Spirit ring discusion

For discussion of spirit rings and spirit abilities

I honestly disagree with Grandmaster, Tang doesn't necessarily need to take a "dump ring" to fix the fire weakness.

A eucalyptus inspired spirit ring would fix him up with a decent fire counter, while not being terrible overall compatible with the rest of his rings. it would actually be a decent compatible with his second one, causing fire while the seeds are shattering due to the weeds getting torn. also possible that it gives sharpness to the grass blades, and glue abilities. far from overpowered, but not a BAD fit.

The point is Grandmaster believes in the glass-cannon theory.
(Well not truly that since he considers the overall situation but in the sense that he wants to go for the absolute best outcome without compromises)

I don't think he's actually going for a glass-canon, it's 'control' after all.
It's "full control" and attack is by "hidden weapon" means.

More likely, since the only weakness is fire and he's expected to fight with the help of teammates it's expected to have a teammate take out the fire-guy enemy.
It's like cat-girl losing that quickly just because San had an absurd advantage. Nothing could be done, just bad luck.

Still, an glue (secondary slow/restrict ability) that can burst into an inferno (like eucalyptus leaf/oil does), that covers anyone that manages to burst trough the first restrain is not bad. hell, make the oilglue on the outside of the leafs and you prevent people like snakegirl sliter out of your grasp.

seeing how it would have to be a high level ring at this point, it's not to farfetched that the oil would be so flammable that it bursts into flame from friction alone (or make the ring ability that explode the oil, (dust explosion to the 2 ring seeds?) making his ability into freaking entangling mines), but still secrete so much that it is a protective layer against flame. (partially how eucalyptus does it, they have the oily leafs away from the trunk, making a fiery inferno that burns everything that stays pretty much away from the main trunk.)

You would now have a restrain that is highly corrosive, sticky, covered in 2 kinds of poison, and on fire.

would argue that this is a fairly decent ring, based on real plants(well, if eucalyptus had really sticky leafs), that has good compatibility, increased firepower and controllability, while removing a major weakness

he already have 2 rings to increase hardiness, and 3 for poison. he doesn't really need much more in that direction (well, except poison. can never have to much of that stuff according to the Tang sect)

What I said in the other topic:

David wrote:What if there aren't eucalyptus-like spirits? Or if the known properties aggregated by it aren't worth?
Like, if it produces combustible oils how would San benefit from it? His enemy will already have high fire-resistance, so no damage there.

Seems like the reason biggest "anti-fire" weapon of the Eucalyptus is its Epicormic shoot and they seems to be dormant under the tree bark and will be release after the fire when the upper-level leaves where damaged enough.
So, applying this to Silver Grass, I think the fact that there's no bark and the grass isn't thick enough it wouldn't be able to have enough regenerative capacity nor fire-resistance.

it's fair to say that an fire opponent probably wouldn't be to effected by this abilities damage. It would only make it more resistant to the fire users abilities, and give him an increase in damage against everyone ells, and giving him a slight slow.

I only focused on eucalyptus (not the only plant that firebomb it's surroundings, they are not the most common, but they exist)to point out that since we have real world plants with abilities that would be a great benefit to his fight style (everyone knows we have sticky plants), it would be reasonable to expect that they have similar plant spirits in their world.

as for weakness of the spirit: The oil would be probably act like a tar, which would merely slow down an opponent and not disable him (and is thus a worse control than even his most basic grass bind, only benefit being it being unblockable) but giving him the ability to grasp even snakelike poison immune oponents is fairly good, and the as an attack, a flaming tar is fairly weak compared to other attack abilities we have seen. it's first when you stack it with his other spirits it grows strong. but then it gets really strong. it also fits with grandmasters "there is no trash spirits" ruling.

It would also give him an interesting combo with pervy phenix if he could set up an area of highly flammable gras covered in oil/tar/sap for Pervy to set aflame.

His secondary spirit ring is also not that good on it's own, it's the combo with his other abilities that makes it great.(it only recaptures people that broke the first entanglement, and slightly increases the potency of the poison)

But yeah, there might be a better 1000+ year ring around, but saying it's not worth it to limit his greatest weakness and possibly turn it into a weapon simply because he is fighting with comrades is something i can not agree with. Especially as i can easily come up with spirits that should be fairly common that would be a good fit with his style and powerset.

