Even Further Beyond [Complete]

Given the state of the tally, I like Enohthree's setup.
[X] Strategic Complexion
[X] Extra Diligent
[X] Open the Way
[X] Palimpsest - Form of Balance [1 Beyond Point]
 
[X] I'll Face Myself
[X] Strategic Complexion
[X] Amplification
[X] Open the Way


We want to be able to use our Emmanation without wrecking the Empire. And we'd also like for the Empire to not fall apart on its own. So... let's do that.
 
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Well, vote is all but locked at this point, at least until Rihaku starts advocating.

I do like this setup though. Truth plus Overgrowth farming plus Necro research should yield a lot of power, and we may even end up resurrecting Suizhen's parents.
 
[X] Strategic Complexion
[X] Extra Diligent
[X] Open the Way
[X] Palimpsest - Form of Balance [1 Beyond Point]


Ugh, it pains me a bit to skip Truth Diagram and likely delay Heroine hunt once again but that conversation with Shen is something that I want to see before we nuke Spring and win the game.
 
I very much doubt that Lady Spring is going to go down in the first try.

True Celebration + True open the way may be a good combo to find her Where ever the fuck she escapes.
Adhoc vote count started by DkArthas on May 8, 2018 at 12:57 PM, finished with 189 posts and 57 votes.
 
[X] Pursuit of the Truth
[X] Extra Diligent
[X] Open the Way
[X] Palimpsest - Form of Balance [1 Beyond Point]

The other options don't interest me as much as this group of actions, as it takes the effort of various posters and omake writers generating BP points throughout the story and aims to exploit it as much as possible. We have the EFB of Truth that pursuit allows us to leverage to acquire more True Spells and acquire mental immunity, we have the EFB Extrusion that being diligent allows us to improve our skill use with both Scepter and Lich abilities, and we have the EFB Dao which allowed us to go for Immortal Awakening and which Open the Way allows us to gain via the harvesting of Overgrowth Beasts. All together we were told that Immortal Awakening is phenomenal on it's own due to it's merging of cultivation and diagram, that True Incarnation synergies with IA, and there was one with the Extrusion as well.

Nameless should also benefit from this personality wise, as he is pursuing a goal of his with diligence which should neuter some of his extreme tendencies. Open the Way should also allow us to mitigate the problems the Empire is facing from the Overgrowth, allows in general instantaneous strategic transportation which means he can explore the setting and visit people without risk of him breaking his promise to the Elves, and means he can explore other realities and if necessary the Divine Realm.

True Palimpsest has been noted to provide a general bonus to all the actions Nameless takes throughout the timeskip which includes; all of the above, socializing in general, trying to change himself to be a better person, learning Naturialism from the Elves and potentially Artifice, and studying the various lore the Elves have access too so it's a perfect time to take it given just how long the time skip will be compared to the time progression since character generation.

This set of actions also improves the chances of success against any adversity Nameless could face whether that's Kong, the Tribulation that's coming, the Heroine, the Divinities in general, and even Nameless himself should his flaws become his own worst enemy.
 
[X] Extra Diligent
[X] Strategic Complexion
[X] Amplification
[X] Open the Way


Switching to Ampli since Elder Beast is failing and I would vastly prefer this over Form of Balance since it doesn't burn a BP. That can get us an FB if we save, yo. FB Kleinvarr's is a 5x multiplier. Overgrowth is famous for its rare materials. Seems like a nice use of it.
 
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Does anyone know if the Bath from the title of latest update is a reference? I remember reading about a place called Bath somewhere, maybe in a poem or something. I can not find relevant stuff through search engines however.
 
So, my analyses of the options! (And then probably a vote, I tend to do that once I've analyzed.)

