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198 (Patreon)

Published:
2022-05-01 05:00:05
Edited:
2022-05-01 10:20:05
Imported:
2022-05

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Content

Whew, this one took a lot out of me. Good thing I had that break week, or I would have never made it. Lots going on in here. I think it came out pretty good, though! Check my math!


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Comments

Anonymous

Best part of the chapter was the keyboard warrior. Nothing beats steadfastly typing your enemies into oblivion

Anonymous

Shoulda named the town Five Cliffs, for proper foreshadowing.

Zarik0

Rain-King fight strong! ( ’̀ง -‘́) ง Where are you even getting those!? Best line :P

Stormlock
>>83017990

Seriously though, where do you get those? Alt codes are cool. 5612 is ∞ and ½ and ¼ are 1451 and 1452, respectively.

Cirvante

Okay, with the revelation that Hybridize is T4 Magical Utility and T4 is the highest tier that can be unlocked with experience, Legendary Jack just became way more awesome. Seriously, Ameliah was just scratching the surface. We know from Westbridge how broken the skill can be. A Legendary Jack of at least level 29 would have access to Hybridize, Triplicate Casting, Dislocated Casting, Spell Recursion and Chanting. They could also learn almost any spell and figure out the most overpowered combinations. And that's on top of their ability to have a staggering number of T4 skills. A level 29 Legendary Jack could easily have 20 T4 skills in one build. Not saying that it would be a viable build, but there's bound to be some amazing stand-alone T4 skills, like Velocity, Airwalk and Equipment Mastery. Any other silver class can only hope to have 2-3 T4 skills at the same level.

Anonymous

My boy Rain just killed 100 people! Didn't know he had it in him. Death Zone Hype!

Zarik0
>>83017990

I dont understand your comment and what you said at all, did you talk to me? or just the author about his smiley in your comment?

Faruel

now imagine running that death/defence cycle while being able to run winter preferably with some mana reduction items to level out the gains and losses :)

Anonymous
>>83034307

Oh that reminds me; it's probably too much to ask, but it would be nice if Rain avoided targeting the slave beacons who would no doubt be chained up on the Adamant's vessel. The slaves on the first ship are prolly all swimming in the Depths Beyond since Rain made that macro on the fly with very little time, but it might not be too late for the second ship. He could maybe put in a filter to spare people level 5 or less, as that would allow the Empire's support staff to be captured rather than killed.

Anonymous

I had a theory that prismatic intent only generated exp from initially casting spells and not channeling them, but rain just flickered through like 300 of them and didn't get any experience :(

abowden

"Yes, I know those two golds couldn't do it, not even with a limit breaker, but the power of math conquers all" -Rain after he drops the magic equivalent of a neutron bomb on the ships next chapter.

Ziggy
>>83034071

If Ameliah can unlock most skill tree tiers while others are limited because of whatever the unlock requirements are, it'd definitely help alleviate some of her build's weaknesses. It's really going to come down to whatever the specific details are. We already know that her skills only being level 10 because of no specializations is a huge gimp. But if she can grab tier 5+ skills from various trees while others are more limited, that'd be a big boost. And also be generally awesome. AND it would give her class something that would be difficult to replicate from accolades alone. Like right now, a set of repeatable respec accolades could practically replace her class. Anyone can unlock the same skills she can with those accolades, while keeping their specializations. But if she can access higher tier skills in every single tree compared to the average, that'd be extremely difficult to replicate with accolades. There might be accolades that unlock those skill tree tiers, but they would have to be infinitely more rare than respec accolades, and they also might require taking up active accolade slots. Plus there's 144+ skill trees. If you needed one specific tree and one specific tier of that tree? Good fucking luck finding that accolade, if it even exists.

Cirvante
>>83034071

I don't think Ameliah will ever become a specialist at something, it goes completely against what her class is supposed to be. At gold I could see her getting a +5 to all skill ranks and possibly the ability to create builds and switch between them on the fly. It's true that Fecht's (probably legendary) infinite respec accolade somewhat trivializes her class. But keep in mind that she's silver and the accolade comes from a platinum possibly soloing gold lairs. That's like saying Tallheart's silverplate skill rank rings trivialize specialist classes at bronze. One of the best things about Ameliah's class is that it's so accessible once you know the unlock requirements and are willing to wait for years. Any level 5 awakened can unlock True Jack (compared to Contender Of Light for example) and with the right equipment and build, you can definitely make it to silver. The equal stat rule only kicks in at silver, I believe. Legendary Jacks, while unable to match regular mages, are also able to leverage their stats and ressource pools. Most mages have terrible speed and evasion unless they spec into Arcane Mysteries or Force Magic. Ameliah can run Air Walk, Velocity and Quickstep on a mage build and achieve mobility and survivability that a Fire Mage could only dream of. The relatively low base stats also allow for easy synchro training with accolades. And as far as Hybridize spell combos go, most people would go for sensible builds combining elemental aspects that work well together. Bowcraig with his Heat/Cold combo was an outlyer. Which means that almost no one will know what happens when you combine Arcane/Light, or Dark/Mental, or Heat/Chemical. Or how about hybridizing enhancement spells and using them for a hybrid melee build?

