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A Simple Transaction I

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[X] Build Cleanup

Apparently I haven't voted for this yet. Well, changing that now. I want to see our build cleaned up. I want to see what having good basics/foundation type stuff is like. :) Plus, just... I really want to get Opalescence/Iridescence out of the way. (And maybe eventually we'll even be able to afford to get Pearlescence, too. Now, that will actually be good for keeping up defense scaling.) And to see what's behind Exalted Spirit and Honing. Plus, less Heartlessness, and more Int, Wits, Wisdom, Charisma, and able to buff allies Int and Charisma too. Always good.

Haven't thought on Graces much yet. Dunno what I want.
 
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With the leading choices of Build Cleanup and Falling Stars, we can choose:
-Combat Int
-DPS
(Respectively)

Iridescence is bad, actually.

Why would you want Iridescence "out of the way" if it isn't a good advancement for us anymore? We have 33K worth of Ruin as automatic defense, plus the massively boosted PROT of the EFB Cloak, plus a quick-Cast Armor of Midnight. The added value of 8 PROT is vanishingly small. Plus, we're going to the Human Sphere where magic is much less common. Do you think the thread will vote for Pearlescence? That's another 1P7A spent on defensive measures other than Forebear techniques. Iridescence is a pick-tax imposed so that Honing is less OP this round.
 
Honestly yeah, Falling Stars + Honing sounds like a good way to go. It's 9 Arete so that's well within our wherewithal, and nabs us the big combat INT boost alongside unlocking further Quickening based blood enhancements, and you don't have to miss out on Falling Stars's cooldown reduction.

That being said, I do admit that missing out on Exalted Spirit feels rough considering it was a prereq for something like Lunar Coronet (big ally buff but more importantly +40% All Stats from boosting Edeldross.) That's no joke.
 
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ReaderOfFate said:
Honestly yeah, Falling Stars + Honing sounds like a good way to go. It's 9 Arete so that's well within our wherewithal, and nabs us the big combat INT boost alongside unlocking further Quickening based blood enhancements, and you don't have to miss out on Falling Stars's cooldown reduction.

That being said, I do admit that missing out on Exalted Spirit feels rough considering it was a prereq for something like Lunar Coronet (big ally buff but more importantly +40% All Stats from boosting Edeldross.) That's no joke.
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I really thought LC was unique. It's not like we will be able to save another Ring from Omelas just to unlock an advancement...
 
Roughly 400 pages ago (cripes, 400 pages) I did a write up on the benefits of picking up most of what's in the Clean Up Build option. We're not facing the Lord Protector anymore, but not only would it have helped back then its still relevant now.

Enohthree said:
The package of options are as follows:

[ ] Evening Sky - Opalescence - The soft light of evening before which all attacks falter.
+Protection, improving defensive parameters.

[ ] Evening Sky - Iridescence - 2 Arete - The sharp light of the stars before which all malice is lessened.
+Protection, +Charisma. Expands the range of effects subject to the Evening Sky, allowing it to passively weaken almost all forms of magic. Even Nullity itself can be once withstood before the Sky recedes. Requires Opalescence.

[ ] Honing - 2 Arete - The swift sharp blade that frees blood from body. Requires 3x Fierce Quickening (presently have 2x).
+++Agility, ++Wits. Add half your Wits to your Intelligence for purposes of combat.


Opalescence
Opalescence is... okay let's be real. It's the smallest and weakest part of the option yes. Of course it was going to be, it's a 1 pick 0 Arete option that continuously lost out for near the entire quest so far. Almost a meme at this point. But it does the heavy lifting as a gate keeper to the rest of the Evening Sky advancement tree, much like how Echo needed to be picked up to unlock Undying and such. There's not much to say here aside from the press that what Opalescence unlocks honestly is worth it, and that is was better that it was split off from Iridescence if that was supposed to take two picks. We honestly should have bought this whole package piecemeal a long time ago, but here we are.


