- Location
- Florida
Slap an engine on Zhengui and we get ourselves motor turtle
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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
@yrsillar what bonus did this insight give us?
- Location
- Germany
[X] You have been trying to improve your social game. Keep pushing it. See if you can arrange something with not only Wang Chao, but also Alingge, Liang He and possibly others. (Social Benefits. Less focused training. Lower but wider skill bonuses. Zhengui gets more experience with other cultivators.)
EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
Inserted tally
I'd probably say this needs a little bit of a qualified statement, she's not particularly skilled at dueling so much that her general stacking survival kit lets her bap targets until they wear out. A Count Scion of similar cultivation, or a full fledged Baron in a duel would not be a very favorable match, though its by no means one-sided.
I suspect Wang Chao would beat us pretty decisively 1v1 by breaking all our shit as we try to set it up. He is, after all, a master of momentum. Not just his, but his opponent's as well.
I suspect we'll get it either at the end of the turn, or after we kill our heart demon. Plausibly after doing something like hang with Meizhen which is coming up, though.
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
Sure she lacks experience in terms of variety of opponents, but she spars regularly against the best and has enough stacked defenses to be adaptable in a fight. But no, 1v1 against a Count scion by ~next turn build-wise LQ will have an advantage against most simply because unlike ducals they couldn't straight up break her build paradigm, and once that's in play there's a long list of minimum thresholds one needs to meet in order to not instantly lose.
Take Wang Chao, could he contest our field effects? Plausibly (while he has stages on us at least), though likely not to the extent CRX can (and even she has to work for it). I doubt he has a good answer to our stealth and keep-away game, and in straight combat he'll have as much trouble as any melee build has with a mid-range you can't reliably control. His high defense that would normally let him get away with it won't be as useful when we deal primarily with spiritual damage and win either with an armor-ignoring finisher or by out-sustaining.
Like I'm not saying it'll be 1-sided in our favor, but at equal cultivation unless your cheating game is Ducal-level top-tier most builds are gonna have a bad time. Especially once our spirits get into a better fighting shape in capability and teamwork, which by the tournament they should.
i think this is a bit too optimistic in general.
Like, our dispel stat is abysmal, so we likely lose to any build that requires us to use those. (the sentiment that 'sixiang is good enough for that' is kind of screwing us over there, because it means that any attempt to give LQ at least *some* ability in that area gets shut down with the 'but sixiang' argument.)
Also, our combat perception isnt really good enough if we ever want to go into stealth vs stealth battles. (it isnt bad per se, but we really should buy a combat perception/anti-stealth talisman to boost our ability for a stealth mirror match)
and while Poise is currently just a social stat, i could imagine that arts exist that target it as the defensive stat in combat and if such 'social combat arts' are actually a thing then we still have a weak armor stat there.
a solid archery build should be able to outrange us, have perception than can compete with our stealth and enough speed that they can keep away from us for the fight (unless they are stupid like BINO and try for close combat...as an archer...)
and finally, we havent seen what a good count scion can do in a fight at our level yet, so it is too early to dismiss them imo
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
My impression is very much that most of Qi's art suite seems to be of decent count quality, with +1/-1 variance depending on the arts... but the same apply to actual count scions, and unlike Qi they actually have a coherent style from the ground up, rather than a hodpodge of stuff they try to make work.
So I'd say a count scion of same cultivation level and same 'motivation level' (E.G, same rough skill levels, same amount of arts) would have the advantage even with same build type, and a stronger advantage in average because Qi's build isn't duel-specialised and those tend to be popular.
While Zhengui/Six/Hanyi are pretty good, they are also underlevel cultivation wise and they are recently aquired spirits, so a spirit like Heijin would tend to be much better. Qi does have three of them, though.
So I'd say a count scion of same cultivation level and same 'motivation level' (E.G, same rough skill levels, same amount of arts) would have the advantage even with same build type, and a stronger advantage in average because Qi's build isn't duel-specialised and those tend to be popular.
While Zhengui/Six/Hanyi are pretty good, they are also underlevel cultivation wise and they are recently aquired spirits, so a spirit like Heijin would tend to be much better. Qi does have three of them, though.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
I'm thinking that Ling Qi's build is just a pain in the ass to compete with, but someone who actually was specced for her gadfly spiritmaster build and on her same tier would shove her in the dumpster.
