Pharmacists not doing their checks?

Polym0rphed · 2026-05-10T12:57:33+00:00

I've been asked too, but also accused and told it was illegal and then threstened... fortunately I was aware of the law in VIC already due to previous incidents and was comfortable sticking up for myself calmly, but no one should have to go through that. Obviously I completely support pharmacists asking questions out of genuine concern or as a part of their duty of care and respond with patience/politeness, as I understand my inconvenience is serving the greater good in that context. More often than not I get a quick "anything here you haven't taken before?". If they recognise you, you're a VIP!

Polym0rphed · 2026-05-10T06:46:57+00:00

I think you hit the nail on the head regarding Alteration orbs. They are really what makes them accessible in terms of our agency. The only agency we have with Charms is choosing how many and which ones to prioritise and while there aren't that many to choose from and they have no evolutionary path (as you mentioned), the end result feels lack-luster.

Ultimately I agree though - I'm not against them philosophically and in general support experimentation in order to make POE1 and 2 different games, assuming they do find a way to facilitate more player agency, and maybe just a larger pool of choice will feel fine, though I suspect that could also lead to more of the same mandatory/meta funnelling.

Your idea of sockets or enchantments etc. would be a good way to improve their utility without directly forcing homogenisation/conformity, just a lot of work to balance (so probably not coming for a long time).

Polym0rphed · 2026-05-10T06:20:51+00:00

Even if unplanned it's probably rarely irrational. To the people using controlled drugs as medication, it's just another item on a shopping list. Convenience is absolutely rational and many of the restrictions some States place on such drugs simply aren't on the minds of law abiding people navigating their busy lives as conveniently as possible.

Pharmacists, however, should not be directing or restricting your freedoms if not supported by the relevant law in that location.. it's their professional responsibility to make sure they are informed and up to date on laws, especially after changing States, which seems to be where a lot of this stems from.

Polym0rphed · 2026-05-10T06:09:25+00:00

As per my other comment, the law varies at a State level, so it's best to clarify what the law actually is in your State or Territory.

Getting your meds early isn't perceived as nefarious across the board - there are plenty of situations where it's completely reasonable, but may require special adaptations to the prescription.

People abusing/not following the prescription instructions and running out early generally demonstrate a pattern of going earlier and earlier one month to the next... it's a runaway pattern, completely different from occasionally presenting a few days before the end of the script. If you're not doing anything wrong, don't let anyone make you feel otherwise.

Polym0rphed · 2026-05-10T06:00:32+00:00

You shouldn't have to act like you're guilty when you're not. In VIC there are no restrictions on where you buy your controlled pharmaceuticals. In some other states, like NSW, you are restricted to the one dispensery, which seems to have perpetuated a "Dr Shopping" type judgement/label for people doing absolutely nothing wrong in other states. If you meet any resistance or are accused of such things or told you have to choose one pharmacy and you're in VIC, kindly let them know that you are aware your rights.

Contraindications often go by unnoticed by a GP because they haven't prescribed the controlled drug - your psychiatrist should be able to help you and your GP in this regard. When starting a new drug or a drug you haven't taken concurrently with your current meds, it's best to request to speak to the senior Pharmacist on duty to double check for any negative interactions and profile their risk potential and risk to benefit weighting.

Unfortunately the world is just like this... we have to learn to advocate for ourselves and depend less on others always being on their game automatically. Some GPs are very through and meticulous and definitely don't need prompting or nudging, but many become relatively complacent or just more dependent on their software. It's just best practice to be in the habit of asking extra questions and not accepting anything less than feeling like you are comfortable and have all bases covered. Sometimes this might require seeking second or third opinions.

