That's just wrong. Not only does the Vanquisher option explicitly say it will recklessly seek out the strongest opponents and retreat thereafter, but Aggressive itself says that it wants to get rewards, not that fighting uninterruptedly is the goal. If fighting once gets us those great rewards, then we can retreat, having fulfilled our initial objective. The options don't describe the totality of his behaviour, just the general strategy and goals.
A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
Talace
It must be raining somewhere else!
I think this misses the point. Aggressive isn't the one that allows for retreat, that's Conservative, since we stay closer to the doors. We're not guaranteed to be fighting single foes, because the deeper in we are the harder it will be to find respite (and retreat). Getting into traps can reduce the efficacy of Form of Rage by prolonging engagements. More than that, it causes us to lose Arete/an advancement, plus making it harder to find more enemies we're comfortable fighting upon reentry into the Temple due to our tired status. We can go hard once, and I'm not convinced that the admittedly powerful form is versatile and strong enough to plow through each and every novel effect and unknown enemy before retreating. Thus, when we are inevitably forced to retreat, I'd rather avoid the harsh consequences of powering down.
If Conservative can avoid those powerful opponents, why can't BV do the same on the way back, especially with another Rage in him for the worst case?
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
Because Aggressive BV didn't spend the time clearing the route to be able to smoothly move through it the other way.
After the fight he'd be more powerful than any of the starting options, even if one takes Tired into consideration. That should be more than sufficient for a retreat unless you believe none of them can survive the Temple.
Talace
It must be raining somewhere else!
I imagine we can't change Aggressive/Conservative stances midway through the delve, but for the sake of arguing, let's assume you can. We haven't been looking through traps, unnecessary fights will have burned goodwill both with adventurers and potentially peaceful creatures in the Temple, and generally the costs of retreat are harsh-- so a strategy relying on that as our main form of farming leaves me leery. I don't know if the marginal change in terms of increased experience is more powerful than the saved Arete and Advancements, but as a consideration it's less reliant on random picks from whatever beasts we defeat and less risky in the face of novel effects we haven't accounted for.
LordOfMurder
Bhaal
- Location
- Australia
Why don't you like Gisena by the way? Did you take all of Rihaku's memeing about how annoying she is in the original at face value?
Having committed to going to the Temple, we should follow through and try to capitalize on the benefits offered. Once we're ahead of the curve, we can chill out and take less risky actions, but we rushed to get here. I'm not eager to nerf the mindset bonus of Being The Danger down to five percent; if it works multiplicatively in order of application, that doesn't even cancel out Chill of the Grave. Whatever the other adventurers are doing is unlikely to be fully capturing the Temple's potential, since their delving's lasted long enough for a town to spring up.
Is the urge toward caution is understandable, given the fact that the Temple may be eating the fucking moon? Yes, but at least it's got good taste. More seriously, affinity gives us an advantage and with three healthbars we could afford to take risks. The Form of Rage can engage enemies that even Murderer's Panoply might balk at, and saves enough Arete to do so twice while still breaking even with it cost-wise. But the idea is not to repeatedly use it, but push forward with bold and intelligent action. Our victories compound, that's the whole strat we've exploited up until this point. Take .1 additional Rank to begin with; then use the 'vastly increased' chance of Rank-ups to claw our way to the literal top of this thing.
Anyway, having delivered my latest reaction just in time to bury the bloody thing at the bottom of the page, I'm off for now. The index should be up to date, I'll do another pass later.
Is the urge toward caution is understandable, given the fact that the Temple may be eating the fucking moon? Yes, but at least it's got good taste. More seriously, affinity gives us an advantage and with three healthbars we could afford to take risks. The Form of Rage can engage enemies that even Murderer's Panoply might balk at, and saves enough Arete to do so twice while still breaking even with it cost-wise. But the idea is not to repeatedly use it, but push forward with bold and intelligent action. Our victories compound, that's the whole strat we've exploited up until this point. Take .1 additional Rank to begin with; then use the 'vastly increased' chance of Rank-ups to claw our way to the literal top of this thing.
