West Wind Step: B rank
Duration: Immediate
From the warm west wind comes spring and summer, heralding spring, and in it's recession is the coming of fall and winter. Predictable in a way that the other winds are not, nonetheless it was the last to be captured. The west wind comes and goes, and naught may halt or capture it again. A single attack of equal rank or lower may be avoided, no matter how unerring the aim, as the user scatters, rematerializing with Far range of their current position. When retreating through this method, the user of the canceled technique receives C rank cold damage as they are lashed by the winds of encroaching winter.
Alternatively, the user may instead activate this technique to advance up to Far distance, avoiding all effects of the interposing space. Up to ten allies within close range of the destination receive a significant bonus to Physical and Spiritual avoid, and reduce the damage of all incoming effects by one rank until the users next turn.
It appears my concerns about Avoid not having room to grow were valid. This doesn't look like an upgrade or a bonus to Avoid; it's a side-grade at most.
The dodge text is identical to the previous form, but it's lost the discount for repeated use. That makes the tech less Avoid-y.
It now does damage independently, but I'm not interested in doing damage with Wind Thief. The previous form also allowed for attacking, didn't have its own damage value, but theoretically allowed combination with other on-hit effects from other techniques, and had a damage reduction reduction effect. C rank damage is pretty pointless, here. I'd argue the damage dealing capacity of the technique has ultimately been reduced. And it's unrelated to Avoid.
The proactive use of the technique has gained range, which is a speed/mobility upgrade, and gained an ally buff similar, but arguably inferior to SNR's Black Mirror technique. WWS has a range and ease of activation advantage, but BM completely erases an offending technique, of up to A rank, and reduces
all hostile effects by one rank for all allies in range and the user, where WSS only reduces damage by one rank for 10 allies. WSS also gives a short-lived Avoid bonus to those allies, but even buffed Avoid is unreliable against superior foes which is the kind of circumstance that would justify using a B-rank tech to leap to our allies in their defense. Tactically, WSS's chief use is aggressive PLR-dropping allies into enemy formations.
ZME also gained the ability to go upkeep. Considering the tech already had D-rank cost re-activation, this doesn't increase the sustain of Ling Qi's Avoid much at all. The main impact is on sustained out-of-combat speed/mobility.
In general, while this bonus is neat in a few thematic ways, it can't be called an Avoid upgrade.