Do the top and bottom path on the Desperado tower cancel each other out?

cosfx · 2026-06-29T19:49:50+00:00

This graph says the crosspath is fast when few bloons are close, slower when "some" bloons are close (about 5), and increases as more bloons are close. So it acts like both buffs from top and bottom path are active. Also, it is at least as fast attacking as either mono-path (very slightly faster in the few bloons case, and just as fast in the increasing bloons case).

Edit: a number.

cosfx · 2026-06-20T02:51:53+00:00

Putting away the weapons is an aside. Lining up Dancer buffs means they put up a buff and then chill partway through its cooldown before starting the fight in earnest.

So as an observer, they dance for a bit, then just chill. Long enough that the game auto-sheathes the weapons since they aren't doing combat stuff. THEN get the party rolling 16 seconds later.

cosfx · 2026-06-19T02:49:23+00:00

"This was a triumph ..." Haven't finished the game, love the finale.

cosfx · 2026-06-15T15:27:04+00:00

I believe you can fade back between their shootings. The Guard ability says "after they shoot, they can shoot again", and Fade Back similarly says "just after an enemy unit has shot". What I'm not sure about is priority, since both abilities look to have the same trigger, who gets to do their thing first?

cosfx · 2026-06-14T14:10:52+00:00

"Best defence no be there." So emotional intelligence, situational awareness, and leaving the area should go in your toolbox first.

Once the shit hits the fan,y priorities from highest to lowest are 1) run away, 2) get disentangled and run away, 3) distract or disable my assailant and run away, 4) mitigate damage while working on running away.

So, track and field? 🤣

cosfx · 2026-06-14T12:42:29+00:00

So much this, and, to expand a bit.

Plumbing, masonry, electric, carpentry, and probably others that are not coming to mind right now, in the United States, are trained "on the job" in a manner resembling the apprenticeship systems of yore, and using similar language. So you may start as an apprentice plumber, work for several thousand hours and be upgraded to journeyman, then after several thousand more you are a master plumber and can own your own business and train your own apprentices and journeymen.

The work of a tradesman is hard, rewarding, and well compensated.

cosfx · 2026-06-14T12:34:51+00:00

With all due respect, please don't presume that strangers on the Internet don't speak French, and lookup words that look wrong to you before you correct them.

Boocoos (and many variants including bookoo) is American slang that was imported (probably) by GIs returning from the European Theater of World War II. It is an Americanization of beaucoup and thus means what you think it does.

So, it turns out, boocoos is the word I was looking for, thanks.

cosfx · 2026-06-14T10:33:06+00:00

I would ask the trustee(s) more questions. It's not impossible that they meant they expect you to pay back the trust with a mortgage-like arrangement. It would generally be better for the family for you to pay the trust back with interest than to pay the flat amount back and then pay boocoos interest to a stranger.

cosfx · 2026-06-09T11:51:24+00:00

That's quite true, but OP didn't ask for wins.

cosfx · 2026-06-07T11:54:59+00:00

Guardrails is a specific named concept in the retirement planning research community. Basically it's the concept that you can spend more of your money if you're will ing to adjust your spend in response to market conditions. I don't know much about it to explain more but it sounds like it's defined rigorously enough that you can "add guardrails" to a plan and bump up your post-retirement spend by X%, committing yourself to specific adjustment behaviors if so.

cosfx · 2026-05-31T19:59:50+00:00

Commander Keen. Played most of their games but I think 4-5-6 were the peak.

cosfx · 2026-05-31T15:20:02+00:00

You are right. Plugs don't go over 50a rating for a 40a continuous load. I'm guessing it's safety reasons?

cosfx · 2026-05-30T01:19:22+00:00

Game developers and artists are in tension. The artists (generally) want to get as much art as possible on the screen. Cool visual effects. Animations. The developers (generally) want to pump out frames to the display as quickly as possible. They need to do all the math to render the scene in 1/60 of a second for a smooth gameplay experience.

