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He is right that the moderate left has effectively abandoned the working class, but he is wrong that they abandoned it in favor of liberal elites. The moderate left has in fact abandoned the working class, but in favour of moneyed interests, be it multimillionaires, large corporate conglomerates or banking giants. This is true of moderate left parties across all advanced economies. In the US you could rephrase it to say in favor of the lobbying class. Fundamentally, due to Reagan's administration outsized influence in US and world politics, the moderate left got infected by supply side economics from the 90s onward, later known as trickle down economics. Another way of putting it is that the Economy Overton Window moved clearly and definitely to the right. The main consequence of this was depressing lower and middle class wages across the board, in every advanced economy since the 80s. First and foremost, over time this created an undercurrent of resentment, due to a disconnect between expected purchasing power and effective purchasing power among the traditional left-wing base. This decrease in the revenue of the general population, also inevitably led to a decrease in tax revenue, which has had a definite negative effect on all public services, especially healthcare and education. And while this has been terrible enough during left-wing government tenures, right wing governments have been only too happy to make things even worse than left wing governments are making them. Also, given the extended timeline under which this has been happening(30 to 40 years, depending on the country, I'd say), it's beyond the ability of any well meaning government to effectively turn this tide and significantly correct economic outcomes for working class families. This means that we are literally in an era of economic inequality that would make late 1800s robber barons blush at even the thought of it. And the only parties that have been able to effectively profit politically from this state of affairs are far right parties, meaning parties propped up and financed by the same financial interests which are making things worse economically for those who are poorest.

Hello! Since i read about soul annihilation my neurons activated so i want to make a melee soul blade for a POTD upscaled + all dlc run, i have never played the last 2 DLC I have some question on how to go about It 1) Is single class worth it? I imagine the higher max focus would be nice but i see a lot of people talk about MC, specially with rogue or monk and also, if i would simply use SA and little else, SC seems like a waste, what can be done with MC? 2) stat wise, per and dex seemed like a no brainer, +acc and speed are always good but what about might? Should i leave it at 14-15 or heavily invest into it? Same deal with int 3) regardless of SC or MC, what else would you recommend from the active abilities of the cipher? I was thinking borrowed insticts for the acc and honestly, little else seemed worth it 4) i also would like to make use of seekers fang (eventually) so it got me thinking about using one handed style, for single enemy boss fights al least, maybe magistrate cudgel could work? Stuns on crit seems good Sorry if im rambling or being to vague and as always thanks a lot for the help!

SB/trickster seems like the way to go then (im weak to rogues) but the barbarian and the bloodmage sound really cool, maybe for future runs the set up with whispers of the endless path is a high deflection, high res one right? I think i read about it but i dont know much else, id like to try it I will look more closely at the cheap cipher powers, i didnt really focused on the discount for the shred keyword but i like the idea Dont worry about it, i will try it in some encounters and see whats happens, this was mostly because i think the style is cool Unrelated but my last run was using your Arcane Archer/trobadour idea, was really surprised at how much it counters some really tough parts of the game, thanks a lot for that!

Didn't Russia already escalate conflict by striking with over 100 missiles against Ukraine's powerplants yesterday? As it was one of the their largest strikes and its timing also isn't coincidental or promising de-escalation anytime soon.

