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Wait, so let me get this straight - The TERFs don't want trans-women using women's bathrooms because they feel unsafe with people they believe can easily overpower a woman and thus makes the women's bathroom an unsafe space, and so to preserve the safe space and keep trans-women from using the women's bathroom, their solution is to <checks notes> invite armed men into those very same bathrooms...? And that will make them feel safe? Sheesh, with logic like that...

We could, but in doing so we risk creating an impression of moral equivalence where there is, and never should be, one. See, for instance, if we go back to the 70ies, we can take a look at raging homophobe and bigot concerned parent Anita Bryant who was leading the charge against rights granted to homosexuals. Look her up, take her rhetoric and arguments and simply substitute homosexuals with trans people, and you will find something very interesting to happen. History repeats itself here. It is the same states, with the same arguments, and the very much the same rhetoric. Anita Bryant was publicly shamed, demonstrated against, her public appearances stormed and her dignity violated by a protester who gave her a banana cream pie facial (which, admittedly, is more stylish and less violent than pepper spray, but not much different in concept). She eventually lost her livelihood. All for exercising her right to state that the God damned (in a more literal meaning than nowadays) homosexuals should not be allowed to contaminate innocent children with their ideology. Anita Bryant had an abusive father who would much rather had a son and an abusive husband, and all her pent-up rage went against a marginalized group whose, just like transgenders nowadays, threaten to erase the only piece of womanhood people like Anita Bryant can still cling to (instead of facing the actual monsters in their lives, i.e. abusive men): Being mothers*. Hence all this talk about fertility. Really, it is the same load of horse manure, just with a different group of people, and yes, you can find the same sort of rhetoric against raping butch lesbians and pederast homosexuals that is currently thrown against trans people. It is hard to look at Anita Bryant and her life and not muster a modicum of empathy for the terrible things she went through in her life, but at the same time, I cannot sit here and pretend that she did not deserve everything she went through after projecting her trauma and rage onto homosexual people. Nobody forced her to become a raging homophobe and bigot concerned parent (well, deliberations of the existence of free will nonwithstanding, not the topic of this thread anyway). Current anti-trans rights champion J.K. Rowling mirrors Anita Bryant in more than rhetoric, having had an emotionally distance father who would have preferred a son, a history of sexual assault and an abusive and violent first husband. Now she projects her experiences against a marginalized group whom she sees as threatning her womanhood. She even - most likely inadvertantly - paraphrases Anita Bryant ("My father wanted a son, that is the sort of thing that could turn me into a homosexual" vs. "My father wanted a son, I can see myself transitioning for his sake if I were given the opportunity"). Looking at history, change is often messy - after all, it wasn't the Stonewall Debates that eventually led to Anita Bryant championing the counter movement to abolish the better rights and protections spawned from that event, was it? Women did not debate until they were granted the right to vote, indeed, they even got quite violent. Except perhaps in Switzerland, and you can see how well that worked. It only took them half a century longer than anyone else to grant women suffrage. Ah, well, let it never be said that the Swiss are quick with anything, yes**? Let me ask you a question. Suppose we would be in the 70ies, and Anita Bryant just had her right to free speech tread upon by way of a banana cream pie. Would you, as a self-proclaimed friend to homosexual people everywhere, be morally outraged by the repugnant attack, or not? Just curious here, really. I know I would not, and I make no attempt to sugar coat this, as the resident far-left extremist and Cultural Post-Modern Marxist (whoever coined that idiotic term, I wonder?). *Andrea Dworkin, Right Wing Women. Published in 1983, it appears to be more relevant than ever, in the face of people with vaginas like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Posie Parker, Maya Forstater and, well, sadly enough, J.K. Rowling. It is a fantastic read, if approached with care, Ms. Dworkin is not, say, entirely uncontroversial, for good reason. **In case it is none too apparent, this is a joke.

