because one can only spend points in your workshop between levels. Student will never increase capacity. In an ideal world, it would raise your spirit stat to 7 (for the Soul Collector perk) and then put everything in life, giving you a nice amount of hitpoints that would allow you to eventually increase your capacity to at least five without compromising survivability, but even if you're really lucky and can raise capacity to 10, you need a strategy to deal with the final boss. Anyway, the other random component are enemy drops. They can drop ammo, health and mana ups or treasure. The more treasure they drop, the more levels you can get. The game is winnable even if you end up with something like 11 strength, but an extra 100 hit points? Much more useful than melee damage. The other stuff you need to be aware of comes from figuring out your optimal approach to weapon upgrades and spell usage. There's a spell that places a stationary lightning shooting ball of energy at the player's location that can shoot and target through walls. It has a really high rate of fire and deletes most enemies in a single blast. It makes getting through ambushes much easier, because you can just drop it and run for cover. It can also delete ambushes before they even happen. The speed at which it clears entire rooms of enemies is similar to the amount of mayhem Project Warlock's verison of the BGF wreaks, and since you need 7 spirit for one of the perks anyway, there's plenty of mana to cast it. Fire damage often makes enemies skip their damage stages and kills them outright. So, do you take the double barreled shotgun upgrade that doubles the damage, or the one that turns its shots into red hot pieces of shrapnel that can set entire rooms on fire? Well, perhaps a little unintuitively, the shrapnel variety saves you a lot of grief later on in regular levels, but the damage upgrade makes boss fights easier. Take your pick. I liked it well enough, but it is probably too long for its own good. The gameplay wears thin sometime around the third of the five episodes. Sure, every level has unique enemies, but even there one eventually notices repeats in approach and design. Project Warlock was made by a very small team, so that is easily excusable. The boss battles at the end of each episode are woefully unbalanced even on normal difficulty. The first one is ridiculously hard without being mechanically insteresting and the point where most hardcore runs go to die, the others are not very interesting and, depending on your skill, actually pushovers and the final boss is one you need a separate strategy for on hardcore because it is a bullet sponge that depletes your ammo reserves at capacity 10 even with the spell that summons ammo and all the pickups on the map. Still, it is a solid game, it is fun to play for a while, and it's currently on sale for under three bucks.

Wifix took me to a new definitely not Russian with what's going on in the world today European market and they had the best homemade adjika I've ever tasted. I've been slathering it on the figuratively literal everything today. Then she took me to a liquor store and bought me my favorite Scotch. Either she's going to kill me or she actually likes me, win win.

Dishonored is free on Epic Games Store this week. https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/dishonored-definitive-edition

Successful hypothermia in nonhuman primate paves the way for future application in human torpor during spaceflight

Mortal Shell free on Epic: Mortal Shell | Download and Buy Today - Epic Games Store

Generally yes, but not in Project Warlock. Stat upgrades do not enhance weapon damage outside of strength affecting melee damage, and even the lowly handgun one finds right at the start is capable of one- or two-shotting every mook level enemy in the game after giving it the .50 cal upgrade. Dishing out damage is not an issue outside of the final boss battle, although that one could arguably work in melee. I had no intention to try running up to the boss and whack him on a run that ends in case this does not work so well. You could potentially get away with putting every point in spirit and simply use the magic staff as weapon that uses mana instead of ammo, that does impressive damage, especially when you exploit the upgrade that gives it a long cooldown in exchange for killing almost everything except bosses in one shot. Because a spell that costs zero mana, magic light, resets the cooldown of the weapon. Even then, there are ambushes that are unavoidable right at the start of a level as you spawn into a sea of fiends and even sprinting for cover takes away a good chunk of your health. Edit: It is also super clunky to switch spells in the middle of combat, so switching between the - in my opinion required - storm rage spell and magic light is not very fun gameplay.

