Swarming Sovereignty

(Pri)

-Rankers-

This is a thread dedicated to determining the most effective Skills, Titles, and general builds. As this system is far more…customizable than any of ours, we feel it appropriate to actually rank things. Here’s a quick FAQ, and if you ask any of these questions you WILL be treated like someone without reading comprehension, so read this if you don’t want to be made fun of.

Q: This is real life; you can’t just rank abilities like this.

A: One, not a question. Two, yes, we can. Like I mentioned above, this system adds a degree of flexibility that was previously unheard of. And, since we can actually choose what Skills we get now, it’s clear that some choices are just better than others. After all, if you evolve a Skill, that’s generally a strict upgrade, and would receive a higher rank 99% of the time.

Q: Are abilities ranked within the tiers?

A: Sort of. Anything under the same category is unordered. But a letter grade may still have a range, so we have + and – versions of each letter grade (occasionally multiple +s or -s in case of Skills that are clearly much better/worse than others in the tier but don’t break into a new tier)

Q: How are the tiers ordered? Why is S above A but B is below A?

A: The higher the tier is on the post, the better. As for why it’s ordered like that…tradition? I don’t know.

Q: What’s up with the EX tier?

A: That thing’s stupid. We have it here on the off-chance someone can actually get the thing, but it’s honestly mostly for completion’s sake.

Q: Why do some abilities have writeups and others don’t?

A: That’s part of what we’re doing the thread for. Ideally speaking, we’ll eventually have a writeup on each individual Skill/Title/build so people can reference our work to determine how they want to build out.

Q: Are you rating only abilities at the end of their evolution path/are abilities rated assuming they’re at max level?

A: The idea is to eventually rate all abilities, but for the time being the focus is on “base” abilities and the start of any notable upgrade lines. We don’t normally rate at any specific level in the Skill, we look primarily at how the benefits from leveling scale. Some exceptions may be made if Skills have dramatic changes at certain levels.

Q: The Swarm uses this system too. Since Fae can see this, won’t this just give them this info too?

A: No. People in the Swarm apparently have a separate forum to use, and Fae isn’t even part of World Saviors anymore since she defected. And people will have to manually copy this repository to a local device and transfer it over to the Swarm side of things once Players actually start getting converted. We highly prize things that help combat the Swarm and our rankings are continuously evolving as new synergies are discovered, so they’ll always have an outdated version of this anyway.

Q: What if I plan to get converted when the Swarm comes to Yasato? Can I still participate?

A: For one, you should really rethink that; we have no idea what consequences there might be. The gods have hinted that there’s a chance that choosing to play on the Swarm’s side will have ramifications on your real body. But still, we can’t force you to not participate, and as long as your arguments hold merit, we’ll consider them. Just please be civil.

Q: It’s been more than X weeks since World Saviors was launched? Why is it only week X?

A: We didn’t start until a couple weeks in and we might miss a week or two depending on the circumstances.

(Pri)

-Rankers-

This rank is for only the obscenely powerful, so rule-warpingly strong that anyone who doesn’t take it is a fool. As of now, it is the holding cell of Conqueror of Death, and that is unlikely to change.

Titles: Conqueror of Death

Skills: None

Other: None

Conqueror of Death:

Stupid. Gamebreaking. The kind of thing that would get you kicked from most online games for cheating. As of right now, we only know about this because of promotional material, the only one who has it is the Queen of the Swarm, and it’s her preferred Title for obvious reasons. Provides immunity to instakills, rare as those are, and if you would take a fatal blow and have more than 1 HP, you’re left at 1 HP instead. You’re also undetectable by magic that detects only living or only undead things.

That doesn’t sound like a lot, there are plenty of abilities that do similar. However, I am not leaving anything out of the description. Yes, there is no listed cooldown. Yes, natural regen is enough to bring it back online. No, DoT effects do not work. Against any enemy that is unaware, you are essentially immune to death until they figure it out.