Well, yes and no. This thread became more irritating than usual, which sometimes prods me to reply in the face of better judgment. The initial draft was much different, and a lot more mocking, and not directed at you in particular, just at the idea that there should be a cultured debate about everything, when historically, cultured debate nary made for change, while protests and people fighting for their rights in the face of bigotry and hate did. Eisenhower did not send a debate team to convince the bigotted concerned governor of Arkansas to desegregate schools when he refused, he sent the 101st Airborne. You can look it up, there is plenty of information available. It is simple to substitute homosexuals with trans persons in her speeches, and you will find that suddenly we arrive at the exact same talking points that concerned parents, feminists and conservatives (what an amazing time we live in, when an originally far-left idea proposed by extremist lesbians is co-opted and turned into a right-wing movement, and you have feminists joining in) spout these days when talking about the transgender liberation movement. There is some bitter irony in all of this, back in the late 60ies, the feminist movement attempted to exclude lesbians, and the lesbians rallied and replied by staging aggressive and disruptive protests. Once accepted by the feminist movement, they then immediately proceeded to try and exclude trans persons, because never let it be said that "the left" or minorities are any better in learning from history. Here we are today, with people like Posie Parker being co-opted and funded by the conservatives in the weirdest unholy alliance ever. Left-wing fringes and right-wingers united in a common cause: dealing with the transgender menace (feminists used to call lesbians the lavender menace, by the way, a rather prominent one even going so far as to call lesbians a CIA psy-op to discredit feminism). I would laugh, if it were not so dire. No, they are not. It is the same pushback against a liberation movement that has always come about in the face of liberation movements. The way these talking points are the same is quite scary, Anita Bryant was very vocal about homosexuals not being able to reproduce, while nowadays gay men argue that transitioning is bodily harm because people who are actually "just gay but confused" are castrated by the gender affirming treatments. The amount of mental gymnastics necessary here is astounding. Gay men, arguing against trans liberation because it affects fertility. Here, have a tweet by one of them. Spoilered because very graphic language. He has that legal right, yes, because from what I have read universities have no legal recourse to stop these student events, which is fine in and of itself. The problem we are now dealing with here, and that is thanks to the protest turned violent (although this is just one such event in a long list), is unfortunately that we are now at the stage where bigots who advocate transphobia are now "people with different views" in public discourse. Sure is a different view all right. One that should not be accepted, of course, but sure is. I should have said false moral equivalence, as it was supposed to allude to the false equivalence fallacy, the idea that points of view are of equal merit even when they are not. Rallying protestors to stop Charlie Kirk from speaking is no different than rallying protestors to stop Anita Bryant from speaking, or rallying protestors to disrupt the Second Congress to Unite Women from speaking against lesbians in the feminist movement, doubly relevant because in this case, the "Lavender Menace" actually stormed a school auditorium and disrupted the talks. In closing, here's a quote from Posie Parker, CPAC funded public "gender critical movement" face TERF: Yes men, please, enter women's toilets and protect them from the lesbian transgender menace. If you happen to catch a couple of butch dykes in the crossfire, well, it is just back to the roots. Just in case anyone considering themselves centrist wonder why people in the movement are so "hsysterical" about it, in the face of bigotry, instead of having calm debates. Hilarious, really, the people in the gender-critical movement are telling trans women, who they consider to actually be men, to be less hysterical, a trait historically ascribed to women. And the politicians enacting the laws to counter trans liberation and inclusion in the US? Why, they're mostly men. Conservative men. Republicans. To use radical left-wing nomenclature: OLD WHITE MEN. Hey TERFs, I have a question for you: have you ever stopped and wondered why you're actually helping your sworn enemy here, the patriarchy? Over what, bathroom policing? Uhm. Edit: There is some clarification necessary, I believe. Calm and measured debate and empathy are important to de-radicalize people, but this is a slow process and does not work with everyone, and most certainly not the instigators and bigots who are tirelessly working to change the political climate for the worse. If you think De Santis or Trump could be convinced to let go of their bigotry, then I have a bridge here I'd like to sell you. Only slighty used.

Well, now I'll have to post this:

Knocking Mafia 3 off my list. People weren't kidding about the repetition. Some neat things though, one of the AI enemies ran up and picked up a better weapon, they kept trying to suppress me where I was after I snuck around (ok, this may be a failure). I do like them announcing "I'm gonna sneak up on him!", very helpful. Story is interesting at least - good thing Giorgi didn't follow his dad and Mozambique drill Lincoln, heh.

And for something different: https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/austrian-communist-party-stages-major-comeback/ Völker, hört die Signale! Funny, papers and online news portals have been running communist scare pieces ever since. Major wins for the Nazis? Ah, who cares about that. Quick, someone voted for communists. Yikes!

This, incidentally, is the kind of stuff that is likely to hurt Russia in a big way, in the years to come. The current leadership won't care one bit, but the country is going to be so much worse off.

Yes(ish), though not in Europe- the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party The ish is because they're far more fasciocommies than commienazis; and get very upset if you get put the Socialist and Nationalist parts of their name around the other way.

