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Couldn't find this in English, but: Neues RPG statt Kingdom Come 3: Bericht verrät, woran Warhorse Studios wirklich arbeitet Warhorse seem to be working on an all-new RPG -- self-funded (KCD2 must have made loads of cash given that it made its money back a day or two after launch....) One of the few new bigger budget projects to be genuinelly curious about whatever it may be. As this is so not what a decision maker / money giver at your typical studio / publisher would ever have to say:

It's not about porn, it's about censorship. The government can now ban sites that it deems "dangerous". It's a soft ban, but it will slow traffic to a crawl given that most people want nothing to do with the government id app that would be needed to unlock said sites. Said soft ban could be used as leverage for any number of political or repressive reasons. Soon enough there will be "dangerous ideas" that the children must be protected from. You can't just hope that governments won't abuse their power, they will, given enough time. So you have to be certain of your rights instead.

That was my reaction to when Deadfire launched -- to nowhere near the buzz as PoE. To be fair, Eternity1, unlike Original Sin, was always big time sold on nostalgia, and eventually, that crave for the good ol' days may be fulfilled. Still, in the case of PoE, it's certainly not the "type of game" at fault -- or Owlcat wouldn't have rolled these things plus DLC plus Enhanced Editions en masse from an Eastern European CRPG factory line. :D In the case of TOW, it's not the type of game either, see Fallout New Vegas. What would have bummed me out (and kinda did) with TOW1 is that it was announced as a sort of Vegas-Like project (see the announcement trailers... "From thy builders of Vegas!"). And then was more like a baby's version of an Obsidian game, of one I've played better versions of before (not talking size, but depth). The entire industry is struggling a bit atm though. And if you ask me, the thing to notice recently has been about specilization -- of picking an experience and going all-in on it rather than watering it down so that everybody may be onboard. A game like Kingdom Come would have never seen the light of day at Bioware, Bethesda and Obsidian -- see how Josh had been hoping to make a historical game since forever, but bosses would go: "Nobody would buy that." And even FromSoft exploded by Elden Ring -- a title likewise that would have never seen the light of day at most of the old Western powerhouses of the industry, as deemed as too "inaccessible". These games were allowed to excel at what they were targeting -- and attracted added people simply by doing so, making them curious what's so "special" and "unique" about them. Warhorse have talked about how many history buffs they got onboard who aren't even hardcore gamers, for instance. As a side-effect, Warhorse are now pretty much the only top dogs on the "historical RPG" block too -- there simply is nobody around making a game like them on the scale of them, zero direct competition. Loot and combat and dwarves and elves and Pip-Boys? Dime a dozen. It's actually not just games. See also music, where there are few omnipresent superstars still left that everybody and their cat owns a record of. And rather, everyone tends to build their own streaming playlists, tailored towards them specifically. The market here too has exploded so much that everybody will eventually find something fit to their tastes. (Over 19,000 games released on Steam alone in 2025). One thing is clear though: Chasing trends with dev cycles of 4-7 years ain't gonna cut it. By that point that trend is long old hat. And everybody else chasing it as well may have already picked up what was left of all the buzz once you're finally ready to ship yourself. :D

Well, I just played through act 1 with the new class and so far I like it. The new QOL changes are good too. I've converted 2 of my old characters now as well, because so far I see no reason not to. Honestly, this is kinda what I wanted all along.. more content for this game. Now I wish they would add new quests, dungeons, or terrains, that would be nice.

