Leaf Disciple

Leaf Disciple
Tier	1
Total Rice	30
Total Water	30
Total Training Time	25
Hitpoints	210
Melee	Piercing
Missile/Ranged	Piercing
Strengths	Fire (-75%), Explosive (-75%), Magic (-50%)
Weaknesses	None
Prerequisite	Lotus Peasant trains at Blade Garden.
Passive	Melee Counterstrike: When hit in melee combat, the Leaf Disciple's opponent takes a small amount of damage in return from the whirling leaves that surround the Leaf Disciple.

All that separates life from death is confusion, insanity, and my falling leaves

— Leaf Disciple

The Leaf Disciple is a unit belonging to the Lotus Clan.

Overview

Novices of the Forbidden Path who undergo their Rites of Initiation with cold calculation and vengeful thoughts are recognized as spiritual brothers of Sehk, the Crafty One.

Along the strange, disorienting paths of his Blade Garden, Leaf Disciples learn to twist and distort their minds and surroundings through sheer force of will. Such distortion is not easy, and Disciples must expend an inordinate amount of effort in study before they can even manipulate the razor-thin, paper-light leaves of the Tree of Corruption.

On the field of battle, these leaves spin and whirl around the Disciple's head like a flock of angry sparrows. With an indolent flick of his finger, he can send them whistling towards an enemy's head or cause them to slice, pierce and slash at nearby foes.

Enough small cuts can bleed the strongest enemy to death, and no Disciple ever seems to run out of leaves.

Usage

Leaf Disciples have low health and throw volleys of short-ranged, weakly-damaging leaves instead of strong long-ranged individuals shots. While having no true weakness, Leaf Disciples take full damage from the commonly-wielded Cutting, Blunt, and Piercing weaponry. All in all, Leaf Disciples are not as strong as 'general-purpose' rangers like Dragon Archers or Wolf Hurlers.

Nevertheless, Leaf Disciples excel as niche rangers: they are cheap, low-tiered, very few enemies resist Leaf Disciples' Piercing projectiles, while Leaf Disciples resist Explosives strongly (-75%) and Magic decently (-50%). Therefore, Lotus players -even when low on resources- can easily mass Leaf Disciples to deliver "death-by-one-thousand-cuts" to explosive- and magic-shooters. When un-upgraded & un-geared, a Leaf Disciple will defeat a Serpent Musketeer in a fair duel. However, fully upgraded Sniper Musketeers will shoot Leaf Disciples dead with a few piercing rounds. The Leaf Disciples' Melee Counter-Strike Innate also magically damages hostile melee assailants, so Leaf Disciples can still fend for themselves in melee combat to some extent.

Leaf Disciples may get Leaf Bite technique to boost their attack damage, and Leaf Steps to decrease stamina cost to run, leaving Leaf Disciples with more stamina to use the Brother-granted Gear Scrye Leaves to scout out enemies' units and bases.

Battle Gear

	Scrye Leaves	Stamina: 25%
Can be acquired from any of Lotus Brothers.
With Sehk's help, a disciple may bind his sight to his spinning leaves, viewing his surroundings in mad, kaleidoscopic glimpses. By flinging these leaves aloft, he can briefly see vast landscapes in their metallic reflections. However, these leaves does not damage any nearby enemies.

Trivia

• The Leaf Disciple has a melee weapon named Dagger, which he never uses. Dagger has a minimum range of 0 and prevents the Leaf Disciple from sliding endlessly backwards when engaging melee assailants, because Leaf Thrown has a minimum range of 3.

• Instead, the Leaf Disciple always uses his Missile weapon (Leaf Thrown) even when fighting in melee range. When the Leaf Disciple fights against Koril, players can see that many Leafblades miss Koril and fly in all directions.

• The Leaf Disciple fires five projectiles instead of just one in each volley.

• The Leaf Disciple and Lotus brother Sekh share these quirks: using missile weapon at melee range and firing five projectiles.
• The Leaf Disciple is also one of the three Lotus ranged units that deal situational damage. The damage an enemy takes is based on how many leaves s/he receives from the Leaf Disciple and Brother Sehk.

Gallery

Leaf Disciple Concept Art

Quotes (Move)

• "Wise!...... "
• "I learn....."
• "I listen!"
• "It is the way...."
• "The leaves....obey...."
• "With....the wind...."

Quotes (Attack)

• "The savages die...."
• "Death approaches..."
• "I....smell their blood!"
• "To the future....!"
• "For the past...."
• "Pain....awaits...."
• "Blades....be true!"

Quotes (When engaging in melee combat)

• "Leaf!"
• "Wind!"
• "Earth!"
• "Trunk!"
• "Now!"

Quotes (Kills)

• "Your breath betrays YOU!"
• "Your time is over"
• "Like my blades..."
• "(Malevolent laughter)"
• "(Malevolent cackling)"
• "Give up now!"
• "You.... will feed our young....!"
• "The leaves feast....!"

Quotes (Heal)

• "Ahhhhhh!"
• "The leaves breathes..."

Quotes (Death)

• "Leaves.. fall..."
• "Return to Roots..."