But unless this was changed, a target in a tournament setting, which knows we are are their opponent, would not count as unaware.
This would reduce the impact of stealth to another layer of defense. Find us->catch us-> hurt us. The question is if we should invest more in this than our ability too deal out some damage.
But unless this was changed, a target in a tournament setting, which knows we are are their opponent, would not count as unaware.
This would reduce the impact of stealth to another layer of defense. Find us->catch us-> hurt us. The question is if we should invest more in this than our ability too deal out some damage.
I am unsure we'll have access to tutoring while in the inner sect. Or rather, easy access to it. I don't expect being tutored by inner sect people to give +1 action the same way things currently work, and it feels like Core Disciples probably have too much to do and are too highly placed to be forced to tutor inner sect students regularly.
And frankly, dispell resist is a must have. Can't go amiss with more spirit dice either. Something like FZ for music would be nice.
Definitely going to want to pick up stealth at some point though. It's more or less going to be our job.
So, what do we pick up next?. No idea, let's gather info on the tournament. If it's a straight fight over level ground, we're probably better off picking up the buff rather than stealth.
A reminder of something that hasn't been brought up much - we still need to worry about getting our Domain dot. At the moment it makes a difference to the time of 13 dice, which is the difference between.our domain weapon being a useful combat-time and it being a flying paperweight.
Domain benefits from sparring and from cultivating Green-level arts above the first level. AM5 and AC5 work. AS4 or the first level of a hypothetical Archive art do NOT work. Formation improvement actions also do not work.
Please keep our domain needs in mind when discussing our next actions.
What other Arts do we currently have still in Yellow proposed to be trained? The information isn't available anywhere that I can find easily. You mentioned all the Argent Arts aren't Green until 5. Are AE and PLR currently Yellow too? SCS, FVM, TRF, and FSS should all be Green, right?
Do we know about how much Domain we get per Green training? The SLP weeks will train SCS/FVM/FSS twice each, so that's 6. After that we need however many trainings it'll take to finish the current levels of SCS/FVM/TRF. If FSS 4 isn't locked behind Appraisal and is in XP reach that will be worth getting too, more than any other art could be. And if PLR is even Green then PLR 2 will contribute as well. So that could give us an initial estimate of Domain with/without FSS 4.
Outside of that we can maybe expect some Domain if we go after Renshu, but that's a risky thing to leave it to, unless we do it week 50 and are able to do emergency Domain training in week 51 if needed.
(EDIT: Basically though, people with spreadsheets probably know the exact numbers of definite Green trainings left, and we should figure out about where that will put us in Domain and how much more we need and where we're going to get it. I agree that upgrading Domain should be overall priority 1.)
What other Arts do we currently have still in Yellow proposed to be trained? The information isn't available anywhere that I can find easily. You mentioned all the Argent Arts aren't Green until 5. Are AE and PLR currently Yellow too? SCS, FVM, TRF, and FSS should all be Green, right?
Do we know about how much Domain we get per Green training? The SLP weeks will train SCS/FVM/FSS twice each, so that's 6. After that we need however many trainings it'll take to finish the current levels of SCS/FVM/TRF. If FSS 4 isn't locked behind Appraisal and is in XP reach that will be worth getting too, more than any other art could be. And if PLR is even Green then PLR 2 will contribute as well. So that could give us an initial estimate of Domain with/without FSS 4.
Outside of that we can maybe expect some Domain if we go after Renshu, but that's a risky thing to leave it to, unless we do it week 50 and are able to do emergency Domain training in week 51 if needed.
AE4 should be green, so SLP weeks would have 7 actions with green art training (and we get 1 domain exp for every 10 art exp). We can expect 6/7 for AE, 16 for FVM, 14 for FSS, 11 for SCS, so a total of 47-48 without counting domain weapon training exp. The big hope here is that every single actions but the white room ones give us 2/3 EXP, so we could get a total of 47-48+24-36 XP or so.
After this FVM/FSS should be complete, so we'd only get AE/SCS/PLR/TRF for art exp for domain beside the argent art, as it's somewhat unlikely an archive art manages to give us some. AE could give us another 20, TRF 15, PLR 5, SCS 15 or so, so another 55~ or so there.
If we discount domain weapon xp we likely will get 46 (current) + 48 (SLP weeks) + 55 (finish non-argent art) XP, for a total of 149~. So the big question is in how much @yrsillar give us each time we train with people from domain weapon, and how much we get in missions where we fight and so on.
We can get Domain o without Argent arts, but it's finnicky and it depends largely on what we see in the next two weeks of how much domain weapon exp toward domain we get.
If we discount domain weapon xp we likely will get 46 (current) + 48 (SLP weeks) + 55 (finish non-argent art) XP, for a total of 149~. So the big question is in how much @yrsillar give us each time we train with people from domain weapon, and how much we get in missions where we fight and so on.
We can get Domain o without Argent arts, but it's finnicky and it depends largely on what we see in the next two weeks of how much domain weapon exp toward domain we get.
