- Location
- United States of America
Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
pheonix89
Wants to be Seven Of Nine
- Location
- North American Plaguelands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Spine is self-enhancement. I expect a lot of passive effects and scene-long buff effects.
Perhaps. But we also need some selfenhancement regardless and there's really not any point in having slots for multiple types of new arts open where we know there's a new trick we want waiting in an existing one.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
" Spinal meridians were best used for techniques which enhanced or modified the self."
Heart is group/area buff debuff. Spine is personal buff, transform, or evolve. It's also buff/exotic, so we should be getting our affinity boost, but it will be more focused on helping US rather then working as part of a group.
- Location
- Cyberspace
But currently, Ling Qi has no other Arts. My point was that at a future time in which she's selected one or two additional Arts to cultivate, she'll be able to use at least the two pills (if not other bonuses as well) to open the meridians she'll need for those easily enough. Or if it's revealed that having a full set (one in each location) gives a passive buff - which would be kind of cool if it were the case.
I don't actually mind too much which location the 'extra' meridian is put in this turn; I have a preference for spine, but it's not a strong one.
Gracious for what?, being insulted and denigrated?. Futhermore, How did we push one group to accept the other?. All we did was introduce them and suggest a very temporary event where we tried training together.
Mind you, I would consider the plan a failure, wouldn't have supported it if I had been involved with the vote that cycle because on one side we have fox-girl mowgli and a pacifist scholar/healer and on the other we have a group of ambitious nobles with a strong martial interest..... and a douchebag. Thats even before you consider the skill gap.
But that does not make their behavior ok. Insults were flying from the point of introductions. So no, I don't feel particularly inclined to apologize. But if you absolutely insist on apologizing, it should probably be to both groups. Li Suyin, at the very least, did nothing to deserve the way she was treated.
Also, Gu yelled at us for not introducing her to our friends. Maybe she won't be so keen on that in the future. >_>
I just realized, unlike D&D we probably want arts that require MAD. Manipulation and expression aren't our best stats, but by training FVM we're pumping them up as well.
If we got an art that depended on composure... or even resilience...
Damn, I think we might *need* a defensive art even more than an offensive art if that's the case. There are still certain skills we don't have, and I'm guessing people grind those skills by having the right art. Attacks like Imperial Serpent Majesty we wouldn't begin to be able to defend against because we don't have the relevant skill.
Graaaaaah.
EDIT: And this is probably also why everyone's stats in the relevant attributes and skills are sky high too.
If we got an art that depended on composure... or even resilience...
Damn, I think we might *need* a defensive art even more than an offensive art if that's the case. There are still certain skills we don't have, and I'm guessing people grind those skills by having the right art. Attacks like Imperial Serpent Majesty we wouldn't begin to be able to defend against because we don't have the relevant skill.
Graaaaaah.
EDIT: And this is probably also why everyone's stats in the relevant attributes and skills are sky high too.
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Sirrocco
Pedantic
Okay. Let's talk about meridians for a moment, then.
Meridians are effectively an abstraction for art slots. It is possible to open up a large but finite set of meridians. At some point, just throwing more time at it won't do the job anymore. As arts get higher-tier, they take up more meridians. Also, arts and meridians both take cultivation time, and meridians that wont' be used are wasted. Thus, the choice to buy a single meridian now (of a type we don't already have) is a much bigger deal than it looks, as it effectively is the choice to have and cultivate at least one art of that type, and art development is a nontrivial investment of resources, and an associated alteration in build and strategy. Effectively, each art we choose to have is instead of an art of a different kind we could have with the same investment.
So that means that the choice to pick up a hand meridian is a choice to have a hand art when we could have some other non-hand art... and I think that's a serious waste. Hand arts are expensive in terms of resources. Heart/Leg/Spine arts are primarily buffs/debuffs, with powers that go along with that. Arm arts are primarily instant effects, and may well not have any passive benefits. Hand arts require Qi and actions to use meaningfully, and we already have plenty of things calling on those. They don't get helped by our focus on support/exotic (ie, heart. The "spine" pick in chargen was "melee").
Those who want to invest in Hand arts have in the past made an argument that has been made that heart arts are somehow weak because they require allies to hit their full potential. We're very close to being able to bind a spirit - something we'll want to do anyway - and I'd say that we should see how that system works before we make effectively permanent build decisions that assume that it won't fix that particular problem. There have been arguments made in the past that we need something damaging... but FVM has now come out with a damaging effect, and we can pretty much guarantee that it will get better as we rank the thing up, and possibly pick up darkness and/or water booster items at some point.
