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

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1986ctcel said:
What part of this is hard to understand?
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Huo Yuhao said:
The plan is to let Hanyi stay on top of Zhengui so that she can use LWM's taunt to bring opponents to Zhengui. LWM also prevents Hanyi from being attacked so long as she is able to land it. Hanyi is vulnerable if LWM fails, but she will have Zhengui and us as backup.
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now, correct me if I am wrong, but none of that requires stealth to work. (which btw. makes it quite strange that this plan was used to support training it, but ok.)

This plan can work, but it probably needs LQ to function as a dedicated damage dealer, because neither LWM nor Zhengui (with exception of his Rebirth Inferno) deal all that much damage.
It does have a slight problem: LWM makes the opponent go at their max base speed and zhengui is still a slowpoke, so him being tank/backup still needs him to get some kind of taunt of his own. Maybe his breakthrough can fix that
 
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Random Shinobi said:
Why are you guys so focused on stealth's potential combat use? Isn't avoiding undesirable battles the entire point of stealth?

I want more stealth mainly to help us to acquire more resources, like we did in the Outer Sect. The ability to bypass enemies and defenses will also make almost any mission we take easier and safer.
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Because there are some people who intensely desire stealth to be a MAJOR part of our build, and there is only so much effort that people would otherwise be willing to put in for a non-combat utility.
 
[X] Zhengui would be awakening soon. Arrange for transportation, so that you can take your family out to see his awakening. Your arts will be more than enough to ensure their safety for a short trip.
 
Personally, for the whole build, I would go for this

60% Music 40% Stealth

I also favour including perception into the build as well. It not only is a bonus from New Moon, it can also go well with us both as a bard spy and a sneaky spy.
 
How to use stealth in combat and have Zhengui tank without a taunt: Just hide behind/under/on top of him. Seriously, he's going to be literally the size of a mountain at some point and at some point, the enemy is going to have no choice but to attack him because he's in the way of everything.
 
ParticipantAward said:
How to use stealth in combat and have Zhengui tank without a taunt: Just hide behind/under/on top of him. Seriously, he's going to be literally the size of a mountain at some point and at some point, the enemy is going to have no choice but to attack him because he's in the way of everything.
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I'm skeptical that this will work. Back in the Outer Sect tournament, Ji Rong was able to avoid Zhengui pretty easily. I think it's likely that as Zhengui becomes bigger, the ability for opponents on our level to avoid him will also become proportionally greater such that going around or over Zhengui to attack us or our allies will not be a problem for someone who's a true threat to us. If this is the case, a taunt is definitely necessary. LWM works for now but it would be great if Zhengui himself could get a taunt.
 
Huo Yuhao said:
I think it's likely that as Zhengui becomes bigger, the ability for opponents on our level to avoid him will also become proportionally greater such that going around or over Zhengui to attack us or our allies will not be a problem for someone who's a true threat to us.
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Ridiculous. The skill for quickly moving in a circuitous pattern around large obstacles is already known, and anybody who could be a true threat to us won't have invested in it.

After all, everybody knows - speed is a lie. ;)
 
Anyways, I'm thinking Stealth commitment should be around 1/4 to 1/5 of the build personally. Our Support/Music stuff plays with a distinctly mixed bag.

Stealth compatibilities:
-Force opponents to engage tanks instead of support. This does not require total concealment, only enough difficulty in target acquisition that they can't do it while all the adds are pounding on them, or if they do so, to have expended time and energy locating us and effectively giving the tanks more time to pound on them.
-Team stealth insertion. Delivering a surprise warhead containing Meizhen AND the means to force opponents to attack her is...something alright.

Stealth incompatibilities
-Assassin play style is out. We're too visible and too loud once we engage, as is basically everyone in our social group. Stealth is for insertion, exfiltration will be hot as long as we have any combat.
-Stealth as a primary defense layer(as opposed to our current use of Debuffs->Evade->Defense) is very difficult to work due to team presence and AoEs. They can't find our exact tile, but it's never been hard at all to find enough locality to throw a dispel or AoE at us if we're doing anything more than using FVM.
-We don't have much, if any of the speed stuff which would make it hard to localize us via stealth, though FVM had gotten huge enough that it's respectably difficult to pin us via the field's size. Team Movement Art When.
-Domain wise we hadn't really been doing anything along the lines of being low profile. This isn't a bad thing, I think SV isn't very comfortable with most of the sneaky insights.

