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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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I see a few people arguing for Fallen Stars Art on the basis that our purpose in getting an arm art was to gain a high density-of-damage direct attack, but that's plainly untrue. Our real purpose was obviously appeasement, since it took being annoyed into submission for an arm art to come to pass.
 
Alectai said:
It'll be a hell of a lot harder for us to get the site locked down if we don't have the ability to kill the Rimefur Wolves, I point out.

And we did get The Drop on them when we approached in the first place, pull that off and we could potentially pop one or two of them before they close.
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I'd point out that all of the arts help significantly for that... Hell, an argument can be made that Lake Rippling Art would be the best art for getting the site quickly, as we'll do it with our posse.
Thor's Twin said:
Alright, looking at the near future and going to make an argument for Falling Stars Art. We are really good at avoiding conflict with various disciples (as shown with the moonfill event), so the art we choose right now shouldn't be focused on the fighting of disciples but rather which art is the best for completing the missions we have in a timely and safe manner. Ash Shadow is, sadly, not that art. Falling Stars art allows us to strike from range with debilitating damage, slows down the opposition, allowing for more time to fire at them, pierces straight through their defenses, and disrupts their qi, meaning that they can't fight us at range effectively. This means that the condor mission opens up for us as an opportunity, and we gain a much better chance at actually killing the spirit that is disappearing the guardsmen, which I really want to have happen.

Hunting monsters become easier, and we will have a much better chance at taking on level 2 monsters before they even reach us. The lack of a decent bow is a problem, but it is a problem that is easily fixed. The lack of the site won't be fixed without investment into an art that does damage, so I don't see that line of thinking to be very convincing. The loss of 10 dice sucks, but by learning the art next week, and getting good with it, we can conceivably get more resources from missions easier than if we choose the Ashen shadow art.

It sucks because I really want the ashen shadow art, and I really want it now, but FSA will give us better chances at completing various missions and getting the cores to sell or feed our baby tortoise.
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I strongly disagree. Ash Shadow Art helps just as much, if not more, for completing missions. Actually, not 'if not more'. It helps more. Ash Shadow art gives us a finisher that probably can be used while also using FVM, while Falling Stars would simply give us more damage and kitting abilities.

One actually help for every kind of mission fights, while the other only helps in mission fights where we have access to long range and need a lot of damage. The main use for Falling Star Arts is when we have a lot more dice to throw for attacking and when either our current set up fails us or when we are very far away from enemies.

We currently do not have a lot of dice to throw with archery and Ash Shadow Art is the art that makes our current set up stronger instead on being a fall back if it fails. Not only that, but it will likely increase in levels more quickly, and thus will be, for the forseeable future, stronger.
 
Yeah, Falling Stars seems to be the simplified version of the whole Houyi legend, which ends with "Shooting suns out of the sky so that life can exist without catching fire and dying"

Arkeus said:
I'd point out that all of the arts help significantly for that... Hell, an argument can be made that Lake Rippling Art would be the best art for getting the site quickly, as we'll do it with our posse.

I strongly disagree. Ash Shadow Art helps just as much, if not more, for completing missions. Actually, not 'if not more'. It helps more. Ash Shadow art gives us a finisher that probably can be used while also using FVM, while Falling Stars would simply give us more damage and kitting abilities.

One actually help for every kind of mission fights, while the other only helps in mission fights where we have access to long range and need a lot of damage. The main use for Falling Star Arts is when we have a lot more dice to throw for attacking and when either our current set up fails us or when we are very far away from enemies.

We currently do not have a lot of dice to throw with archery and Ash Shadow Art is the art that makes our current set up stronger instead on being a fall back if it fails. Not only that, but it will likely increase in levels more quickly, and thus will be, for the forseeable future, stronger.
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No, but we can get those really quickly--at least up to the level of our knives within a week or two. It still grows faster because it has Wind involved, and Ash Shadow is a melee combat art, which means that we're using it without any special protection against the other guy getting lucky and tagging us, and it doesn't even have the advantages of 'Force the other guy to burn Qi on rushes to catch up to us' that we normally leverage.
 
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Grosstoad said:
I would note that Ash, being ash, probably won't be effective as a wall or rolling boulder. It probably has enough impact with enough mass, as well as being generally stronger as it is made out of Qi, but I doubt it is as good as say, Mountain construct, Ice construct, or Fire construct, in terms of damage.
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Well yes, but the point of those simple constructs isn't to do damage or physically obstruct the other person. It is to confuse them, obscure us from their vision, force them to chose between two targets in the mists which already provides a penalty to perception.
 