Edit: see what you are saying about the shots. probably are right. might be possible to have an substance that would only burn on the surface tough

@Inbetween the point is: even if you can have ideas about spirits that could better Tang San defense vs fire and increase his power doesn't mean that they actually "exist" (exist in the universe of the author)

Also if theres a spirit that increases fire defense and boost Tang let's say by 1.7, if there's another that doesn't touch the fire matter but upgrades him by 2.2 this second will be always preferred in Grandmaster's view simply because the greatest majority of opponents don't use fire and focusing on a single weakness rather than the average boost will make him lag before pretty much everyone that goes for the best average upgrade

I think you're missing the point that a fire skills is self-sabotaging.
Fire will eventually destroy the grass. And the proposed combo with Fatty is even worse. You're not considering that every time San's grass was shredded/burnt the author mentioned "San's face paled".

He takes damage. Self-destructive attack is self-destructive.

I agree with Grandmaster.

Tang San is going for "toughness" and "poison". When you dilute your own spirit trying to cover its weaknesses, you're also not promoting its strengths enough.

When others are focusing on their strengths, Tang San takes one or two rings to cover his weakness a little, he'll then fall too far behind in toughness and poison when facing someone of the same spirit level, thus giving away his advantage as a strong control spirit master. It's better to be strong against everything and weak to fire rather than average against everything.

Besides, if Tang San is alone when he encounters a fire enemy, he can just take out his OP hammer and the recently obtained spider legs.

Not to mention his hidden weapons.

there might indeed be better rings, and that would be a good reason not to take a ring with fire resistance. my point was mainly about a fire resistant ring still could be a good fit with his build. and yes, i can see how an actual fire ability probably would have decent ods at weakening his bind, but that is still depending on how it works. as i said, a fire resistant coating with poisonous or gluelike abilities would work just fine.

Seeing how they (in theory) have a problem finding the most optimal ring anyway (took them over a week to find one last time (and that one wasn't actually one Tan would try to get if he wan't panicking)) , simply saying "don't bother with any flame resistance" seams a bit weak. sure, it shouldn't be the nr1 ,or even the second thing to consider, but it should still be something to be considered when hunting for rings. maybe a priority 3 or 4 when considering the ring

Thinking about what rings the others might get that could be pretty good counters against Tang San. I guess there are really two ways to go about it: being able to destroy Blue Silver Grass, or just dodge his ability (like Xiao Wu).

Ma Hongjun is sort of a living counter to him already, but something like an area effect field of flames would utterly destroy anything Blue Silver Grass did.

If Zhu Zhuqing had something like a shadow clone ability it might work against Spider Web Restraint. Unless he could just cheat and see through them with Purple Demon Eye. Otherwise an extra speed increase would probably be helpful. Eating a mushroom sausage? An invisibility ability would probably have much the same effect.

Nevermind Oscar or Rongrong.

Xiao Wu has a pretty effective dodge counter, as long as she doesn't lose her head and end up in bondage restraints already. Of course, we don't know if she can teleport freely in any direction, or how long it takes to do so, so maybe Tang San can dodge it. I can't imagine it wouldn't use up a fair bit of spirit power or have restricted uses, but on the other hand she probably doesn't have to teleport for anything other than the spider web, and that has limited uses first. War of attrition, basically.

As for Dai Mubai, I can't imagine he will ever have much of a chance. As someone whose strategy relies on just powering through the resistance, he'd likely go for a strength or cutting boost, which honestly doesn't have much of a chance of success. Even if he had something like Zhao Wuji's pursuit ability he'd just get countered. I suppose the best he could do would be to stay out of the way.

Most of my solutions to facing tang san are either support or control spiritmasters.

one Possible counter could be an cocoon or shell like ability, letting Tang san catch your cocoon, while giving yourself a breather to cut away the webbing from within. preferably, it would also counteract any poison, increase healing while inside, or simply use the same sticky trick that Tang san himself favors.

A poison antidote shell would help against any poison you already encountered, while blocking an attack
A healing shell would do a similar job, and help the opponent regain some strength before rejoining the fight, and make for a very good support spiritmaster ring
Gluelike cocoon would stick to any opponent striking it, and possibly catch some of the spores from cutting tang sans grass.