Motivation vote:
[ ] Essence Diagram Research - Time to remove Tyranshal's Extirpation (after carefully archiving its formulae) and develop a Grand Diagram of Essence that's actually useful against either Zang Kong or the Heroine!
Removing Extirpation is definitely a thing we want to do, but as people have mentioned, we'd really rather do this when we have the BP to shovel in to it. We won't this time, so it's probably not actually worthwhile to do this now. Maybe after the Heroine, when we get whatever BP we get for dealing with the Fates.
[ ] Pursuit of the Truth (with Suizhen) - Suizhen has further developed her eyes to help Nameless discover the other Truth Diagrams. Has a fairly good chance of resulting in successful acquisition of True Incarnation or Azure Flare.
Hopefully we can guide this one? It at least seems unlikely Rihaku will leave an opportunity for yet another build vote untouched. If we can, Incarnation would be all kinds of useful now that we have a potential means of esoteric offence in the Scepter/Necromancy --- we would have a defense against all but actual social attacks from the Heroine at that point, while still being potentially able to damage her. Also, of course, hidden synergy with IA, which we may well be able to reach via eating the Overgrowth. I like it, in other words.
[ ] Extra Diligent - Work exceptionally hard to master Necromancy, causing the lich to work somewhat harder as well. Results unpredictable but potentially massive.
This is a reasonable plan, and massive payoff is the kind of thing I like to see. On the other hand, if we roll badly this could be a waste of a slot, likely because Nameless is actually still Spoiled and trying to work hard is kind of not his thing. I'm somewhat skeptical of the claims that it will clearly help attenuate Spoiled, so I'm not factoring them in without confirmation, though if we get WoQM in that direction I'll consider shifting.
[ ] Strategic Complexion (with Xiaoling, Yong Shen) - The Empire seems to be experiencing a bout of instability. Yong Shen hasn't acted, but why? Perhaps it would be wise to pay grandpa a visit; and, if necessary, forcibly smooth out the ripples that have disturbed the previously tranquil pond of the Labyrinth.
So, spending time to counter the Fates. Presumably, at least. This might be a good idea, though I again feel like we would do better to do this later, once we can show Yong Shen that we are a somewhat better child for him (he was a bootmaker, I doubt he's entirely happy with how spoiled we are, especially when we waste enough money to feed a province on it). On the other hand, this is probably timed, so it's definitely worth considering. On the other other hand (back to the first hand?), if the issue is the Overgrowth, we're planning to deal with that anyway, so we may well progress this plot incedentally to our attempts to power up.
[ ] I'll Face Myself (with Aurelia) - It is touching that Aurelia does not wish to unduly influence Nameless with her supernaturally persuasive presence, but this is simply a case of "the mind is willing but the spirit is weak." Request Aurelia go all-out (within the bounds of her ethics) to convince Nameless not to be Spoiled anymore. High chance of removing Spoiled, which may alter your Emanation and will seriously change the Extrusion's personality. But as she herself asked, is it worth removing a defining feature of oneself for mere power? When you've come this far, isn't this precisely the type of choice that power should liberate you to discard?
Therapy is fun, and therapy we voted for is even more fun. Aurelia is a hyper-charismatic, fully trustworthy therapist who's willing to change us as we desire. Sure we would sacrifice power for it, and that's not an insignificant price, but I think not spending the next most-of-a-year Spoiled (with Veil multiplying it, even) will make up for most of the loss (remember, our issue here isn't what we have time to do, it's what we have motivation to do! Increasing motivation is useful!), and this will almost certainly be net-positive over the next 4.5 years (Zang Kong). And being powerful is never a good excuse to be a worse person than you could be. And, of course, having a more applicable Emanation than Veil would be kind of nice as well. Of course, given the current votes this option doesn't have much of a chance, but I think I'm voting for it anyway. (Maybe I'll switch if my vote turns out to be highly relevant later.)

So, my votes for time skip motivation:

[X] Pursuit of the Truth
[X] I'll Face Myself (with Aurelia)

The goal is to set ourselves up to master and use the Scepter over the next ten months, via removing Spoiled and hopefully taking True Deliberation, thus getting us up to at least bottom IA via eating the Overgrowth (letting us do at least something about the Empire's issues). This also gets us Incarnation (assuming we can direct our research, which I expect we can), which when combined with ten months of us and our altered Extrusion working on mastering the Scepter should leave us in a relatively good position for dealing with the Heroine: Incarnation to perfect defend against mental attacks, Necromancer for some esoteric offence, and past application of Scepter towards powering ourselves up to hopefully hit, or at least near, Immortal Awakening, leaving us with 16.9 Stages of combat power to fight her with: 7.9 gave 14.4, then add 2 for mastered Necromancer and 0.5 for Incarnation to get 16.9, and that's assuming we don't get Incarnation and add on whatever that gives. (Yes that's an overloaded term, oh well. Colors are useful things.)

