This is my passive tree plan.

I was considering getting some +chaos damage support gem, since it'd basically double the base damage of Firestorm, but it won't benefit from +elemental/+fire damage, so eh.

On my actual character, I'm currently sitting on one point away from CI, not gonna grab it until I've got plenty of ES and possibly GR/VP.

I'm doing SSF, so I dunno if I'm going to be able to get specific Uniques. This is basically my 2nd character, so I don't know a whole lot about building and have probably made a lot of mistakes.

i only played it for about 4 hours but i am honestly enjoying mass effect andromeda a lot so far, i have not seen many glitches though i know its an unfinished mess but i am still having fun so far

I would suggest saving up some skill points and getting CI and the nodes behind it, Ghost Reaver and Vaal Pact all at the same time.

Some suggested edits, if you're shooting for CI and crit: for great damage! Also if you wind up sticking with Firestorm, you'll definitely want to work Potency of Will and/or Exceptional Performance into the build as that will mean more fireballs falling from the sky. If you're going for single big hit skills like Flameblast or Fireball rather than lots of little hits like Firestorm, Beacon of Ruin is a super powerful Ascendancy node if you're going crit for fire as it will spread your giant ignites and kill everything super fast even screens away.

Some potential problems: getting stunned a lot. Stuns are based off of damage taken vs. max life, so as CI almost everything will stun you unless you go to the far side of the tree to get Unwavering Stance, get the Eye of Chayula amulet for stun immunity, or that new Valyrium ring that makes the stun threshold based of ES instead of life. Freeze works the same way so expect to get frozen a lot. The Auxium belt is good, otherwise keep an anti-freeze flask on you after you go CI.

Also, how do you plan on dealing with mana issues? Warlord's Mark on a Blasphemy aura can work well if you don't mind getting up close, or something like Orb of Storms/Ball Lighting-Curse on Hit-AoE-Warlord's Mark. A second curse for Flammability would be great, too, hence going for that Whispers of Doom node on my tree.

Why SSF, out of curiosity? Just for the personal challenge of it? There are tons of build-enabling uniques that are so common people practically give them away. Some of the interactions between skills and items is so cool that I couldn't imagine skipping out on them.

Earlier I was theorycrafting a Deadeye that uses the Chin Sol bow (100% more damage at close range and knocks enemies back), the Point Blank keystone that works the same way, the Emperor's Grasp gauntlets that reverse knockback direction, and ranged attack totems set up with Shrapnel Shot (which does more damage to close-up enemies in a cone) along with two of the new threshold jewels for Shrapnel Shot that increase that AoE cone and will double the damage. Should be pretty insane damage with the relative safety of using totems that suck enemies toward them and away from me.

i dont think anyone really cares because it doesnt really affect anyone but outlast 2 has been unbanned and the uncut version will be on sale in Australia so yay

And here I was thinking Australia had good taste in banning terrible games...

well they did ban Syndicate back in 2012

Well I "100%"ed HZD. I mean, I haven't got all the data points, but the game still says I got 100%. Last thing I needed was one sidequest that had glitched out for me (thanks 1.11), and one that I had missed that requires you to fight two thunderjaws and a bigbirb. Not at once, unfortunately. Would've been fun to watch two Thunderjaws vs. a Stormbird.


Yeah I was planning on that CI/GR/VP thing. CI seems really dangerous if you don't have a good way to sustain it.

TBH I really undervalued ignite because I didn't look up what it did, and figured it was a kind of weak DoT. After I looked it up, I realized I might want to actually take it into account, lol. I'm still not sure how worthwhile it is on Firestorm, though. Does it stack with multiple hits? I can see it being really strong on Flameblast, but if it doesn't stack with multiple hits, then it seems not-great with Firestorm.

I might just swap to Flameblast anyways, I just got that skill and it's actually a pretty neat mechanic.



I'm aware of the stun thing, and not really sure what I'm gonna do about it other than just chance spam amulets and hope to get lucky. Or kite, kiting works.



IDK I'm kinda used to D2 where eventually you get enough +mana and +mana regen as secondary stats on otherwise good items, that you just never really have to worry about it. Also mana pots.

SSF is just how I like to play ARPGs.


gravity shotgun

Chancing is...not a good idea. Takes a ludicrous amount to get a unique so people mostly only use it for the extremely rare/expensive ones like Skyforth or Headhunter. Kiting works...until it doesn't. It's not so simple with spells you have to stop and cast, especially flameblast, which you have to stand still to channel until it gets to max stacks and explodes. It's really hard to pull off self-cast, which is why flameblast spell totems are a popular build.

