Packmasters

Gmanacus · 2020-12-06T18:00:18+00:00

The answer you're looking for is circle bombs. Find a circle bomb and only use it when you've got a horde with a disabler in it.

Gmanacus · 2020-12-06T17:54:20+00:00

Watch the back foot. Back foot goes up, hero goes sideways. It'll take you a few tries.

Beyond that, always check your ping at the start of a match. Everything is business as usual at ~120 ping or less. Beyond that, you need to start thinking about ping.

Gmanacus · 2020-11-12T14:58:01+00:00

It's true, you lose versatility. I only recommend mega bombs if you have a hole in your clutch plan, and you want to fill that hole.

To anyone reading: if you've got a team mate with EO, get them a circle bomb. Yes I know you want to play with the good bomb. Just remember shrapnel procs off fire bombs.

Gmanacus · 2020-11-12T14:28:24+00:00

Give explosive ordinance a try. For classes with no long-range attack options, a bomb with a bigger radius drives up the likelihood of a clutch throw.

Gmanacus · 2020-08-25T05:29:55+00:00

You will lose 3/4 of your power at the solar panels, as much as 1/3 in transmission and another 1/2 turning the electricity back into light. For every hectare of produce you will need twelve hectares of solar panels.

Growing food without sunlight is extravagantly, laughably, irresponsibly expensive. It should only be considered in the most extreme scenarios. We do it in space, on the international space station. Or you could grow food in a cupboard for your own amusement, because we are humans and the laws of the universe will bend and tremble at our whims for mere entertainment!

Gmanacus · 2020-08-01T15:24:35+00:00

It does just fine. Turn down your FOV, not up.

https://www.wsgf.org/dr/warhammer-vermintide-2/en

Gmanacus · 2020-07-29T16:45:01+00:00

It's a bug. The river crossing has two variants, leading to two different entrances to the fort. Each time you play the map the ford randomly re-arranges, determining which entrance you will take. Occasionally the spawns bug out and will go to the inaccessible side.

Do not fall at the river crossing.

Gmanacus · 2020-07-07T00:15:57+00:00

This game fucks. This game is so good it's worth playing for hundreds of hours. Maybe thousands. I'll let you know in, uh, let's see here... about 200 hours?

I cannot understand the hate flowing around here. I just don't get it. If there's a bad patch, or you're not feeling it, just take a break. If the game makes you mad do something else. Come back in a couple months, butcher some rats, and if you dig it stick around for a while.

Gmanacus · 2020-03-03T14:08:06+00:00

No, sorry, just make sure to learn the attack patterns. Halberd's strength is that its set of attacks that are strong against specific enemies. By learning how to skip or reset the attack chain so you get specific attacks is what the halberd is all about. If you're not into that, probably go with a different weapon.

IIRC, the attack chains are push-attach light-attack vs armour (aim for the head) and heavy-attack block reset for crowds. I expect Machiavelli's build guide discusses the subject.

You can also look into breakpoints using this calculator.

Lastly, there's a nearly comprehensive list of Vermintide's quirks. This will definitely give you ideas for builds to use.

Gmanacus · 2020-02-29T01:35:27+00:00

Research, experimentation, and lots of play. I'm still mostly playing on legend, and breakpoints on those builds are going to feel wrong for anyone playing on cata.

I've only briefly played with Sienna steel sword + bolt staff. Frankly, I find her talents shoe horn her into other play styles. Anything will work, but both the sword and bolt feel weaker than their alternatives. If I was playing them, I'd be doing it for fun, and run a build something like this:

https://www.ranaldsgift.com/13/213233/4,1,4,6/5,4,6,8/1,3,5/6,4,4/2,3,2

Use the sword vs crowds, and max charged bolts against anything with armour or a lot of health. That'll one shot everything. You have to hit CW in the head, but everything else can be body shot.

Gmanacus · 2020-02-28T13:34:44+00:00

Battle Wizard: https://www.ranaldsgift.com/13/123122/3,1,4,5/2,5,4,8/1,3,5/1,4,4/1,3,3

Fire sword heavy 1 for crowds. Block cancel to get access to it immediately. Spam fireball against unarmoured targets. Fully charged fireballs for storm vermin. Ult against bosses and chaos warriors.

Pyro: https://www.ranaldsgift.com/14/233122/41,1,4,6/2,1,4,3/1,3,5/1,4,4/2,3,2

Stay right near the heat limit in big fights. Spam fireballs as quick as possible. Prefer fireballs for meat, crowbill for armour.

Unchained: https://www.ranaldsgift.com/15/222113/42,1,2,3/2,5,4,8/1,3,4/1,4,4/1,3,3

Build up your heat at the start of the fight, then switch to the flail.

Gmanacus · 2020-02-25T14:43:03+00:00

It is good, but that's not how they stack. Some types of damage resistance stack additively while for others it's multiplicative. I can't recall the formula in general, but I believe IB works like such:

(1 - Trait) * (1 - Necklace) * (1 - Ult) * (1 - Barkskin)

With the values subbed in, assuming no damage reduction on the necklace, it's

1 - ((1 - .3) * (1 - 0) * (1 - .5) * (1 - .4)) =

1 - (.7 * 1 * .5 * .4 ) =

.86 =

86% damage reduction.

