[X] Purchase It
[X] Bait and Tackle

now is a good a time as any to start generating art again so diplomacy loses
 
[X] Purchase It
[X] Cast Line


We bought Whiteout, so not getting ADS is a bit ??. Plus our allies are still in danger from the Lord Protector, which this will hopefully help with.

Cast Line less for moral reasons, but because Bait & Tackle benefits less from ADS and because I don't want to give Apo-chan time to find a pilot for the Fish or worse.
 
[X] Purchase It
[X] Cast Line


We bought Whiteout, so not getting ADS is a bit ??. Plus our allies are still in danger from the Lord Protector, which this will hopefully help with.

Cast Line less for moral reasons, but because Bait & Tackle benefits less from ADS and because I don't want to give Apo-chan time to find a pilot for the Fish or worse.

Bait & Tackle would probably benefit from our planning competence from nightmare praetor though... You know if anyone still cares about that... anyone? No?
 
"That had been his first salvation. The spiral of things he could cut expanded slowly, torturously but without limit, and he knew that one day he would cut his way free no matter the cost."

 
Could everyone voting Bait and Tackle switch to Not Purchase? Not Purchase introduces additional build vote where you can get ADS, and having more Arete at that spending point will allow for greater tactical flexibility.

It's just plain better combination of votes.
We bought Whiteout, so not getting ADS is a bit ??.
I mean, it's not like Whiteout is really that good either way...

And it has minimal impact on this particular fight.
 
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Brusque, cold, imperious; of clipped affect and unmerciful gaze, he holds absolute dominion over the cities of the Planar Delta. The Lord of Stalks is always watching.

 
[X] Purchase It
[X] Cast Line

Though, I am tempted by bait.... perhaps we can finally meet an F A I R B R I G H T?

Anyway, Hunger has always chosen to save people when given the choice and we did just decide to become more like the Forebear. So characterization wise Cast line seems the clear choice. Just Cut Through.
 
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"He set his Blade down in the stance of rulership, sword in the stone with pommel upright, and severed the chains on their mind and soul."

 
You know, after this whole debacle, I'm thinking we should make pursuit of Curse Mitigation one of our main priorities, rather than something we incidentally do as we become stronger. RW is a good candidate for that, but there ought to be other unexplored avenues for making our Curses less of a problem. Well, Decimator and Apocrypha at least, as Tyrant can't be mitigated barring other stuff on the level of RW and Pillars and Geas won't be a concern for a while.

Edit: Hmm, could we acquire a dedicated Artifact for Curse Mitigation?
 
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[X] Purchase It
[X] Bait and Tackle


Now that we're here, let's do the best we can towards defeating this monster. A-DS is not only good thanks to more INT/WIS/LCK giving us more opportunities, but because it actually broadens the number of summons we can convince to help us in this fight; more Luck, more Charisma and the increased non-Rank based power given by reflexive power of Ruin would all help us to ensure cooperation from our summons, especially with Holy Shit. That plus enhanced random encounters makes Bait plus A-DS a very good combination.

I think the best get would be a critter that reduced Existential Diminishment so we could spam the Praxis more. If that's not available, something that would let take an extra it would be invaluable; currently we basically leeway to fuck-up two times thanks to Silver's PD and Second Stage, and that last one carries a penalty. One extra life to lose could likely help us tremendously and allow us to kill the fish more quickly due to allowing us to chance riskier strategies. It'd be very good to have something like that.
 
You know, after this whole debacle, I'm thinking we should make pursuit of Curse Mitigation one of our main priorities, rather than something we incidentally do as we become stronger. RW is a good candidate for that, but there ought to be other unexplored avenues for making our Curses less of a problem. Well, Decimator and Apocrypha at least, as Tyrant can't be mitigated barring other stuff on the level of RW and Pillars and Geas won't be a concern for a while.

Edit: Hmm, could we acquire a dedicated Artifact for Curse Mitigation?

Well Pillars almost completely solves Decimator so I doubt we will need to pursue that line of mitigation for a while once we get it. As for apoc we know that powerful one use items like the clarion grenade do wonders for emergency mitigation. So I think the best thing to do for that would be to prioritize downtime for Gisena to practice artifice. If anything I think the best curse to spend Hunger's own time working on would be Geas. Time reduction at this point is almost worthless but another form of mitigation is being able to bring our companions with us. More mitigation means more people and I don't think many of us would want to leave behind our current companions.
 
Eh, there is no point to focusing on mitigating Geas of Indenture at this point when we have far more important things to focus on and I am opposed to bringing most of the minions with us to the next world.

What we need to focus on is Apocryphal Curse. Elixir might be an good choice for it.
 
