I found it funny none of them basically reacted at all to the first one we killed in comparison the dramatics later. Poor fodder, no one cared about you. Seralize on the other hand based on Ber's reaction gives me the impression she was potentially the equivalent of a GMPC. It seemed like her sword lost whatever force was powering it at the end, was that the case with all the rest of the enchanted gear we noticed I wonder? There's also still the King Fish stuff Gisena got interrupted examining... Sheesh the inventory is piling up and we don't even have a Gamer power!

Anyway as for courses forward another benefit to Press the Attack is even though we'll probably scale to more or less match him if things go well (Until out-scaling him in a month or so probably). That doesn't mean our party will. Considering the amount he'd have to grow to keep up with us they might end up killed as collateral pretty trivially, and he certainly has the incentive to make that happen.

If we take Rain right now then we'd be going after him in a day or so when he's just lost all his companions and still probably resting/healing up. Meanwhile we'd have a fully healed Letrizia piloting (It's not clear how well Verschle can heal but he'll probably still be somewhat relevant.). A somewhat wounded Gisena but she should be pretty close to full effectiveness, considering her stats and engagement method. And a spiritually tired (It's not clear exactly what that state does but based on how exhaustion worked I imagine it's something like pretty close to peak power but not much sustain) Rank 3.75 Hunger that's physically sitting at 116% effectiveness plus whatever additional we get from Letrizia's wounds (I'd guess around another 10-20%).

Considering how much trouble he had with just a fight where he knew exactly how his opponent was going to react I think that's a lineup that has very good odds of taking him down.
 
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[X] Recuperate
[X] Hunger - Ring of Blood
[X] Forebear's Blade - Echo of the Forebear
[X] Evening Sky - Amaranth Star

[X] Fury - +1 pick above

Gisena is just earning best girl points at ludicrous speed. How long was she holding these guys off by herself while she waited for us to be ready? Even in combat she has time for banter! Glad we managed to kill the asshole that shot her.

After seeing how bad exhausted really is we basically have to take Recuperate or Amaranth Star to function no matter how enticing the other options are.

Hunger ring of blood is some nice cheap healing for both us and the party, it's not as good for healing us as pitiless maw but it also works on party members which is kind of what we need.

Amaranth star makes us a fast boi and makes future procs of exhausted less overwhelmingly terrible so we can afford to take them for shinies.

Echo of the forebear slaps some extra rank independent stats on the build.

I've become soured towards rank increases since they become almost totally useless as soon as we have to exert ourselves.
 
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[X] Recuperate
[X] Hunger
- Ring of Blood
[X] Forebear's Blade - Echo of the Forebear
[X] Evening Sky - Amaranth Star
[X] Fury - +1 pick above
 
Okay, the Long-Term Planning Vote has come down to a run-off between [ ] Once and Future and [ ] Pillars of Creation. Raw military power vs comfy versatility! Please select which you'd prefer to invest 1 Arete towards.

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It looks like Hunt for Healing and Recuperate are tied for now; the leading build of Amaranth + Scent of Prey is quite good for Hunt but would be unsuited for Recuperating. Here are some builds that would be agnostic between them (or at least less imbalanced!)

Age and Treachery + Amaranth Star - If you do end up getting Once And Future as a large faction wants, you'll definitely regret not picking up every Rank increase you can get your grubby hands on!! This gives you more Rank and lets you use Rank more even while Exhausted. It's of course great if you Recuperate and still viable if you Hunt for Healing.

Echo of the Forebear + Echo of the Forebear + Amaranth Star - The return of El Stats features a massive boost to speed and substantial improvements to STR and CON, combined more than enough to offset your wound penalties. Your navigation is not quite as good, but your increased speed makes traversal faster and your build is heavily reliant on physical stats in the first place. This makes you a veritable juggernaut with consistent, Rank-independent power. Good defense too, evasiveness from +++++AGI, endurance from ++Might, offensive power from AGI and Might, and the already superior defense of the Evening Sky.

What Rains May Come - This is pretty good regardless of which option you pick! Being substantially more effective when wounded is great utility, and you get to heal Letrizia totally and instantly! Just think of how grateful she'll be! You can even Hunt for Healing if you don't want to be wounded!

I found it funny none of them basically reacted at all to the first one we killed in comparison the dramatics later. Poor fodder, no one cared about you. Seralize on the other hand based on Ber's reaction gives me the impression she was potentially the equivalent of a GMPC. It seemed like her sword lost whatever force was powering it at the end, was that the case with all the rest of the enchanted gear we noticed I wonder? There's also still the King Fish stuff Gisena got interrupted examining... Sheesh the inventory is piling up and we don't even have a Gamer power!