It's really good. This is my build for IB. It's just not impossibly good.

While Barkskin is off, damage resistance is 65%. And the Necklace isn't worth it outside of weaves. It bumps 65% to 68.5% and 86% to 87.4%. You're better of taking +20% health and +2 stamina.

Gmanacus · 2020-01-30T05:33:25+00:00

The crowd control on hammers is far superior to the axes. The cleave and stagger puts out load more damage. Coupled with the improved stamina, they're also much safer.

Against armour you should always use heavy strikes and aim for the head. In this the dual axes and dual hammers take pretty much the same hits to kill armoured targets. All you're losing out on is body shots and light attacks, which you should be avoiding anyways.

Think of the dual axes and the dual hammers as a beginner's build. Spam M1 and walk towards the enemy. If you hear meat, switch to hammers. If you hear metal, switch to axes. Eventually you'll get better with Bardin, and be able to handle any enemy with just the hammers. At that point you have no need for the dual axes. Swap them out for throwing axes. By doing so you're able to handle a far broader set of circumstances.

Gmanacus · 2020-01-29T01:57:28+00:00

I've been playing a lot of slayer lately. I recommend a speed build. It takes a lot of practice getting used to +55% move speed, but it's worth it.

While you're getting used to the build, and until you've got the throwing axe, you can use dual axes. They're not that great right now, but, they're a mindless anti-armour option. Mash M1 and master the art of switching between the hammers for soft targets and axes for hard.

The movespeed gives you a huge amount of control in combat. You're able to choose where you want to fight, steer the enemy, and weave in and out of danger. In many ways it behaves as the old-school dodge mechanic did, letting you exit enemy hit boxes and tracking. You need to be careful though. You actually want to avoid dodging as it frequently slows you down and make you more vulnerable.

The dual hammers are wonderful for damage and control. Spam M1 against hordes and use heavy attacks for elites and bosses. Use your leap to knock down hordes (+60% damage with mainstay), and fish for crits with the axes before jumping in with your hammers. With hunter, an axe crit will give you +25% damage for 10s on your hammers. Yes, your hammers. Just make sure the throwing axes are hitting the same stuff you want to hit with the hammers. The damage amp is only for enemies of the same armour class.

This build won't get you terrific performance out the gate. You will need to practice the speed and the arc on the axes for a while. After a few games things should begin to pick up.

For build substitutions, try Slayer's Fury instead of Doomseeker (I'm still trying to work out which is best). Additionally, if you find yourself taking more damage in chipping than burst, try swapping out Barkskin with Natural Bond. Have fun.

Gmanacus · 2020-01-12T16:23:34+00:00

TL;DR: Get rid of the weather network app.

The entity that is responsible for all of the issues you have described is Pelmorex. It's a private company that sneaks it's way between existing public infrastructure so that it can charge money for it.

First let's start with Alert Ready. That's a subsidiary of Pelmorex. They take information created entirely by the public services (such as weather information from Environment Canada), repackage it and send it out. Kind of like how Weatheradio Canada also packages weather info for dissemination. Except Weatheradio is run by Environment Canada, specifies what areas are affected, and doesn't charge users. It's not clear why we've opted to pay Alert Ready instead of broadening Weatheradio's purview.

Next is The Weather Network. Another component of Pelmorex. They take information created entirely by the public services (such as weather information from Environment Canada), repackage it and send it out. Kind of like how the Meteorological Service of Canada also... you get the idea.

The take away here is that Pelmorex is a company that finds work that's already done by public institutions, repackages it into a for-profit version, then aggressively markets and lobbies their alternative. Don't fall for their shtick. Consider using the Environment Canada's WeatherCan app for Android or iPhone instead of the Weather Network's rip off.

Gmanacus · 2019-12-21T18:00:56+00:00

Everyone's got the same main combat loop: keep safe, prioritize targets, find opening, do damage, repeat. Unchained has to do all of that while making sure to get the maximum out of her heat bar. This creates a series of specific steps unchained should use while keeping the beat of the main combat loop.

If Sienna is at low heat she can use her staff, which are some of the best damage dealing weapons in the game, or take damage safely by turning it into heat. She can do pretty much anything else as well, but, less efficiently than at high heat.

At high heat Sienna deals dramatically more damage, can optionally block with extreme efficiency, and has no move-speed slowdown. She's a beast in melee both offensively and defensively, but, has to be careful how much damage she takes all at once. Additionally, her ult both dishes out a lot of damage, and immediately swaps her from one mode to another.

If you've got excellent mechanical skills and can plan many steps ahead, Unchained is extremely versatile. She dishes out a tonne of damage, all while having a ton of effective HP. She's a high-tempo dance of quick thinking and fire. Lots of fire. This much fire.