Stealth is a tool, like Archery was a tool.
Its one area where we leveraged our skill as a mortal to be useful as a cultivator, but our main talent still lies in Support. Its useful and iconic enough that discarding it is nonsensical, but I'd rather not twist our build core to shoehorn it in either.

Ling Qi's been using more Malfean Stealth than Adorjan Stealth lately anyways...
 
PrimalShadow said:
Because there are some people who intensely desire stealth to be a MAJOR part of our build, and there is only so much effort that people would otherwise be willing to put in for a non-combat utility.
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More that the nature of stealth is that to be useful for a lot of stealth missions you want really good stealth. When getting caught at all can lead to a mission failure, having max stealth becomes really important if it is to be useful.

That means significant investment, which in turn means that we want to be getting as much value out of our investment as possible.

The fact that we run fields that are busy begging for stealth synergy to be taken advantage of just adds to that.
 
veekie said:
Anyways, I'm thinking Stealth commitment should be around 1/4 to 1/5 of the build personally. Our Support/Music stuff plays with a distinctly mixed bag.

Stealth compatibilities:
-Force opponents to engage tanks instead of support. This does not require total concealment, only enough difficulty in target acquisition that they can't do it while all the adds are pounding on them, or if they do so, to have expended time and energy locating us and effectively giving the tanks more time to pound on them.
-Team stealth insertion. Delivering a surprise warhead containing Meizhen AND the means to force opponents to attack her is...something alright.

Stealth incompatibilities
-Assassin play style is out. We're too visible and too loud once we engage, as is basically everyone in our social group. Stealth is for insertion, exfiltration will be hot as long as we have any combat.
-Stealth as a primary defense layer(as opposed to our current use of Debuffs->Evade->Defense) is very difficult to work due to team presence and AoEs. They can't find our exact tile, but it's never been hard at all to find enough locality to throw a dispel or AoE at us if we're doing anything more than using FVM.
-We don't have much, if any of the speed stuff which would make it hard to localize us via stealth, though FVM had gotten huge enough that it's respectably difficult to pin us via the field's size. Team Movement Art When.
-Domain wise we hadn't really been doing anything along the lines of being low profile. This isn't a bad thing, I think SV isn't very comfortable with most of the sneaky insights.

Stealth is a tool, like Archery was a tool.
Its one area where we leveraged our skill as a mortal to be useful as a cultivator, but our main talent still lies in Support. Its useful and iconic enough that discarding it is nonsensical, but I'd rather not twist our build core to shoehorn it in either.

Ling Qi's been using more Malfean Stealth than Adorjan Stealth lately anyways...
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Ling Qi is building her own personal team with all the bound spirits. All of which can be taken in to her datram for exfiltration.
Fleeting Zephyr was our team movement art, but it's only yellow. We need to get the next level of it for into green.
 
EternalObserver said:
Personally, for the whole build, I would go for this

60% Music 40% Stealth

I also favour including perception into the build as well. It not only is a bonus from New Moon, it can also go well with us both as a bard spy and a sneaky spy.
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That would means giving up any chance of winning a fight against a peer, as we would only have 60% combat effective compared to theirs 100%. That's a pretty major cost.
 
archangis said:
That would means giving up any chance of winning a fight against a peer, as we would only have 60% combat effective compared to theirs 100%. That's a pretty major cost.
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soooo......Stealth ain't viable in combat? :thonk:

It's not like we'd spend all our time in combat, and I was speaking in future terms. Obviously we'd also seek to improve our other stats and look for arts that complement them. I'm saying we need to spec something. Music is good, hence I'm putting a bigger priority to it. At the same time, I'm not about to give up on Stealth. Think of it this way, we have the Dreaming/Grinning/Hidden combo. That would be music, stealth, and perception.

