prophetik music

so the first time i played through this game, i didn't have the spell that brings you back to life after you die, and i fought that boss at the tower that kills everyone at the end of the battle, and i died. so the second time through, rather than going to get that spell, everyone in my party only used the steal-mana attacks. took forever, but since a creature dies when it's out of mana...i won and didn't die.

vanguard on the lower difficulties is hilarious - you can solo geth pretty easy (they're the only one with no instakills) once you've got the 100% shield regen for biotic charge. upper difficulties against anything but geth get kind of annoying though. they're good at taking out isolated phantoms, but since both the atlas and phantom and both the brute and banshee can instakill you, it makes it hard to do much in those on silver or gold unless you're really careful about where you charge (which takes the fun out of it). honestly, i think instakills should be replaced with just really damaging attacks. why a sword can kill a krogan is beyond me, but i'd much rather have those just do a lot of damage to allow for vanguards to actually be viable on upper difficulties. they're totally worthless on gold, and only in specific situations on silver. same with sentinals and soldiers - they just don't have the supports to do damage on those difficulties, and just get gibbed repeatedly except against geth.

i wanted to say just how great a job luiza and stevo did on this one. i literally had to do almost nothing to fit into the awesome track they had already put together =)

terrible timing, as i'll be moving to a new place soon and don't have access to my music computer during the week, but i will probably try to contribute nonetheless.

moar bunny thumper

beta =) the reason it sold out was because it's supposed to be a stress test...it'll go back on sale soon enough, i'm sure.

kroguard *must* have the 100% shield recharge on biotics, and needs to carry only a disciple or a handgun for maximum recharge time. i'm charging every four seconds or less and spending literally the rest of the time meleeing (completely maxed out melee damage, try to find a melee damage amp for your gun as well) trying to get into rage mode for the extra damage ignorance. even phantoms on silver and later can be killed with a charge and a heavy melee while they're stunned, and against primes and atlases you just keep charging shit and meleeing. when it gets really rough, use your barrier (sparingly, since it increases recharge time) for the extra 25% damage ignoring. don't even put points into carnage. it's a worthless skill for his skillset. if you don't, you can max the other trees completely. basically you play like the krogans do in ME2 - they get in close and tear you to shreds.

YOU ARE A GOD AMONG INSECTS asdf

i'll test this out. i can definitely have a few spare columns in the test sheet, so hopefully this works. thanks man =)

i was using a pistol with the melee damage amp on it, and that works well. it gives me a bit of range too, which is all i really wanted. got a geth engineer and infiltrator right away, as well as a krogan sentinel and a turian soldier. the engineer is super good - that turret is flat-out broken - and with the geth shotty is just so awesome. too bad he's so squish once you get through his shields - makes nemeses really dangerous again. the infiltrator...i don't know. salarian infiltrator's energy drain really adds a lot to the character. as cool as hunter mode is, a grenade on silver can almost kill you from full strength when it's on, so i don't know how viable that is. that said, i soloed my first dual atlas spawn on silver with my kroguard, and it was super hilarious. if it weren't for the 1-hit KO moves that seemingly occur randomly, i'd be using kroguard basically all the time. edit: i'd love love love to do some gold next weekend with OCR folks. i don't get back on my box until friday night or saturday morning, but if anyone's up for it, send me a message on Live and i'm in. i've got a level 20 of all engineers and infiltrators, and level 18 or 19 kroguard and asariguard. i'm working on leveling up the heavy guys now, starting with krogan/turian sentinel.

i was always a gamer when i was playing through FFVII and VIII, but i think that chrono cross was really the big one that brought me over the fence to being amazed at what my little PSone could do the summer before my senior year. that and middle school's pokemon blue (and my clear purple gameboy that i got with it!) are probably the two games that really brought me into the next dimension of gaming. the first game that i played where i realized i was really a crazy, hardcore gamer, however, was halo on the xbox. i just couldn't stop playing - multiplayer, single player, even just watching was enough. i couldn't get too much when i first dove in. i'm not as nuts about PvP shooters anymore, but branching into RPGs on the PS2 and then into every genre i could get my hands on with the 360 has certainly broadened my scope.