Necroing a bit here but just wanted to say I imported a Ranger into Deadfire and opted to go with this build and it has been pretty fun @thelee. Thanks for putting this together. Party I've been running is PC, Priest of Wael SC Merc (dual wielding Wael Scepter + Stalker's Patience), Aloth as Battlemage using summoned weapons, Eder Swashbuckler Kapana Taga/Cadlu Scalth tank, and the last slot is a rotating one depending on what quests I'm doing or what I feel like. Potd/upscaled. It's been going well. Being able to snipe enemies from across the map with Sunbeam is a lot of fun and quite useful for forcing them closer to my tank. I'm only midway through the game (level 14, haven't done DLCs yet) but I am liking this. Now that I've unlocked Relentless Storm I feel like the build has really come into its own.

Auto Update and the auto complete on expressions both working on my end. Really fantastic addition!

So I totally rushed my conclusions earlier regarding form phantasmic... It actually is 1 per encounter as stated, I forgot that I had used toggleresourcelimit for testing, which I also didn't know applied to items (apparently it does). Also mirrored images and wizard's double do go away when hit. Forgot I had on god mode, which although the log states you are hit, doesn't seem to apply any effects of the hit. I did manage to stack my deflection to 230 though with wizard's double + mirrored images, which in the tactical ogres fight was enough that nothing could hit me. So in some situations it is basically permanent. Could get it to 250 with escape or shadowing beyond, though you'd need a source of brilliant to maintain that in this build. Could be interesting for like a tactician / rogue though, if you managed to get wizard's double you could stack deflection with conqueror's stance to around 263, maybe even higher. Wizard's double is still the best proc because it has no time limit, and it is fairly easy to stack deflection so high nothing can hit you, making it relatively permanent. Spellblade or rogue/priest could also extend effects like arcane veil. Anyway, the only thing I'm sure about now is that form phantasmic does incorrectly stack deflection with abilities, though not with itself, e.g. mirrored images from form phantasmic doesn't seem to stack with mirrored images from trickster, nor llengrath's displaced image with llengrath's displaced image. But...trickster mirrored images, llengrath's displaced image, escape, and shadowing beyond stack with everything from form phantasmic (as long as it isn't the same spell). So you can get absurdly high deflection while it lasts, though the per encounter thing is kind of a bummer. Still very good though. I was able to solo the tactical ogres encounter. When you get a "gaze of the adragan" proc that is really nice. Also the "shrouded strike" upgrade procs a lot, I got some charms from it and also paralyze, apparently it can do tier 3s.

SEE! The problem is the costs! If the US had UFE we would already be punching extraterrestrial in the face in the Alpha Centauri system. smh.

At this point I have taken so much psychic damage from TERFs that armed bathroom inspectors doesn't even surprise me. When you see people claim that the Fat Mac arc on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was to cover up Rob McElhenney being pregnant.....yeah. Meanwhile in Texas.... Cosplay Cowboy Gets Very Serious About Dress Codes Corrupt Legislators Promote Their Business Interests At The Expense Of Tenants

I think the invisibility proc is only 10% from memory, so yeah it won't proc super often but any proc I do get saves me 2 guile, and as a scout I should be doing pretty decent damage in the meantime anyway. Good to know, this was my plan so thanks for testing it for me. Thats actually crazy, good find, I'll keep an eye on that, my build might unintentionally become kinda cheesy Yeah prob has heaps of applications, something that comes to mind is offensive parry builds that use wotep to build resources like focus Yeah tbh I think I have a bit of a false perspective on how many ability points I'll have spare because I think the build is very front loaded with abilities, ranger for instance doesn't have many around half way through its power levels, and I dont need to take many actives on rogue because I'll want to be spending my guile on invisibility and trickster spells. Yeah their accuracy is great, only thing is that rangers double their crit chance because of driving flight so I think for my purposes the scout is better, because like you said before the invisibility doesn't trigger *that* much, and as a cipher I'll also be using weapon attacks less. Assassin cipher would still be great though, same with seer, love both of those multiclasses.