It is unknown if multiple attacks hitting at the same time would work to bypass this, but seeing as how unfair this stupid thing is, we’re assuming it won’t. The only way we’ve figured out to counter it is to hit the holder with two perfectly timed attacks back-to-back and pray they’re enough to hit the sweet spot between counting as separate and hitting before natural regen makes the stupid Title active again. That or use one of the like two health-regen stopping effects we know exist. Condition for obtaining seems to be to literally die and come back to life. I hate this Title.

(Pri)

-Rankers-

Functionally identically to rank EX but there’s at least they’re not enough to immediately render any normal person completely incapable of killing you. Note that these effects reside only in Swarm leadership at the moment because of course they do.

Titles: None

Skills: Mother of the World, Will of the People

Other: The synergy of those two >_>

Mother of the World/Will of the People:

Stupid. Gamebreaking. Probably not enough to get you kicked from an online game because it would be immediately obvious, but enough to warrant a ban once you’re found out. Or, at least, the synergy between the two is. Yes, we’ve discussed moving it to rank EX at length, but eventually decided against it. If you want to argue the point, read the previous discussions and make sure you have something new to add.

The combo is simple, but way too effective to have been anything but purposeful intervention by the gods that favor the Swarm. Mother of the World triples all experience gain of anyone you’re teaching, for both Skills and normal levels. Also you get a tenth of that experience, and if you get enough experience in a Skill you get to keep it forever, free of cost. The only restriction is that it can’t be a Heroic Skill, but other than that, it’s entirely fair game.

Will of the People allows you to choose a member of the Swarm and gain copies of all their Skills. Oh, and then you evolve them, and max out the levels of those evolutions. Lasts for 24 hours and can be set to auto-renew. Once again, doesn’t work on Heroic Skills.

The synergy should be obvious: the Queen of the Swarm, holder of Will of the People, designates her wife, holder of Mother of the World, for the target of Will of the People. Now she gets the biggest benefit of Mother of the World for free. Also Rose, the aforementioned wife, seems to be one of that plane’s foremost experts in combat and regularly tutors everyone anyway.

Unlike Conqueror of Death, which is theoretically possible to get, these two are actually impossible to get, they’re personally tailored Skills given via Sin Title.

(Pri)

-Rankers-

We move out of the territory of the basically impossible to obtain and into realm of the unbelievably improbable. To keep things simple, this rank is entirely for the Sin and Virtue series of Titles and Skills. They’re all strong in their own right, and we can’t actually rank the Skills but if they’re anything like Mother of the World and Will of the People then this rank might be underselling them. No, we’re not going to list them here unless something else comes into this rank, it’s a waste of time. If you have the opportunity to get one, take it.

(Pri)

-Rankers-

The cream of the crop. The kind of thing that is top of the line for ordinary people. These abilities are either applicable in basically every situation, or so overwhelming in a specific situation that entire battles will revolve around just them, and they must have a slight edge over other S rank abilities.

Note: for this rank and all ranks below, at least one Player in this discussion must have whatever it is in World Saviors, or have it in their real body and have it confirmed to be in the system. Unlike the other ranks, which are mostly theoretical due to their nature, we need to be able to test these.

Titles: None

Skills: Antimagic Field, Flames of Purgatory, Light of Hope, Stairway to Heaven

Other: None

Antimagic Field:

This one is a bit of a headscratcher for some people. They might wonder why turning off all magic in a wide area would be a benefit for a mage, but the answer lies within the enormous physical buffs given. It essentially turns the user from a magic-oriented role to a physical-oriented role of equivalent level, and then shuts off everyone else’s access to most magic and Skills. Note that you can turn it off whenever to, say, heal yourself or get a sneak attack in, then turn it right back on. Might only be S rank material, but if someone uses this system to get it and then go into a physical build, it’ll become a huge problem for the enemies.

Note: Amelia seems to be able to circumvent this somehow. More research is needed to see if that is replicable by anyone else.

Flames of Purgatory:

Unlike the other Skills in this rank, it’s not something that’s got a huge AoE attached to it. But what it does offer, however, is unparalleled single-target annihilation. You use it once, and then whoever is hit with it has an infinite duration, incredibly damaging “fire” DoT. At least on Pri, most fire resistance effects don’t work against this. The DoT is also incredibly hard to get rid of unless the caster dispels it, so this is effectively an instant-kill attack.

