Remove ads

A Simple Transaction I

Reader mode
[X] Larissa of House Alynne
[X] Weapon-Defeating Stance
[X] Fierce Quickening

Thinking on it, changing to this. Alynne evacuates and distracts with her forces, while we leverage the major agi boost to reach the ring as fast as possible, making full use of our current build. Largest risk is encountering a foe with exoteric effects, i think.
 
[X] Who Walked Away
[X] Fierce Quickening
[X] Fierce Quickening x2

Going with this for now. Let's elevate the power of blood even further, acquiring the S P E E D that Hunger so desperately needs. In the world of kung fu, speed determines the winner.
 
Thomasfoolery said:
The relocation aspects of our element could be useful for evacuation, it's not quite scaled enough yet though.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The Rank, +Luck and +Int of World-Defeating Stance might actually be quite useful here...

Xalvitor said:
[X] Larissa of House Alynne
[X] Weapon-Defeating Stance
[X] Fierce Quickening

Thinking on it, changing to this. Alynne evacuates and distracts with her forces, while we leverage the major agi boost to reach the ring as fast as possible, making full use of our current build. Largest risk is encountering a foe with exoteric effects, i think.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You do have Gisena to help mitigate that, but it's indeed a substantial risk! Magic-Defeating Stance offers Curse mitigation as well.
 
Last edited:
[X] Larissa of House Alynne

[X] Fierce Quickening

[X] Hero-Defeating Stance

Larissa to avoid humanitarian issues, and the High Marshal + minions is worth one or two Immortals, which is good combat power. This also gets us the most knowledge of the Inner Ring defenses. And, unlike Team Hero, we don't feel bad about ditching them afterwards, if we need to. Or we just have Gisena crush Larissa's dreams.

Hero-Defeating Stance is said to be the best all-around option, and Fierce Quickening is the best use of our remaining pick.

I can maybe convinced to go for the Hero Team, but I feel Larissa is less problematic all around. Iron Maelstrom is good value for two Arete, and maybe could be paired with a stance if we generate enough, but we only have dispensation to spend 8 Arete ATM and Maelstrom+Stance is 9.

Funnily enough, if we got to nine Arete Pearlescence would be an option, but I don't think it's a good one.
 
If there's an answer for stopping the humanitarian disaster that would be caused without taking Larissa, I suspect it is in the World-Defeating stance. Turn the power of Ruin against the dimensional rift, destroying it before the destabilization kills people.

++++++Protection further against environmental harms, including from incompatible or hostile physics and metaphysics.
*Shelters wielder's powers from suppression or negation, even that resulting from a lack of magic or magical structures within the world.
*5x Power of Ruin against non-supernatural foes or phenomena beyond an human's ability to defeat.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
[X] Magic-Defeating Stance
[X] Augment Dominion: Blood

I don't have much of a preference between the two ally options, they both are decent investments, offer interesting plot hooks, and support for the final push.

I think MDS is the pick here as far as stances go, if we were going in alone, HDS might be necessary, but with this level of support I don't think we need to sink 7 Arete into a stance that doesn't build toward ADS, and who's effects are better covered by Sword Praxis.

The greatest threats we face here will be magic, and constructs, both of which get mulched by MDS. Pure rank combatants like gramps we can blood burn.

As for our options here? I'm not wild about any of them, these are rather generic drops by mobs killed off screen. What I do want is extra picks when we kill the immortals and free the ring. There will be great drops from that, defining advancements, Rank, and unique picks we will want, desperately, even having one additional pick there could be huge, so lets bank one.
 
Last edited:
Conjured Blade said:
If there's an answer for stopping the humanitarian disaster that would be caused without taking Larissa, I suspect it is in the World-Defeating stance. Turn the power of Ruin against the dimensional rift, destroying it before the destabilization kills people.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They're the same color combo, so it's probably intentional.

Battle Mastery FTW!
 
I feel like every option is a bit of a gamble, but maybe something like this:

Larissa evacuates and tries to grab as much attention as we can. We hit a few places to grab attention, use our prodigious speed to bait out the immortals(try and not kill civilians in the proces...) then rush towards the ring with Gisena, facing whatever immortal is in the Ring, using Gisena to deeal with exoteric effects, while we would have enough agility to hopefully speedblitz the rest.

Otherwise, killing all immortals with Fairbright might actually be doable. Grab magic-defeating, fierce X 2, gank one with Fairbright, use of those picks to defeat the rest. Instead of rushing the ring, the objective would be to find an isolated immortal. With Fierce Incarnate equivalent + magic-defeating we might have enough power to simply steamroll the reamaining immortals.
 
Tally incoming:
Adhoc vote count started by Conjured Blade on Jul 4, 2020 at 1:31 AM, finished with 52 posts and 19 votes.
Click to expand...
 
I favor one of two extremes, though I'm not yet sure which one. Gotta get my head on straight about the risk, and also maybe be sober.
[ ] Who Walked Away
[ ] Forebear's Blade - Iron Maelstrom
This is mostly for the sake of letting Hunger be a big damn hero again, or at least a back damn side-kick. Not a bad combat improvement, particularly in mass combat, but a bit light on the intelligence. Yes, it leaves open the question of how we'll save the civilians, but it does set us up with a plucky squad that could rise to the occasion (somehow?). Also there's the whole 'Hunger is not nice' thing. We didn't exactly come in here with mercy and forgiveness at hand, in fact the only thing he's holding is the Forebear's blade.

I would quite like to actually meet a Fairbright, for a number of reasons. I like straightforward good guy heroes of the sort that they purport to be. I want to see how their power functions, beyond some sort of shiny burny thing. I like waifus. I'm optimistic that Hunger can get something good out of a famous heroic bloodline.

