A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
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I feel like this would be bad, if Rank/Ruin were only infinite, isn't it instead infinite in X cardinalities, as decided by current Rank and Ruin stats?
A defensive attribute naturally opposing an offensive attribute should come down to who's got a bigger stick (infinity).
Zampano
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What it amounts to is a direct confrontation between ISH numbers - the elevation of her defense vs the penetration of Hunger's Ruin, which you're correct to note is moderated by our current stats. But it is troubling that we know she has an ability directly targeted at Entropy effects, when Inheritance changes two of Hunger's three magic systems to operate on Entropy.
Just seems like giving the Maiden a free hit at the start of the fight.
Alright, I've solved the final riddle. The most frustrating part about IH was the QoL; the option sunk absurd amount of power into Quality of Life, and a lot of Quality of Life at that. The issue was never how powerful the sheer amount of QoL was, but that we couldn't translate it into something actually useful and thus all that power was essentially wasted. Until I realized that I was completely wrong in my approach, scouring through all Advancements in the quest so far to find one that would use QoL and so on.
You see, I've realized what QoL does. It makes people like living in our kingdom. Now, that is a no shit kind of statement but once you shift your perception you realize that this is actually really fucking good. You see, people liking living inside our kingdom means that they would want to live inside our kingdom and that means that they would like to join our kingdom if they are not already part of it. And the Imperishable Night?
And it is absolutely hilarious. Maiden came out swinging ready for good old chaos vs order showdown, and we just ignore her and go around assimilating people inside our kingdom. I mean, what is she going to do, offer them personal responsibility over quality of life? As long as polity accepts our rule we can obtain that territory, snuffing out more of a daylight. Use Space to propagate high Protection areas around so Maiden needs to actually put in work to stop them and laugh our way to bank as we win this with power of PR.
That's right boys and girls, we can win against the Daylight with the power of memes.
Besides that, it opens a new and honestly superior future for Hunger. Rihaku already noted how BH holds for us the future of carnage, and Inheritance is obviously the Tyrant route; but IH gives us ability to do something completely different and, honestly, much more appealing to me. We can win the multiverse by just making the coolest(pun not intended) kingdom of them all, and have people join us simply because we are that good at being a good ruler. And that's just cool.
Also damn if we got Hail the Queen we'd have Adorie the diplomat on the case. Alas.
You see, I've realized what QoL does. It makes people like living in our kingdom. Now, that is a no shit kind of statement but once you shift your perception you realize that this is actually really fucking good. You see, people liking living inside our kingdom means that they would want to live inside our kingdom and that means that they would like to join our kingdom if they are not already part of it. And the Imperishable Night?
Covers all of our realm! So every time a polity decides to join us, the size of our Night increases and our plan to encase Daylight in the Imperishable Night is expanded on. In other words, we completely flip the script and move from unga bunga fight to popularity contest. Our goal, outside of training, is now also contacting various interdimensional kingdoms and polities and, really, even random rural villages to assimilate them inside the IN, as every new territory will bring on the expansion of IN.
And it is absolutely hilarious. Maiden came out swinging ready for good old chaos vs order showdown, and we just ignore her and go around assimilating people inside our kingdom. I mean, what is she going to do, offer them personal responsibility over quality of life? As long as polity accepts our rule we can obtain that territory, snuffing out more of a daylight. Use Space to propagate high Protection areas around so Maiden needs to actually put in work to stop them and laugh our way to bank as we win this with power of PR.
That's right boys and girls, we can win against the Daylight with the power of memes.
Besides that, it opens a new and honestly superior future for Hunger. Rihaku already noted how BH holds for us the future of carnage, and Inheritance is obviously the Tyrant route; but IH gives us ability to do something completely different and, honestly, much more appealing to me. We can win the multiverse by just making the coolest(pun not intended) kingdom of them all, and have people join us simply because we are that good at being a good ruler. And that's just cool.
Also damn if we got Hail the Queen we'd have Adorie the diplomat on the case. Alas.
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Lealope
Not yet invincible
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Considering the space of potential Graces, there's going to be things that seemingly hard counter all of our powers. Reversion is only different in that we've seen an example. Consider a Grace that creates a "zone of peace" that makes all actions within qualify as non-combat, for example, or a Grace that creates an all-searing light that automatically defeats darkness. Both are almost certainly well within the space of effects possible for Foremost Sorcery but given the scale we're operating at, singular Graces, no matter how elevated, are not going to be a silver bullet against us.
Like, Inheritance is a level of raw power capable of meaningfully contesting ADiP!Nameless. It is not going to be forestalled by some finite but arbitrarily large amount of regeneration.
