Thrawn basic - don't understand?
I thought Speed Up would expire at the beginning of the toon's turn, making it effectively an uncleansable ability block, with a slight bonus that the turn in which you can only use basic comes sooner. But instead, Speed Up expires at the end of the toon's turn, making the ability block only the turn after, and giving plenty of time for other toons to cleanse it off. So what the is the point of it?
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Replies
1. Thrawn hits with basic. Gives speed up.
2. Target takes a turn with Speed up on him. Can use all abilities.
3. At the end of the target's turn, he loses Speed Up and gains ability block.
4. The target's next turn, it is ability blocked (unless Thrawn hits him with basic again, in which case it's stunned).
This seems overly difficult to use, and impossible for the AI to get right. You need to calculate the opponent's cooldowns, so the speed up comes only when they can use their basic, or you need to combo it with another toon that can AB, so Thrawn dishes out stuns instead of Speed Up (TFP? Snowtrooper? Vader? Or even Boba?). Moreover, it doesn't support the idea (which I thought was central to the ability and philosophy of Thrawn's special tactics) of evading cleanses, quite the opposite! There's a full cycle of turns allowing for cleansing the AB before it actually becomes relevant to the target.
@CG_Kozispoon is this really the way it was intended? Or was Speed Up supposed to drop off at the start of the opponent's turn?
/sarcasm
Darth Maul's stealth doesn't. It expires at the beginning of the turn and gives advantage. Meanwhile Teebo's stealth from Scramble Tactics expires at the end of a turn. So it's not obvious at all. Buffs can expire at the beginning of turn when CG feels like it. It looks like that should be the case here... yet it isn't.
Additionally, if they wanted to avoid confusion they could have simply made it a differently named buff with the same effect.
Call it "Rushed" or something (fits better with Thrawn's theme to boot) and then have that specific buff always expire on turn start.
Boom, no confusion, more effective, better fitting with theme.
Agreed
I don't see any point in ab coming after the turn too
Turn 1: Nihilus CD increase
Turn 1: Thrawn basic that ability blocks turn 2.
The delayed ability block allows you to shut down a character for two turns instead of stacking ability block with nihilus's CD increase in the same turn.
Still trying to figure out the ability block. The fact that it applies speed up first, then switches to ability block that "can't be resisted" means I think you'd be able to apply ability block through tenacity up. Say Rex opens with cleanse/tenacity up, you hit GK with Thrawn's basic and he'll end up ability blocked even though he has tenacity up. I don't know, I don't have him so I haven't been able to try anything yet.
Making his kit complicated fits his lore but means the AI will be terrible with him.
Actually, there's more. But that was the one that came to mind.
Of course there are combos that make this downside either irrelevant or a plus. But the AI is bound to just toss it on some toon that you definitely don't want moving fast (such as Rex). If the point was to make AB "irresistable" and go through tenacity, the speed up bit seems wholly unnecessary and overly complex. Just give him an irresistable AB on basic (just like Vader's AB cannot be dodged (but can be resisted)), and remove all the complicated stuff that the AI will mess up.
And given how much of a clusterf... the AI for Thrawn is already (apparently), this is definitely not going to help.
That just soundslike an outright bug. Given the way his ability is described. @CG_Kozispoon for a release that's supposed to be hyped this much, how did it get past QA with dumb AI and outright buggy abilities?