We do use archery moderately frequently, but you are correct in that it doesn't play well with our other abilities. That said, at the moment it is relatively valuable because of the ranged option and the nuke that it grants. Now, I'm not saying that we can't get those capabilities some other way in the future, but right now as part of our build they are quite valuable.
Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
Melee is more useful to us in team fight (shrugs).
Our team fight build is absolutely close range. No amount of moaning about "being forced into melee" is going to change the fact that our team fight skills are restricted to the melee engagement zone. Also, our flute attack counts as a melee strike, and uses manip+expression.
Do you think any of the monsters would fail to cover 30M and attack in the same turn?, I sure in the hell wouldn't bet on it.
We'll be competing with them directly fairly soon, so writing it off as them being way above us isn't gonna cut it.
I can't deny the utility of having a 300M attack though.
Suppose we'll just have to muddle on as we always have.
- Location
- Brazil
See, your problem here is that you assume "having a focus on X" to be the ultimate goal, so obviously, everything that doesn't directly contribute to it receives a fail grade.
Forget the means and focus on the objective for a moment, what do we want to do? Meizhen "wants" to have an impregnable defense, but she keeps her offense competitive and employs multiple different methods in order to achieve her goal.
You see, this has been said IC by Ling Qi and Elder Jiao to be a mistake. Straight up.
If you want to argue you know better than Jiao, be my guest.
False. Downright false.
Our Mist has a radius of 80 meters. We have essentially zero reason to stick close to the enemy as opposed to entering stealth and sneak attacking from range. And that's before we even make it to green, which is an exponential increase in quality.
What does the flute do for us? It lays down a huge environmental debuff, and recently allows us to more directly control the battlefield through isolating key fighters from their allies and directly aiding us through multi attacker penalties. It protects us and hinders them.
But it doesn't, not by itself, win the fight. The enemy would be free to dispel or try to flee or attempt to find us or employ a talisman/spirit ability or take their time to buff up. And that is if the mist worked on the first try.
The best way it does assist us in ending the fight is by enabling our offensive techniques to easily land and deal devastating damage while doing so.
Which is why a Music/Archery may very well beat both of pure Music and pure Archery. Because the latter will both be hitting diminishing returns, and brute-forcing their strategy through the weight of dice, a mixed build will enable its own combos.
I will join discussion and say what posibilities I see.
Assuming that we are doing stealth/archery/music build.
For me this bonuses scream that sneak attacks are valid playstyle.
For now we need 1 round to establish stealth and 2nd round to attack.
But these problems may be solved with arts.
I could imagine leg/heart art to create smoke screen and disapear.
Spiritual art which force our enemies to loose sight of Ling Qi.
Or Lung art which create clones to distract other cultivators.
In this situation we could invest in stealth/ranged attack art as replacement for FSA .
Long range of bow and ability to enter stealth fast would give us good strategic options.
The dice would be hopefully dexterity + archery + stealth bonuses + range attack bonuses (FZ) + physical bonuses (AC) + art + equipment
For short range...
This ability is melee for now, but it looks like something which we can upgrade to ranged with special training or with extra art.
What is important is that this attack just like music arts use expression as a combat skill, which means that we can stack dice for both physical attacks and debuffs (also spiritual music attacks?)
Which would mean getting stealth attack art or stealth/ranged rather than archery/stealth art.
The dice in this situation would be hopefully manipulation + expression + expression bonuses + stealth bonuses + range attack bonuses (FZ) + physical bonuses(AC) + art + equipment
New arts in this situation could be
stealth art for fast dissapearance
stealth/ranged attack art successor for FSA
art for sound attack upgrade(music art?) and hopefully expression passives (thunder/music element?)
Assuming that we are doing stealth/archery/music build.
For me this bonuses scream that sneak attacks are valid playstyle.
For now we need 1 round to establish stealth and 2nd round to attack.
But these problems may be solved with arts.
I could imagine leg/heart art to create smoke screen and disapear.
