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

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yrsillar said:
Ling Qi straightened up, having politely delivered her challenge to the young man as he exited the sealed training field she had tracked him too. Letting out a breath she prepared herself for his response. When she met his grey eyes however, she did not find what she expected there.

He smiled earnestly as he bowed in return, clasping his hands in front of his chest. "It would be my honor to test my blade against you Lady Ling. I am certain you have only grown stronger since your display of prowess in the tournament. I only hope that this humble swordsman does not disappoint."

Ling Qi tried to ignore the way her cheeks heated at the praise…

Stop embellishing Sixiang, Ling Qi thought sternly, keeping her expression even as she scolded the muse.
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Sixiang is going to keep doing 'Interpretative flashback narration', aren't they? :)
 
On the one hand he'll be better prepared fo rthe latter. On the other hand it's what we're best at and avoids showing more of our hand.

I'm feeling like we might want to go agressive but not sure.
 
That talisman is going to help him see through our stealth arts, I'm almost 100% sure. We might be better off going for a direct confrontation - if we can't hide and dodge, we can't really do the attrition thing.
 
yrsillar said:
[] Fight aggressively, using her arts to defeat him proactively with her more direct arts.
-[] Tactics?(Write in)
[] Fight defensively, in her more usual style, relying on her arts wearing him down
-[] Tactics? (Write in)

Two hour moratorium
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Anyway, so:
[] Fight aggressively, using her arts to defeat him proactively with her more direct arts.
-[] Set the terrain toward absolute winter to bolster her arts and limit his as she dances around his attacks in twilight, trust in Sixiang to keep him and his spirit beast well drunk and unable to activate any complex techniques, and punishes each with a refrain. If needed, his sword and the spirit's claws could be countered by your ring's armament.

This seems like the most straightforward 'use new arts to win' move. It takes advantage of his weakness to spiritual damage, limit what he can do to you through weakening his attacks and use our robe's low light ability to have an effective GCD so we can still somewhat dodge him. Sixiang then make sure he can't do any ramp up, and HRA is basically perfect against swords/claws.
 
Ok, so. Broadly I would say that Aria/Echoes is the correct opener regardless, as it gives us both defense and offense.

The question past there is whether or not we just go for an aggressive FSS play, or go for a defensive FVM or PLR play.

PLR could potentially be handy here, given we're outnumbered, as it increases the odds that they miss us. Otoh, a falcon probably has great perception, and his mask might be something to boost perception as well, given that FVM is our signature move. Our perception gates may not be that effective here (and it doesn't help that we don't have anything like MNO to make them harder).

FVM + PLR of course can do better here, with FVM reducing their perception. However, that also takes longer, giving them more time to build up a lead in damage while we're not attacking them.

Some options:
[] Fight aggressively, using her arts to defeat him proactively with her more direct arts.
-[] Keep it simple: Echoes -> Hoarfrost, building up defensive buffs as appropriate (priority: GCD > HRA > TRD; Deepwood only if there's a really big attack we need to block?)
-[] Echoes -> IPF to make us harder to hit -> Go on offense with Hoarfrost
-[] Echoes -> MotV to create darkness to boost GCD -> Go on offense with Hoarfrost


[] Fight defensively, in her more usual style, relying on her arts wearing him down
-[] Echoes -> IPF -> FVM (full)

I'm somewhat sceptical of trying to rely on FVM here. While the system has changed, there was a reason that when we got into the serious tournament fights we didn't even try that. It's just not really a good art for duels like this.
 
DeusExBritannia said:
I'd actually prefer marrying Sixiang; spirits are more interesting than humans.
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Same though even without the spirit part Six to me is the most interesting male (at times) character so far, both in personality and character traits. Fun personality which bounces off Ling Qi's own pretty well, their interests are also different from Ling Qi's so there's some fun contrast between them, they have a friendly working relationship with plenty of comedic banter and such, Six compliments her really well and is always ready to poke fun at her when she's getting too serious or needs cheering up. Plus the genderfluidity is a really freaking interesting character trait and pretty rare to see.

Also I just love the contrast of a smol cute feminine boy and badass buff tall girl, Ling Qi being able to just pick up her BF one-handed like a naughty kitten makes me giggle.

