lol. lmao even. Its amazing how you can go into one multi-thousand page thread and get coloured text roleplay, then hop into another multi-thousand page thread and get "While no one demands exacting linguistic perfection in an informal creative forums thread, there reaches a point where nonstandard grammar occludes your message." unironically.
If you ever have thoughts on how some text-styling comes across, I'd always love to hear the feedback! And that goes to everyone reading this, not just EJ.
In my opinion, at least, it's best to stick to italics and parentheses. Anything else is incredibly distracting and just makes me want to skip to the end of the post.
Unless it's a very short (1 sentence or less) joke, those are fine.
If you ever have thoughts on how some text-styling comes across, I'd always love to hear the feedback! And that goes to everyone reading this, not just EJ.
Yeah, I'm going to say this very bluntly (but hopefully politely):
Please stop trying to forcibly draw people's attention by altering the formatting of your posts, unintentionally or otherwise!
I feel as if the interactions with the "No shouting" rule and the trouble you have been having since this was implemented speak to the underlying issue here. Approximately 9/10 instances my eyes have been drawn to a random post for reasons of some visual, formatting related difference, it is one of your posts, with the other one in ten being large meme images posted outside of spoiler tags. Oftentimes in the past, you have bumped the thread with some quote of your own or another with some bolded text for emphasis, when simply pinging some folks would suffice. Recently, you have been doing other textual-styling things to emphasize things. Personally, it is immensely annoying to me that this is a habit of yours, but I can ignore it and go about my day-- which generally means in practice that you are training me to ignore the things you are saying, instead of what you intend! I would not be too surprised to find that others were having a similar experience. Your actions here are probably not causing desirable outcomes for you.
Sorry if that is a bit upsetting, but I'm really just trying to be clear here, since this has come up multiple times the last few weeks.
I liked the small text. It clearly differentiated the main point from the humorous digression.
I don't suggest trying to put whole paragraphs between parentheses. That's the kind of formatting that makes your main point almost unreadable. Instead, I suggest putting digressions in spoiler boxes.
Hazou's Build (A Short Term Guide to Un-Fucking Our Combat Skills)
Okay, so I may have done some spreadsheet work, planning out Hazou's new steps. I also may have gotten carried away, given how discussion is still ongoing.
I know that there are some plans to raise Callig, Ath, and Substitution a few points for some synergy/mechanical reasons, but my focus is going to be more on raw pyramid/AB growth.
That means that, right now, Hazou's build looks something like this...
60
Resolve
50
Sealing
Earthshaping
40
Taijutsu
Calligraphy
Shadow Clone
30
Alertness
Athletics
Chakra
Physique
20
Deceit
Presence
Rapport
Substitute
PEA
10
Stealth
Empathy
Medknow
Ghost Scales
P.K. Hammer
Living Roots
Which is a pretty clean build, all things considered. No overhangs, no towers, just a smooth pyramid.
We're about to learn THing, and we're going to need to raise it to level 10 to take advantage of Orochimaru's lootboxes.
Which means that Hazou's build will look like...
60
Resolve
50
Sealing
Earthshaping
40
Taijutsu
Calligraphy
Shadow Clone
30
Alertness
Athletics
Chakra
Physique
20
Deceit
Presence
Rapport
Substitute
PEA
10
Stealth
Empathy
Medknow
Ghost Scales
P.K. Hammer
Living Roots
Tech Hacking
And it's going to take a month or two for Hazou to churn through the lootbox notes (which can raise THing all the way up until 30).
While the Shadow Clones are doing that, Hazou can go ahead and raise Bones of Creation.
But let's be cautiously optimistic and assume that we only need to raise it to level 20. If that assumption is proven wrong --maybe we only need to raise it to level one --then we can adjust accordingly!
60
Resolve
50
Sealing
Earthshaping
40
Taijutsu
Calligraphy
Shadow Clone
30
Alertness
Athletics
Chakra
Physique
20
Deceit
Presence
Rapport
Substitute
PEA
B. Creation
10
Stealth
Empathy
Medknow
Ghost Scales
P.K. Hammer
Living Roots
Tech Hacking
And from here, since we have the pyramid support for it, let's go ahead and level Technique Hacking to 30. With the lootboxes, it's going to be free!
Not to mention, Minatosealing might simply demand a level 30 in THing as a prerequisite --much in the same way that biosealing demands Medknow/Mednin in the 30s.