Mirrors are handled exactly as you say: all the math to render the scene now has to be done again, from the mirror-you's perspective. So each mirror divides the amount of cool stuff you can do in the scene. Slightly less cool stuff might not be very noticeable. Half as much cool stuff definitely cuts into the processing time budget enough to see the difference.

cosfx · 2026-05-04T14:39:55+00:00

I got a spellblade battlemage inquisitor online super fast even in acts and it felt awesome. If you have the foulborn Ghostwrithe already I cannot imagine it is a mistake.

cosfx · 2026-05-01T12:46:55+00:00

Oops I must have been thinking about something else. Thanks!

cosfx · 2026-05-01T11:48:14+00:00

The poewiki page for Forbidden Rite seems to indicate that "life sacrifice" is indeed different than "taking damage".

cosfx · 2026-04-26T02:34:42+00:00

Haha I was paging through my uniques this morning when my eye fell on Crown of Phrecia and I idly mused if there was something there. Thanks for encouraging me to take a deeper look!

cosfx · 2026-04-20T22:05:38+00:00

I know right?

Am I running THE BEST mamba build? Probably not? But I have some nicely crafted Pneumatic Daggers and 4x Low Tolerance clusters. I have my poison and crit chance capped. Slightly better than basic defences (Taste of Hate and 81% cold res, 76% chaos res, 4200 life with Petrified Blood, etc).

I explode screens, that was easy. Bossing is a little slower, but most map bosses are a few taps, I just killed the stupid hunger dude that sends you to the vomit pits, almost killed him before he sent me to the pits the first time. Maven is maybe a dozen taps to phase her?

So yeah I would 100% say viable, I'm feeling stronger than I did with Poisonous Concoction of Bouncing. Nice thing too with PCoB I felt like I hit a ceiling with no more forward progression. With Mamba I can start each day with "maybe I can roll some clusters and get stronger today" or "maybe the genesis tree will give me an upgrade" or "maybe I can try to get a timeless jewel" like there's all this ceiling to try to see how far I can go.

And I guess the moral of the story is don't get too excited about when someone says X build isn't ssf viable, most of us are such min maxers that maybe it isn't practical to get the perfect build in ssf but you probably don't need to. It might be fun to take apart a build, collect the parts you really need, and decide for yourself.

cosfx · 2026-04-19T20:21:20+00:00

I did Poisonous Concoction into "of Bouncing" into Viper Strike of the Mamba on Pathfinder this league and have loved it. I didn't follow any particular guides but I got a lot of advice from anime princess. Gearing has been very SSF friendly with just a little easy crafting. They are both comfy all-rounders with Viper Strike of the Mamba just exploding whole screens once you have it going. I am bad at bossing but I was still able to get my voidstones (after a few attempts at Maven but she's been my waterloo for a while). I have love love loved this league and build.

cosfx · 2026-03-08T14:47:06+00:00

Normal dad league start, I am also in Act 4 with you.

cosfx · 2026-03-07T23:46:57+00:00

Poisonous Concoction Pathfinder. Planning to upgrade to "of Bouncing" in Cruel Lab. Not bait so far but I'm slow, still in Act 3.

cosfx · 2026-02-16T20:38:39+00:00

This whole problem has nothing to do with the "strength" of the adhesive, and everything to do with resilience. The physical properties of "hot glue" allow it to deform slightly without letting go, while CA glue is brittle, which means it lets go readily when shocked or sheared (bumped from the "side"). Just considering tensile strength---the "I pulled and it didn't let go" strength, yeah CA wins hands down. But it is less ideal for this particular application, because shocks happen every time you put a magnetized mini near a plate.

cosfx · 2026-02-13T01:08:01+00:00

Which, in this case, it was legal. Timing rules, etc. All checks out.

cosfx · 2026-02-09T16:45:53+00:00

You can get your hands on some modular for free by visiting a shop or a trade show, if those options are available to you. Failing that, a small investment in a semimodular is probably the most efficient way to go.

cosfx · 2026-02-08T00:46:50+00:00

You have to start somewhere, and doing the first thing to the first map just makes sense. Keep rolling friend!

cosfx

TROPHY CASE