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

[Erebeal]

I would recommend against trying a drawn-out defensive battle here.

While the math has changed since then, there is a reason that we didn't do this in any of our serious tournament fights. The DPS ratios just don't favor us.

We don't have really high defensive stats. We don't have the stealth to hide in the mist and drag things out. We don't have things like MNO to stack up our perception debuffs fast and make our perception gates reliable (and he's probably good there anyway). PLR is insufficiently developed and FVM is really designed for mass combat not duels.

With Echoes we now have a solid defensive/offensive opener that allows us to hit hard. Let's use that.

 

[angelofwhim]

Reality marble fight wooo

bet the dude gonna make a blazing hot blue sky appear out of nowhere or something

 

[FakePriest]

I hope F rank War enough for LQ to realize that she need to set up her kill-zone closer to center to cover all of the arena or else swordboi will have safety island behind him. Not that it will save him, but still i want to see more suffering and desperation.

 

[Thor's Twin]

I would recommend against trying a drawn-out defensive battle here.

While the math has changed since then, there is a reason that we didn't do this in any of our serious tournament fights. The DPS ratios just don't favor us.

We don't have really high defensive stats. We don't have the stealth to hide in the mist and drag things out. We don't have things like MNO to stack up our perception debuffs fast and make our perception gates reliable (and he's probably good there anyway). PLR is insufficiently developed and FVM is really designed for mass combat not duels.

With Echoes we now have a solid defensive/offensive opener that allows us to hit hard. Let's use that.

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I disagree.

Once we have low light in effect, or base physical dodge and armor are at the B rank. This is further compounded by FVM's sensory shenanigans against our opponent. Once Echo's of Absolute Winter is up and active, he will have even lower penetration, which will make it even more difficult for him to assault us. Our defensive stats are perfectly acceptable for engaging in prolonged engagements.

Given that he has entered

a strong advancing stance

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I find it likely that he is going to be trying to be very aggressive towards us and finish the fight before we can ramp up. Either this is just how he normally operates, or he doesn't believe he can win in a prolonged engagement.

Either way, foregoing our defenses will give him a stronger opening chance to deal damage to us. Which would be bad if he is going to try and snowball from an initial advantage. With his elements of fire, wind, and lightning, I would not put that capability past him.

Ultimately, I don't agree with Ling Qi playing into his apparent strategy by not focusing on our defenses. I believe that he will be trying to rush us down, and unless we believe that we can rush him and his spirit beast down faster than trying to control the pace of the match with FVM and ramping our defenses seem to be the way to go.

 

[Neshuakadal]

[X] Fight defensively, in her more usual style, relying on her arts wearing him down
-[X] Begin with Spring's End Aria and Echoes of Absolute Winter while moving backward
-[X] Quickly transition to Mist of the Vale boosted by Sixiang's Cheerful Muse's Accompaniment
-[X] Rely on Sable Cresent Grace and Thousand Ring Fortress for defensive capacity, enduring his early aggression.

 

[Erebeal]

Once we have low light in effect, or base physical dodge and armor are at the B rank. This is further compounded by FVM's sensory shenanigans against our opponent. Once Echo's of Absolute Winter is up and active, he will have even lower penetration, which will make it even more difficult for him to assault us. Our defensive stats are perfectly acceptable for engaging in prolonged engagements

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And Mist provides at least 50% of the defensive boons of FVM by itself, as well as debuffing their defenses.

I would argue that once we bring that up it's likely to be better to pivot to offense and try to bring him down earlier rather than taking the longer period of time to bring FVM fully up and take more damage.

I wouldn't count on perception gates working here, not with our lack of investment and his apparent preparations and spirit.

Like, the system has changed which makes it hard to read things but going full FVM doesn't actually help us get the rest of our defensive buffs up faster. Heck, dissonance actually gets in the way of that.

 

[Thor's Twin]

And Mist provides at least 50% of the defensive boons of FVM by itself, as well as debuffing their defenses.

I would argue that once we bring that up it's likely to be better to pivot to offense and try to bring him down earlier rather than taking the longer period of time to bring FVM fully up and take more damage.

I wouldn't count on perception gates working here, not with our lack of investment and his apparent preparations and spirit.

