Tribulation

**Tribulation** is the punishment of Heaven upon those that oppose its will.

## Summary

There are various types of Tribulation, of varying strength. Usually, their strength increases with each successive Tribulation undertaken by a character. Tribulations take the form of clouds above a character's head, and can only be fought by that character; assisting someone is not allowed while they are fighting a Tribulation. Tribulations may also have an Element associated with them, which can either help or hinder the character fighting it. Failing a Tribulation usually leads to death.

## Mechanics

The location a Tribulation is fought can be chosen by the player if triggered before it's scheduled to descend. The character facing it will then stand at that location. Before they can start fighting the Tribulation cloud, they will have to wait for it to gather Qi. It is important to note that fighting a Tribulation cloud does not inhibit Qi Recovery, making the ambient Qi important for a character's survival.

### Types

#### Shapeshifting Tribulation

A Shapeshifting Tribulation will be faced by any animals who have gained intelligence and shapeshifted, i.e. a Yaoguai. Unlike other tribulations, failing will result in the Yaoguai being instantly killed, dropping their Gear but **not** leaving behind their Corpse. If the Yaoguai is a Cultivator, it also spawns a hostile Monster of the same subrace, at the same Cultivation stage that is named after the Cultivator who has failed their Tribulation. This Tribulation has consecutive clouds from each Element in the following order: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth. Unlike other types of Tribulation, Shapeshifting Tribulations exist on their own timer and cannot be delayed by any means other than the Miao PetDLC, which extends the Tribulation by 5 days at the cost of 20 Lifespan.

The number of Intelligence Shards possessed by an Awakened Animal before being shapeshifting into a Yaoguai will determine how quickly they have to face their Shapeshifting Tribulation.

 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
 10

#### Law / Golden Core Tribulation

Certain Xiandao Cultivation Laws require the Cultivator to face a tribulation at the Golden Core phase. This tribulation is always found at the first limit after forming Golden Core. These Laws include Sunflower Refining Law, Seven-Slaughtering Sword, and Sixteen Supreme Steps Law. Some of these laws such as Seven-Slaughtering Sword also have additional tribulations as part of the law after the initial tribulation. These tribulations are generally rather weak and can be survived with minimal preparation.

Each Law Tribulation has a 25% chance of dropping 1 Heaven's Breath.

#### Lifespan Tribulation

Primordial Spirit Xiandao Cultivators which have lived for over a thousand years can choose to face a Tribulation for each thousand years they've lived. This is a rare form of Tribulation, as it is difficult to get a Cultivator to that age naturally. Defeating this type of Tribulation will bestow a sub-spirit to the Cultivator and increase their Lifespan by 100 \* defeated Lifespan Tribulations. Each repeat of this type of tribulation will result in its strength doubling, up to a maximum of 1 billion Qi.

#### Attainment Tribulation

Primordial Spirit Xiandao Cultivators which have over 100 Attainment can choose to face a Tribulation for each 100 Attainment they have. Defeating this type of Tribulation will bestow a sub-spirit to the Cultivator and decrease their Attainment by 10 \* defeated Attainment Tribulations. This Tribulation, unlike other ways to reduce Attainment, will reduce Orthodox Attainment resulting in a reduction of maximum Unorthodox Attainment as well. Each repeat of this type of tribulation will result in its strength doubling, up to a maximum of 1 billion Qi.

#### Demi-God Tribulation

Once a Xiandao Cultivator reaches the end of the Primordial Spirit stage, or a Physical Cultivator reaches the end of the Chaos Phase, they will have to face a Demi-God Tribulation. Xiandao Cultivators, specifically, will Breakthrough to the Demi-God stage by defeating this Tribulation. Should Cultivators choose not to Ascend once reaching this stage, a Demi-God Tribulation will continue descending upon them every 5 days. Each repeat of this type of tribulation will result in its strength doubling, up to a maximum of 1 billion Qi. The Element of the first Tribulation will always be the one that overcomes the Cultivator's, while that of the subsequent Tribulations will be chosen at random.

