In this installment of the math nitpicking series... Passive bonuses!
(tldr for
@yrsillar: SCS avoid is lacking; PLR is even worse; new perception arts lack generalist passives; also look at the general complaints towards the end)
The new arts are pretty uniform when it comes to bonuses and they're all nicely comparable at Green 1, keep in mind they mostly have a few levels in Green 1 to buff their passives. Here's what we have:
- CWY (~25 total)
+10 Social Perception
+5 Combat Perception | Initiative | SP.Armor
- ENM (~35 total)
+10 Stealth
+5 Speed | P.Hit & SP.Hit | P.Avoid & SP.Avoid
- CDE (~15 unqualified + 10 qualified)
+10 Combat Perception
+5 SP.Avoid | Formations (qualified) | Academics (qualified)
- HDW (~25 total)
+10 Social Perception
+5 Combat Perception | SP.Hit | SP.Avoid
- AFL (~25 total)
+10 Speed
+5 Stealth | Initiative | grapple escape
Besides CDE which seems a bit underpowered by how qualified the bonuses are an ENM which is a bit overpowered (I'd be okay with it being spiritual-focused only), they're all a fairly uniform 25 total passive bonuses at Green 1. Mind that these aren't "Core Art"-sized like our main arts supposedly are.
Let's take a look at those note that they're all softcapped, and for sake of easy comparison I'll focus on our Green 1 arts (except SCS for which I'll be looking at SCS7 stats):
- AM (~44 unqualified + 10 qualified + strong generalist perception)
+10 SP.Avoid | Perception (vs illusions, qualified)
+5 Combat & Social Perception | Survival | Investigation | Empathy
+3 Composure | Resolve | Resist
(derived attribute+primary element+spirit bindings+overall Qi passive perception sight)
- TRF (14 unqualified + 10 qualified, all Close Range auras)
+10 P.Armor aura
+5 P.Armor aura vs poison/disease | Damage Reduction vs poison/disease
+2 aura Stamina | Resolve
- SCS (35 unqualified + 15-40 qualified we can count on + 20-40 qualified for first strike)
+ 15 Speed
+10 Initiative | +10 Stealth | P & SP Hit & Pen (qualified, first strike) | P & SP Hit (qualified, stealth only)
+5 Speed (qualified, lowlight+) | Stealth (qualified, dark env) | P & SP Avoid (qualified, stealth env)
big tracking penalties
- AE (15 mostly unqualified + Qi regen and a very unreliable Pen buff, probably SP.Pen only or should be)
+10 SP.Armor (why tho)
+5 Combat Perception (qualified, ground-based)
+2-16 Pen (super qualified; per damaged enemy, decays)
(Qi regen for enemies damaged in Close range)
- FSS (10 mostly unqualified (usable with all music at least) + 10 qualified to cold + 10 qualified against cold)
+10 Pen (qualified, cold only) | Damage Reduction (qualified, vs cold)
+5 Pen (Qualified, music only) | Intimidate
(base damage of weapons can be converted to cold)
- FVM (5 mostly unqualified + 10 qualified for FVM/FSS + 5 pretty useless qualified)
+10 Resist (qualified, dark/water techs)
+5 Expression (qualified, music) | P&SP Armor (qualified, vs sound/music)
can pay Qi to prevent melody interrupt
- PLR (17 unqualified, 7 qualified for grapples)
+5 Speed | P.Avoid | Dex (qualified for grapple escape)
+3 SP. Avoid
+2 Expression | Socialize | Grapple (qualified, it's grapple)
So. Lot of variance here, and weird things. Here are some thoughts in approximate art order:
- AM passives, while spread across a lot of topics and therefore weak at any one thing, are decently high.
- The reason AM is hard to replace is the generalist perception passive, none of the so-called perception arts have anything of the sort and it is only hope that it'll sort itself our with a few levels that's prevented more vigorous complaining so far.
- TRF is decidedly weak on passives. Very unimpressive for a Count-level art, even if the passives are auras.
- SCS has a lot of passives going for it, but the better part of it is locked up in qualified passives and there is one notable lack:
- We're at Avoid C6 atm because SCS6 gives us a qualified +5. This is the same scale as PLR and AS. Now techs might be disproportionately powerful here but it's not something we see the numbers of.
- AE is a bit underpowered but then all attack arts are. The SP.Armor still seems weird on it.
- FSS about 15 applicable to itself in combat, which is on the low end.
- FVM is even more pathetic than FSS, which is saying something.
- PLR is decidedly horrible for an art that's supposedly a step up from SCS, has 2 leg meridians, purports to let us "move with the grace of a trueborn maiden of moonlight" and has no movement techs.
Overall, with the exception of AM (though it's bonuses are
broad) and, at least when looking at totals, SCS, our supposedly superior generalist core arts look worse than the level 1 of brand new archive 1 arts that will take 250-360 xp to get to level 2-3 in Green 1.
More general complaints:
- If Presense is the stat responsible for SP.atk Pen for FSS, FVM and PLR, then it makes no sense that we started this year with Presence E. That's peak red level on the current scale and it's pathetic for someone that's a spiritual attack main.
- FVM techs seem to be missing parts like the free 5 allies to include or the weather immunity.
- Where are our darkness cultivation multipliers
.
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In other news:
- Masterpost or spreadsheet about skill/attribute xp may or may not be coming soon. Only the future can tell. (tl;dr for now: we can expect ~1.8k total we can invest in a
minimum of 10 things, which means any one thing gets ~180 xp at most. That's not enough for Dex SS for example, other insights are for spreadsheets)
- AP/XP totals math doesn't seem to be necessary at this stage and yrs has shown willingness to adjust values up and down to keep us on track so it's not too big a deal.
