238
Added 2023-05-07 05:01:00 +0000 UTCTo those who hate numbers: Sorry.
To those who hate soul mechanics: Also sorry.
To those who hate both: You're still here, so you've brought this on yourself.
To myself: What were you thinking, you aggregated drupe?
2023-04-30
2023-05-07
2023-05-14
Break
2023-05-28
Comments
Unlikely. And at that point, Rain should have Unity anyway. There's always respec accolades, possibly even an infinite one.
Cirvante
2023-05-13 23:35:10 +0000 UTCAgreed, though with the artificial scarcity created by the Bank, a large number of awakened are severely underequipped. The only reason that the 'lesser wall' at level 10 exists is because adventurers lack equipment and don't have anywhere near full bonus stats. A level 15 striker with a good build, equipment and full bonus stats, be it melee, ranged or a mage, would have wrecked the Razorspine Dissolver during the Shift in a 1v1. And a full team at high-bronzeplates with a good team composition (1x Defender, 2-3x Support and 4-5x Striker) should be able to make it past the wall, with good equipment and full bonus stats. The Watch, despite having silverplate crafters on Vigilance, deliberately underequips their Officers and Sentinels for the same reason they don't give them rare classes. To keep them weak. They raise up new Sentinels with a team of seven other Sentinels. Considering how good Tallheart is and how much he and Lilly accomplished, I'd argue that a delving team might be better off going with one defender, two supports, four strikers and one Metalworker who sub-specializes in Runes, Alchemy, Weapon-crafting and Armor-crafting. They slowly raise him up and he makes them specialized equipment, rings, amulets, armor, weapons, staves. When they're in cities, he pretends to be a second defender or another warrior. Massive advantage.
Cirvante
2023-05-13 23:25:50 +0000 UTCThanks for the chapter!
Gopard
2023-05-10 10:37:52 +0000 UTC...Huh. This likely won't be a thing until they're at Gold or Platinum, because of the Focus requirements, but... If Ameliah starts up Unity, then Rain uses the now-shared Skill Unity, can Ameliah then shut *her* Unity off afterwards while Rain keeps going on pure momentum of borrowing the Skill required to borrow the Skill?
Elaborate
2023-05-10 06:44:19 +0000 UTCIt's unknown whether passives can be used
Aezy Ken
2023-05-09 12:41:21 +0000 UTCSo when Ameliah gets Unity, do you suppose she'll be able to share Empowered Rings? If so, up to the full 20 ranks, or just to the 10 she naturally has? Sharing all 20 ranks would be an awesome power multiplier for Ascension who has access to high-quality rings for missions, and will presumably put an emphasis on Soul training.
Elaborate
2023-05-09 06:57:17 +0000 UTCSoul stuff is the essence of the story, numbers are ok, just not in such huge quantities
Matthew K Fisher
2023-05-09 05:14:37 +0000 UTCI was annoyed by soul stuff for a while, but then I kind of realised that it's pretty critical to not having a massive "why isn't anyone else in the world doing auras+dynamo?"-shaped plot-hole. If there are only 144 skill trees in the world, then it should be pretty easy to just exhaustively search all class+skill-tree combinations, and figure out that dynamo is a good fit for auras. So we need a really massive intractable downside to explain why no one else is doing this.
JhanicManifold
2023-05-08 11:14:46 +0000 UTCActually, doesn't Ameliah have a Class Ability to fudge prerequisites? She might be able to unlock a general Inventory Skill even if it's normally really obscure... An Inventory is IMO among the best, most OP powers there are. So many professions would benefit from one, so I imagine if there are Arsenal Skills, there's also [Chemist's Cabinet] in Chemistry, [Forager's Basket] in Natureworking, [Prospector's Backpack] in Metalworking, etc. Hm, could there be a Class specializing in Inventory Skills? Getting two of them in just 6 skill slots seems like it would require Respec Accolades; I wonder if the System acknowledges those kinds of shenanigans...
Elaborate
2023-05-08 10:08:27 +0000 UTCHm, Ameliah has both Ranged Arsenal and Heavy Armour Inventory. I wonder if having both is enough to unlock a more general Inventory Skill, letting her save a skill slot by keeping armour, bow and arrows in the same Inventory Skill... I guess maybe she needs 30 points in Inventory Skills to unlock that? She could get Melee Arsenal and test.
Elaborate
2023-05-08 09:45:53 +0000 UTCDislike of soul stuff more comes from frustration that Rain has been grappling with his affliction (almost makes it sound like a drug addiction which it isn’t) while the story updating 3 or so times a month. That is the risk of reading in progress stories and less a mark against this story as pretty obvious what people were getting into.
