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

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
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FSS = Frozen Soul Serenade
IPF = Illustrious Phantasmal Festival
JT = Joyous Toast
HR = Hoarfrost Refrain
CtE = Call to Ending

[] Offensive strategy. Focus on quickly ramping up the necessary arts to put your opponent down trusting in your baseline defenses to keep you in the fight.

So, the priority here is taking him down as quickly as possible. I guess that looks like throwing up Echoes from FSS and maybe IPF in prep for JT, then trying to tag Ji Rong with HR so she can hit him with a CtE for mad damage. That's not actually all that slow, but that's not the weakness of the strategy. HR is a C-rank technique that deals C-rank damage.

If Ji Rong has a C/B defensive perfect tech, and he should, then he can stop the vital setup for Ling Qi's finisher. Ling Qi has options for bypassing a C rank, but he or Relong could have countermeasures, and a B would require extended efforts. Ji Rong would eventually run out of qi, but he doesn't need to last forever, he just needs to stave off HR for long enough that all the punches he's throwing out break something important. If he martials his resources carefully, he should have the win. It'd be a reversal of our first fight, stylistically.

The quick offensive strategy is a fragile one. BKSD and UGM are also damaging arts, but they're not quick damage, being more of a steady grind. They don't fit with the stated goals of this plan. If we had UGM at the next level, we'd be able to tag him with Dirge for a bit more insurance with a hybrid approach, where BKSD and UGM damage would start stripping his defenses down. Don't have it yet though.

Our spirits aren't amazing at covering us defensively while we're setting up offense. Hanyi doesn't have much; she can act as bait, but that's not a good idea unless we have a strong defensive response lined up to bail her out. Zhengui's better off, but I expect Ji Rong to be able to bypass the thorn walls with movement techs, and be good enough at punching things to largely mitigate the waving distracting vines. Sixiang's contributions aren't super direct, in general. We've seen Relong has no hesitation at charging superior foes to distract, either, so expect him to interfere with allies trying to keep Ji Rong off our back.

Our Domain weapon also doesn't apply its effects quickly, and if we last long enough for it to affect Ji Rong successfully, the effect is to make Ling Qi (and her domain weapon)as his only target, when she doesn't have her defenses up. Not ideal.

Finally, from what we saw of Ling Qi's training efforts with Wang, the practiced strategies didn't really fit the tone of this option.

[X] Defensive strategy. With your spirits build up your advantage of vitality and defense until it is insurmountable.

If nothing else, this choice allows for more time to play around with our stacking damage output. Also, Hanyi doesn't especially contribute to this strategy, and maybe she gets punched as the weakest link, which are funny situations.

One strat idea: Zhengui's bunker buster lava explosion technique does more damage if the target is on the ground. Ling Qi could use UGM's push, BKSD's eagle yeet, or PLR's dream-porting to maneuver an enemy into the path of his attack, directly on the ground for big damages.
 
Orkus Majorkus said:
I mean, if Ling Qi can intuit that when Ji Rong talks about having less pride it isn't an insult, I think she can pick up that he can say thanks without directly saying Thank you, Baroness Ling Qi, for saving my brother Relong and I from being scattered into our component atoms when that teleportation beacon was disrupted by enemy action.
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She certainly could have picked up on that, but he didn't say the words, and the words he did speak do not deserve to be responded to in the same way.

Like, she was busy, sure.

He could've made time to find her anyway if he'd wanted to.
 
[X] Defensive strategy. With your spirits build up your advantage of vitality and defense until it is insurmountable.

So...who else is actually legitimately hyped at the possibility of seeing his charged move?
 
[X] Defensive strategy. With your spirits build up your advantage of vitality and defense until it is insurmountable.

We do have multiple approaches available in a fight, it's true. The problem is, our offensive approach, uh, kills people. That's what it does and we've been chewed out for using it in a duel before. Offensive!Ling Qi is not a duelist and that's fine.

(I understand that Meizhen has similar problems in friendly spars: her poisons are just really not geared towards duels)

And defensive is not just the more duel-oriented strategy we have (as the dragon demonstrated, we can use it without doing any actual harm at all), it's also the primary one. I'll second everyone saying that's what we want to test. Ling Qi has been building this up for a while, let's SHOW OFF now. Do we really think our whole combo cannot stand up to an age peer non-ducal?
 
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Few things to note here.

