Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

mrttao · May 16, 2017

Alectai said:
There's more than just a single option for spirits anyway, and jumping at the first opportunity just because it's there (And one that isn't necessarily very compatable with us to begin with) seems reckless.

How is it incompatible with us? Wood element can definitely have techniques for concealment, support, and self enhancement. All of which are highly compatible with us.

in terms of elemental compatibility, we have an innate affinity for wind. and equal compatibility for everything else.
in terms of yin/yang. we have a preference for yin. but every element can be find in both yin and yang.

Arkeus said:
Why are you assuming that? Also, why are you assuming the ones they have won't be born at a time they held it (though I have no idea why that would be a better fit at all).

WTF are you even trying to say here?
edit: ok, clarified the confused in pm. we were talking past each other. He didn't realize I was talking about the spirit being more in tune with the one who awakened it. and I thought he was talking about that based on his phrasing, but it is not what he meant.

TheLastOne · May 16, 2017

mrttao said:
How is it incompatible with us? Wood element can definitely have techniques for concealment, support, and self enhancement. All of which are highly compatible with us.

in terms of elemental compatibility, we have an innate affinity for wind. and equal compatibility for everything else.
in terms of yin/yang. we have a preference for yang. but every element can be find in both yin and yang.

WTF are you even trying to say here?

Where are you getting the Yang bit from? We know no Yang techniques and I don't believe anyone has mentioned an affinity for it. I think we've gotten stupidly fixated on learning all the Yin since the Moon Spirit, but that's not the same as affinity for Yang.

mrttao · May 16, 2017

TheLastOne said:
Where are you getting the Yang bit from?

Sorry, I meant yin. all our techniques are yin. (other than the neutral basic cultivation technique AS)

Anyways, some examples of Yin type wood techniques:
1. Healing
2. Bark skin defense (we have seen iron skin before)
3. Stealth in woody areas
etc

TheLastOne · May 16, 2017

mrttao said:
Sorry, I meant yin. all our techniques are yin.

Anyways, some examples of Yin type wood techniques:
1. Healing
2. Bark skin defense (we have seen iron skin before)
3. Stealth in woody areas
etc

Well, yes. The argument that Wood was bad was always weak, but since a few people decided that SCS and FVM should be the basis of everything we do from now on, investing in things that aren't water or darkness got hard. And Wood is very very Yang - all elements have both, but wood is more Yang then Yin.

I would also expect healing arts to generally be Yang.

Bark skin could be yin (it's a passive defense), and stealth is overwhelmingly yin. Like, if you aren't a Solar Exalted your stealth techniques are probably yin.

mrttao · May 16, 2017

Arkeus said:
Current emperor is Empress, most recent one ascended, but he isn't the only one to ascend.

You are right, i misread it. It is the previous emperor who ascended, not the first one.

yrsillar said:
"Of course, the last ascension was quite recent in fact," Bai Meizhen answered, looking as if she had bitten into something sour. "The previous Emperor ascended to become an aspect of Death, and is now the Great Spirit Inexorable Justice," her tone is grudgingly respectful as she speaks of something absurd.

yrsillar said:
Not intentionally no. Ascending in this verse is a bit more uh... costly than most xianxia I've read. It means genuinely leaving behind all vestiges of humanity to become a creature of pure will and concept.

So yeah hitting ascension would, if we ever got that far basically be a quest good(?) end.

Kyr'am · May 16, 2017

mrttao said:
since we were told we should get rank 5 of our cultivation art before breaking through to yellow soul

Actually, @yrsillar clarified that we can (and in fact probably should) get to yellow before getting rank 5 of AS. It was rank 4 that we had to get before yellow if we didn't want to lose benefits.

mrttao · May 16, 2017

TheLastOne said:
Well, yes. The argument that Wood was bad was always weak, but since a few people decided that SCS and FVM should be the basis of everything we do from now on, investing in things that aren't water or darkness got hard. And Wood is very very Yang - all elements have both, but wood is more Yang then Yin.

Ah, I hope we could get a little more diverse than just 2 skills and their descendant skills.

