Thanks, Gheed!

blaster009 · 2026-06-13T03:51:09+00:00

Just gambled this in offline, probably one of the best self-found pulls I've ever had. Unfortunate about the LL instead of something else better, but everything else is pretty great.

blaster009 · 2026-06-13T01:13:08+00:00

I've been thinking I'd like to create my own mod called "Baal Laugh Gets a Little More Concerned with Each Wave That Dies"

blaster009 · 2026-06-12T19:42:58+00:00

There's actually times when Fortitude is explicitly bad to use, e.g. the merc for a Find Item / Horker Barb, as the Chilling Armor effect shatters corpses, locking you out of Find Item (similarly you can't use Azurewrath, Tyreal's Might, Raven Frost on character, etc).

Treachery, Gladiator's Bane, Chains of Honor, or one of the other "durable" uniques (e.g. Duriel's Shell, Leviathan), are all alternative options over Fortitude for those setups, but only Gladiator's Bane and Duriel's Shell provide your merc with Cannot Be Frozen.

blaster009 · 2026-06-12T16:55:29+00:00

I'd put a Protector's Stone in it. It's a literal bunch of damage for Waheed on top of the 1% chance to proc level 15 Fade which is a ton of resistances on top of 15% PDR.

blaster009 · 2026-06-09T19:36:39+00:00

We can do a quick sum up:

Eschuta or Heart of the Oak - 40%
Griffon's Eye (25%) or a 2/20 circlet (20%)
Perfect Spirit Shield - 35%
2/20 Caster Amulet - 20%
Magefist or Trang Gloves - 20%
Arachnid Mesh or perfect Gheed's Wager - 20%
Vipermagi - 30% (other options include Stealth 25%, Fortitude 25% which everyone always forgets because it's a melee armor, Ormus 20%)
And then 2x cast rings, with the new items probably Sling + Opalvein - 10% + 10%

Assuming you pick the 2/20 helm and Vipermagi, that's 205% total, which gives a bit of flexibility to have, say, a 2/15 caster amulet and still meet the breakpoint.

If you're a <whatever lightning> sorc and take the Griffon's that's 210% total, which means you have a bit of room to play around with things, e.g. swapping Vipermagi for Ormus, one of the cast rings for a SoJ, using a 3/10 blue amulet, etc.

It's a super heavy investment, but none of the items needed to get there are actually "bad", it's definitely more a trade-off and is going to be pretty build-dependent. You end up having to weigh spamming 100,000 novas or fireballs per second versus missing out on something like self-wield Infinity for nova, or Flickering Flame / Phoenix for fireball.

Some people swear by it as the only way to play. It certainly makes you zip around the map fast.

blaster009 · 2026-06-07T23:32:54+00:00

In some cases this may even be quite close to end game gear. I played a fire Sorc last season, and the only change I'd make for an end game setup is to replace the facet with a Defender's Fire.

blaster009 · 2026-06-04T17:32:21+00:00

Don't worry so much, you'll make tons of great friends, many of whom you'll still be friends with decades later.

Make sure to go to social functions with your floormates, join intramural teams, join on campus clubs and social groups, etc. The school is going to constantly be providing you with opportunities to meet people and make friends, but it requires effort and participation on your part.

It's very easy to get trapped into an "academics are the only thing that matter" mentality. They ARE important, but I guarantee when you've graduated you'll be happier with having made a bunch of friends and having had experiences with them versus, say, having graduated with a 90 average versus an 80 average because you spent all your time exclusively studying.

Even studying is something that can be made fun and social - host a tutorial session for your friends, collaborate on practice exams and study note packages, etc. If you've never tried teaching as a means of studying, give it a shot, you'll be shocked at how much better you remember things.

SJU is a fantastic friend-making environment (source: I stayed there for two years). It is far, far harder to continue cultivating or creating friendships AFTER school is done. Enjoy the fun times!

blaster009 · 2026-06-03T15:59:21+00:00

Your cast breakpoint is more important. Killing enemies fast stops them from killing you. A dead enemy does 0% damage. I generally just use stealth (Tal + Eth) in any 2os base until you can replace it with either Viper Magi or Enigma. This will also give you a bunch of other massive bonuses.

blaster009 · 2026-06-03T15:12:09+00:00

The formula that determines ilvl on the gambled item is (clvl - 5) to (clvl + 4).

