[ ] Evening Sky: Shadowlord
Shadowlord lets us pivot into a traditional stealth approach as opposed to our bluffing plan, but also improves our abilities for the social plan with its Manipulation benefits. The combat gains are pretty good too. The agility bonus is big, and compliments the stealth. The guaranteed critical strike is also pretty substantial, and it adds up to a build that's not nearly as good as if we'd gone thief earlier! substantially more dangerous in the initial exchange, more likely to have the initiative, and more capable of nonviolent growth via theft and misdirection.
I'd say it's probably the strongest compliment to our current plans that we can get here. That said, it had better be the strongest, since it costs us an extra day, 7 arete, and an allied surgecrafter's participation. Worth it? I think so. The question is, does it provide a better ratio of advantage versus cost compared to the other options? That's also a subjective measure, based on the questers risk tolerance and other metrics that vary enormously. I think it puts us in a great position to pursue the plans we've already made, and opens up further avenues for the future.
For you beautiful aesthetic-minded people, the One Ring was stolen more often than it was taken by force. There's definitely a story there, about the thief who stole a kingdom's beating heart. and I wanted night cast Odyssial, damn it
[ ] Edeldross Adept - 2 picks, 2 Arete
Edeldross Adept provides a pretty huge stat buff across the board. Don't mistake that 50% for larger than Shadowlord, though. it's temporary, and Shadowlord would include our existing 20% boost. Still, 30% for everything may be competitive with Shadowlord's more Agi-focused improvement, but I don't think it would actually win a hypothetical-hunger battle. Agi is the king of combat, and that hidden strike is a killer. White-room nonsense aside, this build is strictly superior for teamwork. That consistent buffing, and access to battlefield control through shields and projectiles makes Hunger much more capable of supporting and protecting Gisena, Letrizia, and Verchlengorge. It's also fantastic stunt fodder and full of wonderful options for tactics.
For numeric clarity, I believe Edeldross Adept provides 10% more of all stats besides agility when compared to Shadowlord. Shadowlord provides 20% more agility than Edeldross Adept, alongside its novel stats, which are of course boosted beyond their written levels by Edeldross.
Long-term, Edeldross Adept improves our access to pseudo-graces. This is nice, but we're positively drowning in long-term options, including like 4 EFB options we have unlocked and invested. I'm pretty well ignoring the long term for this vote selection.
[ ] Vigor Incarnate - 2 picks, 2 Arete
Vigor Incarnate proves a healthy pile of raw stats, alongside an actual factual Protection buff, who'd have thunk it?! Protection is a pretty sorely neglected aspect of our build, and has a pretty good relationship with Constitution, which this option also provides. Survivability is a function of meat points (con), durability (prot), and dodge (agi). We're doing pretty darn good on two of those, so the marginal value of protection looks good to me. Just like Shadowlord, Vigor Incarnate provides a pile of stats to be magnified further by Edeldross. They're not novel. This option isn't a game changer, it's a solid buff but doesn't particularly change how we do things. It does, however, provide a solid benefit to the social infiltration plan via its charisma.
Long-term, ignore stinky protection forever and just banish the sticks and stones of the world through the force of your personality. Pretty darn swank, I too enjoy Solar Presence builds. Again, long-term gains are a secondary concern for small votes like this. We're aiming to live to get our absurdly long-term EFB choices, and so we should look to survive. This option does help with that, and in the most literal fashion of any of these. If you're lacking confidence in the thread's tactics, then look no further than STATS.
[ ] Sublime Transfusion
Behind this simple yet powerful healing option lurks the shadow of a great meme. Verchlengorge could be restored at a cost of time. This may well be the safest of all paths, if the least rewarding. Hunger, for all his growth, isn't really relevant in the face of a rank 6 Verchlengorge in action. So, if you can just ask your big stompy robot to smash all the mean people, why wouldn't you? The answer is time, the only foe that Gorgey can't murder when he gets back to rank 10. Sublime transfusion would absolutely let us fix up Verchlengorge massively. The question is, could we repair him quickly enough, to a high-enough level, to clear the temple in our remaining time before the Apocryphal curse gets back from vacation? The next question is, does that matter? The Curse doesn't take our allies deeply into its consideration, and so hiding behind our biggest ally may well be the safest option we have available. The downside is that we could place Hunger in a state of exsanguinated exhaustion, and we're not sure we can get Verchlengorge up to a level sufficient to solve the Temple in the most direct manner.
If the gambit works, we can laugh all the way to the bank. If it doesn't, we get to experience the wonders of the Cursed Moon Temple, and while Cursed Gems are rad, the Chalices you have to plumb to get them are very not-rad.
~900 words or so, all together. I'll vote after discussion has developed a bit more, maybe I can come up with another silly drabble for tomorrow evening. For now, sleep.