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A Simple Transaction I

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[x]Plumed Offering
[x]Undying Vanguard

Pitiless maw is utterly amazing, and utterly useless for our current objective for healing Letizia.
 
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Man, I think taking the risk for the Mire Wolf is fine; but I don't actually want to spend any Arete, as none of the buys seem interesting. If there were zero Arete options I'd totally pick them.

For now:
[X] The Plumed Offering
[X] Evening Sky - Pristine Star
 
Looking at the Tyrant as naturally the shiniest pick... Considering we took the Rank build that +.25 is very valuable, the Arete also puts us in the range for a 7 cost buy even if we might need to go into debt. So it definitely has it's perks even disregarding the Apocryphal. As for the risks/returns though I think it's probably basically:

80% chance it's worth it, even a moderate complication wouldn't outweigh what we get in return.
10% It's not but we can potentially recover.
10% The quest is over.

With an additional unknown risk of our companions being attacked.

So I think the biggest question is if the Apocryphal reduction might cumulatively decrease our chance of death by over 10%.
 
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[] The Mire Wolf
[] Evening Sky - Pristine Star
[] Evening Sky - Shine Bright

Moderate anti-synergy here, but I really want to both restore our limbs and research findross.

oop- dumbly overlooked that it won't heal our Tyrant-inflicted wounds, have to re-evaluate.
 
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Maximum Immediate Functionality route, hedges against apocryphal bullshit wearing us down, unlocks the Findross tech tree.

[x]The Mire Wolf
[x]Evening Sky - Shine Bright
[x]Forebear's Blade - Second Stage
 
Don't want to pick the two 2 Arete options; we are trying to save up here, and Shine Bright is less than impressive. Maybe Pristine plus Second Form is fine? I dunno.
 
[X] The Mire Wolf
[X] Evening Sky - Shine Bright
[X] Forebear's Blade - Second Stage
Ah... I'm loathe to spend our Arete in this way, but I think this helps us a great deal for some upcoming challenges we're facing. We get a defensive trump card and maintain the health of our companions while starting work on Gisena's medium term relevance.
It's only because they both unlock further development that I'm willing to take 2 Arete options like this.
 
[X] The Mire Wolf
[X] Evening Sky - Shine Bright
[X] Forebear's Blade - Second Stage

Adjusting my vote now that I have confirmation that Pristine Star cannot heal Tyrant-inflicted wounds. I suspect an upgrade of it could, but I also suspect Pillars has the ability to do so as well, and several other things we will see along the way. The Tyrant was powerful but he was nothing compared to the potential strength of a progression cursebearer.
 
[X] The Mire Wolf
[X] Evening Sky - Pristine Star
[X] Evening Sky - Shine Bright - 2 Arete

We really need to prioritize healing capabilities, so the Tyrant Beast is absolutely not on the table right now. I would pick the Plumed Offering, except for a few factors I consider very important.

The first, and more significant, is that it only takes 2 hours. That is half the time of Plumed Offering, and a fifth the time of the Tyrant Beast; Apocryphal would absolutely think a race against time to return to our allies under attack while we're gone would be interesting, so we need to preclude that as much as we're able.

Secondly, this allows us to pick both options for the Evening Sky, which have synergy, which involve minimal spending and which unlock advancement opportunities for Gisena in the future. The Pristine Star gives us all passive healing (maybe it'll even work on Versh!), and Shine Bright gives Hunger an enhancement to the efficacy of the passive healing and an additional toggleable effect for greater personal healing still, and one which if not abused won't lead us into Tired or Exhausted statuses. For 2 Arete that's excellent investment return and it means we can avoid picking up anything else relating to healing for awhile, so we'll be able to grow the remaining 3 Arete for other purposes. And again, findross utility on top of all that, so we don't even need to worry so much about looking for that; we'll undoubtedly pick something else up that'll speed it up eventally, but we won't need to look for something to give it in the first place.

As tantalizing as Second Stage is, it can wait and will almost certainly show up again; multi-stage boss battles are a staple and we're literally in a dungeon universe. Now it's on our radar; let's let it go this time and pursue it again soon.
 
Since Hunger will be resting after this, you can pick a 7 Arete option (going into Arete debt) if you choose any of the +Arete beasts. If you end up not generating enough Arete I'll let you guys know and we'll move to a fallback option.

Byzantine said:
Expected as much but good to know. I'm assuming a sufficiently powerful ability can break that, but that's the kind of thing we'll find at higher Rank.
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Pillars of Creation certainly could, or a specialized 3-pick effect. Some 7 Arete effects may be able to as well.

Thomasfoolery said:
Looking at the Tyrant as naturally the shiniest pick... Considering we took the Rank build that +.25 is very valuable, the Arete also puts us in the range for a 7 cost buy even if we might need to go into debt. So it definitely has it's perks even disregarding the Apocryphal. As for the risks/returns though I think it's probably basically:

80% chance it's worth it, even a moderate complication wouldn't outweigh what we get in return.
10% It's not but we can potentially recover.
10% The quest is over.

With an additional unknown risk of our companions being attacked.