This Tribulation can be delayed by cultivating (for Xiandao Cultivation) or breathing or remolding (for Physical Cultivation), which Cultivators will automatically do when idle, slowing the timer down to 9/10ths of the normal speed. It can also be delayed through a number of additional methods:

* Manuals such as Heavenly Deception from Heaven Stealing Law can delay tribulations for Xiandao characters.
* Tribulation pills. Specter refining them to T12 increases their effect. These pills do not work on other types of Tribulations such as Shapeshifting Tribulations. Body Cultivators cannot use pills to delay Tribulations, as they will devour the pill instead.
	+ Justice Pill: 27 days, can be eaten without limit
	+ Harmony Pill: 108 days
	+ Morrow Pill: 49 days
* Painting of the Four Symbols extends the delay by 9 years, but the delay will be removed when the item is unequipped.

The **first** Demigod Tribulation has a 25% chance of dropping 1 Heaven's Breath. Subsequent attempts will not drop additional items.

Defeating a Demi-God Tribulation will increase the Heavenly Reforge counter of all equipped Artifacts, increasing their power.

#### Belief Tribulation

This type of Tribulation is faced by Shendao Cultivators and shared between Belief, Ascend, and Detach Tribulations. All of these Tribulations increment the same counter when survived.

* Belief Tribulations are triggered when the Shendao Cultivator accumulates 100% hatred in their Divine Realm. Defeating them will clear all hatred.
* Ascend Tribulations are triggered when the Shendao Cultivator reaches 100 Divinity. Defeating them will cause the Shendao Cultivator to Ascend.
* Detach Tribulations can be triggered when the Shendao Cultivator is in the Attainment state and has one or more Obsessions. One Tribulation can be fought per Obsession. When defeated, one Obsession will be removed from the Shendao Cultivator and one more state will be created in their Divine Realm.

None of the Belief Tribulations have an Element. Each repeat of this type of tribulation will result in its strength increasing by 1.22x.

Belief Tribulations are also uniquely affected by a number of factors:

* Buildings in the Divine Realm may increase or decrease Tribulation strength, from 2x to 0.25x. This stacks multiplicatively with the other boosts.
* Depending on whether the Shendao cultivator is currently attached to any Agencies, there is an additional multiplier which stacks multiplicatively with the other boosts:
	+ The Follower Population of the Player Sect at each Agency is multiplied with the square of (Attractiveness/100). This is summed up for every Agency the Shendao cultivator is attached to. If there are no Agencies, the sum is zero.
	+ 300,000 is then divided with (1+sum), and the result is capped between 1 and 0.25.
	+ For example, a Shendao cultivator who is assigned to two Agencies with 400,000 population and 100 Attractiveness will receive a multiplier of 300,000/(1+(400,000\*1\*1)\*2) = 0.375x multiplier to their Tribulation power.

### Strength

The strength of a Tribulation is determined by 5 factors, and depending on the type of Tribulation, it will also increase the more times it is faced.

#### Type

The type of a Tribulation will determine its base Qi. This base Qi can be a fixed value or a range of values, and is modified by the Strength factors below. All of the multipliers stack multiplicatively with each other.

This value is modified by the "Combat Difficulty" game setting.
* 10,000 x 5 (low difficulty(0.33x) = 0.2x multiplier)
* 30,000 x 5 (normal difficulty = 0.6x multiplier)
* 50,000 x 5 (max Combat Difficulty(1.67x) = 1.0x multiplier)
* This is unlike other Tribulations, which are only affected by the Tribulation Difficulty multiplier below.