Cirvante
>>83067103

He can only get to the ships, if Bakal gives him a ride. They are already a kilometer out from the harbor. But with Rain saving his ass and then maybe filling up his mana pool, I could see the fat water mage carrying the murder beacon into battle and wiping out the two ships.

Jac Onue
>>83034307

I think we were told this at some point. Basically, Empire sees aura mages as useless, so they just get them high enough to get the seasons auras (winter, fall etc.). Plus, this is a zero responsibility task, as they just need to be there, as opposed to the Star Gazer guy, who needs to be a believer or he could run the ship into a bunch of leviathans, or a barrier mage, that could drop said barrier and get everyone killed. Combine the two and you get why Empire uses slaves for beacons, and why they would keep them at the lowest possible level.

Jac Onue
>>83067103

Couldn't he use Refrigerate to freeze the water and just run on the ice? I'm also curious how the Icarns (empire's buffed up mages) will deal with him freezing water. Can they still manipulate it in ice form? If not, Rain might be a hard counter to them. He could, theoretically, also freeze the water around enemy ships, stopping their pursuit.

Gyoshi _

Rise of the Keyboard Warrior

Stormlock
>>83017990

Alt codes are ways of typing special characters that aren't on a keyboard. If you hold down the alt key, then type 5612, then release the alt key, you get ∞. So I was hoping for a reply from either the author or someone else that knows some cool codes, because there are thousands and most of them are just kind of random garbage including normal characters like so: ∩ ╬ ┴ " Ç { M æ

Anonymous
>>83067103

Well he isn't wearing armor so theoretically he could just turn on velocity and get a running start, then swim the rest of the way. A kilometer isn't THAT far offshore.

Ole Halvorsen
>>83034307

I don't know specifically when it was said, but if you run the math it makes no sense to let a beacon be lvl 5, or it's easier when you have a refresh beacon. but all seasons except summer is really nice to have, and you want all the different metamagic as well to be able to use it for a hole army. Makes no sense to have a lvl 4-5 beacon when a lvl 7 is going to bring 4 times the support with 4 times the range

Garrett
>>83034307

Level 5 is too valuable to waste on a slave. While a level 3-4 beacon isn't very useful alone, there are going to be a lot of them and the seasonal auras stack. @Starless: A huge chunk of the empire's military are level 5 or less. The defector we met a few chapters ago was only level 4.

Cirvante
>>83034307

Agreed, Val claimed they were level 3 and that the empire would never waste a higher blue on a slave. Yet a +100% season or -10% sustenance requirement in a 10m radius is a joke. Even Tarny can do +260% and -26% in a 23m radius at level 5. At level 6 with Aura Focus he could do +780% or -78% in a 69m radius. At level 8 with Channel Mastery it's 1,560% and no sustenance required. At level 10 he can add Purify (which would be very useful for an army) and Aura Synergy to get +2,574% seasons and -100% sustenance in a 113.8m radius. All that from a level 10 awakened. I refuse to believe that Fecht doesn't know about the potential of a mid-bronze Logistics Beacon. He's been around for 200 years with the ability to respec and a reputation of being the best at everything. I could understand not using silverplate aura mages for fear of them going rogue or giving his enemies ideas, but bronze aura mages? The Adamant army is all about specialists working together to enhance each other and aura mages, especially beacons and warders are perfect for that. Maybe Val is an unreliable narrator and they have stronger ones who just don't use their auras in settlements, or Fecht is somehow inexplicably scared of even weaker aura mages. Doesn't make sense.

Ole Halvorsen
>>83034307

Yeah I think Val is unreliable. If you just do the math it makes no sense that there beacons is not higher rating, Also velocity seems good so have all season + velocity + purify. then you should have up to focus and channel mastery. And for that we are talking about lvl 9.