Iridescence
Iridescence is where the ball really gets rolling though! Protection is our biggest number stat base at the moment thanks to picking up Tower. At a base of 60 it's not only larger than our Agility, Strength, and Con +s, but it's outright more than our WIS, INT, LUCK, MANIP, and WITS combined . Expanding the number effects that our big 60+ Evening Sky can defend us and those around us from is a no brainer when we're faced with a Lord Protector of unknown but significant magical capabilities who we were warned about being able to tailor summon someone we'd have even more trouble against than the Astral Cat who could maul us so bad the Accursed would have to actually try to heal us.

Not only that, it's explicitly anti-magic once we pick this up. We're in the Realm of Myth! The common foot soldiers have swords that literally hum magics that would be befitting on a nobleman or king outside of the realm. The fried food stand was magical in some way. When we turned on the blue cutting power of Cut Through in the Tower, simply holding the blade still was nonetheless snapping wards and magics in twine because the air was so saturated with them and we didn't really notice. No matter what force of arms the Lord Protector levies against us or our buddies, we can count on the fact that it will be magical in some way and we can also count on the fact that Iridescence will have helped against them thanks to it's passive anti-magic buffs.

  • Tide of Nullity
Now, Nullity. Rather, the Tide of Nullity. What saved our bacon in the Temple of the False Moon and we only didn't use against the Rotbeast because we wanted more safety against Ber's upcoming fight and the knowledge that using it too quickly in succession would burn out Gisena's capabilities to use it for said fight.
Now though the safety margin has been passed by through travel and investigation, and Ber was slain without too much trouble. And we are in a realm that's literally bursting to the gills with magic, no better time to take them away all at once and watch them flounder. That's the trouble with equipping even your foot soldiers with magical swords. Once they have to suddenly use just mundane ones their effectiveness tanks. This pattern should repeat because even taking into account everyone's inherent lethality and rank, it's built on a foundation of magical buff assumptions. The one man army might still be formidable, but take away his equipment and he'll lose against what was supposed to be a peer opponent while he had all of his stuff on.

We're hardier now, but even then I'd very much like to go into a Tide of Nulity'd battlefield with Evening Sky running at full capacity. With Sten we were playing Rocket Tag, a single hit of his was enough to tear off our limbs or put a hole through Hunger's heart despite the Nullification simply because Hunger's defenses were also shut down. This is similar to what happened to the Armament Fish, though it's not readily apparent because we happened to roll high. We could kill it in five Artful Thorns, but it could kill us in two hits because our defenses weren't enough even with all of the multipliers we had. In fact it should have been able to kill us in a single hit, we just have the vestigial Second Form hanging around in our build.

Unlike Sten and the Fish though the Lord Protector is described as very intelligent. I don't want to play Rocket Tag with someone intelligent. I want to play 'hit me the normal amount of times, but I will hit you with rockets' which is a more unfair in our favor game. And the first step to that is getting our 95% damage reduction cloak with us past a Tide of Nulity, so that when they hit us with a blow that's supposed to slay us it just doesn't.

Evening Sky, or rather the entire Empyrean Mantle, defending it's home against the usurper instead of being sidelined in the final fight despite it's use because it was simply the more tactically sound decision to do so.

Honing
Finally, Honing. Our final +progression blood advancement on the tree. We've put this off for so long (though not as long as the two other options in the package!) and it's finally up for grabs again.

Let's start with the unlocking tree. We got 3 Vigors, and that unlocked Vigor Itself. We got 3 Quickenings, and that unlocked this Honing. We know that to get the next level of blood options we have to clear out requirements. We also know that the options unlocked by picking up smaller options are more powerful than equivalent options for often a cheaper amount of Arete despite their utility or power. The cost in picks or Arete is 'defrayed' through the effort we had to do to even get the option in the first place. Taking into account how useful and cheap Vigor Itself was with 3 prereq picks, there's some favorable assumptions to be made about what the next tier with eight prereqs is going to be as the ninth option in the pick tree. Especially since we have + Progression boosting the value of all of these picks as well.

But now let's talk about the option itself, because we shouldn't say that the real prize is in what comes next. I've avoided talking about the +stat options in all of the things so far because with our numbers and our recent acquisition of +++++All Stats, they're not as impressive as they might have been a while ago.

However the real value lies in the final sentence of Honing.
"Add half your Wits to your Intelligence for purposes of combat."

