[X] I am the Student of [Winter's Muse][Songstress of Endings], Feel free to join the performance how you see fit
first of all, shifting vote to this because Hell Yeah this is excellent. If lineage is important, Zeqing and Hanyi are of a lineage that was potentially lost to White Sky, or only exists through branches, as the glacier slowly retreated. That's awesome <3
are you asking for combat build or social build? or generally both?
Ultimately the only thing that's consistent with our build is that we're a cultivator with a flexible Yin nature. We have decided to have certain limits to this flexibility, where we decide to dig in and cede no more. Most of our build on both sides will end up being quite flexible as a result, with a few extremely firm roots we will not cede.
You can read our Domain Insights to see what we're building narratively.
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Socially, we are building on Sincerity. Being more mindful of the "echoes that ring out of earshot". And counteracting the lies we tell ourselves, which may extend to the lies that others tell about themselves (to themselves) later on.
It's a Resolve build that will make use of our Earnest and Sincere Expressions to interact/communicate with others. We are quite good at communicating with Spirits.
We haven't decided on all of our Social Build. CRX was hoping for a Spymaster with extremely strong loyalty. She revised her hope to "diplomat" when she saw how . . . not competent we were at opening our mouth. Our Social Defenses were adequate but . . . we had no way to influence talks. Just listen.
I'm personally hoping for Diplo/Master Spy in which we take the risk of our cultivated contacts on personally instead of endlessly burning connections for profit/gain. Spycraft is not a good grounding for Good Civ. You get the wrong people in those positions and they poison the whole well with their corruption. Spycraft is an effective tool, and should be handled competently by those with not much love for intrigue or plots, but great joy in outsmarting/outmaneuvering their opponents. A Yin-Reactive counter-espionage ring would do well for CRX I think. And we would be well suited for it, especially as a Diplomat that forges Sincere bonds and Expresses clearly.
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Combat-wise we're a Spiritual Cultivator that focuses on Area Control in a battle. Our Ducal friends and allies all have builds that allow them to be Well Rounded with Specializations in which they blow out all non-Ducal/Marquis ranks at. Due to many fortunate circumstances, we have been able to also create a very Well Rounded build as well.
Outside of battle we have a lot of Utility focused on Stealth, Spiritual Diplomacy and Speed. Being excellent at those three, and having reasonable Perception, we're quite a good Scout.
On top of that, we have 3 Green Spirits. Which is more than any Ducal we've seen.
It's interesting as a build because we could function well in almost any role, such as the deep-vanguard Scout/Spotter (as we did in this fight). When we deploy, we bring 4 Green combatants with us (our Dress is a spirit and will eventually mean we're 5 combatants "by ourself") and as a Control specialist we can really lock-down areas that need immediate assistance. Being competent at the other roles, or having spirits that can assist at the other roles, means that we're also able to assist areas that need something more nuanced than any-old Control specialist.
Our big weakness right now is the emergence of "Disruptor" builds at our tier. Builds that seem to try and cut External Domain cultivators off from their expressions (buff chains or field effects, constructs, anything persistent) in order to open up an opportunity for traditional Duelist or Blaster builds to pound the Control-cultivator into submission. An example would be that Lightning Cage that tried to sever our links to our field effects just now. That's spooky.
We're not Ducal tier because we don't have the same resources, comprehensive Art quality, or intentional build synergy.
as a scrappy commoner, we're going to be at an Art quality disadvantage until we can start creating our own Arts, which will hopefully synergize as we build them.
