Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

CircleTheSkies · May 10, 2017

TheLastOne said:
We want to library pass to pick up new technique, with an import part of that attack techniques. Plan Zephyr doesn't have that, it's just continuing to do what we're doing already and not broading our skills. You know, right before we're going to get pulled into a bunch of one on one duels.

Errr... "a bunch" and "one on one". I mildly question both of these.

First of all, while I think two attacks are virtually certain, and a third likely... to call that "a bunch" is something of an exaggeration. Second, I expect one of those attacks to be multiple 'weaker' cultivators, and such a group is best countered by... a group.

There will be two kinds of fights, broadly speaking. There'll be fights for position, which will likely be one-on-one and to a certain extent require consent on both sides to some kind of structure; unless there are concrete rewards that make it worthwhile, Ling Qi is unlikely to be interested in these - and aside from one or two attempts to establish her position as beneath someone else, she's unlikely to be heavily challenged (unless she hits the top slots). There'll be fights for loot, which will be as dirty as possible and are best dealt with in conjunction with allies when possible.

TheLastOne said:
Like, it's a purely supirior choice, because we're at the edge where every little bit faster matters, and our aims need to be self-focused. We need to have better attack techniques (in this case, basically anything because we've been neglecting an entire skill-set), we need to better resist damage, we need to advance our cultivation so rolls offs don't turn against us.

I've noticed you like to over-state the advantages of your plan and under-state those of competing plans - more than people normally do, I mean. Especially for a plan that's literally only different in your own in cultivating Zephyr's Breath level 3 instead of getting another meridian (unless I'm wildly mis-reading your post here). Reading your statements, one would think you were arguing against a plan that spends all of Ling Qi's time on Argent Soul or something.

For example, "we need to have better attack techniques"/"we've been neglecting an entire skill-set". In truth, Ling Qi's current attacks aren't actually too shabby, and are paired with strong debuff capabilities and quite a lot of speed and reaction. Certainly an attack-focused Art would improve this - but would an art that burns Qi for fire attacks actually be superior to, say, an art that boosts Ling Qi's strength and attacks directly?

Moreover, looking at your plan and Zephyr, which is more applicable to fights occurring soonish - a meridian... without an art to slot in... or another level of an existing art? One that boosts ranged offense and defense, some reaction, and will have a defensive technique?

Looking to the long-term and what additional arts Ling Qi should learn - I strongly think it should depend on what fits well with her existing ones. If that's a hand art, great! She acquires it, pops her pills and cultivates two or three meridians for it (and/or other arts that need meridians). If it's a spine art, great! ... same drill, except she already has one spine meridian opened.

TheLastOne · May 10, 2017

CircleTheSkies said:
Errr... "a bunch" and "one on one". I mildly question both of these.

First of all, while I think two attacks are virtually certain, and a third likely... to call that "a bunch" is something of an exaggeration. Second, I expect one of those attacks to be multiple 'weaker' cultivators, and such a group is best countered by... a group.

There will be two kinds of fights, broadly speaking. There'll be fights for position, which will likely be one-on-one and to a certain extent require consent on both sides to some kind of structure; unless there are concrete rewards that make it worthwhile, Ling Qi is unlikely to be interested in these - and aside from one or two attempts to establish her position as beneath someone else, she's unlikely to be heavily challenged (unless she hits the top slots). There'll be fights for loot, which will be as dirty as possible and are best dealt with in conjunction with allies when possible.

I've noticed you like to over-state the advantages of your plan and under-state those of competing plans - more than people normally do, I mean. Especially for a plan that's literally only different in your own in cultivating Zephyr's Breath level 3 instead of getting another meridian (unless I'm wildly mis-reading your post here). Reading your statements, one would think you were arguing against a plan that spends all of Ling Qi's time on Argent Soul or something.

