Fuck it, treason it is then. I'm betraying the cause.
[X] The warm western wind, herald of spring (enhances Avoid effects of art)
Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
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Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
[X] The warm western wind, herald of spring (enhances Avoid effects of art)
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
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We have the spare AP at the sacrifice of something else, however. Like, the argument is the same for anything, the question isn't "do we have the AP" it's simply "Do I want LFTW to be merely excellent at dodge/stealth or for it to be ridiculously incredible at it".
There is no question that LFTW will be the single best art of Ling Qi in the tournament with the potential exception of the first successor art Ling Qi creates (if we use those spare AP for it, and even then I doubt it). So the question is simply what we want Ling Qi to be incredible at.
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Like, I do in fact agree with you that if what you prioritize above everything else is stealth, then yes, you should vote to boost stealth, that's just obvious. The specific argument I was responding to was "without this boost to stealth, we will be incompetent at stealth at the tournament because ENM will fall behind," and my point was that we have plenty of room in the schedule for an archive vote (which should be much more like the Social art vote than the Resist art vote for various reasons, and thus not nearly as stressful on everyone) and to get the first few techs out of it before the tournament. I'm certainly not saying "if you want to be as incredible as possible at stealth, don't vote for stealth," I'm saying "you don't have to worry that we won't be good at stealth if you vote for something else."
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Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
I mean, what's your standard for being good at stealth?
Because, thinking about it, the most likely CRX team for the tournament, assuming 5 people, is going to be CRX, Meizhen, Ling Qi, Gan Guangli, Bian Ya. It's possible Meizhen won't be allowed in the team, or that Xuan Shi will, but that's more or less what we can expect.
This more or less means that we'd have the ball of doom (Meizhen), the Commander/Artillery (CRX), the Bodyguard/Captain (GG) more or less there already when it comes to roles, but there wouldn't be a scout/shadow.
If our standard for 'good' is "Ling Qi has to be as good at Stealth as CRX is at Artillery or Meizhen as Ball of doom", then I don't think that can be achieved by picking a new stealth art just before the tournament.
There is also the question of how spare those spare AP actually are. If it means not getting FSS+ to the G5 softcap, that's also a big weakness (or if it means not doing a second successor if we somehow get close to that).
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[X] The warm western wind, herald of spring (enhances Avoid effects of art)
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I'd actually agree with you on that. I guess my view is just "I don't see Stealth as the primary thing LQ brings to that lineup"; it's definitely a thing she brings, but I think the major thing she'd bring is what we brought on the bandit intercept mission and barbarian defense: zone control and layered debuffs. Ling Qi is much better at directly controlling the space around her than we've seen any of those others do, and that's a really strong competency that's directly empowered by a bunch of our arts, as well as our domain itself and our spirit partners. I guess I see Stealth more like Renxiang's dispels; something we're very good at, and can compete in, but not the centerpiece of our build around which everything else is judged for how well it supports that. And I do, in fact, think that between LFWT, our existing bonuses, our stats, and a replacement art, we can be as good at Stealth as Renxiang is at dispelling.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
I think then that you shouldn't be saying that she is good at stealth, then.
Layered Debuff btw probably has Meizhen being better than Ling Qi, though Ling Qi would be the best at crowd control, especially if @yrsillar shows the result of the vote for IPF and not EDD when it came to PLR improvements.
I do think that in that lineup, the primary thing Ling Qi would bring is stealth, because while crowd control is really excellent in combat, Gan Guangli should have some mediocre ones, and Xuan Shi some really good ones if he is in our group (likely better than Ling Qi).
Stealth, however, can be incredible if it's a bit more complicated than just a white room fight, and no one has any of it but Ling Qi.
The Warm West Wind barely wins.
If the only difference is the G3 ENM art and a newish, say lv 2-3, G5 potency art in regard to our stealth ability, then I would still argue that the new art is the better option.