Unkitted Wizard is definitely better, strictly speaking, but I'm up for Evoker since the spell limitations will add a layer of challenge, thus forcing me to think more creatively (it already has done, a lot!) while empowering my favourite nukes . Personally, I don't propose going completely without cheese - after all, The Ultimate was introduced as a final update challenge so everything in the game is technically 'working as intended'. From SOF to your generic legendary armor that never degrades. If Pillars were a live service game, even the most esoteric means of bending the rules would be patched out eventually. My point is, I think most people who look at The Ultimate and think 'yeah, I wanna put myself through that' are hoping to discover something unique and break the game in some original way that showcases a playstyle they invented. I would consider any Ultimate run legitimate - good luck getting to level 16 and making yourself invincible without archmage-level knowledge of this game - but to be truly satisfied with my own run, I would need to know that I have done it with a build I created. Sounds like that's what you've got going on with Godlpact / FF, so I hope it works out for you.

First update in a while, time to see if the auto-update feature works properly 2023-05-01 Added auto-completion functionality to expression editors! Searching conversation nodes will now also match Bank Node children. Conversation 'Character Mappings' are now scrollable and won't increase the window height. 'Vatnir' and 'Mirke' expression editor aliases now translates to the correct IDs. User scripts now include System.Collections.[Generic | Immutable] usings. One feature I'm very happy about is auto-completions when editing expressions, this will speed things up immensely

Should work, though dual-wielding ranged + melee is tricky, you could just switch weapons. Just take arms bearer or wear fleshmender and/or giftbearer's cloth to get 3+ slots. This way you can also have a shield and be less squishy, or else crit a ton one-handing. I've experimented with one-handing stalker's patience with a ghost heart and it is incredibly effective mostly because of mercy strike, which the description says procs 20% but it is actually 33% (meaning it procs on crits at least a double strike about half the time). I am a big fan of ghost hearts since you can easily apply flanked to everything, which also procs ambushing, plus all the regular ranger accuracy bonuses. I've played it mostly as a pure melee, ghost heart / barbarian and ghost heart / black jacket mainly. Ghost heart / devoted with spear would also be pretty cool. Have also played assassin / blood mage and it is incredibly powerful. Haven't tried assassin / soul blade. I am a big fan of soul blades but you'd have no way to proc invisibility aside from the wand. I guess the idea there is you attack ranged to build focus and then when you proc invis you move in for a soul annihilation from melee? This build might be a bit too squishy with no way to run off, but could be fine if a party has sufficient healing. Ghost heart / monk is also very good, particularly ghost heart / forbidden fist. I think you could do any of these but I really like the rogue / ghost heart idea. Easy to zip around with escape + evasive roll, both of which are near instant casts with no recovery. Unsure if the upgrade evasive fire will proc invis from wael, if it does that would be really cool. Personally I think assassin / ghost heart would be more effective though. From invis you'd proc mercy strike on stalker's patience a lot, so frequently you'd be hitting 2+ times with your sneak attacks + deathblows + ambushing. You can use escape, evasive roll, shadowing beyond, etc., to get out of danger and go back to ranged attacks. Trickster is less squishy, though it also means you can't use as many rogue abilities, since stacking e.g. mirrored images and llengrath's displaced image is 3 guile. It's a good idea though, I think either would be effective, you're just trading some tankiness I don't think you really need on trickster for more damage on assassin / ghost heart. The pet can take a lot of the pressure off you so you aren't super squishy, and the various movement and invisibility options help the assassin survive. Also keep in mind while the assassin is squishier, you do significantly more damage from stealth meaning encounters will be over faster, meaning you're hit fewer times over the duration. Another idea is streetfighter / ghost heart. Since you're using blunderbusses anyway you could possibly dual wield or switch weapons occasionally to proc flanked from powder burns. You gain a lot of attack speed when flanked, do higher sneak attack damage, and when flanked + bloodied you do massive crit damage, like +165%. Would be hard to keep this build bloodied without dying so you'd mostly just get the flanked bonus.

