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A Simple Transaction I

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Well, looks like it's consolidation time, and only one of the top builds works towards Undying Vanguard the way I would prefer.

[X] Forebear's Blade - Echo of the Forebear
[X] Forebear's Blade - Fall of Night - 2 Arete
[X] Forebear's Blade - Undying Vanguard - 7 Arete.
[X] Letrizia - Hollow Star

If a Thousand Cuts/Undying Echo build had a chance, I'd be happy to vote for it, but it looks like people are either going for Fall of Night or saving the Arete instead. Although, there's little harm in throwing together the build.


[ ] Forebear's Blade - Echo of the Forebear x3
-[ ] 2 Arete: Undying Echo
[ ] Forebear's Blade - A Thousand Cuts - 7 Arete (0 picks)
[ ] Letrizia - Hollow Star

+++Str, ++++++ Con, +++ Agi, and Thousand Cuts. What's not to like?
 
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I kinda want to change my vote to make that less disgusting, but I'm not sure it would be much help. Hm. There's a Thousand Cuts consolidation possible with the EchoesX3, but that's more about saving Arete at the expense of Fall, and I'm more opposed to that than I am eager for Thousand Cuts over Undying Vanguard. Offensive option next vote, I guess?

@Byzantine, looks like I was convinced after all, if by vote gore as much as your efforts. :S

[X] Forebear's Blade - Echo of the Forebear
[X] Forebear's Blade - Fall of Night - 2 Arete
[X] Forebear's Blade - Undying Vanguard - 7 Arete.
[X] Letrizia - Hollow Star
 
[X] Forebear's Blade - Echo of the Forebear x3
-[X] 2 Arete: Undying Echo
[X] Forebear's Blade - A Thousand Cuts - 7 Arete (0 picks)
[X] Letrizia - Hollow Star

This seems pretty perfect. An tanky-ish build with a stronk offense.
 
ImperatorV said:
We're getting to the consolidation stage though, and it's looking like the Nine-Arete version of the Thousand Cuts build is more popular, and I don't like that one.
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Redshirt Army said:
If a Thousand Cuts/Undying Echo build had a chance, I'd be happy to vote for it, but it looks like people are either going for Fall of Night or saving the Arete instead.
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Projectile said:
I kinda want to change my vote to make that less disgusting, but I'm not sure it would be much help. Hm. There's a Thousand Cuts consolidation possible with the EchoesX3, but that's more about saving Arete at the expense of Fall, and I'm more opposed to that than I am eager for Thousand Cuts over Undying Vanguard. Offensive option next vote, I guess?
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MFW Cuts would actually be the most popular 7 Arete option if we didn't have disagreements about where to spend the rest of the Arete. It's downright tragic. Please @Rihaku give us consolidation.

And so the compromise option of Vanguard wins, despite solving exactly zero problems with our build. If you want to keep Gisena safe people, don't bring her to the Temple. We lack an offensive option far more than we lack adequate defenses.
 
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BrainInAJar said:
RIP When Cuts would actually be the most popular 7 Arete option if we didn't have disagreements about where to spend the rest of the Arete. It's downright tragic. Please @Rihaku give us consolidation.

And so the compromise option of Vanguard wins, despite solving exactly zero problems with our build. If you want to keep Gisena safe people, don't bring her to the Temple. We lack an offensive option far more than we lack adequate defenses.
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Gisena enhances our offense by dispelling defenses, like when we fought the dragonjackal; vanguard is not only about keeping her safe.
She's also useful for other potential challenges in the temple, like magic puzzles.
BrainInAJar said:
Once again, I don't think Vanguard does enough. What weakness are we addressing with it? If we don't pick it, Gisena won't enter the Temple, which is likely safer for her than entering with Vanguard anyway. We can be pretty tanky already with Evening Sky plus Second Form, so I think another tank just adds marginal utility. Her direct offense is terrible. Her Nullity is great, but if we don't pick Null Resist here we can't count on her using her more powerful options unless we are fine with our Rank being Dispelled.

I just think that offence+stats is a way safer investment.
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With Vanguard she can use powerful options because she can be up in their face rather than having to stay behind us
 
George said:
Gisena enhances our offense by dispelling defenses, like when we fought the dragonjackal; vanguard is not only about keeping her safe.
She's also useful for other potential challenges in the temple, like magic puzzles.
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The King Fish already had a type of counter against Nullity, but he was very much not immune to being stabbed in the face. Just having more power is way more reliable then counting on her dispellation.
George said:
With Vanguard she can use powerful options because she can be up in their face rather than having to stay behind us
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She's not a melee fighter though, Vanguard doesn't give Strength, she'd be behind us anyway.
 
