Jensaarai
Sing Victory Everlasting
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Ah, okay, then I guess I'll vote for offensive this time. Change things up.
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.
- Location
- foraging for beans
I personally think the defensive strategy is the better one here. LQ only has one burst damage art, FSS. While JR is probably still a glass cannon, I doubt his defenses are so bad that a defensive specialist with only one burst art can take him down before he ramps up. And if we don't manage to take him down quickly enough, we know from the tournament last year that his domain weapon gives him at least a partial reset, and I'd bet that that effect has only gotten stronger since.
Going on the offensive feels like trying to play to his weaknesses, not to LQ's strengths. And at talent 7 and with the Sun Clan's backing, I don't think his weaknesses are that weak.
Going on the offensive feels like trying to play to his weaknesses, not to LQ's strengths. And at talent 7 and with the Sun Clan's backing, I don't think his weaknesses are that weak.
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[] Defensive strategy. With your spirits build up your advantage of vitality and defense until it is insurmountable.
Yea see if we had something planned specifically to take advantage of his assumptions earlier I'd go for a tricky counterexpectation play.
As it is, we'd just be playing silly buggers rock paper scissors against a man that is only throwing rock anyway.
Stick to specialty.
Yea see if we had something planned specifically to take advantage of his assumptions earlier I'd go for a tricky counterexpectation play.
As it is, we'd just be playing silly buggers rock paper scissors against a man that is only throwing rock anyway.
Stick to specialty.
- Location
- the internet
Amen to that. I think that whichever strategy we choose, it should be aimed at treating Ji Rong as an equal. I agree with you in that he's likely focused his build on being anti-stealth, possibly even anti-Ling Qi. We should go into expecting the that he would be ready for the arts LQ has that he knows about. Its our new and improved cards that I think will be the ace up our sleeve. Some may think that presuming him to have trained specifically to beat us would be a bit too arrogant but Ji Rong really reminds me of one of the competitive boys from school, prideful boy who for winning means everything. That bit he said just now about pride only reinforces my belief that our win really hurt his pride, that it really stuck with him.
Another important thing to remember is that last year, he underestimated us. He was so surprised when we tanked his hits. He clearly now respects us and won't underestimate us again.
An offensive plan would win if it actually put him on the defensive. The question is whether that would work or not.
Also did I mention how HYPED I AM??
PS. With Hanyi being gone this whole arc to train and focus on her music, I expected some upgrade in her build or arts to be present next time we saw her. Was I wrong?
Jensaarai
Sing Victory Everlasting
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Didn't Ji Rong switch out his domain weapon for some boost-over-time thing?
How does our Action Economy look like? Assuming he comes out of the gate with B+ damage, hitting us unerringly and dispelling our attempts at hindering him, how does our setting up for an attrition fight look like? How long do we need to endure before hitting our insurmountability.
Ji Rong's tactic in the tournament was to hit like lightning and take us out before we go-go. A fight to see who can punch the other out first is to his advantage since that's his thing. At the same time we showed him his weakness to control and attrition and he already claimed to have worked to fill that hole. Meaning that he's a rusher with staying power intent on beating us before we can ramp up.
Ji Rong's tactic in the tournament was to hit like lightning and take us out before we go-go. A fight to see who can punch the other out first is to his advantage since that's his thing. At the same time we showed him his weakness to control and attrition and he already claimed to have worked to fill that hole. Meaning that he's a rusher with staying power intent on beating us before we can ramp up.
Mother Nyx
Mother of Elpis
- Location
- The Kei Klub
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Please go offensive guys. We beat him last time going defensive and he's specced for that exact thing since then.
- Location
- US
I mean, of course it's personal on some level. I definitely think Ji Rong has matured a ton, but that doesn't mean he is some totally different person. As seen from the delve, he can still be surly, prideful and aggressive at times. So why wouldn't he want to beat the person he lost to last year? Especially since there was really two tournaments for all intents and purposes. The Ducal kids and everyone else. Ling Qi proved to be the best of everyone else at the expense of Ji Rong. That kind of defeat has to leave a mark. Plus, the fight highlighted a weakness in his cultivation that could be exploited by others. Addressing it with a countering art seems like good practice.
It's a mirror, just steal it, what can go wrong?