As for Aobaru and Apocryphal Onslaught, that only applied if he was slain before he completed his mission. Now that he's reached the furthest expression of his heroic potential (and then some!) and having mastered the Voyaging Realm, that's not going to be an issue even if he does die.
Like, Inheritance is a level of raw power capable of meaningfully contesting ADiP!Nameless. It is not going to be forestalled by some finite but arbitrarily large amount of regeneration.
As for Aobaru and Apocryphal Onslaught, that only applied if he was slain before he completed his mission. Now that he's reached the furthest expression of his heroic potential (and then some!) and having mastered the Voyaging Realm, that's not going to be an issue even if he does die.
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The problem is that, I am not sure Rank and Ruin would be potent enough by themselves, without Inheritance buffing them.
Blood Halo may buff some stats to scale Ruin, but it would be infinitely (many times) the lesser, and Rank even more so.
ISH value is good, but I don't think its going to be enough by itself. Having Quickening didn't give us infinite physical speed by itself iirc, just made existing speed "mythical" which was usually good enough for us.
It would be better if we had roughly at least comparable stats, but as you said, infinite time to train and unlock Graces like the stats buff one...
And as another thing, directly putting Rank/Ruin as Entropy may be better than just attacking normally. We want to destroy her anyway, that is a function it reverses and could theoretically oppose in and of itself. If we were to elevate our ruination to such a level, that may be what is needed to remain competitive against it at all.
Not being Ruin doesn't make her Anti-Entropy not superheal her.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Wounds that grow over time. The Maiden has time dilation. A hit with blood halo may force her to disengage her time dilation lest it overwhelm her reversion grace.
I guess the true realm of darkness really was the friends we made along the way!
Man it's just funny. Maiden's whole thing is personal responsibility for one's actions, so what is supposed to do? Stop people from deciding to join us?
She's not just the Maiden, she Ceathlynn too. Victory at any cost, remember? I hope that she has some standards, but it's equally possible that her views concerning 'necessary' sacrifices are quite flexible. She has no qualms killing our own subjects, at least.
I'm not super worried she'll be able to smack us at range under any build. We saw Jeanne at trans-rational levels of power and she could be blocked by exploiting space-time distortions to loop them infinitely. We could replicate that trivially. This isn't to say that no attack she can construct would ignore our space defenses, but if someone so powerful was meaningfully affected by it, we can assume the Imprisoner True will truncate her arsenal substantially.
What has me worried is that, from the same sequence: she can manipulate the Underling Fabric. Which, unless I'm missing something, means her armor is Sky Blue. There's no reason to assume she can't throw hands at that level as well. Though the Maiden is nowhere near Loop #1056 Forebear's level, we know mere Royal Praxis-equivalent actions can wipe Universes from existence with singular motions. It would be unreasonable to assume she can't swat galaxies with her eyelashes.
Also her precognitive intellect, which may be hard to counter beyond where our Sanctum and Gisena's Halo overlap. Predictable relief actions are objectively obvious, and going to play right into the Maiden's hands. But her victims may be hard to resuscitate, since she's better with findross than Gisena is.
Am I the only one who's getting weird parallels between the trade-offs present in her advancements and that throwaway line about Aobaru not spreading himself across many bodies? Are the Foremost using some kind of Legendary-equivalent? Or is it the other way around?
What has me worried is that, from the same sequence: she can manipulate the Underling Fabric. Which, unless I'm missing something, means her armor is Sky Blue. There's no reason to assume she can't throw hands at that level as well. Though the Maiden is nowhere near Loop #1056 Forebear's level, we know mere Royal Praxis-equivalent actions can wipe Universes from existence with singular motions. It would be unreasonable to assume she can't swat galaxies with her eyelashes.
Also her precognitive intellect, which may be hard to counter beyond where our Sanctum and Gisena's Halo overlap. Predictable relief actions are objectively obvious, and going to play right into the Maiden's hands. But her victims may be hard to resuscitate, since she's better with findross than Gisena is.
Am I the only one who's getting weird parallels between the trade-offs present in her advancements and that throwaway line about Aobaru not spreading himself across many bodies? Are the Foremost using some kind of Legendary-equivalent? Or is it the other way around?
Lealope
Not yet invincible
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Inheritance is not a trivial win for us and that's a power that's operating in the same ballpark as the Interlude!Forebear. Rather, I think it's somewhat superior. She's absolutely hanging in that weight class. As are we.
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Yes? The Forebear wasn't a Cursebearer but his Cut could sunder Universes entire. If the Maiden can use the Underlying Fabric in the same way, then her powers are probably going to be able to hurt us bad. Even if she can't necessarily engage us at range because findross is apparently a form of matter, and thus confined natively to physical dimensionality.