60
Resolve
50
Sealing
Earthshaping
40
Taijutsu
Calligraphy
Shadow Clone
30
Alertness
Athletics
Chakra
Physique
Tech Hacking
20
Deceit
Presence
Rapport
Substitute
PEA
B. Creation
10
Stealth
Empathy
Medknow
Ghost Scales
P.K. Hammer
Living Roots
From here we have enough pyramid support to raise another stat into the 30s.
I am going to push very hard for Athletics to be the first 30-stat we move up... Hard to believe, I know, but dodging is very important
60
Resolve
50
Sealing
Earthshaping
40
Taijutsu
Calligraphy
Shadow Clone
Athletics
30
Alertness
Chakra
Physique
Tech Hacking
20
Deceit
Presence
Rapport
Substitute
PEA
B. Creation
10
Stealth
Empathy
Medknow
Ghost Scales
P.K. Hammer
Living Roots
And now we have the pyramid support to raise another 50-stat.
Calligraphy and Shadow Clone at level 50 isn't really going to help us very much in combat, but Taijutsu and Athletics are.
I would once again strongly recommend raising Athletics to the 50-slot here. Dodging is important, and (if it's any consolation), we can always raise Taijutsu to 49 here, which would give Taijutsu an effective 52, since the Iron Nerve grants a +3 bonus.
60
Resolve
50
Sealing
Earthshaping
Athletics
40
Taijutsu
Calligraphy
Shadow Clone
30
Alertness
Chakra
Physique
Tech Hacking
20
Deceit
Presence
Rapport
Substitute
PEA
B. Creation
10
Stealth
Empathy
Medknow
Ghost Scales
P.K. Hammer
Living Roots
And now, we have a slightly awkward conundrum.
We have the pyramid support to raise a 50-stat into a 60-slot, which I would recommend Athletics (please, for the love of all things good and sacred in this world, please don't raise Earthshaping to 60).
Doing so makes Athletics twice Hazou's Alertness skill, but it also frees up a 50-slot so that we can raise a 40-stat to 50.
Let's try and raise Alertness to 40, first, before raising another 60-stat. But, to do that, we'll need another 30-stat.
We need Rapport 28 for the Toad Sages, so there's an arguement to be made for leveling Rapport all the way to 30. However, we're about to raise Athletics to 60, and the most optimal placing of Substitution is that of (1/2) Athletics. And since we need to raise a 30-stat, anyway...
Let's go ahead and raise Substitution to 30 in preparation for Athletics 60, which is coming soon.
60
Resolve
50
Sealing
Earthshaping
Athletics
40
Taijutsu
Calligraphy
Shadow Clone
30
Alertness
Chakra
Physique
Tech Hacking
Substitute
20
Deceit
Presence
Rapport
PEA
B. Creation
10
Stealth
Empathy
Medknow
Ghost Scales
P.K. Hammer
Living Roots
And from here, we can raise Alertness to 40.
60
Resolve
50
Sealing
Earthshaping
Athletics
40
Taijutsu
Calligraphy
Shadow Clone
Alertness
30
Chakra
Physique
Tech Hacking
Substitute
20
Deceit
Presence
Rapport
PEA
B. Creation
10
Stealth
Empathy
Medknow
Ghost Scales
P.K. Hammer
Living Roots
And from here, we can go back and raise Athletics to 60, which frees up a 50-slot.
60
Resolve
Athletics
50
Sealing
Earthshaping
40
Taijutsu
Calligraphy
Shadow Clone
Alertness
30
Chakra
Physique
Tech Hacking
Substitute
20
Deceit
Presence
Rapport
PEA
B. Creation
10
Stealth
Empathy
Medknow
Ghost Scales
P.K. Hammer
Living Roots
And thus, with a 50-slot free, we have room to raise a 40-stat to level 50.
Really, the choices are down to either Taijutsu or Alertness.
Since Hazou is a Summoner, with MARS, going first/quickly in combat initiative is important. I would recommend Alertness 50, but there's an arguement to be made about Taijutsu 50.
60
Resolve
Athletics
50
Sealing
Earthshaping
Alertness
40
Taijutsu
Calligraphy
Shadow Clone
30
Chakra
Physique
Tech Hacking
Substitute
20
Deceit
Presence
Rapport
PEA
B. Creation
10
Stealth
Empathy
Medknow
Ghost Scales
P.K. Hammer
Living Roots
There's more to be discussed in the medium and long terms --especially with regard to the new jutsu we just got from Orochimaru --but I think that this constitutes a decent short-term plan.