Anonymous
>>83034307

Making the beacons actually strong would put a huge target on their heads. A bunch of squishy bronze support mages would become a higher priority target than silver plates or gold plate officers. Also, Fetch making his soldiers rely on beacons to be effective presents a clear, single-point-of-failure for his military operations abroad. It's much better to mass-produce highly resource-efficent mages/fighters and keep the beacons in a strictly supplemental role.

Ziggy
>>83017990

I've been using computers for decades and I never knew this. Nifty.

Anonymous
>>83095379

My guess is everyone who witnessed Rain's charge will start calling him The Black Death.

Ziggy
>>83067103

I feel like refrigerate to freeze the water would be the easiest way. Or hitching a ride from Bakal. But we did get a scene of Rain demonstrating that one can run on water with Velocity going.

Anonymous
>>83067103

I like the freezing them in place plan. Once they are immobilized, Dozer can jump into the Liminal Void and steal the essence from the dungeon/journey cores powering the shield/cloaking bullshit. He already showed he can store/transport essence when he was hanging out in Rain's soul, so taking the empire's essence shouldn't be a problem.

Cirvante
>>83034307

That doesn't make sense, as even a level 10 Logistics Beacon is such a huge force multiplier that you almost can't get more return value for a level 10 blue party slot under the Adamant battle doctrine. And they turtle up behind barriers anyway, so the beacons would be as well protected as every other ranged soldier. Their abilities would in fact make it harder to take out their formations, give them more mobility and sustainability. Just a 100% Velocity would have made those juiced up berserkers much harder to deal with for Bakal. And the soldiers aren't just relying on beacons and warders, they are relying on lots of specialists like various barrier mages, enhancers and malefactors. In no way would the beacons present a higher priority target than silverplates or Incarns. By delegating auras to level 3 slaves the Adamant army is gimping itself, as not even ten level 3 beacons are worth a single level 10 Logistics Beacon. And a level 16 Logistics Beacon could use the infinite respec accolade to get Prismatic Intent. This would allow them to run all four seasons simultaneosly, plus Velocity and Precision. So it really makes no sense for aura beacons to be a slave role, it should be a prestigious and honoured position in the Adamant military. Just makes no sense. Everyone's acting like Rain is discovering the wheel, when people like Fecht should be well aware of the potential of aura magic.

Stormlock
>>83095379

This is now the thread for creating nicknames to bother Rain. Mine are 'Adamant Breaker' and 'Batallion Slayer'

Anonymous
>>83034307

Keep in mind that a beacons abilities are limited in range and power. Rain started at a high level for a rookie, and he was only barely able to keep his head above water with the help of several meta magic abilities. A level 10 beacon would have to be no more than 15 meters from the front lines, leaking magic, flipping from one buff to another, and then dying. Meanwhile a level 3 beacon with winter and essence well and a single target buff specialist could do almost as well, with less risk.

Anonymous

So what are the big issues for the rest of the fight? Rain can outlast anyone while he has essence, but a few more fights and he can probably run out of free essence. He also need to get the armor. The ships will have a more complete coverage of damage types and he could be two shot with a nasty surprise of the wrong elements. On the other hand, I wonder why the Empire are so willing to engage Halgrave and Velika. The Incarns seems significantly weaker than golds, and I wonder what the ships can do that is meant to make up the difference. Simply outlast them with a enormous mana storage?

Anonymous
>>83034307

Yea it's kind of a difficult conundrum for Fetch. You want the beacons to be powerful, but you also have to keep in mind your main antagonist is a brainjacking platinum plate. Every single bit of time and resources he devotes to building up his army is power that can be turned against him with zero notice.

Anonymous
>>83066629

My theory is Rain is attempting to cast all his auras with the exact same mana pattern. I think if he takes Elemental Refinement and learns how the mana patterns/pathways are different for each element, he will have a better chance of understanding how to develop the mana patterns for each aura seperatly, instead of brute forcing both spells together in the same mana pattern and causing a lot of interference as the seperate mana types clash with one another.

Tab
>>83066629

I suspect it's just that he's still doing it Wrong Enough that he's not actually learning anything from the usage. Practice the wrong thing for ten thousand hours, you'll still be bad at it.

Anonymous
>>83066629

Exactly. He's doing it wrong, but there are instances when he has two auras up at once, right? He should still get EXP for these instances even if his technique is wrong, just like he gets EXP for casting all his other spells wrong. My theory for why he's not gaining EXP is that he's not casting each aura independantly and simultaneously. He's casting them together. Brute forcing two spells into the same pattern and passing out is probably something Rain could have achieved without Prismatic Intent. It causes him to pass out because it's not a skill, thus not granting EXP.