1986ctcel said:
No it doesn't we can't play the flute one-handed and it needs melee attacks on targets to take effect.
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We can do the spiritual part of the art (throwing debuffs, making constructs) without using any melee attacks. But you are right that we wouldn't be able to attack with the art while sustaining FVM, at least unless we want to kick stuff or whatnot.

Alectai said:
It'll be a hell of a lot harder for us to get the site locked down if we don't have the ability to kill the Rimefur Wolves, I point out.

And we did get The Drop on them when we approached in the first place, pull that off and we could potentially pop one or two of them before they close.
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I don't buy that FSA would help us more against the wolves than the other options. FSA is a single target attack art; we can use it to slow down one or two of the wolves before the rest get to us, but at that point it is basically useless unless we want to keep dropping FVM and having to recast it.

I accept that FSA can be quite extremely useful in certain situations, but fighting a horde of enemies is clearly not one of them.
 
1986ctcel said:
No it doesn't we can't play the flute one-handed and it needs melee attacks on targets to take effect.
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It's a good thing Ling Qi has such long, slender legs that Meizhen sometimes fantasizes over them then isn't it :V

Anyways, I just love the thematics of 'wander into Ling Qi's mist' ash constructs rip the fucking heat out of your body as they attack from all sides- you don't know the direction to escape, you don't know how to fight back against your attacker, you can barely focus and you're getting weaker and weaker as everything here is a hateful piece of shit ripping your essence apart bit by bit.'

Like I see people say 'well Ash constructs won't have much more mass than our mist does' - do the constructs in our mist rip away thermal energy from the target as they attack?
 
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PrimalShadow said:
We can do the spiritual part of the art (throwing debuffs, making constructs) without using any melee attacks. But you are right that we wouldn't be able to attack with the art while sustaining FVM, at least unless we want to kick stuff or whatnot.


I don't buy that FSA would help us more against the wolves than the other options. FSA is a single target attack art; we can use it to slow down one or two of the wolves before the rest get to us, but at that point it is basically useless unless we want to keep dropping FVM and having to recast it.

I accept that FSA can be quite extremely useful in certain situations, but fighting a horde of enemies is clearly not one of them.
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The point is that we wouldn't be fighting the Wolves alone, because that would be stupid.

If two or three of the people in our group can pop a wolf before they close to melee, then it suddenly becomes a fair fight.
 
Thor's Twin said:
Alright, looking at the near future and going to make an argument for Falling Stars Art. We are really good at avoiding conflict with various disciples (as shown with the moonfill event), so the art we choose right now shouldn't be focused on the fighting of disciples but rather which art is the best for completing the missions we have in a timely and safe manner. Ash Shadow is, sadly, not that art. Falling Stars art allows us to strike from range with debilitating damage, slows down the opposition, allowing for more time to fire at them, pierces straight through their defenses, and disrupts their qi, meaning that they can't fight us at range effectively. This means that the condor mission opens up for us as an opportunity, and we gain a much better chance at actually killing the spirit that is disappearing the guardsmen, which I really want to have happen.

Hunting monsters become easier, and we will have a much better chance at taking on level 2 monsters before they even reach us. The lack of a decent bow is a problem, but it is a problem that is easily fixed. The lack of the site won't be fixed without investment into an art that does damage, so I don't see that line of thinking to be very convincing. The loss of 10 dice sucks, but by learning the art next week, and getting good with it, we can conceivably get more resources from missions easier than if we choose the Ashen shadow art.

It sucks because I really want the ashen shadow art, and I really want it now, but FSA will give us better chances at completing various missions and getting the cores to sell or feed our baby tortoise.
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I agree that if we are hunting one or two monsters at a time, FSA has a lot of utility. However, I do want to note that 1v1 fights are only half of the story; a lot of the time, we can expect to go against multiple opponents, and in cases like that we are going to want to keep FVM up, so something FVM comparable (*cough* ashen shadow *cough*) provides a far greater boost to our abilities.
 
PrimalShadow said:
We can do the spiritual part of the art (throwing debuffs, making constructs) without using any melee attacks. But you are right that we wouldn't be able to attack with the art while sustaining FVM, at least unless we want to kick stuff or whatnot.


I don't buy that FSA would help us more against the wolves than the other options. FSA is a single target attack art; we can use it to slow down one or two of the wolves before the rest get to us, but at that point it is basically useless unless we want to keep dropping FVM and having to recast it.

I accept that FSA can be quite extremely useful in certain situations, but fighting a horde of enemies is clearly not one of them.
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It has five levels, and is focused on archery.

I highly doubt there isn't a quick-shooting mode.