"As everyone knows, the Country of Canada has treated the United States very unfairly for decades. Now, things are turning around for the U.S.A., and FAST! But imagine, Canada is building a massive bridge between Ontario and Michigan. They own both the Canada and the United States side and, of course, built it with virtually no U.S. content. President Barack Hussein Obama stupidly gave them a waiver so they could get around the BUY AMERICAN Act, and not use any American products, including our Steel. Now, the Canadian Government expects me, as President of the United States, to PERMIT them to just “take advantage of America!” What does the United States of America get — Absolutely NOTHING! Ontario won't even put U.S. spirits, beverages, and other alcoholic products, on their shelves, they are absolutely prohibited from doing so and now, on top of everything else, Prime Minister Carney wants to make a deal with China — which will eat Canada alive. We’ll just get the leftovers! I don't think so. The first thing China will do is terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup. The Tariffs Canada charges us for our Dairy products have, for many years, been unacceptable, putting our Farmers at great financial risk. I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve. We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY. With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset. The revenues generated because of the U.S. Market will be astronomical. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" Vance is going to be President in a couple of months, isn't he.

For me at least, it's primarily a question of privacy. Age verification requires identity verification, which can aid criminal behavior and potentially allowing retaliation for some posted comment. This in turn limits freedom to speak one's mind and increases risk.

TL;DW - Moscow still believes that it has the right to dictate the laws, alliances, military size and might, language, and every aspect of Ukrainian society without having to pay for a very costly occupation.

This is what having low self esteem is like. Also for further laughs https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/02/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-strengthens-united-states-national-defense-with-americas-beautiful-clean-coal-power-generation-fleet/

I mean the system is really built so we can replace everyone. We are supposed to do it every 2-6 years. So yeah, we can take everyone down. The problem is those people have a ton of money and power and no one seems to believe in accountability anymore. That being said, these people are all old and will hopefully die soon.

Well, when I posted that post, it wasn't happening in the Pics of your games thread/s. But today when I logged in, it is. shrug I thought it couldn't have been 2+ years since I posted in that food thread, but apparently so - I know I stopped looking/posting in there at some point, but has it been that long, sheesh Ok, noticed different thing - there's no more auto-smilie insertion, but now there's auto turn other things into something else. If I surround a word with asterisks, it gets auto-italicized, even if you put a space between asterisks and word. And if I try to do my typical three minus signs at start of a line after hitting Enter, it auto-turns into a full-width horizontal bar. Meaning I can't use my habit of three dashes as a bullet/"tabbed" points. Oh darn. ;) Makes me wonder if there are other things like that tho - maybe instead of BBcode there are other typing/symbols one can use to make the forum do something similar. Hm. If you hit Enter, then type an asterisk, it seems to indent and bullet point the line? Then if you hit Enter again it auto does it again. Heh. the

ICE will be leaving Minnesota and ending its operation. Not a surprise considering how badly they handled the job This confirms how citizen activism on the streets, and not Internet activism, can change policy Im just sorry 2 Americans had to die to get to this point But Homan is clearly not stupid, he can see when ICE cant win AP NewsBorder czar says Minnesota immigration crackdown is over,...The Trump administration says it is ending its massive immigration crackdown in Minnesota after weeks of angry mass protests, thousands of arrests and two fatal shootings.

$24.99 is only the DLC.

Imposing harsh tariffs on our friends to the north is high up on my list of stupid decisions DJT has made. I'm glad there are members of Congress who view them in an equally bad light. Unfortunately, this bill is just another completely futile gesture by Congress, which has no chance of passing a veto. I suspect it's more about the upcoming mid-term elections. Hopefully, SCOTUS will take up the so-called "national emergency" issue soon, although I suspect they would prefer to ignore it.

That last one is already implemented in an indirect way; if you track a product from a bug (example wolf spider venom) you'll see the bug using peep.r . I like the idea for a shared inventory between restored ranger outposts. Seems like a good idea for a mid to late game goal.