It's brittle and she doesn't really have any way of pivoting if her current routine isn't working.
It's brittle and she doesn't really have any way of pivoting if her current routine isn't working.
- Location
- Finland
But then any cultivator is weak to someone who is specifically specked to take them down.
You can built tall, or you can build wide, but it is rarely an option to do both (which is where ducals shine, with their resources).
There are weaknesses to shore up yes, but i don't think the build is flawed or brittle.
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
I'm not saying LQ doesn't have counters, and in fact I'd put spiritualists/illusionists as more likely to get a "fair" match against LQ, but a lot of "conventional" builds (physical melee/mid-range weapon users primarily) will have problems getting through stealth and PLR+wind thief dodge &mobility and armor.
Sixiang isn't a perfect solution for personal dispels, but they do have dispels as an early aspect of their Domain which will surely grow. Combined with our defense layers that should prevent us from getting hit often/at all, and I think we're in reasonable shape here. Not our strongest point but not a major weakness and realistically it's as good as it gets barring some presence>dispel conversion, and even then we'd lack passives and don't get uncapped presence like Six likely has.
Combat perception is an issue I'll agree with, a talisman that serves well in a 1v1 against an assassin-type will do a lot to complement our more area awareness-focused perception atm.
Poise-as-armor seems like fear mongering at this stage, that's what spiritual defenses are for. At worst I can see debuffs/fear effects that target Composure for attribute tests. It's an attribute we'll have to work on for sure, but we do get +1 rank there as a paired domain effect already, and most spirit effects still need to actually hit you to take effect, which is why we took ENM and what SNR will help with.
Archers are less and less of an issue as we continue to advance, but already we have:
• Gap-closing-wise: A40 speed, flight, techs from SCS, PLR, ENM, stealth for harder targeting. That's with our athletics skill still at C and Dex far from its uncapped potential.
• Defensively: -1 rank hit (Domain), +0.5 rank Avoid (PLR), -1 rank hit (Echoes), SCS's base tech and perfects when necessary, PLR's EDD.
Even if currently we have problems catching up to archers if they're running away at full speed, they'd need hit stats in the high SS/low SSS range to start hitting us. I think we're fine.
But overall yeah, we don't have a ton of info on combat at the Count range and how it stacks up to Ducal talents. Good thing we're setting up a new sparring group right?
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Should we be concerned about our comparable weakness when it comes to offensively dispelling our opponent? Six is quite strong against a group of weaker opponents trying that but their ability to dispel buffs is half as strong as their ability to dispel debuffs, with their Dispel only being B-rank to being with.
I could see ourselves having a lot of problems with someone who just keeps applying buffs to themselves until we get overwhelmed. Our main solution to that is spamming Call to Ending but we have a little harder of a time hitting with it.
Admittedly our already high Resist means we might just want to pick up some of those stacking effects ourselves.
regarding the poise as armor thing specifically. i know we just talked about it, but i like the idea enough that i want to pitch it here too.
we have seen with xiulans mom for example that social builds are a thing. and we have social attack and defense stats that are normally used for out-of-combat only.
However, what if a social build could turn their attack techs into social attacks? they would still deal damage and stuff, but instead of against spirit defense or physical defense, the attacks would attack the social defense. Social defense arts could be used to defend against such attacks of course.
I think such effects would be cool to have in principle and would really fit well to social builds.
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
On this topic, I'd like to point out that in the Serpent's Den Sidestory, Bai Suizhen's words can literally cut people. That might just be a prism cultivator being so overwhelmingly powerful their words can cut people, but it could also indicate social arts that have damaging effects.
Also I'm in love with the idea of a fire social cultivator that literally burns people by insulting them, so I'm going to say that is definitely a thing.
Also I'm in love with the idea of a fire social cultivator that literally burns people by insulting them, so I'm going to say that is definitely a thing.
- Location
- Greece
By that logic, everyone's build is brittle. Including the ducals, if by "tier" you mean "art level, foundation and cultivation level" rather than "only cultivation level", as it is not that they are rounded as much as it is that they have the resources to make their weak point(s) stronger than their opponent's strong point(s)
- Location
- The Space Between
The Spirit Social is super interesting because I can imagine it's typically somewhat neglected by average Court Intrigue types. Probably have a dedicated Spirit Ambassador for that shtuff and specialize your intrigue tools to be intrigue tools.
