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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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So as far as the fourth argent art...

I want it, but FVM 7 is so important we should get it[A4] after tourney. If there's a "summer break" I think we should power through it then.

The reason I want it is that the argent arts appear to be set up as "Babby's first good art set" and so far we have Offense/ Teamwork, Perception/Spiritual Defense, and Phys def Speed.

It seems to me like the biggest "basic" block missing is spiritual offense.
 
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Thor's Twin said:
Honestly, if we wanted to grab an art right now, then grabbing a music art is the 2nd choice in my opinion.

Instead, grabbing a head/heart art that screws up people's perception dice around us would be a more interesting, and potentially useful addition to our entourage.
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The smart money if you want to go that route is to learn a music head/heart art that screws up people's perception dice.
 
OneArmedYeti said:
So as far as the fourth argent art...

I want it, but FVM 7 is so important we should get it[A4] after tourney. If there's a "summer break" I think we should power through it then.

The reason I want it is that the argent arts appear to be set up as "Babby's first good art set" and so far we have Offense/ Teamwork, Perception/Spiritual Defense, and Phys def Speed.

It seems to me like the biggest "basic" block missing is spiritual offense.
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.......I thought there WASN'T a 4th argent art????
 
Ayashi said:
I don't see why you're so down on the Argent Arts.
AM is our only perception and dispel Art, AS gives is the only thing that gives us a counter and AC is still useful when compared to Arts that are effectively a whole Realm above it. And that's of course, before all the passive dice they give us. And lets not forget all the Green level capstones that are waiting for us there...:???:
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AM is the 'good' argent art because it's so, so good narratively. Mechanically it's not that strong but considering so few use spiritual arts in the outer sect it doesn't really matter. We'll need to get a new perception art in the inner sect, as AM cap out in green and its element don't fit us, but it will have served us very well by that time we switch it.

AC and AS are brawler arts, one which focus on being in the frontline with a band of elite, and another which focus on being able to quickly get to such frontline as well as synergy with the way the offensive art force enemies to attack us. AC's part that is nice is the 'command ally to do more damage and get stronger yourself' tech as well as the passives, but even then half of those are not quite adapted to our style, and the rest of the techniques are designed for someone who wants to be constantly in melee. AS is the same.

If you compare it to, say, SEA, SEA's benefit from being attacked are not restricted to us being melee only, and most of our attacks from our arts are actually mid or long range if you count archery. AC and AS are both designed to work with someone who is built to be close range. Damage wise, AC is both poor and doesn't benefit from our better dice increase as well as force us to be in melee.

Then we get into the elemental preferences we have, and while neither AC or AS are awful, as one is partly water while the other is partly wind, neither is optimal. Them stopping at early green also mean that by the time we will be able to get AS to green we will likely already be appraisal and working on finishing TRF and getting other appraisal arts, rendering it close to obsolete by the time we get it, considering the new cap on art passives.

OneArmedYeti said:
So as far as the fourth argent art...

I want it, but FVM 7 is so important we should get it[A4] after tourney. If there's a "summer break" I think we should power through it then.

The reason I want it is that the argent arts appear to be set up as "Babby's first good art set" and so far we have Offense/ Teamwork, Perception/Spiritual Defense, and Phys def Speed.

It seems to me like the biggest "basic" block missing is spiritual offense.
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Assuming you are correct in your premise (which I disagree with), the issue is that we could just get a spiritual offensive buff art that fits us by looking at the archive/better equivalent in the inner sect.

Beside Heaven/Earth just not being a good fit for us, we have been warned that while the Argent cultivation art is a good fit on top of familial cultivation art as they don't conflict, the actual combat arts are not advised unless you want to go all in and focus fully in the Argent Way.
 
Arkeus said:
Beside Heaven/Earth just not being a good fit for us, we have been warned that while the Argent cultivation art is a good fit on top of familial cultivation art as they don't conflict, the actual combat arts are not advised unless you want to go all in and focus fully in the Argent Way.
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But that's not what he said? He told us not to be distracted by other arts if we want to follow the argent way, not that we shouldn't use the argent arts with other builds.
 
Arkeus said:
AM is the 'good' argent art because it's so, so good narratively. Mechanically it's not that strong but considering so few use spiritual arts in the outer sect it doesn't really matter. We'll need to get a new perception art in the inner sect, as AM cap out in green and its element don't fit us, but it will have served us very well by that time we switch it.

