Part 132: Abnormality Roundup 2

Abnormality Roundup 2

It's that time again. Four more abnormalities, and with it four more summaries. Overall, I'm quite pleased with how the facility is coming together. We've got a lot of good abnormalities, and the only thing I really want to see now is one of the HE-tier Justice trainers to bring everything together trainingwise. We still need two more abnormalities which breach for an upcoming mission, but we do have a bit of wiggle room on completing it so I'm not particularly worried about anything just yet.

Today's Shy Look



These numbers are only a baseline, as depending on the face Today's Shy Look gives +30%, +10%, +0%, -30%, and -50% to its work rates. In theory, this should work with the black damage the abnormality deals to make it good at training everything as long as you can hit a good face. In reality, because it heals agents' HP+SP on the face and SP on the face, it works out to only be any good for training Justice, and only if you can get it to stay where you want. The face change is completely random, so past the extremely early stages of the game it makes sense to just throw a somewhat strong agent at the cell when it melts down and otherwise ignore it. Trying to force good results from it after day 10 or so is a waste of time.

Decent gear for early game, though, and one of the most hilarious E.G.O gifts in the game.


Laetitia



Laetitia is a good girl who has done nothing wrong in her life. With incredibly lenient management conditions, low black damage, and three decent or better work types, Laetitia is a powerhouse trainer for every stat but Justice. Her gear is very strong, and her suit in particular can enable a rank 5 agent to work with several ALEPHs safely. In addition, it's the first suit we've seen with a pale resistance of 1.5x.

Pale damage resistance below 2x is nonexistent below HE-tier suits, and we probably won't see 1.0x or better pale resistances until we start getting ALEPH suits. There aren't many abnormalities which deal pale damage when worked, but the ones that do deal so small an amount of base pale damage that half of them can be worked reliably with a 1.5x pale suit and good temperance. This suit enables us to work those pale abnormalities, which is always a good option to have.

This is a lot of words to spend on a wee witch, but in conclusion Laetitia is a rarity in that she is really good at training your stats, easy to contain, and has great equipment. Most abnormalities only have 1-2 of these at best, which makes Laetitia a high-priority pick in any facility I build.


Rudolta of the Sleigh

Click here for full size sprite


It feels very strange to say this about a body horror Santa/Rudolph hybrid, but Rudolta is kind of boring. It has an amazing design aesthetic, but is otherwise a relatively simple "do good or I break out" type of abnormality. It gives more weapons/suits than Laetitia does, and its suits have a 1.5x pale resistance as well, but their poor B resist makes them less useful the later into the game we go. High-power W damage weapons are nice to have around, however, and the lack of requirements on the Christmas weapon is very useful in the event that you want to equip a good weapon onto a brand new agent. It's a good Prudence trainer and it does breach, which is handy for a couple missions, but in the end it just feels like a really cool concept with a slightly disappointing execution.

Not that it'll stop me from grabbing it, since 'boring' is better than 'everyone is dead now.'


Portrait of Another World


As demonstrated, Portrait lets us pass damage off onto other agents with a 1.5x multiplier, turning one agent into a superunit at the possible cost of the rest of your facility. Not mentioned earlier-after 100 damage being transferred the portrait actually begins changing to a masked picture, and then a weird wispy thing after another 100, both included above. If this happens, the multiplier changes to a 2x multiplier, then a 2.5x multiplier. As a result you want to try and keep whoever is being damaged from taking too many hits. This is a rather versatile ability for survival, as the agent outside can be kept in a main room where healing works properly on them while they're being damaged. The downside is that it completely removes the damage modifier from any exp that agent would be gaining, turning things into trading long term growth for short term survivability. I can think of several cases where this is a good deal, but overall this abnormality falls off in usefulness as we approach mid- and especially late-game.