Plus Six considers Jiao their uncle (referring to him as "uncle" when they were in the infirmary after Ji Rong blew a hole in Ling Qi's guts) so we'd be related to him if we married Six which could lead to fun scenes where the two bond over being grumpy and serious compared to their wackier playful moon fairy spouses who are always trying to get them to do social stuff when they just want to be left alone to work on their formations/cultivation dammit! :p
 
yrsillar said:
Liang He was a young man seemingly cut from the same mold as Kang Zihao. Well, that was unfair, Ling Qi supposed as she straightened back up and met her opponents steady gaze. She would compare him to Han Jian instead. He was tall and handsome with aquiline features and a serious baring. He had short cropped dark hair, and grey eyes, though they were hardly visible at the moment.
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Hmm, nice looking guy, but that first impression of Kang-like means this isn't an husbando candidate. In any case, he has pretensions towards imperial warrior high nobility, if his Bronze 2 cultivation led to a similar image to Kang Zihao. Hopefully he'll be more inline with the spiritual image as he is physically with the archetype.

yrsillar said:
he wore a featureless jade mask with dark smoked lenses that prevented her from seeing his eyes, and a loose hood attached to the rest of his robes that concealed the rest of his head
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Blatantly meant to deal with Ling Qi's FVM perception/spiritual debuffs. The exact mechanism would be worrisome, if the talisman deals with all spiritual offenses; if it also armors him against the spiritually-based FSS, too, Ling Qi might be forced from a FSS brute force strat into a delayed FVM->FSS ramp-up strat.

yrsillar said:
Sixiang scoffed silently. "Like that'll stop me. The wind gets everywhere you know?"
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Oh dear. That's quite an invasive breach of privacy.

Oh well. We knew that Sixiang didn't care nor cared to learn to care about mortals' ideas about acceptable morality, last year, when he popped over into the boys' area while they were changing clothes. And, I suppose, all bullshit perception lets every cultivator become a 24/7 voyeur. (Xiulan's heat perception, for example, should let her see through clothes, to the extant that the body itself runs hotter than the heated cloth.)
 
Does anyone now if the new system requires dispell moves to hit enemy first? And do they require to penetrate armor as well?
 
yrsillar said:
Ling Qi offered a respectful bow to the Elder, just as her opponent did across the field from her. Liang He was a young man seemingly cut from the same mold as Kang Zihao. Well, that was unfair, Ling Qi supposed as she straightened back up and met her opponents steady gaze. She would compare him to Han Jian instead. He was tall and handsome with aquiline features and a serious baring. He had short cropped dark hair, and grey eyes, though they were hardly visible at the moment.
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I think this should be "serious bearing." The serious baring won't happen until after the fight...
 
lioli said:
Blatantly meant to deal with Ling Qi's FVM perception/spiritual debuffs. The exact mechanism would be worrisome, if the talisman deals with all spiritual offenses; if it also armors him against the spiritually-based FSS, too, Ling Qi might be forced from a FSS brute force strat into a delayed FVM->FSS ramp-up strat.
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Unlikely to be a problem. Look at the strength of our talismans. They give us like +5 to a stat. Even +10 s.armor wouldn't change anything.

Perception to stop us hiding in the mist seems more likely.
 
Varder said:
Does anyone now if the new system requires dispell moves to hit enemy first? And do they require to penetrate armor as well?
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Dispels that are part of an attack should need to hit an enemy first (say, dispelling arrow), but those like Sixiang's shouldn't. So it should be a straight Presence B + Tech vs Enemy resist.

So yeah, whatever the plan we are doing, Sixiang must do this every single turn:
Phantasmal Revel's Regrets: C
Releasing a pulse of chaotic qi into the environment at Close range to Ling Qi, Sixiang disrupts the flows and constructs of their foes. Soaking their meridians in qi designed to emulate the fogging effects of heavy inebriation, she causes their control to of their techniques to slip. Attempts to dispel a single effect on up to five enemies within range.
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We are beginning 'Close' by default, and it's a C25 offensive dispels on both enemies every single turn. Perfect spam here.
 
Chances are its a perception-focused Mask to lower Ling Qi's advantages in darkness, combined with some kind of Water-resistance hoodie to lower the damage from FVM and HC.

That being said:

[] Fight aggressively, using her arts to defeat him proactively with her more direct arts.
-[] Set the terrain toward absolute winter to bolster her arts and limit his as she dances around his attacks in twilight, trust in Sixiang to keep him and his spirit beast well drunk and unable to activate any complex techniques, and punishes each with a refrain. If needed, his sword and the spirit's claws could be countered by your ring's armament. Focus on taking the spirit beast out of the equation first should it manifest itself, as chances are the duelist himself will try and spend time bolstering it with buffs in a manner similar to Han Jian and Kang Zihao

An elaboration on Arkeus' suggestion
 
yrsillar said:
Cheerful Muse's Accompaniment: C
When Ling Qi activates a non damaging music or wind art, if Sixiang has not already acted that turn, they may activate this technique and enhance one parameter of the art significantly. Valid parameters are Hit, Effect, Duration, or Resist
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Is there any way we can cleverly use it? Maybe overbuff mist's perception penalty?

Thor's Twin said:
GCD is "Grinning Cresent Dancer."

