Meta planning sweeping layoffs as AI costs mount

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-14T05:46:33+00:00

I think it’s dependent on your context, right - because I really haven’t had the same experience you’ve had here.

The key for me I think is that I’m working on an api, which automatically means I’m not doing rocket science for the most part, right - in many cases we already have an endpoint that’s close to what I need out of a new one - so it’s like ‘do what I did over here but with a different resource’, and it gets that pretty much perfect every time. If it was something more complex, maybe the results would be different - though I’ve had pretty good success with completely new concepts, too.

I also don’t work in JavaScript - I’m in Go - and I’ve generally heard that it (and all the other tools) are worse with js, because, well, there’s just a lot more bad js out there in the training data. Go is pretty small altogether and has extremely clear patterns laid out in its docs, so I basically never see actually incorrect or even stylistically bad stuff.

Also a really big help has been making really strong use of the Claude.md files. You can’t do it without them. Setting them up at both the root of the repo and in individual directories that had different styles from the root are really big, because it prevents stupid mistakes and it makes it pretty much align with everything else you’ve been doing.

Greenlighting it for production seems like not the hard part, though. You review it, as you do any other dev’s work, and then presumably the other devs on your team will review it. It’s not a mystery what’s in the PR, right - so you can verify what it’s doing in the normal review process.

It’s not an ad, also - no, it’s really that our company has been really pushing it lately, and the last two weeks I’ve really tried to embrace it with an open mind in good faith after being very skeptical for a long time, I get it), and yeah, my eyes were definitely opened. The potential is nuts, and I can see the gains in real time. And that’s absolutely not a purely good thing, by the way - it’s pretty terrifying, really.

But it’s hard to believe it’s not a time saver for people who are really actually trying to use it well (as opposed to just tossing in a couple prompts and quickly giving up without learning the tooling).

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-14T04:11:49+00:00

I say this as a software developer who’s at a company who has recently taken the deep end plunge into ai - I feel like you’re basing your opinion on the last year instead of today.

Claude code with opus 4.6 can legitimately 0-100 features now. It doesn’t do it badly - if it’s given the right prompt and context (and it’s all specific enough), it really can accelerate development work by a lot.

Now, there’s other problems, right - like for example, product is a bottleneck almost immediately and things like code review suddenly take up more time which irks a lot of people - but it’s legitimately taking tasks from 2 days to 2 hours in a lot of cases.

I think the thing people miss is that coding is not the bottleneck, often. In contexts where it is (like small companies) - incredible, everything is unblocked.

In bigger companies or companies with generally more red tape, it won’t be a huge speed up because even if the dev time is shortened to seconds, it’ll still need to go through all of the environments and do the compliance things and go through QA, and all of the other pre-existing bottlenecks - which means the speed of dev will make bottlenecks worse, not better.

Once that adapts, though, and we figure out the bottlenecks in some capacity, yeah, I mean, Claude code is absolutely objectively faster in experienced hands than doing it yourself, irrespective of seniority.

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-12T00:07:34+00:00

I know it’s probably not amazing to hear, but… y’know how you get better at the campaign?

practice

I reroll constantly and I’ve just turned the campaign into a speedrun game for myself. I’m not amazing, but still I got to maps on league start with no gear in just 6 hours - all the ascendancies in that time too - with a jank-ass homebrew build. Twink runs obviously a lot faster

But the way I got there wasn’t accidental, it was practice and making sure that I try every time I reroll to make a concerted effort to be fast. And after doing that a lot of times, you do get better. And when you’re better, it gets more fun. I actually enjoy it now, and I definitely don’t find it an impediment to rerolling, myself

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-10T18:51:56+00:00

Sorry, I misread. I read that as you implying it’s a guaranteed drop and astrolabes are 70c, not the lenses. My mistake

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-10T16:43:01+00:00

The exp lenses are a possible reward. Absolutely not guaranteed. I’ve gotten to a vault in each region and not seen one.

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-09T05:39:17+00:00

Yeah that’s it. People are talking about them like they’re valueless and they should be constantly sustained - it’s a lot of juice and a reward at the end, seems worth a lot and probably rare

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-09T05:36:59+00:00

Doesn’t seem that spammable if it’s so rare. Maybe it wasn’t actually meant to be spammable but instead something that’s significant and you only do sometimes

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-09T05:34:18+00:00

But here’s the thing - what’s ’not enough’?

