I was interested in testing out a few of the Rank 3 epics. Personally, I've never seen a use for Riposte or Return Fire 3 since they increased dodge only for that round and would therefore only be used for attacks from other enemies or a Relentless or Vengeance Strike from the attacking enemy.

I noticed recently that Ratbeard mentioned that Overwatch 3 and Repel Borders 3 reduce accuracy by 50%. I was sold. I quickly learned that this, like those other epics, was only for one round. The problem is that the most popular Musk units that can't train Burst 3 (as it is always preferable) include Bonnie and perhaps Louis. Both have six range. Given that this reduced accuracy lasts only a single round and no unit other than Nausica have a movement range of seven, how would this ever be utilized?

In researching more, I found that it might be useful if, in fact, these Overwatch epics triggered from two spaces away. Louis has never done that, but Bonnie has, before her last promotion. Now it seems to be at six instead of two. I went ahead and confirmed this. Then, I noticed a friend's Bonnie, at the same tier, triggering her Overwatch at two spaces. I also discovered this thread on Pirate101 Central discussing holes in Overwatch: http://www.pirate101central.com/forums/showthread.php?49713-Holes-In-Long-Range-Overwatch-Coverage&highlight=overwatch. I'm confused.

I decided that maybe Repel Borders (I believe it is incorrectly spelled Repel Boarders in-game, unless that's just a clever play on words with ships or something I'm missing) 3 might be worth trying, thought any unit with the ability to train it usually has other epics that are much more desirable - minus one. Ratbeard was the perfect candidate. He's not a very effective companion, but I decided that with Repel Borders 3, he might be more reasonable in combat (though he'll never make the PvP list). However, when he gets Repel Borders, there's no "Reduced Accuracy" above the heads of the enemies, and nothing on their character mouseover panel as there was with Bonnie. There were no indications otherwise that the enemy's accuracy had actually been reduced.

The fact that these bugs haven't been reported probably says something about the popularity of the epics. I was wondering - would Return Fire, Riposte, Repel Borders, and Overwatch 3 be more useful if the reduced dodge or accuracy lasted for three rounds? I think I might really consider using some of these if that were the case.

What do you all think? (Or can you offer some clarifications on some of these questions?)

Thanks,
Swordroll

Ratbeard on Mar 5, 2014 wrote:

Overwatch (and Parting Shot) will definitely be reduced to 2 squares. They've been working as intended on my local copy for quite a while (but as you know by now, not every patch is an opportunity to squeeze in every bug fix we'd like to see.)

As I have mentioned a few times, we have a lot of UI improvements coming up that will make Epic Talents easier to understand-- and if Repel Boarders is broken or under-utilized now, it won't be.

As for Riposte 3, all I can say is that every companion I have that can train it, trains it. You've laid out the argument correctly; you just arrived at a different conclusion. To each his own!

Perfect! Thank you!