I mean, I am still hoping for that "rainbow aura of buffs and debuffs" plan from earlier.
1 water heart meridian will give us bloodbending. Sense all living being in range and mitigate injuries (no more bleeding).
1 mountain meridian would give us aura that not only makes us tougher but imposes a speed malus on enemies.
1 .. i forgot what was the 4th support technique offered to us earlier. but anyways, i still want it.

So many combined passives to both us and the enemies and allies. it would be delicious. and the fact is we have a talent for support

Kyr'am said:
Actually, @yrsillar clarified that we can (and in fact probably should) get to yellow before getting rank 5 of AS. It was rank 4 that we had to get before yellow if we didn't want to lose benefits.

Oh, thank you for clarifying that. I didn't realize it was even possible to get to yellow without rank 4 first. I thought peak was mandatory for breakthrough... but i guess its only mandatory in the sense of us not wanting to have bad cultivation so while technically possible to do earlier we are never gonna do that.
fair enough and good to know

still... it is probably better to get AS to 5 first. since it gives us faster cultivation

TheLastOne · May 16, 2017

mrttao said:
Ah, I hope we could get a little more diverse than just 2 skills and their descendant skills.

I mean, I am still hoping for that "rainbow aura of buffs and debuffs" plan from earlier.
1 water heart meridian will give us bloodbending. Sense all living being in range and mitigate injuries (no more bleeding).
1 mountain meridian would give us aura that not only makes us tougher but imposes a speed malus on enemies.
1 .. i forgot what was the 4th support technique offered to us earlier. but anyways, i still want it.

So many combined passives to both us and the enemies and allies. it would be delicious. and the fact is we have a talent for support

The issue we're running into right now is that support is good, but it's a force multiplier. The bigger our team, the bigger the multiplier on bonuses. The bigger the enemy team, the bigger the multipler on penalties. But that doesn't save us from someone punching our face in specifically, because bonuses spread are bonuses smaller. We need to be able to fight our own fights, or we can help no one else.

We've won twice by making our enemies run out of Qi, but that's not a great strategy. Well, until we have a qi draining technique.

Kyr'am · May 16, 2017

mrttao said:
still... it is probably better to get AS to 5 first. since it gives us faster cultivation

Actually, I'm pretty sure he said that we wouldn't get any additional benefits from getting AS5 before yellow soul. Let me see if I can find a quote.

tricholysis · May 16, 2017

mrttao said:
Ah, I hope we could get a little more diverse than just 2 skills and their descendant skills.

Techniques require a little more investment than that, and I'm pretty sure Ling Qi can get better techniques than literally the first ones she saw. Also, be careful because mountain=/=earth.

mrttao said:
I didn't realize it was even possible to get to yellow without rank 4 first. I thought peak was mandatory for breakthrough... but i guess its only mandatory in the sense of us not wanting to have bad cultivation so while technically possible to do earlier we are never gonna do that.
fair enough and good to know

Peak IS mandatory for breakthrough. Cultivation is separate from the cultivation art.

Kyr'am · May 16, 2017

yrsillar said:
Hm it seems the wording was unclear. Getting to 4 has benefits that are lost if you go to yellow early. Nothing is lost from not hitting five before yellow tho

Alright, this is what @yrsillar said about AS and spiritual cultivation. Basically, I think we should focus on getting silver and yellow before we work more on AS, given that we're ready to break through for physical cultivation and close enough for spiritual cultivation that another action should get us there.

Arkeus · May 16, 2017

TheLastOne said:
We've won twice by making our enemies run out of Qi, but that's not a great strategy. Well, until we have a qi draining technique.

Well, while I agree with the rest of your post, we kind of didn't? We won against Huang Da thanks to debuff on him and Li Suyin making him hurt really hard. This was crippling damage he had to use dozens of spirit stones to heal from.

As for Hong Lin and the twins, we weakened all of them enough for Gu Xiulan to win without spending all her Qi.

Alectai · May 16, 2017

Part of why we should focus on Yin Techniques for now is simply because of how our Sable Light Pill benefits from training them, by giving us those extra Qi rolls and a big dice bonus.