Spiritual art which force our enemies to loose sight of Ling Qi.
Or Lung art which create clones to distract other cultivators.
In this situation we could invest in stealth/ranged attack art as replacement for FSA .
Long range of bow and ability to enter stealth fast would give us good strategic options.
The dice would be hopefully dexterity + archery + stealth bonuses + range attack bonuses (FZ) + physical bonuses (AC) + art + equipment
For short range...
This ability is melee for now, but it looks like something which we can upgrade to ranged with special training or with extra art.
What is important is that this attack just like music arts use expression as a combat skill, which means that we can stack dice for both physical attacks and debuffs (also spiritual music attacks?)
Which would mean getting stealth attack art or stealth/ranged rather than archery/stealth art.
The dice in this situation would be hopefully manipulation + expression + expression bonuses + stealth bonuses + range attack bonuses (FZ) + physical bonuses(AC) + art + equipment
New arts in this situation could be
stealth art for fast dissapearance
stealth/ranged attack art successor for FSA
art for sound attack upgrade(music art?) and hopefully expression passives (thunder/music element?)
Mist of the Vale: oo
Cost 5
The users melody causes a light mist to roll forth from their instrument. The mist is filled with deceptive shadows and sounds, and weakens the light within to low light. The mist can spread up to a thirty meter radius centered the user.
@TotallyNotEvil Then someone needs to update the character sheet.
Cost 5
The users melody causes a light mist to roll forth from their instrument. The mist is filled with deceptive shadows and sounds, and weakens the light within to low light. The mist can spread up to a thirty meter radius centered the user.
@TotallyNotEvil Then someone needs to update the character sheet.
- Location
- Brazil
Melee focus could help if it were focused on passively buffing allies. We have a terrific summoning art in the form of AE.
Put up the mist, have our summoned gribblies benefit from all the same enhancements to offense and defense we do, have thei pile up, again aided by multi attacker from the mist itself, so they are too dangerous to simply ignore, while we snipe from somewhere where within the mist.
The mist won't defeat the opponent, the summons won't defeat the opponent, the archery might not defeat the opponent.
But the combination takes them to much greater heights.
We don't need to learn how to punch with music. Our music already let's us and our friends punch way harder in whichever way they want.
And it just so happens we are a freaking genius with a bow. And that we are very fast. And very sneaky. And our main BFC enables us to shoot harder and hide better and move faster.
Put up the mist, have our summoned gribblies benefit from all the same enhancements to offense and defense we do, have thei pile up, again aided by multi attacker from the mist itself, so they are too dangerous to simply ignore, while we snipe from somewhere where within the mist.
The mist won't defeat the opponent, the summons won't defeat the opponent, the archery might not defeat the opponent.
But the combination takes them to much greater heights.
We don't need to learn how to punch with music. Our music already let's us and our friends punch way harder in whichever way they want.
And it just so happens we are a freaking genius with a bow. And that we are very fast. And very sneaky. And our main BFC enables us to shoot harder and hide better and move faster.
As a matter of fact, @yrsillar
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
... Literally the next line.
charsheet said:
I mean, I disagree that it's any good at all to use our archery in the mist, but still. Finish reading the tech before quoting it.
I think it's possible to go music+archery if we get the right Art/weapon combo for it:
Upgrade our flute to Flying Flute status in Green so we can keep FVM going automatically, and we get to keep the best of both sides.
Orbiting flute toot tooting despair and confusion is the big wave friends, get on board to one woman band Ling Qi to avoid the rush!
Yeah am imagining Mary Poppins Dick Van Dyke/ Green Arrow Ling Qi what of it
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The thing is that if we can get 50 dice with minor investment, then so can everyone else. In essence, it would be the new baseline that we would have to have to be competitive.
There is no free lunch. If your argument is "we can obtain a dice advantage in every category against our opponents without trying" then you should probably recheck your assumptions. Assume our opponents are competent. If they're significantly weaker than us then they aren't a concern.