* Seven-Slaughtering Sword (Sword Will): 10,000
* Seven-Slaughtering Sword (Sword Embryo): 35,000
* Seven-Slaughtering Sword (Sword Soul): 55,000
* Six Paths Reincarnation Law (Reincarnation): 35,000
* Sunflower Refining Law (Benevolence): 8,000
 Lifespan
* Physical Cultivation: 520,000
* Grand Chariot Wisdom Law: 590,000
* Six Paths Reincarnation Law: 560,000
* Sixteen Supreme Steps Law: 520,000
* True Sun Refining Law: 550,000
* Sunflower Refining Law: 650,000
* Primordial Symbols Law: 650,000
* Jade Purity Immortal Law: 700,000
* Seven-Slaughtering Sword: 680,000
* Myriad Artifact Law: 420,000
* Emotion Severing Law: 580,000
* Primordial Alchemy Law: 450,000
* Heaven Stealing Law: 480,000
* Law of Nimbus Conquest: 1,250,000

#### Tribulation Difficulty Setting

    This multiplier corresponds to the setting. There are five possible settings:

* 0.25x difficulty
* 0.7x difficulty
* 1x difficulty
* 1.2x difficulty
* 1.4x difficulty

#### Luck

A character's Luck will affect a Tribulation's strength. The multiplier ranges from 0.8 (at 10 Luck) to 1.2 (at 0 Luck). The formula is

1.2
−
0.04
∗
L
u
c
k

{\displaystyle 1.2 - 0.04 \* Luck}

, unrounded.

#### Environmental Feng Shui

When a tribulation is started, the average Element Composition of the 11x11 square surrounding the tile of the cultivator is calculated. Element composition suppressing the cloud will be multiplied by -2, same as the cloud will be multiplied by 1, and feeding the cloud will be multiplied by 2. This number is then multiplied by 12.5% and results in the percent increase/decrease in the tribulation's power. Note that no matter the Tribulation's Element, its thunder strikes are Chaos attacks, which ignores the Cultivator's Elemental Resistances. This means that Feng Shui is the only way to influence an Elemental Tribulation. None Element Tribulations cannot be influenced in this way.

If the elemental alignment suppresses the Element of the tribulation cloud, its power will be reduced by up to 25%. Conversely, if the elemental alignment feeds the Element of the tribulation cloud, its power will be increased by up to 25%. For example, a Wood type Tribulation on 11x11 Rocky Terrain (-1.6 Wood Element Composition with no further modifiers) has its power reduced by 20%.

Ways to adjust the elemental alignment of the tribulation area include any Element-emitting Flooring, Walls, Decorations, Weather Miracles, or items dropped on the floor and banned. Note that any items within the 11x11 range may be destroyed by the tribulation, so one should not use any items that cannot be easily replaced. Since this calculation is only performed once at the start of a Tribulation, it is also possible to use the Mini Universe to unban and instantly retrieve items after the Tribulation has started.

Immortal's Mortal Bodies from practitioners of an Elemental Law have a very large elemental emit radius, and can be placed outside the 11x11 area and strongly influence the Feng Shui within the tribulation area. Construction, as well as Miracles such as Lake Shaping (water), Land Shaping (earth), or Fertile Soil (wood), may also be used to adjust the Terrain below the flooring to further improve the elemental composition.

#### Condemnation/Virtue

A character's Condemnation or Virtue will affect a Tribulation's strength through a multiplier. While Virtue will only decrease its strength by a maximum of 80% (at 3250 Virtue), Condemnation can push it infinitely upwards. Thus, the multiplier goes from 0.2 to infinity.

A Morality Seal or other Relic that increases Virtue may be placed in a room surrounding the tribulation area to temporarily increase the cultivator's virtue, and thus reduce the power of the tribulation. Assuming the cultivator has 0 Condemnation, the Morality Seal will decrease the tribulation power by 17.5%.

## Attacking and defending

In order to survive a tribulation, the cultivator will have to reduce the tribulation cloud's Qi to zero without being killed in the process.

### Attacking the tribulation cloud

Xiandao and Shendao cultivators will use their Artifact or Battle Spells to attack the tribulation cloud. Physical Cultivators will instead use their attack Secret Bodies to attack the cloud. The tribulation cloud always has a shield rating of 1, meaning the damage that you see in the artifact or secret body's attack power is the damage being dealt to the cloud.