Truespell vote:
[ ] Open the Way - In the event that the Overgrowth is as large as Zang Kong could make it, this will be very helpful for the Overgrowth Beast Cultivation Extraction plan. Also provides a means to bypass the Heroine's plot armor (by directly killing the Fates once you have surpassed Zang Kong in power), and a means to neutralize Zang Kong's spatial Extrusion effects.
Making the Overgrowth more edible helps us to eat the Overgrowth, I like it. If we plan to use the Scepter, this is likely quite valuable. However, it seem likely we'll have Incarnation before we master Necromancy, in which case I would rather take this as one of our extra Truespells from that. (This assumes we'll be able to go in a chosen direction on the Truth research, but as I've mentioned, I doubt we won't.)
[ ] Amplification - Unsure as to exact effect, but it's likely it raises Cultivation speed in a way that stacks with Form of the Elder Beast. If not, it will be some effect related to 'improving one's Cultivation base,' such as the power to supercharge previous Stages.
This is just solidly useful, and if it provides speed increase we want it as soon as we can. Probably a good choice.
[ ] Prodigious Might - Heavy esoteric offense and defense.
Not so sure about this one, I feel like it has a bit too much overlap with Necromancer. They clearly have their differences, but both seem to involve soul-based esoterics, and I'd rather try to diversify our esoterics. So sure this is useful, but probably not the best thing we could get.
[ ] Palimpsest - Form of the Elder Beast [1 Beyond Point] - Almost certain to provide a greater Cultivation multiplier than the non-Truespelled Elder Beast Form.
Multipliers are always good. Of course, as with the following one, this costs us our chance to pull some silly elven genetic shenanigans via an FB Palimpsest, and as people have mentioned a True change into a beast which isn't as good at body things as people are might not be the best of plans.
[ ] Palimpsest - Form of Balance [1 Beyond Point] - These forms are different enough that I'm comfortable splitting the Palimpsest vote. Truespelling this isn't likely to improve Cultivation speed much over the baseline spell, but the magnitude of the bonus to bodily actions could rise significantly.
I honestly have no idea how much a bonus to bodily actions matters, so I can't judge this one well. Lack of bonus Cultivation is unfortunate, but if we get something off either Amplification or the Scepter it's probably fine. This is reasonable, but my guesses aren't all that appealing (I really don't see where we would get a massive bonus from a bonus to bodily actions, though maybe I'm missing something? We don't seem to do non-Cultivation bodily actions which require finesse all that much...), so I'm not ready to vote for it.

As such, my votes on Truespells:

[X] Amplification
...And I don't have another one I actually think is the right one to pick. So, given how often I've mentioned it,
[X] Deliberation
because voting for a write-in which no one else will vote for is clearly a completely useful thing for me to do. I actually think it would be good, even if I very much doubt it has a chance at winning. (Intelligence! Boost to all actions, not just bodily ones! MP generation! Probably something boosting learning speed, because intelligence! Too many shinies!)


Does anyone know if the Bath from the title of latest update is a reference? I remember reading about a place called Bath somewhere, maybe in a poem or something. I can not find relevant stuff through search engines however.
I mean, it's a Grapes of Wrath reference, and Bath is a city in England, but I don't know of anything besides that which would indicate why these Grapes are of Bath.

Edit: Maybe just because of the bath the Extrusion took? I guess you could say something about these options being the fruit of that interaction, and grapes are a fruit, so given the opportunity to make the reference you might as well... That's a bit weak, though.

Editedit: Also also, on a completely different note, I'm not sure the plan voting is working out correctly. People seem to be trying to vote for Plan Overlord and I'm not sure they're actually contributing their vote to the elements of Plan Overlord --- I think you need to do something differently to enable plan-based voting like that, and we haven't. (Unless I'm just missing something.) You may want to either name-vote or actually vote, rather than plan-voting like that.
 
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I mean, it's a Grapes of Wrath reference, and Bath is a city in England, but I don't know of anything besides that which would indicate why these Grapes are of Bath.

Edit: Maybe just because of the bath the Extrusion took? I guess you could say something about these options being the fruit of that interaction, and grapes are a fruit, so given the opportunity to make the reference you might as well... That's a bit weak, though.
Oh, I hadn't thought of Grapes of Wrath. Seems unrelated to update, but definitely so close to wording that it is almost certainly the case, hm. Thanks!

Kind of frustrating to not remember where I saw bath, but at least I know what the reference was even though I approached it from wrong angle.
 
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Anyway.

For people who are underestimating Form of Balance. "Bodily Action efficiency is increased" isn't a trivial thing right here!

Consider how high our baseline abilities are--right this second.

And then increase the efficiency by 30-40%.

That's a massive upgrade in overall effectiveness. Sure, it might pale before increasing Cultivation levels, but it also likely improves our thought efficency and almost certainly gives us an easier time with talky talky.