I'm not a fan of getting another art before the tournament, and not just due to action and opportunity cost. We'll have access to better archives in inner sect, and by asking CRX we might get arts from some destroyed clans of Emerald Forest like Weilu.
On a more productive topic, we'll need to decide on some equipment upgrades soon, and barring additional resources from the Renshu raid we'll have the following to work with:
Access to inner-sect crafters
1700-1900 rss
high quality 3d realm cores: 1x Moon, 1x Wood
1x 3d realm Yin Wood core
2x sets of high quality 2nd realm cores
All Talismans at third realm and above must be custom ordered. However delivery time is immediate for any talisman costing two hundred red stones or less which do not include any personal resource additions, due to pulling from sect storage.
Immediate orders may request up to two different effects in a single talisman. Talismans using beast cores or other reagents take 3 weeks for delivery
Basically it'll take 3 weeks for more complex orders.
Additionally, we could try getting our last Cai-sponsored GSS early, and borrow 2 more (we'll still get 2x sect discounts this year).
Due to the political significance of this year's tournament, we can expect to see maximum quality equipment from everyone who's family can afford it.
The equipment we'll need:
1x Flute upgrade
3x Talismans (possibly 1x pin upgrade and 2x new ones)
2x Zhengui talismans (assumed number of slots available for him)
I'll ignore Zhengui for now (he's pretty straightforward to gear) and focus on 2 topics, our qi econ situation and the flute.
Qi economy
The most important arts to discount are those used often, which means our defense suite and single-turn attacks. For defense, that means SCS, TRF, AS, and situational use of AM. For offense, that's FVM (early turns)/FSS (later on), and situationally AC (useful instants). The relevant elements and aspects here are:
- Darkness (SCS, FVM, FSS)
- Spine (SCS, TRF, AS, AM)
- Wood (TRF)
- Water (AC)
The other things which could use a discount are expensive 1-off techs like Illustrious Phantasmal Festival, or AE summons:
- AE (dark)
- PLR (moon)
Our robe discounts Dark, Water and Wind by 3, our flute discount Dark by (minimum) 2. On top of those, we want to reach 1-Qi cost to the techs from SCS, TRF, FSS, and keep the rest of our arts cheap to use. Some Qi regen on top would reduce discount inefficiency and improve our combat endurance.
Here's a proposed discount framework and talisman focus:
- Flute = 3 dark/moon (+1 dark, +3 moon upgrade)
- Pin, offensive = 2 Wind/Water (+1 upgrade)
- New A, defensive = 3 spine (replace armband)
- New B, utility = 3 Wood, 2-3 qi regen/turn
For a total of:
- 6 dark, 5 wind, 5 water, 3 spine, 3 wood,
- 2-3 qi regen
- offensive, defensive and minor utility buffs
Which means:
All our defense lineup and the core attacks will be fully discounted
FSS/FVM have room for growth in qi cost
AE summons and PLR's main tech still costly (3/7 respectively)
All our other techs will cost 2-3 Qi to use at most, and those won't be used often
Qi regen, combined with TRD and SEA means we're a stamina monster, and can fully go into aerial combat
This gives the following discounts going by most expensive tech for the fully discounted arts. Tech costs are (value)+1, minimum 1:
- SCS (0), FVM (-2), FSS (-3), TRF (0), AS (-4) = techs fully discounted
- AC (0 Pressure Crack, 2 Inescapable Flow), AM (0 Reflection, 2 Tranquil Rebuke)
- AE (2 horror, 0 Breath), PLR (6 IRV, 1 Whirl)
There's a bit of wiggle room:
- we don't strictly need Water/Wind discounts, though it means replacing the pin
- we do need a total of 6 spine+wood discount, and a minimum 3 for spine between New A and B.
- New A and Pin's extras should be "dice on offensive/defensive clashes", but there's room for additional effects or abilities like Resolve dice (dispel resist).
Flute upgrade
Current flute: (Ebony Heartswood Flute)
+2 offensive music art clashes
+2 expression rolls (tests and clashes)
-2 darkness discount
Haunting Echoes: spend 4 qi to "continue playing on it's own" for 1 turn
This was obtained from an Outer Sect crafter for 100 rss and 1x Elder Mountainroot Bat Core (Mid-Yellow, worth 25 rss).
There are 3 main issues here:
- Haunting Echoes is useless for us. FVM comes with something like it built in, FSS techs come with a built-in duration.
- it's our most significant talisman, we want it to last
- trying to shove too many new things might make the overall result worse
Adding stuff to the flute is a bit trickier, upgrading current abilities is fine, or adding one new one, but if you try to shove too many on its going to cause problems with old abilities losing potency.
With those concerns in heart, I propose that we invest heavily into our flute compared to the rest of the talismans. 500rss+, as well as our high quality 3d realm Moon core. It helps that Moon as element is about change and enhancement.
The effects I'd like are:
+3 dice to offensive music art clashes
+3 dice to expression and power rolls
-3 Darkness and Moon Qi discount
+1-2 DV and +1-2 AP to offensive music clashes and (optional) attacks made with this weapon
Haunting Echoes >> Song Empower:
spend <X> Qi to empower a song, may only empower 1 song at a time
enemies affected by empowered song have +1-2 increased DC to tests
enemies affected by empowered song have 2-4 dice debuff to dispel clashes
(optional) user may resume playing an interrupted empowered as long as it has duration remaining
The theme I'm going for is adding power to our music, with an active ability that compounds it by making neagtive effects harder to remove and resist.