The scout/recon build aspects are fine until our spirits are deployed. At that point yeah it's hard, but we can work on covert deployment of Zhengui into Giant False Hill Boy I bet. Once we're deployed, yes it takes a bit longer than the Vil Fight to pack up and redeploy but that just means we're even stronger when we *do* redeploy and weaker at leaving assistance in place when we leave (although the new stationary qi-restore beacon might replace it somewhat). I imagine our Craft arts developed early in Cyan or late-late in Green will potentially help with this as well.
Dispels are very strong against buffing and debuffing builds but we attrition people to death on the Qi end. Qi isn't exactly health, and is likely a rarer form of support or build focus due to it not doing any action of it's own but it's arguably more integral to cultivator fights than the health of high level combatants. We see from Lilling (the primier Ducal grade skirmish/rush build) how "Aggravated Wounds" to counter healing are core even early on in Yellow for her but she didn't at that point have Qi-Regen disruption techniques and we were able to successfully short-circuit her Qi Recovery using FVM during our first big fight and it was key in preventing her win.
For Lilling, her strengths are Speed, Strength, Dispel, a Buff loop, a Qi loop, a Health loop, and many offensive techniques designed to counter tricky Bai or Jungle foes (perfect hit, perfect pen, aggravated damage). This was the ideal build to beat our tricky build with, but our investment in Breaking the Qi of enemies might actually end up being ideal against her attrition potential which forces the RushDown backup plan that she used against Meizhen. We of course lose to that Rush Down since she's Ducal, but I think we might have good odds against any Buff Circuit or drawn-out fighter just because our techniques are so odd compared to every other build we've seen. The closest builds I can think of are the Cold Dark Yuki Onna style builds (who the barbs have experience fighting but I'm not sure how many imperials do) and the Yin Fire Ash Walkers. They literally suck heat and qi out of their victims and I've been thinking more about how appropriate it'd be to have both Yin Ash and Yang Ash represented by ourselves and Zhengui respectively.
I think our build is very strong with the weakest archetype matchups being Alpha Strikers of both the Rush-down and Assassination variety as well as dedicated Debuff builds. Buff loop builds have a core weakness against Inevitable Qi Drain. They have a time limit and we don't, so they better get strong enough and accurate enough fast enough or they'll die far from home. Dedicated Debuff Builds have a weakness against us that they are generally going to be deployed early on in a combat whereas we'll be Reactive. By being forced to assert themselves first we get to Alpha Strike against them and we're pretty darn good at that. Rush-down is something that our entire build has been shoring up against ever since we knew about the rivalry against Ji Rong and Lilling. We're pretty excellent at stalling and absorbing the Rush long enough to wear them down. Assassination or Combat Stealth is a specific threat that we are fairly bad against, but our excellent rounded stats and AoE combat perception can help make sure they have to target us First or we'll notice the holes they're punching even if we can't see them directly And then with us getting attacked first we're a bit of a hassle to actually put down.
A "summoner" build against us has a problem of relying on their spirits to be better than Zhengui. Like. Before even having the other spirits and ourselves help, can they take on our best boy? I duno. Second Problem is that Hanyi and Zhengui are very high synergy with a Lure-Drain and Artillery and Hardpoint. Third problem is we're actually *not* a summoner build we're very self sufficient and so are our spirits. If we Elegy links out of the chain repeatedly they're going to have a bad time. Not to mention our alpha-striking is nasty. Not to mention our AoE is nasty. Not to mention our various debuffs and gate effects hit multiple targets. I think our build is practically perfect against this kind of build until you reach Barb Spirit-Beast-Bond levels and the Barbs are specifically tech'd against Yuki Onna types and we Still did a number on them during the Village fight.
Rush-Down, Assassin and Debuff are the spooky archetypes for us, as well as Any Social Build. Our Social is the true Achilles' heel of our current build but we're shoring that up rapidly as well. Actually I wonder if some Commander archetypes are Perception Debuff Buff builds that Aim, Debuff, and Increase Power on target. That'd be a somewhat dangerous build for us if we weren't getting initiative and first strike (which we should have against those usually as a Reactive force. Actually, that's very Yin of us isn't it. 10/10 ludonarrative synch. Plays just like it reads)
The scout/recon build aspects are fine until our spirits are deployed. At that point yeah it's hard, but we can work on covert deployment of Zhengui into Giant False Hill Boy I bet. Once we're deployed, yes it takes a bit longer than the Vil Fight to pack up and redeploy but that just means we're even stronger when we *do* redeploy and weaker at leaving assistance in place when we leave (although the new stationary qi-restore beacon might replace it somewhat). I imagine our Craft arts developed early in Cyan or late-late in Green will potentially help with this as well.
