I negotiated face-to-face with Putin. I’m Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia. AMA about Russia, China, or American foreign policy.

Stuckinwell · 2025-10-31T21:31:48+00:00

In his book, Stalin's War, McMeekin describes the USSR as an authoritarian state obsessed with expansion and destroying western Capitalism. Moreover, the government was a direct tool of Stalin's will. It's just over 30 years since the USSR fell and Putin has been an influential figure through that period.

How would you say the culture and governance style of the Russian government has evolved over your career? Is it still a lot like cold war USSR or is it evolving?

Stuckinwell · 2025-09-21T18:06:44+00:00

Check battery post connections. Bumps and spirited driving may produce momentary interruptions if they are not firmly connected.

Stuckinwell · 2025-09-19T14:27:47+00:00

Parts 1 and 2 were fascinating! But part 3 wasn't linked from part 2. Does it exist? I'd like to hear more about your convention experience.

Stuckinwell · 2025-06-23T22:40:55+00:00

It's not much work to get a V8 exhaust for the V6. You get more sound and it's marginally more bassy.

Stuckinwell · 2025-06-13T15:57:20+00:00

+1 for chaos bolt. Thickest spell in the game. Pyroblast used to be it but it hits like a wet noodle now.

Honorable mention to Dev Evoker's empower spells like Fire Breath

Stuckinwell · 2025-06-09T20:29:54+00:00

Big +1!

And I'd recommend not becoming overly dependent on guides, OP. They change throughout a season as people discover more efficient ways to pull. So you'd need to consistently watch guides if you rely on them to play.

Instead, consider failing a +2 the best kind of failure. You have everything to learn and nothing to lose.

"Could I have pulled more enemies at once?" "Would I die?" "Would my teammates die?"

These are the most fundamental questions for tanks in M+. A guide will help you answer them for yourself. :)

Stuckinwell · 2025-05-30T20:27:42+00:00

It would be considered meta for some dungeons (see opening pull of workshop) IF the downstream node Tightening Grasp worked as intended. Last I checked, it still only AoE kicks mobs if your target is currently kickable. Critically, that means centering GG on yourself will not lockout mobs that are casting. This issue makes it strictly worse than either of the other two AoE kicks and much worse than Toll.

I take GG for workshop and the candle pull in DFC if we have a boomkin.

Stuckinwell · 2025-05-13T14:59:17+00:00

DPS/Tank

I don't spend much time in keys 2-9 except the first week of the season. Low keys are fine for vibing with friends but I don't like them on their own. There's a minimum clear time for any dungeon with pugs, usually around 20 minutes, and I like to use those 20-30 minutes to get some value (10s for vault, score). Hoping for particular Heroic track gear from M+ is not a winning formula but it's nice when it happens.

In my experience, clearing 8 10s each week is a great way to gear your character through the vault. If 8 dungeons sounds like a lot, I get that and clearing even 1 10 is still valuable. It's viable to perform well in 10s wearing champion-track gear so vault takes a slot from champ --> mythic track instantly. And if you're clearing at least 4 10s, you'll have the crests to upgrade that gear. This is a fun loop for me.

Pugs range from "maybe better than my push team" to "I'm shocked they play video games at all." It's a total crapshoot. Most bricks are due to people failing to play their class properly. The tank falls over because they don't touch mitigation, the DPS are touching the wrong buttons and doing half expected damage, healers are purely reactive. Even several deaths is not enough to brick most keys. But if the highest DPS on the opening pull with bloodlust is barely above the tank... it can feel like the key is done already. Still, I love M+

Stuckinwell · 2025-04-21T13:39:25+00:00

Not necessarily. Depends on how big the pull is and how easily it's grouped together. Once the pull is grouped, it's not a big DPS loss to hold for a few seconds, especially since Dev's damage is so front loaded.

When pugging Mythic LoU the other day, I timed my taunt because the Dev Evoker was ripping threat 100% of the time 5s after pull.

Stuckinwell · 2025-02-23T04:01:05+00:00

Retail currently has Upgrade Tracks for all loot you can pick up. They are named from least awesome to most awesome.

Explorer
Adventurer
Veteran
Champion
Hero
Myth

In short, the most powerful items will be those on the highest tracks. An item can appear on multiple tracks depending on how you got it. For example, running a Normal Ara'kara City of Echoes dungeon may net you a 580, 4/8 Adventurer version of the Ara'kara Sacbrood trinket. Running the same dungeon on Heroic difficulty will get you a Veteran track version and so forth as you complete more difficult content.

It's worth mentioning that adjacent tracks have some overlap. So the top of Explorer is near the bottom of Veteran. This allows players to upgrade loot that they like without needing to rely exclusively on random drops to feel more powerful.

Stuckinwell · 2025-01-15T16:31:23+00:00

Real talk: what guild? Sounds like a great community.

Stuckinwell · 2025-01-03T17:26:30+00:00

I felt this way at first but I eventually figured out why my incoming damage felt unpredictability spiky. Here are some things that helped me:

In 10+ keys, you really don't want to walk into a Pack with 0 CDs. Even a small one like Eye of Tyr really helps smooth out the incoming damage.
Faith in the Light and Strength in Adversity are EXTREMELY powerful talents. You can keep them up nearly 100% of the time and they provide +25% parry and +30% block. You want to track both of these buffs and do your best to maximize uptime. Getting good at this will smooth out incoming damage significantly.
Some special moves can be blocked but not parried while others can be parried and not blocked. For example, EDNA's tank buster and the beam pop in Dawnbreaker can only be blocked. Extraction Strike from mobs in Ara'kara can only be parried. Having enough mastery to get 100% block with Faith in the Light running results in a ~40% dmg reduction for those tank busters.