She was a real person! It's not her fault her entire life was engineered for this purpose! It's pretty horrible if you think about it.

It looks like her sword is non-magical now, yeah. The power of Ruin often destroys lesser artifacts but it seems this one was just tied to her life force in some way.

If we take Rain right now then we'd be going after him in a day or so when he's just lost all his companions and still probably resting/healing up. Meanwhile we'd have a fully healed Letrizia piloting (It's not clear how well Verschle can heal but he'll probably still be somewhat relevant.). A somewhat wounded Gisena but she should be pretty close to full effectiveness, considering her stats and engagement method. And a spiritually tired (It's not clear exactly what that state does but based on how exhaustion worked I imagine it's something like pretty close to peak power but not much sustain) Rank 3.75 Hunger that's physically sitting at 116% effectiveness plus whatever additional we get from Letrizia's wounds (I'd guess around another 10-20%).

You'd have more than 136% effectiveness because the reversed would penalties aren't subject to reduction by your Accretion Rank or Evening Sky. So you'd be at something like 30% health and 150% effectiveness.

How broad is Scent of Prey's 'Target', anyways?

Could you use it to find a location, for example; could you get an accurate location of "A legal shop in this city that has the best price for travelling supplies"? What about more esoteric stuff like 'hunting' "The moment in this conversation where an interjection would break the tension best"?

It works on beings that you can hunt, mostly people and creatures.
 
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No, I though the build vote was over! Why extend our suffering like this!? We can only discuss so many things at once!

[X] Pillars of Creation
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Evening Sky - Amaranth Star
[X] Hunger - Scent of Prey
[X] Fury - +1 pick above


I really don't think Ring of Blood would be sufficient unless we are fine with losing Letrizia as a combatant for an unknown amount of time, considering these statements:
"I can stabilize her," Gisena began worriedly, "but she won't be in any fit state to travel. What do you think we should do?"
Waiting to heal her will result in significant scarring and nerve damage, though that can be resolved with further Progression over time.
if we choose recuperate and Ring of Blood, would we be able to heal Let sufficiently in time she doesn't face permanent injury?
Probably not, but is such injury really permanent to the likes of a Progression-type Cursebearer? Just get an ability that heals so-called permanent damage completely!

Significant nerve damage will likely make piloting the Devourer completely unfeasible. She goes from someone who can contribute in the party to a liability that must be protected; considering Apocryphal, not a good place to be in.

If we just pick Blood we basically lose a significant portion of combat power, far more than we would have gained by the level up here, plus gain an additional vulnerability. From an actual immediate power perspective; healing Letrizia is a first priority. Hunting already has been confirmed to not be very risky and to have decent odds of finding what we want.

Do you all really want the rest of the journey to be an escort quest?
 
It looks like Hunt for Healing and Recuperate are tied for now; the leading build of Amaranth + Scent of Prey is quite good for Hunt but would be unsuited for Recuperating. Here are some builds that would be agnostic between them (or at least less imbalanced!)
I, at least, would appreciate a consolidation vote to fix it if we manage to vote something that unbalanced in :p
 
[X] Pillars of Creation
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Evening Sky - Amaranth Star
[X] Hunger - Scent of Prey
[X] Fury
- +1 pick above
 
[X] Once and Future
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Evening Sky - Amaranth Star
[X] Hunger - Scent of Prey
[X] Fury
- +1 pick above

I've listened and decided Pillars is good but is something to take later when we can get the most use out of it - right now we'll still regularly run into enemies that act as targets for A Hunger, Sated. Once that flags we can get Pillars and use it for that purpose.

It would be faster for all involved if we could simply avoid that though!

Of course. But the two courses of action have distinctly different optimal paths, and picking a middle road seems silly when we want both!
 
[X] Pillars of Creation
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Forebear's Blade - What Rains May Come
[X] Fury - +1 pick above


New build after the clarification on What Rains May Come works. Eliminates wound penalities for us, essentially a better version of gamers body in that we no longer care about hp until we reach 0 and we get stronger the closer we are to 0. Neatly resolves Zea's injuries while giving a substantial power boost, letting us then hunt for healing to bring Gisena and us back to full health.