That's the complete opposite of what I'm saying.
Having a focus is the means to actually achieving the objective of being able to compete with any meaningful opponent.
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This was a very interesting analysis. One thing that I get out of it is that Bai Meizhen has one art that is flat out amazing (Abyssal Mantle) and then a lot of other arts that play well with it. In my opinion, our amazing art is SCS. As it is now it borders on a tactical teleport. It still has three levels to go, and I don't think we've seen anybody with nearly as good of a movement art.
Focusing on the mid-term practicalities, for our current build the big weakness is that our best attack and our best area debuff require us to change weapons. Not only is this bad in general, it's particularly bad when our big advantage is mobility and speed because we directly give away our advantage when we take time to switch weapons. I see three ways to solve this problem:
- Get a better attack than archery that is compatible with playing the flute. This requires stacking some number of buffs onto our FVM flute attack.
- Get a better AOE debuff than FVM that is compatible with archery. I think leveling up AE should get us at least to parity with FVM. It compares well to FVM at level one and has just as many levels.
- Delegate damage dealing to others. This would also involve leveling AE, just focused on using the summoning portion of it.
- FVM/AE summon/debuff
- flute melee/FVM combat flautist
- AE/FSA abyssal Legolas
Ling Qi - Current Build Breakdown
I've been working on an analysis of what Ling Qi's build currently looks like, and I think that putting this post together proves helpful. Note that what I'm writing here is entirely descriptive, not prescriptive: I'm outlining what the current situations is, not suggesting ways how we need to alter our build. Any discussion on the latter can follow in subsequent posts, but I want to leave this as a hopefully-neutral analysis of what we are starting with.
So, without further ado, let us begin!
Thief Aspect
Archer Aspect
Bard Aspect
~~~
There are a bunch more of these that I still have to post; namely the Melee Combatant, Team Supporter, and Tank Aspects. Sadly, it is going to take a while to write these up and I have to deal with some other stuff for a bit anyways. For now, do people have thoughts on this breakdown, suggestions for other Aspects I might have missed, or additional points that you think should be added under the current aspects?
I've been working on an analysis of what Ling Qi's build currently looks like, and I think that putting this post together proves helpful. Note that what I'm writing here is entirely descriptive, not prescriptive: I'm outlining what the current situations is, not suggesting ways how we need to alter our build. Any discussion on the latter can follow in subsequent posts, but I want to leave this as a hopefully-neutral analysis of what we are starting with.
I break down our build here by Aspects. Each Aspect is a cohesive theme for a type of thing that Ling Qi does - e.g. Thief, Archer, Team-Buffer, etc. You can think of them as roles, or areas of focus. Note that different Aspects need not be mutually exclusive; they can and do reinforce each other, and a given art can easily fall under multiple Aspects.
Each Aspect lists a set of Capacities. A Capacity is a skill or ability that Ling Qi is currently gaining from the Aspect. Capacities listed in Gold are things that I believe are core skillsets granted by the Aspect (e.g. "Sneak Attack" is a core capacity of the Thief Aspect). Capacities in Red are abilities that we currently rely on an Aspect to provide but which could easily be obtained from other means (e.g. the "Damage Nuke" capacity would be red under the Archer Aspect, because that is something that isn't really fundamental to Archery and that we could easily get some other way).
Each Aspect also lists related Arts as well as Dependencies. The former should be self-explanatory. The latter refers to those skills, masteries, and generally things that we might get a bonus to which reinforce the Aspect. Once again, Gold represents core dependencies whereas Red represents more peripheral dependencies which hold now but may not hold later. For example, the Archer would have Archery and Projectile bonuses in Gold, but Physical bonuses in Red (since we might very well pick up a Spiritual Archery Art in the future). Dependencies which are only partially helpful to an aspect will be listed with 1-2 asterisks after them to indicate reduced or highly reduced importance.
