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Katphood reporting here... We are doing good.

So I went to downtown Tehran and they only ship games now, no more going to the store and picking stuff up. Bad news since I live in a small town 17 kilometers away from Tehran. Turns out the only local gamestore in my town still has an acceptable collection of games on display. So I asked for Chernobylite(Stalker 2 hard-on?) and they had a used copy. Can't get past the tutorial... Is it just me or are games getting more and more...'indie'? Nah, @Malcadorwas right: getting old hurts. Time to bother young people and tell them how everything wrong happening around them is their fault.

I watched a friend play through quite a bit of it. Our consensus was that it was a big sloppy mess that needed hella refinement for it to be even kind of compared to the big boys of the genre, but it still managed to be kind of O.K. even so.

In Canada, the fridges have to be resistant to Moose attacks.

I had blast with one (ascendant/bm) on solo run, just ascend with kitchen stove and WoD it and it is like with Oprah, "You get a disintegration, You get a disintegration, You get a disintegration...."

Meanwhile, off the coast of Newfoundland...

Putin has no choice but to keep at it in Bakhmut, because only by capturing Bakhmut can he then go to his people and tell them he has achieved a huge success in the war and can then declare "victory" in the war and try to force the Ukrainians to accept a ceasefire that locks in the current frontlines. Capturing Bakhmut being some sort of big "win" is complete b.s., of course, but it's the Russian people he'll be looking to convince, and they can be convinced of anything. And the Ukrainians understand all of this, and are therefore using Bakhmut to make the Russians pay dearly.

Has been so the entire war, the whole St. Javelina idiocy and people jerking it to combat footage. So is at least consistent.

Looks like the resolutions is gaining at least some negative traction in Russia. Girkin has reposted a statement from a former Deputy of Duma, and he is unprecedently attacking Putin, blaming him for puting Russia in the worst isolation in the history of Russia.

I suppose this is mostly of interest to people who are "my generation" and/or Danish... https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230501-regan-vest-inside-denmarks-secret-nuclear-bunker Because I grew up in a world, where we from early school age were taught where the nearest bomb shelter was and always were made aware of it all the way up until my early 30's 200 rooms (living and workspace), intended to house 350 people in case of nuclear war This one was one of (assumed) two bunker systems for the Danish government in case of nuclear war. Queen Margarethe II's "room" (a tiny cell) was the VIP room because it had carpets on the concrete floor I say assumed, as there are rumors of a REGAN east bunker, but that one has never been confirmed to exist. 5000+ square meters, 50+ meters under the ground and the entrance from the rather unassuming, hard to spot surface entrance leads you on a 300m slope downwards to the bunker proper. Open for public visitors in small, organized groups.

You are right about PoE2 of course but in PoE1 there was a cap on any source of speed bonus except Dexterity since all other speed bonuses only affected recovery, so when you got to 0 recovery you couldn't get faster (except with more dex). (The stacking rules in PoE1 are ridiculous however, like some attack speed bonuses multiply to get the bonus, which is then applied as -% modifier on recovery. F.ex. frenzy (+33% attack speed) and bloodlust (+20% attack speed) stack for 1.2*1.33 = 1.596 -> +59.6% attack speed, which is then subtracted from your recovery for 0.404 (-59.6%) of your original recovery. Thankfully no one has to do the math anymore thanks to MaxQuests speed calculator.) As for OP single class monk is very strong in PoE2, stronger than it was in PoE1 for sure. I wouldn't focus too hard on dexterity at the expense of intellect/might/perception in PoE2 though since your offence is more limited by your wounds than by attack speed and as a monk you also get a +5 dex self-buff which gives a speed boost on top equivalent to another +5 dex that you can have on all the time.

