The concept of "punching down" in this context is hilariously wrong. We're already doing something exceedingly verboten as it is; I doubt doing it at Earliest Green is significantly worse than doing so at Peak Yellow. Moreover, as has already been demonstrated by Sun Liling, succeeding at something by punching down doesn't matter much if you succeed in the first place.
Also, we've got a custom order talisman lined up for this job, so I'm not particularly sure why we'd want to go in without it.
Not to mention wanting to maximize our chances of ghosting this job. Someone spotting us is very nearly as bad as being caught directly in terms of consequences. Something I think people are pretty aware of given, bad rolls or not, we were detected breaking into Renshu and Liling's bases.
We only get two fuck ups here(one save for the reroll)* and then we're screwed on market stuff. Not to mention any possible censure from Cai over it. I'm not sure she'd call us on it, but she is big on justice. So it's a possibility to keep in mind.
*Honestly, part of me is wondering if we shouldn't switch out EPC for Argent Soul just for the additional reroll we'd get out of it. EPC's reroll is permanent, so if we could pick up another one from Argent Soul, we'd have a larger margin for error.
Just doing a quick bit of analysis on the differences between plans, because we've got a fair few this time.
Everything looks the same on pills, overflow, and vent bonus, while the moon bonus is either Physical Cultivation (The Final Countdown, Steady as a Turtle) or Abyssal Exhalation (Flaming Fire + Woodworking, Let's Try This Out, Favorless, Token Doomed Resistance).
All of them have the Research Dragons major, each of Cultivating Alone, Training with Su Ling, and the Golden Fields major, differing on assigned cultivation and occasionally assigned minor actions, and either a job or Fu Xiang's Favors.
Plan
Golden Fields
Su Ling
Cultivating Alone
Job/Favors
The Final Countdown
TRF (Xiulan)
Arm Meridian (SuMa)
AC
Favors
Steady as a Turtle
TRF (Xiulan)
Arm Meridian (SuMa)
AC
Favors
Flaming Fire + Woodworking
TRF (Xiulan)
Arm Meridian (SuMa)
AC
Job (Wolves)
Let's Try This Out
Arm Meridian (Xiulan)
TRF
AC (Puzzle Box)
Job (Wolves)
Favorless
AC
Arm Meridian (SuMa)
TRF (Zhengui)
Job (Fruit)
Token Doomed Resistance
TRF (Xiulan)
Arm Meridian (SuMa)
AC
Job (Wolves)
With the exception of Token Doomed Resistance, most of the minor actions are the same. Everyone has Zhengui and Xiulan, while everyone but Let's Try This Out has Su Ling and the Ma Sisters. The remaining minors (except for Token Doomed Resistance) are from the set {Cai Renxiang, Meizhen, Puzzle Box}. Token Doomed Resistance has Han Jian and Gu Tai instead.
Plan
Attached
Attached
Standalone
Standalone
Standalone
The Final Countdown
Su Ling & Ma Sisters
Xiulan
Zhengui
Puzzle Box
Cai Renxiang
Steady as a Turtle
Su Ling & Ma Sisters
Xiulan
Zhengui
Puzzle Box
Meizhen
Flaming Fire + Woodworking
Su Ling & Ma Sisters
Xiulan
Zhengui
Puzzle Box
Meizhen
Let's Try This Out
Puzzle Box
Xiulan
Zhengui
Meizhen
Cai Renxiang
Favorless
Su Ling & Ma Sisters
Zhengui
Xiulan
Meizhen
Cai Renxiang
Token Doomed Resistance
Su Ling & Ma Sisters
Xiulan
Zhengui
Han Jian
Gu Tai
Edit: It didn't really end up being analysis, but I don't have any mental energy right now and I doubt any of this was going to be helpful to anyone anyway.
Okay, so the site was being weird and I lost my first attempt at editing the character sheet. So now its quite late. I will answer all of my tags in the morning.
That said I will make a few notes now.
No Zeqing action will be added, she's busy at the moment.
AE has been added to the update and the sheet
Final tech for FSA has been nerfed a bit, on a second look it was a bit much. bonus damage reduced by one qi cost increased by three.