I'm saying I'm more worried about her pulling some Four Realms Sword garbage out of her hindquarters than I am her eye beams vacuously decimating our territories, even if we don't select the Imperishable Night.
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
Well she's got Archsmith's Hammer at sealing level Omega...
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I was going to make this point myself, but you did first, so all I really have to say on the matter is, uh, Yeah, you are entirely correct here. very good logic.
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
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Imperishable Night explicitly says that it's Protection is proof against any attack that an opponent of the Maiden's power level could conceive of. So, she definitely cannot in fact have a Grace that automatically defeats all darkness, at least not in a way that lets her cut through the Cloak trivially.
Zampano
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Doesn't this mean that the distance between the Maiden and the Novakrion Throne room represents a smaller and smaller % of the Cloak's full expanse? That would reduce the amount of PROT and +ISH(Prot) that IN offers.
i actually don't think it's great logic? We can only really talk about the content that we've seen so far. It is true, broadly speaking, that the Maiden and Hunger will be directly comparing their ISH numbers in the field of 'reality warping'. But Inheritance groups two of Hunger's three magic systems into a format that is explicitly countered by a Grace that we've seen onscreen.
Like, Unbidden Grace (30% chance of utter & permanent failure for any hostile technique thrown at the Maiden) is an example of how diversifying the vectors of attack can be helpful when playing rocket-tag with conceptual abilities. Unbidden Grace didn't get votes, but it demonstrates that putting both Rank and Ruin into the same basket can have downsides that may offset the big numbers & infinities being thrown around by the Inheritance blurb.
Lealope
Not yet invincible
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But we've also seen examples of defenses that no amount of diversification would help with. See Hunger's Sanctum, for one. As for not speculating, if you restrict yourself to known Graces, you'd not get anything even vaguely approaching a complete picture. Just look at the sorts of effects Augustine had access to, for example. Planning for the limited slice of Graces we've seen would be like planning for Dien based on the Orkhor we'd seen from AST0. The results are pretty thoroughly deceptive.
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So this is kind of the last super important build vote for the last super important fight for the quest. This vote is more than just how do we handle the Maiden, it's how do we handle future apo encounters when we no longer hold the reins. Which one is most likely to see us ascend to a high cursebearer, finally bringing about the vengeance we set out for.
We chose the life of struggle and progression, a life of battle, grasping the power to take revenge on the people who caused our demise. Which one of these is most likely to see that goal to fruition? Hiding away in our fortress waiting for progression to see us through any difficulty? Wreathing ourselves in crimson and becoming an avatar of war? Or taking up the mantle of the forebear once more, bringing ruin to any who dare to stand opposed?
I think Inheritance has the strongest chance to see Hunger achieve his vengeance. It places the burden on his shoulders, and gives him the limitless will to take on any sacrifice to achieve his goals. Becoming an avatar of war has a chance as well, but we would be vulnerable to schemes and any aspects that don't involve direct battle.
We chose the life of struggle and progression, a life of battle, grasping the power to take revenge on the people who caused our demise. Which one of these is most likely to see that goal to fruition? Hiding away in our fortress waiting for progression to see us through any difficulty? Wreathing ourselves in crimson and becoming an avatar of war? Or taking up the mantle of the forebear once more, bringing ruin to any who dare to stand opposed?
I think Inheritance has the strongest chance to see Hunger achieve his vengeance. It places the burden on his shoulders, and gives him the limitless will to take on any sacrifice to achieve his goals. Becoming an avatar of war has a chance as well, but we would be vulnerable to schemes and any aspects that don't involve direct battle.
No? The size of all layers would proportionally increase. In fact, one of upsides of this plan is that we would get to the point where the last layer can cover entire Human Sphere on its own, allowing us to buy more time before Maiden is in position to destroy it.
Remember the definition of insanity? The reason why we are having this discussion at all is because Inheritance didn't work out and this last failsafe had to be triggered. So once your method is proven wrong, do you unerringly repeat it once again or do you try another method?
So far our most obvious triumph is one against Dien, where we went from getting stomped to stomping by .. hiding away and letting Progression do its thing. Forebear of Dynasts wasn't the Progression Type Cursebearer and thus his method was designed to accommodate that. So not only that you are advocating to do something that didn't work, but you are taking on the method that is fundamentally not designed to work for a Progression type Cursebearer as a Progression Type Cursebearer. With that in mind, wouldn't in make infinitely more sense to use this second chance Forebear got to actually play in a way that benefits its strengths - namely Progression, instead of repeating the very thing that got him here in the first place?