Why an evoker? I've thought about using a vanilla wizard, particularly a vanilla wizard / bellower, which with the right gear is tremendously powerful even without cheese (unless you count wall of draining as cheese, which I don't unless it's combined with potions of final stand or BDD). I didn't know you could imprint from invisibility, that could have saved me some trouble, although I did most of my minor imprints before I had access to ABD. Main problem is I am pretty sure blood sacrifice breaks invisibility so you'd have to already have brilliant and use some cheesy method like strand of favor to prolong it, right? But I'm assuming imprints are out entirely for cheese free runs. Binding web works for vela only on some maps. She will still tend to run out of the web unless she's terrified while in the web, and terrifying her while in the web is risky sometimes (like Hauani O Whe can usually symbiote her before you can pull him away). It is very useful though. And best of all the spider silk robe from menzaggo has per encounter binding web. The best way to deal with her is to cast a spell on her while holding a whale of a wand, then web her when she becomes charmed (has a 5% chance per spell proc). She will stay in that spot until you leave the map. But you either need brilliant, or free spells like psychovampiric shield. For a wizard you could use minoletta's minor missiles and similar spells with high number of procs, but if unlucky could run out. But you can also use scrolls, including binding web, I am pretty sure there are enough scrolls to deal with her this way for any class. Can also use the fire blight. Thanks. It was pretty fun. The parts between fights were kinda grindy, and I imprinted more spells than I needed to, but once the character was built up I could just blitzkrieg everything. Yep, insta-invis with no recovery is very nice, and escape is even better since you can steal that with just minor grimoire imprint. Wael makes ship combat impossible, it's just a bunch of ? it also makes watching ultimate runs very difficult to figure out what's going on because the logs are all a bunch of ? marks. I figured out a lot of stuff from watching other people's ultimate runs. I have enough experience now wael doesn't bother me as much but it was crazy annoying at the time, also figuring out how much money you had was annoying. I would see how many cannons I could buy and then do x = np where n is number of cannons and p is price per cannon to figure out the money. Wael is certainly not the hardest challenge (not even top 5) but IMO the most annoying. Ondra is similar, doesn't add much challenge but pathing around those giant storms means you have to be super cautious on the world map and sometimes take stupid routes because there's a giant storm blocking the direct path. My megaboss fights tended to take like two minutes lol, because of escape + citzals + soul annihilation. In fast mode some of them would have taken less than a minute, but I rarely used fast mode because vela is unscriptable. Used it some in sanguine harvest video, where I shamelessly farmed gold and focus. I think if you don't steal priest spells then priests are cheesemaster supreme, mostly because once you proc briliant, BDD + salvation of time makes the whole challenge including vela extremely simple. But given SC blood mage can steal priest spells, plus the temporal cocoon trick, they are potentially worse in this regard. Abydon doesn't matter for the classes best equipped to deal with the ultimate like blood mage and priest. But it does make tanky builds borderline impossible, however I think a herald could do it except there's no monastic unarmed training for paladins or chanters. So lacking any reasonable weapons including fists is the main problem IMO. You basically have to use something with monastic unarmed training or summoned weapons which is pretty limiting yeah. A herald could do nearly all of the fights just summoning things, but Dorudugan may be impossible, even with four weapons. I haven't been able to beat him with just summons anyway. Actually with the right weapons I think you could do it before they break, but you'd have to proc a 200% damage conduit or something, and extend it with strand of favor. I think with cheese it is possible, but legitimately, dorudugan is probaby the gating encounter. I found some armor that doesn't degrade under abydon's challenge though. Generic legendary gear doesn't degrade at all. But I've only been able to locate one piece, some legendary plate armor you get from Challenge of the Slayer in SSS. You'd have to do a few SSS fights breaking your armor but after that you can just wear the plate which is pretty good protection. The main difficulty with getting it is completing The Changeling's Dance with Vela, which is super hard without cheesing the assassins of the slipper, but it is possible to do with 100% consistency, just very very technical. I was thinking about possibly doing a goldpact knight / FF. Vanilla FF is annoying because it doen't work with a lot of stuff (like steel garrote, swift flurry, or focus gen) and makes combat very slow but it is still the best monk for tanky builds. A goldpact knight / FF wearing the legendary plate and wielding kapana taga + giftwrapper with stoic steel and iron wheel can get armor in 21 to 23 range. Stacking deflection without shields is a little harder but you can use them, they'll just break in some fights but by the point they break there aren't enough enemies left to care about, especially if you wield multiple shields and switch when they get near broken. It also isn't against the rules to use "toggledurabilitydebug" which shows the state of your gear. The main problem with this build, aside being really boring (literally just stand there and spam FF), is dealing with Vela is extremely tedious, though possible. But I have tested most of the boss fights and they're doable. Dorudugan is problematic for FFs because there is a bug in the game that causes enemies to heal when they go from weakened/enfeebled to not. They only heal like 1% of their health, which for most enemies is not noticeable, but Dorudugan only stays weakened for 3 or 4 seconds and has a massive health pool so with FF / anything he will heal around 200 very often. I think it is still doable but requires respec and using plain fists, which makes generating wounds a lot harder, but OTOH you don't really need wounds, I think he'd go down eventually just standing there punching him it would just take 2+ hours. The hard part then would be ensuring he isn't hit by his helfire barrages, which is rather technical but doable. I originally wanted to do a FF / soul blade which I know can do it without cheese with community patch (i've done it), but in vanilla FF doesn't generate focus. Very unfortunate because it is such a fantastic build, not simple either, requires a lot of game knowledge and a wide variety of tactics for different fights, but has enough tools to handle every situation, even without armor.

