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Chapter 70 (Patreon)

Published:
2019-11-20 23:00:36
Edited:
2019-12-07 17:53:36
Imported:
2020-09

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Content

On The Subject of Ratings: https://www.royalroad.com/forums/thread/103757

Comments

Anonymous

I'm liking the intrigue

Seadrake

5 star rating rant. But you're mainly right. I rate things in the 4-5 range because I'm not actively critiqueing your work, some chapters are good others are better. More importantly I don't usually even bother to rate something 0.5 stars. Anything that bad I just don't read anymore, so with readers like me there is alot of confirmation bias.

Anonymous

I love the pettiness of blacklisting that guy

Anonymous

So... All the rating methods from before was your way of preparing for this rant?

Anonymous

You've read "Everybody poops!" Now it's time for "Nobody poops! Except this idiot." Love it. Big stuff coming up I can't wait.

Empty Shelf

Wow, Rain's control of the system is kind of scary If he can force an update of his xp. Also, good on him for not taking the sketchy request without asking questions.

Gabriel

Yeah for "reviwes and rating" a simple like/dislike is better. But for teaching systems what you like a 1-10 system seems better.

Anonymous

I am really glad abot your RR (rating rant) bacause doing it this way improves the abuse resistancy in positive and negative ways. It would simply take to long to up/downvote a whole story and on the other hand it makes it easier to find a good story. While I normally filter a lot with tags in the advanced search, I rarely even start reading anything below 4 stars. And I don't care about spelling or grammar if it doesn't break my reading flow.

Shiro Fuun

How about a system that asks hey was this story better than this story? Then it will average the overall story by the list. But it will ask you after you read a few texts in

Anonymous

Who is Lamida? I don't remember any of the guards being a big part of the story other than when he was kicked out.

Pyrefiend

Every time Rain takes his armor off or has it uncharged, I start worrying something bad is gonna happen. I would be surprised if he ever lost the paranoia when I can't as a mere reader.

Nimps

What was the deal with rankin??

Chopper

He talks about increasing his level cap like its preordained, despite making no plans to find or hunt stronger monsters. Just sayin.

Chopper
>>29209119

That's reasonable though. No story written is for everyone. If someone doesn't like a particular story because of some overarching theme they hate than they shouldn't be rating it at all, its not for them. What gets me is when someone reads one chapter and decides its garbage and gives it a horrible rating.

Rip Woodham

I thought the 5 star system was better. An up or down is not going to be a good representation. It's either like or dislike the chapter now? Maybe I think a chapter is weak or just okay, that does not mean I would downvote it. I would downvote just the new system, if I could. But since the chapter is fairly good, I guess I'll have to upvote.

Rip Woodham

Oh yeah, more ominous please. :-)

Garend
>>29212217

Welll Jamus is only a little below him in Level, is without a large group and has never been in a Dungeon before. He got his Blue/s in the wasteland/badlands. This implies that there are basically Pickup groups that gather together to hunt blues to raise their cap. He can just wander off when he's ready to go do that. I'd much prefer him to get used to unlocking multiple 10K's though. Train that Soul!

Anonymous

I can still picture a teleportation aura, where he can freely teleport anything inside the aura. It'd be a great way to pick up tel.

Bunny Waffles
>>29212044

I would like to agree with you but I am paranoid on principle at this point no matter what I read. I keep assuming things are gonna go sideways even when it is a nice fluffy story.

jdouglas

counterpoint: 99+% of the stuff on royalroad is awful, and anything with less than 4 stars is very likely to be awful. In fact a lot of the stuff with 4+ stars is awful.

L Pedersen
>>29213878

Hey I came up with that :D Did it come up somewhere else? I'd love to see it in the story but the power budget for that kind of thing would be immense. Would have to be t5 or more with some funny prereqs

Prinny

Now i can sleep easy knowing what the 0.5–10 polls were all about. Love the story btw!

Anonymous
>>29212135

i even forgot who he was , what was the last interaction with him again ?