It's been a while! I was fairly active on the PoE forums back in the day, and backed Deadfire in the Fig campaign, but despite that I have hardly played it. Part of that was that I found the changes to the game mechanics from PoE jarring: I absolutely loved PoE's mechanics and I just didn't have the energy to learn to love Deadfire's. Perhaps a bigger part though was that Deadfire was released during the third year of my PhD and I just didn't have much time for gaming. Thankfully my PhD is now (successfully) behind me, it has been a long time since I played PoE, and Deadfire has matured a lot (I may have matured a little too). So when the itch to play a CRPG hit me recently, I thought I'd finally get round to playing through Deadfire. After spending altogether too long reading various discussions on this forum and elsewhere I've settled on the core of a character idea. Specifically I want to play as an Old Vailian Ocean Folk Cipher using various "duelist" style weapons (roughly speaking this includes Rapiers, Sabres, Swords, Daggers, Stilettoes, Small Shields and Pistols), emphasizing a flamboyant character (I'll be choosing passionate and clever a fair amount). I took some inspiration from @Aestus's recent Serafen build in this regard. Whilst I have the concept nailed down, I'm struggling to decide on the details, so I thought I'd ask here. First off, what subclass and multiclass to go with? My thoughts at the moment: Soulblade: this is an obvious choice if I'm going for a melee build. Soul Annihilation is a powerful ability, but I honestly think the Concentration on kill is a pretty nice bonus for a melee caster. There doesn't seem to be much downside compared to a generic Cipher. Beguiler: I really like Charm and Dominate (it's a large part of why I've decided to go with a Cipher), and the Beguiler kinda fits nicely with that. I say kinda because when it comes to casting Whispers of Treason or Puppet Master the bonuses aren't a that big (longer range, which is nice for WoT, and 5 Focus if they hit). However quite a lot of good Cipher spells are large Foe AoE Deception spells, and in those cases the Focus return can be quite big. Single class Cipher: the simplest choice. That said, Cipher has less exciting stuff going on at PL 8 and 9 than some classes. Time Parasite is great of course, and since I'm using the full Community Patch Defensive Mindweb could be pretty powerful. Driving Echoes is a big buff, but not particularly exciting. The passives are pretty good: A Soul's Echo makes your many Will targeting spells better and Shared Nightmares seems generically good, with a big synergy with Ascendants (+275% AoE with your free powers) and Soulblades using an AoE weapon like WotEP. I'm probably leaning away from this choice, but could be convinced otherwise. Cipher/Streetfighter: generally speaking I am not a fan of this sort of risk/reward class, but I have to say -50% Recovery is appealing (the other bonuses don't hurt either). What I don't know is (a) how bad the +20% Recovery penalty when not Heating Up or On The Edge is and (b) how easy it is to safely keep Heating Up active in important fights? I will add that from a role-playing point of view Streetfighter fits quite well: I can imagine my character being the kind of person who went out drinking in Old Vailia and getting into fights. Cipher/Trickster: the safer Cipher/Rogue choice since you get access to some pretty powerful defensive self-buffs. The basic question is (a) do the various Trickster powers add significant fun to the build and (b) do they overshadow Cipher powers? I want being a Cipher to be a core part of my character, so don't want to end up hardly using my Cipher powers because it's better to use Trickster powers. I do think this fits my archetype fairly well too. Cipher/Blackjacket: so I've already played through the prologue and a decent chunk of Neketaka with a Devoted/Soulblade using Greatswords. I decided not to carry on because I don't like being locked into a single weapon. When I look at the other Fighter subclasses the only one that stands out as an option is the Blackjacket, but it's a weird one. Generally multiclassing as a Fighter adds some welcome survivability to my build, particularly early on before powers like Borrowed Instincts become available. Blackjackets sacrifice some of that survivability (worse Constant Recovery) in exchange for more flexibility, and I'm struggling to judge whether it's worth it or not. It does mean I can start combat by quickly firing a bunch of pistols before switching to a melee weapon, which is nice, but I don't know if it's worth it beyond that. Maybe a generic Fighter is better, but somehow I don't like taking non-subclass characters (with the exception of Wizards). Thematically I think it's a decent fit, though less good than the two Rogue classes. Other: I'm open to other suggestions, as long as they fit with my character concept (I have no doubt that Arcane Archer/Ascendant or Ghost Heart/Ascendant are fun for example, but they don't fit my idea). I'd also welcome any suggestions on attribute spreads, with the caveat that I don't like dumping stats below 8? Finally, any other interesting info, combos etc. that might impact these builds would be welcome. Thanks in advance 🙂

