User:Sukie/Hellwalking

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(minor cleanup and add guides cat I guess)
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(Associations - note possibly leaving attuned (and it appearing to be pointless))
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==Associations== ==Associations==
-As a [[Hellwalker]] you're by necessity a member of [[The Attuned]].+As a [[Hellwalker]] you're by necessity a member of [[The Attuned]] to join, and while leaving the Attuned might not expel you from the Hellwalkers, all of the destroyer/fanatic/erisian affils that were blocked by the Attuned would remain blocked due to also being devotional.
[[The Explorers]] are great, and you should be an Explorer. It costs a Literacy spec, and gives several bonus specialties including an awareness point required for Attuned. You're already a wanderer as part of being a Hellwalker, and I'm not aware of the Writer category actually coming with any restrictions. And you get some quality of life bonus specialties and token access in fieldcrafts and some vit skills. So.. join the explorers! (Or don't. I can't force you.) [[The Explorers]] are great, and you should be an Explorer. It costs a Literacy spec, and gives several bonus specialties including an awareness point required for Attuned. You're already a wanderer as part of being a Hellwalker, and I'm not aware of the Writer category actually coming with any restrictions. And you get some quality of life bonus specialties and token access in fieldcrafts and some vit skills. So.. join the explorers! (Or don't. I can't force you.)

Revision as of 09:14, 11 January 2018

This is some stuff about Hellwalkers.

Contents

Features

Demonic Abilities

  • I'm fairly certain this explicitly marks you as having demon blood, but haven't bothered to check.

Life Save

  • Your veins {{shifting scarlet}pulse with shifting scarlet energy}.
  • on death get fullhealed and randomly concept nav port away a la skilled Phoenix Rebirth
  • I've only seen this a couple times and have no idea what decides if it triggers.

Affinity scaling

  • stuff scales in some way off your qlippotic/sephirotic/chaos/order affinity
  • how much SD you can have stolen from stuff
  • passive bonuses from killing eligible things
  • Warning: With Urgai's poor natural willpower and how many important skills compete for wil specs, investing in these might do more harm than good.


Henosis damage to things with Supernal Durability

  • is a silly combination of qlippotic/sephirotic/chaos/order/goetia that {{shifting scarlet}existentially erases} or {{shimmering}pulses}
  • if whatever it is has all its SD drained out then you go back to doing boring damage
  • requires the attack to be unarmed or using an eligible weapon
    • Dyad is amazing. Heals onhit when hitting something that has SD or would charge passive stuff on death, and does the damage of a greataxe with double the armor pen and half the activity cost.
    • the lzarawn-runed iron greataxe that can load on Ardlond in Shadow Tower hits hard, but is slow and slightly inaccurate. (And is just cutting damage against things without SD or that you've fully drained)
    • I've heard that the special ono made by the Aligned form Hell and Heaven is really good.
    • Unarmed attacks including fancy limbs other than arms count, and don't care if you're wearing something over that limb. (though unarmed scaling weapons like claws don't count)
      • Unarmed has interesting options for adding esoteric damage with certain armours, but suffers from having no penetration and probably other drawbacks (though I'm not knowledgeable enough to say what such might be).


Stealing Supernal Durability

  • Punching something that has Supernal Durability with an eligible attack will debuff theirs and temporarily raise yours.
    • This can stack across hitting different things.
  • You can only hold so much stolen SD, after which you'll just have to settle for doing henosis damage.
    • How much scales with your affinities
  • Occasionally leaves unexpectedly soon
  • Might be extended by punching things that have SD


Passive Bonuses

  • Strength / Constitution / Willpower / Perception / Speed
  • buffs go up upon killing something eligible while not at full charge
  • buffs go down upon killing unrelated things
    • I'm fairly certain this is happens when the contributing thing gets kicked out of your kill log, but that's not feasibly provable.


Sample Buffs

    You are a competent second-degree possessor of supernal durability (37),
though you appear to be effectively functioning at an amazing level (252).

You are moving at enhanced speed from the effects of the otherworldly blood in your veins.
    Your speed is very fast (68).

