Against Hui Peng he had no allies or reinforcements and we had plenty of qi and health left over. Thus the finisher was completely irrelevant.
Against Hui Peng *in a duel* it let us move on faster in a relatively meaningless way. But he gained an insight not because it was our behavior in a duel, but because it's how we would've ended him in a real combat scenario. Smashed him and moved on. It was meaningful and gave him an insight that was
immediately useful to him, because that interaction was that powerful a bonk on the head for him. Saying it wasn't useful/helpful/meaningful when it clearly
was is silly. Especially because our theme for damage is uncaring, apathetic, existential chill. It's not supposed to mean nearly as much to us as it matters to those we End.
Calling that use fairly irrelevant to
us I can accept. But irrelevant overall? No. That would have been very relevant on a battlefield and Hui Peng took that lesson and changed from it.
Meanwhile scaring off the Green would have been substantially easier if we had better long lasting DoTs, as that would have made it clear that they were going to be captured if they didn't retreat in time.
the "big smash" scenario I talked about, that was demonstrated with Hui Peng, very quickly
happens on a real battlefield against the green Barb we smashed. We caused an immediate retreat call locally, and a broader retreat call ended up being sounded because of the stall at Village 2 and the beginnings of a rout at Village 3. Relevant immediately. But you claim a DoT could have done it if they were nebulously "better".
Fast Damage is better than Slow Damage in almost every scenario, assuming equal damage and cost association.
The thing about Slow Damage is that it allows you to trade that speed for damage or cost bonuses at similar investment to fast damage. You can get some very, very mean DoT values going if you stack high cost and slow speed for mega damage. The kind of really nasty damage that does cause an enemy to instantly retreat, like the old Venomancer ulti from Dota 1&2
There's just one problem with that analysis:
we're not a damage build.
At least. It's not
us dealing the damage the majority of the time. Most of the time it's our constructs, and that's where the investment is at.
We're a summons/fields build for our damage, that happens to have a
very nice finisher that trades high cost, prerequisite marking with a negligible DoT, and melee touch requirement in order to maximize the damage we can deal despite our overall low investment in direct damage dealing.
DoT's may
sound good on paper, but we'd need an Art tailored for our build for it to work, and FSS's DoT is just
bad like. Man it has never been a good part of the ability. Hell, even the Pen-Reduction-Aura is more useful to our build than the negligible cost-inefficient DoT is. CtE has had a more efficient damage profile (assuming the damage isn't overkill) than it
despite being fast damage and actually
combos with our massive mobility as well as Joyous Toast in a way the DoT just doesn't. You wanna prune something, prune the DoT.
Qi-less Ji Rong would be unconscious courtesy of Spring's End. Had we focused more on debuffs we could have left him behind substantially earlier in the process while leaving Hoarfrost Refrain to eat away at his meager Qi.
pretty sure Spring's End Aria doesn't auto-KO a Qi-less opponent. Like, I know that for lower realm cultivators if you run out of Qi you're pretty screwed but Ji Rong was notably capable of acting
despite a lack of Qi, and the layering of Qi into the body during cultivation makes me think that's one of the many reasons fights get longer as cultivation gets higher. Being able to retain "innate" personal Qi to keep the body running when you'd otherwise be on empty would be pretty handy.
Also, no to the idea we could have just "left him with some DoT or debuff on him" and walking away. Let's put aside the fact that walking away without the target incapacitated is a terrible mistake to make. Our debuffs that we have are all active debuffs that we have to manage to some degree, rather than fire-and-forget effects. The DoT on Hoarfrost is actually one of the few Fire-And-Forget effects we can apply to targets, further isolating itself from the rest of the build. It'd be the
only thing we could apply and walk away from him with, and a mortally wounded cultivator is still extremely dangerous until they're actually put down. Hoarfrost doesn't disable the target, it'd just be killing them while they spend their last moments however they wish (unless we stick around to control them).
This focus on active debuffing through Connection, while our generalized damage is through impersonal Summons and Fields, culminating in a deeply personal Isolating Finisher makes sense to me thematically. If you are able to push through the turbulence of the uncaring world and try to Connect with LQ, she ensnares and confounds and dances just out of reach as she applies active debuffs to important targets. Then, if they really are troublesome, she can use the melee-touch finisher on the disabled target so she no longer has to actively disable them.
If we were a spider, we'd be an active-hunting webless spider that likes to dance in the webs of their enemies, tie them with thread tailored to specifically snare the target, and then bite for a finish and suck out the Qi. A spider-hunting spider. A reverse Hui, if you will.
But it's not
just that. We also have allies. A generalized "helpful" set of Summons/Fields for our bond 0's, a more helpful set of active buffs for those we find more important, and a set of special effects for our closest allies due to our domain. We don't weave a web and fester in it, we travel and assist others in our area based on how connected they get to us.
the Finisher is the culmination of that antagonistic Connection. One in which we Free the target from living through Isolating End
we've already got a trick-save on our Domain for positive Connections. I'm sure we'll continue developing neat effects on that.
So, given the examples you've presented, our finisher was either completely irrelevant or to the detriment of our build.
I get it, a finisher is flashy and impressive. However, given how LQ fights, that doesn't actually help us at all. Breaking our themes in order to be better at something that's pointless is a poor use of very limited project slots and a perfect target for streamlining.
Edit: If you want to see an example of a tactically important finisher, Ji Rong's from our last duel is a good example: he takes several pointless or even counterproductive actions (injuring himself) so as to charge it faster because he knows that his only chance of success was to get it to go off.
Of course we then countered it with Black Mirror but he still built his entire strategy for the fight around it.
Well I think I responded to this well enough. DoT's are only a part of our build because Hoarfrost Refrain happens to have one, and have been
less used than Finishers have historically (Traveler's End was our previous finisher). The thematic point is that the Finisher is the culmination of the Negative Connection, in which we Free ourselves of that negative connection by Freeing them from life via Isolating End. The culmination of the Positive Connection is an ongoing set of Domain Buffs for our closest allies, staying Connected and being stronger for that Connection.
DoT's fill a role that our Fields and Summons already do, but worse. We're not a direct damage build, so
if we decided to pivot into more direct DoT's we'd need an Art that was basically tailor-made for the purpose. Not impossible, but a weird change.
If you're conflating our Fields with DoT's, well. I mean. Both Fields and Summons are Qi Constructs and if you're advocating for removing our Finisher option for more Qi Construct investment . . . hmmm. Gonna go with a "No" because I think it's a good tool in the belt for a reactive build like ours, and a thematic boon as well. We don't allow a caustic Connection to fester and hurt us both, we End it firmly and with dispassionately devastating Power behind it. I find it a good contrast to the "My Connections Will Survive" stunts we've gotten (one in Domain one on SNR). Honestly, I'd rather cut the remainder of "Primary Damage" than our finisher. We'll
never be a damage build, but we could always have a Finisher.
PS: I think it's part of the Dota design philosophy too. The amount of supports that have super low damage potential is itself super low. You don't need to have good DPS, or be consistent, or be efficient, you just need that one dangerous tool to punish opponents with
quickly and
decisively when they slip to stay relevant throughout the game.
Well.
Okay, some of the punishes aren't quick or decisive. But those have much higher DPS or Consistency or Efficiency to compensate.