AC and AS are brawler arts, one which focus on being in the frontline with a band of elite, and another which focus on being able to quickly get to such frontline as well as synergy with the way the offensive art force enemies to attack us. AC's part that is nice is the 'command ally to do more damage and get stronger yourself' tech as well as the passives, but even then half of those are not quite adapted to our style, and the rest of the techniques are designed for someone who wants to be constantly in melee. AS is the same.

If you compare it to, say, SEA, SEA's benefit from being attacked are not restricted to us being melee only, and most of our attacks from our arts are actually mid or long range if you count archery. AC and AS are both designed to work with someone who is built to be close range. Damage wise, AC is both poor and doesn't benefit from our better dice increase as well as force us to be in melee.

Then we get into the elemental preferences we have, and while neither AC or AS are awful, as one is partly water while the other is partly wind, neither is optimal. Them stopping at early green also mean that by the time we will be able to get AS to green we will likely already be appraisal and working on finishing TRF and getting other appraisal arts, rendering it close to obsolete by the time we get it, considering the new cap on art passives.


Assuming you are correct in your premise (which I disagree with), the issue is that we could just get a spiritual offensive buff art that fits us by looking at the archive/better equivalent in the inner sect.

Beside Heaven/Earth just not being a good fit for us, we have been warned that while the Argent cultivation art is a good fit on top of familial cultivation art as they don't conflict, the actual combat arts are not advised unless you want to go all in and focus fully in the Argent Way.
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I agree that Heaven and Earth don't fit us well, but having a grounding in the 8 helps us a lot with Wind and Water, so I'd like to keep that.

Additionally, it will be a good status symbol in the Inner Sect.

What percentage of people do you think manage to get all three from trials and trades, because I think it's pretty low.

My real hope for the fourth art is that it's customizable, since the Argent Way emphasizes individuality from balence.
 
Arkeus said:
AC and AS are brawler arts, one which focus on being in the frontline with a band of elite, and another which focus on being able to quickly get to such frontline as well as synergy with the way the offensive art force enemies to attack us. AC's part that is nice is the 'command ally to do more damage and get stronger yourself' tech as well as the passives, but even then half of those are not quite adapted to our style, and the rest of the techniques are designed for someone who wants to be constantly in melee. AS is the same.

If you compare it to, say, SEA, SEA's benefit from being attacked are not restricted to us being melee only, and most of our attacks from our arts are actually mid or long range if you count archery. AC and AS are both designed to work with someone who is built to be close range. Damage wise, AC is both poor and doesn't benefit from our better dice increase as well as force us to be in melee.
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Reminder that both of them work with our music attack and our music attack is actually respectable now. We have a pretty long 'melee' range.
 
Black Noise said:
If I'm reading it right, we should be weaker than Monsters, but since we have high def and an angle of attack other peers would be less guarded against, it is reasonable to expect winning there.
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It looks like you've taken a look at the presented scaling, analyzed the constraints of the system, worked through how we ruthlessly exploit escalating debuffs, and came to the conclusion our debuff-spec that takes advantage of multiple attack penalties could, in fact, work as intended and bring someone stronger down to our level.

And that's heresy. Someone should call the MoI.

Didn't you know? The Eight Divinities declared we are fated to always lose to CRX/Meizhen/Liling, even if it means they absolutely break the system in order to pull that off.

Silly you.
 
My take is I like AC as a support art, along with TRF(area defense and FZ(group speed and minor ranged defense/offense). If we can find a music based water/wind area special defense/attack booster we'd have the complete set of group enhancers.

Of course, as a personal attack art, AC leaves a bit to be desired when it comes to our style since as pointed out we aren't a brawler. It does have utility in enabling our flute attacks(which is handy if we get someone right in our face disrupting our music, since even then we can pull out a DV 9 AP 6 attack at the drop of a hat basically), but I'd want to find something with a more general physical support/attack going forward(ideally fire/wind, since that combo trains extremely fast due to Zhengui and our wind bonus)
 
It's a bit weird that our FVM basic 'melee' music attacks are both armor-rending steam and armor-piercing ice. Doesn't make much sense. I expect the combo to go out the window in the sequel thread.