/---------------- Attributes of Honoka -----------------\
| Attribute     Natural               Effective         |
>-------------------------------------------------------<
| Strength      Good         [  61 ]  Unearthly [ 211 ] |
| Intelligence  Amazing      [ 150 ]                    |
| Constitution  Very High    [  80 ]  Unearthly [ 230 ] |
| Dexterity     Incredible   [ 130 ]                    |
| Willpower     Unearthly    [ 270 ]  Unearthly [ 450 ] |
| Charisma      Unimpressive [  40 ]                    |
| Perception    Prodigious   [ 110 ]  Unearthly [ 260 ] |
\-------------------------------------------------------/

Guesses

Regarding passive buff charging (and why I think it's based on kill log tracking)

  • Killing stuff that's probably already in your kill log tends to leave the buffs intact, no matter how not-demons the things are.
    • I've gone days of just killing stuff in an inefficiently small rotation without losing buffs
  • Killing random stuff you haven't killed in a while tends to suck your bonuses dry real fast if they aren't in turn eligible (and sometimes even if they area)
    • If I intentionally kill a big pile of random stuff to kill my clear log, I end up with a couple false starts having to re-get buffs before they stop fizzling out the moment I start xping


Regarding stealing SD

  • How much this maxes out at varies based on some things other than your affinities
    • I'm fairly sure it's related to what you're stealing from.
  • I suspect in addition to having presumed time-based timeout, there are kill log related shenanigans
    • I've had the SD buff time out nonsensically fast after stealing it.
    • Usually immediately after killing something (e.g. sucked max I could hold out of a dakshin, killed it, killed the buff 15k xp dakshin without leeching any from it, immediately lost SD stolen 4 rounds prior.)
    • Might just be bugged, might have a randomly random timeout timer.


Regarding getting buffs from killing something

  • some stuff might have more 'value' than other stuff
    • I tend to cap out at 64 speed off the easy ygelyeku/oni/whatever, but if I can take out the balrog the buffs usually tick up a bit higher, and for one inexplicable day was up to 77 resting speed with no external buffs


Guilds and Affils

As a Hellwalker, and thus a wandering athiest outlaw urga (..and ordered pariah initiate), your options are unusually limited.

The main conflict is Hellwalker atheism, which forebears any devotional connection, which is a vast restriction in a world where gods regularly bestow boons to those who please them. Of the groups that remain uncommitted to a deity, many serve in some capacity as guards, and are thus unaccepting of your position as an outlaw. And some other odd conflicts exists, such as the Lightbringers forbidding any trace of qlippotic affinity.

Guilds

Aisenshi are an effective choice, with martial devotion in unarmed or axe supporting full use of a Hellwalker's abilities. Aisenshi provide significant access to martial skills, and a respectable set of relevant bonus specialties. Their abilities are straightforward and powerful. With investment in the relevant skills Chi Shield becomes a potent defense against esoteric effects, combat meditation provides a powerful (though highly conditional) combat mode, and the maneuvers provide versatility as another source of esoteric damage on top of counting as unarmed attacks for hellwalker augmentation. (Spoilers: This is the only one I have actual experience with.)

Aligned provide access to various interesting and powerful spells and self-buffs, including the ability to summon a hellwalker-suitable ono. With the stats of an urga you'll have to be picky about which forms to get good at, and Aligned themselves come with little in the way of martial specialty access.

Verynvelyrae provide bond access with an huge selection of eligible choices. Since bonds provide specialty access and abilities dependent on the familiar, the path you might take here is extremely flexible in potential. Their compatibility with associations is suprisingly poor, but as a Hellwalker it's not like that's a problem you didn't already have. Wolf (Empathic Bond) is specifically intended for hellwalkers, and there are plenty of other choices for interesting and useful bonds.

the Adventurer's Guild IS a choice, and while it doesn't come with anything interesting, it also bears no restrictions and provides a giant spread of useful specialty access.

Brute Squad makes an interesting choice, though you'll have to be careful with some of the requirements getting set up.

A few more guilds aren't obviously incompatible, but I'm uncertain of their actual allowance or efficacy. For bonds you have the further choices of Zetesai for a smaller but quite interesting selection of bonds, and Deep Whisperers as an even stranger version of bond shenanigans if popping a relevant talent conveys eligibility. Ordo Ignis Aeternis and Ordo Verbus Glacialis might allow you into their membership, and both are powerful and versatile sources of magic, but like with Aligned it might be difficult to become an effective spellcaster with an urga's attributes.