Worms got +2 to stats, another health box, and +6 Qi. They also last for five rounds instead of three now. The spiritual defense bonus doubled, and the perception boost has increased another die.
As things stand, the Worms are now about as tough as the mooks Gan Guangli brought with him. And as we just saw, Ling Qi can buff those into relevance even against her peers.
As expected, AE is actually really good--we just didn't see it at its best because we only had it at the introductory level.
AE 3 is also closer than anticipated to levelling up.
Aside from having less than half the health and no armor, so they're still one-shot kills. And no arts, or a bunch of other things. They're better, but lets not go overboard.
Aside from having less than half the health and no armor, so they're still one-shot kills. And no arts, or a bunch of other things. They're better, but lets not go overboard.
Aside from having less than half the health and no armor, so they're still one-shot kills. And no arts, or a bunch of other things. They're better, but lets not go overboard.
Aside from having less than half the health and no armor, so they're still one-shot kills. And no arts, or a bunch of other things. They're better, but lets not go overboard.
They are comparable stat wise with people who have been training and cultivating for at least 35 weeks in combat. And we only spend 10 qi on them, 6 qi after darkness reductions. In fact, they are better than the mooks stat wise if they are near us, which is saying something. I agree that we shouldn't go overboard, but let's not undersell these guys either.
Yeah, and AE 2 is still apprentice level skill in it. It's got a lot of growing to do, but it's already something we can use effectively with our current build, given how the number of people who can clean them out with less cost than we spend summoning them in the first place can be counted on one hand.
They are comparable stat wise with people who have been training and cultivating for at least 35 weeks in combat. And we only spend 10 qi on them, 6 qi after darkness reductions. In fact, they are better than the mooks stat wise if they are near us, which is saying something. I agree that we shouldn't go overboard, but let's not undersell these guys either.
"Oh I kill one of them for 2-3 Qi and my action for the turn, these things are so weak"
No, that's not how it works. If the other side is spending actions stomping our minions instead of attacking us, we're still coming out ahead, doubly so when we get Encircling Winds and Pressure Crack up on them, and our worms are now throwing 24 dice attacks and creating multiple attacker penalties for us, and if they get hit even once, they get grappled--and thus, can't do shit to stop us from shifting to something like Meteoric Shower and nuking them.
Besides that, this is still the elementary level of Abyssal Exhalation. It's already shown considerable growth, even with a 'Filler' level.
If you are trying to downplay the worms maybe don't point out that it takes a decent single target attack that has been mastered with a moderately expensive weapon backing it to one shot them. It seems counterproductive.
If you are trying to downplay the worms maybe don't point out that it takes a decent single target attack that has been mastered with a moderately expensive weapon backing it to one shot them. It seems counterproductive.
The biggest difference isn't in raw health or qi boxes, but rather in comparing the dice they are bringing to the table.
At the moment they have Dex + Tech + Bonus for their conflict. That equates to
6 + 3 + 7 = 16.
Not a lot of dice, but that is about the dice that one of GG's mooks where throwing out. If they are with us they get another +3 to physical defense and +2 to physical attack.
Those dice place them close to the dice that Chu Song's late yellow/silver mooks where throwing out. As a buffer ourselves, we can further increase their dice by activating the techniques that help us and help the monsters. Encircling winds and pressure crack where mentioned, which would have them throwing out a total of 26 attacking dice against a person, which is a little bit less than Ji Rong's latest physical defense.
I'm pointing out that if they're spending their turn attacking one of our summons and leaving us alone while we get a turn to cast more buffs or debuff them, we're still coming out ahead in the long run.
Action economy is the biggest thing in any RPG. If you are forcing the other guy to spend actions attacking something that doesn't directly contribute to their victory, while you are free to push at winning the fight, we are still coming out ahead.
The Worm Summoning means that they have to choose to use expensive and powerful area of effect attacks (In which case we are still winning the Qi efficiency battle, given how anything strong enough to be likely to tag Ling Qi as well as one shot all of her minions is going to be hellishly expensive), or they attack one by one, and either accept the multiple attacker penalties and the ability Ling Qi has to buff her minions to try and nuke her down fast (Easier said than done given how tanky she is), or waste actions attacking her transient attackers and leave her time to set the battle even more in her favor.
