The special side abilities offered at the start of the game can have a huge impact on your strategy in Moonbreaker, and correctly selecting the best two Assists can greatly improve your win percentages in Unknown Worlds’ new turn-based strategy game. Here’s what you should be on the lookout for and how you can make the best use of them.
The best of the bunch: Stowaway, Cinder Infusion, Orbital Strike, and Plink
With Astra dominating the metagame, it makes sense that every ability that can help you vomit out units can make an outsized impact. Stowaway essentially grants you three Cinder per two turns, making it the best ability in the game. Cinder Infusion is very similar but on a larger cooldown.
For damage-dealing, Orbital Strike and Plink are your two top options. Don’t underestimate Plink: since you can use it every turn, the damage quickly adds up, and it is incredibly flexible. Orbital Strike’s brutal damage output is keenly felt by everyone who ever gets hit by it, but the four-turn cooldown is very long and you can sort of expect it to come if your opponent hasn’t played one of their assists for three turns.
The strong alternatives: Stasis Field, Stimburst, Medical Recall, and Lifeline
In a game that can be decided in five to seven turns, disabling a unit for a full one can be very valuable, hence the inclusion of Stasis Field in this bracket. Stimburst provides incredible flexibility and a chance for melee units to charge into the fray, making it a very valuable offensive option. Lifeline is just a nice nifty pocket pick to keep your units in the fight—Medical Recall is normally much worse from a tempo perspective, but it is an underrated choice for an Astra. Since the cost reduction is permanent, you can use the ability to rapidly redeploy and attack again with the same Crew, with a bit of health top-up to boot.
The situational picks: Corrosive Particles, Escape Hatch, Disruptor Beam, and Vortex Beam
Corrosive Particles is fine, but it’s just the poorer cousin of Orbital Strike and Plink. It’s either a lot of damage on a stack (if you have units capable of dishing out AoE damage) or an extra hit or two on an individual target. It is not at all a bad choice, but it is not premium.
It’s the random positioning that kills Escape Hatch. Unless you’re using Astra, placing an expensive unit with no initiative in a random place (and with a health penalty) just really isn’t all that appealing, especially because the high-cost units’ abilities often cost Cinder by themselves, shackling you for the following turn. And if you’re playing with Astra, you just have a cheaper and more efficient way to do the same thing.
Disrupter Beam and Vortex Beam can be nifty but they are both limited in their application, mainly because of how units often get caught up on the various tiny elements of the terrain. If you’re looking to build your strategy around position manipulation, Zax Ja’kar’s ability is already there for you.
The garbage pile: Charged Nanoshield and Ion Storm
Charged Nanoshield is a bit of a trap. Think about it: just how much health does one turn of invulnerability on a single unit grant you, bearing in mind that your opponent can just redirect the damage to other units? Basically none. You can use it for one turn to keep a critical unit (or your Captain) for one turn but you better win on the next turn, especially since you haven’t had a useful assist in this slot for the whole match. It can help set up certain Hail Mary plays, sure, but the better course of action is to not end up in situations where keeping a high-damage Crew alive for one turn serves as your trump card.
Meanwhile, Ion Storm just doesn’t do enough. Lowered accuracy by 40 percent for units in the area, which does little with melee units and can be counteracted by many abilities, is inferior to all other assists on the list. Maybe if the percentage was higher, 60 or 70 for the next turn? As it is, you need to nope out.
