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Hey, I myself am quite okay with Putin starting a war with us or NATO, as I've said previously. Not because I want a war by any stretch, but because I am someone who believes that sometimes war is sadly necessary to stand/push back against a greater evil. I was merely surprised this story had not come up for discussion here. But I've enjoyed reading through all of your responses so far.

Im not sure I understand your point. If it was Ukrainians operating the missiles then its not act of war? Iran and NK are supplying missiles to Russia which are being used to attack Ukraine sovereign territory but these missiles are operated by Russians and Ukraine has not said "we now at war with Iran and NK" So that logic would apply to Ukraine, NATO could supply long range missiles to Ukraine but if they operate them then its just part of the normal war between Russia and Ukraine? Another inconsistency exposed with Russian propaganda that Vatniks have peddled since the war started is "Russia is actually at war with NATO " but Putin is only now suggesting NATO would be at war with Russia if it gives permission. Of course no serious analyst would ever suggest this war is anything but a war between Russia and Ukraine with various countries supplying military aid to both sides https://www.cbsnews.com/news/putin-nato-ukraine-war-us-long-range-missiles/ " Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Thursday that a decision by the U.S. or its NATO allies to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied long-range missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia would be viewed as NATO's direct participation in the war, which he said would significantly change "the very nature of the conflict."

This was bound to happen... after all, the internet was created to share cat pics!