All the high point special missions are for single, strong monsters.
 
Ashen Shadow reads to me as not needing free hands. "A melee art which converts the users qi into a trailing shadow of ash, the users strikes drain the heat from enemies struck, weakening and debilitating them."

That looks to me as saying that it creates that trailing shadow and uses it to attack.

Edit: If we do get Falling Stars then we absolutely MUST swing by next week for the next level of Zephyr's Breath.
 
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Alectai said:
The point is that we wouldn't be fighting the Wolves alone, because that would be stupid.

If two or three of the people in our group can pop a wolf before they close to melee, then it suddenly becomes a fair fight.
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Hmm. An artillery barrage does sound interesting; I can see that being somewhat valuable, yes. That said, our personal contribution to the fight would be capped at maybe killing one enemy or slowing down two of them. I can't help but think that being able to throw out a number of ash constructs to fight by our side and then blanketing everything in mist that our enemies can't get out of would prove to have a noticibly greater combat-impact overall.
 
Right it appears that Ice wraith is losing badly so I'll go for the one which has a better chance of winning.

I'd like most of these at some point for sheer versitility but we came for a high damage anti-armour art and that's what we should get.

[X] Falling Stars Art
 
Alectai said:
The point is that we wouldn't be fighting the Wolves alone, because that would be stupid.

If two or three of the people in our group can pop a wolf before they close to melee, then it suddenly becomes a fair fight.
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Do any of our companions actually have particularly strong ranged attacks? The only ones I can think of are Gu Xiulan and Su Ling with their fire. And even with those two, Su Ling's fire is the weaker part of her build.
 
PrimalShadow said:
We can do the spiritual part of the art (throwing debuffs, making constructs) without using any melee attacks. But you are right that we wouldn't be able to attack with the art while sustaining FVM, at least unless we want to kick stuff or whatnot.
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But we want to kick stuff and what not :p
Alectai said:
No, but we can get those really quickly--at least up to the level of our knives within a week or two. It still grows faster because it has Wind involved, and Ash Shadow is a melee combat art, which means that we're using it without any special protection against the other guy getting lucky and tagging us, and it doesn't even have the advantages of 'Force the other guy to burn Qi on rushes to catch up to us' that we normally leverage.
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Instead it has the advantage of being able to stack even more debuff and use it while FVM is on. This is for finishing fights and killing/ save or suck, it's not our openers.

Which, huh, might be what we are arguing about here, as FSA is both a long rang opener (when we are at long range) and finisher where we try to use it all at once when the enemy is weakened, while ASA is more of a "use it while you are also using FVM and directing a fight, not just in the last 4 rounds of the fight".

Basically, beside me thinking the art looks cool as fuck, I really think an art that can be used as part of our fighting style is more interesting than the opposite.
Seventeen said:
Do any of our companions actually have particularly strong ranged attacks? The only ones I can think of are Gu Xiulan and Su Ling with their fire. And even with those two, Su Ling's fire is the weaker part of her build.
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Our bows should be used at very long range... and their attacks aren't very long range as far as we know. So Ling Qi would be all alone there :(
 
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Seventeen said:
Do any of our companions actually have particularly strong ranged attacks? The only ones I can think of are Gu Xiulan and Su Ling with their fire. And even with those two, Su Ling's fire is the weaker part of her build.
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Gu Xiulan is a ranged nuker, the other members of the Golden Fields group have buffs, and if we decide to tap Bai Meizhen for extra muscle too, she can fight at ranged as well.

Arkeus said:
But we want to kick stuff and what not :p

Instead it has the advantage of being able to stack even more debuff and use it while FVM is on. This is for finishing fights and killing/ save or suck, it's not our openers.

Which, huh, might be what we are arguing about here, as FSA is both a long rang opener (when we are at long range) and finisher where we try to use it all at once when the enemy is weakened, while ASA is more of a "use it while you are also using FVM and directing a fight, not just in the last 4 rounds of the fight".

Basically, beside me thinking the art looks cool as fuck, I really think an art that can be used as part of our fighting style is more interesting than the opposite.
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I do agree that it looks fucking wicked, yes.

Wouldn't it be better to hold off on learning Ashen Shadow until turtlebuddy is born though, so we can benefit from the buffs to learning fire arts he'd give? I mean, I'd have no objection to grabbing Ashen Shadow as long as we have a decisive attack to go with it.
 
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[X] Ashen Shadow Art

I want both Ashen Shadow and Falling Stars, and I might even put in picking up Falling Stars this coming turn. Right now we don't have enough arts to do an 'art' week, which has actually made our training less effective a few times drug/stone wise. Both arts fill niches we need, and conveniently enough they fill them at different times. In the cave trials or Thunderdome I would have voted to slot Ash, on a mission on the mountain jobs or doing hunting I would vote for Stars.