Nah, glass cannon always and forever in every game. If everything you attack immediately dies, there's less opportunity for you to get hit in the first place and also you mow through the game much faster to boot, . Many years ago, I intended to play through the Dooms, but at this point, I'd be lucky if I ever make it through just the original. Signalis (2022). Genre-wise, it's basically the same as one of my favorite games Yuppie Psycho (2D isometric atmospheric horror exploration), but you play as a Soviet Russian lady android technician that crash landed on a colonized frozen planet where some kind of virus has apparently driven most of the other androids to a zombie-like state, and you need to find your counterpart that you arrived with, your human pilot. I've played a few hours of it and have quite enjoyed it and its many little details, but I don't have a good grasp for where the story is going yet.

Since I know little about 40k, I thought yall were joking. Yall are not. Lmao, looks like you could buy several 3d printers for the price of a basic army. Por que no los dos? But what is the adjika like? I think my grandmother used to eat it but I don't really know much about it (or her tbh).

@Gorth, as far as one hit wonders are concerned, she is a superb case. This is a brilliant song. I remember back in the day, when I worked as a music journalist, receiving a copy of her album The Cappuccino Songs. There was nothing there.

If I was in to WH40k, I would also be in to 3d printing...

Something I haven't listened to for a long time...

Well, 2700$ is just the bare minimum, body, head, single set of guns for a Warlord Titan. Where did you find the 2500$ version? I remember seeing something like that for a long while ago, but recently the most expensive one I've seen is the 1700$ version for just the body, plus addons. I played a couple of "demos" with a few mates that I played pnp rpgs with, but buying my own miniatures was always financially out of reach. I've always been a sucker for White Scars when it comes to the official chapters, but I've always had a preference for the Storm Wardens from the fantasy flight Deathwatch game. Or Deathwatch themselves I'm listening to the Horus Heresy novels right now actually, listening to the Fulgrim book at the moment

Wait, are they on a sale??? $2700 will at best give the smaller Reaver titan The body alone for a Warlord titan is $2500 and then $300+ for each of the weapon systems (i.e. each arm and each shoulder) I haven't played a game of 40k since the early 90's, but I got hooked on Horus Heresy earlier this year. Helped quite a bit by the series of Horus Heresy novels. It was a toss up between playing Nightlords or Alpha Legion as a primary army and in the end, AL won out (since nobody knows their true loyalty, you can play them as both loyalist or traitor legion)

the amount of dimension door that chapter require would be tolerable if player are prepared pretty awful the first time went in unprepared

Very thorough and funny write-up, I say. A compendium of nearly every trick in the Deadfire book, and then some. The scripting part looks super impressive, but my scripting ability stops at automating Forbidden Fist + Whatever. Sweet, sweet build, and congrats again for taking it all the way through The Ultimate!

Abba and Ace of Base disagree with you Edit: Edit2: How could I forget these.... Army of Lovers

The area increase is so convenient at time (for any Crowd Control especially, sometimes for healing too in my experience) and +2 PL from a single ability point even situational would be too powerful. I still cling to the idea that the values are fine and that improving them would make it an almost "mandatory" talent, which I don't want it to be.

It has its pros and cons. For example with DoTs you can time it with powerful but short buffs/debuffs so that the attack roll of the DoT has an easy time landing. The ticks also don't count as attack rolls so they won't make you visible (while you are using Shadowing Beyong/Smoke Veil) and don't remove Takedown Combo (but still get +100% damage bonus) and little tricks like that. Also DoT often do raw damage which completely ignores armor. You can also prolong DoTs on enemies with "Enfeebled" (+50% duration) or by debuffing the RES of the enemy - because it's a hostile status effect on the enemy. Pulsing spells' duration cannot profit from that (but if a pulse applies a status effect -see Chillfog- that effect can). Besides the multiple chances to hit, pulsing spells are nice in combination with stuff like Confounding Blind or Combusting Wounds and such. I don't know a list that separates between DoT and pulsing spells, but usually the ability description is enough to tell them apart. I could go and compile such a list, but I'm with my kids visiting my parents and only have my smartphone with me. Maybe later, will be back home tomorrow evening.

only correct day of Christmas is 24th.. barbarians...

Moonfall Im pretty sure I suffered a TBI watching this. Ooof. Bullet Train Now this is my kinda action/comedy jam!