With ZME upkeep, our remaining duration buffs are:
  • Domain/Mist, action-free to activate, FVM techs on their own action acon, with dissonance making no sense to use until we have BKSD's field up, and Elegy providing stacking debuffs to hit.
  • IPF - a very powerful field effect: team-wide 0.5 rank avoid, insane mobility within the party , and the free cast of the B-rank, spirit-defense targeting LW when we activate the tech. This is by far our strongest offensive and defensive opener; dealing with a powerful B-rank spiritual CC attack is not easy; LQ's own solutions are basically West Wind Step or black mirror, neither of which are cheap.
  • SNR's Rippling Shroud - C rank team armor, fairly standard, probably second priority after IPF is up.
  • Echoes - another powerful offensive and defensive field effect, useful if we're aiming for untouchable.
  • WHR's Frozen Walls - not as useless as @Erebeal paints it since it's a fire-and-forget (for a bit) C-rank qi sustain gap(+D for allies, -D for opponents), even if we're unlikely to need the defensive buffs or resist provided, that's still a pretty strong thing to do for a longer fight.
  • ENM's Passing Phantom, Fading Dream isn't relevant unless we're planning on using stealth, which isn't the impression I'm getting (this is in large part an exhibition match and an opportunity to test our full build, stealth goes counter to both those goals).
  • EDD - fairly powerful personal defense for that 60% dodge with 4 charges that also provide small stacking buffs, currently hampered by its short duration but is nontheless good if Ji Rong is attacking often and fast.

And that's basically it. Note that IPF often ends up qi neutral or positive due to LW, and echoes does as well due to qi recovery on successful attack avoid. In terms of actual costs LQ is using ~15% of her reserves to basically fully spool up her defense and set up a minimum of D+"failed enemy attacks -1 rank" qi sustain, assuming LW gets defended against (probably at B cost, would be hard to pay less), and between elegy and WHR alone we're imposing a D~C qi drain.

Don't think I need to talk about our instant defenses and ability to handle basically anything, suffice to say we're very good at spending qi on blocking.

Offensively our strategy is a bit more varied, but less impressive:
  • BKSD coupled with dissonance adds immense pressure to the field, especially combined with Zhengui's fortifications.
  • Hasn't been mentioned before, but ENM's Wavering Mind Strike is B rank and Sixiang-buffable, and is a flexible enabler to a lot of combo play options:
    • Seal an opponent's key C or B rank defense in order to successfully tag them with HR or LW, or disrupt defense for a JT'd attack, or maneuver an opponent into an opening for Zhengui to nuke.
    • Seal a hard to deal with attack or buff, even perception techs are game. Pretty potent tool that opens up a lot of options in a fight.
  • HR and GGM for consistent C rank damage pressure, with HR as something he'd have to block or become susceptible to a CtE follow-up.
It's actually a small concern of mine since we're actually not that great at turning qi into damage, and our currently-best way to do it is combo chains based on creating openings with WMS and either JT or EBF/WMA[1], into one of:
  1. Maneuvering an eagle yeet or UGM into one of Zhengui's big damaging stuff.
  2. getting LW to stick.
  3. tagging with HR or driving a CtE through.
They're nice and interesting strategies but we could use another powerful B or A rank offensive effect. Dirge should help with the next UGM level and hopefully BKSD level 3 does as well, and who knows, maybe we'll get a 3d tech for our Domain eventually.

[1] Evening Breeze Flourish, Watchful Moon Analysis; instant attack buffs meant for getting through C rank defenses.

In summary, I don't think there's a need to complicate things too much; just setting up our defenses properly is already a great way to start attacking, and after IPF, Echoes, RSS, and Frozen Walls are up we're only really left with attacks anyway.

[X] Defensive strategy. With your spirits build up your advantage of vitality and defense until it is insurmountable.

As a side-note, poor Renlong. I'm fairly sure hanyi alone would be enough to bully him, let alone when she's backed up by LQ's field effects and buffs and has Zhengui to help if needed.
 
Do we really want a varied attacking suite? Draining qi from an opponent is what we have a lot of varying ways to do, and we have one strong finisher. Isn't that enough for a CC-focused build?
 
Black Noise said:
  • WHR's Frozen Walls - not as useless as @Erebeal paints it since it's a fire-and-forget (for a bit) C-rank qi sustain gap(+D for allies, -D for opponents), even if we're unlikely to need the defensive buffs or resist provided, that's still a pretty strong thing to do for a longer fight.
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Really depends on how long you think the fight'll go, yeah. My feeling is that the level of dps in play means that one of us will run out of health long before qi is a concern, but 🤷

Frozen Walls is lol in group engagements with yellows though. D qi doesn't mean much to us, but it's a much bigger deal for the average yellow who's likely to have, what, maybe C qi overall?
 
ADarkerPorpoise said:
God. I'm now picturing Ji Rong like rearing back to leap at us and punch and halting in surprise when Ling Qi is just gone. The crowd dumbstruck as they watch her just like cartoon tiptoe behind him, Sixiang plugging his ears while we doot him to death slowly. :lol:
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Better then that. He forgets that he is even fighting us.