Honestly it looks great to me just for miasma because of how much it lowers will and how many cipher spells target will, and even better its all done in an AOE, and better yet you have borrowed instinct to increase accuracy by +20 that targets will so you can drop miasma on a group > cast borrowed instinct and essentially have +60 accuracy for most cipher spells against multiple targets in an aoe. After activating miasma and borrowed instinct you should also have +40 accuracy vs reflex (and can add ring of focused flame for +50 on the wizard's fire spells). Then you can carry a morning star for body blows, that + bowled instinct will give you +45 vs fortitude for fortitude targeting spells such as disintegrate. You can also penetrate decently well with cipher spells between +1 for penetrating visions, +1 on individual elemental types, and expose weaknesses (which lowers armor by -2 and also targets will) and ofc landing crits which increases penetration by 50%. But also they can tank, +20 all defences from borrowed instinct and +30 from mirrored image with other options for defence bonuses and also multiple options targeting multiple defense types (including will) to inflict blind. Another cool thing is availability of ability points, cipher is a hungry class which can make it difficult to multi but wizard's allow you to invest pretty much all your available ability points into cipher stuff. Theres also some great martial stuff between cipher and wizard, like citzals spirit lance and soul annihilation which is a great synergy but theres obv also a bunch of other good martial buffs. So between solid melee, offensive casting and amazing crowd control there's a lot of room for versatility. I know there was a great build posted not that long ago by @Shai Hulud but I feel its been overlooked for a long time, you often hear people talk about multiclasses like arcane knights and spell blades but hierophant doesn't seem like it's ever been popular. Seems strange .

Only knock against it I would have is that it's a single evaporator cooling, otherwise Whirlpool is a good brand. But man my opinion may not be worth much considering that 90% of the things I bought didn't outlast the warranty.

WRFF5333PW, so now you can tell me some horror stores to make me realize we bought a lemon Honestly, not really...

Settled on a Whirlpool fridge, coming this weekend so that's exciting. That's the state my life is in now.

Should have cast Ed Sheeran as Feyd.

I think it's important to note that despite the fact that Deadfire is relatively old at this point, a lot of metagame interactions are actually pretty recently discovered. The strand of favor, minor grimoire imprint, and in particular strand of favor with soul blade buff that are IIRC used by shai hulud's build are all pretty new discoveries (they in fact post-date many The Ultimate runs, you only start seeing Strand of Favor crop up in the latter set of runs), well after the bulk of players probably played and put together guides. Before then, I would imagine a hierophant would struggle a bit or require a higher player touch because of typical caster/cipher anti-synergies (namely, that a typical cipher needs to attack to build focus, but a typical caster wants to be casting spells, not attacking)*. that being said, even without some of the newer metagame stuff, i think a hierophant that hooks into a psion would be very powerful. removes the basic anti-synergy between having two casters, and then you just have the nice mix of stuff between wizard and psion. but psion was also a pretty late addition - when the game was nearing end of life cycle, so again well after the bulk of builds and players were done. *a wizard is slightly different because you could summon some pretty powerful weapons that help supercharge focus generation, but this still requires a little bit higher level of deliberation that might explain a lack of hierophant content.

perception has diminishing returns in general, but monk in particular has synergy with crits, so it's worth investing in perception for many builds. example of synergies: you can weaken on crit, you can interrupt on crit, you can get resource refunds on crit. with swift flurry, you can even chain together free attacks on crits, an each free attack can trigger further free attacks if you crit. (only a 33% chance, so it's still diminishing returns, but point is for monk even if the returns are diminishing they are diminishing very very very very slowly) also, you should basically ignore from consideration that you get +3 accuracy upon level up. Because everyone also gets +3 defenses on level up, so they cancel each other out. All the accuracy bonus on level up does is help you keep pace with other targets at your level, and make it harder for lower-level characters to fight above their level.

Yeah I felt overwhelmed when it came out and decided not to play it at the time. But once you learn enough about the game it is very rewarding, and the replay value is outstanding given the staggering number of possible builds with all the multiclasses and subclasses. I think you'll find it's worth it, playing on a lower difficulty setting may be a good idea the first time. You can change it during the game if it's too easy or hard.

