I'm wording it that way because that's Suriel's opinion on the matter.
IIRC when Lindon hits Underlord she thinks that counts as him being able to ascend, she fully realizes that he won't, but that he is still theoretically capable of it at that point.
It isn't really worth Ascending until you are a Sage or Herald in my opinion.
Yeah we kind of doubled/tripled down on Ruler and Forger stuff, since we both took an iron body that only helped those, and then near entirely took our Remnant/Goldsign benefit with making the iron body more useful in mind.
Meanwhile we barely use Ruler or Forger stuff (well) in battle; our most used technique is our Enforcer, backed up by having high skill with our axe. The other stuff basically just exists as a way to generate openings for us to axe people.
Not sure if our dandelion rain even benefits from the iron body, since it's a striker technique and just happens to use some Forger principles.
This tripling down on stuff is one of those things I lament as someone who just finished catching up.
Keras has a talent for Ruler and Forger stuff and that needs to be taken advantage of or the Iron Body will go to waste. Investing more into training the ruler and forger techniques Keras has and making new techniques that are like that is a good idea. I would like to note though that it helps Verdant Valley which is potent healing ability and can be pushed to be more helpful in combat, plus Desiccated Valley seems to be a very scary technique with a lot of potential. Personally i think developing a proper Forger technique is the way to go.
Healing, plant growth and the Dessicated Valley do all come under Ruler techniques, though you're right they're more indirect. Clinging Vines I think is next in line to be upgraded, so that should become more useful then.
For Dandelion Rain I'm pretty sure the Forger part comes in when we plant one and have it fire at a delay, if we just fire one from our hand then it's just a Striker technique.
There's been a bit of talk about getting some kind of Enforcer and/or Forger technique to do with axes which could count, but that's not likely to be any time soon (assuming we even get another technique).
Verdant Valley's healing is very impressive and useful for combat it's just easily overlooked. Desiccated Valley is just starting out but once it gets going it's going to become very scary. I think that training the techniques that Keras has mainly the Vines, Dandelion Rain and most importantly Desiccated Valley is a good idea. I'd be in favor of making a proper Forger technique though.
Yeah we use our enhanced Ruler stuff plenty with our non combat stuff. Keras explicitly uses their Ruler technique to Refine, so them being so good at it is good. Healing has also been useful at times, though I don't think we generally are healing in combat, so it's not really a combat technique. And the plant growth stuff has been called out since we were Copper as a poor combat move that isn't super useful.
There's nothing wrong with being good at non combat stuff. I do wish we spent a little more time being selfish with our non combat stuff though; thus far all our refiner votes have been to make things for others, our healing big reward was voted to help others get to Gold instead of ourselves (or Beti).
Non combat talent has definitely afforded us chances to get rewards and opportunities we wouldn't have otherwise, but it might have been wise to spend more of those opportunities on ourselves.
Verdant Valley is probably Keras's most used technique given how useful it is for healing and refining. But I'm totally okay with Keras being focused on non combat stuff, being more then a murder blender is a great thing. Being a healer and refiner is something that has payed off for Keras so far, the growing plants hasn't really done a lot so far but I think that it's going to have a lot of synergies with Refining. As a healer Keras can keep people in good health and from dying which gets people in their debt, keeps themselves alive and keeps those they care about alive. As a refiner Keras can make advancement resources, combat drugs, body boosters, and their speciality of esoteric stuff which is basically a wide category of whacky stuff you can do with elixirs and pills.
Keras has so far decided to be very generous about their resources both the resources they get as part of their education and for their reward for healing others. They've kept enough of their student budget to keep the standard budget and gave away all of the helping people gains. I think that Keras has more then payed their fair dues and supported the Silent Hinterlands. I'd be totally okay with focusing on getting Keras resources and helping out their friends occasionally.
With two sets of hands and high enough Co-ordination we could heal someone/us and still fight at the same time (especially with our range), we just haven't needed to yet.
And I'm pretty sure for refining we've made nothing for anyone else that we haven't already been making for ourselves, as far as advancement resources go? The only exception would be Mireya's elixir, and that was for a problem we didn't have in the first place.
For Beti I think we've only ever turned down one and a half options to boost her, once was that reward we spent on remnants for our friends, the other was not picking the death remnant for ourselves (which I count as a half).
You do have a point that Prachi's kind of been hard carrying Keras' combat ability, but then that's one of the reasons there's been discussion about a new technique that's more directly for combat.
Keras is slowly becoming a professional fighter and warrior, they aren't blooded yet but they're making damn good progress. Pratchi is a damn good teacher and helping Keras grow as a fighter a lot and he's helping with the technical style that works for Keras. Also they're pretty good at using techniques while fighting and part of that is healing themselves while fighting which is a useful ability.