Ziggy

So I've been fiddling with the math/sheets in the calculations that one guy has been posting in the comments of the RR chapters. Rain is going to be OP as HELL when he's silver plate. I'm gonna give some basic assumptions I'm making, and the insane results. For my assumptions: He's level 28, the silver plate boost took the clarity boost from 200% to just 300%, he's ranked all his chosen skills to 15, and he's put the 280 spare points from the ring into 70 strength, 70 endurance, and 140 clarity. Giving him 80 strength, 80 endurance, 440 clarity, and 10's elsewhere. Now if he can handle the pain of an almost full blast winter constantly (which he might not be able to), this gives him a constant regen of almost 200 mana a SECOND from a 24000ish% boost. Without using aura focus. Which is absurd. With aura focus he could regen mana with a 331839% boost for 2700 mana a SECOND. But I'm assuming that would be too painful for him. Plus with the clarity class bonus and related metamagic skills, each 10 points in clarity gives him 600 mana like focus does at bronze plate. While also giving him an extra 5 mana a second (after the winter boost). This gives him 1600 health, stamina, and a whopping 27200 mana. So those are all pretty great but not the OP part. Let's start with Shroud. If Rain uses ONLY aura focus and compresses shroud from the 290 meters to 50, and uses it for a one second nova blast, it costs him 300 mana and does 17000 to 20000 damage. With his mana regen, he could do a shroud nova every other second and never run out of mana while using winter. Even if he can't handle winter that intensely, he could use shroud for 90 ticks for a whopping 2.5 million damage even assuming he regens 0 mana and doesn't compress it to less than 50 meters. For comparison, he can currently only do immolate at 15 meters for 2000-2400 damage for 300 mana a second using focus, compression, AND channel mastery. That's just straight up damage. I think the even MORE overpowered skill is velocity. With amplify and channel, and compressing the range from 72 meters to 30, Rain can increase velocity to an insane 10200% boost to speed. All for just 150 mana a second. If you were going walking speed at 4 mph, you would suddenly go 400 mph speeds the moment you cross that 30 meter mark. If you're a monster charging at a moderate 15 mph, you're suddenly going 1500 mph. So.. you're paste. You fly off into a wall and you go splat. Or you move your body parts so quickly you hit yourself hard enough to also go splat. Unless a monster has a ridiculous arcane resistance, they are dead. Even high vigor isn't going to cope with 1500 mph out of nowhere. And that's just the offensive aspect. If Rain boosts himself to "jump good" at an angle, he can travel quickly ala Hulk jumps. Damage from landing, you say? He can do force ward at a ratio of 0.15 mana per 1 damage at 100%. With 27k mana, he's not going to get hit with over 120k damage from landing. Even if he keeps his defensive wards at 300% to account for damage penetration, he can keep them at 0.5 mana per damage in a 15 meter radius. Constantly. If he compresses it further it's even better. But assuming he wants his friends to be protected too. I picked 28 so he could also get the summer and spring auras. He can hit his entire party within 25 meters with a 20000% boost to both, or just him for the same 24000% boost as winter. Even someone with only 10 in those stats like Rain would regen 870 health and stamina an hour with those boosts. Someone with even just 20 in them with no class boost? 1740 an hour. That's bananas. Sure there's soulstrain from using too much health/stamina/mana for most classes, but he'd turn a vivificant into an undying monster. They don't get soul strain from too much health use like how dynamos don't for too much mana use. And most classes could always use more regen regardless. He's going to have troubles killing non-horde monsters now, but when he hits silver plate he's going to go from doing 2k damage a second for a small amount of time to doing at LEAST 17-20k damage every other second indefinitely. I don't think even abnormally strong monsters are gonna be able to handle silver plate Rain.

Ziggy
>>29215571

Don't know how I got 2.5 million. It's 1.8 million max for shroud for 90 seconds at that ratio.

David Otis

Someone get the bear his coffee!

ZaA

Nice chapter as usual. Question though, do you see rain reaching silver or gold plate in this series' lifespan? The pacing is pretty slow, which i enjoy, but I'd hate it to end before some insane stuff happens.

John
>>29219504

The main reason he isn't at silverplate already is because he hasn't killed a blue that allows him to reach level 25. So I would say that he will definitely reach gold at some point, unless he quits adventuring, or he dies

Boredwayfarer

Don't think the recovery stat should be 30, he didn't increase it

Blaublue

Can Rain please stop using Immolate on slimes? They were Ice so they have some resistance yes, but at least try Freeze Aura on higher intensity to prevent smoke, smell and looking stupid doing dangerous ice-skating Edit added after Empty Shelf and Ziggy's comments: They are only lvl 1 and 2, so even if they only take 10-20% of the dmg they would from Immolate, that still seems like a better choice than dangerous ice-skating (Rain has a bad track-record of falling and hurting himself, and his body is already stressed from yesterday) and the Slimes potentially burning; it's not like he can't afford the mana on having his Aura be active for longer.

