[] Enlightenment's Unbreaking Mirror: B
Looking beyond this particular fight, Mist is a technique that lets us protect more fragile teammates from an overwhelmingly strong technique... except if the opponent is that strong or there are more than one, they can just throw it again and kill all the people we had 'saved' last turn.
I'd rather Ling Qi have something that can kill them right back.
I'm not convinced Ling Qi has the stones to ever let Zhengui intentionally take an annihilating technique like that to the face and use his rebirth technique. There are too many variables on the battlefield and he might get bodied by just one mistake.
I don't know about 'intentionally', but keep in mind that Zhengui's rebirth technique puts Zhengui back to B rank health.
Rebirth Inferno: Special
Damage: S
When reduced to F rank health. Zhengui may instantly discharge all of his remaining qi into a roaring inferno that consumes all save Ling Qi within Close range. This massive explosion tears through defenses and moves with incredible speed. In the aftermath Zhengui falls unconscious, and cannot act, but receives a temporary Health Attribute of B Rank.
With Mist, it means that if an enemy does an overwhelming spiritual attack that reduces Zhengui to F rank health, he will do his counter and be back to B rank... which means that he will once against survive another OHKO. You basically need 3 1HKO in a row to kill Zhengui with the mist.Also I'd note that the C reduction damage is
really good if there is more than one enemy. Of course, when Zhengui gets to Bond 5 Ling Qi will be able to "no you don't" save him anyway, though that one is much riskier imo.
However the mechanics matter less than the themes here, given the techs will change anyway as the domain improve, so if there is a 'problem' with the tech chosen, it will get fixed.
I don't mind the mist mechanically but I like the aesthetic of the mirror more, something new instead of basically more of the same.
I mean, huh.... Mirror is basically Black Mirror's rank down + thorn. While we have less thorns than before (unequipped AM and SES), we still have BKSD thorn. OTOH the closest to Mist damage reduction is Rippling Starless Shroud, which grants E rank against AoEs, and the "survive at minimum health" tech Ling Qi had, Thousand Rings Unbreaking, has been unequipped.
Ah wait, you were talking about aesthetic for 'something new'.
I, huh, don't understand the attraction of getting 'something new' in the domain before Ling Qi even manages to solidify her domain's basics here. I guess we are looking at it from a different angle, but to me it's less "getting something knew" and more "Ling Qi not being cohesive".