Lots of mana and regen is...ok...but it's almost always better to reserve almost all of your mana with auras/heralds/Arctic Armor/Blasphemy curses and use leech to sustain. I mean, which is better: having mana and regen to cast firestorm, or reserving 35% of your mana to put blasphemy-Warlord's mark on everything, giving you mana leech so no mana issues anyway, a bunch of life leech to keep you alive, endurance charges on kill to make you harder to kill, and making enemies super easy to stunlock? The only reason to have a large mana pool is if you're going lowlife and running auras on life instead of mana via blood magic (in which case most people run some auras on mana, too) or along with Mind over Matter in mana tank builds.

Enemies can only have one active ignite (the biggest one) unless you have the ring Emberwake, which lets you stack up to 300 ignites per enemy.

Anyway if you're intentionally gimping your character by running SSF then you probably should stop getting any sort of build advice on the internet as that's at least as "cheating/unethical" as trading a chaos orb for a unique item someone else found.

Finally back home after being out of town for a day and a half (exhausting trip), so now I have a brutal dilemma in front of me:

- finish Horizon: Zero Dawn
- start the DS3 DLC while the arena/online activity will be its busiest
- play the new Nioh missions that just came out

Why is Q1 so damn crazy, man?? #thestruggleisreal

I'd say D3 takes priority, if only because the other two things aren't going anywhere anytime soon, whereas online activity is a fickle, ephemeral thing

B-but I'm near the end of Horizon and I wanna know the rest of the story (it's really really good you guys, I'm honestly surprised at how cool it is)

Yes, but where is your hunger for glory and the salty tears of PvP noobs, uh? Where is it, Morrigan?

Finally finished HZD.

Holy shit this story is really really good. Best video game story? Maybe. So much to unravel, and while it's a self-contained story there's tons of sequel bait too.

John Gonzalez, you done good

the main thing i dislike about mass effect andromeda is the fact that you cant be a jerk, in the original series you were shooting unarmed people, punching reporters in the face, just being a general jerk but in andromeda you cant do anything mean

Does anyone still play World of Warcraft? I just switched realms after all of this time, to a PVE only realm. It sucks only being a level 65, but its kind of interesting to do all of the old world quests again.

I bought Stardew Valley and pretty much played it the entire weekend. It is so good.

I quit playing hardcore about 5 years ago, and quit altogether 3 years ago. :V

That's cool to hear. I'm going to check it out myself.

It's addictive. There's so much more to it than just farming. That's the lamest pitch I've ever come up with definitely but, IT'S A GREAT GAME TRUST ME!

Like I've put in so many hours so far and I don't even think I've scratched the surface.

Stardew is worth it for the Skull Cavern alone. Sooooo much fun making bombs and speeding your way down the levels.

I'm still playing just spent like 95k or something to keep my sub going actually, that hurt a bit considering I don't have alts or anything like that haha. I quit playing hardcore about 6 years ago myself, but Legion is fun and I always find myself with something to do.

Nioh's mission "Iga-style" broke me.

I think I may hate ninjas now...

Morrigan is a Japanophobe, insulting my waifus 2-B, Leon and Bayonetta like that two pages ago! How dare you baka senpai!
Currently playing Crysis (the game from ten years ago), which is overrated in the first half, underrated in the second half, great before it begins and shit after it ends. In any case, half-life 2 is better than half-life 1.

Ah, Crysis.

If Crysis was a console game when it launched, it'd be:

- the most influential single-player shooter of last gen (instead of CoD4)
- a universally accepted showcase of technology as well as strong art design
- recognized more widely for its innovative sandbox gameplay

But it was PC exclusive for a few years, so it's:

- "That game that came out in 2007 with the graphics. The one I convinced myself ten years ago looked ugly and had bad gameplay solely because I was mad fuckin' jelly."

For real, every time I see someone call it a tech demo or say it looked bad, part of me dies.

It's a tech demo and it looks bad
It's a tech demo and it looks bad
It's a tech demo and it looks bad
It's a tech demo and it looks bad
It's a tech demo and it looks bad
etc.

If Crysis was a console game when it launched it would've ripped a hole in the space-time continuum and would've needed to be corrected by the U.S.S. Relativity (have you gotten this far yet, batman?)

Crysis has some impressive features that have held up well even a decade later, but it still suffers from some seriously awful AI (I'd need more than 2 hands to count the number of times I saw Koreans run into each other, falling hilariously on their asses), deathtrap vehicles, lame turret sections and half of the suit abilities being essentially useless (strength and speed).

