Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Personally I think what's most important to improve are ZG's heals and his ranged attacks. We may not be able to do both in this turn but we can get one of them. The heals are incredibly useful and he's our only healer. And since our range of movement is limited at times now, he should up the range and damage of his attacks
Yes, both are useful. But currently not having good ranged attacks - specifically anti-air - seriously hinders his ability to contribute against cloud nomads. In contrast, the healing would be a nice upgrade, but not having doesn't really cause problems.
 
Yes, both are useful. But currently, not having good ranged attacks - specifically anti-air - seriously hinders his ability to contribute against cloud nomads. In contrast, the healing would be a nice upgrade, but not having doesn't really cause problems.
On the other hand, this war is very much not all cloud nomads. The screaming hordes of underground aberrations seem to be as much, if not more, of a threat.

His AoE heal and armor buff means he can anchor entire formations of soldiers which are specced for ranged combat, on top of making Zhengui all around better.

Imagine a Rebirth Inferno that doesn't leave him unconscious. Or Minds Apart with a long duration and cheaper cost. Or even better healing and armor buff. Or even better counter-attacking game.
 
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On the other hand, this war is very much not all cloud nomads. His AoE heal and armor buff means he can anchor entire formations of soldiers which are specced for ranged combat, on top of making Zhengui all around better.

Imagine a Rebirth Inferno that doesn't leave him unconscious. Or Minds Apart with a long duration and cheaper cost. Or even better healing and armor buff. Or even better counter-attacking game.
His armour buff are only Ling Qi/Hanyi, so he doesn't actually help soldiers there, but that's not relevant anyway, because we want to take Zhengui with us when fighting, not just leave him with Soldiers while we fly to kill barbarians.

This does mean he needs to be able to have anti-air.
 
His armour buff are only Ling Qi/Hanyi, so he doesn't actually help soldiers there, but that's not relevant anyway, because we want to take Zhengui with us when fighting, not just leave him with Soldiers while we fly to kill barbarians.

This does mean he needs to be able to have anti-air.
Unless we somehow teach him how to fly, we'd "leave him with the soldiers" in either situation, as supporter or attacker, so your point is non-existent there.

Also:
Verdant Ash Duality said:
+5 on Hit and Penetration when techniques from Blazing Blood and Blooming from Ashes are used in the same turn.
User counts as two separate combatants for determining multiattacker bonuses

Means that he, as I said, also improves his Fire game by improving his Duality.

And where does it say "Ling Qi and Hanyi"?:
Verdant Ash Duality said:
Usable only while at least one instance of Ashfall is active, this technique consumes the ashfield to revitalize allies. On activation one instance of Ashfall is dispelled automatically, allied targets within the ashfall zone receive E rank health recovery and have their armor fortified.
 
Unless we somehow teach him how to fly, we'd "leave him with the soldiers" in either situation, as supporter or attacker, so your point is non-existent there.

Also:


Means that he, as I said, also improves his Fire game by improving his Duality.

And where does it say "Ling Qi and Hanyi"?:
No, we are not going to 'leave him with the soldiers'. We are now keeping him with us. The question is whether he can be of any use with us or not.

I thought you meant his armour buff, not his AoE heal:
+10 to Physical Armor of Ling Qi and Hanyi when in the same scene
 
No, we are not going to 'leave him with the soldiers'. We are now keeping him with us. The question is whether he can be of any use with us or not.
Given the larger threat so far is from the underground aberrations, Zhengui is plenty useful. Given Volcanic Shot is already long range, he is already useful even against Nomads.

Don't miss the forest for the trees. We are not here to fight alone, and we aren't here against a single type of enemy. What really made this war hurt wasn't just the barbarians, it's the barbarian-aberration aliance.

Blazing Blood makes him more useful at sniping flying targets, provided Volcanic Shot gets a decent upgrade, but Verdant Ash Duality makes him more useful at everything, inclusing sniping flying targets (if to a lesser degree), and significantly more powerful besides.
 
On the other hand, this war is very much not all cloud nomads. The screaming hordes of underground aberrations seem to be as much, if not more, of a threat.

His AoE heal and armor buff means he can anchor entire formations of soldiers which are specced for ranged combat, on top of making Zhengui all around better.

Imagine a Rebirth Inferno that doesn't leave him unconscious. Or Minds Apart with a long duration and cheaper cost. Or even better healing and armor buff. Or even better counter-attacking game.
Yes. And he's already good in that situation.

There is a major qualitative difference here between "a nice boost in a tactical area he's already good at" and "allowing him to actually be useful in another situation where we want to use him".

Like, right now, if we want to actually fight with Zhengui in any cloud nomad situation we basically can't move more than like 50m from him. That's just not that useful. Getting him decent flak or something would allow us to actually use him.
 
Poor Sixiang , I guess being friends with a Xianxia protagonist is the sort of thing that ages you quickly...

[X][Zhengui] Blazing Blood
[X][Hanyi] Lonely Winter Maiden
 
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Adhoc vote count started by naths on Dec 7, 2019 at 7:16 PM, finished with 148 posts and 21 votes.
 
[x][Zhengui] Blooming From Ash
[Zhengui] Blazing Blood
[Zhengui] Verdant Ash Duality

[Hanyi] Lonely Winter Maiden
[x][Hanyi] Frozen Peak Serenade
[Hanyi] Fleeting Spring's Chill


alright folks, here's why I chose this way.
We're becoming a fist, a band right? We don't need individual bonuses we want to solidify group power-plays and encourage individual growth on their own time.

