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A Simple Transaction I

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[X] Yes, Obviously
[X] Echo of the forebear
[X] Feat: Apex - +.2 Astral Rank (2 picks)
[X] A Thousand Cuts [7 Arete]

Oh, well. Time to consolidate. The Path of SORD GOD beckons. Just add 2 Arete Fall of Night to this and we will be ready to start murderizing our way through the Temple.

If people want to snowball, than what we need is Offensive power more anything else.
 
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BrainInAJar said:
I mean, why did we even get Form of Rage if not for moments like this? Picking Stranglethorn and going back is literally an ideal scenario where it would be great to have a panic button to protect us. If we can't rely on Form of Rage for that much, why did we even buy it?
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Rihaku said:
You guys got really lucky here, you were 2% off from triggering Form of Rage and I'm not sure if Hunger would be sufficiently motivated to reliably enter Rage for a random monster that has otherwise no bearing on his life. You rolled high on the encounter table but also rolled high for your execution in combat, which is pretty much the best possible outcome.
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Aside from the chance of it not proccing and us just dying in extremely embarrassing fashion, we also need to avoid leaning on it for less than extremely narratively important fights, so we aren't forced into the "hunger is actually even more insane than we thought he was" trap.
 
We do need to take into consideration that Apocrypha is going to get online again after a while. With his warnings about lacking Agi Rihaku might also be obliquely referencing that the Curse is going to ruthlessly exploit any holes we create in our build. It's not that bad, since we can find ways to make up for it and it gives significant power in return, but it's not something to be ignored.
 
20% less Agi is not a "hole". That's an exaggeration. It's true that our Agi served us well, but so has our constitution and we have been lacking in strength as well. Factor in the multiplication of Form of Rage, Stranglethorn does more for our build than any other option.
 
It is wise to assume the Apocryphal will always aim where we are weak. It gave us combat encounters after Praetor. If we had gone Bright I suspect we would have gotten social traps. If we are weak in Agi our enemies (hi Ber) will spec to hit that hole.
 
BrainInAJar said:
20% less Agi is not a "hole". That's an exaggeration. It's true that our Agi served us well, but so has our constitution and we have been lacking in strength as well. Factor in the multiplication of Form of Rage, Stranglethorn does more for our build than any other option.
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I'm not talking about just the 20% here. It's likely going to be the general direction of our build - taking options that improve Str and Con rather than Agi, since the latter becomes an inefficient use of Progression:
Rihaku said:
Before rushing into Stranglethorn, make sure you want to lean into the concept of a character who is slow but powerful, with all the advantages and downsides that entails.
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Rihaku said:
Despite the many times speed has been referenced in these and previous fight scenes, I don't think you guys have fully internalized how bad being slower is. It's not a crippling reduction, but it is a drag on your future speed both pragmatically and in terms of opportunity cost. Either you'll avoid +Agi because it's inefficient, falling further behind, or be forced to spend lots of picks on +Agi to maintain parity. This is to balance out the incredible benefits Stranglethorn offers otherwise. Yes, it's very strong. But you guys should have clear expectations about what will happen to your speed and not try to downplay it.
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Yeah, but taking options with less Agi doesn't necessarily mean less efficient progression. Yes, we will be less fast and it's likley we will be become increasingly less so as we Progress. Even if pick more Agi options to maintain Parity we will still get to benefit from both doubled Strength and Constitution, meaning it's likely we will still be ahead stat-wise.

Besides, we went with the Evening Sky, Second Form and later Form of Rage, plus we have Ruin for draining strikes. To say we have already overly invested in our agility is quite misguided. We are well suited to a more defensive playstyle, thanks to all those upgrades. If we get Vanguard, even more so. Plus the future Rank increases will be quite good to us thanks to Reserving Once and Future.
 
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Wolfy said:
Dominion and Prominence both increase our Rank for purpose of Domain(we want War), meaning that their bonus applies on top of everything we have. You get new ability? It's gets amplified by additional 0.5 Rank whenever we are fighting. Total 0.5 until Rank 8, and 0.2 after Rank 8. Note that 0.45 you get after Rank 8 has pretty much the same value as 1 you get before given how ranks scale.

Scaling refers to the fact that +0.5 get progressively better as we get stronger. Going from 4.3 to 4.8 has lesser absolute value than going from 6.5 to 7.0 despite both having increase of 0.5.

