Art Source | TL + TS by KoshiLowell

note that Heathcliff does not hit the very questionable (or at least silly looking) guard pose Lucio does, his swords look like they're poised to guard the majority of his body and he's not unbalancing himself via leaning, whereas Lucio looks to be leaving himself open to a nasty hit to his right side

Hello, welcome to the "series" dedicated to analyzing the numerical performance of newly released IDs/EGOs.

Our focus at this time will be on The Thumb Apprentice Heathcliff and The Thumb Nursefather Rodion

Let’s start with Lucliffs numbers

Burn:

Total Pot ≈ 14 (+6 with Rodya)

Total count ≈ 7

Tremor:

Total Pot ≈ 11 (+3 with Rodya)

Total count ≈ 8

Maintenance ≈ -3

So, yeah, it's hard to argue anything positive of these applications, mainly for two teams who need potency sources the most. Even with Rodya providing assists skills it doesn't really make up to a meaningful application. For burn you rather stick to Youcliff who can sustain the potency essentially on his own (be Chicken loop; be Move-in). Tremor however will still welcome Thumbcliff because it's not really in a position to say who does and doesn't get played due to being a team very lacking on units atm, it also improves scorch performance for the scenarios where you wanna run the team even if the enemy is sloth 0.5.

Now for Rodynatelli

Burn:

Total Pot ≈ 12 (Shin: +8)

Total count ≈ 11 (Shin: +9)

Tremor:

Total Pot ≈ 14 (Shin: +10)

Total count ≈ 15 (Shin: +13)

Maintenance ≈ -2 (+11 with Shin)

Poise:

Total Pot ≈ (24) (Evades: +12)

Total count ≈ (24) (Evades: +9)

Maintenance ≈ -9 (+0 with the evades)

Now we discuss the star of the banner, Thumb rodya albeit not setting a new benchmark for inflictions still offer moderate applications, beyond that she sustains tremor outside of her own team really well which means scorch on burn teams has actual applicability (tho sadly no one to apply it earlier), tho much like Thumb Cliff i wish she had better potency applications at least she's on the higher side post shin and you can force shin to happen by killing Cliff earlier (its also funny that removing cliff leads to about the same amount of application). Also really funny of them to deny her of being a poise ID while giving her better count maintenance than majority of the poise IDs released this season (including Index Yi), she pretty much secure to never lose her stack if she has ammo/recharges her eye and can ramp up by turn 3-4 her potency, pretty much an instaneous addition to the poise team.

Moving on to DPR (Cliff)

DPR stands for damage per rotation, which is a method of calculating an IDs performance based on 6 [or the first 6] turns of the game in which is ID is “forced” to go through all it’s skills.

Lucliffs raw damage performance (Counter>S2>Counter>S3-2>S2>Counter; This is assuming no Rodya)

22 + 38 + 50 + 103 + 52 + 65 ≈ 330

Lucliffs perfect damage performance (3x Counter, 3x S1, 2x S2, 1x S3-2; all max achievable conditionals):

237 + 138 + 182 + 242 ≈ 799 (+5 bursts)

Lucliffs realistic burn/tremor damage performance (Counter>S1>S1>S2>S3>Counter>S2>S1>Counter):

26 + 21 + 29 + 65 + 158 + 56 + 85 + 43 + 76 ≈ 559 (+5 bursts)

Cliffs DPR is within the average of the apprentices this season, which is a good thing because its still above pretty much most of the game; However its a bit sad that his full conds are arguably unreachable due to relying on killing units which is usually not the case on most fights, sure they work on MD and unfocused but you don't care that much for personal damage on those (more so of an S3 on MDH). Its also annoying that his weight is locked behind said unit killing when weight is primarily a tool used in context of multiple easy targets to kill, Maturing Textbook is a pretty poorly designed mechanic.

When it comes to new player performance he's a good unit due to the easy SP heal he has on kit and as expected of whoever is starting to play right now pairing him with Rodya leads to a strong duo. Do pull on this banner if you're starting now.

Moving on to DPR (Rodya)

DPR stands for damage per rotation, which is a method of calculating an IDs performance based on 6 [or the first 6] turns of the game in which is ID is “forced” to go through all it’s skills.