Cirvante
>>83034307

A level 10 Logistics Beacon would have a range of 38m on their seasons and 114m with Aura Focus. When using Velocity at about 200% with Aura Focus they would have a range of about 64m. Unfortunately they'd need to be level 11 to get Aura IFF and exclude the enemy. But my point is that they have decent range and can safely hide behind a barrier formation. And I don't understand what makes Logistics Beacons so much different from all the other enhancers. If anything it's the barrier mages that are the most annoying, since even a goldplate is struggling to get past their defenses in an unranked zone. And Fecht doesn't give a shit about bronzeplate soldiers and neither does Vatreece. Now if she got to his silverplates or even Lightbreaker, that might scare him.

Anonymous
>>83034307

What gives you the impression Fetch doesn't care about his bronze tiers? Being the lifeblood of his army, the bronze plates seem pretty well cared for with the gold plate/Whale resistant titanium ships, wealth of support classes, and even getting formalized training. Kinda seems like Fetch does better than the guild in how he treats his awakened. Minus the slaves of course.

Stormlock
>>83178938

I feel like Rain should be fine on essence, since he's been stockpiling it for a long time since he hit silver and seems to have orders of magnitude more than he did before. Getting the armour would make sense but I suspect he won't to make the fight riskier narratively. As far as Halgrave and Velika goes... yeah I dunno what the empire is thinking. Maybe there's a gold on one of the ships but in that case why haven't they shown themselves before losing half their troops?

Anonymous
>>83178938

I think the Silver/Gold plate commanding officer is the one who dropped the meteor. Think meteor is T4, so gotta be at least silver.

Anonymous
>>83034071

Imagine, for one glorious moment, if Amelia used Hybridize on a T4 fire aspect Summon and one of her Fire Arrows. Arcane Archer is confirmed to use the 'spell' tag, so this is definitly possible. Using chanting, overcharge, and sniper shot + multi-shot, she would be summoning hundreds of super powerful, level 30+ monsters at a time, all while dealing immense single-target damage. Maybe even throw in some Blood Magic enhancements for the trifecta of a spell using mana, stamina, and life simultaneously. She'd become a specialist at being a generalist with this many overlapping multipliers. Even the astronomical resource cost could be offset by toggeling on equipment mastery effects with mana/stamina/life gear. The possibilities are literally endless with that girl. People would prolly start calling her Myriad or something.

Ziggy
>>83034307

Bronzeplate aura classes are not great. For comparison, Rain had armor and stat rings from a legendary crafter, and he'd still bottom out of mana extremely quickly even at the peak of bronze. Lower leveled ones would be even worse. So at base, bronze aura users would need a heavier investment than the other rank and file to even function properly. Given how the Empire treats bronzeplates as disposable assets with little investment, that's making it a much harder sell. Plus, they'd be a multiplier. What are they multiplying? The bronzeplate forces. And those boosts don't really make much of an impact when the army you're empowering is so weak. +500% stamina regen instead of the +100% they already get from slaves isn't much of a game changer. Especially when that awakening slot could instead go to a more valuable unite like an Incarn. And Incarns are already so overloaded with spells that they can't handle anything extra on top. The winter aura would be a bonus for mages like the eyes or whomever is doing meteors. But if the mana regen is anything decent, those mages would hit mana overuse soulstrain pretty quickly and be spent regardless. If they're that desperate for mana, there are classes and spells around directly transferring mana that'd be much more efficient than an aura mage's spells are at such a low level. So generally, I can see why they wouldn't bother with giving aura mages caps at 5+. Now at silver? Wayyy different story. A properly outfitted silverplate aura mage would be a great asset for an army. It pretty much requires a Dynamo build and stat rings. But the strength, range, longevity, and capability of the spells is absurd at that point with amazing versatility. Stat boosts, wards, buffs, debuffs, and just keeps casting nonstop. Now is it reasonable they haven't done this? Eh, it doesn't beggar belief for me. Empires and militaries easily and often get stuck in their ways, even when there are better options. Plus there's a cultural thing with class rarity and being "uplifted" or whatever, the stigma with aura classes being used by slaves, Fecht's obvious desire to keep his subordinates as weaker than him, and the very old god emperor not really caring enough to micromanage his army to make it optimal. He can always just toss more bodies at the problem or rebuild his army over a few more decades. Though if Rain's build gets sussed out and he blatantly rubs the Empire's noses in what he can do? I'm already assuming we'll be seeing the Empire explore stronger aura builds at some point in the story, specifically because of Rain. Kinda hard to deny how powerful and useful his class would be for an army when he's killing yours en masse.