Effects in order of priority:
Dark/Moon discounts. Moon can be moved to another talisman, but I suspect the high quality moon core is best used here.
DV/AP bonus - due to the nature of FSS and FVM techs, this represents a lot of damage/turn added to HC and dissonance, and any future repeating or multi-hit music attacks (and it keeps our melee counters scary).
Music/expression dice upgrade. +2 to all our music attacks keeps the flute relevant offensively.
Haunting Echo change. Empower is the perfect complementary ability to FVM's mist, as worded it would benefit all test and dispel clashes by the enemy, not just against the empowered song, as long as the song lands and stays there.
+Power dice, since we're unlikely to get a dedicaded AE weapon, and it fits thematically with the change to Haunting Echoes and moon core.
As long as we get the minimum essentials for our other talismans (discounts and 2-3 dice in the relevant categories), investing the rest of our resources into the flute will be worth it if we can get the full upgrade effect listed.
Yeah typoed that / was thinking of AE4 which I think has more opposition. Also need to not vent drip them or apply an I think if we want max XP but either way well within range.
Mkay. Can you tell us what the winners of the minors are now? We didn't know how much we would be voting for, after all.
In the old system it would have been 2 minors per week (5 base - 2 closed door - 1 tutor), but I don't know what that translates into here. E.g. if actions are "bigger" or if there is more background non-minor social interaction, we might only get 2-3 minors in.
We can get Domain o without Argent arts, but it's finnicky and it depends largely on what we see in the next two weeks of how much domain weapon exp toward domain we get.
Well we could grind Domain with combat, I think we could take Meizhen and assecure each other as we combat various beasts/spirits, it would be also opportunity to test our arts and training Cui and Zhengui.
I'm not really convinced by wanting the Wind and Water discount upgrade to the Pin. FSS is already going to be at minimum cost without that right? And do we really care that much about using Pressure Crack ourselves? I think if we're upgrading the Pin we would be better served to boost the clash bonus (for FSS) or other extras.
WRT Wood & TRF is there some reason we can't use a Heart discount instead of a Wood one to combine with Spine? Can Arts only benefit from one discounting of each type? (Meridian, Element)
WRT to +Power dice for AE, does that only affect AE's attack? As far as I knew AE's attack was extremely weak, and we were just in it for the summon anyways, so Power seems like a waste.
EDIT: Or we could just get two sources of Spine discount. Honestly to me it seems like the only discounts worth focusing on at all are Dark and Spine, provided we can get enough Spine to fully discount TRF. Are Meridian discounts just more expensive?
Further Edit: In general, I think that once we have our most critical arts at low (not necessarily minimum even for the less often spammed ones) Qi cost our priority should probably shift to things like clash dice, which let us survive the short term to even start our death spiral.
I'm not really convinced by wanting the Wind and Water discount upgrade to the Pin. FSS is already going to be at minimum cost without that right? And do we really care that much about using Pressure Crack ourselves? I think if we're upgrading the Pin we would be better served to boost the clash bonus (for FSS) or other extras.
We'll see how much FVM and FSS cost increase in the upcoming updates, but yeah, I suspect we'd be better served increasing the clash dice as much as possible as well as 'Get 1AP for wind and water techs' as an extra ability @Black Noise.
If we go minions via formations or AE, Pressure Crack is very good, fairly likely +4 to +6 dice on subsequent with no clash (if they stay alive). That number may go up as we go from AC3 to AC5.
I feel like the choice of single target offense is often going to be between Pressure Crack and FSS (and FSA I guess if the target is super far away.) FSS benefits from our Domain Weapon's boosts and debuffs and targets the usually weaker Spiritual defense. In addition if our minions are really clamoring for a Pressure Crack, we can just have our Horror use Pressure Crack for 0 Qi three times in the round of 16. Given the choice I'd rather spam FSS and synergize with our powerful Domain Weapon, and target Spiritual, than spam Pressure Crack and synergize with our suspect Minions, targeting Physical.
I feel like the choice of single target offense is often going to be between Pressure Crack and FSS (and FSA I guess if the target is super far away.) FSS benefits from our Domain Weapon's boosts and debuffs and targets the usually weaker Spiritual defense. In addition if our minions are really clamoring for a Pressure Crack, we can just have our Horror use Pressure Crack for 0 Qi three times in the round of 16. Given the choice I'd rather spam FSS and synergize with our powerful Domain Weapon, and target Spiritual, than spam Pressure Crack and synergize with our suspect Minions, targeting Physical.
Pressure Crack is an instant buff, and the user gets the next turn buff. So it being on the minion doesn't give us the dice (though it does give us it's +4 ally buff). Also the buff is for all offense.
EDIT: Actually if we and a minion alternate PC, shit - +6 up to +10 dice on the next turn is super shiny.