Space Dandy 11: Let's go to the library, baby. The Gagol Empire would rather invade a planet than pay a late fee for library books lmao.

Thanks. I'll post a complete build later once youtube has finished processing the videos. Blood mage / soul blade utilizing strand of favor and cabalist's gambeson to stack focus (among many other buffs). Use Citzal's Spirit Lance for 90% of encounters, didn't memorize a single wizard spell for most of the game, eventually memorized pull of eora because it works so well at grouping enemies so the lance can get all of them. Starting stats were like 15/10/14/18/18/3, island amaua for the might resistance though wild orlan is also a good choice. Cipher spells used are mostly psychovampiric shield, borrowed instinct, secret horrors, and soul annihilation. Used minor grimoire imprint to steal various spells. Stole any wizard spell I could but the important ones were priest: (withdraw, escape, halt, and restore) and druid (nature's balm). Important equipment: Magnera's Chain (+10 fort/reflex/will), Effigy's Husk (might immunity), ring of minor protection and prosperity's fortune (later 2x ring of minor protection), protective eothasian charm, giftbearer's cloth, bounding boots or boots of stability depending on encounter, upright captain's belt, cap of the laughingstock, squid's grasp / xoti's lantern normally used in combat before summoned weapon, weapon set 1 and 2 need lethandria's devotion and outworn buckler. This allows you to break any affliction besides dominate/charm by scripting rapid weapon switch (most important for arcane dampener). Shroud of the Phantasm to proc brilliant (though actually not necessary, can just blood sacrifice like every 10 seconds and 3 to 4 times on combat end), outworn buckler can also proc courageous but it isn't super important since we have near infinite concentration. Resounding Call for tenacious (upped later to energized with Slayer's Claw). Amra and Lord Darryn's Voulge for speed buffs. Rannig's Wrath for +10 deflection. Deltro's Cage Helm for Conduit (wearing right equipment this gives +150 to 220 or so % shock damage depending how lucky you are with the roll when chain lightning yourself). Scordeo's Trophy early to reduce recovery, later Scordeo's Edge, though you don't really need it. Sanguine Great Sword for healing. Lots of other minor equipment buffs. I did Belranga pre-SOTP, and Concelhaut, cave grub, watershaper dragon, magma dragon, Dorudugan and HOW pre-Scordeo's Edge (also arkemyr). But I took anything that made me more powerful. This is a build that starts sorta weak but the more things you kill, the more spells you steal, and the more buffs you proc the more powerful it gets, and that applies all the way to the end, so once I got Citzal's I generally ran TOWARDS combat, I did lots of random ship encounters etc., and devoured the souls of kith and monsters everywhere. Grimoires: Llengrath's Martial Mysteries. Aloth's Grimoire (for minor imprint). Sometimes I open with a Ninagauth's Shadowflame or Jernaugh's Equalizing burst but that is really all that's needed. Pets: pes early on (+10% melee dmg, 5% hit to crit), bear cub once you can get him (+8 fort, 5% melee dmg), even later Ooblit (+3 sec duration all beneficial effects). Ooblit isn't really necessary but reduces how often I have to cast certain spells and abilities (escape mostly). It's a no-rest build and I got as many buffs as I could: nature's resolve, alchemic guile/brawn/wits, cauldron shard, konstantens boon, savage cunning, hylea's bounty is best food as you can take it immediately and I think it remains the best for huge health boost, +2 all skills, +10 all defenses. Con and especially resolve are not that important because we have huge passive healing and can enormously buff defenses with borrowed instinct, psychovampiric shield, various stolen spells and various items. Main danger to the build is certain spells like arcane dampener, though that can be cleared in a couple seconds. Form of the Helpless Beast is pretty bad. That could potentially end the run if you're hit when vela pops out of withdraw. Can actually still fight pretty effectively as the pig if she is safe because of the high attack rate, interrupts, and lightning damage. Other afflictions like paralyze don't really matter because they hardly ever hit since we have renewable inspirations up constantly for every stat besides might which is a little harder to proc, and even if you get hit with a 20 second paralyze or something you can clear it in same manner as dampener. It is a very powerful build once it comes together around level 13 to 14. Lot of micromanagement with SOF for max effectiveness, though for party runs it would do fine without any of the SOF buffs. Can rip through bosses and waves of mooks alike. Citzal's Spirit lance procs focus from both the primary target and secondary hits, so you build focus really quickly, and soul annihilation hits everyone the lance hits. If I were running this in a party without SOF micromanagement I would just script the char to use soul annihilation every time focus > 90 and you're threatened by more than 1 enemy, with like a 6 second cooldown. Soul annihilation was one of the things I couldn't script because the game limits the cipher resource cap to 90 in the scripting GUI, so if I want to use soul annihilation if and only if I have 1000+ focus, well, no way to do it except manually, and unfortunately with wael you're guessing at your current focus. I basically just zerged things with SA if they seemed high threat. Unfortunately SA does not generate more concentration or raise the max focus cap so you need to swap killing mooks normally with using SA on more dangerous things. By late game in my parallel, non-iron, non-wael run I had like 15000 max focus, and you start combat with I think 1/3 of that. Or maybe 1/5...IDK, it's a lot I was inspired toward soul blade builds from watching SarcasticSarcophagae's ultimate run where he does a soul blade / ranger, but I didn't really like the ranger aspect. I think this build is stronger but that one is easier to build focus since you can just kill your pet over and over and don't need to seek battles. But I like seeking battles. And I wanted to make a character that felt like an unstoppable kensai/mage from Baldur's Gate (or a kensai/mage/cleric...), and this is as close as I could get with POE2. Also wanted to script as much of the fighting as possible. Most encounters can be handled entirely by the script. It gets confused by things like Sigilmaster Auranic's obelisks, and you have to manually cast withdraw and soul annihilation but it can otherwise autopilot. Hmm. Went into much more detail than I'd intended. Gotta save something for a build thread lol