Great points. I think maybe the build has a higher learning curve than most. They either require a lot of micromanagement or relatively complex scripting. And it takes a while for the build to come together (L13 mostly). Also it *seems* squishy at first glance as two casters but they can be pretty tanky if you want. But hierophants can use healing hands gloves lesser lay on hands to cast a powerful heal over time that can be extended with wall of draining. And you can use potions of final stand if needed, and extend those too. But between the high defenses (arcane veil + llengrath's displaced image + safeguard + borrowed instinct + psychovampiric shield + arcane reflection = +65 deflection, +20 all defenses/accuracy, +5 armor and 30% hit to graze and spell reflection) and healing hands there's few situations where you'd really need a potion of final stand. I didn't start playing Deadfire a lot until a couple months before I posted that build, and I wasn't aware then whether hierophants were popular or not, I just theorycrafted something for maximum offensive power based around citzal's spirit lance + soul annihilation and extending various item procs. The lance both builds focus from everyone you hit and distributes soul annihilation to everyone you hit (like WoTEP but better because AOE is circular, larger, and lance does way more damage). I know more about the game now and I'd still say blood mage / soul blade is one of, if not the, most effective fighting builds, even without all my SOF procs. And unlike lots of fighting builds, it is very versatile with the wizard and cipher casts available. Only build that comes close (in my experience) in terms of melee damage is helwalker / blood mage, or possibly a monk spamming WOTW. If you use wall of draining to build max focus (or SOF) it eclipses them. And hierophant works amazingly well if you proc scordeo's edge blade cascade, because most of the cipher casts you want are .5s casts, so you can cast them very rapidly and go back to slaughtering things. I've also experimented some with a blood mage / ascendant and this build is ridiculously good as a caster. Wall of draining extends the "ascended" effect giving you basically infinite focus as long as you cast wall of draining enough to keep it up. Does vast amounts of single target damage with disintegration, and since focus cost is no longer an issue you can cast it as much as you want, as well as other high cost spells like amplified wave and stasis shell. And I only really considered how the classes play solo. In a party it is even better because ancestor's' memory is one of the best buffs in the game with on-demand brilliant. Other great buffs, Pain Block, Echoing Shield, Tactical Meld, that can't be utilized solo.

You're welcome. Vatnir's no troubadour but with "muse of mystery" proc from robes of the weyc he gains -50% phrase duration, same as a troubadour, except it doesn't disable the linger. So he does one phrase per 3s instead of 6s. A true troubadour could get down to 2s with muse of mystery I think. I've been testing a bellower/priest recently and today I soloed belranga, dorudugan, and hauani o whe pretty easily. Celebrant is very powerful with the right gear. Chanters are versatile enough you'll be fine with 3, especially since they're multiclassed. There's a whole group of invocations I rarely use because I don't have enough chanters, like shatter the healing and ressurection + immunity invocations, also there's summons I've never used. There's buffs, heals, a variety of summons, debuffs, and CC invocations. Can have one do stuns, paralyze, charm, another focus on party buffs and heals, another focus on the high damage spells like her tears and eld nary (probably vatnir since he'd be casting her tears a lot anyway). In POE1 it was fairly popular to run parties of six chanters lol. Top tier chants IMO are many lives pass by, ancient memory, old siec, her courage thick as steel, mith fir, thick grew their tongues, mercy and kindness. That's not even including the resistance chants, just diversify them. Or you can stack certain things, like pretty sure ancient memory heals stack...even if they don't, if one chanter is singing mercy and kindness while another is singing ancient memory + old siec your party will have a ton of healing, add courage thick as steel which is kind of preventative healing.

...hehehe...sounds like Nova Scotia...bah, the colder weather toughens us up at a young age...canna take the heat when it gets over 20 degrees celsius meself... ...WHO LUVS YA, BABY!!...

Kid had a hit list (10 targets, of which he got 8 according to early reports) and has been planing this for a month, even picked the day because the classes he wanted to go to were in a short order from the entrance of the school. His father was a gun enthusiast and thought the kid how to use them. The guns were in a safe, but the child knew/figured out the code. Early report say that it went bad from the start, he entered the school pull the gun and the security guy tried to stop him. He killed him, then the 3 girls who were monitors that day, then he went to the first classroom. There he killed 5 more before they were able to get the guns away from him. He ran to the schoolyard and called the police and surrendered. Don't know what the background of this is, I guess we will find out in the coming days, but more likely than not it was bullying. The kid is under 14, by a few months, so he cannot be tried, but his parents were arrested.