Alas, EJ also mentioned that the extraction process can be expected to take about 12 hours in total.
If only there were more of Hazou.
We take Noburi with us, and cast Shadow Clone on-site. Prime and all his clones Earthshape in parallel and finish the job within 5 hours. If the job parallelizes reasonably well two clones + prime would be sufficient, bringing the extraction process down from 12 hours to 4 hours. If it doesn't parallelize super well, three clones is probably a safer bet.
To be perfectly 100% clear, my intention is that we reduce the amount of time Hazou spends extracting gold from the mine by having him cast Shadow Clone at the mine - with Noburi's support - and having 3-4 copies of Hazou working in parallel. It's my belief that in doing so we'll be able to reduce the time cost of the operation from 12 hours to less than 5.
Incidentally, here are some other potential snags that I think we can avoid:
"Hazou can't run 10 hours at ninja speeds in one day" --> with Noburi he can
"Hazou doesn't have enough chakra to make 2-3 clones and have each of them use Earthshaping for hours" --> with Noburi he does
"Hazou might not have enough clone hours after he gets back to teach Orochimaru" --> just have Prime teach, then
If there's something I overlooked that makes this plan unviable, please do let me know. Just, please, make sure first it's not something my original post already explicitly has a solution for. Please.
I don't agree with having Hazō raise Rapport for the sole purpose of his interactions with the Toad Sages. Noburi is the one who is frequently rolling Rapport against them, and he's already high enough to get serious lore out of them with only a plus three on his fate die.
Noburi is attempting to make Ma and Pa feel relaxed and friendly so that they will share whatever they know about the Sage's band of five. (Names, abilities, stories, appearance/descriptions, symbols, etc). They aren't averse to talking about this so he'll be able to get some information, but if he manages to beat their roll then he'll get substantially more.
Noburi, Rapport (24) + invoke "Sensitive About My Cooking" (one of Shima's Aspects that he didn't have to use Empathy to discover because she's very obvious about it) + invoke "Zone of Friendship" (his own Aspect and basically tailor made for this setting) + 3 (dice) = 33
He's the one who interacts with them constantly and actually has rapport with them (which I believe makes rolls substantially easier). If we want to go further into the rapport with the Toad Sages angle, we should develop Noburi's Rapport and not Hazō's.
Hazō is extremely XP starved, and raising Rapport to 30 instead of Deceit would cost us an additional 90 XP. With what we are planing, we need improved Deceit quite badly anyway.
I specifically addressed this issue. Like, addressing this issue was the main point of the post and the reason I made it at all:
To be perfectly 100% clear, my intention is that we reduce the amount of time Hazou spends extracting gold from the mine by having him cast Shadow Clone at the mine - with Noburi's support - and having 3-4 copies of Hazou working in parallel. It's my belief that in doing so we'll be able to reduce the time cost of the operation from 12 hours to less than 5.
Incidentally, here are some other potential snags that I think we can avoid:
"Hazou can't run 10 hours at ninja speeds in one day" --> with Noburi he can
"Hazou doesn't have enough chakra to make 2-3 clones and have each of them use Earthshaping for hours" --> with Noburi he does
"Hazou might not have enough clone hours after he gets back to teach Orochimaru" --> just have Prime teach, then
If there's something I overlooked that makes this plan unviable, please do let me know. Just, please, make sure first it's not something my original post already explicitly has a solution for. Please.
It depends on how the ore body is distributed. If we can't overlap fields and there isn't enough ore to run multithreads I don't see how this will speed it up.
I guess we could divide the ore body up between clones and see if that's faster, but ES is intentionally opaque, unclear if that's gonna speed things up.
Unfortunately for him, the Toads like people they perceive as cool and Hazou has done way more 'main character energy' feats. Especially given Hazou is the ringleader of the operation
Rapport 24 -> 40 (to match what Hazou's roll would be) will cost Noburi 520 XP. Hazou's 20 -> 28 is quite low by comparison (and later when we need a 30, we can bring it to 30, but that won't happen within the time it takes to finish TH anyways.)
@Shrooms has already addressed your points. He covered it pretty well, and I don't really have anything more to add.