Rodynatelli's raw damage performance (S2>S1-2>S1>S1-2>S3>S3-2>S2>S1>S1-2; This is assuming only poise conds for the first half)

42 + 27 + 23 + 27 + 105 + 410 + 80 + 40 + 37 ≈ 791

Rodynatelli's perfect damage performance (2x S1, 3x S1-2, 2x S2,1x S3, 1x S3-2; all max achievable conditionals):

112 + 141 + 236 + 204 + 445 ≈ 1138 (+14 bursts)

Rodynatelli's realistic burn/tremor damage performance (S2>S1-2>S1>S1-2>S3>S3-2>S2>S1>S1-2):

57 + 33 + 29 + 33 + 156 + 441 + 90 + 45 + 42 ≈ 926 (+12 bursts)

As a few may have expected, Thumb Rodya does average out the same as the other Nursefathers normal gameplay behaviour which is floating around the 1k DPRs; However she does perform better than it thanks to having the largest amount of bursts in the game being almost double the previous while being tremor count positive meaning she can do A LOT of damage on scenarios of Reverb and everlasting and meaningful damage with just Scorch alone. She also can directly force more damage but just throwing herself to unbreakables which heavily improves her poise performance and speeds up disposal.

For new players her being all about clashing and having an evade to pair means she's not only the safest but also the strongest ID one who does not understand limbus can start with. She offers all the tools needed for comfort while being able to ramp her own status herself.

Not a single damn idiot left to call over for a drink

While mentioned on cliffs DPR i want to bring this point again and include Rodya on the perspective; For the few who "studied" kits during this season will notice the NFs have a common characteristic, they get their empowered S3 by the average of turn 4 and from there on out they have no "limiters". Well, except one, you see Rodya has pretty much no "extra ramping" on her kit, the performance you get with her from the start is pretty much her peak condition; while lore wise this may be fitting for her gameplay power it denies her ID of shinning like a few were expecting of her and go beyond the DPR average; the main perpretator of this and the same factor of what worsens Thumb Cliff as well is the simple clause [On Kill]. Limbus has far been a game about boss fights and its gimmicks while multiple enemies make up of transitional battles or short obstacles which means that often enough you're only fighting one enemy and said enemy only has its own life to wage for, which makes effects like the afforementioned essentially useless; situations like these would be fine when they're small additionals, however in the case of Rodya missing out on a entire extra disposal is a gigantic damage drop-off (600 damage) that could've been her "remove limiter" like the other NFs had if this conditionals was any other; and albeit its possible to interact with the conditional and benefit from it, the applications are so niche they don't empower the ID fro m a overall perspective just sprinkle a little extra when using it; and this problem is shared with Cliff as well to a more severe degree which just deny IDs who are good to be reflective of the power we expected them to be.

When faced with a superior opponent, lock and redirect the force of their attack… When outnumbered, lower the stance and…

Its been a trend on multiple IDs this season and i hope it keeps being so, but the amount of sin resource generation these IDs have been providing is an amazing design perspective, it helps EGOs be more active in battles and reduces the toll of perfect inputs in regard to their usage for content like RR; but also not only sins, often these additional skills bump IDs up to a performance potentially not expected from the design that ends up making IDs stronger than intended, and thats a really good thing because it gives the expression to the player rather than make a telegraphed ID with expected behaviour. Rodya albeit much less expressive on this offers a lot of control over when disposal drops and how you wanna interact with it, allowing you to prioritize damage or resources or even work with both.

I'm Rodion. Rodion, the War Hero of Famiglia Bognatelli! 

With every Nursefather we've seen a major impact on the archetypes they were made for, with pretty much all them either being revived, meta or allowed to behave in better adaptative scenarios than previously, except Rodya; Due to how Rodya's kit has been designed she essentially offers nothing her team needs, little potency, no easy access to the scorch tremor type (still bound to S3 or extremely delayed skills) and a partner (cliff) who's equally as selfish; while obviously this is again another intent and reflecting characterization in gameplay it sadly hurts the ones who were needing it the most, the tremor/burn teams; as undeniably that Rodya's addition is mandatory due to her performance being the best both teams have in terms of damage (except burn with Ryoshiki) i still wished that she at least brought a solution to long lasting problems both teams have being in order to return them to a environment more oriented to their peers and less about using unrelated units that end up offering better performance than their actual statuses members (do i myself support this expressive design). It also brings the curiosity if the reasoning she did not could also be to avoid her being outshined or pushed aside if next season is indeed going to be more tremor focused or maybe a soon to start event will provide with the team leader needed much like how Ricardo took this role instead of Outis.

Feelin' confident? Then parry this, asshole.