The sad thing is, at the moment, it wouldn't surprise me at all if that is the current Russian way of thinking. Throw more bodies at the problem and the problem goes away.

My phrasing of "no logic" was probably not the best. It would be more accurate to say that there can be a logic of "this outcome must be reached regardless of the consequences", or, as a more specific variation of that, a logic of "this thing must be destroyed regardless of the consequences". This doesn't necessarily imply insanity, although it might.[*] I would go so far as to assume that you would agree that this happens in private life, between two people or inside families. (In fact, I am currently reading the biography of a fairly famous modern composer who was whipped and hit by an axe by his wife, among all other sorts of unpleasantries, yet it still took the guy years and years to get out, because -- among some other considerations -- there was a facade to be maintained.) Now, this doesn't ordinarily happen in politics because there tend to be all sorts of checks in place, but Russia is becoming more and more of a country where there are few, if any, if you're the boss. I don't want any particular perpetrator to be guilty here. I don't know who it is, and I see no point in making guesses. But given what Russia is and does, I don't disregard Russia as one of the reasonable [sic] possibilities, even if it in many ways makes little sense. Didn't Putin's Russia refuse help from other countries in the Kursk disaster, because there was a face to be maintained? Killing their own didn't matter. [*] An awful lot of things don't imply insanity. It's an unpleasant fact, for example, that most terrorists are just as sane as the average person.

The differences in how these things are portrayed in the media are interesting. Remember the explosion on the Kerch Bridge and how you pointed out that the media was deliberately avoiding the possibility that it was a suicide mission? Well, over here, our main newspaper wrote that it was likely to be just that, a suicide mission. Seems that there was/is a similar difference with this question. I think you may be mistaken in your approach to the whole pipeline question because you make a persistent effort to find a reasonable logic for doing it -- for there may be none. This is what we often do: we analyse a situation by looking at costs, benefits, all that, and then deduce from that. But costs, benefits and logic may have nothing to do with it at all; surely the history of humanity has shown that plenty of times. (After all, these is ample reason to look at this was and say that no one in their right might would have started it in the first place, given all that was at stake.) Again, note that in saying this I am not saying that it was Russia who blew up the pipe.

I experimented a bit with AI scripting but decided to keep things manual. I guess it keeps me awake lol. When I have the time, I'm going to try another Ultimate run on Evoker to get that same sense of 'legitimacy' you're talking about. This means I won't be able to (ab)use Cocoon so will have to work a bit harder in general at keeping myself and Vela safe. I had a play around this evening on my test save and managed to steal all my core spells from Hanging Sepulcres without Cocoon by casting Binding Web (scroll, because no Conjuration) on Vela in a safe space then charge into combat while she's immobilised so she procs terrified far away and doesn't get aggro. I also discovered that Major Grimoire Imprint doesn't cancel Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure, so the stealing itself was no biggie. After this point, it's just a matter of managing affliction immunities and being aware of casters that use Arcane Dampener / Cleanse. I checked out a few fights from your run as well and the playstyle looks fun. You have a serious point about Shadowing Beyond, I might have to pay Beina a visit sometime! Waels challenge didn't bother me, tbh. Once I had a sense of rhythm from my test save I just did what came naturally. For me the stinker is Abydon's - I decided to do The Ultimate after a solo PoTD Herald run and I actually had a blast doing epic 1-2 hour fights against the megabosses. I really wanted to stick with Herald (I love playing tank characters) so was bummed when I found out how rough this challenge is on your armour. If I had to change class I was going to go meta, and all my research led me to regard SC Bloodmage as being the cheesemaster supreme.

I'm of the opinion that eventually most people will be driving things like this: ...because everything else on a vehicle will be by subscription/extra fee only. If it's raining, and you didn't pay for a roof, there will be a mount between the seats for a giant umbrella. Official brand umbrella $300 extra.

