So... let's see what Zhengui can and cannot use if his foes go completely airborne (and abandon the ritual site).
- He's a massive tank, but he's also too obviously a massive tank. They most likely won't waste hits on him, and will instead focus on either trying to escape or fighting the assets capable of catching them.
- The entirety of blooming From Ash becomes basically useless, after the ritual site has been disrupted/destroyed. All the enemy has to do is not come within 10 feet of the ground, and there's not a bit of it that can hit them.
- Out of Blazing Blood, three abilities (Boiling Blood Venom, Volcanic Stone Shell, and Paradise Forge) are basically meaningless unless the enemy gets too close to the ground and/or engages him in close combat. Ashfall is still in play as long as the enemy isn't flying too high or too far away, and Boilign Shot and Volcanic Shot are still available (though he has to pick one or the other on any given turn)
- The only meaningful power out of Verdant Ash Duality is Ashfield Flowering. It's nice and all, but it really isn't much.
So, basically, it turns him from a badass bastion to... an unimpressive turret that's not worth the bother to attack. He's got gobs of synergy, both internal to his arts and with us, and he can't use any of it. Sure, we can redeploy him, but we can't redeploy him to anywhere other than the ground, and if the enemy is staying 15 or more feet in the air, and far enough away from him that a bite cant' reach, he really doesn't have a lot to offer.
If we go Offensive, there's a very good chance that Zhengui will be largely useless in the fight, and that we'll have to leave him behind. Worse yet, that's a have to. We can't afford to do poorly on this expedition. We need the sect status, and we're going to be backing up CRX, who also needs the sect status. Further, it's an important political statement about CRX and her ability to succeed and dominate the battlefield with the aid of her personally selected handmaiden. If this one comes down to "mission vs Zhengui" we're going to straight-up have to choose the mission, and with the Offensive mission, it is highly likely that that will happen. We pretty much promised not to do that once upon a time, didn't we? Straight-up, if we go offensive on this one, there's a good chance that it will damage us, when we are forced to do something that tears at our heart. Let's not set ourselves up for that.
Instead, we can have the hilarity of letting the enemy try to zerg rush into the Ling Qi/Zhengui killing field morass... and then let the Glorious Searing Purity of the Cai be the prize they get for finally making it through. To me? That sounds pretty satisfying.