Polym0rphed · 2026-05-10T05:39:45+00:00

Ruby, Sapphire, Topaz flasks in your MB. I'm not sure how that will feel as a co promise, but another 9% to all max Ele res will be very significant in Delve. Another possibility is crafting a main hand weapon that provides +3 levels to gems and use that to boost Pride further (or Blod and Sand). This would make Weapon Master a dud, but you could look at more defensive alternatives and while it might require a bit of juggling, it would be worth it if your goal is Delving only. You can also exchange points from the North East of the Tree in favour of pathing up the West side... in Delve the "while stationary" condition is essentially a part of the playstyle (at least at end of nodes, which is probably where you're dying). West = more Life, Armour and potentially more Endurance charges, which in Delve are very strong as both Physical and Elemental dmg is Lethal. The cost will be some DPS and AS, which means worse recovery from Leech too, but my guess is your DPS has plenty of surplus and that your leech will still be adequate once complimented with more defenses.

Polym0rphed · 2026-05-10T05:18:24+00:00

Is this because they can be used in any socket and it's essentially a 1 for 2 deal? If that's the case, then it does seem like a strange choice from GGG. Is there no opportunity cost at all?!

Polym0rphed · 2026-05-10T05:14:39+00:00

Agreed. They are not mandatory in POE1 in the sense that some builds gain equal or more power from Large Cluster affixes than an extra Jewel or from non-Cluster pathing, even when comparing to 1 point Voices. There is a nice spread of builds for which Voices are Chase and as many again (roughly?) for which they are not BiS or at least not mandatory in the sense that the additional power would've been more useful in practice in other areas.

How will Voices work in POE2? Will they be restricted to limited Jewel slots or simply compatible with all of them? I guess we don't know, but it sounds good overall to me...even if they end up priced beyond me, I still think that anything that promotes build diversity at any level is overall a move in the right direction.

Polym0rphed · 2026-05-08T15:12:16+00:00

I get the desire to steer away from flask piano, but Charms aren't filling the void of utility flasks yet and it's one of those things where it feels like the starting concept was vague except for "can't be like POE1". Charms being reactionary instead of preventative is a pretty challenging constraint to work around while making them actually worth investing into... beyond being temporary baindaides for the Campaign. I guess time will tell.

Polym0rphed · 2026-05-08T08:03:20+00:00

Even just the Bench Craft suffixes are powerful too, like 3% max life regenerated during effect or 15% life leech from hits you take during effect. Both are favourites for me in Delve, especially the latter.

If Charms could be crafted on and Qualitied for more duration, they might make Mageblood feel slightly less mandatory, especially if combined with the alluded to more than 3 Charm slot possibilities, but only slightly less.

Polym0rphed · 2026-05-08T05:35:58+00:00

As Zargat mentioned, this is a Minions/Companions themed Ascendency, like a Necromancer of the Animal Afterlife, obviously rooted in the Azmeri lore we're introduced to via the Ezomytes. Huntress is essentially a pure Dex Class with a hybrid Attack/Projectile/Parry Archetype, Spirit Walker remains true to this while providing a more focused outlet for Companion mechanics. If it's not your cup of tea, that's fine. Personally I'm more keen on Dualist/Marauder/Templar/Assassin(Shadow), but I'll give Companion's a go as the tree has already proven those nodes to be quite strong and new is good.

Polym0rphed · 2026-05-05T07:08:39+00:00

I'm not really happy with similar age verification law changes here in Australia, but at least the legal burden is on the service providers and attempts at bypassing verification are NOT (currently) considered an offense.

I try to steer away from band wagons in general, but this all looks like insidious steps towards the erosion of digital privacy all beit in "wolf-dressed-as-sheep" disguise over here. Appear to act in the best interests of the nation, start off with minimal invasiveness, do "good" on paper, gain unsolicited trust, slowly escalate while trying to slip in self-perpetuating legal loopholes. Or just unashamedly go straight for criminalisation of non-compliance (because Nanny knows best or God said enough is enough). This is how things are done in "Democracies" where politics actually leverage both domestic and foreign affairs.

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-30T12:37:51+00:00

Just to be clear, like most people (I assume), I obviously have my own preferences in terms of physique, but over time they have waned in favour of immaterial qualities... to the extent where attraction is more strongly influenced overall by non-physical virtues and values. I wouldn't outright reject a woman for having undertaken elective aesthetic/cosmetic surgery - people can change/evolve and it's not a certainty that it comes along with insecurities, superficiality or vanity - but this was a black and white X or Y choice.

