How to use Mizi

[Thanes of Danes]

I've looked through the forums here and everyone seems to think that Mizi is underpowered (at least as of the months old threads I found). I really like her concept, but when I start a game with her I feel like she just hogs all the food and doesn't pull her weight proportionally to what you have to invest in her. Her abilities are nice, but her lack of a weapon slot and reliance on being alone makes her feel like kind of a crappier Butcher. Am I missing something? And if I'm not, then do the devs plan on buffing her (maybe lowering her ridiculous attack cooldown w/levels)?

[Sassafras]

I don't think shes underpowered, merely situational. As for "Hogging all the food," she is a native which means she takes the least amount of food to level.

I like to set up 2-3 kill zones with one hero and a bunch of towers, so she's perfect for that.

[Thanes of Danes]

By "hogging all the food" I mean she only seems to scale up with food investment (which you need to do a lot of with her since she lacks a weapon).

[melkathi]

Mizi gets a strong boost at lvl 15. Before that there are far better choices. Her passive really hurts you when those big waves comne and you have to gather all your heroes in one room to defend - and those waves will come eventually in Easy.

I think she is a great concept that is just not truly viable for the way the game works.
That's why I told the devs I refuse to use her anymore and am boycoting her :P (the other reason is that she annoys the **** out of me. She is the result of the G2G vote in which we voted for a Sister of Mercy - a warrior priest who heals the wounded who can be saved and shows mercy to the dying - how the **** does that tie in with Mizi's story?)

[Faust]

Huh, she totally does not look like a Sister. More like a typical, obnoxious brat.

[kopiC]

Mizi needs more attention and setup to use. She is equivalent to lone-sniper-tank-in-heavily-mined-field. No minefield, she will be in dire danger.

- If you are not spamming her active skills, you are not using her correctly. She is penalized heavily due to both of her highly destructive active skills.

- Hellfire does not damage modules, unlike Shrapnellizer. While it is not as wide-spread as cooking-with-gas, its still useful enough.

- Don't confuse Adrenaline with Nyctophilia. So please avoid using her as door opener.

- She has SMG range, a lower priority target compared to swords and spears. Which also means enemies need to come to her.

- She has higher than average base defence, nearly as much as Lady Joheri. With good armour, she can hit defence level of Elise.

- Her high attack power is a red-herring. She will never reach DPS level of Golgy, Gork, Ken, Stroig, etc. That is why Battle Madness skill means so much to her.

- You can place more than one Neurostun in the room. It will likely worth more than a Tesla turret. She will be alone in the room, so its not worth placing any support modules. I have yet tested with Holohero, so not sure how well it perform.

- minus 10% defense does not mean you take 10% more damage. Defense formula does not work that way. For heroes with already low defense, the penalty negligible.

- Conclusion: She should stay alone in the largest powered rooms with 2 Neurostun.
If both her active skills are on cooldown, keep a fast hero on standby to relieve her.
Use science to recharge her active skills. Its often worth it.

[Sassafras]

Originally posted by jc:

- minus 10% defense does not mean you take 10% more damage. Defense formula does not work that way. For heroes with already low defense, the penalty negligible.

Well, not really. There is a diminishing return with higher defense, so its probably going to affect guys with low defense even more.

[kopiC]

Originally posted by GenNyan:

Originally posted by jc:

- minus 10% defense does not mean you take 10% more damage. Defense formula does not work that way. For heroes with already low defense, the penalty negligible.

Well, not really. There is a diminishing return with higher defense, so its probably going to affect guys with low defense even more.

Thanks for your comment, GenNyan :-), it prompted me to do some maths.

Personally I am not very certain how exactly Bad Company works. I based my calculation on damage formula on wiki. Its only an approximate, game rounds it up, so actual damage reduction may be higher.
Hero with 10 defence (total), original damage reduction: 10%, penalized DamRd: 9%
Hero with 50 def, original DamRd: 34%, penalized DamRd: 31%
Hero with 80 def, original DamRd: 45%, penalized DamRd: 42%

Seems like higher def result in larger penalty. Actual additional damage taken due to Bad Company is 1-3%.

[Sonic Boomer]

Originally posted by melkathi:

Mizi gets a strong boost at lvl 15. Before that there are far better choices. Her passive really hurts you when those big waves comne and you have to gather all your heroes in one room to defend - and those waves will come eventually in Easy.

I think she is a great concept that is just not truly viable for the way the game works.
That's why I told the devs I refuse to use her anymore and am boycoting her :P (the other reason is that she annoys the **** out of me. She is the result of the G2G vote in which we voted for a Sister of Mercy - a warrior priest who heals the wounded who can be saved and shows mercy to the dying - how the **** does that tie in with Mizi's story?)

unless you're playing on too easy, how do you plan on having someone reach lvl 15? I haven't tried the other pods... still trying to beat the game on easy with the default pod...