Also saves arete letting us hopefully buy Maw after the hunt for healing which is ludicrously synergistic with What Rains. Do the sheathing the sword move from this update every fight! Letting them stab us first makes our return attack stronger that then heals us back to full!

Pillars of Creation because after the revelation of how useful rank is when we're tired i.e not at all, I don't particularly care for an option that does nothing but boost our rank. I weep for the far superior Total Eclipse though. Now we can never have eye lasers.
 
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[X] Once and Future
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Evening Sky - Amaranth Star
[X] Feat
- Age and Treachery
[X] Fury
going with this, let's secure power and make it more consistently applicable, while standing by our companion
 
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She was a real person! It's not her fault her entire life was engineered for this purpose! It's pretty horrible if you think about it.

I'm now thinking this Astral lord has some sort of foresight ability he used to prep the team, but naturally couldn't account for the Accursed (Sounds familiar). Letrizia might have run into this hit team anyway if we'd taken On Second Thought. Seems like this might be a clue to the reason she ended up trapped here in the first place.

You'd have more than 136% effectiveness because the reversed would penalties aren't subject to reduction by your Accretion Rank or Evening Sky. So you'd be at something like 30% health and 150% effectiveness.

Somewhat Glass cannon style, but a favorable tradeoff still.
 
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[X] Pillars of Creation
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Forebear's Blade - What Rains May Come
[X] Fury - +1 pick above


New build after the clarification on What Rains May Come works. Eliminates wound penalities for us, essentially a better version of gamers body in that we no longer care about hp until we reach 0 and we get stronger the closer we are to 0. Neatly resolves Zea's injuries while giving a substantial power boost, letting us then hunt for healing to bring Gisena and us back to full health.

Pillars of Creation because after the revelation of how useful rank is when we're tired i.e not at all, I don't particularly care for an option that does nothing but boost our rank. I weep for the far superior Total Eclipse though. Now we can never have eye lasers.

Just because an option is not picked for Long-Term Planning doesn't mean it's eliminated!

Anyway, Rank is not very easily depleted, you only became Exhausted because you chose to pursue a legendary feat almost immediately after overexerting yourself by spamming dozens of high-powered blade winds in order to break your enemy's Evening Sky. The Tired condition is uncommon and the Exhausted condition is very rare unless you do something incredibly reckless, and Tired is very much preferable to Exhausted.
 
[X] Once and Future
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Evening Sky - Amaranth Star - 2 Arete. Swift fury of vengeance unshackled, and its unremitting resolve. Exhausted and Tired Conditions are 25% less severe. [+++Agility]
[X] Feat - Age and Treachery
[X] Fury
 
[X] Pillars of Creation
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Forebear's Blade - What Rains May Come
[X] Fury - +1 pick above

On hind sight the effect of Rains is far superior than what I had though it previously did, which was constrained to peak condition and did not go over the 100% effectiveness.
 
Coldly Calculated grants Arete.
Whoops, totally misread. My bad on that one.

[X] Once and Future
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Evening Sky - Opalescence
[X] Evening Sky - Amaranth Star
[X] Hunger - Ring of Blood
[X] Fury


I think Amaranth Star, Ring of Blood, and What Rains May Come are all fantastic options, but since I think we're going hunting for healing the stat bonuses are comparatively more important for survival-- and while I'm not hinging my vote on this, there's also the potential that reducing the severity of Exhaustion can allow for some leeway in short-term healing for Letrizia.
 
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[X] Once and Future
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Evening Sky - Amaranth Star
[X] Feat - Age and Treachery
[X] Fury

Very well, might as well max out rank. Since Rank can basically do whatever. Godstat.


Nevermind, I think I'll leave my vote where it is until What Rains is decisively eliminated.
 
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Whoops, totally misread. My bad on that one.

[X] Once and Future
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Evening Sky - Opalescence
[X] Evening Sky - Amaranth Star
[X] Hunger - Ring of Blood
[X] Fury


I think Amaranth Star, Ring of Blood, and What Rains May Come are all fantastic options, but since I think we're going hunting for healing the stat bonuses are comparatively more important for survival-- and while I'm not hinging my vote on this, there's also the potential that reducing the severity of Exhaustion can allow for some leeway in short-term healing for Letrizia.
What Rains May Come heals Zea and grants a stat bonus by taking on her injuries.
 
[X] Pillars of Creation
[X] Hunt for Healing
[X] Evening Sky - Amaranth Star
[X] Hunger - Scent of Prey
[X] Fury - +1 pick above
 
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