This build was created for a collaboration with @Aestus who runs the Youtube channel Aestus_RPG. Here's the video where we talk about this and other builds. This is build 4 of 5 from that collaboration. ----------------------------------------- This build is mainly meant for inspiration. You don't need to follow it in detail to have fun. If you understand the key features - the basic idea what makes this build special - you can usually deviate from my non-core attribute-, skill-, gear- and ability selection and form the build to your own likings and ideas. I do not try to produce the most powerful uberbuilds (often those are the most boring to play in he long run) but to focus on having fun while playing. Usually that means the build is powerful - but it's not the main focus. If you like to read about my personal requirements for "fun to play" builds, you can jump to a list below this post ----------------------------------------- ahira of the Opalescent Dais (or just "Pod" for friends) hails from the vast Ixamitl Plains, where the endless savanna meets the sky, the winds carry both whispers of the past and the promise of the future and the goats drop... droppings. Raised among the Nalpazca monks, Pahira was drawn to their unconventional practices: their mastery of body, mind and corny jokes through the use of rare herbs and potent elixirs. Where others saw addiction, Pahira saw clarity. Her years in the Nalpazca order taught her to harness the latent power within her body and soul, but she sought more than simple balance. Combining ancient martial techniques with alchemical enhancement and explosive ordnance, Zahira became a deadly force. Her training with blunderbusses and hand mortars allowed her to rain destruction across the battlefield with thunderous precision, stopping enemies in their tracks. With these abilities she moves like the wind, delivering stunning and detonating shots to entire groups of foes before they can even comprehend her presence. Now a wanderer, Pahira follows the call of adventure, seeking new knowledge, better flintlocks, ancient secrets and the perfect substance to push her abilities even further. "Boom! Here comes the Boom! Ready or not, here comes the girl from the plains Boom! Here comes the Boom! How you like your scattered brains?" - Pod hovering cross-legged in the air while tuning in for the... boom - =================================== The Mortar Monk =================================== Difficulty: PotD -------------------------------------------------------------- Solo: untested -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Nalpazca (or vanilla, Helwalker)* -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Human (or any) -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Ixamitl Plains (or any) - Scholar (or any) -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats (w/o Berath's Blessings, ★=recommendation): MIG: 15 (14 +1 Human) CON: 08 DEX: 15 PER: 17 ★ INT: 18 ★★ RES: 05 (3 +1 Human +1 Ixamitl Plains) -------------------------------------------------------------- * with usage of the blunderbuss modal "Powder Burns" even a Forbidden Fist variant would be viable the unique icons for all passive abilities are part of the Community Patch mod Abilities | Skills | Proficiencies - (!=important, r=recommended) 01. Swift Strikes (r) | Blunderbuss (!) + Scepter 02. Arms Bearer | +1 Alchemy (->3), +1 Insight (->3) 03. Dance of Death (r) + Two-Weapon Style (!) | +1 Alchemy (->4), +1 Survival (->1) 04. Long Stride | +1 Alchemy (->5), +1 Survival (->2) | Pistol 05. Stunning Blow (!) + Lightning Strikes (r) | +1 Alchemy (->6), +1 Survival (->3) 06. Combat Focus | +1 Alchemy (->7), +1 Metaphysics (->4) 07. Duality of Mortal Presence (! INT) + Enduring Dance (r) | +1 Alchemy (->8), +1 Insight (->4) 08. Thunderous Blows | +1 Alchemy (->9), +1 Survival (->4) | Whatever 09. Stunning Surge (!) + The Long Pain (r) | +1 Alchemy (->10 ), +1 Metaphysics (->5) 10. Uncanny Luck | +1 Alchemy (->11), +1 Insight (->5) 11. Turning Wheel (r) + Improved Critical | +1 Alchemy (->12), +1 Survival (->5) 12. Rooting Pain | +1 Alchemy (-> 13), +1 Metaphyics (->6) | Whatever 13. The Dichotomous Soul (r) + Accurate Empower | +1 Alchemy (->14), +1 Insight (->6) 14. Penetrating Empower | +1 Alchemy (->15), +1 Survival (->6) 15. The Pain Persists | +1 Alchemy (->16), +1 Metaphysics (->7) 16. Resonant Touch (!) + The Razor's Edge (r) | +1 Alchemy (->17), +1 Insight (->7) | Whatever 17. Great Soul | +1 Alchemy (->18), +1 Survival (->7) 18. Lasting Empower | +1 Alchemy (->19), +1 Metaphysics (->8) 19. Whispers of the Wind (!) + Prestige (r) | +1 Alchemy (->20), +1 Insight (->8) 20. Empowered Strikes | +1 Alchemy (->21), +1 Survival (->8) | Whatever --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (!=important, r=recommended) Weapon Set 1: Hand Mortar (! - +Blinding Smoke, +Legendary) + Fire in the Hole (! - +Chain Shot, +Legendary) Weapon Set 2: Kitchen Stove (r - +Thunderous Report, +Frantic Reload) + Xefa's Empirical Explication (r - +Inexplicable Mass, Open Choke*) *Open Choke's reduces range doesn't matter if you use the blunderbuss in the offhand and use Full Attacks like Stunning Surge: only the range of the main hand matters then. It also doesn't matter for Whispers of the Wind Head: Heaven's Cacophony (r - more INT = bigger AoE) Back: Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak (! - stuns all enemies during Whisper of the Wind) Neck: Charm of Bones (r + mopre INT = bigger AoE Armor: Aloth's Armor (! +Legendary - 15% bigger AoE size) Waist: The Amazing and Truly Incredible Instant Potion Belt (profit from free potions + extremely high Alchemy) Hands: Mortification Bindings (r - more Mortification points for Lightning Strikes and Dance of Death) Rings: Ring of the Marksman (r), Ring of Overseeing (r - 10% bigger AoE) Boots: Boots of Speed Pet: Loki (r - 15% bigger AoE size) --------------------------------------------------------------- What is this build about: combine the high INT-bonus (+AoE size, +durations) of the Monk with the AoE of Hand Mortar and Fire in the Hole (Serafen’s blunderbusses), giving you huge coverage. You want the biggest AoE possible (within reason - also include items like Aloth’s armor and Ring of Overseeing and Loki as pet which will stack on top of the INT-induced AoE improvement) mortars are blunderbusses which can use Powder Burns: add another AoE attack Stunning Surge refunds your Mortification cost (and gives 2 wounds, too!