Each Aspect lists a set of Capacities. A Capacity is a skill or ability that Ling Qi is currently gaining from the Aspect. Capacities listed in Gold are things that I believe are core skillsets granted by the Aspect (e.g. "Sneak Attack" is a core capacity of the Thief Aspect). Capacities in Red are abilities that we currently rely on an Aspect to provide but which could easily be obtained from other means (e.g. the "Damage Nuke" capacity would be red under the Archer Aspect, because that is something that isn't really fundamental to Archery and that we could easily get some other way).
Each Aspect also lists related Arts as well as Dependencies. The former should be self-explanatory. The latter refers to those skills, masteries, and generally things that we might get a bonus to which reinforce the Aspect. Once again, Gold represents core dependencies whereas Red represents more peripheral dependencies which hold now but may not hold later. For example, the Archer would have Archery and Projectile bonuses in Gold, but Physical bonuses in Red (since we might very well pick up a Spiritual Archery Art in the future). Dependencies which are only partially helpful to an aspect will be listed with 1-2 asterisks after them to indicate reduced or highly reduced importance.
So, without further ado, let us begin!
Thief Aspect
- Sable Crescent Step
- Stealth
- Sneak Attack
- Speed & Mobility (useful for Escape, Pursuit)
- Alpha Strike
- Out of combat abilities:
- Stealing
- Sneaking
- Sabotage
- Stealth
- Speed*
- Darkness Element
- Initiative**
- Out of combat abilities:
- Stealth
- Larceny*
- Formations*
Archer Aspect
- Falling Stars Art
- Fleeting Zephyr
- Attacks from Range
- Damage Nuke
- Enemy Buff Dispelling
- Armor Penetration, Unblockable Damage
- Projectiles
- Archery
- Physical Attack Type
- Wind Element
Bard Aspect
- Forgotten Vale Melody
- AoE Damage and Debuffs
- DoT Effects / Attrition Combat
- Creates Low Light Conditions, hinders enemy Perceptions
- Melee Attacks
- Music, Expression
- Persuasion
- Spiritual Attack Type* (applies to main effects)
- Melee Attack Category**, Physical Attack Type** (applies to melee attacks)
~~~
There are a bunch more of these that I still have to post; namely the Melee Combatant, Team Supporter, and Tank Aspects. Sadly, it is going to take a while to write these up and I have to deal with some other stuff for a bit anyways. For now, do people have thoughts on this breakdown, suggestions for other Aspects I might have missed, or additional points that you think should be added under the current aspects?
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I have to admit I laughed like hell when we voted to get out of range of CRX's AOE during Thunderdome 2, then decided to snipe four of the poor suckers Gan Guangli was beating down just because we could and the shot was too tempting to pass up. I think a few were stun-locked.
And Xiulan's response was to roll her eyes and be like 'Oh, Ling Qi'.
And Xiulan's response was to roll her eyes and be like 'Oh, Ling Qi'.
- Location
- scrabbling
Ling Qi's Expression specialty is explicitly Woodwind Instruments. If that were still just a single die, sure, ignore it, but now it's worth a cultivation realm. Even totally ignoring the character/fluff reasons to stick to a flute, harp bows should be refuted as strictly inferior for Ling Qi's music.
Jensaarai
Sing Victory Everlasting
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Finally! After five days and four-hundred sixty-two thousand words, I've caught up to the present.
Now, I have a question. I noticed that we can now do sound-based melee attacks with our flute up to ten-meters away. Has there been any discussion for incorporating that into our fight-style?
Now, I have a question. I noticed that we can now do sound-based melee attacks with our flute up to ten-meters away. Has there been any discussion for incorporating that into our fight-style?
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Actually, I think Xiulan was jealous that we got in on the action but she couldn't.
- Location
- scrabbling
Little did you know, you poor poor creature. Like a child opening the door to the master bedroom late at night.
Yes. There has been.
After long discussions and ignoring everyone else point of view on the matter, I think we should become a sage that use for weapon our flute.
