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A Simple Transaction I

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Dark Abstraction said:
I don't personally find any of these given options intolerable, though I find some to be more enjoyable than others. Just felt I had to make the above statement, because "Reject pathos/preference, Embrace logos/optimization" does kind of suck to hear.
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It is unfortunate that Hunger is in such a difficult situation. The difficulty of this self-imposed situation was in many ways avoidable. Now that he is here, his choices must be strategically coherent at the very least if you guys do not want to pay massive amounts of Arete or take on massive amounts of risk to get through this. It may be that Hunger must take on a sacrifice that is outside the tolerable band of some number of voters in order to survive; that is one of the possibilities that exists in a high difficulty scenario. There is no getting around it and no perfect solution.

However, regardless of the above, it is still the case that thread dialogue is excessively dominated by negativity and many of the downsides you guys over-emphasize are not nearly as bad in actual play.

Strange9 said:
I'm a big fan of immediate physical power/parameters -- despite the fact that everyone we've faced has been a soul evocation user (and thus been unable to use Rank offensively, and with a penalty defensively), it doesn't seem to have been as important as our actual physical stats. Moreover, since it doesn't seem like folks are willing to pick Vanreir:

[X] Lingering Exhaustion
[X] Forebear's Blade - Uttermost (4 picks)
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Rank is often not directly implicated in an action's success or failure, but its influence is present nonetheless!
 
As stated by Rihaku, i feel like we need something that can be a game-changer. Stranglethorn can be this, eventually, both Inhertor and Uttermost are this, giving Hunger imense combat prowess. Rank alone, in the short-term, isn't. Yes, i support rank, rank is good, but we can't get more rank if we are dead.
 
Hmm, interesting.
True Maiming has a pretty good vote lead. More people voted for The Ring of Power - Inheritor but unless they consolidate they will lose to Hunger - Stranglethorn who has single 14 Votes to their split 18 Votes.
Though voters in one option may not want the other option like me who supports the Unerring but will switch to the Stranglethorn completely if the Librarian gets the lead.
Forebear's Blade - Uttermost is at 13 but it probably has quite the omake power behind it with @Orm Embar
Feat: Kinslayer has a surprising amount of votes but less than the other three at 12. May want to switch to the others.

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Adhoc vote count started by Maragas on Jun 18, 2020 at 3:28 PM, finished with 540 posts and 58 votes.
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Xalvitor said:
As stated by Rihaku, i feel like we need something that can be a game-changer. Stranglethorn can be this, eventually, both Inhertor and Uttermost are this, giving Hunger imense combat prowess. Rank alone, in the short-term, isn't. Yes, i support rank, rank is good, but we can't get more rank if we are dead.
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You can get Dominion: War from ordinary farming action, at which point you are already at 5.75 Rank with FOR up.

Also, fact that there are some people who genuinely think that Rank does nothing in combat is very ???. Did you guys just forgot how crippling Exhaustion was versus Ber..
 
I'll be voting for the Uttermost or Rank, whatever is more competitive with current favorites. As of right now, it looks like supporting rank is more viable.
 
Xalvitor said:
As stated by Rihaku, i feel like we need something that can be a game-changer. Stranglethorn can be this, eventually, both Inhertor and Uttermost are this, giving Hunger imense combat prowess. Rank alone, in the short-term, isn't. Yes, i support rank, rank is good, but we can't get more rank if we are dead.
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If we're arguing based on Rihaku quotes, that's not really what he says about +Rank? It seems plenty viable as long as we follow up appropriately after it to gain power, just as Apex was.
Rihaku said:
The +Rank option, for example, doesn't have any baked-in downsides, but it may be that the next option which most synergizes with +Rank will, and you don't know what its downsides may be. If you take it now and fail to take that strategically important option later, the Temple may simply eat you. The same can be said for a Sword build or a Mage build. That a pick costs some amount of options and Arete, which may be identical to a different pick, does not mean the two choices have an equal impact on your build.
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So, take a look at this:

Rihaku said:
Mm, it's debateable which option has the highest immediate power. Unerring: Vanreir + Fierce Quickening, Unerring: Librarian, and Uttermost are all in the running. They're powerful in different ways.
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The fact of the matter is, all the options we have are good. So we have to consider which one is the best.