Personally, I'd prefer to go pure heart all the way, but I can understand the concerns of those who do not feel as I do, and I can accept that there's a valid place in the build for a spine art, so I'm not going to fight that one. There's always going to be *some* self-buff out there that's worth having. I don't think that's true for Hand arts, though - not when we have so many other ways to spend our Qi and our actions.
I vote for the Zephyr plan partially because of the immediate combat advantages, partially because of the possible library benefits, but mostly because as far as I can see, investing in a Hand art is going to be a waste when we could fully embrace a more effective combat style as a summoner/buffer instead. Spreading ourselves around to everything without consideration will make us weaker rather than stronger. We need to pick things that have solid synergy, and Hand arts, by and large, mostly won't.
Meridians are effectively an abstraction for art slots. It is possible to open up a large but finite set of meridians. At some point, just throwing more time at it won't do the job anymore. As arts get higher-tier, they take up more meridians. Also, arts and meridians both take cultivation time, and meridians that wont' be used are wasted. Thus, the choice to buy a single meridian now (of a type we don't already have) is a much bigger deal than it looks, as it effectively is the choice to have and cultivate at least one art of that type, and art development is a nontrivial investment of resources, and an associated alteration in build and strategy. Effectively, each art we choose to have is instead of an art of a different kind we could have with the same investment.
So that means that the choice to pick up a hand meridian is a choice to have a hand art when we could have some other non-hand art... and I think that's a serious waste. Hand arts are expensive in terms of resources. Heart/Leg/Spine arts are primarily buffs/debuffs, with powers that go along with that. Arm arts are primarily instant effects, and may well not have any passive benefits. Hand arts require Qi and actions to use meaningfully, and we already have plenty of things calling on those. They don't get helped by our focus on support/exotic (ie, heart. The "spine" pick in chargen was "melee").
Those who want to invest in Hand arts have in the past made an argument that has been made that heart arts are somehow weak because they require allies to hit their full potential. We're very close to being able to bind a spirit - something we'll want to do anyway - and I'd say that we should see how that system works before we make effectively permanent build decisions that assume that it won't fix that particular problem. There have been arguments made in the past that we need something damaging... but FVM has now come out with a damaging effect, and we can pretty much guarantee that it will get better as we rank the thing up, and possibly pick up darkness and/or water booster items at some point.
Personally, I'd prefer to go pure heart all the way, but I can understand the concerns of those who do not feel as I do, and I can accept that there's a valid place in the build for a spine art, so I'm not going to fight that one. There's always going to be *some* self-buff out there that's worth having. I don't think that's true for Hand arts, though - not when we have so many other ways to spend our Qi and our actions.
I vote for the Zephyr plan partially because of the immediate combat advantages, partially because of the possible library benefits, but mostly because as far as I can see, investing in a Hand art is going to be a waste when we could fully embrace a more effective combat style as a summoner/buffer instead. Spreading ourselves around to everything without consideration will make us weaker rather than stronger. We need to pick things that have solid synergy, and Hand arts, by and large, mostly won't.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
We want to library pass to pick up new technique, with an import part of that attack techniques. Plan Zephyr doesn't have that, it's just continuing to do what we're doing already and not broading our skills. You know, right before we're going to get pulled into a bunch of one on one duels.
So
- A, the first benefit is that it gets us closest to both physical and spiritual breakthrough. We'll be Yellow and Silver faster.
- B, we're instantly ready to learn the kinds of techniques we're going to need - techniques that make us better at one on one fighting, which is something we're going to have to engage a bunch in.
- C, we still get Zephyr's Breath next round in all likelihood.
Plan Plan gets both an arm, a spine, and two heart. Purely self-focused defense raising is spine.
TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
edit:
Yeah, no. If you think we'll remain competitive with no investment in personal combat power, then you might as well start tying the noose now, because we won't survive that path. Buff debuff is our main focus, but we cant' be completely dependent on that. It's just... silly. It's like saying we don't need dodge because we can soak so well, or we don't need social because our mental is so high. It's ignoring one of the major ways we interact and will be force to interact more.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
Your skill-broadening isn't going to hit before those duels kick off, and assumes that we'll get the pass. Plan Zephyr upgrades one of our combat arts in a way that *is* in time for those duels... and broadening isn't inherently useful in he way you're implying. There's a decent chance that we won't find any hand arts that deal more damage at lvl 1 than our throwing knives do right now, especially if spine is the source of weapon-based powers.
