Boeroer

West Germany of 80-90s had higher income taxes, property tax, higher and longer unemployment benefits, better health care coverage (glasses, dentures), government-run railroad, government-run postal service, govern-run telephone service, higher pensions, more powerful unions, tighter controls for the financial sector, higher inheritance tax, higher contribution assessment ceilings and more stuff people would call "more left". And we had East Germany which was a self-proclaimed socialist state. So not really. EU politics are mostly neoliberal and conservative. This is also resembled by the factions of the EU parliament (from left to right - literally) : Of course it really depends on your perspective. If you have far right ideals then of course it's all pretty lefty. If you are a socialist it's all very right-wingy stuff.

Sure. Compared to what? Bolsonaro?

Would you consider yourself not a good man because you don't stick to what you know?

"I didn't attack you personally, I merely assumed you are either stupid or an obnoxious prat."

Basically any armor would work for a melee wizard. It's just so that more DR makes you slower. In early to mid game high DR has more impact than in the late game (because DR doesn't grow at the same rate as your health/endurance pool and enemies' damage output will grow). So best would be to start with the thickest armor like plate (unless you are not in the front line: then thin armor or no armor is okay) and gradually reduce it. What also works well is to use a high AR armor and boost it even more with Spirit Shield or Iron Skin or Llengrath's Safeguard. Of coue you only need that if you get hit frequently, not if you attack from the second ranks with the Lance or so. Good armor for melee wizards imo: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Raiment_of_Wael's_Eyes --> the auto-cast of Mirrored Images is nice. https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Jack_of_Wide_Waters --> survival can give you great camping bonuses and the higher you skill it the more expensive it becomes. +2 can be good at later levels and lift you over the edge to yet another camping bonus you seek (e.g. higher ACC buff against certain creatures or more flanking damage). https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Aloth's_Leather_Armor -->bigger AoE size also applies to SpiritLance's AoE https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Durance's_Robe --> great in fights where you encounter severe burn damage - e.g. Dragon/Drake Breath https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Blaidh_Golan --> one of my preferred armors anyway. Against several enemies (e.g. Ogres) the enchantments are great. https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Wayfarer's_Hide --> good against enemies like Adragans and Lagufaeth. Decent in general. The last two don't really look like something a wizard would wear though. My preferred heavy armor for melee wizards is https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Argwes_Adra

Cool - fingers crossed.

Sorry for double post again. My wife just came back from a talk with a head physician of the Charité (biggest German university hospital in Berlin, one of the biggest in Europe). He said that IC patients are dying like flies and that he never saw anything like that. Dead bodies piling up. He was pretty devastated and angry that we still don't have a hard (but short) lockdown but instead are still trying to solve this with soft (but prolonged and prolonged and prolonged...) measures. While schools and kindergardens are closed my wife still has to go to the office - because her boss said "well, we have a special work ethic here so we can't allow as much home office". Heh - as if working from home means that you instantly lose your will to work. The other ministries only have 30% of their staff in office - the rest is working from home. The foreign ministry does it the other way round.

Ohhh - good question. I never thought about that (mostly because confusion is such a weak affliction on enemies that I don't bother applying it). But good thinking.

Then I would look at clubs and flails for the modals. Especially Shattered Vengeance and Endre's Flog of Obedience. But you'd have crush damage only. So maybe Kapana Taga would be better for the slash dmg component... Furyshaper's Fear Ward is very good. Espacially if you are lowering enemies' Will with a club and also have a Wizard with Miasma. Furyshaper/Troubadour I didn't try yet but it sounds like fun.

Yes, somthing like this seems more "normal" to most Europeans I believe (allthough all that left/center/right stuff starts to dissolve in our country, too. The former pretty-left greens drift towards conservatives more and more, former overall-liberals became just neo-liberal, the CDU hopped to the left with seveal topics and some of the left started to talk like right wingers when it came to migration/immigrants). But anyway: one gets the impression that a broader (meaningful) political spectrum is impossible in the US for obscure reasons. Eh I mean obscured to me, not in general.

