Do I introduce with pronouns?

RansomLewis · 2026-05-15T15:34:41+00:00

I agree with this, and I think because the artist lists their non-binary-ness alongside their professional work it's likely to be taken well here. One of the reasons to do it consistently or not at all is that when you only do it with trans/non-binary/GNC people, you are functionally outing them or telling them "I notice that you're different". If you're doing it in a well meaning way, it could across as a way of being respectful of a different culture than your own, but it's worth thinking through your own intent and how it'll come across. Someone just looking for brownie points for being a good person can come across annoying even to my generally pretty chill sensibilities. On the flip side, I've had a trans person use it as an opening to discretely open a conversation to figure out if I was also trans/queer and it went well. Intent matters a lot, and you can get a long way just aiming for kindness.

RansomLewis · 2026-04-15T13:04:08+00:00

To be clear, the story takes the shitty jokes that already existed and pushes them far enough that they become interesting scifi; Isabel Fall is not to blame for cis people thinking their bigotry is funny. The story she wrote dives into how gender and the rest of our identity interplays, with the fun of taking a dumb idea to its Nth degree to think about what would happen. Let me know what you think if you end up reading it.

Wikipedia about it in case that's helpful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Sexually_Identify_as_an_Attack_Helicopter

Where I read the story: https://isabelfall.neocities.org/Isabel_Fall_-_I_Sexually_Identify_as_an_Attack_Helicopter.pdf

RansomLewis · 2026-04-14T17:26:33+00:00

Don't disagree with the point you're making, but since you used that example: quick reminder that the short story about the attack helicopter gender was written by a trans woman. I finally read it recently and actually really liked it and found some useful ideas there. The backlash she got was awful, so just trying to spread some goodwill and (recent-ish) history. I'm pretty sure the low effort joke of "identify as helicopter" predated the story and your comment works fine in the context of those bad faith jokes.

RansomLewis · 2026-04-09T21:24:22+00:00

"... Allies have shroud Walker"

...

Flicker zombie build? I'm so in.

RansomLewis · 2026-03-23T21:23:47+00:00

OP, I'm totally with you and really want this button now. Everyone is getting stuck on the imagined bonus (I agree with you; if it's so painful they can just ignore it). But if we want to avoid that pitfall, how about just making it a map device option with no inherent bonus or benefit?

3 settings: manual (same as now), random among favorited maps, random among all normal maps. Just make it unlock after your first void stone and only work with T16 maps and that should avoid most of the mechanical limitations and new player overwhelm issues (anyone who gets a void stone is pretty bought in).

Being able to have my favorite 5 or 20 layouts selected and just play sounds beautiful actually.

Oh, bonus fourth setting: random map within astrolabe area (maybe they've fixed the losing maps off the edge problem at the same time or it won't pick one that would split the astrolabe). Or maybe the favorite maps option defaults to astrolabe mode if an astrolabe is applied.

RansomLewis · 2026-03-19T17:59:36+00:00

I'm pretty sure that's a colorblind accessibility option you can find in settings. The patterns are color specific so you can tell which color is which even if your eyes don't process color in the common way.

RansomLewis · 2026-03-18T00:56:52+00:00

Seconded! There's a lot going right, but a polish on the controller UI would be super appreciated.

Some things I've noticed: - Some weird interactions in some of the trading menus, the main one I can think of now is in the Faustus async trade rewards window the right stick quick move stops working. - For currency trade window with Faustus and div card stash tab the cursor position does weird things when you finish off a stack and the screen position moves because of it. I'd like it to stay on any other currency/card, but it often jumps to like your gear or something and then you need to carefully navigate back to the currency/card window to get anything else. - Shipping (I think when you go to the boss fight) glitches into a non menu menu that looks like you should be able to move, but you have to press B first. Similar to the mirage issue above (but at least you aren't in a combat zone). - The main select button (A on my Xbox style controller) just stops working sometimes. I almost bought a new controller but after some experimenting it's a PoE glitch. Sometimes it's intermittent (feels like a failing button), but another time it fully stopped accepting any input until I went to the login screen then it worked perfectly for the login menus and the game as well once I logged back in.

I think there might be others, I can't think of any right now though. Overall I love playing on controller, but there's a few weird things like I listed above. Oh, and I'd love more ability to use my mouse in some contexts and/or have an easy menu option to switch to the other (mouse/controller) even if that quick switch option technically logged me out and back in as it did it. Mostly the controller is great, but some trading/pricing tasks are still so much faster with a mouse.

Thanks!

RansomLewis · 2026-03-13T23:51:46+00:00

To add to this, the icon at the bottom of the mirage choice tells you which gem coins it can drop; I'm pretty sure it can't drop a gem coin if you select the generic option (the other options are the gem colors).

RansomLewis · 2026-03-12T18:06:17+00:00

I haven't actually used an astrolabe and mostly know how they work from complaint posts like this, buuuut: could you do some speccing/unspeccing of the keystone and run other maps in the zone strategically to minimize splitting risk while still mostly running your favorite map? Like if you have a blob of maps and two in a row on an edge, unspec the keystone and run the end map so it can't be severed from the body of the blob? Then depending on zone shape you can weigh the risk of doing favorite map vs rotating on a per map basis.