Dispels are very strong against buffing and debuffing builds but we attrition people to death on the Qi end. Qi isn't exactly health, and is likely a rarer form of support or build focus due to it not doing any action of it's own but it's arguably more integral to cultivator fights than the health of high level combatants. We see from Lilling (the primier Ducal grade skirmish/rush build) how "Aggravated Wounds" to counter healing are core even early on in Yellow for her but she didn't at that point have Qi-Regen disruption techniques and we were able to successfully short-circuit her Qi Recovery using FVM during our first big fight and it was key in preventing her win.
For Lilling, her strengths are Speed, Strength, Dispel, a Buff loop, a Qi loop, a Health loop, and many offensive techniques designed to counter tricky Bai or Jungle foes (perfect hit, perfect pen, aggravated damage). This was the ideal build to beat our tricky build with, but our investment in Breaking the Qi of enemies might actually end up being ideal against her attrition potential which forces the RushDown backup plan that she used against Meizhen. We of course lose to that Rush Down since she's Ducal, but I think we might have good odds against any Buff Circuit or drawn-out fighter just because our techniques are so odd compared to every other build we've seen. The closest builds I can think of are the Cold Dark Yuki Onna style builds (who the barbs have experience fighting but I'm not sure how many imperials do) and the Yin Fire Ash Walkers. They literally suck heat and qi out of their victims and I've been thinking more about how appropriate it'd be to have both Yin Ash and Yang Ash represented by ourselves and Zhengui respectively.
I think our build is very strong with the weakest archetype matchups being Alpha Strikers of both the Rush-down and Assassination variety as well as dedicated Debuff builds. Buff loop builds have a core weakness against Inevitable Qi Drain. They have a time limit and we don't, so they better get strong enough and accurate enough fast enough or they'll die far from home. Dedicated Debuff Builds have a weakness against us that they are generally going to be deployed early on in a combat whereas we'll be Reactive. By being forced to assert themselves first we get to Alpha Strike against them and we're pretty darn good at that. Rush-down is something that our entire build has been shoring up against ever since we knew about the rivalry against Ji Rong and Lilling. We're pretty excellent at stalling and absorbing the Rush long enough to wear them down. Assassination or Combat Stealth is a specific threat that we are fairly bad against, but our excellent rounded stats and AoE combat perception can help make sure they have to target us First or we'll notice the holes they're punching even if we can't see them directly And then with us getting attacked first we're a bit of a hassle to actually put down.
A "summoner" build against us has a problem of relying on their spirits to be better than Zhengui. Like. Before even having the other spirits and ourselves help, can they take on our best boy? I duno. Second Problem is that Hanyi and Zhengui are very high synergy with a Lure-Drain and Artillery and Hardpoint. Third problem is we're actually *not* a summoner build we're very self sufficient and so are our spirits. If we Elegy links out of the chain repeatedly they're going to have a bad time. Not to mention our alpha-striking is nasty. Not to mention our AoE is nasty. Not to mention our various debuffs and gate effects hit multiple targets. I think our build is practically perfect against this kind of build until you reach Barb Spirit-Beast-Bond levels and the Barbs are specifically tech'd against Yuki Onna types and we Still did a number on them during the Village fight.
Rush-Down, Assassin and Debuff are the spooky archetypes for us, as well as Any Social Build. Our Social is the true Achilles' heel of our current build but we're shoring that up rapidly as well. Actually I wonder if some Commander archetypes are Perception Debuff Buff builds that Aim, Debuff, and Increase Power on target. That'd be a somewhat dangerous build for us if we weren't getting initiative and first strike (which we should have against those usually as a Reactive force. Actually, that's very Yin of us isn't it. 10/10 ludonarrative synch. Plays just like it reads)
Black Noise
Curious
- Location
- About 1AU from Sol
Rushdown suffers from having to go through some serious perfect defenses. It was an issue at the time we fought Ji Rong but by now it's becoming less and less of a problem, and will be basically solved by Wind Thief's SCS tech variant. It's not just LQ that's enjoying this, fights as we go higher in Green are supposed to last longer because with active Domains in play it gets that much harder to just power through someone's defenses to end a fight early.
