Evolution (Sonny 2017)

This is not to be confused with Strains, where Sonny gains an entirely new ability set when gaining another strain.

In Sonny 2017, Sonny gains the ability to temporarily evolve abilities so that they have additional effects after filling the evolution gauge. This gauge only fills when Sonny takes an action - he will not fill it when skipping a turn or when he is stunned; likewise abilities that hit multiple times (either the same or different targets) will fill it quicker.

Only active abilities can be evolved (passives cannot), and each ability can only have one evolution's effect at a time. When attempting to evolve an ability, Sonny will be presented with 3 options to choose from; at this point Sonny must choose one of them, regardless of how undesirable they might be. Evolving an ability does not force you to use said ability, it does not take up your turn, and you can evolve an ability that is on cooldown.

Evolving abilities with evolutions that have the same effect as the ability's native effects effectively wastes the evolution - they do not stack. (eg. Evolving Wound with Bleed does nothing. Note that evolving Regenerate with Life Link, or Quick Strike with Rapid Strikes does work, and the effects will still apply.)

Evolution choices vary from skill to skill and new evolution choices are unlocked with new strains.

Different evolutions can augment different abilities. This all depends on their 'criteria', based on what the ability does. For example, Rengerate cannot be augmented with Bleed for obvious reasons, nor could Quick Strike be augmented with Nourish.

Physical Strain Evolutions (Universal)

Opening Gambit: Deals double damage to targets with full HP.

• Combine with strong attacks for massive damage, and potentially one hit kills.

Final Hour: Gain 100% power on targets with less than 50% HP.

• Great to finish off weakened enemies.

Desperation: If your HP is below 50%, this ability gains 100% critical strike chance.

Precision: Increases hit chance by 100%.

Sharpen: Increases this ability's critical strike chance by 50%.

Impact: Increase this ability's critical damage by 100%.

Rapid Strikes: Critical strikes with this ability also restore 30 Focus.

• Preferably added to abilities that have increased critical strike chance, can multihit, or recover Focus.

Stagger: Each hit also reduces the target's focus by 20.

• With the right setups, you can essentially prevent a target from ever taking their turn.

Fury: Gain an additional strike, but reduces damage by 50%.

• While this may look useless, it actually allows the ability to proc on-hit effects multiple times, not to mention filling up the evolution gauge faster.

Diffuse: Hits all targets, but increases cooldown by one turn and reduces power by 25%.

• Wasted on abilities that already hit all targets. Is great in conjunction with abilities with useful effects, like Break and Regenerate.

Bleed: Apply Bleed (extra damage when hit) to the target.

• It basically gives the ability the effects of Wound.

Erode: Apply Breach (reduced defense) to the target.

Weaken: Apply Weaken (reduced power) to the target.

• Weaken: Power reduced by 50%. Lasts 2 turns.

Silence: Silence the target's previous ability for 2 turns.

• Basically increases the target ability's cooldown by 2 turns.

Barrier: After using this skill, gain Shield (Gain 100% damage reduction for 1 turn).

• While Barrier does block all incoming damage, it does not block effects (although some effects that affect damage are essentially negated, like Bleed and Expose). That being said, the AI will not target a Barrier protected unit with an attack, mostly rendering the point moot.

Life Link: Gain 65% of damage or healing back as HP.

• Sonny will gain the health from the ability used, and thus this evolution has a myriad of uses. For example, Sonny could use Regenerate on an ally, and heal himself at the same time. Enemies with lots of health and low Defense can be used as a healing machine. Likewise, this evolution is wasted against enemies with high defense, or on allies with incoming healing severely restricted.

Nourish: Apply Regen (healing each turn) to the target.

Empower: Apply Empower (gain power) to target.

Haste: Apply Haste (increased speed) to target.

Prepare: Reduces the max cooldown of this ability by 1 turn.

Amplify: Increase the power of this ability by 30%.

Resonance: Gain 75% extra elemental power after using this ability.

Iron Will: Gain 50% defense as power.

• Quite useful on defensive builds, as it allows the conversion of defense into power.

Consume: Killing blows also restore HP equal to 200% of the damage done.

• Combine this with powerful Abilities for massive healing; remember that the damage done can exceed the health of the target.

Fire Strain

Apocalypse: Increases power by 100%, and cooldown by 2 turns.

Shadow Strain Evolutions

Dark Torrent: Gain Haste (increased speed) after using this ability.

• Haste: Speed increased by 30%.