Organicide

Originally Posted by MikeRobe

Fire is a very important part of nature.... there are trees that cannot reproduce without it. It clears the dead brush and mobs.... Great theme!

I like plant/na too, don't get me wrong, but my fire/na has synergy and a theme.... burning mushrooms!

Originally Posted by Argentae

My most recent fav sets with synergy:

Plant/Storm/Lev: Viridicane was my favorite alt for quite a while. Excellent synergy between Plant's AOE confusion, -KB immob and all the mitigation and dmg available from /Storm. Very durable, versatile set with excellent AOE damage. Plant/Storm actually has a use for the +regen Tree, as it fills the hole left by /Storm's lack of a self heal.

Dark/Dark/Lev: Awesome. The stacking of the -ToHit from both sets with the hefty +def from /Dark makes for a combo that very quickly becomes effectively def capped esp if you focus on +Ranged def IO sets. This is one combo where I honestly don't think there is any need for AOE controls, esp with the powerful heal that both you AND Dark Servant have. It's amusing to watch the mobs try soooooo hard to hurt you and utterly fail. With five pets (2 Shades, Mrs O'Leary, Fluffy and Waterspout) it's like playing a MM but with a full control primary.

Dark/Storm/Lev: Not as powerful out of the gate as Plant/Storm or Dark/Dark, it does start to come into it's own as you get Tornado and Lightning storm. Esp if you pick up the KB -> KD IO from the Overwhelming Force set. This one goes Dark/Dark/Lev one better by having SIX pets counting Tornado, Lightning Storm and Waterspout. It's also very handy having the -Def from Freezing Rain to help leverage Vet Attacks (Blackwand/Sands of Mu/Nem Staff) to help with the targeted single target damage... AOE damage this build has in spades.

Fire/Dark/Lev: Still working this build up through the levels, got it to 28 so far, so I can comment on the synergy of having Fade and Soul Absorption on a Fire controller. In a word: Yum. Don't even have Imps and Fluffy yet, and on a nearly pure SO build (I've got a set of the ATO in Flashfire and the KB->KD Overwhelming Force IO in Bonfire) it's damn effective. Running at +8/+0 with no real problems, and having a lot of fun with Bonfire + Hotfeet + Tar Patch + just enough Fire cages to keep the immob going. If you time it right, the -KB of Fire Cages wears off just about as the mobs come out of the stun from Flashfire. And the -ToHit from Darkest Night actually makes Smoke's -ToHit worthwhile. Soooo many different kinds of mitigation in this combo, and they work together very well to drastically reduce the basic fragility of Fire/ by itself. I fully expect things to get a lot better once the psycho-aggromagnate-monkeys and fluffy are added to the mix. The combo of 3 melee damage pets with the melee -ToHit and healing from Fluffy should allow throwing bosses into the mix without noticeable problems.

Arg

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

There's a difference between being meta, and being ambiguous. But most people, even most reviewers of the movie, failed to see the distinction.

Inception is Nolan's love-letter to story telling. Its a movie about story telling. The movie uses the same tools the characters in the movie use to draw people into *their* story, and it tries to plant ideas in the viewer's head by telling a story about characters trying to plant an idea in another character's head. Cobb's whole plan is to present theater to Fischer, just as the audience sees the story Nolan is trying to tell through the theater of the action movie he presents.

The ending is actually pretty simple in construction. Cobb actually says to Ariadne (and his projection of Mal) what his real touchstone is between dream and reality: his guilt. He feels guilty about killing Mal, and that guilt reminds him that Mal is dead, and any world in which Mal is alive must be false. His scene with her projection is his trying to make partial peace with that guilt. Its why even in limbo, Cobb ultimately manages to regain his sense of what's real, and how he's able to take the leap of faith again to escape limbo.

Once he does, and he sees his children, he just knows he's in the real world. He takes out the totem out of reflex, but he doesn't stay to watch it. Cobb has decided it no longer matters what the totem does. He knows in any dream world where he can bring projections, his guilt will ultimately bring Mal. A world that has his children who he wants to see more than anything, but doesn't have Mal who he most wants to bring back, is the real world.

So why does the camera linger on the totem? So *we* can decide if we care what the totem does. We're the meta characters Nolan is bringing along in his story. He wants to see what we'll do with his inception attempt. He wants people discussing and debating his movie. But *not* because the story is ambiguous. Because the story was designed to incite.