So yeah, both are Beautiful.
 
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PrimalShadow said:
Hmm. An artillery barrage does sound interesting; I can see that being somewhat valuable, yes. That said, our personal contribution to the fight would be capped at maybe killing one enemy or slowing down two of them. I can't help but think that being able to throw out a number of ash constructs to fight by our side and then blanketing everything in mist that our enemies can't get out of would prove to have a noticibly greater combat-impact overall.
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Don't forget FSA is also a heavy debuff.

Mass of weaker opponents matter far less than a single strong one. There are two Meizhen-level wolfs in that clearing.
 
Yeah, honestly, the biggest draw Ashen Shadow has to me, aside from the tactical benefits, is that it gives us something that we can slot and equip if the situation is going to be too chaotic for FVM. Or if we can guarantee more allies present than we can protect.
 
Seventeen said:
Do any of our companions actually have particularly strong ranged attacks? The only ones I can think of are Gu Xiulan and Su Ling with their fire. And even with those two, Su Ling's fire is the weaker part of her build.
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For now.

Given that she's right on the line between spirit and human (literal 50/50 split) a inherent art like her foxfire is going to scale all the way to White.

There are a lot of things that suck about being Su Ling. Never having to worry about not being able to upgrade her core skillset for want of access to new arts is not one of those things.

TheLastOne said:
[X] Ashen Shadow Art

I want both Ashen Shadow and Falling Stars, and I might even put in picking up Falling Stars this coming turn. Right now we don't have enough arts to do an 'art' week, which has actually made our training less effective a few times drug/stone wise. Both arts fill niches we need, and conveniently enough they fill them at different times. In the cave trials or Thunderdome I would have voted to slot Ash, on a mission on the mountain jobs or doing hunting I would vote for Stars.

So yeah, both are Beautiful.
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Oh, agreed. I'm thinking we come back for ZB Mk II next week, pop some arm Meridians open and get Falling Stars after that.

@yrsillar
The winning vote had a clause to look for the next level of Zephyr's Breath. Was that not on the first floor or did it just not show because it didn't meet the Arm/X requirement?
 
Alectai said:
I do agree that it looks fucking wicked, yes.

Wouldn't it be better to hold off on learning Ashen Shadow until turtlebuddy is born though, so we can benefit from the buffs to learning fire arts he'd give?
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We won't have time to put too many levels into whatever art we pick in the next couple of weeks anyway; we will be too busy doing physical+spiritual cultivation, upping EPC, opening meridians, and doing missions.

Also, we don't know what kind of bonus our lil' turtle would give; if there are fire bonuses I wouldn't be surprised if they were bonuses to power or cost as opposed to cultivation.
 
But yes. What it comes down to is that FSA covers a serious weakness in our build, while ASA is a splendid technique that nonetheless has a lot of overlap with an already good technique that we have. I'd love to get it as a secondary technique, but I don't feel it fits as a primary when we have FVM, not like FSA does qualify as.

PrimalShadow said:
We won't have time to put too many levels into whatever art we pick in the next couple of weeks anyway; we will be too busy doing physical+spiritual cultivation, upping EPC, opening meridians, and doing missions.

Also, we don't know what kind of bonus our lil' turtle would give; if there are fire bonuses I wouldn't be surprised if they were bonuses to power or cost as opposed to cultivation.
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Ah, but you see, the pills we got from Meizhen means that we can do two Art Cultivations and also have those count as Qi Increase Rolls ! Which also gives us a Spiritual Cultivation Roll with the Darkmoon Pills!
 
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Alectai said:
Wouldn't it be better to hold off on learning Ashen Shadow until turtlebuddy is born though, so we can benefit from the buffs to learning fire arts he'd give? I mean, I'd have no objection to grabbing Ashen Shadow as long as we have a decisive attack to go with it.
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I would be wary about ascribing to the spirit any particular benefits until after it hatches, and especially about making build decisions based on those assumed bonuses. I don't even know that we can assume things as simple as it being a turtle or being predominantly fire-aspected. There's a lot of weird stuff going on with spirit birth, after all.
 
For everyone voting for Fallen Star Art - I don't think you need to worry about us not picking it up later. My impression is that everyone is keen to pick it up at some point - just either after another more complementary art first, or when we have an open meridian already so we don't waste our pill bonuses.

Because Ashen seems to work with any melee attacks, it's plausible it could work with kicks, which would leave our arms entirely free.
 
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