  • Feeding
I can not stress this enough, effects that 'feed' our stats into each other like this, even partially, are absolutely fantastic. We saw this with Cut Through. For the longest time the biggest argument against Stranglethorn was that despite doubling our strength and willpower, the 20% malus to Agility would really harm our combat style which relied on being light on our feet. With Cut Through feeding an Willpower +s back into Agility, Stranglethorn's only negative (-20% Agility) was morphed into a positive (+80% Agility) through the power of stat feeding.

Honing is not as big as Cut Through's feeding. Which, duh, it's a 1 pick 2 arete option and Cut Through was an EFB and a lifestyle choice. But it does feed! And this works great with two multipliers we have.
One, Edeldross boosting. We currently have a 60% constant all stats boost and a 90% time limited all stats boost. Honing's ability to feed half of our Wits increases into Intelligence in combat means that in combat we'd have an additional +30% INT and when pressed an additional +45% INT. Picture being smarter in fights so we take less damage or finish things cleaner without conditions. Could you even imagine?

Two, +++++All Stats. We just got this, so it's relevant to talk about. Whenever we get 2+s of All Stats, we get an additional +INT. That's a great value honestly, especially when we're so focused on martial might. Frankly put we want to take as many +All Stats as possible, and making the thing we want to take as much as possible even more useful and valuable is a great bargain for 2 Arete.

Fisher King's pretty good, but it puts us 8 Arete in the hole for no immediate benefit since none of the actual benefits of it (rank gain bonus, stats, Grail decimation mitigation, even Accursed Favor) will be unlocked until we're 12 more Arete and 2 more picks in. And considering the fact that when we smash into the Lord Protector's defenses we are probably going to want to spend on relevant boosts/rare unlocks that come from slaying something so mystical, that's a long way off if not something that's going to take us until after this whole business is squared away. The Lord Protector knows we're coming and is tailor making an enemy encounter more dangerous than Astral Cat the maiming genius. I'd like to come back to the fight with Arete under our belt but also more resilience for the Evening Sky, and I believe that the Sharpening the Blade package is a holistic bundle of picks that allows us to achieve that.
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TLDR version:
Opalescence is gotten out of the way, and lets be real if we can't get it out of the way when we have literally 12 picks to burn on misc stuff when are we?

Iridescence's benefit isn't the small handful of +s it gives us, its draw is the ability to expand the range of what Protection +s effect in the first place. Leveraging a benefit to our literal over a 1000+s of Protection with upgraded Armor of Midnight and allowing our biggest stat to do more for ourselves is great. It also lets Renaissance Woman Gisena use her Ultimate alongside us in combat without effecting us, when her capabilities (especially once they're upgraded) make that a relevant concern.

Honing's two boons are unlocking further +Progression options and 'feeding' our stats into each other. We have a ton of general stat bonuses from +All Stats to +60% All Stats, and every time we make one stat feed into another in any capacity we're double dipping in that bonus. And now we have Companions of the King, which means that a 50% INT bonus while working with our Party becomes a 75% INT bonus thanks to half of the WITS bonus being applied to it again. A 25% increase in our intelligence just from a single interaction with our build to a 2 Arete 1 pick option. There's more interactions there still!
 
[X] Vanquisher's Grace + Auspice Temporal
[X] Build Cleanup

Yeah fair, the arguments in your writeup are still relevant to us atm.
 
Auspice Temporal into Make Whole is so much more efficient then Make Whole into Auspice Temporal that it's not even funny, and Gisena being combat relevant in the meantime can at least partially cover for our sword being damaged.

A 10x multiplier to Gisena's research speed outside of the Realm of Evening is fucking crazy. Even if we assume that she researches Graces half as quickly outside of the Realm from her personal reference frame, it would still take only (1 Week x 2) /10 = 1.4 days of downtime to pick up another Major Grace at that point.

E: Hell, if people are really hell-bent on getting Make Whole, then at least go for Make Whole + Auspice Temporal. Fix the sword, and get Gisena that research multiplier so she can get her next Graces whenever we have a day and a half of free time.
 
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Where is the Praxis gang? Stars is not just a Praxis boost, it is a step into the Royal Praxis (not just the Sword Praxis).