Sure, I'm not recommending Psion for a melee weapon user either (I mean if the intention is to actually attack with the melee weapon and not only use it as stat stick). Beguiler is perfect for this I think. Good luck and lots of joy with the character! A pleasure! 🤗

I was thinking about this some more whilst in the office yesterday (what, you expect me to think about work? Nonsense!) and if it weren't for the Psion's anti-synergy with melee I'd probably prefer them as a subsclass to other Ciphers. I'm not inherently wedded to the idea of generating Focus via Soul Whip, but I do strongly associate Ciphers with the idea of a martial/caster hybrid, so the Psion's Focus mechanic feels like too much of a liability. With the Community Patch I'm guessing a Psion/Trickster could be viable in melee at higher levels: +50 Deflection with Borrowed Instincts and Mirrored Image makes being receiving a Crit quite unlikely. Anyway, will be starting my Beguiler/Trickster tonight, and looking forward to it. Thanks again Boeroer.

Chainsaw Man, season 1 and the Reze movie. Now...I know what you're thinking. Bartimaeus...Chainsaw Man...shounen action? Yes, it's difficult to believe... Why would Bartimaeus subject himself to Chainsaw Man? The answer is actually surprisingly simple: I was forced to watch this at proverbial gunpoint. Chainsaw Man is...very important to somebody I know, they have very strong feelings and emotions about the show, and it was basically a "hey, you can either sit down with me and give this an honest to god shot, or...you can find out what will happen to you if you don't" sort of situation. So...did I like Chainsaw Man? Well, funny, that's just what this person asked right after we finished watching the movie, except they phrased it more like, "So you like Chainsaw Man, right? And you're not going to say yes just because it's me and I happen to be tapping my fingers on this dangerous unseen metal object behind my back, right?". Um... So in short, yes, I really liked Chainsaw Man, it's probably the best show I've seen in the past ten years. T.O.R.T.U.R.E.

I sometimes feel like I may never start a game again. eg, trying new games. --- Still messing around in Enshrouded a bit. Did I ever mention there is no currency? eg, no buying/selling/trading. Kinda refreshing, that. NMS finally had an emoji tweet - wonder what the next Expedition will bring in terms of items or possibly new feature. Or nothing. Could be a good time to return to that one for a bit tho. Still dreaming of/wishing for the perfect sandbox.

I know. I'm currently playing the latest expansion (having played GW2 for more than 7 years now) 😄

Tainted Grail DLC was a mistake. I finished the DLC but it completely sapped my interest in the game. I think I chose the bad ending because I stopped paying attention to what anyone was saying. Also went back to TOW2. I am enjoying it somewhat the second(third? Fourth?) time around. I like the companions. Although their reactivity to what you are doing is a little lacking. I completely ransacked a protectorate building and aside from dude saying "let's leave this place exactly how we found it" after I took everything i could, he seemed to have no problem with me destroying the place. Edit: also i did the old save game slaughter everyone one time. And a companion had a dialgoue box so I talked to her thinking she'd be mad I slaughtered a whole town. Nope she told me how she thinks "spacers choice could do a better job helping these refugees".... I dont think that matters anymore I'm not sure sci fi space RPGs benefit from open worlds. These locations would be more memorable if you cut out all the traveling from one end of a map to the other. IMO nothing is going to compare to New Vegas because devs want to make everything bigger. When the story takes place in many locations it just feels impersonal. if it took place on one planet you could weave the story together. As it is everything feels forgettable. That first town will never be visited again because I've got 5 other planets to explore. Played a bit of that Yakuza pirate game... its kinda fun but I'm already over the endless cutscenes and tutorials. I'm guessing there are popup tutorials until you are on the final act. I may never finish a game ever again

Answer is that it probably wouldn't inconvenience me much, since I doubt I'd have much problem circumventing anything short of a full Great Firewall of New Zealand. However, compulsory use of the internet for storage of important information like your identity needs opposing on principle, especially when it's done mostly so politicians can take An Achievement to The Electorate. Last month a compulsory use privately run health database got hacked here that was used by a third of the country's population. It appears they gained access through brute forcing a password, and much of the data wasn't encrypted- about as basic mistakes as it's possible to make. So far, zero consequences for the guys running it. You also know that people will go full UK and let Peter Thiel/ Meta/ Cambridge Analytica et alia have access to all that lovely data.