Wavering Mind Strike is a perfectly fine tech at G3, but it is also affected a lot by potency, so at G5 it would only be able to compete vs D rank techs as a C rank tech. Given that we see a trend for arts to get their baseline techs to at least C, this makes the tech pretty unviable at G5.
Evening Breeze Flourish isnt bad, but its aplication is pretty similar to Watchful Moon Analysis, and i would rather use the G4 potency tech than the G3 potency tech. on the other hand, if we get that effect on G5 potency, then the new art would be preferable to use.
Fading Dream is a strictly worse Zephyr's Mocking Escape. To be fair, that tech is hilariously broken, but between that and with avoid winning this vote, i think the ENM tech that boosts spiritual avoid and speed isnt all that important to keep.
Passing Phantom's stat boosts are nice, but not really what we care about in the tech, right? We want the awareness reset. I hope that the new art we choose also has such an awareness reset and a G5 potency reset should be better than a G3 potency reset.
to be fair, it is probably true that a new art would probably have less passives at lv 2-3 than ENM at max level. but i think that the better techs can justify the trade-off
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The sustained buff is, actually, a large part of the value of the art - it's one of the holes in LFWT/SCS.
You are right, while speed and spiritual avoid are covered by LFWT, Stealth is not. I guess i was wrong about that part.
i think the general argument still stands though, especially if we can get similar long duration stealth buffs with the new stealth art
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Okay, now that starting this argument won't blow up the vote... My problem with stealth is this: how good do you think Ling Qi can be at it without relevant Domain effects and insights, and what Stealth insight can you imagine that's compatible with her Way and her wishes?
My concern isn't that Ling Qi can't find some way to work it in, so much as that every related Insight I can imagine involves her drawing back. She becomes more of a protector in the shadows to her family (found family included, natch), and that necessarily means becoming less of a participant in it. Yes, multipresence exists--but any "protective shadow" Insight still requires that she take that distance and codify it into her very soul. Go far enough that Way and it's going to freeze that distance in place, because that's how Ways work. Do we want her out in the blizzard, or do we want her in the warm house? Because I'd much prefer the latter.
We're about at the point where, if Ling Qi is going to be happy, then her Way needs to start focusing on endgoals. She's not seeking to be a hungry Darkness wraith, always forward striving; to her, that's not her ideal, because we chose to have her reject it. Nonetheless, she hasn't finished any sort of coherent pivot away from a Way of constant forward motion, and we only have so much time to accomplish that before the failure to do so defines her forever.
Where, in that project, does adding Stealth effects to her Domain fit in? Does that contribute to the project of Ling Qi's happiness, or does it make it more difficult? That's what we should be asking ourselves. And so long as we can't reconcile these things, then Ling Qi's stealth is always going to have a hard upper bound.
My concern isn't that Ling Qi can't find some way to work it in, so much as that every related Insight I can imagine involves her drawing back. She becomes more of a protector in the shadows to her family (found family included, natch), and that necessarily means becoming less of a participant in it. Yes, multipresence exists--but any "protective shadow" Insight still requires that she take that distance and codify it into her very soul. Go far enough that Way and it's going to freeze that distance in place, because that's how Ways work. Do we want her out in the blizzard, or do we want her in the warm house? Because I'd much prefer the latter.
We're about at the point where, if Ling Qi is going to be happy, then her Way needs to start focusing on endgoals. She's not seeking to be a hungry Darkness wraith, always forward striving; to her, that's not her ideal, because we chose to have her reject it. Nonetheless, she hasn't finished any sort of coherent pivot away from a Way of constant forward motion, and we only have so much time to accomplish that before the failure to do so defines her forever.
Where, in that project, does adding Stealth effects to her Domain fit in? Does that contribute to the project of Ling Qi's happiness, or does it make it more difficult? That's what we should be asking ourselves. And so long as we can't reconcile these things, then Ling Qi's stealth is always going to have a hard upper bound.
... I think I can see a few ways for Qi to work in stealth without drawing back, but they're not pretty, either.