The same vote where we voted to make advancement resources to send back home to our friends had another option of 'get Really into refining and learn all kinds of cooler and rarer refining recipes, to use' which is what I mean by taking some more selfish options.
As is Keras is good at refining and making their own resources provided by the Luxe clan better and thus is still benefitting, but we didn't take the explicit option that was 'learn to make secret elixirs to get further'.
Nor did we take any of the options that were 'earn even more resources for yourself by working for the rich' though those aren't options I'd have voted for either.
The quest is interesting as the selfish options are explicitly weighed against the selfless ones. Helping Gardenia got us nothing except a promise for help later, which is a promise we didn't use at the first chance. It was weighed up against options like 'go explicitly improve your striker technique with Damir'.
But if we take too many selfless ones we are risking falling behind.
Edit: And, since we are on the topic, I'm not sure what we even got from helping Mireya. We got pulled into a power play and didn't receive an explicit on screen call out of how we were to be rewarded, nor was there a vote to what reward we wanted, nor did the Underlady seem even particularly softer with us in the recent events.
Keras has been very selfless and generous and it's a notable part of their character but they're also greedy enough to get their money's worth.
While having the refining speciality of advancement resources would be neat but I prefer the speciality in esoteric stuff even if we haven't really seen a lot of it yet because esoteric stuff seems neat.
I agree that Kears isn't really getting as much out of the Luxe as they should for their services. The Luxe are a useful patron but it's ultimately a business relationship that will always favor them at least until Keras grows to Underlord and by then they'll have served their purpose. The main benefits of the Luxe is to get Keras resources, general education, training from Pratchi and political protection.
Well, we have used healing mid combat against Gardenia, specifically against her poison.
For the Mireya situation, the idea was to keep positive relations with our patrons. That's the reason that we didn't expected something more since, as the Lady Of The Night Sky says, she is cashing out on her family being our patron instead of wasting more money with someone more established. (I guess she was also expecting or hoping for Keras to actually find a way to fix the problem since Keras has had a fine track record of doing somewhat impressive stuff, because of Venkata. And I would guess other things haven't worked.)
Keras using healing mid combat is always shown to be very impressive and scary in a fight.
Keeping a good relationship with the Luxe is a good idea, they're not being fair or equal with Keras's services but that's because they're stronger and can do what they want. Keeping the Luxe happy with investing into Keras is a good idea and it's ultimately a temporary thing because Keras is never going to accept being a minion of Vekenta long term, being connected to the Luxe is a long term option though.
I don't think is as devastating as you are making it seem to be. It just a build up of things we had at the time that ended up accumulating into what we have today.
Keras began as a orchand tender so he wasn't a warrior (not like their other two friends, we do see this in the beginning since we choose the support character) and learned the Ruler technique due to the chance to gain healing powers. That lead to using the Iron Body we choose since it would upgrade our power with our healing and it will be continuously useful. We were also focused on a Coordination build. The result of these choices was shown in the second duel against Olerac were Keras spamed their Forger move many times thanks to the adquired bonuses.
The training is an attempt to make up for not having many offensive moves. And Keras has been growing into it very nicely.
Keras is a they not a he, it's oaky I've made that mistake to.
Keras is doing really well for themselves as a fighter given how it's a only a part of their build rather then the full focus, Keras is a healer, refiner and technical fighter and those all feed into each other.
Well, keep in mind that in story we literally just finished healing the LotNS and she's still in crisis mode. I wouldn't be surprised if we get some kind of boon down the line.
Given her comments about Keras learning ocular methods I'm pretty sure she's going to make sure Keras gets training in that but on the downside that'll likely be mandatory and not optional which will mess with Keras's freedom a bit.
Yeah I think the benefit here was subtle positioning. We improved our relationship with LotNS since now we're generating some return on investment. We got some rep as someone who can help with advancement bottlenecks (admittedly only at Lowgold so far). We massively improved relations with Mireya, since we fixed her cycling.
It's hard to know for sure, since Plot happened, but I suspect showing off at the Luxe banquet will lead to more commissions down the line since we've proven ourself as a retainer. Which gives us money.
Keras was meant to be a long term investment but the Luxe are lucking out in benefiting from them right now. Keras is also notably now actually friends with Mireya which matters. I can see the Luxe becoming on of Keras's bigger customers for refining and healing, Keras isn't the best but they'll be the best they can get access to without lots of money or politcs.
As for our Path...yeah, we're kind of all over the place. Prachi definitely helped us a lot with tactics/experience, but our Ruler/Forger techniques are lagging, which is a shame because we're actually really well specced for those.
I feel like investing into Desiccated Valley and making a Forger technique that interacts with Keras's fighting style is a good idea. Keras as a healer and refiner is doing really well but they could use some work on their fighting but that's understandable since they're a professional refiner and are only just becoming a professional fighter.