Librarian gets us a lot of immediate power, competitive with the very best! And it also vastly expands our versatility. I know I've been harping on it quite a lot, but our build is pretty one-dimensional right now! We're very good at fighting, have a little bit of mental and social skills that we haven't buffed since Ber showed his face, and access to some utility via Chief Dominion. Most of our build is raw physical combat though.

Furthermore, the options we've seen so far that increase our utility have been ones that lack immediate power. Mage Lord, Fisher Kind, Heedless War... All rejected for being too greedy. Well, now we have the chance to take a high-quality versatility-increasing option that provides a hefty amount of immediate power. If we don't take this now, it may be a long time before we see another option that gets us this much utility and expanded capabilities that doesn't cost immediate power. Assuming we live that long! There's still been no one who can answer my question about what we're supposed to do in a situation where physical combat power is either useless or suboptimal.
 
Rank is an incredibly flexible godstat. Whether you are a mage, a fighter, try to social your way through something...it always helps.
 
ImperatorV said:
The fact of the matter is, all the options we have are good. So we have to consider which one is the best.
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Note that Stranglethorn and Kinslayer are not listed, however!

Elero said:
Rank is an incredibly flexible godstat. Whether you are a mage, a fighter, try to social your way through something...it always helps.
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Certainly true and a big part of why I initially supported it, but we do unfortunately need very much to slay our enemies right now, so some focus is warranted.

ImperatorV said:
We can get rank in a lot of places though. Any time we fight an important battle, there's usually a +rank option. Where else are we going to get versatility?
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When have we ever had a chance at Rank without paying with Exhaustion or a chance to die?
 
That we can get rank in lots of places is a huge argument for rank, since every point of rank makes rank more powerful.
And I'd argue rank is very versatile, since it is effectively shaping reality to benefit us.
 
Wolfy said:
You can get Dominion: War from ordinary farming action, at which point you are already at 5.75 Rank with FOR up.

Also, fact that there are some people who genuinely think that Rank does nothing in combat is very ???. Did you guys just forgot how crippling Exhaustion was versus Ber..
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I don't think Rank does nothing in combat, but I do think that it becomes somewhat less important if much of our power is invested in stats/the power of Ruin! This is particularly true as we progress further into the temple: our enemies can't use their higher Rank against us (they seem to be Soul Evocation users), but will have higher defenses against it (on the assumption that Inner Residents have a higher defensive Rank than Outriders).
 
[X] Forebear's Blade - Uttermost (4 picks)
[X] Lingering Exhaustion

I don't think the thread's behavior is going to change. Therefore, we should take an option that's actually synergistic with that behavior. If we insist on being YOLT, then we either need to go hard or go home.

And I know you guys aren't willing to go home.

Prospalz said:
I'll be voting for the Uttermost or Rank, whatever is more competitive with current favorites. As of right now, it looks like supporting rank is more viable.
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Uttermost is actually ahead of Kinslayer right now.

And as a side note to all SORDbros, this option can lead to us being able to apply an EFB SORD to all of our attacks at zero cost. You can't get much more SORD than that.
 
Elero said:
That we can get rank in lots of places is a huge argument for rank, since every point of rank makes rank more powerful.
And I'd argue rank is very versatile, since it is effectively shaping reality to benefit us.
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Here's the thing. In the short term (which is very much a survival concern), we're not going to get enough rank to be able to do whatever the heck we want. It'll be much more limited then Inheritor:Librarian, while also in the short term being weaker then either inheritor or Uttermost.

Can we afford to take such a greedy option? Especially since rank gains come from hard fights. We've taken a lot of risks and gotten lucky so far, trying to pursue supreme rank could well kill us when our luck runs out.
 