*) when it critically hits. Two mortar shots with huge AoE have a very high chance for a crit (if you hit enoug foes) - so you can use that ability very often without paying for it most of times. If you add Fire in the Hole's enchantment Chain Shot, which adds a projectile jump which includes tha AoE your chance will be even higher. It is an extremely potent disable/CC effect: AoE stun with a very long duration - because the base duration is also boosted by the Monk’s INT later you can combine the AoE of mortars with the (kind of) AoE of the Power-Level-9 ability "Whispers of the Wind": you will turn invisible, jump from enemy to enemy and fire three (five with Poweder Burns) AoE explosions at each of them (often jumping back to enemies multiple times depending on the amount of jumps you can do, which depends on your Power Level) combine that with Ajamuut’s Stalking Cloak: it stuns enemies if you are stealthed or invisible. Whispers of the Wind does make you invisible during its execution. All enemies that get hit will get stunned automatically add Resonant Touch to this already very potent mix: doing an 5*AoE*AoE attack multiple times (Hand Mortar AoE + Fire in the Hole AoE + jump AoE + 2* Powder Burns) leads to a very high number of weapon hits. On top of that the Hand Mortar has the enchantment "Blinding Smoke", a cone attack which causes a mild CC effect. But it counts as proper weapon attack and will cause Resonant Touch to add a raw damage stack. This means a TON of attack rolls will happen against each enemy which all can add a Resonant Touch. If your enemies are not yet dead from Whispers of the Wind, they will be after you use Resonant Touch to turn the stacks into raw damage. With enough enemies, usually nobody survives it’s fireworks and explosion all the time at that point - and it’s spectacular you can use vanilla Monk, Xoti (not ideal but works), Helwalker or Nalpazca. With Powder Burns even Forbidden Fist would work. I opted for Nalpazca because this is a ranged Monk and is not supposed to get attacked much - so it might lack wound generation. You do not wait long after a Whispers of the Wind attack to be able to trigger Resonant Touch so you need fast wound generation even while invisible. Nalpascas can add their drug-induced wound generation to Dance of Death’s wounds, making it easy to have enough wounds for WotW and Resonant Touch at most times. *thanks @Elric Galad for reminding me about that additonal awesomeness Issues: the mortars are not working well against singular tough foes. For those you need to switch to normal blunderbusses (which works great with Stunning Surge and Resonant Touch again). normal blunderbusses do pierce damage only - so you need another alternative against immune/resistant (single) foes. Luckily the Long Pain is a great alternative. Summon your ranged fists for single enemies who are resistant to pierce damage or even vulnerable to crush damage. rel. squishy for a Monk - have an escape plan to fell from melee enemies who cannot get stopped by a stun. you cannot make use of all the good melee stuff a Monk usually offers is best if you can amass a lot of enemies in one space. It’s not suited for parties who like to spread out and scatter all enemies. powder burns in combination with los RES leads to a long distracted debuff. If you don't want that don't use Powder Burns. Also best to turn off when allies are near sine Poweder Burns does friendly fire. Whispers of the Windand the mortars themselves do not. you have to use drug in fights, else your wound generation will be bad. Luckily drugs last a long time with high Alchemy and if you are a thorough collector you will have no problem finding and buying enough drugs for every encounter. If you are still unsure, pick Helwalker or vanilla Monk. Empower works not well with Whispers of the Wind: you will get additonal jumps bc. of the higher Power Level, but all the Empower passives, including Empowered Strikes, will not work for the actual jumps. So it's a bit wasted here. Instead I use Empower with its great passives (including Empowered Strikes) with Stunning Surge: very high duration of stun, guaranteed crits even against the most defensive enemies, overpenetration guaranteed. It's a great way to start a fight, giving you and the party plenty of time to set things up while the enemies are stunning for a long time. After taking Empowered Strikes one could retrain out of Penetrating and Accurate Empower and use some other abilities such as the defensive passives or whatever seems helpful. I believe Turnung Wheel doesn't add a burnung lash ro ranged weapons without using the Community Patch with the Community Patch Blinding Smoke will no longer trigger Avenging Storm. However, you can remove that nerf from the mod easily. with the Community Patch the number of stacks from Resonant Touch on an enemy is capped (I believe 25?). It's still plenty and o problem if you "relase" the stacks frequently enough (deal the raw damage). You can remove this nerf as easily as the one above. Why is it fun? it is impactful even early in the game. You will get Stunning Surge rel. early (the beauty of single class). You don’t need Whispers of the Wind to have fun and have a great impact - although Whispers of the Wind is the ultimate goal. it’s the most spectacular thing to unleash in battle - both visually and in terms of sound - especially if you combine it with Avenging Storm (see Heaven’s Cacophony helm) in tough encounters it’s outright OP once you get Whispers of the Wind - but it somehow doesn’t get old. if you pick the right voice you will hear a LOT of hysterical laughter - because you will cause countless crits. I had Konstanten with me and he also does laugh a lot. I had a constant smile on my face because of MC and Konstanten laughing so hard all the time profits a lot from teamwork: if the party can help to set up the enemies perfectly (lure with spells, pull together, good engagement tank) you can end many encounters with one or two uses of WotW and Resonant Touch. It’s a bit like a game inside the game: how do I lure/collect as many enemies as possible in a spot for WotW in order to explode them all in one go? A good tank who holds enemies is great, a Wizard with Pull of Eora is great, a Priest with Call of Rymrgand and so on. Works extremely well with an Arcane Archer’s Imbue:Eora and Web (see Pindown Poet build). it promotes great party teamwork and that is fun for me, too. Hope you enjoy! Cheers! --- PS: some gifs I made when testing this build initially: Whispers of the Wind: WotW + Avenging Storm: Empowered WotW: Another Avenging Storm/WotW test:

True Swifties won't vote. They'll just leave a Blank Space. I'll get my coat.

I agree that comfortable controls are crucial, especially for the more action-focused games. I cannot recall any issues with it specifically in Nioh or Nioh 2. Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition, on the other hand, was extremely uncomfortable (which improved immensely, along with the FPS in Blighttown, in Dark Souls: Remastered) and Dark Souls II was much better in this regard. My hunch was that it was due to me playing with keyboard and mouse, so the people who used controllers might have had a different experience. Now I am unsure. --- Sekiro. Defeated the Headless Ape + the other ape. Can't say that I like it technically as a boss battle (too little space and the bosses' attacks did not hurt/clipped through each other), but it did make sense for the story and design, unlike the Pursuers in the Throne Room of the Drangleic Castle. I love that the environment changes based on the story progress, though I should have gone through that cavern before killing the Guardian (I missed the Bottomless Pit passage earlier in this playthrough), so I would be able to face the bosses when stronger. The forest went reasonably well - I collected everything that was not nailed down, used the Finger Whistle on the not-Juzou's monkeys, let him calm down, backstabbed once, then set him on fire twice. I vaguely remember it being harder on the previous playthrough. The injured monk helpfully pointed towards the area’s main boss and explained how to enter the building, while the boss itself died quickly. The forest was free from the mist, the illusions blocking the passage were dispelled as well. I had no intention to fight the Headless apparition on the forest floor, but probably could try the one at the cave between the Demon Bell and the Chained Ogre later. I am somewhat annoyed by the repeating bosses, though, not too much - each of them still feels more meaningful than it was in Elden Ring.

There is no reason for it not to be. It was super popular. Also the manga is barely progressing/releasing which is a good indicator that the mangaka is busy with the anime.

Yeah you're right, played a bit more and saw no effect on the main target. Must have mistaken it for something else or looked at the wrong enemy in a multi-hit.

Hmm, strange, I like DS2 controls more than DS1 and Demon’s Souls PS3 The only thing I “hate” about DS2 is trashmob placement and aggro range in some areas. Insee everything else as an improvement over the previous games

All this fuss about Taylor Swift's endorsement of Harris reminds me of Oprah Winfrey's support for Obama back in 2008. A pair of economists estimated it added a million votes for Obama. In this case, does it make any difference? Perhaps it brings out more of the youth vote? That group has historically had a low turnout.

Ukraine can certainly say that, though the situations are not equivalent*. Obviously that would also be a double edged sword for the west, since if that's an act of war supplying Abrams/ Leos/ Challies etc is as well. That would be fine for Ukraine though, since their only path to victory is escalatory and getting NATO directly involved. *Russia will be getting its satellite and AWACS type intelligence from Russia not Iran or DPRK, and it won't be Koreans or Iranians inputting target info or doing the maintenance as, to be blunt, the systems supplied are not very advanced- and mostly evolutions of soviet systems anyway. They're just supplying the systems, and that is long established to not be a direct act of war. Ukraine has neither satellites nor AWACS, they are getting that from NATO sources and per the Germans targeting info for Storm Shadow/SCALP is entered by Brits/ French (hence why won't send Taurus, as they don't want anyone on the ground) and the tech is wholly new to them. Now, you can argue that targeting occupied territories is fine, since that's NATO soldiers hitting Ukrainian territory from Ukrainian territory; but once they start being used on targets in Russia it is NATO targeting Russia by any reasonable definition of the term.

