Board Thread:News and Events/@comment-933831-20160127201216/@comment-24684131-20160129193833

I feel like a lot of this debate is focused on "What is gonna happen if Liath and Orion focus on Ulric and leave Viridis to his devices." when that really is not the case. This is a straight up fight. Neither side starts in concealment or with the element of surprise on their side. Orion and Liath can see Viridis and Ulric as clear as day and vice verca. So lets break this down a little more.

In a straight two on two fight, Liath will open with a bombardment that pins Ulric - if not Viridis as well - and allowing Orion crucial seconds in which to manoeuver uncontested into a position where he can begin his own attack. As Orion is most likely to take Ulric head on seeing as hey, big target, Liath is going to be left to deal with Viridis who more likely than not will have dashed off the moment that the bombardment ended.

If it's obvious that Viridis is hiding somewhere, Liath is going to start burning everything to the ground until he finds him or baits him into an attack that reveals his position, at which point he is going to rain hell down upon his head. Before the sneak attack card is brought up again, it's already proven in canon that it simply does not work on people with activated auras. Liath will be alerted to the danger and defend himself accordingly. This fight between them is likely to devolve into a ranged duel where Liaths superior firepower wins out against Viridis's bowmanship by sheer scale. If he fires arrows and Liath sees it, he's going to raise walls of stone to block them or simply swat them from the sky with blasts of wind, and follow up on that by hammering Viridis with a storm of ice, fire, and earth until he falls.

After this, he'd move to support Orion in dealin with Ulric if he hadn't done so already, decreasing the number of glyps he has in play to provide accurate fire support to harry Ulric where he's not looking. As i've said before, he's hardly gonna bombard somewhere that his best friend is standing.

Were the roles to be changed and Orion engaged Viridis in Liaths place, there is little doubt in my mind that Orion would win. By his nature, Orion would give Viridis little chance to hide or shoot before getting stuck in to melee with him. Given his semblance, relevant training, and combat style, I believe that Orion would quickly overwhelm and defeat Viridis.

Liath fighting Ulric would be another simple matter. A steady bombardment would slow Ulric further than he already is, and allow Liath time to move, keeping far away from any attack that Ulric can throw out. Even if Ulric takes most of it on the shield, it is literally only a matter of time until he's exhausted.

If it were just Orion and Liath versus Viridis, the tactics would be similar. Open with a bombardment to pin and weaken whilst Orion moves in to occupy Viridis at close quarters, allowing Liath to freely manoeuver and attack with precision at will. If somehow he managed to escape the initial bombardment and hide, it'd be a simple matter of Liath burning the grass whilst Orion watched his back for attacks in his blind spots.

If a situation arose where it was Liath alone against Ulric and Viridis, he would go defensive. Opening up with a reduced bombardment to pin Ulric down would allow him time to move and engage Viridis momentarily at close qaurters, before backing off and beginning another bombardment. He'd continue this type of mobile engagement where Ulric is forced to stop and take the brunt of the bombardment as Liath keeps attacking Viridis at close range until one or the other falls, allowing him to fight on a more even playing field. It would be a very tough fight, and a lot of his attention would be on dealing with Viridis whilst staying the hell away from Ulric until the fight is fairer.

I feel as thought out of all the scenarios I have touched on, the most likely is the first where combat is split into two one versus one fights simply because that's how most fights where the teams are equal tend to go.

Liath is powerful. I designed him to be powerful. To clarify on points I made earlier about his semblance as some still appear confused by it, his current mastery allows him to cast anywhere between one and twenty glyphs both simultaneously and in an instant. Any more than that requires approximately one second per ten additional glyphs he intends to cast. Aside from requiring more and more focus as the number of glyphs he intends to use rises, there is no fatigue or stamina drain related to the use of his semblance. This was all very much intentional and thought through when I went about designing him.

Given the time he has spent training and practicing dust BEFORE he discovered his semblance, he is capable of pin point accurate attacks using only one or two glyphs at a time. Whilst he can't make his bombarments pin point accurate, he is practised enough in the art of casting where he can still attack with above average accuracy even on such a scale.

Given how soon the voting will begin, this is going to be my last post unless any other points are made I feel the need to comment on.