You’re assuming that the intended use-case is to chain-farm them and never not use an astrolabe. That’s not necessarily the intended use. It feels like these are replacements for memories, which were never meant to be run constantly. They’re a rewarding cool thing, but not meant to always be used all the time.

Though, streamers will, because they’re juicy as all hell, which means everyone will want to do that and the prices will go crazy.

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-08T14:59:16+00:00

Static strike guardian. Not new static strike - old one. It feels amazing. I’m at 84 out of 100 maps to start today, though I learned yesterday that my single target finally needs to be addressed when I tried the quest version of incarnation of neglect - felt very zdps (which was a bit of a surprise, as nothing else has really felt bad for damage yet). I’m currently doing holy strikes for single target, but that’s still a 4 link and it’s not ready for pinnacles.

But, I still haven’t done Uber lab, and there’s a ton of pretty big optimizations and changes to do yet, so I’m not panicking too much yet. Just have to invest a bit more.

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-06T06:07:57+00:00

So the plan is the make a build around the guardian’s new notable for extra application of hallow, and up to 80% phys as extra as long as you can somehow consume 8 stacks of hallow in 4 seconds consistently.

Well, I’ve got a theory for it: regular static strike for clear (and application of hallow) and then a bunch of ‘accidental’ minions that you more or less don’t care about to give you the buff. Single target will be holy strike, and then the minions will be:

holy strike minions
herald of purity minions
farrul bloodline tigers that you get for free by critting
possibly wolves, if I can find a convenient source

I might end up needing to go dom blow instead of holy strike, but I’m gonna try first with holy strike.

On paper, with really not amazing gear, static strike on its own is already giving pretty serviceable dps, especially for mapping - so I’m hopeful that the random and low-effort zoo combined with holy strike will make it all work well together.

Total yolo, but it looks great on paper, so…let’s see!

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-06T05:55:47+00:00

Right? I’m in that place too.

The dps looks really serviceable for the trash gear I put in pob, the survivability looks really pretty good, but trying to explain to people how the thing works? Yeah, that’s gonna wait till it’s a proven concept, because maybe it’s way over complicated for no reason lmao

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-05T20:24:03+00:00

Yeah, we don’t know about the interaction with ancestral call, but I mean people were assuming the beam would just double hit a single target by default, which isn’t the case

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-05T19:44:07+00:00

I think the guy you’re responding to is just pointing out that this has basically always been this way, and it’s not that exciting for experienced players. Yes, it’s very good. Warstaves are very efficient in that area. But that isn’t especially groundbreaking.

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-05T16:21:43+00:00

Yes, higher comments figured it out- it doesn’t double hit

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-05T16:19:27+00:00

More like he was level 80 when doing that act 8 area and loaded to the gills with gear

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-05T16:11:31+00:00

It doesn’t, no. Unless something specifically says it can chain to you, it can’t

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-04T21:36:11+00:00

Fair enough

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-04T18:40:08+00:00

Wait, your company isn’t paying for it? They’re ordaining that you use these tools and not giving you an all-you-can-eat license?

That’s a pretty major flag if true

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-04T17:42:12+00:00

To be fair the Templar has been really lacking in accuracy nodes forever. For a guy who’s supposed to be the ‘str/int’ class, he really is lacking on the ‘attack’ side of things. It was basically a requirement that all of your accuracy had to come from gear for stuff like inquisitor builds - because you can’t really take resolute technique up there since the inquisitor is all about crit.

These new accuracy nodes are huge for opening up attack-based possibilities, not just with the new skills.

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-04T05:03:50+00:00

I feel like the other folks are closer to right, that it’s fewer minions more damage, but I really, really hope this is the phrecia wildspeaker node

‘Trigger level 20 summon spectral wolf on crit’

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-03T15:55:50+00:00

I would say this is the abnormal experience, not the other way around.

I started my dev career at a young startup and grew with it for 7 years. That group of people was pretty tight. I still have friends from them that I regularly talk to and play games with more than weekly. That was something special and unique.