From the point you are at it only gets better and better. I keep waiting for the second part of the manga to hit its stride.

I've been playing an MMO called Zwift. Bit of a weird game, I joined a group and finished the session drenched in sweat. I reached level 4 and unlocked a helmet though, so that was nice. I am using the Zwift Hub Trainer in my garage. Perfect for a rainy day.

Space Dandy 10: We can't go to Boobies tomorrow if there is no tomorrow, baby. This is the best episode so far. Seriously good.

Wife wanted to watch Glass Onion until she realized it's the Last Jedi guy. She's really holding on to that grudge.

HA! Good Fun!

Space Dandy 8: The gang plays with a dog, baby. So....yeah, this show is crazy. Dr. Gelsef Joestar is perhaps one of the greatest pastiches of a recurring cartoon villain I've seen. Really this show continues to be amazing. Spy X Family 25: Anya takes a nap. It feels like there were a few less shocked faces here, but there have been a lot in recent episodes. Yor takes a backseat and we see another evil Anya face. I'm wondering how the movie will work here, I'd say that it is a vacation movie or something and that season 2 is the next school year but who really knows? Whoever watches it first should try to keep track of the shocked faces to see if it breaks 100.

I also just picked up this game on sale and plan on playing it over the break.

I spoiled the story already, but I do not play it for the story mostly. I even put it on core difficulty so people don't make fun of me here. edit: My character sheet

Started my new game and made it as far as picking the Lich path (making "friends" with the old necromancer, graciously lending his want back to him). Playing as (vanilla) sorcerer at the moment, with the undead bloodline. Played through to Drezen (chapter iii) and one of the building projects seems to be a pyramid of a kind Also, romancing spider girl. I suspect she's one of the few that wont drop me like a hot potato if I turn into a walking corpse some day. Edit: The Dirge Bard looked like a very interesting alternative to Sorcerer, but I worry that the "fun" abilities wont be there until late in the leveling up process (i.e. mutually exclusive with sorcerer) if wanting the best of both worlds (and not going for Legend with it's 40 total levels). I might flip/flop a bit between the two classes later on, to see what appears to be the most fun to play

I love that people can play together across consoles, but what we ABSOLUTELY NEED is the option to just pick up a controller and join the game while sitting in the same room with your friends or family. (Couch co-op) I personally spend hours upon hours monopolizing the living room TV, and my kids or my spouse can't play this awesome game with me, unless they go somewhere else and use a different system. I hate that! I understand if split-screen programming is too difficult an issue, but what about a certain centimeter distance limit (invisible tether) between players? The camera could simply zoom partway out, so each player could still see what they need to, but it's not trying to track and load two different scenes constantly.