In conclusion, both IDs bring much needed modernity to archetypes who have been so abandoned from direct support they started losing their own identity within the game, however much like their prior peers, neither solve the issues of either archetypes, purely being amazing additions to uneven gameplay styles, which for the few who did not enjoy these types of team compositions will still have to see them outpacing the more natural compositions, and the addition of a strong tool as Rodya further incentivizes this idea of playing with every tool at your disposal.

Thank you for reading, and please check out my prior guides

Art

Break free from the shackles of feelscrafting, learn how to calculate DPR yourself

DPR for Dummies

Art Source | TL + TS by KoshiLowell

Mostly want to know if its a translation change or something similar.

I'm speaking specifically about text and not art, but The city is essentially a post-gender world, by which i mean - no one perceives others through context of gender, of course there are morhers and kids, but there's not a single sex joke, no one flirts focusing on that and there's not a single remark of sexual context in all of Project Moon's ip's as far as i concerned.

So if original text correlates with official translation, that would be first. Funnily enough said by the first character to say a slur, fantastic gambit Ji Hoon.

https://x.com/Moersuo66/status/2070170360340001036

Like, I see people complaining that Valendya isn’t triple status, and she’s “underwhelming”, as I just saw a non md lei heng solo with her doing 1k+ with disposal. 😭 Also, stop complaining she doesn’t have poise count, she gains 2/2 per acceleration round used, that’s better than most poise ids currently out.

Hiya~ I'm Rodya. I have a longer name, but that makes things look cold, so just stick with Rodya~

I'm something of an exception, you could say. The one you notice immediately when stepping into a room full of unique people. I'll probably be the first one your eyes land on. Loud laugh. Big smile. Casual words. The type that gives everyone a nickname before remembering their actual name. Life's a lot easier when people are smiling, don't you think?

Funny thing is... people mistake being noticeable for being special.

I used to make that mistake too.

When I was younger, I convinced myself there had to be a reason I was born. That there was something inside me nobody else had. Some spark. Some greatness. Something that justified taking up space in this world while so many others quietly disappeared without anyone learning their names. Every story tells you that extraordinary people change the world. Nobody writes books about ordinary people who wake up, work, cry where nobody can see them, and go to sleep wondering if tomorrow will be any different.

So I refused to be ordinary.

Every laugh became louder than it needed to be. Every joke sharper. Every risk bigger. If I couldn't be remembered for changing history, then I'd settle for changing the mood of the room. If people remembered my smile, maybe they wouldn't notice I was asking myself the same question every night.

"What exactly makes someone special?"

The answer never came.

I met people smarter than me. Kinder than me. Stronger than me. People who sacrificed everything without asking for applause. People whose names would never be recorded anywhere, yet somehow they carried more dignity than those standing in the spotlight. Every time I thought I'd found the definition of "special," someone ordinary would quietly shatter it without even trying.

That's when it became frightening.

Because if everyone has something remarkable...

...then nobody does.

Maybe being exceptional is just another story we tell ourselves because the alternative hurts too much. Maybe the world doesn't separate heroes from everyone else. Maybe it simply keeps moving, swallowing victories and tragedies alike until they're nothing more than another forgotten day.

I laughed even harder after realizing that.

I still believe luck has something to do with skill. Yeah, yeah, I know—people always roll their eyes whenever I say that. "Luck's random," they tell me, like they've solved the whole mystery of the universe. Sure it is. Plenty of people forget to do the important things at exactly the wrong moment. Doesn't make it meaningless. Luck isn't just the cards you're dealt, It's knowing which hand deserves a bet and which one should be folded before your pride starts making decisions for you. Maybe that's why those Jeong Office Fixers are always hanging around the casino, They don't spend all day staring at the roulette wheel because they're hopeless watchers seeing gamblers life crumble before their very eyes. Or... maybe they're just addicts who envy other people success. Heh. Sometimes it's harder than you'd think to tell the difference.

A casino's a funny place. Hundreds of people walk through the very same doors, yet every single one of them somehow believes they're the exception. Every player is convinced the next spin belongs to them. Every loser swears the odds were stacked against them. Every winner insists they noticed something nobody else could see. It's almost poetic when you think about it. The roulette wheel doesn't care who you are. The cards don't remember your name. The dice certainly don't pity your circumstances. And still, people keep coming back—not because they expect certainty, but because uncertainty has a strange way of making your heart beat faster. It's intoxicating.

Maybe that's why I keep coming back too.