Arkeus · May 16, 2017

Alectai said:
Part of why we should focus on Yin Techniques for now is simply because of how our Sable Light Pill benefits from training them, by giving us those extra Qi rolls and a big dice bonus.

That, and because it's possible EPC give wide-ranging bonus to them.

Kyr'am said:
Alright, this is what @yrsillar said about AS and spiritual cultivation. Basically, I think we should focus on getting silver and yellow before we work more on AS, given that we're ready to break through for physical cultivation and close enough for spiritual cultivation that another action should get us there.

There are significant advantages by never not cultivating AS. We won't focus on it before Yellow, but it's important to keep it up, especially as we have 2 (maybe three, depending on Hong Lin's loot) Qi Foundation pills, and those really help for AS.

Kyr'am · May 16, 2017

Arkeus said:
There are significant advantages by never not cultivating AS. We won't focus on it before Yellow, but it's important to keep it up, especially as we have 2 (maybe three, depending on Hong Lin's loot) Qi Foundation pills, and those really help for AS.

Alright, let me rephrase. I think we should focus on breaking through before focusing on AS5, even if we spend an action or two on it each turn.

yrsillar · May 16, 2017

Okay, let me clear this up. Current ruler of the empire is Empress Xiang and this is the 43rd year of her reign, her father Emperor An, was the first Minister of Integrity under his Father, Emperor Si, An is the one who ascended to become Inexorable Justice. Go waaaaaaaay back and you reach the Sage Emperor, who united the various tribal kings and queens who ruled the lands that are now the provinces, back when everyone was stabbing each other with bits of rock and a few bright sparks were just beginning to work out the whole 'metal' thing. He achieved this through conquest, diplomacy and generally being a broken protagonist grade monster, before falling to treachery during a supposed peace meeting with the then queen of the people of the western jungles. Or at least that's how the story goes.

This is your empire history for the day. Gonna get back to the update now.

TheLastOne · May 16, 2017

Arkeus said:
Well, while I agree with the rest of your post, we kind of didn't? We won against Huang Da thanks to debuff on him and Li Suyin making him hurt really hard. This was crippling damage he had to use dozens of spirit stones to heal from.

As for Hong Lin and the twins, we weakened all of them enough for Gu Xiulan to win without spending all her Qi.

I sort of assumed the only reason Huang Da got crit was that we had run him out at that point, but looking back we now know that unsoakable is a thing, so I'll revise that.

And yeah, support is awesome. Forgotten Vale Melody's 'attack everyone' pretty much ended that fight. Even if we got taken out, after that point Gu Xiulan would have gone on to win. It's our specialty and first focus. But we need to be able to do a bit of everything.

mrttao · May 16, 2017

tricholysis said:
Techniques require a little more investment than that, and I'm pretty sure Ling Qi can get better techniques than literally the first ones she saw. Also, be careful because mountain=/=earth.

It wasn't "literally the first ones we saw", it was the best ones on offer that suited our meridian type (heart meridian aka support)

tricholysis said:
Peak IS mandatory for breakthrough. Cultivation is separate from the cultivation art.

Well he was saying that you could theoretically breakthrough before peak but it will harm your cultivation. And that my interpretation of the elders words as "break through to AS5 first and then to yellow soul" is wrong and what the elder was saying is "get to peak first and then breakthrough"

Alectai · May 16, 2017

Arkeus said:
That, and because it's possible EPC give wide-ranging bonus to them.

There are significant advantages by never not cultivating AS. We won't focus on it before Yellow, but it's important to keep it up, especially as we have 2 (maybe three, depending on Hong Lin's loot) Qi Foundation pills, and those really help for AS.

Likely, it gives us a big training bonus on them.

mrttao · May 16, 2017

TheLastOne said:
The issue we're running into right now is that support is good, but it's a force multiplier. The bigger our team, the bigger the multiplier on bonuses. The bigger the enemy team, the bigger the multipler on penalties. But that doesn't save us from someone punching our face in specifically, because bonuses spread are bonuses smaller. We need to be able to fight our own fights, or we can help no one else.