Additionally, while it was more politely requested by @MMKII, I would like to second the request more bluntly: if you post a meme/picture, please put it in a spoiler.
I think this step is illegal since it would mean we temporarily have 7 20s and 6 10s. Unless we bank TH notes XP to ladder skip? But then we don't gain any of the TH benefits until we reach that threshold. Maybe level TH before BoC?
I think this step is illegal since it would mean we temporarily have 7 20s and 6 10s. Unless we bank TH notes XP to ladder skip? But then we don't gain any of the TH benefits until we reach that threshold. Maybe level TH before BoC?
I'm 90% confident that you can skip ABs when leveling.
For example, you can level a jutsu from 0 -> 30 if you have the valid pyramid for a level 30-stat, even if you don't have a valid pyramid for another 20-stat. We've done it before with other training plans.
We only need Rapport 28 for the Toad Sages (FiF is awesome, I love it), but I figured it'd be cheaper to raise it the additional two levels to 30, rather than a whole new stat from 20 -> 30.
But if we're talking Substitution (a stat that we'd have to raise to 30, anyway), then you're right, it might very well be worth it.
Unfortunately for him, the Toads like people they perceive as cool and Hazou has done way more 'main character energy' feats. Especially given Hazou is the ringleader of the operation
We're already winning rolls, is my point. If training or ninjutsu is something we can get by winning with a few more shifts in a rapport fight than we're well posed to obtain that by leveling Noburi a little bit further.
Rapport 24 -> 40 (to match what Hazou's roll would be) will cost Noburi 520 XP. Hazou's 20 -> 28 is quite low by comparison (and later when we need a 30, we can bring it to 30, but that won't happen within the time it takes to finish TH anyways.)
@eaglejarl@Velorien@Paperclipped
Would Hazō have a harder time obtaining big-asks from the Toad Sages using a Rapport roll than someone who has a more-developed in-universe rapport with them like Noburi?
Is it truly just a matter of how big your number is?
I'm 90% confident that you can skip ABs when leveling.
For example, you can level a jutsu from 0 -> 30 if you have the valid pyramid for a level 30-stat, even if you don't have a valid pyramid for another 20-stat. We've done it before with other training plans.
I would also be okay with this, honestly.
We only need Rapport 28 for the Toad Sages (FiF is awesome, I love it), but I figured it'd be cheaper to raise it the additional two levels to 30, rather than a whole new stat from 20 -> 30.
But if we're talking Substitution (a stat that we'd have to raise to 30, anyway), then you're right, it might very well be worth it.
I think that (for now) I would rather have Substitution at 30 than GC 30. Hazou is squishy as fuck, and he needs to round out his fundamentals first, before leveling some of the fancier jutsu. Substitution 30 matches Athletics 60, which is what we need for Alertness 50.
Once we have Athletics 60, Alertness 50, and Substitution 30, I'd be willing to level some of the jutsu, but until Hazou's fundamentals are leveled appropriately, I'm going to refrain.
depends on how you frame it, and unfortunately does not benefit from FiF. Hazou has rolled Rapport with the Toads before, and with other people too. I also would like presence but its much harder to get Bignumber with it than rapport in the immediate future. I'm not strongly convicted on this, I just like our odds better with Rapport, which we also use quite frequently along with presence, and it is much easier to get it to strongly-effective levels than presence.
TNs are always at QM discretion, so not inherently. It probably would be harder for someone who does know them to succeed on a TN roll, but Hazou has rapport with them too. He was around them at the Conclave, to talk about substrate, when they are summoned for dinner, etc.
@eaglejarl@Velorien@Paperclipped, does Hazou have to wait until he's attacked to activate Geode Coffin, or can he just duck into is as soon as soon as baddies appear?
Can Hazou put up a Geode Coffin reflexively as soon as initiative is rolled, so any attack on Hazou needs to beat GC durability? or does he need to wait until he gets attacked, resist the first attack by rolling GC+2xAB, and only get to use the coffin durability against later attacks?
Asking because GC+2xAB only overtakes(Ath+RRB+substitution20) at level 100, while durability(2+Effect) overtakes (Athletics+RRB+Sub20) at level 40.
This makes a big difference in the "not-getting-oneshot-by-an-Essie" game.
Don't worry guys. I'm sure we will crack Minato sealing and have a fourth research skill to level long before we get to level up combat stats let alone socials
