Evasion please let me know how it is benificial

[Shax]

Evasion seems like a bad thing.

 

I understand what evasion does. It allows you by pass a creature without fighting it or taking damage. But the creature gets shuffled back in the deck.

 

This seems like a waste of a players turn and or cards.

 

With time being such a tight commodity and action economy bing so important, it seems to me that it would be better for you to have a spell card in your deck that does damage and defeats the creature therefor lowering the location card count instead of wasting a card slot in your deck with a spell that just shuffles the monster back in the location.

 

Now if evade defeated the creature or put the creature at the bottom of the deck or even let you shuffle the creature back into the deck and give you an addition free explore action then it seems like it would be worth it. But as it is it seems like a waste of action or card play.

 

Please let me know what I'm missing.

[269Hawkmoon]

If you find the villain but aren't prepared to corner it, evading it and leaving it somewhere in that location might be a good thing.

 

If you encounter something that will damage multiple characters, evading it might be a good thing.

 

Evading a summoned monster when there are no consequences for not defeating it is a good thing.

 

If you are Merisiel and can evade anything, evading all the regular monsters at the general store and constantly exploring is a great thing.

 

I personally generally don't keep the evasion spells long, except for Invisibility since it also lets you succeed at a Stealth check and lacks the Mental trait.

Edited May 10, 2016 by 269Hawkmoon

[Brainwave]

I have 4 main situations in which I like to use evasion -

 

1) Risky explorations. You can explore without much in hand pretty much risk free. If you encounter something nasty, just evade, otherwise you haven't given up that explore that you might not otherwise want to use.

 

2) Encountering the villain. Now this depends on the game and the villain but some villains are the type (like the guy who resets the combat if you roll a1-2 on a d6 after you defeat him) that you only want to have to fight once. If you encounter him too early then just evade, close or set up guys for temp closing the other locations, then explore and fight him again.

 

3) Encountering a good upgrade card that you don't have the resources to get at the moment. If I run into the deathbane crossbow or father z or something similar without good cards available to make acquiring the card likely, evade and try to find it again with better cards in hand.

 

4) Summoned creatures. For example, one of the deck 1 villains summons a wrathful Sinspawn that someone has to fight before the villain, that can be evaded with no penalty. The skeleton horde barrier is the same way, it gets banished no matter what happens to the skeletons, so anyone that can evade, should. There are some other barriers and villains that require defeating the summoned stuff to defeat the barrier or villain card but if so it will specify on the card.

[Hannibal_PJV]

In the wrath of righteousnes evade can keep your spellcasters alive...

But in Runelords, pure damage is often better ansver.

[Wode79]

I think there are better evade spells, but not until much later.

 

For Merisiel, evade lets me do some risk free exploring. I may not have the perfect hand (maybe I had to use some blessings on another character, maybe something else bad hit). Anyone else, I might just skip the turn to refresh their hand, but Meri can take a look. Maybe it is something she can handle. Maybe it's something she can't, in which case evading leaves me the same as if I didn't explore at all (but does change up the deck order).

 

It's also very useful for the "Summon and encounter X at the start of your turn". Yeah, I can usually take out a bandit without a problem, but that's still a card recharged, and the possibility of rolling all 1s.

[zeroth_hour]

Villain evasion is actually really big; henchmen are easier to defeat than villains are, and even henchmen + close is probably easier.  It needs to be reliable (and as Hawkmoon says it needs to lack the restrictions that a lot of the evasion spells have, like Mental trait, limited to difficulty 10 or under, etc)

 

To say nothing of being able to win with the minimal amount of locations closed because you know exactly where the villain is and can corner him or her at your own convenience.

 

Brainwave pointed out the summoned monsters one which is also big.  Goblin Raid and some others summon a bunch of monsters but evading is just as good as defeating for those barriers unless evading the monster doesn't defeat the barrier (Zombie Horde I think is like that).

[Shax]

Perfect! That was what I was looking for. Thanks for the input. There were couple if things I hadn't though about.

 

Thanks again for the input! It is such a fun game!

[Kgk4569]

The Cloak of Escape has a bug that it will sometimes cause a location to close when evading a henchman! So there's that.

[wakasm]

Evasion is a very powerful mechanic. It's a version of scouting, which is arguably even more powerful. 

 

I wrote a full write up about Merisiel and her evasion ability here 

 

The gist of why it's powerful comes from the idea of preparation and/or lack thereof.  Evasion lets you prepare your entire party better (evading villians, maximizing loot potential), but knowing you can evade lets you YOLO a location since you have a get out of free card if things get bad or if you are unprepared as well.    

 

Yes you lose time if you overuse it, but since you are dealing with random cards in random decks... it's potential to save time and/or help you get the best loot you may only encounter a few times in your entire adventure path outweighs this weakness.  

 

Strategically using Evade though is powerful.  

[Cainhu]

There are some monsters which could not be defeated by combat (Siren for example), or deal damage anyway what you may want to avoid. So pure damage is not always the perfect option.

[LAntorcha]

2 Words: Merisiel + Ilsoari

 

Throw the D12 =1 then Sandpoint Devil 20/20...

 

errrr... coff coff... (show him a finger) EVADE

[jtrowell]

Damned why didn't I think of that !

[Rhygar]

Sometimes I wish they have a speed option to toggle fast animation or remove it altogether. That combo of illsoari sounds good on paper but never make it at all into my squad. It's too slow as the saying goes :ever seen paint dry? Now you can watch dice spin as the new coined phrase

 

Imagine doing it ad nauseum as you basically redraw that card every reset. There's quite some instances in game when I wish animation can be sped up.

[Sylvanta]

Evasion is my favorite ability.  Merisiel is always in my party, and I frequently play her solo. 

 

You can evade all summoned monsters and they banish (not ideal for closures or hordes that require them all to be beaten, but still has value - particularly if your team member failed a check).  It's wonderful against Justice Ironbriar and Erylium - why fight summoned monsters that you don't need to prior to a villain fight?  It's also glorious fun in the General Store.  Evade your way to items/armor/weapons, discard to explore and evade to more goodies.  Always evade the Shadow and Spectre if you don't have magic weapons, and why encounter the Enchanter unless you have to?  Maybe you're in a group and you run into the villain early - evade and close the other locations off then burn the deck for the villain.  Start of Turn Bandits at the Guard Tower are a non-issues with evasion, as well.

 

In my solo Merisiel games, I evade-to-win.  I'll encounter all boons, and barriers I can beat.  I'll frequently evade monsters until I get the villain/henchmen shuffled up to the top of the deck.  I'm more likely to evade monsters in locations that are a bit tougher - like the Waterfront or Glassworks, and will encounter less threatening monsters in safer locations.  You have to keep an eye on the timer when you do this - but solo you have 10 turns per location, and if you can find and close in less than 10 turns you're ahead of the game.

 

Then you have characters like Ekkie, one of the promo goblins in the physical game (and they're something I'm excited to get into the digital game).  In Wrath of the Righteous, there is a location where the difficulty of checks to defeat monsters is increased by the number of people playing - so, in our 6 player games monsters there can be pretty rough.  Ekkie has a special evasion ability that evades and throws the monster to a random location.  Great fun, and if you don't mind the risk that you'll just throw them back into your current location, it can be great for moving that tough creature, or the monster that's pointless to fight elsewhere.  Giant Fly, I'm looking at you.  (For those unfamiliar, the Giant Fly will be shuffled into a random location when defeated).