Empty Shelf
>>29222564

Remember mageburn. Running Immolate at that very low level was already pretty uncomfortable. If he ran Refrigerate at a level high enough to overcome the resistance of those slimes, he could have seriously hurt himself.

Anonymous

With forced updates along with Compression, it's super-easy for Rain to level offensive auras. Compress them into a singularity and he won't have to worry about mageburn while still being able to use his modifiers to use tons of mana. And of course, singularity Winter to recharge and forced updates to further boost the mana cost and thus experience gain. I'm thinking with a high enough blue he could hit level 25 in two days and max out some more skills. Leveling his defensive auras will probably be the hardest thing though, as he needs to find something/someone willing to do the specific type of damage to level it. Mental defensive would probably be the hardest one for that.

Anonymous
>>29225600

I've been thinking about this a bit more and he might be okay. He wants to angle for Suppression (so one aura of each type). Shroud/shear/corrosion will be his offensive auras. For defensive auras, arcane/light can be easily levelled with Jamus and Val. Then all he needs is a mental aura - but that's hard to level. So instead he goes for cold and heat wards, which are easy to level, then gets his legendary dynamo class (woohoo). We want this asap for specialisations, the exact order in which wards are obtained doesn't matter. It would be insanely stupid for Rain to delay this just because he wants a mental ward. Level 26 is Prismatic Intent. Since he has both heat/cold attack and defense now, he can use multiple auras to avoid mageburn. Level 27 he can pick up Discombobulate. Then at 28 he can go for Suppression. That said, if I were Rain I'd really want to get Spring/Summer/Autumn asap after level 26 so I can run all four seasons constantly and simultaneously with Prismatic Intent.

Anonymous

I think story activity should be what gives it visibility. Those ratings are grabage, I personally don't rate anything I consider less than a 5 and I never wrote reviews. I'm reading somewhere around 30 stories simultaneously, how in the world would I be able to create a long list of explicit details that defend my feelings for a story? Your story is great your characters amazing, and so help me this story helps me get through the endless slog that is my miserable existence. If anyone doesn't like it then they can kill themselves for all I care, the last thing they should be doing is making some unnecessary and arbitrary rating just out of spite.

Ole Halvorsen
>>29225600

I think it's important that he doesn't waist he's talent points, those 2 talent point could be something totally different in another tree. so you potentially Nerf he's late game to get faster to lvl 25.

It'sATap
>>29214245

It's where a lot of writers start and from what I can tell it seems like only 1 in 5 actually speak english fluently.

Anonymous
>>29225600

Suppression is tier 3, yes? It might affect his class advancement. Dont think thats something you want to delay, especially if his next blue is only in the 25 range.

payforthat
>>29225600

There is a problem that may mean buying all the season early is a bad choice. As there are alot of really nice skills in the Utility Aura tree. If the level 50 class upgrade works like the 25 one and he needs 10 skills in 5 trees, then he has some hard choices to make. First two would be Prismatic Intent and Empire of Will (this is a big power up with +spell power and +mana pool size) Then so many choices for remaining 3 options Other 3 seasons ? Acuity (perception boost) Precision (this and acuity might be essential to using high velocity boosts, Precision requires Spring+energy well to unlock) Life well (for healing, requires Summer to unlock) Other empire skills? (Brawn for hit points, requires Life well) Hidden ones and any in Tier 4

Blaublue
>>29222564

How do you or Rain know the resistances of an Ice slime? Or how about changing between the two to lessen Mageburn and ice-skating Better wording added with edit: How do you or Rain know the resistances of an Ice Slime and what would be needed to overcome it? Its Ice resistance could be merely a few points higher than its resistance to Fire

Craig

Was that what all those numbers were about? Rating the chapter? Oops, I just entered random responses sorry for the low numbers

Anonymous
>>29225600

Ole - what do you mean? Which two talent points? It wouldn't nerf anything, just switch up the order skills are acquired. And Rain has seen the other trees, it's unlikely he'll go for anything else. He definitely wants all the defense auras (free to leave on constantly, and they boost aura synergy) and all the seasons (cheap enough to leave on constantly, and means he can allocate more ring stats to strength/endurance). No idea what Autumn does but it's probably great if it needs all the others to unlock - maybe it's another multiplier for all regen stats? If so this is a must. Required - Rain could get Suppression at level 25 by taking Radiance instead of Shroud and Mental Ward, but I don't see the value in getting that early. Mental Ward would take forever to level and he would need it at 10 before he can upgrade his class. Payforthat - I'd be surprised if there was another specialisation at level 50, as Rain's multipliers would just break at that point. But, we know about Endless and attack spells consume mana faster than auras, so maybe that's not unreasonable. Empire of Will would be great if it's stat boost was a different type of soulstrain to armour stat boost, but I doubt it. Precision, acuity, and three seasons would be my choice for Rain, unless rank 4 skills reveal something interesting.