For example, "we need to have better attack techniques"/"we've been neglecting an entire skill-set". In truth, Ling Qi's current attacks aren't actually too shabby, and are paired with strong debuff capabilities and quite a lot of speed and reaction. Certainly an attack-focused Art would improve this - but would an art that burns Qi for fire attacks actually be superior to, say, an art that boosts Ling Qi's strength and attacks directly?

Moreover, looking at your plan and Zephyr, which is more applicable to fights occurring soonish - a meridian... without an art to slot in... or another level of an existing art? One that boosts ranged offense and defense, some reaction, and will have a defensive technique?

Looking to the long-term and what additional arts Ling Qi should learn - I strongly think it should depend on what fits well with her existing ones. If that's a hand art, great! She acquires it, pops her pills and cultivates two or three meridians for it (and/or other arts that need meridians). If it's a spine art, great! ... same drill, except she already has one spine meridian opened.

I don't think I'm overstating particularly strongly here - we're on the edge of being able to make a two breakthrough attempts next turn. Either plan could potentially do it, but one requires us to roll better then the other. Both plans get us Zephyr soon - we don't need it this week, we'll start needing it next week, and that's when we'll get it with plan plan.

And we can run away from groups ganging up on us without damaging our respect, so I don't consider them as important. We can't run away from someone asking pointers, so that's the situation I feel we have to train for. It's not a huge difference, no, but we're right on the edge of where we might do something in one turn, or two. And I do strongly feel if we fail both breakthroughs, that Zephyr leaves us worse off, because we need to grow in strength fast, which means picking up multiple techniques fast. Zephyr leaves us without that final fallback. That's a one in four, so it probably won't come up. But if it does, it will suck.

pheonix89 · May 10, 2017

If you're worried about the immediate throwdowns Zephyr is strictly superior. It's got the same FVM progress and the same SCS tier up, but it adds a ZB teir up.

Karugus · May 10, 2017

Sirrocco said:
Are you paying attention to the arts we have, and what they do? We use our heart arts to buff ourselves all the time. Sure they provide bonuses to our allies and penalties to our foes... and they also give us a variety of useful passive buffs. You seem to have set your sights on a particular balance, and you're insisting that anything that isn't at least as focused on single combat as your balance point is utterly useless at fighting solo. You say that a spirit beast does very little to address the core of the issue? What do you even mean with that one? Aside from the fact that none of us know exactly how spirit bining works yet, what issue is it failing to address the core of?

Except in terms of one on one combat, support arts just flat out aren't going to be comparable to single target arts. It doesn't matter if a support art gives bonuses to us if a personal art would give bigger personal buffs. Ling Qi having an effect +4 due to support passives doesn't necessarily match up with the guy who has an effective +7 due to focusing near entirely on personal arts.

As for what the spirit beast fails to address- is a bit varied. Personal striking power, ability to frontload damage output, the hypothetical dot. Presumably it takes qi to manifest the spirit beast considering it's bound to our dantian. It might take time and make noise for a relative novice to do it. The Spirit beast is unlikely to have both a potent DoT and the ability to deal out loads of damage upfront. Like I said, it helps, but saying a spirit beast abrogates any of the concern over being an independently minded support is asinine and false.

Sirrocco said:
Two full arts *is* a significant investment, as far as overall build... and if we don't invest those in the arm arts, we can invest them in other things. Sure, we might find an excellent arm assassin's strike art, or we might not, or we might find an excellent weapon focus for assassination strikes that can't be used with any of the arm arts we have... and we shouldn't bind ourselves to dedicating an art to it until we know what we'd be dedicating it to. We could use our arts to fade in between the crowd and get at the back line to unleash an Arm art, or since we're good enough to get past them, we could keep stacking the buff/debuffs and making things harder and harder on them while our aura effects tear them down and our spirit buddies tear them apart. Dropping lingering effects on people is cool, but eventually most of them are going to be packing heal/cure effects of one sort or another, which means that we won't be able to just tag and disengage and expect it to work... at which point it turns into just another debuff, and our heart arts are likely to be better at those (what with the specialization and everything).