[[CPC] Claiy]

Originally posted by Sybreed:

Originally posted by melkathi:

Mizi gets a strong boost at lvl 15. Before that there are far better choices. Her passive really hurts you when those big waves comne and you have to gather all your heroes in one room to defend - and those waves will come eventually in Easy.

I think she is a great concept that is just not truly viable for the way the game works.
That's why I told the devs I refuse to use her anymore and am boycoting her :P (the other reason is that she annoys the **** out of me. She is the result of the G2G vote in which we voted for a Sister of Mercy - a warrior priest who heals the wounded who can be saved and shows mercy to the dying - how the **** does that tie in with Mizi's story?)

unless you're playing on too easy, how do you plan on having someone reach lvl 15? I haven't tried the other pods... still trying to beat the game on easy with the default pod...

15 level on the Library pod with her, and i level up Max to 15 everytime i play him regardless of the pod (unless it's sanitary i kept him to 10) but yeah it's not common until you learn every little tricks to save food ...

BUT It's definitely a possibility in the drill pod (infinite and you need to reach the 24 floor for the success / album unlock)

[Hardwood]

Mizi is amazing. I always pick her in MP. She's good for opening doors if the way back is secured. Her high attack and low attack speed is very good for kiting and avoiding damage from mobs. She's good early game and great at level 14.

She's good in SP too. Kiting, hellfire refresh, skill stacking are strong at all points of the game. Once you have enough food to hit 15, you have the possibility of double-stacking rank 2 and 3 of Battle Madness for 8 seconds of dps. Food is not really a problem if you can defend your modules. It's quite possible on Easy difficulty to hit level 15 with four characters by floor 9 or 10 if you build many food modules.

edit: also, Mizi has the best leveling animation. boing

[Zsrai]

If I want a pure loner, I usually have better luck with Ken. He also doesn't reduce the defense of my other heroes if I have to bunch them up for some reason. He doesn't have the AoE either, though.

In that case, I'd almost rather have Rakya as a loner buffing the hell out of some modules while also giving me bonus resources from Operating...

[Hardwood]

Ken is good, but he's fragile, his skill stacking is not as strong, and his attack animation is long (machine gun). Bad Company isn't such a big deal tbh

Also, modules are for the weak.

[kopiC]

The game dev is being nice by giving us more choices. If you don't like the character, don't pick them at start or don't hire them.

Ken is more problematic near end game, where its near impossible for single hero to protect a room alone (unless using food/science).

If I really have to send someone to tribal council, its Joleri. ("You are suppose to kill the monsters, NOT run pass them. With your spear, how are you going to tank for sword-users and punchers?)

It maybe just me who have not figure out how to use her correctly.

[Zsrai]

Originally posted by OdysseusL:

Ken is good, but he's fragile, his skill stacking is not as strong, and his attack animation is long (machine gun). Bad Company isn't such a big deal tbh

Also, modules are for the weak.

Ken's attack speed, before a weapon adjustment (all reduce attack speed), is 1.0. Mizi's is 1.6, and is 1.3 at level 15. He is far more fragile though.

Also, I dunno what you're talking about with his skill stacking being worse. He can stack up some INSANE attack power, especially if you have Josh or Mormish using Armchair General. It's really impressive how fast he can clear a room if you stack abilities.

[Hardwood]

Yes, Ken's attack speed is good. But I am talking about his attack animation, specifically the machine gun animation which takes much longer than other weapon animations to actually deal the full attack damage of the attack. You can't move in the middle of the actual damage frames or some of the attack will be cancelled. So, machine gunners like Ken or Gork have to stand their ground as they shoot their bullets. This is a disadvantage in kiting. Characters who don't use machine guns can quickly attack and reposition in the attack cooldown time. Characters with higher attack damage and lower attack speed (like Mizi) spend less time to actually deal their damage and have more time to move around, enabling them to kite mobs or avoid damage with greater effectiveness.

The skill stacking I am talking about is when you use an active skill and level instantly to use the upgraded version of the same skill. For example, Ken can use Sacrifice at rank 1, level up to 13, and then stack Sacrifice 2 with Sacrifice 1. This gives a +270% damage boost. It's pretty impressive, more so if you stack it with Sado-Selfish 2.

Mizi can stack Battle Madness 2 and Battle Madness 3 by leveling from 14 to 15. This gives her +60 attack damage and lowers her attack cooldown from 1.3 to 0.2. This is already at least an +813% damage boost (not counting the significant bonus she gets from level 15 stats alone). With A...Thing equipped, her cooldown shortens to 0.1, further doubling her damage output.