Offensively, LQ does not have enough to take him down. Defensively, we saw during the underground dwell that he got his own ramping up thing now. So like I said, LQ is going to lose this. The option is if we are indulging in LQ´s usual go at it alone stuff or working with her spirits.
Better to fight with our spirits her more so that we can get that out of this fight even when we lose it.
Better to fight with our spirits her more so that we can get that out of this fight even when we lose it.
Arkeus
Crazy cat guy
- Location
- France
Mmmh.
I think the fact that the offensive option doesn't actually talk about our spirits is the big warning flag, here. I don't exactly consider Offense or Defense as much Ling Qi's strong point as her teamwork. I guess by "defense" Yrs probably means using crowd control/debuff/buff to win the attrition game, while offense is in fact trying to put him down before he can put us down, hoping Ling Qi's full out attacks trumps his defense more than his trump our baseline defenses.
Considering our previous match and what he learned of us, It's very clear Ji Rong should have shored up his spiritual defence, his perception and his crowd combat abilities, so I don't really trust in a strategy that hopes to take advantage of a potential weakness in his art suite.
So yeah, the defensive option, which takes advantage of having a teamwork-leaning domain, PLR/SNR/LFTW being good for teamwork, and BKSD/UGM being good for juggling, seems like the best bet here.
If he wins it just means he is the better dueler, which is fine because Ling Qi isn't a dueling focused cultivator anyway. It's fairly likely that he will bypass our defence anyway though, considering what Xuan Shi thinks of him.
We kinda beat him last time because he had wide weakness in his defensive set up, not by going defensive as such.
- Location
- United States of America
Given his comment down in the Corrupted Caverns
I am not convinced by that line of reasoning.
Due to our field effects and focus on long games with our Qi regen and Qi drain, I think that a defensive fight favors us much more than a quick fight. Yes he has some new boosting art over time, but I don't think it will boost him enough over the duration of the fight to beat the multiple field effects and our battlefield control techs.
ji rong out flexing the strat of making the tactician fall over herself trying to figure out his moves.
Varder
Tired Cultist
- Location
- Hell
I guess you believe that theoretically having means to win a fight equals to winning it.
Winning this fight is actually fairly irrelevant in the long run compared to improving our abilities. We are fundamentally a defensive fighter, why shouldn't we practice that against a ramp/rushdown brawler and see how it works and if our current line up of arts has any weaknesses?
2 hours from update drop until you can vote.
Mother Nyx
Mother of Elpis
- Location
- The Kei Klub
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Look man, you can take that shit defeatism and toss it off the absolute tallest cliff.
I do not care what anyone says but having an unwinnable fight is the most disappointing, railroady, unsatisfying bullshit that a quest master can pull and this isn't that type of quest or quest master. Especially since you know, stats and dice matter besides just what arts a character has.
We can win this, it's just figuring out which is be best approach.
Which is offensive, by the way.
[] Defensive strategy. With your spirits build up your advantage of vitality and defense until it is insurmountable.
This plays to Ling Qi's strengths, and fulfills her promise to work together with her spirits. Besides honing her strengths through testing them against a peer in this duel, and future Sect related activities will make Ling Qi grow stronger.
This plays to Ling Qi's strengths, and fulfills her promise to work together with her spirits. Besides honing her strengths through testing them against a peer in this duel, and future Sect related activities will make Ling Qi grow stronger.
EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
I mostly wanna do the Defensive one because I want to see Laughing Flight of the Wind Thief utilized at its fullest
- Location
- The Space Between
I would prefer to go on the offensive, but Defensive is more comfortable. Getting 1 shot by reprisal would be embarrassing, yet I dont want to allow him to spool up. UGM and BKSD both have good displacement arts and we don't know how important nearness is to Relong and Ji Rong's synergies are.
I want to make sure that the displacement and time spent gives Zhengui time to set up terrain and start blastin. I want us to use UGM or BKSD to slam Ji Rong into the ground at some point for Zhengui's big ground-conditional Blast Attack. Hanyi should be very good at distracting and debuffing Relong. Her blasts aren't trivial either.
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Defensive posture here is kinda fun along the lines of Yin vs Yang too. It's not creative or flashy, but it will get the job done. It's SNR eating some sort of perfect of his. It's the beasts that will snap at him every time he throws a dispel.