Conor McGroarty
2023-05-08 04:08:17 +0000 UTCUnity only supports active skills according to the skill card for it
13thZygrite
2023-05-07 22:11:43 +0000 UTCShe might as well let Rain train the Skills up to max - which I guess would be 10? - before switching them out for other Auras. After that, I guess Fall would be good if they're going to sit in the wilderness and meditate, Acuity would help their danger detection, and Light Ward + Cold Ward would counter the most likely sources of damage. (Though maybe switch Acuity for Dark Ward just in case.)
Elaborate
2023-05-07 21:17:48 +0000 UTCI liked this chapter, there was some interesting stuff here. First of all, I'm surprised that Ameliah can handle 3,600 bonus stat points. That's 500 points more than what she should be able to handle at level 31. And I feel like Rain is handling his massive Clarity-to-Focus imbalance a little too well. 13,940 Clarity to his 280 Focus means a ratio of almost 50:1. This should be debilitating, yet he doesn't even seem as scatter-brained as he used to. A pure monolith taking their legendary silver class should be way more crippling than that, even with Dynamo being one of the less dangerous options, along with Vivificant and Tortugo. Anyway, I really liked the T4 of Arcane Mysteries. It's the first skill that specifically requires aspected mana. It also confirms that Flash is in T3 Arcane Mysteries and Flight probably in T3 Arcane Utility. It also indicates that a Translocationist would need Arcane Mysteries, Arcane Utility, Evocation Metamagic and Magical Utility. It might even be a rare silver upgrade for an Arcane Mysteries Mage with both Flash and Flight. This very nicely sets Jamus up to become Ascension's Translocationist. Alternatively, Sana could go for that build, the girl deserves a blue after getting screwed with her level 2 cap. I also found it surprising that Airwalk is in T2 Physicality. I expected both Airwalk and Flight to be T4 skills. This changes things a lot for potential bronze builds, since aerial mobility can be a massive advantage. I believe Physicality also has Quickstep and Efficient Movements. Alacrity might be in T3 or T4 as well. Great skill tree! And Unity giving access to passive skills is a huge benefit. Basically, Rain could use Ameliah's Unity to get mobility skills like Quickstep and Airwalk, Empowered Armor, Deep Hardness/Durability, etc. Empowered Rings would allow him to drop two Aura Collector Rings, although the lack of Equipment Mastery means they'd take durability damage. She could retake Fall and let him use that with enough metamagic to make it -100% need for sustenance. Maybe test if Arcane Mastery works for Utility Auras. So much potential!
Cirvante
2023-05-07 19:56:45 +0000 UTCWhat I really like about your world is how strong equipment is. Usually in these kind of stories it plays at mavimuza secondary role, the strength of the individual trumping all. But that's not what sets humanity apart from beasts. It has always been the use of tools that let humans rise to the top. It also creates real incentive for strong individuals to protect the population apart from "honor". They need the economy of the people to so support themselves. Granted with crafters at the level of tallheart that somewhat mitigated, but still more true than in other stories.
Enkelados
2023-05-07 16:45:04 +0000 UTCI do like seeing the full loadout Rain and Ameliah have. Is Ameliah actually planning to keep the empire auras after she gets unity? It seems like they give a crappy bonus (+100 all stats) for a lot of cost without Rain’s metamagic and mana regen. Plus Ameliah can only barely handle the stat bonus from her rings right now. Dropping those would free up 4 other skills Ameliah could potentially take that they would share with Unity
Bzzt
2023-05-07 15:45:07 +0000 UTCI notice that their percentage resistances match the defensive auras, except for Force. Was it incompatible with another ward? Other than that, current useful 'farmable' skills (= active non Archer skills): Energy Well, Healing Word, Airwalk. Unless Ameliah respecs something else, that's it. I do hope this experimentation will let Rain learn how to hijack the skill shards and use them without system assistance. With the Empires boosting their Focus, Heavy Armor Inventory, Mana Vent, Mana Sight, and the Empires become available. It's doable, but only if they swap rings, as Ameliah doesn't have a way to boost the Empires as much as Rain would afaik. On the plus side, that would be free, mana-wise (edit: forgot about Soul strain. Oops). And at worst, after a few minutes grinding, Rain would be able to grant her far more stats than the rings did. Or Rain could unlock Empire of Will and do that anyway, without mana cost for Ameliah. Only a massive amount of soul strain.