Not to mention, unless they're super spec in combat like the Sun, they're not always going to be 100% combat effective, and even if they were, I'm sure there are ways to defeat that opponent. That percentage I came up with anyways isn't really a completely perfect build. That's just something I put to keep in mind on what to specialise.
 
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Varder said:
It's also why Grinning Moon was our first patron.
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Grinning Moon and Hidden Moon both like stealth yes, if for different reasons. Our approach to Stealth involves more "SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER" when in team mode and more of bypassing security in solo mode.

Theres no reason to focus on full combat stealth even so. We can guarantee Unsure level of combat stealth easily. We can manage Unaware level of combat stealth with some work and even potentially extend Unsure to a team reliably.

Putting in the investment to reset to Unready however, is too much squeezing for marginal gains, as the difficulty of maintaining Unready against even cursory perception investment is very high
 
archangis said:
Well, it's gonna be worse than anything combat dedicated that's for sure.



Most cultivators that are not production tracks /are/ super spec for combat. Where are you coming from to say otherwise ?
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I'm saying this in terms of the fact that Inner Sect disciples' gets challenges not just based on combat alone. Secondary/tertiary skills or not, the fact is that they have to invest on it just as much as we do ours. Besides, if combat stealth is totally applicable. It's like throwing a smoke bomb or a flash bang in the middle of the fight then disappearing. Couple that with the fact that we now have Zhengui, Sixiang, and Hanyi to distract our opponents.

Let's use Ji Rong as an example. Right now, I'm pretty confident that Ji Rong can't beat us, but that's because of our spirits and our group support arts(which is essentially where our music build comes in). On our own? Yeah, good luck. In my eyes, Ji Rong is spec in Speed (yes, I'm using that term instead of Instant Movement, bite me) and Perception. Can they be applicable to combat? Hell yeah of course! Then what makes Stealth any less of an option as a combat even though it's totally valid. Heck, right now Ji Rong is starting to move away a little from his path to be a super puncher in order to learn more about Government. Same goes for us, and CRX is totally all for that as well in the side.

If your problem is how I'm graphing the build, I admit it ain't perfect, not accurate maybe even. Yet, it's also ideal for us to move towards that. I'm speaking not just of our Moon patrons synergy, but also the role CRX seems to plan for us. In other words, it's for the far future rather than this current quest where we have to worry for combat (though I'd argue it'd still work)
 
Y'all are really bad at conceptualizing how a stealth character can contribute as part of a team. Do none of you play tabletop? Rogues have been a thing for ages, but let me underline just how Ling Qi could use stealth even in a "loud" combat environment.

It doesn't matter that we can't stealth our teammates, because we're not aiming for that yet. In the team tournament, it's not like they'll be unaware that they're in a tournament fight letting us achieve surprise. In combat, her teammates are active, flashy distractions that demands their active attention and techniques, which helps Ling Qi achieve stealth. This works because the enemy doesn't need to be unaware of Ling Qi, just exactly where she is right now. Her music is heard, yes, but that doesn't mean they can see the source, so we can continue to hammer our enemies. The most relevant tool we've been given here is Hoarfrost Refrain. It lasts until it is dispelled or Ling Qi goes down, but if they're not certain where Ling Qi is, they have no choice but to dispel. If they cannot, we've pretty much won as a team. In a meaningful fight, that's probably not going to happen, but it will likely reveal who the support is, and they do their best to dispel HR and boost spiritual defenses. Which is when Ling Qi switches targets, and shortly pops out of their shadow to give them a proper One With Shadow/CtE nose boop, with the Final Step of SCS and landing the touch attack, would deal A rank damage ignoring both armor and damage reduction.

Like, combat stealth isn't the same as infiltration stealth, yeah? It doesn't matter if they know we're in the area, and in fact that we're around is pressure on them. They need to split their attention between the enemies in front of them and us, because if they dismiss us they know they'll get ganked. If they're throwing AoE at us, those are more expensive techniques that don't let then immediately follow up with a melee flurry, making it easier for Ling Qi to dodge. They're likely not going to throw too much at Ling Qi, because throwing expensive attacks out when you cannot see the results isn't something people really do. If they're wasting time trying to use active perception techniques on Ling Qi, that is active time and attention they are not giving to our teammates, and given our teammates include CRX and the very best she can recruit, giving them additional time to ramp us and do as they please cannot be anything but a mistake.