BrainInAJar said:
She's not a melee fighter though, Vanguard doesn't give Strength, she'd be behind us anyway.
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She doesn't have to be a melee fighter to be up close, she only needs tankiness and a reason to want to be, which in this case is a clear line of fire for Nullity. It's literally called undying vanguard the whole point is enabling them to be up front. Rihaku has also made posts describing this; I'll go find them I guess.
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Rihaku said:
Shine Bright is very good at what it does - healing your companions with no downsides! Compare to Ring of Blood which is massively inefficient at healing others. Sure, it doesn't have huge in-combat applications, but that's what Undying Vanguard is for! I'm surprised Vanguard isn't getting much interest, considering how afraid you guys have been for your allies' lives! With this they're not only safe, you can use them to help tank! Innovative strategies like sending Gisena directly into a mass of enemies to Tide of Nullity them all become possible, as she's as protected as you are!
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BrainInAJar said:
The King Fish already had a type of counter against Nullity, but he was very much not immune to being stabbed in the face. Just having more power is way more reliable then counting on her dispellation.
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Her dispellation still played a role in the fight and not every enemy will have that; the dragonjackal had nothing and she countered Ber's portals for hours.
That's about as useful as saying some enemies will have a Second Stage equivalent and make Thousand Cuts suicidal - outside specific evidence we're facing an enemy like that it's a minor point at best.
 
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George said:
Her dispellation still played a role in the fight and not every enemy will have that; the dragonjackal had nothing and she countered Ber's portals for hours.
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But she couldn't dispellate the beams of Ber himself. Her Nullity is not an insta-win against magic anymore, if it ever was. It's unwise to rely on it.

George said:
She doesn't have to be a melee fighter to be up close, she only needs tankiness and a reason to want to be, which in this case is a clear line of fire for Nullity. It's literally called undying vanguard the whole point is enabling them to be up front. Rihaku has also made posts describing this; I'll go find them I guess.
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Sure, if we can perfectly control our spacing while we fight our enemies, we wouldn't be vulnerable. However, fights are usually comprised of imperfect scenarios; and offensive power is a lot more reliable than counting on Nullity and has similar effectiveness on stronger enemies, for basically the same price.
 
BrainInAJar said:
But she couldn't dispellate the beams of Ber himself. Her Nullity is not an insta-win against magic anymore, if it ever was. It's unwise to rely on it.


Sure, if we can perfectly control our spacing while we fight our enemies, we wouldn't be vulnerable. However, fights are usually comprised of imperfect scenarios; and offensive power is a lot more reliable than counting on Nullity and has similar effectiveness on stronger enemies, for basically the same price.
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I never claimed it was an insta-win; nothing on offer is an insta-win and nothing on offer can simply be relied on in every scenario for the rest of the quest. We have to continually build stuff up as we grow in strength.

We aren't vulnerable because Gisena has good awareness and control in combat. It's true that general offensive power would be more reliable, but that's not what Thousand Cuts is; Thousand Cuts is a trump card that leads to the Exhausted status if we overuse it, so it's specialized to facing a small number of enemies who have excellent defenses. In other scenarios it underperforms. Sometimes that underperformance is still adequate and sometimes it won't be. No build here is a silver bullet that assures success. I prefer Vanguard for the conditions I think we will face, because I expect it to best meet the challenges that will lead into our next build vote and I think it's better in the medium term.

Please recognize that every build has flaws.
 
[X] Forebear's Blade - Echo of the Forebear
[X] Forebear's Blade - Fall of Night
[X] Forebear's Blade - Undying Vanguard
[X] Letrizia - Hollow Star

It's interesting to me that everyone is mono-focused on Graces as the only magic system to pick up with the Wreath, when there are plenty of others we could choose. Like the Ordinal Spiral, or Vitalism, or Chrysopoeia.
 
George said:
We aren't vulnerable because Gisena has good awareness and control in combat. It's true that general offensive power would be more reliable, but that's not what Thousand Cuts is; Thousand Cuts is a trump card that leads to the Exhausted status if we overuse it, so it's specialized to facing a small number of enemies who have excellent defenses. In other scenarios it underperforms. Sometimes that underperformance is still adequate and sometimes it won't be. No build here is a silver bullet that assures success. I prefer Vanguard for the conditions I think we will face, because I expect it to best meet the challenges that will lead into our next build vote and I think it's better in the medium term.