Pretty much entire EFB was build on abusing this.
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Because small rank increases matter more the more rank with have Stranglethorn is way better for a rank based build than taking 0.2 rank now. We've had bigger rank gain options offered as thread participation bonuses so throwing away two picks on it seems pretty short sighted when we could instead increase all future rank gains by 20%.
 
Redshirt Army said:
30% chance the enemies are knight level or lower and thus not a threat.
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Closer to 40% probably, given the Knight was a 37 and with our massively increased strength we can probably fight to 40 for anything that isn't speed-based.

Unelemental said:
I'm not talking about just the 20% here. It's likely going to be the general direction of our build - taking options that improve Str and Con rather than Agi, since the latter becomes an inefficient use of Progression:
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Again, Echo gives both, and is free and 1 pick, so if we take stranglethorn we'll end up taking Echo more so get as much agi as we would have anyway.

I suspect there will be another such purchase where we can fill the hole we get from this one. It's probably also a defining advancement.

Basically, I think we can upgrade our Ent style into a Lightning Bruiser style, where we have both incredible speed and incredible strength. ...But this can't be done with just one defining advancement, that would be way too powerful, so we need to grab this one now its complement later.

LordOfMurder said:
Because small rank increases matter more the more rank with have Stranglethorn is way better for a rank based build than taking 0.2 rank now. We've had bigger rank gain options offered as thread participation bonuses so throwing away two picks on it seems pretty short sighted when we could instead increase all future rank gains by 20%.
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I've already been arguing with him. He knows taking rank now instead of Stranglethorn is inefficient for rank, but is worried Stranglethorn will lock us out of Agi choices. So that's what you need to argue against.

@Wolfy My own comment there is Rihaku has not once *said* it will lock us out of agi choices, and he's too good a devil's advocate to have not brought that up when he was arguing against it initially. He's said it might cause us to overlook Agi choices but... we've never had a pure Agi choice. Even Amaranth Star was gotten largely for the Exhaustion reduction.
 
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Unelemental said:
I'm not talking about just the 20% here. It's likely going to be the general direction of our build - taking options that improve Str and Con rather than Agi, since the latter becomes an inefficient use of Progression:
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We'll also be getting 20% more rank which according to a recent Rihaku quote is more flexible than the other stats. We also get double willpower as will as str and con, we just don't have any at the moment. Establishment also pairs well with slow and steady exploration of this dungeon allowing us to claim a foothold and steadily expand it as we progress.

Byzantine said:
I've already been arguing with him. He knows taking rank now instead of Stranglethorn is inefficient for rank, but is worried Stranglethorn will lock us out of Agi choices. So that's what you need to argue against.
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Agi choices are mostly Evening Sky though? That's where we got our +++ agi from earlier.
 
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Mashing Echo of the Forebear is the way to go if you want to become a Lightning Bruiser, since that is exactly what the option does and works towards.
 
BrainInAJar said:
Yeah, but taking options with less Agi doesn't necessarily mean less efficient progression. Yes, we will be less fast and it's likley we will be become increasingly less so as we Progress. Even if pick more Agi options to maintain Parity we will still get to benefit from both doubled Strength and Constitution, meaning it's likely we will still be ahead stat-wise.

Besides, we went with the Evening Sky, Second Form and later Form of Rage, plus we have Ruin for draining strikes. To say we have already overly invested in our agility is quite misguided. We are well suited to a more defensive playstyle, thanks to all those upgrades. If we get Vanguard, even more so. Plus the future Rank increases will be quite good to us thanks to Reserving Once and Future.
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Hence why it's a powerful option? It costs 4 picks and sacrifices Agi, but in return we get significant advantages.

But my argument still stands, if our build develops in this direction, the lack of speed is something that is going to get exploited, not just occasionally like with normal adventurers when they randomly hit upon an inconvenient enemy, but consistently.

Byzantine said:
Again, Echo gives both, and is free and 1 pick, so if we take stranglethorn we'll end up taking Echo more so get as much agi as we would have anyway.

I suspect there will be another such purchase where we can fill the hole we get from this one. It's probably also a defining advancement.