Ole Halvorsen
>>29225600

If he want suppression he need an mental ward. So far I have only seen one. this means that if he takes fire and frost resistance, that he need to invest 2 more points into defensive wards to get the one he wants. So when he hits lvl 26 he needs to spend he's next to point to get the one he wants instead of trying to go for emp auras. My point is that he wants the Auras in Aura utility before he want the talents in Aura Defense, so by spending 2 extra points in Aura defense it will take him longer to get talents in the other trees. He needs mental, chemical, light, and dark. chemical and dark he will get from offensive talent tree. mental he has to get from defensive because there is no other aura talent that is mental. To switch shroud to radiance does not change anything. I think it will make a lot of sense to have wards against Arcane and Mental abilities because I feel like these abilities can be quite nasty to deal with. And I guess the wards will be more effective at blocking those kind of abilities because they are not based on dmg. Empire Auras are not the same soulstrain as rings and armor, they will probably have there own soulstrain. So getting the emp auras should be critical to he's build.

payforthat
>>29225600

I thought Empire of Will might run on same soul strain as the ring boost too at first, but... Re-reading the chapter the limit was mentioned, its specifically described as "equipment based" No doubt there is a soul limit with skill stat boosts too, another 10 a level(?) I feel Empire of Will is best choice at lvl27 - 270 points of focus gives +21600 mana (onto base pool of 13850) X2.28 to spell effect strength +18.75% more mana regen +ability to mess with Carten by giving him a bigger mana pool than most mages. I think Endless was just silver rank, not sure. For gold rank I like the idea you get to unlock a small number of hidden skill trees. Trees you have to meet requirements to be able to see and chose from. Plus class upgrade and more max levels to your specialisations :)

Ole Halvorsen
>>29225600

I'm not sure it's as high as 10 per lvl, + 330 strength end and int at lvl 33 would be sick tho. Think he will have to train up he's tolerance to these auras as well. This is why I hope he might get something els than a legendary dynamo upgrade. My idea about reducing aura related soulstrain by a certain amount. That way you can boost Rains power while "nerfing" what he can give to others. It would be a good way to balance he's auras and give rain a good buff without making everyone else to strong as well.

Anonymous
>>29225600

That's definitely an interesting one - if it is a different group of soulstrain then of course Rain has to get it. There must be short-term buffs in other skill trees that would answer this question for Rain before he spends a skill point in it. Hidden skill trees sounds fun. But that feels a bit unnecessary when most skill trees already have hidden skills and high tiers that are incredibly expensive to unlock, and thus are, effectively, 'hidden trees'. I did a test on further specialisations (so a cap of 20) and the numbers just break. I'm talking 7000 mana regen (without empire of will or stat boosts) from just Winter singularity, and 180,000 with aura focus. Normal damage range is 260 metres and 2000dps. Max everything and you get 2.6km and 100,000 dps (and breaking 10 million compressed). That's on a single aura - Rain would have enough mana regen with aura focus to power at least 3 of these simultaneously. That's at level 50 with 30 auras.

Anonymous
>>29225600

Ole - Rain branching into being soulstrain-resistant would be a very interesting development. That said, level 25 seems a bit early to deviate from the mana regen path, especially since with Prismatic Intent and defensive auras his mana regen literally becomes survivability. Maybe it could be a level 50 thing? Nerfing Rain's power wouldn't do much - he's already limited in what he can give to others by their soulstrain.

CentaureHeart

That was a cool chapter ! Also you really like math too much given your rant, that might be a disease. Cheers !

Ole Halvorsen
>>29225600

Yes that's true, but it's not like he has to deviate from the same path, he still gets a big boost to clarity. What I suggested was a clarity based aura build. Extra mana regain can be turned into other stats, and with the balancing with the rings, I don't see any reason for him to spec into anything else than clarity. Maybe you can even call it Aura dynamo. It's the same as dynamo but has less bonus to clairity. Lets say clarity bonus of 300 normal rute aura dynamo something like 150-200% bonus. Some losses other gains.