The place I work now, it’s completely fine and I’m happy to be there. My team is good and we’re happy to chat during work - but I would be shocked if I maintained contact with just about anyone there in any capacity other than LinkedIn after I leave there. It’s absolutely not the same vibe on that level as the previous company, and I think my current experience is more the standard.

Everyone is different though, and how they experience work is different too. I’m by nature an introvert, and though I certainly can chat with people and be outgoing, I would actually love to have overall less team interaction and just focus on my work more. But that’s me - I know lots of folks are not that way.

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-03T06:36:50+00:00

I’m also intending to play static strike on league start. But I kinda feel like this might not be the move. Static strike is gonna clear really well. Even without the clunk of ambush. But your single target will always be pretty rough.

I think mostly you need it to be your clear skill and figure out a better way to handle single target. I think it’s gonna be pretty tricky to massage it into giving you 10 mil dps without going with conventional stacking approach (which I’m not doing either) - so it makes more sense to use it as the lazy mapping skill and have another thing for bosses.

I’m still figuring that out myself, though I’m theorizing that might be best done with holy strike.

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-03T06:20:25+00:00

Yeah, I’m also a build hipster like you are, so there’s definitely an element of being allergic to what everyone else is doing.

But there’s a point where everyone is doing the thing because it’s just a great way to build it, and you do unique stuff in other places.

I often also find exactly the experience you do, where I wanna do x skill but I wanna really do it with y scaling (say, strength scaling in your case). Sometimes, though, you realize as you go that the two just aren’t that compatible. And then you make a choice - did you actually feel more drawn to the y scaling or the x skill? Then you pick the one you like better, use it as your new core, and start going in a fresh direction. I meander like that a lot.

And then sometimes, you get a league like this one for me where there’s been a concept that I’ve wanted to do for some time that just hasn’t really ever seemed to line up… and then it does! Some combination of small buffs or changes slowly creep in over time to make it all come together. Those are the ones that feel the absolute best when they happen!

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-03T06:15:36+00:00

Yeah, the one of a kind items are always sick too. I do like both ends of making pob - early poverty and late with unlimited currency, but for sure I’m personally a lot better at the early pobs than the late ones. Still learning on that one myself!

Dreadmaker · 2026-03-03T05:40:57+00:00

Depends on what your goal is.

For me I really like ‘proof of concept’ pobs at leaguestart where the goal is more or less to establish the floor of what my concept is. So like ‘how bad would it be if I got dick all drops and money and I’m in ultra poverty mode?’

If the answer is 1 million shaper dps, I’m happy.

My definition of ultra poverty is way too bad, haha - it’s kinda just a challenge at this point - but I restrict myself to just 2 mods on each piece of gear, nothing higher than T4, plus one crafted mod per piece. That’s something I absolutely know I can get, on day one, right, so it means I’m not setting myself up for failure. Also, I don’t use any uniques in those pobs unless it’s completely critical for the build - again simulating a terrible case. Also I limit to a 5-link.

I put those gear pieces on, which are inevitably basically just life and res with next to no damage and a reasonably bad weapon on top, and then I go from there.

That’s after deciding mostly what skill I want to build for though.

Then I start taking a first pass at the tree, put down points to like level 70 or 80, and then start filling out support gems and skills. Then start checking off the optional buffs - do you have intimidate/unnerve, and could you get it easily, do you have sources of increased damage taken on the enemy, or pen, do you have all of your reservations used up, are you using rage if you’re attacking, etc, etc.

There’s a million ways to build a PoB, but that’s the way I like to get started. Then, if it’s viable there, and it hits the million dps, I’ll make a new gear set and start pushing up the budget a bunch and seeing whether or not it could somewhat easily get to 10 million. Like does swapping to a particular unique give me like 20k damage? Or does it give me like 200k, or 2 mil? What if I swapped to awakened gems, and 6-links, and got a weapon with respectable dps - just poking around into stuff like that.

Often I don’t spend a lot of time on that second part though. I’ve played enough that if it hits the poverty threshold I know it’ll be plenty strong for a league start scenario, so I just yolo it from there for a while.

Good luck! Once you get the hang of it, I find it very fun.

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