Elder Beast is only good at Cultivation--it's incredibly good at that, but no more. Form of Balance helps Cultivation a not-insignificant amount (40% increase to our baseline is still pretty good), but also buffs most of our other activities as well--and at the moment, Nameless' greatest enemy is himself. Not his ability to Cultivate. Assuming we get Immortal Awakening before Kong wakes up, we'll be in a position where we're a peer to even the most pessimistic interpretations of his powers--and that's not impossible to achieve within four years or so, especially if we take a side-track to goomba stomp Spring with a soul consumption or something and demand the Fates give us something that'd let us take on Kong as well.

So ultimately, while additional Cultivation Modifiers are nice, I'd much rather make it easier for Nameless to unscrew his shitty nature, or solve problems without crushing them into a cube with a gesture.

[X] Extra Diligent
[X] Strategic Complexion
[X] Palimpsest - Form of Balance [1 Beyond Point]
[X] Open the Way
 
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I do not think the bonus will be as high as a 40% boost to all actions. Even if it is 40%, it only applies to physical actions, which are not the ones we are taking / will want to take for now. For now we want to research, socialise, practice Necromancy and change our personality.

I am having trouble figuring out where a physical boost of that magnitude helps with any of that. Social actions are an entire separate category, and researching Diagram is hilariously out of scope for physical actions. The only thing it seems to give us that we want is improved combat effectiveness, which I am unimpressed with for now.

I'd rather save that BP for better things, like Further Beyonding a good Essence Grand diagram we can learn from a resurrected Lich once we gain mastery over the Necromancer (hopefully Baenlixnaire's Vicissitudes is out there somewhere if it is a Grand). Our alternative Truespell doesn't have to be Ampli - I am fine with Prodigious Might replacing the BP expending option here.
 
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That being said, I'm in love with Veil of Maya

>make yourself love researching shit so much you cast Quickening on yourself to get more research time, losing Cultivation from Chronoreactor in process
>still get 90% of that Cultivation anyway

Boss

Also, i fully expect Incarnation to have us go full Eidolon.
 
[X] Pursuit of the Truth
[X] Extra Diligent
[X] Prodigious Might
[X] Palimpsest - Form of Balance [1 Beyond Point]


After seeing the arguments I think that Extra Diligent would be the better way forward in regards to addressing our Heroic Passions Drawbacks since this method involves Nameless putting forth the effort himself rather than trying to find an easy way out/quick cheat. As for the truespells, remember that Diagram magic cannot be cast fast enough to be relavent as a means of attack, when we fight the Heroine and Zang Kong we'll have to do so with our fists, these two spells give us the means to do that.
 
After seeing the arguments I think that Extra Diligent would be the better way forward in regards to addressing our Heroic Passions Drawbacks since this method involves Nameless putting forth the effort himself rather than trying to find an easy way out/quick cheat.
This, I disagree with because I see no reason to believe Diligent actually helps with Spoiled. It's literally indulging in doing what Nameless wants to do, only more so --- the only reason it's useful is because we actually somewhat like researching Necromancy. If our plan to address being Spoiled is to just go along with whatever Nameless currently likes, I don't see how we plan to actually make him happier to do things he doesn't like, aka reducing our Spoiled-ness.
As for the truespells, remember that Diagram magic cannot be cast fast enough to be relavent as a means of attack, when we fight the Heroine and Zang Kong we'll have to do so with our fists, these two spells give us the means to do that.
We should be fighting them via Necromancy, which is as fast as we are (it's Titanic), and Cultivation punching, which requires high Cultivation. None of the proposed spells are ones which would actually need to be cast in combat, because that would be silly --- they're all spells which we would cast out of combat and gain ongoing benefits from.
 
Yeah, Might seems pointless. Necro already does entire "fuck your essence" thing waaaay better, and it's defensive properties only work against non-esoteric attacks, which are not really an issue at our power-level.

Meanwhile, Open the Way allows us to assault the Fates and get out of shit like infinite space cages or getting teleported in another universe.
 
Might allows us to survive all but the greatest estoric attacks, it was what would have allowed us to beat Doom beasts.

It greatly increasees our durability. Honestly, True Quickening + True Might would have been a great fucking combo.
 
Might+Quickening are good for allowing a weaker Nameless to hit above his weight class, but if we have even a semblance of parity, they feel a bit redundant. At our levels 'greatest esoteric attacks' are par for the course, and getting the same speed as Kong doesn't help as much when he can create infinite distance between us or just flat-out teleports around.
 
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