@Shai Hulud Thanks for the inspiration! I'll give his celebrant multiclass a go this time, particularly since I want someone to use sasha's singing scimitar. Of course he's no troubadour, but it will be very useful to delegate some of the chanting to him. Actually could be fun to have the gun line in the back - Wildrhymer MC (spearcaster), Herald Pallegina (dragon's dowry) and Celebrant Vatnir (blightheart) with sure-handed ila/mith fyr or Stumbling words for bosses, thick grew their tongues, ancient memory and whatever else. Some summoning invocations to Pallegina, some offensive ones to Vatnir - hot damn, maybe 3 chanters is too much, but I just love this concept of three singing gunners

War has been entertainment ever since Gulf War part deux

BTW I don't think there will be any 'spring' offensive - I think Ukraine will start late summer so they can dig in for counter attack in rainy season at autumn. That would make most sense

I make my own beer which -let's be honest- tastes like crap. A couple days ago I was drinking some of my own homemade beer while watching Cowboy Bebop and they suddenly land on Callisto: What are you looking for? All you will find here are men and rancid booze. Yup, I drink 'rancid booze'.

Different sources of +action speed and -recovery time may or may not stack, you can check this link for an attack speed calculator with various effects https://naijaro.github.io/deadfire-speed-calculator/ I like forbidden fist monks, but they don't work very well except with the community patch, which you can find here https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/335 If you don't want to install the mod... nalpazcas are generally superior to vanilla monks, so long as you don't run out of drugs. Which it isn't that hard to do but takes some micromanagement. Otherwise vanilla monks are quite good. Shattered Pillar is relatively weak especially without community patch. Helwalkers have a higher learning curve due to the +50% damage they take at full wounds, but they also get +10 MIG. You don't really need CON with monks because you can take iron wheel which gives you bonus CON based on number of wounds (duality of mortal presence at L10 now gives +10 int or +10 CON, and is upgraded to turning wheel and/or iron wheel). Perception is probably the most important stat, gaining 10 accuracy from 10 to 20 may not seem like much but it could be the difference between never critting and critting 10% (also hitting and grazing more vs missing). Also could be the difference between always critting and critting 90%. This may not sound significant but with the swift flurry and heartbeat drumming abilities, you have a 33% chance and 25% chance respectively (which stack) to attack again on a crit, so with very high accuracy you can often chain crits. The higher the difficulty, the more important it is to max perception, but I would max it on all of them personally... Also MIG is not as important for damage as it was in POE1. It is good for +healing so FFs want high might for the extra healing from afflictions expiring (extra damage is nice too), but once you are mid level even with maxed might your might could be contributing only about 1/3 to your damage total. This is due to +damage from things like transcendent suffering, equipment bonuses, forbidden curse for FFs, criticals, overpenetration, etc. Max MIG if you can, I'd just prioritize perception and intellect first, and sometimes dexterity. Also monks have swift strikes which is equivalent to +10 dex so you don't need to max DEX. This is the stat spread I'd use for a forbidden fist MIG/CON/DEX/PER/INT/RES - 18/3/9/18/10/19 Other monks aren't as tanky and benefit more from intelligence and dex, and don't have to max resolve, so with them I'd do something like MIG/CON/DEX/PER/INT/RES - 12/7/13/18/18/10, alternatively with maxed resolve 9/6/9/18/18/18 As thelee said it is hard to go wrong because monks are S tier melee chars, just always max PER, and max INT unless you're a FF (or if you plan to take turning wheel you don't have to max INT), don't max CON, other stats don't matter as much how you spread them (except FFs need max resolve). I've made FF builds with 3 dex that still were still DPS monsters.

AAs are fun builds, I haven't tried an AA / troubadour but I like both AAs and troubadours so it sounds pretty nice And yeah not even the eccea's arcane blaster's "imbued ammunition" modal gets rid of the accuracy modal, though it sure sounds from AA description like it should! Though -5 isn't that bad if you stack all the ranger accuracy and use the right items. Like you'll want ring of the marksman, gauntlets of accuracy (or the one from deck of many things), and a pet like sky dragon wurm, retina, or harley (can use more than one if you brought eder with "can i pet him anyway"), helmet is situational, vs dragons wear horns of the bleak mother, necklace also situational though charm of bones is great in general and super great vs vessels, precognition is pretty good too. Other stuff with +perception can give you a small accuracy bump like kuaru's prize Your party composition sounds good. Eder and Aloth can tank, Vatnir as chanter/priest is super good but you may not want a second chanter, he is good as pure priest also, xoti is probably better as contemplative or monk IMO though she is fine pure priest, and I really like Ydwin as pure cipher since she can do a lot of damage, CC, support, some healing with pain block, and hand out brilliant with ancestor's memory, plus defensive mindweb is one of the best spells in the game, and with shared nightmare her AOE size goes through the roof. She can also debuff enemies' deflection with psychovampiric shield and mass flank stuff with phantom foes.