It forces our enemies to make suboptimal decisions, which can be the difference between victory and defeat.
So, as the "punching down" argument is complete bogus, is there any reason to do it now?
This is risky. Let's not forget that, unlucky rolls can and have happened.
Essentially no reason whatsoever to not wait the expensive talisman we got just for this, or the breakthroughs which are two weeks away, to do it safely.
Getting caught it the problem here, why you are so insistent in going in half-cocked I don't know.
And then we can do all three and ask for something out of Fu Xiang. Like "Scry for Fourth Argent art".
I still think it's real, don't think that just because I won't riot or pull a "YOU WILL REGRET THIS" means that I agree that we should put it off. I'm just pointing out "If the option that wants to drag it out wins, be prepared to do it properly."
I'm still a bit miffed at the worm form - the aesthetics, give Ling Qi something more fun than worms, darnit - but the art is on the whole quite nice. Spirit Defense boost, Perception boost... the wounding passives probably aren't going to help against Ling Qi, but against crowds? Or against Yan Renshu, who also uses the worms? Or... heh... against a bunch of summoned sunflowers? Possibilities... and I would laugh if Ling Qi now is effectively a complete counter to Sun Liling's more esoteric battle techniques.
Incidentally, a fun little tidbit - everyone "knows" Ling Qi's mist comes from music. Wouldn't it be hilarious if someone invested heavily in some kind of art to muffle music arts... then Ling Qi exhales out a poisonous mist that gives her low light *anyway*. Also, Ling Qi needs to practice her two mists to see if she can't deploy them together - two qi-drainers, two defense-debuffs and so on would be... very nice attrition.
The worms using Ling Qi's attributes for defense and offense does mean they've got 7 + 7 + 3 = 17 dice; this and their (current) early Yellow nature limits their effectiveness against peer opponents. Still, I expect this will increase somewhat with the next level. Really, the worms are coming across as ways of holding down runners than a peer-opponent weapon so far. Still, multiple attackers *are* handy, so we'll see. I expect a third technique to show up in the next level (or maybe the one after that) and the passives alone make it pretty worthwhile.
And yeah, it's only 100 (88 to go) to the next level. Hmmm... +25 from EPC per turn, an action or two... yeah, the next level is achievable before breakthrough. It needs another Lung meridian though.
If we summon two (Which is plausible if we can get enough Darkness cost reductors), then we can afford to do two at once, and it means they need to spend two turns chewing through or ignore some.
At any rate, AE is developing quite nicely. But next week is still our "Polish off what we can and get ready to start the breakthrough" week.
I think putting off doing Fu Xiang's favor is being overly cautious but I prefer doing it late than doing anything less than the full set of three. Fu Xiang might never be a friend but I think he's an important resource to Ling Qi.
I think the reduction only applies once - it's effectively "10 qi for one worm, 16 qi for two worms". And the concern there is that an opponent might be able to blow both away in a single action for less cost, or simply be able to dodge the attacks.
Really, to my mind, the worms are (currently) more an interest and perhaps a way to hold down weaker opponents to prevent them from fleeing while Ling Qi focuses on bigger ones - and the art's big gain is in the passives. I do expect that to change, of course. Maybe not in the next level, but almost certainly by four or five.
I think the reduction only applies once - it's effectively "10 qi for one worm, 16 qi for two worms". And the concern there is that an opponent might be able to blow both away in a single action for less cost, or simply be able to dodge the attacks.
Really, to my mind, the worms are (currently) more an interest and perhaps a way to hold down weaker opponents to prevent them from fleeing while Ling Qi focuses on bigger ones - and the art's big gain is in the passives. I do expect that to change, of course. Maybe not in the next level, but almost certainly by four or five.
Even if we can drag the final cost down to 7, that's still fairly reasonable. And AoE attacks tend to be either extremely expensive, or not necessarily strong enough to one-shot.