Footprints in the sand, or shadows playing on the wall, especially given ENM: Ling Qi's there, and participating, but the marks of her presence fade rapidly if she's not actively interacting with people.
Not a great path if you want your closer-to-mortal family to remember you exist when you're not right there and talking to them, but a WHR insight might let us apply effects discretely, so it only applies to people we're not bringing in.
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It's not particularly hard. Ling Qi is warm to her family and cold to her enemies. Extended that duality to perceiving her. Ling Qi is visible and enjoyable part of her families lives, but her enemies can not see or find her.
Ling Qi has a lot of duality themes going on in her domain. Personal growth vs Familial obligations, warm vs. cold, and, while not currently could easily slip in, seen by those close but invisible to those who've drawn her ire.
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That's a description of an Art, not an Insight. Even if you say "but Ling Qi can make her own Arts later," they need to build off something in her Domain. What building block will you make that out of, and what will its effects on Ling Qi be?
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Yeah... no. It was an insight description, not a description of an art. But, if you want to be incredibly specific and granular, here are some even more distilled insights that could be worked into the domain.
"Enemies shouldn't see you."
"Enemies don't deserve to see you."
"Family should see you, but Enemies shouldn't."
"Hidden amongst enemies, revealed amongst family."
Anything along those lines should work perfectly fine for the Domain that Ling Qi is building right now, which has, as mentioned before, quite a lot of duality baked into it already.
As for the effects on Ling Qi, that should be fairly obvious. Increase stealth against those she perceives as enemies. Opponents of hers might find her more difficult to find at social events, might miss her talking the next group over. Ling Qi might go out of her way to avoid being seen by enemies until the last moment, or, consciously/unconsciously, move in such a way as to break line of sight with enemies.
In contrast, she might be easier to find by family and close friends. They might have an intuitive knowledge of where she is when she is close enough.
As iterated above, this isn't difficult or complicated. This is simply an extension of her personality and duality that we have already seen observed.
It would enshrine her tendency to lose track of people she doesn't care about into her cultivation and probably draw upon the "Though the path may be cold and lonely" insight. The insight it gives would be something like "a single breeze passes unnoticed on its lonely path".
Said Art might be generally just as good as the more conventional ones you describe but fail against those she cares about. It might not even work at all in the presence of such people.
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And none of these rise up to the level of life philosophies, is the point I'm getting at. That's what Insights are.
Say that a person has been abused all their life, so their instinctive reaction is to hide from everything; it makes sense that they'd get an early Insight that lets them hide from everyone, and then a later Insight (or Advanced Insight) that amends that into "but these people are okay." That's a life philosophy: it's a reasoned response to what they've lived through. Now, how does Ling Qi get to what you're describing? Are we going to say that her instinctive reaction, at this point in her life, is that everyone she doesn't know is scary and she should hide from them? No, that's not what she's been doing. If anything, she's pretty damn proactive and direct when she can push past any traumas involved. Did she hide when Yan Renshu was a problem? No, she got Meizhen's help and kicked his teeth in. Stealth was used as a tactic and a weapon in pursuit of open aggression, she didn't hide. Or did she hide when her allegiances got her in trouble with the barbarian princess? No, she set her allegiances more firmly and then walked into the enemy's fortress. She didn't let them see her when she did it because that was a tactic and a weapon, not because that's her life philosophy.
(Heck, even the second one, "Enemies don't deserve to see you," is something she's been moving away from: she's working to be more genuine in social interactions. If they didn't "deserve" to see her, then she'd still be wearing the oversized Meizhen mask in social situations. That's because the life philosophy of genuineness has pushed her to discard the useful tactic of deception.)
Every Insight I can think of that leads to what you're describing is some variation on an instinctive defensive crouch, and slotting that into Ling Qi's Domain feels like character regression instead of progression. She's not a D&D character trying to pick her next level's Feat, she's a person picking a way of life. And I don't see how coherent additions to that result in Stealth bonuses.
