Enemy doesn't run out of Tonus

[glittma]

We're using the exact same builds. I'm mirroring him.
I'm 11/12/22 and he's 10/13/16.
But after one round, I have to change moves because I'm out of Tonus. He goes on and on.

Edit: He's also a lot more energy efficient than I am!

[madcapbeatitude]

1. Tonus consumption is a dynamic only the player has to deal with, not enemies. Enemies have other built-in disadvantages, but this is a built-in enemy advantage. It's like when you're playing an RPG and the boss characters have better gear than you can buy yet. You need to either level grind to be stronger, or play the game strategically in order to match your strengths with their weaknesses.

In Punch Club 1, the player can have a maximum of 5 total skill slots (that's for attacks, defenses, modifiers, everything), while the enemy can have 6. However, the enemy can have a maximum of 3 passive skills, while the player is likely to acquire a dozen or more in the course of a normal game, and can get a lot more than that if they superlevel and complete multiple skill trees. By the end of a regular game, the player will dominate a "mirroring," opponent, but the main way to win is that every skill tree has a way to defeat opponents of any primary stat.

In Punch Club 2, the player can buy potions to apply buffs based on their gang affiliations. No enemy in the game can do this. The player can change skills or even fighting styles, in between fights or in between rounds of any fight. Only one unique enemy near the end of the game can do this, so 99% of the time, your enemy's build is what it is and they cannot change it.

When the player runs out of tonuses, they are forced to rely on abilities that don't cost tonuses, meaning entry-level attacks and defenses, which they can enhance with most-but-not-all modifiers, since even the highest level modifiers have a tonus cost. The enemy has no such limitation, but they also CAN'T change their build, even if they are getting wrecked because of what you're using on them.

TL;DR, tonus consumption is a limitation only on the player, but you have other potential advantages to make up for it.

2. MIrroring is not a good idea against an enemy who has unlimited tonuses, when you don't. You want to choose abilities that undermine their strengths or exploit their weaknesses, so you stand a chance of winning even with no tonus use at all. Then, you can selectively spend a few tonuses per round to enhance how well you perform.

Most fights in the game can go a maximum of 5 rounds. You can spend more tonuses earlier in order to take control of the fight, such as by depleting your opponent's energy, or you can limit your tonus use so you have room to cut loose in the later rounds. If you don't have a specific strategy in mind, I recommend spending 20% of your available tonuses per round at maximum so you don't have to worry about running out.

Since you have 22 stamina, probably from grinding to beat this guy, you are able to store up to 22 stamina tonuses, which is very helpful. You can spend 4 tonuses per round for 5 rounds without running out.

3. Since your build is 11/12/22, it sounds like your primary stat is stamina and you most likely rely on blocks for defense. You have 6 initiative, which is the same as your opponent, who also sounds like a blocker. You should have slightly more maximum health and damage than your opponent, which is helpful, but also slightly higher energy consumption, which is something to keep an eye on. That you have 6 more stamina than your opponent is excellent, since this should give you a much larger pool of energy that regenerates faster.

The best fighting style to beat your opponent is probably Torturer, but I don't know if you're far enough in the game to unlock that, or if this opponent requires it. Strategist has a bunch of buffs that won't help you against a blocker, while Trapper is similarly designed to beat dodgers. I would probably stick with plain old Arr-kido for its enhancements to your energy recovery and overall blocking performance.

4. I don't have his character sheet in front of me, but if the opponent you're stuck on his Rorschach, don't feel bad - that guy is an absolute beast who is way more powerful than opponents of similar GPP. Mirroring him is a bad idea, since he fills all of his defense slots with Iron Curtain, which costs 2 tonuses per round per skill slot, meaning he'll spend 30 tonuses on Iron Curtain if the fight goes the full length. This means his blocks will usually succeed, and don't take much energy, meaning it takes an enormous amount of punishment to bring him down. You should not try to match his strategy since it will destroy your supply of tonuses too quickly, unless you have a gigantic advantage in both strength and stamina and can beat him to a pulp in like 3 rounds max. This is working harder instead of smarter. What we want to do is beat your opponent while staying within budget with our Tonus uses, so here are some options:

A. Fill most of your defense slots with a regular Block, but just one of them with Iron Curtain. You'll only use it some of the time, but gain the partial advantage of its use.