It's the defensive tech for SCS.
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I specifically checked it and still fucked up. Sorry. :)
 
so:
he wore a featureless jade mask with dark smoked lenses that prevented her from seeing his eyes, and a loose hood attached to the rest of his robes that concealed the rest of his head. He certainly hadn't been wearing that yesterday when she had met him and made her challenge, nor had she heard anything about him wearing such a thing in past. It was a talisman, that much was certain, but she couldn't be sure of its function without a closer examination.
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Given that FVM and PLR were the most eyecatching arts LQ used in the tournament, this is likely a perception booster of some kind to counter those techs.

Then we have our arena:
However, the duel shall be limited to this field, and the space fifty meters above and below. This Elder shall enforce the boundary fairly, in a manner that shall prevent disruption of the duel. Are both duelists prepared?"

Ling Qi glanced around the wide grassy field, and the stone boundary markers which marked its edge. The Space was one hundred fifty meters long and one hundred wide. Plenty of space to work with, even if she couldn't just soar up out of range with her gown, but she had expected that. Their starting positions were eighty meters apart, giving them plenty of room to fall back if they desired. It was as fair a field as one could hope for.
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So we start the match at Close range and while we have the space to retreat to Far, he is a swordman who will likely close the gap faster than we can make it.

But this can be to our advantage too: an aggressive approach might work out here instead:

Call to Ending: B
Duration: Immediate
Damage: B(Special)
The final verse of the Serenade is a quiet, sad thing, lacking the furor of earlier verses. Upon Singing it, a single target which suffers from Hoarfrost Refrains cold feels a terrible pain as the chill infecting them grows to a terrible potency, and every last shred of heat flees their body. This effect ignores armor, and the damage dealt changes based on the distance between the singer and the target. At Close distance it deals the baseline damage, with each range increment out to very Far reducing it, and each increment closer increasing it. However, should the singer lay hands upon the target when activating the technique, damage is increased by a full letter rank.
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CtE starts at B unblocked damage and scales up from there as he closes in on us. At 40 meter distance it deals B10 and at 10 meters it deals B20, either should be enough to decide the fight for us.

With this as our wincondition, we need to discuss what we need for that to happen:

1) we need to tag him with HR. Our sp.Hit and sp.Pen are both greater than his sp. defenses, so we can do that

2) the distance between us needs to close a bit (about half maybe), but he should do that for us (we are mainly a ranged attacker, it just makes sense for him to close the gap)

3) we need to prevent his dispels (CtE cant be done if he dispels the HR effect) and we have the SES techs for that.

so an offense combo HR -> CtE is very possible. SES can be used to keep the HR effect alive in case he dispels.

for defense we should use TRF, especially Hundred Ring Armament as it seems especially good against swords

Hundred Ring Armament: C
Duration: Short
Diffusing heavy wood qi through flesh and muscle the user armors themselves and their allies with the iron bark of primeval forests. Granting the user the resilience of a centennial tree, they may shrug off lesser attacks from bladed or piercing weapons, and endure even powerful ones. This effect may be extended to as many as five allies, increasing the cost by 5 for each one.
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Sixiang can dispel buffs on opponents and they should do that to prevent him going on a buff spiral. Our flying sword should counter his.

this all ignores the bird (his spirit): It has a lower cultivation than us and gets -10 to everything for that, so LQ should be able to dodge/defend until it goes down to the echoes of HR, or to getting focused by HR.

to summarize: I propose a FSS centered aggressive strategy

[] Fight aggressively, using her arts to defeat him proactively with her more direct arts.
-[] use the HR -> CtE combo as the main offense (use the distance CtE version at Very Close (40 meter) or closer range), SES to prevent dipels, TRF (mainly HRA) if we need to defend, Sixiang for dispels (offensive and defensive ones); try to win fast to minimize the drawback of fighting him + spirit beast


btw. @yrsillar, does Sixiang count for multi-attacker?
 
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Oh, important question.

@yrsillar Sixiang vibrates wind to create sound right? Does that mean she can talk to Biyu? And that she can (completely faithfully) 'translate' for Zhengui?
 
Mmm... There are definitely pros and cons to using Mist. It raises our dodge significantly and lowers his defense, but also costs us an attack.

The reason I want to use it though is that it's nice thematically. It means we make use of both the arts we just mastered, showcasing our growth.

[] Fight aggressively, using her arts to defeat him proactively with her more direct arts.
-[] Flavor: with our newfound mastery, cast all we behold into wintery night, ending our foe with our frozen serenade.
-[] Echoes -> MotV to create darkness to boost GCD -> Go on offense with Hoarfrost. Use CtE (non-touch) if sufficiently pressured. Defense priority: HRA > GCD > TRD; Deepwood only if there's a really big attack we need to block?). Sixiang spams dispels.

HRA might synergise off Echoes better at the start...?
 
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