This surprised me. Exports to the US growing year on year despite the tariffs. https://infogram.com/dansk-eksport-til-usa-1hnq41opvgd1k23

Reversal of normal for me this year: I didn't watch hardly anything of the game (though I was rooting for and felt the Seahawks should win), but I did watch the half-time show: I'd agree that it was a good vibe.

We updated yesterday to 3.0.1 and noticed that we are unable to sleep. When we activate the lean-to it says unable to sleep attack incoming like if a raid was inbound. After it hits midnight it switches to can sleep, but may be attacked in the morning. You are able to sleep at this point, but a raid is still never triggered and restful bonuses don't apply.

Shaun Lyng, one of the original developers for Jagged Alliance, is auctioning off some of his design docs. https://thepit.ja-galaxy-forum.com/index.php?t=msg&goto=366702&srch=Lyng#msg_366702 He also answers some questions about developing JA 1 and 2. It's a pretty cool read if you were a fan of those games. Shaun and Ian and Linda Curie are video game royalty. They created some amazing worlds.

What do you expect in this day and age......

Was just checking on feedback for my Deadfire gamefaqs guide as I consider another update, and saw that I had gotten one note that my guide wasn't helpful. The reasoning given behind that rating was that I had made no mention of or given advice on a shieldbearer paladin companion. Uh, a companion that most certainly does not actually exist in the game. I dare not actually write out more in case some bot crawler crawls this page and mistakenly interprets my post as more evidence that this companion exists to the next hapless person who asks about it. I'm not even sure where they got it from, since asking Gemini about it doesn't reveal anything. What an age we live in.

Wasn't it Pascal, the Shield Beaver with the unique Beaver racials and the six fingers feat ?

For the record: While I didn't love The Outer Worlds (1) either, I thought there were decent things in there as well. Overall, I think it's a rather mid title by Obsidian standards though. And one seemingly scared of its own design goals as well. There is "casualization" -- Pentiment, set up as a narrative experience surely isn't a hardcore gamer's game, and that's perfectly fine! It was never conceived as such. And then there is say the aforementioned looting in TOW1 that doesn't even matter as it's this abundant. In a way, it seems Obsidian came out of their crowdfunding stage under the impression that specialization would not be worth it (after Deadfire, see the quote prior about making real money off two PoEs...). Whereas for Warhorse, Larian, Owlcat et all it was the opposite. That said, whilst there were layoffs, Obsidian never cut down solely to the crew doing Pillars 1 back then. IIRC, they were still a studio in the ~100-150 people range at that point.

Meh, I am sure there are many factors. What I have been wondering is the sheer size Obsidian has grown. About 10 years ago they were a minimal crew relying on crowdfunding to make Pillars1. Now, they are what - a 200-300 studio working on multiple projects at once? Both big and small. That's a lot of cultural shift to go through, with a lot of new hires, training to do etc. All things considered Obsidan has done pretty well so far. While I didn't love Avowed, I thought there were things to enjoy in there, I hear good things of Outer Worlds2, Grounded did really well, and Pentiment is at the very least a critical darling. So in all - I don't think they had a bad run so far.

I have the same problem since 5 days. The host can sleep, but slave never can.