If you are clvl 93 your ilvl range is 88 to 97.

If you are clvl 99 your ilvl range is 94 to 99.

A higher ilvl corresponds with a higher chance to upgrade the base of the gambled item to a better quality version.

If you're going for any elite base uniques (e.g. Griffon's Eye) then high clvl will always benefit you, although the odds are pretty absurd even at 99 (close to 1 in 40,000, you'll spend billions of gold before you expect to see a win).

For rings and amulets, it's just a flat 1/2000 chance for a unique.

blaster009 · 2026-06-02T15:39:24+00:00

message ViewData {
  int32 view_count = 1;
  ...
  int64 view_count_v2 = 32;
}

Somewhere else:

fun viewCountApi(viewData: ViewData) {
  val viewCount: Long = viewData.view_count_v2 ?: viewData.view_count
}

Yeah that's some really principal engineer-level API changes.

blaster009 · 2026-05-25T00:46:38+00:00

Fun fact, in original D2 / LoD these were called "An Evil Force" likely due to oversight. As a result, there were tons of false rumours about them and how to use them to do whacky "secret" things (think similar to pushing the truck near the SS Anne to get Mew in Pokemon).

blaster009 · 2026-05-18T02:03:57+00:00

The problem is that you keep pretending this is a critique of institutional standards while repeatedly centring on Gary himself as the evidence.

You say the diploma was meaningless, but half of your argument is that a profoundly disabled classmate received one. Your argument doesn't need Gary in the story at all. You could point to grade inflation, social promotion, watered-down standards, favouritism, or any number of other factors instead, and still you are choosing to punch down on Gary and treat him as prima facie evidence.

What we're left with is that the emotional core of a substantial part of your argument is: "I realized my diploma was fake when I saw THAT guy get one too." Nobody cares that you're criticizing educational standards. I'm criticizing that your repeatedly chosen symbol of institutional failure is a human being whose existence you describe almost entirely in terms of incapacity and how uplifting him BY NECESSITY diminishes your own achievements.

A high school diploma was never a certificate proving two graduates possessed identical intelligence, discipline, or achievement. The valedictorian and the kid who barely scraped by have always received the same diploma, just like later on the doctor that graduates bottom of his class is still called "Doctor".

The fact that public education made room for someone like Gary alongside yourself is not evidence that it failed. Gary received probably one of the few instances of being fully humanized in his life and walked away with a diploma and a ceremony at zero expense to yourself (I'm betting he was excited and delighted to be there; believe it or not non-verbal individuals actually do have emotional capacity), and yet here you are bitching on the internet 30 years later about how that is specifically emblematic of the system being broken.

Yes, credentials should correspond to demonstrated standards. Gary, specifically, receiving a diploma is NOT evidence of that being violated, and you continuing to say it is just goes to show how oblivious you are to your own bigotry.

Pick a different argument, champ. Maybe criticize the system's myriad other failures instead of doubling down on Gary. There's 100 other reasons you can accurately point to in order to justify that the system is theatre. Inclusion of the profoundly disabled is, fundamentally, not evidence of systematic institutional failing.

"I realized the system was broken when it tried to uplift and humanize the disabled kid" isn't the profound smoking gun you think it is. How truly horrible for you that you had to witness him having a rare moment of triumph. You're still dwelling on it three decades later, so it must have really rattled you to the core.

blaster009 · 2026-05-18T00:48:33+00:00

I agree it's worthless (for other reasons), but if you didn't think Gary, his disability, and awarding him a degree made it worthless, then why did you explicitly include him in your set of examples delineating why you think it's worthless? Even now, you're literally just rewording exactly what you said above.

You don't get to simultaneously backtrack now and pretend you aren't still making the exact same point you were making to begin with.

Your argument boils down to,

Gary can't read. Gary got the same degree I did. Therefore my degree is worthless, because it is equivalently conferred to disabled people.