Mind, good rushdown builds would still pair with some advantage they can deliver in that initial burst (poison, cursed blood etc), but letting an assassin successfully get their first hit off on you is bad for anyone and is hard to prep against specifically more than we're already planning to. As for straight fighter rushdown builds, that just becomes a hit vs dodge & block contest we're about as well-set to win as anyone can.
Debuffs imo aren't a major issue since the nastier ones have to actually hit. Though I have noted spiritualists as more likely to get a fair fight against LQ since our more bullshit arts are less likely to let us just dunk on that type of offense (that would be Meizhen).
As for social, the out-of-combat aspect sure, LQ isn't a noble and is learning (stretching boundaries this vote even) but we're invested in getting better. At the spirit side at least we should be hard to upstage. In-combat I think it's less that there's gonna be a "social-type" damage, and more that we'll get people who can leverage their social stats for not just primarily spiritual effects (as LQ does with music) but for physical effects as well. The categories for cultivation are Physical and Spiritual though, not those and Social, so outside imposed attribute tests I think the concerns are unfounded.
EDIT: actual problem builds for us:
• Ones that counter our build's assumptions (Meizhen attacks us through our fields, CRX is strong enough to power through and we lose the dps match, sufficiently good stealth-types might be able to hide from our fields and attempt to hit us with burst damage).
• Conventional builds that can out-scale us. Though those need to be tanky enough to survive us and good enough at perception/hit to find and hit us after scaling. Xuan Shi might be in this category, as might Wang Chao (we'd need to fight to test). Liling is probably still here, hard to imagine a ducal skirmisher with bad scaling.
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- Location
- The Space Between
Hmm. That's true about the shift into longer fights . . but I question the assumption that any build can simply outscale us. The way we scale in any given fight is "We Have More Friends Than You". We have an AoE Qi Drain with very high Hit and Pen if those are the relevant stats to affecting our opponents with it. What we do is, as a whole band, single out and break the links of the chain one by one. Elegy out, Hanyi Snare out, Six Banish out. We make sure that it's a series of 1v1's or 1v3's and LQ's techs hit everyone's individual fight's anyway lol. The links in isolation will shatter much more easily and their Lonely Deaths are made all the worse knowing that the strongest one, usually the cultivator, will be the last to succumb.
We already know that numbers typically decide the outcome of high level cultivator battles, and the best two ways to secure that advantage are Social Maneuvering and Target Prioritization mixed with Blanket Field Oppression. It's possible to all in heal/protect one target, it's possible to shrug the worst of area-dampeners off. It's much more difficult to do both, especially if the Target Prioritization of the enemies is flexible and accurate due to High Area Combat Perception.
Depends a lot, I think a Count/Viscount Scion range with par cultivation(which we hadn't seen since Han Jian was slacking and Xiulan was stuck on philosophy for a while) could probably engage Ling Qi on equal terms based on art quality, keeping in mind that Count is the range most of our core arts are puttering around in, and that they'd have higher native synergy.
Look at our arts in detail(archive arts are flagged as not being unusual for our Sect status of course, though specifics may vary):
-Sable Crescent Step - Based on Meizhen's feedback, probably upper Count or low Ducal range. Laughing Flight of the Wind Thief builds on that.
-Forgotten Vale Melody - Based on Meizhen's feedback, probably upper Count or low Ducal range.
-Phantasmagorial of Lunar Revelry - No comparative detail yet.
-Thousand Ring Fortress - Explicitly an art from a fallen Count clan.
-Frozen Soul Serenade - Personal core art of a high Cyan spirit, which maps to High Baron/Low Viscount
-Harmony of the Dancing Wind - Archive art
-Storm Enduring Seedling - Archive art
-Roaming Moon's Eye - Archive art
-Ephemeral Nights Memory - Archive art
-Playful Muse's Rapport - Archive art
-Melodies of the Spirit Seekers - Archive Art
I think we're underestimating Counts in the discussion here. They're pretty badass. 3 or so arts of TRF quality should be a hard fight
Look at our arts in detail(archive arts are flagged as not being unusual for our Sect status of course, though specifics may vary):
-Sable Crescent Step - Based on Meizhen's feedback, probably upper Count or low Ducal range. Laughing Flight of the Wind Thief builds on that.
