Maybe I should reword my statement, I'm making the assumption that the knights at the tournament which are said to be the best of the generation would likely have an anti-trip effect and as such investing in mastering a prayer that gives us a combat bonus would give us more return on investment and allow us to go further in the tournament.
Still not correct in terms of how many are likely to have such an effect (can't speak to whether other stuff is better).
Tripping people, especially in the way Faulty Ground does it, is not actually a super common tactic (knocking people over ala Horde-Breaking Charge is more common, and forced movement prevention would work on that, and is more common...but pitfalls are rare), and these are Squires not Knights (a Knight would destroy you), meaning their selection of effects is smaller. Getting one without Ground Shape is a pretty heavy investment that applies only against a niche tactic and uses up both Fervour and Capacity...I would not expect it to be super common. Plus, only if people know Audrey has that particular Feat are they likely to slot in any such effect they
do have. And a lot of Squires are leaning heavier on the cavalry side of things...that doesn't make not getting tripped less important (it makes it more so, honestly), but it skews things with stuff like their mount is the one with the anti-trip or they have a Cavalry Martial Style whose anti-trip applies only while mounted.
Like, there are probably fights at the tournament where using it isn't viable, but if you get it to Refined we're talking...maybe 1/4 or 1/5 of opponents in the tournament who have perfect effects to avoid it? At
most. It's probably less as a population figure, and maybe less in terms of number of people you fight. Ground is a common Shape but most people, even among the elite Squires, are only gonna have one or two Shapes and people without it need a specific Martial Style or Revelation or something to get an equivalent effect without it having things like a per-turn Fervour cost (which makes it pricey for ordinary use and thus uncommon, at least at these Fervour levels). And again, even among people who have it, they'd need to know Audrey has trip effects to slot it in, probably. They'll know that if they've done their research, but that's not a universal trait...
Short version, it depends on how lucky you are, but in the dueling section I'd expect around one or maybe two (if you're unlucky) of your opponents to have it, and it to be kinda a crapshoot in a melee. Eotenslaga and Hard-Fall's tactical analysis can also definitely spot whether people have that kind of immunity, at least in theory, which would let you use it or not as appropriate.
The first is some sort of sacrifice defense to open an opening and get a bonus to attack, maybe as a hordebreaker feat. Basically, my idea for the feat is trust in your armor and step into the attack instead of trying to doge it and doing so push them of balance and crate a large opening.
This is technically viable, but given you're about to hit Mastered Clever Deflection it's...probably not very good. Any benefits it had over Clever Deflection would likely be very small indeed unless you Mastered it as well. Which is a huge investment for something you very rarely want to use...this also actively contradicts your Eotenslaga instincts, I think. Hmmm.
Thinking about it, Audrey might actually be
incapable of learning this per se due to how Eotenslaga works. Need to chat with IF and Alectai about exactly how her Lineage manifests.
And following on the above, is meditation that gives temporary armor while active or any kind of damage reduction at all possible?
A Meditation to do something ablative on top of armor is probably possible, but it'd be more expensive the more gets added, and it'd work like Fortitude more than armour, I think, but this is probably doable under Hordebreaker.
Hard-Fall, meanwhile, in contrast, would allow some sort of defensive Meditation that improved your defenses like Vanguard's Prayer does attacks.