Like, the system has changed which makes it hard to read things but going full FVM doesn't actually help us get the rest of our defensive buffs up faster. Heck, dissonance actually gets in the way of that.

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I agree that the perception gate is not likely to be useful. It is clear that he has some talisman and the chances of it having something to do with perception seem high given the focus on the lenses of the talisman.

I also agree that fully bringing up FVM is not going to be super useful at the very beginning, which I believe is the most crucial part, which is why my plan just has Ling Qi do Mists of the Vale. Hopefully it can be buffed by Sixiang so that it can do even more, but after that, I believe transitioning to more defense is the better option so that we can get to the point where it is incredibly difficult for him to hurt us.

At that point, I believe that switching to a more offensive strat is warranted because we would have already succeeded in our goal of outlasting his early aggression and then leveraging our success into even stronger defense. Since Sixiang can dispel his buffs, he will have an incredibly difficult time in getting a sustained offense going, having to rely more on one-off techniques. Which will mean it will be incredibly difficult to pierce our sustained and buffed defense.

So I agree, going full FVM will most likely not help here. Engaging in dissonance early will actually slow down our defense which is not what my plan is about.

 

[Erebeal]

I also agree that fully bringing up FVM is not going to be super useful at the very beginning, which I believe is the most crucial part, which is why my plan just has Ling Qi do Mists of the Vale. Hopefully it can be buffed by Sixiang so that it can do even more, but after that, I believe transitioning to more defense is the better option so that we can get to the point where it is incredibly difficult for him to hurt us.

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What defense? TRU? PLR?

The only way I can read "bring up Mist and try to wear him down while stacking defenses" is that you intend to try a full FVM strat. If that's not what you intend it might help if you elaborated on it more?

(while we aren't in the old system, I assume we should still be able to activate our main SCS and TRD buffs while bringing up Echoes -> Mist)

 

[mastigos]

Sixiang scoffed silently. "Like that'll stop me. The wind gets everywhere you know?"

Through a great effort of will Ling Qi prevented her eyebrow from twitching. She almost felt her cheeks catch on fire as the Elder shot her a knowing look out of the corner of his eye.

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Oh my ... the upside of Sixiang's new Wind nature is that other people can hear Six talk. The downside is other people can hear Sixiang talk.

Or was this the Elder being good enough at reading body language to catch the flash of lust and embarrassment?

 

[ChronOblivion]

Oh my ... the upside of Sixiang's new Wind nature is that other people can hear Six talk. The downside is other people can hear Sixiang talk.

Or was this the Elder being good enough at reading body language to catch the flash of lust and embarrassment?

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Sixiang's words were entirely within Qi's head, not from her direct Wind manipulation, so I'm pretty sure her words aren't any more audible than they were before. I figured either the Elder has strong enough sensory skills to overhear the conversation, or he just read body language. Personally betting on the latter. Mortal body language became completely transparent to Qi very quickly in her cultivation, and it probably extends further.

[X] Fight aggressively, using her arts to defeat him proactively with her more direct arts.
-[x] Flavor: with our newfound mastery, cast all we behold into wintery night, ending our foe with our frozen serenade.
-[x] Echoes -> MotV to create darkness to boost GCD -> Go on offense with Hoarfrost + sword. 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.

This seems alright, will probably re-check the thread when I wake up, but why is Sixiang only on dispel duty? It didn't look like swordboi was specced towards that, and Sixiang has both a buff and a debuff now, so why aren't we using those? I'd agree that Six should prioritize dispelling because those can be quite dangerous, but only if he actually manages to hit us with one.

 

[Thor's Twin]

What defense? TRU? PLR?

The only way I can read "bring up Mist and try to wear him down while stacking defenses" is that you intend to try a full FVM strat. If that's not what you intend it might help if you elaborated on it more?

(while we aren't in the old system, I assume we should still be able to activate our main SCS and TRD buffs while bringing up Echoes -> Mist)

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I'm not sure you've read what my plan is. If you did, why did you bring up PLR? It's not listed as part of my plan, and I've already agreed that perception gates will not be useful in this matchup, and the initial tech for PLR is an expensive perception gate. So, here's my plan, and then I'll explain why I did the things I did.