I . . . honestly I kind of imagine Ji Rong and LQ duels to be very excellent Traditional Weilu Taoist events of the Scrappy Yang Imperial Celestial Dragon of Heavenly Lightning vs the Yin Traditional Majesty. The Dreams of Dark Woods, Ice, Song and Dance.
The allies of Sun and of Bai, but both of Emerald Seas.
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Defensive is the more comfortable posture, but aggressive is the less expected. I don't mind either tbh, and I'm not certain if it will effect the outcome of the match. This is 4 greens versus 2 greens, and unless Ji Rong got a significant third spirit in the interim I expect us to win just like I'd expect Wang to win (except closer, because we aren't super ahead cultivation wise like Wang is lol).
I wonder if Ji Rong has tech against Multi-attacker penalties and bonuses-against-him. That'd be interesting
I want to make sure that the displacement and time spent gives Zhengui time to set up terrain and start blastin. I want us to use UGM or BKSD to slam Ji Rong into the ground at some point for Zhengui's big ground-conditional Blast Attack. Hanyi should be very good at distracting and debuffing Relong. Her blasts aren't trivial either.
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what's fun about Ji Rong is that he always aims at an insurmountable specific challenge and becomes stronger in the pursuit of that target. Be it killing a Red as a mortal, or being Strong Enough for Lilling to take him seriously (as an ally) or beating us. And in us, he has found his Rival. The one that you can clash with over and over again as a means to sharpen yourself and test your progress. The one that he is mad at but only because he's so mad at himself for the flaws that made him weaker than he should have been. Pride. Ignorance. Inflexibility. Yang is creative. He should not have entered our first duel without an interesting application of power against a worthy peer.
Defensive posture here is kinda fun along the lines of Yin vs Yang too. It's not creative or flashy, but it will get the job done. It's SNR eating some sort of perfect of his. It's the beasts that will snap at him every time he throws a dispel.
I . . . honestly I kind of imagine Ji Rong and LQ duels to be very excellent Traditional Weilu Taoist events of the Scrappy Yang Imperial Celestial Dragon of Heavenly Lightning vs the Yin Traditional Majesty. The Dreams of Dark Woods, Ice, Song and Dance.
The allies of Sun and of Bai, but both of Emerald Seas.
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Defensive is the more comfortable posture, but aggressive is the less expected. I don't mind either tbh, and I'm not certain if it will effect the outcome of the match. This is 4 greens versus 2 greens, and unless Ji Rong got a significant third spirit in the interim I expect us to win just like I'd expect Wang to win (except closer, because we aren't super ahead cultivation wise like Wang is lol).
I wonder if Ji Rong has tech against Multi-attacker penalties and bonuses-against-him. That'd be interesting
I think, based purely on the lights building up behind his back during fights, that he build up charges and then releases them in an overwhelming attack. We're probably out if we let him get to that point.
- Location
- Canada
While I agree with the sentiment that approaching this with the belief that we are destined to lose is unhelpful, I'm unconvinced that offense is the better of the two paths
Going on the offense to try to overwhelm Ji Rong might be unexpected sure, but that's of limited value when we aren't really geared to blitz him
Nor am I comfortable with the assumption that Ji Rong is particularly vulnerable to blitzing, he doesn't seem like all that much of a glass canon going by his performance against the Big Guy during our spelunking adventures, he was bloodied but otherwise unbowed and ready to continue fighting if not for his more fragile spirit beast, so he clearly has some ability to take his lumps and continue trucking
Honestly throwing our established plan of action out the window to pull the unexpected seems like it'd be shortsighted, it'd be a different story if we had specifically built ourselves around such an action perhaps, but as it stands what advantage the unexpected gives us seems insufficient
Trusting what our build was meant to do against his seems like the better play here
I highly doubt he can dispel our own defensive ramp, especially with our wrist jewelry, and he's welcome to try because that's a fight he'll lose
If it comes down to him ramping up to overwhelm us and us ramping up to withstand his assault before seizing control of the fight, well that seems like the better bet to me
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fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
We dodge overwhelming attacks.