For the disorganized rescue of civlians: Gisena can sort the wheat from the chaff in regards to Soul Evocations, and Hunger can provide buffs to the useful ones to try and get effective help from the populace. Like find weak teleporting man, boost him, use him to facilitate escape. No guarantees in this plan, lots of variables.
We can Cut and then with Verchlengorge's help, probably breach the borders, allowing for greater mass exodus.
Perhaps Gisena can selectively nullify, or even not-selectively nullify the vast distance between the entrance to the temple and the entrance to the inner temple, making walking out much more practical. We're not really interested in leaving this place intact.

[ ] Larissa of House Alynne
[ ] Hero-Defeating Stance
[ ] Fierce Quickening
Just sword gud and lead a much more contemporary rebellion. Ultimately just discontent nobility grasping for more. I like the success odds compared to anything without Alynne and Hero-Defeating, but I'll keep my eyes peeled for superior suggestions. This is my more traditional and cowardly route of trying not to get pasted by immortal kung-fu lich guys. The improvement in stats, rank, and matchups is pretty good, and the support from our blushing backer makes a pretty honest attack actually plausible, if still dangerous. No worries about evacuation, it's handled.

It does lack much of the hopefulness of the other set I'm looking at, but needs must. Tactics for fighting are similar to the other option, just broadly better in every way. Buffs are a bit less prevalent, but that's easily made up for by the superior forces in play, and Hunger's own greater power. Knowing more about what we're up against is also pretty damn big.

It does beg the question of what we're doing with these guys after we take their ring. Just letting Gisena ruin Larissa's dream and walk away? They're going to lose out on power massively if we don't find a way to keep supporting their Soul Evocations, either with power taken from the dominated ring or by having a party member (let's be honest, it would be Gisena) wield the Azure Ring.
Either way, they're not going to just disappear, and as an aspiring high-Rank, Hunger needs PR.
 
[X] Larissa of House Alynne
[X] Weapon-Defeating Stance
[X] Fierce Quickening

Hunger can take the discomfort if it means the safe evacuation of civilians and two Immortal-Grade combatants. Fierce Quickening+ Weapon Defeating to maximize stats while still being "Efficient".

Seriously though, we should pick Alynne to make this easier on ourselves vote-wise; many of the logistical difficulties and hard decisions that can result from this are neatly resolved by the support of her House; while we can get the combat power someone like Fairbright offers on our own. There's a reason this is a 10 Charisma unlock; the perks of this option are quite powerful.
 
Last edited:
[X] Larissa of House Alynne
[X] Weapon-Defeating Stance
[X] Fierce Quickening

Temporary vote while I get my thoughts in order.
 
Ok. So we've got two conceiveable non Larissa routes for stopping the Humanitarian Disaster. The first involves using World-Defeating Stance and upscaling our might to upgrade our power of ruin to the point we can destroy the rift before it kills people. The second involves souping up our intelligence or the intelligence of an ally to the point they can modify the calendar engine to massively slow the rifts destruction.

Destroy the Vortex, SORDbros you will probably love this one:

Silver Horde+World Defeating Stance+Echo of the Forebear+Echo of the Forebear+Echo of the Forebear(7 Arete)


For a Calendar Engine Strategy, we need World Defeating Stance and Exalted Spirit as both the intelligence options. Possibly just Exalted Spirit and the right person I don't know.


Who Walked Away+Exalted Spirit+Dominion(War) = A saving focused route(4 Arete) gambling Aristesia or one of her people can use the Calendar Engine to save people if we blood buff them
Who Walked Away+Exalted Spirit+World Defeating Stance+Fierce Quickening = A greedy(9 Arete) route where we use the intelligence buff we get from WDS and Exalted Spirit to use the calendar engine to save the people ourselves.
 
[X] The Silver Horde
[X] Who Walked Away
[X] Evening Sky - Opalescence
[X] Evening Sky - Iridescence - 2 Arete

We need exotic defenses! We'll finally be able to resist some exotic effects and nullity, plus with such a frugal spend it would take only minor effort to jump to Magic-defeating Stance or Pearlescence!
 
I suppose if you're feeling greedy(9 Arete), you could try SORDing the rift to death with

Silver Horde+World Defeating Stance+Echo of the Forebear+Iron Maelstrom
 
I do see the value of @runeblue360 plan specifically here; if Fairbright can buff us, stacking as many stats as possible then going on to kill Immortals might give out more power overall due to stacking effects; essentially taking enough power here to snowball once we get going. We have less need for M-DS given Gisena's with us, so the raw power of We-DS seems better.

But while that covers the power front, there's no answer to the consequences of the theft of the Ring outside of "Hope for the best". Maybe we can gamble Fairbright was in on some stuff and had insider knowledge of some kind; but that isn't enough to cover us.

Meanwhile, Alynne knows the most important parts of the Temple infrastructure and military; not only in terms of immediate power but for a "peaceful transition"; she is the best option, due to being an insider of that very system. She knows where all the resources are and how to utilize them; and after the coup will likely have the remit to impose such necessary measures unrestricted. Rescuing Fairbright is the idealistic option and I quite like it for that; but we don't live in the world of the idea but on the grim muck of the real. Choosing Alynne here is just acknowledging that.

Finally, that Fairbright plus Maelstrom build is pretty goddamn weaksauce. We literally are in the final stretch here, saving has a higher opportunity cost than ever. The faster we get out of here the faster we can go back to conscientious spending, so burning Arete here is pretty good for our future prospects. We shouldn't save, but use this power we have to seize more power. 2-Arete isn't enough, just bite the bullet and get another Stance.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top