And you think we'll never get rid of and replace a support or spine art? That's a crock of bullshit right there Sirrocco and if you really gave a damn about ensuring we never upgraded an art we might get rid of, you wouldn't be advocating the basic initiate level support art we grabbed before anything else that we might very well replace with a more advanced art.

Getting an art to level up from it's basic tier is fairly easy, especially in light of the fact individual ap progressively become cheaper the more powerful we are and how other things require more ap to level up. It's just erroneous as fuck and I would have expected you to at least try and debate the issue in good faith rather than- 'we might have to replace these arts in the future after we've gotten value and use out of them, thus making any time invested in them a waste and hence why we should avoid arm arts'

like... what. the. fuck. Man. We're just about to be in a position to get access to all the entry level arts. We'll be in a position to pick and choose exactly the best arts from us out of all the available options.

TheLastOne · May 10, 2017

pheonix89 said:
If you're worried about the immediate throwdowns Zephyr is strictly superior. It's got the same FVM progress and the same SCS tier up, but it adds a ZB teir up.

We won't have thrown downs until next turn, when we get it anyways. Any argument predicated on that is a little dishonest, because we can simply put it as the first thing we cultivate.

CircleTheSkies · May 10, 2017

TheLastOne said:
I don't think I'm overstating particularly strongly here - we're on the edge of being able to make a two breakthrough attempts next turn. Either plan could potentially do it, but one requires us to roll better then the other. Both plans get us Zephyr soon - we don't need it this week, we'll start needing it next week, and that's when we'll get it with plan plan.

And we can run away from groups ganging up on us without damaging our respect, so I don't consider them as important. We can't run away from someone asking pointers, so that's the situation I feel we have to train for. It's not a huge difference, no, but we're right on the edge of where we might do something in one turn, or two. And I do strongly feel if we fail both breakthroughs, that Zephyr leaves us worse off, because we need to grow in strength fast, which means picking up multiple techniques fast. Zephyr leaves us without that final fallback. That's a one in four, so it probably won't come up. But if it does, it will suck.

I think two breakthrough attempts in the first week of Thunderdome is... rash, myself. I would far prefer that Ling Qi attempt to break through in Physique one week, while using the other actions to do any of... take advantage of opportunities or to improve SCS, recover from fights, assist allies (like Li Suyin, who's going to probably be a prime target for those somewhat weaker than Ling Qi), train with allies, take advantage of the permanent pass to both learn from the library and choose a new art (assuming those would be available in the first level).

Then, assuming she's successful, break through Spirit the next week, using the other actions as per the week previous - or to sell loot for consumables. If she's not successful, using those actions to try and get back to peak Gold to try again for Silver the week after.

TheLastOne said:
We won't have thrown downs until next turn, when we get it anyways. Any argument predicated on that is a little dishonest, because we can simply put it as the first thing we cultivate.

I believe the truce is up at the end of this week - training next week isn't necessarily going to take effect before the initial struggles, even if you "put it as the first thing".

One last argument for Ling Qi trying to polish off Zephyr's Breath this week - it means she's "mastered her first art", which is probably more impressive to Elder Su than "got yet another meridian" (and suggests that Ling Qi would likewise devote herself to mastering other areas). It also gives the opportunity and justification to reasonably ask the Elder how Ling Qi could earn an art that builds on Zephyr's Breath before the class actually ends.

Andelevion · May 10, 2017

[x] Plan The Zephyr Will Fly

Also I said I would do art, and i have it here, my approval of this plan is totally contingent on MY BOY HAN JIAN. jk, it's popular and also preempts our massive pill-popping spree. Still a bit rough but eh.

Next up I'll probably draw that creepy kid cause I kind of find him hilarious.