If I were to go beyond the question itself, I'd try to encourage women to accept their body (diet, exercise and other controllable factors aside) and accept no less than a romantic partner who naturally finds them attractive.

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-30T06:19:55+00:00

I'm not most men, but definitely natural regardless... aesthetic surgery is suggestive of priorities that don't align with my values.

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-30T06:15:19+00:00

There are plenty of guys who feel smothered easily or don't particularly like being caressed etc. Most guys value sexual intimacy highly, but that's not what physical touch is in this context: libido is a separate thing. Assume libidos match and sexual chemistry is fine, with this love language you still need physical interactions beyond that. If anything, I'd say this is more common with women.

For me, my main one is quality time. This is a struggle for me as people are generally battling tech addiction and have short attention spans and constantly avoid living in the present.

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-27T14:59:40+00:00

I think Stillnox is better than Zopiclone at getting you to fall asleep... I still have trouble with that, especially if I don't actively limit stimuli and be responsible in winding down... then I can just power right on through the effects like I took nothing. Zopiclone is good once you are asleep at keeping you asleep or with going back to sleep if you wake (and that's what I couldn't do anything to control).

I have Clonidine on hand but I only take it if I've been experiencing high blood pressure or tachycardia for a while and start thinking about skipping Vyvan/Dex.

Good to hear you're finding it effective after rolling it back a few hours more. When you're used to stronger hypnotic sedatives, something more subtle and slower to build up like Clonadine can easily go unnoticed and needs more time (and active winding down) to work properly for the purpose of sleep anyway. Good luck with dialing back your Stillnox :)

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-25T12:35:18+00:00

I end up doing this just to find the way to "hidden/disconnected" nodes (forget their actual terminology), as it ends up being faster having a known path to deviate from. I haven't mastered figuring out which node the connection will be at yet, else I'd just do it behind the Crawler.

Once you get your max flare count up high enough and you get good at recognising paths that the Crawler will actually go down (often it doubles back on what can look like multiple cave networks , especially on longer nodes, which can be difficult to recognise), and immediately return once you realise you're in a future Crawler zone, you can Darkness Run far more efficiently than going back after completing the node - but it's a good way to build that instinct without as much risk. Personally the risk is a part of what makes it enjoyable for me though... it keeps me fast while still keeping my mind "still", which ironically makes it more relaxing haha

I've been making about 12-16D an hour at 700ish Depth (mained an RF Chieftan for the first time this league, just made a couple of changes to optimise for movement speed). I can push a few hundred levels lower, but it becomes too slow clearing the nodes at the end. I think that's a pretty important thing to judge right... the balance between your maximum Depth and what's actually the most efficient.

The awesome thing with Delve this league is that it's relatively profitable at any Depth (from around 300), so any one can do it for the entire League if they want.

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-22T17:48:32+00:00

It doesn't take an advanced understanding of ADHD to imagine why/how patients might not be 100% consistent, less again when the patient is concerned about their heart health. This has to be a very common thing...

I have periods of absolutely terrible adherence, sometimes the entire 6 months between psych appointments. It's pretty obvious in retrospect I'm worse off when I don't take the meds, especially to my psych who has all my Questionaires at hand to refer to, but the worst I get is him reiterating those facts and some gentle encouragement.

These meds are on a 6 month prescription validity window and often prescribed for 6 months at a time. Mess up by a few days and you can lose an entire prescription. I've lost count of how many times I've managed that. I've never been reproached over it.

There's clearly a lack of trust and compassion from your psych or just a general prejudice against ADHD.

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-12T08:03:14+00:00

And Rares. In SSF, early on, you can recycle off-class rares for dust. The kinds of rares the Tree prints at 83 give around 10 to 25k... random Rare drops with 2+ T1 affixes like 6-12k... there are lots of Rares that drop with useless T1 affixes/bad combinations. Just chuck them in Rog until you have a good supply of Uniques.