Anonymous
>>29225600

Potentially. Well have to see what's offered - it may be that there's only the one legendary option, or that it's literally just 5 specialisations and a cool, unique name based on those. To be honest, 5 specialisations alone is such an incredible boost in practice that I don't think any other boosts (either aura-specific or increasing the mana regen even further) are all that necessary. Rain is a numbers guy, he'll end up picking whatever provides the most output. Boosting auras boosts winter anyway, and the boost can be shared with others, so that seems like the obvious choice.

Anonymous
>>29225600

We should keep in mind that a "Legendary" class will with little doubt have a fairly big increase in experience per level, which, due to experience "locks" on skill tiers, is another boon to him. Perhaps a class is also affected by which skills one has(considering Jamus' class probably required a couple arcane spells to unlock), especially so a legendary class then, due to the whole 5 trees 5 skills requirement(?). Edit - Searched and found this in chapter 52 “There are two. High Dynamo, which is Rare and has a similar requirement to the base class, and then…Legendary Dynamo, though that isn’t the real name. Legendary classes will adapt to whatever Specializations you choose.”

Ole Halvorsen
>>29225600

Yes, it being a legendary upgrade is the most important part. It would be interesting if he at least had some options. At the start, and with his clarity build he leveled to fast to get any interesting classes. Would be fun to see at least 3-4 Aura related classes, one of them might be legendary + some more generic or clarity based spec + ofc the legendary dynamo we already know about. anyways I think we are many weeks away before we get to that point. It's fun to speculate tho.

Ole Halvorsen
>>29225600

well that's certainly interesting which means we will get an aura specific legendary class. Probably want see it before he gets everything to lvl 10. Can already see Rains excitement when he finely get his last resistance prob mental resistance aura to 10 and reveals the legendary class.

Anonymous
>>29225600

The exp for skill tiers is also the only thing that makes me feel the power scaling is appropriate. Like seriously, unless there is some insane scaling noone will ever be able to unlock high tiers. Ole - I imagine we'll see some rare aura classes for sure. Not sure why you think he'd pick a really hard to level ward like mental (do we know anything that does mental damage?) when there are far easier ones available.

Ole Halvorsen
>>29225600

He needs a mental ward to be able to pick suppression, the one that increases mana used. I'm pretty sure Janus will get some mental skills in he's Arcane build. Or else I think Lameda used a mental skill to see if Rain was lying, maybe we will see a friendship blossom there? Also an interesting thought, do you think suppression when Increased mana cost can increase how fast you can train spells that has low mana cost? Being able to boost the cost of winter and he's auras would do wonders to help them lvl faster. The same is also true for others.

Anonymous
>>29225600

He can just wait for later levels for that - I still think the mental attack aura works well, he just can't get it before class upgrade due to the requirement. Mental and arcane are distinct types, so I doubt it. Definitely not with Lameda. The sentinels are only just at tolerating Rain. I did consider that, but it wouldn't make sense for the aura to be able to effect Rain at all.

Ole Halvorsen
>>29225600

It could be effective at training someone else. Does he have a mental attack aura? Ahh true he has, but he cant take that skill before after he gets lvl 26 then he needs to be 27 when he pick the mental talent then 28 when he gets Suppression, so 2 talent points who could go into other aura talents. He prob want the emp auras before he goes deeper into the talent tree.

Anonymous

Theres no rank shifts in Ba Sing Sei 😂

Anonymous
>>29225600

Potentially, but I don't think anyone else has an issue with mana usage, just mana recovery. For which seasons/wells work great. Which order he picks things in will be very dependent on circumstances and how high a blue he finds.

The 49th Khan

I just realized that Aura Compression solves the problem of his auras hurting him and not weakening each other. Provided, that he has Prismatic Intent.

tibbish
>>29261195

Prismatic Intent really solves all his problems and is a big part of the reason why he'll be real strong when (if?) he ever gets over lvl25.

Anonymous
>>29219504

Actually it is not really slow, it just appears that way because he has not been advancing lately. Usually people need far more time to get to Level 18. As far as I remember Gold is the highest known rank so far. If he were Silver or Gold already, there would be not much more left for him to do.

Ziggy
>>29219504

Rain mentions the rank above gold in reference to the watch (or adventurer guild). I THINK it was diamond but don't recall. But Rain said there hadn't been one in the watch for hundreds of years.

Ziggy
>>29222564

Considering we know for a fact the dark aspect monsters in the dark lair were weak to light attacks based off of what Rain's friends told him, it's fairly safe to assume slimes with ice in their name AND nature follow the same general rule. Assuming the opposite would be odd.