FZ is in a weird place where it's thematically quite interesting, but the burdens of the system and the priorities it sets mean we've never been able, and never will be able, to support a squad with fancy high-mobility tactics to gain strategic advantage over a foe.
 
yrsillar said:
"The sect arts cover all the elements though, don't they?" Ling Qi replied, feeling a bit defensive. "The Sect Head can't be wrong, right?" The argent arts had been personally developed by him after all.

Zhong Peng inclined his head slightly. "That is a path all its own," he replied. "An inner disciple who wishes to follow in Master Yuan's footsteps would do well not to be distracted by other arts," the young man frowned, reaching up to scratch at the stubble on his chin. "What you are doing is not wrong," he said, considering his words. "Yet you lack focus. Secondary skills are an asset, but one needs a clear primary skill."
Ling Qi grudgingly nodded. If she had to choose… her music would be her primary skill, but her other arts didn't necessarily support that. Not the way Xiulan's skills empowered her flames, or Meizhen's all supported her utterly impregnable defense.
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All Cultivators we meet focused on 3 or less elements. Only exceptions we heard about are founding Emperor and argent arts which use combination of eight elements.
Our elements seems to be wind, darkness, moon?, wood?, three of them aren't part of eight elements.

Argent Storm as wind art would be nice if we didn't already have SCS and TRF.
 
1986ctcel said:
Nope gloomy cynics/pessimists who can't enjoy themselves or are always waiting for things to go wrong are boring.
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yeah because that's obviously the only gloomy kind of person that exists, nevermind the fact that Ling Qi enjoys herself quite often, and, dare I say it, is happy being gloomy.

oh no, how could someone be different from me, how could someone not fit into one single cultural archetype for happiness

no, obviously all pessimists are literally unable to derive pleasure and all optimists are vapid

There is nothing wrong with being gloomy.
 
Karnax626 said:
But that's not what he said? He told us not to be distracted by other arts if we want to follow the argent way, not that we shouldn't use the argent arts with other builds.
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He also said that using argent arts with other build means them being 'utility', especially if they do not correspond with our elements. That is why I pointed out that AC and AS actually sort of share our element somewhat at least if we were to choose both Water and Wind as a primary element. 4th argent, if it's not argent genesis, would not.
veekie said:
Reminder that both of them work with our music attack and our music attack is actually respectable now. We have a pretty long 'melee' range.
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Well, the issue with this is we actually have reasons to not want enemies within 10m. That is, we have a 'filter' of anti-mook that says "If you aren't this strong you can't get within 20m of me". However, if we ourself go within 20m of the enemy, which the 10m music attacks would force us to do, it means it can't work.
Diapason of the Lost Traveler said:
The mournful sound of the lost traveler is an integral part of the melody, no longer player separately. The user clashes with all enemies within the mist with a bonus of three dice. On hit the targets perception rolls take a three die penalty, and attempts to leave the mist or move toward the user or an included ally result in the target doubling back unless a 6 success perception test is passed. Enemies within twenty meters of the user or an included ally do not need to make this check. Additionally the target suffers a four die penalty to defense while under this effect. Lasts for as long as the target remains within the mist. Counts as a two die effect for the purpose of dispels.
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So using AC for its intended purpose in squad vs squad (or squad vs 1 I guess) ends up deliberately opening ourself to attacks we couldn't have gotten. Obviously we work best with a team of mid ranged people, too, but AC's style actually doesn't fit our "Commander in the middle of the battle-ground and controlling the field with mid-range effects and attacks".
veekie said:
Whats wrong with a Song Of Fire and Ice?
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There is nothing wrong with purposefully created a balance or dynamism between fire and ice and making something interesting as a result. We could totally go, for elements, to Ice/Ash/Moon, especially as Ice can be Wind/Water or Darkness/Water, and Ash should sometimes be Wind/Fire, Wood/Fire or even Darkness/Fire.

However, adding two opposing elemental effects without such method should basically not work that well. See: Ling Qi not feeling too well with CRX's Glorious Heavenly Legion.
 
They're effects from separate Arts with different principals of operation. Argent Current is already a fusion of 'opposing' elements and works by blending the natures of the elements together synergistically to achieve perfect balance, thus making the water rather hot; throwing a very purely cold-based effect on top and expecting it to work is a bit silly.