Oh and technically you can be a Ringwielder, except.. currently as soon as you turn undead you'll explode into a sad pile of not-a-hellwalker-anymore, which completely defeats the point. (December 2017)

You might also be able to be Ordo Zephyrius Mutatoris despite expectations, but it appears nobody has gone through all the hoops to test it.

As an atheist you're barred from Aedarene, Aliavelyrae, Battleragers, Coven, Devonshire Clerics, Equites Serpentina, Erisian Liberation Front, Justicards of Axa, Knights of the Round Table, Nizari, the Paratheo-Anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric, Reapers, Shapeshifters, Shemsu Sutekh, Travelers, Tzakazhar. As an attuned you can't become a destroyer by joining the Kazarak. From your required specialties you're barred from the Lightbringers. And finally, as an urga, you can't be a Warbreaker no matter how drunk you get Steve.

Associations

As a Hellwalker you're by necessity a member of The Attuned to join, and while leaving the Attuned might not expel you from the Hellwalkers, all of the destroyer/fanatic/erisian affils that were blocked by the Attuned would remain blocked due to also being devotional.

The Explorers are great, and you should be an Explorer. It costs a Literacy spec, and gives several bonus specialties including an awareness point required for Attuned. You're already a wanderer as part of being a Hellwalker, and I'm not aware of the Writer category actually coming with any restrictions. And you get some quality of life bonus specialties and token access in fieldcrafts and some vit skills. So.. join the explorers! (Or don't. I can't force you.)

Weapons of Vengeance have a steep 12 specialties required to join, though half of them are worth having a point or two anyway. In return they can provide specialty access in all those the hard to acquire vit skills that make dying a thing of the past. Oh and you can put runes on your gear to make it fancy, and turn your body into one big scary amulet of retribution that can be tuned to different damage types. And various other interesting features with further skill investment. A strong contender later on, if solely for the near immediate access to an regeneration and more supernal durability. Sadly the forbid empathy and lock your introspection at the single point already required by attuned.

Hank's Garbage Thondur lets you turn junk into an slowly growing spread of skill bonuses which scale in strength with Garbology, and some odd abilities based on Ooze Affinity.

Crafty Linguists let you get good at language, though once you've intro'd everything with Janid there's not much reason to stay.

Other assocs that aren't incompatible but I can't really speak for:

  • Wardens 90% flavor. 9.5% explicitly volunteering to help newbies. 0.5% surprise special travelers challenges.
  • Wandslingers Moderate specialty requirements. Eventually gives enough bonus specialties to outweigh the requirements.
  • Brotherhood of Wine and Song is joinable, though you'll probably need to buff your ego to join. The 1 carousing required is a point you should probably have anyway, but your discipline will locked at the 1 required for Attuned and you'll take on a whole new set of weirdly exclusive association typings in exchange for questionably useful specialty access.
  • Maidens of the Spear only accepts women, requires 2 spear specs, and limits other weapons and massive blow to 2. In exchange you get useful bonus specialties, useful access, and bonuses to various combat skills based on low encumbrance. Conflicts with WoV, but seems an interesting option.

Other assocs that I'm even less certain about:

  • Rebels of Syllyac, secret, useful stuff, but might conflict.
  • Kazarzeth are probably not worth the hassle and would get in the way of applying Hellwalker attack effects.
  • Glomerates are probably allowed, and only require a wil spec, but takes rather significant investment in being a caster to get the useful spells online.

As an atheist you can't join the Agnihotri, Chosen of Vashanka, Cult of Decay, Deep Ones, Followers of Apollo, Gatherers, Ghaunadauri, Haruspices, Gauric Legion (because reasons), Hethar Karad, the Legion of Dynamic Discord, Mhezlekai, Ollin Tonatiuh, Pantarchic Church of Yehovah, Questors of Axa, Shadow Brethren, Sodality of the Nine-Spoked Wheel, Synousia Algesis, and the Ygellethites. In addition to several of the already mentioned devotional associations, being an urga further bars you from the Hawkmen, Fianna, Cuar Faernae, and Storm Walkers. As a wandering outlaw you can't join the Losthaven Guard or the Steel Serpents. As a proponent of order you can't become a Stalker of the Gate. And due to your sephirotic affinity you can't join the Inducted.

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