Ziggy
>>29225600

The "autumn" aura you've mentioned has been revealed by Val to be called "fall" and provides sustenance. While not important for recovering stats, I think having an aura on that "feeds" everyone via your aura and mana is pretty spectacular. You'd never starve, depending on how it functions. Plus having all four seasons might snowball into more unlocks in the utility tree like having emperial auras for the regen stats eventually.

Blaublue
>>29222564

I never assumed the opposite - I even mentioned their resistance to Ice in my original comment, but thanks for the input. Empty Shelf implied it would be dangerous to raise Refrigerate high enough to overcome their resistance, to which I asked him how does he know how high their resistance is? They are only lvl 1 and 2 after all, so even if they only take 10-20% of the dmg they would from Immolate, that still seems like a better choice than dangerous ice-skating (Rain has a bad track-record of falling and hurting himself, and his body is already stressed from yesterday) and the Slimes potentially burning; it's not like he can't afford the mana on having his Aura be active for longer.

Ziggy
>>29222564

You asked how we could know the resistances of an ice slime. I responded, via example and logic. As we don't know the specific number and he could safely use immolate at that level without mageburn or melting the ice to unsafe levels, there was no point in trying to overcome their resistance and figure it out while risking mageburn from refrigerate. Just adds unneeded and possibly dangerous variables to a safe scenario.

Blaublue
>>29222564

Safe scenario? But it wasn't really safe at all, and he almost fell several times and had to windmill.. He isn't adjusted to his higher stats yet, so he's almost as fragile as a normal human, and falling on Ice can be quite dangerous - especially when fatigued. And your example and logic doesn't really work when I already acknowledged that they were Ice slimes so obviously they have higher resistance to Ice, I merely questioned how much higher that actually is, since 'Empty' stated that overcoming their resistance to Ice could be dangerous - but Rain or he doesn't really know that without testing it out first. Feel like you're strawmanning me here

Ziggy
>>29222564

You didn't specify "how high" the resistances were, you broadly asked how we knew knew the resistances and I responded. If you don't want your words misinterpreted, use specific words to convey the meaning you want lol. Anyways. Sliding on ice around the level 1 slimes was pretty safe. He didn't melt the ice much at all to cause any dangerous circumstances, he kept the slimes at a safe distance constantly, and they couldn't even get close to him with immolate on. Flirting with the mageburn from refrigerate against refrigerate resistant slimes while they can possibly get closer to hurt Rain from dying slower would be unwise, to say the least. At least when he's easily able to handle immolate and somewhat slippery ice to the point it completely lacks danger. Being in awesome armor that would cushion you from any fall on ice with a backup of force ward being able to instantly activate in case you fall is not the same as being as fragile as a normal human.

Anonymous
>>29225600

Damn, really? I remember it being mentioned but not the effects - do you remember what chapter that was? Sustenance is definitely cool and could be damn useful if Rain ever ventures into the badlands or deep into a dungeon. Not an immediately useful one though so not a priority. I'm definitely interested to see what might build on it. Not sure what that might look like though. Once he has his legendary class he can probably get enough experience for Tier 5 skills (nearer to level 50) so I imagine he'll want those before he becomes gold-rank.

Ziggy
>>29225600

Do not remember the chapter. It was before the mine, obviously after Val was introduced to Tallheart. Not too big a chapter gap anyways and can just go to each page and Ctrl + f and look for fall. I imagine Rain is going to get the one imperial aura he qualifies for after level 26 and prismatic intent because he wants to play with it. And we know he wants that mana sight. But logically, I'd be torn on whether I'd want to get the seasonal auras or the rest of the defensive auras first. The health and stamina regen at the 20,000% boost he can do at that level would be nuts (if people can tolerate it). Plus fall and the aforementioned hidden skills logic. But keeping up every ward at 300% at 0.5 mana for 1 damage for nonstop coverage? That'd be a nice little security blanket even with penetration.

Anonymous
>>29225600

We know Rain would still be limited in how much health and stamina he can regen - the only reason he gets away with mana is because of how much Clarity he has. I think he should definitely go for Suppression. After that seasons, then round out the wards. It's hard to say without knowing how high a blue he finds. If it's high enough Rain will shoot through the levels so the order doesn't matter. If it's level 28ish, then he has to actually consider skill order properly.