B. Fill two of your defense slots with the cheaper Seashell block, but I'd still recommend a maximum of 2. Remember, our total budget is 4, and we might want to save some tonuses for attacking him. If your chosen style has 3 defense slots, use at least one normal Block to conserve your tonuses.

C. You can use all normal Blocks to save your tonuses for attacking, but this is risky since he's going to be using Undercut in all of his attack slots. Undercut costs only 1 initiative but spends a lot of energy and hits hard, meaning on his attack turn he will throw long and very damaging combos. We need a strong defense, so spending a couple tonuses on good blocks is a good investment for us.

Overall, I recommend using two Seashell blocks if you have that skill yet. If you don't, then I would mix in just one Iron Curtain. Either way, plan on using mostly normal blocks, and limiting yourself to 2 tonuses per turn on defense moves.

5. This brings us to how we CAN defeat Rorschach. If you have been grinding a very long time and are very invested in the Strategist skill path, the Long Swing attack modifier will make it harder for him to block and is worth equipping. Ideally, we will probably defeat him a long time before that skill becomes available, but just throwing that out there. More achievably in that direction, the "Calculating," defense modifier will increase your energy costs only slightly but enhance your block chances. With that buff, you can use even regular blocks and defend yourself as well as him, albeit with higher energy costs, saving a ton of Tonuses.

Rorschach will use Aggressive Scream, causing you to waste extra initiative whenever he blocks your strikes. This really adds up, and will shorten your turns. All we can do about this is fight fire with fire - equip the Aggressive Scream defense modifier, so that YOUR blocks will cause HIS attacks to take an extra initiative. This way, he can only throw 3 undercuts on his turn instead of 6. On top of this, we want to use the Break Rhythm attack modifier from the basic skill tree. This increases the energy cost of our attacks slightly, but with your 22 stamina you can afford it, and it will cause us to deal increased energy damage to him. With both of these abilities equipped, we will spend your energy advantage reducing his initiative with our blocks, and reducing his energy with our attacks. That should be enough to defeat him with your stats, but the Calculating defense modifier is a good third if you have the GPP to acquire it.

6. This brings us to our chosen attack. It's not super important which one you use, but mirroring his use of Undercut is a risky strategy since it uses so much energy. Rorscach's only real weaknesses are that his fighting style wastes a ton of energy and tonuses, and he has unlimited tonuses so that gives us energy depletion to work with as a strategy. It's hard to deplete his energy unless we are careful with our own spending. I recommend filling one of your attack slots with "double breath," to make sure we maintain an energy advantage over him, and only use attacks that cost 1 initiative. We want to throw the longest combos we can to tire him out and empty his energy and knock him down. This isn't easy, since he's forcing us to spend extra initiative just to swing at him. Double Breath uses only 1 initiative, can't be blocked, and guarantees we'll produce way more energy than him.

Overall, I think a good strategy is to throw in 2 cheap tonus attacks like Kick to the Ribs or Heavy Hook. If you have a third attack slot, I would fill it with Double Breath to keep up your energy.

I don't recommend Powerful Uppercut, since it uses 2 initiative, meaning it will cost us 3 initiative when he blocks it, or Undercut, which will use up your tonuses too quickly. If you're trying to deal decent damage for low energy and initiative cost without wasting tonuses, Shovel Hook is actually one of the best attacks available early on.

How I would beat a tough blocking opponent like Rorschach with an 11/12/22 build, using only 4 tonuses per turn, would look something like:

Style:Arr-kido
Attacks: Heavy Hook / Heavy Hook / Double Breath
Defenses: Iron Curtain / Block / Block
Modifiers: Break Rhythm / Aggressive Scream / Calculating, if I can afford it

This way, our attacks are cheap and our combos a decent length. Our blocks shorten his combos so we're not at a disadvantage, and our attacks drain his energy, so every turn he loses like 18-20 energy blocking. Double Breath keeps our supply of energy up so we can keep coming at him, meaning he'll get knocked down before we do. Calculating can compensate for us not using a wall-to-wall Iron Curtain like he is. We can also use two Seashell blocks instead of one Iron Curtain for the same overall tonus cost, but getting a better block a higher percentage of the time.

With this loadout, what probably happens is we block almost as much damage as Rorschach does, but he runs out of energy before we do. Once he gets knocked down even once, he'll start taking significant health damage from this, and having a small energy pool will undermine his ability to both attack and defend.