Chapter 95-2: Definition of Game Currency (2) |
Qi Sheng’s consciousness switched back to the player forum.
According to Guide’s feedback, a newly posted thread was rapidly gaining heat.
[I’ve noticed a lot of new build combinations on the forum lately, all claiming they can stomp mage-type Star Vein builds. What I want to tell you is that mage-type Star Vein pairings are still the true god of the current version. If you don’t agree, come in and look at my setup. Just asking you, is it strong or not?!]
Poster: Melee Spell God.
Content:
People say that after the Swarm appeared, the strength of mage-type Star Veins was nerfed this version, because Swarm warriors have high resistance to elemental damage, reducing mage damage efficiency. But what I want to tell you is that mage builds are still the true god of the version. You just need to create new pairings based on version changes to adapt to the new environment.
Now to the main topic, let’s talk about my Star Vein pairing.
My Star Vein setup only needs three core Inherited souls. If you have extra Star Vein slots, embed whatever you like.
First Star Vein slot: Qi Eater
Second Star Vein slot: Flowing Shadow
Trait effect: By consuming mental power, you can create a clone with 20% of the body’s strength, and control the clone’s actions via consciousness. The strength and number of clones are affected by your own mental power.
Third Star Vein slot: Light Shield
Trait effect: Consumes mental power to construct an energy shield that can freely expand and contract, resisting various types of attacks.
—
Seeing my setup, some brothers will definitely think I’m an idiot. This combination has no damage output, and for defense it’s inferior to melee Inherited souls.
You might even imagine a scene where I summon multiple Flowing Shadow clones and then drop energy Light Shields on the enemy.
Because aside from Light Shield, this combination seems to have no other offensive means.
Summon clones to brawl, yet not pair with melee-type Inherited souls.
Summon clones for ranged output, yet not pair with elemental damage-type Inherited souls. No matter how you look at it, it seems like an extremely foolish Star Vein combination.
But what I want to tell you is that the core of this Star Vein pairing, besides these three mage Inherited souls, includes a custom weapon.
It is the Arms Dealers’ product: the psionic bomb.
The combat mode is very simple and requires no technique.
You only need to do one thing: first summon Flowing Shadow clones, then take psionic bombs out of your spatial satchel and hand them to the clones, and finally let the clones happily charge in and self-detonate.
So the core of this Star Vein pairing is Qi Eater + Flowing Shadow + psionic bomb (custom weapon).
As for why you should pair a Light Shield, there are two reasons.
First, Light Shield is itself a mind-strengthening type of Inherited soul, and the main attribute bonus gained after leveling up is mental power.
Second, the effect of Light Shield can protect you at critical moments.
For example, if an enemy gets in close for a sneak attack, or if the detonation range is too near and you get caught in the blast, and so on. It counts as a necessary defensive measure.
If you have team protection, just embedding Flowing Shadow + Qi Eater is entirely feasible.
Attention please, next we enter live combat practice (dirt poor table-slap.jpg)
(Attachment: video)
—
In the video, the player activates the Flowing Shadow trait and summons three clones.
Then, one psionic bomb per person, they sprint madly toward the distant Swarm under the player’s control.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Upon approaching the Swarm, the psionic bombs are detonated. The instant high temperature and shockwaves fling a large number of Swarm warriors into the air, flesh splattering everywhere.
At this moment, the player summons three more Flowing Shadow clones. While handing over psionic bombs, he fiercely inhales white mist through his mouth to recover the heavily consumed mental power.
After three consecutive rounds of suicide charges, the player gives a thumbs-up to the camera and grins. “Let me just ask you, is this Star Vein combo fierce or not?”
—
Comment section:
Supreme Big Fish Head: I clicked in with a critical mindset, and after watching I found it really is awesome. If we had Flowing Shadow Inherited souls plus your Star Vein pairing back then, we wouldn’t have needed any suicide charges to take Shadowed Cavern. Just let the clones go die, and we could’ve easily completed the purification mission for Shadowed Cavern. This Star Vein combo deserves a like. It’s very practical for team fights.
Darkness Approaches: After watching, I have a question I hope the thread owner can answer. I roughly calculated from the footage (not necessarily accurate, I couldn’t see clearly). The number of Swarm warriors killed versus the cost of psionic bombs makes me feel the sacrificial power profit of this setup is quite low. The main gains are evolution points. As for sacrificial power profit after deducting costs, it depends on the situation. You might earn a little, earn nothing, or even take a loss.