[X] Fight defensively, in her more usual style, relying on her arts wearing him down
-[X] Begin with Spring's End Aria and Echoes of Absolute Winter while moving backward
-[X] Quickly transition to Mist of the Vale boosted by Sixiang's Cheerful Muse's Accompaniment
-[X] Rely on Sable Cresent Grace and Thousand Ring Fortress for defensive capacity, enduring his early aggression.

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As is evident here, my plan is purely to endure his early aggression with as little damage as possible while ramping up SCS and TRF. I do SEA and Echoes first so that the initial penetration will be reduced, which should help our defenses. Then we get into Mist of the vale and the rest of our defense. I'm trusting that Ling Qi can make judgment calls on what defensive tools are most useful in the situation, which is why I don't specify having SCS first or TRF first for our defense, I just tell Ling Qi to rely on them.

Ultimately, my plan only cares about the initial two turns, which is where I perceive most of the danger coming from. Should we deal with that relatively unscathed, then I trust Ling Qi to make a judgment call. Does using FSS make sense here because I'm not comfortable in the long game? Or is it ok to fully express FVM and just whittle him down in relative safety? I don't care which, so long as Ling Qi makes the judgment call. All I care about is his early aggression, which is why I placed those exact words in the plan "early aggression."

I could extrapolate further. But that would be limiting the judgment call that Ling Qi can make. If I say finish it off with FSS after the early aggression, then she'll finish it off with early aggression even if Ling Qi might feel safer slamming down an enhanced Starlight Elegy and using TRU. The inverse is also true. My plan is already 3 parts, which means that it has 1 more part than the next largest plan.

I could add to it and say "After initial aggression, be flexible in determining how to take him down," but I feel that is hand holding to the extreme. Ling Qi should be perfectly comfortable with determining the best way to win a fight after deciding the initial strategy. As I believe that Ling Qi can make a perfectly valid judgment call on what to do after the initial aggression, I'm not comfortable elaborating and confining Ling Qi's actions after the initial setup. If she wants to flesh out FVM or use FSS to finish it quicker than I assume it's because she believed it to be the best option at the time.

 

[Erebeal]

This seems alright, will probably re-check the thread when I wake up, but why is Sixiang only on dispel duty? It didn't look like swordboi was specced towards that, and Sixiang has both a buff and a debuff now, so why aren't we using those? I'd agree that Six should prioritize dispelling because those can be quite dangerous, but only if he actually manages to hit us with one

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Sixiang has good dispels.

We want them throwing them at him to remove his buffs and Talonflame's buffs.

A stealth/s.avoid buff otoh isn't wildly useful for us here.

 

[Erebeal]

I could add to it and say "After initial aggression, be flexible in determining how to take him down," but I feel that is hand holding to the extreme. Ling Qi should be perfectly comfortable with determining the best way to win a fight after deciding the initial strategy. As I believe that Ling Qi can make a perfectly valid judgment call on what to do after the initial aggression, I'm not comfortable elaborating and confining Ling Qi's actions after the initial setup. If she wants to flesh out FVM or use FSS to finish it quicker than I assume it's because she believed it to be the best option at the time.

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And you've put that under the overall strategy of [] Fight defensively, in her more usual style, relying on her arts wearing him down.

In that context I would expect that to lead to a slow FVM based approach.

 

[Thor's Twin]

And you've put that under the overall strategy of [] Fight defensively, in her more usual style, relying on her arts wearing him down.

In that context I would expect that to lead to a slow FVM based approach.

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Sure, unless the situation warrants otherwise. Ling Qi is certainly going to be more inclined to go the slow and steady route, ramp up FVM to its full potential and play keep away. However, if something occurs where Ling Qi doesn't feel like that will win her the match, I fully expect her to transition to using FSS to do the job.

 

[ChronOblivion]

Sixiang has good dispels.

We want them throwing them at him to remove his buffs and Talonflame's buffs.

A stealth/s.avoid buff otoh isn't wildly useful for us here.

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Hrm, the description was vague, I thought you were referring to Six's self-dispel art for removing debuffs, not their new inebriation dispel of a buff on an enemy (which is the debuff I was talking about). And the buff I was talking about was the second tech of their new art, where they buff one parameter of a non-damaging Music/Wind art of ours. Though I suppose it is reasonable to prioritize removing buffs to prevent him from spooling up and ensure that time is thoroughly on our side.