PrimalShadow said:
Our specialization in music only helps us when we make expressions clashes. Defensive arts typically don't require clashes, which makes SCS and TRF alright.
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Now that you mention it, this has bothered me for a while now. Thematically, offensive capabilities should be plenty related to defensive ones. A swordsman parries, Xiulan's arts and personality lend themselves to blowing a hole in a thrown builder rather than stepping aside (unless she's desperate), a flute blast turns an arrow at a safer distance (and in addition to) than shifting your struck body into bloodless shadows, and so on.

Hopefully this changes with the shift to a more narrative system, because right now the broad hodge-podge of defenses is at odds with the thematic clarity required for offensive maneuvers. Shielding Gale is the only technique that really fits the image of throwing our power against an enemy's.
 
FVM is weird, it actually grants us music instrument-based Melee, and with how the mist is both hard to leave and now also hard to approach us in, it looks like it's an art meant for setting up favorable ground to take apart a large group piecemeal. This actually works great if we went for pure melee.

If we didn't have FSS and opted for more "small team optimized for quickly defeating a larger force in detail" for a build strategy then I'd say AC would still be fine. With FSS though we'd be better off switching AC later for a more explicitly support-based art, instead of attack/support.

ETA: there's still a not insignificant value in mastering AC; it's a higher quality art than we can easily get, we still get significant use out of its effects, it grants access to Argent 4, and it qualifies as training for Fire/Water, which is useful down the line if we ever want something similar in elements or theme.
 
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AbeoLogos said:
Small note, we do not know that Han Jian intends to incorporate any of the Argent Arts into hi
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Uh. Indeed. I don't know why I tought that. Thanks for correcting me.

tricholysis said:
yeah because that's obviously the only gloomy kind of person that exists, nevermind the fact that Ling Qi enjoys herself quite often, and, dare I say it, is happy being gloomy.
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LQ can't make an happy song because she doesn't understand happiness, tho.
 
archangis said:
LQ can't make an happy song because she doesn't understand happiness, tho.
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The thing was not that she does not understand happiness, but that she expects that things will go to hell sooner or later, kinda like her mother really. They have both been through less then optimal lives up until now and it will take time to actually change out of the kind of mindset that expects that whatever they have now is fleeting. Tbh we really do not know yet if she ever can actually walk away from that.
 
Even if people end up digging all the way through all these barely fitting Argent Arts, for the love of the Eight lets not permanently pollute our soul by sticking them into our domain, especially not for some misguided attempt at political maneuver.

Ling Qi has actual arts that are in theme and will finish eventually that she can put into her Domain. Arts about Music and Shadow and Moon. Arts she actually uses on the first turn of combat, or even outside of combat to do the sneaky stealy things she likes to do.
 
Okay, seriously. It's one thing to call them suboptimal, it's another thing entirely to call them outright pollution.

Like, for fuck's sake, the hate on the Argent Arts doesn't seem to reflect their actual use at all. AM is a consistent backbone that we use a little bit all the time, and AC is a pretty consistent and useful augment to our current skills. AS is mediocre at the moment, but that's more tied to the fact that it does things that we're already good at.

It's just... Apparently at some point, they ended up being treated by a vocal minority as active trash and pollution? Seriously?

I can admit that they probably aren't going to be something we'll want to put in our Domain (Barring a revelation that they're neutral when integrated into a domain--and thus, won't interfere with what we're actually trying to do long term). But they're in no way something that I'd call garbage.
 
DeAnno said:
Even if people end up digging all the way through all these barely fitting Argent Arts, for the love of the Eight lets not permanently pollute our soul by sticking them into our domain, especially not for some misguided attempt at political maneuver.

Ling Qi has actual arts that are in theme and will finish eventually that she can put into her Domain. Arts about Music and Shadow and Moon. Arts she actually uses on the first turn of combat, or even outside of combat to do the sneaky stealy things she likes to do.
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Just because you cap out an Art doesn't mean it goes into your Domain. You can choose not to slot an Art. I don't think anyone has seriously suggested slotting any Argent Arts except for maybe AM.

I'm the one who brought up politics, and I sure as hell wasn't suggesting sticking them in our Domain. I think it's wholly unnecessary from a political perspective.
 
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