#### Artifact attacks

On each attack by the artifact, the artifact deals damage equal to its Attack Power to the tribulation cloud. In return, the artifact receives damage to its Qi equal to 2% of the Tribulation Cloud's Max Qi. The artifact's Qi cannot go below zero. If the damage reduces the artifact's Qi to zero, it will have to return to the cultivator for recharging.

When this happens, the artifact will drain Qi from the cultivator at the rate of its own Qi Recovery Speed, multiplied by the cultivator's Artifact Qi Recovery Bonus. The amount of Qi drained doing so is divided by the cultivator's Artifact Qi Recovery Multiplier. For example, a cultivator with a Qi Recovery Multiplier of 2 using an Artifact with a Max Qi of 1000 and a Qi Recovery Speed of 500/s will take 2 seconds to regenerate the artifact's Qi, absorbing 500 Qi from the cultivator in the process.

This means that when fighting against a tribulation cloud, artifacts should have as low Max Qi as possible, while having high Attack Power and Qi Recovery Speed. This maximizes the amount of damage dealt to the cloud, increases the number of attacks dealt to the cloud in a given timeframe, and minimizes the Qi absorbed from the cultivator by their Artifacts.

If the Cultivator's Artifact Max Qi Bonus is too high, the Artifact may drain large amounts of Qi from the Cultivator when attacking the tribulation cloud. In such cases, it is recommended to temporarily unequip the Artifact, and rely on Protect and Qi Recovery instead to improve survivability.

#### Spell attacks

Offensive spells can be used to attack the tribulation cloud. Maximizing the Spell power bonus and minimizing the Spell Qi Cost Bonus will allow for large amounts of damage to the cloud, while draining as little Qi from the cultivator as possible.

#### Secret Body attacks

Secret Body damage to the tribulation cloud are based on their Attack Power. Activating Furious Berserk would greatly increase damage being dealt to the tribulation cloud.

### Defending against the tribulation cloud

#### Xiandao / Shendao

When fighting against a Tribulation, the cloud does a base damage of 0.1% to 0.2% of its Max Qi as damage per strike, with strike intervals being between 0.2 to 1 second. This drains the same amount of Qi from the Tribulation cloud's Qi. Additionally, if the cultivator has an Artifact equipped, there is a 30% chance that it will be struck as well. This is however only cosmetic, no Qi is lost by the Artifact nor the Tribulation from these strikes.

Xiandao and Shendao cultivators will use their Qi Barrier to defend against attacks from the tribulation cloud. Note that no matter the Tribulation's Element, its thunder strikes are Chaos attacks, which ignores the Cultivator's Elemental Resistances. This means that Feng Shui is the only way to influence a Xiandao Elemental Tribulation, and Elemental Resistances are not applicable for Xiandao or Shendao Cultivator Tribulations. On average, the Tribulation loses 0.18% of its Max Qi every 0.6 seconds, dealing 83% of its Max Qi as damage to the cultivator, and lasting on average 333 seconds if it is not attacked directly.

#### Physical

When fighting against a Tribulation, the cloud does a base damage of 0.1% of its Max Qi as damage per strike, with strike intervals being between 0.2 to 0.5 seconds. This drains the same amount of Qi from the Tribulation cloud's Qi.

Physical Cultivators will use their defensive Secret Bodies to absorb attacks from the cloud. Note that despite the Physical Cultivator's Tribulation Cloud being of None Element, its thunder strikes are Chaos attacks. Both of these ignore the Cultivator's Elemental Resistances. This means that Elemental Resistances are not applicable for Physical Cultivator Tribulations. On average, the Tribulation loses 0.13% of its Max Qi every 0.35 seconds, dealing 77% of its Max Qi as damage to the cultivator, and lasting on average 269 seconds if it is not attacked directly.

