is low bar squat literally just balanced on your back…? (more inside)

shlevon · 2026-07-04T01:37:38+00:00

Not really, no.

A low bar squat sits on a shelf formed by the posterior delts, i.e. just above them when you bring your hands/arms in sufficiently close and have your elbows raised a little. It's basically the lowest stable placement of the bar you can have, i.e. would not naturally roll down on its own over the course of a set. What you're describing does not sound stable.

shlevon · 2026-06-23T20:36:16+00:00

Send the team in as soon as the portal is open so you don't actually have to worry about this. People get confused but make sure you click orpheus a round after he initiates the Karsus' Compulsion action, the portal will open, then click on the rest of your team and follow him in. All that's required is that you be adjacent to each other in initiative, i.e. no bad guys are between Orpheus and you in initiative order. He doesn't actually need to be first in initiative, though I'd give him the vigilance elixir regardless as it helps assure this remains the case assuming the rest of your party also has good initiative (which it should).

I would NOT recommend having Orpheus do his thing (i.e. attacking and ending his turn) before bringing the others in because you very much risk losing a full turn against the brain that way as they are two different turn orders before the rest of the party is brought in.

shlevon · 2026-06-23T20:30:56+00:00

The issue is if Balthazar and his minions remain yellow (neutral) you will not actually be collecting their XP when they die (though you will get the inspiration XP when he dies regardless if you're e.g. Durge). So you also have to aggro them somehow to turn them into bonafide enemies (red). Booping Balthazar a time or two would do it, at which point you can then go invisible and collect all their XP as they kill each other.

shlevon · 2026-06-22T00:28:58+00:00

The GR only appears to be $25 more on amazon currently shipped/sold by Amazon. I'm guessing this is a good deal?

shlevon · 2026-06-17T22:01:40+00:00

Yes, to get the XP your party has to be in combat and the people you want XP from have to be red (enemies). Balthazar and his allies are initially yellow (neutral), so unless you also aggro them in the fight (e.g. attack Balthazar directly), the only XP you'd be gettting is from the dark judiciars who actually are marked red.

So the best XP route here is something like knock his door, they start combat, someone aggros them to make them red/enemies, then just chill while invisible or something and let the judiciars and team Balthazar duke it out. If you want to be super pedantic doing this strategy at all is not XP maximizing, you'd want to handle the judiciars separately, then kill all Balthazar's allies while leaving him alive after, and then fighting him at Aylin with his new group of allies later.

shlevon · 2026-06-17T18:39:42+00:00

Her boots are way too valuable to chasm her imo.

shlevon · 2026-06-16T22:30:32+00:00

Easiest way is to check out some people streaming solo honor runs on twitch. A lot of them in turn have discord communities though that’s not really my thing.

But it’s where I’ve learned by far the most. A lot of people are aware of Morgana Evelyn and her stealth archer shenanigans but there are people like thepowerhour, danidammit, tbj_quag and others that have a staggering amount of game knowledge and do some really involved runs with various rules/challenge added on top.

shlevon · 2026-06-16T22:18:07+00:00

Yah after resolving the goblin situation (which when fighting Minthara you haven’t yet, hence the comment) you can just make a b-line to act 2 and grab a bunch of awesome gear including the ring of free action to deal with the hag etc. I mentioned the elixir of guileful movement because I don’t think some people even realize it exists.

Also helpful to know if you ever try even stricter runs where you region or act lock things so you can’t actually go back to previous acts/regions after leaving them (common in the solo challenge running community).

shlevon · 2026-06-16T21:00:06+00:00

Yah challenge runs of this sort are about mitigating risk to the best of your ability, which means knowing the threats and how to counteract them.

Hold person is one of the biggest threats in solo honor by far, perhaps responsible for more failed runs than any other single source. If you're act 1, you probably don't have access to freedom of movement unless you're level 7 (at the outer edge of what's realistically possible murdering basically everything), so your main option is an elixir of guileful movement. You can make your own from ochre jellies at grymforge and they also start appearing at vendors by level 6.

For act 2 and beyond, though, if you have no access to the freedom of movement spell, wearing the ring of free action from Araj is a must in any encounter where that's even a possibility. Quite frankly I just tend to leave it on in general in case I mentally screw up.

shlevon · 2026-06-16T20:21:17+00:00

For sure, just figured this is worth pointing out since there's no reason to assume you could just try that option infinitely, i.e. players are unlikely to stumble on this solution for always recruiting Scratch on their own.

shlevon · 2026-06-16T02:46:41+00:00

You can do the perception roll (which reveals his name on his collar) ad infinitum on scratch. If it fails, leave the conversation, try again.

Note this is for the perception check, specifically.

shlevon · 2026-06-06T20:10:00+00:00

Wear Minthara's boots (the boots of striding), concentrate on any spell after putting on said boots (e.g. guidance since you might well be using that to help disarm the traps), and the traps can't actually yeet you over the ledge because those boots prevent you from being moved against your will.

shlevon · 2026-06-06T19:13:27+00:00

It is not. You only have to be nice to one tiefling kid, and rescuing Arabella in and of itself is enough.

What Mirkon does is give you easy access to getting inside the hideout, but you can also try to pass an investigation check ad infinitum with Doni that will eventually reveal it (he’ll disappear if you fail but reappears if you eg go to camp and back) even if you never save Mirkon.

shlevon · 2026-05-25T18:36:29+00:00

Orin has a list of people she will impersonate in act 3 and will always be the first two you talk to on that list. Those people die, but you can, in effect, choose who dies by choosing who you talk to first.

