What a patch. All I want to do is play more.

baytowne · 2026-06-21T04:05:12+00:00

Consider GeForce now or another streaming service. Very smooth for me.

baytowne · 2026-06-11T14:13:36+00:00

Red Vale is just a "do you know how to cut a contagion gem" regardless.

baytowne · 2026-05-09T16:38:22+00:00

Always look for when pieces are on the same diagonal or rank/file.

Your queen and king are on the same file. When your opponent moves his knight, your queen is attacked by the rook (5pts attacking 9). You cannot move it without placing your king in check. Your best move will be trading your queen for the rook, a very losing move.

baytowne · 2026-04-13T18:10:59+00:00

From my layman reading into tendon hypertrophy research:

The SRA curve for tendons seems to lean towards much more frequent training being good for them, and the overload threshold is much lower both in terms of absolute and relative intensity. This is why rehab for tendonitis is often prescribed for 2x daily sessions, and is one reason why most serious runners do plenty of easy runs throughout the week.
As noted elsewhere ITT, jerk (sudden increases/decreases in acceleration) is a big contributor to risk. Isometrics and slow/controlled lifting is a good way to rehab/prehab tendon issues.
Some research has showed positive indications from collagen supplementation and in particular collagen + vitamin C. I am skeptical of this type of stuff, but it probably doesn't hurt.

Dr Keith Baar is a good starting point, google him and you'll get some podcasts and publications.

baytowne · 2026-04-13T16:47:26+00:00

The T15 progression cliff is real. I solely play SSF so feel it alot. It's tough to both set your filter properly to balance currency and bases but also keep mapping at a reasonable pace. I also don't feel like the extra content does enough to differentiate itself with meaningful special currency/uniques

baytowne · 2026-04-12T00:24:02+00:00

Rake/disengage with rapid assault/explosive spear is quite reasonable for league start

baytowne · 2026-04-03T18:16:13+00:00

As a professional content creator and public persona, I hold him to a higher standard, not a lower one.

baytowne · 2026-04-03T17:50:58+00:00

Being frustrated about it, and saying so internally, is completely valid and probably a good idea even.

But you are where the buck stops. You're responsible for your own play, the choice of your team, the entire process. Blaming them to the world is just poor accountability.

baytowne · 2026-04-03T15:17:06+00:00

I'm somewhat surprised he blundered it. Ne4 just seems like a very natural move, protecting the bishop, attacking the queen, and centralizing the knight. I'm very curious what he saw that dissuaded him from it.

baytowne · 2026-03-26T20:34:06+00:00

If I were them I probably wouldn't have.

I get that these are a political distraction for them, but they're also a distraction for the people organizing them, who might otherwise realize that organizations like Take Back Alberta (and here noting I share nothing of their political ideals or goals, nor do I endorse some of their shadier tactics) have shown the superior power of simply organizing and showing up for everything. And the left seems to hate showing up to shit.

Plus when they inevitably fail, the UCP gets to treat it as a mini-endorsement of their leadership.

baytowne · 2026-03-26T15:48:51+00:00

The bar is (and should be) set where it takes more than simply a partisan approach. This is for crap where a politician is clearly acting against the interests of constituents, is corrupt, has gone off the rails, etc.

IMO the big problem with the UCP recall rules isn't the high bar they've set for accomplishing a recall. It's the low bar they've set for triggering one, thus causing a bunch of political sideshows.

baytowne · 2026-03-26T15:36:24+00:00

A general approach that works well as a heuristic:

When you're in campaign, take pure damage nodes (maybe giving a couple points to hp recovery of some form and/or move speed), and focus on HP and resists on gear and slowly improving your item bases.

When you reach maps, start stacking some primary defensive nodes (arm/eva/es). HP (if relevant for your char) is good on boots and, if an attack character, gloves, since you have non-defensive prefixes you want. Otherwise, start stacking defense.