The real drawback to combat stealth in team fights is how it potentially turns a 5 vs 5 fight into a 5 vs 4 (+1) fight, but the sheer quality of our bound spirits comes into play here to make up for our absence, and how with a little training they should form a very nice team, as well as how we can continue to contribute just the same as if we were not stealthed, because our contributing buffs and debuffs are conveyed as the eerie, ever present background music and area effects that don't give away Ling Qi's exact position.
 
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EternalObserver said:
I'm saying this in terms of the fact that Inner Sect disciples' gets challenges not just based on combat alone. Secondary/tertiary skills or not, the fact is that they have to invest on it just as much as we do ours. Besides, if combat stealth is totally applicable. It's like throwing a smoke bomb or a flash bang in the middle of the fight then disappearing. Couple that with the fact that we now have Zhengui, Sixiang, and Hanyi to distract our opponents.

Let's use Ji Rong as an example. Right now, I'm pretty confident that Ji Rong can't beat us, but that's because of our spirits and our group support arts(which is essentially where our music build comes in). On our own? Yeah, good luck. In my eyes, Ji Rong is spec in Speed (yes, I'm using that term instead of Instant Movement, bite me) and Perception. Can they be applicable to combat? Hell yeah of course! Then what makes Stealth any less of an option as a combat even though it's totally valid. Heck, right now Ji Rong is starting to move away a little from his path to be a super puncher in order to learn more about Government. Same goes for us, and CRX is totally all for that as well in the side.

If your problem is how I'm graphing the build, I admit it ain't perfect, not accurate maybe even. Yet, it's also ideal for us to move towards that. I'm speaking not just of our Moon patrons synergy, but also the role CRX seems to plan for us. In other words, it's for the far future rather than this current quest where we have to worry for combat (though I'd argue it'd still work)
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I think you're underestimating our personal combat potential or overestimating Ji Rong. In spite of the plan, Zhengui didn't do all that much in the fight against Ji Rong and Sixiang was basically useless. We likely could have won without them.

Also, Ji Rong was strong because of his Initiative and Physical Penetration (previously represented by large amounts of perfect damage). He was also one stage of physical cultivation higher than us. Speed didn't have anything to do with it. His Perception wasn't extremely good either - it didn't take too long for him to start being affected by our debuffs.
 
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Huo Yuhao said:
I think you're underestimating our combat potential. In spite of the plan, Zhengui didn't do all that much in the fight against Ji Rong and Sixiang was basically useless. We likely could have won without them.

Also, Ji Rong was strong because of his Initiative and Physical Penetration (previously represented by large amounts of perfect damage). He was also one stage of physical cultivation higher than us. Speed didn't have anything to do with it.
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Pretty sure at the time, Ji Rong is the same cultivation level as us.

As for Zhengui, while flavour text made it seem like he didn't do much, by attacking him, it affects the way the battle flow regardless of Ji Rong's ability to mitigate multi-combat. Heck yrsilllar said it himself, we would've been in trouble if it wasn't for Zhengui and the worms, along with PLR and FVM, we debuffed him enough for him to be grappled and get hit multiple times.
 
EternalObserver said:
Pretty sure at the time, Ji Rong is the same cultivation level as us.

As for Zhengui, while flavour text made it seem like he didn't do much, by attacking him, it affects the way the battle flow regardless of Ji Rong's ability to mitigate multi-combat. Heck yrsilllar said it himself, we would've been in trouble if it wasn't for Zhengui and the worms, along with PLR and FVM, we debuffed him enough for him to be grappled and get hit multiple times.
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Ji Rong's old stats were given to us somewhere in this thread. That's a good point about the fluff though, it makes it hard to judge what strategies were truly effective. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the execution of our plan in that fight was also far from optimal due to yrsillar slightly misinterpreting it. Our victory would have been more decisive otherwise.
 
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