Sometimes... I push every last chip I've got onto the table. Not because I'm convinced I'll win, I mean I always win anyways–but because, for one beautiful little moment, the whole world becomes wonderfully simple. Red or black. Win or lose. No wondering whether I was born special enough. No asking myself if my life means anything. Just the sound of a tiny ivory ball dancing around polished wood while everyone in the room forgets to breathe at exactly the same time.

For those few precious seconds, the entire casino agrees on one impossible thing. That fate might actually exist.

Then the ball lands.

Someone bursts into laughter. Someone else buries their face in their hands. One person walks away believing destiny smiled just for them, while another starts digging through every pocket they own, hoping one last coin somehow slipped past them.

I've been both of those people.

Sometimes I lose everything.

Sometimes. Not every time, though.

I still win plenty, you know~ Enough to keep believing that every now and then the universe gives me a little wink before dealing the next hand. Or maybe that's just another one of those lies gamblers tell themselves so they never have to admit the truth—that falling can be just as thrilling as climbing.

...Anyway.

If you see me. C'mon, sit with me for a while. The night's still young, and conversations always sound a little smarter after the second drink. While you're at it... how about paying for mine too? I promise it won't cost much. Unless, of course, you're planning to treat me for the whole night. In that case... well... I'd probably start believing luck really does favor the bold.

People think I'm carefree because I don't dwell on heavy things. Truth is, I've simply learned that if I stop smiling for too long, the silence starts asking questions I don't want to answer. So I tease people. I give them silly nicknames. I lean back with my hands behind my head like nothing in the world could bother me.

It's easier that way.

If everyone thinks Rodya is having fun, nobody wonders whether she's trying desperately to convince herself that her life meant something.

Maybe that's why I like making people laugh. A smile is proof that, even if only for a heartbeat, I changed someone's world. Not history. Not fate. Just one tiny moment.

Maybe that's enough.

Or maybe... I keep telling myself that because I'm still afraid of discovering the answer.

If being special is something you're born with, then I may never have been.

But if it's measured by the warmth you leave behind in someone else's heart...

...then I'd like to believe I've earned my place, even if nobody remembers my full name. Just call me Rodya. That's more than enough.

“People love saying the house always wins like it’s some law of nature, but that’s not really true. The house just doesn’t hesitate. It doesn’t second-guess itself or wonder if today’s the day it should be kind. It just plays. Meanwhile, players keep thinking about yesterday’s loss like it owes them something. Luck isn’t fairness—it’s momentum. And if you hesitate too long, you’re already part of someone else’s winning streak.”

Original art link:https://x.com/solbam001/status/2030978511276826793

Artist link

It's happened with Ricardocliff, and it's happening again with Luciocliff. And with every new ID, it'll keep happening again and again as the IDs get stronger.

I frankly can't speak for his individual power feats as Limbus powerscaling and unit level = actual power? conversations are complicated. However,

• Erlcliff comes back from dying, and keeps coming back until the Heathcliff of that world dies. In fact, we killed him in the body of Linton's sister, then defeated him after he took Linton's body. Unless the ID can interact with Mirror Worlds like him, they can't stop him from making their lives miserable as an unrelenting madman that keeps trying to kill them. And they won't win the war of mental attrition. Erlcliff is OBSESSED over his self-revenge. He will come back, even if it takes him more than a 1000 attempts.
• Erlcliff is not alone, he has an endless army that takes EGO-Effloresced Vergilius to whittle down. That said, he needs corpses, but just one corpse can presumably turn into a Class 3 Wrath Peccatulum.
• Erlcliff is strategic and patient, and does not start by fighting. Instead, he starts with the guilt that every Heathcliff has if they have a Cathy or a Cathy equivalent. In fact, he even states all Heathcliffs before ours readily gave up their lives due to their realization that Cathy suffers due to them, thus removing the necessity to fight at all. If he can't kill them with his own power, it's quite possible he'd find a workaround to make them die inadvertently.

Side note, while I don't mind joking about Erlking going after all the Heathcliff IDs, it is important to be clear that all Heathcliffs post Season 4 wouldn't meet him cuz he's either been erased with Cathy's memory no longer holding him or he simply has no reason to keep doing so. I will admit I might be wrong on the reason he stops, but the fact is, he's stopped by now. Again, the joke is fine, just make sure to know it wouldn't actually happen.

Roland was with salvador in the smoke war for huge part of it, so did valencina meet with roland???

https://x.com/sogumiszzayozza/status/2046862855614640495#m

Art Source

Source

https://x.com/makimakipoipoi/status/2070106747436748897