Just my unnecessarily large and largely empty home complex. ...I've played enough to notice a few bugs/glitches in the demo. Hopefully those are fixed in full release. Still a chill, relaxing game perfect for my brain right now. ...it's still not May 25th.

Kinda enjoy playing rifts on my Stinger, sadly there was the rest of the game to go through to get to the endgame. My initial impression of the Everspace 2 early access from way back when still holds true: game is too long for its own good. Finding secrets is particularily unenjoyable. Not all of them, some are really good, but it is by far and large annoying busywork. The solar flare shadow creature stuff in the final zone was pretty neat, wish there would have been like 80% less secrets but more like that. Ship balance seems to be pretty whacky. Officially the Stinger is a light vessel, so it should not be able to stay in the thick of it and just tank everything, but in reality, between the perks you can choose for your character and the passives on the Stinger class, well... area of effect disabling on a really short cooldown, massive device (like active skills in other games) damage, greatly reduced device cooldowns, a perk to make you invulnerable to the next four hits after using offensive devices, auto-cloak on shield loss and the ability to recharge shields by using devices, well, the only thing that is going to kill you is making a mistake, like overlooking that Sniper Drone over yonder or ignoring an Okkar Prime Protector for too long. Well, perhaps I am making this sound a little easier than it is. It is really necessary to properly prioritize targets, kill them quickly enough and be aware of your surroundings enough to know when to use which cooldowns, probably not for everyone. No idea how other ship classes are supposed to do those rifts, though. That time limit really hurts any of the hit and run style ships, although the invulnerability from dps cooldowns and the area of effect disabling device can be used to great effect on every class of ship, the Stinger's -20% device cooldown and 25% shield restore on device use passives really shine in rifts.

https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/04/30/florida-principal-ousted-over-michelangelos-david-porn-row-visits-statue

If anyone still thinks, that Russian casualties and UA:RU KIA ratios might be overinflated. By the words of Prigozhin himself, each meter of progress in Bakhmut is made at the cost of 1.25 soldier.

I can't tell the difference between that and actual Bethesda writing.

speaking o' people on drugs... "It appears the 'violence' spoken of didn't happen until after the police went to try and disperse the protest, or as you might call it 'censor or ban their freedom of speech'. (Although that would in some ways be more accurate than the way you used it, since the police have got some kind of government connection going on.)" you said the police actions amounted to censorship and you were pretty clear offering the the state sponsored censorship as an explanation for the violence. so... put down the pills, needle, pipe, etc. before it's too late. btw, the logic fail is also a brain on drugs issue. call something protesting does not result in the impossibility o' the protests rising to a level which makes it censorship. "protesting is not censorship." ignores the reality that protesting may indeed be censorship just as it can be violent or criminal. there is indeed a fail wherein some people equate censorship with a violation o' the First Amendment. the dr. seuss estate may self-censor and it in no way results in a First Amendment violation. the uc davis story first amendment issues is different if the event happened at university of the pacific instead of uc davis, 'cause a private institution is not a state actor. etc. all o' which ignores the point we keep coming back to and people miss so often. legal ≠ right. student protests meant to drown out messages they don't wanna hear is attempts at censorship, but they is not necessarily violative o' the First Amendment. legal or protected doesn't make 'em necessarily right neither. students who rage at any message they don't wanna hear, complaining o' the need for trigger warnings to prevent microaggressions and the demands for safe spaces is protected by the First Amendment as long as they peaceful make their demands, but am thinking is obvious not so settled that such efforts is right. and in spite o' the deflection again, am suspecting chair's defense o' the protesters woulda' been different if the victims o' police suppression were robed clansmen attempting to censor a trans speaker. would chair have offered up the recognition that the proud boys and clansmen only resorted to violence after the police attempted to censor them as defense o' the actions by white supremacists? HA! Good Fun!

I just finished The Ultimate. Oh... my... Gaun! SC Bloodmage ubercheese. All filmed. Anyone know if there are still patches going? Big thanks to all the knowledge posted by you guys, I stand on the shoulders of giants.

am not sure what makes a game underrated in the fallout context. as noted in the video, the reviews for fo:nv were actual good save for a few dreadful outliers, only two metacritic points lower than fallout 2 for perspective. the commentator waxes rhapsodic 'bout the original games and the "critical praise" they garnered. again, there two metacritic points difference 'tween fo2 and fo:nv. ... am gonna suggest fo:t is the most underrated game and not 'cause o' bad reviews but 'cause o' the vicious response from the hardcore fanbase. fo:t was, as it were advertised, a squad-based tactical combat game. no mutants allowed folks went apesh!te over hairy death claws and the reaver dance encounter. yeah, hardcore fallout purists were no less indignant 'bout fo 3, but fo:t were meant to appeal to the nma and codex folks. fo:t were not getting love from a new and different generation o' fo fans such as fo3 enjoyed. fo:t were not a perfect game, but the first 2/3 or 3/4 were an excellent turn-based tactical combat game and did not deserve the savage response it suffered from the fallout faithful. HA! Good Fun!

