Alright, lets try to make an actually analysis that is something beyond "more risk=more reward".
First of all, Moon dungeon. Or perhaps a trap. Whatever the case may be, dungeon itself might only have five possible loadouts - of which three are relevant. Non-relevant ones are puzzles and maze/obstacle course configurations. Relevant ones are trap, swarm enemy and elite enemy types. Elite enemies are bosses and such, swarm enemy is if we are getting overwhelmed by number of monsters. Additionally, dungeon can be on some scale from fully magical to fully technological, which would largely impact Gisena's impact inside the dungeon. Given magic fish and magic map, we can expect major amount of magic here.
Either way, we should likely hold onto our purchase until we can see exact configuration of dungeon and then decide on which abilities to pick. Maw would be useful for swarm types and fighting Kaijus, but Thousand Cuts would do better against powerful bosses. On the other hand, Thousand Cuts makes us Tired, which is not suitable for dungeon having seven or so bosses. Fact that we can't bring Verse in implies corridors and such, although it's possible that they would open to wider space. If we are inside corridors the value of our Agility is somewhat diminished, but they also allow Gisena to saturate enemies with her Nullity easily.
Then there is the question of speed. The faster we go through the dungeon, the less damage would Verse take(not, as an aside, that Verse is very unlikely to just quietly. Assuming that his death will result in an explosion/implosion that would kill everyone else is prudent). On the other hand, more time means more safety on our end. There is delicate balance where we need to push hard, but just not too hard. Maw makes this somewhat easier, but even then we would have to reset at times.
Also, dungeon reseting or not reseting between entries, assuming that more than one is possible, is also of relevance.
Our current issues are:
>Awkward logistics regarding Gisena, as she is both vital to protecting Verse and helping us clear the dungeon. Possible solutions:
>Get the Quickest route for that sweet competence bonus
>This should allow us optimal amount of picks to spend all our Arete(so 7+2) while not addling us with adverse conditions in process
>Getting early means that we can spend some time on securing Verse as outlined above. In theory, we could also use extra time to farm rando monsters too
>We and Gisena go in, Zae remains with hidden/secured Verse to act as last line of defense/flee if enemies appear
>Entering the dungeon, we try and guess exact loadout of it, preferably spending our xp/Arete only after we have idea what are we dealing with
>If dungeon is purely tech based use our Evening to tank, otherwise fight by baiting opponents into Tide of Nullity and let Gisena deal with traps
>Hopefully not die and get something worth all this expenditure and risk
With that, the winning move would seem to be:
[X] The Quickest Route
[X] Risky
First of all, Moon dungeon. Or perhaps a trap. Whatever the case may be, dungeon itself might only have five possible loadouts - of which three are relevant. Non-relevant ones are puzzles and maze/obstacle course configurations. Relevant ones are trap, swarm enemy and elite enemy types. Elite enemies are bosses and such, swarm enemy is if we are getting overwhelmed by number of monsters. Additionally, dungeon can be on some scale from fully magical to fully technological, which would largely impact Gisena's impact inside the dungeon. Given magic fish and magic map, we can expect major amount of magic here.
Either way, we should likely hold onto our purchase until we can see exact configuration of dungeon and then decide on which abilities to pick. Maw would be useful for swarm types and fighting Kaijus, but Thousand Cuts would do better against powerful bosses. On the other hand, Thousand Cuts makes us Tired, which is not suitable for dungeon having seven or so bosses. Fact that we can't bring Verse in implies corridors and such, although it's possible that they would open to wider space. If we are inside corridors the value of our Agility is somewhat diminished, but they also allow Gisena to saturate enemies with her Nullity easily.
Then there is the question of speed. The faster we go through the dungeon, the less damage would Verse take(not, as an aside, that Verse is very unlikely to just quietly. Assuming that his death will result in an explosion/implosion that would kill everyone else is prudent). On the other hand, more time means more safety on our end. There is delicate balance where we need to push hard, but just not too hard. Maw makes this somewhat easier, but even then we would have to reset at times.
Also, dungeon reseting or not reseting between entries, assuming that more than one is possible, is also of relevance.
Our current issues are:
>Awkward logistics regarding Gisena, as she is both vital to protecting Verse and helping us clear the dungeon. Possible solutions:
- Clearing dungeon fast enough
- Advanced strategies for securing Verse(find a city to leave him in, bury him beneath something relevant, have Gisena set up relevant defenses around him using his munitions etc.) Most of these are likely better if we take Quickest Route, as we get both more time and bonus to our actions
- Empowering Zea or Verse with relevant power picks - likely to cost us both Arete and experience that would be relevant for dungeon otherwise
- Spending Arete for powerful personal boosts. Note that spending all our Arete is a thing we must do given the choice; Civ was choice where we'd extract value from Arete by saving it while this is a choice where we extract value from Arete by spending it
- Maw for staying power, Philosopher for upgrading both ourselves and Gisena etc.
- It should be noted that picks and Arete are divorced for each other, so we can still spend most of our Arete if we pick safe option
- This would include maiming or death of our comrades(especially Gisena, who is very useful in this scenario), given that our current healing is long term and thus can't do much to heal them in relevant timeframe
- This would also include various debuffs and conditions we could incur ourselves(poisons, cursed wounds etc) which would decrease our combat readiness by value greater than picks we get from options, or force us to spend Arete on something that wouldn't help much with clearing dungeon
- In general, issue I see with thread(other than me being one of three people actually putting effort here) is that general opinion seems to be that Really Scenic has death as the only downside. What's actually going to happen is that we will have to waste Arate/picks on stuff we don't want to get and we'll likely run into another death spiral
>Get the Quickest route for that sweet competence bonus
>This should allow us optimal amount of picks to spend all our Arete(so 7+2) while not addling us with adverse conditions in process
>Getting early means that we can spend some time on securing Verse as outlined above. In theory, we could also use extra time to farm rando monsters too
>We and Gisena go in, Zae remains with hidden/secured Verse to act as last line of defense/flee if enemies appear
>Entering the dungeon, we try and guess exact loadout of it, preferably spending our xp/Arete only after we have idea what are we dealing with
>If dungeon is purely tech based use our Evening to tank, otherwise fight by baiting opponents into Tide of Nullity and let Gisena deal with traps
>Hopefully not die and get something worth all this expenditure and risk
With that, the winning move would seem to be:
[X] The Quickest Route
[X] Risky
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). Since even an exceptionally dangerous monster should be well within the Team's capabilities. The 20% for a moderate complication is the annoying bit to me - boss fights might cause complications but they come with a serious boost to the reward.