have a multi-worksheet file that i'm working with that includes several report worksheets and one data worksheet. I need to be able to copy-paste a large amount of exported data into the data worksheet and have it auto-populate onto the other worksheets. because of this, i need a formula that can be put solely on the destination sheets and not on the data sheet. i cannot use a macro as they're restricted on my client's machine. it must be a formula. column B in the data worksheet is a list of names with multiple duplicates and blanks. i can remove the blanks and alphabetize if required pre-entry. here's an example: Last Name, First Name: WXXXXXX, CHRISTOPHER WXXXXXX, CHRISTOPHER WXXXXXX, CHRISTOPHER WXXXXXX, CHRISTOPHER WXXXXXX, CHRISTOPHER WXXXXXX, CHRISTOPHER WYYYYYY, REBECCA WYYYYYY, REBECCA TXXXXXX, YI-WEN i need this list to pull as follows: WXXXXXX, CHRISTOPHER WYYYYYY, REBECCA TXXXXXX, YI-WEN etc. the list will continue to grow as things get more complex. i think a pivot table may work, but i'd have to build seperate tables per month. a formula would be much easier. i've tried using some match-based formulas i've found on the web, but they simply don't pull correctly cross-worksheet. assume that column B on the data worksheet is the names, starting at B3 and continuing indefinitely. also please assume that the output starts at B11 and continues for thirty lines. is this possible? i think i spent two hours this morning trying to beat square formulas into my round requirement hole, but i just can't seem to get them to work.

i got a krogan vanguard with my first 99k pack. i use a disciple with it. i don't do much shotgun damage, but who cares? melees hit like a tank and you headbutt people. i'm doing that over shooting stuff. i'm still really enjoying the salarian infiltrator, which is a ridiculous class when you come down to it. you've got no hp or shields - but you can cloak forever, kill most non-gold characters with a headshot including stasis'd phantoms, you can kill a bronze or (sometimes) silver atlas in three shots with a widow, and you've got energy drain for when you take any damage at all. i can't solo bronze very efficiently like you can with a vanguard or soldier, but i can be a better fourth man than just about any other class merely because of the dps support i can do. are the other infiltrators like that?

angry comment! so the geth engineer is basically game-breakingly good. i spent ten minutes trying to find a game in gold as a L20 infiltrator or L20 engineer because either we'd have someone who was L15/overall level <30 trying to get in with L1 weapons, or i'd get kicked because i wasn't a geth engineer. suuuuuper annoying. that said, promoting is dumb. why lose your level 20 character if all it means is that you have to re-raise that class all over again? to respec? i'd rather waste a respec powers bonus than have to re-train a class all over again.

troll alert! fwiw, this one's good too -

to a point, i agree with 27 or so being the ideal soloqueue area. that and 5-man teams are pretty much as good as it gets for competitive LoL.

this is correct, for normals. basically, it tries to balance the average elo fo your team with the average of the other team. so you could end up on a team of all 1400, or all 800 where you're 1400, and it's balanced with what the other team's elo is. for ranked, there is no adjustment after the placement matches. you're slotted in your ELO until you leave it. edit: and, yes, elo hell is clearly there. i have games where i'm going 13-4-10 as morde - basically a hypercarry - and we're still getting absolutely HOSED in games because bottom lane feeds so hard. it's most frustrating as a jungler - lanes invariably push all the way to the enemy towers, and then teammates complain that i never gank. or, as a top in a 2v1 situation, where my team complains because i keep getting dove under towers. i had a 1-4-5 morde game that was a surrender at 20 because we were losing 25-8, and they blamed me for feeding when i was against a fiora (120ad at l2) and they had a fiddles that literally just sat in gankbush and feared me every time i walked out of tower range. i had top farm and most gold for the game DESPITE that. meanwhile our bot lane was diving at level 2 and got double-killed by the other team's vayne a total of seven times by 15 minutes, with one kill and one assist to show for it. it's that kind of unawareness about what's going on in games that frustrates me even more than people who are bad at their champs. worst part is that this is at 1200 ELO, which is where i am sitting right around now. i have been fluctuating between 1175 and 1125 for ages, and i just can't get a team that doesn't have a randomizer, a troll, a failure of a comp, or a leaver. my last eight ranked games have featured five leavers and two randomlocks (we won a 4v5 anyways). that's TERRIBLE. ranked leavers need to be punished, and they're not, any more than other leavers. it's so frustrating.