While support multiplies with a team, it also applies in 1v1 combat. And the fact we can stack multiple such arts together makes me think of them as low hanging fruit.

You do not want to have a 1v1 battle against a person that has 10 buffs and put 10 debuffs on you.

also about bonuses spread being bonuses smaller. Doesn't really seem to be the case.
Regardless, we absolutely MUST get a healing skill. even if we do not get a full rainbow going. being able to self heal will massively help us

mrttao · May 16, 2017

Kyr'am said:
Alright, this is what @yrsillar said about AS and spiritual cultivation. Basically, I think we should focus on getting silver and yellow before we work more on AS, given that we're ready to break through for physical cultivation and close enough for spiritual cultivation that another action should get us there.

Fair enough. and agreed.

Alectai said:
Part of why we should focus on Yin Techniques for now is simply because of how our Sable Light Pill benefits from training them, by giving us those extra Qi rolls and a big dice bonus.

The argument was not about yin vs yang.
but few yin vs more yin techniques.
And which yin techniques specifically

Arkeus said:
There are significant advantages by never not cultivating AS.

i am confused, there is definitely a double negative here, and I think you meant to say disadvantages?

TheLastOne · May 16, 2017

mrttao said:
While support multiplies with a team, it also applies in 1v1 combat. And the fact we can stack multiple such arts together makes me think of them as low hanging fruit.

You do not want to have a 1v1 battle against a person that has 10 buffs and put 10 debuffs on you.

also about bonuses spread being bonuses smaller. Doesn't really seem to be the case.
Regardless, we absolutely MUST get a healing skill. even if we do not get a full rainbow going. being able to self heal will massively help us

Pretty much all arts let you buff yourself, and lots of them are going to let you debuff an opponent. What makes our heart build special is that we effect an entire arena, but that means we're spec'd for teams. One on one we lose against someone who has had as good luck as us and is focused on face punching. That's fine - we're going to be in the army, which means we'll be on teams ALL THE TIME, but someone is always going to want to face punch us, so while team fighting must be number 1#, face punching needs to be 2# or 3#.

mrttao · May 16, 2017

TheLastOne said:
It's our specialty and first focus. But we need to be able to do a bit of everything.

The awesome thing about support is that it basically can do a bit of everything.
It can buff our damage, slow the enemy, buff our defenses, heal our wounds...

Arkeus · May 16, 2017

Yeah, this isn't some kind of 'warriors only have their pure skills' system. Warriors have lots of spine buff and arms buff with high damage and movement abilities and so on and so forth.

Being a support just means your buffs have an area, not that you are the only one with buff.

Also, buff have durations and barring instant techs like Gale Shield we can't do more than one art a turn. Having 10 different buffs doesn't actually mean you can stack them, unless we get good enough at getting longer durations on them.

mrttao · May 16, 2017

TheLastOne said:
Pretty much all arts let you buff yourself, and lots of them are going to let you debuff an opponent. What makes our heart build special is that we effect an entire arena, but that means we're spec'd for teams. One on one we lose against someone who has had as good luck as us and is focused on face punching. That's fine - we're going to be in the army, which means we'll be on teams ALL THE TIME, but someone is always going to want to face punch us, so while team fighting must be number 1#, face punching needs to be 2# or 3#.

Keep in mind though that
1. not everyone is going to have the same luck + talent as we do.
2. I am not actually sure about this "all techniques can buff self and debuff enemies", those are yin. Yang techniques are more "shoot a fireball at the enemy and kill or maim them if it hits". That being said, buffing and debuffing are probably not limited to support
3. even before the army we are making friends and teaming up with them.
4. we voted for a talent in "support". that means we are better at training support. So its is not a question of "do you want 10X vs 10Y" but a question of "Do you want 10X or 7Y". The fact is, training at non support arts is not as efficient

Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)

Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)

Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)

Crazy cat guy

Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion

Crazy cat guy

Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)

Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion

Person of impeccable tastes (for destruction)

Crazy cat guy