I will just ignore the constant personal attacks from now on. I neither have time to film my rofling wife all the time nor to draw memes of doom avatars on hobbyhorses jumping over Fulda Gaps. Doing the calculation (1% of 90 Million) was only to show that "only 1% mortility" can lead to the faulty assumption that 1% isn't much of a big deal. Sounds rather low. But it is not. Showing the number of 900,000 deaths should give a better impression. Besides that: we are not 90 million in Germany, only 83. And 1% of that also isn't a million - i just rounded generously to get some simple numbers and illustrate my point. Of course not everybody will get infected. But a lot of people who read or say "just 1%" don't realize that 1% in a densly populated country like Germany would mean nearly 1 million deaths IF everybody would get infected. Even if only 50% of the population were infected in a rel. short amount of time (which would be realistic if no countermeasurements were taken given the initial exponential spread) the consequences would be so bad that many more people would die from attendant circumstances. First of all a 1% mortility rate with an unhindered infection spread would crush the otherwise quite solid German health care system in no time, leading to many more deaths originally unrelated to Covid because of lack of health care. Mortility rates would also raise significantly as soon as not every severe case of Covid-19 could be treated properly. Triage would be normal. 1% mortility with a highly infectious disease that transmits over air in spuperspreader events is very bad. Especially now with the UK mutant. You made it sound like it's not. I believe that is wrong and irresponsible. You also made it sound like it's even less of a big deal because the virus mostly kills elderly and those with underlying conditions. If you didn't mean that but rather tht you should just protect vulnerable groups then cool. At least you don't want to imply that some lives are more valuable than others. Still: I diagree. Protecting the elderly and sick from infection with Covid-19 while the rest of us goes on with their lives doesn't work. Sweden tried that and failed. You can't visit your parrents in homes for the elderly anymore and yet they die from Covid-19. Besides that the data from Euromomo I presented also shows that a significant part of the dead were between 45 and 65 years old. Those are people who have to go to work. The highest death toll in numbers comes from people between 65 and 85. I wouldn't call people who just retired "elderly" yet. "Only the elderly and sick" sounds less threatening (especially for the young, healthy and egoistic ones), but I'm already near the age range where lots of people died. I wouldn't call me an elder yet (I'm 44): I have three young kids and a wife of 38. Pretty difficult to protect people like me from infection - especially while my kids still go to school and kindergarden. This will be problem for lots of people with underlying conditions (like asthma) as well who are young and otherwise quite healthy and active. You made it sound like it's all not that bad. But I - as well as the vast majority of citizens, media, politicians and scientists - do think otherwise. And yes, like most people I believe an actual pandemic is worse than a nuclear war that didn't happen.

I still don't understand why there are only two major parties in the US. The fall of the Weimar Republic taught us that too many tiny parties are no good either (hence we have a 5% hurdle in Germany nowadays to prevent the Bundestag from deteiorating into tiny fractures and coalitions to become too unstable) - but only two "real" alternatives sounds bad, too. Besides that it's quite weird that Democrats in the US are all labeled socialists, communists and whatnot by Republicans - while half of them would be seen like conservative (CDU) or neoliberal (FPD) in Germany and most of Europe. People like Bernie Sanders who call themselves Democratic Socialists would still fit into our moderately left SPD or be part of the pragmatic wing of Die Linke (leftists) or Die Grünen (greens) - not even part of the hardcore left. Republicans would fit into AfD (populist right wingers) and the right wings of CDU/CSU and FDP. Yet we don't have a socialst system. It seems - compared to Europe - that US's politics as a whole is shifted to the right. Obama wasn't following very left politics if you view it through the eyes of an average European voter. Why don't the green party or the libertarians etc. get more votes? Is it all the fear that the vote will be in vain what drives people to only vote blue or red? Or is tehre something else?

Yes, that's why I said "potentially".

Ouch... happy to get the Biontech one then - unless I'm already immune. I was pretty sick with a devilish cough around christmas and new year's eve but a test came back negative - didn't do an antibody test yet but will do so soon.

Ah sorry, I completely forgot that you can no longer buy the Blackwood hull but must collect the logs it nowadays. That was indeed changed in a patch. Dragonwing Sails you can still buy. On one hand it's less expensive I guess - but of course that takes a lot more time to hunt for the logs. It's a little bit meh that you can't sail to Ukaizo with the Red Dream Hull nd/or Gulskin Sails - since both are twice as strong as Blackwood Hull/Dragonwing Sails - they just make you a bit slower - but sturdy as hell.