Ziggy
>>29225600

We haven't seen any soul strain with winter on anyone so far. The only soul strain we've seen is too much mana USE in conjunction with winter; totally different soul strain. I don't know if having the overhealth and overstamina counts as "using" too much of it. Not to mention we know that the seasonal auras are described as pretty gentle on the soul, but who knows how much that holds true when you're hitting 20,000% boost. I'm betting a lot of overhealth helps with aging more slowly on top of healing and aches, and a lot of extra stamina helps with coordination and muscle memory. So pump me up, daddy. I imagine it'll be just a little over 25 considering how much stronger monsters are and how much that will increase the higher in level they go.

Ole Halvorsen
>>29225600

I really don't see that much potential for the defensive wards, firstly because they are really inefficient, even if absorbing the dmg, you can assume it takes really little mana for the others to do a lot of dmg. Second, Rain only has so many talent point, to overspend in this tree I feel like is a mistake. Don't misunderstand me it certainly a powerful abilities, but you can't just turn everything to max and become invincible. What can Rain do without mana, 10sec without mana and he is easily killed. What I see the potential for this tho is that it can be extremely good to make it safe to kill blues for ppl who has not killed a blue yet. He can basically make them immune to physical dmg as long as it's the right type of lair.

Anonymous
>>29225600

Ziggy - true, I meant use, not regen. I doubt overmana is a significant issue as nobody seemed bothered by Rain boosting them quite a lot. Ole - having defence against everything would be pretty great even if it isn't the most efficient now. They'll only get stronger, and they effectively turn mana regen into pure defence, which is pretty damn good considering Rain's mana regen. It's also a great early warning system for attacks.

Blaublue
>>29222564

I thought me already having mentioned Ice slimes having a higher resistance to Ice would make it obvious what my intention was, but I can't really expect people to read meaningless internet comments too closely, so I do bear some blame. Got a little defensive from you insinuating I would think an Ice Slime wouldn't have a higher Ice resistance, especially since I already mentioned it (though to be fair, I could've made my meaning clearer). I don't agree with at least not testing it out or changing between the two Auras on the same intensity even. Also, the Slimes died easily, and from someone who theorycrafts a lot (Rain), it seems weird to not even test how easily they would die with Refrigerate on the same intensity instead You do have a point with Force Ward and falling that I hadn't considered (if he manages to react in time)

Ole Halvorsen
>>29225600

Lets put it like this Rehklr do you want tier 1 defensive auras, or do you want a tier 4 talent? Rain just has so much talents, if he wants emp auras, all heal and regain auras it will be hard for him to take all the defensive wards.

Anonymous
>>29225600

Tier 4 for sure. But all his trees other than Utility Auras have fewer and fewer skills at higher tiers - only 1 each at Tier 3. If that continues he's not going to be short on skill points in the long run. And he already will have 5 defensive auras at level 25 (for the specialisations) so it's only 3 more for the full set.

Anonymous
>>29219504

@Ziggy Pretty sure what you're talking about is gold rank "watchers" being called Wardens, and there not being a need for one in a city so "undeveloped?". Don't think there was anything about beyond gold tier or hundreds of years :P

Ziggy
>>29219504

No, not wardens. I believe it was when Rain was talking about a leader being called/nicknamed a volcano, and a diamond not being in the group for hundreds of years. Can't remember if watch or adventurer guild. But it was the rank above gold and definitively named.

Ziggy
>>29219504

Found it. Chapter 65. Messed up the name. Anyway, back to the Guild. Halgrave is just in charge of the Fel Sadanis branch. The actual guild leader is a man called Burrik The Volcano. He’s some sort of fire mage and he’s a goldplate. There hasn’t been a platinumplate in the guild for hundreds and hundreds of years.

Ole Halvorsen
>>29222564

He would probably be fine. Yes he could probable have checked more for resistance and how it works, it would have been a good instance where it was pretty safe to do some investigation. Tho, I don't think he wanted to give away to much information when the sentinel was there watching.

Garrett
>>29261195

PI is the last core skill that Rain's build needs to be fully functional. [Prismatic Intent] gives flexibility and allows Rain to do multiple things at once, [Aura Synergy] ensures power creep won't be a problem as he levels, [Aura IFF] allows him to use auras in mixed company and [Magical Synergy] gives him the mana he needs to function without compromising his more important clarity stat. [Channel Mastery] and [Aura Compression] are nearly as valuable but aren't inherently necessary for the build to work.