Stormlock
>>83178938

They must have known their ship got cut in half, so sending anything less than a goldplate seems like a suicide mission. I wonder if it's related to the hexes (?) Ameliah and Halgrave were noticing. If they were expecting Velika or at least the general description of an evasive swordsman with crap armour, that seems like a solid counter move that has massively backfired with those two being basically immune to hexes on the surface.

Anonymous

since T3 offensive and defensive auras both affect mana, and the defensive t3 MM hidden affects stamina. The T3 offensive MM hidden will probebly also affect stamina. That will be brutal against mages that typicly have stamina as lowest priority. (MM=Mana Manipulation)

Anonymous
>>83178938

Hmmmm if they were exspecting Velika, they would have targeted her for a hit, or neutralized her in some other way. I'm guessing the Star Guide's confusion and disbelief at seeing the ship bisected was genuine, and the empire reinforcement honestly had no idea what to exspect when they greenlit the second military operation. The smart thing to do would be to send an incarn to scout out the Silver/Gold plates they will be dealing with, then translocate an effective counter/more incarns as nessisary. But yea, I'm thinking you're right in that Velika, Hargrave, and our newest Gold-level threat Rain was a hellofalot more than they predicted.

Cirvante
>>83034307

@Starless incarns are literally suicide fighters that get buffed so hard that they are able to match silver and gold opponents for a short period of time before their soul burns out. Those are level 24 awakened and he's throwing them away to kill his opponents. His bronze soldiers are all disposable and they know it, being so indoctrinated that they'll happily sacrifice their lives just to stall a stronger opponent.

Anonymous
>>83034307

Isn't it a bit strange that the incarn is using the exact same Hydroevocation as Sea King Bakal?

Anonymous
>>83066629

Yea, a mage just full-stop passing out while casting a spell just seemed like a "Jesus Christ what the fuck are you even doing trainee?" failsafe built into the system by the Majistraal. Made me think Rain's mindset was completely off.

Cirvante
>>83034307

Makes sense for a sea battle. Using anything but a water mage Incarn would be pointless. They get the stats of a gold, not the skills. So no Airwalk or Flight.

Anonymous
>>83034307

I don't think the incarns are Fetch's soldiers. I think they are captured awakened who refuse to join the empire.

Stormlock
>>83034307

Ooh I like that theory. The focus on Vatreece's scary mind rape powers made me totally forget Fecht and the DKE could be using them on a large scale as well.

JC Silver
>>83066629

What if the formula for prismatic intent experience is based on consecutive time spent maintaining both auras, with a logarithmic experience curve that rewards maintaining the auras over a certain period of time. Rain hasn't really been able to keep up two auras non stop simultaneously for a long stretch of time. Instead, after getting out of his armor he's only done novas (force ward and fulmination) or flickers as in this chapter where he does a lot of simultaneous casts but without keeping any of them up for more than a fraction of a second.

Conor McGroarty

Rain’s mana in the first panel is over 100,000 but around 235,000 in subsequent panels. I was a bit confused at first until I guessed that the 100,000 is more or less his base mana pool when not putting stat rings in focus. So at first he used clarity to quickly regenerate and then shifted points to focus to increase his max mana pool so he can have more mana readily available while he has the leeway to make a stockpile between battles. Focus also increases aura strength which is nice as auras can reach damage limit with less mana investment.

Anonymous
>>83408306

Its his clarity that contributes to his manapool the most, it doubled because he also shifted points in clarity.

Anonymous
>>83066629

Possible. Rare/Legendary classes have different EXP formulas, so skills can too.

Stormlock
>>83408306

Yeah I was confused a bit too, then I remembered the x18 from the class bonus outweighs the difference between focus and the losses in focus-clarity synergy.

Anonymous
>>83066629

Another somewhat unlikely theory is that Rain has to identify/name his hybrid skills before the system will recognise them as such. Kinda like how you have to name a dungeon when entering for the first time. Hybrid skills could be similar to natural skills in that they are tracked seperat from regular skills.

Ziggy
>>83408306

For exact numbers, Rain's mana pool is currently increased by 800 for every 10 focus, and 2550 for every 10 clarity. At base before buffing or debuffing his stats with his rings, his mana pool is 69k. Ish.