It's a great tech demo though!

The AI has this weird tendency to trip over each other, sure, but beyond that it's quite good. I can't think of any other games at the time that had AI nearly as good in such sprawling levels (even games like FEAR that are lauded for it rely on narrow corridors).

I don't get the rest. What does "deathtrap vehicles" mean? There's only one turret section, and it's in the alien section of the game (which everybody already agrees sucks). Strength and speed are amazing and I used them all the time.

i am going to get a soulsish game soon in the next month or so, bloodborne game of the year edition or nioh? i can get the other one later but i can only handle one soulsish game at a time

To be serious, I think one of the biggest problems with Crysis (not counting the alien stuff, obviously) is how once you get spotted, every enemy soldier in a group knows exactly where you are and can hit you with pinpoint accuracy from 800 miles away, even if you're in a bush and only one guy really saw you and you already shot him. Not such a big deal when it's just squads of guys, but when you're assaulting those bases and they have tanks and shit, it gets really silly.

I do think the enemy vision is a bit too good, but it forces you to use all of your abilities instead of approaching it like a typical stealth game, where enemies can see about ten feet in front of their faces. It's like the Predator game we always wanted but never got: You actually have to think before going in, because the enemies can actually see, and are more than capable of taking you down if they spot you.

It still pains me that Crysis is so underrated while pretentious games with awful gameplay like BioShock are praised as classics, when Crysis largely delivered on the type of gameplay Irrational implied BioShock would have. I find myself having to go back to Deux Ex to find similarly open and interesting combat situations.

What do you guys think are the odds that EA/Bioware will fix some of the massive issues in Mass Effect: Andromeda? Probably nonexistent, eh?

How active were they in fixing bugs/gameplay issues in ME3? I played that a year after it came out so I don't recall whether it was similarly unstable upon release.

Yeah but there's a middle ground between those two extremes. It's just fucking silly at the hardest difficulties where you shoot one guy on one side of the base and another guy on the opposite side immediately snaps around and headshots you. IIRC the original Far Cry did it better, but that might just be nostalgia talking as I haven't played it in years. I do agree in general that Crysis is underrated, but the dumb ending and generally bad story probably had a lot to do with that, along with being generally unplayable at the time except on total beast rigs. However it definitely has a lot of replayability, and I think it's been appreciated more as time has gone on. Its graphics have done a lot to "future proof" the game.

Kind of reminds me of the psychic AI (and homing grenades!) in the Stalker series, though they at least got that a bit under control for Call of Pripyat.

Dude Stalker is fucking BRUTAL on the hardest difficulties, especially in the beginning when you have shit armor and shit guns. You basically HAVE to get headshots to kill anyone, and all your guns have garbage accuracy. I still think the first game is the best though, just because of its amazing atmosphere and level design, plus it has by far the best story. Call of Pripyat is great too though.

Yeah, I think SoC has the best atmosphere & dungeons while CoP has the best overworld map & open-world engine. Combining the two would be beautiful - GSC games reformed, so we can always hope Stalker 2 gets uncancelled?!

Man, one can only hope. There was a weird progression in the series, like you could tell they were learning how to make games as they went. Call of Pripyat gets a tad too "game-y" though, like with finding the artifacts. It was a neat system, but I kind of like how you could just find them lying all over the ground in SoC. Felt more "real" than having those little "find the artifact" minigames in the anomaly areas.

But then SoC just had really fucking stupid mechanics like equipment with durability but no way to repair it, and quest lines for factions that got really hard but only ever gave you garbage-tier rewards...there's a sweet spot between realism and game that they kind of straddled with SoC and CoP, never quite hitting it directly.

Yeah that's why I usually play them these days with mods (the Complete mod for each game is usually the best). There was a really promising mod for CoP in development called Wormwood, but its creator cancelled it a few months ago.

The Complete mods do a lot to fix some things, but they muck around a bit too much with the bullet physics I think - in the original SoC, you had to worry about bullet arcing and such, but IIRC the Complete mods make them just go in a straight line like in most games. Not game-breaking or anything, but it reduces the difficulty and realism by a lot, and makes it more like a standard FPS.

Still one of my all-time favorite FPS series, though.

Same. And now I'm imagining a Stalker game with as robust a gun physics engine as Arma III - of which I've been spending way too much time playing its open-world/sandbox maps, since that's about the closest thing you could get to a new Stalker these days haha.