-Pickups-
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Let's talk pickups in the clockworks. What do you guys think of 'em? You think most of em are viable or a few of them are crap? Found any ways how to use specific ones?
Here's my take on em.
Health and Remedy Capsules: Always pick these up. Never leave home without em. The time it takes for the effects to be used for a health capsule is longer than remedy, so if you're lit on fire and about to die, use remedy, not health.
Vials: Very weak, only ones that are worth mentioning are curse, poison, and freeze. Curse is pretty useful in general to punish attacking monsters. Poison to prevent healing and debilitate from afar, ( like gremlin menders that dodge away from you if you're too close ). Freeze to completely stop an enemy's attacks, (useful if a trojan charges at you and you sidestep then throw a freeze vial at its back ).
Barriers: Can be useful and always good to have one slot with em. Every variant of em is pretty good, but poison can be especially useful for debilitating as you're engaging in close combat. Also useful for debilitating vana's mask as you're charging your blitz, for the additional damage and poison. Freeze can be used to annoy trojans as it go through their shields and freeze em, if you go in front of em.
NPC Helpers:
Mecha Knight: Worst of the bunch. It inconveniently knocks away enemies for very little to void damage. And the kicker? It's got quite a bit of health, so it's gonna be a while before it dies to stop moving enemies away from you. Do not use these kits as they are more harmful than what little good they are.
Energy Turret: This one is a mixed bag of sorts. It's a stationary turret that uses energy beams to blast away at foes. It can deal a bit of knockback, but it can actually deal some decent damage. I'd use these in some place, then fight far away from it with other enemies as the turret is weakening some of the enemies in its area. E.g. Placing the turret in the center of d25 of FSC, while you're looting the rooms.
Recon Gunner/Knight: Armed with a 2* autogun, these guys won't do much damage, if any at all. There's a little bit of knockback behind their autogun, but not much to interrupt whatever you're doing much. However, the most important part of these guys are their ability to deathmark, just like recons in LD. Deploy them near enemies, and it'll deathmark em as they are arriving, making them doubly(?) vulnerable to damage. Especially useful for vana as these guys' deathmark combined with blitz charges can make quick work of him. Other than that, they are pretty good, relatively stationary distractions.
Ocarina of Slime: Only obtainable from a slime casino machine. This blue slime will travel with you and fight almost like slimes you usually face. I've only ever seen it use that rump shaker or whatever attack, but it deals quite a bit of damage, ( like almost between 1/3 and a 1/2 of a tier 3 wolver ). And it can regenerate its health! Too bad it's event exclusive and once you use it, it'll only be your companion for that depth.
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Recon Deathmark is like maybe 2-3 seconds ish? It's enough to let loose a blitz charge with a good amount of ctr though while they're deathmarked.
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I agree that health and remedy capsules are valuable. Beyond that I try to fill up each pickup slot with 3 pickups, so that I have a higher chance of getting crowns or materials at the prize wheel. When breaking the tie between vials and barriers, I go for vials, because I'm often playing without guns and vials can be used to hit switches.
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If there are those awful mortar gremlins that have the shield in the front and shoot little bombs all of the vial types go out the window in place of barriers... but that's about the extent barriers are useful. Most of the time, the part of the time that lacks those gremlins, I play exactly like Bopp does- where the extra chance of 25 cr is more valuable than the pickups themselves. Really it highlights a part of the game that could use some work, I suppose.
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Yep, I also prioritize barriers over vials in C42 and in OCH. Easiest way to deal with those annoying mortafires.
I also try to collect those in HoI, if you use one before stepping on the final party button at Maulos you can charge up your blitz and walk around while the orbs break the crystals. Plus using barriers while cloaked won't cancel the cloak so you can always do a bit more dmg safely.
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What do you guys think GH can do to improve pickups? I'd honestly appreciate it if they removed pickups if the next level is gonna be useless/combatless, like 28 into 29. So we can have a better chance at cr or lockboxes.
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Yes, but this is a very low-priority improvement for me. I'm more interested in new content, equipment balance, etc.
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What about the artillery strike thingy?
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I keep some vials whenever I go full sword or bomb mode for hitting switches. Also, the vials travel farther than gun bullets (abusing this on ironclaw munitions factory).
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Lol, I knew I forgot one... Uh...artillery strike is not so good, it does deal a bit of damage, but most enemies will just shrug it off. In addition, the arrival time of the rockets aren't too punctual, so you're better off using these on stationary targets or enemies that are spawning on that area.
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The AS is only good in that one particular room during the torto event where you have a respawner of it so you can spam it for days.
But at least using it doesn't break the cloak so if you wanted to you could use it the same way as barriers, a bit of extra dmg while you are undetected.
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I always keep and use health capsules, obviously, but I need to use remedy capsules more.
I never use vials, because i either want to stock them up for a better chance at crowns in the prize wheel, or they slip my mind.
I don't use barriers as often as I should, because I have my drakon's flame barrier.
I don't like the variety of statuses for the barriers, since there are a limited number of slots for them, and they ruin treasure boxes. We don't really need these statuses, because the damage is useful enough, although they don't really act as a "barrier".
I never pick up the helper pickups because I always want to stock up vials for a better chance at crowns in the prize wheel. Not that they're useful.
The drops of all of these are annoying in arenas because when I try to pick up a health capsule, I end up picking up the others and having to throw them out. There should be a designated slot for them.
The drop rates should definitely decrease, because it's very annoying to find them in the place of normal loot(especially in the prize wheel).
Maybe they should take out some of the vial statuses, like sleep?
Overall, pickups need huge improvements.
Seems good to me.
Mecha Knights... Soak up damage I guess. Uhh......... Yeah they're pretty useless.
How long is that Recon Deathmark? Like two seconds?