-Forgotten Vale Melody - Based on Meizhen's feedback, probably upper Count or low Ducal range.
-Phantasmagorial of Lunar Revelry - No comparative detail yet.
-Thousand Ring Fortress - Explicitly an art from a fallen Count clan.
-Frozen Soul Serenade - Personal core art of a high Cyan spirit, which maps to High Baron/Low Viscount
-Harmony of the Dancing Wind - Archive art
-Storm Enduring Seedling - Archive art
-Roaming Moon's Eye - Archive art
-Ephemeral Nights Memory - Archive art
-Playful Muse's Rapport - Archive art
-Melodies of the Spirit Seekers - Archive Art
I think we're underestimating Counts in the discussion here. They're pretty badass. 3 or so arts of TRF quality should be a hard fight
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I think spirit designed arts are higher quality than relative cultivation might suggest. They seem to have a smaller number of stronger arts.
Yeah, we have only seen FSS as an learnable example but pure spirit arts seems to be stronger then what would be expected of their source (like Zeqing). But this seems comes at a cost, that it influences the person that learns it more, , mind it might just be an aesthetic thing.
Which might make sense, considering that spirits are their Domain/Way from birth/creation rather then become it like humans do and a cultivator is effectively learning and maybe incorporating a piece of them. A few arts we seen talks more about copying what a spirit does which seems safer.
Which might make sense, considering that spirits are their Domain/Way from birth/creation rather then become it like humans do and a cultivator is effectively learning and maybe incorporating a piece of them. A few arts we seen talks more about copying what a spirit does which seems safer.
It probably doesn't help that Ling Qi doesn't actually have a spiritmaster build, as yet.
Turtle Tank Commander Biyu approves
Think its more primal than potent.
Like, what little we've seen suggests something like:
-Spirit arts are literally a bodily function for them. They do their One Thing ridiculously well. For Frozen Soul Serenade, its the concentrated power of cold of the spirit of a blizzard. It Brings An End.
-Human made arts tend to approach one or more of three roles:
--Express a philosophy or insight
--Describe a phenomenon or spirit
--Fulfill a tactical or strategic role
And what we've seen is that at lower quality, a human art usually does one of the three, but at higher quality, it can perform all three to a high extent, as epitomized by the Ducals. We've also seen that they can fit into other techniques like puzzle pieces for a squad or army level technique, though Ling Qi has never had to do that before.
While at the same time Spirit given arts can be awkward to use with other arts, because they're structured around assuming you have other features of the spirit.
Take Zeqing as our best example:
-Frozen Soul Serenade sets up a small zone of cold, then requires you to get in close after priming the pump to annihilate their defenses in a single catastrophic blow. It doesn't however, help you get in close or land that melee hit needed to maximize effectiveness, nor does it have any built in strategy for finding a way to prime for the Call To Ending while not getting splattered.
-Lonely Winter Maiden incapacitates the target and lures them to the Yukionna, but it doesn't actually have a finishing plan on its own, they're debuffed and obssessed with you, but using it alone to drain a peer or higher opponent just means you've lured a foe into melee without defenses or any strong melee attacks.
-We hadn't seen the original version but we know theres a Spine/Leg art for them, and Hanyi's version is Fleeting Spring's Chill. It gives dodge, the speed to taunt a fast opponent without them closing faster than you'd like, and it gives perfect defenses for melee use. Based on how Hanyi used it back in Yellow we can also surmise that it lets you run on vertical surfaces and possibly dance on falling snowflakes.
-And we hadn't seen any mechanics for it, but its likely they have an AoE zoning blizzard summoning effect that applies whiteout conditions, allowing the two offensive arts with their single target preference to pick one target and isolate them to focus down.
Put all four together and you have a potent art suite, but they don't play nice without some kind of similar strategy in your build. A spirit art may instead give you jaws the power of a crocodile, but not the natural armor or disguise to effectively apply a bite force capable of shattering anything it can get between its teeth.
The big challenge of high nobility seems to be that they have an art suite like a complete complementary weapons system that supports a strategy coherently. Their arts are more like having a suit of armor, a lance for charges, a mace for armor, and a sword to cover the things that don't fit the rest. You could swap out one piece for another depending on your foe, rather than build around a specific core conceit. You could lose a piece entirely and still function, suboptimally but you can fight.