You're conflating two very different things. "investment in personal combat power" does not mean "hand art". Spine is a source of purely personal combat power. We just bought a whole bunch of gear that invested pretty directly in our personal combat power (with you advocating against it all the while). Summons are an investment in personal combat power, and yes, even Heart is. Sure, Heart has great synergies with having allies. It also does other things that aren't just about one-on-one fights, but don't pretend that it's not buffing us up directly.
We have buff/debuff. We have ambush. We have evade/escape. We're pretty good with our daggers. We'll be picking up summons soon. Even Plan Zephyr is picking up a spine art, and stacking spine arts is how the melee combat monsters do their thing. We're nothing like a one-trick pony. We *have* flexibility and fallback plans. The issue is that you keep insisting that we should be some ultra-generalist with *all* the plans, and that would just make us mediocre at everything. Specialization is not a flaw.
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TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Sirrocco
Pedantic
Yeah... except that's not even what I'm going for. I'm arguing for a build of "mostly heart, some feet, a bit of spine, maybe others as they come up if they fit into the overall plan well". I think the idea of an all heart build would be shiny, but I recognize that it's too pure for this imperfect world. I'm mostly arguing that Hand *in particular* looks like a bad plan long-term, and we shouldn't lock ourselves into it.
- Location
- his hidden lair
All heart is retarded because even from a support roll it's limited. All it can do is harass and setup plays for others, and while a spirit beast potentially mitigates that it does very little to address the core of the issue.
The advantage of an arm art should be obvious with the sort of build Ling Qi is running. She's the support and harasser for sure, but she's also the scout and to an extent the 'assassin' so to speak.
An arm slot gives her a way to alpha strike, to setup the enemy where she can do decisive amounts of damage capitalizing on her stealth and illusions. It's a way for her to personally exploit the openings she makes and in doing so completely alter the playing field.
I mean think about it, if Ling Qi get's her illusions off on a group, she's in an excellent position to circumvent the tanks/bruisers of that group to go directly after the relatively squishier supports/ranged/whatevers.
For example, if Ling Qi was to fight Han Jian's crew on her own terms she could use FVM to not only confuse them, but allow her to slip past Fan Yu and Han Jian to assault either their major ranged caster (Gu Xialan) or their tactician/support (Han Jian). Even better if we secure an arm art with a debuff/dot so we can potentially use said art to hit and fade and engage again on our terms. More than a support, more than illusionist, more than a yin cultivator or a darkness qi or moon themed cultivator- she's a street rat that wants to ensure that if she get's into a fight, it'll be on her terms. That means illusions to confound the enemy and protect her all while allowing her to strike at specific vulnerabilities rather than melee. That means movement arts to attack and retreat, to hide and dictate range, that means support arts to allow her to secure her own safety by leveraging others to great effect as distractions/better targets, and that means some potent offence that can exploit the openings literally all these other options give her.
Personally, I think the goal we should settle on is acquiring and improving 2 arm arts. One for that decisive knockout punch/initiator, and one as a poison/debuff we can tag people with to let run it's course. Not a massive amount of investment in it, but enough to ensure we have that facet adequately covered.
Simply put- there's a reason the rogue has a sneak attack. And I doubt anyone would argue Ling Qi isn't a rogue.
The advantage of an arm art should be obvious with the sort of build Ling Qi is running. She's the support and harasser for sure, but she's also the scout and to an extent the 'assassin' so to speak.
An arm slot gives her a way to alpha strike, to setup the enemy where she can do decisive amounts of damage capitalizing on her stealth and illusions. It's a way for her to personally exploit the openings she makes and in doing so completely alter the playing field.
I mean think about it, if Ling Qi get's her illusions off on a group, she's in an excellent position to circumvent the tanks/bruisers of that group to go directly after the relatively squishier supports/ranged/whatevers.
For example, if Ling Qi was to fight Han Jian's crew on her own terms she could use FVM to not only confuse them, but allow her to slip past Fan Yu and Han Jian to assault either their major ranged caster (Gu Xialan) or their tactician/support (Han Jian). Even better if we secure an arm art with a debuff/dot so we can potentially use said art to hit and fade and engage again on our terms. More than a support, more than illusionist, more than a yin cultivator or a darkness qi or moon themed cultivator- she's a street rat that wants to ensure that if she get's into a fight, it'll be on her terms. That means illusions to confound the enemy and protect her all while allowing her to strike at specific vulnerabilities rather than melee. That means movement arts to attack and retreat, to hide and dictate range, that means support arts to allow her to secure her own safety by leveraging others to great effect as distractions/better targets, and that means some potent offence that can exploit the openings literally all these other options give her.