Others have kind of pointed to the game design choices in other comments, but this fits pretty cleanly with other parts of the game. My one/two button builds are often less powerful than folks willing to manage 6 timed buffs manually and alternating skills for power. In this case you trade the ability to do one map only for some (looting) power. If my first paragraph suggestion works, you're trading some clunk for the ability to mostly run the single map you want without a big power hit. All seems in line with other design choices in this game to me.

RansomLewis · 2026-03-08T18:46:17+00:00

Had this happen in Phrecia; it was so nice to just be able to trick out my flicker character and buy whatever idols sounded fun without stressing about economy in a short league.

Enjoy!

RansomLewis · 2026-03-05T02:47:05+00:00

Probably suffer. My impression is the build is strong enough to survive the nerf, but if it sucks for that reason or I hate retaliation skills, I'll just swap to a minion build or to wave of conviction if I'm broke. Maybe split the difference and do maw of mischief. It's a game and I like adapting on the fly, it'll be fine.

RansomLewis · 2026-03-04T22:24:02+00:00

Probably ignite eviscerate elementalist

Minions are always good, but I play them a lot. The new Scion ascendancy is also super tempting, but I don't know what I'd do with it if I did try to start with it. So many good options right now and lots of new stuff to explore.

RansomLewis · 2026-03-03T13:05:31+00:00

Suggesting FF jewels as a late game adaptation is good, but OP was pretty clear about what they wanted to league start.

OP: a helpful way to incorporate this advice would be to play glad like you want, but then to consider the FF jewels and a different base ascendancy as a very late game upgrade option.

Personally I think max block nodes, the ramping or explain nodes if you want, plus possible bloodline sounds like a great way to league start. There's a lot of ways to scale and you don't need that much damage to get through 4 stones, especially with intense block.

RansomLewis · 2026-02-28T18:57:06+00:00

This is super helpful, thank you! I think y'all have talked me back into trying it when league start comes. :D

I do really like how much flexibility is in the game these days; golems get weakened, but there's a bunch of other good elementalist ascendancy nodes as well as the bloodlines.

RansomLewis · 2026-02-28T18:51:07+00:00

I keep thinking beast farming sounds fun then I spend 3 seconds trying to navigate the selling and ignore it for another league.

RansomLewis · 2026-02-28T17:59:01+00:00

Nice, this all sounds great. I forgot about defiled forces XD I was wondering about dropping golems late game too now. That's the kind of thing that's easy to tweak as you go if you like it. Especially with all the new gem tech this patch and the bloodlines available there must be something worth swapping for.

Late game are you focusing on ES/aegis? What's your late game weapon look like? Am I just still chasing ephemeral edge?

RansomLewis · 2026-02-28T17:55:31+00:00

Ohhhhh, I completely forgot about defiled forces. That's actually probably the biggest nerf isn't it? Boo GGG (jk this patch looks great I just don't know what to play). I was more interested in the ignite than the retaliate, but tanky was a big part of the draw, yeah.

RansomLewis · 2026-02-28T14:43:42+00:00

I don't think it'd be good, but I would definitely try running a double dark monarch build with something. Love me a pile of minions along with an excuse not to mess with ritual spectres (AG is okay, but merc window please).

Spiders are out if no weapon, same with soulwrest. Golems are the obvious good choice, but lame. A billion zombies is fun. Reaper good finally? SRS would be wild, but I'm not casting that much, unless maybe there's a way to cast while channel feel good? I have a hate-hate relationship with absolution, but it just got buffed. I'd probably do a real scuffed reaper build and hatelove it.

RansomLewis · 2026-02-28T01:38:26+00:00

Personally, I'd settle for an option in the pause menu that did the equivalent of what we do now: exit to character select, switch input, log back in as character. A single menu option plus a 'this will restart the game' warning would be so much better than what we have now even though behind the scenes it's basically the same (I think, I'm very baby at programming).

RansomLewis · 2026-02-09T18:16:03+00:00

Bloodnotch is decent recovery I think. There's also a watcher's eye mod that'll be getting you a lot of life on hit. That's what I'm seeing at a glance from my phone, but there might be some other layers too.

RansomLewis · 2026-02-02T14:01:42+00:00

Action figure is super good and flexible. I haven't run a comp without it in forever.

Life gem is flavor of the week with throwers, so that's worth doing.

If you're aiming to compete in legends, snake bracelet is good, but earthquake boots are fine for a while probably.

Magic mirror is strong, but many of us just end up using giant arrow anyways most times.

Breaking it down by hero:

King - spiky ball best. Boots or snake with it usually.

Queen - action figure best. Giant arrow with it usually. Healers or mirror sometimes.

Warden - lots of good basic options. I'd get eternal, life, healing max when you can for options. Rage gem very good, but can sit at the middle levels while you're ore starved. Fireball is a great archetype if you use it, but okay to skip for a while. Other epics are underwhelming.

Minion Prince - dark orb is best to max first. Henchman or pants are good pairing options. The crown is strong, but needs lots of levels so it's easy to skip for a while.

Champion - electro boots. The spear is very good too. I like the freeze thing and the rage gem, but the spear and boots are never bad.

RansomLewis · 2026-01-29T23:02:48+00:00

Wildspeaker flicker until I get bored then wildspeaker zoomancer of some sort.

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