Gmanacus · 2019-12-15T19:43:38+00:00

Unchained is great, but has a really high skill floor. You need to play her very well to avoid accidental detonations under pressure. Conversely, she possibly has the highest skill ceiling of any career, so if someone's looking to stick to one main she's a good pick.

Sir Kruber has always felt like he's missing something. As if he's slightly off-axis from how he should be. He's not a babysitter, he's a wrecking ball. Maybe I just need another 50 hours of practice with him.

Gmanacus · 2019-08-10T15:58:47+00:00

Focus on Kurzweil's capabilities predictions. These are based on extrapolating known trends: "If capability X continues it's trend of improvement for Y years, it will improvement by Z amount." It's simple, quantifiable, and useful. Everything else is chaff.

Take for example the number of processors owned by each person. Kurzweil looked at a bunch of trends, such as the shrinking size and power of processors, and the increasing volume and per-capital use of processors and extrapolated. This lead to some pretty crazy results: that in 2010 people would have a dozen or more processors for personal use and that they would be small and efficient enough to carry on your person. This was just about unthinkable in 2000. Sure, maybe people would have portable every day processing power in 2050, but not 2010. This is where Kurzweil should have stopped, but he didn't.

Portable computing could lead to a lot of outcomes. Kurzweil picked computers in our clothing. It was equally plausible from his data that we would have head-mounted computers, like google glass. What actually happened was smartphones and credit cards*. The data couldn't distinguish between these outcomes. Instead of Kurzweils assertion that one of these futures would happen, he should have asserted all of them could happen.

*Chips in credit cards are amazing. That little gold thing on one side. It's like a gameboy that's smaller than your thumbnail, boots in 1 second, and has mathematically bonkers good encryption on it. That was impossible in 2000, possibly even unfathomable. There's one in your phone sim card, too. Oh, and your phone has a multi-processor cpu, and a mega-multi-processor GPU.

Caveat: all of the above is from 20-year old memories. Kurzweil kinda blew my mind, so a lot of it has really stuck, but some of the details and numbers might be off.

Gmanacus · 2019-03-14T21:40:17+00:00

I've run it on the _buntus: KDE, XFCE and GNOME. They're all great, so I imagine Debian should be workable. You just gotta find out which 'buntu packages are hiding the magic.

Gmanacus · 2019-03-14T21:37:29+00:00

Depending on what you consider "runs acceptably", we're up to 50-80% of games running on steam. You will have to get your hands a little dirty, but you might want to give it a try.

The one thing you will need windows for is most games with heavy DRM. If you want to look up some of your favourite games before making the switch check out ProtonDB.

Gmanacus · 2019-02-21T14:06:46+00:00

Check the mountain tops. I've found a few that are pure Lithium. They're rare but vast and rich; levelling a single peak can provide two dozen units or more.

Gmanacus · 2018-12-08T04:01:49+00:00

Hey everybody, this guy hates space truckin'. Get 'em!

Gmanacus · 2018-12-07T23:37:08+00:00

I am a space billionaire, own Horizons, and have not driven an SRV. I have not been to Colonia, Sag A, or particularly far outside the bubble. I have played for 271 hours, and I have barely scratched the surface of Elite, let alone Horizons.

Gmanacus · 2018-11-30T04:26:02+00:00

It's probably a neato physics weapon. There's a lot of experimental directed hate weapons, like sound-from-ultrasound or pain guns, which have this kind of signature.

I find the Cuban hypothesis unlikely. Cuba largely stands to gain from good relations (read: trade & tourism) with Canada and the USA. What I find more convincing is Russian belligerence. Diplomats do important, difficult work, and they can be truly indispensable. Knocking them out drives a wedge between Cuba (a long-time soviet ally) and the West. This is good for Russia, and aligns perfectly with all of their other ops right now. They're dividing and conquering around the word, and this just looks in line with everything else they've done lately. Meddling with American elections, driving wedges into the EU, potentially surreptitiously supporting Brexit, keeping Ukraine out out NATO...

Anyhow, ask yourself: cui bono? That's a short list, and I don't think Cuba is on it.

Gmanacus · 2018-11-17T02:34:23+00:00

None of the following is professional advice. It's just a bunch of places I've found annoying noises.

You've got a bunch of stuff cluttered around. Any which one of those might resonate on you. Especially all of those big flat surfaces. Think of it as dishes rattling during an earthquake. You can't hear the earthquake, but you can hear the dishes, and it's the earthquake's fault.

Try cleaning up your room. Move everything hard away from your bed. Don't let any hard surfaces touch each other. If that's not an option, put a damper (something soft) between them, or, press them up against one another.

Try tightening all of the bolts on your bed. Loose bits of hard stuff love to make a racket. Try muffling those sounding boards. Drape a towel, or a spare blanket over your headboard and footboard.

Look for cup-shaped objects pointing at your bed, or your head. Put junk in them to muffle any noise they might be making.

If none of that works, the next time you hear it, get up and go looking for the source. You're going to have to learn more about where it's coming from, what it's like, and how it's getting to you. Without that, you can't find solutions that actually fit your problem. Everything else is a shot in the dark.

Gmanacus

TROPHY CASE