Leaderboard

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-toughens-negotiating-stance-amid-mediation-efforts-sources-say-2026-03-24/ "In any talks with the U.S., Iran would not only demand an end to the war but concessions that are likely red lines for U.S. President Donald Trump - guarantees against future military action, compensation for wartime losses and formal control of the Strait of Hormuz, the sources said." Compensation for losses would be hilarious to see.

Iran is attacking Gulf States that have allowed the US to launch attacks on Iran from their territory. Completely justified position IMO.

Oh I absolutely agree, the Original Pillars of Eternity I know was primarily a single class game when it first came out, and only after the White March were level expanded and "Cross Class" Talents Introduced at all. It wasn't until well into development of Deadfire that Multiple Classes were even an option, and personally I believe those aren't truly so much "dips" like what you can expected in the original Pillars of Eternity but true Split Classes where you share leveling between each class as you progress. Its part of why trying to figure out a fun build from one into the other has been such an interesting exploration on builds and progression as one can contemplate the "rebirth" before Berath from one game to the other as a chance to reforge your character once entering Deadfire. Personally, I loved the idea of being an Island Aumauan Storm Chanter having been trapped in the politics of the Vailian Republics who possibly had somehow been cast out originally during the first game. With all the transpired my character could have been called back (Possibly as a Chanter/Druid?). I'm still playing around with the idea.

In general I think your ability and especially your spell choices are fine. Here are some abilities I personally would probably not take: Since you don't use any damaging spells besides Recall Agony and Disintegrate - which both deal raw damage - you can drop Penetrating Visions. Unless you are using the Community Patch, Improved Critical is absolutely not worth the ability point. Uncanny Luck: same as Improved Critical. Okay if Community Patch is active, not worth it if not. Deep Wounds doesn't generate focus. Still a good ability for damage, but maybe it could be skipped on a Mindstalker who's focused on delivering debuffs/afflictions. Combat Focus is not worth it in your case imo. You can get Concentration layers elsewhere or even become immune. Also as a ranged Mindstalker you might not need it in most fights? I personally would pick Crippling Strike over Blinding Strike. Just because Blinding Strike is two times as expensive - which means you can only use it half the times you could use Crippling Strike. Besides the bonus PEN, Crippling Strike also has one more Power Level for scaling which leads to higher base dmg and base PEN than Blinding Strike. I wouldn't even upgrade it and thus spare +1 ability point (compared to Blinding Strike + Confounding Blind). Bear's Fortitude is not worth it that late imo. Might as well use a +3 CON belt and get +6 Fortitude without spending an ability point. What I might take instead: Ciphers usually struggle a bit in tough fights against high defense foes. Empowering an attack or a spell can help. You didn't pick any of the Empower related abilities like Accurate Empower for example, maybe something to consider. They can make a difference in tough fights. An empowered, high accuracy Disintegrate can be pretty brutal. Lasting Empower stacks with Lingering Echoes, giving you very long affliction times on something like an empowered Secret Horrors for example or an empowered Puppet Master. Psychovampiric Shield reduces enemies' Resolve by 10 points. This can be very useful in boss fights against foes that have very high Resolve. Because a giant those all afflictions and other hostile effects (Disintegrate for example) won't stick long. -10 Resolve means an increase of duration of 30%. On top of that you get more Resolve yourself (yay). For a ranged character it's only useful occasionally but maybe something to consider if boss fights are something where Ydwin doesn't perform too well. Keen Mind lets you use a better/higher focus spell (+1 tier) right away at the start of battle which can make a difference in tough battles. Use it in combination with stealth: a stealthed character gets a -80% recovery time bonus for his first action from stealth. If you can cast a better spell from stealth and that have basically now recovery that's an advantage. You can also combine it with Empower. The Complete Self is nice with big AoE spells such as Phantom Foes since it most likely procs. In case of Phantom Foes it cuts down the cost in half. Escape is a cheap but effective mobility tool which also grants you a +50 deflection bonus; it can be pronged with Salvation of Time. In combination with a Priest who benefits from your Ancestor's Memory, you can make yourself a lot more sturdy for very cheap. I find Slippery Mind to be very useful later in the game. If you use Potions and Scrolls then Deep Pockets is great in combination with either The Amazing and Truly Incredible Instant Potion Belt or Spellkeeper (belt). I personally like to pick Fast Runner. It helps to outrun enemies and make them stop chasing you (because they quickly realize they cannot catch up and turn to somebody else. Not needed with Boots of Speed though. Bull's Will stacks with Iron Will. So if you want to invest in a defense passive I would maybe pick those instead of Bear's Fortitude. Snake's Reflex can be combined nicely with Adept Evasion instead of using Bear's Fortitude. If you want more versatility and lose the one trick pony feel a bit you can try to pick one or two support spells besides Ancestor's Memory. Pain Block is very good for example. It's very nice to have a good healing (and bonus AR) spell at hand on a character who normally isn't the party healer. That way you can improve action economy in a pinch when it comes to healing. If you only have one healer in the party you can get into situations where more than one party member would need healing - but the healer cannot cast two spells at the same time and maybe doesn't have a powerful AoE healing left. In those cases it's great to have somebody else be able to deliver the occasional healing effect. If you want to try something completely and utterly different you could check out if the Whispers of the Endless Paths with Offensive Parry combined with Riposte is something you would enjoy with a Mindstalker. I did this with a Streetfighter/Soul Blade recently and had a lot of fun with it. I'm sure it could also work with Ydwin. Give Ydwin all the deflection she can get (items, spells such as Psychovampiric Shield and Borrowed Instincts) and put on Nomad's Brigandine with the enchantment that raises melee deflection and the other that grants immunity to disengagement attacks. Use as Boots of Speed. Boost INT with items. You can then attack enemies from the flanks with a cone - and if they attack you and miss you can harvest focus passively with Offensive Parry and Riposte. The action economy of this is pretty nice because you don't even have to attack to generate focus. In this case Blinding Strike and a blinding spell are great because they lower enemies' accuracy (leads to more misses). Secret Horrors is also great for this. If you get damaged too hard you just run away. Since the armor turns all disengagement attacks into misses you will proc Offensive Parry every time somebody does a disengagement attack against you - and sometimes Riposte will proc, too. In this case Persistent Distraction is good to have of course. If you want to use an occasional backstab and don't have the Community Patch: Run Through (enchantment of Whispers of the Endless Paths) in combination with Backstab (and Sneak Attack + Deathblows) can do absurd single target damage 1/encounter. Secret Horrors to unlock Deathblows, pop a Smoke Veil or Shadowing Beyond, use Run Through and watch a very high danger number float up. ;) This also delivers a lot of focus of course. Cheers!