Ah, how the mighty are fallen. A couple of years back they made fun of Rogue One: A Star Wars story for being an absolutely unoriginal vehicle of pandering, and now they're clapping for the Enterprise D throwback in a season that is a partial The Wrath of Khan remake and a nostalgia driven final send-off for the TNG crew with a plot so harebrained and full of contrivances it makes X-Files look well planned by contrast. Did any of you guys clap for the original Star Trek moments the writers came up with*? No? Why not? Oh, there were not any? Oh my... *Edit: That is techincally a lie, but the "original" moments of the season were adapted from the BSG reimagining backstory. The Borg just took over Starfleet instead of shutting down Colonial defenses. Yay. Eh, and that is the explanation that is giving the writers the benefit of the doubt, because otherwise we could say they took that from the exceptional Battleship movie.

Monk/Priest is very nice as well. I once played a Berath/Helwalker monk and it fit thematically and was quite strong as well. Helwalker bonuses helped make my castings more impactful so it was nice synergy. And when I was done casting I could smash heads with a big summoned greatsword. Better than pure Monk? I don't know. PL 8/9 Monk abilities are obviously quite impactful. It was fun though, and more interesting I think than spamming Wotw.

It depends - as always. If you want to cast stuff then a Monk Multiclass (most likely Helwalker) is a very good pick - and SC Monks don't cast stuff. For example a Psion/Helwalker can dominate multiple enemies for a very, very long time with high ACC and gain Focus and Wounds comfortably from safety with Soul Mind + Enduring Dance of Death. A Streetfighter/Helwalker with Hand Mortar+Fire in the Hole can use Stunning Surge nearly countless times because you will nearly always land a crit with the big AoE of the mortars, stunning enemies in an AoE for a very long time while having incredible dmg bonuses and also reloading speed due to Streetfighter passive (which is triggered by Powder Burns). It's a damage/CC hybrid against mobs which is very strong very early on. With an SC Monk you have to wait longer to have such an impact. Also some builds want to rely on crits and play around with Swift Flurry/Heartbet Drumming. A Multiclass is better for this because you can combine multiple sources of accuracy and/or crit conversion. For example a Monk/Berserker with a Morning Star can add accuracy, crit conversion, Brute Force (lower enemies fortitude with a Mordnign Star, Enervating Blows and Spirit Frenzy by 45 so you will land a lot more crits by circumventing deflection). Sages (Wizard/Monk) are great in general. See stuff like Citzal's Spirit Lance + Stunning Surge for example - while being defense-buffed up to the max with Wizard's self buffs and Monk's passives and attribute boosts (+10 INT=+20 Will or +10 CON = +20 fortitude, +10 MIG=+20 fortitude as Helwalker, too). On the other hand the SC Monk' PL 8 (Resonant Touch) and 9 (Whispers of the Wind) are incredible. Truly worth the wait imo. So it's more a matter of taste... or a matter of "what should the role of the character be?" or "waht should it play like?". I tried both MCs and SC multiple times and both have their appeal. There is no universal, general better or worse imo.

The false accusers should be doing prison time for knowingly and intentionally causing such irrepairable harm to someone.

I've discovered generic legendary gear doesn't break down under abydon's challenge. I've tested a number of weapons, shields, and armor via console, and the generic legendary items do not degrade at all. Everything else does. But I only know of one piece existing in the game, the legendary plate armor rewarded from contest of the slayer in SSS. Has anyone encountered other generic legendary gear? It could open up more builds for ultimate runs. Like with the plate I am pretty sure some paladins can do it, definitely paladin / FF, possibly others.

UFE is ? Universal Free Education ? There's a public system in the US still no ? Abbott couldn't help himself here. Guess that killer's gone now, as well. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/greg-abbott-cleveland-mass-shooting-victims-17999913.php

Curry is still pretty good for an old man. Looks like the beam will have to wait another year.