Erebeal said:
Really depends on how long you think the fight'll go, yeah. My feeling is that the level of dps in play means that one of us will run out of health long before qi is a concern, but 🤷
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Not on our side. We use qi to either dodge or block. Assuming of course that we can't just stealth so he can't find us at all. Our spirits should be able to keep him distracted.
 
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Liliet said:
Do we really want a varied attacking suite? Draining qi from an opponent is what we have a lot of varying ways to do, and we have one strong finisher. Isn't that enough for a CC-focused build?
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Qi drain is fine and LW is, as mentioned, a really great attack for it, especially JT'd, but it's much more for area engagements as an enemy formation disruption tool and a powerful qi reactor for us. But strictly in terms of turning all that qi into damage or other offensive output we just don't have that many options. Compare to our defense where we have multiple B rank buff effects, as well as perfects going from C to A rank.

Like I said it'll become less of an issue by UGM3/BKSD3 and possibly the next domain tech, but we could really use an expensive A rank offense (or hell, offensive support) option to dump the obscene amounts of qi we're gonna get in larger engagements from lw'ing multiple people and having echoes up against many opponents.


Erebeal said:
Really depends on how long you think the fight'll go, yeah. My feeling is that the level of dps in play means that one of us will run out of health long before qi is a concern, but 🤷

Frozen Walls is lol in group engagements with yellows though. D qi doesn't mean much to us, but it's a much bigger deal for the average yellow who's likely to have, what, maybe C qi overall?
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With our buffs spooled up our upkeep cost is like 1 or 2 C ranks per turn spent attacking and blocking; I expect efficient peer builds to have similar upkeep costs (other than CRX who's build is expensive to run but forces her opponents to spend a lot of qi as well). In that sense D rank regen/drain absolutely matters for fights that don't end via some big finisher. Qi can be turned into offense and defense and in a 1v1 the side with better sustain is gonna win in that kind of fight.
 
RebelYell said:
[X] Offensive strategy. Focus on quickly ramping up the necessary arts to put your opponent down trusting in your baseline defenses to keep you in the fight.

YOLO ALL DA WAY BOIS LETS YEET HIM OUTA DA ARENA!!
LEEEROYYY JEEENKIIIINSSS!!!!
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If we are fortunate, a defensive strategy will also involve Eagle Yeeting.

Eagle Yeeting fun.
 
Orkus Majorkus said:
That's not better haha! "I don't care enough about taking five seconds to fit in accepting your gratitude for saving you"
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It's an excuse, much like saying "I haven't found the time to hang out with you." "I have had a full schedule."

Ji Rong is saying he's never taken time to thank us personally, something that is entirely not true as he could have caught us at some point for a quick personal chat or sent a message thanking us. Instead he is saying this now as a way to thank us publicly without calling attention to his not having done so already. Ling Qi is accepting the public acknowledgement and giving Ji Rong the excuse for why he was unable to Thank us before by saying that we have been quite busy.

Not overly nice, as we aren't saying we regret not having been able to talk to him, but not overly hostile as we also aren't saying that we had other things to do. Keeps the situation as, "Darn, we kept missing each other due to schedule conflicts." rather than anything rude or intentional.
 
Erebeal said:
Really depends on how long you think the fight'll go, yeah. My feeling is that the level of dps in play means that one of us will run out of health long before qi is a concern, but 🤷

Frozen Walls is lol in group engagements with yellows though. D qi doesn't mean much to us, but it's a much bigger deal for the average yellow who's likely to have, what, maybe C qi overall?
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Considering C rank is the equivalent of the old six dots, I'd say most old yellows are going to have D rank Qi in average, with outliers both E rank and C rank.

So yeah, it's actually really nasty.
 
Arkeus said:
Considering C rank is the equivalent of the old six dots, I'd say most old yellows are going to have D rank Qi in average, with outliers both E rank and C rank.

So yeah, it's actually really nasty.
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Well, if you look at FSA, AC, and AS then they are actually running around with a bunch of C ranks (though admittedly there may be some balancing issues there that we never bothered with because we don't use them). Also late yellow Suyin in month 2 here had, like C20 qi after spirits? So probably B baseline?
 
[X] Defensive strategy. With your spirits build up your advantage of vitality and defense until it is insurmountable.

BungieONI said:
Another facet of that which is more obvious in the RR version is that to Ling Qi, Ji Rong codes like one of the gang toughs who she tried her best to avoid entirely along with the gangs themselves.
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And Ling Qi codes as one of the sneaks/street kids who'd betray a friend in a heartbeat to save their own hide. Something she has done. They've both matured so much. I love it.
 
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Adhoc vote count started by Lena27 on Jul 8, 2020 at 12:14 AM, finished with 178 posts and 92 votes.
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