The opportunity to diversify our library isn't something we should overlook. The more praxis spells we get, the easier it will be to argue in favor of Training sessions!
 
Hmm, it was mostly a joke, but if we can get a reliable way of fixing the Blade, we can make Shattering a semi-regular part of our arsenal. Maybe even a unique Advancement on top to commemorate Hunger's self-sacrificing habits?

Speaking of self-sacrifice, we've chosen to improve the Armour, so I'm assuming we'll precast it during our stay in the Realm. We also know that there are ways to reduce the cost of this Sign, though the only one we saw - Adorie's bloodline - is pretty unique as far as those things go.

Still, since we're casting the spell in advance, could we find a method of decreasing the Rank loss further? Maybe make a lengthy/costly ritual out of it? Substituting reagents for magic power is a time-honored tradition, and we're in a place where we can get enormous amounts of unique resources fairly cheaply.

Edit: or a short-term boost to Adorie's bloodline as we cast the spell? There should be some ways to cheat the cost!
 
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TooSlow said:
That's not what Irridesence does though? It expands what protection provided by the Evening Sky can do to allow it to serve as antimagic.
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Yes, antimagic, the critical godstat for our upcoming visit to... *checks notes*... a science fiction setting

I know that it expands magic resist. I discussed that in my previous post. But 2 Picks 2 Arete for a stat that we don't need is silly regardless of whether I include the full shopping list of minor effects every single time I mention Iridescence.
 
While Iridescence isn't that great, it does unlock Pearlescence, which is a solid advancement.
Rihaku said:
+++Protection, and the protection granted by the Evening Sky now automatically scales to its wearer's power; effectively, the wearer is granted an additional Experience modifier whose output is automatically applied to the Evening Sky.
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Remember how the growth of the Forebear's Blade was abstracted as an experience modifier? This basically turns the Evening Sky into another source for that, which is effectively a generalized +Progression type deal. Pretty useful.
 
Zampano said:
Why would you want Iridescence "out of the way" if it isn't a good advancement for us anymore? We have 33K worth of Ruin as automatic defense, plus the massively boosted PROT of the EFB Cloak, plus a quick-Cast Armor of Midnight. The added value of 8 PROT is vanishingly small. Plus, we're going to the Human Sphere where magic is much less common. Do you think the thread will vote for Pearlescence? That's another 1P7A spent on defensive measures other than Forebear techniques. Iridescence is a pick-tax imposed so that Honing is less OP this round
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Part of getting it is that Hunger operates on a sort of progression tree with the greater picks are gated behind the lower level options. The fact of the matter is that for all the Ruin provides major protection it is the result of nearly a dozen picks where the Blade's main goal is pure damage.

The cloak meanwhile has protection as one of its main thematics. Iridescence would open up the progression path for obtaining those options. Its Build Cleanup for a reason after all.

[X] Make Whole + Sealing Protocol Level I
[X] Build Cleanup
 
I will be honest build-up is mostly worthless outside of Honing. Like why do we even want it. Because it opens up further advancements? But fucking really who gives a shit, we already have so many avenues open toward further shinies, it's not even funny.

Flight on the other hand is an goddamned Praxis technique that we might not get an chance at getting again. It will also kinda always remain relevant.
 
Mannan said:
Part of getting it is that Hunger operates on a sort of progression tree with the greater picks are gated behind the lower level options. The fact of the matter is that for all the Ruin provides major protection it is the result of nearly a dozen picks where the Blade's main goal is pure damage.

The cloak meanwhile has protection as one of its main thematics. Iridescence would open up the progression path for obtaining those options. Its Build Cleanup for a reason after all.

[X] Make Whole + Sealing Protocol Level I
[X] Build Cleanup
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You think that we'll buy Pearlescence? Lmao

We can't get 1P7A for a literal Praxis point right now, and you think we're going to buy something for the Evening Sky that doesn't even cost enough to get boosted by Tower?
 
