Use of the word "Booster" in the Assault Skill.

[manic merlin]

Edit: It's called Ambush, not Assault, sorry 😂

When I first started using the Blood Katana, I was a little confused by the description of the Ambush Skill, stating "If it hits an enemy with Booster, it can be used once more." With some testing, I understand now that this means enemies that are suffering from certain negative effects such as Bleeding, Fire, and Electricity, but the use of the word booster, as well as booster's tool-tip definition caused some initial confusion for me. Boosters are given to us the player as positive effects such as the booster offered at the beginning of a run near Isaac, the boosters that activate at the beginning of combat that are granted by some Modules, and the booster from the hot chocolate at that one ? room.

Because of how the game trains the player to think about the keyword Booster, it was confusing at first when Ambush's additional strikes weren't possible on enemies that have any icon over their head such as Administrator Wolves. Even the page for Booster in the Log describes them as granting "powerful effects," and there is an entirely different page for Status Effects.

After looking through all of that, it seems to me that the Ambush Skill should instead read as: "If it hits an enemy with a Status Effect, it can be used once more."

[lapis forge]

It’s possible for the enemies to get positive effects from the Doctor’s Eye, booster is probably a collective term for both positive and negative effects but as you already explained isn’t the best way of defining them

[manic merlin]

While that's true, the problem is that enemies with positive effects on them do not trigger Ambush's additional attacks (it's a problem that the skill claims that Boosters are ok, the problem is not that "enemies with positive effects should allow the extra hits"). In my testing, the only over-the-head-icons that allow Ambush to hit multiple times are Bleeding, Fire, and Electricity. Even enemies who are Vulnerable or Weakened don't allow the extra hits as far as I can tell.

Again to be super clear, I do not think that enemies with positive effects should allow Ambush's multiple attacks. I think the skill should be reworded to properly describe its current behavior, which is to work against enemies with Status Effects, not Boosters.

[lapis forge]

Ah, never could really test that, since both are technically temporary I amused it was accounting for that as well

Never said it should

[manic merlin]

Gotcha. Yeah my entire point here is the wording of the skill, not the behavior. Once I figured out how it actually works, I love it and wouldn't change anything (except maybe allow it to work against Vulnerable and Weaken if it doesn't already, like I said that's only as far as I can tell)

[elder bolt]

Hello! What you mentioned at first is our intended design. “Booster” is a higher-level concept that includes Status Effects, and all buffs and debuffs are unified under the term “Booster.”

Because of that, even now, Administrator Wolves should trigger Ambush’s additional effect even without any visible effect icons. (That is the original intention — if it doesn’t work, it is likely a detection issue.)

However, at the moment, Doctor’s Eye does not trigger the Ambush effect, and this seems to be causing confusion in the game’s logic.
We will fix this so that Doctor’s Eye also counts as a Booster, providing a consistent experience.

Conclusion: Our intended behavior is that Ambush should activate on all Boosters, including Vulnerable, Weakened, Status Effects, and any buff/debuff icons above the enemy’s head. We will adjust the system to ensure it behaves correctly.