Lealope
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That's entirely backwards. The Forebear fell to no less an opponent than the Accursed. The fact that his path is a proven route to making it to High Cursebearer status is a mark in its favour by that metric. Why mess with something that works? Sure, the Forebear didn't have the Apocryphal but he also didn't have Progression. And it's honestly debatable if the Procession is any better than a Crowning Curse.
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
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Umtechnically, his primary Remittance was King's Scepter, and Accretion was his own pre-existing magic that then got accelerated by being a Progression-type Cursebearer/getting tied into King's Scepter. Is this is a meaningful distinction? Not really. Am I making it anyway? Apparently!
Both of these are really good points, actually.
Kinda not wrong, tbh.
Will it? Is "the experience that would be gained from training diligently for etc." calculated AFTER all relevant modifiers (meaning nerfed by the Ring's malus), or is it taken as the base rate before any other modifiers are applied? Is there WoQM on this somewhere?
I actually do like this a bunch.
The thing to remember here, I think, is Wolfy's idea about encircling the Maiden to enact a conceptual capture. If she just bores a hole straight towards us, well, the first problem with that is it becomes trivially easy to close that back up behind her. She'd basically be volunteering to get encircled in exactly the way we're hoping to make happen there. If she wanted to avoid that, she'd need to carve something more like a wedge shape into the Cloak, and it would need to have roughly the same proportional shape relative to the Cloak overall to prevent us from closing it behind her easily. So if the Cloak is bigger, she still needs to carve out the same proportionate amount but it'll be more actual space, making it harder.
The second problem with that is that if she's just boring the narrowest possible hole towards us... well, we aren't actually stationary, are we? We can literally just kite her if she tries that. While we, again, fill in the hole she tore behind her. So that would actually be making it easier for us to stall her.
tl;dr, I'm not worried about this.
Overall, I was tempted by Blood Halo for a minute, but I've leant back away from it towards Imperishable Night again. I'd specifically like to focus on rebutting this:
The problem here is that this assumes that Hunger will be able to dictate the tempo of engagement to allow for benefiting from training time without actually giving him the means to do so. Blood Halo has the worst stall options out of any of them. That's why I still think that Imperishable Night is superior for the epilogue, as well as being better for beating the Maiden right now. The Praxis is not bottlenecked by the Ring malus already, and honestly advancing in the Praxis is probably our best path to power at this point anyway.
And for versatility, we have Fault-Defeating Stance for leveling up Archmage. As well as whatever else we can build up with +Progression, -Apocryphal, and, crucially, the leeway gained from a highly defensible redoubt. A redoubt, I will add, that is highly replicable in new Indenture tasks, and that will directly protect from triggering the auto-loss condition in conquest-based Indenture tasks. Blood Halo doesn't improve the Praxis which is our best bet for raw power anyway, it doesn't give us the defensibility to actually benefit from an improvement to training potential when pressed by an Apo proc (which is when we'd most need it), and importantly does very little to guard against getting merced by the auto-loss condition built into half our Indenture tasks.
"Past performance is no guarantee of future results" is a phrase that strikes me as applicable here. Also, the Procession is basically a more depressing version of Indenture, it's definitely not comparable to a Crowning Curse like Apo-chan. Seriously, the Procession offered a predictable and moderated level of escalation that the Forebear could consistently stay ahead of just by not fucking around in each world. It is not and probably will never be that simple for us.
Put another way, the Forebear was playing a cosmic multiversal dungeon crawl where he had a reasonable expectation that as long as he didn't neglect to grind on each floor he'd be able to handle the next floor down. We, by contrast, are playing in a D&D campaign where the GM (in the form of Apo-chan) fucking hates our PC specifically. That's a very different and much more fraught scenario, and it's one where I don't regard committing to the Forebear's brand of inflexibility as a plus.
We don't know if Forebear fell to Accursed specifically, and where on the current power level tree he was before he fell. In any case, you mess with it because it didn't work. Aobaru's method is clearly better, for example, as Seraph of Heroism still shines bright while Forebear of Ruin was getting bullied by a zerg rush just few months ago. Execution is the king, sure, but when offered multiple paths there is no reason to take one that already lead to ruin. Or Ruin, as it were.
As you've said, we have Progression while Forebear did not have it. In that case, why not take up a paradigm that makes use of it instead of blindly following path that got us here in the first place while hoping that Progression will make it work this time around?
As you've said, we have Progression while Forebear did not have it. In that case, why not take up a paradigm that makes use of it instead of blindly following path that got us here in the first place while hoping that Progression will make it work this time around?