I would very much prefer to take Suyin and Su Ling. I'm pretty sure the mission was written with Su Ling and us in mind - we were talking about hunting missions and taking her with. Suyin needs a little seasoning. She wants it, in fact, and the protective attitude we have towards her is in fact insulting.
Just not take Suyin then. My problem is how you divided the rewards, mostly, and the justification behind it.
Anyway, I believe one of the key edges Ling Qi possesses, which allowed her to leap so far and so fast, is her huge Qi capacity. She is essentially at the peak levels of a cultivator a full level above would have.
Sable Light is magical like that. And that's around what our strategy should be built off.
This is Sable Light:
1 Sable Light Pills: Grants five bonus dice toward opening meridians and learning Yin aspect arts. All successes in such efforts trigger a roll to increase the user's qi pool as well, retaining the pills die bonus.
+5 dice to Meridians and Yin arts and Qi rolls.
What do we have that can help with those?
Meridians said:
Channel Cleansing Pill: Adds three dice to meridian clearing attempts. 2 Red Spirit Stones
3 Highsun Pills: Adds five dice to the cultivation of all Meridians.Triggers a bonus physical cultivation roll with a bonus of three.
Not much, but that's +8 dice to meridian rolls, and the bonus Physical roll (at +3) means double-effect elixirs have a much better cost x benefit ratio.
For arts:
Arts said:
3 Clear Wind Pill: Adds three dice to the cultivation of wind element arts.
Gushing Spring Pill: Adds three dice to cultivation of water element arts. 2 Red Spirit Stones
White Hart Elixir: Adds three dice to physical cultivation and wind element art cultivation. 6 Red Spirit Stones
Flowing Rivers Pill: Adds three dice to spiritual cultivation and water art cultivation. 6 Red Spirit Stones
2 Snowy Peak Pills: Adds five dice to all art cultivation rolls. Triggers one qi increase roll per art, up to two.
2 Starlight Elixir: Adds 5 dice to the cultivation of combat arts. In addition use of the pill triggers a single bonus physical cultivation roll, which receives a 3 die bonus.
Special effects
underlined.
Of course, Snowy Peak Pill means we will absolutely take, out of the maximum 6 major actions we can take, 2 for Arts. SCS and FVM would do just nice, but a new Spine-Arm, or ZB upgrade, would do just fine.
I suppose there should be generic 6 stone pills for all elements, which only differentiate in the bonus to physical and spiritual.
Lets assume we will cultivate one Water and one Wind art, for argument's sake. Each would have +3 from basic pill, +3 from the double effect pill, +5 from Snowy Peak and +5 from Starlight Elixir. That's +16 dice, on top of Sable's.
But you'd also +3 to Physical, +3 to Spiritual, a bonus Physical (with a +3) roll and two bonus Qi rolls.
And finally, for Qi:
Qi said:
3 Qi Expansion Pill: Adds three dice to Qi increase attempts.
3 Darkmoon Pills: Adds five dice to the cultivation of Qi. Triggers a bonus Spiritual cultivation roll with a bonus of three.
Bear Marrow Elixir: Adds three dice to physical cultivation. One third of successes are added to Qi Increase. 4 Red Spirit Stones
Steady Growth Pill: Adds four dice to physical, spiritual and qi cultivation. 8 Spirit stones
+12 to Qi rolls (such a shame Qi Foundation doesn't work anymore).
From this, we have the ever handy Bear Marrow adding a third of Physical successes to Qi, we have a bonus Spiritual roll (with +3), and we have +4 to all Spiritual and Physical rolls.
So, in total, by taking (Sable Light Pill, Channel Cleansing Pill, Highsun Pill, Clear Wind Pill (and its variations), White Heart Elixir, Flowing River Pill, Snowy Peak Pill, Starlight Elixir, Qi Expansion Pill, Darkmoon Pill, Bear Marrow Elixir and Steady Growth Pill), we'd have:
->Two bonus Physical rolls at +10, a third of each of those two Physical rolls added as Qi sux, from Highsun and Starlight;
->One bonus Spiritual roll at +10, from Darkmoon;
->Two bonus Qi rolls at +17 from Snowy Peak;
->Six bonus Qi rolls at +17 from Sable Light (assuming six Meridians or Yin arts actions);
->+21 to Yin type arts of our choice, provided they are of common elements. Possibly more if multiple element arts combo basic pills.
-> +13 to open Meridians
We need at least two Arts to level, and the rest is more or less free, provided we bill the necessary basic pills.
With our current arts, we'd need to be at Mid Yellow Soul to take a FVM action, and hope SCS is able to be leveled by then. Conviniently, we'd be able to use three red stones and two yellow ones in the attempt. That's +20 dice from Pills, right?
On Auto-Sux and Cultivation Art alone, I'm counting 32 sux and 52 dice to Qi from eight rolls and AS5, plus 16 sux from Breathrough bonus, 14 dice to Physical from two rolls, plus 4 sux from Breakthrough bonus, 7 dice to Spiritual from one roll, plus 2 sux from Breakthrough bonus, and finally 2 sux to each meridian from Breakthrough bonus.
Did I math that right? Lots of bonuses, small screen.
We need ~478 sux for our targeted amount of 40 Qi before breaking through. That's over 10% of the way there, and now is the time one realizes we will need to pump a lot of spiritual ironto get there. Still, those breakthrough bonuses are worth it.
So, let's see, the basic rolls are Talent 6 + RSS 5 + YSS 15 + AS5 7 + Vent 8 = 41 dice.
Bottom line, I think, is that we throw 41 Base + 2 Auto Sux + 10 Meds on Spiritual, 82 Base + 4 Auto Sux + 20 Meds on Physical (become 34 + 1 sux on Qi, already accounted for next), 498 + 49 sux on Qi. Not counting Meridian or Art overflow.
Call it 325 sux total on Qi, and we are 68% through with what's likely the hardest Green/Bronze challenge.
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