Rating History ▼

Rating History ▲

This review isn't going to follow my normal style because of the nature of the problems I have with it; that being said, let's dive in.

Rant:

Let’s look at it in the abstract first, because on the surface, there’s a lot to like here. 35 total icons is more than the venerable Super Attack Pea, after all, and that icon distribution means there’s no defensive counterplay, barring Thyoras Tear and its ilk. Even taking into account the 70% success rate, that’s still an average of 24.5 icons, which is more than Grapes of Wrath.

The problems start when you begin digging.

If you’re using it during its uptime, Focus of Imminent Destruction will attack 70% of the time, while it breaks and does nothing the other 30% of the time. For most 1P battling, this is horrible; when Focus breaks, it’s a waste of time and a waste of half a turn. If you’re just battling for your daily codestones or nerkmids, this is an inconvenience. If you’re battling an important plot boss or (if they return) a Defenders of Neopia challenger, it means you’ve basically lost and will have to try again.

Time to self-indulge with some math:
The probability of getting n successes (consecutively, because any failure kills the Focus) is 0.70^n. This means that you only have a 49% chance of 2 uses, a 34.3% chance of getting 3 uses, and so on. The numbers only get worse from here, especially if you’re using two.

By now, I hope it’s obvious that I don’t care for this sort of unreliability.

Of course, all of this totally ignores the existence of Faerie Slingshot, which outclasses this weapon in its niche of “unreliable constant.” While it doesn’t “go off” quite as often, it doesn’t disappear when it fails either, and it almost always deals more damage when it does hit strongly. Then again, this weapon is currently around a quarter to a fifth of the price of the Slingshot… which is still pretty expensive.

To be honest, all of what I’ve bellyached about so far is forgivable; if those were the only problems I had with this weapon, I’d be rating it higher. It has its niche, after all: eventually, by winning the RNG contest, it might help you win against some opponent you have no business beating otherwise for a (sort of, but not really) reasonable price.

The real reason I so strongly dislike this weapon, and what I would argue is its biggest flaw, is its lesser gimmick: it only works every other two-hour period.

This is obnoxious enough for a 1P battler; 50% of the time, you’d have been better-served by a Plastic Butter Knife. If you’re planning on using this in 1P battles, you’d better warp your schedule around that time table.

But the really-real reason I hate this weapon so much is the catch-22s it creates when you consider its use in 2P battling.

Imagine, for a moment, that you’re hosting a 2P tournament. One person wants to use a Focus on their set. Their opponent, aware of their plan, tries their best to schedule their battle during Focus’s downtime, while they want to schedule it for Focus’s uptime. What do you do?

How about this one: a 2P battle starts at 3:50 NST, and Battler 1 got smashed by Battler 2’s Focus on the first turn. It’s now 3:52 and Battler 1, wanting to avoid the same thing next turn, decides to wait 9 minutes before submitting their next move. Now imagine this again, but the battle started at 3:30 NST… or 3:00 NST. Where does the line get drawn for this sort of behavior?
(As a brief side-note, we’re not currently sure what happens in 2P battles in a situation like this – will Focus break as if it attacked during downtime because that’s when the turn was finalized, or will it attack as it would during its uptime because that’s when Battler 2 submitted their move? Testing with regard to that would be appreciated.)

These are, of course, trick questions: the answer is that you never, ever, ever run a tournament in which Focus of Imminent Destruction is legal because its time-based design is, frankly, a raging garbage inferno. As much as I hate weapons that reward you for going second – things like Handy Office WeaPen and Glowing Cauldron under the current reflection mechanics – this is even worse than that.

So, TNT, if you’re reading this: I applaud you for your willingness to try new things and explore new design space – 1 point for that – but please never design another weapon with functionality dependent on the time ever again. They’re the most awful thing in the entire Battledome right next to weapons that take turn order into account, and I’m confident that nobody will miss them. It’s not like a weapon with no defensive counterplay is particularly fun or healthy in 2P battling either (that’s why Super Attack Pea and Grapes of Wrath are banned in most 2P leagues they’d otherwise be allowed in).

Alternatives:

If you’re a fan of this kind of icon spread but want to use something that’s actually good, I’d suggest a Fan of Swords – 20 offensive icons and 5 defensive icons with a 100% probability, 100% of the time, and it’s cheaper than this, too!

If you don’t like this but you’re dead-set on a weapon that fits a similar niche, the aforementioned Faerie Slingshot, the original inconsistent gambit, is worth considering.

Past that, for 1P battles, at this budget, you’re close to the end of the line as far as attacking weapons are concerned: Wand of the Dark Faerie and Super Attack Pea are your final steps.

Conclusion:

No, please. I can't bear to think about it any longer.

Rated on November 20, 2018. Updated June 5, 2024