Hmm. I expect it depends on the difficulty settings. On POTD upscaled? Probably impossible to do all the content. Hauani O Whe and Dorudugan will be rather difficult not just due to their massive damage and armor but because of the length of the fights you'll run out of resources. If you skip the megabosses then...maybe. You'd have to do a lot of kiting though for large groups of enemies. Use traps to draw them out in smaller amounts. If you play on a lower setting it is probably doable though I'm not sure which one, POTD or Veteran, I've always just played POTD upscaled and there aren't many builds that can solo everything. On the other hand if you're willing to use cheese like strand of favor to extend item procs (like scordeo's edge blade cascade, deltro's cage helm conduit, brilliant from mind over matter or least unstable coil, retreat from rannig's wrath, damage reduction and healing from darkest before dawn, etc.) then you could definitely do it.

Typically I'd say I need it from May to September, but yeah, Gorth ain't wrong

Monks are pretty much an S-tier class in Deadfire, especially single-class. Hard to go wrong with them. There is no cap to action speed bonuses. In PoE1, I don't believe there was a cap to speed bonuses, but there were complicated stacking rules, so probably you drank the potion and it got suppressed by a different effect. In Deadfire, action speed gives you linear returns, so you can stack as much action speed as you want without concern. Though do be warned, Deadfire has its own stacking rules: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/stacking-rules i think you might be a little confused, it sounds like you're referencing PoE1 items. Deadfire isn't simply a PoE1 copy or direct continuation. It has its own gear and its own stuff.

-Hello I'm sorry that you all have run into this lint issue in Grounded. The team is aware of this issue and they hope to have it resolved in an upcoming patch. Please feel free to submit a support ticket if you run into any other issues. Obsidian Support Please include the following information: 1. Platform (Xbox Console, PC Game Pass, PC Steam). 2. Multiplayer or Single Player Game (if multiplayer, can you tell us how many players in total in the game, and their platforms if known) 3. Difficulty level 4. Description of issue. 5. Last thing you did in the game before the issue occurred, if applicable. Thanks for your patience while the team works to resolve the issue!

Minsk and Boo https://i.imgur.com/8oHghTv.mp4

Azdeus lives in Sweden... when the ice starts melting, it's time to switch on the A/C

Dunno how tall you are, but my brother is around 197cm and in his 20's he had something like this: ...watching him fold himself into it was hilarious.

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

I got a ps5. I guess I finally get to play bloodborne. 8 years late to the party. I was going to get a new board and ram and CPU for my setup, which is pretty badly bottlenecking my rx7900 xtx, but.. ehh. nevermind. It will be fine until there is actually a ddr 5 option that makes sense.

[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

New release! I've implemented automatic updates! (You still have to install *this* version manually though) I've also added a popup selector for most of the *.prefab fields. You'll get to choose from among what's available in the corresponding "PillarsOfEternityII_Data/assetbundles/*.unity3d" files. This will make it a lot easier to find values for character and effect prefabs, among others. Also started exporting conversations.manifest and fixed some other stuff mentioned here: 2023-01-19 Auto Updates! When a new release is available, a dialog will give the user the opportunity to download it. Added a "prefab path" selector popup. conversations.manifest files will now be exported. Fixed an issue which caused GameDataObjects to be created with DebugName set to null. SpeakerComponent.ChatterFile will now correctly default to an empty ID string. Improved generation time of Conversation & Quest diagrams. StringTable queries now search GameData/Conversation/Quest tables asynchronously.

I had no major issues when I played it. Enjoyed it quite a bit.

But it gave us the never overused Lux Aeterna.

Did it feel like a blatant crib of Perfect Blue to you as well?

Skill Up tearing Redfall apart:

I don't remember it ever happening in Belgrade. Seems to be 8 children dead and two with leg wounds and a girl with a head wound in surgery. The teacher is alive but critical and the security guy is dead.

A school shooting in Serbia... Two confirmed dead, the security guy and a school teacher. As for the children, the info is all over the place, at best some amount of wounded at worst 6 so far. The shooter (14 years old) was arrested, so maybe we get some info as to why he did it.