TheLastOne · May 10, 2017

CircleTheSkies said:
I think two breakthrough attempts in the first week of Thunderdome is... rash, myself. I would far prefer that Ling Qi attempt to break through in Physique one week, while using the other actions to do any of... take advantage of opportunities or to improve SCS, recover from fights, assist allies (like Li Suyin, who's going to probably be a prime target for those somewhat weaker than Ling Qi), train with allies, take advantage of the permanent pass to both learn from the library and choose a new art (assuming those would be available in the first level).

Then, assuming she's successful, break through Spirit the next week, using the other actions as per the week previous - or to sell loot for consumables. If she's not successful, using those actions to try and get back to peak Gold to try again for Silver the week after.

Why? I've seen people argue this, we've touch on this a couple times now, and no one's given a decent argument for spacing them apart yet. There's probably things like preparations you can do that raise your chances. In fact, we know there are... but we have none of them. So for us, breaking through is just another action. Spreading it out carries no benefit. It's better to know sooner if we succeed or fail, because it will change how we approach the next several weeks, what we invest in.

So I find this entire line of arguments pretty weak.

CircleTheSkies said:
I believe the truce is up at the end of this week - training next week isn't necessarily going to take effect before the initial struggles, even if you "put it as the first thing".

Every event we've had so far has been a weeks end event, probably because it simplifies book keeping. Even if he changes that up, challenge or duel gives us time to prepare, so it's really unlikely we won't get a single cultivation action done before we have to fight next week. If it's a group attack or ambush, well I wouldn't be leaning on Zephyr's Breath, I would be leaning on Forgotten Vale Melody and Sable Crescent Step to run away, because we have no reason to stand and fight. So while somewhat more valid, I don't find this a particularly moving argument.

CircleTheSkies said:
One last argument for Ling Qi trying to polish off Zephyr's Breath this week - it means she's "mastered her first art", which is probably more impressive to Elder Su than "got yet another meridian" (and suggests that Ling Qi would likewise devote herself to mastering other areas). It also gives the opportunity and justification to reasonably ask the Elder how Ling Qi could earn an art that builds on Zephyr's Breath before the class actually ends.

We just had an incredible week, the week before was another very good one, and we're about to use a pill that effectively turns every one cultivation action into two, and will leave us on the boundary of one and close to the boundary of two cultivation peaks. I think getting ready to break through will impress her more in this case, because it will show we talk to heart her advice to keep focused on breaking through to yellow, but whether pure cultivation or mastering an art is more impressive is going to be pretty subjective either way, and isn't a good thing to base the vote on.

Sirrocco · May 10, 2017

Karugus said:
Except in terms of one on one combat, support arts just flat out aren't going to be comparable to single target arts. It doesn't matter if a support art gives bonuses to us if a personal art would give bigger personal buffs. Ling Qi having an effect +4 due to support passives doesn't necessarily match up with the guy who has an effective +7 due to focusing near entirely on personal arts.

If the only thing that mattered was individual one-on-one fighting prowess, we wouldn't have chosen this character in the first place. We decided from the beginning that we wanted to be an exotic/support caster. That inherently involves being somewhat better in groups (and against groups) and somewhat weaker in one-on-one fights. It's true that someone who took exactly our same resources from the beginning and focused it on spine arts and weapon use could take us one-on-one in a swordfight. At this point, it's not a matter of if. It's a matter of degree... and you are making it out like if we're on this side of some arbitrary line rather than that side of that line, we lose everything forever. That's just not so. Every choice we make is going to make us weaker in some situations and stronger in others. Some have more synergy, some have less. Also, it's not a matter of whether we can win every fight, because we can't. There are green-level cultivators out there. The question is which fights we can win, which ones we can't, and how good we are at making sure we hit the first kind and avoid to get away from the second... and in questions like that, details matter.

As for what the spirit beast fails to address- is a bit varied. Personal striking power, ability to frontload damage output, the hypothetical dot. Presumably it takes qi to manifest the spirit beast considering it's bound to our dantian. It might take time and make noise for a relative novice to do it. The Spirit beast is unlikely to have both a potent DoT and the ability to deal out loads of damage upfront. Like I said, it helps, but saying a spirit beast abrogates any of the concern over being an independently minded support is asinine and false.