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
Some things to note regarding our build direction, from a perspective looking at our current arts and more or less "set" future arts. (also dammit @PrimalShadow)
Build core (given by the moon, scale really high, won't be dropped or replaced):
Essential arts: (powerful support/buff/atk arts we're unlikely to drop, might replace with function-equivalent ones later)
The future:
Overall impression:
Our core arts (plus EPC):
- benefit a stealth-based close or mid-close ranged combat style
- slight bias to melee thanks to FVM flute attack
- elemental unity in darkness
Our essential arts:
- again, best for close/mid-close combat (due to aura radius)
- bias towards melee thanks to AC (which could grow to match FSA for damage by the time it levels)
- no wind/darkenss at all, bad for qi reduction and +dice talismans. AM in particular since it's neither wood nor water
Of the rest:
- AS could be pretty nice for a melee style, not very in-theme for stealth though even if mechanically it's fine
- FSA provides very strong utility options, and it's current offense dice pool is pretty good
- FZ by itself is very strong, but the ranged focus is hurting it's synergy for our usual use-case
- FZ and FSA mix well together for archery, but don't play nice with the rest of our style;
-- little benefit from our core
-- minimal benefits from AC, likely won't benefit at all from a future debuff/music spec
-- we're outgrowing them soon (they end at peak Yellow), a natural spot to reconsider how much of a ranged focus we're keeping
Of the future:
- with OWS and EPC and a future stealth art we'll likely see more combat stealth
- FSA currently fills our "lots of damage now" niche, but going forward we might want either a music or a melee art to fill that role
- Music focus will require a lot of investment; a buff art and 1-2 music arts
- if we want maintain archery focus (instead of relegating it to utility), we'll need to replace AS, AC and likely build for close-mid range
-- somewhat incompatible with music due to hands and split focus (sp.atk music vs p.atk arrows)
-- exotic solutions may be possible (flying flutes, spiritual archery)
Closing note:
If we had ASA or some other melee art instead of FSA, our only non-synergetic point would be FZ's projectile focus (which isn't show-stopping thanks to knives). Even the loss of max engagement range is mitigated by stealth and our amazing mobility.
Build core (given by the moon, scale really high, won't be dropped or replaced):
- SCS: mobility, defense, stealth, ambush
- benefits all combat styles
- favors stealth-based combat (as opposed to open engagement)
- enables and rewards high initiative
- FVM: spiritual, music, AoE debuff/attack, stealth (minor)
- base range is close-mid range (sub 30m), melee/short-range projectile. Max-range (80m) expensive but ok with mid-range archery
- requires either more music or more spiritual offense to properly function
- benefits combat stealth (+ stealth in mist, perception debuffs)
- grants a synergistic sound/music based physical melee attack
- AE: spiritual, AoE debuff/attack, minions, juggernaut (stronger the longer the fight lasts)
- benefits a close-range style
- minions benefit more support at the cost of personal offense
- currently doesn't play nice with FVM but I have faith in the moon
- might gain powerful single-target or AoE attack capability (AE3 needs arm), likely short-ranged
Essential arts: (powerful support/buff/atk arts we're unlikely to drop, might replace with function-equivalent ones later)
- AC: physical, melee, group support, anti-armor
- group support effects and PC are mostly style agnostic (benefit p.atk most)
- favors physical offense, especially with allies
- weapon-neutral melee attack component
- talking and rising steam don't lend themselves to stealth thematically?
- TRF: group defense, armor, dispel
- great defense for both us and allies, what's not to like?
