Kamihime - the journey of the first 2.5 years

**Slashley** · 10-04-2019

Originally Posted by Dejnov

So Slashley, I think this quote from you is the biggest mistake you're making in understanding Kamihime and the ability to create synergy.

What you want is the largest marginal gain in a non-multiplied attribute; rather than adding marginal gain to a highly multiplied attribute. This is very different than prioritizing assault over defense over ascension, etc. After you have a decent multiplier, greater returns are built around adding a multiplier to a skill that doesn't have it. After you have 150% assault, every marginal point only adds 0.4% of the amount. At that point there is very little value to keep adding more to that source of multiplier. The same for exceed and defender and everything else.

I am fully aware, but here is the problem: Non-Assault and non-HP stats, in general, suck total ass.

Let's see what exists:
Assault: You stack this BECAUSE it works. It's always there for you, and you stack so much of it that gains in this dwindle (and I am totally using dwindle as a term for this post). And it's STILL the best stat, even after the effect has dwindled! This is the baseline for budgets, the thing that everything is compared to.
Pride: Effectively Assault for all intents and purposes. It's there even at 100% (where it is slightly weaker than Assault), and grows in power as you lose HP (becomes equal to Assault at 70% HP, and only grows stronger from there). A friend in times of need. Budgeted equally-ish to Assault.
Defender: HP. Can't deal damage if you're dead. A vital part of the any strat, whether it is the usual "kill it before it kills you" or an endurance/tanking/healing/whateveryoucallit build. Only bad if you can somehow guarantee your opponent won't be fighting back, which isn't realistic. Not a damage stat, but budgeted well.
Rush: Double attacks are cool, but the problem is that this simply pales in comparison to Assault in damage output - even when you consider increased Burst frequency. Budgeted too low.
Barrage: Triple attacks are even cooler, but the problem is that this simply pales in comparison to Assault in damage output - even when you consider increased Burst frequency. Budgeted too low.
Stinger: Crits! A separate damage modifier! ... except it sucks. So each skill level is what, 0.005 chance to dealing 0.2 more damage? 0.001 more damage per skill level then? Compare to Assault's 0.005 increase per skill level (before dwindling effects). In other words, Assault needs to dwindle down to 20% efficiency before Crit becomes worth it - ON ELEMENT. It is budgeted far too low. Due to being a different modifier, "useful" for memes and damage records when it procs, at least until we get the Crit balancing patch.
Exceed: This is useful for one thing: Damage cap increase. While you generally don't need much of that, some is very nice to have. As an added bonus, extra damage. The problem is, the extra damage is horrendously budgeted, and you have to remember that SSR Hime already start with 500% of it so it is immediately suffering from the dwindling problem. In general, if I recall right, if you have the choice it's "always" more damage output to get more Assault than Exceed (again, talking if you don't need more cap). This might not apply to the insane Light team which bursts every 3 turns, but outside of that specific perfect team, Assault should be the better choice. As such: damage increase component budgeted too low if you're running a full SSR team, due to dwindling issues. And I didn't even touch PF dwindling issues where you start at 700% modifier...
Ascension: Increased heals. Now, this is nice, but it suffers from three inherent problems: 1. You need to use Healers to make use out of this, and outside of Cass/Andromeda you're not guaranteed to have any 2. Even if you do have Healer(s), there is a lot of content that doesn't output heal-able damage (think current Thunder and Light Rags) 3. The heal increase is pretty low. Now, Ascension CAN help, but you need to stack a lot of it. Which... cuts into the amount of Assault and/or Defender that you can have. Which... well, isn't a good thing. So Ascension isn't so much of a stat that you WANT, it's more of a stat that you NEED and only for SPECIFIC content. On one side of the coin it is budgeted far too low to be useful to splash into your Grid, and on the other side of the coin Grids focused on this stat have awful damage output due to loss of Assault.
Elaborate: You could probably increase the effect of this by ten times and it'd still be awful. But at least then it would have the niche of being useful for multi-hit meme teams. For now, complete garbage due to being budgeted entirely wrong. Not sure what went wrong here, did devs forget how the ability damage formula?
Technica: Apparently a thing on DMM, can't comment on it.
Vigor: A separate damage modifier! And actually doesn't suck total monkey balls! Almost as powerful as Assault (we're talking budgeted from 85% Vigor() to 97% Vigor(++) of Assault damage values, which is great), but without ANY of those nasty dwindling problems! There's just one little problem. If you're not at FULL HP, Vigor will just abandon you. Halfway point is already at 83%. As such, the best uses of Vigor brings Healers and Ascension... and that eats into your damage output. And suddenly you're not doing all that much more damage because you sacrificed Assault for stats that'll help keep Vigor up - while still being at great risk of losing your damage output from damage taken. Is it possible to make Vigor work? Yes. But unless you can guarantee that your enemy will not even be looking at you angrily, it's a risky game to play. For damage output, this is by far the best stat after Assault (and I mean AFTER Assault, because you'll have MORE Assault than Vigor, simply because Assault IS budgeted better AND is risk-free!) but comes at great risk. Splash into it if you can, but don't heavily dip into it unless you have some serious plan. Remember, Vigor is NOT your friend in need, but rather like that rich mafia boss next door - a great friend to have when things are going great, but he is not going to help you if shit hits the fan. Budgeted extremely well, but risky.

So, see the problem here? What exactly DO you want outside of Assault and HP? All the other options are budgeted extremely poorly (on purpose!). As such, while you are technically correct that stacking different modifiers is great, the reality is entirely different due to the way the devs implemented the other skills.

Originally Posted by Dejnov

Lastly triple skills at MLB are better than a dual skill weapon at FLB. Your (30+30) vs. (20+20+20) is inherently flawed, since you're thinking linearly. If you're at 150% assault and 50% defender, you should be multiplying the assault level by 0.4 and the defender at 0.66. This would change the estimation from (30 assault + 30 defender) vs. (20 assault + 20 defender + 20 ascension) to (12 assault + 20 defender) vs. (8 assault + 13.3 defender + 20 ascension) or 32 effective skill points to 41 effective skill points. This is why Hime weapons like Vishnu Glaive ranks higher priority than Shamash Book (both triple skill weapons). The vigor from the glaive is a new multiplier vs. the extra pride from the book which is still plain assault.

I don't think it is flawed, because of the above. Even with dwindling, Assault reigns supreme due to budgeting.

The problem with triple-skill weapons... is that there are only a few actually good skills to have. So, you usually have something like Assault + Defender + something useless. Is that better than Assault + Defender + nothing? Yes it is. However, until now, that's been because triple-skill SO FAR has GUARANTEED 30 skill levels in all three skills. But now, we're getting Olympia weapons which only get 20. So is 20 Assault + 20 Defender + 20 something useless (effectively 40) better than 30 Assault + 30 Defender (effectively 60)? No, no it isn't. In order to be actually good, it NEEDS to have ALL THREE skills be highly desirable. And, if you read above... ... there really isn't many highly desirable skills in the game. This vastly limits the actually useful weapons.

Vishnu Glaive works because splashing a little bit of Vigor can work out great for you - you don't lose much Assault but you gain massive chunk of damage at full HP. But just as an example, if you were to think of a full Grid of Vishnus, Vigor's problems would start playing a massive problem. So, great Grid if you have a plan, but if you don't... they just pale to the always working full Grid of Shamashes. This example ignores reality on multiple fronts such as availability and Phantom weapons, but you get the point I hope.