 

[Varder]

[X] Fight defensively, in her more usual style, relying on her arts wearing him down
-[X] Begin with Spring's End Aria and Echoes of Absolute Winter while moving backward
-[X] Quickly transition to Mist of the Vale boosted by Sixiang's Cheerful Muse's Accompaniment
-[X] Rely on Sable Cresent Grace and Thousand Ring Fortress for defensive capacity, enduring his early aggression.

 

[AbeoLogos]

[X] Fight aggressively, using her arts to defeat him proactively with her more direct arts.
-[X] Neutralize his defensive talismans by using OwS to exit his shadow within his billowy robes.

Victory goes to the bold.

 

[Erebeal]

I think it's also worth considering the idea raised before of sniping the falcon.

It is, of course, a bit of a gamble. That being said, if I were to guess at it it would be fast, high avoid (esp. Physical), high damage - and piss all armor and health.

If we can hit it, we could possibly take it out of the fight entirely with one shot - and even if it doesn't HR is also a debuff.

And as for hitting it? Well, we have A13 hit, and Echoes to pump that up even further.

If we can knock it out fast, it could be a fight winner.

 

[EternalObserver]

[X] Fight aggressively, using her arts to defeat him proactively with her more direct arts.
-[X] Neutralize his defensive talismans by using OwS to exit his shadow within his billowy robes.

Victory goes to the bold.

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Ah yes, of course. It's a win-win. Not only do we take out his defensive talisman, we confirm what Sixiang says whether he has ABS or not. Then we take him out point-blank with FSS and preserve his body for future observations.

 

[AbeoLogos]

I think it's also worth considering the idea raised before of sniping the falcon.

It is, of course, a bit of a gamble. That being said, if I were to guess at it it would be fast, high avoid (esp. Physical), high damage - and piss all armor and health.

If we can hit it, we could possibly take it out of the fight entirely with one shot - and even if it doesn't HR is also a debuff.

And as for hitting it? Well, we have A13 hit, and Echoes to pump that up even further.

If we can knock it out fast, it could be a fight winner.

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Unrelated, but your post reminded me that we have Fire damage reduction from our bond with Zhengui.

 

[DeAnno]

I think it's also worth considering the idea raised before of sniping the falcon.

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We don't need to "snipe" the falcon. Hoarfrost refrain hits all secondary targets within close, which is 100m. This arena is 150x100x50. In almost all cases the falcon is going to be aoe-d anyways, which means it's probably wiser to target refrain on the cultivator where damage over time will matter.

 

[FakePriest]

[X] Fight defensively, in her more usual style, relying on her arts wearing him down
-[X] Begin with Spring's End Aria and Echoes of Absolute Winter while moving backward
-[X] Quickly transition to Mist of the Vale boosted by Sixiang's Cheerful Muse's Accompaniment
-[X] Rely on Sable Cresent Grace and Thousand Ring Fortress for defensive capacity, enduring his early aggression.

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But if we moving backward, then swordboi can escape suffering for first turn, because he would have safe zone where to retreat if he wish so. Moreover it useless if he can cover more than Close range in one turn. We don't know nor his Speed nor what Arts he has. So retreating only going to give him options we don't want him to have.

 

[Erebeal]

We don't need to "snipe" the falcon. Hoarfrost refrain hits all secondary targets within close, which is 100m. This arena is 150x100x50. In almost all cases the falcon is going to be aoe-d anyways, which means it's probably wiser to target refrain on the cultivator where damage over time will matter.

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The point though is to remove the falcon from the fight quickly, in order to cut the incoming damage.

It happening to get caught in D rank AoE isn't going to do that. A full HR, however, might, and in any case if it doesn't (and he doesn't withdraw it to stop it getting hurt more) then the fact that it has the AoE on it makes it much more likely that when we throw our next attack out at him, then the AoE will drop it.

 

[Thor's Twin]

But if we moving backward, then swordboi can escape suffering for first turn, because he would have safe zone where to retreat if he wish so. Moreover it useless if he can cover more than Close range in one turn. We don't know nor his Speed nor what Arts he has. So retreating only going to give him options we don't want him to have.

