My concerns are deeper than the interactions of two of our arts,
per se. So. Hm. It's difficult to say, because we don't have the clearest idea of what other cultivators are capable of, but it
appears that in
general, cultivators from established disciplines have 2-3 core Arts which synergize with their Cultivation Arts to create a signature style or approach or theory of combat that acts as their bedrock while they feel out other possibilities. Adding, mixing, swapping, and removing other bits while maintaining a seed ethos.
Gu Xiulan has overlapping elemental offense with a Cultivation Art that lets her burn hot; Bai Meizhen very early on dsiplayed high-synergy between her fear effects that slowed enemies from fleeing and debuffed all their actions unless they hit
her, which baited them into her counter-attack mantle art; Sun Liling's spear weakens the enemy while empowering her armor which sprouts extra pointy bits that pin the enemy so she can spear them better, also she has go-fast; Han Jian has powerful support paired with good single-target attacks that cut through defenses, which fits him being prepared as a general; Hong Lin had heavy-hitting melee and dash movement to use it. I'm stretching no, but like I said, we mostly have insights into a few people, but it's not a benefit restricted to Ducal scions by any means(even if they're a step above).
FVM, SCS, and EPC are Ling Qi's core, most signature Arts. FSS and TRF are up there too, and they're solid adds, but if we're talking the nidus of Ling Qi's cultivation career and what should form the fundamentals of her combat style, it's those three Arts. The common theme is stealth, the clear strategy is hiding and harassing the enemy, but that's never really solidified as a
reliable go-to strategy. It hasn't been a core competence, and it's consistently driven us to branch out in... sometimes unreliable, and ultimately unsustainable, ways. What this means is Ling Qi's had to pick up other things to form a baseline, and bluntly we've made some mistakes there, but in practical terms it also means that our foundation is a lot less secure than it feels like it
should be with an Art trio that was curated for us, moving forwards.
The concern is the shakiness of our base while correcting some of our less stellar build decisions. We don't, under the current system at least, have a strong core competence to rely on while straining the good from the chaotic goop of the rest of our build. It's a disadvantage which
should exist for Ling Qi to some extent due to her background, but that we're on the path to get hit by harder than can be justified based on the source of our core Arts, and the fact that we received the trio together, sold to us as a collaborative set.
Meanwhile, others aren't only insulated from much of the risks of experimentation, they're also reliably building on their core competencies with highly curated successor Arts which simply pick up where the old one left off and
work from day one with no dead time. We, frankly, don't have the time to break in new Arts. They'll have to work right from right when we get them, or there's no viable competition with the denizens of the Inner Sect. Thankfully, I don't think this is a major risk; Arts in Green have been pretty immediately useful for the most part, from the two examples we've had.
So Dodge Good, Move Good and Stealth Good branches?
This? Looks like the
opposite of what others are doing in Green, almost. I don't think strong specialization of this nature, of a signature Art, quite accomplishes addressing where the fault is in having an underperforming signature Art. Pivoting so narrowly risks cleaving open huge gaps in our other flank, which is what signature Arts are there to
not do. Dodging, movement, and stealth are all kind of thematic and practical core competencies of Ling Qi, and leaving any by the wayside would be fairly crippling. Granted, PLR exists, but we arguably
shouldn't be allowed to choose a successor that undercuts foundational competencies reinforced by our Cultivation Art(EPC) itself. It starts toeing into awkward narrative territory where we, for example, accepted a job as a spy mistress and then progressively got worse at it for unclear reasons. It's anti-cultivator, at least at our level of development. The foundation is still being built, it's a tad early to be hacking chunks of it off. We need choices that reinforce themes, not ones that pinball us between them.
So. Yeah. These are the structural issues as I see them. It's not just a matter of how two or three Arts interact, but the benefits their interactions are supposed to be bringing to our cultivation path as a whole by acting as a reliable anchor.