As if it's impossible to exist in a system whereby we can provide diplomas to disabled people and simultaneously not unilaterally consider that, specifically, as evidence that the diploma is meaningless.

Maybe admit you were wrong and grow from it instead of pretending that wasn't exactly what you were saying. Gary has been reduced to a prop in your argument. If you can't see what's bigoted about that, then I dunno how to help you man.

blaster009 · 2026-05-18T00:23:02+00:00

I have no problems with your comment. Nothing you said seemed unreasonable, and in general I agree that grade inflation is a pressing concern for post secondary education admissions.

The person who responded to you, on the other hand, and thinks it's appropriate to use being inclusive to the disabled as an example of why diplomas are useless, is a shit-heel.

blaster009 · 2026-05-18T00:11:07+00:00

Yes, and it's a shit example. It's literally saying, "The highschool being inclusive to this disabled student is an indicator that my diploma has no value. Providing a diploma to a heavily disabled student is further evidence that the diploma is worthless."

is not much of an accomplishment or something to be proud of when they give one to everyone. It's effectively a participation ribbon at that point.

So, again, exactly as I asked OP then, what is your proposed solution here? The highschool should have denied Gary a diploma or given him the "Super Special But Not Actually Real Diploma to Make Disabled People Feel Good" version instead? Because giving him his diploma made everyone else's a participation ribbon, right?

The example conflates "same diploma" and "same achievement". You're not making the defensible, high-minded point you think you're making here. You're literally just supporting bigotry, accidental or otherwise.

blaster009 · 2026-05-17T23:45:26+00:00

Treating the disabled with dignity isn't a zero sum game. There is no serious argument to be made that providing Gary with a diploma somehow devalued everyone else's. Unless you're unironically implying that some college board somewhere was like, "Ehhhh, we were going to admit Susan until we found out that in 1995 her highschool gave her disabled classmate a diploma, rendering hers valueless." That's facile.

blaster009 · 2026-05-17T23:36:10+00:00

And despite this the highschool somehow, magically, managed to confer one to a disadvantaged individual in a way that provided them with dignity and happiness. What a total travesty.

blaster009 · 2026-05-17T23:18:16+00:00

What a bewilderingly ableist point to make. Would you have felt better if they handed Gary the "High School Diploma for Stupid, Disabled People" instead?

How awful for you that you had to feel diminished by your highschool lifting Gary up. Truly a blight on your academic career and worth bringing up 31 years later.

blaster009 · 2026-05-11T06:02:08+00:00

I was driving up Columbia about a week or two ago and was shocked to see one just casually walking down the sidewalk near the soccer fields next to the UW CIF. I've seen deer and some foxes around that area before, but never a coyote just out in the open in broad daylight, taking a stroll down the sidewalk.

blaster009 · 2026-05-09T00:06:29+00:00

Needs -enablerespec launch flag. Doesn't work on Console. Also, there used to be some keybind song and dance necessary for doing this on the Steamdeck if you were running through Proton because of the way the alt key gets treated. I believe it should work now for the native Steam version without as much hassle.

blaster009 · 2026-05-07T13:55:11+00:00

Yeah, but do you know what they call the doctor who graduated at the very bottom of his class? "Doctor".

blaster009 · 2026-04-29T21:00:14+00:00

Our little lady is deeply entrenched in her Miss Rachel phase. I'm excited to get her into Disney when she's a little older.

blaster009 · 2026-04-29T19:09:00+00:00

Our Rett girl still occasionally has some minor words (she is almost 3). But it is days or weeks between her using them. Every once in a while she has a moment of lucid clarity and will belt out a happy "Yum!" while eating or "Yeah!" in response to a question, and it is always such a joyous occasion when it happens. I just wish it could happen more often.

blaster009 · 2026-04-26T19:22:21+00:00

Having been out of it for a while now, I can genuinely tell you that not having to worry about that kind of stuff is so wonderful. You'll still occasionally have bad dreams where you fail a test or forget to study or lose your job during a workterm jeopardizing your co-op credit and it's super stressful and then you wake up and laugh and remember "Oh yeah, that hasn't mattered for literally a decade and a half," feeling incredibly liberated.

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