I'm saying we're almost sure it will help, and we don't know how much. You seem to be saying here that "summoner/buff/debuff is a nonviable build" when you haven't actually seen anything of how summoning works. To me, that sounds more like rhetoric than reason. Also, he have a number of ways of handling the potential flaws in a full-support build (like packing a leg art and a spine art). Arm art doesn't need to be one of those, and there are reasons to believe that it's a particularly poor choice (which I've laid out before).

And you think we'll never get rid of and replace a support or spine art? That's a crock of bullshit right there Sirrocco and if you really gave a damn about ensuring we never upgraded an art we might get rid of, you wouldn't be advocating the basic initiate level support art we grabbed before anything else that we might very well replace with a more advanced art.

Of course I don't believe that. Where do you even get that from? "Replace/upgrade" is part of the total cost of ownership of an Art slot... but it's the same cost regardless of which art it is, which means that, effectively, each hand art that we take (and keep current) is taking the place of one non-hand art that we could have taken (and kept current), out of an effectively limited number (because we can't afford to keep but so many arts current at any one time) and there are solid reasons to think that that's not the best plan for the build we have.

On the other hand, now that you mention it, one of the advantages of primarily passive arts like the heart arts is that if you decide that you don't want to keep upgrading them anymore, but you don't have anything else for the slot, you can effectively park the things - kiss the meridians goodbye stop paying attention to the usable powers. Arm arts are a lot more about the active powers, which means that you don't get nearly as much out of retiring them in that way.

Getting an art to level up from it's basic tier is fairly easy, especially in light of the fact individual ap progressively become cheaper the more powerful we are and how other things require more ap to level up. It's just erroneous as fuck and I would have expected you to at least try and debate the issue in good faith rather than- 'we might have to replace these arts in the future after we've gotten value and use out of them, thus making any time invested in them a waste and hence why we should avoid arm arts'

I'm really not clear where you're getting this from. I don't recall writing or intending anything like that, and I certainly don't see it in the bit you quoted. Could you perhaps point it out to me? I believe we may have a misunderstanding.

like... what. the. fuck. Man. We're just about to be in a position to get access to all the entry level arts. We'll be in a position to pick and choose exactly the best arts from us out of all the available options.

We hope to get access to the library. It's not guaranteed... and the contents of the library are also not guaranteed. Last time we went in there there were four heart arts. *Four*. That doesn't speak to an overwhelming selection. Maybe there are more in the back. Maybe there aren't. Maybe our key will give us access to them. Maybe it won't. We don't know. "Best Arm art from the available options, for our needs" might not be all that good. Now, Arm is likely a bit more common than heart in this case, so maybe six to eight of the things? If we're lucky we'll get one or maybe two that are in the elements we're already investing in? Hope one of those two is worth it... but that's a fairly big stack of ifs.

TheLastOne said:
Every event we've had so far has been a weeks end event, probably because it simplifies book keeping. Even if he changes that up, challenge or duel gives us time to prepare, so it's really unlikely we won't get a single cultivation action done before we have to fight next week. If it's a group attack or ambush, well I wouldn't be leaning on Zephyr's Breath, I would be leaning on Forgotten Vale Melody and Sable Crescent Step to run away, because we have no reason to stand and fight. So while somewhat more valid, I don't find this a particularly moving argument.

What makes you think that Thunderdome won't be *this* week's event?

veekie · May 10, 2017

[X] Plan The Zephyr Will Fly

TheLastOne · May 10, 2017

No ones arguing to give up support arts. No ones arguing to make them secondary even - they're our bread and butter. Simply, there comes a point where stacking more of them give us less then buying one of something else. And we've hit that point for how fast we can currently deploy them.