I'm going to try making deductions about Vanquisher's Grace/Auspice Temporal/True Perfecting Blade and Gisena's Stats. Vanquisher's Grace and Auspice Temporal without COTK leads to a build approaching Hunger's speed with a bit of time magic research. For Reference, our current agility ignoring debuffs is (61*2.8)+(22*1.6) = 206. There's also a .2 ISH Buff from Haeliels favor however that figures in.

DEDUCTIONS ON GISENAS CURRENT STATS

First off, there is Sublime Attainment to consider. This is before Crimson Flare and Ennobiling, and was voted on with Once and Future. We did not get any stat gains between that update and Sky Above Sky, which is on the Character sheet. It rendered Gisena capabilities competitive with Hunger's at that point in time. Hunger had 19 Agility, 17 Strength, and 18 Constitution at the time. So Before Renaissance Woman and being pessimistic, one can Establish all of Gisena's Physical stats as being Plausibly at 15-16 if you're being Pessimistic. We had like... 4 Wits circa Sky Above Sky so Gisena probably had 3-5 wits mechanically speaking.
[Sublime Attainment] - It is said that this Sorceress' only lot is to nullify, but that is false. The powers of the Maiden are but one aspect of her Grace; her supernal perfection is the other. For is it not the province of the Maiden to excel at all things? And who better to embody that legacy than Lady Gisena Allria, genius of her age? Fitting that a genius would so adeptly play to her strengths.

Sharply increases the Attribute bonuses granted to Gisena from Sorcery, increasing Gisena's physical attributes, Wits, and Appearance to levels competitive with Hunger's higher stats.
*Very high initial utility, medium potential
*Makes her existing arsenal much more accurate and improves her powers in social combat
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The next data point is Renaissance Woman. The Blurb for Renaissance Woman first made it's appearance at "A Wind Full of Knives" and didn't have much change when Gisena got it as a wish while fighting Augustine.

Wind Full of Knifes RW:
[ ] Renaissance Woman - 28 Arete

Not merely a genius of one generation, nor of one era; hers is a greatness of mind and spirit that arises perhaps only once in the lifetime of a species. All-conquering talent that bestrides all fields and masters them beyond compare: only this genuine polymath can be said to embody the complete essence - the true quintessence - of humanity in the Maiden's image. Only so exalted a paragon can glimpse the mortal facings of Heaven's Lathe and depart with mind unshattered.

A singularity of findross births a Sorceress. A meta-singularity of findross, births a Maiden.

*Gisena immediately acquires the Maiden-level Graces: True Perfecting Blade, True Nullity, and True Quintessence.
*Gisena, through observation of the mortal-perceptible components of Hunger's Progression, replicates the effects of the Lesser Remittance, Retinue, for up to one cardinality of infinite escalation.
*True Perfecting Blade: Massively improves Gisena's STR, AGI, CON, WITS and APP. Her physical parameters are modestly superior to Hunger's own. Her Wits and Appearance are tremendously superior to Hunger's own. Parameters will continue to increase over time.
*True Nullity: Gisena applies the effects of Grand Nullification upon all of Hunger's Curses; her nullity strikes with absolute force. This may improve over time.
*True Quintessence: Gisena is treated as if possessing the Total Eclipse Advancement.
*Her outrageously superhuman Appearance, Charisma and Wits can be classified as a high-grade memetic hazard, making infiltration of the Inner Temple quite trivial.
*Does not build towards a Special Artifact Advancement but also does not commit you to a path.
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So what were Hunger's Physical Parameter's Circa "A Wind Full of Knives"? You can deduce that from Hunger's stats from "To Battle's Close". Hunger took nothing effecting his physical stats between "A Wind Full of Knives" and "To Battle's Close". Hungers Physical Stats ignoring buffs and debuffs were 30 Agility, 37 Strength, and 33 Constitution. Let's define Modestly superior as 4 more points here. In the Counterfactual world where Renaissance Woman won "A Wind Full of Knives", Gisena's physical stats can be established as 34 Agility, 41 Strength, and 37 Constitution. True Perfecting Blade can reasonably be speculated to have given Gisena somewhere in the range of 18 Agility, 25 Strength, and 21 Constitution. Let's average that out to a 21 point stat buff for everything.