Light of Hope:

For the shockingly low cost of 5 Mana per second, you and all allies within 1 kilometer have almost all your debuffs cleansed and become immune to the vast majority of debuffs. Only debuffs on the level of Flames of Purgatory can get past this.

This Skill isn’t flashy like the others, but it is a premier support ability for an army, shuts down any combat style reliant on debuffs or DoTs, and costs basically nothing. If you’re on your own, you don’t even need to keep it up all the time, you can just flicker it on and off for basically free.

Stairway to Heaven:

Activate the Skill, ascend the Stairway, and now you’re debuffing your everyone below and buffing yourself. You can use the steps as attacks or mobility, and if you’re really good you can even transfer the buffs onto people below. It forces the battle to proceed by your terms, so long as you have the resources to keep the thing up.

(Pri)

-Rankers-

The cream of the crop. The kind of thing that is top of the line for ordinary people. These abilities are either applicable in basically every situation, or so overwhelming in a specific situation that entire battles will revolve around just them.

Note: For this rank and ranks below, actual rankings and writeups will be spoilered due to the number of abilities in each. + and - ranks will also be put in the same post as the “main” rank to get around post spam detectors. Assume the rank description for + and - is the same as the “main” rank with an added blurb about being slightly better than other abilities in that rank or having a flaw that holds them back slightly.

Rankings:

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Writeups:

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(Pri)

-Rankers-

Excellent abilities that are better than most abilities that do similar things (healing, applying a debuff, dealing a specific type of damage, etc). They can see use in a wide variety of situations and are solid picks all around.

Rankings:

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Writeups:

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(Pri)

-Rankers-

Good abilities that are held back from being truly great by something. Maybe there’s a limiting condition on its usage, maybe its cost-effectiveness isn’t fantastic, or maybe it’s just severely outclassed by another ability. Still, something in B rank wouldn’t be a waste of a Skill choice and can find use with almost anyone who picks them.

Rankings:

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Writeups:

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(Pri)

-Rankers-

Niche abilities that require some assistance to truly shine, or are simply outclassed by most other abilities.

Rankings:

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Writeups:

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(Pri)

-Rankers-

Abilities that don’t have many, if any, redeeming qualities. You should seriously consider if taking a D rank Skill or setting a D rank Title as your main Title is worth it before doing so.

Rankings:

[Show spoiler]

Writeups:

[Show spoiler]

(Pri)

-Rankers-

(Paradisia)

-Rankers-

(Lim)

-Rankers-

Writeup:

This Title is primarily used for espionage purposes, and as such is nigh-useless against the Swarm. Its only use in combat is to make you into someone who is less squeamish, but that is something you should preferably get over yourself. Only set this as your primary Title if you somehow get on an espionage mission or are really into roleplaying.

Slayer334

(Lim)

(Pri)

-Rankers-

(Pri)

-Truthseeker’s Guild-

(Pri)

-Rankers-

Footstool

(Lim)

-Truthseeker’s Guild-

Slayer334

(Lim)

Footstool

(Lim)

-Truthseeker’s Guild-

I’ll nominate the Skill Jump Boost for C rank, maybe C-. It’s…fine, but it just doesn’t do a whole lot. It’s great if you’re out mountaineering or find a dungeon that’s particularly vertical, but other than that the use case is mainly…making a big vertical move in combat? Even then, if you have no aerial mobility – which would invalidate this Skill anyway – you’re locked into a single trajectory. And if you belong to a species with wings then this Skill is basically entirely useless.

(Pri)

-Rankers-

I can’t help but ask, though…how much of that “joke” was actually a joke? Do you intend to join the Swarm when you have the opportunity?

Footstool

(Lim)

-Truthseeker’s Guild-

Okay, like, yes, it changes your loyalties, but…so??? Everything points to the changes being minor, and really, what’s the difference between feeling loyal to the country you live in and being loyal to the Swarm? They’ll treat us fine so, really, I don’t see the problem. Or, at least, don’t see it for me since my gender/sexuality aren’t being updated.

(Pri)

-Rankers-