Finished Soldiers Live. I don't know, I think I like the original 3 books more. There is a dip afterwards that does get better with the later books but it never quite comes back to the level of the first 3. Saying that I will continue reading the new books as they come out. I started immediately with Lies Weeping. Another thing I would say is that while Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen is pretty heavily inspired by the Black Company he does a better job with his characters. You are way more invested in the non PoV characters of the Malazan world.

I'm hoping that Avowed 2 shows the same growth as Outer Worlds 2, but I am concerned that the improvements don't seem to be increasing sales. Although in retrospect, I'm the target audience for these games, and I still played them on Gamepass instead of paying full price. So I think the business model is more an issue than the quality or marketability of the game.

judge biery opinion and order (edit: the opinion length is ~500 words) for those unaware o' the liam conejo ramos story. HA! Good Fun!

The name they wrote also started with a P, so perhaps something got mangled from some AI hallucination, but it was definitely not Pallegina. I felt like I was having a stroke I had to keep rereading this comment to understand what this person was asserting, it was so bizarre and wrong.

In such cases it is best to avoid the boss for now and explore more in the open world. You need to find scadutree fragments to upgrade your blessings. The more you have, the more damage you can take and dish out. Once I've hit the 12 blessings, most content in the DLC became easy, with the exception being Radahn, that bitch. I have started NG+ now and played a little more. The bosses were still easy, but some of the open world mobs got a lot tougher.

Hebb’s song had actually been written in 1963, after John F Kennedy and then Hebb’s brother Harold were murdered on consecutive days. He felt the world — and perhaps he himself — needed a little cheer, and wrote a song to serve that purpose. HA! Good Fun!

we have the same issue with our multiplayer game whoever hosts can sleep, the other players have incoming raid that never arrives. we all have to stay up to midnight

If you take a Tactician/Assassin and do fights solo you can trigger Brilliant via Brillant Tactician nearly every time you go invisible. You don't need Devoted so bad since you already get +4 PEN from Assassinate. The additinal crit damage is nice but not stellar anyway. Yes, but that's only one half. The other one is piling up lashes (from weapon, Hylea's Talons, Belt of Magran's Chosen etc.). Bleeding Cuts is also nice - but the DoT can take some time to kill an enemy and that might be the time he needs to strike you down before the Slippers kick in or you can cast Smoke Veil etc. Fortunately stealth provides you with a 80% recovery bonus that almost nullifies the high recovery from Bleeding Cuts. It's still noticable though. An Assassin should always try to strike and then go invisible (via kill-->slippers or Shadowing Beyond or Smoke Veil) in order to end the encounter so that his resources refill. Then it can be very powerful and fun (if you like the sneaky "Thief™" playstyle). As Tactician/Assassin you can skip the "end combat" thing often enough though and still get Guile back. The best assassination weapon is Dragon's Dowry because of the combo of high base dmg + highest lashes. And also because guns don't have recovery. You can shoot twice (stealth reload bonus of 80%, shoot again) and then vanish. It's a bit frustrating that the best weapons for Assassins are the biggest guns - used a point blank - in general. Spearcaster with the lash enchantment is also good. If it has to be a melee weapon then Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff is also decent because of its lashes and because it has the additional advantage that you don't need to go into engagement once unstealthed (reach weapon). Oathbreaker's End does good dmg with Bleeding Cuts. Effort with Maiming isn't too bad either (raw dmg doesn't stack like Bleedig Cuts though). Engoliero do Espirs: also nice. Less base dmg but if you manage to kill with the opening backstab you'll send out Ghost Blades with all the dmg bonuses of the weapon. Basically just use a two hander with lashes on it (I'll count Bleeding Cuts as a lash since its also a multiplicative dmg boost like elemental lashes are). A suprisingly good assasination weapon is Whispers of the Endless Paths with the Run-Through enchantment. It has very high base damage. But of course you can't combine that with Power Strike because it's its own ability (but you can use it with Takedown Combo if you play an Assassin/Ranger). After a lot of testing with an Assassin some time ago I think I came to the conclusion that the best melee backstab weapon is Concelhaut's Draining Touch (of course only usable by a Spellblade) followed by Chromoprismatic Staff and then Oathbreaker's End (+ Bleeding Cuts) - iirc. If you find it stupid that Backstab favors heavy weapons you can check out the Community Patch in my signature: it changes Backstab from a additive dmg bonus to a flat raw dmg bonus (same numbers for all weapons) which scales with Rogue's Power Level and will generally be a tad higher than a vanilla Backstab with a two handed melee weapon after some PLs (but less than with Dragon's Dowry).