Achievement "Unlock all Creature Cards" is not unlocking on Steam even though I have unlocked all Creature Cards. Is my behavior a problem or a bug?

Afflictions from weapon also stack with everything (in the same way that Echoing Horror do), I found that is a good usage of stacking rules knowledge to use it, dont you?

Cipher passive Echoing Horror is... errr... a passive, so its Frightened affliction stacks with everything. Of course, it will get replaced or will replace other RES affliction, but a pure RES debuff (such as Psychovampiric Shield) will stack for a total of -15 Resolve debuff. Note : I don't think it makes the ability broken because of its marginal use, but BPM will make it never stacks for the sake of consistency. In exchange, I will buff it to 20s duration. It is a Tier 7 so hard to pick for MC anyway (Ancestor Memory being so juicy, few room for it). And its random targetting deserves a bit of reward. In addition, as a passive, its duration isn't affected by Power Level... Also worths noticing that about all On Kill effects works on friendly targets in spite of their description. This is well known for barbarian's but it also applies to Echoing Horror and Inspiring Triumph. (Community Patch Virtuous Triumph does not but it is explicit in the mod notes - and probably justified) Finally, Echoing Horror and Evasive Fire basically applies their effect to a random target within 10m radius (probably buffed by INT) of the caster.

Whirling Strikes, Heart of Fury and WotW let you attack with both hands, whatever you hold. That's why Whirling Strikes can be used with a ranged weapon in left hand and even benefits from Driving Flight.

I discovered recently that Xefa's Empirical Explication can add up to 12 resonance stacks per attack - it can proc knock back and prone on crit which are also considered weapon attacks (and can also trigger Avenging Storm). FF monks using WotW can use blunderbuss + melee weapon to gain easily 2 hostile effects (Powder Burns + Unwieldly from Hilea's Talons). With 30+ resolve, Ring of Solitary Wanderer, Strand of Favor and Clarity of Agony their durations is close to 2s and you can generate wounds between two WotW.

While there are already throwable spears in the game, I believe an update on spears in the game in general would be good. Updating the current spears in the game to be throwable (as a main way of dealing damage) and stackable would be nice, and adding a tier 3 spear to complete the spear tree would be cool as well. Basically, it would be a cool addition to actually have a weapon that benefits from the throw ability, not like throwing an axe at a Wolf Spider. Stacking 10 stinger spears and throwing all of them at a Wolf Spider though should absolutely kill it, and I would argue maybe less should. This is because the cost to make each spear would be expensive, and the chance of it being lost when thrown. Actually, you could revamp the entire spear program by introducing pikes, which are made for melee whereas spears are made for throwing. Spears would basically be a ranged weapon, but would add new ways to combat enemies as one could throw multiple of them in a row and kill an enemy, but they would have a damage increase so they could actually do damage. You could even purposely nerf the pebblet spear because it's so cheap to spam build, but dramatically boost the stinger spear and the tier 3 spear because of the cost to build and risk of loss. It would also include another way of ranged combat to where you don't need arrows. A drawback of using these would be low blocking ability while equipped, and high durability loss when thrown. It would basically the fastest and most damaging way to kill enemies from far, but ammo would be very limited.

Too much Lagavulin. Forum keeps eating my post and I'm not even Yuropean. Unless you can catch it, you know, physically...

3rd day of some hecking manflue - I can't take it anymore! I can't lay no longer in the bed but I am too exhausted to do anything else. Every part of my body hurts and I feel like women in menopause constantly hot or cold... ARGH!

Pelé died today

not a very boring show but momentum run out in later episode make the show feels pointless

One of the game developers of STALKER franchise (Volodymyr Yezhov), has died defending Bakhmut. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2022/12/25/7382287/

Downloading the game now.