Does that mean Ukraine can also say they are directly at war with Iran and North Korea and whoever else gave them arms and munitions for their invasion? Russia is a joke but a joke with nukes so...

I doubt that would be the definition of victory? I have no doubt NATO would defeat the Russian military but forcing Putin to somehow step down is unlikely

Its been sensationalized a little IMO, we know all about Russian red lines But what Putin did say was "Russia would be forced to take what Putin called "appropriate decisions" based on the new threats. " Thats vague and typical Russian. If he wanted war with NATO then he should be unequivocal and say " Russia will declare war on NATO " or something similar

Seems like same old. News was characterized it as "concerning" though. Not sure why, would be a glorious and easy victory for NATO.

It does not really help to be aware that you can parry everything that does not show you a red kanji warning on screen, you have to fully accept it or you will not have fun for the entire time you're playing Sekiro. The game is not designed to be played like Dark Souls, and for the most part, dodging attacks and waiting for openings to strike not only takes much longer, but it is also not fun and in plenty of instances flat out impossible. In Sekiro you have one viable way to play the game, so engage it on its terms: stick close to the enemies, attack them relentlessly and when they counter-attack, parry. If they do a perilous attack, counter that as appropriate. If they try to get away from you, chase them down. Isshin doesn't tell you that hesitation is defeat for no reason. Everything else in the game is meant as support. It is fine to use the fireworks to stun beast type enemies, that is what it is meant to be used for, but it should not be your winning strategy for the entire fight. Sekiro has the arguably tightest controls of any of the FromSoftware games, and you can even smoothly cancel your attacks into a parry if you find you have overextended yourself. Compare and contrast that to the lumbering but yet floaty behemoth you play in Dreck Souls 2. The actual problem of Sekiro's combat, and that is certainly a valid argument if one values variety and options in combat more than refinement of its chosen core aspect, is that the game expects you to play it in one specific way, and if you do not, you will just be miserable. The Guardian Ape is also one of the best animated bosses in all the 3D games I have played, and its second phase is world class trolling, unless you got spoiled ahead of fighting it. I am also always rather surprised that people have trouble fighting it after getting past Genichiro(, Way of Tomoe), but my experiences with these type of games is always vastly different than those of most other players.

Yeah, I think you hit it on the head here. It'd been a while since I saw Neon Genesis, long enough that the experience wasn't fresh in my mind, but not so long that I had forgotten everything, so the first movie kind of worked as a vaguely acceptable summary of the first half or so of the show. When going right back to the first Rebuild after having watched the show and that becoming more or less a direct comparison...it became very obvious that the Rebuild movie both directly and indirectly did away with just about everything I liked about Neon Genesis, and it was going to get so much worse as soon as I got into new material, so I abandoned it. Conceptually, there's also the issue of Rebuild being like...an alternative universe version of Neon Genesis. Hate alternative universe stuff, so it was a bad idea for me to start with.

The weather's been "fun" these past few days. Last week we still had a record heat wave and a ridiculous (for September) 35+° in the shade, now much of the country looks like this: Lower regions run the risk of being flooded. The region where I live is going to be fine as the Danube is unlikely to rise a lot, while there are significant rainfalls (read "significant" as in three times the amount of precipitation of a normal September - over a single weekend), all the major tributaries are in alpine regions. While the snow's causing havoc on the trees and bogs down traffic, at least its a lot of water that is not immediately added to the rivers and lakes. No, nothing wrong with the climate, nothing to see here. Fake news!

Of all the Soulsborne games I've played, Dark Souls II is by far the...second worst, only beaten by Nioh. The thing is, Dark Souls II coulda theoretically been almost tolerable if not for the trash-tier controls that made me question the health and sanity of the people who made it, whereas I'm not sure if there's a single thing I didn't eventually hate about playing Nioh, so I can't rightfully say Dark Souls II is worse...but certainly more disappointing given that I quite liked the first Dark Souls.