Please recognize that every build has flaws.
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Rihaku said:
All melee attacks made with the Forebear's Blade now apply cursed wounds.
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I'm not saying Vanguard doesn't do anything, just the it doesn't cover the biggest hole in our build, which is lack of offense; something we suffered for even while we had Gisena's Nullity with us. Evening Sky and Second Form make us quite tanky already, there's no need to triple down on it.

It's not only useful against enemies with stronger defenses, it's useful in general; dead enemies can't harm us. If an enemy has excellent offensive attributes then killing them quickly becomes even more important. Its way more versatile than just a tank-buster.

Even if no build is perfect, some are definitely better than others, and I wouldn't be discussing this if I didn't think Cuts is better than Vanguard.
 
Again, please stick with 7 Arete spending plans to maximize gains from the dungeon. Having Night instead of Echo has relatively minimal impact on our first encounter but having ability to pick 7 Arete option after said encounter will vastly increase our power and, thus, allow us to maximize our absolute gain.
 
I suppose the question here is the best way to implement this advice... A Simple Transaction I Original
If you want to keep everyone safe, the best bet is (short of generating 15+ Arete before you reach the Temple) taking Conservative and spending at least 7 Arete on some means of immediate power during the intervening monster fights. 7 + 2 multiple times if you can afford it, or two synergistic 7s maybe!
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The previous Philosopher's Wreath plan used Undying Echo. I realized a couple other viable plans existed with it too.

Here's my previous workup of the stats given an Undying Echo based strategy

++INT, ++++CHA, +Strength, +Constitution, ++++AGI

add Philosopher's Wreath [+Intelligence, +Wisdom, +Charisma] combined with whatever precise stat boosts we get if we pick sorcery and we get a floor of

+++INT, +WIS, +++++CHA, +Strength, +Constitution, ++++AGI

add the benefits for echo of the forebear/undying echo[+Strength, +Agility, ++++Constitution] and that takes our floor to

+++INT, +WIS, +++++CHA, ++Strength, +++++Constitution, +++++AGI
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[] Philosopher's Wreath - 7 Arete (2 picks)
[] Forebear's Blade - Fall of Night - 2 Arete

++INT, ++++CHA, +Strength, +Constitution, ++++AGI

add Philosopher's Wreath [+Intelligence, +Wisdom, +Charisma] combined with whatever precise stat boosts we get if we pick sorcery and we get a floor of

+++INT, +WIS, +++++CHA, +Strength, +Constitution, ++++AGI

Now add Fall of Night on top of that [++ Strength, +Agility, Souped up and discounted blade winds, Fall Control/Trapdoor insurance]

+++INT, +WIS, +++++CHA, +++Strength, +Constitution, +++++AGI

Depending on what grace we pick and our Coalescence benefits these stats will go further, or we unlock an entirely new attack vector to go with our blade winds, or something

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We could also get

[] Philosopher's Wreath - 7 Arete (2 picks)
[ ] The Ring of Power - Dominion

In spite of setting our floor at

+++INT, +WIS, +++++CHA, +Strength, +Constitution, ++++AGI

this gets us a rank boost in combat scenarios if we pick war.
 
[X] Forebear's Blade - Echo of the Forebear x3
-[X] 2 Arete: Undying Echo
[X] Forebear's Blade - A Thousand Cuts - 7 Arete (0 picks)
[X] Letrizia - Hollow Star
 
You know what, this seems versatile enough to be worth voting for at the moment.

[x] Philosopher's Wreath - 7 Arete (2 picks)
[x] Forebear's Blade - Fall of Night - 2 Arete
[x] Letrizia - Hollow Star
 
You're at 10.6 Arete now. 2.4 more until you can spend 14 with Arete Debt. Hm...

On the other hand, being insufficiently prepared for your first encounter may leave you in worse condition than even a 7 cost can solve, depending on the nature of your enemy!
 
Philosopher's Wreathe provides a wisdom boost to go with the intelligence boost. Seems like the kind of thing that'd help in an illusion or high stakes riddle contest scenario. Further, wisdom seems like It'd reduce the odds of suicidal voting options even being on the table.
 
Vote closing in 1 hour! The strongest plans will survive in some form to consolidation. Looks like there are a lot of dynamics we'll have to account for, however. 7 vs 11 Arete spending, Echo vs Fall usage in builds, whether or not Hunger will be able to withstand the Temple without Gisena's august presence, etc...
 
For the Gisena fans in the room, Philosopher's Wreath also gets us started on soupeing her up, especially when/if we get something like undying vanguard.

It also gives us incentive to pursue findross generation from benefiting both of us.
 
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