1986ctcel · May 10, 2017

Karugus said:
You got numbers on the Qi requirements of an arm art? Wholly ignoring how I pointed out how we integrate arm arts into our tactics.

Especially when there's a good chance one of our arm arts would be wind based.

I don't consider "But we don't know" a compelling argument , all our current arts are 2+ Qi and no talisman we've seen reduces the Qi cost of an Art below 1.

TheLastOne · May 10, 2017

1986ctcel said:
I don't consider "But we don't know" a compelling argument , all our current arts are 2+ Qi and no talisman we've seen reduces the Qi cost of an Art below 1.

And we're about to get into the Qi range that only our more badass classmates have.

pheonix89 · May 10, 2017

TheLastOne said:
No ones arguing to give up support arts. No ones arguing to make them secondary even - they're our bread and butter. Simply, there comes a point where stacking more of them give us less then buying one of something else. And we've hit that point for how fast we can currently deploy them.

That is literally not an argument against ranking up ZB. Or rather it's one that is explicitly contradicted by explicit game mechanics.

Ranking up ZB imposes no new action econ constraints.

TheLastOne · May 10, 2017

pheonix89 said:
That is literally not an argument against ranking up ZB. Or rather it's one that is explicitly contradicted by explicit game mechanics.

Ranking up ZB imposes no new action econ constraints.

...

TheLastOne said:
We won't have thrown downs until next turn, when we get it anyways. Any argument predicated on that is a little dishonest, because we can simply put it as the first thing we cultivate.

Yeah, we're getting it. Next turn at the latest, before there is any serious chance of us actually needing to have it.

What you just said had literally nothing to do with any of the thread of the argument going on.

Sirrocco · May 10, 2017

pheonix89 said:
That is literally not an argument against ranking up ZB. Or rather it's one that is explicitly contradicted by explicit game mechanics.

Ranking up ZB imposes no new action econ constraints.

That was an argument being made against the things that I had been saying, rather than the things that you had been saying.

TheLastOne said:
No ones arguing to give up support arts. No ones arguing to make them secondary even - they're our bread and butter. Simply, there comes a point where stacking more of them give us less then buying one of something else. And we've hit that point for how fast we can currently deploy them.

The arguments that were being made before were "Solo arts are better than Heart arts one-on-one. Therefore we desperately need Solo arts." My response is that the arguments actually being made, and the strength they were made with, were not coherent, given that we had already decided to invest reasonably heavily in support arts.

Your argument here is different. You're suggesting that Heart arts have a diminishing return. I'd disagree with that. "Deployment speed" hits Arm arts at least as hard as it hits Heart arts, because the 1/turn art invocation is the focus of what the Arm arts do, whereas the Heart arts (and, yes, the Spine arts) have a significant passive component that just keeps stacking. "We don't have enough actions to go around" is a reason to avoid Arm arts, not to embrace them.

TheLastOne said:
Yeah, we're getting it. Next turn at the latest, before there is any serious chance of us actually needing to have it.

...unless the Thunderdome event happens at the end of this turn (right when the cease-fire ends), rather than the end of next turn (or partway through). I don't think there's any guarantee of that. Hearing "Jungle rules starting the end of this week" and assuming "but we're guaranteed to have a day or two after that to get our affairs in order before we get jumped" seems... optimistic.

TheLastOne · May 10, 2017

Sirrocco said:
...unless the Thunderdome event happens at the end of this turn (right when the cease-fire ends), rather than the end of next turn (or partway through)

If it's a challenge, we have time. If it's an ambush, I would vote to run away either way, so again I don't find this particularly persuasive.

Sirrocco · May 10, 2017

TheLastOne said:
If it's a challenge, we have time. If it's an ambush, I would vote to run away either way, so again I don't find this particularly persuasive.

If it's an ambush and we are in a position to maybe win, then we might not want to run away. Beating up people who attack us is a great source of loot. If it's an ambush and we have allies with us, then running away might not work so well. Running away is great... but it's not perfect.

