I suspect the benefits are 'lesser' than getting the stat to 7. I would say likely 'half' to 'third' as good, given how Odr enhanced them.
There might have been benefits for hitting 4, too. Hugr and Hamr both gave benefits for hitting 4 (extra Shapeshift/Alloy slot), but we didn't know until we hit 7, which is interesting in of itself.
Farmwork is only of those skills we will want to push to a high level of skill, for Cultivation Reasons. Ditto Housecraft.
True on the level 4 thing, but we don't know that happened and thus don't know they'll grant something at 7. They may or may not.
And we want higher skills in those than we have now, anyway, yeah. I dunno if we go all the way to 7 with Farmwork, though maybe in the very long run.
Aha, fair enough, that makes sense. It may be that what I'm talking about here is actually a Twist or something. There's a lot of Proper Nouns to keep track of. 😅
Totally fair. There's definitely some overlap, but the thing to bear in mind is that Twists are more narrative in what they do (they are literally 'twists in the narrative'), and harder to get by a lot (you can't train them by default), and thus usually more powerful.
Actually if it's alright, would you mind explaining how Alloys work? I noticed it when reading through, but was a bit unsure. Is it just reffering to the creation of literal metal alloys like the storm-infused iron we used when reforging Sagaseeker, or is it more of a term of art referring to cultivator stuff?
Sure. When we hit Hugr 7 we gained the ability to Alloy together two of our existing Hugareida and make a new one. We smushed Campfire and Ignition together and got Forgefire, for instance (we also got Emberwind by using Ignition and Gale). We can use these just like normal Hugareida as long as we have them and have 3 'Alloy Slots' we can keep them in (1 from Hugr 4, 1 from Hugr 7, 1 from Infused Hugr 3), but we can't use them if they aren't in a slot, and their level is determined by the Hugareida we used to make them and can't advance in its own right separate from that.
These Alloyed hugareida aren't more powerful, but it makes us a lot more versatile and lets us do some cool stuff. When talking Alloy with a capital A we're generally talking about these rather than actual alloys of metal.
Also in terms of Tricks, can we merge a Trick with an existing merged Trick? I'm wondering if we found a way to meld Flashfire Cleave and Firebomb-Strike, we would keep the defence penetration, but also hit much harder. Probably expensive, but we have quite a lot of Orthstirr, and ending fights a round sooner seems like it actually saves more in the long run. Or going back to what you said about versatility, is this a case where Firebomb-Strike using our Puncture Twist would mechanically actually perform better?
Maybe? Like, Leaping Cleave is already 'Flashfire Cleave but hits harder' it just has the downside of leaving us defensively open when we use it. Combining stuff is weird, though...I don't think any of us expected Flashfire Cleave to be weaker on damage than its parent Trick. So assuming what we get when we combine things is just that, an assumption.
And Puncture, Firebomb Strike, and our Cleave Tricks deal with different types of defenses:
Leaping Cleave and Flashfire Cleave break shields and do extra damage to armor, so they have bonuses to getting through 'passive' defenses.
Firebomb Strike, meanwhile, does nothing special against stuff like that, but counts as an AoE in terms of being dodged, which makes specific kinds of dodges not work well.
Puncture, on the third hand, does nothing for any rolled defense and doesn't help with armor, it just prevents Perfect Defenses (things where the enemy spends Orthstirr and auto-defends) from working.
I'm surprised the Priest counted as twice as strong as us tbh. He was strong, yes. Stronger than us for sure. But I don't think he was that much stronger than us.
Oh, he 100% was. We killed him by basically cheating (well, tactically outmaneuvering him, anyway), but he had so many heavy advantages over us it's not even funny. Like, for comparison, he was at a higher cultivation level than Gabriel is even now, by
a lot. Sure, he was less combat oriented, but still.