So I think the biggest question is if the Apocryphal reduction might cumulatively decrease our chance of death by over 10%.
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Yup, the Tyrant Beast gives so many benefits if you guys are willing to gamble! A 10% chance of death is of course terrible but if you succeed you would be well set-up into the future!

It's pretty unlikely that your companions will be attacked by something that can beat them within 10 hours, since the Apocryphal has already triggered thrice (if Tyrant Beast is taken) in a few days. Gisena can nerf anything with magic down to baseline levels and then beat them with her superhuman stats + gun, or they can hide in Verschlengorge.

BrainInAJar said:
Don't want to pick the two 2 Arete options; we are trying to save up here, and Shine Bright is less than impressive. Maybe Pristine plus Second Form is fine? I dunno.
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Shine Bright is very good at what it does - healing your companions with no downsides! Compare to Ring of Blood which is massively inefficient at healing others. Sure, it doesn't have huge in-combat applications, but that's what Undying Vanguard is for! I'm surprised Vanguard isn't getting much interest, considering how afraid you guys have been for your allies' lives! With this they're not only safe, you can use them to help tank! Innovative strategies like sending Gisena directly into a mass of enemies to Tide of Nullity them all become possible, as she's as protected as you are!
 
@Rihaku barring outside intervention/new power development, what kind of regeneration rate, if any, can we expect healthwise once our rank is operational again?

Edit: Extending on this line of thought for a more specific example, what kind of regen rate can we expect for our arm with or without pristine star?
 
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Broadly speaking, I think Second Stage is an important form of damage mitigation in that it allows survival through an avenue that is neither healing nor protection. While it is unclear how long of a cooldown it has (and I expect an ability as useful as this to have a fairly long cooldown), it doubles our effective healthbar, provide a lethal surprise attack with increased speed and a chance to catch enemies off guard, prevents overflow damage (which is useful in withstanding a catastrophic blow far above our level), and provides progression for an ominous sounding Rage Form and the chance to say "This isn't even my Final Form!". This is the kind of benefit I would be willing to spend 2 Arete for and then stop investing in (probably to spend on Astral Rank) because of the sheer personal safety it provides.
 
Rihaku said:
but if you succeed you would be well set-up into the future!
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This is the biggest incentive for me, I feel like even with our advancement we've really just been treading water and we'll get sucked under sooner or later if continues as such. A 1/10 risk up front to try to break out of the cycle (A severe complication I think would offset the gains but not much more, so it would be about status quo, or a bit worse.) Seems like a defensible pick at least. Especially since the odds are very good we don't come back to a slaughtered clearing. I'll go for it then. Maybe in the morning I'll have second thoughts but it seems alright.

[X] The Tyrant Beast
[X] Evening Sky - Pristine Star
[X] Hunger - Pitiless Maw

Hunt the tyrant, slaughter ourselves back to full on the way back to camp, get Letrizia set up to heal well and do whatever we like in the meantime. Easy, all you need to do is win.
 
Bilbo Baggins said:
[ ] The Tyrant Beast

Rihaku, if you really wanted to bait us into an option this dangerous, you should have made it a fish.
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Come now, I don't actually want you to die. Besides, a 90% chance of survival with an 80% chance of it having been worth it is quite good for those rewards... temporary Apocryphal mitigation, Arete, Experience and Decimator's mitigation!

Talace said:
Broadly speaking, I think Second Stage is an important form of damage mitigation in that it allows survival through an avenue that is neither healing nor protection. While it is unclear how long of a cooldown it has (and I expect an ability as useful as this to have a fairly long cooldown), it doubles our effective healthbar, provide a lethal surprise attack with increased speed and a chance to catch enemies off guard, prevents overflow damage (which is useful in withstanding a catastrophic blow far above our level), and provides progression for an ominous sounding Rage Form and the chance to say "This isn't even my Final Form!". This is the kind of benefit I would be willing to spend 2 Arete for and then stop investing in (probably to spend on Astral Rank) because of the sheer personal safety it provides.
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It doesn't have a cooldown. Giving you twice the effective health and some utility benefits is good, but it's not that huge a buff in the long term compared to something like King of Thieves. It still doesn't offer any combat-speed healing, only healing you after a day has passed!

Thomasfoolery said:
This is the biggest incentive for me, I feel like even with our advancement we've really just been treading water and we'll get sucked under sooner or later if continues as such. A 1/10 risk up front to try to break out of the cycle (A severe complication I think would offset the gains but not much more, so it would be about status quo, or a bit worse.) Seems like a defensible pick at least. Especially since the odds are very good we don't come back to a slaughtered clearing. I'll go for it then. Maybe in the morning I'll have second thoughts but it seems alright.

[X] The Tyrant Beast
[X] Evening Sky - Pristine Star
[X] Hunger - Pitiless Maw

Hunt the tyrant, slaughter ourselves back to full on the way back to camp, get Letrizia set up to heal well and do whatever we like in the meantime. Easy, all you need to do is win.
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Yup, this is one of better combos. Fully heal yourself, gain significant combat power and make sure Letrizia will fully heal in time while you're free guard her. Personally I'm a fan of The Plumed Offering + Undying Vanguard! The stats more than offset your wound penalty, the CON alone more than offsets your HP, and your allies get healing as well as protection for future fights in one convenient package!
 
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