IMHO overall Shi association's style should not be health loss.

[76561198022723426]

I am... I am kinda on vacation and caught some cold, so I finally decided to write this.

It's in the title really. I play this game for long time, came here from Library of Ruina, and from the beginning was amused by Shi's shtick. They are assasins, not frontliners. It was amusing, in my opinion, that people who do not read/listen to characters' lore would assume that Fourth association is place of brutal swordspeople fighting enemies head on again and again. No, it was temporary state of Shi Association's Southern Branch sections 2 (Library of Ruina), 5 (Identities), possibly 3,4 and 6. Maybe section 1, but I doubt it. It even possible that some assasins were ok, working for the bad guy from spoilerland. Less than 25% even if we assume that North-East-West-South brances contain 100% of fixers in association, and, again, it was temporary.

After assasination of certain charater in Canto 4 I was pretty sure that at Limbus Company present time fourth operatives are silent, deadly, efficient and have full health bars.

And then came Evo Gift Resolution. "Shi Assoc. faction Identities' HP gets capped to 75% of Max HP. In return, take 50% less damage and receive 50% reduced heal. (activates immediately upon entering an Encounter)". And I despaired.


P.S. So, as I say that something is wrong, I suggest something right instead. Again, just a suggestion.

Do not make overall Shi association's style health loss. They are assasins.
1. bonus to attacks without clashes. Defensive skills are not clashes mostly.
2. bonus to attacks against slower enemies
3. bonus fo identity, if said identity had not received damage during previous turn (like L Faust)
4. bonus to identity without debuffs. Maybe add debuff cleancing.

[NamThunder]

You had never heard of hysterical strength, do you? And just because the Shi Associations are assassins does not meant they had to avoid direct battle all the time. What happened in Canto 4 was simply they were not aware that the Shi are there, and it was only Ryoshu who recognized what happened.

In general, the Shi Association is about killing. They took the most dangerous job, which is assassination mission, but they do so by any means. They are the association that had close brushes with death. Even the Liu Association, who is specialized in warfare, had less risk compared to them.

But in some case, when one is closer to death, they may find strength they did not had when they were at full health. You could see their mentality to kill their target at all cost, even if they are dying.

And to be fair, you do start combat with Shi ID at full health bar unless you had the Resolution EGO Gift.

[MotivatedBoi]

That's where the catch is: as you said yourself, this was the state of their Southern branch, courtesy of certain bag-headed dumbass.

As we already saw with Zwei and Cinq associations, each branch will most likely their own gimmicks. Combine that with the fact that the other Shi branches were most likely undistrupted, and high chances are that IDs based on them will have mecanics related to their main line of duty, i. e. assassination.

TL;DR: Health loss is a Southern Shi branch gimmick, Shi IDs of other branches (when/if we'll get them) will be mechanically closer to your average assassins.