- Location
- Elsewhere
While I myself am inclined to the defensive strategy, I will note that the emphasis on FSS as our offensive burst art is misleading. We aren't going to rush him down with 2 actions - our "rushdown" is still maybe 5 turns long. FSS probably still does the most damage possible in two turns (C+B-A versus BKSD's 5C), but Refrain-CtE is not going to be enough for Ji Rong. Our "rushdown" is basically stacking DoTs for 3 or 4 turns, so that we start doing 5 C rank hits per turn.
Hoarfrost Refrain does C rank damage and inflicts the poison - which I'm still not sure whether inflicts damage as well as qi drain - and Call to Ending can follow that with a B-A rank hit if we land it. (S rank if we have setup time, but we're talking rushdown here.) Assuming the poison does C rank damage and he can't dispel it, that's C rank per round, potentially a second C rank per round if we just keep repeating it for the damage.
BKSD, meanwhile, does C rank AoE damage from the eagle cry, then C rank targeted damage from the eagle, then C (D without Dissonance) rank damage every round thereafter. Also, note that it does two rank C attacks whenever they try to dispel something. (Including FSS's poison, if applied.) Lastly, repeating Eagle each round is two C rank attacks for one action, which is twice as good as FSS.
UGM doesn't have the damage every round thereafter that the others do, but it has C rank damage that repeats 3 times, so it's another thing to stack. It also gets to deal an extra C rank damage each time if we crush him against something. I'm not sure whether it can stack or not - that is, whether casting it again the next round means it triggers twice on the round after.
Our Rushdown Routine should look something like this: (Assuming Refrain inflicts a C rank DoT)
Of course, that assumes everything hits and we don't have to intersperse things like our perfect hit techs or a particularly important defense. On the other hand, it doesn't take our spirits, Domain Weapon (besides Dissonance), or Dispel punish into account either. Note that Zhengui can trigger a crush with an appropriate wall. There's also questions about things like whether it's worth it to activate Echoes for the Hit or Pen rank.
Hoarfrost Refrain does C rank damage and inflicts the poison - which I'm still not sure whether inflicts damage as well as qi drain - and Call to Ending can follow that with a B-A rank hit if we land it. (S rank if we have setup time, but we're talking rushdown here.) Assuming the poison does C rank damage and he can't dispel it, that's C rank per round, potentially a second C rank per round if we just keep repeating it for the damage.
Round 1 Damage: C
Round X Damage: C??? (+C if actively repeated)
Round N Damage: B-A
BKSD, meanwhile, does C rank AoE damage from the eagle cry, then C rank targeted damage from the eagle, then C (D without Dissonance) rank damage every round thereafter. Also, note that it does two rank C attacks whenever they try to dispel something. (Including FSS's poison, if applied.) Lastly, repeating Eagle each round is two C rank attacks for one action, which is twice as good as FSS.
Round 1 Damage: C+C
Round X Damage: C (+C+C if Eagle recast)
Dispel Punish Bonus: C+C
UGM doesn't have the damage every round thereafter that the others do, but it has C rank damage that repeats 3 times, so it's another thing to stack. It also gets to deal an extra C rank damage each time if we crush him against something. I'm not sure whether it can stack or not - that is, whether casting it again the next round means it triggers twice on the round after.
Round 1-4 Damage: C (+C rank with Crush)
Our Rushdown Routine should look something like this: (Assuming Refrain inflicts a C rank DoT)
Round 1: Eagle. C+C rank
Round 2: Hoarfrost Refrain. PWC activates with Dissonance in the bacckground. C+C rank.
Round 3: GGM. C+C+C rank damage, plus an extra C rank if we can crush him against something.
Round X: If GGM stacks, repeat it. I'm assuming not, so Eagle again. 5C rank damage, plus an extra C if we can crush him against something. If GGM stacks:
Round 4: 4C, plus 2C crush.
Round 5: 5C, plus 3C crush.
Round 6+: 6C, plus 4C crush.
Round N: Finish with CtE. C+C+B-A rank. (Plus crush C.) (Or B-A+4C, plus 3C crush if GGM stacks.)
Of course, that assumes everything hits and we don't have to intersperse things like our perfect hit techs or a particularly important defense. On the other hand, it doesn't take our spirits, Domain Weapon (besides Dissonance), or Dispel punish into account either. Note that Zhengui can trigger a crush with an appropriate wall. There's also questions about things like whether it's worth it to activate Echoes for the Hit or Pen rank.