Anonymous

I'm seeing a lot of comments going about which choices and speculation on his lv25 Class Upgrade. So many are focusing on the clarity multiplier, but i think the more important thing is that the choices of specialization shape the class. Dynamo Auramancer giving him natural Aura shaping and other Aura-manipulation natively would be a pretty impressive thing. Make a 'Spear' out of a cylinder of Immolation, a 'Shield' of Shear to disrupt/active block attacks. It would be really cool to allow his Auras become 'equipment' if he gets (or grows into, perhaps its something that gets better the higher level/more skills into his Aura trees and by Goldplate (lv50) he'd be pure Auraequipment) fine control of aura shape from his class specialization. The fact his auras are limited to spheres which he can push or pull, white or blacklist, is really the biggest capability he's missing.

Ziggy
>>29300284

I'm about 90% certain that aura compression, extend aura, and maybe mana manipulation will reveal a hidden skill unlock for aura shaping at some point.

Anonymous
>>29300284

TBH I'm kind of on the fence as far as 'hidden skills' as a whole. There's not a lot of sample size, but with...what was it, 144 categories in X tiers, thats already a giant web of skills. As a concept, it just comes off to me as a way to asspull something rather than having it as just another skill. Hence why I'd rather attribute it to a class thing, which I feel is a far better concept for nonspecific changes to abilities and expansion of capabilities. Especially open-ended changes like fine-aura-manipulation

Ole Halvorsen
>>29300284

Well, what's nice about the hidden skills is that it gives the author ability to add talents later. maybe an ability that make's it possible for him to shift the center of he's aura. Actually got that idea when Rain in chapter 62 tried to push out he's mana outside he's body. It would be fun that some hidden abilities also gets revealed when he is able to use certain actions. Being able to shift where he is standing regarding the center of the aura could be impressive. But I think it's important that he still is inside the radius of the spell to make it feel like an aura ability.

Ziggy
>>29300284

I'm 100% on board with the way the hidden skills have been shown and used thus far. It makes sense to me that some skills would have some kind of synergy that work in conjunction as the only way to be able to unlock other specific, hidden skills. It also rewards people for figuring out or lucking out upon certain skill combinations. With some hidden skills being so widely known they're only technically so. I'm not so much worried about this being used for skills being pulled out of nowhere. We know almost no skills from like 138 skill trees, and there are tiers in the trees Rain is focused on that haven't been unlocked yet. There's no shortage of ability to make up skills. It makes for a better dynamic in the story for me for some characters to have figured out how to unlock cool or extremely specific skills. Or for Rain to get a few as a reward for his great synergy that 99% of people aren't going to have or even know about.

Anonymous
>>29300284

I mean...thats....kind of my point. There are just *so many skill trees* that I feel its kind of...a waste? unnecessary? to wiggle in hidden skills. Especially since we've only seen one so far, despite a spread of skills, which kind of makes me feel things are unbalanced/lopsided.

Ziggy
>>29300284

Well no, my point was that it makes sense in this universe to reward good skill combinations or that the system and/or people's bodies only see some hidden skills able to be unlocked when prerequisites have been met. And that it isn't about the "pulling random skills out" you mentioned because of the many trees. It makes sense from a story perspective to have people that have managed to combine skills to unlock unique, specific, powerful, or just plain cool hidden skills that aren't general knowledge. Allows for some interesting characters and unexpected events. Without hidden skills, Rain would only be surprised by people higher level than himself as he's gradually unlocking every single skill tree up to his level. And while I already mentioned a few reasons for it making sense from a mechanics perspective, there's also the fact this universe's "system" is not too user friendly. It doesn't give you much information about so many things, there isn't a guide or user manual, SO much isn't written down or explained or known until someone tells you or you find out from experimenting. It makes sense that such a system would have "hidden" skills that make sense via a background mechanic that is not explained but can be understood.

Ziggy
>>29300284

Whoops, forgot to say. For Rain we have the super well known magical synergy, but also channel mastery as hidden skills. And Rain mentioned not being able to find a few of Val's skills. Not sure what other hidden skills we've seen thus far.

Craxuan

So, Rain's idea of malice is making everyone's life a bit easier except the asshole who treated him badly. More specifically, by allowing him to poop like a normal person. I don't even know what to say.

Anonymous

I was thinking, if Rain ever got to the point where he could keep his Refrigerate aura up over an area big enough to house a, lets say "city". He could whitelist all people living there, and even if the city was in an area where monsters could spawn inside it, they would just die to his aura instantly (assuming the rank of the area wasnt too high ofc).