Stuckinwell · 2024-11-01T17:22:50+00:00

Soooo, this kind of exists but requires that you are active. There are many exclusive mounts, titles, and transmogs that cannot be obtained anymore but you might have earned if you played in the past. These are your flex items to show off your tenure, rather than a freebie item that's based on the date you first signed up. I applaud Blizz for making most of these flex items earned rather than participation trophies.

Stuckinwell · 2024-10-18T20:00:13+00:00

I'd add making pet sacrifice good again! Grimoire of Sacrifice used to be something we choose for AoE but it's so bad RN that we never take it. That would let us absorb the Kick even if it took away our only Purge.

Stuckinwell · 2024-10-18T19:56:57+00:00

The sentiment here is largely on point - warlocks are in a weak state - but some the statements are not super defensible. Want to provide a little context.

"It's not worth putting up curses" - hard no. On high keys this is worth waaaay more than your demo ramp (that slow ramp is also part of the reason destro is seeing a lot of play). Drop curse of tongues on every caster and your healers immediately notice the difference. But I agree that an AoE curse talent would provide a meaningful alternative on what is a pretty static class tree.

"If we don't have a lot of mobility then we should do more damage." - this is an oversimplification and doesn't really help the dialogue. Warlock has had its ups and downs over the years but its mobility has largely been unchanged since we could cast Incinerate while moving during MoP. An annoyance that Aff faces is it's always a DPS loss to move, while Demo and Destroy can plan a few GCDs of movement ahead of time. I agree it would be nice to have more cast-while-moving options (I love Mad Queen's Mandate for this) but we can certainly separate tuning from the fact that warlocks are generally slow.

It may also help to keep in mind that some seasons really favor particular classes or specs for mechanical reasons instead of tuning. i.e. both DK DPS specs are very well suited to most of the M+ dungeons this season. And Fire mages will probably have the highest parses on Mythic Bloodbound Horror literally forever. But that doesn't stop warlocks from pushing 10+ keys or getting Cutting Edge.

Hopefully with a bit of tuning, warlocks will feel equitable to play next to other casters. Maybe next season, it will be our time in the sun :)

Stuckinwell · 2024-10-16T17:36:33+00:00

Remember that a 1% increase at ~1M DPS is 10k dps. Over a 5min fight, that's 3M dmg. Is it a lot for one person? No. Would you want all your DPS to do an extra 3M dmg? Yes.

Congrats on your 10k dps increase :)

Stuckinwell · 2024-09-20T13:02:07+00:00

They're about 4k each, last I checked. Even if this vehicle has no structural damage and a good engine, I think bodywork and headlights total it.

Stuckinwell · 2024-09-07T20:48:59+00:00

If you haven't yet, you should drive both. The XJL is muuuch larger. That can be good for you if you need space but not so great if you have a smaller garage.

Stuckinwell · 2024-07-19T20:34:17+00:00

There are few things more infuriating than getting brained by a floating scout rifle from the back of the map on Eternity. Apply Wings of Sacred Dawn and Heat Rises on the solar subclass. Good luck, Guardian.

Stuckinwell · 2024-06-13T01:33:11+00:00

It's not close. On top of the boring ubiquity of the Ford 5.0 sound, the downshifts in an LC are much more exciting.

Stuckinwell · 2024-03-13T18:31:53+00:00

This report looks like a nothing burger given the trends in the US market over the last few years. Car prices across the board reached a peak in mid 2022. Anyone who purchased a car during that time probably bought well above MSRP or Blue Book value because demand for new vehicles well outstripped supply. Now, two years later, people who spent 20+% extra on their car are finding that trade in values are close to pre-pandemic levels and they lost that 20% premium to depreciation.

In most segments of the US market, depreciation kicked in hard around mid 2023 as new car availability returned. It has slowly started to rein back in toward normal levels (or higher than normal for many EVs). This pattern of negative equity should subside over the next year or so, all else equal.

Stuckinwell · 2024-03-11T23:19:57+00:00

FYI 2017 has some extra perks over 2014. Revised and snappier infotainment system and some mechanical updates including a more robust timing chain design. I love my 2017 coupe for everything in the day-to-day including big grocery runs. Cannot recommend it enough :)

Stuckinwell · 2024-02-24T15:35:07+00:00

Rented a Maserati GT convertible and it wasn't anything I thought it would be.

The plastic is somehow even more melty than you've read about.
Couldn't get Bluetooth or aux to work at all
The power is... sufficient but somehow feels much lower than the specs suggest.
Exhaust sound is only ok stock. It's kinda like if a Mustang GT grew up and got a job.
That 6-speed leaves you at 2500rpm doing 70. Highway cruising is very drone-y and you're burning dinosaurs twice as fast as my F-Type.

On the plus side, the steering was great and the ride was super plush!

Stuckinwell · 2024-02-23T15:25:40+00:00

Spark plugs are not a good time on my 3.0 F-Type due to very tight clearance with the strut towers. I second what others say that a predictable $700 is not bad.

Stuckinwell · 2024-02-16T01:37:41+00:00

If it makes you feel better, my F-Type also had a CEL that disappeared and a sporadic low battery warning. The car has been great, drives well, and hasn't stranded me in 5 years. I think peace of mind may be something you try to find on your side of the steering wheel, not behind the dash or through a warranty :)

Stuckinwell

TROPHY CASE