Blooming From Ash is all of Zhengui's tank equipment, including his AoE armor bolster.

Frozen Peak Serenade is a beautiful AoE Pen debuff.

when we stack this with TRF, we should make wherever we have deployed *significantly* more tanky. FPS does damage, Blooming From Ash has damage techs, and of course, we have damage techs. Most importantly though, we can feel confident that *any* ally in that zone should be survivable. And that's our biggest fear right now.

I agree that Verdant Ash Duality is Zhengui's best domain. I would encourage him to explore it on his own terms.
I agree that Hanyi would be Much Safer if she maximized Fleeting Spring's Chill, but that's something she can train alongside a partner and we're trying to form the Fist of us.

Zhengui, despite his flexibility, will be our tank and defensive hardpoint. We will need his wood techs more right now, because he can help stack with TRF to make sure friends of the family/band are safe.

Hanyi, despite her crowd control and slippery nature, is going to be an accompanying singer. Hanyi will not be a Lonely Winter Maiden except when it suits her interests. Frozen Peak Serenade is an upgrade to an art we are incredibly good at, and helps Hanyi feel more useful as she deals with More Area Threats as opposed to a few here and there. Honestly, we will always be faster and stealthier than her. And I'd rather ride in a shadow so that we can react to Alpha-striking assassins. CC is cool but moot if we're faster. And we're about to get a *lot* of positional CC from UGM and BKD .

Hanyi is damage, Zhengui is tank, we're the CC and priority-target-suppression. Seems like a good band

now we just need our backup singer and keyboards to come back T^T poor sixy
 
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[X][Zhengui] Blazing Blood
[X][Hanyi] Lonely Winter Maiden

And so it begins. I don't regret choosing what we did, but I can only hope that family pushes through. We motivated our spirits to do better, so let's help pull them up. The role of teacher can be a lonely one, but it doesn't have to be.
 
In contrast, the healing would be a nice upgrade, but not having doesn't really cause problems.
This is only true if you depend on plot armor. If you assume that when things go badly, Yanmei/etc will always show up to save the day. Just last arc Zhengui's healing would've been incredibly relevant, had it been strong enough.

Like, right now, if we want to actually fight with Zhengui in any cloud nomad situation we basically can't move more than like 50m from him. That's just not that useful. Getting him decent flak or something would allow us to actually use him.
This is also BS.
Volcanic Shot: B

Damage: B(Direct Hit) D (Splash)

Gathering stone and soil in his stomch, Zhengui melts the energies into molten stone and glass before ejecting it as a missile as a distant foe. Zhengui cannot move while using this technique, but may target ay enemy at up to distant range. However for each increment further than close Hit is reduced by 10. Enemies within Near distance suffer from the splash version of the techniques damage.
The base range he has on this is 100m, extending to 400m at cost of accuracy. Zhengui already HAS the flak you're talking about. Would it get better? Sure. So would whatever else we picked.

You also can't say that his performance against flying enemies is the only thing that matters. Again, last arc that sure wasn't true. And the adventure we know we're going on in the near future is underground.

[X][Zhengui] Verdant Ash Duality
 
Blooming From Ash
Zhengui is not a Tank in the MMO sense since he can't force opponents to attack him.
As is he already has more than enough defense and the CC is sufficient.
I also don't see this developing in a way that would help against cloud nomads.

[X][Zhengui] Blazing Blood
More dps is always nice and this will give an immediate boost to combat, especially against the cloud nomads.

[][Zhengui] Verdant Ash Duality
The base technique is strong, and healing is nice but it's later techniques are mediocre.
And from the after math of our fights it does not seem like it can heal serious wounds, even with repeated uses.
I think this is a narrative constraint so that injuries can have meaning not just fine to go again 10 minutes later.
I'll change my vote to this if someone can give a good argument on how it can grow in a way that's helpful.

Lonely Winter Maiden
This disables and slowly kills a single weaker opponent. This would require a huge improvement to be useful.

[X][Hanyi] Frozen Peak Serenade
This is a good DPS skill and improving it will be useful.

[][Hanyi] Fleeting Spring's Chill
This is a good art, but we can carry Hanyi with us and she has not been in danger yet.

If we were not at war I would vote differently.
I see this as a immediate upgrade, not a major choice of way.
There will be more chances to train their techniques.
 
Mmm, really ofc what we want if Zhengui is to be able to accurately hit flying targets is for him to learn how to launch homing missiles.

Ling Qi does know how to do that with Falling Star Shot... would this provide her with what she might need to help him develop that? Is that something he'd be able to develop @yrsillar ? Or would it be too much finesse for him?

(also, I'll noted here that a ~10m splash is pretty Yellow, and not wildly useful unless one's targets are very tightly packed. We have a ~100m splash on HR, and look at how Lan-Lan burned away an entire front in that last arc. Fliers have even more space to play with. They're unlikely to be close enough together for a splash that small to do anything - especially if they're trying to deal with aoe like what we or Xiulan can throw out)

Edit: ooohh, just had another idea: Ashfall could potentially be much more useful if he could launch it into the air to interfere with cloud nomads... and that is actually in the theme of volcanoes and forest fires! It could also give him a way to support us at a distance...
 
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