- wood element and sort-of expensive qi cost
- benefits all styles
- AM: perception, sp.def
- doesn't care about style, just the sanctity of our mind
- essential perception capability (qi sense), but not something that benefits our combat like a shadow-sense would be
- AS: physical, counters, loud
- strong focus on a close-range style
- weapon-neutral melee offensive (instant) component
- counter might benefit archery if allowed to use bow dice
- FSA: bow archery, ranged, physical
- favors mid-long range, ok at other ranges
- benefits other bow styles and more-or-less nothing else
- allows for some serious utility (trick arrows, engagement range)
- FZ: group support, ranged atk/def, mobility
- mid-range focus, ok at close-range
- powerful area and single-target CC techs
- useful utility effect (mobility-focused)
- passives benefit projectile attacks, techs best used with those as well
The future:
- Spiritual Offense buff:
- essential for long-term use of spiritual-based debuffs for our support style
- not a pure music buff due to AE, but if its focus turns out more minions than attacks, music buff might be the way to go - 4th Argent art:
- we don't know what it is
-- If it's the hadouken Ji Rong used then it might benefit from power/sp.atk and so be a good ranged option?
- elements are even more shit than usual, we're only keeping it if the set bonus is good and requires all Argents equipped - Stealth buff:
- a good enough art here pushes Ling Qi's combat stealth game to Monster-tier. Likely essential, hopefully moon-given
- benefits cultivation due to EPC - More music:
- narratively and meta-wise, we're unlikely to drop music as a core theme and part of our combat style
- could be different kinds of debuffs, buffs, or something for more direct damage - Utility:
- larceny art for better success there and better cultivation, somewhat important to get soon
- formations;
-- can benefit ranged (trick arrows) or others (bone minions? bigger setup traps?)
-- likely to grow passively/from minors, Talent means Major action investment is inefficient
- other supplementary arts to boost our tracking, investigation, survival etc.
Overall impression:
Our core arts (plus EPC):
- benefit a stealth-based close or mid-close ranged combat style
- slight bias to melee thanks to FVM flute attack
- elemental unity in darkness
Our essential arts:
- again, best for close/mid-close combat (due to aura radius)
- bias towards melee thanks to AC (which could grow to match FSA for damage by the time it levels)
- no wind/darkenss at all, bad for qi reduction and +dice talismans. AM in particular since it's neither wood nor water
Of the rest:
- AS could be pretty nice for a melee style, not very in-theme for stealth though even if mechanically it's fine
- FSA provides very strong utility options, and it's current offense dice pool is pretty good
- FZ by itself is very strong, but the ranged focus is hurting it's synergy for our usual use-case
- FZ and FSA mix well together for archery, but don't play nice with the rest of our style;
-- little benefit from our core
-- minimal benefits from AC, likely won't benefit at all from a future debuff/music spec
-- we're outgrowing them soon (they end at peak Yellow), a natural spot to reconsider how much of a ranged focus we're keeping
Of the future:
- with OWS and EPC and a future stealth art we'll likely see more combat stealth
- FSA currently fills our "lots of damage now" niche, but going forward we might want either a music or a melee art to fill that role
- Music focus will require a lot of investment; a buff art and 1-2 music arts
- if we want maintain archery focus (instead of relegating it to utility), we'll need to replace AS, AC and likely build for close-mid range
-- somewhat incompatible with music due to hands and split focus (sp.atk music vs p.atk arrows)
-- exotic solutions may be possible (flying flutes, spiritual archery)
Closing note:
If we had ASA or some other melee art instead of FSA, our only non-synergetic point would be FZ's projectile focus (which isn't show-stopping thanks to knives). Even the loss of max engagement range is mitigated by stealth and our amazing mobility.
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AE isn't remotely set at all. It is still highly controversial - and I personally will be pushing to avoid it insofar as is possible.
Just to be clear. Does anyone actually care about this? It is a decent bit of work to fill this in and I'm not really interested in doing it there is no interest.
Jensaarai
Sing Victory Everlasting
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Why? It seems like a pretty good summoning art.
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
To which I'll say, look at all our other arts at level 1 and tell me which one you wouldn't drop based on what it looked like at the time. Now consider AE has 8 levels and is likely on the same level FVM is.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- They/Them
It's interesting and I like the set up but I'm not sure how practical and objective it is with everyone's different opinions on how to classify things. Were you hoping to have it as a repository for specialty talk/a way to standardise the conversation?