elo hell is cool if everyone is just bad. but purposeful idiocy? that's what i don't understand.

just did two ranked games to finish my night. first game, we had a graves give up three deaths by the first ten minutes and then ragequit, so that game was over. second game, not one but two people instalocked random players they hadn't played before, and went a combined 5-23-15. what encourages that kind of assholery? it's completely worthless, and i lost 60 elo as a result of getting pounded first in a fed 4v5 situation and then as a result of morons randoming characters they'd never seen. and you know those games won't be forgiven, either, because that would make sense. i even said "i don't understand. what's the fun in getting annihilated because you don't know your character?" and he told me to screw off and to go outside more because i must be an internet nerd or something.

for reference: -thunderbolt isn't offered as an upgrade phone for verizon currently. i'd have to get it special. -incredible 2 is free (LOL) -rezound is 50$ in terms of 4g, the only ones under 50$ are the bionic, rezound, and charge, and the next one up is the spectrum, razr, and droid 4 at 149 per. looks like the incredible 2 and the rezound are the frontrunners currently. should i go with the better network speed with the rezound and futureproof myself, or go with an incredible 2 and get proven quality but not the top-end stuff i might need in two years? edit: as i'm looking more, i like the rezound more and more. less than half the radiation, 1280x720 screen, bigger battery than incredible or thunderbolt (bionic is much bigger), etc. i might get the i2 for the wife since it'll be 50$ for her, but i haven't decided. right now, though, rezound is looking super boss for super cheap. edit 2: rezound is a 150$ off deal until tonight at midnight...we'll see what The Lady says when i talk to her later.

i'm super excited about the geth classes. sound like they're going to be pretty awesome.

sure i will. that's one of the current verizon prices - 100$, and i get 50$ off. from doug: so it looks like i'm adding the rezound to the list, and possibly the thunderbolt (gotta check current prices). any other ideas?

hi everyone. it's almost time to turn in my venerable original Droid for a new phone. i would love some recommendations about good replacements. i am on verizon and am fine with the service and price of the plan i'm on (unlimited data! although i'd probably go with a 1 or 2 gig plan if i can't have unlimited). things that are important -functional. my droid constantly hangs and sits, even after stripping almost everything off of it. this is problematic when the two things i use it for the most is messaging/calling and gps navigation. -actually a decent phone. the droid's call quality and antennae strength was far worse than on my wife's free feature phone. not good. also battery strength was weak at best. -durable. the droid is a nice little brick with a good cover on it. i have never had an issue with the durability of the screen or body. i don't want something that's not able to be knocked around a bit. -not a tablet. i need a phone, not a computer. it has to fit in my pocket. -price. i don't want to spend insane amounts of cash if i can avoid it. preferably under a hundred dollars, but i'll go 150$ if it's super amazing AND brand new. things that aren't important -modding or rooting. don't care. if i want to root something i'll play with my modded consoles. -insane crazy app support. i like apps, obviously, but i'm not one of those guys that needs everything. the only ones i use on my phone right now are gps, google reader, TFLN, an eve online integration thingie, and a clock. i don't need more than that. i was thinking of either the iphone 4, samsung stratosphere, or the droid bionic - all 50$ new. thoughts? for reference, i've got a 50$ credit towards a phone, and i think that goes up if i wait the full two years, so that gives you a guesstimate as to what price range i'm looking at.

REVISIONISTS REJOICE! ars and others are reporting a free DLC that adds additional cutscenes and end-game interaction to the game as a whole, to better elucidate us on the acid trip the original devs were on. who knows what will come from it, but it can't be as bad as the original. and no, the original ending wasn't 'controversial'. it was terrible, rife with plot holes and completely ignoring the investment of the users. i'd have been fine with a well-done tragic ending. this was not that, and just because it's cool to make fun of the mainstream opinion doesn't automatically mean that the ending was actually well-done and we're all just rose-colored assholes.

i told him to put that there =) i write for hawtwired occasionally.