The Comedian is a joke. Pun intended, heh heh.
First, his ability is just telling jokes. And second, as a class concept he is indeed a joke, because he is totally pray RNGJesus. Tell a joke, and people around you randomly will like you or be annoyed with you. Have luck and they will even follow you for free, have bad luck and they will turn hostile. That’s it.
While this may sound horrible, in reality the odds are tilted towards the positive side, so it’s totally possible to play with him. Turning a npc rep into ‘loyal’ to you has many advantage, from home owners allowing you enter, to shoppers with safes given you the key, to random npcs helping in fights. Add to that the random goon or gang member that offers himself to follow you and sometimes you can pass to the next floor with zero effort.
What the player has to do really is to always formulate a backup plan in case the next joke provokes a negative reaction, and you suddenly have to run away or fight. That’s the crux of the class, if that happens in the worst moment it can happen, if may screw you royally.
The Scientist has been somewhat disappointing. It’s interesting how he doesn’t have any special ability, just an unique starting loadout and Big Quest, and from there you are free to pursue your way of playing.
The issue is in the balance. He reminds me of a Hacker, but being underpowered instead of OP. Like the hacker he is knocked away in combat a lot and like him he has poor combat stats and can use the computer hidden commands.
But the scientist doesn’t have the rest of awesome hacking powers nor is able to do it remotely. Even worse, he has worse speed stat than the Hacker, and suffers because of it.
What does he have, then? Well, apart from double xp/enmity from Gorillas, he can identify all drugs. But as I said before, his real ace in the hole is his starting loadout, he starts with a collection of rare tech weapons:
See that water pistol? It’s a unique weapon, he can load it up with any drug, and he will have five shots with that effect. So you can apply slow, confuse or poison to anyone. Not only that, that has to be used for his Big Quest, where he receives a random drug in a crate (usually near the exit point), and has to use it against a specific npc type, to then study the specimen with the the research gun. Which can be super annoying because sometimes npcs will turn hostile when you shot them, even with some positive effect.
The Ghost Gibber is nice to against ghosts, when you see a graveyard you can destroy the tombs, it will spawn ghosts that drop ~$20 each. The leafblower can be used to push people into poisoned lakes, fire traps, mines, etc.
The idea is having to use a combination of quirky weapons with effects and drugs to combat, but it’s easier said than done. I guess if you are veteran you may able to perfectly use his strengths, me? In four runs I never reached Downtown. He has some tools to use, but I found the combination of slow, small hp pool and said tools being not related to acting remotely or stealthily to be too much for me.
Er… I guess this isn’t going to be very PC, but I have to say, Being a SlaveMaster shouldn’t be this fun!
The concept is easy to understand, you have a taser (infinite ammo, but have a 10s CD), you can tase someone and then capture him putting a slave collar with your special ability; You can have up to three slaves. Now, the fun part:
-Slaves are free followers. You can capture a few, and send them to attack someone, even if they die just capture more.
-Want to loot a safe? capture the owner and ask for the keys. Need to kill a target? Capture him and send him into a suicide mission.
-However slaves lack motivation, and lots of times won’t defend you if someone attack you, unless you give them direct attack orders. Lazy bums!
-Want to blow up a hole in a wall or kill a group or something? Just send a slave into position and hit the killswitch! All current slaves will blow up. Only can be used up to three times per floor.
-However the slavemaster suffers of the incomprehension of the people of the land. Capturing someone has a chance to provoke ‘annoyed’ into any npc that sees you.
-Even worse, a few people seems to hate slavers and will turn hostile upon seeing you. A bit like with the Comedian, a random npc starting combat in the worst moment can be a potential game over.
-Finally, there is a small chance that some slaves try to free himself and attack you (in this moment the killswitch is useful! just put some distance). In one run I had captured a soldier who a grenade on hand, thinking it would be good in combat, but two minutes later he liberated himself and blew me up with the grenade…
His Big Quest is enslaving a specific npc class in each floor and delivering to the exit or entrance. Overall I had a blast, sending my little suicide squads, or having to free someone from the police jail only to enslave him and send him away (lol), or tasing someone who was walking on the train line, paralyzing him until it gibbed him.
Thanks god the cartoony, almost comedy-zany style of the game makes it to be very distant from the real world setting.