I personally think Morning Stars are best. Also because a Barbarian can get Brute Force. With that in mind I'd also pick "The Long Night's Drink" as one of my phrases. It stacks with the Morning Star's modal. Club+modal is also nice because several invocations of the Chanter target Will. But the Willbreaker Morning Star lowers both Fortitude and Will - because of that it's my favorite Howler weapon. Spirit Frenzy lets you stagger enemies with all attack rolls you do, so Barbaric Yell etc. will all also stagger - which stacks with Long Night's Drink and Morning Star to a fortitude debuff of 25+10+10=45. Once you get Brute Force it's crit time. That's why a Skald also works very well. But a Troub. can have two phrases overlapping easily which is cool as well. Anyway, using a yell or shout + Spirit Frenzy and Long Night's Drink + Willbreaker will lead to severely debuffed Will and Fortitude which is awesome. And once you get the Champion invocation you can interrupt with ALL crits you cause - including those from phrases like the Long Night bit also Carnage, Yell/Shout, offensive invocations and so on. That makes it a real pain in the ass to fight you. You will interrupt all the time. While debuffig enemies severely. As a Troub. it's beneficial to then use Brisk Recitation because then you'll interrupt every 3 secs instead of every 6 with chants. But I'm sure you can also do good things with a different approach. That's just the way I like a Howler best.

You can buy the hull and sails you need and it's not that expensive compared to buying a bigger ship and equipping it with the good stuff etc. That way you don't need to side with a faction that would provide other means of reaching Ukaizo (like submarine or ghost ship). Of course getting one of those costs nothing (I mean money). It's true that you don't need to do ship combat and therefore don't need to buy anything for your ship if you want to resolve every ship encounter with boarding. Ship to ship combat just gives you the advantage to be able to take on overleveled ships a lot sooner because sailor/captain XP is independent from level. That way you can win ship fights and get the better loot (and even some uniques) a lot sooner as you would be able to if you chose boarding. And it's not even expensive. You only need some decent cannons and two master cannoneers. Also when you go solo ship combat is a lot easier than boarding fights imo. But yes: not mandatory at all.

Also spares you all the turmoil in the forums that happens in the first weeks after release.

Did you read that they found a potential patient zero - in Italy? From November 2019 which predates the cases in China. The article is in Italian. But maybe somebody saw an English one?

Only if you stick to the Fulda Gap. That's clearly your hobbyhorse.

I just watched Josh's post mortem of Deadfire again and he said something about 3 DLCs vs. 1 big DLC: the overhead work and costs for launching multiple small DLCs was much higher than if you'd release one big DLC. So maybe our idea isn't that great after all (at least for devs).

Well, Israel and the UK vaccinate a LOT faster than any EU country at the moment. It's true that it's not only a problem with the numbers of doses but also with the distribution and appliance. In Israel you can get vaccinated via drive-in or drive-through. In Germany that's not possible because you have to fill out more forms and get more intensely lectured about the vaccine than you would have before difficult surgery (this is no joke, I spoke about that to a surgeon a few days ago). I get that they don't want to scare people and inform them very well. But maybe this is too much paperwork in this situation - no idea. My mother in law (70) got a new hip this week. Would have been cool to get vaccinated before that I guess.

Oh boy, you should really watch Josh Sawyers post mortem for Deadfire. He named the ship combat "quicksand": no matter how much money and resources you threw at it, it was swallowed and gave nothing back. Here (it's interesting - he's giving great talks imo) :

https://news.avclub.com/dave-mustaine-thinks-obama-staged-the-shootings-in-colo-1798232868 Wouldn't have surprised me if Dave Mustaine was at the capitol. But he's a big fan of Santorum and Santorum didn't like that, so maybe not. Maybe Billy Corgan was there? Ach... I used to really like The Smashing Pumpkins when I was young. Morrissey, too. Damn...

Sorry double post: There's no doubt that individual european nations had to face bigger challenges than Corona after WWII: The collapse of Yugoslavia, the Greek financial crisis (Greece handles Corona well so far), Nicolae Ceaușescu in Romania... On the other hand the Corona pandemic still isn't over yet. And given how lousy the vaccination goes in most of Europe due to the chicken-hearted purchase orders of the EU I fear it won't go away as soon as I'd hope for.