Part 166: Abnormality Roundup 11
Abnormality Roundup 11Short Roundup today, since we only have 3 new Abnormalities. My overall feelings on the facility itself is 'confident,' with the exception of Parasite Tree this looks a lot like the facility I took into endgame the first time I beat it in terms of major Abnormalities to keep in mind. I did have all of the gear back then, but we should have enough suits to make it through the worst of it.
That said, we're coming up on the endgame. Lobotomy Corporation's endgame doesn't pull punches, so... We'll see how things work out in practice.
Queen of Hatred
Oh Queen of Hatred, leveler of facilities. My feelings on her are… complicated. Aesthetically speaking she's easily one of my favorite Abnormalities, and her E.G.O gift is an easy top 3 within its slot, losing only to Firebird and a double-edged sword we haven't seen yet. She's not too hard to contain once we have access to Execution bullets or an Abnormality that we can make breach easily like Scarecrow, but she requires constant vigilance-we can screw up twice at most before she breaks out and goes on a rampage. I love the aesthetic of her gear, but the weapon's healing is situationally useful and the random damage type makes it unreliable against enemies with immunities.
The only major downside to her once we can handle her kill requirement is that she's the worst WAW for farming stats-her fullheal on exit will force the damage modifier for any work we do to be the lowest possible. The only way around that is to work her while she's in Hysteric mode, and that's a bad idea for reasons we've already seen. I like her personally, but while she's arguably good she's certainly not great-of the Magical Girls she's the easiest one to pass by.
Skin Prophecy
It gives Prudence, it lowers White resist, and if an Agent panics they die. While it doesn't do anything more useful than that, it also can't really hurt anyone since its instant kill is for a situation we want to avoid anyways. It can be worth picking up early as a good solution to CENSORED, but raising SP doesn't have a lot of useful applications beyond that. As a tool Abnormality, though, a very small bonus with an easily controllable penalty makes it a solid pick by default.
WhiteNight
I put WhiteNight last because I have a lot of thoughts about him as an Abnormality. He's one of only a handful of Abnormalities which require a massive shift in how we plan and approach our day, alongside Parasite Tree and a certain TRAIN I still haven't shown off yet. Unlike the other two, though, I think WhiteNight is actually really worth dealing with.
Taking it means that we have to commit to several playstyle changes. For one, stalling out a level indefinitely is no longer an option, which matters for Core Suppressions. Normally in a fight with Hokma we could stop to catch our breath by just not doing anything-we can't do that with WhiteNight. Its constant QC drop if not worked every 90 seconds means that every part of a day is on a time limit. We also need to have a certain level of gear when bringing it on or we won't be able to work it at all-without at least Justita, any Agent we send is at a high risk of death even from a Normal result-though WhiteNight's suit will eventually balance that out. In the midgame where WhiteNight first gets manageable, this works out to a balancing act of having to avoid letting his Qliphoth Overload level get too high while getting through the day-and in return for it we get frequent (if largely impossible to time) department/facility fullheals and the best defensive suit in the entire game-the E.G.O gift being incredibly powerful and in a unique slot is just a bonus at that point.
By lategame, that calculus changes. Hokma's research, and then later his Suppression bonus, make WhiteNight's success results such that only a little investment into Temperance or work success rates via gifts can turn WhiteNight into an Abnormality who's unlikely to ever hit a Bad result even at a -30% overload. This means we can just have a dedicated Agent work him whenever we notice he's not being worked. This is not a huge ask by that point, since his high PE box count means we'll want to be working him anyways. He basically becomes a very small attention tax, and in return we can simplify a number of problems by having access to the full power of the best E.G.O suit in the game, and one of the best weapons alongside it.
I understand that the pressure and attention tax that he brings to the table isn't going to be a thing for everyone-and until we hit that lategame point bringing him in is a give-and-take. At this point in the game, however, WhiteNight is basically nothing but a boon to our facility. Unless I'm doing something really wacky, I'm always happy to see him around come day 46. He lets me get away with playing much sloppier in other areas, and we're going to need all the slack we can get.