Personally, I think the goal we should settle on is acquiring and improving 2 arm arts. One for that decisive knockout punch/initiator, and one as a poison/debuff we can tag people with to let run it's course. Not a massive amount of investment in it, but enough to ensure we have that facet adequately covered.
Simply put- there's a reason the rogue has a sneak attack. And I doubt anyone would argue Ling Qi isn't a rogue.
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TheLastOne
Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)
Plan Zephyr means we're further away from spiritual cultivation, so we probably have to cultivate it at least once, maybe twice before we try and break through. We have a fifty fifty chance of getting silver next week for either plan. So if we're lucky on plan Zephyr, we're silver next week, we have Zephyr, and we try for spiritual the week after. On the other hand, we can fail. Then we can fail the following week when we try spiritual.
And rather then have a fall back where we can learn something to help us survive the short term, like, you know, something essential like an attack art, which is going to give us passive attack bonuses like all arts do, we'll have nothing. We'll have pursued our current chain of what we can quickly develop to it's end.
Plan Plan has us also master Zephyr, only next week rather then this, so any pretense that it's not mastering Zephyr is dishonest. It's more likely to let us try and breakthrough both next week, If we break through one and fail the other, the most likely situation, we can both learn new things while we're rebuilding the strength to try and break through again. If we're unlucky and we fail both, well, we have to new slots to develop arts in, the very kind of arts we'll desperately need in the short term.
And we don't lose something by having arm slots, because eventually we're going to have to have them - buff and debuff are about maneuvering , creating advantage and disadvantage. But you need to ability to act, offensive ability, to capitalize on that. We're ok without any attack art at gold/red, but we'll lag further and further behind if we don't pick up something and keep developing it as we advance.
As it stands, we know two heart arts, are soon to know three, and are going to pick up a spine art. There's no real chance of us forgetting buff/exotic is our strongest suit. But just like a wizard with 18 intelligence and 3 con, dex, and str is going to have problems, there's marginal utility and opportunity cost the more we double down. Maybe int 16 and con, dex, and str 10 would be better.
- Location
- Fabulously Rainbow Ireland
Arm Arts would also use up way more Qi, given we'd have the cost of repeated uses of the Art as well as ZB, SCS and FVM as opposed to just those three and our knives.
So no Arm Arts for me unless we wind up with a talisman that seriously lowers the cost to "spammable".
So no Arm Arts for me unless we wind up with a talisman that seriously lowers the cost to "spammable".
- Location
- his hidden lair
You got numbers on the Qi requirements of an arm art? Wholly ignoring how I pointed out how we integrate arm arts into our tactics.Especially when there's a good chance one of our arm arts would be wind based.
[X] Plan The Zephyr Will Fly
- Location
- Brazil
Vote Tally : Original - Fantasy - Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest) | Page 177 | Sufficient Velocity
##### NetTally 1.7.4
[13] Plan The Zephyr Will Fly
-[12] Plan: ◈The Zephyr Will Fly — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8479124
-[1] Plan: Arkeus — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8479124
[7] Plan: ◈do what we planned to do — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8478559
[2] Plan: ◈All The Drugs — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8480105
[1] Plan: ◈Pill Week - Arts and Meridians — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8479071
[1] Plan Thunderdome
-[1] Plan: notanautomaton — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8478691
-[0] Plan: ◈Thunderdome — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8478644
Total No. of Voters: 24
##### NetTally 1.7.4
[13] Plan The Zephyr Will Fly
-[12] Plan: ◈The Zephyr Will Fly — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8479124
-[1] Plan: Arkeus — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8479124
[7] Plan: ◈do what we planned to do — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8478559
[2] Plan: ◈All The Drugs — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8480105
[1] Plan: ◈Pill Week - Arts and Meridians — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8479071
[1] Plan Thunderdome
-[1] Plan: notanautomaton — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8478691
-[0] Plan: ◈Thunderdome — https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/posts/8478644
Total No. of Voters: 24
- Location
- Brazil
I wanted to merge the groups as to better share the Vent.
This argument hold no water, we lose, in the very worst possible case, 35 sux. Out of the 60 we'd have accumulated.
We can't improve our odds anymore. We should, then, go for it asap.