TheLastOne · May 10, 2017

Sirrocco said:
If it's an ambush and we are in a position to maybe win, then we might not want to run away. Beating up people who attack us is a great source of loot. If it's an ambush and we have allies with us, then running away might not work so well. Running away is great... but it's not perfect.

So we're playing the odds here? I think the odds of the unknowable series of events we can't predict are less important then the ones we can, where we can predict trying for both physical and spiritual breakthrough, and how that would either make us safer, or make us know we aren't safe and have to take measures. If we're taking risks either way I would like the minimize the risks we can measure before we guess at the risks we can't.

lioli · May 10, 2017

[x] Plan The Zephyr Will Fly

Ehh, I'd rather prefer to cultivate physique during Zhou's lessons, but I suppose I sympathize with the desire to complete the art. Anyway, the only difference between the two leading plans as far as I can tell is whether to get another Heart meridian or an Arm meridian. I support getting Crimson Flowing or something that boosts senses, the next time it's available, and if it follows the development of Zephyr's Breath -- 1 Heart meridian for the 1st level, 2 Heart meridians for the third and final -- then might as well open up a slot for it. Another Heart meridian can also serve as an available slot if FVM requires another Heart meridian for one of its upcoming measures.

Anyways, the update showed Heijin as very cute! (Will our first spirit be as cute? Considering Ling Qi's sole thought toward her first spirit binding was to get a bear, probably not. Bears aren't quite so socialized through contact as much as cats.) Interestingly, Heijin's also the hard-worker of the pair! I saw someone ask why that was so, earlier, and I think I can provide some insight. From the first meetings with Han Jian, he said that he liked talking with Ling Qi because she didn't demand things from him, that he didn't need to work hard to manage their interactions. Looking at what we have seen from his group, it makes sense.

-Gu Xuilan has aims on him while engaged to Fan Yu, making her rather high-maintenance in terms of maneuvering to avoid offending her or Fan Yu. She's also ineptly emulating one of the parents of the group, demanding that Han Jian play another role that probably doesn't quite fit
-Fan Yu, on the other hand, is a boorish guy with particular views on class and sex that Han Jian finds repulsive, making interactions with him a test of social endurance and stamina
-Han Fang, we haven't seen quite a lot, but seems to be detached from the social currents between the group, but is using Thunder qi, which we know to be the element of, among other things, ambition. While that could be another legacy art like all the everyone else's, and so doesn't actually describe his character, Han Fang could also truly have some ambition that Han Jian must always take into account
-And Heijin, of course, also refuses to go along with his desires, and denigrates him with arguments Han Jian can't refute

Han Jian probably didn't want to deal with that while he could avoid it. Of course, now that he and everyone else is in a sect, under pressure, character development will eventually happen, making the group either blow up or resolve tensions to indefinitely manageable levels.

CircleTheSkies · May 10, 2017

TheLastOne said:
If it's a challenge, we have time. If it's an ambush, I would vote to run away either way, so again I don't find this particularly persuasive.

TheLastOne said:
So we're playing the odds here? I think the odds of the unknowable series of events we can't predict are less important then the ones we can, where we can predict trying for both physical and spiritual breakthrough, and how that would either make us safer, or make us know we aren't safe and have to take measures. If we're taking risks either way I would like the minimize the risks we can measure before we guess at the risks we can't.

To circle back a bit, why are you so adamant about the "pure superiority" of a plan that goes for another meridian (that may or may not be used any time soon - depending upon whether a suitable attacking art is found*) over completing cultivating Zephyr's Breath a turn before you would prefer?

* Speaking of "unknowable series of events"; it's not like you have an art in mind for the meridian, as far as I'm aware.

TheLastOne · May 10, 2017

CircleTheSkies said:
To circle back a bit, why are you so adamant about the "pure superiority" of a plan that goes for another meridian (that may or may not be used any time soon - depending upon whether a suitable attacking art is found*) over completing cultivating Zephyr's Breath a turn before you would prefer?