SevereMaisJuste
2023-05-07 14:46:01 +0000 UTCIt lets all people in a party use the skills (with rank restrictions) of all party members
JhanicManifold
2023-05-07 13:19:34 +0000 UTCCan someone point me to where unity was mentioned? I don't recall what it does
seth dauer
2023-05-07 13:18:10 +0000 UTCUnfortunatly, both the person with unity and the person using the borrowed skill have to pay the full mana/other cost.
payforthat
2023-05-07 13:14:56 +0000 UTCWait, using Unity, if both Amelia and Rain have Prismatic Intent, and Amelia can use Rain's Winter (assuming multiple winters stack?), then Rain can use Life Well and Energy Well to give both of them HP and stamina limited only by Rain's mana regen. Which should be around 3600 mp/s if the winters stack Rain can also blast Immolate, Refrigerate, Radiance, Shroud and Fulmination together in a giant Nova, The skill cards from past chapters had the damage at around 100k/second at the cost of 2400mp/s. With a mana capacity of 230000, Rain can basically do 500k damage per second for 23 full seconds before he runs dry, or 100k/second damage indefinitely if he's using a Winter Nova at the same time... so 10 times the damage limit... per second... every second. The monsters in the depths better have some pretty good resistances if they wanna survive.
JhanicManifold
2023-05-07 13:03:44 +0000 UTC''Aura anchors are attuned to a single aura at the time of creation'' Was it a new thing here? i don't remember having it before, so Aura anchors can use only one aura? or by being attuned to a specific aura, this specific aura cost less and etc when using it with this anchor? Heavy Metal armor build seem so OP man Mana Vent (10/10) Desaturate heavy armor by venting accumulated mana Rate: 18118.0 mp/s Cost: 1000 sp Mage can only cry in despair with how easy it is to make them basically 'useless' and easy to fight/counter their ability/way/skill/capacity with how easy magic can get easely countered by a metal thing and people going for it with some skill Amelia with the Empower Ring boost (and these all stats ring) and the possible Intrinsic skills for each stats (400% base increase for each stat) if she take these skills for each of her stats type, physical and mental one can have (a bit in the future when she have more/enough skill point to go for it) a massive massive massive amount of each stats working as a rock solid fundation for her on any aspects and for her build/skill she choose to use Seeker Shot (10/10) Turn speed: 9009.10 deg/s The Hell xD it make me a picture in mind of a throw Chakram or projectile like that, make to spin hard with 9009 degre per sec of turn speed going for the hit :P (its 25 360° per sec :P) Outch 800 mana/sec for the full set of the basic Empire aura hit hard (and its not even with full buff of other skill possible where it can go way way for more with Rain other aura skill who up the cost a lot)
Zarik0
2023-05-07 12:14:55 +0000 UTCAhhhhhh, numbers
Metierian
2023-05-07 12:00:24 +0000 UTCOh so many implications. He might even get a way to get artificial active skills. By Ameliah using unity him using a skill while studying/copying it.
Jeppe Fiig
2023-05-07 11:59:16 +0000 UTC> The inside was solid preframulated amulite At least he found a solution for side fumbling! I just hope his grameters sync up...
loimprevisto
2023-05-07 11:49:39 +0000 UTCMaybe elemental refinement is in magical utility and thus can count that way? Plus would be useful with controlling the mana and making the teleport efficient?
Conor McGroarty
2023-05-07 11:45:21 +0000 UTCI wonder if the shared Skills count as fulfilling prerequisites. Probably not, but that would make Ameliah extremely useful for getting Ascension members optimized builds... Oh, and does inactive Skills count for 'total Skill points' prerequisites? If so, Rain might unlock some awesome Hidden Skills...
Elaborate
2023-05-07 10:48:44 +0000 UTCWell with unity guess his priorities for what to spend his last skill point on change.
Conor McGroarty
2023-05-07 10:37:11 +0000 UTCThe skill window for teleport does not mention a requirement for elemental refinement. But, text below seems to think jamus would need it as a requirement.
payforthat
2023-05-07 10:19:56 +0000 UTCI think the 150 Ameliah gets includes her X3 from empowered rings skill
payforthat
2023-05-07 10:15:26 +0000 UTCAs I thought, you can get a lot more stats into a stat ring if you don't bother with making the stats adjustable. Ameliah's give her 150 in every stat, that's three times what Rain gets. IMO, Rain ought to replace two of his Grand Malleable Rings with one Grand Allstat Ring and one Grand Clarity Ring. Less flexibility, but more total stats, overall a win. Well, I guess he can wait until he' used his Grand Malleable Rings to grind up Synchronization and Tolerance to the max value they can give; that's their main advantage. (Though he could also add them as ear rings and just switch which ones are active.)