Basically, I think we can upgrade our Ent style into a Lightning Bruiser style, where we have both incredible speed and incredible strength. ...But this can't be done with just one defining advancement, that would be way too powerful, so we need to grab this one now its complement later.
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Look, when the GM says 'this is going to be a slow but powerful build', I'm not going to tell him 'no, I know your system better and we can totally exploit it to invalidate the option's disadvantages'. I obviously don't know the details, but maybe future versions of Echo are going to be more focused on Might, or it's going to get incorporated into Stranglethorn, or some other hitherto unknown reason. And of course we can take other powerful options to somehow make up for its weaknesses later. But that's not part of the option itself. Saying this is like saying that we can make up for Einhander's disadvantages later on - true, but not the point of the option.
 
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[X] Yes, Obviously.
[X] Echo of the Forebear
[X] Feat: Apex - +.2 Astral Rank (2 picks)

Just keeping it simple with stats and rank is good, too.

I really would like to save arete if at all possible. We still have Once and Future on layaway, in addition to the prizes further in.
 
Unelemental said:
Look, when the GM says 'this is going to be a slow but powerful build', I'm not going to tell him 'no, I know your system better and we can totally exploit it to invalidate the option's disadvantages'. I obviously don't know the details, but maybe future versions of Echo are going to be more focused on Might, or it's going to get incorporated into Stranglethorn, or some other hitherto unknown reason. And of course we can take other powerful options to somehow make up for its weaknesses later. But that's not part of the option itself. Saying this is like saying that we can make up for Einhander's disadvantages later on - true, but not the point of the option.
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But like, he straight up said it's possible to compensate for less Agi by focusing on it; it's just going to be suboptimal. If we have a need for agility we can still get it; it's just 20% harder. Which makes options with agility automatically worse, which is the reason for his comment. But his very statement also implies we won't be locked of Agi choices.
 
Unelemental said:
I'm not talking about just the 20% here. It's likely going to be the general direction of our build - taking options that improve Str and Con rather than Agi, since the latter becomes an inefficient use of Progression:
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Rihaku said:
Despite the many times speed has been referenced in these and previous fight scenes, I don't think you guys have fully internalized how bad being slower is. It's not a crippling reduction, but it is a drag on your future speed both pragmatically and in terms of opportunity cost. Either you'll avoid +Agi because it's inefficient, falling further behind, or be forced to spend lots of picks on +Agi to maintain parity. This is to balance out the incredible benefits Stranglethorn offers otherwise. Yes, it's very strong. But you guys should have clear expectations about what will happen to your speed and not try to downplay it.
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Emphasis mine.

Byzantine said:
Right. And he's worried that by focusing on a slow-but-strong build it may stop offering those in favor of more protection stuff.
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Given that both thousand cuts and Vanguard have been offered like 4 times now I don't think we need to worry about more basic aspects of the artifacts disappearing entirely.

Shard said:
Mashing Echo of the Forebear is the way to go if you want to become a Lightning Bruiser, since that is exactly what the option does and works towards.
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Sure if we take nothing but echos we'll have more stats the next couple of options if you count agi as twice as valuable as str or con. But we'll also be getting 20% more rank and we get twice as much willpower as well, both stats that are more valuable than agility. Not to mention however Establishment works.

Fumbles said:
Just keeping it simple with stats and rank is good, too.

I really would like to save arete if at all possible. We still have Once and Future on layaway, in addition to the prizes further in.
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Once and Future benefits tremendously from stranglethorns 20% bonus since it gets more powerful the more rank we have at the time which is easier to gain and get people to vote for if we have a bonus to it.
 
BrainInAJar said:
But like, he straight up said it's possible to compensate for less Agi by focusing on it; it's just going to be suboptimal. If we have a need for agility we can still get it; it's just 20% harder. Which makes options with agility automatically worse, which is the reason for his comment. But his very statement also implies we won't be locked of Agi choices.
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If we're choosing the option because of its powerful additions to stats, why would we go on and not make use of it?.. That like, turns it into a 3.5 or even a 3 pick. That you still can increase Agi despite XP inefficiency doesn't mean you should. If you commit to a certain build, you need to actually commit, or it becomes a waste of picks.

LordOfMurder said:
Emphasis mine.
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That's great? Never said it was weak.
 
Personally from an Aesthetic standpoint I don't like 'slow and powerful' for Hunger. I mean he already maxed out AGI, he is a fast, high skilled warrior threading the needle through to victory repeatedly and consistently. I prefer mage, of course (Rune King all but guarantees magic system options in the future), but failing that, I'd be split between lightning bruiser and rogueish.