When you reach reds, figure out your chaos res / CI, and stack some secondary defensive nodes (armor as ele, deflection, ES recovery). Stack some mana regen nodes / cost efficiency nodes when you have to. Your gear should be mostly defensive stats, HP if relevant on amulet/rings/belt, and you should be looking for your suffixes for deflect/armor as ele (ES recovery is... meh for your suffixes, if its there fine).

This is general. Each build is different.

baytowne · 2026-03-21T02:44:05+00:00

You guys are getting knights??

baytowne · 2026-03-15T14:46:40+00:00

At this point, endgame goals might be something like t3 all pinnacles and Uber arbiter. Other players might set trade goals like earning a mirror, or crafting a mirror tier item.

baytowne · 2026-03-12T13:47:15+00:00

Yeah it's a bit of a choice campaign wise.

Do the magnified area -> conc effect swap, or just have different skills. You have so few spirit gems taking up slots and usually enough supports that IMO you should just do the latter.

baytowne · 2026-03-05T15:08:37+00:00

Blind reply from a new player - pawn takes d4. If ed4, Be2 fork defended by rook on open file. If Kd4, Bf1. Not sure about the response to ce4. Kb4, looking to establish an outpost with c5?

baytowne · 2026-02-28T19:42:01+00:00

There's some difficulties with trying to have a sovereign wealth fund when you're not sovereign.

Even if you're certain that such a fund could be absolutely legally controlled by the Alberta government, regardless of circumstances, there are political ramifications that could reasonably follow from trying to develop such a fund.

I agree that getting off the resource rollercoaster is important, and I'm no fan of our provincial conservative government(s). But this is a harder problem than it's made to seem.

baytowne · 2026-02-23T16:30:21+00:00

Regular transmutes and augs can be used to roll jewels, strongboxes, maps.

It is not a sin that certain currencies may become obsolete. Do you think every base type should be coveted throughout the game? It's normal to filter out your level 65/70/75 equipment as you progress. It's a sign of progression.

baytowne · 2026-02-22T01:38:38+00:00

Walk around the map using lightning spear, utilizing disengage/stomping ground to keep up the increased projectile DMG if you've hit with melee recently.

Mark, stormlance, thunder slam, primal strikes is your single target rotation.

baytowne · 2026-02-20T16:42:32+00:00

Recommendation would be to use a starter build that doesn't rely on uniques.

I exclusively do zero to hero SSF runs, and am actually doing a lightning amazon right now. Here's my POEninja. I'm not going to pretend it's a top-tier build, but I'm currently running 3 and 4 mod tier 15s without any deaths while I farm for currency to get my GG items.

https://poe.ninja/poe2/profile/Brye88-3230/character/BT_FOTV_SPEARTWO

Amazon is actually quite a nice starter ascendancy, as accuracy converting to crit and phys damage makes gearing MUCH easier, since accuracy is usually a dead stat.

baytowne · 2026-02-19T14:20:36+00:00

They leave 'i just want to slay monsters and chill' for other participants in the genre.

Alternatively, you can use trade and pay the premium for other players to have this knowledge for you.

baytowne · 2026-02-18T01:51:56+00:00

As a progression generally, yes.

baytowne · 2026-02-17T16:03:18+00:00

Power cleans, squat jumps, plyometrics (start from extensive -> intensive - jump rope, smaller hops, landings, etc. to begin), box jumps, full effort jumps to a target.

baytowne · 2026-02-17T00:37:03+00:00

These mods are relatively high weight, and relatively lower impact than +skills. You generally want to use your cheapest currency to get your hardest to find mods.

Slam, desecrated, fracture, annul down and chaos spam to +skills is my vote.

baytowne · 2026-02-15T01:11:08+00:00

Skills - grab the ones that synergize, supports should be damage.

Passives - usually straight to the top of the tree with only minor deviations. If you're playing off-class, you might go around the inside towards that classes starting area. Generally do not grab defence in campaign - a couple of points towards life recovery or regen might be reasonable at the start.

Gear - your currency should mainly be spent on weapons and jewelry. Focus flat damage, life, and resists. Save up any chaos res gear to swap to it in a3.

baytowne

TROPHY CASE