For comparison, we had 7 wits with a 1.3 multiplier circa a Wind Full of Knives. 9.1 Wits. If you assume Gisena had 4 Wits and gained 21, 25 wits is tremendously superior to what Hunger had at the time.


Crimson Flare Kicked Gisena's Physical Capabilities up 3 points via ennobling.

The Truth Manifest RW for comparison(This happened presumably after Gisena got a 3 points all stats buff from Crimson Flare and Hunger got Swole, raising her physical abilities to the High 10s low 20s):
[X] Renaissance Woman

Not merely a genius of one generation, nor of only one era; here is a greatness of mind and spirit that arises perhaps only once in the lifetime of a species. All-conquering talent that bestrides all fields and masters them beyond compare: only this genuine polymath can be said to embody the complete essence - the true quintessence - of humanity in the Maiden's image. Only so exalted a paragon can glimpse the mortal facings of Heaven's Lathe and depart with mind unshattered.

A singularity of findross births a Sorceress. A meta-singularity of findross, births a Maiden.

*Gisena immediately acquires the Maiden-level Graces: True Perfecting Blade, True Nullity, and True Quintessence.
*Gisena, through observation of the mortal-perceptible components of Hunger's Progression, may replicate the effects of the Lesser Remittance, Retinue, for up to one cardinality of infinite escalation.
*True Perfecting Blade: Massively improves Gisena's STR, AGI, CON, WITS and APP. Her physical parameters are still below Hunger's, however her Wits and Appearance are notably superior to Hunger's own. Parameters will continue to increase over time.
*True Nullity: Gisena applies the effects of Grand Nullification upon all of Hunger's Curses; her nullity strikes with absolute force. This may improve over time.
*True Quintessence: Gisena is treated as if possessing the Total Eclipse Advancement. With time and research she can develop Graces encompassing virtually any archetypically 'magic' effect.
*Her outrageously superhuman Appearance, Charisma and Wits can be classified as a high-grade memetic hazard.
*Does not build towards a Special Artifact Advancement but also does not commit you to a path.
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From this, one can deduce that Gisena's Physical capabilities are somewhere in the range of

37 Agility, 62.9 Under Aobaru's Vigorflame, 81.4 with the Full Party Present for COTK
41 Strength, 69.7 Under Aobaru's Vigorflame, 90.2 with the full party Present for COTK
37 Constitution. 62.9 Under Aobaru's Vigorflame, 81.4 with the Full Party Present for COTK.

Gisena's Wits can be deduced like this. We gained no wits upgrades between Titanomachy and the Truth Manifest. At the time we had 14 Wits with a 1.6 multiplier. 22.4 After Buffs. If you add the 3 points of ennobling to the 21ish point buff and the 4 points of Wits Gisena already had, she'd have 28 wits. That's enough difference for me to feel comfortable defining it as notably superior to Hunger's.

This is Circa The Truth Manifest. She's made unquantifable passive stat gains over time from True Perfecting Blade. At least 5 weeks of it working on her(2 Week timeskip for signs research, 3 Weeks in the Realm of Evening) by the time we get out of the Realm of Evening. From that, one can reasonably speculate that all of Gisena's Physical Parameters are in the 40s and her Wits is in the 30s.

SPECULATION ON VANQUISHER+TEMPORAL AUSPICTICE

Assuming Aobaru's Buffs are not taken into consideration, let's say that it still takes a bit of work to reach levels competitive with 206 Agility. Let's say Vanquisher's Grace takes+Temporal Auspictice Takes Gisena's Agility to... something approximating 180.

Saying Gisena's Agility is 40, Vanquisher's Grace would take it to 100, or 140. Modeling Temporal Auspictice's 10x time acceleration as a percentage multiplier, it would be an 80% Agility buff for Gisena if Vanquisher's Grace takes her to 100 Agility to get her to 180. It would be a roughly 29 percent buff for Gisena to get Agility from 140 to 180.
 
Like Armour of Midnight gives us infinite protection and ADS is the ultimate anti magic. The next stage on getting better defense is turning our constitution into conceptual shit.
 
[X] Vanquisher's Grace + Auspice Temporal
[X] Flight of Falling Stars

Flip flopping again, but more praxis is always good right?
 
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