Melee Spell God (thread owner) replies to Darkness Approaches: Heh, you found the shortcoming of this combo. This setup must be used on targets with extremely high monster density like the Swarm and the Black Tide. If you use psionic bombs on single, high-intensity targets, you’ll bleed out. At this stage, every time I use the clone self-detonation tactic, the kill returns fluctuate around 10% (counting only sacrificial power gains), and I’ve also had losses. But the evolution point gains are very high. One round of output can blow up a whole bunch.
God Temple Guild – God King: Damn, this Star Vein combo looks handy. A team can bring a few of these. When you hit an impasse you can’t break through, let a bunch of Flowing Shadow clones charge in to self-detonate and open the way. The effect will definitely be good. I’ll have the mage group in the guild pair a few self-detonation Star Vein combos right away (tip: 18 sacrificial power)
Must Be Single-Minded in Gaming: Speaking as a monster-build player, aren’t you tired of swapping this and that all the time? Every day I see you researching this and that. I’ve been playing a Black-Scaled Serpent Inherited soul for a month. It’s now over 20 meters long. I swim through the Swarm and it’s insanely fun. I truly don’t get you body-route players always thinking about how to pair Star Veins to be stronger. I think it’s better to be single-minded and go the monster-build route. When my body length reaches 1000 meters, Swarm or Black Tide, I can swallow hundreds in one bite. (gold-farmer cocky face.jpg)
Is This a Beaver? replies to Must Be Single-Minded in Gaming: The monster-build is indeed strong early on, but later it’s bound to have various shortcomings brought by a single trait. Pairing Star Veins is the mainstream way to play this game. The pairing process is precisely about patching weaknesses and gaining stronger combat power through combined traits.
Must Be Single-Minded in Gaming replies to Is This a Beaver?: I don’t care, I’m not listening. In short, the monster-build is number one in the world!
—
As Qi Sheng was scrolling through the thread, he discovered that the Trading House’s sales fee commission for psionic bombs was beginning to grow rapidly.
This was clearly the impact brought by the clone self-detonation build.
Some players had already decided to try this build.
More importantly, the Qi Eater + Flowing Shadow combination was already a mainstream option for mage-type Star Veins.
For example, Qi Eater + Inkflame (Bonefire) + Flowing Shadow forms the clone fireball build.
Many mage players don’t even need to disassemble Inherited souls and reconfigure their Star Veins. They can directly start using the clone self-detonation build.
This caused psionic bomb sales data to grow rapidly.
Qi Sheng had already noticed similar situations several times.
Every time a popular Star Vein pairing appeared on the forum, it would affect the Trading House’s sales data for related items, and could even cause large price fluctuations for some items.
For example, the emergence of the fishing build led to a sustained surge in the price of Iron Shell Bug silk.
This made an idea surge up in Qi Sheng’s mind.
If in the future he ever lacked sacrificial power, could he leverage forum information he obtained in advance to resell resources and quietly earn sacrificial power from players?
But thinking it through, he still abandoned the idea.
Compared with lottery events, which are basically no different from blatant snatching as a way to recycle sacrificial power, reselling resources is too low-end.
It also has the drawbacks of cost outlay and inventory holding periods.
If it really comes to a shortage of sacrificial power, then just run lottery events.
If players find that the lottery never yields good stuff and don’t want to participate, he can switch to another probability-based gameplay.
He can switch to reskinned scratch cards, smashing colorful eggs, gift coupon draws, and so on.
If players still aren’t biting, then put up prompts and use frequently refreshed rewards to stir the desire in players’ hearts, creating a gambler’s fallacy.
As long as they try during that period, they’ll easily fall into the probability trap.
Players without firm willpower, when they win, want to win more.
When they lose, they’ll think about playing a few more times. As long as they break even, they’ll stop.
If it truly comes to a shortage of sacrificial power, Qi Sheng has plenty of ways to make players willingly hand over sacrificial power, and in the end they’ll only think their luck was bad and won’t blame the officials.
After all, the officials haven’t opened any cash top-up channels.
This setting allows Qi Sheng to remain invincible.
In players’ eyes, sacrificial power is data the officials can create. However much they want to print, that’s how much there will be. They simply won’t imagine that the essence of official events is to swindle the sacrificial power in players’ hands.