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If we are going for a more defensive strategy, then him choosing to retreat would benefit us. It would give us more time to ramp up and we are very powerful when we ramp up all the way. So, him choosing to retreat from us would play into the defensive strategy which is fine by me.

I fully expect him to be able to cross the entire distance and reach us in a single "turn." That is not in question. I also fully expect him to move into near or adjacent space. He wants to be close to us so that he can use his weapon to it's fullest potential. Sure he can extend the effect of his slash and do awesome things with it, but the closer he is the more tools he will have to beat us up with.

No, there are two reasons why backing up is good, in my opinion. 1) Narratively we will have more time to react to what he is doing; 2) moving backward allows us to have better control over where his falcon will be attacking from.

1) While he can most likely cross the distance relatively easily, it should still take time to do. He is unlikely to be teleporting but rather moving extremely fast. Thus, moving backward increases the distance which means that we have slightly more time to react and adjust. When we are trying to buy as much time as possible, every fraction of a second counts.

2) This is a bit stranger, but we know the base type of bird that our competitor has, a Falcon. Falcon's typically hunt by dive bombing their prey and killing it in a single strike. While it is unlikely that we can be killed in a single strike, it is still a good idea to control where the opponent can attack you, especially when they outnumber you. The closer we are to the middle, the greater the number of angles the Falcon has to strike us from. By restricting the space between us and the boundaries of the field, we limit the space the falcon has to attack us from and we can better keep an eye on it.

Ultimately, our competitor will be trying to get in close to us, it's why he entered a strong advancing stance. Knowing this, moving backward restricts the effective space of the duel which allows us to better manipulate the position of the Falcon. Should he decide to retreat, that will give us breathing room to keep ramping up and allow Ling Qi to decide if chasing after him is appropriate at the time.

 

[Arkeus]

[X] Fight aggressively, using her arts to defeat him proactively with her more direct arts.
-[x] Flavor: with our newfound mastery, cast all we behold into wintery night, ending our foe with our frozen serenade.
-[x] Echoes -> MotV to create darkness to boost GCD -> Go on offense with Hoarfrost + sword. 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.

Yeah, we really can't afford to go too slow about this. Even Echoes => MotV=> HR is arguably playing with fire because the actual advantages of MotV are mostly perception-gated and he seems to have +perception gear.

If we are going for a more defensive strategy, then him choosing to retreat would benefit us. It would give us more time to ramp up and we are very powerful when we ramp up all the way. So, him choosing to retreat from us would play into the defensive strategy which is fine by me.

I fully expect him to be able to cross the entire distance and reach us in a single "turn." That is not in question. I also fully expect him to move into near or adjacent space. He wants to be close to us so that he can use his weapon to it's fullest potential. Sure he can extend the effect of his slash and do awesome things with it, but the closer he is the more tools he will have to beat us up with.

No, there are two reasons why backing up is good, in my opinion. 1) Narratively we will have more time to react to what he is doing; 2) moving backward allows us to have better control over where his falcon will be attacking from.

1) While he can most likely cross the distance relatively easily, it should still take time to do. He is unlikely to be teleporting but rather moving extremely fast. Thus, moving backward increases the distance which means that we have slightly more time to react and adjust. When we are trying to buy as much time as possible, every fraction of a second counts.

2) This is a bit stranger, but we know the base type of bird that our competitor has, a Falcon. Falcon's typically hunt by dive bombing their prey and killing it in a single strike. While it is unlikely that we can be killed in a single strike, it is still a good idea to control where the opponent can attack you, especially when they outnumber you. The closer we are to the middle, the greater the number of angles the Falcon has to strike us from. By restricting the space between us and the boundaries of the field, we limit the space the falcon has to attack us from and we can better keep an eye on it.

Ultimately, our competitor will be trying to get in close to us, it's why he entered a strong advancing stance. Knowing this, moving backward restricts the effective space of the duel which allows us to better manipulate the position of the Falcon. Should he decide to retreat, that will give us breathing room to keep ramping up and allow Ling Qi to decide if chasing after him is appropriate at the time.

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Huh... pretty sure being backed in a corner makes it easier for the Falcon to divebomb us, not harder. It limits the angle we can dodge in, more than the angles he can attack us in.