Let's talk about the Reva Surprise
So some of you may know that there was a bit of a tizzy over on Discord this morning when it was discovered that the ability level of Scavenger's unique Line In The Sand is not specified for the Reva event.
The initial thinking was that this entirely deactivated Thermal Detonators in the mission, completely undoing both the hard work of the Discord community (including, not least, yours truly) and also undermining the entire point of the bug fix that we've been worried about in the first place.
However what appears right now to be the case, as. best as our programmer friends can tell, is that instead of defaulting to level 0 when an ability's level is not otherwise specified, it defaults to level 1.
What does this mean?
First it means that everything we theory crafted regarding play strategy is still good.
Second, all the mod recommendations are still good.
Third, although best practices haven't changed, the consequences of stuns and misplays are now less deadly.
The nuts and bolts of a Level 1 Line In The Sand ability as opposed to an upgraded LitS ability are these:
1. Each thermal does less damage -- about 1/2 as much.
2. Each time you do damage to a Jawa, the chance of applying a thermal is only half of what it would be if the ability were maxed (40% instead of 80%)
3. Scavenger's stealth lasts 1 turn instead of 3.
Ultimately, if you play the way that your beloved theory crafters have encouraged you to play it, there's not a lot of change. But if things go badly or you don't know the strategy, you'll take about 1/4 of the thermal damage (half the thermals and each one doing 1/2 damage) and on top of that you don't have to worry about using 5B's AoE dispel at the wrong moment: Scav will come back out of stealth quite quickly.
Overall the mission will be harder than it was before, but MUCH easier than we were projecting based on our testing over the last 4 weeks.
As always, this is the best understanding of the mission that we have at this time, but as this morning's dustup has highlighted, you never know exactly what we're going to get until the mission goes live.
I will do my best to keep the community informed. In the meantime, for anyone who wants it, you can always get the latest at The Apple server on Discord:
https://discord.gg/9XBNQyA
Best to everyone,
cd
The initial thinking was that this entirely deactivated Thermal Detonators in the mission, completely undoing both the hard work of the Discord community (including, not least, yours truly) and also undermining the entire point of the bug fix that we've been worried about in the first place.
However what appears right now to be the case, as. best as our programmer friends can tell, is that instead of defaulting to level 0 when an ability's level is not otherwise specified, it defaults to level 1.
What does this mean?
First it means that everything we theory crafted regarding play strategy is still good.
Spoiler
You still want to avoid thermals and you still want to kill Scav ASAP. After dealing with the Thermal threat, you still want to carefully time your use of GI's cleanse, 5B's ProtectionUP, and 7S's Heal, and you still want to save a couple specials going into Wave2 to keep JMK ability blocked.
Second, all the mod recommendations are still good.
Spoiler
Avoiding health still minimizes DoT and Thermal damage, increasing Protection still increases survivability against those health-based damage sources, and the ideal Turn Order hasn't changed.
Third, although best practices haven't changed, the consequences of stuns and misplays are now less deadly.
Spoiler
This means that getting the strategy exactly right is no longer crucial and that recovery is now very doable even without studying the mission's details, so long as you think carefully about which specials are available to you and how you're using them. In other words, streaming with an expert coach is still useful, but no longer crucial. Reducing the difficulty to this level may be intentional on CG's part to make it easier for players who prefer not to livestream with a coach and/or find that technologically or temporally challenging.
The nuts and bolts of a Level 1 Line In The Sand ability as opposed to an upgraded LitS ability are these:
1. Each thermal does less damage -- about 1/2 as much.
2. Each time you do damage to a Jawa, the chance of applying a thermal is only half of what it would be if the ability were maxed (40% instead of 80%)
3. Scavenger's stealth lasts 1 turn instead of 3.
Ultimately, if you play the way that your beloved theory crafters have encouraged you to play it, there's not a lot of change. But if things go badly or you don't know the strategy, you'll take about 1/4 of the thermal damage (half the thermals and each one doing 1/2 damage) and on top of that you don't have to worry about using 5B's AoE dispel at the wrong moment: Scav will come back out of stealth quite quickly.
Overall the mission will be harder than it was before, but MUCH easier than we were projecting based on our testing over the last 4 weeks.
As always, this is the best understanding of the mission that we have at this time, but as this morning's dustup has highlighted, you never know exactly what we're going to get until the mission goes live.
I will do my best to keep the community informed. In the meantime, for anyone who wants it, you can always get the latest at The Apple server on Discord:
https://discord.gg/9XBNQyA
Best to everyone,
cd