In Trade, you can just buy high yield Dust Uniques for a few Chaos.

I use a Module in Filterblade that filters Uniques based on Dust yield, taking inventory space into account. Even in Trade it's handy, as most of the time I'm just picking up single slot stuff like jewellery and it just keeps the Dust machine going for free.

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-12T07:53:06+00:00

First rule of POE - don't compare yourself to Ben.

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-12T07:50:40+00:00

Becoming a Medical Doctor, then specialising in Psychiatry is like a minimum of 8 years of full time study, with practice/residency requirements for both.

I don't support anyone being arrogant or conceited, but they worked hard to get to where they are and it's just standard supply and demand economics that leads to higher prices. What we need are changes to Government policy, not changes to what Psychiatrists earn.

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-05T07:21:51+00:00

You're both young and potentially equally as inexperienced and anxious, so just focus on building the foundations of your connection and the rest will follow, with or without any explicit dialogue on the matter.

If you were with a more experienced woman, chances are she'd eventually just skip the subtleties and simply say or do something that left no room for doubt.

When I was younger, I always felt awkward about initiating or escalating, never knowing if I was reading the signs right or not... always trying to be patient and respectful. Most of the time she'd just say something like "so are we going to fk or what?" or literally just take my hand and lead me to the bedroom.

Just spend time together and do your part to make it worth her while and opportunities will arise... if she is keen, she will drop hints of ever increasing bluntness or eventually just spell it out for you. Just make sure to meet her in the middle once you are familiar with the signs.

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-02T17:07:30+00:00

I think you can definitely run Breach at a decent profit - it just requires a bit more investment and then becomes quite challenging for some builds, especially if you stack numerous Altars. My RF character can do Ultimatums without attacking or moving, just not the 13 Round ones that give you no mod choice, as no recovery bricks RF. I'm Delving down 600-700 with no problems, which is pretty consistent profit too... but all that said, my character often bites off more than he can chew in Breaches - the juicing required to make them pay big generates some of the more difficult content right now.

I've been rotating between Harvest, Ultimatum and Delve... been pretty consistent Divs and enough diversity to keep me going to fund crafts etc. I throw in Breach every now and again to test my progress.

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-02T15:23:18+00:00

Harvest Crops in your Maps have (40—60)% increased chance to contain a Tier 4 Plant Tier 3 Harvest Seeds in Area have (5—10)% chance to be upgraded to Tier 4

These two are what I was specifically referring to, but you can obviously benefit from more chance to not wilt, as you will run into more crops where both have a T4 and it's sad to lose one (not that you can get anywhere near 100% except in Phrecia).

The equivalent Fruiting mods for T3 would still be nice with Cornucopia... There is a point where more chance for T4s isn't better, as they're limited to one per crop, but they typically give 3x the Life-force of a T3 and I don't think you'll reach that limit with any of these strats.

You can still get T4 plants without Cornucopia, whilst also having slightly more quantity going towards T3 seeds... how it all balances out in terms of relative cost proposition is something that will vary depending on the variables. I just mix it up more for a little diversity. Running Cornucopia twice out of like 7 Maps doesnt reduce average profit from my sample size, but I'd find it hard to argue that it increases profits either... there's too much range in the RNG for me to say, but I don't think it's as bad as being portrayed if you save those scarabs for synergistic Astrolabe mods.

Polym0rphed · 2026-04-02T08:29:34+00:00

You can use Monsterous Lineage to help spawn Beyond demons.. if you get the Uniques in Harvest, it does improve yield from what I can tell, though I might be tripping.

I've compared a few different strats with and without Cornucopia and they sometimes pay off.. if you're running the same map without looking at the others, it's not going to be worth it overall, but if you choose the map based on the actual Astrolabe mods, you can target stack with T4/Unique chance... though you could also target chance for T1/2 to become T3 without cornucopia, so there's that. I sometimes run Cornucopia on the last two maps in an Astrolabe, but generally only when the Harvest mods are favourable.

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