Crimson Desert: Taming a pet requires "100 appreciation points" - you can only get 25pts per day (petting it). Dogs generally stay in place so you can return to a spot each day to pet it. The cats, so far, because you have to pick them up and pet while cradling them in arms, then put them down again, do not stay in place (they tend to run off) and if I return to an area I can't ever seem to find it again to pet it again. Hadn't seen a cat I liked much anyway so I was eh. Then I saw --- a sleek black cat! It reminds me of Mr. Black! I must have it! So I picked it up. But if I set it down again, how would I find it again? So ... I never set it down again. Made Kliff stand in place, doing nothing, for 3 "days" while I did other IRL things, petting kitty each day. Until finally: Forget anything else, this game is now a 10/10. Yes.

Perfect Blue (1997). Speaking of Madhouse productions, it's been...six, seven years since I first saw it? One of the very first anime movies I'd ever seen...I THINK possibly the first non-Ghibli period. Boy, time flies by, doesn't it? I watched the new 4K restoration, which is actually a real restoration and not a fake upscale (AI or otherwise) like Millennium Actress or Paprika or... It was a bit of a different kind of atmosphere watching it this time, as the reason I was re-watching it was because a friend wanted to watch it for her first time...and then we also had another four other people watching with us. Yep, just six totally normal people watching Perfect Blue, a cute little idol anime movie, together. Probably the funniest thing that happened (at least to me) was my friend calling me out by making this observation...: more stuff, spoilers All in all...it lived up to my Horrible, No Good, Very Bad memories of it. Great movie, little odd to re-watch it for the first time in forever with a bunch of other people for their first time and who don't watch pre-digital anime, but it went well!!

ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming 4 AMD Ryzen 7 5700X G.Skill Ripjaws V - DDR4 - 32 GB INNO3D RTX 5080 X3 OC Crucial MX100 512GB Seagate Barracuda ST4000DM004 - 4 TB Dell U3415W 2 Dualshock 4 gamepads Antec P101 Silent Seasonic CORE GC 650 And now I upgraded the cpu, while rueing not following majestic's advice last year.

Sorry, but in this case I don't see it as cowardice. The conflict between the Sunnis and Shia is older than the US has been in existence. We shouldn't be that surprised that the conflict spilled over into Sunni gulf nations. I'd expect many of the gulf nations are US allies in large part because of Iran. When you attack a nation, you can predict that your allies become fair game. The Sunni Gulf nations provide basing rights for US forces, which also makes them suitable targets.

There is a long history of attacking vulnerable targets if it weakens your opponents economic base. None of those on the receiving end did anything to the attacker other than being part of an economic base. From the razing of farms and complete depopulation (i.e. butchering the villagers) of villages during the hundred years war to "pre-emptive" actions like Mers-el-Kebir to make sure you don't have to fight a potential adversary later. Real-politik has no morals, only objektives.

So taking bets on them invading Kharg after COB on Friday ?