Anyway, having delivered my latest reaction just in time to bury the bloody thing at the bottom of the page, I'm off for now. The index should be up to date, I'll do another pass later.
LordOfMurder
Bhaal
- Location
- Australia
The description for Form of Rage says it ends after the battle concludes so I'm guessing we fall back into normal form after beating whatever triggers it. Panoply probably accrues xp faster overall if the Vanquisher plan is to retreat to the entrance upon acquiring tired.
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- Location
- Pindorama
[X] The Barest Cut
[X] Conservative
[X] +.1 Rank
It does seem like this the likeliest Cuts option to win, so I'm voting accordingly. Kind of sucks that both of the leading builds aren't good for Aggression considering gathering power was the whole reason we came here, but oh well.
[X] Conservative
[X] +.1 Rank
It does seem like this the likeliest Cuts option to win, so I'm voting accordingly. Kind of sucks that both of the leading builds aren't good for Aggression considering gathering power was the whole reason we came here, but oh well.
It's less about changing strategies midway and more about viewing them through the lens of the chosen build. If we have a build with a more or less consistent power level that steadily grows with each challenge, then Aggressive means seeking out strong opponents - not undefeatable ones, but things we can't be sure we'll win against.
For BV, who has burst effectiveness against single powerful opponents, Aggressive means seeking out those impossible challenges and retreating once we get what we wanted from them. Conservative in this context implies avoiding danger and taking Rage as additional insurance on the off-chance we meet something we can't handle. That's why the combination annoys me so much - it pretty much invalidates the advantages of BV.
One can argue whether it's a good idea to commit to this reckless playstyle, but I'm of the opinion that it will pay off, so I'm voting for it.
There's a significant difference in power between the quality of opponents they can take on that quantity can't easily make up for.
No, she was just actually annoying in the original. She killed Aselyn and cost Seram Morgiana as a friend. Her suicide technique stripped him of half his Amplitude and put us through build vote hell (with a 10% tax on overall power) when the Enchantress liquidated his Remittance. The Graces offered were cool, no argument there, but Gisena's introduction was taking the nerfbat to both our kneecaps.
I voted to resurrect her because I trusted Jeanne when she said Gisena had strategic intel, and doing that deactivated Seram's anesthetic Grace right before he went and got repeatedly maimed for training purposes. The fatalism's also irksome, especially in a world rife with possibility and literal magic where it's unjustified. I get enough of that shit from my own brain, thanks.
LordOfMurder
Bhaal
- Location
- Australia
Fair enough. This is an alternate universe Gisena with different experiences and apparently less fatalism though, plus even in the original her fatalism was expressed more in terms of living a life as enjoyable as possible. Maybe I was just less invested in the previous quest so the things she did there didn't affect me as much. It's possible Seram didn't even become a cursebearer in this reality and to be fair the world's fight against Jotarun was literally hopeless without the outside context problem he represented.
I was rereading it the other day and she only actually appeared for three updates, one where we fight her, one where we resurect her and the one where she builds us a toilet.
With Aggressive though we fight everything that challenges us so there's good odds we won't be using form of Rage against a top tier enemy that Panoply can't deal with.
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Enohthree
Hypersane
[X] Bright Vanquisher
[X] Aggressive
[X] +.1 Rank - The will to go on.
Why?
More seriously it means that we'd also be thrice as intelligent for the duration. A burst of insight from a Hunger who is super intelligent within his own setting could easily be worth it's weight in moonrock, be it tactics, observations, synergies, or what have you.
[X] Aggressive
[X] +.1 Rank - The will to go on.
Why?
Not just triple speed and strength. With triple the CHA the next time we fight Ber we could convince three of his friends to effectively kill themselves!
More seriously it means that we'd also be thrice as intelligent for the duration. A burst of insight from a Hunger who is super intelligent within his own setting could easily be worth it's weight in moonrock, be it tactics, observations, synergies, or what have you.