"Enemies are not worth your time" would be the life philosophy. She doesn't dwell on her enmities, preferring to interact with her friends as shown by our choice to spend our time with friendly nobles instead of trying to win over our enemies. I don't necessarily think that this is a good idea but I do think its how it would work.
As it stands her stealth is primarily tactical, not strategic, and is based on her larger method of diffusing herself throughout the battlefield. This will never give true invisibility like the strategic stealth experts get because it isn't meant to. A cloud is obviously there but good luck punching or capturing it.
As it stands her stealth is primarily tactical, not strategic, and is based on her larger method of diffusing herself throughout the battlefield. This will never give true invisibility like the strategic stealth experts get because it isn't meant to. A cloud is obviously there but good luck punching or capturing it.
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This seems to be really hinging on the assumption that because Ling Qi uses stealth as a tactic and weapon it is not a life philosophy. Seems to be a poor hinge to rest the argument on. The question, then, becomes why does she use stealth as a tactic and a weapon. Why does she use stealth at all? Purely because she is good at it? No. If she didn't want to use stealth she has had plenty of opportunities to ditch it to the side and focus on other skills. So why didn't she? We'll get back to that in a bit.
There also seems to be a hinge on stealth vs. hiding. That a stealth insight would in turn be forced to be defensive which, is being claimed, to be a regression of character. But clearly stealth can be used offensively. A whole bunch of times it has been used offensively has been listed, so why the assumption that any stealth insight is going to be defensive when we've used it very offensively so far? It seems that there is a mold or expectation that stealth insights must be this type of insight, and that type of insight doesn't work with how Ling Qi's future domain is imagined. Seems limiting and self-constricting. But, if Life Philosophy is what is desired, let's see if we can't bring some to the table.
"An unaware opponent is at a disadvantage. Press at that moment to succeed."
"A seen gambit is a foiled gambit. Prepare your plots unseen to bring them to fruition."
"The unseen breeze is more dangerous than the revealed hammer, for it can be where the opponent is weakest."
Ling Qi has learned, through her life experiences, that an unaware opponent is much easier to destroy, dismantle, and disperse then an opponent that is aware she is coming and is, subsequently, prepared for her. She's learned this through Yan Renshu, the Fortress infiltration, the Weilu Tomb excursion, her work with Elder Jiao in training with him, the Outer Sect Tournament, the Barbarian Incursion, and, most recently, the infiltration of the Corpse Eating Demons. To claim, then, that the only stealth insights she would have available would be defensive ones while at the same time that it is Ling Qi's life experiences which control what insights are available seems to have a disconnect.
Hopefully, this helps demonstrates that there are plenty of stealth insights that can be used offensively. And, should a stealth insight be focused more on its offensive potential, then any conflict with Family would be null since Ling Qi isn't going to be going on the offense against her own family and friends.
This is an aspect I hope more people would care about.
I have always been fine with simply lurking, but I felt such a need to participate in this particular discussion that I finally created am account.
Don't get me wrong, we're all entitled to our opinions, but the result of the vote was honestly a great relief. The consequences I could otherwise picture for LQ were honestly depressing.
I do not think that a focus on stealth is necessarily to the detriment of a cultivator's personality/private life, but I think that we can all agree that the themes LQ in particular has associated with Stealth aren't the healthiest.
Now I suppose that one's opinion on this will be influenced by how they mentally approach this Quest. And though I obviously have my opinion, I don't want to imply that anyone else's is wrong.
... But we should probably ask ourselves, do we think of LQ as just a doll in the theater of the mind through which we live our fantasies? Or do we think of her as a young woman from a distant magical land we're trying to guide toward happiness through adventure?
I feel like answering that question would help make certain decisions a lot easier. Because some of the arguments I read seem to be from people who do not really mind creating a "mortal" with even worse issues than Zequing.
However, if the thread decides to go toward absolute efficiency then that could be fun too... with some more degrees of detachment from people like me in regards to the MC.
Sorry if I'm saying nonsense, I'm relatively new and it probably shows.