#### Surroundings

Every time it strikes the cultivator, the Tribulation may sometimes additionally strike around the cultivator in a random location within the 11x11 square surrounding the cultivator, instead of striking the cultivator directly. This happens with a 30% chance. When this happens, the random tile is struck, damaging anything on that tile with 0.1% of its Max Qi as damage per strike. This drains the same amount of Qi from the Tribulation cloud's Qi. If there is something on the tile, a fire also starts at that location, regardless of the object's Flammability.

Due to this, the tribulation cloud will destroy a large portion of the items other than flooring placed within the tribulation area. The fires started may also attract Outer Disciple to put the fire out, during which they will likely be killed by the Tribulation. As a result, it is highly recommended against placing any Characters or Objects you do not wish to lose within the 11x11 square surrounding the cultivator.

#### Qi Barrier defense

The Qi Barrier reduces damage received from the cloud based on its Barrier Power. Maximizing the Barrier Power prevents the cultivator from being killed. Ways to increase Barrier Power include Protect skill, Manuals, Shield Pill, clothing, Gear such as Giant Turtle's Shell, or Darkarmor Talisman.

#### Restoring Qi with Spells during a tribulation

Healing spells can be used to restore Qi to the cultivator. Like offensive spells, maximizing the Spell power bonus and minimizing the Spell Qi Cost Bonus will restore more Qi to the cultivator while costing less Qi to cast. Only spells cast by the cultivator undergoing the tribulation will restore Qi, spells cast by pets or other cultivators will not restore the Qi of anyone undergoing a tribulation. However, it is possible for spells that increase the Qi Barrier, Spell Power or Artifact Power of other cultivators to affect cultivators undergoing a tribulation.

#### Regenerating Qi during a tribulation

Qi also naturally regenerates, and is especially important with low-powered tribulation clouds. Consuming items such as the Qi Regen Pill, Spirit Stone or Spirit Crystal (all of which stack additively when consumed) can increase the rate of Qi regeneration and prevent Qi depletion leading to death.

#### Secret Body defense

Defensive Secret Bodies absorb damage using their Defense Endurance, while also evading attacks using their Dodge in Battle statistic. If the attack is not dodged, and the damage accumulated exceeds the Defense Endurance, a Secret Body becomes crippled, damaging one or more of its parts. The cultivator will regenerate from the damage if not killed, and may randomly receive free remolds to the damaged or lost body part.

## Guides

* JKL51's 5-minute guide to Early Shapeshifting Tribulations
* How to Fight Tribulations (Google Doc) by Clark

## References

1. ↑ `XiaWorld.Npc.ToHumanThunderFail`
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 The game's translation mistakenly places Fire before Water in the tribulation window. The actual order is set by `XiaWorld.JobToHumanThunder.GetToilList()`
3. ↑ Settings\Practice\Magic\Magic\_DLC\_WuDang.xml
4. ↑ Scripts\Magic\class\Magic\_A2HLonger.lua
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 `XiaWorld.NpcPractice.TryBrokenNeck`
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 `XiaWorld.ToilBrokenNeck.OnEnterToil`
7. ↑ Settings\Property\GodPraticeProperty.xml
8. ↑ `XiaWorld.GodPractice.GetPopulationThunderAddion`
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 `XiaWorld.JobFunc.GetThunderScale`
10. ↑ Settings\HumanoidEvolution\Rule\Rule.xml
11. ↑ `XiaWorld.Job2HumanThunder`
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Settings\Practice\Gong
13. ↑ Settings\World\DufficultyLabel\DifficultyLabels.xml
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 `XiaWorld.Map.StrikePoint()`
15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 `XiaWorld.Thing.ReduceDamage`
16. ↑ `XiaWorld.NpcPractice.GetPenaltyFix2Cloud`
17. ↑ `XiaWorld.Fight.FB_BeHit`
18. ↑ `XiaWorld.Fight.FabaoBase.HitTarget`
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 19.3 `XiaWorld.Fight.FabaoBase.JieCloudStep`
20. ↑ `XiaWorld.Map.StrikePoint`