Elaborate
2023-05-07 10:01:01 +0000 UTCRain's progress window ought to keep track of how many Skill Trees he has unlocked in total, and how much essence he has. Maybe also the median level of his Mind modules. Those three are the critical metrics of this Arc, after all.
Elaborate
2023-05-07 09:44:36 +0000 UTCYes! Fixed, thanks!
SenescentSoul
2023-05-07 09:34:58 +0000 UTCFixed, thanks!
SenescentSoul
2023-05-07 09:34:08 +0000 UTCLove the soul stuff. I even sometimes wish there was more :P. Keep up the good work.
Callum Rhodes
2023-05-07 09:31:55 +0000 UTCShouldn't Rain have inactive skill shards for the Soften Steps skill too, since he leveled it from Tallheart's accolade? Well, I guess they could still be tangled up in his core if he hasn't gotten around to extracting them.
Bombastus
2023-05-07 09:24:46 +0000 UTCSoul chapters best chapters. I love that he has the beginnings of an ability lab. Wonder if he'll be able to get persistent access to spells granted by Unity if he builds up a good enough impression of them in soul space like he's obviously done with tame pet? Looks like he needs a debugger for the clarity housing too. So many system mechanics to build emulators for...
sigma
2023-05-07 09:03:19 +0000 UTCWhat a delight, thank you for those sweet, sweet numbers, I missed them so much. Full Ameliah skill tree (well, we had it in 216, but it updated since then), full list of Ameliah accolades, her status, Rain's progress toward soul, hints about Ice Bolt and Tame Monster. A very solid foundation for the future chapters (and I thought that recent chapters were a bit rushed). I still can not understand about production Essence "ex nihilo". I hope we'll receive answer eventually.
Arhin
2023-05-07 08:33:42 +0000 UTCThanks for the chapter! A reminder of Rain’s skill tree was very much appreciated, it really helps with making sense of the numbers again, and it was good seeing Ameliah’s current loadout. I’m looking forward to the deeper delves. The Dozer skill was very intriguing, and I have a distinct feeling that figuring that out will have major repercussions regarding how skills work.
Thomas V.
2023-05-07 08:14:58 +0000 UTCNothing happend in the chapter....
Tomer Yud
2023-05-07 07:41:00 +0000 UTCSo disappointing, glad i decided to snooze this book for a year after this month
David Ford
2023-05-07 07:20:47 +0000 UTCThere are likely many different ways to answer that question. But a more central one could be “because the author likes it/thinks its important”?
Ask
2023-05-07 07:02:59 +0000 UTClmao another soul chapter, clearly lots of people enjoy it I am SOME DAY going to read the 10 chapters im behind on but ehh it's only a few bucks whatever
Pocket Rikimaru Thanatos
2023-05-07 05:50:08 +0000 UTCHe has a cap of how much unallocated exp he can keep. He can increase his total exp by "spending" it on trees.
Aezy Ken
2023-05-07 05:42:25 +0000 UTCI'll do you one better, why have soul chapters at all? 🤨 I've skimmed/skipped almost all soul content over the last 2 ish years and it does not really feel like I'm missing out on anything in the main story. I understand he has to fix his paling, I understand he got to the point where he is right now way before he was supposed to, and I understand that he is working to fix it. Aside from that, what is the point of an entire chapter dedicated to soul stuff? We only get like 40ish chapter/year, do we really need a quarter of them on this?
yeeteris dedmeem
2023-05-07 05:42:10 +0000 UTCThere's a classic vampire rise where the stand up by rotating. Think of it like falling backwards with the pivot point near the ankles. Vampires do that in reverse.
The Random NPC
2023-05-07 05:33:14 +0000 UTCHey why's he keep buying new skill trees? It seems like I've forgotten a very basic mechanic of the story. He gets experience from spending mana, and then uses experience to buy skill trees, and that...makes his soul stronger?
Gardor
2023-05-07 05:33:09 +0000 UTCHow do vampires pivot using their ankles?
Gardor
2023-05-07 05:22:37 +0000 UTCOn the accolades, The icy cellar shows 2,00 instead of 2,000 also The Lair of Embers accolade is 1000 and not 1,000
JellyDrivex64
2023-05-07 05:15:24 +0000 UTCNumbers are the best though 🤥
Kef
2023-05-07 05:07:45 +0000 UTC