ImperatorV said:
We can get rank in a lot of places though. Any time we fight an important battle, there's usually a +rank option. Where else are we going to get versatility?
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It's literally more Rank than what we've got in the entire quest!
George said:
Certainly true and a big part of why I initially supported it, but we do unfortunately need very much to slay our enemies right now, so some focus is warranted.
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But Rank is directly relevant to combat! Remember, exponential curve which ends with Rank 10 = Cultivation Rank 15. And between Kinglslayer, Dominion and Prominence/Hero Slayer you are looking at whooping 1.7 increase on it!
Strange9 said:
I don't think Rank does nothing in combat, but I do think that it becomes somewhat less important if much of our power is invested in stats/the power of Ruin! This is particularly true as we progress further into the temple: our enemies can't use their higher Rank against us (they seem to be Soul Evocation users), but will have higher defenses against it (on the assumption that Inner Residents have a higher defensive Rank than Outriders).
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Remember, Rank 5 and Rank 6 with same stats, Rank 6 has overwhelming advantage!
 
Librarian can mitigate the poison weakness from True Maiming and Lord Hunger is in character doubting the value of a pure physical setup. He'd seriously consider Correspondent or Librarian if he was voting. Plus, a guile hero, a deceiver, an exemplar of age and treachery is going to need tools to work out schemes effectively. According to Rihaku the only question is whether or not it can fully counter the poison weakness from True Maiming or just reduce the severity.

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runeblue360 said:
[X] Forebear's Blade - Uttermost (4 picks)
[X] Lingering Exhaustion

I don't think the thread's behavior is going to change. Therefore, we should take an option that's actually synergistic with that behavior. If we insist on being YOLT, then we either need to go hard or go home.

And I know you guys aren't willing to go home.

Uttermost is actually ahead of Kinslayer right now.

And as a side note to all SORDbros, this option can lead to us being able to apply an EFB SORD to all of our attacks at zero cost. You can't get much more SORD than that.
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And what is your plan if we run into a situation where physical combat doesn't work, or works poorly?
 
runeblue360 said:
Uttermost is actually ahead of Kinslayer right now.
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Oh, right then.

[X] Forebear's Blade - Uttermost (4 picks)
[X] Lingering Exhaustion

I basically think that all that we managed so far is more or less Hunger losing his fight against the temple, slowly. Maybe even not all that slowly. All this short-signed scrambling and fearmongering to get some immediate power fucked up our medium-term goals of actually surviving and scaling enough to surmount the goddamn temple, not merely one next fight. The thread refused Ring EFB that would've broken the pattern, which is regrettable.

Thankfully, Rihaku is merciful and this option offers both immediate power and a straightforward pathway to EFB without omnious RINGWAR references, which makes it something I can actually see getting into our build when Ring could not. Tyrant-derived drawbacks painful, but with that, we could actually survive our stubborness.
 
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Mhm. I am just unwilling to take the "Can't mitigate Tyrant's Doom beyond it's initial" downside. I am perfectly fine with every other downside of any option. But that one sounds crippling for everyone who is going to need to do some serious social in the future, especially since it comes with charisma penalty. That's an very unfortunate combo.
 
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Prospalz said:
I basically think that all that we managed so far is more or less losing, slowly. All this short-signed scrambling and fearmongering to get some immediate power fucked up our medium-term goals of actually surviving the goddamn temple, not merely one next fight. The thread refused Ring EFB that would've broken the pattern, which is regrettable.

Thankfully, Rihaku is merciful and this option offers both immediate power and a straightforward pathway to EFB without omnious RINGWAR references, which makes it something I can actually see getting into our build when Ring could not. Tyrant-derived drawbacks painful, but with that, we could actually survive our stubborness.
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Cut through is actually harder to get then Ruling Ring, since it cannot be bought piecemeal, and we'd have to save up 18 Arete. That's not going to happen with our spending habits.

Furthermore, I personally am much more opposed to Cut Through then to Ruling Ring. Also, we did not refuse the Ring EFB, we decided it was too greedy at the time (it was, our first fight after that build vote was this last one). Losing one vote does not mean Ruling Ring is dead.

If anything, Uttermost makes us even more likely to not get an EFB, as it splits our attention even further with another discounted EFB to work towards.

runeblue360 said:
The option says it itself.

If something cannot be cut, then we'll cut through anyway. Do, even if it cannot be done.
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Well, I hope your beliefs are justified if Uttermost manages to win. I for one am not counting on it though.
 
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