RW is a good candidate for that, but there ought to be other unexplored avenues for making our Curses less of a problem.
The number of EFBs we've picked up in rapid succession has made me come around a bit on Renaissance Woman, Gisena's getting outscaled pretty hard even with the Azure, but maybe I'll rediscover my distaste for it when it's held up against other options. We have effective Tyrant mitigation from Inherit the World & Charisma, and the Geas is a non-issue for now. It'd be interesting to see what options Gisena turns up when working on Indenture, oblique mitigation strategies are interesting. Can we get Geas one-ups, a 'get out of task failure free' card? Easier tasks? Parameterization of the worlds we're sent to? But her downtime trades off against things that are immediately useful, such as crafting Artifacts & Grace design, or more work on the Apocryphal/Decimation.

Of the two Curses that've proven most troublesome, Pillars indirectly addresses both, the Apocryphal through scaling and the Affliction by providing targets. Now that we're ahead of the curve combat-wise, it's time to look into ensuring our growth rate doesn't plummet. Pillars' primary weakness as a training method is that Ranking up in controlled conditions doesn't work well, but guess what we're sitting on a tremendous pile of now? Not to go full Wolfy and howl at the moon, but with the addition of the Tower? It should be high priority. The pick paradise we've been wallowing in is about to dry up, as Hunger himself notes in the last update. We could also go for Ruling Ring to boost Progression, but Hunger's characterization needs less risk-taking.
 
Pillars will become less useful as a source of Decimator targets the more we rely on it, so it should be reserved for cases like our current one, when we can't find them in the outside world due to time constraints or for other reasons.

One-use Artifacts from Gisena as Apocryphal Mitigation would be nice, though I worry it will take her some time to create anything remotely relevant for Hunger's current power levels.
 
The number of EFBs we've picked up in rapid succession has made me come around a bit on Renaissance Woman, Gisena's getting outscaled pretty hard even with the Azure, but maybe I'll rediscover my distaste for it when it's held up against other options. We have effective Tyrant mitigation from Inherit the World & Charisma, and the Geas is a non-issue for now. It'd be interesting to see what options Gisena turns up when working on Indenture, oblique mitigation strategies are interesting. Can we get Geas one-ups, a 'get out of task failure free' card? Easier tasks? Parameterization of the worlds we're sent to? But her downtime trades off against things that are immediately useful, such as crafting Artifacts & Grace design, or more work on the Apocryphal/Decimation.

Of the two Curses that've proven most troublesome, Pillars indirectly addresses both, the Apocryphal through scaling and the Affliction by providing targets. Now that we're ahead of the curve combat-wise, it's time to look into ensuring our growth rate doesn't plummet. Pillars' primary weakness as a training method is that Ranking up in controlled conditions doesn't work well, but guess what we're sitting on a tremendous pile of now? Not to go full Wolfy and howl at the moon, but with the addition of the Tower? It should be high priority. The pick paradise we've been wallowing in is about to dry up, as Hunger himself notes in the last update. We could also go for Ruling Ring to boost Progression, but Hunger's characterization needs less risk-taking.
We can't really get RR since it requires four picks, which is a premium currency right now.

But yeah, pick drought is real. Not only that we will be short on picks to get Advancements such as Honing, Iridescence, piecemeal Defining Advancement granted by Ruling Ring, Ruling Ring, Exalted Spirits etc. but we will also start running into issue of there not being enough picks to efficiently transform Arete into power.

Of course, this is "suffering from success" kind of thing. Being ahead of the curve is not, in of itself, a bad thing. However, we want to stay ahead of the curve rather than languishing until Apo-chan catches up and starts throwing level-relevant opponents at us once more. And, realistically, Pillars are only way to accomplish this.

At this point, I don't think that it's the question of convincing people to vote for Pillars, but rather the timing of it. I would be happy to get it as soon as possible, even if it means fighting without ADS both now and against the Tyrant, as next month is upon us and we're going back to our old Arete generation.

E: Also, Pillars would give us option to advance Gisena, which would open a window to spend on RW. Something to consider.
 
>taking never better
>not cutting through
This is a good point. Also, I invite you guys to consider the OOC ramifications of voting to spend another update on preparing for the Armament Fish. After Accursed Favor, word-count is the godstat. While I'm sure Rihaku could conjure compelling allies to choose from and Artifacts to consume our Arete, why spend that creative energy there? Casting a vote for Cast Line means cutting through: a quick conclusion, a thrilling boss battle in the vein of Vanreir, and limiting the window for Apocryphal intervention.

Not only does it save lives, it finishes this bullshit sidequest and mitigates the Affliction so we can teleport back to Nilfel to finish the other bullshit sidequest we embarked on to mitigate the Affliction, so we can finally fucking visit the Human Sphere. Perhaps the moral of this story is not taking on sidequests or unduly complicating matters? We beat Vanreir with age and treachery, but there's something to be said for his simple and straightforward mindset as well. One policy for all enemies is indeed simplest.

[X] Purchase It
[X] Cast Line
 
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