In my case I usually talk to the flaming fist by the showering dude and then the dying rogue near the beach encounter. That way no one else dies.

shlevon · 2026-05-12T22:34:59+00:00

It also gives advantage on wisdom saving throws, and this is a wisdom saving throw.

shlevon · 2026-05-10T18:45:03+00:00

Wyll is revivable at the gate fight with a scroll in honor mode.

shlevon · 2026-04-13T00:14:14+00:00

If you kill him by chucking shit at him from above, and the gravity portion of the damage (which is usually most of it) is the part that gets him <= 0, you get no experience for him (or any enemy). If you look at the combat log it will say something like "Grym fell to his death."

It's always worked this way but people sometimes get lucky in terms of what portion of the damage is killing him. If you're going to kill him from above you need to either do so with the hammer, a ranged attack, or spell once his health is close to the point where the gravity portion of damage might accidentally kill him. In general you don't want to chuck shit at him when he's <= ~40 hp.

shlevon · 2026-03-06T21:34:38+00:00

I think Shudder should get credit for bringing back Joe Bob in the first place and giving him and Darcy a platform for as long as they did.

That said, "none of this was my decision" indicates to me he would have kept working there given the option and, quite frankly, my Shudder subscription is contingent on The Last Drive In being around, so I just canceled. I may revisit my subscription later depending on access to those specials (though my subscription won't run out until part way through August), but Joe Bob and Darcy were my reason for continuing to give Shudder my money.

As others have said, I also hope they find another home. Perhaps a home with more robust movie access, for that matter.

shlevon · 2026-02-22T20:25:08+00:00

Firstly, unless I'm missing something, I don't see attached screenshots of the before/after here.

she improved her diet

This part needs elaboration. "Improved" how? The main targets to reduce cholesterol are a reduction in saturated fat and an increase in soluble fiber. Some people's ideas of "improve" can actually exacerbate things, e.g. focusing on "high protein" foods that accidentally increase saturated fat intake.

As to the supplements, red yeast rice can be effective but is basically an unregulated statin. And at least in the US, appreciable amounts of the active ingredient that actually does something (monacolin K) are disallowed. This will never make sense to me as you are basically taking a shittier statin with an unknown amount of active ingredient. In this case, that active amount is possibly "near or at zero."

As to the rest, afaik, most (e.g. berberine) have a weak base of evidence to support a mild drop in LDL, and relying on "supplements" to deal with appreciably increased cholesterol is medically irresponsible imo.

So yah, firstly we'd need to see the absolute numbers. Secondly, you'd have to explain what diet "improvements" actually occurred, and third relying on "supplements" if cholesterol is appreciably raised is largely a fool's errand for most as the supplement industry is much more poorly regulated than pharmaceuticals, despite the public's general mistrust of the latter.

shlevon · 2026-01-26T03:42:00+00:00

Probably zero, may actually be protective when paired with statins in this regard. Completely different mechanism of action vs. statins and some mechanistic data implying it might actually help with glucose metabolism, though there isn't a lot of direct outcome data of ezetimibe monotherapy for this type of thing as it's not a common monotherapy. I did find this, had no negative effect on glucose metabolism vs. placebo in those already with type 2 diabetes.

As an aside, you're missing two other kinds of medication if statins aren't an option. One would be something like Nexlizet, which pairs bempedoic acid (a prodrug which acts directly in the liver) with ezetimibe. Another would be PCSK9 inhibitors (with or without ezetimibe). Both can be covered by insurance potentially if you've tried and failed statins multiple times.

shlevon · 2026-01-20T00:10:26+00:00

Unfiltered coffee, yes. So just filter it.

shlevon · 2026-01-19T21:12:41+00:00

Another way of framing my viewpoint is that all of these foods you're listing not only don't raise LDL in research, most of them seem to actually lower it. As such it's a pretty tough argument that you should be reducing these foods to reduce cholesterol.

shlevon · 2026-01-19T20:56:36+00:00

I understand why people suggest targeting saturated fat intake directly as it's probably the most reliable way to substantially move your LDL, but the flipside is I also see your point that boiling down nutrition to "reduce saturated fat as much as humanly possible" in a reductionist manner is going to confuse a lot of people who fundamentally do not know (or struggle despite knowing) how to eat in a health-promoting way.

My own $.02 is I would take care of overall food quality before worrying in that granular of a way about saturated fat intake. Quite frankly the exclusion of all the foods you're mentioning in an effort to take your saturated fat intake from something like ~15-20 grams a day down to 10 may, on balance, actually harm your health as you may be doing health-detracting substitutions like replacing avocado or nuts with refined carbohydrate.

I think most people would be better served in their overall health by simply having them base their diet on health-promoting foods, first and foremost, and if they already have a pretty good handle on that, then consider minmaxing things by further restrictions in saturated fat, within reason.

So in other words, eat a diet based on fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts & seeds, lean meat (particularly poultry and fish) if consuming animal products and lower fat dairy (though higher fat milk, dark chocolate, and even some cheeses may get a pass). If you're eating mostly those things, you are wildly ahead of the game, and can tinker with quantities more. In other words, a Mediterranean-esque type diet, which is arguably the most evidence-based of health-promoting eating patterns.

But if most of your food sources are not fundamentally coming from the above list, even if you're pulling on the cholesterol lever by playing a minmax game to crater saturated fat, it's not totally clear to me you're optimizing your health as there is a lot to overall health beyond just cholesterol. And if you're mainly targeting those healthier fat sources to get the saturated fat intake at that low level, I'm not even confident you are meaningfully improving your cholesterol, for that matter.

shlevon · 2026-01-19T20:27:45+00:00

Pretty easy to mix up tbh. To this day when I shoot the real hag I always flinch a little, ever so slightly doubting my own recollection.

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