Except that you say things like "the bonus only triggers on a crit" and rhetorically asking whether a single attack PEN bonus is better than the Streetfighter bonuses. Rather seems like you *are* forgetting some bits there. And similarly, when you start suggesting things like the Assassinate ability being underwhelming and the class being subpar, it rather seems like you're talking about the class and its abilities as a whole, not just melee Assassin builds. Which then raises the question what those statements are actually based on, given that the thrust of your arguments do seem to be specifically about the viability of a melee build. If that's all you're talking about, indeed my Evoker Assassin is not relevant; but then your claims about the class in general are irrelevant as well, so why make them? As for pontificating about your playstyle... yeah, I think I will actually. It seems relevant. You seem to be quite adamant about what is necessary for a melee assassin build. You *have* to go for a 1H crit build, you *have* to heavily invest in MIG/PER/DEX only, you *have* to turn it into a one-trick pony (never mind consumables and multi-classing), quickly blow through your Guile, start uselessly (?) auto-attacking and die. It remains a bit misty exactly why that would be the only or optimal way though; perfectly reasoned, I think not. And it does rather suggest that this may be informed more by your particular preferences in playstyle than you think. And apparently the video you're referencing doesn't agree, if it suggests using a Great Sword instead. So kindly do get of your high horse, would you? I have also at no point claimed that it is illegitimate to compare builds within a class. What's more, you can even compare them across classes as well! Possibilities are endless. It's not necessarily a very useful comparison if the different builds don't aim to fill roughly the same role though, which was my point. I can make a high DPS Fighter build and compare this to a dedicated tank Fighter build, to see which has the higher DPS; the results of such a comparison will be as predictable as they are pointless. Similarly, perhaps the point of a particular Assassin build is for example to quickly take out individual, possibly hard to reach targets. I would think it's quite reasonable to judge a build in relation to its intended role, an apparently very bizarre thought in your world. Good luck with 'generating positive discourse' though. I'm sure you'll get the hang of it some day. Given that I selectively referenced assassinate's PEN, accuracy, and damage bonuses seperately throughout my posts, basic reading between the lines would tell you that I was being reductionist (my bad) rather than ignorant about an ability that I just told you I've tested through multiple builds (which obviously include multiple playstyles and roles). You can keep using it as an excuse to be relentlessly ascerbic, but I've made it pretty clear that the crux of my argument isn't just the specific bonuses but the limited opportunities to benefit from them and their relative weakness as a result. As for "criticizing the class as a whole" rather than just melee builds, you can stop rewriting history right there – I explicitly used the word 'martial' at every opportunity to make clear the context of my argument. Again, it seems like you're more interested in cherry picking to criticize/demean than actually responding to the points being raised (actual efficacy of martial assassin builds vs other martial rogue builds, widely acknowledged problems with weapon style balancing re: full attacks, the frequency trade off between the assassin's bonus and malus, etc). You won't actually bother to look at a video that illustrates my point (he doesn't ''suggest" a great sword, he illustrates how constantly switching one in and out is basically the only way to make melee assassins compete) but you're more than happy to grab onto the one element of my description you can use to justify a blanket dismissal. You won't actually *try* a melee assassin to see how it plays vs other martial rogues, you've already made up your mind that if anybody has a negative experience with a subclass you happen to like then it must be on them rather than a possible shortcoming that could be improved. If you can't have a friendly conversation with someone you disagree with, then move on. There is zero need to be this confrontational over a disagreement about game mechanics.