* Speaking of "unknowable series of events"; it's not like you have an art in mind for the meridian, as far as I'm aware.

Because we roll more dice for the Meridian (not a lot here, but it does help) and we hit the point where we overflow into Physical, then Spiritual cultivation faster (which is big). Our total distance from both physical and spiritual breakthrough is forty eight. We need 10 success before we start adding to cultivation for the first Meridian, 11 for the second, 12 for the third, and 13 for the fourth. We need since we're only moving back and forth one Meridian, we'll only count the last - both plans develop the first three.

We need 31 success before we start adding to our cultivation vs. needing only 13, or a difference of 18 successes. So That's roughly the same as rolling 36 more dice for cultivating physical/spiritual. We'll get 6 more dice with Plan Plan, so that effectively 42 more dice/21 success towards reaching the Physical and Spiritual peak That's a turn of difference, effectively.

That isn't to say Zelphyr is less dice efficant in the end - those successes that are going into physical and then spiritual cultivation are coming from Zephyr almost 1:1 (six more dice. That's too big to be a rounding error, but not by much), but I want to get to the peak fast so I see it as much more valuable place to put the successes. Which Meridians we open is secondary, I mean, I really agree with @Karugus that we do need to be investing here, but we'll fill up all the Meridians we open pretty fast regardless of which ones we open.

I would vote for a four heart Meridian plan over plan Zephyr, because it is getting into crunch time and we do really need to start trying to open them. We couldn't do it before week 13 without making some big concession I wasn't willing to make, but that doesn't mean that @notanautomaton was wrong that we need to really focus on what will get us those pretty cultivation breakthroughs to yellow and silver. He plan was just wrong in how it went about it.

Edit: Damnit, I just realized that I am opening heart twice, that's going to be turned into a single roll with a time bonus rather then two different rolls, isn't it? We can't stack them in one week like that. Blah, I need to open something else instead. I really wanted two hearts.

Sirrocco · May 10, 2017

TheLastOne said:
I would vote for a four heart Meridian plan over plan Zephyr, because it is getting into crunch time and we do really need to start trying to open them. We couldn't do it before week 13 without making some big concession I wasn't willing to make, but that doesn't mean that @notanautomaton was wrong that we need to really focus on what will get us those pretty cultivation breakthroughs to yellow and silver. He plan was just wrong in how it went about it.

Ironically, I too would vote for a four heart meridian version of your plan over plan Zephyr, for a completely different balance of reasons. I just don't see it winning overall.

TheLastOne · May 10, 2017

Sirrocco said:
Ironically, I too would vote for a four heart meridian version of your plan over plan Zephyr, for a completely different balance of reasons. I just don't see it winning overall.

It wouldn't work, for the same reason I just realized both my plan and @Arkeus plan won't work.

Stacking the same kind of meridian doesn't generate additional rolls, instead it adds half dice to your current roll. Which is just an awful choice. I can't believe I missed that. I tend to think of each Meridian opening as a different action, but we only get that because we're opening a bunch of different ones. If we stack the same action we get reduced results.

Edit: Thanks for making me do the math again. It made me recheck my logic.

Edit of the Edit: Putting it in legs. The following level of SCS might need it, and if not... well, I had to put it somewhere.

pheonix89 · May 10, 2017

TheLastOne said:
It wouldn't work, for the same reason I just realized both my plan and @Arkeus plan won't work.

Stacking the same kind of meridian doesn't generate additional rolls, instead it adds half dice to your current roll. Which is just an awful choice. I can't believe I missed that. I tend to think of each Meridian opening as a different action, but we only get that because we're opening a bunch of different ones. If we stack the same action we get reduced results.

Edit: Thanks for making me do the math again. It made me recheck my logic.

I would very strongly suggest switching the head meridian to a leg one, we KNOW we'll need more leg meridans at some point, but we don't even know what head meridians do.

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