Hi! In short: no. There are a few edge cases and build ideas where it might be good (pairing Shared Nightmares with an AoE weapon such as Whispers of the Endless Paths and using Reaping Knives on party members to be able to spam Soul Annihilation all the time) - but in general a multiclass is just better over the course of the game. The gist of it is that SA damage scales with all kinds of damage bonuses. That's what makes the Rogue a popular choice. Forst of all the Rogue makes it easier to harvest focus because the weapon dps is high - and then secondly the Rogue's damage bonuses apply to the SA dmg itself, improving it quite a bit. Soulblade/Streetfighter has the highest damage potential. Soulblade/Trickster is a great mix of offense and defense. Soulblade/Fighter can harvest a lot focus immediately with Clear Out. Especially when using Whispers of the Endless Paths. Soulblade/Monk is nice in combination with Tuotilo's Palm and the Sun & Moon Flail. The flail's double head dumps the SA-raw-damage with the first flail head and already regains focus with the second flail head. This can lead to a situation where you can gain enough focus per flail head to spam SA without pause. It's a primary attack so the bashing shield won't even be used for bashing, but the dual wielding speed bonus will still apply. And at the same time the shield grants amazing defensive bonuses for a monk. The INT and MIG bonus (when Helwalker) are great for Cipher spells, too. But when you really want to focus on SA I'd say the Soulblade/Rogue combo is better. Tuotilo's Palm + Sun & Moon also works very well with a Soulblade/Trickster btw. Another very good combination is Soulblade/Bloodmage. The synergies aren't very clear at first, but SA works very well with all AoE weapons. The Bloodmage has Citzal's Spirit Lance - and the means to raise his INT (Infuse with Vital Essence) for bigger weapon AoE. Also the Wall of Draining lets him keep all his buffs for a long, long time (includes Soulblade's +10 max focus on kill). I personally also like Barbarian/Soulblade because the high attack speed from Frenzy and Bloodlust and the overall decent damage bonuses (Blooded, One Stands Alone, higher MIG during Frenzy) leads to good SA damage. Then later the combination of being able to kill quickly with SA & triggering Blood Thirst is quite satisfying. Human Berserker/Soulblade can reach bloodied status quickly which triggers Blooded and Fighting Spirit. But it is also risky. If you use an AoE weapon (Whispers otEP, Spirit Lance) INT is crucial. Else not as important as it usually is with ciphers - if you want to concentrate on soul annihilation. Still: stuff like Borrowoed Instincts lasts a lot longer if you have hig INT. If it lasts longer you have to cast it less often. And that gives you more focus to dump into SA. Might is not very important if you are multiclassing with Rogue since the dmg bonuses from the Rogue class are high enough that the bonus from MIG feels rel. small in comparison. If you pick non-Helwalker Monk or Bloodmage it's a more important source for dmg bonus for SA imo. If you go for Soulblade/Rogue it can be nice to have some cheap way to applying afflictions for a rel. long time in an AoE. Like Phantom Foes. Lvl-1 Shred powers such as Mind Wave and Antipathetic Field are supercheap (5 focus) for a Soulblade. It can be more impactful to use Mind Wave/Antip. Field against a group of enemies for 5 focus than to spend at least 10 focus on a single enemy with SA (and do potential tremendous overkill -> wasting focus). Might well be. Didn't try both myself on a Soulblade so I cannot really recommend anything here, sorry.

Hi, new player here, any advice how to deal with Blinding Smoke on Hand Mortar, it affects my tank, bit annoying. Im on my 2nd playthrough in which im following a quide for each member of my group. Not easy to keep track of 5 builds while leveling .

Nah, it's a quarter life 'cause multiplication. Trust me.

Fallout 3 was Oblivion with guns I'll have you know, or sometimes FINO Starfield was both really, really bad as a game and as a modding platform from what I read, alot of modders said that it was too messy.

Gee haven't seen that take a hundred times already. Fetterman has his take as well https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/john-fetterman-says-democrats-need-stop-freaking-everything-trump-rcna180270 True about nor being distracted by Trump's nonsense, but Gaetz as a troll is dismissing too much

From Pillars to Avowed tl;dw edition. 😄

Obsidian said that there is no numerical system for relationships with companions but your decisions will affect them. As for the other systems : You have attributes that modify aspects of combat (damage, speed etc), those can be increased with items and during level-ups. You have active and passive abilities, some of them are percentage bonuses (so vertical progression) but others unlock gameplay options (like parry projectiles for example). Grimoires have four spells each, when you have one equiped you can cast the spells but you can also invest a skill point to learn of the spells permanently (and so you can cast it without the need of a grimoire). There is an upgrading system, to boost damage, stun and others aspects of armors and weapons. There is an enchanting system, we've not seen much of it. There are numerous unique weapons, armors and accessories, they can give passive abilities and (I'm not sure of that because it was mentioned in only one preview) active abilities. We don't if it's like in Deadfire, with a mini-skill tree for each unique. Beyond that each companion have a skill tree with four active abilities, that can be modified further, we don't know for the passives. These companions can be used with the combat wheel. I think that's all we know for now ? But all in all pretty deep for an FP-RPG I would say, it will heavily depend of the nature of the different abilities and bonuses imo.

I wanted to make this post because im being blocked from the wiki and I cant find any pictures of the actual priest level 9 summons, so I tried to take some pictures after testing them out. Generally the summons are not great in any sense. They cant be controlled, which means it will lower their usefullness. Wael incarnate priest summon day/night (level 9) Specs: range attacks and magic lightning attacks

I saw The Substance several weeks ago and have a review in the pipeline, but I want to watch it again before I pull the trigger. The TL;DR is that it's probably my third favorite movie of 2024, behind The People's Joker and I Saw The TV Glow. In the meantime I saw Rebel Ridge which was just ok. Kinda lame action **** and would have been better if the protagonist.....you know what, I'm not gonna say it because out of context it could get me in legal trouble. There was also many ****ty horror movies because I've been spending time with my mom and she consumes that **** constantly. Nothing in particular sticks out. I did rewatch Phantom of the Paradise (1974) because of the Berserk manga and yeah, it's ****ing great. An incredible blend of Faust and Phantom of the Opera with the decadent 70's rock in the background. Bill Finley is capable of doing more with one eye than some actors can with their whole body and by God De Palma's direction ****ing kills it. This will probably work its way into my top movies of all time.