Hmm.

I guess for me my option tier (aesthetically) goes something like:

Rune King/Gardener
Apex+Echoes/4x Echoes/Sharp of Eye/Zweihander
Einhander/Stranglethorn

Before I go waffling again I suppose.

So I suppose I shall vote dreadnaught, and if it ends up as Sharp Eye (as is likely), then *shrug* I guess.

[X] Yes, Obviously.
[X] Forebear's Blade - Dreadnought's Bearing
-[X] Rune King
[X] Retreat to the Antechamber
 
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Unelemental said:
If we're choosing the option because of its powerful additions to stats, why would we go on and not make use of it?.. That like, turns it into a 3.5 or even a 3 pick. That you still can increase Agi despite XP inefficiency doesn't mean you should. If you commit to a certain build, you need to actually commit, or it becomes a waste of picks.
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Oh, I'm planning to make integral use of it. But conversely, your argument is that Apocryphal would exploit our inevitable AGI weakness, so I replied we can still take AGI options at a surcharge if absolutely necessary. Even if we compensate for it 100% of the time; we just need to pick AGI options 20% more often while we still benefit from double CON and STR; that's plenty good already, never mind the other benefits. but I'm fine with taking less AGI options in the future anyway.
 
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Frankly, I'm okay with picking Stranglethorn and remaining suboptimal in regards to Agility. I think eventually we'll get ways to work around it, like having constant AoE effects, or perhaps debuffs that lower the Agility of the opponent to our level. Think instead of what this means for our character-- the image of a lumbering juggernaut, whose measured pace and advance inexorable spell doom for those in their way. I want to fling fury and death and light, I want to repel the wind and absorb the tide, to march into the stellar horizon and devour the sky entire.

This isn't an argument for this being a more optimal build, I've made those before-- but I simply find the idea of Stranglethorn as a Defining Advancement to be appealing, interesting, and sufficiently epic.
 
Shard said:
Personally from an Aesthetic standpoint I don't like 'slow and powerful' for Hunger. I mean he already maxed out AGI, he is a fast, high skilled warrior threading the needle through to victory repeatedly and consistently. I prefer mage, of course (Rune King all but guarantees magic system options in the future), but failing that, I'd be split between lightning bruiser and rogueish.
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We didn't really max out agility, we took amaranth star to mitigate tired and exhausted which happened to give +++ agi and all the rest of it comes from copies of echoes. It's currently tied with our con.

If we'd taken thief king I'd agree with you but stranglethorn doubles the value of three stats at only a 20% penalty to one. If we assume agi is worth twice that of str or con then Stranglethorn in effect changes them to be equal in value.

Willpower seems crucial for magic systems and might be useful in triggering form of Rage more consistently. The 20% bonus to rank alone is worth the penalty to agility, since it's the god stat that supersedes all the others.
 
LordOfMurder said:
It doesn't matter if we're slower if we have so much rank that we can warp reality such that our enemies are in the path of our sword. Establishment also makes us ever more inescapable which implies that speed ceases to matter as much after a point.
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We're a long, long way off from outright manipulating enemies into having them commit suicide on our sword just with Rank.

BrainInAJar said:
Oh, I'm planning to make integral use of it. But conversely, your argument is that Apocryphal would exploit our inevitable AGI weakness, so I replied we can still take AGI options at a surcharge if absolutely necessary. Even if we compensate for it 100% of the time; we just need to pick AGI options 20% more often while we still benefit from double CON and STR; that's plenty good already, never mind the other benefits. bu I'm fine with taking less AGI options in the future anyway.
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Using Stranglethorn suboptimally (not investing heavily in Str+Con) isn't just bad because it offends minmaxers' delicate sensibilities. It's because at some point Apocrypha will start taking the option's power into account when setting challenges, and if we took Agi where it distributed XP optimally, that's our own damn problem.

Hence why I called it out as something to take into account in future. Apocrypha shapes our quest narrative, and it influences our build decisions in a major way too. We can't not take Str+Con after this if we want to keep up with or even exceed its demands, but we also need to be aware that such a build invites the Curse to specialize in hitting our created weakness. If you're OK with that, that's great.
 
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