...it's kind of gambling some Orthstirr to hedge against a risk which may or may not exist. Which is actually what most Round 1 defences we pick are doing, I guess.
High die defenses are hedging against a risk that definitely exists, as are Perfects. Other stuff a bit less so, admittedly, but hedging is not a universal feature of defenses. Everyone has attacks, and everyone with Tricks can have high die attacks.
Yeah, I think that every action we take in a fight is essentially playing
Moneyball; either we're trying to purchase hits against the enemy, or we're buying "insurance" against different risks of enemy hits.
Now we need to decide who is Brad Pitt and who is Jonah Hill lmao
I tend to agree, the question is always 'Is what we're buying here worth it?' Which is why it strongly depends whether we can choose not to use one ongoing defense until the other has been dealt with whether layering two of them is actually worth it here.
We should summon that ball of light, like we did against the Shadow Bear. We know that at least hinders shadow abilities, and especially if we keep it close to us at all times, it will probably make it harder for him to sneak up on us and grab us.
As Shard notes, I think we want to give him the opportunity to do his thing, which this is not the best strategy for.
Are there any other tricks we want to incorporate into Halla's trick pool? Another thrust type trick, another movement trick besides our emberwing cloak, some more attacks or utility tricks?
I think we want, in terms of mobility, Hastening for Overland (probably at Rough) so we have a less...overt mobility option than EWC, and an Arrest Momentum Trick for Standstill allowing standing in midair, double-jumps, and turning on a dime by insta-stopping while flying. Neither are urgent, but we do want them.
For utility, we likely want at least one Scouting Trick, more Tactics Tricks as we think of them, a Silver-Tongue Trick specifically for bargaining, and to round out our Weaponcraft and Wildcraft Skill Tricks (Ranged, Spears, Axes, and Traps) since Sten should make those a breeze for the most part. Once we hit Clearwater next turn we also want a Trick for cleaning things and another for conjuring water.
We're definitely also moving towards some sorta Trick with our Recall research and we'll likely want to pursue that until its completed.
For attacks, I actually think we're mostly pretty solid, though a Slash Trick is not out of the question...the big issue being that, per previous commentary from IF, we can't actually use Slash with an atgeir (we can use Chop, Pierce, and Bash, but not Slash...it still contributes to our Combat Pool because we can use it with a sword or sax). We probably want a basic one just so we have something to teach in every Skill, but it's not gonna see a lot of use so it's maybe not a priority. We do likely also want one more Shoot Trick for, like, hip shots at closer ranges, so we can hot swap to our bolt-thrower and shoot people in the face...though again, it's not a high priority in the short term. We probably eventually also want a 'Skewer-Bomb' Trick combining Firebomb Strike and Skewer-Flick Trick to set bombs off inside people, though we can likely fake that for a while by comboing those on the fly (which costs only 8 Orthstirr), and more Hugareida Tricks are a bit of a lower priority for a bit due to Capacity reasons.
If we can figure out a 'just break ongoing defensive constructs' Trick like Steinarr used in the spar, that'd also be very nice, though we can fake it with high die attacks pretty well.
For defenses, we eventually want a second rolled dodge for the same reason we took Backstep when we already have Sidestep: To give them to our Fylgja. It having both offensive and defensive options without meaningfully diminishing our own is starting to be a real option here, and this would round it out in that direction nicely.
Finally, for Styles, we may want (likely only at Rough) an actual grapple-based Glima Trick, and after we hit Refined in our current crop of Stoker State Tricks we likely do want Fire Starter, Brazier Bomb, and, like, Ember Stoke. Tinder Blades and Smoulder Sword are also possible, though lower priority.