Because they are scrubs
But seriously, Gu Xiulan really needs to get a handle on herself, anytime something vaguely female shaped looks Han Jian way's she enters bitch mode.
@Arkeus Why not go Heat/Spine/Lung, instead of Heart/Heart/Spine?
- Location
- his hidden lair
I think it's actually not that simple- I think Gu Xiulan is just really possesive in general. Keep in mind, we're her only female friend and she wasn't too excited to find out we have more. Us bringing them in probably didn't help, her being somewhat obligated to step in to prevent the inevitable clusterfuck of Fan Yu and Su Ling (seriously, who the hell thought that was workable?) didn't help, Su Ling promptly getting interested in Han Jian was just the cherry on top.
It probably doesn't help that Gu Xiulan is probably a bit worried about Ling Qi getting attacked and that she's inadvertently tied herself down to a bunch of people who aren't particularly exceptional fighters to put it mildly.
She's passionate and possessive, we're probably one of the people she's possessive about considering we're the only person besides Han Jian she actively sets aside time to hang out with. It's not particularly reasonable, but holding it against her or just refusing to work with her and expecting her to just 'deal' is a bad solution to the problem to say the least.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
I don't think we're ever going to go full support. I certainly don't intend to. Our sneak/ambush style is strong, and in a position to get stronger. We'd be fools to abandon it. I just don't think there's any need for a hand art on that one.
Caveat: I'll admit, *I can be wrong*. If we find a hand art that is absolutely perfect for a strategy we know we want to employ often, and has a ton of synergies, and can't be easily replaced with, say, a spirit-ally, we can buy a hand meridian then. I'll even vote for it. I just disagree with the blind insistence that we absolutely *need* to go that way from the beginning when, overall, it looks counterproductive, and we haven't even seen a list of available hand arts. There is a solid, viable build to be had that doesn't use Arm, and a *lot* of pertinent information coming in quite soon (how spirits work, what the contents of the library look like, whether we get library access at all, what EPC looks like, etc, etc, etc). They're effectively voting to cut off the possibility of that built before we have that information.
Are you paying attention to the arts we have, and what they do? We use our heart arts to buff ourselves all the time. Sure they provide bonuses to our allies and penalties to our foes... and they also give us a variety of useful passive buffs. You seem to have set your sights on a particular balance, and you're insisting that anything that isn't at least as focused on single combat as your balance point is utterly useless at fighting solo. You say that a spirit beast does very little to address the core of the issue? What do you even mean with that one? Aside from the fact that none of us know exactly how spirit bining works yet, what issue is it failing to address the core of?
Two full arts *is* a significant investment, as far as overall build... and if we don't invest those in the arm arts, we can invest them in other things. Sure, we might find an excellent arm assassin's strike art, or we might not, or we might find an excellent weapon focus for assassination strikes that can't be used with any of the arm arts we have... and we shouldn't bind ourselves to dedicating an art to it until we know what we'd be dedicating it to. We could use our arts to fade in between the crowd and get at the back line to unleash an Arm art, or since we're good enough to get past them, we could keep stacking the buff/debuffs and making things harder and harder on them while our aura effects tear them down and our spirit buddies tear them apart. Dropping lingering effects on people is cool, but eventually most of them are going to be packing heal/cure effects of one sort or another, which means that we won't be able to just tag and disengage and expect it to work... at which point it turns into just another debuff, and our heart arts are likely to be better at those (what with the specialization and everything).
If your goal is to have an Arm art or two/use blasty powers, then yes, having an Arm art or two is necessary for that. If your goal is to have an interesting and varied fighting style, or to be effective in combat, then Arm is not a fundamental part of that, and we shouldn't commit to it until we have reason to... which, as yet, we don't.
- Location
- Brazil
Of course not, I like her, but I'm hoping there is something deeper at work here, because such a situation couldn't possibly be sustainable.
Also, lets just appreciate that, in two weeks or so, we will be more or less on par with Han Jian and Gu Xiulan. Us, the street-rat who barely knew how to read, and them, High Nobles from the core provinces, son of a marshal and daughter of a empire.
Personally, I think something like Huang's darkness-based poison would be perfect.
Also, lets just appreciate that, in two weeks or so, we will be more or less on par with Han Jian and Gu Xiulan. Us, the street-rat who barely knew how to read, and them, High Nobles from the core provinces, son of a marshal and daughter of a empire.
Personally, I think something like Huang's darkness-based poison would be perfect.
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