Alright, let's do some Cut/Conservative tactics:
- Before anything else, one has to understand that main tenant of Conservation is one of non-commitment; where Aggressive would level as fast as possible, Con will take it slowly, trading away time for safety
- Non-commitment means exactly that; we don't just do something, we do it slowly and methodically, making sure we always have an escape route and information needed to finish an encounter
- When meeting a monster, Aggressive would try to finish it. Con would battle it multiple times, learning it's patterns and weaknesses, all while having escape routes and contingencies in place. Only after making sure we can do the task would we commit and finish the fight. Same line of thought applies to puzzles
- It is much slower, yes, but that is the point. We've gained time with the Quickest Route; now we can cash in that time and mitigate risks of the dungeon while still reaping it's rewards
- With more time to do stuff, we can also expect more experience in the dungeon itself, which would allow us to make use of Nightmare Praetor to create advanced plans
- We could set up traps to lure monsters into, using either Verse's munitions or loot from the dungeon; we could lure them into already present traps or other monsters, provided that monsters can be harmed in such a way
- We could selectively bring in Gisena to deal with specific foes and traps, allowing us to make a use of her skill to a certain degree while reducing risk to Verse to the minimum. If we could bait enemies in the open, we could have both Verse and Gisena back us up
- We could observe other adventurers, gaining valuable info about how things work in this dungeon, which would feed back to our Praetor
- With Cut, intelligent usage of our Thousand Cuts is paramount. Rather than rushing and getting Exhausted due to chaining Cuts, we can plan our time so we explore dungeon, make plans or just sleep between Cuts usage, allowing maximum efficiency there as well
- Our absolute goal is to discover location of the main "treasure" at the moment we peak with our power, allowing us one final push to get the riches of this dungeon
- Teaming up with other adventurers is not out of question, especially if we have Gisena around to help with introductions. Remember, we do have that Pearl around, so we could trade it for their help against a certain powerful enemies or similar. Likewise, we could trade various loot from dungeon to them. All of this hinges on their good will, however
- In theory, provided that enemy patrols in certain patterns, we could learn these and ambush them at specific advantageous locations
- This would mean that we would just back down and try and find another way if we end up facing especially powerful opponent or difficult puzzle. We can get back and take them out when we get stronger, after all
LordOfMurder
Bhaal
- Location
- Australia
According to the last update Gisena will only accompany us if Immortal Regiment wins. Not sure how flexible that is though.
[X] Bright Vanquisher
[X] Aggressive
[X] +.1 Rank - The will to go on.
[X] Aggressive
[X] +.1 Rank - The will to go on.
- Location
- Rivendell
[X] Bright Vanquisher
[ ] Murderer's Panoply
[X] Aggressive
[X] +.1 Rank
Not too sure about which build to take, but I like the options that increase our build's key stat, Rank, and I like not nerfing our route bonus.
[ ] Murderer's Panoply
[X] Aggressive
[X] +.1 Rank
Not too sure about which build to take, but I like the options that increase our build's key stat, Rank, and I like not nerfing our route bonus.
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Shard
One and Many
- Location
- Malaysia
I'm mostly just annoyed that we never figured out the obvious 'Use Gisena to mitigate Brand of the Wretched' before we went to the Hall of Convenants. Hell, didn't think about it right until Rihaku posted Gisena as a Lesser Remittance. That would have at least have made Gisena's nerfbats way more palatable.
TwistedJester
Tired Lurker King
- Location
- Hell
[X] Immortal Regiment
[X] Aggressive
[X] Absolute Focus
[X] Aggressive
[X] Absolute Focus
- Location
- Pindorama
I don't know why people argue about relying on Rage to grind when Rihaku explicitly told us about the problems of that. If Rage activates against an opponent, you can kiss the rest of our exploration goodbye. It's a panic button, not something that can leverage proactively. Neither is Regiment in my opinion, but at least we get to benefit from what it does provide without fucking dying. I don't like it no matter what approach, really.
